Once in a great while, I meet a person who is so profoundly clueless that just a few minutes spent with him/her provides enough material for an entire Wednesday Weirdness Roundup (Sheldon and TrutherBitch being prime examples).
I met one such person today. I’ll call him Gus, for Gullible Uninformed Simp. Gus appears sane enough; he’s thirtysomething, well-spoken, gainfully employed with a wife and kids. But less than thirty seconds after he opened his mouth, I knew there was something….not….quite….right about Gus.
He wanted the Significant Other’s help in promoting a film series, not so much because he digs film, but because he feels the city’s annual film fest isn’t screening the kind of “controversial” documentaries the public should be seeing (read: retarded conspiranoid crap). He’s sick of films about starving children in Africa, global warming, domestic abuse and “other stuff I don’t give a SHIT about.”
Nice.
So these are the films Gus thinks we should all be watching instead:
– The Beautiful Truth. This is a biographical documentary about Max Gerson, one of the gazillion or so cranks who “found the cure for cancer”. Naturally, the Elite Scumlords murderered him – but not before he revealed his cure to the world: A diet free of dairy, meat, salt, and sugar, along with lots of coffee enemas. Srsly. Squirting coffee up your butt “cures cancer”. Never mind that, no matter what your parents may have told you, there is nothing in coffee that actually inhibits cell growth. And you could, y’know, maybe drink the coffee.
The Science Punk has posted a thorough and highly entertaining review of this film.
– Vaccine-Nation. The usual anti-vaccine stuff, directed by Gary Null. Herd immunity doesn’t exist, all doctors are trying to kill you, and polio is no biggie. Gus says SIDS disappeared in Japan after they stopped vaccinating infants. Lon Morgan has pointed out that this is not quite accurate.
– Camp FEMA. Directed by one of the Christian Patriots who’s going to be thrown into a FEMA dungeon any day now.
Some of Gus’s other concerns:
– The Codex Alimentarius, which has already appeared in the Wednesday Weirdness Roundup. Gus noted that the Canadian government may someday impose restrictions on such wonderful things as colloidal silver and high doses of Vitamin C (to curtail the risky practice of megadosing, but never mind).
Some of Gus’s other concerns:
– “Electric smog”. Cell phones cause cancer (completely impossible), and the Prime Minister of Sweden claims she gets headaches whenever she’s within twelve feet of a cell phone (also completely impossible). On a related note, did anybody see that Intervention where a painkiller addict couldn’t stand to be around TVs or phones because of the electrical pollution? And she also wouldn’t go outside, because her mom’s azaleas were beaming negative “flower energy” at her?
– A raw milk salesman in Ontario [Michael Schmidt] is being persecuted. “He found a way to do it, and they got him.” He found a way to do what, exactly? Poison people with unhygienic dairy? Gus also mentioned the persecution of Andrew Wakefield.
– Fluoride. Because “it’s practically Lithium” (it’s “practically” a lot of things, but never mind), it pacifies people who ingest it. Really? Gosh, that must be why U.S. crime rates have plummeted since the introduction of fluoridated water!
– Evolution. “Darwin was full of shit”.
– In the event of an epidemic, unvaccinated people may be rounded up and quarantined. Or they might just let you drop dead, Gus.
– Despite his disdain for all vaccines, Gus is somewhat concerned about new strains of H1N1, like the one that’s raging through the Ukraine. This is very interesting, because (as Alex Jones triumphantly crowed last year) the Ukraine recently had a massive anti-vaccination movement…
Swallowing The Camel 
Wow! The stupid, its thermonuclear!! As someone who has had cancer, I would rather go through 2 more surgeries and another round or radiation than give up all good food and taking my coffee in the wrong end! The "cure" sounds worse than the disease!Regarding cellphones, a recent study showed that it may hold the key to preventing and even curing Alzheimer's disease. That should make some alt med heads asplode! The Slacktivist recently wrote a blog on the conspiracy theorist mindset. I would love to hear your thoughts on why people seek out a fantasy that makes the world a worse place than it actually is.
The conspiracy theorist is seeking the perverse comfort of a world that is simpler than the real world. Also the conspiracy theory mindset has the attraction of a sort of gnosticism, a hidden knowledge of "how the world really works" that is truly known by only a few.The conspiracy theorist typically believes he is heroically resisting tyranny, and therefore he is a hero, he is MAKING A DIFFERENCE. In fact he is increasingly delusional.Wakefield has been thoroughly discredited, not just by "the establishment" (as if 'The Lancet', which first published his study and has only just formally retracted it is NOT "the establishment"), but by the independent press. So it figures that he would be promoted by conpiracy types.
One small dissent. It's certainly not a "miracle cure" for anything, but there are some good reasons to think that raw milk *from a hygenic dairy* (which pretty much lets out anything factory farmed) has some benefits. If it's from grass-fed cows, it's higher in Omega-3 fatty acids than "normal" milk, and it has live cultures that can help with digestion. People who are "allergic to dairy" can often drink raw milk. As I said, it's not a "miracle cure" for anything, but I wouldn't toss it completely overboard, either.
HH pretty much nailed the reasons why people turn to horrifying conspiracies; scary as they are, they're still more comforting than a world in which chaos reigns and no single entity is in charge. If you believe everything happens because it's been planned to happen, there's some chance of restoring the world to some kind of Edenic state by disrupting the top-down global chain of command. In a paradoxical way, conspiracy theories – no matter how byzantine and bizarre – make things simpler than they actually are. Another key reason why conspiracy theories are so appealing was expressed in a comment on my Dr. Deagle post: "I don't want to be left out of the information loop, nor do I want to be naive."
Mike, people claim a lot of things about so called "whole foods". The completely stupid thing about those claims amounts to a) changing how something gets it nutrients doesn't change its DNA, so unless its not getting enough of something, the end product can't be *missing* any either. If anything, most farms are *over using* fertilizers. By the logic of whole food people vis a vie produce, they should therefor have *more* nutrients than the organic ones, not less. In reality, they have the same.As for dairy allergies.. The stuff people are usually allergic to are proteins in the milk, which are there whether its raw or not. So, this is nonsense. On the other hand there are plenty of total wackos that *imagine* that anything that isn't raw is bad, and will *think themselves* into being sick from it. Its not that hard to manage, people taking placebos and altie medicine cures do the opposite all the damn time, so its just as easy to make yourself sick from something that isn't bad. The key trick in working it out is keeping them from tasting the difference, then giving them the wrong one, and finding they don't get sick from it.As for omega-3s… You are better off getting that from something that has "large" amounts, like oily fish, not from milk, which, as I said, either doesn't have any real difference in amount (though people will lie to you and say it does to make money selling you their milk or books about the product), more could be added, if needed. Its a poor source to start with, and the bad effects of drinking/eating too much dairy outweigh any supposed imaginary benefits, by a larger margin, compared to getting it from a source that is a *good one* for them.
You both make a good point. I just think the supreme irony of the conspiracy mindset is that it offers the illusion of making a difference while insuring that no difference is made. "Gus" here proves a fine example. He is studiously avoiding getting involved with things that represent real problems and instead addressing illusionary ones. After all, why would you try and better the world if you believe everything bad happens because of a Satanic, all powerful, NWO who is secretly running everything? Seems to me that the conspiracy theorist way of "making a difference" is to not make one at all. I mean they rant incessantly and they probably hoard food but that is the extent of it. Looks like their only interest is to one day be able to say "I told you so!".
Undoubtedly many conspiracy theory believers are merely interested in the "I told you so" end result. This is usually NOT the way conspiracy theory fiction works (because the writer does not actually believe the conspiracy). Such fiction written by the conspiracy theorist would end up like the "Left Behind" books, in which there are no heroes because the protagonists are indeed just waiting for the "I told you so" moment at the end. Makes for really bad fiction, I can tell you!I note that many wholefoods in supermarkets in the UK now have the word "may" at the beginning of the claim, as in "may help maintain a healthy digestive system." Translation "there are claims, but not backed up by any real science." I got that example off a packet of apricots I bought for use in a specific recipe.
Im a Spinozist. Does that make me a conspiracist? A rock tossed in the air HAS to come down, just like several shooters HAD to take aim at President kennedy, they were forced into it by…what or whom????…Events are directed by an immutable necessity, behind the scenes, so to speak…or are they? lolLike JJ Rousseau near the end, when he found the railing locked to the chapel, and concluded that God was conspiring against him, I, too am on the run from fate and the laws of nature (lol)..My pursuer may catch me eventually, but I wont go down without a fight, so help me God! lol
Sorry, but there are two, and only two reasons people think Kennedy was shot by more than one person. 1) most of them fail to account for the tree *growing* in the years between when it happened, and when the theorists eventually go, "The tree was in the way." 2) They get the angles wrong, as well as where and how people where seated.Well, that and they completely fail to grasp that seriously crazy stuff happens with everything from bullets, to RPGs, to power drills, all the damn time. Two good examples from a show I watched last night – a) RPG fails to go off, and the main explosive "breaks off" when it hits, while embedding itself into a guys body, somehow mussing internal organs. b) A guy with a power drill falls from a ladder, and while managing to lose an eye to it, has it glance to the side, so that it passes between the skin and skull, instead of going through the skull.This kind of thing happens a *lot*, and makes the magic bullet, especially when you pay attention to the rear angles, seating, and height of the tree at the time it happened, oh, and that you can fire enough rounds with the rifle in question, if good at it, seem mundane and completely normal. Its only if you insist it turned corners, couldn't have been fired fast enough, or the tree never grew, and was thus "always" in the way, all incorrect, that you get a conspiracy from it.
Well, that and you have to assume witness testimony (of which only a few "saw" anything useful) is never in error, which is a seriously flawed premise in and of itself. Its the primary reason why we *only* consider witness testimony in figuring out crimes when a) it can corroborate the facts collected by other means, *or* there isn't any other facts to examine. And in the later case, its 50/50 as to whether or not its considered reliable enough to conclude what actually happened.
I totally fail to see how, if, a bad deed is done by one person, then that makes the world more complex, than if the same deed is done by ten, or a hundred…then that simplifies the world. One mans motives, which are often easy to discern, as opposed to the many and maybe often conflicting motives of the many…? When there is a lack of a conspiracy, that is not adding complexity to the issue.
Did that Obama guy have a passport from which country when he went to Pakistan and India around 1981? Indonesia or the US? Can anyone put a link to show which?Whats the reason why he spends about $1.7 million of his money to keep Occidental college records sealed? (others are trying to unseal 'em) Was he a campus radical or sumpin? Or did he go there on a foreign scholarship (Indonesia)?Did his step dad adopt him? Did he lose US citizenship, then return to Hawaii and fail to regain it? Would two Hawaii newspaper articles trumpeting his birth be able to be presented as very good evidence in any court proceeding? Would they be able to prove anything, except that someone contacted a newspaper? what doctor delivered the guy? why did his gramma in kenya say she was there to assist/witness the delivery, in Kenya? I heard that direct.Before he got the US senate seat about five years ago, would he pass a FBI background check, to become an agent, considering his shady associations in Chicago and murky past, drug use, etc? Could he have passed the background check to work at a Homer Simpsons job?Why doesnt he end all this by showing us the real long form version birth certificate? That funny looking green one he put up online ….checked by the 'non-partisan' factcheck.org(yet they are completely biased- they even had almost the same logo as his campaign) …that green one looks funny to me, and the records lady in Hawaii said she's seen the real one, I think two other people have seen it, and declared that he's "a citizen" A citizen of what? Balongna-baloney?
Well I assent to but I dream the post should acquire more info then it has.
Wow. The true weirdness is in the comments. ;D
I had no idea Obama was really an illegal alien….wow. Is that stuff up above true?
Oh, sure! Obama slipped that past every journalist and Republican and Hawaiian-born person on the planet. They're sneaky, those closet Muslims.
SME, which statememt of fact is wrong, and which speculation is probably wrong? He did go to Pakistan and India back then, but do we know which passport he used? Hasn't he spent about $1.7 million for lawyers to keep his records sealed from Occidental? Did his stepdad adopt him or not? And wouldnt it be true that those two newspaper accounts of his birth only show that someone contacted a newspaper, that they dont prove anything? Or maybe not? Does a newspaper need some sort of proof of birth before they will run an announcement? (I dont know)Not being able to get a Homer Simpsons job , well, that might be so, or maybe not. If someone was in the Klan or the communist party or a felon, that would be a block. As far as knowing Ayers or that other guy thats in prison right now (Raztko?,) and Obama's drug use and hangin with Rev. Wright…he still might pass the FBI background check, and get the Homer Simpson job, thats possible, hangin with 'structural feminists' at Occidental be damned! (ha)….The green shortened certification of live birth that the 'nonpartisan' yet almost totally biased FactCheck.Org "verified" is not the birth certificate that the records dept. in Hawaii says it has, and that has only been seen, allegedly, by two or three individuals. We still dont know who delivered him, except for the audio tape of his Kenyan grandma who says she was in the room at the time in Kenya. Ive heard this tape, but it could be doctored? who knows? By itself the tape doesn't prove much.Most of the media wanted Obama to win, so they were not inclined to vet him or dig into his past too much, except to try to counter the few who looked into this stuff. 80% (?) or more of the media didn't care or didn't want to learn if he was Constitutionally ineligible for the job, or even his Senate job for that matter. He could end all this by releasing the real birth certificate allegedly located in the that vault in Hawaii, but he steadfastly refuses to do so.
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In politics, a charge unanswered is (usually) a charge agreed upon.
In real life, banging one's head against a brick wall gives one a headache.
Frankly, Anon, I just don't give a damn right now. If you want to believe Obama managed to bamboozle the world, be my freaking guest. In fact, let's say Obama is an alien from the planet Hdiufdugfudku, because there isn't any evidence to contradict that.
"…and the Prime Minister of Sweden claims she gets headaches whenever she's within twelve feet of a cell phone" Well Gus, that's news to me. We have never even had a female Prime Minister in Sweden.