90% of Americans believe at least one conspiracy theory (1 Viewer)

[Eeyore]

 

[Optimus Prime]

A former Secret Service agent who was metres away from John F Kennedy when the former president was assassinated in Dallas in 1963 has spoken out to cast fresh doubt on the official findings.

Paul Landis, 88, who had been assigned to protect first lady Jackie Kennedy, challenged the Warren Commission’s findings that a “magic bullet” had struck and exited the president before hitting then-Texas governor John Connally Jr……..

Witness to JFK assassination casts doubt on ‘magic bullet’ theory

Ex-Secret Service agent Paul Landis has broken his silence six decades on from Kennedy assassination to challenge the official findings

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

There are some things so difficult to countenance that it can seem simply easier to believe they didn’t happen: that one man could put a bullet through the president’s skull, that human beings could stand on the moon, that a seemingly average man might walk into a school and kill the children inside.

And, throughout history, many people have chosen simply not to believe those unfathomable events, telling themselves stories that help make the world make sense, albeit more sinister.

So when the first plane and then another collided with the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan in September 2001, it opened a wound so unfathomable in its horror that it seemed necessary to tell a new kind of story – one that helped make sense of the tragedy, even as it distorted it.

The conspiracy theories began almost as soon as the attacks had finished, and they have stayed with us to this day.

The theories themselves are so well-worn that they have progressed all the way to memes: the common refrain that “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams”, once an earnestly communicated part of conspiracy lore, has now become so hackneyed that it is almost meaningless.

But there are many others, which either tend to suggest that that the US could have intervened but decided not to, or that it actually orchestrated the attacks itself.

At the same time, however, they borrowed from tropes and ideas that had existed for centuries before, and which have continued to prove popular in the decades since.

For the most part, 9/11 conspiracy theories are the same as those that went before, and those that followed, with the nouns swapped.

Perhaps the most distinct facet about the 9/11 conspiracy theories is the way they were pushed through formats that are familiar now in everything from advertising to the arts.

In 2005, as the early viral internet we know today was finding its feet – it was the year of the first Pepe the Frog drawing, the beginnings of “Chuck Norris facts” and the “Million Dollar Homepage” – there appeared a video known as Loose Change, a documentary that presented the central ideas of the 9/11 conspiracy theory in a way that sent it swiftly across the internet…….

“One month after Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, 55 per cent of Americans believed that the assassination was pulled off by a conspiracy rather than a lone gunman. That number increased to 80 per cent in the 1970s, and stayed that way for three decades; we haven’t seen 80 per cent numbers on anything in the internet era.”

The view that the internet is to blame either for promoting or discouraging conspiracy theorists looks at the problem from the wrong perspective, Mr Uscinski argues; people are not simply “blank slate lemmings walking around” that can have their mind changed by any piece of information they run into, whether that emerged from the internet or the printing press. Instead, conspiracy theory belief is a worldview and interpretation of the world like any other.

“There’s no evidence whatsoever that people believe conspiracy theories more now than they did in the past. We can only see it more.”………

How 9/11 influenced the way conspiracy theories spread today

The theories began almost as soon as the attacks had finished, writes Andrew Griffin

www.independent.co.uk

 

[bclemms]

There are some things so difficult to countenance that it can seem simply easier to believe they didn’t happen: that one man could put a bullet through the president’s skull, that human beings could stand on the moon, that a seemingly average man might walk into a school and kill the children inside.

And, throughout history, many people have chosen simply not to believe those unfathomable events, telling themselves stories that help make the world make sense, albeit more sinister.

So when the first plane and then another collided with the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan in September 2001, it opened a wound so unfathomable in its horror that it seemed necessary to tell a new kind of story – one that helped make sense of the tragedy, even as it distorted it.

The conspiracy theories began almost as soon as the attacks had finished, and they have stayed with us to this day.

The theories themselves are so well-worn that they have progressed all the way to memes: the common refrain that “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams”, once an earnestly communicated part of conspiracy lore, has now become so hackneyed that it is almost meaningless.

But there are many others, which either tend to suggest that that the US could have intervened but decided not to, or that it actually orchestrated the attacks itself.

At the same time, however, they borrowed from tropes and ideas that had existed for centuries before, and which have continued to prove popular in the decades since.

For the most part, 9/11 conspiracy theories are the same as those that went before, and those that followed, with the nouns swapped.

Perhaps the most distinct facet about the 9/11 conspiracy theories is the way they were pushed through formats that are familiar now in everything from advertising to the arts.

In 2005, as the early viral internet we know today was finding its feet – it was the year of the first Pepe the Frog drawing, the beginnings of “Chuck Norris facts” and the “Million Dollar Homepage” – there appeared a video known as Loose Change, a documentary that presented the central ideas of the 9/11 conspiracy theory in a way that sent it swiftly across the internet…….

“One month after Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, 55 per cent of Americans believed that the assassination was pulled off by a conspiracy rather than a lone gunman. That number increased to 80 per cent in the 1970s, and stayed that way for three decades; we haven’t seen 80 per cent numbers on anything in the internet era.”

The view that the internet is to blame either for promoting or discouraging conspiracy theorists looks at the problem from the wrong perspective, Mr Uscinski argues; people are not simply “blank slate lemmings walking around” that can have their mind changed by any piece of information they run into, whether that emerged from the internet or the printing press. Instead, conspiracy theory belief is a worldview and interpretation of the world like any other.

“There’s no evidence whatsoever that people believe conspiracy theories more now than they did in the past. We can only see it more.”………

How 9/11 influenced the way conspiracy theories spread today

The theories began almost as soon as the attacks had finished, writes Andrew Griffin

www.independent.co.uk

Plus it is really easy money.

I could do a videos on weather and disaster events and make them conspiracy theories on youtube and turn an incredible amount of money. I would have to sell my soul but some people don't value their soul very much.

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[Mamba]

A former Secret Service agent who was metres away from John F Kennedy when the former president was assassinated in Dallas in 1963 has spoken out to cast fresh doubt on the official findings.

Paul Landis, 88, who had been assigned to protect first lady Jackie Kennedy, challenged the Warren Commission’s findings that a “magic bullet” had struck and exited the president before hitting then-Texas governor John Connally Jr……..

Witness to JFK assassination casts doubt on ‘magic bullet’ theory

Ex-Secret Service agent Paul Landis has broken his silence six decades on from Kennedy assassination to challenge the official findings

www.independent.co.uk

Assuming he's telling the truth and his recall is in tact, it's really odd that (1) the Warren Commission never interviewed him, and (2) he never came forward with this info until now (and it's connected to a book he's trying to sell).

 

[WhoDatPhan78]

Plus it is really easy money.

I could do a videos on weather and disaster events and make them conspiracy theories on youtube and turn an incredible amount of money. I would have to sell my soul but some people don't value their soul very much.

You could do it, make your money, then come out and call all your followers fools who will fall for anything, and explain how you used their gullibility to make money.

They might see the error of their ways, and you'd make money along the way.

It's more likely that one of them would end your life though.

 

[Eeyore]

 

[SystemShock]

Plus it is really easy money.

I could do a videos on weather and disaster events and make them conspiracy theories on youtube and turn an incredible amount of money. I would have to sell my soul but some people don't value their soul very much.

I don't have one. I'll publish them and we go 50-50.

 

[Sailorsaint]

Sounds like a late night and I have to get up early the next day….

 

[Eeyore]

 

[Eeyore]

Tonight!

He's going to retaliate for poisoning angels.

 

[gboudx]

Tonight!

He's going to retaliate for poisoning angels.

Hasn't 12 midnight 9/22 already passed? The next 12 midnight will be 9/23. But a lot of us are still here, so what does that mean? Did we miss it? Did anyone video it?

 

[Sailorsaint]

Hasn't 12 midnight 9/22 already passed? The next 12 midnight will be 9/23. But a lot of us are still here, so what does that mean? Did we miss it? Did anyone video it?

Our reality was rebooted. None of us would have memories of the previous reality.

 

[SystemShock]

You could do it, make your money, then come out and call all your followers fools who will fall for anything, and explain how you used their gullibility to make money.

They might see the error of their ways, and you'd make money along the way.

It's more likely that one of them would end your life though.

"The deep state got him...he's been taken to a black site and they are taken over his account"