BBC: challenging MI5/Govt terror narrative 'anti-democratic'

[TonyGosling]

Published on the same day Savile chauffeur David Smith 'commits suicide'

Are conspiracy theories destroying democracy?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24650841
By Brian Wheeler - Politics reporter, BBC News - 27 October 2013

Is it OK to call someone a conspiracy theorist?
Would you want to be a Freemason?
The evolution of the 9/11 conspiracy theories
The more information we have about what governments and corporations are up to the less we seem to trust them. Will conspiracy theories eventually destroy democracy?

What if I told you I had conclusive proof that the moon landings were faked, but I had been told to keep it under wraps by my BBC bosses acting under orders from the CIA, NSA and MI6. Most of you would think I had finally lost my mind.

But, for some, that scenario - a journalist working for a mainstream media organisation being manipulated by shadowy forces to keep vital information from the public - would seem entirely plausible, or even likely.

We live in a golden age for conspiracy theories. There is a growing assumption that everything we are told by the authorities is wrong, or not quite as it seems. That the truth is being manipulated or obscured by powerful vested interests.

And, in some cases, it is.

'Inside job'
"The reason we have conspiracy theories is that sometimes governments and organisations do conspire," says Observer columnist and academic John Naughton.
It would be wrong to write off all conspiracy theorists as "swivel-eyed loons," with "poor personal hygiene and halitosis," he told a Cambridge University Festival of Ideas debate.
They are not all "crazy". The difficult part, for those of us trying to make sense of a complex world, is working out which parts of the conspiracy theory to keep and which to throw away.
Mr Naughton is one of three lead investigators in a major new Cambridge University project to investigate the impact of conspiracy theories on democracy.
The internet is generally assumed to be the main driving force behind the growth in conspiracy theories but, says Mr Naughton, there has been little research into whether that is really the case.
He plans to compare internet theories on 9/11 with pre-internet theories about John F Kennedy's assassination.
Like the other researchers, he is wary, or perhaps that should be weary, of delving into the darker recesses of the conspiracy world.
"The minute you get into the JFK stuff, and the minute you sniff at the 9/11 stuff, you begin to lose the will to live," he told the audience in Cambridge.
Like Sir Richard Evans, who heads the five-year Conspiracy and Democracy project, he is at pains to stress that the aim is not to prove or disprove particular theories, simply to study their impact on culture and society.
Why are we so fascinated by them? Are they undermining trust in democratic institutions?
David Runciman, professor of politics at Cambridge University, the third principal investigator, is keen to explode the idea that most conspiracies are actually "c***-ups".
"The line between c***-up, conspiracy and conspiracy theory are much more blurred than the conventional view that you have got to choose between them," he told the Festival of Ideas.
"There's a conventional view that you get these conspirators, who are these kind of sinister, malign people who know what they are doing, and the conspiracy theorists, who occasionally stumble upon the truth but who are on the whole paranoid and crazy.
"Actually the conspirators are often the paranoid and crazy conspiracy theorists, because in their attempt to cover up the c***-up they get drawn into a web in which their self-justification posits some giant conspiracy trying to expose their conspiracy.
"And I think that's consistently true through a lot of political scandals, Watergate included."

'Curry house plot'
It may also be true, he argues, of the "vicious" in-fighting and plotting that characterised New Labour's years in power, as recently exposed in the memoirs of Gordon Brown's former spin doctor Damian McBride.
The Brownite conspiracies to remove Tony Blair were "pathetically ineffectual" - with the exception of the 2006 "curry house" plot that forced Blair to name a departure date - but the picture painted by Mr McBride of a "paranoid" and "chaotic" inner circle has the ring of truth about it, he claims.
And Mr Brown - said to be a keen student of the JFK assassination - knew a conspiracy when he saw one.
"You feel he sees conspiracies out there because he has a mindset that is not dissimilar to the conspiracy theorists," said Prof Runciman.
He is also examining whether the push for greater openness and transparency in public life will fuel, rather than kill off, conspiracy theories.
"It may be that one of the things conspiracy theories feed on as well as silence, is a surfeit of information. And when there is a mass of information out there, it becomes easier for people to find their way through to come to the conclusion they want to come to.
"Plus, you don't have to be an especial cynic to believe that, in the age of open government, governments will be even more careful to keep secret the things they want to keep secret.
"The demand for openness always produces, as well as more openness, more secrecy."
Which brings us back to the moon landings. I should state, for the avoidance of any doubt, and to kill off any internet speculation, that I am not in possession of any classified information about whether they were faked or not. My contacts at Nasa are not that good.
But then I would say that wouldn't I?

[Wakeymedia]

Well. That's it. The good old Beeb will not come back from that. It has gone over the cliff. BBC RIP.

Yes it has done some underhanded things in its time (mostly in the past 12 years) but stooping to stuff that even IngSoc would find a bit crass and desperate is a sign of deep-seated rot and toxicity.

At least it has nailed its colours to the mast.

[TonyGosling]

Sibil, bless her

Conspiracy Theorists Are the Greatest Challenge to Democracy … According to … Here’s who …
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/10/29/conspiracy-theorists-are-th e-greatest-challenge-to-democracy-according-to-heres-who/
Tuesday, 29. October 2013

Have you ever come across an imperialist who was keen on activists challenging the establishment?

British establishment mouthpiece BBC leads the way again. This time it is about the biggest threat to democracy today. No, it is not terrorists. No, it is not Islamism. And, no, it is not the Western-Installed Dictator Regimes around the world. No, no, no, no, no. The new enemy is the conspiracy theorists. It is those who question their governments. It is those who find facts and confront the mainstream lies and liars such as BBC. Basically, it is you … and me.

Allow me to wade through all the fillers and present you with a few telling excerpts from this BBC report:

Are conspiracy theories destroying democracy?

The more information we have about what governments and corporations are up to the less we seem to trust them. Will conspiracy theories eventually destroy democracy?
…
Mr. Naughton is one of three lead investigators in a major new Cambridge University project to investigate the impact of conspiracy theories on democracy.
…
David Runciman, professor of politics at Cambridge University, the third principal investigator, is keen to explode the idea that most conspiracies are actually “c***-ups”.
…
“Actually the conspirators are often the paranoid and crazy conspiracy theorists, because in their attempt to cover up the c***-up they get drawn into a web in which their self-justification posits some giant conspiracy trying to expose their conspiracy. “And I think that’s consistently true through a lot of political scandals, Watergate included.”
…
He is also examining whether the push for greater openness and transparency in public life will fuel, rather than kill off, conspiracy theories… “It may be that one of the things conspiracy theories feed on as well as silence, is a surfeit of information. And when there is a mass of information out there, it becomes easier for people to find their way through to come to the conclusion they want to come to.
…
What are they really talking about? What are they really presenting? A few things.

1- Challenging official stories, no matter how the record and history proves them to be false or exaggerated, lowers trust in government and government officials. This is a threat to the establishment and their operations through states. Thus, this is a threat to democracy. That is, if you believe that the state, the government, represents democracy. It means government equals democracy, thus, you are challenging democracy every time you challenge your government and what your government is telling you.

2- These guys, these credible Cambridge professors, claim that openness, the internet, and greater information accessibility creates more conspiracies and conspiracy theorists.

3- Now, if you add item 2 to item 1, you get this: Openness and greater information accessibility leads to more conspiracies and increases the number of conspiracy theorists, and that my friend presents the greatest threat to our democracy today.

Wow. Oh, wow. I am not going to even bother with the logical fallacies imbedded in the points made by these distinguished professors. Of course I won’t bother with BBC and its reputation and consistency when it comes to representing the establishment. Instead, I am going to get down and check out the source of funding for these academic hit-men.

Now, that was easy. I checked out Cambridge and this conspiracy theorist oriented research program, and I found the source of its funding right away:

Professor David Runciman is part of a new Leverhulme-funded interdisciplinary, collaborative project on conspiracy theories at the University of Cambridge.

Here is a short canned background on Leverhulme Trust:

The Leverhulme Trust was established in 1925 under the will of the First Viscount Leverhulme, William Hesketh Lever, with the instruction that its resources should be used to support “scholarships for the purposes of research and education.” Since that time, the Trust has provided funding for research projects, fellowships, studentships, bursaries and prizes; it operates across all the academic disciplines, the intention being to support talented individuals as they realize their personal vision in research and professional training. With annual funding of some £50 million, the Trust is amongst the largest all-subject providers of research funding in the UK.
…
From the canned background I moved to the fund’s founder, William Lever, and a few noteworthy points got my attention:

He began manufacturing Sunlight Soap and built a business empire with many well-known brands. He was an advocate for expansion of the British Empire, particularly in Africa and Asia, which supplied palm oil, a key ingredient in Lever’s product line.
…
Lever was involved with freemasonry and by 1902 was first initiate to a lodge bearing his name, William Hesketh Lever Lodge No. 2916, he later formed Leverhulme Lodge 4438. He saw freemasonry as a tool to reinforce the hierarchy within Lever Brothers…
…
In the early 1900s Lever was using palm oil produced in the British West African colonies. When he encountered difficulties in obtaining more palm plantation concessions, he started looking elsewhere in other colonies. In 1911, Lever visited the Belgian Congo to take advantage of cheap labour and palm oil concessions in that country. Lever’s attitudes towards the Congolese were paternalistic and by today’s standards, racist, and his negotiations with the Belgian coloniser to enforce the system known as travail forcé (forced labour) are well documented in the book ‘Lord Leverhulme’s Ghosts,’ in which the author states: “Leverhulme set up a private kingdom reliant on the horrific Belgian system of forced labour, a program that reduced the population of Congo by half and accounted for more deaths than the Nazi holocaust.” As such, he participated in this system of formalised labour…
…
You see, when you read about William Lever and Leverhulme Trust’s background things start making more sense. Don’t they?

William Lever was a high-level Freemason and very committed to the secret society. The kind of commitment Freemasonry demanded:

Regular Freemasonry has in its core ritual a formal obligation: to be quiet and peaceable citizens, true to the lawful government of the country in which they live, and not to countenance disloyalty or rebellion.[12] A Freemason makes a further obligation, before being made Master of his Lodge, to pay a proper respect to the civil magistrates

You see, those who challenge the establishment are also challenging the core of Freemasonry. No?

Lever was an avid advocate for expansion of the British Empire, particularly in Africa and Asia. Have you ever come across an imperialist who was keen on activists challenging the establishment, aka conspiracy theorists who challenge establishment-packaged information (propaganda)? I haven’t. Not one.

Lever was an enforcer of a system known as travail forcé, forced labour, in colonies where his business ripped the resources (Labor and agriculture). Back then, as it is today, moguls like Lever thrived based on their close partnerships with their imperial governments: colonization. What does that mean? It means, for imperialist business moguls like Lever, any challenge to the empires, challenging and questioning the imperial propaganda, equals a challenge to the empire’s business partners such as Lever.

Now, with all the above, do you see how a handful of Leverhulme funded pea-brain academics spend millions of dollars to paint those who challenge imperial governments’ misinformation as conspiracy theorists who present a great threat to democracy? Do you see how these conspirators easily grab spots under the spotlights of the imperial media machine-such as BBC?

Please take notice of another highly important fact about this entire operation: They, the establishment, must be getting extremely nervous and threatened to put on such a goofy show with even goofier players via the ultimately goofy outlet BBC. That, my friends, is really good news for the conspiracy theorists … you … and me.

# # # #

Sibel Edmonds is the Publisher & Editor of Boiling Frogs Post and the author of the Memoir Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story. She is the recipient of the 2006 PEN Newman’s Own First Amendment Award for her “commitment to preserving the free flow of information in the United States in a time of growing international isolation and increasing government secrecy” Ms. Edmonds has a MA in Public Policy and International Commerce from George Mason University, a BA in Criminal Justice and Psychology from George Washington University.


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Tags: BBC, BFP Exclusive, Boiling Frogs Post, Cambridge, Cambridge Professors, Challenging Empires, Challenging Establishment, Conspiracy Theories, Conspiracy Theorists, establishment, Government Cover Ups, Government Lies, Government Propaganda, Lever Fund, Leverhulme, Mind Control, Police State, sibel edmonds.
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Posted in Sibel Edmonds- Select Op-eds by Sibel Edmonds

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/10/29/conspiracy-theorists-are-th e-greatest-challenge-to-democracy-according-to-heres-who/

[TonyGosling]

Please take notice of another highly important fact about this entire operation: They, the establishment, must be getting extremely nervous and threatened to put on such a goofy show with even goofier players via the ultimately goofy outlet BBC. That, my friends, is really good news for the conspiracy theorists … you … and me.
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/10/29/conspiracy-theorists-are-th e-greatest-challenge-to-democracy-according-to-heres-who/

[KP50]

[TonyGosling]

Personally - I'm glad I do. It's all happening here

Please take notice of another highly important fact about this entire operation: They, the establishment, must be getting extremely nervous and threatened to put on such a goofy show with even goofier players via the ultimately goofy outlet BBC. That, my friends, is really good news for the conspiracy theorists … you … and me