Hollande moves to ban named 'conspiracy theory' websites

[TonyGosling]

www.Tarpley.net
Voltaire Network Réseau Voltaire www.voltairenet.org/en Thierry Meyssan
Michel Chossudovsky www.Globalresearch.ca
etc.

WHAT LIES BEHIND THE ANTI "CONSPIRACY THEORIST" DISCOURSE
The State Against The Republic
by Thierry Meyssan
http://www.voltairenet.org/article187030.html

At the request of President François Hollande, the French Socialist Party has published a note on the international “conspiracy theorist" movement. His goal: to prepare new legislation prohibiting it to express itself. In the US, the September 11, 2001 coup established a "permanent state of emergency" (Patriot Act), launching a series of imperial wars. Gradually, the European elites have aligned with their counterparts across the Atlantic. Everywhere, people are worried about being abandoned by their States and they question their institutions. Seeking to retain power, the elites are now ready to use force to gag their opposition.

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | DAMASCUS (SYRIA) | 13 MARCH 2015

January 27, 2015, President François Hollande made "conspiracy theorists" responsible for the crimes committed by the Nazis against the Jews of Europe. He called for a ban on their freedom of expression.
The President of the French Republic, François Hollande, has assimilated what he calls "conspiracy theories" to Nazism and called to prevent their dissemination on the Internet and social networks.

Thus he declared, on January 27, 2015 at the Shoah Memorial:

"[Anti-Semitism] maintains conspiracy theories that spread without limits. Conspiracy theories that have, in the past, led to the worst "(...)" [The] answer is to realize that conspiracy theories are disseminated through the Internet and social networks. Moreover, we must remember that it is words that have in the past prepared extermination. We need to act at the European level, and even internationally, so that a legal framework can be defined, and so that Internet platforms that manage social networks are held to account and that sanctions be imposed for failure to enforce" [1].

Several ministers also decried what they called conspiracy theorists as so many "fermenters of hate and disintegrators of society."

Knowing that President Hollande calls "conspiracy theory" the idea that States, whatever their regimes - including democracies - have a spontaneous tendency to act in their own interests and not in that of their constituents, we can conclude that he presented this confused amalgam to justify a possible censure of his opponents.

This interpretation is confirmed by the publication of a note entitled "Conspiracy theories, current status" by the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, a Socialist Party think tank of which Mr. Holland was the first secretary. [2]

Let’s leave aside the political relations of François Hollande, the Socialist Party, the Fondation Jean-Jaurès, its political radicalism Observatory and the author of the note and let’s focus on its message and its ideological content.

Definition of "conspiracy theories"

The terms "conspiracy theories" and "conspiracy theorism" have developed in France in the wake of the publication of my book on US imperialism post-September 11, titled The Big Lie [3]. At the time, we had trouble understanding what the terms meant because they referred to American political history. In the United States, are commonly called "conspiracy theorists" those according to whom President Kennedy had not been assassinated by one man but by many, forming a conspiracy (in the judicial sense). Over time, these expressions entered in the French language and have overlapped with memories of the 30s and the Second World War, those of the denunciation of the "Jewish conspiracy". These are therefore now polysemous, sometimes evoking the law of the state-Stator silence and, at other times, European anti-Semitism.

In its note, the Jean-Jaurès Foundation gives its own definition of conspiracy theorism. It is

"an ’alternative’ narrative that claims to significantly upset the knowledge we have of an event and therefore competes with the "version" which is commonly accepted, stigmatized as "official"" (p. 2).

Observe that this definition does not apply solely to the delusions of the mentally ill. Thus, Socrates, through the myth of the cave, affirmed his challenge to the certainties of his time; Galileo with his heliocentric theory challenged the prevailing interpretation of the Bible of his time; etc.

For my part, and since they see me as the "pope of conspiracy theorists" or rather the "heretic" in the words of Italian philosopher Roberto Quaglia, I reaffirm my radical political commitment, in keeping with the French republican radicalism of Leon Bourgeois [4], of Georges Clemenceau, [5] of Alain [6] and of Jean Moulin. [7] For me, as for them, the state is a Leviathan which by nature abuses those it governs.

As a radical Republican, I am aware that the state is the enemy of the common good, of the Res Publica; which is why I wish not to abrogate it, but to tame it. The republican ideal is compatible with various political regimes-including monarchies, as was enacted by the authors of the Declaration of 1789.

This opposition, which the current Socialist Party disputes, has so shaped our history as Philippe Pétain repealed the Republic to proclaim the "French State". Immediately after his assuming presidential office, I denounced Hollande’s Petainism [8]. Today, Mr. Hollande claims to be of the Republic to better fight it and this inversion of values ​​plunges the country into confusion.

Who are the "conspiracy theorists"?

The "conspiracy theorists" are thus citizens who oppose the omnipotence of the State and who wish to place it under surveillance.

The Jean-Jaurès Foundation describes them as follows:

"[It’s] a heterogeneous movement, heavily entangled with the Holocaust denial movement, and which combines admirers of Hugo Chavez and fans of Vladimir Putin. An underworld that consist of former left-wing activists or extreme leftists, former "malcontents", sovereignists, revolutionary nationalists, ultra-nationalists, nostalgists of the Third Reich, anti-vaccination activists, supporters of drawing straws, September 11th revisionists, anti-Zionists, Afrocentricists, survivalists, followers of "alternative medicine", agents of influence of the Iranian regime, Bacharists, Catholic or Islamic fundamentalists "(p. .

One will note the amalgams and abuse of this description aiming to discredit those it designates.

Myths of the "conspiracy theorists"

The Jean-Jaurès Foundation continues its vilification by accusing "conspiracy theorists" of ignoring the realities of the world and naively believing hackneyed myths. Thus, they would believe in the "World Zionist plot", the "illuminati conspiracy" and the "Rothschild myth" (p. 4). And to credit these three statements, it cites an example solely on the "Rothschild myth": blogger Etienne Chouard - whose work is not simply about the Republic, but goes beyond to treat Democracy [9] - says the Pompidou-Rothschild 1973 law is the source of the debt of France. And the Foundation goes on to refute this assertion by quoting an article published by Libération.

One will note here that the example of Étienne Chouard leaves one unsatisfied about the two other cited myths. Especially, the Foundation addresses ignorant people who have neither read the response from Mr. Chouard to Libération [10] nor the contribution of the "conspiracy theorist", former Prime minister Michel Rocard. [11] Indeed, in this debate, it is clear that the 1973 law allowed the explosion of the French debt in favor of private banks, which would have been impossible before.

The "conspirasphere"

For the Fondation Jean-Jaurès, conspiracy intellectuals would be

"essentially North Americans. Particular mention is made of Webster Tarpley and William Engdhal (both former members of the US political-sectarian organization led by Lyndon LaRouche), Wayne Madsen (WayneMadsenReport.com), Kevin Barrett (VeteransToday.com) or Michel Chossudovsky (Mondialisation.ca ). With their European counterparts, they form a kind of International to which Thierry Meyssan, president of Voltaire Network, tried to give concrete form in November 2005 in Brussels, bringing together an "anti-imperialist conference" - "Axis for Peace "- the list of participants of which reads like a who’s who of conspiracy authors most prominent at the time" (p. .

First, let’s observe that the Fondation Jean-Jaurès must only read in French and English, and have barely skimmed over the participants’ lists of Axis for Peace, to believe that the phenomenon it describes only concerns France, Canada and the United States. In fact it includes a very large literature in Arabic, Spanish, Persian and Russian; languages ​​which are also in the majority in Axis for Peace.

Let’s note also the malicious nature of the reference to "the politico-sectarian American organization led by Lyndon LaRouche." Indeed, William Webster Tarpley and Engdhal quit this organization more than 20 years ago. And at the time when they were members, this party was represented in France at an extreme-left organization’s congress.

A little further on, the Jean-Jaurès Foundation does not fail to mention the comedian Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, whose shows the State seeks to prohibit, the sociologist Alain Soral, whose website (EgaliteEtReconciliation.fr ) obtains audience records in France, and Alain Benajam (facebook.com/alain.benajam), chairman of Voltaire Network France and representative of the Novorossian Government of Donbass.

JPEG - 15.5 kb
In 1989, the former head of US intelligence in Europe, Irving Brown, revealed to reporters Roger Faligot and Rémi Kauffer that he had recruited Jean-Christophe Cambadélis when he militated in Lambertists Trotskyists. 25 years later, Mr. Cambadélis became First Secretary of the French Socialist Party.
The political ideas of "conspiracy theorists"

After these appetizers, the Fondation Jean-Jaurès comes to the heart of the debate, that of political ideas. It defines those of the "conspiracy theorists" thus:


- "the erasure of any distinction in kind between liberal democracies and authoritarian regimes (deemed more “totalitarian" than the worst of totalitarianism)”;
- "[Opposition to] any anti-racist legislation under the pretext of defending "freedom of expression";
- "[Rejection of] the relevance of the left-right divide, the real divide is the one between" the system "(or" Empire "or the" oligarchy ") and those who resist it"; (P.
- "the idea that Zionism is a project of world domination" (p. 9).

The Jean-Jaurès Foundation specifically targets areas of conflict, but exaggerates to discredit its opponents. For example, no one is opposed to all anti-racism legislation, but only and exclusively to the Fabius-Gayssot law that punishes by imprisonment any debate about the extermination of the Jews of Europe [12].

What is Zionism?

The Foundation then engages in a very long analysis of my works on Zionism. It disfigures them, then comments:

"Thierry Meyssan’s anti-Zionism bears no resemblance to the criticism of a situation, that of the governments that have been able to succeed each other at the head of the State of Israel. It does not arise from an anti-colonialism that would be resolved by Israel’s withdrawal from the territories occupied after the Six Day War and the creation of a Palestinian state. It also does not proceed from an internationalism that would hold in suspicion, in principle, any national movement wherever it comes from, precisely because it does not liken Zionism to a national movement. This paranoid anti-Zionism does not pretend to fight Zionism in the diversity of its historical expressions, but as a fantastic hydra that is the source of evil in the world. "

In wanting to conclude this debate by giving it considerable space in its analysis, the Jean Jaurès Foundation highlights its importance. I indeed defend a position thus far absent in the Western political debate [13]:

- The first head of state who stated his intention to bring together Jews from around the world in a state that would be theirs was Lord Cromwell in the seventeenth century. His project, clearly explained, was to use the Jewish diaspora to expand English hegemony. This project has been defended by all successive British governments and registered by Benjamin Disraeli in the agenda of the Berlin Conference.

- Theodor Herzl himself was a disciple of Cecil Rhodes, the theorist of the British Empire. Herzl originally proposed to create Israel in Uganda or Argentina, not in Palestine. When he succeeded in having Jewish activists adhere to the British project, he bought land in Palestine by creating the Jewish Agency whose articles are a carbon copy of the Rhodes society in Southern Africa.

- In 1916-17, the United Kingdom and the United States reconciled themselves by committing together to create the state of Israel through the Balfour Declaration in London and Wilson’s 14 points in Washington.

It is therefore perfectly absurd to claim that Herzl invented Zionism, to separate the Zionist project from British colonialism, and to deny that the State of Israel is a tool of the common imperial project in London and Washington.

The position of the Parti socialiste on this subject is not innocent. In 1936 it proposed with Léon Blum to create the state of Israel on the territory of the Lebanon mandate [14]. However the project was quickly dismissed because of the opposition of the French High Commissioner in Beirut, Damien de Martel de Janville.

Concluding remarks

In 2008, Professor Cass Sunstein, an adviser to President Barack Obama and husband of the US Ambassador to the UN, had written a similar note [15].

He wrote:

"We can easily imagine a series of possible answers.
- 1. The government can ban conspiracy theories.
- 2. The government could impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories.
- 3. The government could engage in a contrary discourse to discredit conspiracy theories.
- 4. The government could initiate credible private parties to engage in a discourse against conspiracy theories.
- 5. The government could engage in informal communication with third parties and encourage them. "

Ultimately, the US government had decided to fund individuals, both at home and abroad, to disrupt the forum websites of conspiracy theorists and to create groups to contradict them.

This not having sufficed, France is called upon to take authoritarian measures. As in the past, the French elites, of which the Socialist Party forms the pseudo-left wing, have placed themselves under the orders of the main military power of the time, in this case, the US.

Let’s not be naive, we are approaching an inevitable showdown. It remains to be determined which instance, necessarily administrative, will be in charge of censorship and what will be its criteria.

Thierry Meyssan
Translation
Roger Lagassé
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Attached documents


« Conspirationnisme : un état des lieux », par Rudy Reichstadt, Observatoire des radicalités politiques, Fondation Jean-Jaurès, Parti socialiste, 24 février 2015.
(PDF - 159.3 kb)

[1] « Discours de François Hollande au Mémorial de la Shoah », par François Hollande, Réseau Voltaire, 27 janvier 2015.

[2] « Conspirationnisme : un état des lieux », par Rudy Reichstadt, Observatoire des radicalités politiques, Fondation Jean-Jaurès, Parti socialiste, 24 février 2015.

[3] L’Effroyable Imposture suivi de Le Pentagate, par Thierry Meyssan, Nouvelle réédition, entièrement réactualisée et annotée, éditions Demi-Lune.

[4] Léon Bourgeois, sculpteur français (1851-1925). Théoricien du « solidarisme » (que les socialistes actuels confondent avec la Fraternité). Il fut président du Parti radical, président du Conseil des ministres, premier président de la Société des Nations et lauréat du prix Nobel de la paix en 1920. Avec l’aide du Tsar Nicolas II, il posa le principe des arbitrages entre États, dont la Cour internationale de Justice des Nations unies est l’aboutissement actuel.

[5] Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929). Il défendit les Communards face à la droite et combattit la gauche socialiste de Jules Ferry aussi bien contre son projet de colonisation que contre sa vision de la laïcité. Alors que, durant la Grande Guerre, le pays semblait vaincu, il devint président du Conseil et le conduisit jusqu’à la victoire.

[6] Alain, philosophe français (1868-1951), co-fondateur du Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes (CVIA). Il milita pour une république protectrice de la liberté, strictement contrôlée par le peuple.

[7] Jean Moulin, haut fonctionnaire (1899-1943). Il prit le parti des Républicains espagnols et organisa illégalement, malgré le gouvernement socialiste neutre, un trafic d’armes pour résister aux Franquistes. Durant l’Occupation de la France, il dirigea le Conseil national de la Résistance, y incluant toutes les sensibilités politiques à l’exception de celle qui s’était battue aux côtés des Franquistes. Arrêté par les nazis, il mourut sous la torture.

[8] “France According to François Hollande”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Michele Stoddard , Voltaire Network, 4 August 2012.

[9] La République veille à ce que le Pouvoir serve l’Intérêt général. La Démocratie exige que le Pouvoir soit exercé par tous les citoyens.

[10] «Analyse des réflexions de Monsieur Beitone sur la prétendue rumeur d’extrême droite à propos de la loi de 1973», par Étienne Chouard, 30 décembre 2011.

[11] Émission Mediapolis sur la radio Europe 1, le 22 décembre 2012, l’ancien Premier ministre socialiste Michel Rocard était l’invité de Michel Field et d’Olivier Duhamel.

[12] De nombreux responsables politiques se sont vainement opposés à cette loi, dont l’ancien président Jacques Chirac, et les anciens Premiers ministres Dominique de Villepin et François Fillon.

[13] “Who is the Enemy?”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 4 August 2014.

[14] My Enemy’s Enemy: Lebanon in the Early Zionist Imagination, 1900-1948, Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, Wayne State University Press (1994). Thèse de doctorat vérifiée par Itamar Rabinovitch côté israélien et Kamal Salibi côté libanais.

[15] «Conspiracy Theories», Cass R. Sunstein & Adrian Vermeule, Harvard Law School, January 15, 2008.

[TonyGosling]

France intends to prohibit the dissemination of "conspiracy theories" on the Internet by equating them with Nazism
http://www.sott.net/article/294149-France-intends-to-prohibit-the-diss emination-of-conspiracy-theories-on-the-Internet-by-equating-them-with -Nazism

21st Centure Wire Thu, 19 Mar 2015 21:00 CETPrint

January 27, 2015, President François Hollande made "conspiracy theorists" responsible for the crimes committed by the Nazis against the Jews of Europe. He called for a ban on their freedom of expression.
Political elites and super-bureaucrats are worried. It's becoming harder to control consensus reality.

A history stitched together by lies and cover-ups, political assassinations, slight-of-hand false flag deceptions, secret societies, dual loyalties and stolen fortunes - this have been the privilege of ruling elites for centuries.

Putting aside history's 'big ticket' items though, the real reason for this authoritarian trend is much more fundamental. By knocking out their intellectual competition, political elites and their media moguls hope to minimalize, and thus eliminate any alternative analysis and opinion by applying the completely open-ended and arbitrary label of "extremist" to speech. They want to wind back the clock, where a pre-internet, monolithic corporate media cartel held a monopoly on ideas.

Although France has taken the lead in this inter-governmental effort (see below), the preliminary assault began this past fall with British Prime Minster David Cameron publicly announcing on two separate occasions, that all of these so-called 'conspiracy theories' (anything which challenges the official orthodoxy) should be deemed as "extremist" and equivalent to "terrorist" and should be purged from society on the grounds of 'national security'. The first came with Cameron's warped speech at the UN, and afterwards, a similar charge was made by the UK leader against anyone who dares press the issue of institutional paedophilia and child abuse.

Watch this UN speech by Cameron where he clearly claims that 'conspiracy theorists' are the 'root cause' and indeed, an equal threat to national security as ISIS terrorists currently running amok in Syria and Iraq (start 4:26)...



As yet, few are aware of how in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings French Prime Minster, Francois Hollande, delivered an official declaration (see full report and text from his speech below). However, Hollande takes it beyond the usual hyperbole and focuses on giving the state an administrative and legal foothold for policing both speech and thought crimes in France. If this is can be accomplished in France, then a European roll-out would soon follow.

Ironically, in order to achieve this fascist leap forward, Hollande has equated "conspiracy theories" to Nazism, and is calling for government regulations to prevent any sharing or publishing of any views deemed as 'dangerous thought' by the state. Specifically, Hollande is citing "Anti-Semitism"and also anything which could inspire 'acts terrorism' - as the chief vehicles for what the state will be designating as 'dangerous thoughts'. With the thumb of Hebdo still pressing down, this may just sound like politics writ large by the French leader, but in reality it's full-blown fascism.

Worse yet, with all of the world leaders gathered togther in Paris in January supposedly marching solidarity for 'free speech' and proudly chanting "Je Suis Charlie" (image above), that Hollande would use this as political cover to restrict free speech in Europe should shock even.

RINF reports how the new censorship regime has already been implemented this week:
"Earlier this week, the Interior Minister of France — with no court review or adversarial process — ordered five websites to not only be blocked in France, but that anyone who visits any of the sites get redirected to a scary looking government website, saying:

While it could be argued that the four websites initially listed by the government for 'blocking' were exclusively for ISIS/ISIL-related activity and thus, should be kept hidden, the government has made no caveat in its reams of policy literature, other than some vague language as to what it defines as 'extremist', as to where this growing list will stop, or indeed, if it has any limits at all. Because this process is extrajudicial, then there will be no warning to gov't targets of this new regime. In fact, as RINF reports, this has already happened:
"In that first batch was a site called "islamic-news.info." The owner of that site not only notes that he was never first contacted to "remove" whatever material was deemed terrorist supporting (as required by the law), but that nothing in what he had posted was supporting terrorism."
Will French gov't censors also block this website - because it is challenging the government's new public filtering program? Are we entering a new intolerant, Chinese-style policing culture in Europe, and throughout the west? Certainly they have the ability and the legal clearance to do just that right now.

Fear of losing control over manipulative narratives has always been a primary obsession with those in power, and clearly, based on what we've seen here - governments are making an aggressive move on free speech now. Skeptics will no doubt argue that this 21WIRE article itself constitutes a conspiracy theory. If that was the case, then why have western governments, particularly those in the US and Britain, already spent millions, if not billions in state funds in order to infiltrate, disrupt, and occupy forum websites, and social networking groups of so-called 'conspiracy theorist and even creating entirely new groups just to contradict them? Does that not already prove what the government modus operandi is?

As if that wasn't enough already, now France wants to take it to a whole new authoritarian level. It may sound ridiculous, but this is exactly what is taking place in government as we speak. History shows that once this new regime is in place, they will not relinquish any new powers of censorship, and so a long, intellectual dark age is certain to follow...

Also read: WHAT LIES BEHIND THE ANTI "CONSPIRACY THEORIST" DISCOURSE - The State Against The Republic by Thierry Meyssan

[TonyGosling]

French President attacks me, wants to ban my “conspiracy theories”
Posted by Kevin Barrett on March 20, 2015
France freaks out over "We Are Not Charlie Hebdo"
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/03/20/banned-in-france/

Enjoy this week’s False Flag Weekly News – before it gets banned! (Watch it above, or click here to see links to the stories we covered.)

The first country to ban us will probably be France, where Prime Minister François Hollande recently attacked me by name, while also calling for removing “conspiracy theories” (i.e., truthful reporting) from the internet:

“[Anti-Semitism] maintains conspiracy theories that spread without limits. Conspiracy theories that have, in the past, led to the worst…[The] answer is to realize that conspiracy theories are disseminated through the Internet and social networks. Moreover, we must remember that it is words that have in the past prepared extermination. We need to act at the European level, and even internationally, so that a legal framework can be defined, and so that Internet platforms that manage social networks are held to account and that sanctions be imposed for failure to enforce.” (source)

Hollande’s suggestion that “conspiracy theories” will be banned “at the European level, and even internationally” means that if he’s right, you may not be able to watch False Flag Weekly News much longer.

Actually, for all I know, we may already be banned in France. According to RINF.com:

“Earlier this week, the Interior Minister of France — with no court review or adversarial process — ordered five websites to not only be blocked in France, but that anyone who visits any of the sites get redirected to a scary looking government website, saying:

You are being redirected to this official website since your computer was about to connect with a page that provokes terrorist acts or condones terrorism publicly.”
Along with his statement calling for outlawing “conspiracy theories” Hollande issued a diatribe attacking me personally, alongside four other “leading conspiracist intellectuals.”

Why are the French authorities so angry with me?

They are freaking out about the new book I am about to publish, We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo: Free Thinkers Question the French 9/11.
The book has intellectual respectability and thus crossover potential and the ability to reach and influence people who matter. And it includes more than enough information for any reasonable reader to conclude that the Charlie Hebdo affair, like most of the other spectacular “Islamic terror attacks,” was a false flag operation.

In former times, books banned in the USA, like Ulysses and Naked Lunch, were printed in France and smuggled across the Atlantic. Will We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo have to be printed in North America and smuggled into France? Or will Hollande get his way and convince the US to revoke whatever is left of the First Amendment and ban it here too?

charlie-back-coverHollande’s moves are just the latest in a series of trial balloons aimed at outlawing “conspiracy theories.” The initial impetus came from Obama’s former Information Czar Cass Sunstein, who argued that some day it may be necessary to ban “conspiracy theories,” but in the meantime governments should just “cognitively infiltrate” conspiracy movements and “disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories.”

Today, Western governments are already working overtime to “disable” truth-tellers. Check out Snowden’s leaked document exposing the war on alternative media:

Snowden: ‘Training Guide’ for GCHQ, NSA Agents Infiltrating and Disrupting Alternative Media Online

Another trial balloon came from UK PM David Cameron, who said that people like me are “nonviolent extremists” comparable to ISIS who need to be eradicated using all means at the government’s disposal.

Thanks, David, I love you too!

Ironically, it seems the Charlie Hebdo PR campaign, which was supposedly about defending free speech, has triggered the biggest crackdown on free speech in French history…a crackdown that is threatening to go global.

So if you actually do support free speech, please go to http://wearenotcharliehebdo.blogspot.com and purchase an advance copy of We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo: Free Thinkers Question the French 9/11. As David Ray Griffin says, it’s a “breakthrough” book. Buy it while you can – and deliver a symbolic middle finger to François Hollande and the other state terrorists who “hate our freedoms.”

[TonyGosling]

Scientific study reveals conspiracy theorists the most sane of all
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/11/22/scientific-study-reveals-co nspiracy-theorists-sane/

November 22, 2014 | Categories: Guest Contributions | Tags: | Print This Article Print This Article
NOTE: An earlier report on the study by Michael Wood and Karen Douglas was published by Kevin
Barrett on Press TV July 12, 2013. http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/07/12/313399/conspiracy-theorists-v s-govt-dupes/

Guest Article by J. D. Heyes

Researchers — psychologists and social scientists, mostly — in the U.S. and United Kingdom say data indicate that, contrary to those mainstream media stereotypes, “conspiracy theorists” appear to be more sane than people who accept official versions of controversial and contested events.

(NaturalNews) If you’re a conspiracy theorist, then you’re crazy, right? That’s been the common belief for years, but recent studies prove that just the opposite is true.

Researchers — psychologists and social scientists, mostly — in the U.S. and United Kingdom say data indicate that, contrary to those mainstream media stereotypes, “conspiracy theorists” appear to be more sane than people who accept official versions of controversial and contested events.

The most recent study was published in July 2013 by psychologists Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the University of Kent in the UK. Entitled “‘What about Building 7?’ A Social Psychological Study of Online Discussion of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories,” the study compared “conspiracist,” or pro-conspiracy theory, and “conventionalist,” or anti-conspiracy, comments on news websites.

The researchers noted that they were surprised to find that it is now more conventional to leave so-called conspiracist comments than conventional ones.

“Of the 2174 comments collected, 1459 were coded as conspiracist and 715 as conventionalist,” the researchers wrote.

‘The research showed that people who favored the official account of 9/11 were generally more hostile’

So, among people who comment on news articles, those who discount official government accounts of events like the 9/11 attacks and the assassination of John F. Kennedy outnumber believers by more than two-to-one. That means the pro-conspiracy commenters are those who are now expressing what is considered conventional wisdom, while the anti-conspiracy commenters represent a small, beleaguered minority that is often scoffed at and shunned.

Perhaps becoming frustrated that their alleged mainstream viewpoints are no longer considered as such by the majority, those who are anti-conspiracy commenters often showed anger and disgust in their posts.

“The research… showed that people who favoured the official account of 9/11 were generally more hostile when trying to persuade their rivals,” said the study.

Also, it seems that those who do not believe in the conspiracies were not just hostile but fanatically attached to their own conspiracy theories as well. The researchers said that, according to the anti-conspiracy holders, their own theory of 9/11 — one which says 19 Muslims, none of whom could fly commercial airliners with any proficiency, pulled off an amazing surprise attack under the direction of a man on dialysis (Osama bin Laden) who was living in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan — is unwaveringly true.

Meanwhile, “conspiracists,” on the hand, did not have to pretend to have a theory that completely explained the events of 9/11. “For people who think 9/11 was a government conspiracy, the focus is not on promoting a specific rival theory, but in trying to debunk the official account,” the researchers said.

As reported by Veterans Today:

In short, the new study by Wood and Douglas suggests that the negative stereotype of the conspiracy theorist — a hostile fanatic wedded to the truth of his own fringe theory — accurately describes the people who defend the official account of 9/11, not those who dispute it.

A conspiracy theory about a conspiracy theory

The study also found that conspiracy believers discuss historical context, like viewing the JFK assassination as a precedent for 9/11, more than the antis. It also found that conspiracy believers do not like to be labeled as such.

These and other findings are contained in a new book, Conspiracy Theory in America, by political scientist Lance deHaven-Smith, which was published last year by the University of Texas Press. He explained why people don’t like to be labeled as “conspiracy theorists.”

“The CIA’s campaign to popularize the term ‘conspiracy theory’ and make conspiracy belief a target of ridicule and hostility must be credited, unfortunately, with being one of the most successful propaganda initiatives of all time,” he said.

He further noted that, essentially, those who use the term as an insult are doing so as the result of a well-documented, undisputed and historically accurate conspiracy by the CIA to cover up the JFK assassination.

Or not.

You be the judge.

Sources:

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/07/12/313399/conspiracy-theorists-v s-govt-dupes/

http://conspiracypsychology.com/2013/07/10/what-does-online-discussion -tell-us-about-the-psychology-of-conspiracy-theories/

http://www.naturalnews.com/047168_conspiracy_theorists_sanity_propagan da.html#

[outsider]

'Charlie Hebdo & Copenhagen: Netanyahu war crimes?':
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/03/18/charlie-crimes/

Notice someone in the picture has apparently been removed? Who’s hand is sticking out from under Hollande’s right arm? And who’s hand is under Netanyahu’s left arm? It’s a small point, but does seem to show that the pic was a PR stunt. And what is Hollande looking at in such an odd way, and in a different direction to everybody else, as though someone was talking to him?

and: 'French President attacks me, wants to ban my “conspiracy theories”:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/03/20/banned-in-france/

'Enjoy this week’s False Flag Weekly News – before it gets banned! (Watch it above, or click here to see links to the stories we covered.)

The first country to ban us will probably be France, where Prime Minister François Hollande recently attacked me by name, while also calling for removing “conspiracy theories” (i.e., truthful reporting) from the internet:


The President of France orders you not to buy this book
The President of France orders you not to buy this book

“[Anti-Semitism] maintains conspiracy theories that spread without limits. Conspiracy theories that have, in the past, led to the worst…[The] answer is to realize that conspiracy theories are disseminated through the Internet and social networks. Moreover, we must remember that it is words that have in the past prepared extermination. We need to act at the European level, and even internationally, so that a legal framework can be defined, and so that Internet platforms that manage social networks are held to account and that sanctions be imposed for failure to enforce.” (source)

Hollande’s suggestion that “conspiracy theories” will be banned “at the European level, and even internationally” means that if he’s right, you may not be able to watch False Flag Weekly News much longer.

Actually, for all I know, we may already be banned in France. According to RINF.com:

“Earlier this week, the Interior Minister of France — with no court review or adversarial process — ordered five websites to not only be blocked in France, but that anyone who visits any of the sites get redirected to a scary looking government website, saying:


You are being redirected to this official website since your computer was about to connect with a page that provokes terrorist acts or condones terrorism publicly.”

Along with his statement calling for outlawing “conspiracy theories” Hollande issued a diatribe attacking me personally, alongside four other “leading conspiracist intellectuals.”

Why are the French authorities so angry with me?


They are freaking out about the new book I am about to publish, We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo: Free Thinkers Question the French 9/11.

The book has intellectual respectability and thus crossover potential and the ability to reach and influence people who matter. And it includes more than enough information for any reasonable reader to conclude that the Charlie Hebdo affair, like most of the other spectacular “Islamic terror attacks,” was a false flag operation.

In former times, books banned in the USA, like Ulysses and Naked Lunch, were printed in France and smuggled across the Atlantic. Will We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo have to be printed in North America and smuggled into France? Or will Hollande get his way and convince the US to revoke whatever is left of the First Amendment and ban it here too?

charlie-back-coverHollande’s moves are just the latest in a series of trial balloons aimed at outlawing “conspiracy theories.” The initial impetus came from Obama’s former Information Czar Cass Sunstein, who argued that some day it may be necessary to ban “conspiracy theories,” but in the meantime governments should just “cognitively infiltrate” conspiracy movements and “disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories.”

Today, Western governments are already working overtime to “disable” truth-tellers. Check out Snowden’s leaked document exposing the war on alternative media:

Snowden: ‘Training Guide’ for GCHQ, NSA Agents Infiltrating and Disrupting Alternative Media Online

Another trial balloon came from UK PM David Cameron, who said that people like me are “nonviolent extremists” comparable to ISIS who need to be eradicated using all means at the government’s disposal.

Thanks, David, I love you too!

Ironically, it seems the Charlie Hebdo PR campaign, which was supposedly about defending free speech, has triggered the biggest crackdown on free speech in French history…a crackdown that is threatening to go global.

So if you actually do support free speech, please go to http://wearenotcharliehebdo.blogspot.com and purchase an advance copy of We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo: Free Thinkers Question the French 9/11. As David Ray Griffin says, it’s a “breakthrough” book. Buy it while you can – and deliver a symbolic middle finger to François Hollande and the other state terrorists who “hate our freedoms.”

[outsider]

Today it's the PKK; tomorrow it will be 9/11 Truth. Support Shilan Ozcelik on 1st April at the Old Bailey!


PRESS RELEASE
31 March 2015

18 year old in court tomorrow charged with supporting PKK

Shilan Ozcelik, an 18-year-old woman from north London who has been accused of supporting terrorism by attempting to join the PKK, will have her first hearing in the Old Bailey tomorrow morning.

The hearing is set to begin at 9.30am and a demonstration in support of Shilan has been organised. Over a hundred people are expected to take part in the action, which calls for her immediate release.[1] It follows a Change.org petition which was launched following Shilan’s charge and has now gathered well over 3,000 signatures.[2]

We condemn the arrest as a blatant example of political and selective criminalisation of the Kurdish community at large, which has continued since the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has been listed on the UK’s list of ‘terrorist’ organisations.

We emphatically reject this labelling of the PKK, which we believe confuses the Kurdish people’s legitimate struggle for self-determination with terrorism and has the effect of criminalising anyone in our community who is part of peaceful political activity. We know that Silan has never committed any act of violence and poses no threat to the people of this country.

The arrest comes at a time when the Kurdish struggle has been garnering unprecedented international support for their recent armed struggle against ISIS. There, the PKK’s affiliated forces, the YPG and YPJ, have received praise from activists and senior politicians alike for their incredible efforts fighting back ISIS from Kobane and parts of northern Syria and Iraq.

Given this context, the arrest of a young Kurdish woman for allegedly attempting to join the YPJ seems more than a little contradictory. The YPG and YPJ, who had been in a tacit alliance with US and British forces in the struggle for Kobane, are not listed on any terrorist list.

We call for Silan’s immediate release, and for the PKK to be removed from the terrorism list once and for all.


---------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------

REFERENCES

CAMPACC Briefing: The UK Ban on the PKK – Persecuting the Kurds
http://campacc.org.uk/uploads/kurds.pdf?phpMyAdmin=I8srdJ5PC9Q2-jYJb4L pEkCqV17

Desmond Fernandes: Surveillance, Targeting And The Criminalisation Of Kurds In The UK

Campaign to Delist the PKK: www.delistthepkk.com

ACTIONS

[1] Come and join the demonstration! We will gather at 9.30am outside the Old Bailey, London EC4M 7EH. More information here: https://www.facebook.com/events/649032388576726/

[2] Sign the petition here: https://www.change.org/p/uk-home-office-minister-theresa-may-free-shil an-ozcelik-now

We also encourage everyone to write to Silan in Holloway Prison to show her she is not fighting alone. Please send you letter via her solicitor:
Av. Ali Has Morgan Has Solicitors
Bank Chambers, 1st & 2nd Floor,
133 Stoke Newington High Street,
Stoke Newington
London N16 0PH

--
Peace in Kurdistan
Campaign for a political solution of the Kurdish Question
Email: estella24@tiscali.co.uk
www.peaceinkurdistancampaign.com
Contacts Estella Schmid 020 7586 5892 & Melanie Sirinathsingh - Tel: 020 7272 7890
Fax: 020 7263 0596

Patrons: Lord Avebury, Lord Rea, Lord Dholakia, Baroness Sarah Ludford, Jill Evans MEP, Jean Lambert MEP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Hywel Williams MP, Elfyn Llwyd MP, Conor Murphy MP, John Austin, Bruce Kent, Gareth Peirce, Julie Christie, Noam Chomsky, John Berger, Edward Albee, Margaret Owen OBE, Prof Mary Davis, Mark Thomas, Nick Hildyard, Stephen Smellie, Derek Wall


'KURDISH WOMAN Silan Ozcelik is on trial for terrorism for trying to make her way to Syria to support the Kurds defending Rojava from ISIS! She has been locked up for several weeks in Holloway Women's Prison awaiting trial at the Old Bailey on Wednesday April 1st! We say, emphatically, Free Silan Ozcelik immediately! It is not a crime to be a Kurdish woman! It is not a crime to support the fight against ISIS whose barbaric war against women has included, rape, murder and slavery! It is not a crime to support Rojava! Jailed and put on trial for wanting to fight ISIS. Give her your support on Wednesday morning at 0930am outside the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court.' (Facebook quote)

[outsider]

'“Conspiracy Theory”: Foundations of a Weaponized Term':
http://www.globalresearch.ca/conspiracy-theory-foundations-of-a-weapon ized-term/5319708

'.....Conspiracy theory’s acutely negative connotations may be traced to liberal historian Richard Hofstadter’s well-known fusillades against the “New Right.” Yet it was the Central Intelligence Agency that likely played the greatest role in effectively “weaponizing” the term. In the groundswell of public skepticism toward the Warren Commission’s findings on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the CIA sent a detailed directive to all of its bureaus. Titled “Countering Criticism of the Warren Commission Report,” the dispatch played a definitive role in making the “conspiracy theory” term a weapon to be wielded against almost any individual or group calling the government’s increasingly clandestine programs and activities into question.

This important memorandum and its broad implications for American politics and public discourse are detailed in a forthcoming book by Florida State University political scientist Lance de-Haven-Smith, Conspiracy Theory in America. Dr. de-Haven-Smith devised the state crimes against democracy concept to interpret and explain potential government complicity in events such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the major political assassinations of the 1960s, and 9/11.

“CIA Document 1035-960” was released in response to a 1976 FOIA request by the New York Times. The directive is especially significant because it outlines the CIA’s concern regarding “the whole reputation of the American government” vis-à-vis the Warren Commission Report. The agency was especially interested in maintaining its own image and role as it “contributed information to the [Warren] investigation.”

The memorandum lays out a detailed series of actions and techniques for “countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries.” For example, approaching “friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors)” to remind them of the Warren Commission’s integrity and soundness should be prioritized. “[T]he charges of the critics are without serious foundation,” the document reads, and “further speculative discussion only plays in to the hands of the [Communist] opposition.”

The agency also directed its members “[t]o employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose.”

1035-960 further delineates specific techniques for countering “conspiratorial” arguments centering on the Warren Commission’s findings. Such responses and their coupling with the pejorative label have been routinely wheeled out in various guises by corporate media outlets, commentators and political leaders to this day against those demanding truth and accountability about momentous public events.......'

The whole article is worth reading. I'm sure the CIA 'invention' of CT as a pejorative term has been up somewhere on here; I know I have been aware of it for years, but it's worth going over the evidence again, so we are better armed to counter the 'CT' accusations when they are raised.