Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Of swine and cows

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  • ScottY,

    2001 I cast my eyes over those books.

    You have my sympathies.

    West • Since Feb 2009 • 794 posts Report

  • andin,

    Well I hope Mikey doesnt get any of the host's if he actually present's anything like that as fact.

    raglan • Since Mar 2007 • 1891 posts Report

  • Richard Aston,

    Re. the backmasking - thanks for posting Richard, I'd never felt like destoying my records enough to try and make them play backwards.

    I never realised Beelzebub was so into toolsheds that he wanted to lead us all down the garden path to one. I suppose it makes sense though, what with all the pitchforks and all. You've got to have somewhere to file them tidily away.

    Yeah well the devil's in the detial

    Northland • Since Nov 2006 • 510 posts Report

  • Josh Addison,

    I keep seeing free screenings of something called Zeitgeist advertised around campus. Haven't seen it but it's available online and looks fairly crazy.

    Yeah, pretty crazy. I've only seen bits, but it seems to be in three parts. Part One is all about how Christianity is just a cut-n-paste from older religions, which would be a reasonable thesis if it weren't for the absolute bollocks they use to try to prove their point; Part Two seems to be standard 9/11 conspiracy stuff; and Part Three is something to do with New World Orders and whatnot.

    Onehunga, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 298 posts Report

  • philipmatthews,

    Dubya and Darth Cheney, I could imagine them, on dark nights transforming into tongue flicking lizards, descendants from a long line of somehow surviving dinosaur aliens from another dimension ensuring our confused and anxiety ridden psychic energies were feeding their ravenous appetites.

    I remember hearing variations on this stuff from potheads I used to flat with in Wellington 20 years ago. The story that all the Nasa astronauts who had gone to the Moon were also 33rd degree Masons (even if that were true, what was it supposed to mean?). The three secret Ks on a Marlboro cigarette packet (I think Matthew Dentith had this on his bFM slot the other day). Secret UFO bases in the North Island. Masonic imagery on the US dollar bill. I used to read Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's Illuminatus! trilogy which was an epic 70s parody of conspiracy thinking and paranoia, something like Pynchon-lite, and surely introduced the "illuminati" idea into broader culture. Funny now to see how widely used "illuminati" is as an all-knowing, all-seeing, omnipresent but invisible secret society -- how something that Wilson introduced as parody and fantasy has been taken so seriously by so many. There was once an historical Illuminati of some kind but to make them the source of all evil now, as people like David Icke do, makes about as much sense as citing Trystero or Golden Fang or other secret societies out of Pynchon books.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2007 • 656 posts Report

  • Paul Litterick,

    What astonishes me about the Illuminati is how they control everything except Internet. Somehow, people can post the truth about the Illuminatii all over Internet, without the Illuminati seeming to notice. Clearly, they have spent so much effort dominating global politics that they have fallen behind in Information Technology.

    I would gladly tell the Illuminati about the people who have found out their secrets and posted them on Geocities pages (in green letters on black background), but I do not know their Fax number.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1000 posts Report

  • philipmatthews,

    but I do not know their Fax number.

    Probably has some 666s in it.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2007 • 656 posts Report

  • Craig Ranapia,

    What astonishes me about the Illuminati is how they control everything except Internet.

    That's the thing about conspiracy theories, isn't it? There are these vast engines of malice that rule the world (or are hiding the truth about the end of the world in 2012 or destroyed the Twin Towers while telling all the Jews to chuck a sickie etc.) without anyone noticing, then they all went on holiday. Or something.

    The problem with trying to rationally engage with the fundamentally irrational is that it drives you crazy. :)

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Joe Wylie,

    . . . destroyed the Twin Towers while telling all the Jews to chuck a sickie

    The Elders of Zion projectile vomiting! How utterly Icke-y.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Matthew Poole,

    What astonishes me about the Illuminati is how they control everything except Internet.

    That's the thing about conspiracy theories, isn't it? There are these vast engines of malice that rule the world (or are hiding the truth about the end of the world in 2012 or destroyed the Twin Towers while telling all the Jews to chuck a sickie etc.) without anyone noticing, then they all went on holiday. Or something.

    Shades of this comment from Rick Lock in our last conspiracy theory thread, really. Triggered by some truly audacious crazy. Ah conspiracists, so good for so little, but the little for which they are good (namely having a laugh) they do ever so well.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report

  • noizyboy,

    That's the thing about conspiracy theories, isn't it? There are these vast engines of malice that rule the world (or are hiding the truth about the end of the world in 2012 or destroyed the Twin Towers while telling all the Jews to chuck a sickie etc.) without anyone noticing, then they all went on holiday. Or something.

    Indeed.

    One of the popular theories behind the 'deadly' flu vaccine and related poisoning-the-people theories (chemtrails, fluoride, just about any non-organic food, artificial sweeteners), is that it's part of a wider depopulation plan hatched by the NWO back in 1974 (apparently an ideal world population is approximately 250m to 300m, with a ruling elite, and a few worker bods) . See, for example...

    http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/zionists-plan-for-world-depopulation/

    Now, really, if this plan was conceived in 1974, surely this the worst implemented, most unsuccessful strategy ever put into place? The world population has grown, what, by over 3bn since then?

    But try telling that to a conspiracy theorist.

    wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 171 posts Report

  • Steve Barnes,

    I stopped having any sympathy for grand conspiracies when I realised that those in control were, either, not too bright or had to try and push good ideas to those that were not too bright.
    In other words, if you cant organise a piss up in a brewery how the hell can you control a grand conspiracy?.

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel,

    ...the Golden Fang doesn't exist!
    who have I been sending those cheques to then?

    ya mean someone's put the pynch on me...

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Steve Barnes,

    ya mean someone's put the pynch on me...

    Or got your balls caught in some inherent vice perhaps?.

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report

  • philipmatthews,

    who have I been sending those cheques to then?

    It's all been a W.A.S.T.E

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2007 • 656 posts Report

  • Rich of Observationz,

    wanting to enter Parliament is a sign that you're not entirely sane

    Yeah, but not as bad as wanting to marry into the British Royal Family..

    Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report

  • ScottY,

    What astonishes me about the Illuminati is how they control everything except Internet.

    No, They control that too. All the stuff on the internet is what They want you to see.

    Wake up you sheeple!

    West • Since Feb 2009 • 794 posts Report

  • B Jones,

    All the stuff on the internet looks crazy because it's written to discredit the conspiracy theorist by associating them with paranoid nutcases. Or so I hear.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report

  • andrew llewellyn,

    but I do not know their Fax number.
    Probably has some 666s in it.

    Just send it to the Templars & have them pass it on.

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Ah conspiracists, so good for so little, but the little for which they are good (namely having a laugh) they do ever so well.

    Up to a point, Lord Copper. :) But I think we can all agree that the joke palls pretty damn quickly when paranoid dingbats are, quite literally putting lives at risk.

    I've just finished Ben Goldacre's book, and he puts it better than I can. He's written a lot about the deficiencies of "Big Pharma", the excremental quality of science/medical journalism in the British media, and the utter failure of regulatory agencies, in his opinion to properly protect consumers from snake oil merchants. Goldacre is no corporate shill or government arse-kisser by any stretch of the imagination.

    But good luck addressing -- let alone dealing with -- those complicated issues when (for example) the "vaccination is a corporate/government plot to get rich while poisoning your children with mercury and give them autism" crowd are sucking all the oxygen out of the room. Meanwhile, actual scientists have to waste time, energy and precious resources wading through bullshit rather than doing useful work. And someone, a mother who's just read a completely fact-free story in The Sun won't immunize her children on completely irrational, ill-informed grounds.

    As Godacre says he's no supporter of forced immunization, but those who don't should be making their decisions on the basis of fact not fiction. Especially when they're doing so on behalf of children who are in no position to decide for themselves.

    And back OT-ish, its impossible not to laugh at Glenn Beck. But don't you want to cry at how the "Comrade Adolf Obama wants to kill Granny" nutbars have pretty successfully de-railed any sensible debate about a public policy matter that is going to literally affect the lives of tens of millions of Americans? That's where Beck and his ilk stop being funny.

    There's also the element of being tarred with the same brush. Obama's plan is far from flawless, but who would read any kind of critique from the right without seeing some wide-eyed nutter at a Town Hall meeting holding up a "Hitlerized" poster of the President?

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel,

    W.A.S.T.E.

    no I'm pretty sure it was a Thurn und Taxis stamp I used... Silent Tristero's Empire will have to wait...

    inherent vice

    screwed and crushed again...

    still when yer working to immanentize the eschaton
    the best place to hide anything is out in the open...

    yrs
    Malaclypse the younger
    Discordian

    ps we are all agreed the Cthulu exists though, right?

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Caleb D'Anvers,

    Back when I used to work at Auckland City Libraries, a sweet old lady would occasionally come in. She'd be invariably friendly and engaging and would start what initially seemed like any other local history reference interview. Then she'd segue smoothly to Tainui's involvement in the interstellar white slave trade, little greys, and secret alien mining bases on the moon. Had it all figured out, she did.

    London SE16 • Since Mar 2008 • 482 posts Report

  • andin,

    I remember hearing variations on this stuff from potheads I used to flat with in Wellington 20 years ago

    Yes 1989 I remember it well, Deepak was lusting after Hollywood starlets, my sex had come from Mars apparently, and I thought the drug de riguer was pillish or powdery. Pot was passe.

    Shit, Robert Anton Wilson what are we reliving the 60's?
    Oh, If only.

    raglan • Since Mar 2007 • 1891 posts Report

  • philipmatthews,

    Pot was passe.

    Should have been more specific: this was Aro Valley.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2007 • 656 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel,

    Aro Valley

    Boston Tce?

    the drug de rigueur

    but what will be the "drug de rugger"?

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

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