Then why don’t people shut up? Maybe they thought a little bit about what was going on for themselves, and saw ample room for a different, unofficial story?
No, one Nut with a Rented Truck had one bomb, whereas 3 bombs were reported in Oklahoma. Then the bomb squad was there in a very short amount of time, and were seen carrying stuff out (unexploded devices?). Then the figures for the fertilizer bomb were tweaked over and over because they were too small to cause the damage. Eventually they tacked on so much shit to the official explanation that the whole story just stank. Funny the same company that cleaned up that mess also did the WTC.
Sort of. For me it’s like a really good book I can’t put down, except when hanging out with the friends or enjoying some really good sex. The world just doesn’t look the same to me now, though. I can see all the actors and influences in our daily lives for what they are now. It’s sad that I have to watch this slow-motion trainwreck happen to the world…
but I stopped giving a damn when I started reading these forums. Thanks Dopers!
But it also gives the CT the pleasure of believing himself to be part of a very small elite who know What’s Really Going On. The CT believes he has this incredibly important, esoteric knowledge that the average Joe on the street doesn’t know, so the CT has just gotta be really, really special: “I’m enlightened. I know What’s Really Going On. The rest of these yahoos are all blind.” It’s a lot more exciting than being an insurance salesman or a truck driver.
This sort of thing is very obvious in lots of Jack Chick tracts.
Conspiracy theories are just an extraordinarily bitter, yet potentially addictive, kind of lemonade made by those to whom life has handed lemons. Almost without exception, these people are out of touch with both themselves and the world around them, even though they may believe themselves to be in constant communication with that world.
It’s more like Plato’s cave. “Man, what the hell do all those other idiots want to stay in there for?” Other times it’s just confounding for us. “Man, your building in your city got blown up and killed your husband, and you can’t get yourself motivated to do a search for all these things that are being pointed out?”
It’s not easy being a CT, there will always be idiots out there that are insulted by our pompous attitudes, lofty ideas, liberal views and high IQ’s. We’re better than you, and we know it!
Interestingly I saw Peter Jennings special last night on the History Channel about the JFK assassination. Basically a very good debunking of the entire JFK CT. One thing one of the guys on the show struck me as related to what I said earlier up thread. The paraphrase they guys said something like ‘people want the scales to balance. Take the Nazi’s and the killing of the Jews in WWII. Here you have the most vicious crime in recent history committed by the most monsterous regime in recent history. The scales tend to balance. With the JFK assassination though you have the president of the US (and a very popular and highly loved one at that) on one scale…and a loser and misfit like Oswald on the other. The scales just don’t balance there…so people want to add a little more weight to Oswalds side to give the even more importance than just a random shooting by a wack job…but one that so deeply effected not only the US but the world’.
To a certain respect I think that this same attitude goes for the 9/11 CT’s. Look at them both in the current thread in GD on it and in past ones. There is no evidence. Yet they still believe. The story doesn’t even make logical sense…yet they still believe. Its like they not only want the data to fit their preconceptions but…well, at some fundamental level they NEED it too.
Sure, some of it is just a desire to be in the ‘we know something you don’t’ crowd, to feel important because they see and all the rest of us mopes don’t get it. But I think deep down the CT (reguardless of which one we are talking about) meets a psychological need in some people…a need for order and a need for the scales to balance.
You’re saying one truck bomb couldn’t cause that much damage? What about this big hole under the WTC in '93? What about the explosion of the SS Grandcamp in Texas City? If nearly an entire city can be levelled by seventeen million pounds of fertilizer, can’t five thousand pounds of AMFO (more than double the amount used in '93) level most of a building?
What about Dean Harvey Hicks, who tried to blow up an IRS building in California by parking a pickup with five 55-gallon drums of AMFO across the street? Experts say that bomb would have levelled the entire block had the idiot not parked in front of a fire station.
I agree with most of what’s been said so far; just posting to introduce another and different kind of CT. My first in depth exposure to CTs was Lyndon LaRouche, who was such a fascinating whacko that I spent a few weeks (many years ago) reading up on his schtick and have followed him casually ever since. What’s always fascinated me about Lyndon isn’t him. His motivation is clear. He’s a textbook case of narcissistic personality disorder. But where the hell does he get all those followers? Read some of his stuff. (Or take my word for it.) It’s incomprehensible babble speak. Yet, year after year, he maintains a (mostly revolving) cadre of bright young minds valiantly trying to spread the light. You’ve probably run into them on street corners. At one level, their motivation is straight forward: they want to be Important. But, isn’t that pretty much the motivation of most people who dabble in politics? What baffles me is how they can’t see how vacuous is Lyndon’s schtick. My theory - and I’m open to others - is that they have a hard time making sense out of the world. Everything sounds a little like the adults in the old Peanuts cartoons. So Lyndon doesn’t sound any worse than anything else. As for why his message appeals, the trick is that it doesn’t appeal widely. But if you pitch it to a thousand people, one will hear something that resonates and jump on board. Get a few of those with money (and Lyndon’s been very lucky that way) and you’re off to the races.
Maybe because the young, bright minds have the mental flexibility necessary to view the world much differently than your rigid, old mind can handle? It won’t be until our way of life is gone that you’ll be able to see what’s happening around the world, and that’s all we’re trying to preserve. At least I am, anyways. I’m scared to death of the next several years.
My personal favourite CT is David Icke … Here is a former Coventry City goalkeeper and BBC snooker commentator, who claimed to be the son of God live on the Terry Wogan show (while wearing a tourquoise shellsuit). Who now claims that the world is run by a race of reptilian lizard people. Yet still he has a large following (including alot of neo-Nazis, who apparently think his “lizard people” are actually a euphamisim for Jews) .
Go ahead and be scared if you want but don’t expect us to buy into your conspiracies on your say so. I’m close enough to our nation’s capitol that if someone set off a dirty bomb I’d likely die. Am I scared? Hell no. There’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
Should I buy into conspiracies that say our own government is trying to kill us? Hell no. There is no solid evidence for that but even if it’s true there’s not a damn thing that we can do to change it. Those people are gone and spreading rumors will not bring them back.
For the rest of us, life goes on. There have been people trying to destabalize our way of life ever since 1775 but we’re still here. Four of our Presidents were killed in office but we’re still here. Ten others were the subjects of assassination attempts. We’re still here. One governemnt building and three buildings in a financial center were destroyed, costing thousands of lives. The rest of us are still here and, for a time, our way of life was stronger than it had been in years.
That what does not kill us makes us stronger. Our way of life isn’t going anywhere unless someone drops a whole bunch of nukes on us.
Oh man. I know way too many people who think this, as well. Unfortunately, we’re going to get to see really soon just how wrong you are. You better not be whining when it starts, because I told you so!
A lot of Hollywood movies are centered around a plot of the lone hero uncovering some sinister conspiracy plot. I guess they like to style themselves in the role of the hero. Also by pretending to or believing they have information or insights that are not available to the general public, they can pretend they are somebody, somebody important, powerful and interesting - when in reality they’re just some unemployed dude watching day-time television. Or maybe they’re just in it for the pussy. There was one man in California who got girls to have sex with him on the promise that he’ll take them for a ride in a flying saucer with his alien friends.
Yeah, the Ralien dude. Fucker hit paydirt with that. But no, it’s not about being the lone hero who saves the day. You just can’t help but share your discovery with someone else. Once I found out the world was ending, everything else was just a matter of figuring out why. We got something all these ancient people never had: a glimpse at the end times. We can see by what means these powerful few old men are influencing us.
Because they knew it was coming. These past 100 years the world has exploded with people. We stomp all over the Earth, cut down all the forests and turn it into farmland, but we could only do it for so long. I hear people say stupid shit like “There’s no overpopulation, ever rode on a plane? Tons of unused land out there!”
And now we got the oceans becoming increasingly devoid of life, the dolphins and whales are starving, the plankton’s disappearing, the birds are dying out like crazy, and the shits getting hotter and hotter. We got everyone in the world cramped and hungry, separated, and ready to start clawing at each other’s throats the moment this shit really hits the fan. Should this Christian apocalypse ever take place, where do you think the Muslims would fit into it? They’re already starting to persecute Christians, and I’m pretty sure their Mahdi, or someone pretending to be him, will step forward to save them and eliminate us.
ROTFLMAO!! Like so many of your theories, there’s a fatal flaw. I was actually pretty young when I first ran into Lyndon. One of my hobbies at the time was political economics, so he was an interesting study. As for the rest, consider this. There are plenty of real things to worry about - the plight of the oceans, for example, is a real problem. Instead of wasting your time chasing conspiracies, why not get out there and do something constructive?
I know way too many people who think this, as well. Unfortunately, we’re going to get to see really soon just how wrong you are. You better not be whining when it starts, because I told you so!