why do i hate that artist thing that people keep posting on my facebook so much? why am i such a jerk?

i mean, i saw that post about FACEBOOK SILENCES PROMINENT POLITICAL CRITICS, and then the list turns out to be all the lizard people bilderburger chemtrails whackadoos

at first i was like... and then i lol'd

i think you guys are underestimating how easily and widely distributed fringe stuff was in the pre-'net days. behold a pale horse was a bestseller

― max, Wednesday, January 16, 2013 2:55 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

As someone actually alive back then, I have to disagree.

i think you guys are underestimating how easily and widely distributed fringe stuff was in the pre-'net days. behold a pale horse was a bestseller

― max, Wednesday, January 16, 2013 2:55 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

max otm

― mh, Wednesday, January 16, 2013 2:55 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDx1GLqvBO8

hey look this copy of loose change has 3m views

we have a delightful thread on the satanic ritual abuse conspiracies of the 1980s that people were sure reached into the government. pretty much every evangelical person, or middle-american person who was in contact with such, heard all about these illicit child abuse satanists

FACEBOOK SILENCES PROMINENT POLITICAL CRITICS

except this one

just my own observations obvs not quantified, and speaking as someone who did keep an eye on conspiracy stuff before the net blew up, theres no comparison as far as the popularity of this stuff before and after

underestimating the past doesn't necessarily mean overestimating the present

the prob is just how anecdotal everyones pre-net experience is

can you imagine how annoying facebook would be if 'jfk' came out now? ppl forget how many folks were taking that movie at face value. mainstream film critics were all 'he's onto something here'

we have a delightful thread on the satanic ritual abuse conspiracies of the 1980s that people were sure reached into the government. pretty much every evangelical person, or middle-american person who was in contact with such, heard all about these illicit child abuse satanists

― mh, Wednesday, January 16, 2013 3:03 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is pretty different as it was msm driven and actually prosecuted by legitimate government agencies

'lyndon johnson...quite the murky figure indeed'

fwiw I can't find any numbers on Behold a Pale Horse sales except claims that it was the "#1 undergroud bestseller of all time" whatever that means. In any case, you can't compare a book that you have to go out and buy to an instantly and infinitely shareable free video.

I think there was a lot more weird shit then that was accepted as matter-of-course and not necessarily seen as conspiratorial. Or just seen as weird and "makes you think" material rather than in-depth analysis

does anyone else remember chain faxes? so much weird shit.

this is pretty different as it was msm driven and actually prosecuted by legitimate government agencies

partly due to an environment were bad information spreads unchecked!

where

this is pretty different as it was msm driven and actually prosecuted by legitimate government agencies

― lag∞n, Wednesday, January 16, 2013 2:06 PM (40 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

true, not sure if that makes it worse or not!

underestimating the past doesn't necessarily mean overestimating the present

― mh, Wednesday, January 16, 2013 3:06 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

*scratches chin, thinks abt it*

I think alot of it has to do with the Race To Be The Smartest that the internet in general sort of encourages. We have wikipedia and all these things and if something happens in the field of astrophysics, EVERYONE has to post their opinion. Then it's all about demeaning others as dumber than you because the arguments are weak, they invoke Hitler, they use bad language, etc, etc. There is a race to be the biggest know it all and it shows up in all sorts of ways, from the obvious to the subtle.

This kind of conspiracy stuff not only fulfills a political motive but it also fulfills an emotional need to be more clever than the simpletons who believe everything the government tells them.

The other night a guy called into Pacifica radio about the "reptilians" and I got so excited I pumped my fist

adam otm in a lot of cases, imo. plus i think lots of bored people want to latch onto some kind of IRL thrilling experience, feel like they're part of something bigger.

i'd imagine radio was the conspiracy go-to before the internet. space ghost coast to coast's been around for a while. i remember when i was a kid i got caught up in a doomsday cult i heard on the radio because i was like, 7, and was woefully unsupervised. internet's probably just magnified this shit like everything else.

PUBLIC ACCESS TELEVISION

Yeah I mean, its not like alternative bookstores didn't exist before the internet and they weren't filled with R.A. Wilson and William Cooper and Stanton Friedman books and the like.

But the whole underground network of newsletters and trading of Xth-generation video taped documentaries is def. gone and been somewhat mainstreamed by blogs and youtube.

"Everything in this book is a Lie but Totally True" or whatever it was actually titled was pretty big everywhere too. I know Behold a Pale Horse was in most all bookstores but I wasn't interested in it because I was a 90s pre-teen and it wasn't about aliens.

this is not unrelated to what goole is saying about quantifying it, like its hard to tell exactly how big the audience for this content is. if 8.5 million people have 'viewed' the sandy hook truth video, how many of them believe it, how many are gawking, how many are getting mad

― max, Wednesday, January 16, 2013 3:00 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

good brand reinforcement here max

there's a pretty awesome conspiracy guy on WFMU who I used to listen to a lot -- he's more of the secret reich/bilderburgs/bush-saud/military-financial-governmental-industrial complex type and his theories were actually so complex I could never even tell if they made any sense. He has recorded like hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of shows were he just lectures on all of these different connections, and if you listen long enough they create this funny exciting tingly feeling like you're finally going to understand everything.

I have to disagree.

I am with Hurting 2 on that one. Back in the day there were a great many fringe ideas and theories that floated about. Books did help to spread these ideas, but the books were few and could only be written and published at a relatively slow pace. Therefore the greatest single vehicle for disemination of these ideas were conversations between believers and their prospective converts.

Usually these conversations were disjointed affairs and even if the proselytizer was especially coherent and the pigeon was especially malleable, the chances for reinforcing the conversion and bringing a new believer into the fold were few. The feedback model was weak. After a long bull session with a believer, you might hold their ideas somewhere at the back of your mind for a time, but newer, stronger impressions eventually washed them away.

The internet allows a cult-like exclusivity of focus to form and be sustained more easily than in the past. Proselytizing can now be self-initiated more easily. A book could be hard to track down, but the web is flattened by search engines and instantly available.

hurting, that's dave emory. i think his schtick was that there was a hidden 4th reich that's been slowly building up to take over the world.

Also the Roswell Alien Autopsy was a FOX prime-time special! I think this stuff has always been popular, and only a small minority of people are actually intellectually invested in "weird stuff" or whatever you want to call that whole nexus between the paranormal, occult, and conspiracy topics.

fwiw I can't find any numbers on Behold a Pale Horse sales except claims that it was the "#1 undergroud bestseller of all time" whatever that means. In any case, you can't compare a book that you have to go out and buy to an instantly and infinitely shareable free video.

― space phwoar (Hurting 2), Wednesday, January 16, 2013 3:07 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well, right, exactly. web numbers are soft, difficult to figure out. i think the web changes the dynamic on this stuff but i wouldnt take it for granted that conspiracism is more mainstream than it used to be. father coughlin had millions of listeners. the anti-masonic party got 8% of the national vote.

hurting, that's dave emory. i think his schtick was that there was a hidden 4th reich that's been slowly building up to take over the world.

― Spectrum, Wednesday, January 16, 2013 3:15 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, dave emory. I loved his show in a weird way -- it was so plodding yet forceful, so monotonous, so airtight.

and I meant "was" -- don't think he's on fmu anymore

& the other thing about comparing pre-net to post-net is that there are so many more opportunities to learn that you have friends who believe in 9/11 truth or whatever. in 95 there was no facebook where you could see that someone you went to high school with was recommending behold a pale horse.

Yeah Dave Emory's awesome.

I think part of the change now is that people are publicly posting these things in social media as statements of purpose or being given legitimate soapboxes, whereas it was just kooky stuff that you may or may not buy into but enjoy listening to in the past.

full disclosure, I spent probably an hour listening to some crazy rapture-obsessed Christian AM station at the end of last year.

This tradition goes all the way back to radio announcers reading Francis E. Dec manifestos over the air for a good laugh. People love to hear about crazy shit, fringe shit has always had its 15 minutes but I don't think there's really an epidemic of people becoming "true believers" or whatever.

I think part of the change now is that people are publicly posting these things in social media as statements of purpose or being given legitimate soapboxes, whereas it was just kooky stuff that you may or may not buy into but enjoy listening to in the past.

I disagree! I don't think any of these people's soapboxes are seen to be legitimate. That's why Alex Jones's ad revenue is from mineral supplements sold only on the internet and not real products. Once I hear a Dannon yogurt ad or JC Penny's ad on one of these people's shows I might think differently.

full disclosure, I spent probably an hour listening to some crazy rapture-obsessed Christian AM station at the end of last year.

I do this constantly tbh. Christian AM stations are hypnotic to me.

yes

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9edQEzp7zGA/hqdefault.jpg

Conspiracy A Go-Go

It's hard to tell if Linklater is amused by conspiracy theorists or genuinely impressed by them

As far as I recall, the masons were a very large and important organization in the period of the anti-masonic party. Opposition to them as a unifying issue obv. cloaked a whole range of constituencies and issues, but an understanding of their importance in that period (and more generally what they represented and were tied to vis a vis the political landscape) was hardly a conspiracy theory.

i'm also a bit worried about connecting random-ass conspiracy theories to father coughlin who was basically a foam-flecked anti-semite and eventual fascist.

re: Linklater, and I guess a grain of salt because this is Jones's take on things, but...

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2006/120706moviedirector.htm
"Linklater said he had handed out Alex Jones DVD's on set which carried claims that 9/11 was perpetrated by the US government to erect a police state to Bruce Willis, one of the stars of Linklater's upcoming Fast Food Nation.

"He said it put him in such a head space that he will be quiet on issues of national policy."

Linklater said Willis had told him in an e mail that the videos had changed his entire political paradigm.

"Bruce is a pretty thinking radical kind of guy," said Linklater."

i read that as the goverment erecting a police state in honor of bruce willis. which i gotta admit is awesome and totally cool with me.

hofstader devotes several paragraphs to the anti-masonic movement in 'paranoid style.' i think its a mistake to think of anti-masonry as 'acceptable' in a way that the conspiracies were talking about arent -- opposition to the fed as a unifying issue obv. cloaks a whole range of constituencies and issues, but an understanding of its importance now (and more generally what it represents and is tied to vis a vis the political landscape) is hardly a conspiracy theory

exactly. end the fed ppl might be wrong about a lot of things, but they're not necessarily conspiracy theorists. ditto a probably the vast majority of the anti-masonic party.

also bear in mind that he masons were an organization that were known to have lots of important members, and lots of things that were deliberately esoteric and secret. so that's sort of different than either imaginary secret organizations or very well known public organizations that don't make a big deal about having special secrets only known to the initiated.

masonry also had a huge role and well known role in french politics in particular, but european politics in general over this period.

maybe we could try to draw some analogy between anti-masons and e.g. john birchers, but remember that the birchers (wrongly) thought eisenhower was a communist agent, but he anti-masons (correctly) recognized that jackson was a mason.

jackie mason, think about it

As a secret society, Masonry was considered to be a standing conspiracy against republican government. It was held to be particularly liable to treason—for example, Aaron Burr’s famous conspiracy was alleged to have been conducted by Masons. Masonry was accused of constituting a separate system of loyalty, a separate imperium within the framework of federal and state governments, which was inconsistent with loyalty to them. Quite plausibly it was argued that the Masons had set up a jurisdiction of their own, with their own obligations and punishments, liable to enforcement even by the penalty of death. So basic was the conflict felt to be between secrecy and democracy that other, more innocent societies such as Phi Beta Kappa came under attack.

Since Masons were pledged to come to each other’s aid under circumstances of distress, and to extend fraternal indulgence at all times, is was held that the order nullified the enforcement of regular law. Masonic constables, sheriffs, juries, and judges must all be in league with Masonic criminals and fugitives. The press was believed to have been so “muzzled” by Masonic editors and proprietors that news of Masonic malfeasance could be suppressed. At a moment when almost every alleged citadel of privilege in America was under democratic assault, Masonry was attacked as a fraternity of the privileged, closing business opportunities and nearly monopolizing political offices.

Certain elements of truth and reality there may have been in these views of Masonry. What must be emphasized here, however, is the apocalyptic and absolutistic framework in which this hostility was commonly expressed. Anti-Masons were not content simply to say that secret societies were rather a bad idea. The author of the standard exposition of anti-Masonry declared that Freemasonry was “not only the most abominable but also the most dangerous institution that ever was imposed on man.…It may truly be said to be hell’s master piece.”

that sounds p nuts to me!

& id lump audit-the-fed/end-the-fed types in with conspiracy theorists. at least, id argue that the line separating yr standard ron paul types from yr william cooper amero types isnt very thick, and there are a lot of people who straddle it. or maybe more to the point they cross it -- for a lot of people "belief," especially of this kind, is circumstantial. (and to your point re: anti-masons, sometimes belief in, say, 9/11 "truth" or obamas kenyan citizenship is a kind of tribal affiliation or stand-in for a series of political belief.) posting a video to facebook, or watching it, isnt necessarily evidence of an abiding belief in its content.

something something mumble hofstader milquetoast liberal elitist & what did he say about the populists even, can he tell the difference between incendiary rhetoric and actual held beliefs, etc. mumble mumble brushes, grain of history, presentism blah.

I dunno why I'm hung up on the anti-masons. I suppose because there's a prejudice that if you're interested in the role of masons in history (in the periods where they *did* have a real role) you're A) likely to get tarred a conspiracy nut if you're not careful, and B) going to run into lots of history books that are tarred by various conspiracy nut type things, but C) if you don't spend a fair amount of time understanding the masons and other fraternal organizations of the time then you really don't understand society at the time and D) the masons were (and i guess are much much less so now) a pretty weird strange bunch (but then everything 150 + years ago was actually really weird) and finally E) so an approach that looks at anti-masonry as something other than actually about masons really helps to just airbrush out all the weirdness and dissonance of history, makes it much less actually historic, and takes all the fun out of it too.

but on the other hand i totally agree that conspiracy theories and their widespread dissemination aren't really a modern/internet-era phenomenon. if anything, w/o the equiv of snopes.com (or even large-scale 20th c publishing prior), much more nonsense and rumor and suchforth was disseminated as fact. (Which is another element of the anti-masons -- you have to compare the weirdness of their beliefs with the weirdness of everyone else's beliefs at the time, not with what we would typically consider the deep un-weirdness of our own beliefs today).

Will no one help the widow's son?