I don't know, but are you talking about everything he says is like this? Or just some of it?
The Obama Deception
- Thread starter taffboy gwyrdd
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I don't know, but are you talking about everything he says is like this? Or just some of it?
It's a serious question if you feel like answering it. But why do you think the shit is selliing?
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
The thing with Jones is how he gets lumped in with serious investigative journalism, and how his stuff is actually nothing of the sort.
If you look at his 'work' - most, if not all his information is based on secondary sources. Pilger and co use primary source evidence - they look for, and find, the dirty little documents, the memos, the minutes of meetings - and build not just a story, but an actual body of evidence around their central argument. Jones doesn't work like this - he'll take maybe a single primary source, then buttress it with lots of secondary sources (i.e. people who've read the OS and commented on it somewhere), but then wildly extrapolate on What It All Means (deliberate caps).
The reason he's more successful than Pilger is for this simple reason - the What It All Means bit is important, because it brings you back into an ongoing narrative he's already generated (for while Pilger and suchlike have a wider canvas it's not a single strand that carries from work to work); plus, his analysis and research, by being simple and easy to put together, is simple and easy to understand. He uses good guy/bad guy frameworks to criticise issues and events that are complex, whereas people like Pilger require a level of critical thinking on the part of their readers.
Come on fela - go back and read a Pilger book, then read/listen to Jones; the difference will be stark and obvious.
If you look at his 'work' - most, if not all his information is based on secondary sources. Pilger and co use primary source evidence - they look for, and find, the dirty little documents, the memos, the minutes of meetings - and build not just a story, but an actual body of evidence around their central argument. Jones doesn't work like this - he'll take maybe a single primary source, then buttress it with lots of secondary sources (i.e. people who've read the OS and commented on it somewhere), but then wildly extrapolate on What It All Means (deliberate caps).
The reason he's more successful than Pilger is for this simple reason - the What It All Means bit is important, because it brings you back into an ongoing narrative he's already generated (for while Pilger and suchlike have a wider canvas it's not a single strand that carries from work to work); plus, his analysis and research, by being simple and easy to put together, is simple and easy to understand. He uses good guy/bad guy frameworks to criticise issues and events that are complex, whereas people like Pilger require a level of critical thinking on the part of their readers.
Come on fela - go back and read a Pilger book, then read/listen to Jones; the difference will be stark and obvious.
There's nothing in that post for me to disagree with. All agreed from my knowledge of them.
But, my question has been aimed at uncovering whether the pilger 'camp' effect a greater impact on possible change away from lies and wars compared to the jones kind. If more people are listening to and hearing about crimes being committed by their leaders, is this not of greater benefit than pilger and so on preaching to the converted?
It was fairly interesting to have seen/heard Alex Jones stuff, then reading the Black Swan by NN Taleb.
If you then go back to Jones work having read that book it certainly puts a different slant on how you evaluate it.
I agree with Kyser though. From what I have heard of Alex Jones, he does read some of the primary sources to be fair, but then packs the "opinions" of folks like David Icke and Jack McLamb around it, which utterly destroy any credibility his theories may have.
Also if you actually take time to look at his theories you'll notice it is a total mess. He tries to run everything together into one single narrative, even if something does not actually fit. He'll squeeze it in there and ignore the paradoxes, skipping over them as part of the conspiracy.
If you then go back to Jones work having read that book it certainly puts a different slant on how you evaluate it.
I agree with Kyser though. From what I have heard of Alex Jones, he does read some of the primary sources to be fair, but then packs the "opinions" of folks like David Icke and Jack McLamb around it, which utterly destroy any credibility his theories may have.
Also if you actually take time to look at his theories you'll notice it is a total mess. He tries to run everything together into one single narrative, even if something does not actually fit. He'll squeeze it in there and ignore the paradoxes, skipping over them as part of the conspiracy.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Not really, because the analysis they provide is so flawed it's incapable of being used in constructing a wider narrative. By picking up on the more 'far out' range of things, there's a tendency to miss boring, prosaic or mundane stuff that's actually important, in favour of 'sexy' stories. Indeed, the failings of so-called 'alternative media' are often exactly the same as those they accuse the mainstream of doing - pursuing political agendas at the expense of good journalism; pandering to their readerships/viewer prejudices and never challenging them (Pilger, IMO, always challenges his readers assumptions, even on 'banker' issues).
Don't forget, like 'alternative' medicine, the 'alternative' media scene (well, the Jones/Icke part of it) supports these guys lives - they do lecture tours, regularly publish books which are all very samey (and again here you find the lack of actual primary research). There's a lot of money involved - much as these people like to portray themselves as 'truth seekers' they're just as much a part of the machine they claim to be fighting against.
So to answer your question, no. If anything, people like Jones getting centre stage at the expense of more considered and well researched journalism is actually a danger to those seeking real change, because they just muddy the waters.
Don't forget, like 'alternative' medicine, the 'alternative' media scene (well, the Jones/Icke part of it) supports these guys lives - they do lecture tours, regularly publish books which are all very samey (and again here you find the lack of actual primary research). There's a lot of money involved - much as these people like to portray themselves as 'truth seekers' they're just as much a part of the machine they claim to be fighting against.
So to answer your question, no. If anything, people like Jones getting centre stage at the expense of more considered and well researched journalism is actually a danger to those seeking real change, because they just muddy the waters.
But pilger and his peers came along well before jones and his peers. The latter are very much an outcome of the internet, which came along in an era where mainstream journalism such as pilger's was becoming rare. Pilger and chomsky and fisk and many others had years to get their message out before jones started giving theirs.
Pilger comes second to no-one in my opinion when it comes to his profession, but how much impact has he had on the consciousness of the mass of population compared to say michael moore? And don't forget, jones is speaking to americans, and he has no doubt judged his audience.
Since pilger and his peers have made very little difference, if any at all, to the culture of warmongering and lies and greed displayed by the government and business elites of the US and to an extent the UK, and they've had years beforehand to do this, then i cannot see how the new, internet-savvy lot are managing to muddy the waters.
Is is easy to summarise briefly how reading nn taleb's work impacts on your viewing of jones' work? I'm interested to know the link.
And, in what way does jones citing icke 'utterly destroy' his credibility? Is icke's work totally devoid of credibility? Is his main message totally devoid of credibility? I don't know really what to make of the man, but the outcomes he talks about are unarguable. What he describes going on in the world do in fact go on.
I've got up to part 9 out of 12 so far.
here are my notes:
deep croacky voice-over
anglo-american empire
jefferson
lincoln
kennedy
wall street v. 'other sectors'
international banking elite
nafta & eu, currency
bilderberg group
trilateral commission
council on foreign relations affairs
bring down the republic
programme of global enslavement
baltic states ukraine georgia = fascist creeps
the federal reserve bank is a (front for a) private company
"the federal reserve is an independant agency" - greenspan
the federal reserve is beyond the law!
obama's national service youth brigades
"3 million strong environmental spy force"
these are the guys that funded napoleon lenin and stalin and hitler and mao, roosevelt and obama
the banking cartel
using engineered credit crashes to buy up the stock market and government debt and pass the bankers bailout bill
...
i need a break!
here are my notes:
deep croacky voice-over
anglo-american empire
jefferson
lincoln
kennedy
wall street v. 'other sectors'
international banking elite
nafta & eu, currency
bilderberg group
trilateral commission
council on foreign relations affairs
bring down the republic
programme of global enslavement
baltic states ukraine georgia = fascist creeps
the federal reserve bank is a (front for a) private company
"the federal reserve is an independant agency" - greenspan
the federal reserve is beyond the law!
obama's national service youth brigades
"3 million strong environmental spy force"
these are the guys that funded napoleon lenin and stalin and hitler and mao, roosevelt and obama
the banking cartel
using engineered credit crashes to buy up the stock market and government debt and pass the bankers bailout bill
...
i need a break!
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Do some background research FF - Jones was around peddling his toss long before the internet - all the new medium did was give him the opportunity to broaden the reach of his message and ape existing styles of TV. I'd sugest going and having a look at the books, CDs, lecture tours etc that Jones and his regular contributors do, how long they've been doing it etc.
Why bring up Moore? While he's more of a polemicist than Pilger, and certainly is freer and looser with his material than Pilger & Co, he still does proper research and puts his arguments together block by block, as opposed to adding 2+2 and getting 7 the way Jones does.
Icke and credibility - the man either believes that there is a ruling elite who are in fact giant lizards, or that's a clumsy metaphor for Judasim. Either way, the man is a fool.
In my work kyser, i'm more interested in people's reactions to other people and other people's message/s.
And if jones has broadened his reach to other people, then it would suggest plenty of people are ready for that message. While here on urban i see some pretty strong negative reactions the moment certain names pop up, eg jones, icke, and so on. These reactions are automatic, and most emphatic in their judgment. It says more to me about the person reacting than the person they're reacting to.
While i've not really heard much or read much by jones (i have spent more time investigating icke and what he says/writes), i find it interesting observing how people react.
And those reactions often seem closely linked to the medium they're reacting to.
Jones may be this or that, but unless people have done what you've suggested i do, and that is research and spend plenty of time taking in the message of the likes of jones, then i find it difficult to see how one can have such strong condemnation of people. It is succumbing to the negative judgment of others, which in turn reflects that that negativity is in the judger.
I somehow doubt those protesting loudly against jones (keeping him as the example) have done anywhere near enough research to be accurate in their judgments.
Incidentally, i'm talking about people in general, not you yourself in particular.
I brought up moore because he is in the category that gets his message out to the mainstream, mass population, like jones, unlike pilger or chomsky.
If we want to curtail the war crimes and lies our leaders involve themselves in, i believe the solution lies with the great mass of population (not the few who can be bothered to debate politics and philosophy; the academics), and therefore whatever message is conveyed, it needs to reach new ears and eyes, not just preach to the converted.
Now, of all the hundreds and thousands of words and talks icke has produced, he is most famously associated here on urban with his lizards claim, and what he terms the 'illuminati'. Anything else the man says is just the mutterings of a fool therefore. Interestingly i'd hazard a strong bet that most people hardly have even bothered listening to him or reading him. To write off a man for one thing they say, and therefore never to listen to anything else he says, and to consign him to being a 'fool', is not intelligent action in my view.
The moment you totally write someone off, you have closed your mind, your ears, your eyes. Hardly conducive to learning is it!
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
The thing is, when Karl Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto 'The history of the world is the history of class struggle', he neatly encapsulated a truth about the world in a single sentence; there is so much in that one sentence that is essentially right, and it's a sentence that one can deconstruct the argument, evidence etc and it links to Marx' other work.
Icke's comments about the Illuminati and lizards bear a similar weight upon his work - as concepts they are taken as the same truth as Marxists take the line about class struggle. Like Marx, everything Icke says is framed in this basic concept - this is why I don't need to massively extend my reading of Icke (FWIW, I've read enough of his stuff to realise that he basically repeats the same ideas, suitably adjusted to make his readers think he's saying something new); I know what he's going to say, and it's basically bollocks.
editor
hiraethified
I'd say it's far more "intelligent" to seek out credible and authoritative sources rather than waste time wading through the self-promoting and bizarre scattergun wafflings of someone who clearly has serious mental issues concerning the Queen Mum and lizards.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
Learning is about recognizing credible sources, who base their claims on a wide array of reliable data and information.
As opposed to relying on a source that takes one tiny piece of information and weaves fantasy out of it.
Yes, there are things that people like Icke/Jones say that is pretty self-evidently true.
But why listen to the insanity that they make out of it when somebody else - just as one example, David Harvey - says it much better?
But of course, this is all just nonsense to you. Somebody is criticizing your sacred cows, so they must have closed minds ETC ETC ETC.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
So you'll be reading Mein Kampf with an open mind then, fela? I've never read it, but knowing who wrote it is more than enough to realise I don't need to.
xes
F.O.A.D
IMO anyone who actually gets to power, is just as corrupted as can be. Otherwise they'd not have been chosen for the job. It's simple, either you're on board with "their" plans, or you're not on board at all.
NWO for the win. And with the incoming Euro police, it's just a matter of time before all of this conspiracy "bullshit" is a reality. You can only close yourself off to it for so long. Unless of course, you're doped up to fuck and back on fluoride, rendering you twattless to the plans of the elite. Cos rat poison's good fod you, dontchya know.
NWO for the win. And with the incoming Euro police, it's just a matter of time before all of this conspiracy "bullshit" is a reality. You can only close yourself off to it for so long. Unless of course, you're doped up to fuck and back on fluoride, rendering you twattless to the plans of the elite. Cos rat poison's good fod you, dontchya know.
The thing that I cannot f-ing stand about most of this type of media is that there is no sollution given. "Look, Mr X wants to do </insert/> and this is what you can do about it.
I have actually listened to Alex Jone's radio station for a few hours one night and came to the conclusion that it it good for the fear business. Not once was there a suggestion that there is an alternative to the way "they" want it, or that there is anything one can do to prevent it.
* polluting our water.
* floridation of water causes cancer, rabies and pregnancy
* they want microchips in everything
* add your item here.
Well, OK. You have prevented your case. Is there nothing that can be done to raise debate or general awareness of the above? Moan once and you have made a point, moan three times and your are British. But moan any more than that and you are a victim.
I have actually listened to Alex Jone's radio station for a few hours one night and came to the conclusion that it it good for the fear business. Not once was there a suggestion that there is an alternative to the way "they" want it, or that there is anything one can do to prevent it.
* polluting our water.
* floridation of water causes cancer, rabies and pregnancy
* they want microchips in everything
* add your item here.
Well, OK. You have prevented your case. Is there nothing that can be done to raise debate or general awareness of the above? Moan once and you have made a point, moan three times and your are British. But moan any more than that and you are a victim.
xes
F.O.A.D
But what can be done (presuming these conspiracies are true? It would take some sort of global awakening, and whilst there's rat poison in the water, that wont happen. It needs everyone to stand up and kick them power hungry fuckos out of power, and starte a fresh. Which is too big a task for most people to even begin to comprehend, thusly, it won't happen. The powers that be will get their way, and only in the profesised time, will peace come back to earth. (and it is profesised, as is the crushing/collapse of those in charge)
Yes, I'm crazy. So?Bite me.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
Alex Jones and David Icke only breed hopelessness.
xes
F.O.A.D
This si true. Lots of doom mongers around these days. But there's alot of doom to monger.
We need to think of the future we want to live in, and start living it now. Become that, which you wish to be.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
Yeh, lets just all hope for some like, 'global awakening'.
In the meantime, buy my books.
In the meantime, buy my books.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
Basically Talebs book discusses the issues of randomness in life, and how as humans we are essentially poor at spotting the big things about to happen, but like to kid ourselves we can predict the future with fancy mathematical models and narratives (see CNBC for a good exmaple of this).
So whilst probability can say there is a 1 in a million chance that x could happen, pobability can't say 100%, tomorrow will be that day when x happens or next Tuesday will be that day when the x happens. It can only tell us the chances of it happening, however we can not predict the future with it (because a variable totally out of view to us may come along and prevent x from ever happening e.g. there is a 8 in 10 chance I will make a pot of coffee tomorrow morning, however a plane crashes into my house and kills me, what he terms a "Black Swan").
Using this idea Taleb basically suggests that humans therefore look back over history and take large events that where totally off the radar to society and try to fit them into a narrative of what was going on at the time, when we have incomplete data or are missing chunks and don't know. Alex Jones is an example of somebody who has a theory and then retrofits data after it happens into that theory to create a larger narrative. He then uses this data to predict the future. If you listen to his radio show they are constantly talking about how the stock market or the price of gold is going to do this or that. Based upon what though? A belief system that has incomplete data and projects future forcasts based upon this? A belief system that has huge flaws in it, because data that has nothing to do with it has been crammed into the model, to make it more interesting to his readers/listeners/viewers.
Because the events that happen (from off the radar) are sometimes so big and unexpected e.g. Mumbai shootings, Jones etc. have to fit them into their story line of how the world operates to make sense of it. Therefore they will take secondry sources and such as use these as evidence that X was involved with Y and X and Y where involved with Z.
As is often the case, X may have been invovled, but Y had nothing to do with it, and through random chance happened to be there at the same time. Z may happen to know Y and X and be cordial with them through a shared business sphere, but by no means shares their views on topics that X and Y discusses.
The danger of building these stories is that you miss a lot of what is really happening that can have very serious consequences.
xes
F.O.A.D
good on you, the less bad things in ones life, the better.
and ps, the awakening has already started
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
xes
F.O.A.D
oh well, we're all different. I try and cut all bad thoughts and news sources from my life. It's why I very rarely watch bbc and or sky news. Cos it's all just bad news after bad news. (purposly like that IMO, to make the world "live" in fear and confusion)
but...I'm a alost cause, you go save yerself innit
That's my point. This information is spun out so that you get despressed and think "let mr big --k me up the arse. He's all too big and powerfull..."
Besides. It's (mainly) a one-way mode of communication. You just sit there and consume this shit. "go and do your research". HOW? Is there a book called "ruling the planet for dummies"? Or a newspaper called "Jewish Elite: Issue one free to Jewish people that have owned banks for 600 years. Sports pages and crosswords"?
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
I don't watch that much news myself any more.
I remember a time when I watched 24 hour news. And then I made myself stop. I used the phrase 'weaning myself off the 24 hour news drip' to myself in my head.
What a dick.
I have no time for that, either. We all know how mainstream news reporting works.
I remember a time when I watched 24 hour news. And then I made myself stop. I used the phrase 'weaning myself off the 24 hour news drip' to myself in my head.
What a dick.
I have no time for that, either. We all know how mainstream news reporting works.
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