Some Thoughts on Disinfo

People seem to be extra-sensitive these days, perhaps because of recent news that (GASP!) the Pentagon is hiring people to infiltrate public discussions, to the problem of disinformation within the movement. It's an issue that is important to take seriously, and the more we understand how disinfo works the better equipped we are to identify and counter it. So....

What is disinfo?

That's a loaded question, and most people who have been doing even a little research into 9/11 or other "conspiracy" type issues have probably heard of the basic forms it takes--straw men, limited hangout, agents provocateurs, etc. Enough time engaging others in the movement and most will begin to harbor suspicions about potential disinfo elements currently in the mix. This is not a bad thing, if kept in perspective. In fact, it is the first important element in countering it, that is, identifying it.

I hear a lot of people (not in the movement) say with no small amount of exasperation and even hopelessness that "so much out there is lies, how can we possibly know who's telling the truth, now that we know we can't trust our 'trusted' media icons?" or something to that effect. While I sympathize, I've also come to feel that attitudes like that represent a kind of intellectual laziness. Kind of like "You mean I have to think for MYSELF? Thinking's is hard!"

No Virginia, there is no Santa Claus, nor is there a font of truth anywhere that you can count on to sort things out for you. And not to make it worse, but it's not just the media that lie. Your friends sometimes lie to you. Your coworkers and boss lie to you. The clerk in the store lies to you. Everyone is a potential liar--that's huimanity for you. But Virginia, don't despair. God made everyone, including you, with a three pound BS detector neatly stashed inside your skull. It's not just there to process TV signals, you know. Of course you could just use it as an antenna to receive and transmit signals reflexively, but you always have the option of playing with and remixing those signals before transmitting them back out to the world. The fact that many people seem not to be doing that shouldn't eter you--sometimes it's good not to be like the other kids, V. Trust me on that one.

OK, so we know the score, and we're up against some heavyweight liars, armed only with our bundle of neurons. Now what? Well, first thing to do is of course start collecting information--it's out there. Good, bad, and yes, ugly--it's all out there for you to find. Some of it is more well hidden, some of it has been pieced together into info-product for you (for better or, usually, worse) and some of it you can weave out of the smaller components lying around. The principle of garbage in garbage out doesn't always apply, either--sometimes disinfo, when identified, provides you with great insight into the way disinfo is packaged. Since disinfo is intended usually to throw you off the track of good info, learning its design by picking it apart and analysing it can make that garbage into a valuable addition to your BS detector's repertory of BS IDs. Kind of like your Virus protection software (which is very unintelligent compared to your brain) collects definitions that need to be periodically updated so as to catch BS software in its many forms. Some virus software now uses heuristics, meaning it can try to identify malicious software that hasn't been defined for it, by analysing it and comparing it with BS it knows about. That's where we have our Nortons and McAfees beat.

So let's review a few principles of BS detection.

The truth has power over BS. A little grain of truth can make the most well-crafted BS collapse like a house of cards. Truth is the enemy of BS, and BS must, to be successful in its assigned task, be able to avoid being exposed to too much truth. This principle is the impetus behind media conglomeration into as few hands as possible. A liar must protect his BS from facts (henceforth understood to mean TRUE facts) that could spoil the whole show. Always look for signs that something is being hidden from you, and assume that what is hidden is quite possibly very important vis a vis the BS you're being offered. Then again, keep in mind that a clever liar will purposefully conceal unimportant or even bogus things to throw you off the scent of the important stuff, which may in the extreme case be "hidden in plain sight" like Poe's purloined letter, which no one coul find because they assumed it would be cleverly hiddden, when in fact it was sitting on the coffee table where no one thought to look for it.

The truth is valuable, BS is cheap. Truth is a limited resource, whereas anyone can produce a ton of BS, so of course in the marketplace of ideas the law of supply and demand is in effect. Truth is harder to come by then BS. You can learn more truth, for example, by paying for a book than by watching free corporate-sponsored television. But cost is not just measured in dollars, nor is value. Your own labor is the most valuable thing you possess. Instead of buying a single book, for example, you could spend a lot of time in a library, spending no money but working your butt off and you will be rewarded with much more truth than if you simply buy and read one book. To extend the example to our situation--you will learn very little truth about 9/11 by watching TV. You will learn more by reading this site periodically. You will learn even more if you buy some books on the subject. You will learn still more if you read this site AND others that are not directly connected to it, AND buy and read books (or go to a library, assuming their collection is ideally stocked) including books not mentioned on this or other sites, etc. Yes, it's work. But it gets worse--it's not just finding all this information and seeking it from far flung sources. Remember Virginia?

Thinking is hard. That is to say, it's harder than just looking for and absorbing information (that is never 100% perfect, or very rarely anyway.) The best students at the best colleges are almost without exception great collectors of information (since that is easily taught) but in fact rather mediocre thinkers, since that is like exercise--learning how to do it is one thing. Doing it and getting results is something totally different. Why are most young people poor thinkers? For one they have not been doing it for very long. They have not yet learned from experience how best to process information. Sure, some of that has to do with natural ability, but not nearly as much as "smart" people would like you to think. We have a tendency in America to console each other by commiserating for example about how hard math is, when most of us never really had a chance to learn it properly (yes, it's true, most teachers teach because they can't do anything else, not because they are good at teaching.) So we're led to believe that we should leave thinking to "brainy" people and be content with not being geeks, having girlfriends, social lives--all those things which are seen as the trade-off for being smarter than your peers. Well, here's a newsflash--those epople who everyone thinks are so much smarter than everyone else are, for the most part, NOT! Does someone become a chemist because they are smart, or because they were able to sit through chemistry classes? Guess what--you don't have to be samrt to do most things that people think it takes a smart person to do. You have to be disciplined. You have to sit your ass down and forsake lots of fun in order to memorize things (which we can all do) so that you can perform repetitive tasks, mostly trial and error, in a lab somewhere, and make more money than a trash collector while pretending to be smarter than them as well (which you may or may not be.)

So thinking is hard, but not in the way people think. It's hard like exercise is hard--you have to enjoy doing it. You have to do it with an eye towards results, and if you do not do it well enough, and want to derive the benefits from it, you have to try doing it differently. After a while, you become good at exercise. You do less of it for more results than those fat women who spend hours upon hours on the stairmaster and somehow never lose weight. I don't mean to be mean here--there are perfectly reasonable explanations that do not involve glands. These women are packing muscle, which weighs more than fat, onto their legs. Look at a fat person's calves sometime and look at the muscle mass there. Don't take this example to seriously--it's meant to illustrate the importance of thinking, and exercising, critically as opposed to dutifully and repetitively. So thinking is challenging, and we get out of it what we put into it, much like the seat of thinking itself--our brains. But what else is there to think about when thinking about thinking?

Dichotomies can be your friends your enemies. That is not meant to sound pretentious. There is a real significance to the number two, which is why dichotomies are so common. Democrat/Republican, for example. Chocolate/Vanilla. Black and White. What is the point? Well, dichotomies are binary, meaning they are based on two values. Another important number is 10--we use the decimal system. Once we reach ten in our counting we start back at one by adding it to ten so that we can get eleven. Why did we pick ten? Because like children, we started counting with our fingers, of which we have ten. So why is two important? Is it because we have two eyes, two hands, two testicles/ovaries, two nostrils, etc.? Who knows! Is it because, like our computers that use ones and zeroes, our neurons basically use the same ON/OFF binary system to construct thoughts? Maybe! I don't know! The point is that we have a natural tendency to think of things in terms of binary categories, when reality is not nearly so simple, even if we, at our core, are. We also fixate on ten with our top ten lists like George Carlin was quoted as saying in a thread here the other day. These reflexes can help us understand how and why we think in certain ways. They help us categorize things, but they also limit our vision sometimes, and our creativity.

A very smart person once taught me his method for encouraging creative thinking. It was to stop occasionally, especially when, for example, coming up with an idea for a story, and question oneself. So my story is about a man. What kind of man? Well, my first though was a white man. But why not a native American? And why a man, why not a woman? It means to think about how you think and actively challenge yourself to think outside of your reflex tendencies. It's not something you want to obsess over, just think about it once in a while as an exercise to keep your creativity sharp.

So what does all of this have to do with detecting BS? Well, a good liar is a creative liar. And a good lie detector has to be just as if not more creative. We can easily be misled, even by ourselves, if we are complacent--if we look for comfort and the path of least resistance. If we're more interested in making friends than with challenging our orthodoxies and those of others. If we look to fit into a group instead of having the courage to potentially alienate them. If we make the mistake of using our thinking to seek rewards, instead of thinking of thinking as its own reward.

As we awaken our fellow people to the reality that they have failed to think about, for which reason they have been easy prey for liars, let's do more than talk AT them. Let's speak WITH them, learn as we do, and help them learn. Once enough of us are similarly engaged, the principle of emergence will take over--something much greater than the sum of its parts (us) will begin to happenn. And this, my friend s and erstwhile adversaries, is what the powers that be fear the most, because it represents a revolution from within their own controlled reality, and that is one thing they, in their arrogance, never considered possible.

Onward truthers! Glory awaits... really.

You're should consider

You should consider apologizing rather than making grand speeches.

and you should consider

a hot water enema rather than making stupid comments!

____

Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero

WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force

 

What is this all about?

On the one hand you post a blog that seems very reasonable. On the other hand you reserve the right to lower the standards of thise entire community by posting very rude responses to people.

Flame wars are a sure fire way of discrediting a message board. 9/11 is a tough enough subject to broach with people. If people were to see this sort of nonsense it could give them a superficial impression that this website is populated by kids.

Cut the sanctimonious crap.

John, I don't think you appreciate the gravity of what you have done, the damage it has done to your credibility (especially as regards "how posters on a message board should properly behave"), and the justifiable anger many of us feel. When you wax all self-righteous about the impression outsiders may get of people posting here, describing you as merely a hypocrite is charitable.

Speaking of false

Speaking of false dichotomies, how about the LIHOP/MIHOP dichotomy?

Fighting for G.O.D. (Gold, Oil, and Drugs) is available now for pre-order on Amazon.

as I said, they can be your friends or your enemies

LIHOP/MIHOP is not a false dichotomy at all, because the difference is clear and important. The difference between MIHOP and LIHOP is huge, and that is LIHOP serves to preserve the racist blood libel about evil muslims having hijacked airplanes and having conceived the whole thing to boot. MIHOP makes it clear that those responsible in fact intended to deceive people into accepting the very premise that LIHOP rests on. Big difference, and feel free to plug your comic book, but be aware that there are people (like me) who will be very frank in pointing out its false racist premise.

Is Amazon also selling the Protocols of the ELders of Islam? That's one of the best books for muslim haters, just sayin'...

But since we're plugging books here, everyone should check out israel Shahak's Jewish History, Jewish Religion. It is a great exposé on Zionism AND fanatical rabbinical Judaism as exemplified in the Talmud--a text that makes the Koran seem positively progressive. Like the punishment for a Jewish man who rapes a non-Jewish woman being to kill the woman. You really could not make this stuff up!

But sure, gold, oil, and drugs are also important (I mean that) just not in a bogus LIHOP context. Damn shame that.

____

Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero

WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force

 

You equate those who point

You equate those who point to Pakistan and hijackers background with fanatics who hate all Muslims while simultaneousy blaming the Jews and impugning the entire religion.

The history of US intelligence connections to radical muslim movements is extensive. You apparently want people to ignore those connections and focus on reading a critique of radical Judaism instead. Why?

Umm, Israel?

Its influence on US foreign policy and in turn the effect of Zionism on the policies of the state of Israel and in yet another turn the effect of radical Judaism on the ideology of Zionism?

So it's okay to ignore US

So it's okay to ignore US involvement with radical Islamic groups,the evidence that US intelligence pushes radical Islam, if those facts distract people from blaming Israel?

now why on earth would the US promote radical Islam?

Is it possible that they learned something about that from, I don't know... Israel? Yeah, I think maybe! Just like Ïsraeli methods" were used in Abu Ghraib. And why US law enforcement personnel are quietly receiving training in "anti-terror" tactics from Israeli s.

This is not about Jews, this is about Americans not wanting to be anything like Israel. And as more Americans actually learn about Zionism, the ideology that embodies that troublesome little country, they will come to agree that "shared values" is just another way of saying "shit you want nothing to do with."

Learning about security from Israel is like Iraq learning democracy from the U.S.

____

Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero

WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force

 

when have I ever blamed "the Jews"?

Cite just one post where I have ever made such an absurd generalization.

I question why anybody in the truth movement would believe that the hijackings actually took place when we know every other aspect of the attacks to be false in the official account. On what evidence are people basing this assumption? I simply don't see enough evidence of anyone having hijacked anything that day for people to be going along with that story. I have never denied the possibility that someone in Pakistani intelligence may have wired money to someone named Mohammed Atta, or someone in the U.S. But there is a big difference between participating in the creation of an illusion and actually carrying out a willful massacre.

I think there is much more evidence that points to Israeli complicity in those murders, as well as more evidence implicating Larry Silverstein in complicity than that which indicates actual hijackings by Muslims occuring.

I am speaking from a historically informed viewpoint that given the Zionists'clear history of eception and blaming attacks on others we should be VERY skeptical of accusations against Muslims coming from a Neocon administration.

Are there radical Imams? Of course. Are there intolerant strains of Islam? Of course. When people point to those indisputed facts in order to support their allegations about murders being commited , with little to no credible evidence to back up their claims, I will assume that something other than facts are motivating them.

On the other hand, are there radical strains of Judaism? Yes, but you wouldn't know it from the media in AMerica. Are there radical rabbis who teach hateful things? Absolutely, but again you would never know it from the racist, biased American media.

So whereas on the one hand we have a troublesome ideology and a few isolated instances of violence that are used to inflame suspicion and hatred of Muslims, on the other you have a troublesome ideology and a massive body of injustice, killings, false flag attacks, spying, and now unexplained building collapses that get nary a peep out of American media commentators. Is it because the perps are Jewish? Nope. Is it because they are Zionist s who work hand in hand with the global elite and corporate interests that have hijacked the US government and media? Ummmmmmm... yeah, it is.

Misterguy, you are a troll. Pure and simple. Please keep posting--you are a great foil--better than a straw man!

____

Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero

WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force

 

me thinks he doth protest too much

You just seem to spend an awful lotta time claiming you AIN'T antisemitic.

You use off-color remarks like "Silverstein the Zionist Landlord" and then launch into a long diatribe about how zionism and judiasm are two different things and you are truly not ant-semitic and criticism of Israel is not anti-semitic and the dancing israeli spys, etc etc etc

sigh

And all this usually takes place on a thread that had nothing to do with Israel in the first place.

It just seems to keep coming up with you.

"It just seems to keep

"It just seems to keep coming up with you."

It keeps coming up in history. Why?

Inform yourself before you post replies you might regret later.

http://www.radioislam.org/ford/TheInternationalJew.pdf

By the way I have become an anti-semitic Jew since the definition was changed 2002!!!

I also learned that I have become one of the prime enemys of some police departments in the US!!!
Like that of the county of Los Angeles.

check this out !!!!

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h36/suzetteanne/Zionist_Police_Dog_car...

MIHOP/LIHOP

As Bob Bowman points out, if high officials had simply done *nothing*, the attacks would have failed, because Standard Operating Proceedures would have thwarted them. So which HOP is that?

And even if you insist on the distinction, Fighting for G.O.D. isn't "LIHOP" anyways, because it talks about CD, among other things.

Lastly, your insinuation that anyone who thinks some Muslims have committed terrorist acts hates Muslims is intellectually dishonest and inflamatory. Let's have a discussion, not a mud-slinging contest.

Fighting for G.O.D. (Gold, Oil, and Drugs) is available now for pre-order on Amazon.

Prove the hijackings occurred

Instead of assuming we've been told the truth about part of this fraud. I applaud you for including CD, but if its in conjunction with anything that implies that hijackings are anything more than an unsubstantiated allegation I'm going to take issue with the work, sorry.

But certainly, let's have a discussion and not sling mud, that's fine. So, what evidence do you think points to hijackings having occured, and how credible do you find it to be?

____

Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero

WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force

 

There is a slew of good

There is a slew of good information about the hijackings in Paul Thompson's timeline. The question is not whether hijackings occurred, they clearly did, the question is whether the hijackers were assisted.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_ti...

Where's the proof ?

Great stories.
Care to give me links to the websites that show the Flights where actually scheduled on 9/11/2001 ?
If those stories are all real then how is it that hijackers have been reported to have been seen alive after 9/11.
Do you have an answer for the Gate number issue for Flight 11 ?

I don't know the Gate number

I don't know the Gate number for Flight 11. I think the FBIs list of hijackers may be partially fabricated, or it could be that the hijackers used other people's identities, or it could be similar names or all three of these.

I don't care to speculate about stuff I can't know, like to what extent Operation Northwoods was a model for the attacks of 9/11. I have listened to a tape of a phone conversation between a flight attendant and Air Traffic Control.

Based on all the evidence I've seen I have to assume that the hijackings happened until something comes along that demonstrates the evidence is false.

Why did flight attendant Betty Ong call a reservations desk in

North Carolina? Why the their conversation sound absurd?

It the hijackings did occur, then why did something other than

AA-77 blow-up the Pentagon?

Please explian about how some of the

hijackers were reported to be seen alive and well after 9/11/01 inother countries ?

I didn't imply that they had.

I never said anything about the hijackers. I just said that some Muslims have committed acts of terrorism.

I don't know what happend aboard those planes on 9/11. The alleged hijackers certainly weren't behaving like radical fundamentalists. Mohammed Atta especially didn't fit the bill. I suspect that remote control was involved. But I can't prove anything about what happened on the planes.

If it makes you any happier, the dancing Israelis and Odigo warnings are also mentioned in the book.

Fighting for G.O.D. (Gold, Oil, and Drugs) is available now for pre-order on Amazon.

A very smart person once told me this quote

"Falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth and no opinions so fatally mislead us as those that are not wholly wrong." - Charles Caleb Colton

I think I understand.

Exellent blog!! We shouldn't

Exellent blog!!

We shouldn't completely disregard ppl of whom we know or suspect that they are agents because we now know that in the attempt to mislead us they also provide truthful and useful information. So the art is not so much to distinguish between the agents and the real truthers but to extract the real info out of any story presented. Even the stories of ppl of whom we know/feel are "real truthers" should undergo such extraction because we all make mistakes.
The disinfo is just as valuable as the real info because it exposes the mechanisms used by these agents.

A good example in my view is Alex Jones. He provides tons of good info but suffers from an acute form of Israel amnesia and he blatantly lies about the USS Liberty event but, I still visit his websites. I think this government wants us to either pick one silly theory (led by one of their agents) and fanatically support it or become totally confused and disillusioned with all the disinfo and simply give up the fight. But this government might be surprised when they find out how many ppl have exposed these agents for themselves, have learned the art of extraction and are now truly thinking for themselves.

Great essay dude!

Great essay dude!