Why I Don’t Believe Anything Unless It’s From Some Conspiracy Theorist On The Internet…
Ok, the heading is a complete lie and I’m sure that twenty five people have already pointed out the intrinsic absurdity…
Anyway, I’m actually the sort of person who believes absolutely everything… for about ten seconds. I mean that I’m so gullible that I double check everything I’m told – including any conspiracy theory – because I’m included to believe it. I just don’t want to be fooled again into going to the bar and asking for that cocktail that doesn’t exist but has the bar attendant giving me their phone number!
For example, I spent the early years of my life believing that Captain Cook discovered Australia before I remembered that there were already people living here. After that, I was completely cynical about every history book that I read. Sometime later I read some quote about history belonging to the victors and I understood completely.
When I say that I understood completely, of course, I can only say that because – so far – I am one of life’s victors. After all, I’m still here, I have access to a computer and the internet and I can write whatever version of history I’d like to think is true… and yes, for it to be accepted as true, I need a few more victories but at least there’s a bigger chance of my version being the one stamped “Acceptable, please read!” than all those who perished looking for a pencil and sheet of paper…
Long preamble, but simple question:
Did you ever think that it would be the supporters of a man like Donald Trump who would mount the revolution and storm the Bastille? (Ok, ok, it wasn’t the Bastille and the revolution sort of drifted away once they realised that they, like a dog chasing a car, had no idea what to do if they were successful…)
I mean, didn’t you always think that it would be the intelligentsia who’d organise the revolution? Didn’t you think it would be the ideological descendants of Abbie Hoffman and Germaine Greer and John Lennon and all those sixties figures and not those followers of a reality tv star who couldn’t even keep his show on TV?
So who gets to write the history of the past few days?
Will Donald Trump move his people to a new media empire/party and leave the powers that be floundering? Will he actually drain the swamp by splitting the conservative vote into those that have and those that only believe if they keep voting for those that have then they too will benefit from the abundance when the billionaires have decided that they have enough and it’s time to share?
Or will Rupert Murdoch reign supreme and make us all believe that somehow it was all the fault of the leftwing communist Democrats? (Irony font needed desperately!) I’ve already heard someone suggest that this was the Democrats’ equivalent of Hitler blaming the Jews and the socialists for the burning down of the Reichstag and that they’d use this as an excuse to attack certain people… like Republicans and Rupert.
Wow, this is just like watching a Sci-fi movie where you have an alien from outer space pitted against Godzilla and you don’t know whose side you’re on. Ok, you sort of feel that if they tear each other to pieces it would be a good thing, but the terrible danger is that whichever one is left standing, then we’ll have a whole new world and we’re not sure that we’ll like it.
It’s sort of like when Craig Kelly speaks and Scott Morrison says that we have free speech so I can’t disagree with him because we have free speech and I certainly can’t say that he’s an embarrassment to the party because I’m the PM and we can’t tell you our views on anything apart from our right to holiday.
Gee, this clip didn’t age well because the revolution was televised!
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27 comments
Login here Register hereGood chuckle. According to Nancy MacLean (‘Democracy in Chains’), possibly Jane Mayer too, Republican voters are a broad and sometimes contradictory coalition of conservatives, anti-abortion fanatics, Catholics, Evangelicals, rural types, ‘white working class’ and of course the crazed white nationalists or alt right; the latter IMO acting as the praetorian guard of Christian nativist conservatism.
All these disparate groups have been catered to, in forming a coalition of votes allowing the GOP power then ability to implement bad and/or avoid good policy; supported by Koch and fellow libertarians, in fossil fuel sector especially. Radical right libertarians know full well that running publicly as libertarians with their socio-economic policies would attract less than 5% of the vote.
Now we have arrived at the point in the US (LNP/IPA and NewsCorp would love same in Oz) where to be a good citizen you have to be a noisy evangelical god botherer, white nationalist or believe in consipracy theories; preferably all three to preclude any rational thinking or analysis, let alone science or expertise.
Hope and change was a scam, draining the swamp was impossible. Its fucked. move along nothing to see here.
thats just self serving dumb Andrew. Trump was first elected because he got more women voting for him than wanted to vote for Killary. Women didn’t trust her. That doesn’t make them racist god bothering red neck fanatics.
mark delmege: According to whom and what is the correlation btw Trump, Clinton and women, while many factors decide?
With non compulsory voting, hence, most older people and/or conservatives are easier to get out to vote (true everywhere e.g. Brexit), including Republican voting women, versus younger and centre to left voters. The GOP voting women are prepared to ignore and worse, accept Trump’s misogyny and loose relationship with morals and ethics.
Your comment does not prove anything apart from providing vapid noise, but supports my point. Trump and the GOP rely upon much ignorance, fear and prejudice, with media support, for votes, while knowing younger tolerant and liberal types are less likely to get out to vote, and if they do it is Democrat (Georgia win was thanks to energising the black vote) hence, attempts at voter suppression.
Good news is that Trump and his supporters may have set back the GOP for at least one electoral cycle, if not more, as their reliable demographic target fades into the sunset……. to be replaced by more diverse demographics, the ‘great replacement theory’ in action.
This is a gross generalisation but people fall into two main groups – those who favour collectivism and those who favour individualism – ie dems v repubs or labs v libs. Neither side is inherently evil or good and a two party system serves a purpose of giving both sides a run and balancing out the excesses of the other. Remember this is all a generalisation and is very simplistic.
Unfortunately the elites have the ‘power’ and it doesn’t matter in the usofa which party has the presidency cos the elites run the show and thats the problem – hope and change has as much chance as drain the swamp.
Demonising one side is infantile. Just as expecting one side to fix the deep seated problems in a rotten corrupt system is probably going to end in tears.
Most people go with the flow and dont indulge in the intricacies of power or politics. Their reactions are more gut than intellect. Its not a bad thing. Its why Trump won first time round. After 8 years of Obama and little change or maybe worse a consolidation of badness there were enough college educated white women who changed sides to tip a win for the Trump Presidency. Check the number if you doubt me. You can see that as a vote for Trump who offered to break the ‘mold’ or a vote against killary who offered more of the same and whose record was especially tarnished.
Trump in his 4 years was a particularly incompetent nasty piece of shit but Bidens record should have disqualified him from any job above cleaner of shithouses.
That the whole democratic establishment and the power elite from the intelligence agencies down chose him should tell you a lot about what to expect in the near future.
The Third Revolution in the USA (United States of Apartheid) has been coming for decades, ever since Hollywood closed down and exposed the American Dream to be the Nightmare on Elm Street. The American rich have been siphoning off their profits and so disabling government polices that has created an under-class of ill-educated, disenchanted folk who reach out for any assertion that may improve their lot in life.
The Second Revolution was the anti-Vietnam War Movement that did NOT stop the war or the waste of American lives, or the destruction of veterans sanity with untreated PTSD. Vietnam was stopped by the North Vietnamese Army capturing Saigon ….. and the US NE military industrial complex lost a black hole market.
It has always been the disenchanted, disadvantaged and desperate persons who create revolutions that change the social status quo. Think the French Revolution, the Czech Revolution where capitalists were jailed for their wealth, the Cuban Revolution et al.
Miranda Devine, the Murdoch journalist from the Tele and now on secondment to Murdoch’s NY Post, came out with her own conspiracy theory about how the Democrats would take political correctness to the extreme now that they have control over both Houses of the Congress. Nobody else has reported this yet Devine appeared on Cory Bernadi’s rant on Sky to screech about how bad things will be under a Democrat led Congress.
this is what she wrote :
Maybe she’s right but she doesn’t have a good record on this sort of conspiracy.
Anybody have any facts ?
Captain Cook was the first person to discover the location of the east coast of Australia and put it on the map of the earth with such amazing accuracy that ever since everyone is cable of knowing exactly where it is in relation to the rest of the world. The local natives had no idea at all where they were located or how far the country extended beyond the lands their lives were confined to. They didn’t discover where they lived or even that there was a world beyond their shores before Cook figured it all out with the science of navigation.
And why do people think cynical means skeptical? A person is cynical when they feel happier doing with out anything that they do not absolutely need. It is extremely rare to hear anybody use the word properly.
Also history isn’t the property of the victors. The saying is that it is written by the victors. But it is also written by losers and It is disputed and corrected by historians. The point is history is recorded, not owned. There is no recorded history at all of the east coast of Australia prior to Cook’s discovery of its location.
B Sullivan.
Maybe confusing “cynical” with “frugal”?
If so, it might explain why “it is extremely rare to hear anybody use the word properly”
The heading leaves out ‘Rossleigh and the AIMN et al deconstruct the old right and create new left conspiracy theories’. Theories that scummo takes literal sense from the bible so that craig knows the truth that where-ever he is so is god who makes the world flat except for a few ups and downs. When the future reads the trump chronicles they will find it has a shocking taste of corked plonk. ps didn’t polo discover china and lord percy discover pure green??
B Sullivan needs later studies than the old primary standard texts about Cook. Certainly, Lieutenant Cook (then) “discovered” a land and inhabitants, those indigenous Australians descended from original discoverers..,and clearly “here”. Also, one must study and consider all the “Dauphin” maps, which indicate Portuguese and possibly Spanish Knowledge of the east coast. Some opinions differ but, it seems clear that concealed information exists to probing scholars and that the east coast was known long ago. Gavin Menzies, untrustworthy in scholarship, has suggested that Chines voyages, esp. around 1421, may have “discovered much of Australia. This is not appealing on evidence known, but some speculation and conjecture will continue. Dutch Knowledge may have been suppressed for political reasons, but Tasman was one of very many voyagers to chart and possibly conceal knowledge of parts of Australia. Cook certainly was an accurate and admirable navigator, possibly the first person to show with confidence exactly where he was. The works of Macintyre and Fitzgerald need considering and I enjoy some speculation about what we might nearly know. “Discovery” is a very abused word usage, and someone is being discovered by “Hollywood” as we speak. Only by as much as effort as we can muster will we be “cable” (sic) of knowing much…
T Mills comments on the existence (ughh) of a Merde-Jock (jah) scribbler in M Devine, a poisonous, romanist, raving ratbag, trained lying, propaganda for pay, reffo from Australia. Murdoch employs trained liars who type, and romanist indoctrination allows some to exploit aspects of political correctness to suit, in line with indoctrinated submission to pontifical dogma and brainless pronouncements. Sluts for money, fame, notoriety, position, appearance, vanity, glory and career, the Devine types help retain high levels of intellectual pollution to keep up USA standards. Murdoch’s maggoty mischief manufacturers are never ever to be trusted, believed, supported, for decency’s sake and our more sensible futures.
Twitter has permanently suspended Donald Trump’s account (and deleted all his tweets) on the grounds that he’s using the platform to incite violence. ✊✊
Now The Donald has discovered the official POTUS tweet account and spewing his hoary whining childish crap on that and Twitter, it appears, is removing them almost as fast as they appear.
We’re in for a wild couple of weeks.
Trump’s statement that it’ll be a smooth transition is one I don’t believe.
I am so envious of Phil Pryor’s gift of language that I am tempted to have his comments framed. An accurate description of Ms Devine that could apply to each of her female stablemates. As for that sci-fi movie my fear would be that Godzilla and the alien join forces. Or perhaps that has happened already.
He certainly has a gift with words, Carole.
After searching dictionaries all day for a definition of cynical that matches his, I have moved on. I know wish to find out what cable means in his sentence about Captain Cook and how know everyone is “cable of knowing”…
I intend to search until I discover him and. lay claim to his house on the grounds that he doesn’t know where he is in relation to the rest of the earth which is beneath his feet as opposed to the Earth which has a capital because it’s a proper noun and the name of a planet…
Rossleigh, have you turned into a lefty?
Hey, if you accept that the Earth (capitalised) isn’t flat then you realise that not only is l, concepts like eft and right all relative, then East will eventually become West and vice versa if you keep travelling…
I think this may be far more profound than I intended it.
Nonetheless, North and South are absolutes and this may explain the inability of the United States to ever actually become that!
As a child I used to love repeatedly listening to Australian, Ward Leopold’s, comedy “Baseface the Space Ace – Conquest of the Moon” (and the flip side “Conquest of Venus”). I always chuckled when Baseface is told “We’re lost.” he replies, “No we’re not, we’re here, ain’t we?”
http://miriam-english.org/files/Baseface/
Enjoy. The fake US accents make it even funnier.
(I thought for sure it was on YouTube, but sadly, no. Part of a long past, lost era.)
So, yeah, Cook was brilliant. He used science to work out exactly where he was when accurately mapping the east coast of Australia, an enormous island whose inhabitants thought they were the center of the world. Then Cook took that information back to England, a much smaller island whose inhabitants thought they were the center of the world.
Miriam, great to see you. Happy New Year to you and your loved ones. ❤️
And to you and family, Michael and Carol. 🙂
I should have mentioned that I thought Rossleigh’s title to his piece is inspired brilliance. I keep meeting poor unhinged folk who believe all manner of nuttiness these days. I’ve decided that henceforth, instead of arguing with them (which never works) I will congratulate them on steadfastly never believing anything unless it is from some conspiracy theorist on the internet. 😀
I’m very grateful to you, Rossleigh.
Thank you, Miriam. I shall pass your best wishes on to Carol.
Yes, Rossleigh excelled himself with this one. It was way outside the box.
In the end it is Murdoch and his ilk at Wall St and City of London, the soulless parasites who are “foreign” interference in the progress and processes of democracy and civilisation.
The people in power parade their victims, the dissidents and whistleblowers, to divert attention from the real criminality and warn the public that questioning and dissidence won’t be tolerated.
It is true, you know. Many people missed the real point of ”
1984″
Miriam: Baseface the ace of Space…Shit, you must be as old as I am,brings back memories of a misspent yoof.
Nux Vomica…Nothing makes me sick..Cheers.
🙂 Harry, I’m probably older. 😀
I eagerly look forward to the future, but there are also many things I value greatly from the past. The exploits of Baseface, the Chief, and Miss Crumpet are some of my favorites. Add to them some of Spike Jones’ lunacy (“Wild Bill Hiccup”, “William Tell Overture [aka Beetlebaum]”), Stan Freberg’s craziness (“The Lone Psychiatrist”, “The Honey-Earthers”), and the wonderful madness of the Goons. Sometimes I worry that today we may be becoming insipid, and then I encounter inspired nonsense like Austentayshus’ “Australiana”. Lano and Woodley’s madcap self-titled TV show brightened the world.
And now we are in the midst of a renaissance, exploding in creativity. It will be interesting to see what comes out of the coming decade. Pandemics in the past have tended to boost all kinds of cool stuff. Unfortunately they also tend to amplify conspiracy theories too… but that’s life, I guess.
(Note: I can upload some of that hare-brained comedy if anybody wishes to hear craziness from a past era.)