Canary created this thread purely to beat Grassy Knollington out of hiding...

Incredibly minor incidents inspire paranoid suspicion in Grassy Knollington and before anyone can stop him he starts hunting through the school library or Googling around on the internet, drawing far-reaching conclusions from meaningless coincidences and concluding that he has found some sort of global conspiracy, one that is invariably intent on some nefarious activity.

For example, in one strip, Grassy Knollington — whilst reading "The Da Vinci Code" - witnesses his father slip up on a walnut. Convinced that this was a failed assassination attempt on his dad's life, Grassy begins his investigations, convinced that there was more than one walnut involved in his father's accident ("The lone nut theory may have fooled the Warren Commission, but it cuts no ice with me.")

Based on the fact that his father works as a cleaner at McDonalds, Grassy's investigations lead to him concluding that McDonalds, the Freemasons and George W. Bush are in league with each other in a plot to create the antichrist that will further the aims of the Illuminati shape-shifting lizards who run America.

Remind you of anyone?

Sorry wrong thread

Still like to hear someone explain molten steel to me. At the time of the collapse or weeks after.

Steel does not become liquid or molten steel as a result of aviation fuel or gas, electric, whatever.

It takes some serious explosives to turn steel into liquid.

On the wider topic of conspiracy theories, I'm finding it harder to believe ANYTHING politicians tell us. In many cases it's often best to believe the opposite of what they say.

Here's a basic example. On May 5th Mandleson told us Brown is wonderful and the man to lead this nation for the next 5 years. Vote for Gordy he cried.

In July he tells us Brown is an idiot.

When in office, it's hard to trust people. The official verdict of 9/11 has perhaps two dozen quite bizarre aspects to it that simply make no sense at all.

Injera.
I concur with your views.
I'll tell you one thing though.None of the above posters,who would disagree with you,will offer ANY coherent explanation of why you are wrong,and why the official version of 9/11 should be believed.
They will,to a man,insult you.Some with fancy language,but many with just plain old ignorance as their driving force.
There will be no attempt to explain their position though.

I don't know enough about chemistry to explain molten steel to anyone, but the most likely expanations to me would seem to that you're wrong (Injera) about the destruction not being powerful enough to melt steel, or that they were looking at something else.

The basic problem with most conspiracy theorists is one of attitude. They tend to be passionate about their theory and if anyone dares to disagree with their 'truth' then they become insulting and accuse non-believers of being stupid and deluded and sheep etc etc. It's a strange way to try and get your point across because all that happens is the ones they've insulted tend to become abusive in return. At which point all hope of trying to convince anyone that their might be a conspiracy is lost. It's a stand-off with both sides firmly entrenched and refusing to budge. Any chance of meaningful debate between open minds has disappeared.

The trouble is that the conspiracy theorists may well have some very good questions which require answers. But they're not experts. Most of what they purport to be 'evidence' has been gleaned from other conspiracy theorists via the internet. Some of it course from books and other literature. But that doesn't make any of it true. And conspiracy theorists haven't done their cause any favours by faking evidence, as happened with Bart Sibrel and the moon landings hoax theorists. So people are naturally very sceptical of passionate conspiracy theorists. Especially when they get called stupid by them!

One of their favourite ploys is to say "So how do you explain…..?", the implication being that if you can't explain it then they must be right. Which is of course nonsense because I'm no more of an expert than they are. I could spend a few hours trawling through the internet and find someone who's already debunked whatever part of the conspiracy they're asking me about but why should I do their work for them? And whose to say that the debunker I find is right anyway?

And so it all keeps going round in circles and gets to the point where claim and counter-claim are constantly being made, mostly by non-experts, and you end up getting nowhere and sick of it all.

Take the 'no plane hit the pentagon' theory. You read what the conspiracy theorists have to say about it and think 'By 'eck, they're right ya know.' Then you delve a bit further and discover a wealth of evidence which proves that a United Airlines 757 did indeed crash into the Pentagon and you just think 'What the fck are these loonies going on about?' and they lose all credibility. Which unfortunately tends to make you very dismissive about any other theories they may have which may in fact warrant further scrutiny. So in that respect they do have a habit of shooting themselves in the foot.

As far as 11/9 is concerned, I too have a lot of questions which I'd like answers to, but I know I'm not going to get them from the passionate non-experts who have already managed to convince themselves of the 'truth' The chances are I'll never get them.

But unlike the conspiracy theorists, I keep an open mind until I find the answer to my questions one way or another.

In the meantime, don't call me stupid!

Orioles
You say that "these conspiracy theories have been debunked over and over again".
Have they?
History is littered with  events that were seen as true at the time,and would have been considered as "conspiracies" by the non-believers,yet,in time,it became apparent that the "conspiracy theorists" were proved to be correct.
The Reichstag Fire
Pearl Harbour - to an extent
Gulf of Tonkin
The false flag operation is one of the oldest tricks in the book,and it amazes me that millions so readily accept the official 9/11 version,given what has gone on before.

This illustrates well how ridiculous the idea of a global media conspiracy re 9/11 is

WMD? Sure.
Nope, questioned by the media at the time and now widely reported as false. The Mirror even ran a 'xxx days with WMD' feature each day.

Saddam's linked with 9/11? Sure.
Nope, questioned by the media at the time, subsequently debunked.

45 minutes from disaster? Sure.
Nope, ridiculed at the time and since.

I didn't fiddle the expenses. Of course you didn't Minister..
Exposed by the press.


Politicians DO lie of course, as do the media. But for everyone working for all of them to tell the same lie for no evident reason - completely implausible.

Sparkmaster

Re WMD and Saddam's 'link' with Iraq. Both the White House and Downing Street successfully got the military and the Senate/Commons to agree with them.

That was enough. Very cleverly done.

I know a Marine who told me he saw no evidence of training camps in Afganistan. I asked why he fought there. He wasn't sure. Did he think it was to protect British lives in say, Milton Keynes? 'No'.

Let me ask you this - do you think we are living in the times of an American 'Empire' and if so, do you think such an empire would do whatever it thought necessary to protect its position?

GL.

I've seen that strange claim produced before, GH. It seems to be a stock challenge for conspiracy theorists.

I've always found the conflation of political opportunism, expediency and a grotesque criminal plan a rather odd one. While the first two mark out politicians, the latter is a very different proposition.

The Reichstag fire starter is known, the Gulf of Tonkin incident played into the politicians' hands as WMDs did with the Bush/Blair axis and the attack upon Pearl Harbor, although fascinating, has never been revealed as a plot by Roosevelt.

They are all very different, even as conspiracy theories, to the staging of a mass murder on your own soil of your own people, live on television, with the assistance of thousands of your own citizens and people with no vested interest in maintaining the crime, for whatever nefarious purpose.

I hold no brief for Bush, or warmongering neo-cons, or profiteering multinational cabals and were I persuaded by anything I've seen, I'd like to think I'd be the first over the top (I am, after all, a wishy washy, commie, do-gooder, hand-wringing etc.) but alas, I am not moved by the evidence adduced so far.

Interesting thread.
I wouldn't consider myself someone who always takes the government view(less and less as I get older and wiser),however I would say the following:-
      *I have never heard it suggested that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11; the "excuse" for invasion was-I thought-that Saddam was an enemy with the capabilities to launch an attack and 9/11 has proved that people will.....ridiculous I know but Iraq wasn't blamed for 9/11.
      *If the plane that got shot down didn't in fact get shot down what happened to the people who were meant to be on it....were they assasinated or whisked away to live the rest of their lives on some isolated Island.
      *The "moulten lava" argument..I watched live on TV one of the towers(second I think) peel like a bannana from THE TOP. ..Why would they have needed bombs in the basement and wouldn't I have seen some evidence of these on TV .

Don't get me wrong I wouldn't put anything past the puppet Bush and the scum who run him, and Blair was determined to exactly as he was told in order to make a name for himself.
However, it is all very well questioning the official version of events but I have yet to see an alternative version that makes more sense.

The collapse of the towers is interesting. Is there any footage of any buildings that have collapsed like that on the net?

Many have said they were demolished. The view is that weight will seek the path of the least resistance. i.e. it will not concertina (spelling?). It will topple and find the easiest way to fall.

Anyone know of any footage of buildings falling like that?

Lizards.

flatliner     01 Aug 10 19:17 
Lizards.

flatliner "knows"....

The US has a military presence in over 100 countries.

This is hardly ever mentioned in the media or in connection with any debate with regard to British/American foreign policy.

Yes, several MOMM. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for them!

There's an interesting PDF listing numbers of US military in each country. I wonder what the one guy in Belarus does!

http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/MILITARY/history/hst0803.pdf

They might all be within RAF bases...not sure.

Nearly 10,000 US military personnel in the UK. Amazing.
Why do we need them here? Or why do we need that many?

I've long argued for the repatriation of the colonial ne'er do wells!