Skeptic Project

@ Diane and Edward: I like Your comments regarding development of the conspiracy movement in USA. I'm interested how it is in other countries.

"Still, I suspect that the popularity of grand conspiracy ideology, and CT's in general, may vary with locale. Where do you live?"

I'm from Poland, as I stated in the other thread. I agree with Diane, that it's a new trend, but I agree with Sil, too, that most of those CT's will simply grew apart from it.

Here in Poland, all the hell broke loose after 9/11, like in US.
I was born in '84, so I cannot say by myself, how it looked back then, but I think that in 80's most of Polish people were more concerned with collapsing communism than some grand conspiracy theories.

They've started emerging in 90's, after the fall of communism in '89. Right-wingers/nationalists propagate mutation of Jewish conspiracy theory(aside from world domination BS, they claim that Jews want to rule, enslave and buy out Poland). Some people, who were disillusioned with the aftermath of the transformation to democracy, claim that the whole thing was staged by secret services, like KGB. Anyway, popularity of those theories was rather limited.
Of course, some people discussed theories non-releated to Poland. When I've get internet access in '99, I've stumbled upon some amateur websites in Polish about JFK assasination, moon landing hoax, UFO conspiracies and so on. I remember a magazine from late 90's, devoted mostly to paranormal phenomena, but some conspiracy theories found place there, too.
But, as I said, all the hell broke loose after 9/11, with releases of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Loose Change. Hell, when I watched Zeitgeist, I was close to jumping on the CT bandwagon, too. Lots of people now make connections between NWO theories and aforementioned polish conspiracy theories. I must say, that I didn't notice any noticeable rise in antisemitism here in Poland. Most of today's polish CT's are not nationalists.

I agree with Edward, that the rise of popularity of conspiracy theories is releated to the times we're in. It's was always easy, to blame Jews, secret agents, or, more recently, Illuminati, on economical problems (in 90's in Poland there was ongoing economical crisis) and corruption.

Anyway, I find polish CT's harmless (if scary), as there's not so many of them. Most well-known polish CT site, prawda2.info has 1185 registered users. It's admin boasted once about having 7000 visitors per day. Is this really that much?
Polish ZGM forum has about 950 registered users. The forum isn't as half as active as the american one, and most of those Zeitgeisters babble like self-indulgent teenagers.

"In any case, I find it odd when I see a Finnish teenager yelling about the American Federal Reserve System."
Well, it is odd. I find it also somewhat sad, that an ordirnary polish CT knows more about 9/11 conspiracies, evil FED wanting to put the world in debt, evil (nationalists will add Jewish) banksters and other BS he learned from Endgame, Loose Change and Zeitgeist (most popular movies among polish CT), than about the newest history of Poland (World War II, post-45 and post-89). I think sort of applies to CT's from other countries, and histories of their countries.

I hope my post is more readable than those by Truth Is Real guy.

Is VTV incapable of defending himself here or does he require his secretary to actually protect him on the internet ?

Liz I dont even know why you are here, every post you have made is in defense of VTV or zeitgeist yet you keep claiming to be on the fence and not care about zeitgeist, if you ask me you're full of baloney.

You are enabling their Bullshit and being a zeitgeist apologist.

What purpose do you serve here really other than to defend them ?

Your only posts thus far have been providing the zeitgeisters side but from a suspect unbiased opinion.

Yes I'll agree that some people here need to work on not being so agressive and attacking people personally, myself included.

But Liz, are you sure you're not the same person as VTV? I listened to his radio show about us, and a lot of the things he said were the exact same points you made here, also he quoted the same quotes that you did. You guys sound an awful lot alike.

@Sky

I wager VTV probably still reads this stuff. I know my friends lurk here sometimes.

@Anticultist What Zeitgeist posts? Where have I posted anything pro-zeitgeist? It's funny that I ask you to look at you're own behavior and the first thing you do is try to attack me. I remember reading through one of these threads where you kept repeating narcisism over and over again and ironically that's exactly what your doing here.

Right now you're the only one talking about Zeitgeist in this conversation. And it's not even relevant. I am talking about the name calling and personal attack that is often not relevant at all to whatever it is your debating.

I could be a total Zeitgeist fanatic and it would not be in any way relevant to the fact that the conversations here contain entirely too much trash to be "intellectually honest".

Right now your doing exactly what I am talking about. And you still don't see it. The actual topic is the behavior on this website. Not Zeitgeist, The Venus Project, etc. The only way VTV is even relevant here is that he did try to have a constructive conversation with all of you and you ruined it. And then you blame the Zeitgeist Movement itself.

I don't care about VTV, or Zeitgeist. I do however dislike hypocrisy. And at the end of the day nothing your projecting in your theories as to who I am, or what I do or do not think about the Zeitgeist movement has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that calling people fat, poor, making fun of where they work, etc is not "intellectually honest".

VTV could be 500 lbs, a bum on the street who is a male prostitute and say that the sky is blue and still be right.

You could be slim rippling with muscles making a million dollars a week from a fortune 500 company and say the sky is orange and be dead wrong.

This is why you don't get any "intellectual honesty" because you bring up completely irrelevant things in debate to attack the person rather then debating the topic.

@ liz "Right now your doing exactly what I am talking about. And you still don't see it."

No I don't care, dont misplace blindness for lack of interest in following orders.

"The only way VTV is even relevant here is that he did try to have a constructive conversation with all of you and you ruined it. And then you blame the Zeitgeist Movement itself. "

Yes ruined talking to a person I dont even want to talk to in the first place, A person who I have had more experience with than most already, a person I have had numerous talks with before and hated every one of them because he is such an obnoxious prick. You call it ruined I call it couldnt care less to interact with the guy on his terms.

Blaming the zeitgeist movement for that conversation? get fucking real Liz...the problems I have with the movement are far greater than that silly man, he is just a small [fatty] piece of the problem, and I/we have talked about these points critically everywhere.

You are an enabler for zeitgeists BS, and an apologist. Straight up. There is no reason why I should have to put up with anyones nonsense, or for that matter deal with them politely if they are a complete anus which VTV acted like over here.
If you choose to ignore that fact why bother talking to you since you have already taken the side of his previously. He only came over here to stir it up anyway after not liking being laughed at, gotta tell you as well Liz the guys a fucking retard and not even worth anyones time.

PS I still see the holes in your Im not a zeitgeist follower story, coming over here posting his memos and defending him. Weak stuff Liz.

I think that all the name calling, insulting him due to his weight, and insulting him for being a 'stay at home dad' and being unemployed just gave him a LEGITIMATE excuse to dodge important questions.

I'd like to also add that yes there was a lot of good content in between the insults. And that the VTV question thread did start off good, but collapsed into insults pretty quickly.

Olek_L wrote:

@ Diane and Edward: I like Your comments regarding development of the conspiracy movement in USA. I'm interested how it is in other countries.

There isn't a single "conspiracy movement." There is a variety of distinct political, social, and religious movements which, to one degree or another, embrace grand conspiracy ideology and/or various lesser "conspiracy theories."

1) Probably the largest such movement is a religious one: Those branches of evangelical, fundamentalist, and charismatic Christianity that incorporate grand conspiracy ideology into their apocalyptic end-times scenarios. This variant of grand conspiracy ideology is relatively invisible online, but that doesn't mean it's insignificant. It is promoted mostly offline, e.g. in literature by various preachers including Pat Robertson and Tim LaHaye, among many others.

2) The "Patriot movement," which includes the militia movement, income tax protesters, and "sovereign citizens." The "Patriot movement" includes both a secular right wing libertarian branch and a Christian theocratic branch. Alex Jones espouses the secular version of Patriot movement ideology.

3) Other assorted right wing political movements such as the Larouchies.

4) Some other religious movements, such as Farrakhan's Nation of Islam.

5) The "Zeitgeist movement," which espouses some hippie-ish left wing goals and hence would be seen by most of the Christians in categories #1 and #2 above as yet another harbinger of the "New World Order" of the Antichrist, but which nevertheless incorporates a lot of right wing ideology derived from categories #1 and #2.

All of the above embrace full-blown grand conspiracy ideology, i.e. belief in an alleged centuries-old or even millenia-old world-micromanaging cabal like "the Illuminati."

Then there's the 9/11 Truth movement, which does not necessarily embrace full-blown grand conspiracy ideology, although a lot of its members do. (It is possible to believe that "9/11 was an inside job" without believing in "the Illuminati" or anything similar.) The 9/11 Truth movement overlaps heavily with both the Patriot movement and the "Zeitgeist movement," but is distinct from both.

There are two main kinds of activists in the 9/11 Truth movement:

1) What I think of as the 9/11 Truth movement proper, i.e. those whose main aim is a new investigation of 9/11.

2) Those whose main aim is to use 9/11 "inside job" claims to "awaken" people to some alleged "bigger picture" (usually, though not always, a full-blown grand conspiracy ideology).

In my experience, many of the better-educated 9/11 Truth activists are not comfortable with the Alex Jones crowd and do not embrace grand conspiracy ideology.

I agree with Sky, and I often point this out myself by saying the only "investigation" they want is one that proves them correct, everything else is automatically, and always will be wrong.