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Post by mndwrp on Dec 1, 2008 9:36:34 GMT -4
This happened to someone i know..
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Daddy was an average working Joe, trying to make it for his small family and loving wife. Out of curiosity he began watching 9/11 conspiracy videos and found it to be surreal that this was happening and yet the public didn't know about it .. he decided to inform the people around him by making dozens of CDs containing the said videos and to spread the "Truth" furthermore he had to get out there and start massively distribute homemade flyers on the subject.
Mommy was slightly annoyed by it but still supported him for the sake of their family.
As if that wasn't enough Daddy also found out that this moon landing thing also wasn't true! Daddy read that corporations were introducing mind altering chemicals in every day products so Daddy stopped brushing his teeth and putting on deodorant..
Mommy was getting angrier
It only get worse from here.. Daddy lost his business, Daddy runs for cover when he sees a plane in the sky "spying" on him. Daddy now believes the Holocaust never happened and the all powerful and evil Jews are plotting to destroy 80% of the world's population to enhance their wealth.
Mommy kicked him out...
Now Daddy is waiting on divorce papers and is now living in a messy 1 bedroom apartment, still trying to spread the "Truth" ...
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I'm sure by now you've heard similar stories. The point of this was not to teach anyone a lesson but this is a story i witnessed first hand and am quite saddened by it. I will not go as far as say that this conspiracy nonsense caused the events, however they sure did fuel his paranoia about the world and enhance, if only briefly, his sense of self esteem.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Dec 1, 2008 13:56:16 GMT -4
Daddy needs a psychiatrist, pronto.
Fred
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Post by PhantomWolf on Dec 1, 2008 15:15:48 GMT -4
Interestingly a thread on a similar topic was started on JREF the other day, this is far from uncommon.
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Post by gillianren on Dec 1, 2008 16:11:26 GMT -4
I'm with you, NM. Conspiracy thinking of that extremity is usually, in my opinion, evidence of deeper underlying problems.
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Post by frenat on Dec 1, 2008 18:47:01 GMT -4
At least the mommy had some sense. There are enough of these people on GLP and the Icke forum among others that I'm sure there are some families where both parents are taken in. Won't somebody think of the children!?!
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Post by Nowhere Man on Dec 1, 2008 21:30:26 GMT -4
This reminds me of the (alleged) fervor of converts to a religion. At least in that case, (most) religions contain some kind of moral code, as well as guides (priests, etc.) and a community, that keep the converts from becoming sociopaths.
Fred
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Post by mndwrp on Dec 2, 2008 12:28:35 GMT -4
it was in my opinion a case of deeper mental problems and a psychiatrist and some medication probably would have helped a lot. However, trying to convince someone this far gone to trust someone, who in his mind is part of the conspiracy and having him take medication made by the evil pharmaceutical companies in next to impossible. Hopefully he'll realize all he's lost in the process and get out of it. It is a lot like a convert to a new cult or religion, it takes over his life completely and trying to convince him of the error of his ways is also next to impossible .. at this point i only hope he can help himself out of it I read massively on these various conspiracies when it started happening to him, to find out first if he was right ? ..hey you never know but nothing i ever saw or read ever convinced me of anything other than the creative craziness of all these things. so after a few months of intense online and in person debating i just gave up .. as did a lot of people around him
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Post by Nowhere Man on Dec 2, 2008 14:10:51 GMT -4
He may indeed be too far gone. That's a damn shame.
Fred
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Post by echnaton on Dec 2, 2008 14:42:57 GMT -4
The best way to have a relationship with people like him is to find the things about which he is sane and stick to those topics.
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Dec 2, 2008 17:43:44 GMT -4
The man is just suffering from paranoid delusions. That his delusions involved "conspiracy theories" is beside the point. He might just as well have been paranoid about NASA trying to track him down to send him on a space mission. Shall we condemn NASA space missions?
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Post by Apollo Gnomon on Dec 3, 2008 22:39:11 GMT -4
This reminds me of stories from back in the '80s when Dungeons and Dragons was becoming popular (if that's not too strong of a word..).
There were stories about people going off the deep-end "because of" DnD, like a pair of boys who decided to go "astral traveling" with step-dad's 9mm. Oh, yeah, and it turned out they had been abused by him.
By the way.
Not that that had anything to do with it.
No. Just blame the weird game they played with the other weird kids.
It also reminds me of John Hinckley, who was so disturbed by his obsessive desire to get Jodi Foster's attention that he tried to kill Ronald Reagan. Love is a good thing, desiring love is enjoyable, and having an unrequited crush can be a fun way to torture yourself. But he took it too far. It was, as stated above by mndwrp and DH, a symptom of a deeper problem.
Disturbed people will express themselves with the language available to them. Movies, popular culture, religion.... anything that feeds their desire to feel "important" at some level. They use it to build a wall around their psyches (like the "wall" in the Pink Floyd album of the same name, built brick by brick against the pain).
I've been listening to Alex Jones on AM radio lately, as I find it entertaining for the brief time during my daily routine that I'm in the car while it's on. About 10 minutes is all I can stand, the guy's a freak. But I would suggest that he's doing the same thing - latching onto these weird fantasy paranoia trips to bolster his weak self-image. He gets to feel Important by being the One Who Knows.
Frankly, I'd put most of the more dedicated Hoax debunkers in the same bucket. How many of you go out of your way to find stupid people to argue with? You know that what you know is right, and it gives you some kind of "kick" to shove it in their faces. Is that substantially different from people peddling God door-to-door, convinced that their brand is Superior to all others?
Religion is a great way to help yourself feel better about the unavoidable fact that "life sucks, and then you die." Most of us go through life happy to go to church, or temple, or mosque, or meditate, and try to help others around us enjoy life. But some few over the ages have flipped out and expressed their paranoid delusions using religion. Like Jim Jones, and that Waco guy, Vern something.
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Post by gillianren on Dec 3, 2008 23:05:14 GMT -4
"Vern Something"? Do you perhaps mean David Koresh?
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Post by Apollo Gnomon on Dec 3, 2008 23:16:34 GMT -4
Yes, you caught me being lazy and not googling.
Vernon Wayne Howell changed his name to "David Koresh." I remembered his name was "Vern" because it's funny. It's one of those names, like Darryl, that I find amusing.
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Dec 4, 2008 4:15:05 GMT -4
I enjoy Alex Jones too, in moderation. I don't think he's a nut because he can back up his conclusions with facts that really can't be explained away by what the corporate media says. It's just that he sounds like he's going to burst a blood vessel and that gets me cranked up too.
Anyhow, Jim Jones was a programmed government tool. It would be fun to explore the background leading up to the massacre. It's a real eye-opener.
But Koresh, he was just your run of the mill cult leader, not doing anything especially illegal and then BAM! The morning of the event, the local sheriff had a knocking warrant to enter and examine the compound's weapons. Koresh knew he was coming because they'd had a friendly chat the day before. But the sheriff showed up with military thugs instead and started firing on them. They returned fire, as was their right under the law. There was a news blackout after the tanks rolled in, but tape was eventually released. CS gas and incendiary devices for all, even the babies, courtesy of Uncle Sam. Hillary told Reno to "burn the motherf__s" and that's just what they did. Afterwards, Bill warned America that if they got any strange religious beliefs, he'd give them more of the same. I think he was testing the limits of posse comitatus to see how much America would take (we took it all), and got rid of 4 former bodyguards to boot by getting them to kill each other. I watched it all on video. That's when I became a conspiracy theorist.
In these 2 cases it's the government that's so damned dangerous. There are dangerous religions out there, but they mostly pick on Christians and Jews and nobody important takes that seriously.
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Post by echnaton on Dec 4, 2008 12:06:04 GMT -4
Advertising is always the most telling way to understand where any type of media is aimed. The Alex Jones web site is populated by ads for survivalist and gold bugs. The top banner had is proclaiming banks are not loaning money to farmers and grocery stores and urging people to by the next three years of food now. What rot. Other ads are for gold of other survivalist fantasies.
This type of paranoia comes around every time there is a problem. And it never turns out to be true. Gold is a lousy long term investment, banks are still lending money, food will be produced and grocery stores will continue to be well stocked.
I talk to bankers on a regular basis. They all tell me they have money to lend. They are being more circumspect about lending because the economy is tight, but for anyone that can reasonable be expected to pay back a loan, they have money. My credit union downstairs still has signs out promoting auto loans. The main problem in lending is the collapse of the securitization market. Big lenders used to package up millions of dollars in loans and sell them to investors, rather than hold all the loans. This recycles the companies cash to make more loans while they earn fees from servicing the loans backing the securities. Investors stopped buying securitized loans, shutting down this type of lending business. Most banks hold most of their own loans and don’t make a business in securitized sales. Those have not experienced the crunch affecting lenders reliant on securitization.
As for grocery stores, Kroger, for instance, has a $2.5 billion committed revolving credit facility. Committed, means the banks are required to lend the money as long as Kroger maintains appropriate credit worthiness. About half of that $2.5 billion is purely for spare capacity above the amount that cash forecasts indicate will be needed. It has an additional $75 million uncommitted line.
I suppose there will always be the “this time is different” mentality, but history has taught us that it is a sever waste of money and energy to prepare for the collapse of civilization. I know some people that would still like to get rid of all the kerosene they stocked up on for Y2K. They would also like to have their friends back after pushing them away and telling them not to come looking for help.
Jones caters to people that live there lives in irrational fear.
Edited for clarity
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