-Caveat Lector-
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Sat, 04 Aug 2001 16:54:22 -0700
From: Keith Woodard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: IUFO: Can you *really* believe that secret forces control
the
world?
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: "Steve" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Must be nice living in a dreamland, Terry. No offense
> intended. but if you don't see any conspiracies you
> aren't looking close enough (I suppose you
> believe that Oswald was the lone killer of JFK too. ;^|
From: Keith
Although I don't believe the world is run by a conspiracy, I do
believe JFK was assassinated by one. I can't accept that the Warren
Commission's "magic bullet" theory deserves any credence, so there
must have been more than one shooter.
> Bob Rickard, Editor, Fortean Times, wrote:
> >
> > Can you *really* believe that secret forces control the world?
> > If there are they are not doing a very good job for all their
> > power, riches and centuries of practice.
I guess that assessment depends on what their goals would be.
> > And what are they supposed to be
> > doing with this control? Murder, greed, conquest, spite, revenge,
> > ruination, blasphemy, degradation, black magic, sexual and other
> > gratifications etc etc ... ???
I'm not sure. I'd like a conspiracy theorist to take a crack at
answering that.
> > What I find puzzling about these rants blaming all modern
> > woes on conspiracies by Jews, the ultra rich and old Royal houses
> > is that they look exotic but are really quite banal.
I don't think Rickard ever explains what he means by this, or what
difference it makes whether the supposed conspirators are "exotic" or
"banal."
> > If these people ever had real power, it
> > passed from their hands in the wars and revolutions that
> > racked and ruined the previous Millennium.
I wonder how he knows this.
> > Who now
> > can *make* us as communities, nations or peoples, or
> > cultures *do* anything in the sense that we are supposed to be
> > being manipulated?
I suppose conspiracy theorists might answer that the conspirators don'
t need us to do anything more than producing the goods and services we
produce. They just need us *not* to interfere with their operations.
And we won't interfere as long as we refuse to consider the
possibility that they exist and are in charge, no?
> > The deadly enemy of this kind of
> > machination is personal freedom. The very fact that we are
> > free to fight for encroachments on personal freedom surely
> > means these alleged conspiracies have lost their grip (if ever
> > they truly had one).
There's only one problem with this logic. We *don't* fight
encroachments on personal freedom. We sit complacently by while the
drug war confiscates our freedom and privacy and sometimes the homes
and cars of innocent citizens. And, because we don't demand campaign
finance reform, we watch as our elections are bought and sold -- and
hijacked by the Supreme Court when it looks like things might not go
the "right" way.
> > We have such a culture of whistleblowing,
> > and such a distrust of even legitimate official intrusion and
> > control
Excuse me? As far as I'm concerned, we don't have enough distrust of
*illegitimate* official intrusion and control.
> > which, when coupled with the fundamental human
> > inability to keep secrets, makes it hard for me to credit any
> > substance to modern conspiracy theories.
Human ability or inability to keep secrets is variable. But the main
thing Rickard ignores here is that folks *have* come forward claiming
to be spilling secrets of the conspiracy. Rickard and I just don't
believe them.
> > Nah! Modern conspiracy-mongering seems to me to be the
> > modern equivalent of the ancient Greeks whining about the
> > cruelty, capriciousness and lustful ways of the gods.
Actually, I more or less agree. But didn't Charles Fort believe in
conspiracies?
To those who know me from the old days, I have changed my mind about
one thing. I'm now leaning toward the idea that the Great Seal on the
dollar bill was indeed a Masonic design. There are just too many
coincidences. However, I still haven't seen any credible evidence
that the Masons are up to any mischief. It looks to me as though most
of them just want to make the world a little better place.
Masons do seem to be a diverse lot. Here are some of them:
George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Paul Revere, John
Paul Jones, LaFayette, George McGovern, Barry Goldwater, Estes
Kefauver, William Jennings Bryant, Omar Bradley, John J. Pershing,
Douglas McArthur, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, General
George C. Marshall, Sam Houston, Stephen Austin, Davy Crockett, Jim
Bowie, John Wayne, Will Rogers, Tom Mix, Audie Murphy, Gene Autry, Roy
Rogers, George M. Cohen, Samuel Gompers, John L. Lewis, Edwin E.
"Buzz" Aldrin, Edgar D. Mitchell, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Sir
Walter Scott, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Burns, Arthur Conan Doyle,
Jonathon Swift, Alexander Fleming, Charles and William Mayo, Karl and
William Menninger, Harry Houdini, and Norman Vincent Peale.
(Incidentally, I'm not a Mason, and I couldn't become a Mason, because
I'm an agnostic.)
------- End of forwarded message -------
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