Friday, August 2, 2019

Slippery Slopes and Conspiracy Theories



An assessment written by the FBI Phoenix office warns that domestic violence may be spurred by conspiracy theories (Yahoo Provides document here).

As explained by the news media, the report grapples with the real problems of demagoguery, hate, and fantasy narratives, but also raises troubling implications by implicitly designating as dangerous ideas that are outside of the narrow constraints of mainstream news media reporting:
Collins, B. (2019, August 2). Local FBI field office warns of 'conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists'. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/local-fbi-field-office-warns-conspiracy-theory-driven-domestic-extremists-n1038441  
The assessment noted that the document is the first from the FBI to analyze conspiracies and their connection to violent acts.

...“This is the first FBI product examining the threat from conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists and provides a baseline for future intelligence products,” the assessment states....

The document warns that “throughout history, such conspiracy theories have fueled prejudice, witch-hunts, genocide, and acts of terrorism.”

“In the context of domestic terrorism, extremists often view the activities of alleged conspirators as an existential threat that can only be stopped through drastic, or even violent means,” it reads.
The blog "Running Cause I Can't Fly" points out that "when you oppose an elite power group, you cannot help but sound like a conspiracy theorist"

So, the problem is that any critique of deeply institutionalized power can be called out as "conspiratorial."

Simultaneously, not all conspiracy theories are equal as some can be supported using classical standards of argument and evidence while others cannot.

In my opinion, the problem lies less with the idea being promulgated because the real issue is the poor decoding skills of audiences.

Let ideas flow (relatively) free unless they overtly and demonstrably incite violence and hate.

Teach audiences to be very good listeners and critical decoders beginning in the k-12 system, which in my opinion has been forced to de-emphasize critical thinking because of the emphasis on teaching to standardized assessments, among other complex reasons.

INTERESTED IN REFLEXIVE THINKING ABOUT CONSPIRACY THEORIES?

My two favorite books on this subject below:

Bratich, J. Conspiracy Panics (Review available here).

deHaven, L. Conspiracy Theory in America (Review available here).

RELATED POSTS

Conspiracy Theories - Majia's Blog


Japan's Proposed Anti-Conspiracy Bill Echoes Politics ... - Majia's Blog

21 comments:

  1. one has to but look at the history and origins of the FBI, to see that it is not a democratically based at all. Using the euphemism of police agencies as government Civil public safety organizations does not apply to the FBI at all. The FBI was and is politically based. It began as a union busting agency, like many municipal police organiztions in america that came from the Pinkertons.

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  2. The establishment and trashiest manipulators, have take the folk-level mistrust of government to ludicrous levels. Mostly right-wing white-racists and opportunists.
    I remember my granfather, talking about how he thought the USA, had purposely loaded Japan up with american scrap metal in the 1930s to prepare the Japanes military for goading them into war. That was not called conspiracy theory back then. It was common folk-politics.

    The FBI played a strong part in rounding up Japanese aamerican Citizens on the west coast and puting them in concentration camps while confiscating their land. Not quite as bad as what Trump and the DHS are doing with 13,000 toddlers and chlidren in cages and wire fences in the USA but pretty awful still.

    Herbert Hoover was a racist. J Edgar Hoover started the FBI. He was a nasty Elitist racist put in by the Plutocrocy. The Nazis admired him, and the instionalized racist system in America. The nazis copied us. Not the other way around. Corporate america financed Hitler's war machine in nazi Germany. Civil liberties in merica have always sucked for poor whites and blacks, in america. Cop shakedowns have been institutionalized since the civil war. The roots probably go back to the slaveowning forefathers and white elitists. Poor and racial profiling, have been occuring since europeans came to america in many ways. The FBI was started to help with union busting Corrupted, parochial-police and court juristictions, administered, in the many rotten county and parishs have always been the case across the southern United States, post civil war. The power structures have been instituted, as part of corrupt white, elite systems from the top down. It goes from Corrupt crooks in state legislatures, to rich landowners, down to local and county levels in corrupt, Justice of the Peace, and Cop administrative levels. Corrupt BOSS HOG parishes and county governments extend across the southern USA , of the post civil war southern states. The south has always had shakedown systems, to keep blacks in their place and or in prisons and, poor whites down. It has been going on for 150 years. Occurs in northern jurisdictions too. It is heavily institutionalized in the southern usa.

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  3. I wish I had more time to respond because these issues are so critically important right now.

    With respect to conspiracy theories, what i see happening is a general equivalence being made between conspiracy theories and hate speech.

    Although some conspiracy theories promote hate, others do not. Hate is not an essential feature of analyzing society in relation to elite formations and machinations.

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  4. Majia Says "Let ideas flow (relatively) free unless they overtly and demonstrably incite violence and hate." Well violence and hate are what have been engendered. Engendered by mostly by the Trump political machine. Some of the trashy propaganda outlets that have been financed by dark money, for years in the runup to this bloodshed and insanity have been rightly censored. The ones that say Qanon is calling them to genocide half of america. The continuence of racially and right wing, motivated mass shootings and killings in america. The justified caging torture and 13,000 TODDLERS AND CHILDREN

    It is a reign of terror to distract from the ghouls poisoning what is left of america and the world to death, with radioactive and chemical death through mass extraction, manufacturing of more nuke bombs and deregulation of the numerous fragile Nuclear death machines and nuclear waste that is on the verge of exploding in america. When the duopoly turns death squads out and starts rounding up people, most americans can bend over and kiss their asses goodbye

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    Replies
    1. Mericans can democratically chenge this awful chain of events if they summon the will to do so as the Puerto Ricans have

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    2. AGREED that there are individuals and groups that are DELIBERATELY INCITING HATE in order to manipulate the masses.

      This is the indeed the problem of FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS that is deliberately being cultivated.

      Delete
  5. We are getting sick here on the central coast of California with nausea and vomiting and intense dizziness. It happens on one day than the next day your fine and then it happens again

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    Replies
    1. I was on the west coast, wwhen Fukushima went off. I had a metallic taste in my mouth. I had unexplained bloody noses. I started having tinitus in both ears that has not gone away since March 2011. These are all harsh enough symptoms to be part of a toxidrome for radionuclide exposure. The symptom experienced by the other anonymous are more severe. I would say that if u know of a health person u can trust, to go see them. Radionuclides and heavy metals can be chelated before they do too much damage

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  6. The clamp-down on info is happening fast.
    But they've already won, with their dumb-down
    program. Here we have Hispanic Americans
    coached to speak and act against their own
    family interests, needing to claim that whitey
    is the enemy, Trump is the enemy, while being
    oblivious, unaware that these border-crisis
    people will soon remove any job possibilities
    from their own children and elders.
    We have hundreds of "migrants" dropped off
    by authorities in little desert towns like Deming,
    and we-all are expected and demanded to provide.
    Provide from that which we already Don't have!
    And then we must suffer criticism and hispanic
    gangster commie attacks. You-all chiming in with
    this commie-ism are yourselves, now, being beat
    and overrun, your lands and jobs and quality of
    life destroyed because Order is overthrown.
    Folks with good-enough jobs get their kids into
    private schools. Why is that? Because of the
    Whitey gangsters hassling the kids? Tell Truth or
    suffer, like right now, your kids are being hassled,
    and now we get the influx of illiterate incompetents.
    Wake up! Stop giving false mouth! If you are really
    serious about your kids' future, you must run from
    the places that have gangsters for cops and judges.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is true in many ways. Sorry about your hard times, there. You know the issues are complicated. I am not a communist. I do not know any communists. People from central america are not fleeing communists. They are fleeing dictators. You know that or, maybe you do not. It is hard in america because, economies are out of wack. Having to compete, in these tough times with more being foisted on us makes it worse.
      Those people like Trump dont care. He uses illegals to clean his toilets and on his golf courses. He uses those problems to get power but, he doen't care. Like all of them. You know that.

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    2. It is like the Chinese cultural revolution,
      so we must eliminate all the complex
      knowledge in favor of slave masses...
      Do you recall the animated movie
      "Heavy Metal"?...one of the featured stories
      depicted the grown-soft society, thinking they
      were safe and indomitable, but oops, invaders
      came and destroyed them in their arrogance.
      Hey, Majia and everybody,
      around Silver City, none of the youngsters
      ever heard of the Maquiladora factories in
      the border zone. You have to explain markets
      and capitalism, and labor, and money.
      Nobody is taught about real economics.
      It may still be true that the going rate at the
      Juarez factory for Lexmark Office Products
      is One Dollar per Hour, or Eight dollars per day
      for the trained-up, experienced guy.
      I saw the strike on El Paso TV news, because
      new people were held at $5.32 per DAY, and
      they were sent out for demanding only .38
      cents more per DAY.
      Many of our complaining kids need to prove
      they are worth any minimum wage at all,
      much less "Fight For Fifteen!"
      Thanks for the Good Work you do.

      Delete
  7. Wow, and just now, turning on the tv news,
    there is a mass shooting in El Paso, at Cielo Vista Mall.

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  8. Jack Schick . Interesting name. Heavy metal was from the 80s. What part of El Paso do you live in Jack? Rent is barely affordable for a lot of kids in El Paso and in the us. Trump sure has shifted a lot more industry to Mexico Jack, especially with his new signing of the new NAFTA treaty. Trump the gloabalist
    Maybe you should go work in the maquiladoras Jack. It will be the patriotic thing to do for a atrump supporter like you. Trump uses illegals in his opeartions by the way . All hof the 2020 Trump campaign banners were made in China for a less than a dollar apiece by the way Jack

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  9. Those of you commenting here about the rise of hate have been correct - its being cultivated and its growing in scary proportions.

    The conditions of possibility for hate are those that you all identify - decline in availability of jobs that will lift people out of poverty.

    It is just hard for me to understand how easily hate can be elicited and orchestrated. I have a hard time coming to grips with the idea that people aren't basically prosocial.

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  10. Yes, Thank You Majia....
    we have been reduced in manners and politeness and kindness and consideration.
    You notice the lack of understanding shown by
    the guy calling me a Trump supporter.
    It is a fact you must deal with.
    The maquiladoras have supported a
    separate-payroll-economy, with different
    pricing for Mexico than for the US.
    We have the accusation of "Hate" when
    an adult must make the responsible hard choice.
    Just as now, we talk about the economic group
    they call the "PIIGS", because they are the
    chronic, debtor, incompetent financial Nations,
    Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain...your
    place of shelter, mr. globalist, and your next supply
    of food happens because some Adults made some
    social Order, so that the Gangsters don't destroy
    everything.
    That is NOT "Hate" when an adult must harshly
    correct the young wannabe-gangster....
    The politically-idiot-correct club gave us the
    Jussie Smollett issue and if you are trying to sell
    an idea that we need the incompetence of all
    those Chicago prosecutorial-idiot staff, and, for
    example Kamala Harris, which for every person
    of Color should be a Witchcraft terror as a Cali
    prosecutor who could make a Statement that
    Jussie's case was a "Modern Lynching!" because
    you understand, everybody, that Truth means
    less than Nothing to the Lying-Mafia-Courtroom
    class to which Kamala belonged.
    She can Falsely Accuse you, and it means nothing
    to her. She can always get away with it.
    Now I am Protecting you and my kids from bullshit
    people who can move into High Places. It is not
    hate to correct your idiots before they hurt
    somebody. Face it. You allowed cute gangster shit
    to dominate Mex-Chicano-Latino-Spanish life.
    It is not hate to protect my Mathematical-Musical
    real minds from the darkness of this dumb-down.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Great transition Stock
      From Concerned South New Mexico workin guy to Stock . Como divertidos

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    2. I am not a globalist by the way

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    3. PIIGs , globalism, but, Jessie Smallet gave it away. Propaganda hodge-podge. Typical

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    4. I have never heard a Hispanic or Latino refer to an Anglo as "Whitey"

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    5. Screwball nonsense

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    6. Pretty obvious that Jack Schick, Minion or Scock Puppet brought up the El Paso Mass Murder because it admires the shooter

      Delete

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