The Family does seem to be at least a secretive, powerful, religious fundamentalist organization, but nobody has any idea how accurate Sharlet's claims are. Authors routinely embellish things or make stuff up completely, and they have strong incentive to do so.

It seems to strain credulity that such a powerful organization that "fetishes secrecy" wouldn't do a background check on Sharlet before letting him view their innermost meetings.

A background check would have revealed that Sharlet is clearly a liberal who's against everything the Family stands for. Sharlet's uncle, who shares the same name, Jeff Sharlet, was a prominent Vietnamn peace activist, and Sharlet himself co-founded a clearly liberal religion magazine called "Killing the Buddha"(Wiki).

All I object to is media figures who don't respect how difficult it is to actually know something free of bias and inaccuracy. http://www.videosift.com/video/Richard-Feynman-on-Social-Sciences

It is highly improbable that this imperialist war of 1914–16 will be transformed into a national war, because the class that represents progress is the proletariat, which, objectively, is striving to transform this war into civil war against the bourgeoisie; and also because the strength of both coalitions is almost equally balanced, while international finance capital has everywhere created a reactionary bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that such a transformation is impossible: if the European proletariat were to remain impotent for another twenty years; if the present war were to end in victories similar to those achieved by Napoleon, in the subjugation of a number of virile national states; if imperialism outside of Europe (primarily American and Japanese) were to remain in power for another twenty years without a transition to socialism, say, as a result of a Japanese-American war, then a great national war in Europe would be possible. This means that Europe would be thrown back for several decades. This is improbable. But it is not impossible, for to picture world history as advancing smoothly and steadily without sometimes taking gigantic strides backward is undialectical, unscientific and theoretically wrong.

Further, national wars waged by colonial, and semi-colonial countries are not only possible but inevitable in the epoch of imperialism. The colonies and semi-colonies (China, Turkey, Persia) have a population of nearly one billion, i.e., more than half the population of the earth. In these countries the movements for national liberation are either very strong already or are growing and maturing. Every war is a continuation of politics by other means. The national liberation politics of the colonies will inevitably be continued by national wars of the colonies against imperialism. Such wars may lead to an imperialist war between the present “Great” imperialist Powers or they may not; that depends on many circumstances.

For example: England and France were engaged in a seven years war for colonies, i.e., they waged an imperialist war (which is as possible on the basis of slavery, or of primitive capitalism, as on the basis of highly developed modern capitalism). France was defeated and lost part of her colonies. Several years later the North American States started a war for national liberation against England alone. Out of enmity towards England, i.e., in conformity with their own imperialist interests, France and Spain, which still held parts of what are now the United States, concluded friendly treaties with the states that had risen against England. The French forces together with the American defeated the English. Here we have a war for national liberation in which imperialist rivalry is a contributory element of no great importance, which is the opposite of what we have in the war of 1914–16 (in which the national element in the Austro-Serbian war is of no great importance compared with the all determining imperialist rivalry). This shows how absurd it would be to employ the term imperialism in a stereotyped fashion by deducing from it that national wars are “impossible.” A war for national liberation waged, for example, by an alliance of Persia, India and China against certain imperialist Powers is quite possible and probable, for it follows logically from the national liberation movements now going on in those countries. Whether such a war will be transformed into an imperialist war among the present imperialist Powers will depend on a great many concrete circumstances, and it would be ridiculous to guarantee that these circumstances will arise.

Thirdly, national wars must not be regarded as impossible in the epoch of imperialism even in Europe. The “epoch of imperialism” made the present war an imperialist war; it inevitably engenders (until the advent of socialism) new imperialist war; it transformed the policies of the present Great Powers into thoroughly imperialist policies. But this “epoch” by no means precludes the possibility of national wars, waged, for example, by small (let us assume, annexed or nationally oppressed) states against the imperialist Powers, any more than it precludes the possibility of big national movements in Eastern Europe. With regard to Austria, for example, Junius shows sound judgment in taking into account not only the “economic,” but also the peculiar political situation, in noting Austria’s “inherent lack of vitality” and admitting that “the Hapsburg monarchy is not a political organisation of a bourgeois state, but only a loosely knit syndicate of several cliques of social parasites,” that “historically, the liquidation of Austria-Hungary is merely the continuation of the disintegration of Turkey and at the same time a demand of the historical process of development.” The situation is no better in certain Balkan states and in Russia. And in the event of the “Great Powers” becoming extremely exhausted in the present war, or in the event of a victorious revolution in Russia, national wars, even victorious ones, are quite possible. On the one hand, intervention by the imperialist powers is not possible under all circumstances. On the other hand, when people argue haphazardly that a war waged by a small state against a giant state is hopeless, we must say that a hopeless war is war nevertheless, and, moreover, certain events within the “giant” states—for example, the beginning of a revolution—may transform a “hopeless” war into a very “hopeful” one.

The fact that the postulate that “there can be no more national wars” is obviously fallacious in theory is not the only reason why we have dealt with this fallacy at length. It would be a very deplorable thing, of course, if the “Lefts” began to be careless in their treatment of Marxian theory, considering that the Third International can be established only on the basis of Marxism, unvulgarised Marxism. But this fallacy is also very harmful in a practical political sense; it gives rise to the stupid propaganda for “disarmament,” as if no other war but reactionary wars are possible; it is the cause of the still more stupid and downright reactionary indifference towards national movements. Such indifference becomes chauvinism when members of “Great” European nations, i.e., nations which oppress a mass of small and colonial peoples, declare with a learned air that “there can be no more national wars!” National wars against the imperialist Powers are not only possible and probable, they are inevitable, they are progressive and revolutionary, although, of course, what is needed for their success is either the combined efforts of an enormous number of the inhabitants of the oppressed countries (hundreds of millions in the example we have taken of India and China), or a particularly favourable combination of circumstances in the international situation (for example, when the intervention of the imperialist Powers is paralysed by exhaustion, by war, by their mutual antagonisms, etc.), or a simultaneous uprising of the proletariat of one of the Great Powers against the bourgeoisie (this latter case stands first in order from the standpoint of what is desirable and advantageous for the victory of the proletariat).

We must state, however, that it would be unfair to accuse Junius of being indifferent to national movements. When enumerating the sins of the Social-Democratic Parliamentary group, he does at least mention their silence in the matter of the execution of a native leader in the Cameroons for “treason” (evidently for an attempt at insurrection in connection with the war); and in another place he emphasises (for the special benefit of Messrs. Legien, Lensch and similar scoundrels who call themselves “Social-Democrats”) that colonial nations are also nations. He declares very definitely: “Socialism recognises for every people the right to independence and freedom, the right to be masters of their own destiny.... International socialism recognises the right of free, independent, equal nations, but only socialism can create such nations, only socialism can establish the right of nations to self-determination. This slogan of socialism,” justly observes the author, “like all its other slogans, serves, not to justify the existing order of things, but as a guide post, as a stimulus to the revolutionary, reconstructive, active policy of the proletariat.” (p. 77-78) Consequently, it would be a profound mistake to suppose that all the Left German Social-Democrats have stooped to the narrow-mindedness and distortion of Marxism advocated by certain Dutch and Polish Social-Democrats, who repudiate self-determination of nations even under socialism. However, we shall deal with the special Dutch and Polish sources of this mistake elsewhere.

Another fallacious argument advanced by Junius is in connection with the question of defence of the fatherland. This is a cardinal political question during an imperialist war. Junius has strengthened us in our conviction that our Party has indicated the only correct approach to this question: the proletariat is opposed to defence of the fatherland in this imperialist war because of its predatory, slave-owning, reactionary character, because it is possible and necessary to oppose to it (and to strive to convert it into) civil war for socialism. Junius, however, while brilliantly exposing the imperialist character of the present war as distinct from a national war, falls into the very strange error of trying to drag a national programme into the present non-national war. It sounds almost incredible, but it is true.

The official Social-Democrats, both of the Legien and of the Kautsky shade, in their servility to the bourgeoisie, who have been making the most noise about foreign “invasion” in order to deceive the masses of the people as to the imperialist character of the war, have been particularly assiduous in repeating this “invasion” argument. Kautsky, who now assures naive and credulous people (incidentally, through the mouth of “Spectator,” a member of the Russian Organization Committee) that he joined the opposition at the end of 1914, continues to use this “argument”! To refute it, Junius quotes extremely instructive examples from history, which prove that “invasion and class struggle are not contradictory in bourgeois history, as the official legend has it, but that one is the means and the expression of the other.” For example, the Bourbons in France invoked foreign invaders against the Jacobins; the bourgeoisie in 1871 invoked foreign invaders against the Commune. In his Civil War in France, Marx wrote:

“The highest heroic effort of which old society is still capable is national war; and this is now proved to be a mere governmental humbug, intended to defer the struggle of the classes, and to be thrown aside as soon as that class struggle bursts out in civil war.”[7]

"I am a C. I am a C-H. I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N. And I have C-H-R-I-S-T in my H-E-A-R-T and I will L-I-V-E E-T-E-R-N-A-L-L-Y!"

I remember joyfully singing (more like chanting) this at Orthodoxy camp in NH around a bonfire along with many other hymns among my Christian peers, thinking how humble and pious and special we all were.

In retrospect I realize this type of pretentious group-think is anything but humility. I still feel disgusted that I spent weeks out of each year at this place being trained to be an ignorant and unquestioning/credulous little godbot.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122367645363324303.html

Fuck the DMCA, it treats the accused as guilty until proven innocent.
YouTube credulously follows dubious DMCA take down notices and doesn't do anything much against those who submit bogus ones. It's a copyright witch-hunt. Alleged copyright holders should have to get a court order first. Youtube should not be liable unless they refuse to comply with a court order. Copyright terms should be reduced to 20 years. Adopt the entire platform of the Swedish Pirate Party. Copyright paranoia impedes productivity and public discourse. Copyright protection should require registration with the Library of Congress for archival purposes, as it did before the mid 20th century, and at the expiration of the term of the copyright the copyrighted material should become publicly available for download from the archives. Any 2 minute clip from a TV show is FAIR USE. If it's legal to let your friend borrow a copyrighted book, it should be legal to send your friend some copyrighted music or whatever electronic files. Copyright cannot be enforced without inappropriate surveillance of private communications, so just let it go. There are better business models than suing everyone who tries to make derivative works or post little clips on YouTube. Fuck having to pay for something before you can even see whether it's really worth anything, or just to maintain interoperability within a framework of planned obsolescence. Any musician who's popular on P2P could also make a lot of money on concerts. Fuck movie theaters, get netflix. Microsoft still makes huge profits despite how easy it is to pirate their software.

By all accounts, Bush and his administration of incompetence and cronyism should be impeached for violating their legal, moral and representative duty; and note, this is coming from someone who well and truly understands the political impracticality of such an action, and why unless push comes to shove this will never come to pass.

In light of this failure of legal due process, and in light of the fact the media has time and time again being shown to be either controlled or at the very least influenced to a varying degree by top executives, corporate financiers, and the government; all the while being hemmed into reporting mainstream opinion in the fear that viewers, confronted by opinions too radical and progressive for them to be willing to cognitively process or too complex to be sufficiently elaborated on between commercial breaks, will forsake them for another news organization that merely reinforced their bigoted and one-sided views filtered through a sieve of anaesthetising political correctness - as a result encroaching on their precious ratings, market share and advertising revenue.

Given this, I am very much beyond the idealistic notion of propriety in expressing opinions. As garish, frankly immature it comes off, and as much as it may ultimately damage their cause and credulity, if getting simplistic sound bites of emphatic disapproval across for split seconds on network television, the unfortunate major source of information of this age is one of the few ways you can get the honest goddamn truth across, than so be it.

Lyrics:

Eye on the TV
Cause tragedy thrills me
Whatever flavor
It happens to be

Like:
"Killed by the husband"
"Drowned by the ocean"
"Shot by his own son"
"She used a poison in his tea
and kissed him goodbye"
That's my kind of story.
It's no fun 'til someone dies

Don't look at me like
I am a monster
Frown out your one face
But with the other
Stare like a junkie
Into the TV
Stare like a zombie
While the mother holds her child,
Watches him die

Pleas to the sky crying,
"Why, oh why?!"

Cause I need to watch things die
From a distance
Vicariously, I
Live while the whole world dies
You all need it too - don't lie.

Why can't we just admit it?
Why can't we just admit,
We won't give pause until the blood is flowin'
Neither the brave nor bold
Will write us a story. So,
We won't give pause until the blood is flowin'

I need to watch things die
From a good safe distance
Vicariously, I
Live while the whole world dies
You all feel the same so
Why can't we

Just admit it

Blood like rain, come down
Drum on grave and ground

Part vampire
Part warrior
Carnivore and voyeur
Still have the transmittal
Synch to the death rattle...

La, la, la, la, la, la,la-lie (x4)

Credulous at best your desire to believe in
Angels in the hearts of men
Pull your head on out
You Hippies and give a listen
Shouldn't have to say it all again

The universe is hostile
So impersonal
Devour to survive
So it is, so it's always been ...

We all feed on tragedy
It's like blood to a vampire

Vicariously, I
Live while the whole world dies
Much better you than I.

I'm strongly in favor of banning this guy. I knew about sock-puppetry and how it would undermine a place like this from day 1.

If he's not a retard, then he knew what was going on, and those vote times are a bit too close to be coincidence. Let's not go out of our way to be credulous here, folks.

"...I just don't associate having a false aggrandized memory with dishonesty...It is entirely possible that she remembered the story she told...People do this all the time...If she actually thought her version happened it would not make her crazy, or a liar, it would make her normal."

I might be willing to agree with you, were the subject matter not so extraordinary. Remember, we are talking about being shot at by a friggin sniper. I suspect most people would remember very clearly whether or not such an event took place at all, even if their memory failed them in the details. It strains credulity to think Clinton would be different in this regard.

And she makes stupid, credulous comments about believing that it doesn't go away when it gets to your thighs. This vacuous comment is unsupportable, she knows it, and should ba ashamed of itself. When you digest a burger, its constituent parts behave like all other digested food.

Media ought to challenge false statements by authority figures rather than credulously delivering the party line like xinhua.

Note: He said his thesis has been peer reviewed. That does not happen in the scientific community unless it has some credulity.

I would suggest you actually get some reliable facts to back your claims of his charlitainism up, otherwise, peep quiet.

I would appreciate it if one of the "truthers" would lay out a general summary of what they think happened that day and why.

For example - for those pointing to the BBC video - do you think their entire staff was "in on it"? Every cameraman? Every tech guy? And nobody talked? And, after all that careful orchestration, they didn't wait until the tower fell before they started? What? It doesn't even pass the vaguest, most forgiving laugh test. I don't know what the explanation is (though I can imagine several without straining credulity) - but the idea that the government told them about it before is, by itself, ridiculous.

I mean, why would anyone want them to be "in on it" in the first place? Why not just let them report on it naturally after the building falls down? What would be the point? If they can be made to report on a building that hasn't fallen yet, certainly they could be trusted to "go with the official story" after the building falls.

People are discussing this like there's two scenarios here and we're evaluating facts to decide which is right. But the alternative "truthy" scenario is never fleshed out - there's nothing to evaluate. I've seen a lot of people make lists of 100 things that they think are suspicious, but they never seem to write up an explanation that resolves all (or even many of) those 100 things. Often those 100 things themselves point to wildly different scenarios.

Write up a scenario that fits the facts better than the "official" story - tell me how many new "suspicious coincidences" arise and how many "unanswered questions" there are with the new theory.

I disagree with your assumption that the issue takes religion into account when picking sides or media (the US has a highly constricted view to reporting news from Israel in AIPAC controlled way, have you ever heard anything critical of Israel from US news sources?), there are many Christian and Jewish activists who believe that Israelis process of peace is heavy handed. As I recall Israel is the only nation that has a nuclear weapons program that is hush hush on the International scene, and is well armed with Merkava tanks, AH-1 Cobras and M-16 wielding soldiers, that force has always been there and is not a response to the threat recently. Not that this is a justification for Palestinian tactics, but what other response would you expect after 60 years? Them throwing rocks still?

I believe that the Israeli people want a peaceful resolution to this conflict, but that is at odds with the decision reached in high government of Israel to deny the Palestinian people the right to their own land.

For all the peace rhetoric of the last 60 years, all you have see is a slow dismemberment of the Palestinian territory into ever smaller enclaves. As Henry Siegman writes:

"The Middle East peace process may well be the most spectacular deception in modern diplomatic history. Since the failed Camp David summit of 2000, and actually well before it, Israel’s interest in a peace process – other than for the purpose of obtaining Palestinian and international acceptance of the status quo – has been a fiction that has served primarily to provide cover for its systematic confiscation of Palestinian land and an occupation whose goal, according to the former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon, is ‘to sear deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people’.

But I digress from the main video, I just find it so supremely ironic as well for UN Watch to attack the human rights records of Iran when you have Bush come up on the podium and talk about human rights when we have Guantanamo bay. Robert Parry from ConsortiumNews:

George W. Bush – who asserts his unlimited personal authority to kill, kidnap, torture and spy on anyone of his choosing anywhere in the world – opened his annual speech to the United Nations by hailing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The U.S. President pushed the envelope of the world’s credulity even further by citing the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of 1948 as justification for his “war on terror” and his draconian policies for eliminating “terrorists” or other threats to world order with little or no due process.

I mean srsly?

rougy:

On a related note, you suggest that the National Institute of Standards and Technology -- and those other qualified organisations that acknowledge their evidence and their findings -- cannot be trusted. This is precisely the kind of idea propagated by creationists; they claim that Richard Dawkins et al -- and indeed all evolutionary biologists -- are either credulous, part of some ubiquitous and satanic conspiracy or are at least in its pay. However, there is absolutely no evidence that evolutionary biologists are party to such nefariousness. Congruently, there is absolutely no evidence that the aforementioned structural and civil engineers are being either threatened or bribed into countenance by theoretical shadowy individuals.

Yeah, choggie, you fucking, unschooled, believe everything you see or hear that is unexplainable, idealistic, moron!!! Go back to university, get some credulity and some letters to back up your rants, and for crissakes, read a fucking book every once in a while....one on the "approved" list!!!