CRACKDOWN on "conspiracy theorism"/unAmerican activities on babble

Roscoe wrote:

I much prefer a dingy tavern with spilled beer and peanut shells on the floor, 2 chaps arm wrestling at one table, a chess game underway on another and some dour communists plotting in the corner to a refined drawing room debate where only certain individuals and vetted subjects are allowed.

Sounds like some of my favourite evenings

Fidel wrote:

Well I think I'll take this opportunity to announce my departure from babble as well since 500_Apples' thread was shutdown so quickly. 

babble has become too pro imperialist and intolerant of legitimate dissident views for my liking. The well is poisoned.

Perhaps the business people should solicit donations from NED, IRI, USAid, "al-Qa'bong"(racist handle if ever there was one), Timebandit etc. Because I refuse to have anything more to do 

with the American inquisition disguised as a progressive left wing forum. It's too bad, really.

It's been fun. Good luck to all you genuine lefties. You know who you are. The struggle for democracy continues. Carry on fighting the good fight. Over and out. 

Off!

Well that's lamentable. Stay and rabble rouse.

Sven wrote:

It's too simplistic to make either of these assertions: That the Arab Spring was

1.  100% caused by the CIA (and that popular action played no role)

The first assertion is not only simplistic but it is demonstrably false (there were massive protests and, in many cases, harsh reprisals against the protesters).  The second assertion, given past history, is almost certainly false.

As someone noted earlier, reality almost certainly falls somewhere between those two extremes...and that the relative influences are matters of degree and matters of legitimate discussion.

Although there may have been a diversity of groups present, that does not preclude an external body from applying the initial push. What I and some other Babblers contended was that these revolutions indeed occurred, but their impetus was applied externally with full knowledge of its aftereffects. Period. Coming to any other conclusion of our meaning - and there were a great many diversions - is disingenuous and inflammatory.

wage zombie wrote:

Fidel wrote:

Well I think I'll take this opportunity to announce my departure from babble as well since 500_Apples' thread was shutdown so quickly. 

babble has become too pro imperialist and intolerant of legitimate dissident views for my liking. The well is poisoned.

Really?

How can babble lose Snert and Fidel in the same damned day?!  Is there a full moon glowering down at us?

Com'on back, Fidel.

Seriously.

al-Qa'bong wrote:

And what did Snert do to get banned?

See this thread.

Quote:

Dark races? As opposed to what, the European Light races?

I was thinking more of pure, white races, but yeah.  I guess the intent of my comment flew past you.

And al-Qa'bong is a play (Trite?  Who are you kidding?) on the name of a famous masked Hanna Barbera character.  I need it as a disguise , seeing as folks with my real last name end up in places like Khiam prison for, wait for it...resisting empire.

Slumberjack wrote:

You leave over a difference of opinion vis-a-vis moderating style, which you infer as being touched up with imperialism, while sticking with a party where 103 of them recently voted for it.  I don't get it.  How about a little consistency at least.

I get where you're coming from Slumberjack, but let's have a little solidarity in this thread at least. The mods are shutting down critical discourse just like the state shut it down in the wake of 9/11, because it was "unpatriotic". Except this time it's "insensitive" to the sacrifices of the N.African/Middle East revolutionaries, which, by the way, none of us has denied.

Is anyone keeping a count of how many people have  been banned, suspended of left in the last 24 hours? What a royal  (or should I say radical) fuck up.

Slumberjack wrote:

On the other side, a notion which suggests that nothing in the form of aspirations toward freedom and democracy occurs to people around the world, except for what the west dangles in front of them, is a disgusting one. The unavoidable correlation, unless we're being necessarily emphatic about it, is that people were injured, tortured, and died in support of a vision that wasn't their own, that was implanted for nefarious effect. The fact that we've been drawn in to the latest media fable about an "Arab Spring" obscures the fact that each instance of popular revolt is underwritten by entirely unique sets of circumstances.

I think that is the critical statement. The title of my previous threads was "The USA Manufactured the Arab Spring". That is not all-encompassing of the legitimate struggles of the people in that region. It speaks to the revolution in its current manifestation. You will be hard-pressed to find proof in those threads that I denied genuine unrest and dissent.

'Manufacture' means to create. To use an industrial analogy, a car is manufactured when its components are assembled. Those pieces may have come from a variety of other manufacturers with a variety of manufacturing styles. However, the car manufacturer puts it all together. In this analogy, the CIA is the car manufacturer. It harnessed the potential energies of popular revolution and redirected them.

I don't understand why it occurred to my opponents that I denied the sacrifice and the reality of the revolutions. I was referring to its impetus. Period.

notaradical wrote:

I get where you're coming from Slumberjack, but let's have a little solidarity in this thread at least. 

Hey, I quoted an extract from Debord up thread, and...I called the mod a 'manager.' What more do you want? But I have leanings all around here on this particular issue. On one side of the coin the hands of the corporate imperium in all of its manifestations are never idle hands. The entire history of western commercial rule and its interests as they pertain to the North America context alone has been one of continuous divide and conquer with genocidal implications. In our time we can observe spontaneity from any population anywhere as being of great concern to them. The imperative to engineer a position out in front of any such impromptu outbursts finds a very compelling motivation in profit driven megalomania as the horrifying reality, as it has always been.

On the other side, a notion which suggests that nothing in the form of aspirations toward freedom and democracy occurs to people around the world, except for what the west dangles in front of them, is a disgusting one. The unavoidable correlation, unless we're being necessarily emphatic about it, is that people were injured, tortured, and died in support of a vision that wasn't their own, that was implanted for nefarious effect. The fact that we've been drawn in to the latest media fable about an "Arab Spring" obscures the fact that each instance of popular revolt is underwritten by entirely unique sets of circumstances.

In our attempts to analyze the totality of it, or in parts as they occur, we can't help but to become immersed in our own confusion in relation to all of the manufactured contradictions which appear to be escaping the grasp of the imperium's overlords. That they give off every sign of being in a state of crisis everywhere doesn't mean we have to start our own crisis here. For that reason alone I think its collectively worth the effort to extend ourselves here to ask 500 Apples, Fidel and Polly Bee to reconsider, and correspondingly, to ask for a little more faith from the mods when it comes to determining the intent of people who've been around for awhile.

ETA:  Thanks May for your thoughts.

OK, Fidel is gone, Snert is gone, and in general a lot of people that made me like babble in 2008 or so are gone.

My purpose with these threads was to explore the role of western intelligence agencies within the "Arab spring". Is it like Iran 1953? Chile 1973? Ukraine and Yugoslavia in the 1990s? Or is it more like Iran 1978 or Algeria 1962? Somewhere in between? What factors are completely new? It is worth investigating in my opinion, and it is not at all a priori obvious which is the correct model.

It is a denial of reality, and thus implicitly racist, to deny the role of power relations in these conflicts. The reason it's valid to ascribe a role to Washington, London and Paris is that they have the most power. In Bahrain, where protesters were undermining a pro-US government, tanks were pointed at them, many of them were executed, and the protests were reduced.

There are historical examples of the west seeding false revolutions. I'm in Chile right now.

Back in 1973, if you said the CIA was involved in the Pinochet coup, you were to be considered a lunatic "conspiracy theorist". Today, the whole planet knows what really happened.

By the way, the term Arab Spring is itself racist, as it implicitly assumes that the social dynamics are the same as that in the Paris spring, rather than being specific to the historical situation at hand.

To Catchfire: If you don't want to be insulted, you should adopt the effective strategy of not insulting people first. I personally practice reciprocity and treat other people as they treat me, if you start calling other people imperialist or larouchean and condescendingly closing their threads based on fabricated anti-historical pretenses, expect to be hit back. Look at how much damage your attitude has done to the forum in the last 24 hours.

So long babble. Anyone who wants to keep in touch, send a PM.

Rebecca West wrote:

The original thread was closed because it was espousing ideas, without any valid proof, that the Arab Spring was a manipulation of Imperialist forces.  Completely disavowing the incredible sacrifices of people who have protested, under threat of violent death, this conspiracy theory represents the kind of thought that can only be attributed to an arrogant cultural group that cannot conceive that  people other than themselves can successfully revolt against their government.

That clear enough?

Although the titles of the threads closed may be enough to excuse moderator closure, the statement of allowable discussion goes well beyond any recapitulation of any babble "anti-imperialist" position.

It makes a political assessment of non-imperialism as an indisputable fact; a simplistic assessment of pro vs anti-regime change dynamics in situations which are far more complex than that of assumed progressive forces representing the so-called "arab spring".

Yes, to claim that the "arab spring" was invented by the CIA and does not have roots in popular uprising against tyranny is absurd--and demonstrably so.

But to suggest that the regime change forces in all these countries all represent progressive, anti-imperialist impulses is also absurd--and demonstrably so.

To say that the CIA and "imperialist manipulation" has little or no part in both the current pro and anti-regime change forces (depending on the state involved) is equally absurd--and demonstrably so.

notaradical wrote:

 I understand that as mods they have the power and privilege to do so. Oh well...

People seem to have discovered ways of getting around that.

voice of the damned wrote:

So, I'd say that progressives themselves seem to be a little confused as to what they think about the regimes in that part of the world. 

I haven't detected any confusion about the nature of the regimes there, or here for that matter.  Would you care to point to a few examples?

notaradical wrote:

 

I'm just gonna concede at this point. To be honest, I don't have any issues with anyone on this forum until I get insulted. I'm glad to debate as long we remain civil and not resort to insulting each others' intelligences.

 

 

The irony is getting deeper.

OK, try this: if someone uses terms such as "the dark races," "the turbanned horde," "the Yellow Peril," and "the mysterious Orient;" given the context in which these terms occur, about whom would you think the commentary is directed?

Well, I hope Fidel comes back. I'm not sure what happened between post #7 and post #54, but I think whatever it was will not overpower Fidel's love of babble. Fidel, I've always admired your enthusiasm for and dedication to babble, and I don't think that this disagreement should keep you from this place. polly bee, I'm not sure why you're leaving as well, but I hope it's temporary.

Again, accusations of a crackdown, stifling of dissent, state oppression, etc. are exaggerated to say the least. Here is, and has always been, my issue: conspiracy-like theories which hold that the CIA or some other American governmental organization exerts supernatural force over world events and deny agency to the countless disparate groups across North Africa and the Middle East runs counter to babble's anti-imperialist, and probably anti-racism policy. Both of the closed threads took this theory up with little (and dubious) proof. In fact, I cited 500_Apples's post in the first thread with admiration, as closer to the kind of discussion we should be having on babble. With that in mind, VOTD posts in this thread (as usual), particularly post #80, outline the situation clearly.

As for the two or three babblers who have left, I hope you take this all into perspective before you make your decision final.

contrarianna wrote:

Rebecca West wrote:

The original thread was closed because it was espousing ideas, without any valid proof, that the Arab Spring was a manipulation of Imperialist forces.  Completely disavowing the incredible sacrifices of people who have protested, under threat of violent death, this conspiracy theory represents the kind of thought that can only be attributed to an arrogant cultural group that cannot conceive that  people other than themselves can successfully revolt against their government.

That clear enough?

Although the titles of the threads closed may be enough to excuse moderator closure, the statement of allowable discussion goes well beyond any recapitulation of any babble "anti-imperialist" position.

It makes a political assessment of non-imperialism as an indisputable fact; a simplistic assessment of pro vs anti-regime change dynamics in situations which are far more complex than that of assumed progressive forces representing the so-called "arab spring".

Yes, to claim that the "arab spring" was invented by the CIA and does not have roots in popular uprising against tyranny is absurd--and demonstrably so.

But to suggest that the regime change forces in all these countries all represent progressive, anti-imperialist impulses is also absurd--and demonstrably so.

To say that the CIA and "imperialist manipulation" has little or no part in both the current pro and anti-regime change forces (depending on the state involved) is equally absurd--and demonstrably so.

The original thread [u]title[/u] (as opposed to the [u]actual posts[/u] within the thread itself) was written in absolute terms ("The USA Manufactured the Arab Spring") and it would be fair for someone to read that title and infer the following meaning: "The [u]sole[/u] cause of the Arab Spring was meddling by the USA".

But was anyone asserting within the thread itself that indigenous and popular forces within the affected countries played no role in the Arab Spring?

I didn't read it that way.

voice of the damned wrote:

I think these threads might have gotten off to a better start had the original title been something like "American influence in Arab Spring outcomes?". Which would have acknowledged the complexity of the social movements and the multiplicity of the players. Instead, we got the blunt assertion that the whole movement is "manufactured in the USA", which didn't really set the tone for a nuanced debate.

Exactly!!

Sven wrote:

The original thread [u]title[/u] (as opposed to the [u]actual posts[/u] within the thread itself) was written in absolute terms ("The USA Manufactured the Arab Spring") and it would be fair for someone to read that title and infer the following meaning: "The [u]sole[/u] cause of the Arab Spring was meddling by the USA".

But was anyone asserting within the thread itself that indigenous and popular forces within the affected countries played no role in the Arab Spring?

I didn't read it that way.

I fully concede that my thread title was misleading and ignorant.

Babble Policy wrote:

Moderators may change thread titles for any number of reasons, including but not limited to: errors in grammar or spelling; libel or slander; oppressive/offensive language; commercial or other kinds of spam; any other reason.

If anyone is implying that Catchfire should be fired; I encourage the likes of you to be successful elsewhere.

Fidel wrote:

They are only conspiracy theories if you are able to show that the CIA has not orchestrated counterrevolution and overthrow of various countries' democratically elected leaders, and even abandoned US-backed dictatorships over the years to various popular people's rebellions.

More than orchestrating counterrevolutions and assassinations, CIA and MI6 are historically famous for manufacturing and propagating conspiracy theories about themselves in order to project an inflated view of their magnificance to the world - especially to the people oppressed under the dictatorships supported by them. What better method to discourage any potential freedom fighter in the Arab world by convincing him that all the popular uprisings he admired were nothing more than a complex plot carefully designed by the masters in London and Washington. (Kind of Matrix Reloaded story). Those who repeat such theories should also consider the reality that they are playing in CIA playground.

Here is a take from someone who supposedly went to school with the guy.

http://maxblumenthal.com/2011/06/ex-classmate-of-accused-israeli-spy-ila...

al-Qa'bong wrote:

The Mossad is pretty good at creating that illusion as well, which is one reason The Angry Arab so gleefully points out how inept they are whenever he can.

  For example:

On the dumb Mossad spy in Cairo (is there a Mossad agent who is not dumb)?

Fidel wrote:

your overriding and beligerant opinions on the matter have nothing to do with nurturing free or open political discussion on babble. 

And nothing to do with reality in fact. Confining ourselves to the present tense is evidence enough, let alone drudging up a history filled with corpses strewn about the planet.  The CIA's drone program is currently assassinating entire families in Pakistan, and here we're being treated to yarn about policy implications as they pertain to a discussion of their denial of agency.  It beggars belief when everyday reality and supernatural forces are fuzed together and given the same standing.  It just doesn't make sense.

Hey no NDP. We're having a rare moment.