IndieRocker79
01-15-2008, 04:57 PM
Conspiracy theory is a tangled web of fact vs. exegesis. Often times you will find 3 or 4 seemingly irrelevant and unrelated facts spun together to create some wild and intangible theory as to what "really" happened. Often times it seems the theorists are grasping at straws in order to "prove" the bizarre theory they are attempting to portray.
At the same time, the facts themselves don't lie, and support the cause for a variety of conspiratorial acts perpetrated by a small group or groups to undermine the system for a certain cause. One of the biggest examples of this would be the JFK assassination. Evidence points toward high level CIA ops being dissatisfied with Kennedy's Cuban policy changes, and the Mafia was unhappy with Kennedy for their own reasons. Why then would a mafia hitman like Ruby want to assassinate the assassin? Wouldn't he rather praise Oswald? If you gather all the evidence, it appears the CIA and Mafia may have been in cahoots to oust a common enemy in the form of JFK.
However, many conspiracy theorists will take this 100 steps further, bringing in Nostradamus, UFO's/Roswell, Freemasonry, and a plethora of other unrelated information that seems to point toward a conspiracy and the infamous "second shooter" from the "grassy knoll". Thus these "conspiracy myths" are easy to dispel and discredit the actual theory behind them that points toward a multitude of factual evidence to support the cause for a behind-the-scenes coup d'etat.
In the case of Diebold, often the conspiracy myths include various masonic entities and supposed secret societies such as Skull and Bones, the Illuminati, Aleister Crowley, and so on. It is impossible to correlated these groups, let alone their supposed activities and involvement in some sort of conspiracy, and the minute someone sees mention of them in a theory, it immediately downgrades into myth and becomes easily refuted as "crazy talk." The use of numerology and other New Age pseudoscience in these myths also makes them a difficult pill to swallow.
Again though, when one examines just the facts, a small level of discontinuity arises. We witnessed this first hand in New Hampshire with the discrepancies between the hand counted ballot counties and the Diebold counties. In 2000 there were countless numbers of complaints and discrepancies, and in 2004 similar discrepancies and access complaints in places like Ohio, when certain machines mysteriously showed up to the wrong counties and left larger, high-minority, predominantly Democrat counties with 2+ hour lines. CNN even reported the very next morning about voter fraud concerns and discrepancies regarding the electronic ballot machines. I witnessed the article first hand, and within a matter of 3 hours, I could no longer find the article, it had vanished. To this day there are still petitions, concerns, eye-witness accounts, lawsuits, and so on regarding these Diebold machines. The facts speak louder than the myth here: there is something vehemently WRONG with the Diebold factor.
So is there a conspiracy? Maybe. Is there something the MSM isn't telling us? Obviously. Is there something inherently flawed with the system? Most DEFINITELY. Does it make the conspiracy theorists nut jobs? Only when they delve into the realm of conspiracy myth and draw from the genres of pseudoscience, secret societies, space aliens, and so on. And that isn't to say that their theories are necessarily wrong, there is some chance that all these crazy things do tie together and are what's really happening. But I feel it's going to be VERY hard for someone to, beyond a shadow of a doubt using strictly related factual evidence that can be tested and proven, link an Ivy League fraternal organization like Skull and Bones to something much more easily explained away by facts alone; e.g. corporate nepotism and political lobbyists in the case of Diebold's exclusive contracts for the voting machines. In either case, the fact remains that Diebold has a lot of explaining to do and should be held accountable for any case of voter fraud that can be proven. This requires hand recounts, more eye-witness accounts, and the elimination of paperless voting. With no paper trail, hand recounts become impossible and thereby there is no litmus test to inspect the ballots against.
Hopefully the New Hampshire recount will give the evidence needed to put the highly sought much needed scrutiny from a big name candidate early in the election process against the Diebold system (i.e. Barack Obama, if the results show Diebold error in favor of Hillary Clinton). Sadly, if the recount movements that are bound to occur this year fail, we may be destined for a even more underreported and undisclosed discrepancies for many decades to come.
A A Wulf
Fort Wayne, IN
At the same time, the facts themselves don't lie, and support the cause for a variety of conspiratorial acts perpetrated by a small group or groups to undermine the system for a certain cause. One of the biggest examples of this would be the JFK assassination. Evidence points toward high level CIA ops being dissatisfied with Kennedy's Cuban policy changes, and the Mafia was unhappy with Kennedy for their own reasons. Why then would a mafia hitman like Ruby want to assassinate the assassin? Wouldn't he rather praise Oswald? If you gather all the evidence, it appears the CIA and Mafia may have been in cahoots to oust a common enemy in the form of JFK.
However, many conspiracy theorists will take this 100 steps further, bringing in Nostradamus, UFO's/Roswell, Freemasonry, and a plethora of other unrelated information that seems to point toward a conspiracy and the infamous "second shooter" from the "grassy knoll". Thus these "conspiracy myths" are easy to dispel and discredit the actual theory behind them that points toward a multitude of factual evidence to support the cause for a behind-the-scenes coup d'etat.
In the case of Diebold, often the conspiracy myths include various masonic entities and supposed secret societies such as Skull and Bones, the Illuminati, Aleister Crowley, and so on. It is impossible to correlated these groups, let alone their supposed activities and involvement in some sort of conspiracy, and the minute someone sees mention of them in a theory, it immediately downgrades into myth and becomes easily refuted as "crazy talk." The use of numerology and other New Age pseudoscience in these myths also makes them a difficult pill to swallow.
Again though, when one examines just the facts, a small level of discontinuity arises. We witnessed this first hand in New Hampshire with the discrepancies between the hand counted ballot counties and the Diebold counties. In 2000 there were countless numbers of complaints and discrepancies, and in 2004 similar discrepancies and access complaints in places like Ohio, when certain machines mysteriously showed up to the wrong counties and left larger, high-minority, predominantly Democrat counties with 2+ hour lines. CNN even reported the very next morning about voter fraud concerns and discrepancies regarding the electronic ballot machines. I witnessed the article first hand, and within a matter of 3 hours, I could no longer find the article, it had vanished. To this day there are still petitions, concerns, eye-witness accounts, lawsuits, and so on regarding these Diebold machines. The facts speak louder than the myth here: there is something vehemently WRONG with the Diebold factor.
So is there a conspiracy? Maybe. Is there something the MSM isn't telling us? Obviously. Is there something inherently flawed with the system? Most DEFINITELY. Does it make the conspiracy theorists nut jobs? Only when they delve into the realm of conspiracy myth and draw from the genres of pseudoscience, secret societies, space aliens, and so on. And that isn't to say that their theories are necessarily wrong, there is some chance that all these crazy things do tie together and are what's really happening. But I feel it's going to be VERY hard for someone to, beyond a shadow of a doubt using strictly related factual evidence that can be tested and proven, link an Ivy League fraternal organization like Skull and Bones to something much more easily explained away by facts alone; e.g. corporate nepotism and political lobbyists in the case of Diebold's exclusive contracts for the voting machines. In either case, the fact remains that Diebold has a lot of explaining to do and should be held accountable for any case of voter fraud that can be proven. This requires hand recounts, more eye-witness accounts, and the elimination of paperless voting. With no paper trail, hand recounts become impossible and thereby there is no litmus test to inspect the ballots against.
Hopefully the New Hampshire recount will give the evidence needed to put the highly sought much needed scrutiny from a big name candidate early in the election process against the Diebold system (i.e. Barack Obama, if the results show Diebold error in favor of Hillary Clinton). Sadly, if the recount movements that are bound to occur this year fail, we may be destined for a even more underreported and undisclosed discrepancies for many decades to come.
A A Wulf
Fort Wayne, IN