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| Channel 5's 10 Greatest Conspiracies 9 o'clock 12/5/04 So Channel 5 The bastion of intelligent and thoughtful programming makes a programme about the gullible and deluded. Well I thought that was their target audience! Well you'd have to be that, to expect any decent programme on their station. Cheap shots aside, I want to make this point that the premise of this dreaded 'list' programme was to link belief in CT's with gullible and deluded people. But CT's are not the exclusive preserve of these people and I'd like to emphasize that point by using one of their Top 10 CT's, the one about the the Royal Family being shape shifting lizards. This idea is the grotesque, negative flip side of the belief that the monarchy are of 'Blue blood' and 'Divine' or just somehow vaguely special. This mass delusion however, has been deliberately cultivated by our leaders over our entire history until only comparatively recently.And it is exactly this group of people who have been persuaded by jingoist patriotic rubbish to support all kinds of dubious wars. So now this disaffected bunch have descended on the CT field and drowned out the sensible and more sober CTer who may indeed believe in some of the CT's in this prog's top 10. In it they had stuff like 'Elvis and Hitler not dead' and 'Royal Lizards' Well I think they are crazy too, but if I say that I think there maybe something in the abduction phenomenon, then I'm tarred with the same brush according to this programme. I'm just one nutter accusing another nutter of being a nutter ! If I wanted to be conspiratorial minded I could ask who funded this programme and how did they compile this top 10? Did they check out all the sites to see what was on them? I doubt it. The last part of the show I thought redeemed itself by not ridiculing JFK and most surprisingly not attacking the quite paranoid sounding idea that secret organisations are invading our brains with Hi Tec Gizmo's (One I have no opinion on, sounds too much like schizophrenia for my liking). But then I realised that with an increasingly cynical and conspiratorially minded audience a totally debunking attitude would look too much like propaganda. I'm always interested by what experts are put on programmes like this and Robin Ramsay (Fortean Times resident critical CT commentator) was featured a lot. He made a critical comment saying how there were 61 toted sponsors for either Diana's or JFK's death (There is a lot for both anyway!) But I remembered him in an interview saying how it was now 'agreed' opinion that Lyndon Johnson was the sponsor. So he's got the right sponsor eh ? All the rest are just mad CTer's! Well they have to be, because he's right. And I'm not over impressed by the other experts J Vankin & co they only really believe, like Ramsay, in the JFK conspiracy in this top 10 and in my opinion are just debunkers in disguise. And here's a tricky thought for you. I certainly don't believe in Royal Lizards but I think David Icke (Not the sharpest pencil in the box) genuinely believes in them. I've heard him in conversation making the point that he became convinced by people all over the place telling him such similar stories. Who exactly were all these people telling the same stories ? Because they sound utterly ridiculous even by CT standards. To me David Icke just looks like a pawn. But then I believe the explosion of CTs is riddled with double bluffs and nonsense to make the whole field look even more ridiculous (If that's possible !) and to muddy the water to hide the genuine ones. So I'm going to nail my colours to the cross and say what CT's from their top 10 I believe in. Well I took JFK as read and also Diana and err..... the Faked lunar landing...... So now I've got to be a looney. And the motivation for Lunar Hoax I believe is really the 'big secret' and is the mother of all CT's. 'Aaaah the Queen Mum ! She was the loveliest shape shifting lizard in the world ! God Bless her !' |
| A History of Human Folly - Conservatism Radio 4 Saturday 15/5/05 I caught this programme a few times before, but this episode got my attention because it's superior tone got on my nerves. It is basically about society's inability to spot a good idea from a bad one and the pursuance of a bad idea to ridiculous lengths. Oh for the gift of hindsight ! It makes it so easy to spot the winner.. This particular episode was about conservatism, the desire to keep things the same and avoid any change and focused a lot on the British Class system. The class system brought great rewards in terms of the success of our empire....... It gave us the British Empire for God's sake ! (I'm no Empire sympathiser) We owned a good portion of the world and the British character was seen as essential part of that success, so it's not so easy to see that upsetting of that order and it's way of doing things, would be a good thing. We now live in a time viewed from a historical standpoint of great stability that has been brought about by the culmination of great technological and social change and so we believe we can cope with the real or perceived dangers of change, in fact we basically see change mainly as a good thing. But in the past those dangers to society might have been real and so were resisted. I remember a previous edition in which he lampooned some mad folk remedies and I am reminded of how drugs companies are now scouring the world for what used to be derisively called Old Wives Tales. So only a mere 20 - 30 years ago Mr Wheen or anybody else probably couldn't have spotted a multi billion dollar winner from a complete dud ! So what chance did they have back then eh ? For me the true skill of Folly watching is identifying the ones that are happening right now and betting your professional reputation on them. What Mr Wheen demonstrates is the folly of living in the present with all the confidence and certainty that one obtains from not having been proved wrong and through that arrogance we can perceive the past, present and future with equal lack of clarity. |
| Channel 5's 10 Greatest Conspiracies First Posted 16/5/04 A History of Human Folly - Conservatism Radio 4 Prog First Posted 16/5/04 |
| The Modern Paranormalist |