It would seem that the victims of any injustice are not allowed to be articulate or well spoken, not by the conspiracy types anyway, because that would undermine their supposed superiority. Those who criticized the students who spoke out as being “actors” obviously have not spent much time listening to young people apart from the stereotypical youth portrayed on TV and mocked on YouTube. Young people can be incredibly articulate, intelligent and sincere. But that’s always the way with those who oppose change, denigrate and stoke fear of the “other” and the faithful will quickly fall into line to make sure the change won’t happen. Those who are articulate and intelligent also get slagged of as being “elite” as a typical misuse of the term. Think of it this way, would you rather be protected by “elite” troops or “average” ones? Would you rather be represented by “elite” athletes or regular ones? Those who misuse our language have a lot to answer for.
3
I remember all too well when I was in high school during the 1960's in Alabama and many white adults blaming the unrest on "outside agitators". The implication was that all was basically well with African-Americans (not the name used then of course) living in Alabama and only at the prodding of outsiders would they protest the good life (apartheid at best; terror at worst) they had.
2
Just classic "paranoid style" of the American right wing. Nothing new.
2
Dear AM radio hosts, bloggers, church-based hate mongers, and other lunatics who are clearly no longer the fringe but mainstream:
If, as you say, these children are paid actors, and civil rights activists were all chosen from central casting - so what?
They are fighting for what is right (children to live and breathe free without maniacs wanting to kill them; people who want to live and breathe free from the likes of you).
You are paid actors of evil.
Shame on you.
Kalidan
3
POTUS?
“...outside agitators...” This is all part of the old dodge to minimize away the grievances of an outraged group of people—usually a racial minority—by explaining that the aggrieved were actually quite content with their degraded, marginalized lot in life, and that if “you people”—Northern liberals, usually, but now defamed as The left, would “just let us take care of our own, we can handle the situation.”
After WWII, when Communism became the West’s bete noir, Southerners—and their sympathetic allies—were only too happy to scare people with “some Communist plot,” the better to attack minorities as un-American, seditious and treasonous in their attempts to overturn a system and culture that worked quite well for the oppressors—but not so well for the oppressed.
The tyrannical majority conveniently forgot that this country was founded upon rebellion except when it was faced with decidedly inconvenient truths. How 26 children—and the six selfless teachers shielding them in their last moments—conspired to fake their own deaths is, perhaps, a question that only Alex Jones, in his unfathomable wisdom, can answer.
When the downtrodden rise up and scream “no more!,” the natural reaction is to disbelieve an inherent truth: “the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.” Evil people don’t want to hear it.
6
Smearing other people is such a low character thing. It's almost hard to believe in our, oh so progressive times. But there are always some fellows that can't refrain. Some days ago a high ranking IDF officer declared that a young Palestinian who had been shot in the head had been fallen from his bicycle instead. Why did he say this???
3
Echos both Pres. Richard (R)-@ Kent State,OH/anti-war and Gov. Jay (D)-@Ferguson,MO/Black Lives Matter, Nixons' claims that protesters were "out-side agitators" too.
"...weasels and liars never hold the field..."
and when Infowars, Sean Hannity, Fox & friends et al all have the President's ear, these conspiracy theories are never far from reaching the mainstream. Sad.
4
Any time after a tragedy I see articles that debunk it I wonder who and why would someone do this? This knee jerk reaction is akin to the reaction victims of sex crimes and harassment face. Harass, question and demean the victims - and it sometimes works with the gulible. And we do have many in the US - the media doesn't help by giving them a platform. Nobody likes to believe terrible things can and do happen but it doesn't do anything to deny they occurred. To do so only benefits the truly monstrous among us.
1
When truth flies in the face of your opinion you have to decide will you change your opinion or try to change truth.
3
One of the factors underestimated by some is the role of the Old White South (OWS) in Trumpworld. The OWS's ability to deny first that slavery was wrong, then to deny that Blacks had the same civil rights as whites. and lately to deny that Obama could be a legitimate president primarily because he was Black has persisted down through the generations. The OWS is paranoid because it has been outside the main stream of US culture and thought, which it still will not embrace. So many of the paranoid delusions fostered by Fox news just feeds the Confederate rage at a world they refuse to accept, despite Appomattox being a hundred and fifty years in the past. The OWS is scared of a multi-cultural America and must hang on to their AR-14's for solace.
3
Here is the sad part of this, I would not know these nuts even existed if I was not constantly pounded over the head by NYT and the other liberal news sources. There is an old saying: Don’t dignify stupidity with a response. When you do, you have been trolled.
1
The kids have the right idea. And old of these old mimes are horrific to them.
Kids today are tired of school lockdowns and know THEY are the target as never before.
They are going to vote for their own saftey, guns be damned.
2
Listening to NPR yesterday, I heard a commentator say that it was time to put a label on the motivating sentiment behind these lies, frauds, and distractions - the "F-word" - Fascism. We seem to have nurtured, elected, and installed in our federal government an incipiently fascist regime that will attempt to overwhelm us all if we let it. The only people being paid to take public positions are the ones in the halls of power who are also in the pockets of the plutocracy.
7
Surely I am not the only one alive who recalls George Wallace's tried and true formula: segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. Anyone who declined to buy into that program had to be an "outside agitator" and/or a "pointy headed pseudo-intellectual who can't park a bicycle straight."
Fast forward to the 21st century Dixiecrat/Republican Party and its own enemies list: "elites" (you know, those "pointy heads") and its "crisis actors" (read "outside agitators").
The lunatic lengths to which the right wingnuts will go to perpetuate the myth are boundless. Take Alex Jones insisting that the Sandy Hook school massacre was actually a Hollywood production. On a smaller scale, this is just another variation on the Holocaust denial myth - six million human beings somehow vanished into thin air, don't you know?
Then take our own current President appearing on Alex Jones' radio program to praise his good work. Or Roy Moore mustering his Alabama bible-thumping troops to stand firm against the libtard carpetbaggers opposing his run for the Senate, attempting to stage a Yankee takeover of the Heart of the Heart of Dixie.
George Wallace made little headway in his effort to take the White House. Decades later, Donald Trump and the Dixiecrat/Republican Party used the same raw material and won bigly.
One step forward, two steps back.
5
I am extremely grateful to the NYT for exposing such corrosive influences. Such news articles should always be on the front page, to remind us all to be on our guard against internet-based nonsense.
6
The Trump Fox Republicans are the party of conspiracy theories. That is indisputable. This piece puts them precisely where they belong. Their use of conspiracy theories is part of a longstanding undeniable pattern. Since the Civil War, rightwing groups have routinely resorted to the use of conspiracy theories in order to advance white supremacy and other deplorable objectives. There is nothing at all benign about the present prevalence of this phenomenon.
5
It's all about tribalism. My guys good, your guys bad. That's the end of it, and the beginning.
2
Trump is a reality star actor who gets his information from entertainers on Fox pretending to be news reporters. So yes the conspiracy is real. The right is just looking in the wrong place.
4
One reason that folks may believe in paid protesters (or "crisis actors") is that these days, the news media virtually never tell us who these protesters are, what they do to keep themselves alive from day to day when not protesting, and so forth, particularly when protests take place over a matter of days and nights. I can't be the only one who has asked "Don't these people have jobs they have to go to or classes to attend?" or "Who paid for that hourly worker at McDonald's in St. Louis to protest in favor of upping the minimum wage at a rally in NYC?" or "How do these non-local radicals from some acronym-named protest group pay for transportation and housing and food in Charlottesville, VA or elsewhere?"
Without this kind of background info, it's perhaps understandable that people begin to attribute marches and demonstrations and, at times, riots to sinister forces at work for both far left and right.
1
Part of this is just cynical politics, but another part is the makeup of the fanatical mind. The fanatic does not believe that it is possible to disagree with him in good faith. Since he is obviously right, as anyone must see, it follows that one who pretends to disagree must be lying for corrupt motives. Hence the allegation of actors, payment, etc. It is also a sign of weakness. If I discredit you by saying that your position is contrived from corrupt motives, that means I do not have to make reasoned arguments. Suppose there were a debate between sides in a college debating club, and one side were to say, after presenting it argument, "You people know we're right; you're just pretending to disagree because you're being paid." That would mean that no debate is possible: since you are corrupt and we are honest, we need not offer a reasoned argument to contest you. We win! How that simplifies things! But it also shows that we don't dare face the other side's argument. Here we see the spreading epidemic of the Trump virus, the symptoms of which are an inability to recognize, or care about, the difference between truth and error. It's all about winning, in the moment.
3
Is this a story about Reagan? Not exactly a Crisis actor but he did play a good Alzheimer president.
Or is it about the current toupee carrying Trump?
Many people are aware of Trump's claim to carry a weapon. Who would have thought to look under the wig because there obviously is little else there.
2
It is easy to point fingers at 'southerners' or some other sub-group. They may deserve the criticism, but they serve as a firewall against a more comprehensive admission of responsibility. Isn't the current new 'red scare' a version of this same outside agitator angle? A response by an establishment that refuses to come to terms with its loss of credibility. Do black people need Russians to inform them they should be upset at police killings and acquittals? Were the millions working several jobs but struggling to eat need to be informed of their miseries? No, Americans are upset because of failures of a leadership, that won’t reflect, but rather deflect by whipping up anger at some outside 'mastermind. Kids being killed by guns in schools? Arm the teacher. Yesterday, in Atlanta a teacher fired off a gun in school and was arrested. What next, arm the students? I understand Kevlar book-bags are now a hot item and I saw an article about bullet proof panic cages, which some school districts are considering providing in each class. Everything is on the table but the obvious. If the earlier referenced 'red scare' was seriously about concerns over the integrity of our elections and democracy from external interference, we would be equally concerned about Israeli, UAE, Saudi or Chinese efforts (and successes), as well as the fungibility of money and its unlimited influence in our elections.
1
There’s a simple question to ask of anyone who suggest that a so-called “crisis-actor” is paid: Where do you get a job like that? Is it in the classifieds? Craigslist? Where are these jobs listed?
3
When more than 1 million people marched against the Viet Nam War on Moratorium Day April 24, 1970, nobody could really claim "outside agitators". Instead, on Monday morning, Nixon coined the phrase; "silent majority". It fit the fantasies of those supporting the war; and is still considered a reality today. But opposition or support of Viet Nam wasn't competing groups of Americans. It was the Government; and war machine corporations; vs. We the People.
4
People get bamboozled because they want to be reassured their fears, however unreasonable, are justified.
The answer to why any among us want to sow discord is hiding in plain sight behind the quest for notoriety and wealth which accompanies name recognition.
6
Those recent claims about discontent being fomented by Russia are not made up, my friend. Evidence abounds. 17 intelligence agencies say so. There's no comparison. Do you mean that it's fascinating.
7
These calumnies are simply evidence that the gunmongers are running scared, terrified of admitting that the present horror is in part their responsibility and that their time is up - and also evidence of the incredulity of some that American youth can be this articulate, this politically aware ... a fact I personally find not only believable but heartening. This is the next voting generation; those who wish to dismiss them as "actors" or "scammers" had rather heed their messages - they will be making the future of America.
12
We've had crisis actors for the last 8 years being paid for by our taxpayer money: the Republicans in the House and Senate. They continue to get paid, acting as though they respect the constitution, and we continue to be in crisis.
27
Pointing at others, accusing them of what you are actually doing, it takes the spotlight off your behavior and off the issue to create spin...it's a classic legal tactic, probably well-known in Washington
1
Mr. Welch, attorney for the Army, finally got to Joe McCarthy with, "at long last, have you no shame?" Nobody dare ask that question today. In this country, shame left the building years ago.
20
This stems from a basic human foible that we are all subject to. We want to believe that we are good, well-meaning people who are always...as best we can...doing the right thing and living our lives the right way. It's a fiction we all (or almost all) maintain about ourselves. When this fiction is challenged, we will either admit we are wrong or...much more likely...we will defend it with any argument, however specious, that seems to work, and we will generally see the challengers not as messengers of reason and morality but as disrupters who are meanly attacking us, and we will then attack them back, labeling them as outside agitators unable to "mind their own business" or cons and fakers and grand-standers and, in this case, paid actors working at the behest of people with hidden, dangerous motives.
Politicians and others (including unscrupulous businessmen) have long taken advantage of this basic human foible. Trump and his minions are only the latest in a long line of folk using our human weaknesses against us. Some of them do it intentionally and are the "real" outside agitators and actors in this drama; others are as deluded and self-convinced as the people they seek to manipulate.
10
Bias stemming from the influence of propaganda coupled with a deliberate effort to remain ignorant means "there's a Sucker born" (these days) every second.
Anger is easily aroused, making propagnda's success an easy go while sustaining bigotry and misbegotten arrogance.
In a major way, the nation's education system has failed.
As "Socrates" notes, Richard Hofstadter, others and history show us there's nothing new about the current Internet-driven conspiracy hysteria, the fakery and popularity of "fake news."
Many are unabashedly convinced the government is about to confiscate all guns and eliminate gun ownership. Many who abhor the poor believe the poor do nothing to help the nation's economy.
Persecution based on propagandized fear and a need to feel powerful are as ancient as ancient can be.
When there's another call to "Wake Up, America," we must question the legitimacy of the Wake Up Call.
Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana
4
I never heard of crisis actors nor what they do today because I wasn’t around during the Civil War. But it’s good to know they were there in case I ever have to go back in time.
1
The Vietnam era protests, which I took part in while a college student, were similarly dismissed as being instigated by "outside agitators." Students and student organizing were dismissed as improbable.
Of course, the organizing and the protests worked, eventually forcing politicians, including the hawkish Nixon, to distance themselves from pursuing the war.
Protest works. No doubt that's what has the NRA and its dependents - er, supporters - worried.
Same old, same old.
7
I did not know that this was so common throughout history. It's fascinating.
That said: I do think the article is a tad unfair, equating today's conspiracy theorists with folk who made similar claims in the debate over race relations.
I think what this really has to do with how the human mind works. And how some people think about big, dramatic happenings that they don't understand or like.
We're all built with an impulse to attack or discredit people that tell us things we don't want to hear. We also tend to want to believe that things happen for a reason.
These parts of our human nature can run amuck and lead some people, a lot of people, to let their minds get caught up toxic in a toxic mental trap. They sort of become captive to their biases.
A lot of the people peddling the false actor theory today are genuinely sincere about their suspicion that something doesn't add up. A lot of them are also very, very bright.
They also tend to be against gun control.
But they aren't necessarily espousing their views as part of some well-designed plan to hinder change. It's more like they have a religious conviction about how the world works.
Big conspiracies everywhere. You can't argue with them about it.
Conservative-leaning people aren't the only ones who can caught up in this sorta thinking. Everyone can.
I see people on left letting their minds run away from them a bit to anything Trump says or does. Whatever he does: he's just a shady trickster.
1
The modern Republican Party is predicated on fantasy, fiction and fraud.
It's all part and parcel of "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" from historian Richard Hofstadter's 1964 essay.
https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-polit...
The reality is that the GOP is a political religious cult where reality gets flushed to maintain the holy trinity of greed, white tribal supremacy and cultured stupidity.
The Jim Crow South revised the Civil War to make it about 'states rights' instead of the awful truth about slavery and white supremacy.
They invented a Benghazi conspiracy for four Americans killed and Salem Witch Trials for Hillary Clinton while ignoring four Americans killed in Trump's Niger and ignoring the Trump Treason that is our Matryoshka-Doll-In-Chief.
They invented the Democratic 'voter fraud' myth when the record shows a Republican-run voter suppression Jim Crow Renaissance taking place, which combined with gerrymandering and Kremlin assistance, make Republican election rigging standard hijacking procedure.
This is what you get from the nation's deplorables, empty barrels, and Republican lowlifes.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
― Isaac Asimov (and GOP 2018)
59
Of course people are willing to believe that many spontaneous political movements and activities are less than authentic. This might not be the case if there wasn't so much trickery and deception going on in politics and government as a standard operating procedure, much of it created by political campaign managers and operatives with the deliberate intent of deceiving the public. It's made worse when their hokum is chronicled and celebrated by the media (see cable news, Politico.com, the avalanche of "insider" books published after each presidential election, etc.) as though being clever is more worthy than being honest. So yes, it's a shame that there are so many folks who are cynical about political movements and activities, but whose fault is that?
3
There is a difference between being cynical and being gullible. Sadly, the right wing has gone full bore gullible for any and all lies that support its agenda.
5
There is ancient, slanderous graffiti that can still be found on walls in parts of Rome, Greece, and inside the very top of the Great Pyramid. Nothing new with these tactics, despicable as they are. These young gun reform activists have grown up in a social media era where personal attacks and insults are a daily experience, though, and thusly, seem to have considerable immunity to being personally affected by such behavior. Their efforts may not eventually lead to dramatic change in gun laws for now, but I am deeply moved by the commitment they show, their political savvy, intelligence, eloquence, and their backbone. Then again, I remember Walter Cronkite addressing a national convention of young journalists in the mid-eighties. "What is the greatest disappointment in your lifetime?" queried one of the young journalists. Cronkite said something like "I had high hopes for the sixties generation. I knew they didn't have enough clout to make significant changes when they were young, but I thought they would follow through when they came of age. The biggest disappointment in my life is that they didn't."
10
Fascinating comparing this with all the recent claims that discontent has been fomented by Putin.
@Chris Martin: "Fascinating comparing this with all the recent claims that discontent has been fomented by Putin."
There has been abundant proof that Russia has and is still meddling in our elections.
Why is the "president" failing to protect the nation against this prolonged attack?
Why doesn't any of this bother you?
4
Did you hear that You Tube's new site "moderators" took down Alec Jones and other rabid hate-radio-social media sites? They're howling like banshees and You Tube said it made a mistake.
No mistake, You Tube. Some of the worst haters and fear-anger-hate-Lies,Lies,Lies-WAR mongers are in OUR midst.
It's time for action by WE THE PEOPLE who do not like the direction
The Con Don and his Robber Baron brethren are trying to take us.
NO WW3.
It's time for #turn off Alex Jones and other hate radio-social media. In their demented greed for what they perceive as "power", they want WW3. They want hate-anger-fear-Lies,Lies,Lies to take over OUR United States of America and the world. Why? Who knows? Who cares?
WE THE PEOPLE want stability and relative peace in the world and it is up to US to STOP The Con Don and his Robber Baron brethren, and their stupid media mouthpieces, RIGHT NOW. Now may be the only time we have.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones
20
"No mistake, You Tube. Some of the worst haters and fear-anger-hate-Lies,Lies,Lies-WAR mongers are in OUR midst. ..."
Check the mirror...
1
This isn't just something from the fringe - recall that Trump and Sean Spicer peddled unfounded "professional protester" claims about last year's protests at GOP town halls.
42
When Sean Spicer took the podium on Inauguration day and insisted it was the largest crowd for an Inauguration in history, you had proof then and there that we had fallen down a rabbit hole, where we remain to this day.
Maybe - just maybe- we can climb at least halfway back up in November.
7
It is time to regulate the internet, verify identities and ban the bots.
When your account is assigned to a real person with a real face and a real job it won't be so easy to lie, defraud and harass.
24
There are a lot of very stupid people in this Country. Not that I'm elite, or anything. Wait, yes, I AM. If being educated, having common sense, reading constantly is elite, guilty as inferred. The lowest common denominator is getting lower. Thanks, NRA/GOP. Bigly.
42
Stop dignifying these absurd concoctions as "theories." They are not theories in any scientific sense whatsoever. It is more accurately described as "conspiracy paranoia" and those who espouse it are devotees of a "conspiracy cult."
52
@Christopher: Well said.
Conspiracy lies would be a better term.
1
How about simply..."lies'?
1
I was reminded of this just yesterday in my American Studies class, but the charges of paid actors is not all. Just as the Parkland students were called "arrogant" by Marco Rubio yesterday, so were the first wave of civil rights activists. As today's young people are told that they need to wait for 'the system' to work through these issues, so were the young people who took part in sit-ins and boycotts. But the brave and persistent young people sixty years ago won their fight; let's hope that before long our young warriors for justice will be able to say the same.
39
Now, of course, social media increases the volume of these conspiracies and their access many times over. The clown that invented the "crisis actor" conspiracy stated even after he was exposed for the fabrication that it was, he was going to continue doing it. The "Big Lie" to the "tenth" power, repeat the lie often enough and some will ultimately believe it. For some reason, overall, American society seems to be a good sponge for these type of scenarios.
12
Thing of it is, it doesn't matter what the conspiracy people bleat out... it's not true and they are the fringe. Whenever they get press, the lie is promoted.
Just because somebody says something stupid and false doesn't mean adults have to give it credibility - that's for Faux News to do and this administration.
Soon enough, the lies will fall under their own weight. Just like this administration.
5
I can remember older relatives talking about black families being paid to send their kids to white schools in the 1960s. 1 of my uncles (only 1 sad to say) said that it couldn't be true because no caring parent would send their child into such a situation for money. He argued that the only reason they could be doing it was out a firm belief that such acts of courage were required.
36
You're uncle sounds like a good egg :)
1
Thank you for the relevant history lesson. It is sad. It is also hopeful because this is the final argument of someone who really has finally run out of all other options. Still, they must be called out and their lies corrected with truths.
10
I have lately learned that much of the gun debate originated in the antebellum south, an especially violent era during slavery where white men during this time made claims that in order to "protect" themselves, they needed to be armed. This claim was false because it was actually an argument for justifying violence and control over large populations of slaves. It is not a surprise, then, to find roots of the paid actor conspiracy claims are also traced back to the civil war era. It's also not a surprise to learn about the resurgence of the Robert E. Lee statues began cropping up in the south during the Jim Crow, state sanctioned segregation era. It is not a surprise that we have an openly racist president and that red states are most often located in the south.
24
Its sad to listen some people who have held positions of responsibility and some with storied careers fall for conspiracies that have no basis in fact. Mostly, they've developed narrow news sources and even narrower viewpoints based on them. When faced with facts, they recoil that its fake and only their source is real. Will they ever learn? Probably not. Its complicated.
4
There's so much uproar about Russian fake news and election interference but it's so much more insidious when actions that can achieve similar results come from American citizens and organizations.
With lies being told every day by our President and our politicians, and millions poured into special interest funded false advertising, we should be more outraged by attacks that come from within.
12
The ultimate outside agitators are the super pacs that are allowed to bribe our representatives in Congress and in the state houses. A close second that’s gaining fast are Putin’s boys. Thank activist judges on SCOTUS for the former, and just look at Trump and his inaction for the latter. Sad.
13
Can I just point out the action of Republicans at a certain Florida election office, right after the 2000 presidential election.
Thanks.
15
I know the NYT is one of the main practitioners of both sides-ism in the media, and I'm sure you could find examples on the other side, but would it have been too much to note it's pretty clear it overwhelmingly tends to be conservative reactionaries who do this kind of thing.
11
"Prove it didn't happen" is the common cry of those asserting that something *did* happen, who have no evidence to support it. It's a major fallacy of logic called "shifting the burden of proof" to do this. The gullible and uneducated portion of the electorate don't understand basic logic, so these tactics work with them.
It's right up there with the "Well, what about..." tactic. It's transparent and dishonest. One simply needs to pay attention.
Pay attention.
28
This was also a cry during the development of the suburbs- Levittown had to advertise in coded terms as all-White and when a Black family tried to move in suddenly there were "rumours" that they were paid NCAAP agitators.
8
A long and sordid history of these attempts to dismiss resistance to injustice as inconsequential is an integral part of othering people who don't fit the models white supremacy attempts to impose on us all.
The most damnable of all is that people have to be paid to resist oppression, that they would not otherwise resist it. Only those who want you to forget history could possibly believe this myth is persuasive in spite of example after example of resistance engendered by oppression, not cash.
The next part of this myth is that it takes cash to even find someone who can make a claim to oppression, as if it didn't exist at all or was of such a minor nature that no reasonable person would bother to complain about it.
The next appendage of this myth is that paid actors must be behind such claims because no one could otherwise credibly claim the KKK or other haters have any evil intent against those who aren't what they consider white. Based on the statements of white supremacy, there seems plenty of evidence of their murderous nature without a penny changing hands.
What's even more disturbing than the fabrication of such claims is the fact that they are so often repeated with little or no attempt at critical review, then gobbled up by those who find such beliefs to be comfortable reinforcement for their prejudices. It's the millions of credulous Americans who are militantly disloyal to the principles of our decent society that provide fertile ground for such racist myths.
12
You can actually extend this tactic of reactionary Americans to the foreign policy realm. One of the primary motivations for America's involvement in the Second Indo-China War (aka the Vietnam War) was the notion that the Vietnamese communists were puppets or "paid agitators" who were entirely propped up with money and arms from the Soviet Union. The idea that Ho Chi Minh & Co. were independent thinkers acting on their own volition was dismissed as impossible due to both paranoia about Moscow and also feelings of bigotry that saw Asians as simpletons who could never come up with the idea of anti-colonial insurgency on their own.
Gosh, you'd think Americans would have been sensible enough to realize that the Vietnamese on their own were more than able to come up with the idea of communism-based, anti-colonial insurgency after being subjected to more than 60 years of French imperialism. And likewise, it does seem reasonable to conclude that children who survived a mass shooting are likely to decide on their own that it's probably not a good thing that the public schools they attend have been turned into shooting galleries and America as a whole resembles a gigantic unregulated arms bazaar akin to what you see in Kabul or Mogadishu.
In both the domestic and foreign policy realms, the damage done by this kind of "outside agitator" view propagated by reactionary Americans has been incalculably destructive and damaging.
24
Being organized and being a conspiracy are two different things. Of course these movements are organized, and want to put their best foot forward to persuade the public of the justness of their cause. That is only sensible.
The civil rights movement used attractive, well-dressed girls to integrate the schools. Why shouldn't they? If they had sent loutist teenage boys dressed in t-shirts and dungarees, it would have looked bad. The leaders of the movement made sure that didn't happen, because they wanted public support.
For gun control, the same rules apply. If you send a professional leftist politician who has been spouting off for decades, it will not be very effective. But attractive teenagers who have just been in a school shooting may make very effective advocates, and for this reason they are brought forward.
This does not mean that their suggestions should not receive the same scrutiny that every other legislative proposal receives, and should receive.
11
It is denigrating and cynical to state "attractive teenagers" are in any way being "brought forward". This is a remark which could well have been written by the NRA and insults the integrity and intelligence of both student and adult victims.
These young people are aware the so-called adult legislators have done and will do nothing to stop the cash flow from the NRA and arms manufacturers. Students are being killed while the adults sit on their hands or send out missives such as yours.
Think any high school student feels safe. Think any are studying without a form of stress that is found in the obits?
Freedom is one thing, but freedom has a limit. The sale of weapons designed for no other purpose than to disable and kill human beings at war is that limit.
November 8th is the target date.
2
When you realize how deep these negative views of folks seeking change are in US history, you can see how difficult it is to improve this country. It's hard for me to believe that those making claims of "crisis actors" throughout history actually think their claims are real. Anyone who does believe those claims is looking for excuses to maintain the status quo.
33
The first casualty in 'info wars' is the truth, to capitalize on an old statement about war. It's not long after a lie is told before it becomes truth in the mind of the liar. And then there are those like Roger Stone and other political operatives who delight in the lie and getting away with it.
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Our own president has gotten in on the action too, regularly accusing various groups of protesters of being in the pay of the Democratic party, or of George Soros, or of some other right-wing bugaboo, with nary a shred of evidence. It's one more debasement on the part of this beyond-the-pale presidency; no other president in history would have stooped to this level. It's the sort of behavior one would expect from banana republic dictators.
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Great article calling out liars that peddle malicious conspiracy theories. In the US, the problem goes all the way to the top of course.
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