Tag: Conspiracy Theories

The Danger of Bullshit: Revisiting Harry Frankfurt’s Classic Essay

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat) 
‘The liar is inescapably concerned with truth-values. In order to invent a lie at all, he must think he knows what is true.’ (p. 51)

The Danger of Bullshit: Revisiting Harry Frankfurt’s Classic Essay

Harry Frankfurt argues that bullshit is more dangerous than lying. At first sight, this seems counter-intuitive. Surely lying is worse than bullshitting? Liars are intentionally and deliberately trying to deceive us. Normally, doing something bad (e.g. deceiving someone) intentionally makes the action worse than if it is done unintentionally, for example accidentally or absentmindedly. If this is the case, how can bullshit be worse than lying?

The reason Frankfurt gives is that, whereas liars at least pay some respect to the difference between what is true and what isn’t, bullshitters completely disregard it. They simply don’t care about the difference. This, Frankfurt argues, means that compulsive bullshitters become progressively less able to tell the truth than compulsive liars. Liars and truth tellers are playing on opposite sides of the same game. Bullshitters are playing a different game entirely where the rules of truth don’t matter. This lack of concern, Frankfurt argues, is more corrosive of one’s ability to distinguish the truth than deliberately obscuring the truth. Once one gets into the habit of bullshitting, it is difficult to get out of it.

Related:

On Bullshit Booklet (PDF)Download

Ukraine: Dysfunctional Politics

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

“Dysfunction Sidelines Ukraine’s Parliament as Governing Force,” is the title of an article published this week by The New York Times in one of the few political critiques that has appeared in the Western press recently. It took two years after the Russian invasion for the grace period of absence of political comments on the Ukrainian authorities to be broken, although always partially and only temporarily. It was the news that included Vitali Klitschko’s words against what he perceived as authoritarian drift that opened the door. Like the current information, that news also lacked the contextualization that politics requires, and it was left unmentioned that the criticism of the mayor of Kiev and the measures by which the protesters were part of a confrontation that went back almost to the beginnings of the presidency of Zelensky. The origin of the rivalry lies in the struggle for power and control of the resources of the State between the two protagonists. What is more, the attempt to Zelensky snatch administratively, the mayor of Kiev Klitschko, a man with powerful connections and political contacts, especially in Germany, is one of the examples that show that the authoritarian drift of Volodymyr Zelensky is not justified in the wartime situation today, but that precedes it in several years to the military intervention of Russia.

Read More »

At 60, We’re Winning – and Losing – the JFK Media War

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Twelve days ago, I was asked by the Opinion section of the New York Times to write an essay on the JFK assassination nearly 60 years later. This was a major breakthrough because the newspaper of record has always embraced the official version of the assassination, even as the Warren Report, based on the “magic bullet” and all that nonsense, has grown increasingly tattered over the years. In 2015, when The Devil’s Chessboard — my book about CIA spymaster Allen Dulles and the national security state’s war with President Kennedy — was published, the Times refused to review it. (Nonetheless, the book was a New York Times bestseller.)

At 60, We’re Winning – and Losing – the JFK Media War

H/T: Kim Iversen

[2022] Chaos Agent – Yuri Bezmenov

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Yuri Bezmenov defected from the Soviet Union to Canada in the ‘70s, and his warnings about disinformation have made him a posthumous star on social media. Documents obtained by CBC News reveal his toxic relationship with Canada’s intelligence services.

Chaos agent (archived)

Semi-Related:

Call Of Duty Trailer Recklessly Promotes Far-Right Conspiracy Theory (archived)

The person interviewing Bezmenov in the footage is far-right conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin, who has since made a name for himself in HIV/AIDS denialism and alt-right recruitment. As a member of the John Birch Society, a famously anti-Communist organization focused on establishing a more conservative government in the United States, it makes sense that Griffin would peddle Bezmenov’s claims about Soviet interference by way of social progress without any critical analysis. In the Call of Duty trailer, Activision presents Bezmenov’s words bereft of this important context.

Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War uses KGB video from 1984. Critics say it’s CIA propaganda

George Santos Suggested the Chinese Communist Party Kidnapped His Niece. Huh?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The fabulist congressman’s latest tale connects to his courtship of Chinese exile Guo Wengui.

George Santos Suggested the Chinese Communist Party Kidnapped His Niece. Huh?

Related:

Santos Introduces GUO Act to Fight CCP Infiltration of U.S. Government

Like former CIA officer and Donald Trump campaign national security advisor Anthony Shaffer and others, Santos believes the CCP is infiltrating the U.S. government. Indeed, with the Bidens’ financial ties to China, it seems that infiltration might even extend to the White House.

Spook Tony Shaffer is a regular on Judge Napolitano. Must be one of those ‘realists’ like John Mearsheimer?! 🙄

Who is Guo Wengui?

Hong Kong ‘Protests’ (New Federal State of China)