COINTELPRO Updates: Above Top Secret Forum
From:
Laura Knight Jadczyk
Postcards from the Edge of Reality...
COINTELPRO Updates: Above Top Secret Forum
07 January 2006
COINTELPRO Updates: Above Top Secret Forum
Things have been pretty interesting around here in the past week. Seems that Joe Quinn's critique of the Above Top Secret forum posting about the 757 that did NOT hit the Pentagon has hit a nerve.
The first indication that we had that something was up was the fact that the Signs of The Times site statistics had a bit of a surge.
Now we keep a pretty good eye on our site statistics because we like to know what subjects really interest our readers. So when there is a surge, we know we are doing our job. This is most particularly true with the publication of the Pentagon Strike video: obviously, so many people "resonated" to the facts presented in this video that the current number of viewers is approacing 600 million.
Yes, that's right: 600 MILLION. It will soon be one of the most widely disseminated items ever to be published on the internet.
For the "Powers That Be," that's a problem.
The result of this statistical analysis is the fact that we KNOW that hundreds of millions of people do NOT believe that a 757 hit the Pentagon. They would not be avidly sharing the Pentagon Strike video with their family, friends, acquaintances, to the extent that they have done so if they were not trying to use it as a way of communicating something that is difficult to put into words, not to mention dangerous considering the Fascist takeover of America by Bush and the Neocons.
Enter: Above Top Secret Forum.
Well, actually, we hadn't really paid too much attention to the ATS forum until it became almost a daily event for someone to send us, or post to our modest discussion forum, the link to this ATS post by "CatHerder." (Gee, even the name of the poster gives a COINTELPRO impression; imagine someone trying to herd cats?! That's probably how the PTB view people - a bunch of disorderly cats that need to be herded in a particular direction.) We didn't know that the ATS forum moderators had made thinly veiled negative references to our own work in their manipulative posts as we show in the Frozen Fish analysis.
We ambled over to ATS to read the article and recognized it immediately for what it was: a slick, manipulative piece of journalism designed to take in individuals who are easily bamboozled. After the first time or two that the link was posted to our forum, then people began to try to post the entire article. We rejected it a dozen times or more simply because it was what it was: disinformation. The fact is, we are in the news publishing business because we intend it as a teaching tool, and we try to check material for validity and to weed out as many lies as possible so our readers don't have to waste a lot of their valuable time reading garbage. Unlike sites such as Rense.com and others, which publish just about anything indiscriminately, we DO try to publish responsibly. If we utilize mainstream articles that we suspect are "agenda slanted," we try to add comments pointing out the obvious, or at least publish such an article juxtaposed against another that makes clear the agenda. We also use flashbacks to remind readers that a current article may be saying something exactly the opposite of what was said a few weeks, months, or even years ago. In short, our idea is to help readers learn to think, to spot the deceptions, and to develop or refine their own internal BS meters.
At the same time, as noted, we DO keep a close eye on our statistics so that we know what items interest the greatest number of people which then prompts us to do more research on those items so as to bring to our readers more material that will satisfy that desire for information.
As I said, we hadn't really paid a lot of attention to the ATS people up to the point in time when a cadre of what we think of as COINTELPRO "floaters" repeatedly tried to force us to publish the ATS CatHerder piece on our own website. Based on our assessment of the piece, it would have been the same thing as publishing - and giving credibility to - disinformation. We simply weren't going to do it - without commentary as we do when we publish any piece that we consider to be "agenda directed." The problem was, it was such a long and slippery piece that it needed quite a bit of writing just to deal with the nonsense presented as "logic." We didn't have the time or the inclination. Yet, over time, the questions from sincere readers kept coming in and made us aware that the ATS article was obviously an item that our readers wanted us to address.
In the end, that was exactly what we did: we published it with commentary.
I rather think that if we had published it as a regular news piece on the Signs of The Times daily pages with NO comment, what happened next would not have happened.
But first, let me mention that we did get a lot of positive feedback on the article from readers, including several entries to our discussion forum, one of which really made us laugh:
Click here for rest of article.
Laura Knight Jadczyk
Postcards from the Edge of Reality...
COINTELPRO Updates: Above Top Secret Forum
07 January 2006
COINTELPRO Updates: Above Top Secret Forum
Things have been pretty interesting around here in the past week. Seems that Joe Quinn's critique of the Above Top Secret forum posting about the 757 that did NOT hit the Pentagon has hit a nerve.
The first indication that we had that something was up was the fact that the Signs of The Times site statistics had a bit of a surge.
Now we keep a pretty good eye on our site statistics because we like to know what subjects really interest our readers. So when there is a surge, we know we are doing our job. This is most particularly true with the publication of the Pentagon Strike video: obviously, so many people "resonated" to the facts presented in this video that the current number of viewers is approacing 600 million.
Yes, that's right: 600 MILLION. It will soon be one of the most widely disseminated items ever to be published on the internet.
For the "Powers That Be," that's a problem.
The result of this statistical analysis is the fact that we KNOW that hundreds of millions of people do NOT believe that a 757 hit the Pentagon. They would not be avidly sharing the Pentagon Strike video with their family, friends, acquaintances, to the extent that they have done so if they were not trying to use it as a way of communicating something that is difficult to put into words, not to mention dangerous considering the Fascist takeover of America by Bush and the Neocons.
Enter: Above Top Secret Forum.
Well, actually, we hadn't really paid too much attention to the ATS forum until it became almost a daily event for someone to send us, or post to our modest discussion forum, the link to this ATS post by "CatHerder." (Gee, even the name of the poster gives a COINTELPRO impression; imagine someone trying to herd cats?! That's probably how the PTB view people - a bunch of disorderly cats that need to be herded in a particular direction.) We didn't know that the ATS forum moderators had made thinly veiled negative references to our own work in their manipulative posts as we show in the Frozen Fish analysis.
We ambled over to ATS to read the article and recognized it immediately for what it was: a slick, manipulative piece of journalism designed to take in individuals who are easily bamboozled. After the first time or two that the link was posted to our forum, then people began to try to post the entire article. We rejected it a dozen times or more simply because it was what it was: disinformation. The fact is, we are in the news publishing business because we intend it as a teaching tool, and we try to check material for validity and to weed out as many lies as possible so our readers don't have to waste a lot of their valuable time reading garbage. Unlike sites such as Rense.com and others, which publish just about anything indiscriminately, we DO try to publish responsibly. If we utilize mainstream articles that we suspect are "agenda slanted," we try to add comments pointing out the obvious, or at least publish such an article juxtaposed against another that makes clear the agenda. We also use flashbacks to remind readers that a current article may be saying something exactly the opposite of what was said a few weeks, months, or even years ago. In short, our idea is to help readers learn to think, to spot the deceptions, and to develop or refine their own internal BS meters.
At the same time, as noted, we DO keep a close eye on our statistics so that we know what items interest the greatest number of people which then prompts us to do more research on those items so as to bring to our readers more material that will satisfy that desire for information.
As I said, we hadn't really paid a lot of attention to the ATS people up to the point in time when a cadre of what we think of as COINTELPRO "floaters" repeatedly tried to force us to publish the ATS CatHerder piece on our own website. Based on our assessment of the piece, it would have been the same thing as publishing - and giving credibility to - disinformation. We simply weren't going to do it - without commentary as we do when we publish any piece that we consider to be "agenda directed." The problem was, it was such a long and slippery piece that it needed quite a bit of writing just to deal with the nonsense presented as "logic." We didn't have the time or the inclination. Yet, over time, the questions from sincere readers kept coming in and made us aware that the ATS article was obviously an item that our readers wanted us to address.
In the end, that was exactly what we did: we published it with commentary.
I rather think that if we had published it as a regular news piece on the Signs of The Times daily pages with NO comment, what happened next would not have happened.
But first, let me mention that we did get a lot of positive feedback on the article from readers, including several entries to our discussion forum, one of which really made us laugh:
Click here for rest of article.
posted by Hold On at 8:29 AM
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