ISIS Terrorist Attack in Manchester? 17 Days Before Crucial UK Elections
by Peter Koenig, from Global Research
Image source: BBC.
British elections are planned for 8 June 2017.
At the end of a pop concert by US singer Ariana Grande in Manchester, an enormous ‘controlled’ explosion killed at least 22 people and injured 59, as reported by British media. Many of them are children and adolescents, as most of the concert-goers were young people.
The singer is unharmed. The concert hall accommodates 21,000 people. After the blast, panic broke loose, resulting in a mass stampede. It is not clear whether people were also killed in the stampede.
Hours after the explosion, although BBC reported it was not evident what exactly happened, UK police and authorities talked immediately of an act of terror.
Early Tuesday morning, 23 May, British authorities said that the Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the explosion. The Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Ian Hopkins, stated investigators believe the attack was carried out by a lone suicide bomber “carrying” a homemade device. He was killed by the blast.
The IS-Propaganda agency Amak apparently issued the claim of IS’s responsibility for the deadly blast. Did an independent authority check whether this is indeed true?
The attacker, is now named by US officials (why US officials?) as Salman Abedi, 22, a British citizen, born in the UK. He is told having detonated the improvised explosive device.
Another 23-year-old suspect was apprehended in the south of Manchester. But so far, the Chief Police Officer refused to talk to the media about suspects.
Prime Minister, Theresa May raised the threat warning to the highest level, from ‘severe’ to ‘critical’, saying other attacks may follow. This is the highest security level in the UK. She also urged police to investigate whether the attacker was alone or may have acted as a member of a wider terror group.
The attack is the worst in the UK since 56 people were killed in the 7 July London bombings in 2005.
Both, Theresa May and her election opponent, Labor Leader Jeremy Corbyn expressed their deep sorrow to the victims’ families. All campaign activities for the 8 June elections have been suspended.
Mr. Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, proclaiming on what the raised threat level means for the city, said,
there will be additional police officers on London’s streets over the coming days – including additional armed officers. You will also see some military personnel around London – they are there to help our police service to keep us safe and guard key sites.”
The head of Counter Terrorism at the Metropolitan Police, Mr. Mark Rowley, informed that
there has been an arrest and there are currently multiple searches and other activity taking place as I speak. However, at this stage it is still not possible to be certain if there was a wider group involved in the attack; 24 hours in we have a number of investigative leads that we are pursuing to manage the ongoing threat.”
All of this points to a rapid militarization of the UK, akin to France. What EU country will be next?
Was it The ISIS, Who is Behind the ISIS?
Why would the Islamic State kill children in England, when they know exactly that this provokes further NATO – EU – US military aggression against them?
And why in England, just before elections?
Do they not know that they incite election results unfavorable to them, unfavorable to Muslim society, electing the candidate that promises even more discrimination against Muslims? A candidate even less eager to find a peaceful solution in the Middle East?
Of course, they know.
Known and documented ISIS- Daesh, Al-Qaeda and most other terror groups fighting in the Middle East proxy-wars for the West, are constructs of US intelligence. ISIS is financed by America’s staunched Middle East ally Saudi Arabia. This relationship has to be addressed. Who are the State sponsors of terrorism.
We, The People, should wake up to this reality.
Are these terror attacks being used to dupe the public into accepting more “protection”, like a gradual but ever accelerating militarization of the West. Even the installation of Martial Law is not far-fetched. Former French President Hollande tried to introduce it in France’s Constitution in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terror attack; so far unsuccessfully.
See: Germany and NATO: Towards Martial Law, Preparing for a “Fascist Repression” in Europe? and French Election Fraud? Will Macron be Able to Form a Government?
This gives the Deep State-installed EU government, i.e. Brussels, the legitimacy to clamp down and if needed violently repress protests in European cities, as they may arise with increasing neoliberal financial domination of western economies, imposed austerities, privatization of public services, educations systems, health care – cuts in pensions, in brief, the imposition of a repressive economic system. We are almost there, just look at Greece.
***
As always, the question to ask is Cui Bono?
At first sight it looks like the tragic Manchester act of terror could benefit Theresa May and her conservative Tories. They propagate clamping down on terrorism, on immigration to keep ‘terrorists’ out. Snap-elections decided without much warning by PM Theresa May, are scheduled for 8 June, just 17 days away from the attack, but enough time to launch massive pro-conservative and anti-Labor propaganda.
Interestingly, Jeremy Corbyn has been making rapid gains lately in the polls. The supposed ‘terror’ attack, may set his gains back and advance the “pro-security” Tory leader, Theresa May. As if Jeremy Corbyn and Labor were against ‘security’ – This is the implied falsehood of the presstitute – foreseeable, like in The Theft of an Election Foretold.
Interestingly too, the recent French elections were also preceded by a terror attack. Just days ahead of the first round of elections, a gunman opened fire on a police car on Champs Élysées, killing one policeman and injuring two, the gunman was immediately killed by French police; the chief witness gone.
End of story.
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media (China), TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe.
The original source of this article is Global Research. Copyright © Peter Koenig, Global Research, 2017
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“No one understood better than Stalin that the true object of propaganda is neither to convince nor even to persuade, but to produce a uniform pattern of public utterance in which the first trace of unorthodox thought immediately reveals itself as a jarring dissonance.”
~ Alan Bullock, in Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives
I might add ‘incurring penalty’
My sense is that most are intuitively but unconsciously guided to evade their own fear of pain and loss – as well as pain and loss! And like children, take our cues from the ‘parents’ as to what is and is not ok to say or do inductively.
Identifying ourselves by speaking out may attract penalty – but to not speak while one has a voice is to kill ourself first and blame it on the ‘parents’. Then we can play out our issues in the blamosphere of rehearsal and re-enactment.
When things all go ‘out of control’ as I feel they both are – and are being made by design as if to use the fear to leverage more control. I see an insanity that is dissociated from anything real – in terms of directly and intimately Felt. If you see the ingenuity in which a mind is trapped or rendered impotent – taking different but interlocking and mutually reinforcing roles – you might see not a cause to attempt to control the symptoms, but to recognize the true nature of the sickness. More as a result of releasing a mind in conflict to the inner curiosity that was covered over in childhood – and yet may rise to awareness again at death – or release of what was believed and invested real.
As for who did what and why – we could fill a page with theories – and the complexity of our own and others’ deceits can come to see everything in terms of what ‘intelligence’ determines it to means – for we no longer have any… having given it all to fear in the guise of protection.
Insanity of an active identity in the lie – multiplies to tare up the mind that can be induced to listen there.
It is unwise in my opinion, to react to what might have occurred or may be projected and feared to have occurred as if it HAS, IS occurred or will re-occur. Triggering reaction is the art of manipulative mind – and even if an event is only what it seems to be, the USE of it for private agenda remains. ‘What do I use it for?’ is MY first responsibility. If I retrain my mind to rest from triggered emotional conditioning – then I shift to an attentive receptivity in which a quality of discernment rises – that is an expression of peace because it is of a wholeness of being.
Look after your sanity by remaining vigilant FOR your peace as that is your basis to extend peace. Identity or investment in fear inherently operates to undermine, subvert or deny a true solidarity of being – whether that be ‘intra-personal’ or ‘interpersonal’.
Rather than concretize the false in reaction, why not {bracket} what is yet to become clear, while looking within to see what our triggers (backdoors for being hacked) are? Thought-control is thought-control is tyranny and induces the same fear that drives it – in my opinion – regardless what the FORMS that it masks in or operates through.
The corporate media is operating a concerted focus of a directed narrative control – for whatever set or ‘reasons’. Part of a psyop may to let it be seen that it is a psyop – but under a plausible or outraged deniability. It asserts power using what is in YOUR mind – if you let it. Terror is not just pain, damage and death – but the loss of sanity to fear-driven substitution of a false assertion believing itself true or necessary to a deeper hidden truth.
I don’t know what did and didn’t happen and I do not believe the Media are free to investigate and report – even if they know. But what they are reporting as I see it is a manipulative intent and not a genuine relational communication. Such is the self-declared ‘post-truth’ currency of a top down communication in which questioning narrative dogma invites ‘invalidation’.
One cannot live under fear but as a slave. So better to feel the fear and rage and impotence and heartbreak – but don’t give it the trigger finger. Wait for the clarity of a wholeness of being. It always has a quality of peace within it – regardless the symptoms may persist. As I refer to peace is not waiting upon any symptom or external condition – but is uncovering an unconflicted quality of being – within which I recognize what the fragmented mind rules out – and that is a tangible sense of focus within guidance and support.
The flipside of emotional manipulation is the illumination of the ruse. But the opportunity I seek to grow and share in is of going up a level to the recognition within myself of participations that my ‘personal mind’ was made to keep hidden. If you ONLY focus OUT THERE – you cannot notice within. But if OUT THERE deconstructs to such an insanity or breakdown that disturbance within overwhelms – then the message has gotten through – you have to live from a true foundation NOT to be ruled – knowingly or not – by fear.
This is the same old ‘good news’ that seems anything but ‘good feeling’ until it finds recognition and receipt. No one wants to uncover or be exposed to what they hate or fear. The mind recoils. But gracefully or not I see such exposure growing despite and because of attempts to ‘control’ it.
Reblogged this on International People's Coalition for Humanity.
[FROM ADMIN: PLEASE NOTE THIS INDIVIDUAL ALSO POSTS UNDER THE NAME OF “CARLOS” AND USES AT LEAST 3 SEPARATE EMAIL ADDRESSES, INTERACT WITH “HIM” AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION]
Disgusting. I always knew the so-called “alt media” landscape had a penchant for filthy conspiracy theories, but this is just too much.
Calling terror attacks “false flags” is low, and requires evidence, of which this author has none of. I notice it’s always the same reasoning used by these lunatics: “cui bono”. Utterly fallacious logic.
The people who fall for this disinformation are the same as those who harass the grieving parents of the Sandy Hook massacre.
But this is what the “alt media” landscape has turned into.
Not even the MSM is this filthy. Shame on you.
Critique the content please. Empty appeals to outrage or arguments from incredulity do not work here. It’s no more shocking to suggest the government may have been involved than it is to suggest a lone lunatic did it. There’s no insult to the dead involved in trying to work out who killed them.
As for evidence. Cui bono , or “motive” is a recognised argument for culpability in law. and Gladio has made it clear that states do collude with, manipulate and even create terrorist groups.
“Not even the MSM is this filthy.”
Pretending to be against the MSM while a the same time upholding their lies. Clever.
For the doubting Thomases, a crumb for you to pick over:
John Atkinson, 26, one of the alleged victims who died, is being remembered by the “Freak Dance Radcliff.” The dance school’s Facebook page is here: Freak Dance Radcliff
Here is the link to the comments commemorating him: here
I’m sure it’s fake as hell. I leave it to StAug and Sylvie to walk us through the details of the fraud at hand.
(hope the links work)
I’ll see what else I can come up with that perhaps corroborates the ‘fact’ that there were victims in Manchester.
[edited by Admin 27/05 to fix link]
Why are you being so snarky? I am not saying there were no victims. I’m saying we shouldn’t just believe this story any more than we would believe any story that comes out of the media. I can’t walk you thru the fraud as you say, because I don’t say there is fraud. I am just looking at what I see and some things seem to not make sense in terms of being real. I made a list of them down the thread that no one has responded to and which you could look at if you cared to.
Like, for example, how were people Tweeting from the arena right after the explosion not saying anything about bodies and blood? How were the only eyewitnesses appearing on the media right up until a whole hour and twenty minutes after the event, saying they just heard explosions and saying maybe it was a speaker blowing out? How did they all miss a foyer full of dead and injured people for so long?
Is there something wrong with thinking this i and all the other stuff I posted is suspicious and needs to be looked at?
As to the link you post. I can’t say anything about it as all I can see is just an FB page with some pics on it. I don’t see any posts or anything. Is there something I am missing?
Why are you so twitchy, Sylvie? I’m not being snarky. I’m being economical with my words.
There are two links. Did you try them both? The first link does indeed take you to some pics. Assuming you are being taken to the same collection as I’m being taken to, try the image of the man in uppermost left, that would be a picture of John.
This is what I see when I click on your second link.
“Sorry, this content isn’t available right now
The link you followed may have expired, or the page may only be visible to an audience you’re not in.”
What do you see?
I see a large picture of John. And to the right, under a heading that reads,
I see this official statement by the school:
Beneath that, there is a feed of comments bidding farewell to John. That is what I see.
So, why do you have access and I don’t? Bit weird isn’t. Do you have mutual friends?
No. But I’m in Canada. I wonder if that might make the difference. On Facebook, I have no friends, for being too much of a straight talker ;-), and I’ve never asked anyone to be my friend. The only reason I signed up was to be able to do what I’m doing now, namely, to snoop around, but anonymously.
So if anyone who is reading these comments can figure this out, Sylvie and I need your help.
I think there was just an error in the link
What do you make of this, Sylvie:
Chloe Rutherford and Liam Curry
You are being snarky and think I’m too stupid to know it. Get over yourself and just talk straight. The link to the comments says it isn’t available right now. Can you see it?
I looked at Liam Curry’s FB page, which you can easily find. What’s visible is quite basic, but that could be because he kept a lot of posts private. Most of the FB pages belonging to people connected to this look the same. Quite basic and often really bare. Some are more detailed. I don;t see any proof either way there. So now why don’t you talk about the stuff I posted? Why doesn’t anyone want to talk about the things that don’t seem to fit?
Let go the “snarky,” Sylvie. Or I will get snarky. Not really, but I’ll write as though you got me in “that” mood. I’ll be faking it, but convincingly.
I haven’t yet decided how stupid you may be. So you are wrong about what you imagine I may be thinking about you, whoever you may be.
I’ve been over myself since forever, Sylvie. And I always talk straight. Do relax and try to de-twitch some.
Now that we got that out of the way: yes. I have access. No. I’m not taking any screen shots. I’ve provided links. You’ll have to work with that or make some effort at your end of things. You have the name of John’s former dancing school. That’s a good start.
As for the Chloe Rutherford and Liam Curry link, did you not see and watch the video posted by Lisa Neilson, an amateur video of a commemoration for Liam and Chloe? Maybe you didn’t. But when I click on the link I provided, I’m taken directly to a page where if you click on the leftmost video, you get to watch what bit of the ceremony was caught on that video. And then there is Lisa’s comment below. All looks fairly convincingly authentic to me, Sylvie.
No. I’m not providing screen shots. It’s bad enough that I’ve intruded as much as I already have in the lives of these people.
And what about this:
Deborah Hutchinson, mother of Courtney Boyle and girlfriend to Philip Tron, both of whom died in the Manchester bombing, had a friend, Leanne Thompson, making appeals on her behalf on Facebook.
Look: here
&
Look: here
(“Look” means explore and scroll and read, and you find attestations of the deaths of both Courtney and Philip)
And do try not to take my tone too seriously, Sylvie. It’s more a matter of style than a genuine expression of contempt. If I do become contemptuous, I’ll let you know. Directly, eh.
I have been reading and looking. You and Mog both seem to need to be insulting to people who don’t agree with you. I posted a long list of info about when the news was breaking and some of the odd things about it, which you just ignore. I click on your links and I discuss them. You ignore mine and then you have the nerve to get snarky with me about not reading!
I know they have FB pages and pictures. But – duh – they can be easily faked. If you’re going to create the illusion of fake dead people that’s the first thing to do, make an FB page and shop some pics. Anyone can do that much. The test is how deep the FB pages go. Like are they years old and do they have tons of personal postings, or are they really new or really superficial? The first is good evidence they are real people, the second would be a bit more dubious IMO.
So, now are you going to discuss the strange things I have posted about?
How was it none of the early witnesses mentioned anything about the piles of dead and injured people?
How come all the first reports were just of explosions that might be a speaker blowing out?
How come no one was posting on Twitter about the dead and the blood until an hour or more after it happened?
How did the initial eye witnesses manage to run out of the arena through the foyer and not see any bodies?
It’s like in the confusion the media started off interviewing tons of real people who were telling the truth about what they saw, which was basically nothing. And then, about ninety minutes in there’s another wave of witnesses suddenly talking about blood. How did these people see blood and flesh everywhere when the first people interviewed saw nothing?
Are you going to keep dodging my questions because there’s no point in talking to me if you are.
So I found the website for Freakdance, the school Liam Curry was allegedly attending. It’s a funny old place.
http://freak-dance.co.uk
It’s allegedly got three branches in the North West of England, which sounds legit. But – only ONE of the staff is listed with a last name! And only three have bios on the site , and none of them have photos!
http://freak-dance.co.uk/faculty/
And even tho the school has been going since 2010 it’s only got 20 testimonials posted, and they’re ALL from July and August 2016!
http://freak-dance.co.uk/testimonials-guestbook/
That’s a bit weird innit.
Oh yeah and check out the faculty page — none of their social media links go anywhere. And the only branch that has an FB page is the one Liam allegedly attended.
So, I am not saying this has anything to do with the event in Manchester or whatever, but totally a bit strange.
I tell a lie, there is an FB page for the FreakDance in Bury as well
https://www.facebook.com/freakdancebury
Could be an “off the shelf” legend to be used in a Gladio-style op. Barely plausible but good enough for the general public.
Since FB is a convenient legend factory for intelligence services, you’d expect a “corroborating” site there, too, to “prove” the authenticity of the first.
In a rush, they’d use the same “editor”. Might see similarities in the postings, etc. Close examination of the pix metadata might be interesting, if it hasn’t been wiped.
These “terror” attacks wreak of Gladio. First, in the 1960-80s against Communists & Socialists, now against Muslim scapegoats. It will continue.
“You and Mog both seem to need to be insulting to people who don’t agree with you.”
Sylvie, you don’t know who I am from Adam, and you’ve never had a sustained conversation with me. How can you possibly feel insulted by someone who doesn’t know you and, therefore, cannot presume to be able to judge you in any way whatsoever?
So my tone is, according to you, snarky. I fancy it’s something different, but I’m not at the receiving end, so maybe you’re right. Who cares. Let it go. I’m not going to change the way I write or the tone of voice that is my own and that fits my mood at the moment that I’m writing. Just know that I’m not talking down to you. And I’m not going to be talking up to you, either. Eye to eye. As equals. Okay?
You write:
Okay. Facebook for you doesn’t measure up as any sort of “evidence.” Nothing on Facebook will convince you of anything because — duh — it can be faked.
So why did you bring it up earlier somewhere in the comment thread? Just to send people there to waste their time? Because if I suggest to you that you should go on Facebook to see if you can’t find “genuine” folk chatter about people who have died, am not implying that if you find some, I might consider that to be “evidence of sorts?” But now it’s not evidence. Because — duh.
But do you think the Freak Dance Radcliffe is a school that has been especially created as part of the elaborate hoax?
Here is a link to its website: Freak Dance Radcliffe
It has contact info. It has an address. It’s been around for years — apparently.
Why don’t you get in touch and ask about John. I don’t myself need to, because I’ve already read their in memorium to John Atkinson on Facebook.
Who knows. Maybe the response will be: John who? And then that would be that. The hoax would be blown wide open.
But maybe the website is fake. Well — duh! And maybe when you try to make contact, you’ll really be getting in touch with MI5 or MI6, and they will feed you bullshit. Indeed. Maybe.
How do you know what the early witnesses has to say? How do you know that the witnesses aren’t, so to speak, vetted by those doing the interviews? How do you know that witness statements, if there were any, weren’t carefully edited to say no more and no less than what the establishment wanted said? See this comment by Willem: here
Furthermore, any concert venue that I’ve ever attended had multiple exits, so that most people at the concert would likely have taken exits leading out of the building that went nowhere near the Foyer. Most people would have taken the “nearest” exit. It is therefore very likely that few people would have left through the Foyer if at all given what they would have encountered if they had tried: smoke and debris and bodies. Their first impulse would have been to flee the scene, and people surging up behind would have followed suite. But this is all speculation on my part, not different in kind from your own.
Say you are in an arena where thousands of people are attending a concert. The music is loud. Is even deafening. A bomb goes off in the Foyer, in a relatively small alcove of the overall arena. The detonation is heard over the music. What do you think the organizers and sound technicians would think? Are they in the Foyer where less than a hundred people have just been injured, or are they all busy doing their jobs ensuring the production quality of the show? Would they instantly know what had just happened? Would the many thousands in the arena who were just then completely oblivious to the Foyer and what just had happened in the Foyer? Information takes time to travel, Sylvie. Especially under the boisterous and crowded conditions of a rock concert. At first the organizers really think it is a blown speaker and that’s what they announce. And when the news of the carnage finally arrived at the guy in charge of doing the evening’s announcements, it was already clear that an orderly and not panicked evacuation had to happen. So the message is as always to minimize possible injuries from a stampeding crowd, “don’t panic, there is no reason to panic. Take your time.”
I don’t know. Is there a set time frame in which this ought to happen? What if few people actually walked through the Foyer? What if the people in the Foyer with the injured and dying and dead thought it more important to help than to Tweet? You tell me, Sylvie.
Do you have a reference to what you have in mind? But let me suggest to you why someone might very well run through a Foyer littered with debris and bodies and be blind to it all: it’s called blind panic. Have you ever experienced the likes of it? People are beside themselves and just want to flee. Their purpose is to get out. It’s not a casual walk where they are observing and noting the details of their surroundings. Everything that’s happening is automatic and in a blur. That’s what panic and trauma sometimes do. It’s a state of fight or flight, and in this instance, for some or many, it very much may have been all out flight.
The media are looking for a story they want to tell. People who saw nothing, which would have been the overwhelming majority, don’t tell a story, and certainly not the story the media want to tell. So they look among the “witnesses” for those who saw something of the gruesomeness about the attack and that’s who the media focus on. It’s a culling and selection process. And some witnesses would have very clearly taken in the the scene in the Foyer because not everyone panics under duress. So some go through the Foyer in a blind panic and see nothing. Others are not in a blind panic and see everything. Most of the concert goers would not have seen anything to speak of.
If I have to do all your thinking for you and write an essay each time you put questions to me, I may very well begin to dodge your questions. Also, you aren’t the only person here with whom I’m trying to converse. I’m not dodging. I’m busy.
Norman, don’t play silly games. Sylvie qualified her first statement about Facebook with what she would consider an important distinction, which you ignored in order to ridicule her point and make a false claim she was being contradictory. She also has produced a lot of links which, whatever you may think of her claims, you ought to engage with rather than ignore. None of us have clicked on her links, but then again we aren’t bothering to engage with her either. if you are going to engage with her at least have the grace to look at her evidence
If I am playing silly games, I am not aware that I am. Sylvie’s comments were, until now, peripheral to my attention. When I wrote the first comment of this string of comments, I vaguely recalled that she had suggested somewhere that Facebook should be a place where we might look for “evidence” of the actual existence and demise of the Manchester victims. Maybe I had dreamed that. Maybe she had never made the suggestion.
In my opinion, if it had been her suggestion or that of anyone else, it was a good suggestion. . It struck me as I began to sift Facebook for clues, that there was enough detail to get a sense of the authenticity of the chatter that you can find there. I’m not going to go into any detail about why things struck me that way, but that is my impression as I only now begin to familiarize myself with that platform.
Now last night, with fading concentration, I came upon this in one of Sylvie’s comments:
“I know they have FB pages and pictures. But – duh – they can be easily faked. If you’re going to create the illusion of fake dead people that’s the first thing to do, make an FB page and shop some pics. ”
And last night, after a long day, that’ as far as I read that part of that paragraph. That’s the only part of it that registered in my head, and hence what struck you as being my “silly game.”
This morning, I re-read her comment, and now I notice the crux of it:
“The test is how deep the FB pages go. Like are they years old and do they have tons of personal postings, or are they really new or really superficial? The first is good evidence they are real people, the second would be a bit more dubious IMO.”
And that is exactly right. I could not have said it better myself.
So let me apologize for my crankiness of yesterday. But I assure you that I was not and am not “playing silly games.”
I think I, too, need to slink away for a time and chill. I’ve become snarky without realizing that I have. That’s not a good sign. It tells me that I’m angrier with everything than I realize. I need to get away from all of this for a while. to regain some composure and balance.
It was unfair to suggest you were playing games. You’re a valued and respected contributor here. There’s no shame in needing down time, it happens to all of us. It’s a stressful and unrewarding job. Hope to see you back and refreshed soon.
I wouldn’t say it was entirely unfair . . . I see how it read and it does come off as “playing.”
Norman’s working awfully here, for free. What’s his full time job?
Sylvie, If you came across a pile of dead bodies or people writhing in agony, would your first thought really be “Oh dear, I must get that out on Twitter, right away?”
And have you ever heard real explosions? They don’t sound like speakers blowing out, believe me.
And you can easily run out of a crowded building and not see dead bodies if there are other people between you and the dead bodies.
There will have been many more people leaving the area without seeing anything than there will have been of those close to the blood. And how can you expect the media to home in on the small minority in the first? Those who have seen the blood don’t carry placards to say so.
“Sylvie, If you came across a pile of dead bodies or people writhing in agony, would your first thought really be “Oh dear, I must get that out on Twitter, right away?”
No, but your average teen with an i-phone certainly would.
Sylvie! You’re doing great work and I appreciate it! Ignore whatever hostility you attract hereabouts and treat it as an ironic amusement.
Does anyone know what John Atkinson studied? I’ve spent hours scrolling through the pics on Freak Dance Radcliffe’s FB page but haven’t found any pics of John at a class or any video of him dancing. The only pic I can see is the one added after he allegedly and sadly died, which doesn’t seem to be at a dance class. It’s one of the three or four that are all over the media. Why didn’t they put up a nicer more appropriate pic of John dancing or in costume or attending a class or hanging out with people from Freak dance?
https://www.facebook.com/Freakdanceuk/photos/a.556304867854724.1073741829.408108772674335/836394329845775/?type=3
Has anyone else found any pics or vid of John at Freak Dance? I am not saying he wasn’t there, but we shouldn’t just assume anything these days.
Here’s the link if anyone wants to spend hours scrolling.
https://www.facebook.com/pg/Freakdanceuk/photos/
John Atkinson’s memorialized FB page has no friends publicly listed, no employers, no family, and only two visible photos, one of which isn’t of him. There’s a vid of him with some people singing in what looks like a pub. But it’s only 7 secs long. I was a bit interested in the fact one of the groups he was a member of is “see who visits your profile.”
https://www.facebook.com/john.atkinson.3785/about?
lst=100008853630324%3A685196993%3A1495893306
Right well, that’s me done since no one is interested in following up or even talking about it.
@Catte
Yes, I realise that people might say that I am not substantiating my argument. I am doing it deliberately as a means of goading people to go and look for themselves. Don’t you want to know? I assure you it takes little time – I have linked to a local Manchester newspaper full of details, names of the deceased and their relatives, colleagues and friends of deceased that can easily be checked on twitter, Facebook and through things like Linked In. I have not been remotely convinced that StAug or Sylvia are prepared to challenge their own thinking and do five minutes with a search engine or two. This is what I object to, not the asking of the question, but the unwillingness to try and answer it themselves.
I have always believed in linking to articles to back up anything I say online, and have tried to do consistently. I agree, in principle, that we are all trying to figure things out together, and value the internet as a sharing tool.
However, some things about this exchange has really got to me.
Firstly, I live about 30 miles from Manchester, I’ve visited many times, and it is undeniable that the proximity has an effect in how I have reacted. Realising that it could quite easily have been my town, realising the sense of community that still exists in these Northern Cities, having a friend who has colleagues who work in the A+E departments involved, having a friend whose colleague was at the concert (unharmed). The closeness, makes ‘disspassionate’ discussions about whether people died, were injured or even existed, highly charged. I am unapologetic about that, because empathic and emotional responses are natural and normal. To coldly dissect whether kids were killed or not is easier from a distance, and I don’t think it should ever be done lightly.
I got to admitt, that being convinced that people have died, makes the conversation seem pretty poor taste, and I therefore think that the onus should be on those asserting what is an extreme (although not completely irrational) accusation to at least put in some remedial effort in checking whether the alleged fatalities have a back story online.
So, am I a ‘shill’, a Guardian infiltrator here to fuck with your heads?
The way to find out, is to ask yourself How easy is it to fake the existence of somebody – give them a face, a name, a place of work, relatives (all fake) ? Broadcast that identity to the world on a 25 hour news cycle. Repeat 22 times. Then fake/ coerce/ bribe dozens of medics who testify to trying to save those lives. How reasonable is it to believe that anyone can keep a control on all that fakery so that nobody blabs? Then ask how would I find out if someone was real? What trace would they reasonably leave? Go and look for such a trace, and you will see.
No need to grandstand at me Mog. I have no dog in this fight and I’m not saying anything was faked. If you don’t want to post your source that’s fine, but don’t get preachy about other posters not “bothering to challenge their own thinking,” when you are obviously so reluctant to do that yourself.
Terrible reply Catte. I really admire your writing, but that is such a heartless response.
I will not come here again.
I think you need to take time. Let’s draw a line under this and move on. And thank you for admiring my work. That’s always appreciated.
I don’t know what happened in Manchester but do know that eye witness accounts of those who are victim of terrorists attacks but survived, are seldomly heard of, if at all, even when the terrorist attack did happen.
I can say this with certainty as I was standing in the Sari club discotheque in Bali 2002 when two bombs went of and killed 202 people.
Eye witnesses, like me, never have a say in what actually happened during and after the terrorist attack, unless it serves the story that is spun by the MSM (generally speaking: there are evil people from places you have never been to; these people are coming to get you, but the Government will get them first and kill them for you; now please hand in your civil rights or what remains of it, pay taxes for the military and ‘intelligence’ agencies and hate people).
But it is strange that OffG, being non-MSM and fairly open to all kinds of opinion and debate is unable to find anyone who is able to say as an eye witness what happened in Manchester.
As to the argument of the author in finding out of who is the culprit behind the real or Hoaxed Manchester terrorist attack (the so called cui bono argument), I don’t know. I am sure readers here know how Chomsky responded to a similar type of question when he was asked who was behind 911 and with whose answer I agree: who cares who organized that terror attack.
As a victim of a terrorist attack I can tell you that I deliberately did not chose the cui bono argument (that would have made me mad), but Occam’s razor to try to understand what happened. I would opt for Occam’s razor again when I would put myself into the shoes of a victim in Manchester: the lone wolf aka suicide bomber who was born and raised in England, but radicalized in Lybia and decided to become a suicide bomber would make most sense to me of who is behind that terrorist attack. Unfortunately, the culprit is dead, so one can never ask for his motives, but it is likely that he did or could not act alone. Hopefully they will find other perpetrators who will get a fair trial. Then you will have some answers to the question who did it and why they did it. This is what happened after the Balibombings in Indonesia. The police there did a good job at the time. The perpetrators, of whom some were sentenced to death, had a fair trial and are forgiven by me already in 2003. This is personal but perhaps important: I nearly got killed in Bali and a friend of mine died there. Pretty grim. Nevertheless one can forgive and forget as long he knows motives, that is how it works for me.
What does matter to a victim (like me) and is hard to find peace with though (I can’t) is how politics and the MSM react to terrorist attacks like Manchester. Their reaction, I just find truly appaling, as it is the same story as it was in Bali all over again. Some people just love to start a war or put a country into a warzone ‘because’ of the misery of others. I was never asked if I liked the idea that because of my misery Bush and Blair had an additional excuse to fight Al Qaida in Iraq and Afghanistan and kill thousands of innocent people and made millions refugee and/or traumatized them for the rest of their lifes. When I gave my opinion to newspapers and mailed TV programs about this issue (I did this very often), I was ignored by journalists. Maybe they did not understand me at the time, or maybe they ignored me on purpose, I am nevertheless happy that I tried.
I wrote many essays about Bali and the aftermath which I sent to many mainstream journals where it was always answered with silence. Someone who I consider as a friend did place one Bali essay for me at
http://degrijzeduif.blogspot.nl/2015/12/over-terrorisme.html?m=1
It is written in Dutch, and wish I could translate it in proper English for readers here. But I can’t.
This is a personal reaction to the Manchester terrorist attack that does not immediately relate to it, but also does in a way. Hope you found it a useful comment.
Well we have solved one mystery. I posted the above comment with your email and it went straight to the spam folder. I looked further and your other comments were also there. It doesn’t solve the ongoing problem though because we always check the spam folder when people tell us their comments have gone astray – there’s usually nothing there that shouldn’t be there. I have zero clues as to why your comments were being spammed and can’t promise it won’t happen again.
Reblogged this on fall off the table, get swept under.
Guys, remember what Karl Rove said: we (the Empire) act; and while you are still scratching your heads and debating our actions – we move on. It’s the ultimate misdirection – create a pause in reality between the primary event and its perception and assimilation. In the meantime, the actors seem to be instigating a coup on our streets. I’ve not seen anything like it, even at the height of the ‘Troubles’ – kids being encouraged to take selfies with cops with guns? They are certainly normalising our perception and acceptance of a military self-occupation force and armed police. What next?
UK Column just featured a whole bunch of reasons why we should be alarmed, and not just accept a narrative that is being very closely controlled and stage managed. I encourage you all to watch their news – especially the “arrest” of a suspect – with the entire press corps in attendance!!??! Patrick Henningsen was particularly insightful about this. Other points raised were the Tories (Ben Wallace) are using this to make cheap political capital (to be expected either way), a seemingly photoshopped photo of a young Abedi, – and the most frightening point – that the military and armed police in London are under the control of Cressida Dick. Does that make each of us a potential Jean Charles de Menezes?
Questions that raise my truth hackles are how come Jared Kushner’s aide Andre Walker was in Manchester (probably legit) – but tweeting out photos – 75 minutes before other journos arrived??? And the one photo that shows the carnage he tweeted as #Fake???
http://www.globalresearch.ca/manchester-bombing-what-we-dont-know/5591844
A lot of the Abedi ‘legend’ came originally from the Telegraph. That says to me that it came straight from the ‘River House’ – or is the Telegraph no longer the MI6 viewspaper it was under (Dominic) Lawson?
There’s more – but this is a fast paced reality – and we are not meant to be able to keep up – or stabilise ourselves in it – or be grounded in it. By design. Those who think otherwise maybe aren’t paying enough attention.
BTW: On the Guardian as a source – here is a first hand report “bodies everywhere you looked” – from a recent sarin attack that did not happen.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/06/the-dead-were-wherever-you-looked-inside-syrian-town-after-chemical-attack
I apologise if it causes anyone emotional upset, that’s not my motive – but I know when I am being lied to – and when the manipulation seems to point toward a future (or already extant) Police State – I think I have a right to be worried.
To contextualize the current Event: here’s a blast from the past: this is how they handled interviews with a “medical team” way back in 2011 (the BHO administration’s first dabble in the False Flag game?)… please note the “surgeon’s” knowledgeable description of the parts of the brain impacted by the “bullet” (it gets a little technical, so keep a medical reference book handy):
https://youtu.be/tCW7o07e4Qo?t=80
(you’ll have to follow this link to YouTube to view the vid)
And this “proves” what about the reality or unreality of Manchester? It’s relevant, how? Maybe nobody died in Manchester? Maybe. Where do we go from there, StAug?
Norm, perhaps you’ve been body-snatched by a Guardian reader… not sure. But I’m not going to pantomime a conversation with a fan of the Colbert Report here, so… yeah. Whatever. The video is there for Proper Paranoids to use as a reference and a resource. Feel free to ignore.
Right so more interesting things I am finding. Bear with me if it’s a mess as I am not used to posting stuff like this.
1] 10: 30 PM The bomb explosion is said to have happened at around 10.30 pm in the foyer of the arena. There was allegedly loads of blood and flesh and stuff and dead and dying people all over the place.
2] 11 PM {THIRTY MINUTES having gone by) Sky News is reporting a speaker could have blown out.
https://tvforum.uk/forums/post1061177#post-1061177
3] 11: 16 PM [FORTY-FIVE MINUTES have gone by] and Five Live is getting eyewitnesses who say they heard “between 1-3 explosions/shots with some reporting seeing a flash.”
https://tvforum.uk/forums/post1061181#post-1061181
Is it just me or is this really weird? There’s a foyer full of dead people and blood and flesh and upwards of half an hour later the only witnesses coming forward are saying they saw a flash and heard some noise?
4] Then there’s this pic shared on Twitter at 11pm by someone who says they were in the auditorium and “ran out.” Doe she say “OMG I ran past all these dead bodies and blood and stuff”? Not on your life. She says “EXPLOSION AT MANCHESTER ARENA AND EVERYONE RAN OUT – SO SCARY.”
https://tvforum.uk/forums/post1061184#post-1061184
So, now I am definitely thinking WTF? How did she get out of the auditorium and not notice all the blood and stuff?
And I am thinking how many witnesses do we actually have who claim to see the blood, and how long after the event did they come forward?
5] Injuries get confirmed by police at about 11:30.
6] Oh yes and there was apparently “at least one” fake picture of the scene already circulating less than ONE HOUR after the event , so someone was quick off the mark.
https://tvforum.uk/forums/post1061190#post-1061190
7] 11:45 PM Another eye witness tells the BBC the injuries now being reported may have been caused by “panic.” So, he obviously isn’t talking about a foyer full of blown up people is he?
https://tvforum.uk/forums/post1061206#post-1061206
At the same link someone says the alleged fake picture was a picture of the “training event” that happened in the same place a year ago. So if this was a troll he troll acted very quickly to find that and post it inside an hour of the bomb allegedly going off..
8] 11:50 Eye witness quoted on the News Channel who could be the first one to describe seeing bodies. He also claims he was thrown 30 feet. People who heard him say he was “way to calm and collected considering what has happened and what he has seen “, but in fairness they do also say “(but obviously adrenaline could delay any reaction), “
https://tvforum.uk/forums/post1061219#post-1061219
I think that’s more than enough from me for now, bit I’ll just add I got all this from this site which is really interesting for anyone who wants to follow how the news broke on the night. It’s not the be all and end all but it’s really helpful in getting a picture.
https://tvforum.uk/thenewsroom/breaking-manchester-explosions-42666/
Good work!
Well, well! The Guardian is on to us ‘conspiracy theorists’ now. Gaby Hinsliff actually took time out of her busy schedule pushing imperial propaganda to attack all those who question the Manchester bombing narrative.
Using the standard CIA/MI6 playbook, she starts off by likening our suspicions regarding the recent bombing to the ‘lunar landing was a hoax’ belief. Next, she works in the obligatory reference to tinfoil hats, and then she moves on to demolish some strawman-versions of various well-known conspiracy theories, including the bombing.
Regarding Manchester, for example, she tries to represent all of us skeptics as people who think that Theresa May did this personally in order to benefit the Tories’ political campaign. Mind you, there probably are such people out there, but that’s definitely the weakest explanation of events and very easy to discredit. All you have to do is point out (as Hinsliff does) that the Tories were already ahead before the bombing, and you’ve fatally weakened the cui bono element.
But what about the more intelligent–and more likely–explanation, according to which the bombing could have been staged with the help of the MI5/MI6 to give cover to Britain for participating in an attack on Syria after the election? Hasn’t BoJo himself already stated that the UK should be prepared to fight Assad, even if they have to side with the awful, awful, awful Donald Trump in order to do so? She makes no mention of that theory. Nor does she bother to engage with the evidence, or questions regarding same, unless it’s to ridicule the questioners.
And according to St. Gaby’s logic, why should she lower herself enough to actually engage in real argumentation, when her job only requires the liberal application of ad-hominems, strawmen, etc.?
Towards the end of her piece comes the kicker:
Got it? The MSM are free to spout any old evidence-free nonsense they like (‘Russia hacked the election!’), and those of us who so much as question them or demand evidence are saddled with the burden of proof! That’s right: it’s now the customer–not the journalist–who is responsible for actually doing the journalist’s job!
And these arrogant bastards actually wonder why people are fleeing these birdcage-liners (like The Graun) for the internet in droves.
“Using the standard CIA/MI6 playbook, she starts off by likening our suspicions regarding the recent bombing to the ‘lunar landing was a hoax’ belief.”
The beauty of that being that it was! Laugh.
“The only real way forward is surely to reverse the burden of proof somehow; to create a new social norm that it’s for conspiracists to prove their nonsense, not for the reality-based community to waste time dismantling it.”
Surely that’s the status quo and it always has been. The burden of proof, when one is trying to convince a bunch of deeply-brainwashed NormLibs that things are not as they seem, is most decidedly on the Voice in the Wilderness. The only reason the “reality-based community […] waste[s] time dismantling” the Radical Theory is because it’s dangerously true. No one would spend time and money running around stamping out fires that don’t exist.
Our Kit has just written a piece in response to it
“Got it? The MSM are free to spout any old evidence-free nonsense they like”
Exactly mate.
This is from an interview with an alleged surgical nurse who allegedly treated some of the alleged victims of the alleged bombing. Someone else in the comments posted a link to it as proof the bombing was real (she got really emotional about it, which of course is how we are supposed to be because emotion shuts down our analytical faculties.) .
But the thing is, if the Guardian published a similar interview with someone claiming there had been a gas attack in Syria this person would be sceptical. This person would say “why should we trust the Guardian?” Yet because her emotions kick in on this issue she decides she can trust the Guardian completely.
I want to say again I am NOT saying the Manchester bombing didn’t happen or people didn’t die. I am saying let’s be as sceptical as we would be about anything else we see in the MSM. They lie so they could be lying about this. There have already been a lot of provable fake victims and fake events surrounding this. Don’t let the emotion shut you down and stop your critical thinking.
So, with that in mind please read this interview with the alleged nurse. Does it prove this person in the photo is real? Even if she is a real nurse s there any reason to take on trust she said the words attributed to her? Does it read like a medical person talking? Is there the information provided we’d expect to get in the language we’d expect to here from a nurse in an OR? Is it enough reason to just stop and say “ok, we are not being lied to about this, we can totally trust the Guardian today”? We totally know the media lies, we just don’t know how far the lies go.
Who knows if we’ll disagree vociferously on some issue in the future (wink), but it’s a relief that you (and a couple of others, including BigB) seem to remain Rationally Skeptical when the Emotional Buttons have been pressed by this Event and its Brand Ambassador(s) in the threads. Emotions kick in and the Higher Thinking jumps out the window, apparently. Which is precisely the function of SANDY HOOK UK.
All reads like the testimony of a legit nurse responding to a bomb attack to me.
Don’t you think that someone at Stepping Hill Hospital might have something to say if nurse Joe o’Brien was not an employee, and no victims were treated in their hospital, yet her testimony was all over the media?
….and so on and so on.
Maybe they have all been bought off?
You haven’t really thought about this have you?
“Maybe they have all been bought off?”
How many people, would you estimate, work for/with/in Intelligence? Do you think it’s a small number? Fewer than a few thousand? Here are some statistics (not that we expect them to be perfectly accurate, but the ballpark magnitude of the numbers is of interest), from c. 2010:
“These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
“The investigation’s other findings include:
Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.
An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.”
Do you suppose that the UK might have its own Intelligence armies to access, as well? And what do you think their various tasks/ projects might be on an ongoing level… banal, above-board paper work that would trouble none of us? The occasional karate-fight with a Russian or a North Korean spy? Would you agree that Deception might well be a professional goal among members of the Intelligence community? Have you considered the possibility that assumed identities and false testimony and “dirty tricks” in general may be fairly standard items in the Intelligence Community Toolkit?
You clearly haven’t really thought about this have you?
You are not making any sense to me.
Are you suggesting that nurse O’Brien is an intelligence actor?
If you did some research you would quickly find online evidence, masses of it, all over the internet, relating to dozens of shrapnel victims being treated in five major hospitals in the Manchester area.
Are you suggesting that all this has been planted by intelligence actors?
There are thousands of employees at those hospitals, and none, to my knowledge have spoken of the absence of these victims and the false narrative spread all over the web and media about the work in their hospitals. Are they all intelligence actors? Are they bought off? Threatened into silence?
It grows from there. Family members and friends are stooges?
You have not thought about it, researched it, or done anything except wait for ‘proof’ to come to you (how I am not sure).
You don’t know any of the people personally do you? All any of us have is FB stuff and MSM stuff.
If you found their FB pages check them out for how long they have been on FB and how much they post. Is it like a few shares but basically empty or is it full of personal stuff and in jokes? That’s a good place to start. If it’s full of personal posts and has loads of family connections who all look like each other then yeah, it’s probably real.
You are basically saying that unless you went and met those injured victims or witnesses personally, then you wouldn’t believe anything.
Fair enough, but it does make all this conversation utterly pointless.
“You are basically saying that unless you went and met those injured victims or witnesses personally, then you wouldn’t believe anything.”
That’s pretty close to a Logically Skeptical Position, but let me tweak that for you: Extraordinary Claims require Commensurate Proof.
“Fair enough, but it does make all this conversation utterly pointless.”
Well, depends on what your objectives in “conversation” are. If your aim is to establish a Limit beyond which Skepticism isn’t allowed to pass, then, yes, your version of conversation is pointless when you’re dealing with a Skeptic. Especially one who can’t be swayed by cheap appeals to Emotional Overreaction.
We are discussing second or third hand evidence that has come to us through the media. That is the only material that we have to work with (apart from me who has a friend who has relayed comments from colleagues directly involved), so if one party in the discussion relegates all such class of mediated evidence as wholly untrustworthy then there is no point in continuing.
From a radically empirical perspective it makes a certain sense I suppose, but as we all readily accept such mediated information all the time as part of modern life, it does seem a bit disingenuous and ridiculous.
There is no limit that skepticism cannot “logically” go beyond. You can even, if you want to, “logically” doubt the existence of other people and even of yourself. If everything is mediated through possibly faulty channels of apperception, “logically” you cannot claim to “know” or to be able to “prove” anything at all about the world.
How do you know anybody outside your immediate acquaintances has ever died? By your standards, if you are to stand faithfully by them, it can’t ever be known. So why do you obsess so much over the alleged victims of Manchester? Because maybe there aren’t any? Well, maybe. Then what?
Do you have proof that meets the rigor of your standards for knowing that there were no victims? I’m guessing that on this side of the equation you have no more than anyone else has on the other side, and probably a whole lot less. So you don’t have proof of anything. You have nothing. And with “that” you will counter the “spin?” And with “that” you have uncovered a fatal flaw in the official version of events?
Thus it is that you yourself sandbag for the establishment. For if nothing is “knowable” through the usual methods of research and analysis and reportage, if we are to accept the premises of your unassailable logic, nothing at all can be challenged.
Except that the thing to be challenged is not whether Manchester happened or not, but how the alleged incident will be used as a justification for repression and war. That is where attention should be focused. Everything else is irrelevant and a distraction away from what is essential.
Here, Here. There’s been a (temporary?) Police State Coup while we are still metaphorically picking over the rubble. What next? War in Syria? I very much think that is on the cards.
Norm, when you (as an apparent reflex) accept and support the unsupported (except by MSM) narrative that a Muslim murdered 20 kids, you are helping to pusgh an agenda that transcends, even, May’s polling problem, or the boost this gives to Trump’s “travel ban”. Maybe a Muslim did and maybe he didn’t do the very thing, but what I’m trying to remind you that that only “proof” you have comes from a resource (MSM and tributaries) you have called a Liar 1,000 times since the beginning of the year. So, why do you choose now to advocate a narrative TPTB are working so hard to make stick?
Precedent indicates that the whole production is a hoax. It has not yet diverged even a little bit from the Standard Script. I studied all the Biggies (again: Giffords/ Sandy Hook/ Aurora/ Boston) and lots of the minors (“Eliot Rodger” et al) and the patterns are remarkably consistent. Why? Because they keep fucking working. Why? Well…
(erratum: ignore the typo plague; the perils of replying from that tiny box on my WordPress page)
No, I’m saying check out the FB pages you found. If they’re full of posts and trivia and family connections then they’re probably real. If they are really sparse and bare-looking then they aren’t evidence for much because anyone could create that and post date it.
Why not investigate? I don’t get it. Why is there a limit on finding things out?
I have and they do.
I am suggesting that you investigate.
Perhaps providing the links you found would be useful to those who want to follow through?
Although I have them in front of me now, I will not and I will tell you why not.
It is to try and encourage people to be active and discerning in their research. People so often get very lazy when they get attached to theories, and they need to get into the habit of challenging their own preferred presupposition about what happens in big events like Manchester.
In this exchange I have read comments to the effect that people are simply weighing up different evidential piles and coming to a conclusion. This is not true though.
What I see on the side of those who challenge ‘mainstream narratives’ just as much as I see on the side of those who defend them, is a straight forward confirmation bias. People get hooked on an idea, and they are not intellectually robust enough to challenge their own thinking. They ‘research’ plenty that confirms their prefered theory, and avoid that which contradicts it. When challenged from outside they get defensive and binary.
There are always contradictions in human affairs and nothing is ever simple, so all sides need to be considered in earnest, and a true weighing up take place. This is hard to do outside of an institutional setting, but we must all learn the self discipline to do so if the internet is going to be any use.
In this case, commenters readily spend time researching whether the bang sounded like a ‘popped balloon’ or a bomb, or whether there were multiple exits from the venue allowing people to get out without seeing bodies. These are valid inquiries. However, the posters who side on the opinion that nobody died and the whole thing was a complete fabrication, are not willing to research the other side of the evidential pile and check the obvious links that might show these were real people with a big presence on the web, that they were killed, that medics worked through the night to save lives.
So I will not link to them. If people want to lay claim to ‘critical thought’ then they have to be critical of their own thought as well as that of others – that is the whole point! If people want to know if the 22 were real people, they have to challenge their own suppositions and research it themselves.
The absence of critical thinking skills in the general population in just as evident in the realm of ‘deep politics’ or conspiriology as anywhere else. People want to be spoon fed things that confirm what they already believe, sad to say.
Enough.
I’m coming into this late but I have to say that strikes me as a very unhelpful, not to say obstructive position. Aren’t we all on the same side here, looking for the truth? You are also laying yourself wide open to the accusation you have no such links. I’m sure that’s not true, but people will think or say it anyway.
It’s your call though.
“Perhaps providing the links you found would be useful to those who want to follow through?”
There are no magic links. MSM is in control of the narrative.
The more “evidence”, the more material there is to pick apart in order to reveal the fabrications. That’s a function of time, although I fear they’ve learned not to overdo it (as in earlier Events).
Until then, the best guide is the enormous amount of evidence accumulated from similar events of the Past. Isn’t that the value of any sort of Historical record? And we’re not talking about the 18th century… there’s an overwhelming amount of archival video material and text, both primary sources and secondary sources and various detailed analyses, that can offer insight into the Manchester Event. Emotions are running so high (as was the plan in this case) that the simplest approach (consult the Precedent; look for the patterns) is the last thing on anyone’s mind. Most of the commenters here blame TPTB for the Manchester Event… while also, bizarrely, taking what the MSM (TPTB’s mouthpiece) says about it at face value… which would be more hilarious than it already is if it weren’t really happening that way.
Consult the Record (and, no, not, obviously by taking the original archival material at face value either). Look at the material. Compare the absurdities. It’s a rich resource.
The closest analog is Sandy Hook: A) “dead Perp” anomalies B) “dead kids” anomalies C) “witness testimony” anomalies D) “grieving parents” anomalies E) cui bono
But all the other over-evidenced (ie evidence-fabricated) Events reward study, too.
“Are you suggesting that all this has been planted by intelligence actors?”
Ha ha. Again: you believe US Gov perpetrated 9/11… but you find all this somehow beyond the realm of the plausible….?
Yes I do.
I have heard no argument about the 911 evidence that compares. Maybe you can think of an example?
Are you joking?
Yes, I have thought about it, and I think it’s important we treat each other with respect.
I’m not claiming she isn’t a nurse at the hospital. I’m saying we shouldn’t just take the Guardian’s word for this like we don’t take the Guardian’s word for how stupid Corbyn is or what is going on in Syria.
As to whether we would hear from people if a fake nurse was to pop up being interviewed. Where would we hear from them? In the Guardian? On the BBC? We’d hear if they went to an alternative news site. Or if their Facebook post went viral. But it’s totally possible theese things wouldn’t happen.
Like for example, have you heard about the woman whose daughter’s photo was used for one of the Sandy Hook victims? She was living in the UK and was alerted by her friend when a pic of her daughter was posted on the media as being a named victim at SH. She went on Facebook and her post was shared around. I saw it on a Youtube vid and that was what got me going about all this stuff. But I bet only a tiny minority of people ever heard about it. Did you hear about it?
My point being (sorry for ramble) that even if someone from Stepping Hill does go on Facebook and say “who the feck is Nurse X, I never worked with her”, chances are most of us would never know. I’m not saying this proves she’s fake. I’m saying it’s just not that easy to be sure she isn’t based on what we have so far.
What do you think about the “moving bomb” ? I can’t even start to get my head round that.
[edited by Admin on request to add video link]
There are posters on here who are questioning whether anybody died or was injured in Manchester on Monday night.
There are articles about each fatal victim here if you follow the links.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/manchester-victims-named-dead-terror–13080028
Facebook posts, quotes from relatives and friends, the works.
It took about 2 minutes research on the web.
It is all very well claiming that you are being skeptical, sifting info and applying logic, but the truth is that you are not. Doubt is essential but doubting beyond a certain rational point is illogical.
Where does ‘doubt’ stop?
Does Manchester even exist ?.
How do you know?
Have you been there?
Calm down. There’s nothing wrong with being sceptical. Remember there are people who think you are nuts for doubting anything you read in the MSM. The fact my doubts go further than yours doesn’t mean we have to hate each other.
Ok.Maybe there is enough evidence it really happened. But let’s just take a minute.
Facebook isn’t evidence on its own. FB accounts can be created, backdated and totally manipulated.. There are probably literally millions of fake accounts out there set up as jokes or hoaxes or social experiments or to put over propaganda. So a simple FB account alone isn’t evidence.
It depends on how deep the accounts go. Have they been well kept up for years?Are they full of the kind of silly crap people of my generation (I’m 27) put on our social media? Is there a lot of family? Do they resemble each other like family members? If the answer to all that is yes then ok, I would agree it’s probably real.
Interviews in the media aren’t evidence per se.. Anyone can be interviewed and claim to be anyone. Do they seem real? Do they really cry? With real tears? Or do they quickly start promoting an agenda and set up a GoFundme page? Because that’s a red flag right?
And how does this evidence balance out with the obvious weird stuff, like the fact the bomb seems to have moved?
Have you seen the early vid of the woman who hears the boom and looks up into the gallery? Do you remember the early reports where the bomb was said to be in the gallery? How can you get something like that wrong? And how come there was a vid that supported the claim which is now said to be wrong? The woman was right there, how could she think the bomb was in the gallery when it was in the freakin foyer?
And how about the proven fake victims? What is that about? Who would make up fake victims? Are you saying it was trolls? What evidence is there it was just trolls?
I have spent an inordinate amount of time arguing for people to stop believing what they consume in the MSM. I have spent a fair amount of time trying to get people to research 911. I have heard the argument innumerable times where I am accused of ‘conspiracy thinking’, of irrational skepticism, confirmation bias, of making unfalsifiable arguments.
I know what that feels like.
There is, though some truth to the assertion that doubt can go too far. It is fair enough to doubt official statements, esp. highly controlled accounts (such as those from a warzone). It is incumbent in people to do a modicum of research though, and doing such in this case will quickly reveal social media accounts of victims with thousands of entries, professional profiles, and public statements from colleagues about the dead. It is very obvious that there was a bomb, and that people died on Monday.
it is one thing to sit there and say “prove it to me”. It is another to challenge your own skepticism as well as challenging official narratives.
“I have spent an inordinate amount of time arguing for people to stop believing what they consume in the MSM. I have spent a fair amount of time trying to get people to research 911.”
vs
“There is, though some truth to the assertion that doubt can go too far.”
Classic Cognitive Dissonance. Common to either A) confused people B) Disinfo Agents.
So, you “believe” US Gov pulled off (and got away with) 9/11 (bringing down several skyscrapers and attacking the Pentagon, among other things, with tens of thousands of witnesses)… YET can’t seem to accept that any Agency in the UK (or from the US) is capable of hoaxing an off-camera “suicide bombing” and a handful of (dubious) “witness” testimonies.
Makes sense.
No that is a logical fallacy.
I CAN accept that a UK agency could fake a suicide bombing, and have not said otherwise.
What I HAVE said is that researching quickly reveals that this is not the case Manchester.
There is no dissonance. I believe in following evidence.
‘Let’s get empirical’ as D R Griffin used to say.
“What I HAVE said is that researching quickly reveals that this is not the case Manchester.”
You have not pointed to a class of “evidence” more convincing than the class of evidence traditionally used in these events (aka Witness Testimony)… I therefore question why you accept some “Conspiracy Theories” supported by the same sort of evidence supporting this “Conspiracy Theory” which you, conversely, reject rather strongly.
I do not understand that question.
I support theories that are supported by the most compelling evidence (or whatever class or nature) and that are internally coherent and self confirming.
The problem is what is most compelling is what fits your or view. We all have a natural bias. It’s human and unavoidable.
What is internally coherent is by all definitions totally subjective. As it, by all definitions, what is self confirming.
So, basically what you’re saying is, you believe what you want to believe. That might not be the words you would choose but it is precisely what you are saying, whether you are aware of this or not.
You’re making the same point the believers in the official 9/11 story make tho aren’t you. You’re saying something like “this is so obviously true there’s no reason to doubt it or go around asking for evidence.”
Why did the bomb move? Why were there fake victim pics going viral on Twitter? That’s not proof it was fake but its questions needing answers. We can’t just be like “doubt can go too far” and close our eyes.
I am saying go and research 911, go and research Manchester.
I am saying that research into 911 quickly reveals that the official story is bullshit, just as research into Manchester quickly reveals that bona fide real people have been killed.
You are pointing out conflicting narratives that emerged in the event and expanding them to the supposition that it is possible or likely that the whole thing was fabricated and there were no victims. That is not logical or rational.
Why were there fake victims on Twitter? I don’t know. Spooks sometimes have been known to plant confusing ‘flak’, to create ‘noise’, or to advance ridiculous theories to try and discredit legitimate questioning. Sometimes there are just sick individuals who are seeking attention by latching onto a tragic event.
Not knowing the answer to that doesn’t mean that there isn’t heaps of connected and re-confirming evidence that 22 people were killed by a nail bomb and many more injured.
Closing our eyes, and doubting too far are both ways of missing the path to truth. That is what I am saying.
“I am saying that research into 911 quickly reveals that the official story is bullshit, just as research into Manchester quickly reveals that bona fide real people have been killed.”
You have failed to articulate the difference between the level of the “evidence” “supporting” the former and that of the “evidence” “supporting” the latter.
I have never read a serious argument contesting that people died on 911, so I do not see the comparison.
When people are killed they leave a lot of traces behind. They did on 911 and they have this week in Manchester.
I have seen compelling evidence that none of the people on the planes in 9/11 died (including the so called terrorists). As for those in the Towers, I don’t think anyone is contesting those deaths.
The comparison: fake “witness testimony”, implausibly thin “video evidence”, simulated perpetrators, an obvious agenda and no reason to believe in MSM as a credible source of Info
“Not knowing the answer to that doesn’t mean that there isn’t heaps of connected and re-confirming evidence that 22 people were killed by a nail bomb and many more injured.”
An MSM-supported narrative is not quite “heaps of confirming evidence”, since the sources are all the same; it’s not a case of streams from diverging sources that tend to corroborate one another, it’s one story coming from various vents in the same source, which being: the People in Power who are perpetrating the hoax. These people have vast resources to invest in hoaxing an event meant to achieve a cascade of goals. To assume they wouldn’t take the trouble to make it appear to be real is absurd.
This event is closer to Sandy Hook than 9/11, though the point in comparing the two is to establish that the 9/11 hoax was by orders of magnitude more comprehensive, involved tens of thousands more people and was “supported” by hundreds of video clips of Real Time “evidence” of the central deeds. Manchester would therefore be much easier to organize, as a deception, than 9/11. So, anyone who rejects MSM on 9/11 but accepts MSM on Manchester is, again, either not quite Logical or something worse.
With respect, I have to leave this discussion here. I do not think you are willing to go and research your own theory that the deaths of Manchester did not happen; that the victims did not exist; that all the witnesses are lying to the media, to social media and presumably (for the sake of containment) to all their friends and family as well, and will do for the rest of their lives.
The evidence supporting such a theory is virtually non existent, whereas the evidence supporting the theory that people did die and were injured is abundant, corroborating and consistent.
Your theories are just too far fetched for me, and as such I have to get on with other things.
” I do not think you are willing to go and research your own theory that the deaths of Manchester did not happen”
We’ve all done the same “research”, which means we have evaluated the “evidence” provided by the same essential Institutions, via their mouthpiece (MSM), which even you agree were either behind, or colluded with those behind, the 9/11 False Flag. Why you would then take MSM’s “info” at face value? Your notion of “research” is peculiar: it means reading The Guardian (among other venues, including the alt-Left Disinfo sites).
This: “all the witnesses are lying to the media, to social media and presumably (for the sake of containment) to all their friends and family as well”… is a prerequisite for every single one of the hundred + False Flags and assorted agenda-driven, MSM-supported hoaxes since 9/11. If you find it so implausible, why not come out of the closet, call us all “Twoofers” and hang out at the CNN comment threads instead? Because, I must admit, your view on all this strikes me as schizophrenic at best.
Anyone can post a fake victim picture on twitter, because there are a lot of sick f***s out there. Concluding that all these people are part of one conspiracy is another thing. You need some evidence to support this theory other than what you believe might be the truth.
“Does Manchester even exist?”
Well, I have personally been to the place claiming to be Manchester, 26 years ago during something called the Global Peace Forums.
I have no way to prove it though, so although Manchester exists in my reality I cannot claim that it exists in your reality (and I am not so arrogant to assume it does).
Here is the victim list posted on the Guardian. Be dispassionate. Do some thinking. How many of these people have solid, verified backgrounds? How many photos pass the sniff test? I’m not saying they are fake. I’m saying let’s not just assume they aren’t.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/24/go-sing-with-the-angels-families-and-friends-pay-tribute-to-manchester-victims
Erm … is it possible that all the victims, or nearly all of them, happen to look white? Are all of Ariana Grande’s fans in Britain almost exclusively white and Westernised? No non-white victims of the suicide bomb attack?
It is possible but whether it is probable, I don’t know. You’d need access to the details of everyone who bought a ticket and all the staff working there, find out their nationality then compare it to those that were standing near the bomb as to whether it was improbable. A lot of work, and for what gain?
Sylvie, you have no solid verified background. Neither do I. Neither does Admin or Off Graun itself for that matter. For all I know Off Graun is run by a server in a hackcentre in Russia. I have no way of knowing and neither do you. It’s easy to ask endless questions casting doubt on everything from the moon landings to the nutritional value of cornflakes but actually going out there and finding the evidence yourself is much harder.
Then, even if you find the evidence who is willing to listen?
What matters here is not what one can verify without a doubt; what matters is being resistant, essentially, to propaganda, which relies on the crystal of public opinion in order to accomplish its aims. The larger disruption one can cause in the propagandized uniformity of the crystal of public opinion, the weaker the propaganda becomes.
The real battle in this thread is over the propensity (or not) to take MSM at its word… on anything. I’d argue that the philosophical underpinnings of the OFFG itself align with that. The Guardian is a wholly complicit, transparent tool in the propagation of NeoLiberal propaganda in its many guises. There has to be a safe space for discussions that are, by default, critical of that propaganda. A space that has become super-charged by the spectre of the notion of “slaughterred children” is no longer a space that’s safe for Rational Thought/ Resistance.
The problem is that this “resistance to propaganda” is itself propaganda, which I am resisting lol
Well, follow my Propaganda to its limit and you end up doing what? Distrusting The Party Line as a Preset. Now, follow the opposing Propaganda to its logical limit and you end up doing what? Finalizing The Police State by Incarcerating Muslims/ Dissidents and penalizing “unacceptable” speech. Blitzkrieging Syria. And so on.
More or less equal outcomes? Laugh
It’s ok, StAug, I got my own propaganda that trumps the two extremes you mention. But you make a valid point about seeing where things lead and using that to inform direction.
“A space that has become super-charged by the spectre of the notion of “slaughterred children” is no longer a space that’s safe for Rational Thought”
That’s reasonable. Not everyone that was killed was a child anyway and since when is a child’s life worth more than an adults? All life is precious.
Correction: there’s no evidence that anyone was killed.
Define “no evidence”.
I’ve not seen any evidence that suggests that no one was killed. We are still talking about the Manchester bombing right?
Har! Not interested in rehashing several days’ worth of debate on all that. Believe whatever makes you happiest! You have my resoundingly disinterested blessing.
[copied from yesterday which was copied from day before. all originals got deleted (again)]
I am currently limited to 1 comment per day. All other comments are auto-censored.
I can’t even reply to folks who ask me questions.
Conversation is impossible.
This effects both my wordpress and facebook account. If I post on one then I can’t post on the other. The 1 comment per day cap is applied to both as if they’re being treated as one account.
I have reported this to Off Graun. As usual no reply from censorship central.
@aaronlowe
You’ve spammed at least four different threads with complaints of persecution and attacks on this site. You have completely clogged one of these threads [HERE] to the point it needs to be closed because it is loading too slowly – again with nothing but content-free complaints of persecution.
We have told you that, to protect the site for other users, any more such content-free posts will be treated like spam.
This does not apply to any posts you make that contain responses to articles or to other comments.
OffG does not, in my experience, censor. I’ve experienced technical glitches, though… esp with WordPress, which won’t let me comment on some fellow WordPress blogs! So, look to Facebook and/or WordPress…!
Have you tried different browsers – and pre writing then pasting?
I would be more inclined to expect hanky panky from forces set against off Guardian’s freedom of communication. However – I appreciate you feel pissed off and impotent – but you are not the only one to have these issues. I’ve had a lot of hassle too. It still serves an accurate self-reflection. Maybe we forget to laugh at ourselves! But I don’t say that to laugh at you.
It’s easy to lose our peace. Far too easy don’t you think?
Corbyn was viciously attacked in the media the weekend before the Arena attack for his links to the IRA years previously. He was photographed with Jerry Adams captioned Blood Brothers. I was puzzled for the reason for this besmirching after so much time had elapsed since these photos were taken. Recall that the Arndale Centre (close to the Manchester Arena) bombing by the IRA had occurred in 1996. The reason became clear almost immediately after the Arena atrocity when the media were quick to point out the association between the Arena, Arndale, the IRA and Corbyn. Cui bono?
This article seems to be contradicted by the other Off Graun article that points to “Libya/Syria Intervention”.
No doubt everyone will be absolutely confused, confounded and bewildered with utter bemusement, befuddlement and bamboozlement as to what the possible connection or contradiction is. I await with pure and exquisite anticipation 😀
We try to reflect a range of under-represented views rather than sell one specific editorial POV. If you just want your news filtered to the point where you don’t need to make any critical judgement then feel free to continue reading the MSM.
It’s a shame Off Graun don’t reflect my under-represented view. Oh well, like Hitler said, you can’t please everyone all the time eh….
And your minority view is . . . ?
That the truth cannot be based on 2nd hand information that can be easily faked. The only way to actually know something is to go out there and find direct evidence yourself. Anything less is heresay and rumour.
Then the most you can hope for is subjective proof. Objective proof is not possible. People choosing to believe so called 2nd hand “evidence” is not objective proof. We believe it only because it is convenient to do so.
Good grief! Then why are you here? There ain’t nothing but second-hand “information” here. And come to think of it, most of what I “reliably” know has come to me at second- and third- hand. How in the world did anyone on this planet who is human ever come to know as much as he or she does? Have you personally managed to verify firsthand every premise of every belief to which you hold? But I guess that since most of what is in my head is based only on second hand stuff, I don’t really know it. Although curiously, I’m often able to verify firsthand some if not most of what I’ve come by at second-hand — and guess what? More often than not, though admittedly sometimes not, it is sufficiently accurate to rate as having been ‘true’ in my estimation.
So not everything is deception or unreliable that comes to us at second hand. Sometimes, however, a lot of sifting is in order. You have to look at the logical coherence of what is being presented, and then, in addition, you have to pay attention to or, rather, assess the quality of the sources from which the information is originating. Usually, in that way, a person can get a pretty good sense of the probable truth and accuracy of what is being reported at second-hand.
Still, it’s curious, eh: given your degree of mistrust, of radical skepticism, why do you even venture to interact with anything anyone ever writes or says if there is no way for you to really know if they are telling the truth?
Do you do it simply out of boredom or do you think that sometimes there is some reliable information to be extracted from all of that second-hand hubbub?
I wrote a long reply but it got deleted. Haven’t got energy to type it all again.
Try this: navigate back to the page where you originally wrote your reply. In the comment box, your original comment should still be there. Make sure you copy and paste it somewhere safe, as in Word. Then refresh the page, and try replying again by pasting your original comment. Hope that helps.
I’ve searched for it but can’t find it. It’s lost. I normally keep a backup copy for Off Graun because the website used to have a habit of losing posts, but recently it hasn’t been doing that so I guess I got lazy.
Also, today I’ve noticed that some of my posts are getting “edited” after I have posted them. Since I don’t have the access level to edit posts it must be done by Admin.
Well, that’s unfortunate, especially given that you did put some time and effort into it. It happens to me, too, sometimes, and it is annoying. If you later decide you can get up the gumption, I really would be interested in what you have to say.
Regards,
-N
There’s an ongoing problem as we keep having to tell people. Best advice is to copy your post into a text editor before you hit the button of doom. It didn’t get deleted I promise you that.
ISIS = Israeli State of Iraq and as-Sham
Reblogged this on MUSO MUSINGS ON FATHERHOOD THEORY AND STUFF and commented:
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/05/manchester-terror-attack-reichstag-fire.html
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/05/terrorism-rape-politics-and-religion.html
The senseless loss of life in Manchester as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen etc is tragic. The reasons provided are equally tragic as complicity is the only logical conclusion. How did US authorities know the suspects identity within hours? How was columnist/lobby correspondent, Andre Walker able to acquire photo’s of the bombed arena within minutes even though he falsely claims they are faked? Again an ID is found within hours, how is that possible? How did the level of surveillance and security fail given Britain is acknowledged as the most scrutinised country in the world? These few questions will remain, by and large unanswered. There will undoubtedly be more, but as time progresses these will be consigned to the ‘conspiracy’ bucket. In the meantime we are expected to keep quiet, accept any explanation provided officially and agree with their solutions. We are being led by the most untrustworthy down a very dark tunnel.
edit on previous post : “….It takes a special kind of determination to be this stupid, but apparently we have succeeded in perpetuating the continued proliferation of requisite numb nuts. Dyslexic fingers syndrome.
You offendeded all who suffer from dyslexic fingers syndrome, Mohandeer! Inadvertently, no doubt. As your fingered syndrome seems once again to have gooten the blatter of you. 😉
“….This gives the Deep State-installed EU government, i.e. Brussels, the legitimacy to clamp down and if needed violently repress protests in European cities, as they may arise with increasing neoliberal financial domination of western economies, imposed austerities, privatization of public services, educations systems, health care – cuts in pensions, in brief, the imposition of a repressive economic system. We are almost there, just look at Greece….”
Hit the nail right on the head.
Another intuitive and prescient article.
My own suspicion is that certain extremist recruiters found an easy patsy and cultivated his psychosis and helped him to realize his “destiny”. Who that might have been is up for debate but likely no answer will be forthcoming any time soon and all the usual suspects will have covered their tracks very well. MI5/MI6, Mossad, even with a bit of imagination Jihadist extremists, all will have erased any trace of their involvement.
It does of course play in to the hands of the Conservatives, because our MSM has painted Corbyn as “soft” on terrorism, wholly invented, naturally, after all, it was not Corbyn who negotiated not so “secretly” with the IRA. We in the UK seem to prefer a psychotic in charge of our nuclear “deterrent” rather than a sane head who would ask “what the consequences for us” might be. As in, how many fall out shelters for the masses, rather than the elites, do we actually have should the returning salvo of nukes make landfall?
It takes a special kind of determination to be this stupid, but apparently we have succeeded in perpetuating the continued proliferation of reqnumb nuts
Well, it will difficult to erase this rather obvious trace: Manchester Alleged Suicide Bomber Linked to Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), Known to British Security & Intelligence. LIFG was Supported by NATO against Gadaffi.
“In 1992, Ramadan Abedi was sent back to Libya by Britain’s MI6 and was involved in a British-devised plot to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi. The operation having been readily exposed, he was exfiltrated by MI6 and transferred back to the UK where he obtained political asylum. He moved in 1999 to Whalley Range (south of Manchester) where there was already resident a small Libyan Islamist community.
In 1994, Ramadan Abedi returned again to Libya under MI6’s direction. In late 1995 he is involved in the creation of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a local branch of Al-Qaeda, in conjunction with Abdelhakim Belhadj. The LIFG was then employed by MI6 again to assassinate Gaddafi, for a payoff of £100,000. This operation, which also failed, provoked heated exchanges within British Intelligence, leading to the resignation of one David Shayler.”
More at http://www.voltairenet.org/article196455.html
Or maybe just gave him a few hundred quid to go and wait for a specific imaginary person coming out from the venue.. to hand over the haversack.. loaded with a surprise gift, not to open it nor tell anybody … but with the explosive remote triggered device. His dad dad such a nice kid..
I’ll post this on the other article as well. I’m not going to say definitively that no one died – but I find this very suspicious. Manchester fire fighters were held at Phillips Square for over an hour. When they got there – the scene had already been cleaned up. (Courtesy of UK Column)
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/firefighters-infuriated-after-were-stopped-13087703
People died, some of them 15 years old and others who have not come home leaving their parents terrified of what might have happened to them.
You are probably right, and I’d love to live in a world where truth was paramount, and fact was instantly verifiable; the source unquestionable. We, however, do not live in such a world – truth is manipulated; perception is managed. I don’t personally want to impinge on anyone’s grief; have to question whether children died; learn the symptoms of sarin poisoning; etc. It grieves to have to do so. I have nothing vested in being ‘right’; nor do I have a particular bias to confirm. That said, did you read the article? The fire fighters themselves are pretty pissed off at being held back, watching events unfold on TV.
Like this anonymous fire fighter, I want to know the truth. That’s all.
You were there and saw it.. so must be true, as you personally saw at Boston, Sandy Hook etc. You Mi5 or just dumb?.
Did you just call Mohandeer dumb? I think you did. You obviously don’t know her. Otherwise you would have curbed your impetuous and therefore unwarranted ad hom.
As for what went down in Boston and Sandy Hook, were you there to personally witness the events? And if you weren’t, how did you ever arrive at your understanding of those events? Presumably through sources you trust and maybe a little deductive reasoning of your own.
If Mohandeer confidently attests to the ‘fact’ that people died, knowing her myself as a reliable source of information and analysis, I’d say you can pretty much take her word for it. Sometimes she’s mistaken but rarely. Maybe she’ll be forthcoming with her reasons for the attestation she made.
“Mog” has also provided some preliminary corroborating references here and elsewhere in the comment thread where those references are posted.
Norm, you’ve questioned the validity (or clarity) of people’s responses, hereabouts quite a few times without, obviously, “knowing” them. You’ve even used pejorative language in doing so.
You’re joking, right? We can’t take anyone’s “word” for anything, Norm, even if you (or we) like them lots. Isn’t that the point of this SITE? .
We can only try sifting through batting around concepts and fragments of “info” as logically as possible… with our conclusions rather heavily influenced by History as we’ve managed to read it between the lines.
Christ, aren’t you the guy I was lauding, just days ago, as constituting the last best line of defense against Propagandistic Infiltration hereabouts? Laugh.
Oh well. Just another week in The Simulocracy…
No. I obviously came to an informed opinion about what he or she was about.
The ‘retard’ you have in mind had said enough for me or anyone else to be able to ‘deduce’ that he or she was provably either a ‘troll’ or not very ‘sharp’ or perhaps even both, and was therefore eventually treated in kind.
If ‘tommyctg’ persists in jumping to gratuitous insult before sufficiently engaging someone to be able to have come to a reasonable assessment of the integrity of the person, he can expect the same.
You will notice that I did not immediately “jump” on him or her. But if he or she continues to make unconsidered remarks, then that’s a pattern, and a judgement can justifiably and thereby be made, and if he or she has been unduly inconsiderate toward others, well then he or she will be fair game — n’est ce pas?
StAug, you begin to disappoint me. If you cannot ever take anybody’s word for anything, why are you even here?
Haven’t you noticed that it’s a blog, and that if there is any information hereabouts, it’s always mediated through someone’s word?
At some point you will decide that something someone will have written is trustworthy. That’s taking that person at his or her word, eh.
But you will only accept it as trustworthy because you will already have come to a “rational” assessment about the person’s track record, about his or her integrity as a researcher or witness, as being trustworthy in either his or her ability to ‘analyse’ or in his or her ability to accurately relay the content of their references or sources. That doesn’t mean he or she can’t sometimes be mistaken. But you can expect that on the whole that will be an infrequent occurrence. Unless, of course, he or she has suddenly undergone some sort of neurological or moral upset, and then has become less than reliable. But that, too, will be a matter of ongoing “assessment.”
And if you frequent this particular blog rather than another, that’s because in your estimation, on the whole, what gets posted here as both information and analysis is — what’s the word I’m looking for? Oh, yeah: trustworthy. Worthy, that is to say, of being “taken at its word.”
I can confidently assert that Mohandeer is indeed a reliable source of information and analysis.
I’ve been reading her comments and following them up for the better part of a year, and therefore have a reasonable sense of what I can expect in terms of accuracy as well as her ability to reason, and she most definitely is sharp.
If Mohandeer and people like her who frequently comment here begin to report that people have died, I will not have much difficulty believing in the integrity of their pronouncement. I will, of course, do my own due diligence, but I will trust that they will have pointed me in the right direction.
“Norm, you’ve questioned the validity (or clarity) of people’s responses, hereabouts quite a few times without, obviously, “knowing” them. You’ve even used pejorative language in doing so.”
__No. I obviously came to an informed opinion about what he or she was about.”
Interesting non sequitur. But I’ll reiterate: you have dissed total strangers for their positions on whatever… fair enough. But you can’t then go about proscribing the same activity in others when they turn the same technique on one of your online chums! Laugh
“StAug, you begin to disappoint me. If you cannot ever take anybody’s word for anything, why are you even here?”
Well, I’m certainly not here to take anyone’s word for anything, Norm. I fail to see the advantage in being so needy or credulous. If that disappoints you, all I can say is: better sooner than later! But may I introduce you to the pleasures of Rational Discourse that doesn’t require a personal investment in any particular Avatar’s veracity? With billions of characters to potentially interact with in Virtual Space, it’s the rational way to go.
erratum: “But may I introduce you to the pleasures of Rational Discourse that DON’T require a personal investment in any particular Avatar’s veracity?”
“Interesting non sequitur. But I’ll reiterate: you have dissed total strangers for their positions on whatever… fair enough. But you can’t then go about proscribing the same activity in others when they turn the same technique on one of your online chums! Laugh”
Please. How familiar is tommytcg with Mohandeer’s commentary? Not very. Otherwise he would know that she is anything but dumb.
And I can assure you that if my “chums” start saying stupid things, I’ll eventually call them out for it. And that includes Mohandeer.
And if they start being pricks or cunts, then I’ll respond in kind.
Fair enough?
Norm, you’re swerving. The point is, none of the characters involved in this kerfuffle “know” each other personally. Don’t get self-righteous about Avatar A casting aspersions on Avatar B, on the basis that the former doesn’t “know” the latter, when you do the same yourself and you don’t, in fact, know either (or any of us). But the real point is: yes, you’re being a Loyal Virtual Friend to Mohandeer, while also being a small-h hypocrite. No biggie. I wouldn’t belabor the point but it strikes me as symptomatic of a larger (temporary) loss of the use of your Logic Muscle.
You need not worry that I’m swerving, Steve. Between you and me, if there is someone who has a tendency to personalize exchanges, that would be you.
And I do demur: what a person writes is very much a projection of their personality, at least in terms of his or her personal voice, and you can indeed come to know a great deal about a person over a period of time by only reading or corresponding with them. That is to say, you can predict or come to expect — that’s what “personality” is, a predictable pattern in a set of behaviors — a certain tenor of expression. That doesn’t mean you “know” the person as you do those with whom you actually live, and maybe in the flesh, with the entire panoply of a person’s habits in close proximity, those with whom you relate and find a rapport online, would actually be displeasing to you, and you to them. Nevertheless, your online persona does express something of who you really are and more so if you prize honesty and tend to eschew artifice.
And you, Steve, do you not ‘feel’ loyal to anything or anyone?
In what sense could that possibly be a blight or a mark of disparagement on someone?
The real infirmity would rather be not to be able to relate in a personal vein to people with whom you have an affinity of opinions and feeling.
And this isn’t a kerfuffle, Steve. It’s you descending to the puerile antics of a child wanting to kick back at someone by whom he imagines himself to have been slighted. Nothing more.
“You need not worry that I’m swerving, Steve. Between you and me, if there is someone who has a tendency to personalize exchanges, that would be you.”
Well, there you go Norm!
“And you, Steve, do you not ‘feel’ loyal to anything or anyone?”
Oh dear, Norm, I see you’ve resorted to imputing psychopathy, on my part, merely because I disagree with you! Laugh. If only I could chuckle about that with Wife or Daughter or Son or Friends and (real world) Acquaintances… and even an Online Chum or two .. but… alas… (shrugs with eerily neutral affect)….
I’m happy to have brought a little laughter into your day, Steve. I make it a point to try and elicit some mirth from at least one person every day. It seems I’ve already reached my day’s quota without even trying. Maybe I’ll make a play for two. I feel I’ve more in reserve.
Psychopathy is a really big word, Steve. I think you are letting both your imagination and defences run away with you. Why be so hard on yourself?
“Please. How familiar is tommytcg with Mohandeer’s commentary?”
Norm, come on, you know this is funny. Right? Are you now asserting that before any hapless commenter dares to gainsay me, you or Mohandeer (or just Mohandeer), they must first reference The Collected Works of Our Commentary? Because I always assumed that everyone was pretty much free to critique a comment/ argument as a Standalone Unit, on the basis of its own (de)merits.
Because, listen: I feel that you’re sinking to the same level as Mog, here, and trying to establish a limit on the “acceptability” of certain kinds of comments… using squishy appeals to unthinking Sentiment or Emotion. Mog stamps his virtual feet asserting “children have died!” and YOU are stamping your virtual feet to the effect that Mohandeer’s commentary can’t be disparaged. Well, sorry, Norm: yes it can. As can all commentary. And, again, Mohandeer wan’t disparaged with silken gloves but you’ve done some rough work on comments you don’t like, too. We all have.
Now, I’ll reiterate gently what the “offending” commenter said about the view, on this, that you and Mohandeer appear to share: it’s rather naive. Given the pattern we’ve seen in the past 17 years of Staged Crises, making sententious statements to the effect that “22 people died and that’s that”, based on reports from the MSM… that’s extremely naive.
“If Mohandeer and people like her who frequently comment here begin to report that people have died, I will not have much difficulty believing in the integrity of their pronouncement.”
So, you’ll keep that Top Secret info to yourself then and we’ll just… take your/her word for it. And Mohandeer revealed this info to you over coffee…?
There were provably fake victims with provably fake families pleading for info on social media. So far we don’t have anything like proof of any of them being real.
Sandy Hook UK. Involve kids (in the West) in an “atrocity”and even fairly seasoned Parapolitical Skeptics will lose it, apparently. And notice how the “Moozlim suicide bomber” narrative has been swallowed without question. It’s like the 9/11 effect: Lefties interpreting the event as “blow back” rather than a False Flag and considering that a “radical reading” when, in fact, it was the deliberately-implied, mainstream narrative.
But we know beyond doubt some of the tweets from anxious parents were completely fake. They were using images of children from a Google search. The children were later identified as being very much alive and nothing to do with the alleged Manchester event. One is mentioned in OffG’s article. A small boy whose “sister” posted that he was missing in Manchester. The image of the child in question was taken from a clothing catalogue.
If some were proven fakes we logically have to accept the bare possibility others may have been, and indeed that thy all could have been.
“If some were proven fakes we logically have to accept the bare possibility others may have been, and indeed that they all could have been.”
As is always the case. The only thing I would trust in at this point is Crowd-Sourced coverage… freaked out eye-witness teens posting videos on Social Media, gingo viral. I don’t trust MSM at all but if I saw quite a few vids of teens going nuts over the experience (or even showing bits of bloody aftermath)… I’d accept that a bloody False Flag had happened. Haven’t see any of that. This is, as far as I can tell at this point, Sandy Hook UK. People are letting their emotional response to the notion of murdered kids disable their faculties of (well-earned) Default Skepticism toward MSM. And this befuddlement is being aided, IMO, by Guardian Operatives.
Did you see the phone vid made by the woman in the auditorium? There’s a muffled “woomph” that might be an explosion and she immediately points her phone up to the gallery saying “what was that?” Then she and others start screaming and stampeding out of the auditorium?
That was when they were saying the bomb was in the gallery. Now they are saying the bomb was in the foyer. So what the hell was that video about?
Yeah, wasn’t that the one where, if you look closely, you can see kids playing with the balloons (after the arena is largely empty…)? As I pointed out toi someone recently, in any case: if you want a “stampede of terror” at a concert, all you need to do is shout “bomb!” at some nearby teen. Then panic ensues and you get your footage. But it’s telling that so much of the footage they’re using is of the standard blurry, jerky, hardly-decipherable variety.
Jeezis! erratum: ” gingo” was meant to be “going”! laugh
M, do you have a source other than the MSM on that?
After all, it smells from “Gladio”!
Regards
“Did an independent authority check whether this is indeed true?”
My first reply to this is inspired by Admin – do a google search. We are not your researchers.
But I’m more helpful than Admin, so I won’t do that.
My questions are, do these “independent authorities” exist, who are they and why hasn’t Off Graun contacted them if they know who they are? If they don’t know who they are then why ask the public?
As the poster above hints, google ‘Gladio B’ for the start to an entertaining evening’s surfing!
No thanks.