| 04 June 2004 at 03.37.17 ZuluTime
|
Posted by Baron Greenback [4.153.41.50 - dialup-4.153.41.50.Dial1.Atlanta1.Level3.net] on 04 June 2004 at 03.37.17 ZuluTime:
In Reply to: Uh, can you spell something out for me? posted by MondoHebe on 30 May 2004 at 19.50.28 ZuluTime:
First of all, I'd like to voice my displeasure over Bush taking center stage in this. I personally see a lot of Hoover in Bush. It's impossible, at this point, to determine whether he really was in fact a good president, although he certainly made some correct decisions on his own in a few sensitive times. His flaw, in my opinion, is that he surrounded himself with incompetence. Ashcroft and Hatch and even Rice all get fifteen minutes, and it's back to Bush. And everything gets swept under the rug. I could go out listing similarities, like Teapot Dome to Enron, but that'd only serve to bore, and I think I've already made my personal views clear. At any rate, this basically spills over into my view on the buzzword that conspiracy has become. A conspiracy is nothing more than a few people agreeing to do something without telling anyone. That's it. Five people voting the same way is a conspiracy to control the election. Not saying we've completely lost touch with reality here; when three people get together and rob a convenience store, we still recognize it as a conspiracy, and even prosecute them on those grounds. However, the point is that where this is concerned, if the video was faked (and likely was), then yeah, there probably was a conspiracy afoot. I think it's a safe assumption that someone other than the "killer" was operating the camera, and there may even have been others doing the editing. Once we use the word "conspiracy", though, suddenly we're talking 1984, Area 51, cloak and dagger. We can then safely assume anyone from the Cub Scouts to the Illuminati are using this footage for their own clandestine and ominous purposes. And they probably are. Hell, the people on the /messageboard/ were using the footage for the ominous purpose of expressing their views. I'm using the footage to convey my views RIGHT NOW! Anyway, I think it's important to look at the likely reasons someone would actually do this. And, the only way to do that is to look at what the video was designed to do, faked death or not. Apparently, video of someone being decapitated is supposed to generate shock, or at least some sort of attention. That this is something I can see every time I play Mortal Kombat on an emulator is beside the point; that I wouldn't have noticed the story even if I saw the even taking place live while channel surfing is a little closer to the point. But, let's pretend there's someone out there that would notice, and possibly be shocked, offended, or enthralled by this sort of thing (Not saying that it isn't fucked up, just that there are people who, after reminding us that we were all columbine, may go to the extent of pretending that they knew the kid and assign some demeaning fantasy moral to the whole thing. Cassie Bernal died for your sins!). At any rate, this person would be what advertising executives call the "target audience". Since it's somewhat well known that the Arab culture views us as sensitive and prudish, we can assume a slight miscalculation on their part, and assume further that they thought we'd be, I dunno, stricken with Terror over the event. That's the simplest explanation as I see it.