How to Spot Disinfo
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As a decade-old easily-debunked fake video of a missile hitting the Pentagon goes for another spin through the alt media, James takes a look at how to spot ridiculous disinfo before you make the mistake of passing it on to others.
SHOW NOTES
Do these recently released, then disappeared, images show a missile hitting the Pentagon on 9/11?
9/11: Video of Missile Hitting Pentagon Leaked
35mm Stock Footage of Washington DC aerials also availabe in High Definition
Cruise Missile Strikes Pentagon
Gordon Duff admits to VT disinfo
Veterans Today – Gordon Duff 40% False Information
MH 17 Flight…Dont ask me where I obtained this footage and be quick!
Iranian Aircraft Crash Captured On Camera (VIDEO)
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Thank you for this thought.
I have been engaged in countering misinformation in the recent color revolution invasion. I have written extensively about the subject in Arabic on my website, and I have developed a theory to detect misinformation.
There are no “trusted sources”, there are only official sources that represent a certain party in what happens in the world. If something is verifiable from the official source, this means that the official source has claimed what they claimed. If something can not verified from the official source, then it can be treated as misinformation.
Debunking misinformation serves the original purpose of its creators, which is to control the narrative and specify the “discussion topics”. The best response to misinformation is to completely ignore it as if it does not exist, and to talk about the things that this misinformation is designed to cover.
I believe you are doing a great job in countering misinformation, however, I hope you would only quote official sources in the information you spread, especially in #NewWorldNextWeek. Your habit of quoting mainstream media in that show may cause some misinformation to sneak to your audience without your knowledge.
I’ve had a few “run ins” via email with Gordon Duff.
I’m convinced he is either a CIA Shill or is a victim of some MKUltra project.
I don’t mean to diss the guy out, I feel for him if he’s MK’d, but if he’s a shill, then he’s a total a-hole…
The VetsToday website really looks like a purposeful misinformation site. Riddled with “Alien Reptilian Overlords” stories and tons of confusing crap…. This site is making real Vets look like crazy conspiracy theorists!
Don’t trust anything VT says.
An Open Letter to James Corbett
June 11, 2015 in Blog
James,
It’s a tribute to how far you’ve come that I would take the time to write you an open letter; such correspondences are generally to those who, due to their celebrity (or notoriety), are unlikely to respond to a person’s private communication. (You’ve already done this, of course, i.e., not responded to my private communication.)
You’ve come a long way.
Yes, Corbettreport.com has come a long way. Because it is, usually, excellent…
As I’m sure you will recall, we were first in touch in 2009 when you invited me to be on your podcast as an interviewee after you’d seen a bit of the rough cut to my film Water Time; Surf Travel Diary of a MadMan, then changed your mind (and cut off communications with me) when I informed you of my conflict with Alex Jones – the matter of FBI Agent John O’Neill’s involvement in the 9/11 attacks (the myth is that he died that day). But more about that at another time…
I put off writing about the matter at hand – your version of the 9/11/Pentagon attack – and would probably have let it slide completely, but your recent Corbettreport.com video on the ‘missile’ debunking and ‘How to Spot Disinfo’ was just a bit too much for me to ignore. I’ll embed your video here for the convenience of other viewers of this essay:
HERE’S THE REST OF MY COMMENT:
http://blog.banditobooks.com/an-open-letter-to-james-corbett/
Thanks for the letter, Allan. It’s good to know you find this website and this information important, and I’m glad you support the work as a subscriber.
Thank you also for your generous compliments of my work. It is always nice to hear that someone enjoys my “slickly done†documentary, as well as my daily videos/podcasts/interviews/articles so much, and finds them so well done and so well researched that they can scarcely believe that I do it all by myself. That is truly one of the most glowing endorsements of my work that I can receive, so I thank you for that.
I’m glad that you begin your piece by letting your audience know that you are familiar with Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). I’m sure it can’t escape the readers’ attention that you employ it so well yourself. One might wonder, for example, why you would include such an easily documentable and factually incorrect lie about my work in such an offhand manner toward the end of your piece, especially when it seems to add nothing at all to the letter or its content. I’m referring, of course, to your statement, that “Your very slickly done film on The Fed had no one else in the credits.†Now you and I and everyone else who has watched the documentary know for a matter of fact that James Evan Pilato, Kevin MacLeod, Broc West, Perry Watson and Jeffrey Jaxen all appear by name in the credits at both the beginning and the end of the documentary (for their contribution to the music and transcripts of the documentary respectively). As I say, we both know this (as you are no doubt a tireless researcher and uncompromising truth-teller), and anyone who watches the documentary (or bothers to check for themselves) will see that this is the case. So why put it in there? As someone well-versed in NLP, are you using a little sleight-of-hand here, testing to see if the audience will accept an easily demonstrable lie on your say-so just to make sure they’re not actually checking what you’re saying for themselves? Or is it just because you’re making sure to self-select an audience that will read your assertions and not engage in any independent verification process? I wouldn’t presume to know myself, but I (perhaps unlike yourself) do have faith in the audience to be able to check into these things, as I don’t imagine people who simply believe assertions without factual evidence are (or want to be) in my audience.
Anyway, the substance of your letter seems to revolve around your contention that I believe that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. I have always and do still maintain that I have no idea what hit the Pentagon on 9/11. I know this seems to blow your mind, because as you point out in a logically fallacious argument: “I know: You don’t outright say that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon… but you come pretty damn close.†And then you point out that I read the text from the article that follows the (admittedly fake and disinfo-spreading) video. As you know and as you openly acknowledge, none of this logically implies that I believe that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, but you want the reader to go along with your interpretation that somehow my not saying anything of the sort is “pretty damn close†to saying it. Another moment where it seems you are testing the willingness of your audience to accept your interpretation of something that is not actually there.
The substance of your argument seems to be my presentation to the “9/11 Revisited: Seeking The Truth†conference in Kuala Lumpur in 2012 where I laid out the case for convicting the government for its active participation in the attacks by pointing to its own admissions. In that presentation I present without critical comment the idea that:
-Rumsfeld went into his regularly scheduled 9:30 AM CIA briefing blissfully unaware of what was happening
-Richard Clarke was coordinating a valiant air response to the attacks by establishing a CAP over New York via NEADS amongst other actions
-That WTC7 “collapsed into its own footprint†(with no mention of demolition!)
And any number of official story deceptions. Is this because I (or my audience) believe these things? Perhaps a good way to get a handle on this is to put it in the standard high school reading comprehension multiple choice format. Dear Reader, what was the point of this presentation:
a) To prove that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.
or
b) To show that even the official story that the government promotes indicts officials like Cheney and Rumsfeld as being active participants in the crime of 9/11?
As you yourself concede in your own letter, no reasonable person would come away with the former as their overall impression of the purpose of this talk. That’s because the talk is quite evidently centered on the latter proposition, as evidenced by my highlighting of the absurdity of the “official narrative†(identified as such) with specific reference to the absurdity of the idea that Hani Hanjour “decided to approach the Pentagon from the wrong direction before performing an 8000 foot descending 270 degree corkscrew turn at over 400 miles per hour to come exactly level with the ground, hitting the building in a mostly-deserted newly-renovated wing of the Pentagon on the far side from where the Defense Secretary and the top brass were sitting.†Now surely this seems like a good place to ask the audience to read between the lines of the talk, doesn’t it? Given the context of my talk (not to mention the context of the sum total of my work on 9/11 over the years), do you think people would say that I am unproblematically promoting the idea that the Pentagon was struck by a Hanjour-piloted 77 because I say he “decided to approach the Pentagon†or am I mocking the stupidity of such a theory? I’m happy to let the readers (and viewers) come to their own conclusion there.
Then it’s on to the evidence-free assertion that I am receiving secret (unidentified, unnamed, unknowable) help from secret (unidentified, unnamed, unknowable) sources, based on your argument that my work is too good to be the work of one man (again, I thank you sincerely for the praise) and that you assert that my answer was “the first time I’ve ever heard you stutter.†The fact that you mention such a question without linking to the relevant interview again demonstrates (and perhaps is the payoff for earlier testing) your audience’s willingness to accept what you say without checking for themselves. But it’s very good of you to phrase it in an unfalsifiable way: the first time you have ever heard such a thing. The implication, of course, is that I have never stuttered, stumbled, hesitated or had words mixed up in all of my thousands of hours of podcasting. Not that you’re actually saying that, of course. If that’s the extent of your argument, I’m sure I (or any listener) could pull up half a dozen examples of such activity in the past week. Perhaps every time I have ever false started or misspoken should be similarly used as “proof enough†of some lie or conspiracy (feel free to use your imagination or even just ask the audience to use theirs as to WHY it happened then). What was that about NLP?
Anyway, I don’t really expect that this will be sufficient to actually answer your question. But for the record (i.e. for the benefit of those who actually care about my response):
-I have absolutely no idea what hit the Pentagon on 9/11.
-I did indeed write, record and edit the Federal Reserve documentary all by myself exactly as the credits would indicate. It was the result of 7 months of extremely difficult labour and remains one of the single accomplishments of mine that I am most proud of.
Feel free to continue to release partial records of email conversations between us that show that I did indeed offer to have you on the program five years ago and that you replied that you were too busy and distracted to come on right away, and that you then magnanimously presented me with the opportunity to comment on your essay accusing me of helping Alex Jones to censor you, at which point I blocked your email address from my inbox. Or, you know, you could release the whole email exchange and let people decide for themselves.
Anyway, thank you again for your kind words about my prolific work, and thank you again for helping to make this website possible with your monthly contribution. It’s the support of people like yourself that make this website a reality.
Best,
James
James,
I just read your rebuttal on the other page. It’s unfortunate that this was necessary, but you did a good job covering the bases and managed to do so without being dragged down to a childish schoolyard level. I appreciate the fact that you tend to avoid making disparaging remarks about other figures in the alt-media, thus largely keeping out of unnecessary petty squabbles. But it appears you’ve crossed the threshold into supermarket checkout line conspiracy theorist celebrity status. ‘Corbett flat out busted’, right next to ‘Alex Jones Bilderberg sex scandal!’.
I imagine it’s difficult to keep your patience when it seems clear that, while Allan hasn’t outright accused you of lying about having had your ‘slickly done’ Federal Reserve documentary produced by someone else who’s identity you’re keeping secret… he came pretty damn close. 😉 The documentary was slickly done, but you were very candid about the fact that you worked your ass off for several months to make the finished product as polished and professional as possible. It appears you’re being accused of having outdone yourself. It’s quite an ironic form of flattery.
Wow! What a generous reply, James. When his comment appeared I read the letter and felt like the writer may not be of sound mind. So, kudos for taking him seriously and offering your invaluable time to make yourself clear.
I read it.
It seems pretty cut and dry to me. James says in the beginning of the “How to Spot Disinfo” video very clearly that the disinfo in question is, “the old long debunked footage of the missile hitting the Pentagon…”
He does not say that the “missile hitting the Pentagon” theory is debunked, but that the demonstrably fake footage being dissected in the video is disinfo, which anyone with two eyes can see after James’ deconstruction.
My suggestion would be this: why not leave a comment on the Questions For Corbett section and just ask a very frank and clear question: “Is there any evidence that a missile hit the Pentagon on 9/11?”
Could have avoided all the BS, unless that is what you wanted to stir up in the first place.
Woops… was about to leave comment for the other video here…
copy > paste =D
Let’s make this really simple: If you don’t know what ‘hit the Pentagon’ on 9/11, why did you yourself repeat ELEVEN times that American Flight 77 did hit the Pentagon? And, if you count Mineta’s words, 23 times (or was it 22? I lost count).
In any case, what DID NOT hit the Pentagon is a big jetliner, be it Fl 77 or any other big aircraft. Anyone who considers himself a 9/11 ‘researcher’ knows that. Or should. We can deal with your lies about my essay another time.
aw
I am on the road right now but will have more to say tomorrow.
Wait, Corbett. Before I hit the sack: Are you serious re the credits of your film? James Evan Pilato, Kevin MacLeod, Broc West, Perry Watson and Jeffrey Jaxen got credits on your film? This is what you’re saying? The first two got credit for ‘Music’ and the rest for ‘Transcripts.’
Do you assume your readers are so stupid that they don’t know how these credits are of zero consequence in the making of a documentary film? ‘Transcripts’? Do I have to explain how full of shit you are?
If not, I will when I get up in the morning.
AW
I’m actually going to say nothing more: Anyone who does not understand (via my Open Letters) that re 9/11 Pentagon you are a disinfo ‘asset’ of some sort is under some sort of cognitive dissonance. Ditto anyone who does not immediately see that in your rebuttal you avoided completely the issue of the eleven (or 23) repetitions of the single most destructive (and transparent) lie of the whole pantheon of 9/11 lies.
My 2009 essay that (also) exposes your email lies is still worth a read (it’s a little dated), in this case for the LIHOP subtext (Elinoff, etc) of your 9/11 ‘research.’ LIHOP equals disinfo asset. Anyone not understand this?
…. just one little thing: you say
‘your essay accusing me of helping Alex Jones to censor you, at which point I blocked your email address from my inbox. ‘
I guess you assume no one will check to see if I actually wrote anything remotely like this is my essay. Here’s the relevant page:
http://www.banditobooks.com/essay/content/8.php
Your instinct to try to finesse/NLP/lie your way out of this was a tactical error: Why not just admit that you should have at least said ‘alleged’ before your eleven repetitions of the Fl 77 disinfo? That would have been superior NLP.
From my Open Letter:
Don’t dodge the issue, which, one more time, is this: Why – in a carefully prepared speech at a 9/11 Truth Conference (it was your ‘debut’, wasn’t it?) – did you repeat eleven times (23, counting Mineta) the transparent falsehood that Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11/01?
Notice that in your lengthy response, you completely DID dodge the issue.
Reminds me of videos where a former employee of speaks out about this and that. However, we can’t get a name or anything. But its a former employee