David Icke lecture @ Wembley Arena, October 2012

[stethoscope]

Can one of the Icke supporters or apologists for these movements (ie. Elders of Zion, etc) actually tell me what achievements they have made in regards to smashing capitalism/globalisation, or breaking down the gap between the rich and poor?

As far as I can see, they have done and are doing frankly fuck all about it, whilst simultaneously appealing to a mish-mash of conspiracy theorists, loons, and people with anti-semitic and fascist views with which these 'theories'/movements allow them to further validate their beliefs (you only need to see the comments from those that follow vids, forums to see that).

 

[Meltingpot]

You could say the same about ATOS. "99% of the population must immediately think they are cunts so they must really believe in what they're doing to continue making a business out of it" - Bollocks.

There's a difference froggy - ATOS has the backing of the rich Tory establishment (the other 1%) including the Tory cabinet. If Cameron and his backers in the City like you you're going to get the contracts at the moment and probably no one in ATOS gives a toss about what anyone who isn't part of that clique thinks about them anyway.

It depends a lot on whom the 1% / 99% are.

 

[Random]

In Swedish "icke" means not, or anti, or non. So an icke lecture is a non-lecture, and an icke conspiraloon is a non-conspiraloon. Sorry, you're probably all icke interested.

 

[frogwoman]

Cameron is powerful.

within his sphere of influence so is icke.

 

[TruXta]

within his sphere of influence so is icke.

To what end tho? I've yet to see anyone point me to political action or organisation pushed by Icke.

 

[butchersapron]

amazon?

 

[frogwoman]

To what end tho? I've yet to see anyone point me to political action or organisation pushed by Icke.

he doesn't have to.

 

[TruXta]

The corp or the area? If the former, yup, that's about it I reckon. You could argue that he validates plenty of far-right alien conspiraloons, but I don't know if they've been much of a threat or danger. The likes of Breivik seem to scoff at the alien new agey stuff.

 

[TruXta]

he doesn't have to.

Huh? How does that work then?

 

[Streathamite]

Look at Cameron for example, he's loving all the hate

I don't think that comparison holds up; as a Thatcherite who dearly wants to emulate his heroine, he views all the people who hate him as The Enemy, as scum. Therefore, their hatred tells him he's on the right lines

 

[Wilf]

I think a lot of conspiracists would be both puzzled and embarrassed by that question (about doing anything). Yes, at one level they'd have to admit they don't do anything concrete, but their view of what power is - hidden manipulation - isn't something you can act on in the traditional way. The only thing you can do is 'know' and 'uncover', but knowing and uncovering in a way that doesn't have any real political goal in mind. Their ideal is the denouement of conspiracy theory films, where the hero/hacker or whatever launches the truth on the web or every TV set in the world in the last minute of the film (Icke's 'wake up' moment). None of it has social groups in mind, none of it wants to change anything. In fact if everyone knew what the 'elites were doing, the conspiraloons would lose their privileged position. It's a constant ongoing position of arcane knowlege they want.

Suppose it's also about the way 'real' politics has gone as well. Politics now starts with a facebook page and campaigns always have an electronic element to them. In that context it's easy to persuade yourself you are doing real politics when you might be doing nothing other than posting on a messageboard (yes, I am aware of the irony...).

 

[ViolentPanda]

I haven't heard him say "all rich people are evil" and doubt very much he would say anything like that.

This is just such trollop.

A trollop is an "easy woman", you twat.

The man actually jacked in an extremely lucrative TV Presenter job (this is a very highly paid position frogwoman)...

No he didn't, he "gave up" a career as a 3rd rank local sports presenter who occasionally got to sub for one of the big boys at national TV. Local TV and radio work isn't an "extremely lucrative" trade. It's a journeyman wage for a journeyman job.

...so he could spend years being jeered at in the street and lecture to tiny audiences where he would have to set the chairs up himself. Out of all the mindless accusations against the guy, "he's in it for the money" is the most absurd. Of course the racism one is utterly absurd too. No matter that Icke says we should completely ignore divisions of race, religion, or whatever as they are simply labels, as we are one consciousness. How can you be racist if you say that? It's the only way you truly cannot be.

Why does Icke have such a fondness for applying labels to to others, then, if he's such a "cosmic" dude?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Except that's not what happened. He worked as a stand in host at the BBC, got bored with it, and it wasn't until a year later that he started hearing voices in his head that he started up his bonkers stuff/had some sort of mental breakdown and the weirdo turquoise stuff started up.

IIRC he did TV and radio work somewhere in the east Midlands as his "day job".

 

[frogwoman]

Huh? How does that work then?

he doesn't have to organise any political action because all he really needs is people hanging on his every word about lizards, jews, diana and the like. those cult leaders don't have to organise any action either. he has a wide range of people who love and adore him and buy his stuff, and the disapproval of the outside world,what more could he want.

 

[TruXta]

he doesn't have to organise any political action because all he really needs is people hanging on his every word about lizards, jews, diana and the like. those cult leaders don't have to organise any action either. he has a wide range of people who love and adore him and buy his stuff, and the disapproval of the outside world,what more could he want.

You said he was powerful, presumably in a political or ideological sense. Yet you can't point me to any political or ideological activities that he or his adherents actually do? Outwith selling and buying his stuff that is. That's not powerful. That's popular. And the comparison with cult leaders really isn't a good one, since one hallmark of a decent cult is very much an onus on changing behaviour.

 

[ViolentPanda]

does he fuck. my take on it is that he had a mental breakdown and when he came out of it he realised that he could make some money, so he did. i'm sure he believes some of it but frankly so what? since when does "truly believing" bullshit you've made up in your head mean you lose the capacity to know right and wrong? it doesn't make him any less of a dangerous idiot. and i'm sorry but he makes millions from those books, dvds, and other bollocks. he is a very rich man. fair play (sort of) if he earned it fairly, but he hasn't, he has earned it through selling a pack of lies to what are frequently people with very serious mental health problems.

When Icke started his "crusade", the conspiracy world had a damn sight fewer "professionals" making a living from it, and the number of books on the "key" conspirsacy subjects were pretty much numbered in the hundreds, mostly centering around the JFK/LHO situation, and with the Protocols etc being "fringe" even by conspiracy standards. Icke pretty much dropped into a market starved of new ideas and methods of propagation of the "core stories" and kicked it into life, at least in Europe and the Commonwealth. From the business perspective, he did what all businessmen dream of - he found a niche and filled it. From an intellectual perspective, what he sells isn't well-sourced, it's usually citations of citations and anecdote that's been recorded and then cited, and it (much like Murray and Herrnstein's "The Bell Curve") is written with a particular, irrational, readership in mind.

 

[teqniq]

.... Look at Cameron for example, he's loving all the hate

He may well be loving it at the moment but I am hoping for a severe attack of indigestion in the not too distant future

/derail

 

[ViolentPanda]

Icke refers to the "reptilian", from the time in evolution that the species emerged from the sea and believes that there are some who can't exhibit empathy because of this "reptilian" throwback, or something like that. It's David Icke's distinct lack of politics that has him thinking along these lines and I would hazard a guess too, by making lots of dosh from his books and speeches.

Ah, that must have been why he was a Green.

 

[ViolentPanda]

So why not be an anti-capitalist/globalisation activist rather than indulging in stuff like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and all the other anti-semitic stuff that forms and surrounds those movements/'theories'?

I think we probably know the answer to that though.

Yeah, part of which is that it's easier to play the old standards than to try to get your core audience to dig the new choons.

 

[Wilf]

he doesn't have to organise any political action because all he really needs is people hanging on his every word about lizards, jews, diana and the like. those cult leaders don't have to organise any action either. he has a wide range of people who love and adore him and buy his stuff, and the disapproval of the outside world,what more could he want.

A comparison with Julian Assange would be interesting. Both have their fanatical followers, both deal in hidden truths, both have made a few bob, both have a persecution complex, neither are linked to real social change etc. Some obvious differences in terms of the underlying reality they perceive (Assange, shall we say is a little more 'concrete'), though I suspect if I met them, I'd prefer Icke. That's not saying much I realise...

 

[Random]

The corp or the area? If the former, yup, that's about it I reckon. You could argue that he validates plenty of far-right alien conspiraloons, but I don't know if they've been much of a threat or danger. The likes of Breivik seem to scoff at the alien new agey stuff.

Rather than motivating a threat from the right, Icke and the like are dangerous as they poison the left. The quasi-left like the Occupy movement is riddled with this kind of nonsense.

 

[Random]

neither are linked to real social change etc.

Not really true, since the Wikileaks cables have led to people acting on them, unlike the moon holograms.

 

[TruXta]

Rather than motivating a threat from the right, Icke and the like are dangerous as they poison the left. The quasi-left like the Occupy movement is riddled with this kind of nonsense.

Yet that segment of the Occupy movement has been massively ignored in the media and by the public at large. Besides I think the left has administered quite a few more poisons to their own body than Icke and his ilk has managed.

 

[faux pas]

Do you think that states and territories have banned him on the belief that he's anti-Semitic? Why would they do so unless they had documentary evidence?

What "states and territories" have 'banned' Icke exactly ViolentPanda?

Not the USA of course, he gave a lecture in Cleveland, Ohio in November 2011.

Are you making stuff up?

 

[Random]

Besides I think the left has administered quite a few more poisons to their own body than Icke and his ilk has managed.

Does that matter?

 

[TruXta]

Does that matter?

Yes, it shows that Icke et al are nutters with comparatively little influence.

 

[Blagsta]

I'm posting on here, where a lot of anarchists and Marxists post. Does that mean I "love hanging around with anarchists and Marxists"?

What do you base these snippets of information about people on?

You're a BNP voter aren't you?

 

[Random]

Yes, it shows that Icke et al are nutters with comparatively little influence.

Compared to what? Sure, Leninism and Social Democracy are far bigger own-goals for the left, but a tiny movement like Occupy, with only a few committed activists really doesn't need to get more whacky and oddball than it already is.

 

[Wilf]

Not really true, since the Wikileaks cables have led to people acting on them, unlike the moon holograms.

Okay, I didn't put that very well. Yes, the wiki stuff tends towards action though isn't part of it itself (certainly more than Ickery). I think the bit of what I said in that post that I'd defend is the unhealthy relationship between these gurus and their followers (and not just the stuff in the extradition case) + the position of knowledge that Icke and Assange put themselves in. I think there is also a kind of parallel in the 'elites' that both see as being in charge. For wikileaks it's certainly a more concrete, recognisable entity, but like Icke's it's an elite defined as much by the secrecy it uses as any political perspective on power.

 

[TruXta]

Compared to what? Sure, Leninism and Social Democracy are far bigger own-goals for the left, but a tiny movement like Occupy, with only a few committed activists really doesn't need to get more whacky and oddball than it already is.

You already did that for me. And as I already said, the media coverage of Occupistas has studiously ignored the oddballs, so their impact outwith the Occupy sites themselves has been about nil IMO.