Is Conspiracy Thinking a Threat to Democracy? Beyond Propaganda Panel Discussion

[ownvisionsb]

Sometimes conspiracy theories are proven accurate . Conspiracy theories often question authority and perhaps that is a good thing like checks and balances.

[steveryan]

Oh great, now the crazy uncle meme... at 38min.

Propagandists having a panel discussion on propaganda. How rich!

[steveryan]

How ironic that the dude on the far left presented the meme that different parts of a government could ever actually coordinate with each other, followed by audience laughter. Cute.

[walterreid]

*_While Otpor sought to portray itself as an independent movement, one member confessed that it was almost entirely bankrolled by Washington’s regime change apparatus. “‘Eighty-five percent of our funding came from the United States, ’through bodies such as the National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute, as well as USAID.”_*

*_One of the United States’ key tactics was to have its trainees closely monitor the fateful fall 2000 general election. “We brought one of Otpor’s young leaders to Washington, arranged meetings throughout the administration, and sent him back with enough funding to train and deploy 30, 000 election monitors, ” Dobbins explains. Former U.S. Army Special Forces officer and military analyst Will Irwin identifies that young leader as Otpor co-founder Srdja Popovic._*

*_The Clinton administration calculated that by using Otpor and the “pro-democracy” opposition groups as a proxy, the toxic cloak-and-dagger image long associated with coups carried out by U.S. intelligence agencies would be avoided. “Political risk for the USG was mitigated by openly describing the support to Otpor and other opposition elements as a democracy promotion project, although it was intended from the beginning as a means to facilitate regime change, ” Irwin wrote._*

[emptyhearted]

Anne Applebaum is this the person I have heard of with the Polish Husband ? heavily implicated in corruption ?