| Snake Oil |
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| Tuesday, 18 September 2007 | ||||
In good old Western movies, a typical character is the Snake Oil peddler, a "doctor" with dubious credentials travelling around from town to town, selling miracle potions, lotions, and every kind of bogus panaceas.
Those fake medicines were useless, for the most, if not poisonous. But by the time the Snake Oil dealer left town, it was nearly impossible to bring him to justice; moreover, those who fell victim of the scam were not easily convinced to complain publicly, because, righteously, everyone would have laughed after them. Today it's exactly the same, only much, much worse. Contemporary Snake Oil is mainly made of false, maliciously forged information. The mechanism is still the same: the dealers give people what they want – exactly the lies they want to believe in.
Nowadays Snake Oil dealers can cause much more damage and steal much more money, since their clients are not ignorant peasants lost in the middle of nowhere: they are Governments, media corporations, intellectuals, and 21st century educated citizens of the first world.
After 9/11, a huge, huge Snake Oil market suddenly exploded: within 48 hours from the End of the World as We Knew It, anyone and her dog were experts in Middle East issues, antiterrorism, “rogue nations” secret agendas, new military doctrines, whereabouts of Osama, you name it. Bogus Intelligence, anyone?
The Greatest Advertising Campaign of all times created a tremendous "need" for Intelligence, an insatiable crave for information driven by fear, anger, and shock, in fields where nobody knew anything.
Then the “war on terror” commercials were aired 24/7 for months, so that on the demand side, the cumulative psychological effects created a frightening mix of "bad news addiction" and complicity with the Snake Oil sellers.
These poisons caused mass hallucinations, altered the perceptions of the addicts, which asked for more every day.
People got so intoxicated that, for example, they believed without even rising an eyebrow that a 100 tons airliner, slammed at 650 mph against a certain building, can make a 5 meters wide hole and just vanish, leaving the surrounding windows intact. Snake Oil changes physics and defies logic, of course.
In the same way the unjust, illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq was based upon a sea of extremely well paid, totally false and perfectly timed Snake Oil Intelligence. One of the greatest scams of all time, with dire, enormous consequences that will last for decades.
There are so many other known examples, that it's not even worth mentioning them all. The "yellow cake" (African uranium) affaire; Iraq's hidden weapons of mass destruction fairytale; the "certain" relationships between Al Qeda and Saddam (whatever Al Qeda means and really is); lately, the Iranian atomic bomb pretext, and too many more.
Some individuals made huge fortunes by selling these bullshits, others made even greater fortunes by buying them... and millions of nameless people are suffering and dying, because of the above.
The latest Snake Oil case is that of Mr Debat, a Frenchman who, since 2001, was able to sell incredibly, outrageously counterfeit lies to Governments (guess who), Big Media (ABC), prestigious think-tanks (Nixon Institute), important magazines like "Politique International", the CNN, press agencies and newspapers worldwide....
All these people and institutions bought bullshit from this man, hundreds of time, and mirrored them all towards the public, day by day, amplifying them in every way, from thousands of channels, always without a doubt.
Now, everyone in the Snake Oil Buyers Club seems to be shocked, upset, offended and tries to cover his/her fat ass saying “they couldn't imagine”.
They could, but they didn't want to. After all, Mr. Debat greatest fault was to be caught lying, not to lie.
Now all they have to do is to find a better Snake Oil dealer.
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