H/T Margie
Beneath the line of the ‘Comment is Free’ essay, ‘Respect is crucial in nuclear talks with Iran‘, June 15, by Hossein Mousavian and Mohammad Ali Shabani, was this howler.
Click to Enlarge
The comment was deleted by CiF moderators, which elicited our delusion free friend to then opine:
Controlling minds, censoring views, chipping away at the Guardian’s reader base?
I think it may be time to at least consider the possibility that Zionists have as much control over the world as our critics say we do.
Regardless, we’ve been thinking about tweaking our logo, so take a look at this and let us know what you think. (But, please remember, look directly into the center of the image, and don’t look away…)
I couldn’t find out what prompted the outburst in the first place. It must be someone who got both banned and hold of the wrong end of the stick, not hard to do in the wonderful world of cif Anyway it made for a diverting posting.
This Guardian reader is delusionnal. CIF Watch’s influence is nil.
The Zionists obviously control the Turkish media too.
They successfully took their vengeance on the peaceful human right activists on the Mavi Marmara.
Bülent Yıldırım, who sponsored the 2010 Gaza flotilla, may have ‘aided’ al-Qaeda with funds, Turkish media report
This is scarcely surprising, is it, given the entrenched nature of conspiracy theories and the rigid mindsets of those who hold them.
Look at this person’s moniker – DelusionFree. Note his choice of words in the body of the post – that Cif Watch imposes its will on others. Paranoia in varying degrees is a first order symptom of the conspiracy theorist.
I wrote about conspiracy theories here in September last at http://cifwatch.com/2011/09/28/the-conspiracy-theory-mindset-and-its-contribution-to-the-guardiancif-world-view/
and
http://cifwatch.com/2011/10/11/conspiracy-theories-and-comment-is-free-%E2%80%93-part-2/
The latter is, I think, more apposite in terms of this poster, in that conspiracy theories and those who held them have been shown to exhibit the following common personality/psychological characteristics, among others:
They believe that conspiracy theories reach far beyond the everyday – the theories in which they believe are invariably over the top and may often be frankly bizarre.
The people who hold them evidence indiscriminate distrust – of the government, of other allegedly powerful groups (like the Jews/Zionists who are behind CiF Watch in this case) As I said above, I would imagine that this person is very paranoid although of course I cannot say for sure.
The failure to attribute cause and effect or to reality test, as well as evidencing an unduly external locus of evaluation. Conspiracy theorists are rarely feel that they are in control of their own lives or destinies. They are cognitively immature in their pursuit of and demands for absolute certainty, and the impossibility of guaranteeing it leads to the underlying emotional turmoil which often in turn reinforces the inclination to believe more conspiracy theories which appear to offer answers. That they tend to band together with like-minded others seems to have a synergistic effect which strengthens the belief in the conspiracy theory and and beds it in still more.
Because of this such people believe that everything is intended and that nothing happens by accident. There is the assumption of hyper-competence on the part of conspirators (by which, again, this poster means CiF Watch who, according to him, have been able to exert enough influence to get his post deleted) who are perceived to be all-powerful Now, it’s true that CiF Watch is becoming a force to be reckoned with by the Guardian, but I think that reasonable readers will agree that it has not yet acquired the power to delete comments on CiF.
A person who falls readily for one conspiracy theory almost always believes in more. He/she believes that everything is significant and each theory therefore acquires an inherent grandiosity. The theories become ever more complex (although not, admittedly, in this case — yet). Real conspiracies are, by contrast, limited in scope.
(Question: Do people think that this person has asked himself how exactly he is so important in the overall scheme of things? Why on earth should CiF Watch be interested in his scribblings on CiF and in what he thinks, enough to use its fictional “power” to delete them? His reaction exhibits a highly inflated sense of his own importance – ie his post is evidence of grandiose behaviour as well as paranoia).
I wrote then that conspiracy theories are self-insulating and therefore very resistant to change, and are sealed off from impartial examination of the evidence, and they often arise even before the full facts are known because of the holder’s need to feel comfortable. It’s therefore highly unlikely that this poor fool will ever find out why his comment was deleted – other than for promoting CiF Watch unwittingly, which is far too ordinary a reason to satisfy such an immense ego as his.