Obama causes earthquakes...

Travis said:
Chavez has gone on record stating he thinks the US is invading Haiti.
Click to expand...


As has Christopher Hitchens (who was a featured guest at several TAMs) and at least one prominent conservative pundit.

Now, if I had posted that statement as the OP of a thread, a non-skeptic who dislikes Hitchens might use that as a starting point for attacking Hitchens over the stupidity of saying the US is invading Haiti. In contrast a skeptic -- whether they like or dislike Hitchens -- would reserve judgment until they had seen or heard what Hitchens actually said on the matter.

I've read Hitchens statement, and while I am not a particular admirer of Hitchens' current political incarnation I do not think his comments about the US invading Haiti are foolish. You -- or anyone else who wishes to discuss Hitchens' statement regarding Haiti -- can look it up and judge for yourself.

The same courtesy should be extended to anyone. Don't judge them based on what someone else claims they have said. If the issue is what Jane Doe said, look up Jane Doe's and read Jane Doe's actual words, in context. That is extremely basic skepticism, and it saddens me to see how often that principle is ignored in the Politics section here.

It's quite possible Chavez's comments on the US invading Haiti will turn out to be foolish. If that's something you wish to claim, go ahead and quote the relevant portions (and provide links to a transcript, if possible).

It should be noted that this is a quite separate matter from the original claim that Chavez is claiming the US used an earthquake weapon to cause Haiti's earthquake. We still need to have a transcript of or links to the remarks in question, and your alluding to some other comment Chavez made does not advance us at all in that matter.

But it does provide another example of the same basic principle: that one should base one's judgment of people's statements on what they have actually said, not on an undetailed summary provided by someone else.
 
ravdin said:
In Chavez's defense- it's pretty obvious that if you were plotting world domination, the first logical step would be to take over Haiti.
Click to expand...


Look, we're just following Satan's orders. Wiping out Haiti is part of his contract with Haliburton.
 
Chavez is just worried that the US is wasting all that aid on Haiti and won't have as much for other 'natural disasters' that might befall other countries, say, his.

After all, if Satan really is calling in tabs, Chavez might need some help soon.
 
ravdin said:
Link? It would be helpful if you can cite what Hitchens actually said.
Click to expand...


Precisely my point. It would be foolish for anyone to jump up and down on Hitchens without reading his actual comments. And yet many people in this thread seemed to have no problem jumping up and down on Chavez without reading what he is alleged to have said.

Since this topic is about Chavez and an alleged earthquake weapon, I'd rather not side-track it onto Hitchens and whether the US is invading Haiti. If someone -- perhaps Travis? -- wishes to start a thread on the topic of people who are saying the US is invading Haiti, I'll be glad to post a link to where Hitchens makes that statement in that thread.

NOTE: I just checked, before posting this comment, to see if such a thread might already exist. I see a thread over in Politics, "Haiti to become under temporary American control?", which looks like it might fill the bill. Let me check. If it does, I'll post the link there.
 
Having now read that thread, I don't think I have anything particularly useful to add and it's not a thread I care to participate in. I will instead PM you a link to Hitchens' remarks. I think you will see that, while both Hitchens and the person with whom he is talking both clearly label the US action an invasion, Hitchens' remarks are not especially foolish, conspiratorial, or hyperbolic.

One thing I did find in that thread was a link to a brief Reuters' item about Chavez's remarks -- not about the earthquake weapon claim, which is the point of this thread, but about the US invasion claim. From the Reuters item, it does not sound like Chavez' remarks, while quite different from Hitchens', are especially foolish or conspiratorial either. He mainly sounds to be making a policy criticism: that he thinks the US is sending more soldiers than needed for the situation and should instead be sending more humanitarian aid.

It's quite possible that I would get a different impression if I were to read his remarks at greater length, rather than the brief excerpts Reuters includes. Or it's quite possible that reading the remarks at greater length would confirm this is not a conspiratorial rant he is making. I'm not interested in side-tracking this thread onto a discussion of that. I am interested in making the point that one should not light into people for saying stupid things -- as people in this thread did regarding things Chavez allegedly said -- without first reading or listening to those remarks in enough depth to be able to form an informed opinion.
 
This may start a flame war and/or split the thread, but I have to ask a hyopthetical question.

Suppose the U.S. took over the governance of Haiti; wouldn't there be some improvement in the Haitian economy, infrastructure, and social systems? I mean, just look at Iraq and ... uh ... then again, never mind. Forget I asked.
 
Fnord said:
This may start a flame war and/or split the thread, but I have to ask a hyopthetical question.

Suppose the U.S. took over the governance of Haiti; wouldn't there be some improvement in the Haitian economy, infrastructure, and social systems? I mean, just look at Iraq and ... uh ... then again, never mind. Forget I asked.
Click to expand...

Unless Haiti is loaded with religious extremists I'm not sure the analogy with Iraq is pertinent. The US has rebuilt countries in the past into stable and economic powers. Granted trying to do so in Haiti would be very difficult but one that the US can do that would help immensely is to construct some modern infrastructure for the country.
 
Sadly perhaps, that was one of my first thoughts when I read the 'US to take over Haiti' claim; that it could be done well. Not that it should be mind you.
 
The RNV article (google translation) is here and the ViVe article here (originals here and here).

Actually, Nova Land, I agree with you about the lack of 'skepticism' displayed by the OP and other posters, as it seems no-one else has bothered to track down the original articles. Depressingly familiar in the Social Issues and Politics forums.

The Reason quotes are mostly accurate, but they have somewhat misinterpreted Acosta's claims. His primary argument is that the US has seized the opportunity for a military occupation of Haiti, not that they created the opportunity. The HAARP reference, "this earthquake may be associated with the project called HAARP", didn't go so far as to claim it was intentional. (I agree it's a barmy suggestion, but it doesn't seem to have been made to "to further the conspiracy theory".)

The ViVe article has the Russian report claiming that the "weapons of earthquakes" are intended for Iran, and that the Haiti earthquake was the result of a test. So neither article is actually saying that "the US caused the earthquake in order to take over Haiti", as the OP claims.

Also, neither article includes any statement from Chavez or official sources, or makes any claim to be presenting Chavez's views. Having said that, I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that "US HAARP/earthquake weapon caused it" is the official Chavez line (I'd almost be surprised if it isn't), but the Reason article and its sources don't provide any evidence of that.
 
This link:

http://www.borev.net/2010/01/venezuela_rocked_by_72_magnitu_1.html

Hey here is something that only happens every other week or so! The news is reporting on something maddeningly crazy that Hugo Chavez has said, only when you conduct your own independent investigation involving sophisticated journalistic techniques (Google) you find out that it is all, in fact, complete ********. Here's how it worked this time, pretty much exactly like it works every other time:

1. Some Venezuelan blogger wrote a weird story about the U.S. causing the Haiti earthquake with some sort of earthquake weapon.

2. A website operated by a Venezuelan state TV channel included a link to the post in their roundup of Haiti coverage from all over the country.

3. Some right-wing newspaper in Spain published a story about the link, referring to it as a Venezuelan state "press release."

4. Fox News reports the Spanish story, saying the earthquake weapon claim comes from "Hugo Chavez' mouthpiece."

5. Randomly, Vladimir Putin's English language teevee channel Russia Today claims that Chavez himself made the statement. This video report is picked up all over the ****ing place, Drudge sirens!!

6. Right wing news "analysts" opine about what level of threat this represents to the United States.
Click to expand...


From this thread:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165521

Is pretty interesting.
 
Kuko 4000: I'm a trifle miffed that I spent an hour or so tracking down and referencing the sources for the OP's link, posting my findings in this very thread, pointing out that "neither article includes any statement from Chavez or official sources, or makes any claim to be presenting Chavez's views" - only to have my efforts ignored by one and all!
 
Lucky, my apologies for not posting sooner to thank you for your post.

As someone who is motivated a great deal by curiosity, I greatly appreciate the time you took to look up facts and help clarify this matter. Kulo 4000's post, quoting from Borev, is also very helpful. Thank you, to both of you.
 
OK, it seems Chavez's government was not the source. My bad for not checking sources.

Now, it may seem like a diversion maneauver, but when people do not consider completely weird a statement like that coming from a certain individual, I think its a symptom of the certain individual's behavior...
 
Lucky said:
Kuko 4000: I'm a trifle miffed that I spent an hour or so tracking down and referencing the sources for the OP's link, posting my findings in this very thread, pointing out that "neither article includes any statement from Chavez or official sources, or makes any claim to be presenting Chavez's views" - only to have my efforts ignored by one and all!
Click to expand...


Thanks for your efforts Lucky, good job. I didn't ignore your effort, just wanted to post more stuff related to this incident. Keep it going :)
 
Correa Neto said:
OK, it seems Chavez's government was not the source. My bad for not checking sources.
Click to expand...


Usually when a person apologizes for an error, as you are doing regarding not checking sources, I feel it's appropriate to accept the apology and move on. In this case, though, I think more needs to be said.
"OK, it seems Chavez's government was not the source."​
No. It isn't that it "seems" the Chavez government was not the source you cited in your post. It's that the Chavez government was not the source you cited.

Here is the post in question:

Correa Neto said:
An USA plot to take Haiti?

Nope, he claims it was the test of an earthquake weapon USA plans to use to destroy Iran. It must be true, since he claims the info came from a report from Russia...

http://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/mat/2...moto-no-haiti-ao-testarem-armas-915676838.asp
http://reason.com/blog/2010/01/20/chavista-experts-say-us-milita
http://deadlinelive.info/2010/01/21/hugo-chavez-us-navy-created-haiti-earthquake-haarp/
Click to expand...


You cited 3 sources: oglobo, reason, and deadlinelive. None of these is Hugo Chavez, or the Venezuelan government, nor do these appear to me primary news sources.

I'm not familiar with oglobo, but reason and deadlinelive are opinion sites. The item at reason is an opinion piece by libertarian philosopher Ronald Bailey. The item at deadline live is an opinion piece by talk radio host Jack Blood. What people like these do is take things they have heard or read and spin out thoughts based on these things. Interesting as their thoughts may be, what skeptics need is the primary information on which these thoughts were based. If Bailey, or Blood, opine about something they believe Chavez said, then what we need to see before giving weight to their opinions is the statement by Chavez which they are opining about.

Yes, it was an error for you not to check out what the people you cited were claiming before passing it on -- an error for which you have already apologized, so no more needs to be said on that. But it was also an error for you to claim in your post that Chavez was saying these things, when you had not read anything from Chavez on this matter and were not actually quoting from Chavez. This is a separate error, it is a serious error, and it is an extremely prevalent error in this section of the forum.

I think it is worth pointing this type of error out and criticizing it when we see it occurring, in hopes that people may become more aware of how often this is happening, may become more aware that this is a problem, and may make more of an effort to refrain from doing this. I don't mean to single you out, since you are by no means the only person in this thread or on this forum committing this error. But I felt it was worth pointing out in relation to you, since immediately after acknowledging and apologizing for the one error (not checking your sources to see if their claims were accurate) you proceed to again commit the other error (taking the words of one person as if they were the words of someone else):

Correa Neto said:
Now, it may seem like a diversion maneuver, but when people do not consider completely weird a statement like that coming from a certain individual, I think its a symptom of the certain individual's behavior...
Click to expand...


Who is the "certain individual" who has made weird statements? Well, in this thread we have a number of candidates:

Headscratcher4 linked to and made statements based on a piece written by Jack Bailey (a libertarian pundit), in which Bailey alleged that Chavez had said something. Therefore we are in a position to analyze, make judgments about, and react to hs4's or Jack Bailey's statements.

You, citing reason.com and 2 other sites, posted a statement alleging that Chavez had something. Therefore we are in a position to analyze, make judgments about, and react to your, oglobo's, Jack Bailey's, or Jack Blood's statements.

Travis, citing no source, posted a statement that Chavez had said something. Therefore we are in a position to analyze, make judgments about, and react to Travis's statements.

I, citing no source, posted a statement that Christopher Hitchens had said something. Therefore we are in a position to analyze, make judgments about, and react to my statement.

None of us actually provided the text of any statements by Chavez (or Hitchens). Therefore a skeptic reading this thread would not be able to come to any conclusions about Chavez (or Hitchens) based simply on what has been posted in this thread and should not be doing so.

Your post about something being "a symptom of the certain individual's behavior" is hard for me to follow. But it sounds as if you are saying that, because Chavez has been characterized as making weird statements in the past, when people heard it being said that Chavez had talked about an earthquake weapon they were right to assume the story was genuine and that anyone who questioned the claim was an irrational Chavez supporter.

If that is what you meant, then you have it exactly backward. It is not people who refuse to pass judgment on Chavez (or Christopher Hitchens, or Rush Limbaugh, or Barack Obama, or George W. Bush) for things they are alleged to have said, until their actual statements are brought forward and examined. It is people who mistake the words of libertarian writer Ronald Bailey or radio talk show host Jack Blood for the words of Hugo Chavez who are displaying symptoms of non-skeptical behavior.
 
Correa Neto said:
... when people do not consider completely weird a statement like that coming from a certain individual, I think its a symptom of the certain individual's behavior...
Click to expand...


Speaking of "weird statements" coming from "a certain individual", here's a description of Deadline Live's Jack Blood posted at a couple of sites promoting his program:

With several years of research and comprehensive information gathering, Jack Blood has a serious understanding of how the Global Super Elite do their business...

He understands and decodes the doublespeak of the mainstream media, it’s owners, and outlines the agenda of those who would seek to kill off or enslave the planet. Jack can also discuss Mind Control, The Cult of the All seeing Eye, New World Order Symbolism, The United Nations Agenda (God given Rights vs UN Priviledges), Secret Societies, Government Sponsored Terrorism, and Collectivism vs Individual Sovereignty as well as Breaking News Du Jour.
Click to expand...


Please note that I have not actually quoted anything by Jack Blood (unless he wrote that description himself). Therefore it would be wrong to say or conclude yet that he actually is an unreliable crackpot who says weird things. As with Chavez, one should not conclude things about what someone has said until one has looked up and seen or heard the person's actual words.

Often, one sees things which pique one's curiosity. The allegation that Chavez had made bizarre claims about an earthquake weapon is an example. This description of Correa Noto's cited source Jack Blood is another.

The difference between skeptics and non-skeptics is that non-skeptics hear claims which agree with their already-formed opinions and immediately start passing those claims along to others. Skeptics, in contrast, may go Hmmm, that' interesting -- but insist on actually looking up primary information relating to the claim before passing it on as anything other than an interesting allegation.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom