Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Dick Gregory Again

I say "again" because Dick Gregory is to conspiranoia what Seth Rogan is to mediocre comedies: You just can't rid of the guy. He rocks as a comedian and an activist, but as a semi-professional paranoid he sucks. Every time you hear a weird or stupid conspiracy theory, you can bet that Dick Gregory has already made it weirder or stupider.

- At the height of the Atlanta child killings, which were likely the work of a sexual predator, Gregory declared that research scientists were probably killing young black boys for their foreskins, to use in some arcane cancer treatment that was being kept secret. This was after he declared that the KKK was responsible.
- Bizarrely, he insisted that Michael Jackson did not do inappropriate things with young boys even after Michael Jackson appeared in a British documentary and talked openly about doing inappropriate things with young boys. On the radio show Make It Plain, he speculated that the FBI and other shadowy figures framed Jackson to get their hands on the Beatles catalogue. In 2005 Gregory told NPR that MJ probably had a same-sex attraction for children because he was injected with female hormones as a boy - a rumour that went around in the '80s - then came out with (surprise!) another really odd conspiracy theory: "You look at women that use birth control pills; some of them have a strong attraction for another woman because birth control pills have female hormones in it. Most of them don't know this, and that's what this whole game is." (I don't know of any research that would back this up, but by all means fill me in if I've missed something epic.)
- Big shock: Dick Gregory proclaimed that Michael Jackson was murdered and that he had not been abusing drugs, telling a Nancy Grace interviewer and others that Jackson feared for his life in 2005. He implies that whoever was supposedly trying to get MJ back then patiently waited 4 years to murder him.
- When the Zapruder film was first shown to the American public on TV and declared to be proof of a second gunman (which it is not), Dick Gregory was there.
- In the '70s, he teamed up with the deeply shady lawyer Mark Lane to prove that the FBI killed MLK Jr. (While William Pepper's An Act of State makes a fairly convincing case for this, the proof is still not in 40 years later.)
- When AIDS hit, Dick Gregory was one of the first to declare that the government probably invented it to kill black people. (Today it's cool to say that, but when Dick Gregory said it, it was still slightly insane.)
- Right after Katrina, he wondered about the levees being secretly dynamited (a rumour that has popped up after each and every flood in the history of New Orleans, always without much evidence).
- At some point he hopped on the raw food and milk-is-a-deadly-poison bandwagons, and began going on dangerously long liquid fasts for both health and political reasons. An unsourced interview clip shows him telling people that animals won't drink tapwater because they know it's full of poison gas, and that "all diseases come from lack of drinking water".
- He decided that NASA faked the moon landings (and apparently all the space junk, too).
- In the NPR interview, he fretted that the CIA or the FBI might use his credit card to purchase plane tickets for terrorists.
- In a particularly bizarre rant posted on YouTube, Gregory says violence by black children should be blamed on whatever the white people are putting into malt liquor. "And it's your fault, too! Malt liquor is made by white companies but only sold in black neighborhoods, and you ain't checked it to see what's in it!" He's also very upset about manganese, which he claims is responsible for the elevated crime rate in a small Australian town located near a manganese mine. "Manganese will make you kill your mama... How much manganese are you sprayin' in my neighborhood at night while I'm asleep?!" At the end of the rant he makes a kind of menacing comment that white folks should be grateful for Hillary and Obama, "'cause if y'all had a brother like me, y'all would really be in trouble!"
- One of his strangest food-related theories (*explained* here) is that genetically engineered tomatoes containing fish cells would cause not only the tomato, but the human body, to retain water. "Waterlogged" tomato eaters will go to the doctor, be given bad medical advice, and end up dead. (Perhaps we'll never know, because that particular tomato died on the vine, so to speak.)
- And now, of course, Dick Gregory is a Truther. And he's going on some kind of liquid diet until the Truth comes out. He's giving Them until 2012.

Lest you go thinking that Gregory says these things because he's a patriot who just wants to make his country a better place, let me point out that he has described the U.S. as a "racist, evil, nasty country" and in a speech called it "the most dishonest, ungodly, unspiritual nation that ever existed in the history of the planet". Doesn't sound to me like he holds out much hope for it.

31 comments:

Josh.S said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_B_manganese30.3d57581.html

In the video where Gregory 'rants' about the manganese, the black audience seems to wholeheartedly support his statements.

The idea that 'whitey' is tampering with the black communities food, drink and air in some way- this is a popular notion within the black community, whether true or not.

Are you suggesting that most blacks are whacked for thinking such things, since you are attacking Gregory for uttering these ideas, which many if not most blacks embrace too? Gregory is merely articulating the sentiment of a large swathe of the black community in America, regarding the poisoning.

We've all heard about Tuskeegee, we know about 'environmental' racism, where toxic waste is put near poor black homes, and we know that lead metal ingestion is still a near -epidemic in most of the inner cities (an epidemic which hasn't abated much, even in cities that have been run by large democratic majorities for over 30 years-dems must not care that much for black peoples welfare).....

S.M. Elliott said...

Anon #2, this is not a race issue. If I question a false statement that Jones makes - a statement that the majority of white Americans believe - am I "attacking" all white people? No, I'm "attacking" the misinfo itself. The same goes for Mr. Gregory. I'm not "attacking" him on a personal level; he's a cool guy, and I don't have a problem with him. But I don't think he can support many of the statements and speculations he makes. I don't think he can show the world any evidence that manganese poisoning leads to increased homicide rates, or that malt liquor has been contaminated with some mind-altering substance (besides alcohol). It doesn't really matter how many people believe these things - they're still not supported by facts.
It's natural for a persecuted minority to be suspicious, of course, but rumours and speculation and strange theories only make people more nervous. Why not embark on some research before spreading these ideas? Why not take a malt liquor sample to a lab and have it analyzed before publicly declaring that it has probably been contaminated?

Josh.S said...

Also, it's unsurprising that he's supported so much by the black community. That's just how things are. The black community in general is extremely supportive of ideas by their fellow race. I'm not racist at all, but what seems to happen is, due to slavery and the raw end of the deal that blacks have historically gotten, blacks today still have that mentality of being entitled to something because of what happened to their ancestors, even though they are generally much more accepted today. It's kind of a reverse racism deal. Yea, what happened back then is horrible and should never have happened, but you're not a part of it, you're part of modern society where you're free to do everything a white man can.

Just because something is popular doesn't mean there is even a grain of truth to it. Say someone came out with the idea that we don't actually live on earth, but that science has fooled us, we really live on a large shoe. Say the idea got popular..does that add any credence to the obviously insane idea? Of course not. Your entire post is a good example of what I call reverse racism.

God, can you imagine if Jones were black? They he'd get the minority backup and you'd instantly be a racist for disagreeing with him. Great post btw SM.

S.M. Elliott said...

It seems like historically persecuted minorities have gained total equality in America, but they lack one key advantage: Decades of social acceptance. In Canada, for example, several generations of First Nations children were removed from their homes and families to be indoctrinated in residential schools. Though First Nations people now seem to have the same advantages as their fellow Canadians, being reared by strangers and having their children taken away left scars that may take another century to heal. Think about it: Generations of people were not allowed to raise their own children, and when those children became parents themselves, they didn't have the skills that you usually acquire from your parents. With white Canadians this is an anomaly; with First Nations people, it was the norm for well over 100 years. Imagine the harm that does, interrupting the family life and traditions of an entire people. The situation with blacks isn't entirely analogous to this, but they certainly did face over two centuries of slavery, marginalization, prejudice, and violence at the hands of white Americans. That's gonna leave some scars. They're not going to suddenly feel at ease just because they legally have the same rights, opportunities, and freedoms as all other Americans. It's going to take a long time for them to feel fully integrated, safe, and accepted - particularly when racism is still a part of everyday life.

That said, I repeat that the quality of information being disseminated has nothing to do with race. We all have brains. We all have Google. We're all a little paranoid and we're all a little gullible. So you have to evaluate information by the same standards no matter where it comes from - b.s. can come from a black comedian in Massachusetts, a white broadcaster in Texas, or a Canadian blogger. It's our responsibility to filter the information with a critical eye, whatever/whoever the source.

S.M. Elliott said...

Just came across a relevant quote from Farah Jasmine Griffin in David Aaronovitch's Voodoo Histories: "That so many black residents believe that the levees were purposely blown up is a result of their historical experience and their continuing sense that their safety and well-being will be sacrificed." Prof. Griffin is right, of course, but I think this opens up the question: Is it more empowering to let people continue believing unlikely things based on their own historical perspective, or is it more empowering to "debunk" the beliefs that we know to be false so that everyone can cross it off their list of fear-increasing, alienating beliefs? That's a serious question.

Josh.S said...

The second option. Blacks are far from the only race who has been persecuted. I mean, that's the reason racial slurs exist at all, zipperheads, chink, etc. Sure, those haven't been put through as much as black people as a whole have but it's the same point.

Take Jews, 2-6 million taken out in around 12 years. Yes, you defiantly see the same fear still in them, but I think as a whole they're smart enough to see that..this isn't 1943 anymore, just as it's not the 19th century. I think the black community should be able to use that same logic that, despite whats happened, they just plain don't live in that time anymore. There's still things like the KKK but in a much smaller form than in decades past,and, as I stated before, blacks aren't the only ones who still get the extreme racism.

Throughout history, all races have been hated by some group or another, and will probably until humanity dies out. I agree that they haven't had decades of social acceptance but, does any group really have full social acceptance?

I dunno, I may be rambling at this point but it's nice to at least have an intelligent debate for once..don't get enough of it.

Anonymous said...

Josh, you said 2-6 million jews taken in 12 years- Which places your comment within the realm of what some call 'holocaust denial, or historical revisionism... (which is illegal in most parts, by the way...it shouldnt be illegal to say 2 million died. Dont worry, I dont think anything bad will happen to you).

I'm curious to know how the Soviet/Polish estimate of about 4 million killed at Auschwitz- most recognized to be Jewish- a number taken into judicial review and accepted at Nurenburg- how this number, once downgraded by officials around 1990 to about 1.5 millions- how this downgrading could also NOT result in any downgrading in the overall total of holocaust dead.

Josh.S said...

I wasn't really trying to be too specific, it wasn't the point I was discussing. If you mention the Holocaust to anyone who doesn't very much about it, a lot will say 6 just because that's one of those numbers that "everyone", (meaning people who don't pay much attention to history) kinda has in their head. Kinda like how a lot of people will say world population is 6 billion when it's almost 6.7 billion. It was just a extremely generalized number to refer to the point I was going after.

S.M. Elliott said...

I personally have little patience with victim mentality, and would love to see persecuted minorities shirk it off and get on with real living. Dick Gregory, for instance, would be a lot more productive (and a lot more fun) if he didn't spend quite so much time worrying over what the whites might be doing to the water/air/malt liquor. I know residential school victims who absolutely reject the role of victimhood, and seem much happier for it. One lady told me, "I'm not a 'survivor'. I'm supposed to be here." She works to redress the wrongs of the past, but she doesn't centre her life around them. IMO that's a healthy perspective.

Josh.S said...

My thing is, you just plain weren't there. You weren't out in the fields being forced to pick cotton. You (most likely) weren't being throw out of diners or being blasted with fire hoses in the 50's. You're ancestors sure but just the simple fact of being black doesn't give you some special race card you can play whenever you want.

Like I said, I'm not at all racist and have no problem with black people (most) but I think the race as a whole uses the race card far too often. Gregory would be hilarious no matter what color he was just cause his claims are, dare I say it, even wackier than Jones's.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I'll avoid responding to the obvious race-baiting and comments bordering on Holocaust denial. Though, I am surprised Josh forgot to mention that some of his best friends are black.

Dick Gregory is an absolute, conspiracy theory freak. There's no debate on that, as it's the same with anyone supporting Alex Jones, Jeff Rense, et al..

SME- You wrote, "Bizarrely, he insisted that Michael Jackson did not do inappropriate things with young boys even after Michael Jackson appeared in a British documentary and talked openly about doing inappropriate things with young boys."

What are you talking about? Are you saying Michael Jackson molested boys? I thought Michael admitted to sleeping in the same bed as them but denied the molestation allegations. I think he was asexual, despite his quite often groping at his nuts during concerts.

I think Michael was strange but good-hearted as a result of his victimisation as a youth. I doubt he did anything criminal in regards to interacting with children.

S.M. Elliott said...

I have no idea if Michael Jackson molested any of the boys or not. His behavior in the documentary was what I would call borderline - inappropriate and more than a little creepy, but not criminal. It's entirely possible, of course, that he just really liked having sleepovers with young boys and wasn't emotionally mature enough to grasp that this isn't healthy adult behavior.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Thanks for the response.

The documentary put together by Martin Bashir has come under a lot of heat for being biased and unfairly edited.

I think Michael simply truly enjoyed having sleepovers at Neverland while playing the part of Peter Pan or the catcher in the rye.

Of course he can be easily characterised as having been bizarre. Who hangs their kid over a balcony like he did? Ok, there was that Aussie playing come and get my kid if you can with an alligator. Who reaches for their crotch the way Michael did other than baseball players?

I thanked you months back for complimenting me on an entry devoted to Susan Polk. While many might be quick to assume she was truly guilty of murder, there is always a backstory.

Michael Jackson was a unique case just like Susan. I'm not saying he was the first child star to end up a bit nutty. Hello Judy Garland. From the limited knowledge I have on his childhood, he was forced as a kid to witness his older brothers having sex. He was also abused and whatnot by his father, though I'm unsure of the specifics.

Michael had no childhood. Many stars such as Liz Taylor his friend pick up causes. Michael went with Neverland. I think where he messed up was being naive and didn't realise he was setting himself up for ill intentioned people making up allegations and suing him. I think that's what happened to Michael.

I think he was victimised. I think the worst thing that could have happened to him was being accused of hurting children. His one goal in life was to help them. Bashir's documentary was sliced and diced for entertainment value. Yes, Michael Jackson was a strange man. But one needs to understand his personal history. We all have quirks. It's just that most of us don't have the fame and money which attracts attempts at extortion.

Anonymous said...

What about the payola? MJ gave one accuser hush money-millions of dollars. He got off on the last trial due to juror dumbness- watch a clip of the news immediately after the verdict- the jurors couldn't even answer questions properly. A sharper and less star-struck jury would have sent MJ to prison. He was guilty.

Anonymous said...

About one question posed up above, I am curious to learn too....how does a large reduction in deaths at Auschwitz result in no overall reduction? I believe research after 1990 must have revealed that numbers elsewhere must have been undereported. Is this so? Can anyone tell me, with specific, targeted links, ?

S.M. Elliott said...

Jackson did indeed have an unusually bad upbringing. Of course this does not give him a free pass if he did molest any children, even if his overall intentions toward young boys were good, but I don't think there's any solid evidence of molestation. The settlement involving an undisclosed amount of money could have been an attempt to make a parasite go away, as many settlements are. It is not necessarily - as many think - a tacit admission of guilt.

And Anon, I am seriously uninterested in Holocaust reductionism. Go join the Stormfront forums or something.

Josh.S said...

What the hell are you talking about Socrates? Not once anywhere in the article or any of my comment is there anything about Holocaust denial. No..I don't have any black friends....uh oh, I must be a racist..

Holocaust deniers seriously baffle me..I mean, I can see events such as 9/11 being questioned, (it's still ridiculous and thoroughly debunked) for awhile after it happens but..it's been 65 years since The Holocaust ended and just..I see claims that the mass graves were just a bunch of dummies and....insane.

Anon, the actual, exact number of victims is impossible to accurately pin down and most likely will never be known. As hard as it is to believe, humans can't known every single detail of every event in history, that fact doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I agree with S.M. Elliott's last post on Jackson. Someone paying a settlement doesn't prove guilt. Some of us probably would have never paid it off out of principle. But everyday folks also make concessions with the court systems all the time and that's not an admission of guilt. Take DUI's I guess for an example. People can be innocent but go into some program to get out of having a record instead of gambling taking it to trial.

Josh, like someone else pointed out, you said 2-6 million Jews were killed over twelve years. I said you were bordering on Holocaust denial, and I'm sticking to that. There's a big difference between two and six million.

I'm not into getting into holocaust numbers debate either. It's easy enough to find good historical links and see the number of Jewish victims of genocide was approximately six million.

I'm also not into debating against right wing ideology concerning socio-economics and race relations.

I check this blog out and Ms. Elliott's other one from time to time, because I appreciate her covering both the satanic panic and what many refer to as right woos left conspiracy theory.

Josh.S said...

.....Alright. Good for you. Quite obviously from my posts I'm not a denier.

Anonymous said...

I'm tired of this Alex Jones crap....why cant we form a posse and citizens arrest his sorry ass? He is shouting fire in a theater....he should not be allowed to do that.....

Josh.S said...

For the most part I agree with that. Most of the crap he says is dangerous and wrong, but it is true that parts of government are corrupt and real conspiracies exist, like COINTELPRO, Watergate etc. It just needs to be kept in perspective.

Anonymous said...

sme, if i'm refered to and go to Stormfront, then I will most likely get biased info. I was hoping to get official info so I can be better informed.

Greg said...

i'd wager that dick gregory is smarter than everyone on this blog combined.


the army sprayed cancer-causing chemicals over detroit and other major cities in the late 50's and you think black people just have a sense of "entitlement" due to "past" wrongs? idiotic. the entire system is racist and rotten and has always treated minorities as expendable.

Malox said...

So now that we're in 2012 and most are totally aware of GMOs, Celeb conspired murders, HAARP, Project Bluebeam and the like is Dick Gregory still wrong? You people kill me! All alternative thinkers are viewed as crazy because the masses dont want to accept the truth or it hurts to swallow the pill. Naturally Blacks, not to mention the indigenous peoples of the world, dont trust Caucasians because on a general scale millions have died at the hands of them. They have soo much blood on their hands and the majority of time theyre at the core of major problems. America was stolen from the Natives and built on the backs of the Blacks. War is waged on other countries for personal gain, capitalism is biting us in the ass, the Rothschilds are pimping the entire world for profit. These are facts. Military is spraying chemtrails in the air for years now. Nothing Gregory has surfaced has ever been farfetched in my eyes.

Unknown said...

It's interesting to see this now almost 6 years later.. You guys crying about the race card or showing certain prejudice against certain areas of black America can take your foot out your mouth now.. �� Oh and for the recorded✊��❤️

Unknown said...

Indeed

Unknown said...

Oh and to let it be known I'm drinking Flint tap water with sugar in it.. 🐸☕️ Kermit the frog bih!! 😂

Rose B said...

All I know is after Prince has just died and he was a huge Gregory suporter and there are a lot of things we are kept in the dark about. I myself a Generation X and with all the Baby Boomers retiring right now especially in the industry that I work in there's a 10 to 15 year Gap and it will take us that long to recover from it. So the next 10 to 15 years will be interesting to say the least. There are always be conspiracies but what we were taught in our classrooms and history was not the truth come to find out Edison who is he to be a great inventor really never invented anything all the people that worked for him had to sign a contract stating anything that was invented in his lab was his. Luckily Nikolai Tesla who I consider one of the greatest inventors ever and at least in the last hundred years or so was never talked about at all. Tesla was at least a hundred years ahead of his time if not more and we still can't comprehend some of his work. Everything we have today technology-wise we need thank Nikolai Tesla for we would not have TV the radio which was supposedly invented by Marconi but was switched to Tesla in 1945 for he used 18 patents of Nikola Tesla's. There are still 30 patents today that the government seized from Nikola Tesla that has never seen the light of day some of these inventions or patents we are starting to see possibly WITH HAARP, for it's all about electromagnetic waves being sent into the ionosphere which Tesla once reported had countless amount of energy in it that could power the whole world. It is time for people to wake up and do their own research and investigations don't read what some crackpot or someone on the radio is telling you, the information is out there go look for it.

Andy said...

It does make you think about the chem trails . Me and my wife where just outside and noticed jet streams everywhere. One was leaving no stream while all the others were trailing aND noticed it looked like it was falling like water droplets. I'm beginning to wonder if there us something to it . We live in the country and very few black folk live here .

Unknown said...

Still haven't debunked anything. It's not paranoia, it's truth and you can't shade it

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