Confessions of a Shill

5  2017-02-28 by onelasttimeoh

Hi, I'm one of the many posters on r/conspiracy who doesn't feel the "pizzagate" accusations are particularly credible.

There are a lot of accusations of "shill" or "CTR" or "Shareblue" flying around, like, a LOT. There seems to be some incredulity that someone would come to a different conclusion and spend time discussing it without being paid. I thought I might provide at least a part of my story of why I follow and post on this topic.

About a decade ago, I was a starving artist, sharing the two upper stories of a three floor house with four housemates. We were in a pretty low income part of town, and the first floor was rented out to a series of at least slightly sketchy folks.

One group of downstairs neighbors was just the worst.

They insisted on playing their music at volumes that shook the upper floors got wasted and had large parties, wrecking stuff on the porch, just not civil people. Things got tense, and at one point, in all sincerity during an attempt to compromise they announced "We don't have to listen to you you're all doing weird black magic voodoo shit".

Through subsequent conversations and through our landlord, we found out that they did indeed believe us to be some sort of black magic practitioners who were among other things trying to cast evil spells against them. Their reasoning? The had found evidence of a ritual in the basement, a dead bird with pieces of paper stuffed inside, candles! We didn't actually use the basement much but on investigating there was a dead pigeon that had somehow gotten in there, and also some newspapers and some candles in a box. Not exactly ridiculous things to have in a basement. It also came out that one of my housemates had told them he was a buddhist (which he is) when they had talked to him about their religious beliefs (very vocally christian) and they didn't exactly understand what buddhism was. Add to that we were artsy weirdos who sometimes wore heavy metal t-shirts with occult images (because that's what metal shirts look like) and sometimes left late at night with mysterious bulky pakcages (bringing silk screens to the DIY carwash to clean them out on a deadline).

The whole thing came to a head when one of them assaulted my housemate and the landlord finally evicted them.

But it left me wondering. How could a group of people come to SUCH a wrong conclusion with such conviction. This isn't an issue of multiple viewpoints or easy mistakes, it's a very bold and dangerous claim that was completely and utterly incorrect. And that became dangerous to boot. I became very interested in logic and in conspiracy, in occult beliefs and where they come from historically and psychologically.

I look at this case and I see conclusions as perplexing as those of my downstairs neighbors. The five of them came up with their own small list of "circumstantial evidence" but if there had been thousands of them spending thousands of hours digging through our email and our social media and everyone connected to us, they could have added quite a bit to the pile.

Just like every actor is within six degrees of Kevin Bacon, when you're dealing with things as broad as children, food, government and sex, connections aren't evidence, they're inevitable.

If you're rummaging through everything even tangentially connected to a group of artsy, politically connected people, and you take every offhanded joke or scrap of wallpaper in the background as potential code, a long list of "circumstantial evidence" is inevitable. When you read people's personal mail without context, and they're from a different social circle than you, and you're LOOKING for something bad, you are guaranteed to find it eventually. Not because there's something there, but because you're guaranteed to find something you don't understand.

I got especially interested in this conspiracy because the steam its picking up is alarming, the supposed evidence is ridiculous, and most importantly, the consequences seem dangerous.

I fully agree that sometimes powerful people conspire. Sometimes that includes people in government. Pedophiles exist. Some of them are almost certainly powerful people. But the evidence against these particular people, of these particular accusations is just as silly as our neighbors' evidence that we were witches.

117 comments

You may be entirely right.

But we will not know for sure until a credible INVESTIGATION occurs.

That is all I'm looking for in this affair. A proper investigation that either clears things up or puts people in jail. Either way, I'd be satisfied.

Do you think my roomates and I should have been investigated for our black magic practice? What if our downstairs neighbors had included pedophilia in their accusations based on the same kind of evidence. I assure you one of us probably made a reference to pizza in that time.

Investigations shouldn't follow the popularity of an accusation, it should follow from real evidence, not arbitrary conjecture.

Yes.

Why would you fear your landlord or a policeman coming in, asking a few questions, and looking around? The result would be you explaining the situation, them looking at the circumstances and the evidence, and them reporting to the accusers and explaining how it isn't what they suspected. problem solved.

You don't need a certain preponderance of "real evidence" to initiate an investigation. Suspicious activity is often more than enough, depending on the circumstances. Investigations themselves look for evidence.

There is more than enough suspicious activity in the emails and on the social media to start an investigation. There are photos of adults and children posted with comments using pedophilic terminology. There is a video of a band playing at Comet Ping Pong where the singer is talking about liking little boys and people having their preferences and the audience applauds it all. The Podesta's preference for sexually explicit deviant art with imagery of child rape and abuse.

This line of reasoning where people claim the need for some level of evidence to start an investigation is bullshit. There is more than enough to do some due diligence investigation from child services and other agencies.

' Why would you fear your landlord or a policeman coming in, asking a few questions, and looking around?'

SAID SOMEONE ON THE CONSPIRACY SUBREDDIT. Jesus tittyfucking Christ.

3 week old account. Lol.

My account may be three weeks old. I'm not. And I've seen enough of the fallibility of law enforcement to know that 'the innocent have nothing to fear from the police' is one of the stupidest phrases a person can utter.

The innocent have nothing to fear from a fair and unbiased investigation.

edit: and FYI, we "conspiracy theorists" are simply fairly intelligent people interested in the truth, we're not all psychotic paranoid morons who live in our parents basements with tinfoil hats on.

The thing you're missing is, the people pushing this WANT a police state. They can't wait to see people investigated because of anonymous online accusations with no evidence. Just look at the reply to this comment "if you don't have anything to hide you have nothing to fear. Don't worry about your constitutional rights, we're trying to protect hypothetical children whose lives are at stake!"

Holy shit. Has that been one of the true motives of this whole witch hunt?

No. That was the motive for "hate speech laws", which is being projected against the people who were being targeted for suppression by "hate speech laws". Abusers do their best to invert victim-offender roles so that they can get away with it.

Snowflake.

No, you shouldn't have been investigated because some party animal roommates thought you were witches. Dear Lord, I'm shaking my head wondering how you could POSSIBLY compare the two.

You say these roommates may have been able to come up with a large list of circumstantial evidence "just like PizzaGate" had they taken the time to. If they compiled this said evidence, and had it been anything like the long list of "PizzaGate" evidence, you'd bet your ass the cops would come poking into you to see if something was up.

Since we are apparently comparing personal stories, let me tell you what I've seen, in my old town where tons of crime happened. People would call the crime hotline and leave tips, and plenty and I mean PLENTY of investigations/follow ups happened on tips MUCH MUCH less incriminating sounding than PizzaGate. Some would end up being nothing but others led to arrests of a lot of sick people - and those sick people could still be on the streets of not for the "ridiculous sounding" tips and the loyalty of my local police force to its citizens.

So your old party animal roommates thought you were a satanist because of a dead bird and some candles and they got it wrong. Cool, that's great for you but how could you possibly think that is ALWAYS the case? Hell, I used to be called a devil worshipper all the time when I was younger because of how I dressed and the music I listened to. Just because people made the wrong accusations about me doesn't mean that's how life always is. People stopped saying it, not because I changed but because "evidence" didn't starting piling up, it started diminishing. PizzaGate investigations have been going on since October and instead of evidence diminishing or being debunked, it's growing. THAT'S the difference.

I can kind of get where you're coming from. And I get it, none of us REALLY know what is going on including you. But to compare your personal story to one that involves governments all over the world with (circumstantial) evidence spanning years is ridiculous. This needs to get investigated properly, and it's not (that we know of).

TL;DR No, you shouldn't have gotten investigated for drunk roommates finding a dead bird and candles and thinking you were satanists because of that. Yes, you should have been investigated had said roommates compiled a list of circumstantial evidence that was anything close in length and content as the PizzaGate investigations.

Neither of us have had thousands of people dedicating thousands of hours to adding to a list of "circumstantial evidence".

Many things that have been on the list have been debunked, but some of them get repeated anyway. And like a game of Kevin Bacon, the more degrees we add, the more things count as evidence. Someone once made a joke about Podesta retiring to a simple job in Hawaii, so now anything that happens in that whole state is evidence.

We've gotten to the point where if Hillary Clinton's college roomate's hairdresser's great aunt once was once photographed with a child and a triangle, then THAT would be added to the list.

OF COURSE the list is getting longer. Under these conditions, it's guaranteed to. Anything associating anyone already on the list with food, or children or sex or government "counts" and every new node just enables more connections.

You stated had your roommates had the time, they could have compiled circumstantial evidence comparable to PizzaGate. You say everything is just like 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon therefor nothing should be investigated. Can you not see that with that logic, so many evil people would be on the streets? Just because a trail runs cold with one investigation doesn't mean it will with another. And that's the thing - as far as we know this isn't getting investigated and we are just told to stop.

I'm sure if the Internet was investigating me, along with most anyone, sure some stuff may pop up like "omg she used a ouija board in high school" and draw some slim connections but the investigation WOULD run cold, as it would with you, because we simply have nothing to connect. The end of the trail would lead to us just liking weird things. However, the trail would lead and end much differently if those being investigated really are implicated. What makes you so sure that these people are innocent, enough to halt any investigating? The reason people are so passionate about getting to the bottom of this is because it is about people who run the world, not some random roommate who may or may not sacrifice birds to the devil.

There is at least one important difference, neither you or I, or my housemates are famous or powerful, and a lot of the things on the list are the sort of things famous or powerful people are more prone to: owning properties, knowing other famous or powerful people, being on boards, giving or receiving donations. None of us do much of those things, so a list would be a little harder to compile, but I strongly disagree with your stance that a list for an innocent person would likely peter out.

I'll give you some examples from my life, changed slightly so I don't get stalked. Now even though I'm far less likely to have any juicy connections, just by virtue of being poor, unknown and not connected much to politics, it wouldn't be hard at all to get a big list. And this kind of thing is self perpetuating, that's the key. Connections don't peter out. They allow for more connections.

My current landlord was a longtime writer for the New York Times, and I'm probably on record somewhere saying that I get a very good deal on rent. Around this sub or on voat, you'll see that any connection to MSM is already suspect.

At a place I used to work, my coworkers often made jokes similar to the "killroom" joke. We used to work in a creepy basement. A few of my coworkers even posted about in online "Headed to the murder dungeon!".

I've moved around quite a bit. I've lived in half a dozen states in the last decade, what kept me moving? I'm in an industry that isn't known for being very profitable, pretty easy to say that my work didn't justify these moves, I must be covering something up.

My Dad ran an advertising agency that once did work for a politician. That politician, like most has since been accused of something scandalous.

My Brother works in NYC and happened to be out of town when the towers collapsed. He has worked many times with a famous theater professional often accused of pedophilia.

Many people on my social media feed have made inappropriate jokes. Sometimes about taboo subjects!

Artists and musicians I'm friendly with have created things inspired by occult themes. Not because they're witches, but because that stuff is spooky dumb fun.

I recently got into haunted houses. If you found my social media you'd see friends of mine talking extensively about fake dead babies.

Now imagine each one of these is a node. Any new thing about my brother or my father, of the NYT reporter or the guy my brother works for adds something to the list. If any of those people have friends who can be accused, or if they lived next door to someone or had a friend, that widens the net.

And all of this is just off the top of my head in a few minutes. Imagine thousands of angry people really digging for something.

I think the vast majority of people here would agree with you that your conclusion (this could be a crazy coincidence) could very well be correct. The fact that no real authority will provide a credible investigation is what most people find a problem with, that and everything related to pedogate in MSM seems to vanish mysteriously points to something very sinister. So like Ben Swann said, why no investigation?

When it comes to something as important as children, why not opt on the side of caution and do some basic investigating into this?

without evidence or probable cause, that's all anyone can do official or not. seems like the internet has done fully that, scouring their instagram and emails for anything remotely weird

So you don't consider probable cause for everything the sleuths have picked up ?

I remember 'Kern County child abuse hysteria' documentary on Youtube

I think you will find that a lot of the adults that believed in pizzagate have turned towards more of a pedophile/sex trafficking viewpoint... they don't care about a pizza place or satanism... that is just some outlandish sizzle to initially sell the steak... anyone that tunnel visions into that one specific pizza parlor nowadays is either new to conspiracy theories or is trying to keep the focus on a scapegoat to protect the real criminals... maybe inadvertently... but still... CPP is a dead horse.

That's how I feel, good summation. Are there people who still actually think CPP is the main focus of PG? I still think Alf is a sick fuck, but he's a cog, not an engine.

I think that's a problem for a number of reasons.

For one thing, by operating under the hashtag, they empower the large number of people who are fixated on these particular "suspects". Most of the conversation around pizzagate still centers around the Podestas, James Alefantis and people associated with them.

For another, they're engaging with the same irrational people who flock to this subject, which creates much more muddy waters than a rational investigation of pedophiles should. The way "digging" is done here it's far more likely tar and feather innocent people than it is to help any actual children.

You are correct... but in the end most of the "pizzagate" people aren't really doing anything aside from going bananas about it... they aren't researching or going down their own rabbit hole... they are just spreading awareness of child sex trafficking, albeit in a really off the wall way.

When charges are finally announced the general public will be more likely to go... "Oooooooh I heard something about this! Crazy that it turned out to be true." rather than "This is 100% contrived, unbelievable, and unheard of! Fake news!"

I think the focus is in the wrong place, but anything that spreads awareness of the issue is good in my book... even if it is a little loopy.

This is why I didn't want to call it pizzagate. It's more than just that, its the entire freaking world full of pedophiles and no one seems to care...

I was pushing for #PedoFiles...

Beautiful! It hits on so many levels!!

I don't know if you've been reading this sub and voat, but if you did, you'd notice that a number of people are convinced that the Podesta brothers and a few other people and the most despicable child rapist murderers ever.

When you convince a large group of people that someone else is harming children, you'll eventually get someone who want to take justice into their own hands. That's why abortion providers get bombed.

Beyond that, most of the "awareness of child sex trafficking" is laced with so much BS that it harms actual education and work done on the real issue.

I feel like you see this as ultimately positive, by skipping over all the ways in which it's dangerous.

Eh... if some nutcase takes out Podesta cause they think he eats babies... I won't shed a single tear.

Everything in life is dangerous is some capacity... you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs... I'm fine with the tragic loss of a hardrive being murdered in cold blood if it spreads awareness of crimes against children.

I'm glad to hear you're so happy to sacrifice other's lives. Very humanitarian of you.

If you were the one in the crosshairs, would you feel the same?

If I did and said all the shit that Podesta did I would feel somewhat responsible for the predicament I was in... Luckily he and I are two vastly different kinds of people.

No human lives have been sacrificed due to pizzagate research...

I understand the sentiment, but seriously, the Podestas are not normal people. This is clear. I'm not talking just about John, either. In fact, some of the revelations about Tony Podesta (which largely came from MSM interviews he gave) were what made this catch traction in the first place.

I don't think abnormal people's lives should be forfeit to the mob either.

Agreed. Didn't mean to suggest that I encourage vigilante justice.

Just saying I've looked into these guys, and they are not deserving of 'humanitarian' treatment.

It will all come to light.

If it doesn't "all come to light" will you please issue them an apology for accusing them of heinous crimes?

Agreed. Didn't mean to suggest that I encourage vigilante justice.

and yet that is the entirety of all the attacks on Podesta is -- vigilante "unofficial people acting on their own beliefs" ... usually to persecute others with different view points.

Vigilante justice would be snatching Podesta from his home and hanging him in the streets. There has been no justice, only accusations, and high-profile figures should not be exempt from skepticism and accusation.

Vigilante's start someplace. They don't magically show up armed in the street at the same time shouting the same words --- they've were planning privately before getting up the courage to go public.

In the Podesta, et al scenario, the vigilantes are still in the hand-wringing phase of bolstering each other up with bravado. Waiting to see who will be the first to raise the stakes. Hoping that somehow a miracle occurs and either the sheriff arrives to do your job, or (in this case) the group actually starts to look at this so called evidence and examine it critically for themselves, rather than believing the prattling of some crank bent on a political agenda.

the group actually starts to look at this so called evidence and examine it critically for themselves

Just described this subreddit. Maybe its not for you?

uh, examine ... that does not mean "read and believe because it came from my favorite website" ... which is what this sub does.

Won't dispute that, this sub has a habit of succumbing to its emotions. For the record, there are hundreds of logical people who dont fall into that category who have been researching this story. Outside of the click-bait, bullshit articles/websites that pander to the impressionable, there are verified emails, MSM articles, and completely factual examples in our history that continue to intrigue critical thinkers.

Surely you've seen Bush's joint session speech after 9/11. The speaker of the house, sitting in frame for the entire speech, is not only a serial child molester, but a close old friend of the Podestas.

That didnt come from InfoWars.

Agreed.

However, what is a witch-hunt, is when one convicted person is then the basis others to become suspects of that crime. And, more damning, that those "guilty by association" ... just happen to be in the political party the self styled vigilantes oppose??

As for the "verified emails" ... true, there are emails factually attributed to these persons ... however the contents have been grotesquely, and intentionally, mis-construed and wildly interpreted to fit their desired narrative.

There are far more damning actions of the Moneyed Interests (aka "The Elites") without needing to resort to witch-hunts based on fiction, mythos and social stigmas.

  • 9/11
  • Enron bail out
  • bank bailout after the financial collapse
  • anti-factual Climate Change propaganda (aka birds vs windmills, windmills as eye sores, etc etc)
  • Patriot Act
  • Forfeiture laws
  • FISA Court abuses
  • etc etc

the list is long and not hard to discern concrete facts and documents related to these issues which are allowing the entrenched Moneyed Interests (usually in the form of corporations) to maintain a hegemony on government decision making.

theyrule.net is a great site to explore how it doesn't take a sex trafficking ring -- or any illegal ring for that matter -- to provide the clique of influencer's all the connections they need.

The reason this sex ring is popular on the Right is because historically the Right (in our country) isn't willing to challenge the status quo of the System. The Left has had it's conspiracy's for decades ... Bohemian Grove anyone?? ... but, it's a small and not so vocal group ... now the Right has discovered the Power of the Conspiracy Voice ... and it's taking off like wild fire.

'Didn't mean to suggest that I encourage vigilante justice.'

'...they are not deserving of humanitarian treatment.'

Get you a man who can do both.

It is my educated opinion that the Podesta's are not who they claim to be. I believe they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt that ignorant people are giving them. This is my opinion.

In no way is that vigilante justice... High-profile figures being accused of crimes with a wealth of highly-suspicious evidence is not vigilante justice...

Cognitive dissonance, innit? As their man might say, SAD!

This...

I didnt ask for this shit. I'm a college student, and when I accidentally stumbled into this rabbit hole when the Podesta emails first starting leaking, my studies were seriously impacted for weeks. Talking sleepless nights and just an overall anchor of depression.

I am not motivated by politics. I am unregistered. I did not vote. Both parties have failed their constituents.

I think a major reason people are so reluctant to believe that high-ranking officials could possibly be pedophiles/child molesters is because they believe they are morally above that. The reality is that it is a disease/mental health issue that, more often than not, comes to be due to childhood trauma experienced by the molesters themselves. They didnt ask for this either. It is a sickness that drives people of all different backgrounds to commit horrific acts. Nobody is 'above it' if they have be traumatized as a child.

Aside from that, it is blatantly obvious that our justice system will not hesitate to seek convenience rather than actual justice. We saw this come to light in Boston, where the archdiocese and its lawyers covered up / ignored HUNDREDS of legitimate cases.

Something is afoot, and its much, much bigger than CPP and Alefantis, or even Hillary Clinton for that matter...

As u/mastigia commented: they are the cogs, not the engine...

If you are worried that nothing is being done to fight corruption in the US government you can always swing by my sub... /r/FBI2/ for a little pick me up... it's been happening... it just isn't covered by the MSM... Just in the last week I've seen 190 years, 100 years and 80 year sentences for sexual crimes against children... I've never seen punishments that severe... I was astounded when the 20 and 30 year sentences for child porn started coming down a few months back... DOJ isn't fucking around... so when they work their way up to the top there will be ample precedent for extreme stints in federal prison.

subscribed!

A little lost in the layout of the page, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. Category flags on posts could possibly be helpful, just my first thought.

I've seen you around here frequently. At first your sentence structure made me highly skeptical of your intentions, but time and time again the content of your posts is enlightening. So thank you for your efforts.

If you're looking for any help moderating that sub, it would be my pleasure.

There isn't much to it... mostly DOJ press releases updated daily... usually skimming the headlines should be enough to get the feel for whats going on... I do have flags, but haven't been using them lately since it is 90% just press releases...

People get too lost in what isn't being prosecuted that they tend to miss out on what is getting prosecuted... so I made that sub as a moral booster...

If you wanna zero in on just the pedo stuff there is always this link...

https://www.justice.gov/psc/press-room

Thank you for taking the time to do this. I hope you don't mind, but I am going to repost something I wrote this morning in the hopes of supporting you a bit:

This is the thing that has always frightened me most about Pizzagate:

At this point it has become a combination of Henry Miller's "The Crucible" and "Iran Contra".

We know for a fact that the government maintains contracts with companies like Dyncorp, who have been caught engaging in human trafficking in the past. The government perception on what constitutes punishment for that crime does NOT align with how the public feels about the issue, but the outrage doesn't sustain itself.

Dyncorp is an open secret. There are plenty of them out there. This story enveloped it in order to gain legitimacy.

Trafficking through orphanages is also an open secret. Anyone who has ever done a search on best practices for adopting a child KNOWS that there is a market for young children through second adoptions.

Pizzagate is enveloping that as well.

We also ally with and occupy states who have practices that Western culture finds abhorrent. That's part of foreign policy decision making that most people don't want too look at. The sausage part where we mix together strategic and moral grey areas.

Not least of all, there is the convenient temporal alignment of Inauguration Day and the end of National Human Trafficking Awareness Month and it can be spun to look like Trump is immediately cleaning up the low level street scum of Pizzagate by pounding the propaganda outlets with stories of these arrests to support them.

At this point, people are willing to ignore the fact that news about ALL of these problems has been there, in the mainstream media, throughout ALL of this in order to feel morally superior to a political opponent over a witch hunt.

And now, a skilled propagandist can turn this outrage into justification for a political purge to make McCarthyism look tame. I am waiting for a "Night of the long knives" to happen, performed by a group that will be labeled independent extremists, against people who will later be proven to have been "involved" in pizzagate, by virtue of their association with this story that has been constructed based on speculation about code words and a mans taste in artwork.

Off-topic, but 'The Crucible' was by Arthur Miller. Henry Miller was the guy who wrote 'Tropic of Cancer' et al.

Edited.

I must be aging or something.

It's the fact that high level paedos have operated in other countries that makes me believe something is going on.

Eg Prince Charles (next in line for the British throne) was best friends with the country's biggest paedo (Sir Jimmy Savile, Sir Jimmy ffs) there is no way that the British secret service tasked with protecting the royles would have not known his paedo ways. Also how could other countries intelligence agencies not know?

There have been similar things in Belgium and there is currently a big investigation under way regarding the abuse of British children sent to Australia.

High level paedo rings are a very real thing. Is one operating in the US? Probably. Is it related to pizzagate? Who knows.

Doesn't it alarm you that so much anger is being whipped up against specific people for something that at best warrants a "who knows?"

A high level conspiracy may exist, but this supposed evidence is not of one. So any relationship to reality would be coincidental.

I'll give you a small scale comparison. People cheat on their spouses. That's a real thing that happens all the time. But if you were to accuse YOUR spouse of cheating, the mere existence of cheating wouldn't be particularly good evidence. The evidence that YOUR spouse cheated would need to be compelling.

I get what you mean. It strikes me as odd that pizzagate gets so much attention when at the same time ex British prime minister Edward Heath has been accused by multiple women of child rape and murder, there was an exposed pardo ring within UK youth football as well as the aforementioned Australian inquiry.

Maybe all the attention on pizzagate is diverting attention away from REAL paedo rings openly under investigation by law enforcement. The timing is certainly suspect not to mention that fact the mainstream debunked pizzagate harms all other paedophile ring theories.

no one meets these people but we all eat pizza......

Everyday new proofs are surfacing, lamenting our already quite credible PG-theory. This combined with the obscene flailing of certain celebrities and MSM, and you've got yourself something real. Despite it having a silly name.

I haven't seen any proofs. I've seen "connections" and "circumstantial evidence". When thousands of people go digging, and the criteria for evidence is as broad as this, then there will be an endless stream of such evidence. There would be against just about anyone.

Did you not read the leaked emails? You should, it's damning stuff!

Do you mean Podesta's emails?

I haven't seen anything damning.

An old man thanking a friend for a christmas gift.

A grandmother inviting Podesta to a party and mentioning her kids would be there. (Podesta did not attend the party).

A contractor being snarky about Obama's spending.

A few food references whose meaning is unclear.

What part did you find damning?

I found Podesta's connection to Halpert pretty damning, I thought there was a Podesta email talking about how Denny should vanish to some undisclosed island somewhere. Then there were the Spirit Cooking emails, and all the weird artwork at his house. And yes, of course the poolparty email, where they're talking about children as 'live entertainment'. Could name more, this is from the top of my head. Of you want, I could dig some more when I'm home. But I don't think I would convince you, and that's fine :)

I do concur that, every little detail taken out of context might not be anything. But all those little jigsaw pieces make a puzzle no-one really wants to assemble.

I think you mean Hastert. Halpert was character from The Office.

And while that's certainly not a great mark on Podesta's character, it's not very good evidence that either Podesta is a pedophile, much less a trafficker. The Podestas even shared their shock over the Hastert revelation, which wouldn't really make sense if they both thought pedophilia was awesome or they knew about it all along.

Beyond that, it's actually fairly common for longtime friends and family members to try to forgive abusers and keep them in their lives. I don't think I would do the same, but it seems to happen a lot, poke around /r/relationships and you'll find a recurring theme is victims of abuse asking for help when their families forgive the abuser.

Then there were the Spirit Cooking emails,

An artist hosted an artsy dinner with a funky name? The university up the hill from me hosts a yearly naked party called "SexPowerGod". I don't see that as damning.

and all the weird artwork at his house.

Whose house? There are two Podesta brothers, the one whose email was hacked isn't the one with the weird artwork, and the explanations of that artwork by PG researchers tend to be dishonest. The large sculpture is not of a dahmer victim. It isn't in the same pose as the dahmer victim, was made by an artist who made other art using that pose before Dahmer was active. Many other pictures are of things not owned by Tony but made by the same artist. In the end, I think owning weird art isn't evidence of anything in particular.

And the same goes on and on with every piece of evidence. It's all either easily explainable, provably incorrect, or interpreted in a farfetched way. At the end of the day, the most that can be said is that when thousands of people poke through every aspect of someone's personal lives, they'll find things they don't understand.

I meant Hastert, yes. I guess we'll have to wait for an official investigation and see how everything holds together. Thanks for replying so extensively, food for thought!

Jeffrey Epstein Laura Silsby Dennis Hastert Clement Freud Bill Clinton Hillary Clinton Jerry Sandusky The entire Catholic Church.

All of these have witnesses who've testified against them for sexual abuse. All of these are connected to each other (plus many, many more.)

Personally, I don't care if you believe in whatever-you-choose-to-call-it-gate, but don't discourage others from looking into it.

Most people in Washington are "connected" just like most people in Hollywood are "connected" to Kevin Bacon.

I'm discouraging others because vigilantism and poor evidence is how people get killed.

I'm discouraging others because vigilantism and poor evidence is how people get killed.

You can stop with that silly little metaphor, yo. I work in film & come from a political family. I'm familiar with how this works.

My question is to you: how many pedo's do you chill with? Cause in normal human society, we tend to shun those fckrs.

I'm discouraging others because vigilantism and poor evidence is how people get killed.

Well forgive me, but I find it creepy that you're sweating possible vigilantism when children in the thousands are being trafficked, used & killed every year.

What is it that compels you to stand up for the people accused over the victims? The one thing we do know is that we have an epidemic on this planet. Why would you take time to be an advocate for the disease?

I work in film & come from a political family.

Guess that means you have closer ties to the pedos than anyone else here.

And now you get why I'd like to see an earnest investigation.

Have you taken your evidence to the police?

Dude, what evidence? I didn't say I run in pedo circles or have direct exposure to crimes. As a matter of fact, I stated I would shun anyone who gave the indication they might be involved in that. Rumors abound in every workplace, so that's a bait-loaded question - which you already know.

You implied that something about your proximity to politics gave you special insight and motivation with regard to Pizzagate.

If that isn't true, you're just another example of someone trapped by moral panic.

Actually, you implied something about my proximity to pizzagate, not me:

Guess that means you have closer ties to the pedos than anyone else here.

I simply stated I know how connections in those industries work first hand.

Me:

I work in film & come from a political family.

Guess that means you have closer ties to the pedos than anyone else here.

You:

And now you get why I'd like to see an earnest investigation.

Yes. I'd like to see an earnest investigation. Yes. I have exposure to both industries & have heard rumors in both situations and personally know people who have been working to halt human trafficking on the political side. Yes, I know an ag who's husband was murdered as she worked on it. Yes, I know a senator who is consistently maligned for working on it currently and continues to do so despite that kind of treatment.

No. I do not have any known direct connections to human traffickers or evidence in my possession.

So on which point do you feel the need to try and discredit me? Am I a victim of hurr durr satantic panic? Or am a super-close pals with allllllll the pedos?

You're a liar and I didn't do anything to discredit you. You did it all yourself.

You're a liar and I didn't do anything to discredit you. You did it all yourself.

I don't think you have any evidence at all that I'm a liar. I think you just desperately want to discredit the idea that some really terrible things are happening and this situation needs to be properly investigated.

I wonder why my comments bother you so much. What is it that compels you to seek to undermine discussion of this topic? Why does it affect you in such a way? How are you so invested in the denial?

All those questions are rhetorical, btw. I doubt you'd be able to address them with any satisfactory answers. It wouldn't matter anyway. The investigation is already happening.

You don't remember our last encounter, which is fine. No reason you should. Maybe you should look back and find out why someone might take issue with your behavior personally.

AS far as my position on investigating these things, I've been posting links about them for weeks. Pedo busts, stories about compromised orphanages, links to stories about Dyncorp's human trafficking operation... all of them.

They just aren't posts that map out links to Podesta or Alefantis because I am convinced that focusing on those two is entirely politically motivated.

I'm not reading back thru old discussions with you to see what your problem is. If you want to criticize my behavior, do so outright.

If you want to criticize my behavior, do so outright.

I already did. If you want to criticize my commitment to investigating human trafficking, maybe you should make sure you have a leg to stand on.

You're wasting my time trolling me with vague accusations. Be gone.

Nothing vague about my accusations.You're a liar and you proved it to me. It isn't my job to show you what to delete to make it go away.

and say what? there are pedophiles in hollywood! I know bc I've heard stories. Like Michael Jackson. Wow what a fucking creep sleeping with young boys. But sure, he wasn't a pedophile right?

OP will respond don't worry

great post. Thank you. Solid upvote

child trafficking have exists prior to pizzagate but people now suddenly care about it is really disingenuous to me IMO

People suddenly caring about it are people suddenly caring about it. Disingenious is your attempt to imply that people caring about it now is somehow a bad thing.

One of the worse things about pedophilia is how little it is talked about and easily it is swept under the rug. There is already mountains of evidence of child trafficking and documented history of abuse, aside from the pizzagate trend. Anything, and I mean anything, that brings that out into the open ultimately saves lives and will improve humanity by ensuring less humans are raised or grow up with serious psychological problems. Also fuck podesta. Alot of people are in jail and life ruined for alot less than the circumstantial evidence on that fucking creep. if he was to be slain in the street by citizens it would send a strong message that very much needs to be sent. And fuck art.

if he was to be slain in the street by citizens it would send a strong message that very much needs to be sent.

See this is the danger of pizzagate. Thank you for illustrating why angry irrational mobs like this are dangerous.

Alot of people are in jail and life ruined for alot less than the circumstantial evidence on that fucking creep.

Just out of curiosity, name one.

Wow did u just refer to me as an angry irrational mob?? And blame it on pizzagate? you are a moron. Its dangerous to leave that man free to walk.
You completely ignored the point of my comment. You are a fucking shill

Alot of people are in jail and life ruined for alot less than the circumstantial evidence on that fucking creep.

Name one.

Every single person who is in jail for a drug related offense, I would consider less dangerous to society than even a suspected pedo. Because drug addicts hurt only themselves. And pedos aim to hurt the weakest and most vulnerable member of society. Oh but yea you wanted me to name someone. How about the Russian guy Mr Fu kyosef?

Okay, actually kind of funny. I googled without reading it first.

But seriously, I want my views to be based on logic and facts, not emotional fears. If you don't want your views to be based on logic and facts, then we'll never get anywhere. If you do, then you should be able to back up your assertions. I'm ready to be convinced I'm wrong. Are you?

Now I'll fully concede that some people have been arrested on bad evidence, that's a problem with the system. Can you name someone who who is in jail based on circumstantial evidence less than what is leveled at Podesta that reasonable people would think is a reasonable arrest?

Assigning yourself the role of the only sane man indicates that you've left the realm of logic and facts behind, and are arguing on an emotional superiority basis. Until you acknowledge that both sides are capable of rationality, you will not find a solution based on rationality.

I apologize if I was unclear. I absolutely think that people who disagree with me, on this or any issue are capable of logic and rationality.

However, telling me to fuck myself instead of answering my question isn't showing me that you're interested in logic or rationality at this moment.

You are arguing like a lawyer defending a guilty man, whether or not there is enough evidence to convict. Loopholes etc. I'm saying he is guilty and should be punished. Even if he turns out to be innocent. As this is the message that must be sent to those who think they are above the law with regards to child abuse. I personally would sacrifice him, for the greater good

I'm saying he is guilty and should be punished. Even if he turns out to be innocent.

That seems to be contradictory.

I doesn't "seem to be" contradictory It absolutely is. No1 shill tactic is to isolate a single sentence from a narrative and completely removed the context. Once again you seem to lack the capacity to consider my overall point and position. Do you have point of your own or just like to point out parts of my comment you don't like?

Look up the great works of the noble African leader Sir Iwilf Ucku and get some perspective.

Here is an excerpt from your comment above:- "me to go fuck myself" Wow you must be really deranged and have mental problems, you sound like a maniac, get some help.

If I was taking you out of context, please explain what you meant. it's just you and me having this conversation. There's no point in any tactics or vitriol. I'd like us to be clear and understand each other, I'm very open to discussion, but you have to meet me half way.

And I am purposely am not providing examples of people who have been jailed on circumstantial or questionable evidence as this could be spun as unfair to podesta or imply his innocence. Whether you are being tactical or just simple minded, I consider your point of view dangerous.

Okay, I guess you're taking your ball and going home.

No i'm happy to argue with you further. I just wont play your game because its dangerous. Why do you think that circumstantial evidence with regards to such a serious offense, should be ignored on a technicality? Do you agree that child abuse should be considered one of the most serious crimes and that even circumstantial evidence should be grounds for an official investigation? Or that the suspect should be placed under arrest while the investigation is carried out just like what would happen to a low level pot suspect? This is how logic works

I'm not in any way saying that evidence should be ignored on any technicality. I just think that the pile of evidence here is all of too low quality to justify action. And while I will readily agree that there can be pieces of circumstantial evidence which are by themselves small yet paint a bigger picture, I don't see that this set of evidence forms such a picture. Volume alone doesn't really do it.

That said, I'm not a lawyer. If a relevant agency thinks this is worthy of investigation, that's up to them. I'm not so sure you're correct that arrest would be similar to other procedures though. I don't think people are often arrested for marijuana possession simply because they say, own a lot of Cheech and Chong movies, have a picture on their facebook with a friend wearing a pot leaf patterned sweater and recently traveled to Denver.

obviously there is no conclusions to this discussion as we are on different planes of thought I think.

You are more concerned with the evidence related to a single case.

I am more concerned with the overall big picture of this issue, and I would be happy to sacrifice even an innocent man in order to promote this issue globally and save the lives of innocent children.

Lets leave it at that. Apologies for the personal attacks.

No worries. I think you're correct that we have a difference of values to some extent that would probably make much deeper discussion difficult.

One less value oriented disagreement though. I just don't see the current path of the pizzagate discussion as something that will likely save the lives of innocent children. Go over to Voat and you see accusations of gay and Jewish agendas. Look around here and the whole thing is bound up in pro-Trump rhetoric. I don't think association with those things is going to help general awareness of child trafficking in the long run. In fact, I think it will lead a lot of the mainstream to regard future accusations with less seriousness, even if good evidence is there.

Just my two cents.

I understand your point.

I would just add that, forgetting pizzagate completely, there is already huge swaths of evidence and facts around child abuse and numerous allegations of cover ups. It's easily swept under the rug due to the social unwillingness to discuss such a perverted subject.

Back to pizzagate, it is undeniable that this has raised the issue more towards the forefront of socially acceptable discussion. Which is fantastic. The world is much more connected and intertwined than we know or are led to believe, and I think it would be very short sighted to assume that pizzagate had nothing to do with the recent up take in public and media attention. To this end, I will support pizzagate and any variation that furthers this cause.

The guys at the top, whatever you want to call them, they do not deal with small cases or individual people. they make large long term plans involving whole nations. They make decisions to sacrifice large quantities of people to further their plan. We have to think and plan on the same scale they do, in order to combat their operations. And that may include some difficult decisions. John Podesta is an easy decision. And my view is fuck him for the greater good. The media is the first big problem we have to fix and that fix is actually underway right now.

I do get your position that any falseness or lies regarding pizzgate could damage the overall awareness of child trafficking issues, however the positive news is that it wont matter anymore. I think we are past pizzagate now. With serious, proven cases of child abuse now being focussed on in the media now, the goal is achieved.

And I wouldn't advise wasting much more of your energy on the details of John Podesta. I certainly would want a swath of post and comment history showing your defence of him, if the truth about him does surface. There is a serious evil here that most of us have not even begun to understand. And our only focus should be on spread of information. For so many reasons.

Alot of people are in jail and life ruined for alot less than the circumstantial evidence on that fucking creep.

I see so many pizagate promoters argue that since circumstantial evidence is used in court, the kind of circumstantial evidence available for pizzagate is viable for prosecution.

No. It is not.

Let's hypothetically examine a viable circumstantial case. Suppose there was a gun, a dead body, and a bullet found in the body. Ballistic forensics experts test the bullet and determine it came from the gun. They have a witness who said she heard a shot at about the time of the murder. And they know the owner of the gun was in the area at the time. Finally, the owner tests positive for powder on his hand from weapons fire.

In that case you have:

  • a dead body
  • the murder weapon
  • an owner of the murder weapon who tests positive for having fired it

THAT'S a circumstantial case. No one alive saw the crime in question. But there's strong circumstantial evidence in the form of forensics which would lead one to believe the owner of that gun is responsible for the murder.

Pizzagate has no dead bodies. No witnesses. No forensics tests on anyone to show a crime has occurred. And a slew of contradictory claims by amateur sleuths which muddy the waters.

Pizzagate is a disaster as far as a real investigation goes. But's it's been fantastic as a slander campaign.

Nice work completely ignoring the substance of my comment and picking out the piece you don't like. Fuck Pizzagate & fuck podesta. How's that? My point is that it is hugely beneficial to publicize the problem of child trafficking and child abuse. And pizzagate has achieved this very well. You can see the publicity and media coverage now increasing. This is excellent. You can already see the tactics of the sick fucks in charge changing from denial to poor attempts at normalising and victimising these child abusing bastards. So any arguments or fuckwits arguing the technicalities of the pizzagate details, are of serious concern to me.

You can see the publicity and media coverage now increasing.

Ah. So Pizzagate was a branding exercise and not a real investigation. And for that 'achievement' those promoting it defamed people with claims they couldn't prove and debased themselves in the process.

Reprehensible.

Wow ignored my point and picked a single part to attack again. If you consider yourself to have an open mind in any way then please take a look at your position here and ask how much confirmation bias is effecting your view. Do you agree that more publicity on child abuse is a good thing? To help promote the safety of children?

And how much value would you give to the life of this one man? Sacrificing him to save thousands of children would be ok?
People are dying and imprisoned every day. Life eats life. Would you give up your life to save many others. I will happily give up his life.

ask how much confirmation bias is effecting your view.

Look inward. Ask yourself that.

Peace and love to you my misguided friend. I hope the pay is good.

Beautifully put! It's lovely to see another intelligent take on this.

Well said OP.

One question. Totally unrelated to whether you believe this conspiracy is true or not. And I think you make excellent points about conspiracy vs. truth. It's hard to know until actual hard, direct witness testimony or physical evidence that is uncovered, thereby proving a conspiracy to be actual fact.

Do you believe that powerful politicians and their friends are capable of pedophilia, rape, torture and satanic sacrifice of children?

I think just about anything is possible, I just find the specific claims here to be unsupported by the evidence.

That's fine to think that way. But just take stock in how the prior pedophile scandals played out. Take the catholic church for example.

There was a time pedophile priests were thought to be absolutely impossible, then a very small conspiracy, then rumors started, then circumstantial evidence, then more stories whispered but not proven, then investigations that led nowhere, then more inquiries, then FINALLY when the victims were about 10-20 years older, it was finally believed bc the victims came forward.

I think this one is more difficult to prove that way since the allegation is that victims are eventually trafficked somewhere else and don't ever know who the hell was raping them, were killed or sacrificed.

Anyway, it is a pandemic crisis of child torture, rape, trafficking, murder and sacrifice we have uncovered even if the pizza guy is just a creep.

Alot of people are in jail and life ruined for alot less than the circumstantial evidence on that fucking creep.

Name one.

Okay, I guess you're taking your ball and going home.

No worries. I think you're correct that we have a difference of values to some extent that would probably make much deeper discussion difficult.

One less value oriented disagreement though. I just don't see the current path of the pizzagate discussion as something that will likely save the lives of innocent children. Go over to Voat and you see accusations of gay and Jewish agendas. Look around here and the whole thing is bound up in pro-Trump rhetoric. I don't think association with those things is going to help general awareness of child trafficking in the long run. In fact, I think it will lead a lot of the mainstream to regard future accusations with less seriousness, even if good evidence is there.

Just my two cents.