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Bill Hicks and his NAFTA obsession

anticonspiracy911

Critical Thinker
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I know we've been talking about the 9/11 conspiracy theory a lot, but I wanted to get people's thoughts on Bill Hicks and his paranoia. This is related to the pot smoking thread. I've been focusing and studying conspiracy nutjobs for quite some time, and I came across this Bill Hicks quote from his very last show and it went something along the lines of this: "Well what do you think of NAFTA? You know what I think of NAFTA? I think they're a shadow company bound to control everyones ****** life and don't you ****** forget it!" Correct me if I'm wrong on the company/organization name. He says this in his very last show.

Now I know what he's saying is absurd, but I was curious of the real story behind NAFTA, and I'd like to see a little Gravy debunking of Bill Hicks. :D
 
I love Bill Hicks, but I disagree with his Kennedy Assassination and Pot Smoking skits.
 
People often confuse great comedy with great insight. Hicks was a comic GOD, but it doesn't mean he had access to information no one else has ever seen.

Besides while I don't remember the exact wording in the bit, that was leading up to a punchline.
 
Drudgewire said:
People often confuse great comedy with great insight. Hicks was a comic GOD, but it doesn't mean he had access to information no one else has ever seen.

Besides while I don't remember the exact wording in the bit, that was leading up to a punchline.
Click to expand...

There wasn't a punchline. It was just one of his paranoid ramblings because he was angry at people getting their information about the world from outside their own head as if it was an abnormal thing to do. He always harped about this, and even said CNN Headline News made up headlines about famine and aids all because he could hear crickets outside his home. I mean talk about faulty reasoning.
 
Yeah, Bill did have a tendency to just go off. Thankfully the time he did it on a drunk heckler was captured on video. It's up there with Dice's "Hour BACK? GET IT??!" as one of comedy's all-time greatest cringe moments. :D
 
That's the thing I don't get about Bill Hicks or any of these other conspiracy loons. They say the media is controlled and spreads disinfo, yet magically they pull out associated press articles to "confirm their beliefs" and cherry pick sentences as the NWO's way of telling you the future that only they can decode somehow.

I mean seriously, "CNN makes up headlines about famine and aids because I can hear crickets outside my home." I don't even know how one could pull such nonsense out of his ass.
 
anticonspiracy911 said:
That's the thing I don't get about Bill Hicks or any of these other conspiracy loons. They say the media is controlled and spreads disinfo, yet magically they pull out associated press articles to "confirm their beliefs" and cherry pick sentences as the NWO's way of telling you the future that only they can decode somehow.
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And of course this "controlled media" let Hicks go on HBO and say this to millions of people how many times?
 
What's to debunk, exactly? I think you're taking him way too seriously, and perhaps more seriously than he took himself.
 
Drudgewire said:
And of course this "controlled media" let Hicks go on HBO and say this to millions of people how many times?
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Yeah, if they truly controlled the media they wouldn't even allow him on HBO. I think these loons have never experienced a real police state before.
 
Right, wrong, paronoid or sane he made people laugh, think and question: perhaps his point all along.
 
Tressa said:
Right, wrong, paronoid or sane he made people laugh, think and question: perhaps his point all along.
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Believing real issues were just an illusion because he heard crickers outside of his home is not thinking and questioning. That's just pure nonsense. That's like me saying there's no war in Iraq because I don't hear gunfire outside my home.
 
That "crickets" bit is only a joke, you know. I don't think he was really suggesting that famine in Africa was made up by CNN.

He did suggest a few really dumb things though, especially towards the end of his life. I'm a big fan of Hicks as a comedian, but I don't take his paranoid/cosmic excesses remotely seriously, any more than I do with Hendrix or John Lennon. Of course, if Hicks were still alive today he'd be doing voice-overs for Dylan Avery, and all that good work really would be tainted.
 
anticonspiracy911 said:
His NAFTA quote. I just wanted the real background behind NAFTA.
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Well, NAFTA is neither a company nor is it particularly shadowy. It's a trade agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, hence North American Free Trade Agreement.

Debunked.

Seriously, why not just look it up on Wikipedia yourself?
 
anticonspiracy911 said:
That's the thing I don't get about Bill Hicks or any of these other conspiracy loons. They say the media is controlled and spreads disinfo, yet magically they pull out associated press articles to "confirm their beliefs" and cherry pick sentences as the NWO's way of telling you the future that only they can decode somehow.

I mean seriously, "CNN makes up headlines about famine and aids because I can hear crickets outside my home." I don't even know how one could pull such nonsense out of his ass.
Click to expand...
<CTmode>
It's people on the inside trying to get people to wake up without being caught themselves.
</CTmode>
 
The only conspiracy here is that Bill Hicks is alive, well, walking among us, and he emphatically does not believe that 9/11 was an inside job. Here's a recent photo of Hicks:

87904732676701776.jpg
 
Last edited:
Gravy said:
The only conspiracy here is that Bill Hicks is alive, well, walking among us, and he emphatically does not believe that 9/11 was an inside job. Here's a recent photo of Hicks:

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/87904732676701776.jpg[/qimg]
Click to expand...


Are you kidding?
He was the leader of the rebels in 'Demolition Man.'
The guy overthrows the government for crying out loud.

Dude's a truther, you sap!
 
anticonspiracy911 said:
I know we've been talking about the 9/11 conspiracy theory a lot, but I wanted to get people's thoughts on Bill Hicks and his paranoia. This is related to the pot smoking thread. I've been focusing and studying conspiracy nutjobs for quite some time, and I came across this Bill Hicks quote from his very last show and it went something along the lines of this: "Well what do you think of NAFTA? You know what I think of NAFTA? I think they're a shadow company bound to control everyones ****** life and don't you ****** forget it!" Correct me if I'm wrong on the company/organization name. He says this in his very last show.

Now I know what he's saying is absurd, but I was curious of the real story behind NAFTA, and I'd like to see a little Gravy debunking of Bill Hicks. :D
Click to expand...

NAFTA is simply a reflection of the acceptance by both the moderate left and the moderate right (using Left/Right here because it is mostly an internal US debate) that free trade in general is a good thing that leads to greater prosperity for both partners. On a micro-level this is perfectly obvious. I trade my work for pieces of paper that I can use to trade for food, shelter and other goods; this is obviously way more efficient than me trying to grow my own food and build my own TV.

However, when it comes to trade between nations, there are inevitably complicating factors. Wages in Mexico are much lower than in the United States, so doesn't that indicate that if there is free trade between the US and Mexico manufacturers may decide it is cheaper to relocate south of the border? Ross Perot famously claimed that giant sucking sound we heard was our jobs being sucked down to Mexico.

But if we decide to keep those jobs in the US by imposing tariffs on Mexican goods, aren't we just taking money from many people who would otherwise be consumers of cheaper Mexican products and transferring it to those few workers? And doesn't this violate a principle of solid governance: The greatest good for the greatest number?

Over time, this latter theory began to hold sway with both moderate liberal and moderate conservative US politicians. Inevitably the battle against free trade shifted to the fringe right and fringe left; it's one of those rare issues that Pat Buchanan and Dennis Kucinich can find solidarity on. The far right opposes NAFTA for national sovereignty reasons, the far left for labor reasons.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US had 112 million jobs in December 1993 when NAFTA was signed into law; currently there are 138 million jobs. It is hard to argue that the US lost jobs to Mexico on a net basis. But the problem, of course, is that it did lose jobs on an individual basis, and these are specific, identifiable people whereas the new jobs created are diffused over the whole economy. So you have people who know they lost their job because of NAFTA and people who don't know they got their job because of it. Who's going to be more vocal?
 
Kiosk said:
That "crickets" bit is only a joke, you know. I don't think he was really suggesting that famine in Africa was made up by CNN.
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It was a Hicks rant. I could tell the distinction between his jokes and rants and he took his rants seriously. He seemed pretty serious about CNN making up world issues.

He did suggest a few really dumb things though, especially towards the end of his life. I'm a big fan of Hicks as a comedian, but I don't take his paranoid/cosmic excesses remotely seriously, any more than I do with Hendrix or John Lennon. Of course, if Hicks were still alive today he'd be doing voice-overs for Dylan Avery, and all that good work really would be tainted.
Click to expand...

God, I don't want to imagine that maniac screaming about 9/11 in pubs.

(Doing my best parody of Hicks) Bill Hicks: Ok, did I miss a physics class here? Cause it seems pretty damn near...IMPOSSIBLE....that fires could collapse skyscrapers.

Ugh. And he took Einstein's quote out of context too. Double ugh.
 
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