What is the difference between a fiercely independent thinker and a delusional paranoid? Is it a matter of degree, or something else?
This morning I got some email from someone who sent me gobs of articles from "Emperor's Clothes" (I won't link them, they don't deserve the traffic), most of which I've seen and heard before.
They assert that the involvement of Arab Muslims in the 9/11 attacks is unproven and highly questionable, that the Air Force was prevented from following normal security procedures that would have prevented the attacks, that Bush and Cheney knew all about the 9/11 attacks and are in fact behind them, etc. Nothing new that we haven't heard before.
When I mentioned how silly this stuff was, I was promptly challenged to answer the material "point by point" and accused of not reading it--although a look through it shows it to be the same old recycled cant we've seen time and time again from the lunatic fringe.
What is with the seething hatred that boils inside some people that leads them to accept the most horrid accusations about someone, simply because you disagree with him, or didn't vote for him? It's not really a partisan phenomenon; there were the lunatics who accused Lyndon Johnson of killing Kennedy, George H.W. Bush of brokering a deal with the Ayatollah Khomeni in Iran to help defeat Carter, the paranoids who say that the Reagan administration invented crack to keep the black man down, that Bill Clinton was a drug smuggler, etc. I've read some paranoid stuff about Gerald Ford, too, but I confess to not being able to remember it and not having the energy to go look it up, but it's in one of my books on conspiracies.
My only question is: are people like this brave souls who are simply fighting the good fight even though they're terribly naive, or are they just nutcases? I have a real respect for people who stand by unpopular views, and who latch on to solid evidence of something and insist that the common wisdom on a subject is likely to be wrong. The problem is, I'm never sure where to draw the line between fiercely independent thinkers, and the nutjobs.
Any thoughts?
So, wait. Are you saying that Eisenhower _wasn’t_ a communist?
I'm not sure how many people are aware of this, but Andrew's being funny in more than one way: McCarthyites at one point did accuse General George Marshall of being a communist, and there were a few among them who suggested that the conspiracy went all the way up to Ike. It was an issue during the 1952 elections--although to his credit Adlai Stephenson refused to have anything to do with such lunacy.
Dean, I would have been 50/50 tempted just to blow this dolt off, but I suppose we have to face them down once in a while.
I ran into someone last week who, while not as bad as your correspondent, insisted that there was some evil coordination between Cheney, the power companies, and the California power shortage. This same fellow also lays the blame of the Israel/Palestine problem at the feet of the Zionists who, according to him, proclaimed their plans to take over Palestine back in the 1840's. And (as he is fond of saying) "I can show you a website that explains all this!"
Sigh.
By the way, don't you mean "Reagan broker[ed] a deal with the Ayatollah Khomeni in Iran?" or did I miss out on some of the tomfoolery?
I wonder if these nutcases are Middle Eastern Arabs themselves. Arabs are perhaps the most conspiratorial people in the entire world. Daniel Pipes even said on his website that Palestinians went so far as accusing the Isralelis of poisoning the lead inside the pencils that Palestinian schoolchildren use. How they got that poison in all those pencils I'll never know. Go figure.
I guess believing this crap for them is easier than admitting they were wrong.
Casey: The vaunted "October Surprise" theory is that former CIA chief George Bush, Governor Reagan's VP nominee, made a secret trip to Iran to convince them to hold onto the hostages until after the election, so as to guarantee Reagan's victory. I forget what the exact quid pro quo was supposed to be.
William F. Buckley Jr. recounted an exchange from an early television show when a news host named Larry Spivak interviewed the man he most hated, a Senator Bilbo. The Senator was apparently one of those paleoSouthern Democrats, I think. Spivak asked him how did he account for the fact that Republican Senator Robert Taft had called Senator Bilbo undoubtedly the worst senator he had ever served with.
"Don't you see, Mr. Spivak?" said Seantor Bilbo patiently, "Senator Taft is a Communist."
Daniel Pipes' two books on conspiracy theory, "The Hidden Hand" and "Conspiracy" are very interesting and enlightening. Pipes notes that the main reason the moonbats are always hitting the same themes is that they all, even the Arabs, are recycling fantasies that had their origins in the aftermath of the French Revolution. No matter who takes them up, they always focus on the same plotters: Secret Societies and Jews. The Secret Societies tradition has morphed into anti-imperialism under the influence of Lenin. The British are the original imperialists, with the US taking over the role after our power grew and theirs abated. The two traditions have been fusing over the last 30 years or so, which is one of the reasons anti-Americanism is now the other side of the coin to anti-Semitism.
>>I forget what the exact quid pro quo was supposed to be.
Dean,
I believe this was part of the arms for hostages thing. The moonbats were saying that Iran would hold the hostages, Reagan would get elected, then America would send arms to Iran for its war against Saddam Hussein through the other two great pariah states at that time, Israel and South Africa.
I actually read that the U.S.A. was arming both sides in the Iran Iraq war. Believe it or not, I found this in the Wall Street Journal. They are the most accurate paper covering news out of Washington, D.C. Remember Henry Kissinger saying about this war, "It's too bad that both sides cannot lose this war."
>>No matter who takes them up, they always focus on the same plotters: Secret Societies and Jews. The Secret Societies tradition has morphed into anti-imperialism under the influence of Lenin…anti-Americanism is now the other side of the coin to anti-Semitism.
Michael,
David Pryce-Jones in his book “The Closed Circle” waxes eloquently about this Arab tendency to blame others for their problems. First, it was imperialists in the 1800’s; they then blamed the Jews; they then blamed America; now they blame both America and the Jews. Efraim and Inari Karsh relate how the Arabs were very big players in their own demise for the past 150 years in “Empires of the Sand.” I recommend both books to anybody interested in learning about the Arab mindset and its tendency to blame everybody else except themselves for their inability modernize and deal with the western world.
The west eclipsed the Arabs about three hundred years ago. Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798; the British finally tossed him out about two years later. This proved to all Arabs two important lessons. One, Arabs cannot stop westerners from invading the Middle East. Two, only another western power can toss out another western invader. The Arabs were so far behind the west technologically that the first printing press did not even appear in the Arabic speaking world for over two hundred years after Gutenberg printed the first Bible. The first Arabic newspaper did not appear until the 1830’s.
The Arabs played catch up, or deny we have a problem, ever since.
If you're interested in the ramifications of the coming 'New World Order', see the excellent NWO site at http://www.nwointelligence.com.
You'll also find a superb archive of articles on the New World Order [which is impacting and changing us all increasingly]and on the elite and secretive groups behind it, from the 'New World Order Intelligence Update', at http://www.rarehistorybooks.com/NWOCONSP.HTM. They are also mirrored at http://www.survivalistskills.com/NWODICT.HTM and at http://www.torontochristianbooks.com/NWOGOV.HTM. Well worth reading!
'New World Order' is a mistranslation.
It's 'Niu World Order.'
The Gathaxians call this place 'Niu.'
You can watch professional wrestling closely to get most of the hints.