Skeptical Humanities

Welcome. This week, the 9/11 Truthers were proved right about everything. Everything. Except the stuff that they were talking about. And yet they are crowing about Richard Clarke’s speculation about any relationship between the CIA and 2 of the 9/11 hijackers, unsubstantiated by evidence by his own admission, as if it was vindication of some sort. He just has questions, and when the stakes are this high, questions are not enough.

So, let’s break this down. Clarke wonders why the names of 2 known al-Qaida members were not known to the White House until 9/11 itself. He speculates that the CIA was trying to “turn” them into spies, which would give them access to intelligence about al-Qaida. Even if that is true, it clearly didn’t work. The entire premise of Clarke’s speculation is that the CIA was unable to get them to work with them. Failure all around then.

• UK Ministry of Defence dumps another batch of UFO-related files.
• Where does it say in this VISA commercial that it is meant to be a literal rendering of the future?
• You know, if Anthony Keadis were a member of the Illuminati, you’d think he’d have someone write better lyrics. If you want a laugh, or possibly a cry, see the comments.

OK, I’m going to dwell on Vigilant Citizen for a minute because I see it every week, and it doesn’t get any less weird or any more reflective as time passes. Just more pictures of people covering one eye, triangles or pyramids, and robot-people. Also, he has discovered that some advertisers use sex to promote whatever they are promoting. (Jaw hits floor.) For all the hysterics over there, I just don’t get what all the occult symbolism is supposed to be for, other than for him to yell, “See! Triangle!” and his readers to go, “I am sooo disappointed in triangles.” The one-eye thing, apparently, is supposed to be Illuminati/Masonic. Therefore, every time that you see only one eye of a subject being photographed, the Illuminati is sending a secret message, “Hi! We’re the Illuminati. Or possibly Masons.” Maybe I’m just a sheeple (I guess the singular is sheeperson), but I just don’t get the why.

And another thing. VC has a whole “sex-kitten” thing. If there’s a woman in a cat suit or with cat-eye mascara, what? Looking at the OED, I’d say that the earliest use of “sex kitten” is around the early 1950s. (Their first entry is 1958, but as a precaution I usually extend the phrase back a bit to allow for unrecorded oral usage of a word or term.) The Illuminati is making a Hefnerian sexist visual pun? Really? Again, to what end? Yeah, sex sells records (VC is especially concerned with the music industry), but it also sells car polish and Q-tips. I really don’t understand the impulse behind the interpretations and premises of the behind the Vigilant Citizen website.

By the way, when I was looking at the compound words/phrases that have sex in them, my favorite was a “sex mosaic”. I thought it was something you found in Pompeii’s frisky frescoes, but no, it is “an individual having some cells that are genetically of one sex and the rest of the other sex.” You learn something new every day.

• Dr. Joe “Wubble” Mercola: “GM Yellow Rice a ‘Trojan Horse.’ “ Yes, it’s a way of smuggling Vitamin A into Troy, er, poor people.
• I always look forward to neo-Nazis getting pranked, and there was a good one this week.
• Aaron Dykes, the least charismatic presenter in the history of changing the channel, promises that the globalist extermination list is out, but then doesn’t give it up.
• Of course, over at Before It’s News, they said that recent raids on raw food clubs (which are violating federal health laws–yes, people who buy unprocessed milk are putting themselves and their kids at risk, whether they think they are or not) are part of the eugenic plan, presumably the same one that Aaron was talking about. Or another one. He didn’t mention unprocessed milk.
• Federal Jack and Mike Adams, two bad things that go worse together, named leaders of the “government terrorism” Rawesome Foods raid, that is, the people who were on the warrant. Yeah, terrorism has a different meaning where I live.
• As the people BIN freak out over the impending destruction of Earth by Comet Elenin (this is a pretty trippy video, also hilarious–also, I may have put it up last week), NASA scientist assures us that his “subcompact automobile exerts a greater influence on the ocean’s tides than comet Elenin ever will.” It’s called physics, buddy. Get some.
• For some reason, the Atlantean Brotherhood Cult (the “About Us” page misleadingly does not say “We’re nuts!”), which I’ve never heard of, has been switching babies in Hollywood: “Emma Watson is now known to secretly be the daughter of actors Brian Dennehy and Bonnie Bedelia.” This is just the craziest thing that I have seen all night.
• This is a close second, however:

• On Hiroshima Day (cla-aaaaasy), the Centre for Research on Globalization scrounged up “America’s Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya.” When this does not happen, will they grovel and apologize for being so utterly and catastrophically wrong? Or doubt themselves? At all?
• Are genetically modified crops killing the bees? Probably not.
• The FBI looks for crazy ideologues hording weapons and ammo. TheIntelHub objects.
• I love that Alex Jones thinks that Rick Perry is being groomed by the Bilderbergers to be the next president. He’s being groomed by the Jesuits, which is completely different.
• Here’s one that really seemed like a logical fallacy, but when Eve and I looked at it, it wasn’t exactly a non sequitor and it wasn’t exactly a false analogy:

When it comes to condemning theft, however many trainers, mobile phones and designer clothes have been stolen by the London rioters, they are petty crooks compared to the thievery that has BP, with the aid of the western powers, quite literally stealing control of Iraq’s most valuable resource: the oil which was the main motivation for the invasion in 2003.

We decided to christen this one a “false sequitor.”

• Hey! New a theory about bin Laden. Get this: Bin Laden was guarded by Pakistan in exchange for Saudi cash! What, where are you going? You know what, I’m not convinced that bin Laden was being housed by Pakistan. He was an enemy of Pakistan. He was smart enough to never use a phone and only communicate by trusted courier. He was clearly smart enough to STAY INSIDE. What do the people in the neighborhood who don’t believe that he was there think, that he would be outside mowing the lawn, waving and issuing death threats to the infidel children in the neighborhood?
• Speaking of 9/11, an international hearing on 9/11 will begin in Toronto in September. It will have all the respect and legal authority of a model UN session. From 911Truth.org.
• Townhall.com is coughing up their usual gobs of delightful anti-Muslim conspiracist wackloonery. And OneNewsNow is not far behind.
• From DontTreadonMe.com, “5 Reasons Why American Riots Will Be the Worst In the World.” “BECAUSE WE’RE NUMBER ONE, BABY! U-S-A! U-S-A!” Seriously, this is Silver Shield’s a love letter to America.
• The Onion on the rise of hate groups in the American Northwest.
• From Veterans Today. Jewish/Zionist 5th column responsible for riots. Not, you know, the rioters.
• Did David Mabus join the 911 Truth movement now that he can’t threaten atheists with death?
• Wow. I’m posting something from CNBC. And it mentioned Hofstadter. This will never happen again.
• Jews making Christians outlaws. From Al-Jazeerah.
• “Japanese Government Prepares to Flee Tokyo–Nothing To Do with Radiation?” No, and it has everything to do with that GIGANTIC CREATURE RISING FROM THE DEEP!

This week in Ron Paul:

Well, the first Republican debate was hosted ahead of the Iowa primary. Ron Paul was

Well, after the debate, I got this tweet from FederalJack:

FederalJack
HELP RON PAUL WIN THE FOXNEWS POLL ON THE DEBATE. LET THEM TRY TO COVER THIS ONE UP… foxnews.com/opinion/2011/0…
2 minutes ago

Then a little later:

FOXNEWS MADE A SECOND DEBATE POLL, VOTE FOR PAUL IN THIS ONE AS WELL.
topix.com/issue/fox/gop-…
1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply

Of course, FederalJack clearly illustrated why Paul will never win a national election:

FederalJack
Ron Paul: I Think The Feds Real Goal Is To Depreciate The Currency #RonPaul #RonPaul2012 #IowaStrawPoll
#GOP2012

The Ron Paul movement is getting too culty for comfort:

In related news, NPR the strange obsession with the gold standard that dogs the Paulite movement made national news as the price of gold went ever higher amid market concerns. And, honestly, the Planet Money reporter could only say, “Yeah, it makes no sense,” which is what I thought. Gold does not hold intrinsic value, like gold investors/merchants tell you. The fact that it is so high right now proves that it is valued like every other commodity, relative to other commodities. This, of course, is not what Dr. Mercola is saying. Yeah, apparently he gives out economic advice. What do you think the chances hare that he has gold interests?  The current gold craze is an American Tulip boom, and people who are scared now are buying high, which will bite them when the price plummets, leaving them even worse off than they are now. Of course, in the strange media landscapes I wander, gold is pushed by a huge number of advertisers. Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, all these conspiracy theorists are getting paid to push gold. Who do you think is going to come out ahead? Not the investors, that’s for sure.

But back to the primary, Michelle Bachmann, who came to prominence a few years ago when she suggested that there should be investigation into members of Congress for being un-American (at about the 9:30 mark), appalling, well, the world, won. She recently signed an anti-Sharia document (which, for some reason, went out of its way to mention that black families were more stable under slavery–?!?!?!), which takes as an object of fear the exact same thing that Anders Breivik was worried about when he went on his rampage a few weeks ago. Well, Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker looked into her beliefs as evidenced by her book recommendations and what she has said are the most influential books in her life. The reading list is scary (NPR interview with Lizza), people, and she just won Iowa. She cited Francis Schaeffer’s series, “How Should We Then Live?” (which deteriorated into screeds about how the government was dumping chemicals into the water supply) and David Noebel, whose bizarre take on the country’s history has become popular in homeschooling circles [I believe he was an advisor to the Texas school board’s history committee] , even though he penned a classic conspiracist tract that accuses the Beatles of being part of a communist plot to to exert mind-control over teens by using rhythmic beats. (It’s called, “Communism, Hypnotism, and the Beatles,” and I’ve taught it.) Brannon Howse’s Worldview Weekend republished something of Noebel’s this week: “National Association of Evangelicals Pro-Communist?” Really? She won Iowa? If she wins the whole thing, I’m Splitsville.

Oh, and Rick Perry is not inviting more level-headed people to the stage at his “The Response” prayer rally. Jonathan Kay notes that one of the invited speakers thinks that the Statue of Liberty is a Masonic/Illuminati symbol.

Conspiracy Theory of the Week:

Let’s end on a happy note: Michael Jackson announces his comeback performance. Yep.

There’s more, but that’s all I have in me.

RJB

Yep. You heard right. There are even more conspiracies this week. I thought that we were full up, that every permutation of wacky had been tried. Apparently, however, there is no fixed quota of b.s. that conspiracists are trying to fill. So we dive back in.

• It’s Genetic Farmageddon! When an article starts, “An arrogant scientific elite has divorced themselves from common sense, morality, and the rest of the human species in their quest for full spectrum scientific domination,” you know you have objective reporting. You left out them twisting their evil mustachios, Daniel. Somehow, he ends up at “super-intelligent A.I. may lead to a devastating world war that could kill billions of people.”
• I’m sorry, I meant, “Electronic Armageddon!“
• Susan Lindauer says that there are videotapes missing from the World Trade Center. As a bit of background, she was arrested for spying for the Iraqis and found mentally incompetent to contribute to her own defense. Also, if you read this, she offers no source or evidence, just a story, and then she thinks that there is something suspicious about there being no video of this. Funk dat. Oh wait, she says she has a “high level State Department source with a top security clearance.” Well, that settles it. She was also found to have classic delusions of grandeur, I believe, by her defense team.
• A little 9/11 analysis. “11 Reasons Why The 9/11 Fable is So Popular.” On their list: 1) “The bigness of the lie” followed by immediate self-Godwining, 2) “Mythical archetype of Osama Bin Laden and Islamic terrorists,” 3) “Most people are children who are easily controlled by fear,” 4) “Peer pressure, and the fear of mockery and ridicule” (it’s true, if you don’t want to be mocked, don’t become a Truther), 5) makes no sense, 6) the “financial- terrorism- media- military- industrial- Zionist- congressional complex” (their term, not mine), 7) “Mass social, cultural, and political brainwashing,” 8) “A lack of knowledge of history,” 9) “A lack of skepticism, curiosity and a sense of wonder,” 10) “A lack of humility to admit ignorance” (AHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA! ahem. AAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!), 11) “The 9/11 lie is sacred.” There you have it. The worst analysis of anything ever. Notice, “we might, just possibly, be wrong” doesn’t occur to them. Also, I’m rather annoyed that their title does not use the word fable correctly, but that’s the English major in me, played in my fable by a knowledgeable, avuncular owl.
• Is the above “financial- terrorism- media- military- industrial- Zionist- congressional complex” related to Mike Adams’ “Chemical- agra- medical- pharma industrial complex business“?
• An interesting pairing provided by FederalJack, who I endorse for the entertainment value. First, “It’s Official, We Live in a Police State.” Less than an hour later: “Federal officials are circulating to all 18,000 U.S. law enforcement agencies a… civil rights video??!!” Nice f’ing police state. Here’s officer Lyons, the face of totalitarianism:

• Here’s another FederalJack screamer: “Who Are The Bankers That Benefit From The Norway Terror Attacks?” It’s like analysis, but without competency or reason.
• Are UFOs possibly video projections? Alex Jones thinks they might be.
• Korean pop star’s reputation ruined by conspiracy theory. No, not because he harbored one.
• I do not think that word means what you think it means: scapegoat.
• “High-ranking” people you have never heard of rent out space at National Press Club to prattle on about UFOs.
• A nice little essay about conspiracy theories and how they help the Arab world hurt itself.
• Andrew Rosenkranz discusses the increase of white supremacism in Florida. Also, he’s concerned that he keeps tossing “heads.”

• Sam Blumenfield examines “ The Hegelian Statist Virus in the Republican Party”.
• Fag judges may be fag-enabling fags. From the ever-delightful couple Charlie “Butts” and “Peter” LaBarbera.
• Let’s give Vigilant Citizen a shout out, eh wot? Be careful, fellas. That first model is actually a man.
• Moon base or volcano? You decide. Your answer will depend on whether or not you are already on the moon, however.
• Is Jewish Ex-Congressman Weiner’s Devout Muslim Wife, Working For Hillary Clinton, A Spy? This author is a horrid person. This is evidencelessness embodied. Just guilt by racist association, a new type of logical fallacy.
• Is someone at Above Top Secret actually thinking about inner-Earth-dwelling UFOs? Be still, my beating heart.
• I’ll let you decipher this: “Hoagland weaves together an intense eye-opener which connects Comet Elenin with September 11, the original masonic message, the bombing in Norway and the secret space program.”
• Here’s a bit of uncritical thinking: “Only a domestic terror attack can rescue Brand Obama.” How about growing a ball? That might help.
• Here’s one that was popular in the deliberately-misrepresent-o-sphere this week. My Pet Goat aficionado George W. Bush basically admitted that he was deliberately slow to move on 9/11, basically allowing it to happen on purpose, in order to not freak out a bunch of kids. I hate conspiracy theorists who make me defend Bush. Lots.
• New World Order’s favorite band? Megadeath.
• NaturalNews is positively soiling itself over what I will dub murder-weeds.
• Here’s a new one. They are no longer conspiracy theorists. They are “disinformation specialists.” Boy, do they ever not have irony.
• A UFO at the bottom of the Baltic Sea?
• The ADL on Sovereign Citizens, who actually scare me.
• This is interesting. The title is “Tea Party Pawns of the Illuminati,” but only a minority of people who read Before It’s News and vote on the veracity of the story think that’s a fact. I’m not going to say it’s because they are reasonable, but because a lot of them probably like the Tea Party. The funny thing about this is that Dick Armey, former House leader, if I remember correctly, helped fund the Tea Party through FreedomWorks. If you think that the Republicans are in the thrall of the Illuminati, why would you assume that the Tea Party wasn’t? I merely ask.
• Are UFOs controlling our ICBMs? Robert Hastings thinks so. Hear him not laughed out of a conversation:

• KXAS, a television station in Texas, captures a bug on camera, calls in UFO investigatiors. Why do they not call IIG? We look at this sort of thing all of the time! Decide for yourself:

• Here’s a survey of blurry globs of light in the sky. Or just aliens..I’m sorry. “Star Travelers.”
• Here’s a ripe little slice of hell: Alex Jones interviews Lydon LaRouche.
• UFO blogger reposts “History” channel documentary, “UFOs and the Old West,” or, Firefly.

Norway:

• That Norwegian nut Breivik expresses similar fears to those in the American anti-Sharia movement.
• Chip Berlet et al. on the far-right meme of “cultural Marxism,” which Breivik feared.
• On the Media found someone who actually read the 1500-word manifesto. Fascinating, and a must-read (ok, listen) analysis.
• Breivik covered in Iran: “Rothschild historian shares Anders Breivik’s Bat(ty) Zionist ideas about Muslims.” Yes, the site’s registered in Tehran.
• Zen Gardner sees a false flag operation. He never doesn’t.
• Michael Barkun, whose A Culture of Conspiracy is required reading in my classes, talked about the “Cultural Marxism” angle of the attacks and their real counterparts in America.

I figure a Michael Barkun reference is a good note to end on. It’s back into the trenches. Toodle-pip!

RJB

It’s been another busy week in the wackosphere. We’re also reminded that the racism and fear that lies behind our tendency to demonize people who are not like us can kill. A lot is coming in from Norway still, but it seems clear that the guy who went on a rampage is speaking the language of the conspiracist. This is why this is important. More about Oslo below, but trust me, I’d rather be making snarky remarks about people who think Amy Winehouse is still alive or was murdered or has been dead for months….

• Above Top Secret filed a story about genetic engineering under “cryptozoology.” No, this is science, nothing new… and read a book fercrissakes.
• UN peacekeepers may change their helmets from blue to green, apparently to enforce the new global envirofascism. GAH! How is global warming a conspiracy? I mean, really, who’s supposed to benefit? Jeesh!
• Personally, I think there was a second pie thrower.
• “10 Reasons Why America is a Failed Terrorist State.”
• Wow. This post, comparing the movie Deep Impact to the apparent incoming apocalypse by Comet Elgin, is a textbook study in confirmation bias.
• I saw it on twitter, so it must be true.
• “Egyptian Archaeologist Admits That Pyramids May Contain Alien Technology.” To be fair, they never said he was a good archaeologist.
• Is Facebook the Pied Piper of the “Technological Control Grid“? Alex Jones uses the word “grid” in a way that is not a way. Also, “matrix.”
• For all of Federal Jack’s fear of a false flag attack on the highly symbolic day of 11 Sept 2011, they never let us know how to distinguish a real attack from a false flag attack. As far as I can tell, they look exactly the same.
• So, Wachovia is planning to overthrow the Mexican government? OK, not exactly, but it would have been a snappy conspiracy theory.
• Cowboys and Aliens writer/producer Roberto Orci comes out of the cuckoo clock at ComicCon, claiming that there is a government conspiracy to hide evidence of aliens.
• Jesse Ventura claims we’re living in a fascist country now, proving once and for all that this privileged git has no idea what fascism is.
• How about something uplifting? Here’s “The Satanic Face of Walt Disney”:

OSLO

My take on the Oslo massacre? The suspect’s rant, “2803: A European Declaration of Independence” (warning: huge pdf) is long. Like 1,500 pages long, and I’ve only been able to get a sense of the sweep of the conspiracy theory overall. Honestly, right now I’m working on another project and can’t quite dig too deeply into the conspiracy. But the tropes of national infiltration and media/government complicity are common in just about every perceived global conspiracy. The one thing that stuck out to me was his fear of “cultural Marxism,” is not foreign to American conspiracy theories. When you google that term, whatever it is supposed to mean (usually, “being more liberal than me”), you get Joseph Farah’s WorldNetDaily (home of the birth certificate conspiracy). You get Brannon Howse from Worldview Weekend. And these conspiracy theories get people killed. The most dismaying thing is the number of people who just don’t get it, even when they are horrified by such a massacre, people who say, “What a nightmare, but you do have to worry about the cultural Marxists.” And this is why we will certainly see this type of slaughter again.

Certain conspiracists think that the comparisons of Breivik to Timothy McVeigh are part of the government’s plan to sculpt a narrative. They are, based on my reading of sections of Breivik’s manifesto, extremely apt comparisons. Take, for instance, the sections detailing how someone should go about hiding weapons and carrying out guerilla warfare against the state. There was a section on preparing and burying weapons for later use that could have been lifted from The Turner Diaries, a book (really, violent porn for racists) that was apparently in McVeigh’s car when he was arrested, and which has a scene in which a government building (in the Turner Diaries, it is the FBI HQ) is destroyed by a truck bomb. Oh, and there is that whole truck bomb element in Oslo. This is not a random attack, but one which is (within limits) predictable and which you can anticipate by immersing yourself in…the type of stuff that I have had to read lately.

My copy of The Turner Diaries, by the way, has a blurb by Tim McVeigh on it. How’s that for a ripe little slice of publishing hell? And you wonder why I’m grumpy all the time.

So, let’s get dirty.

• Talk2Action is a great place to start, and Chip Berlet does an excellent job filling in the cultural and historical background of the type of conspiracism that Breivik was acting on. This link is a portal to a number of good articles about related topics.
• Jonathan Kay is monitoring the conspiracy theories that are popping up around the Oslo massacre.
• Though Cowards Flinch is also monitoring the conspiracy theories as they tumble out onto the web.
• “Lone Nut, T Party, Freemason, Cop, Terrorist” Kills Liberal Children. Of course, it’s all about you, Jack Blood.
• White people can be terrorists too, Alex. And your correspondent seems to mistake “white” for “middle class.”
• I have not seen the claim confirmed that the police knew the shooter’s name before they got to the island, but even if that is so, so what? Since the initial question seems to come from a new anchor, I think we have the “9/11 effect”, quoting people on the day of the event who have no freaking clue what is going on. But we’ll see.
• We’re not going to do this second shooter for this one too, are we? Apparently we are. Notice how there is not a reference to a single person who SAW two shooters. We merely have inconsistent descriptions of a single person, which are par for the course for eyewitness testimony. So, Tarpley, is it because of Wikileaks? Is it because of Norway’s position on NATO? Or does it really not matter? Looking away from the real motivation ensures that you will completely useless when it comes to combating the problem. Thanks for playing. (With thanks to Raymond Wiley.)
• Alex Jones’s people have been trying to link the shooting to Mossad. Because they are motivated, racist barfs. Take: “Wayne Madsen: Link Between Breivik and Israeli Mossad.” Mardsen also penned: “After Oslo: Time to Crack Down on Mossad Terrorism.”
• But enough of that. Time to bring on the class. Glenn Beck compares the dead children to the Hitlerjugend. From the Telegraph. You’ll notice at the end how Beck’s 9/12 camps teach children as young as 8.
• Now, you too, with google on your side, can pull timelines out of your ear and tart them up with lots of seeming references. You’re a real detective doing important things, and you don’t even have to get off your heinder!
• From The Guardian, I encounter the term “Eurabia” for the first time, a supposed deal to hand over European sovereignty to Muslims. It reminds me of the goofy Mexican “reconquista” or UN colonization of the US or the truly gratuitous attempts to ban sharia in Kansas.

That’s all I can stomach this week. No conspiracy theory of the week. It’s just not that type of week.

RJB