How Exactly Did We Get Involved in This?

Some Canadian has made a series of bizarre videos interviewing Jonathan Kay on his recent Among the Truthers book. This in and of itself is not remarkable, although Kay seems amazingly calm sitting there listening to this idiot, but the part that really cracked me up is the video mentions us, not once, but twice, even though we never came up in the actual interview, including a caption reading, "Screw Loose Change!... Are you for real?"

We must be doing something right if the nutters are seeing us in their sleep.

The Truther Girls

Hey, I have been following the Truthers for years, and I have never had some freaky woman dedicate an entire YouTube video to me. OK, this may be a good thing, but I am still oddly jealous... Don't miss the singing at the end.

Among the Truthers: The Review

We have been talking about Jonathan Kay's new book Among the Truthers for some time now, but I have finally had the time to read it all. That doesn't stop the Truthers from reviewing it of course, all of whom have universally denounced it mostly without showing any indication that they actually read it.

Now I will be the first to admit that I am biased, since I was interviewed for the book, as well as quoted in it, and the book cites us as one of the major debunking resources, but then again I can also say that I know quite a bit about the subject.

Now first of all, what is this book about? As Truthers are pointing out, it is not a debunking book. They of course claim that Kay refuses to look at the evidence, while if you read the book Kay makes clear that he did look at the evidence, but found it wanting. Kay explains rather, that 1. he really didn't have much new to add to the debunking argument (he cites several books and Internet sites, including this one, as resources for this), and 2. his editor didn't think that there was a market for such a book, because the Truthers would not believe anything he put and everyone else didn't need to be told. I agree to a certain extent, although we have done a lot of debunking over the last 5 years, I have gotten to the point where about all I discuss is the psychology of this movement, because really, is much really added by our pointing out for the 15th time that the hijackers actually were on the flight manifests?

So Kay gets mainly into the composition of the Truthers and other similar conspiracy theorists and asks why they believe what they do. In this he does a pretty good job. The Truthers of course condemn him for ad hominem attacks, but in reality, he is actually rather kind to them, much kinder than I would be, although he obviously does not agree with their viewpoint. Despite this though he does primarily depict them as earnest and intelligent people, who just, for various reasons come to the wrong conclusions. Kay obviously did his research and quotes from interviews from various prominent characters in the Truther movement, and does provide some insight which a mere blogger cannot. His depictions of Michael Ruppert, Richard Gage and Steven Jones especially are among the most interesting.

The weakest part of the book, however, is the last section where he discusses the role of academics and then how we should address conspiracy theories in the educational system. It just seemed rather tacked on and not tightly connected to the rest. On the whole though, if you are interested in conspiracy theorists as a social phenomenon, and if you are reading this blog I assume you are, then it is a book well worth reading.

Like a Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone magazine has an entire section on conspiracy theories this month, mostly based on the recent Jonathan Kay book Among the Truthers, including both an interview with the author and a breakdown of the types of conspiracy theorists he identified. I will be posting a review of the book as soon as I get a chance to read it. I was amused though to find my name in the index, right under "Benedict XVI, Pope". Conspiracy, or just an alphabetical thing?

Kay On Gage

A brief extract from Among the Truthers:

Gage will admit that he’s paid a price. Friends who failed to embrace his missionary zeal have drifted away. So has his wife, who he said had difficulty accepting his “dark” vision. Gage now lives by himself in a home office near Berkeley, paying his bills with the modest amounts he earns through donations. Yet when Gage discusses all this, he seems curiously upbeat—almost euphoric—like a Benedictine monk who’s happily renounced the material encumbrances of secular life. Although he doesn’t talk much about his world before 9/11 Truth, he clearly remembers it as empty and unsatisfying.

“I would rather die speaking the truth than live in a police state, which is what 9/11 set the groundwork for,” he tells me in a final, slightly manic flourish. “I can’t have my son—or grandchildren—ask me, ‘What did you do to stop it?’—and I say, ‘I tried to talk to some architects but they wouldn’t listen.’

As a reminder, those "modest amounts" equaled $75,000 in 2009; I'm still waiting for Guidestar to post the 2010 figures.

The part that I still have difficulty believing is this:

But Gage arrived in a calm, friendly mood. After buying himself a soy latte, he sat with me on a bench outside the café for two hours, patiently describing his transformation from workaday commercial architect to 9/11 Truth evangelist. It was in March 2006 that his life changed, Gage tells me. He was in his car just after lunch, fighting traffic en route to a construction meeting. Bored, he flipped on KPFA 94.1 FM, a listener-supported station out of Berkeley—“to hear what the communists were talking about.”

Up to that point in life, Gage recalls, he’d been just your average workaday architect, with a wife, child, and a strong Republican voting record. “I believed strongly in America,” he tells me. “I believed everything was okay. When Colin Powell was giving his Iraq evidence at the United Nations [in March 2003], I was cheering him on. I wanted us to go to war in Iraq. I wanted to find the WMD. I was completely on board. I was the poster child for George W. Bush’s foreign policy.”

It's certainly not unheard of for people to listen to the other side on the radio; I used to listen to Air America. What is unusual is this:

The voice he heard on KPFA’s airwaves belonged to David Ray Griffin, a retired Claremont School of Theology professor who’s since become a full-time 9/11 Truth activist. “Griffin was logical and methodical—almost grandfatherly,” Gage remembers. “He was talking about the 118 [World Trade Center] first-responders—information that had just come out in 2005—who said they’d heard explosions and flashes of light, beams dripping with molten metal, all amid the collapse of 80,000 tons of structural steel. It hit me like a two-by-four. How come I’d never heard of any of this? I was shocked. I had to pull my car off the road to absorb it all. I knew I’d be late for the meeting. But I didn’t care.”

Most liberals, if they listened to Rush Limbaugh, would not be pulling off the road to absorb it all and saying, "You know, he's right!" Ditto with conservatives taking in Ed Schultz.

And when Gage recently hired a publicist for his group, whom did he choose? Ilene Proctor, who bills herself as "The Public Relations Princess of the Political Left".

Kay vs Gage, Zarembka and Zwicker

Journalist Jonathan Kay is on Canadian radio discussing his new book with Richard Gage, Paul Zarembka and Barry Zwicker. Not much came out of it, but it is amusing how polite Kay tries to act towards them, to which they respond with absolute contempt and attack his book constantly for even the smallest perceived transgression, rather ironic for a movement known for its loose intellectual standards.

Time to Make Fun of Richard Gage Again

One of my most entertaining moments writing for this blog came when Alex Jones, who was interviewing Richard Gage for his radio show, attacked debunkers for making fun of the fact that Gage split up with his wife over his truther activities. A fact that we didn't know until he announced it live on the radio.

As we have discussed before, much of the allure of the conspiracy theory lifestyle is that one minute you can be a non-descript employee stuck in suburban cubicle hell, the next minute a brave freedom fighter striking out against the New World Order while being adoringly fawned over by other suburban warriors. Jonathan Kay, in a short preview of his upcoming book, amusingly touches on this sad phenomenon in the Washington Post.

There’s no polite way to say this: Many conspiracy theorists I met were paunchy 40- and 50-something men facing disappointment in their personal lives. In interviews, it seemed clear that they were struggling with midlife crises and trying to reinvent themselves for a new audience.

Consider Sept. 11 conspiracy theorist Richard Gage, an architect who abandoned his business to roam the world preaching the notion that “controlled demolition” brought down the twin towers. “I’ve never been happier,” he told me in 2009. “I feel blessed, in fact. This is my destiny, my mission. I’ve lost my career. I’ve lost my marriage. I’ve lost my house. But I’m working with patriots, spreading the truth about what’s happened to their country. What more could I ask?”

How America became the land of Truthers, Triggers, Birthers, and Dan Brown fans

Slate previews Jonathan Kay's upcoming book Among the Truthers. Looking forward to reading it.

It's a familiar rationale for conspiracy theorists: They investigate as much in sorrow as in anger. They are always just one confession away from the truth. This kind of logic is much more understandable, if no more sensible, after reading Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground, a smart and serious new book by Canadian journalist Jonathan Kay. His book shows why Americans are becoming so willing to believe lurid fantasies about the government or politicians they don't like or vaccines or the theory that the federal government was behind the attacks of 9/11 (these believers are the "truthers" of his title). And you realize that the world of conspiracies is only going to get larger.

There are basically two reasons for this, and they're entwined. The media, as Kay points out, is more fragmented than ever. Information is easier to come across, and bogus information has a way of jumping to the top of Google's search pages. That fragmentation is happening at a time of intense partisan anger and economic angst.

Taxpayer Funded Truthers?

OK, well I am not a Canadian citizen, but I don't think they are anymore happy about subsidizing Truther "research" than I would be. From Jonathan Kay:

As I can report from my personal encounters with Hall at 9/11 Truth events in Montreal and Walkerton, Ont., the man is very passionate about his Trutherdom. But as long as he keeps it out of the classroom, he’s free to believe in whatever conspiracy theories he likes.

Unfortunately, Hall seems to be using his post at Lethbridge as a training ground for 9/11 Trutherdom. His star pupil in this regard is British graduate student Joshua Blakeney, who can be seen in this 2009 video harassing a female CBC reporter with his dark theories about the CBC’s failure to investigate the 9/11 “cover-up.” Blakeney also wrote this charming article expressing delight that author Christopher Hitchens had been sickened with cancer.

On Wednesday afternoon, Hall proudly announced that the University of Lethbridge has awarded Blakeney a $7,714 Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship to pursue his research. (The scholarship is listed as being funded through the “ongoing financial commitment of the Province of Alberta.”) Blakeney’s first $3,857 cheque will be available for pick-up on Dec. 1.

The Strange World of Diana Ralph

We have mentioned Diana Ralph on a couple of occasions, she was a member of the editorial board of Steven Jones' Journal of 9/11 Studies, and has written a bit on conspiracy theories. Mostly I was just wondering what exactly it is that a PhD in Social Work does anyway. Now Jonathan Kay, the Canadian journalist who is actively researching a book on the truthers, does some more investigating into her strange views.

But it gets worse when we find out more about Diana Ralph. She is the IJV co-founder, co-chairwoman and "coordinator" who boasts of having personally solicited the "generous donation" from the United Church.

Did the UCC do their due diligence on Ms. Ralph and her group before they forked over the cash?

Let's take a look.In an essay that this IJV honcho contributed to the 2006 book The Hidden History of 9-11, Ms. Ralph argues that the Sept. 11 attacks were not perpetrated by al-Qaeda, but rather by American and Israeli conservatives seeking to implement "a secret, strategic plan to position the U.S. as a permanent unilateral super-power poised to seize control of Eurasia, and thereby the entire world."

And who created the master plan for all this? Zionists plotting on Israeli soil. "The concept of a 'war on terror' pre-dates 9-11 by 22 years," Ms. Ralph writes in her exposé. "Its seeds were first planted in 1979 at the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism (JCIT) organized by Bejamin Netanyahu (future Israeli Prime Minister). [Subsequent Israeli actions] hauntingly foreshadowed the 9-11 'attacks' and the Bush 'war on terror.' "

Kevin Barrett Calls Us a "Gossip Column"

Kevin Barrett interviews journalist Jonathan Kay, who is writing a book on the truther movement, and the subject of this blog comes up. I am not offended, God knows I have called Barrett worse than that, but I found this characterization amusing. From 12 minutes in.

Kay: In terms of resources that a counter-truther would find useful. There are lots of websites. There are 2 websites, one is called 911 Myths, the other is called Screw Loose Change I think.

Barrett: Right, Screw Loose Change is just a gossip column. It has never made any attempts to present any coherent argument. It is just a gossip column.

For good measure Barrett repeats this description later in the show.

That is not at all true, I gave up covering the Brangelina story weeks ago...