There Is No Santa Claus

A year or so ago my nephew asked his mother if there was a Santa Claus. As the youngster was approaching the age where it is inappropriate to maintain the magic, she broached the subject carefully. Did it really matter to him if there was no Santa Claus? She got a very heated, "Yes it does matter!" in response, and decided that perhaps it was not yet time to let him know the truth.

David Aaronovitch can sympathize:

The author and 9/11 conspiracist, Ian Henshall, announced his departure from the big truther's bash on Monday evening, by thrusting his bald head into my face, twice calling me a "f---g scumbag" and then flapping off into the wet night. It was a typically careless exit.

We had both been part of an audience at the Royal Institute of British Architects for Richard Gage, who is the American front-man for "Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth".

Moron Henshall:

Henshall's book, restating much of this, came to the attention of Mr Martin Webster. In 2009, Webster wrote to Henshall expressing his interest. Henshall, knowing what younger readers may not - that Martin Webster is an unrepentant and briefly famous neo-Nazi - explained why he was not keen to foster that interest. "The main attack on the 911 Truth movement is that we are 'holocaust deniers' ie antisemitic," wrote Henshall, "and it is amazing to note the key media people who have attacked us are Johann Hari, Nick Cohen, David Aaronovitch, George Monbiot, Mathew Rothschild."

He went on: "Although I am always keen to sell my book I think it would be bad tactics to be linked to your networks, because it would give these people more ammunition."

No surprise, Henshall doesn't want to be linked to a neo-Nazi, not because he finds the man odious, but because it would be used against him.

BTW, Gage's appearance at the Royal Institute of British Architects backfired a bit with a terrific article appearing in a UK buildings magazine:

But critics claim his scholarly approach is nothing more than a cover for a “bonkers” conspiracy theory which ultimately points the finger at the US government and allies including the state of Israel.

Director of the American Institute of Architects’ New York chapter Rick Bell, who witnessed 9/11, expressed surprise at the event and said “no amount of money” would persuade him to allow the group to talk at his headquarters.

“The professional community discredits this guy,” he said. “We rent to just about anybody but if this guy came to me I’d say we don’t want your money, we don’t want you in our building.

“You have to draw the line somewhere… Not for any amount of money would we have that talk in our space. It gives it a credibility that it doesn’t deserve.”

KPF chairman Gene Kohn, who was the AIA’s spokesman in the aftermath of the attacks, called Gage’s theories “ridiculous”.

Hat Tip on the Aaronovitch article: Angrysoba in the comments.

Alex Jones Loses it on the BBC

For an all Alex Jones nuttiness weekend, Alex is on the BBC with David Aaronovitch, author of Voodoo Histories. For the entertaining part you can just skip to the last couple of minutes.

The New Fascism

Nick Cohen of the (UK) Guardian:

Yet for all his roots in neo-Nazism, von Brunn was also a transitional figure who typified a wider range of forces than I can adequately squeeze into the "far right" label. He was an enthusiastic "truther", who went on the net to deny that the al-Qaida attacks on New York and Washington had surprised the conspirators in power who secretly controlled America. He hated Bill O'Reilly of Fox News and neocons as much as the New York Times and Obama. "It doesn't matter that you despise Jews-neocons-Bill O'Reilly," he declared in one of his incoherent internet postings. "You pay the kosher tax - or else you don't eat."

As he points out, the far left and the far right are meeting (and greeting) each other, espousing a new kind of fascism for the 21st century:

In Voodoo Histories, his elegant evisceration of the paranoid mentality, David Aaronovitch points out that former fascists and communists, secular Ba'athists, radical Islamists, Russian nationalists and America firsters - people who would never have worked together in the past, and who indeed killed each other in the past - are fusing ideas and creating a new ideology. Their politics, he writes, is "a loose coalescence of impulses: anti-globalisation, broadly anti-modernist and anti-imperialist - with imperialism being inevitably and solely associated with American power".

I think that's right on the money, which is one reason why I have rejected the idea that Troofers are solely creatures of the far left. Dylan Avery may be a traditional liberal, but Jason Bermas and Alex Jones and Luke Rudkowski plainly are not.

Hat Tip: Patrick from Cincinnati (in the comments).

Conspiracy Theories: History for Losers

Great article by David Aaronovitch:

These cyber-driven days, each new U.S. president has attracted theories of his own, assiduously spread mostly by partisans of the other side. So the saturnine Bill Clinton murdered Vince Foster and a whole lot of men in Arkansas (we won't discuss what he did with the women of Arkansas), the infernal George W. Bush brought down the twin towers, and the foreign Barack Obama isn't an American at all, and has plotted to cover it up. Interestingly out-of-power Democrats are far more likely to believe the theories about in-power Republicans, and powerless Republicans far more likely to believe them about powerful Democrats. One aspect of conspiracy theories is that they are history for losers.

Note particularly this paragraph on the features of conspiracy theories:

These include an appeal to precedent, self-heroization, contempt for the benighted masses, a claim to be only asking "disturbing questions," invariably exaggerating the status and expertise of supporters, the use of apparently scholarly ways of laying out arguments (or "death by footnote"), the appropriation of imagined Secret Service jargon, circularity in logic, hydra-headedness in growing new arguments as soon as old ones are chopped off, and, finally, the exciting suggestion of persecution. These characteristics help them to convince intelligent people of deeply unintelligent things.

Appeal to precedent? Loose Change II and AAC each started out with mentions of supposed precedents in Operation Northwoods and the Reichstag Fire. Self-heroization? Yep, the "Truthers" are the real heroes of 9-11. Contempt for the benighted masses? Sheeple. JAQing off? Yep. Exaggerating the status and expertise of supporters? Donald Meserlian, the forensic engineer who turned out to be a swimming pool engineer? Or Karl "nanotubes" Schwarz? Scholarly BS? JONES, anyone? Imagined jargon? Pull it. Etc.

UK Times Covers 9/11, 7/7 "Truthers"

In an excerpt from a new book, Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History by David Aaronovitch.

There were either no hijackers or the ones on board were patsies, and two of the planes were guided remotely into the World Trade Centre. What brought the towers down, however was a “controlled demolition” using explosives planted there at some earlier time. The same devices also brought down the structure called World Trade Centre 7, though no plane flew into that building. The Pentagon was not hit by an airliner but by a guided missile. The fourth airliner, United 93, possibly heading for the capital, was either shot down because the passengers threatened to land it successfully thus exposing the plot, or else it was never found. Various ruses, including faked mobile phone calls and fraudulent claims of such calls were used to disguise the true nature of the crime.

Of course, the "responsible" wing of the "Truthers" is up in arms over that characterization of their movement.

Only a few paragraphs in and he's using the classic disinfo technique of discrediting by association.

The Pentagon was not hit by an airliner but by a guided missile. Various ruses, including faked mobile phone calls and fraudulent claims of such calls were used to disguise the true nature of the crime.

He almost gives himself some excuse with "different people in the Truth movement might agree or disagree with various parts of it." but at the end of that same paragraph, he re-iterates the supposedly mysterious disappearance of Flight 77.

Except of course that the movement's high priest, David Ray Griffin does indeed believe that Flight 77 didn't hit the Pentagon, and frequently claims that the phone calls were faked. Just last week:



Arcterus also gripes that the article is not up to date on the latest Loose Change theory on Flight 93, which he claims is the more sensible "shoot down" theory rather than the famed Cleveland Airport Mystery.

Voodoo Histories

I just ordered a bunch of books from Amazon, I am going to have to add Voodoo Histories by David Aaronovitch to my order. The author gives a bit of a preview to it in Salon.

What, in your opinion, is the most implausible conspiracy theory to gain wide acceptance?

I think 9/11 is the most baroque. I can’t tell you what it feels like to see videos on YouTube of David Ray Griffin addressing people about it — one of America’s leading theologians expressing with absolute certainty the existence of a conspiracy so ludicrous it takes your breath away.

Voodoo Histories

I picked up a copy of David Aaronovitch's Voodoo Histories, and skipped to the 9/11 section. While much of it is pretty good, I am a bit annoyed by the fact that the author references work by myself and other 9/11 debunkers on the Internet, but never actually credits us. In fact much of one section, including the title "The Structural Engineers with a Special Place in Hell" is taken from this blog.

He concludes the chapter with:

Depite the ambivalence, the website for the Scholars gave evidence of something approaching hyperactivity, as its leading members addressed meetings, wrote articles, did interviews, attended symposia, and organized conferences. But who, exactly, were they? What were they scholars of? A researcher following up on the names discovered that, as of late 2006, out of seventy-six named Scholars for Truth there were no Middle Eastern experts and only two engineers, one of whom thought the United States was plotting to bomb the planet Jupiter with antimatter weapons while the other devoted himself [sic] to studying the mechanics of dentistry. Nine (the largest number) were philosophers, five were English experts, five were psychologists, five were physicists, and four were theologians.

So who exactly is this unnamed researcher? Well from a May 25th, 2006 post of mine titled Who are the Scholars for 9/11 Truth? :

Out of the 76 "experts" the most common academic discipline was philosophy, with 9 members, including a co-founder. Since 7 members did not even list an academic discipline, this was 1/7 of their credentialed membership. English/literature and psychology came in next with 5 members each. Even theology and "humanities" came in with 4 and 3 members respectively. Among actual scientific fields, physics was way in front, with 5 members, including the aforementioned Dr. Jones. I am not sure as to their academic credentials though, at least one of the "physicists", Jeffrey Farrer, isn't even a professor, he is a lab manager at BYU. One has to wonder whether Steven Jones' janitor is also listed as an associate member?

So how many engineers do they have? Out of the 76, a grand total of 2. Jean-Pierre Petit, a French aeronautical engineer, who despite the obvious handicap of being French actually seems to have a relevant qualification. Curiously enough though, he doesn't seem to have written a single word on 9/11. He has written though, on a mysterious plot by the US military to bomb Jupiter with anti-matter weapons!

The second engineer is Judy Wood, who has been mentioned in the comments here for her bizarre billiard ball from the top of the World Trade Center theory. OK, Ms. Wood is an actual Mechanical Engineer at Clemson, but thus far her work has been primarily focused on the stresses of dentistry. A fascinating field no doubt, but hardly relevant to planes crashing into buildings.

So how many structural engineers are listed? Absolutely zero. How many experts in Middle Eastern studies, or the Arabic language? Also zero. But they do have a professor of social work!

Yes, I know in general journalists and researchers (truthers aside) are reluctant to cite blog posts in academic writing, but given that entire sections are based on our work, could you show a little love here?