Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shapi

[Rockclimber]

Yet another know-it-all khazar zionist :roll:  Most likely another damage control book...

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 197929.ece

Voodoo Histories by David Aaronovitch

The Sunday Times review by Christopher Hart

May 3, 2009

In his introduction to this forensically intelligent and hugely enjoyable study of modern conspiracy theories, David Aaronovitch quotes the great British historian, Lewis Namier. "The crowning attainment of historical study is a historical sense — an intuitive understanding of how things do not happen." It is precisely that sense that conspiracy theorists lack. Instead they have a kind of facile, adolescent knowingness, resembling nothing like proper, ordered knowledge, let alone the kind of instinctive wisdom Namier commended.

Typical of their type is a group of 76 mavericks calling themselves the Scholars for Truth, who, since 9/11, have argued that the destruction of the World Trade Center was nothing to do with Islam, but an American government plot. The 76 soi-disant scholars include not a single Middle-East expert, but instead an engineer who believes America is plotting to bomb Jupiter with antimatter weapons, and another who is an authority on the mechanics of dentistry. Their theories and pronouncements have been widely disseminated, and admired, on the internet, which is, of course, the conspiracy theorists' natural habitat: a vast maelstrom of mis­information, the cyber-equivalent of that huge floating gyre of rubbish in the Pacific.

Aaronovitch begins his survey at the start of the 20th century, with a consideration of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a wildly anti-semitic Russian forgery of 1903, intended to prove that the Jews were plotting world domination. It might have helped to have had some overview of conspiracy theories in the pre-modern age. Didn't the Victorians believe in wild rumours, too? If not, why not? And surely during the Middle Ages large populations were regularly swept by lunatic suspicions and beliefs.

They're still keen on the long-since discredited Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Middle East. Hamas alludes to it regularly in its official Covenant, which also blames Zionists for the French revolution and the First World War. The latter was fought "to wipe out the Islamic Caliphate". This is a perfect ­example of the frequent vanity inherent in conspiracy-think. It enables the jihadists of Hamas to put themselves at the centre, to say, "The first world war? It was all about us."

Aaronovitch guides us through the Zinoviev letter, another forgery, this time supposed to show that communists were plotting to take over Britain in 1924; the loonier theories about Pearl Harbor and how Roosevelt knew about it in advance, or even caused it to happen; and inevitably, the Niagara of dotty speculation about the assassination of JFK. Each example, soberly examined, demonstrates the superiority of cock-up theory over conspiracy.

He also reminds us of Ockham's famous razor: Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate, or, roughly translated, "the simplest explanation is usually the best". The reason Princess Diana died was because her driver was drunk, driving too fast, and she wasn't wearing a seatbelt. All we are left with is a chain of bad luck — melancholy and meaningless. Precisely the reason, suggests Aaronovitch, so many reckon there was a cover-up. At least that would introduce human control, albeit malign. The paparazzi also had a role in her death, and by extension, those who buy the trashy magazines that buy the paparazzi's photographs. Conspiracy theory, says Aaronovitch astutely, is a way of "reclaiming power and disclaiming responsibility".

His demolition job in the chapter Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Holy Shit is particularly muscular and enjoyable. The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was the bestselling 1982 pseudo-history of Christianity that partly inspired Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. At its heart was the supposedly fabulous wealth of Bérenger Saunière, a humble French country priest. The real reason for his wealth was hilariously banal. He made money by selling masses, "taking payment in the form of postal orders". He did not have access to the lost treasure of the Knights Templar, blackmail the Catholic Church with the truth about Jesus, or anything else. Like The Da Vinci Code, a lot of conspiracy theory is just plain juvenile.

9/11 was another field day for the lunatic fringe. Some argued that a Boeing 757 couldn't have gone through a hole just 20ft wide in the Pentagon walls. But it didn't, it went through a hole 90ft wide, with the wings shaved off on impact. David Shayler, the ubiquitous and discredited former MI5 employee, reckons the twin towers were hit by "missiles surrounded by holograms made to look like planes". Ockham's razor urgently needed here. They looked like planes, they flew like planes, they crashed like planes: they were planes.

One of the most salutary lessons of Watergate, Aaronovitch says, is that Richard Nixon, "the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, could not even manage to get a few incriminating tapes wiped clean". The idea that America could have faked the moon landings is preposterous. But some people still believe it, because it makes them feel superior to the common herd, and it belittles America.

Voodoo Histories is, however, much more than a prolonged sneer at human folly, ignoble fun though that always is. It is also a serious inquiry into why conspiracy theories appeal, and Aaronovitch's theories are consistently reasonable, persuasive and humane. The complexity of our society is clearly a factor, and the frigid non-humanity of so many of our transactions. Real connections are few and far between, so some ­people start to invent their own.

Conspiracy theories may be psychologically necessary, suggests Aaronovitch. Like certain types of drug addiction, such beliefs may be the self-medication to salve a deep-er disorder: the desperate sense that nothing means anything any more. He describes conspiracy theories as "history for losers", with pity rather than scorn. They appeal most strongly to those "left behind by modernity" (such as the Palestinians), and for the user, they are "reassuring". Their inherent paranoia is a psychological sticking plaster to "disguise the truly obliterating disaster, the often well-founded fear that nobody is thinking about them at all".

Voodoo History leaves you speechless with laughter at the idea that some people really do believe that "Robert Kennedy had a poisoned suppository inserted into Marilyn Monroe before being assassinated by a Manchurian Candidate". But it also leaves with you with the pathetic image of the solitary male and his computer, the technology both the cause of his isolation and the outlet for his resultant delusions.

[Chargeemquick]

"All we are left with is a chain of bad luck — melancholy and meaningless."

You journalistic whore.


"9/11 was another field day for the lunatic fringe. Some argued that a Boeing 757 couldn't have gone through a hole just 20ft wide in the Pentagon walls. But it didn't, it went through a hole 90ft wide, with the wings shaved off on impact."

I see,you`ve got photo and video evidence of this "hole of 90ft wide" have you Davey boy?
Never mind old chap,Hey-ho.
I think you desperately need to do some basic research before making yourself look like even more of a journalistic whore than you already do.
Just look at this crud you`ve put your name to:
"wings shaved off on impact"
Err,Davey boy,the regime`s ridiculous storyline was/is that the wings "folded in toward the plane and entered the (Pentagon)building with the fuselage"

"But it also leaves with you with the pathetic image of the solitary male and his computer, the technology both the cause of his isolation and the outlet for his resultant delusions."

Ha,ha.Speaking as someone who has left the corporate scumfest that is Microsoft software,and currently crash-coursing in Linux,and planning many other productive uses for my time on this wonderful invention,I think that little scum-devils like yourself are actually quite well aware of how quickly your house of propaganda cards will collapse.

"Their theories and pronouncements have been widely disseminated, and admired, on the internet, which is, of course, the conspiracy theorists' natural habitat: a vast maelstrom of mis­information, the cyber-equivalent of that huge floating gyre of rubbish in the Pacific."
Ha,ha.What`s the matter Davey boy,are people not lining up like they used to for your spoonfuls of poison? :lol: