A Successful Conference: "From 9/11 to COVID 19"

 

What a week on this end! In fact, with all the excitement, I didn't get the chance to update this blog about our "From 9/11 to COVID-19" conference. Very successful, especially with the kind of engagement the event had with its audience.

The presentation by Noah Rauch from the 9/11 Memorial Museum was an elegant outline of why the real cause of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers - the crashing of two highjacked airliners into the buildings by Al Qaeda terrorists and the structural damage done to the buildings - just as concluded by National Institute of Standards and Technology and the 9/11 Commission, is the one and only real conclusion any rational individual can reach. Simply, as Rauch presented, no conspiracies, no controlled demolition, no mini nuclear bombs, no space-based death rays built from alien technology the Illuminati is hiding at Area 51. Period.

John Montone from 1010 WINS news radio also offered very moving recollections of being on the scene 2001, covering the attacks and their aftermath. As he also put it so perfectly about our absurd new world of 9/11 "Truthers," Flat Earth, and QAnon conspiracists, you are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts.

"Facts," are what you can examine, test, and replicate under the strict scrutiny of the scientific method. "Facts" are not the suppositions and guesswork conspiracy theorists trade in. Facts are not your personal preferences and wishes you just choose to believe in because they make you feel good or support your preconceived biases.

But we were especially heartened by the feedback from our students and the listeners to the program. The support was fantastic and it's good to see that so many young people are willing and able to live in a world of rationality and reject the paranoid, divisive fantasies of the conspiracy culture.

Check out this link to an article about the event in the Hudson County View.

From 9/11 to Covid 19: Conspiracy Theories, Fake News, and the Assault on Truth

Two decades of a conspiracy culture spiraling out of control.

On October 13, my school, Saint Peter's University, will be hosting the virtual conference "FROM 9/11 TO COVID 19: CONSPIRACY THEORIES, FAKE NEWS, AND THE ASSAULT ON TRUTH." I will present on a panel that also includes Noah Rauch, Senior Vice President for Education and Public Programs at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, and John Montone, reporter for New York's 1010 WINS news radio.

Among the topics we will discuss will be an effort to chart how conspiratorial thinking has mutated from people seeking to reexamine the details of major events to a world where our culture is ready to reject all consensus reality.

As I have written before, these are urgent questions to address because the modern conspiracism is becoming a threat to Americans' health and safety. Conspiracism is a movement we have seen ignoring science in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a movement that has become the haven for the dangerous and unstable fabrications of the QAnon movement, and the bullies and thugs of the crisis-actor movement that harasses the survivors of mass shootings. The anti-vaccination movement has deceived people into endangering the lives of their families and communities through the use of the rhetoric of the conspiracy theory. 

Simply, if there is no consensus reality, then only chaos, anarchy, and a corrosive moral relativism will reign.

With this conference, we are hoping to set an example, to encourage education to be a bulwark against the chaos and anarchy threatening to engulf this culture every day.

Conspiracy vs. Incompetence

After a shocking event or a calamity of some sort dominates the news cycle suddenly, no one’s a happier camper than the average conspiracy theorist. The event becomes a Rorschach test onto which conspiracy theorists can fasten their tentacles and hang on for days, weeks, or months even. The most unscrupulous conspiracy theorists—and these days I can’t really think of any other type in the “alternate news” or “truther community”—are probably the happiest when the event claims a large number of lives, as we had seen in the obscene spectacle of the “false flag” theorizing that followed the latest mass shootings. So the way the Jeffrey Epstein case is being milked for everything it’s worth by conspiracy sites like State of the Nation and their ilk is no surprise. Yet looking closely at the rhetoric and logic behind the coverage of the Epstein case gives a glimpse into the utterly erroneous and naïve thought process of conspiracy believers.

“It’s inconceivable that Epstein could have killed himself since he was such a high-profile prisoner,” says the core argument upon which the hundreds (or maybe thousands) of Epstein conspiracy theories are based. “It’s too far-fetched. He would be watched day and night.”

But he wasn’t because of sheer bureaucratic incompetence.

I bring this up as we are just about two and a half weeks away from the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. That tragedy birthed a new era of conspiracy theorizing that is more deranged and morally bankrupt than any other previous conspiracy craze in history, more so than the various Freemason moral panics, the Kennedy assassination fantasies, or the nonsense about “secret” policy organizations like the Council on Foreign relations or the Trilateral Commission plotting to rule the world. The 9/11 conspiracies are also founded on the same fallacy of perfect governmental organizations that couldn’t possibly have been so off guard as they were in 2001. Rather than recognizing ineptitude, convoluted and inefficient bureaucracies, missed signals, and just plain stupid mistakes—the kinds that have plagued complex organizations since groups of people have ever attempted to collaborate on any large-scale endeavor—the conspiratorial mindset starts inventing massive, labyrinthine plots and the work of evil cabals.

Such is now the case with Epstein’s death. Despite the fact that investigations of the Manhattan Metropolitan Correctional Center—as discussed in this article—have demonstrated a long record of inept management of the institution, that history of gross mismanagement is now the fuel for ever more absurd Epstein conspiracy theories. Epstein was killed by Trump, some argue. Epstein was killed by the Clintons, others counter. Epstein was killed by Satanists. Epstein was killed by the Illuminati. There’s probably a blog or Facebook page or web page out there arguing that Epstein was killed either by aliens or NASA because he was either about to blow the whistle on what really crashed in Roswell or give conclusive proof that the Earth is flat.

The amusing part of all of the Epstein theories is the fact that it proves how die-hard conspiracists might be the most optimistic human beings on the face of the Earth. If they are to be believed, this world would be a perfect Nirvana on its own and every problem and calamity is caused on purpose by the hidden hand of some shadowy cabal.

Ah…the wonderful, childlike naivete of simple minds.

The sad "State of the Nation"

So how does that saying go that if you have enemies it means you’ve stood up for something some time in your life? 

A few days ago the State of the Nation website ran this little insult piece about me, claiming that not only am I the “torchbearer” of the anti-conspiracy movement, but that my “torch went out.” To illustrate that my torch went out, they provided several examples of the typical “proof” that is in the tool box of all conspiracy theorists worth their salt: links to unsubstantiated claims made by other conspiracy theorists and articles and quotes taken out of context. Do check out their links and see for yourself. They are quite amusing, especially the link that supposedly blows the lid off the Sandy Hook false flag conspiracy…posted by someone called “Dr. Eowyn” from the Millennium Report web page. It’s fascinating to see that much of the content on the State of the Nation page is just material reposted from the Millennium Report. Although the Millennium Report doesn’t appear to be reposting stuff from State of the Nation. Or at least they didn’t run the article about me. I’m somewhat disappointed.

Now am I upset about the State of the Nation’s article? Not in the least. As you will see when you visit their page, these are the people who argue that the California fires were started by lasers from space! How upset can you be if people like this criticize you? Plus, if you scroll down to my anti-vaccine post below, someone criticizing me put up their own link to the State of the Nation article. That person also thought that I would remove their comments and give them the comfort of feeling like the martyr for the “truth” they crave for. As I wrote here before, I won’t remove any criticism of me, and I certainly do not need to remove any State of the Nation fan’s conspiracist rants. Illogical, absurd foolishness will be recognized as such by the normal people that make up the majority of the population. The tinfoil garbage of State of the Nation, Millennium Report, Alex Jones, the Before It’s News website, the anti-vaxxer movement, and the rest of their ilk will be laughed at and dismissed by most individuals whose IQs are larger than their belt size.

And the State of the Nation piece also reminds me of the work I also need to do as a writer and educator. The sad fact is that we do have a number of unfortunate lost souls out there who, for whatever reason, are so alienated from mainstream society and all sources of expertise and consensus reality that they choose to believe in fantasies about the Illuminati, the New World Order, Satanic secret societies running the world, and autism-causing vaccines being given to children on purpose. The paranoia of these people is then being fed by unscrupulous charlatans like Alex Jones, the State of the Nation, Before It's News, or A Call for an Uprising-type YouTube channels. It’s only education that has a chance of standing up to this new rising Dark Age of irrationality.

Whaaat?? Getting marked by "The Beast" at the airport??

With another semester winding up, I will soon be taking a little break from corrupting the minds of the young and the innocent and getting away from it all for a little winter break. All that mind-corruption, you know, is quite hard work. As I'll be doing some flying - and I've been flying quite a bit over the past year and planning on more travel over the coming year - for the break, I'm just learning that airports around the country will soon be getting turned into the centers where the Beast, the Antichrist, and Satan will be marking travelers with the "sign" and moving us closer and closer to the enslavement of all of humanity.

You don't believe me, you say? Check it out right here. This YouTube video from the "Call for an Uprising" channel will explain the whole shocking plot, that is if you can sit through all 11 execrable minutes of it. I did, shaking my head a lot and not knowing if I should laugh or cry. One wants to laugh as the idiocy of this information, laugh at the fact that this channel - and many others like it - is a con job where some Alex Jones wannabe hustler in a basement somewhere is ranting about the end of the world and the Illuminati and Satanists, telling thousands of rubes and delusionals what they want to hear, and said rubes are eating it up and believing every word of it. And then you want to cry because there are thousands of rubes and delusionals actually out there who actually believe in this and they can't understand what kind of a swindle "A Call for an Uprising" is.

As you'll see in the video if you check it out, they take the issue of planned face-recognition software at airports - something that does raise some legitimate privacy concerns - and turn it into a farce by predicting that it's the first step in some kind of a New World Order fascist takeover, and insinuating that terrorist attacks like 9/11 were "false flag" conspiracies. And so on and so forth. Again, at the core of this story is a valid issue, although, as much of a Libertarian as I am, I don't believe that heightened airport security is leading us to a fascist state. You see, the thing is that I prefer to be a live Libertarian who might be slowed down a little bit at the airport, rather a dead one, blown out of the sky by some ISIS psycho who wanted to reserve his spot in paradise. Yet the best way to completely tune the issue out is by having these conspiracist idiots start spouting their New World Order fantasies about it.

And, of course, this massive global conspiracy that will soon implant Satanic microchips in Americans is somehow allowing their evil plots to be exposed on YouTube by "A Call for an Uprising." Yeah, sure.

How come no one has killed Alex Jones yet?

I ask this after a recent discussion I had with a friend of mine who insisted that conspiracy theories like the ones about the JFK assassination and 9/11 are somewhat plausible - he "doesn't exactly" believe them, but could imagine that powers within the government would be willing to attempt such plots - and they could be successful because dissenters within the conspiracy could just be killed off. He - as JFK conspiracists often do - pointed to a series of "suspicious" deaths of people connected to the Kennedy assassination.

First of all, let's just clear the air about these deaths. There is nothing suspicious about them and these people who might have "known too much" died years apart and years after the Kennedy murder. For a superb examination and discussion of this, please take the time to read (and it will take you a little while since it's over 1000 pages) the late Vincent Bugliosi's book Reclaiming History about the assassination.

But conspiracy believers are generally big on assassinations. They believe no tangible evidence exists to prove their massive, complicated accusations because whistleblowers have either been killed off or they have been intimidated into silence through death threats.

So how come some conspiracists don't stop for a second and consider why these assassins from the New World Order haven't yet eliminated people like Alex Jones and the rest of his ilk? Why haven't they offed Jones years ago and made it look like an accident (but plant secret clues to the evil deeds the way criminal masterminds do in murder mysteries or in comic books the way the Riddler always does?).

The reason, of course, is because 9/11 conspiracies, "crisis actors," or Qanon conspiracies are exactly like comic books. They're fantasies!

My Appearance on "One on One With Steve Adubato."

The August 20th episode of the "On on One With Steve Adubato" show is available online right here. 

We discuss the dark side of the conspiracy culture and why all the Alex Joneses and "crisis actor" conspiracy fanatics have crossed way over he line of all human decency today. As I make the point in my novel, CONFIRMATION: INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNEXPLAINED, people like that can hardly be cast as heroes any more.

And the antidote to all this madness where people who want to believe too much and want to live inside their self-constructed fantasy worlds of chem-trails and shadow governments, run by the New World Order, the Illuminati, and time-traveling Nazis commanded by Elvis Presley? Education! As I discuss the fantastic opportunity I get to teach about the conspiracy culture and its destructiveness, education must now become the bulwark against the modern Dark Ages we are slipping into faster and faster.

And you can be sure that absolutely no student will ever walk out of any of my classes believing in crisis actors or how the Freemasons coordinated the attacks of 9/11 from Denver International Airport.