This year we had to settle for a virtual venue, but the Philcon science fiction convention is still on! Check out the entire program here. Anyone can sign up to listen to any panel.
And this is my schedule of appearances:
11/21: 7:00 PM - "Pandemic Fiction vs. Pandemic Reality"
11/21: 8:30 PM - "How to Sell the Story You Wrote vs. How to Write a Story That Will Sell"
11/22: 2:30 PM - "Science Fiction Horror"
So, I’m feeling quite impressed that more than three weeks after our “From 9/11 to COVID-19” conference, conspiracy theorists are still worked up about it. Some guy named Hank Wolfe on the Before It’s News conspiracy site is conducting an “investigation” of “Donovangate” and my masterminding of a nation-wide plot to replace students in online classes with deep-fake avatars. Seriously!
You can check out the “ongoing investigation” right here.
And, by the way, Hank Wolfe is also fixated on the Satanic significance of the October 13 date of the event.
An article in the Saint Peter’s student newspaper about the event is still bombarded by unhinged comments and rants about how an audience of “truth seekers” were silenced in the Zoom chat room and we refused to answer any of their questions.
The State of the Nation ran a couple of stories on the event, warning their readers about the “anti-truth” event and sharing a hysterical, whiny email from someone who claims to have logged into the event but couldn’t get any questions answered. You can check out the SOTN article here. The first story, by the way, also warns of a dark and dangerous Jesuit conspiracy to deceive America’s youth.
Now the student newspaper, as I understand it, contacted SOTN for comments about their dangerous Jesuit conspiracy but got no response other than a list of links to other conspiracy theorists.
But were there questions from outsiders screened out during the conference? Yes, there were. This event was intended for an SPU audience, so imagine our surprise when we notice scores of people logging in who were not affiliated with the school. While we thought we were only sharing the login information with our colleagues and students, apparently someone must have shared that information with who knows how many other friends and they in turn shared it again and so on and so forth. Then it wound up in the conspiracy community.
Does the easy escape of the login information make you think of anything interesting, though? Do you notice how hard it really is to keep anything secret? Makes you wonder about those rococo conspiracy theories SOTN loves to spin seemingly 24/7.
But to get back to the issue of whether or not we tried to avoid answering the questions of the outsiders, let me just say this: we probably should have. We should have let them ask their Holocaust-denial questions and ask about anti-Semitic conspiracy theories like Jews seen celebrating the attacks of 9/11. They would easily have been exposed as the vile hatemongers they are. The best defense against the worst, most hateful people in this world who trade in discord and prejudice is to shine a light on them and have the world see them for what they are. That, by the way, is why I don’t remove any reader comments from this blog, no matter how ridiculous or even hateful they may be. Stupidity should be shown off in all its slow-witted, demented glory. So not listening to and acknowledging these people’s comments during the conference probably did them a great big favor.
It is also for this reason, to shine the light on American culture’s ugly, deranged underbelly the conspiracy culture represents, that I teach my class on conspiracy theories. People like whatever anonymous collection of charlatans is behind State of the Nation is a constant staple in the class. They are a perfect teaching tool when it comes to demonstrating every underhanded, unethical, dishonest, and manipulative form of communication today. For the major final assignment of the semester, the Do It Yourself Conspiracy assignment, I repeatedly send my students to the SOTN page to have them see conspiracist sleaze at its very worst…or is that sleaze at its very best?
When it comes to celebrities and politics, there is often less than meets the eye. I am quoted in this article about the unlikely phenomenon of rappers appearing to endorse Donald Trump's reelection. After rappers like Lil Wayne, Ice Cube, and Kanye West praised various Trump policies recently, many wondered if their support for Trump was genuine and if it would influence more Black voters to cross parties to the Republicans.
While it is more and more unwise to look at the Black community as one monolithic group - are there really any racial and ethnic groups whose members always completely agree on every issue? - the article discusses how these particular rappers' recent political activities are really more for show and shock value than any real ideological commitment.
Check out this recent article I'm quoted in about the future of the QAnon movement. What is the future of this fringe, bizarre, far-right conspiracy movement come the next presidential election? I discuss what might happen to the movement in either the event of Donald Trump's victory or defeat. In either case, I, and several other commentators, don't see QAnon going anywhere any time soon. Perhaps the movement might transform into something new at some point, but it is sure to have more life and more fight left in it.
That's quite unfortunate because they make a case for the fear that our culture might be teetering on the precipice of a new dark age of ignorance. When you take these people together with the 9/11 Truth movement, the anti-vaxxers, the "crisis actor" theorists and the rest of a conspiracy culture, a rational person might start to panic and think humanity has taken leave of its senses.
From a political angle, I think that about 99% percent of those who are center-right, from conservatives to libertarians, look at the QAnon movement as an embarrassment. Trump's tacit endorsement of QAnon is especially galling to these people. Many have lamented the long passing of an age when the right was the home of William F. Buckley's high-toned intellectualism, and they're dreading the coming of a new age when conservatism's voice is being hijacked by loud, irrational, fantasy-prone rabble.
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.
Well, since I don't like to stop while I'm ahead, in the midst of all the preparations for the "From 9/11 to Covid-19" conference, I'd still like to make a new book announcement. My publisher, World Castle Publishing, will be releasing my third novel, FATAL POSE, in 2021. I'm excited to have gotten the chance to work in a new genre, too: the mystery. So here's a sneak peak at the plot:
Imagine "Pumping Iron meets Columbo." In Venice, California, you'll find the hottest beaches, the hottest gyms, and the hottest bodies. This is where ex-bodybuilder turned private investigator, Gunnar Marino, runs his business. But when a murder and blackmail scheme reaches to the top of the high-powered World BodyBuilding Federation, Marino finds himself in a battle of wits with a clever adversary that could end in mayhem no one might be able to contain.
But while you wait for FATAL POSE, I hope you'll give my newest book, THE CEDAR VALLEY COVENANT, a read!
As I had written yesterday - in the post just beneath this one - I will be taking part in a panel for a special conference at Saint Peter's University on October 13, discussing the unhinged madness conspiracy beliefs have managed to seduce so many Americans into and the depths of complete derangement this is throwing our culture into.
To see just how important it is to hold this discussion, take a look at this article in the New York Times about the Trump COVID hoax conspiracies that sprang up over the past week. And this time the conspiracy theories are not coming from the QAnon, right-wing crowd. This time the left is spinning its own creative fantasies about Donald Trump faking his illness for a variety of nefarious ends.
As the piece so correctly points out, the loss of a sense of consensus reality is not confined to any position on the political spectrum. It is a malady infecting the very culture. Plus, as the piece so ominously, and I believe correctly, points out, this malady is sure to stay with us for a long time. Even long past the November elections.
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