A Second Hand Conjecture

Anyone out there who is tempted to buy Jerome Corsi’s vituperative new book trashing Barack Obama (which conservatives are unfortunately buying in droves), may want to consider what they’d be supporting if they did.

Careful observers will have long noticed that Corsi’s views tend to be more than a little paranoid and frequently even delusional (such as his belief that Bill Clinton is a communist). His rhetoric also is often peppered with far-rightwing conspiracy theory jargon and acronyms (NAU, NWO, etc). But now audio is circulating on the web of Corsi on the Alex Jones show of all places, stating his belief that explosives destroyed the World Trade Center on 9/11. With that, Jerome Corsi has nothing more to say that I’d ever care to listen to.

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Cernig at Larisa Alexandrovna’s site had me persuaded for two whole paragraphs.

Now, having little taste for the fine art of distractions-from-distractions, I tend to roll my eyes at the transparently partisan diversionary tactics one sees all over the web from Democrats in defense of John Edwards (eg “who cares about a politician’s adultery when there’s potholes in the streets!”). However, Cernig’s complaint that the national media was focusing on that rather tawdry and meaningless scandal to the exclusion of the crisis in Georgia, had some legitimacy. Reading it I paused for a moment, reflected on the non-Olympic television news coverage I’d watched over the past 24 hours, and decided Cernig had a legitimate point.

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After 9/11 itself, the anthrax attacks were probably the most consequential event of the Bush presidency. One could make a persuasive case that they were actually more consequential.

You could?

The 9/11 attacks were obviously traumatic for the country, but in the absence of the anthrax attacks, 9/11 could easily have been perceived as a single, isolated event. It was really the anthrax letters — with the first one sent on September 18, just one week after 9/11 — that severely ratcheted up the fear levels and created the climate that would dominate in this country for the next several years after. It was anthrax — sent directly into the heart of the country’s elite political and media institutions, to then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt), NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, and other leading media outlets — that created the impression that social order itself was genuinely threatened by Islamic radicalism.

So that is what made everybody concerned? The twisted reasoning that could assert that after 9/11 we in any way could think something like that couldn’t happen again, sans those letters, is pretty breathtaking.  Once those letters were delivered however, it suddenly occurred to the American people that it might happen again? What kind of parallel universe is he living in? Oh, and if you couldn’t tell, this is the Sock Puppet talking. (more…)

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Jordan Page (who is a kind of Ronpaulist Joan Baez) reflects on the “Revolution March,” a July 12th Ron Paul protest rally in Washington DC, in part organized by Adam Kokesh (who of late believes the Washington police are involved in a clandestine conspiracy against him).

Now, I grew up in the libertarian movement such as it was. Although I no longer consider myself a libertarian out of respect for the philosophy, I think I knew it well. My libertarianism was of the rightish sort, but fundamentally a movement for liberty through reason. A movement of the great economists and political philosophers of the Austrian School and the University of Chicago. The movement of Mises and Friedman. But this paranoid, revolutionary rubbish presented by Page as libertarianism, is utterly unrecognizable to me.

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Since it’s likely that John McCain will dominate the primaries today, you may want to steer clear of a certain type of fanatical Ron Paul supporter tomorrow. Judging from my email, they’re pretty convinced that Paul will wrap up the nomination tonight. Yep, you heard that right. Some of them are perhaps at high risk of going postal when they discover that the NWO - NAU - CFR - ZOG - UN - UFO - BG conspiracy has used its chemtrails and mind control rays to subvert the election once again. Alex Jones has doubtlessly been working them into a hysterical frenzy about America’s “last chance” too. If they decide to blaze-of-glory it, I’m hoping they go the David Koresh route with a rural compound standoff, but you never know. They just might go Dylan Klebold & Eric Harris.

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You have to check this out. It’s from the JREF Forums, which is a well known place where skeptics gather to discuss many topics, among which are conspiracy theories. Each month they collect nominations for the stupidest, most insane thing uttered by conspiracy theorists and the like and vote for the top quote. This post pits all the monthly winners against each other for most insane quote of the year. You have to see it to believe it, thats for sure.

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