Among the Truthers by Jonathan Kay Read Free Book Online Page A

cabal, and whose proponents consistently respond to contrary facts not by modifying their theory , but instead by insisting on the existence of ever-wider circles of high-level conspirators controlling most or all parts of society .
    Fourth, a caveat about the different types of conspiracy theories discussed in this book: As political scientist Michael Barkun has noted, conspiracy theories usually can be classified as either “event” or “systemic.” In the former case, the conspiracist is merely seeking to explain a discrete event—such as, say, the moon landing, or a hypothetical Elizabethan plot to pass off Francis Bacon’s plays as William Shakespeare’s. In the case of systemic conspiracy theories, on the other hand, the theory purports to explain the operation of whole societies, and often the entire planet. This book deals primarily (though not exclusively) with systemic conspiracy theories, such as 9/11 Truth, since they are far more damaging to the marketplace of ideas. That said, I do not take pains in the text to assign conspiracy theories to one category or the other.
    Fifth, a note about the people who are the subject of the case study at the heart of this book.
    Many Americans view 9/11 Truthers as inherently contemptible. Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, for instance, has declared that Truthers “derangedly desecrate” the victims of 9/11. While I understand why people hold that view, most Truthers I’ve met actually tend to be outwardly respectful of the innocent victims who perished in the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. In fact, many of the most prominent boosters of the Truther movement—including some of the so-called Jersey Girls—have themselves been 9/11 widows or first responders (a psychological phenomenon I describe in the “damaged survivor” subsection of Chapter 5). At Truther events I’ve attended in the New York City area, organizers have raised thousands of dollars for police and firefighters who became sick or injured on 9/11, and sometimes (though not always) there is plenty of genuine American patriotism on display.
    Moreover, let it be said that not all conspiracy theories are equally malign.
    Some of the conspiracist movements I discuss in this book—such as the Ku Klux Klan, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion , and Holocaust revisionism—are explicitly racist or anti-Semitic. By including these historical references, I am not suggesting that Truthers harbor any equivalent hatred. Most Truthers actually cast themselves as enemies of bigotry whose mission is to expose the truth about a racist, white, imperialist war machine originally set into motion by the Christian crusader George W. Bush.
    It also bears mentioning that the Truth movement is entirely nonviolent. Their meetings and literature typically are suffused with exhortations to tolerance and respect. When they demonstrate publicly, they get permits, and usually follow police instructions carefully. (I know this from eyewitness observations: I’ve marched with them several times, and have never seen anyone arrested.) Unlike hate-fueled conspiracist movements that fired adherents up by calling for pogroms against Jews or blacks (or even full-blown insurgency against the government), Truthers appeal to due process and the American Constitution. Their professed goal is to put America’s leadership on trial according to the existing laws of the land.
    The threat currently posed by modern conspiracists is not physical, but cultural. Like other groups that have effectively opted out of America’s ideological mainstream, they threaten to turn the country into a sort of intellectual Yugoslavia—a patchwork of agitated cults screaming at one another in mutually unintelligible tongues. It’s a trend that every thinking person has a duty to fight.

Chapter One
American Conspiracism: A Brief History
    I worked for them . . . I took a