The Atlantic's Shadowland Series
Debunked
Part 5:
The Conspiracy Theorists are Winning
Part 1 of 9: Debunked "Shadowland" The Power and Danger of Conspiracies
Part 2 of 9: Debunked The Birther Issue
Part 3 of 9: Debunked The American Civil War Conspiracy
Part 4 of 9: Debunked The Teenage Conspiracy Theorist known as Ellen Cushing
Part 5 of 9: Debunked The Conspiracy Theorists are Winning
Part 6 of 9: Debunked QAnon, the Pro-Trump Conspiracy Religion
Part 7 of 9: Debunked Paranoia in American Entertainment
Part 8 of 9: Debunked One America News, Trump's Favorite TV Network
Part 9 of 9: Debunked The 5G Radiation Conspiracy
By: Shawn Alli
Posted: June 20, 2020
Copyright Pixabay
* All individuals and organizations receive 3 full days of pre-publication notice to respond to questions.
The next article is By Jeffrey Goldberg called "The Conspiracy Theorists Are Winning."
Goldberg begins by talking with prominent Muslim scholar Mustafa Mahmoud (died in 2009). Goldberg asks him why al-Qaeda attacked America on 9/11. Mahmoud says that al-Qaeda wasn't coordinated enough to do it on its own and believes that the Israelis had a hand in it and mentions the fabricated Protocols of the Elders of Zion documents.
While Goldberg believes that such claims are conspiratorial, in reality, they're simply racist and discriminate against religions (other than Islam). Like most people in this series, Mahmoud is using the conspiracy wrapper to hide his racism and religious discrimination of Jews. Conspiratorial thinking isn’t the source of the problem. It's just a carrier for the source. And the source of the problem is the initial racism and religious discrimination against Jews. A fact that the Atlantic journalists fail to understand.
It would be grossly incorrect to label Muslims in general as conspiracy theorists. You'd have to claim that all religious believers are conspiracy theorists. Religion vs. conspiracy theories. Two things that liberals despise.
In a request for comment I ask all of the Atlantic journalists who contributed to the Shadowland series.
1. Do you believe that YouTube and Facebook should censor conspiracy theory videos and pro-life videos in general? Including banning, demonetizing, and altering the algorithm to make these videos more difficult to find?
They don't respond.
As a conspiracy theorist, I can tell you that censorship of our videos is a slippery slope into the surveillance state. Alex Jones and David Icke have been erased from YouTube and Facebook. In the past, most liberals would never advocate censorship of these two people. Why? Because in the past, liberals believed in free speech. Today, they believe in free speech for liberal ideologies. Many liberal journalists (even if they won't admit it) believe in censorship of religious videos on YouTube and Facebook.
Personally, I could care less. I'm anti-religion (but I still lean conservative as opposed to liberal). But censorship is a strong characteristic of a communist state. Both China (today) and the Soviet Union (in the past) censor anything that goes against state doctrine. If the US government was completely liberal, they would actively censor all views that go against their liberal state. I'm sure they even dream of a liberal utopia built on the ashes of current world.
Getting back to the article and Muslim acceptance of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Goldberg mentions academic scholar Walter Russell Mead.
"Walter Russell Mead once wrote. They aren't backward and poor, he argued, because the Elders of Zion have conspired against them; they are backward and poor because they lack the ability to ‘see the world clearly and discern cause and effect relations in complex social settings.'"
Lacks the ability? Yikes. From a visible minority perspective, that claim is close to racist. An ability that Arabs lack as opposed to White people? I'm guessing that Mead is saying it in relation to religious beliefs as opposed to race/ethnicity. I hope.
An interesting defensive reaction by me. Though I despise all religions and believe Islam to be the most toxic of all of them, discriminating on race/ethnicity is a different ball game. It’s a foundational issue. Do white supremacists hate Muslims because of their religion? Or do they hate Arabs for their race/ethnicity. It's probably both. While religious hatred is understandable. But racial/ethnic hatred is not. Note the difference. One is content based, the other is biological discrimination.
But then again, there are many Christians that have Muslim friends. Why? Because it's just a different aspect on the same coin. It's not even analogous to opposing sides. Most of the foundational beliefs are the same, especially their hatred of LGBTQ people, women, and the pro-choice community.
And yet liberals embrace one over the other. Muslims over Christians. A nonsensical choice. Hypothetically, if Muslims ever took over the US with Sharia law, liberals would be the first to die and run into the protecting arms of Christians. Gotta love the irony.
"It always seemed outlandish to me that otherwise smart people (Mustafa Mahmoud was one of Egypt's leading physicians) could sincerely believe in theories that stand in opposition to logic, Occam's razor, and accreted fact."
This statement shows that Golbderg doesn't understand consciousness, perception, and the nature of falsifiability. I humbly recommend my book to you sir. Philosophy Reborn Part I: Purpose. He'll never read it, but you can't say I didn't try.
Standing at the gates of heaven (which I don't believe).
Did you try and help those foolish liberals?
Yes sir I did.
Okay, you can come inside.
Hmm...I see the occupants are just sitting their worshipping extraterrestrials.
Yes.
No thanks. I'd rather go to hell than worship with the crazies.
Goldberg interviewed Alex Jones and decided that he was nuts? Get in line. Most serious conspiracy theorists already know this. But that doesn't mean we support his exile from YouTube and Facebook.
But Goldberg's opinion of Jones and the conspiracy theory movement went downhill after then-nominee Trump complimented him. The compliment boosted Jones' credibility and liberals lost it. A nonsensical reaction since Democrat presidents in the past have given multiple interviews to both mainstream and alternative liberal media outlets.
Goldberg goes on to lament the conspiratorial thinking of Trump. While Trump probably does believe in some conspiracies, so what? Has he waged war against the Jews? No, he's their best friend. Has he waged war against the Middle East that differs from American foreign policy? No. Is his immigration policies more extreme than any administration? Yes. I'll give you that. But it's not because he's a racist or because he has "conspiratorial thinking." It's because he, like other presidents, don't want immigrants to sponge off the American system. Like many conservative presidents before him, Trump hates people on welfare, both White and visible minorities on welfare.
Yes, Trump warns about the deep state (which was called the military-industrial complex and new world order in the past). Why? Because he knows, like many other conspiracy theorists, that elected officials don't run the world. Special private interest groups do. See The Deep State.
And one significant caveat of the supposed deep state is that liberals media outlets (mainstream and alternative) are assets/beholden to the deep state. Another conspiracy, but I would argue it's true.
Does that conspiracy stop me from reading their news articles? No. But due to their ideological bubble, they're losing the trust of the American public. Good riddance. While police culture is toxic, so are liberal and conservative media outlets. Both are in need of reform.
Of course, liberal media outlets don't like the fact that their revenue ad is shrinking (mainly because of Google and Facebook). Nor do they like their power being diminished. But that's the way the game is played. Not all institutions are mutually exclusive, but some are. Some institutional power will decrease while others will increase. Institutions in this case can be analogous to horse racing, with each media outlet jockeying for a better position.
Goldberg ends his article with a nonsocial claim.
"Nonsense is nonsense, except when it kills."
Sorry, but everything in this world kills you. Pick your poison. Blaming all mass shootings on conspiratorial thinking and/or the conspiracy theory movement is unfair and disingenuous. But that's the way liberal journalists roll.
While liberals see themselves as the status quo, I see sad and overmedicated liberals trying to pretend that their life has meaning. Do yourself a favor. Step outside your ideological bubble and reflect on your ideologies and purpose in this world. If you're unsure how, I humbly recommend my book. Philosophy Reborn Part I: Purpose.
Stop plugging your damn book.
It would be irrational to not promote my book on my own website.
And besides, liberals write puff-piece book reviews for their fellow liberals every day. I need to even the playing field somehow.