Conspiracy Theories, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking

Ground rules for a thing like this if you are new: Page numbers are going to coincide with the PDF's page number and not the page number for the book itself. This will just make things easier. Also the PDF is located at:  https://www.conspiracyarchive.com/PROOFS_OF_A_CONSPIRACY_John_Robison.pdf  if you're playing along at home. As always, I refrain from reading too far ahead, I only do so to get enough material for the following week's post. So let's get started: First off, we have a dedication and right away I forgot what it's like reading 18th century English. It'f the f in place of the s. This makes it fun, seriously, as it is a reminder that while we are reading English we are going to be reading a different style of English. The dedication is to a William Wyndham. I was expecting more from Wyndham. Studying the subject of conspiracy theories has created within me certain expectations. I was thinking that this Wyndham would be some kind of occultist or alech

Being finally done with the Gary Allen book, I think it's probably something that I should continue doing. Not Allen of course, he's just finished. The issue that I am having is whether or not I should move forward in time from Allen or move backward in time.  Even though Allen's book was written in the 1970s, it still seems relevant because nothing changed in the dialogue from the right. The only difference is what was considered fringe is no longer considered so. As you should have been able to see from the months of reading the Allen book: it's the same rhetoric. These people attacked Nixon from the right just as they attacked John Boehner from the right. Ideological partisanship is what they want, not "freedom" or "liberty." They don't support the Consitution, because they've never read it. They just like the word and now that it carries weight with their supporters. The same is true in the 1970s as it is in the 2020s.  Yet because of the

We are finally done with this book, but like all terrible books it is not done with us. I mentioned in the very first post on this book that Allen's work is surprisingly and depressingly influential. To repeat that point, I was paraphrasing the co-host of the " Knowledge Fight " Podcast who said that this book was like the Velvet Underground. No one really bought their albums but those that did, all started their own bands. Allen's work is like that: every major conspiracy theorist you've heard of, has read this book.  Further, this book is the central political position of the John Birch Society. While the two aren't related in the sense that Allen wrote the book for them (unlike what he says Marx did for the Illuminati), the positions that they both take are nearly identical. We should absolutely care about this work because this book and the JBS are the current US Conservative movement...I guess with the exception that I would find it hard that the JBS woul

We left off last week as Allen was giving us his four keys to stop the takeover by the globalists. Sorry, I'm used to Alex Jones who clearly "borrowed" the ideas of this book for his schtick. So I guess I mean the CFR elite, but it doesn't matter, the superconspiracy boogeymen are all the same in that we can just substitute the proper nouns and the conspiracy theory is the same. Deep State, Illuminati, Freemasons, CFR, Tri-Lateral Commission, etc. it's all the same. Even according to these people it is the same, it's just the villain of a thousand faces. This is Hydra if you need a fictional reference point that was more realistic in that at least it was aided by magic or some kind of cosmic power (at the very top the Marvel universe gets very weird).  We're not here for the admitted fiction, we are here for the unsupported conspiracy theory that sustains this book. Allen believes he's laid out his case, he hasn't, but that's what he is going f

Of all the things that author Gary Allen is bad at, I didn't think shameless plugs were going to be one of them. We'll get there in a second. First, we've got to deal with the clean-up from the list. What does Allen have to say, regarding his accusation that all of the signposts to slavery are being proposed? Nothing.  He is as finished with that list as we are. This is foolish because that list could have been its own chapter if he was willing to explain it and then give the sources for his position that government control over private schools keeps getting proposed in many state legislatures. That's it, he name drops Reuther as a union organizer and then he's done.  According to the page count on the pdf that I have, this book has 8 pages left. Scrolling ahead it only has two. This means that this book is now issuing its call to arms, " You are in this fight whether you want to be or not. Unless you are an Insider, you are a victim. Whether you are a multimil