Conspiracy Theories, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking

Nesta Webster is a woman. Nesta Webster is a writer. Nesta Webster is writing at a time when women in the UK could vote only if they were over the age of 30, were property owners/renters of a location of a certain value (or married to person that does), and not subject to any kind of legal incapacity, or were graduates of a voting constituency. At the same period of time, men, had to be 21 unless they were veterans of WWI in which case they could vote at 19. Webster is writing at a time when women are the subservient class in the UK. Where is Webster going to land on the equality question? Well, she’s not going to land in a good place, that’s for sure. Webster is going to take the contradictory position that all women like her—Phyllis Schlafly, Margaret Thatcher, Megyn Kelley—women should stay home and be wives and mothers; but we should ignore the fact that Webster is not any of those things and is telling us how we should think and act. We’re at another revolution in France and Webs...

 We’ve arrived at the Franco-Prussian war, a war that Webster has told us is the German’s fault because they tricked Napolean III into declaring it. That Bismark is a crafty one. She wants to implicate Marx because he’s a Jew, a German, and a Socialist; but it’s going to take a lot of work to do that. Perhaps, somewhere, there exists some letters or a manuscript where Marx and Engles were all about the German conquering of France. Maybe they’ve written a book about how France sucks, and really the best thing for the working classes is the elimination of all those extra vowels the French use. That would take the research of a proper historian, luckily for us, Webster isn’t a proper historian. Pay attention to what she does here. She writes that the “ French branch of the internationale in London actually denounced him as an agent of Bismarck. ” Our first evidence is an accusation by someone in London. We have no citation for this. “ Marx wrote to Engles on August 3, 1870, saying th...

 A new chapter begins, this one titled “The Revolution of 1871.” Every chapter, for those of you not following along, has a little indication of the subjects being talked about underneath the chapter titles. We know that this chapter is going to discuss “The Franco-Prussian War” — Internationalism — Karl Marx, pan-Germanist —The Commune — Conflict between Marx and Bakunin — and the End of the Internationale. The last entry is odd, because we just did that in the chapter on the Internationale. Apparently, we’re going to retread old ground. Notice what is missing from that list: a revolution of 1871. Unless she is going to make the case that the Franco-Prussian war is the Revolution, an odd case considering the war ends in January of 1871, I don’t see a revolution here. “ What then of its Internationalism? How far was the brotherhood of man which had constituted one its fundamental doctrines to avail as a barrier against militarism?” She gives us a fair point; was the Internationale ...