Conspiracy Theories, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking

We begin this section with Webster attempting to explain why the population would attach themselves to syndicalism rather than socialism. She writes that the workers were frustrated with their leaders taking trips to Switzerland and sleeping in gilded beds while they died on the barricades in France and Russia. This is a fair question and one of the likely reasons that the Internationale collapsed. This is a problem of any organization, the leaders appear as though they are living in luxury while everyone else grovels. It’s a system that looks especially bad for Socialism as everyone is supposed to be equal. It’s a valid issue to raise as the difference between theory and practice becomes practice. Our problem is in someone like Webster raising this issue. Webster has favored aristocrats like the Tsars of Russia, the aristocrats of the France, and even Napolean III. There is no way she can consistently raise the fact that a Socialist leader once staying in a hotel as a problem for th...

 Many of us took hobbies during the year of the pandemic, then decided that these hobbies were too much work, and went back to the conspiracy spiral on social media. Last week we met a person who did much of the same thing, Leopold Engel. Engel was going to restart the actual Illuminati, and like a person who doesn’t understand how difficult being a Dungeon Master actually is, abandoned the project pretty early. Webster is trying to weave her story, but at this point I don’t think she remembers what it is supposed to be. Engel’s group is out but Webster needs to carry it forward. So she changes gears giving us the “Philadelphes” group which was, possibly, the name of a Masonic lodge that used to be count Gracchus Babeuf as a member but not has a branch in London. Of course, the word “Philadelphes” just means brotherly love and is such an obvious name for a fraternal organization that it is almost a cliché. She quotes at length from an article in the New York World. This article isn...

 Plato believed that Democracy was the worst form of government. It was rule by the mob, the uneducated masses who didn’t know what the best for them was. Aristotle would later correct this generality by differentiating between Democracy and Anarchy. Democracy was fine, because it had a purpose whereas Anarchy was a corruption because that is when the mob rules for the individuals’ sake. In much the same what at Monarchy can be good because it just means that a single person, the king, rules for the people; whereas Tyranny is a corruption because the king rules for themselves. Fascism has no pure or good form; because it just means that the state serves itself. Webster is going to make the case that Socialism and Anarchism are different conceptions of the state that are both bad, but different bad. Webster’s Fascism is going to be at odds for both because not only does the state need to exist for its own sake, it also needs to exist at the expense of the multitude to benefit the po...

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...

I’m trying to figure out who the villain is in our story. Of course it’s the Illuminati, but it’s also the Socialists. It’s anyone that that challenges the status quo. So what’s interesting about the Revolution of 1830 is that this was a revolution against the new status quo put in place by the Illuminati after the only free period of Europe: that which took place during the reign of Napolean. So the Bourgeoise monarchy comes into power and like all monarchies it becomes one that ignores the plight of the people and serves only itself. Which, ok, that’s just how monarchies go—it’s how the one prior to 1789 went that Webster claimed was “for” the people. So then in 1848, the next revolution begins but Webster is claiming, again, that this was organized “ by the Secret Societies, directed by the Socialists, executed by the working-men and aggravated by the intractable attitude of the King and his ministers, the second great outbreak of World Revolution took place. ” She admits that there...

Webster continues trying to lay the intellectual foundation of the world revolution (which she opposes) with Comte de Simon. Simon, Webster claims, was born with an unbalanced brain inherited from his mother; but I do not see confirmation of this fact in any source I quickly checked. She then claims Simon “ had early thrown himself into the wildest excesses and led the life of ‘an adventurer in quest of gold and glory’ but after a while, weary of orgies, he had turned his attention to the regeneration of the world…” I don’t know about the orgies, but I did find her source, “ La Monarchie de Julliet ;” and while my French is pretty bad what isn’t bad is my ability to search through a PDF. I can find no mention of Saint-Simon apart from the ideology that bears his name. Again, her ability to cite cannot be this bad accidentally. Simon did go on a bit of an adventure when he served with the artillery corps in the American revolution where he held the rank of Captain. This is something tha...

 “ The conception of France rising like a phoenix from that great welter of blood and horror is as mythical as the allegory from which it is taken and has existed only in the minds of posterity.” No notes, I just like that sentence. Webster wants us to believe that the revolution failed. Not that the aristocrats retook power, but that the revolution never helped anyone. This is an interesting take, so we’ll have to consider her evidence for it. If you’ve been following along, she doesn’t have any. She has the people’s suffering during the terror, the counter-revolution, and the numerous groups fighting for control in this period. This is to be expected, and I don’t think any historian really believes that everything was just oysters and baguettes for the French during this period. Webster is playing on the ignorance of English history lessons that do not get into the nitty details of what it was like to live through the revolution. Indeed, the American revolution had periods of unc...

 We’ve learned that Robespierre was in the Illuminati but then so was everyone else that ran the French Revolution, this includes the people that executed the other people that were also in the Illuminati. Just remember for Webster, everyone is in the Illuminati unless there’s a direct connection to someone that can tell her she’s wrong. Then it’s not. If you think that’s confusing then try this, “ Thus Robespierre clearly recognized the necessity for the vast social revolution indicated by Weishaupt; but whilst Weishaupt fixes his eyes on the explosion and ‘smiled at the thought of universal conflagration,’ Robespierre regarded anarchy simply as a means to an end — the reconstruction of society according to the plan he had evolved with the cooperation of Saint-Just, which was an embryonic form of the system known later as State Socialism.” Webster has two footnotes at the bottom of this page and neither have to do with the quotation she’s making. At this point in the book I feel t...

 One feature of conspiracy theory writing is that they do not assume you’ve read the other books. This feature exists because conspiracy theorists always think that they are the smartest people in the room. You couldn’t know the things they know or else they would not need to tell you about it. So conspiracy theorists have an easy task of collecting a bunch of information and then twisting it to suit their needs knowing that their audience is very unlikely to check up on this information and that real authorities are not going to bother. When Gary Allen cites Carroll Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope” to prove his point about the secret cabal running everything, the assumption is that Allen has read it. However, Allen is making the opposite assumption—that you haven’t. Indeed, as I pointed out in my coverage of “ None Dare Call it Conspiracy ,” Carroll Quigley chimed in to claim that Allen was full of shit. In turn, Webster is going to rely on the fact that most of her audience has not a...

 I’m fond of describing works in both their qualitative and ethical attributes. A book can be bad qualitatively but neutral or good ethically. We have done five of these books. Some books, like the previous “ Behold a Pale Horse ” are bad on both accounts. Bad writing, and an unethical position especially considering his addition of the Protocols within it. Kaysing’s book made me realize that I need a third category for these kinds of books—success. “Was the book successful at making its case?” None Dare Call it Conspiracy was a success. Not in its day, but now that we have president Trump (again) and he is the ideal president for the writer and audience of that book. With Kaysing, it’s not the same. With “We Never Went to the Moon” we have a book that is qualitatively bad. The writing is just not well executed, and it feels rushed. This feeling is despite the fact that we know it wasn’t because Kaysing tells us in the appendix how many times he was interviewed about these ideas....

 As we plow through the appendix, we are now getting to things that were covered at the end of the book. What I am now beginning to think is that the end of this book is really the summary for people trying to argue the position. This might actually be necessary because Kaysing is such a terrible writer. He’s no John Robison that’s for damn sure. As boring as that book was, it was still well written. The counter point to my idea is that it would require Kaysing to be aware of how bad that this book is, and if conspiracy theorists could be that self-aware they wouldn’t be conspiracy theorists. Moon Photo Lighting : We just did this at the end of the book and it’s the same claim about Aldrin and Armstrong from before. Kaysing asks, “ If Armstrong had provided the light source, flash or flood, it would have been reflected in Aldrin’s helmet faceplate. And yet, there is no trace of artificial light showing in the faceplate. Why?” Because there was no artificial light, they used this ...

We continue on with the appendix and we are regretful that it is more of the same; but it’s a lightening round so here we go. Lloyd Mallan : Mallan was a scientist who examined Russia’s Lunik 3 pictures of the far side of the Moon. Mallan concluded that the pictures were faked . He found artists that agreed that the pictures were actually really well-done paintings and that was settled. However, this would not be the case. The Russians used captured American s pying film developed by Kodak to take the pictures, which explained their quality (for the time). Kaysing tells us that Lloyd died of cancer in 1972, and the Apollo program didn’t even comment, because why would they? He’s just some guy unaffiliated with the program. Paul Jacobs : One of the founders of the magazine “Mother Jones.” We are told that Jacobs was going to help out Kaysing because Jacobs had interrogated the head of the US Geological Survey about his views on the Moon landings, but then Jacobs died in 1978 from cance...

 It’s page 188 (of the PDF) and we’re getting some of the factoids that Moon landing deniers use to prove their point. None of these things actually hold up being based on a poor understanding of space science. It’s a rapid fire approach so we get to move through them quickly. No Craters : the problem with this section though, is that Kaysing has covered most of it before and this serves as a summary, I guess. It does give the effect of arguing with a child though, I’ve already explained why this is the case and now I have to repeat. So here Kaysing says that there are no craters from where the landing module set down. There wouldn’t be because there’s no atmosphere for the engines to push down. The only thing that there would be, are prints from the landing module’s feet. Those still exist, you can see them in later images of the Moon’s surface. Kaysing ends this section with, “ If you can find me a picture showing a crater, please sent it to me or give mthe index number.” I wond...

 The first section of this week’s appendix is titled “The Astronauts.” This section does something that we haven’t seen in a while—it raises an interesting point. It does so accidentally, but the point is still raised. Kaysing tells us that he was invited to a televised debate with Buzz Aldrin to discuss whether the Moon landing was faked. Aldrin didn’t show up, and Kaysing acts as though this was an act of cowardice, “ it was his obligation as a man and public servant to defend his case in person. ” Aldrin was not a public servant. He doesn’t owe anyone anything. The man comment is just proto-toxic masculinity, Kaysing is trying to shame him into showing up. We are told that Armstrong has disappeared because he won’t speak to either Kaysing or his co-investigators. Finally, we are told that “Astronaut Irving’s mother berated me on radio when I appeared on the Jim Eason show in San Fransisco. But when I offered to debate her son on the same program, there was dead silence.” Kaysing...

 Like Cooper before him, Kaysing does not have the greatest understanding of what an appendix is for. He’s much closer than Cooper, I have to give him credit for that; but an appendix should build off the established writing or should correct any mistakes. Here we’re getting more “evidence” for the conspiracy, but this stuff could have easily been in the proper book. Instead, we’re give this line, “ No attempt has been made to categorize the following bits and pieces of the ‘jigsaw puzzle’…but for now, bear with me and place the pieces in your own mind where they fit best .” Ok, Cooper’s writing seemed lazy but that was largely because he didn’t know better. Kaysing has been a writer for a bit before this book, and this is some bullshit. For the remaining twenty pages we, the reader, are supposed to the editing work for him. This is some bullshit…but let’s plow through it. The first section is titled “Betty Grissom.” Betty is the wife of the late Gus Grissom who perished in the Apo...