Think Again: The Conspiracy Nuts Take Over

Crossposted with the Center for American Progress. With Mickey Ehrlich

The Van Jones contretemps is over and Mr. Jones is now a private citizen. On his way out the White House door he was defended by The Nation and Arianna Huffington. However, the facts relating to his past statement, including one in which he termed himself a "communist," and about his association with a distracting group of conspiracy theorists who make outrageous claims about the "true" story of the September 11 attacks are available to all.

Truthers, as they are known, have attracted understandable ire from pundits and politicians. Laura Ingraham has called them "insane" and Bill Clinton has called them "idiots." Because rejection of the truthers has been so consistently bipartisan, it is easy to see why Mr. Jones's association with the group would spark so much fear and outrage. The rejection of the theses and hypotheses of the truthers should mean an effort to prevent parades of malicious rumor and distortions of facts from becoming part of legitimate discourse.

We wish we could say the same about those folks who believe it is their duty to perpetuate lies about Barack Obama. But ever since the 2008 campaign, the president has faced accusations that he isn't an American citizen or that he wasn't born here and so he is not eligible to be the president. The claim is easily refutable by evidence, but this appears to have precious little effect on those who continue to perpetrate these lies. Because the claim is so obviously untrue, the defense of the birthers' claims in the media is ipso facto an act of double talk.

Either by denial or by omission, pundits and politicians claim that they don't believe birther accusations. Nonetheless, they stand in alliance with professed birthers, and they defend the conspiracy theorists' right to free speech by giving them airtime that they don't deserve. While no one, not even his defenders or even Mr. Jones himself, defends his decision to sign a "truther" petition, apologists for birthers are everywhere....

You can read the rest of Eric Alterman and Mickey Ehrlich's analysis in their recent article, "Think Again: The Conspiracy Nuts Take Over"

Eric Alterman is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College. He is also a Nation columnist and a professor of journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. His seventh book, Why We're Liberals: A Handbook for Restoring America's Most Important Ideals, was recently published in paperback. He occasionally blogs at http://www.thenation.com/blogs/altercation and is a regular contributor to The Daily Beast.

Mickey Ehrlich is a freelance writer based in New York.

 

 

Follow Eric Alterman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Eric_Alterman

Comments

[letsmakesense]

Please read Charlie Sheen's Twenty minutes with the President.

[cobraxus]

for all their paranoid delusions those who subscribe to conspiracy theories do so because in principle it portrays a well-ordered world in which truly powerful people and organizations control everything.to a previous generation the idea that JFK could be brought down by some whackjob with a mail-order rifle seems impossible.so too with the 9/11 attacks.the birther movement on the other hand is something entirely different.their theories defy all logic and reason.

[Senzasord]

And the opposite of a truther is...

[MichelleDenise64]

Still amazing what people choose to believe because it suits their needs to feel that they are better than someone else.

[Willie12345]

Good Grief, if there ever was a person on the "fringe" it's Van Jones. How President Obama allowed this person on his team is amazing. His staff let him down and everyone knows it. IF they can't screen people better they will destroy his presidency. They have to do better !!!!

[unitron]

What, exactly, makes one a truther?

Do you have to be convinced that Bush's brother personally planted thermite charges throughout the WTC, or is it just enough to not automatically and unquestioningly fully accept the "official" explanation?

Is it possible to *not* be an Al-Qaeda sympathizer and still have some questions?

[fbr79]

Of course, but when one has questions about the official version of an event, or the historically accepted version of an event, that person must accept that reality is not always perfect, linear and most times cannot be fully reconstructed to answer every single question. The problem with truthers is that they would rather believe in even less credible versions or explanations, that would include an extensive complicity between several governmental agencies, military and civilian, and sometimes even international players, which even nowadays wouldn't have the capability of pulling out such plan. They would prefer to believe fantastic international conspiracies and manipulations that are stories full of holes on their own, rather than accept an official version that is not perfect.

[letsmakesense]

Please read Charlie Sheen's Twenty minutes with the President.
20 facts presented yet media only comments on Charlie's sex life.

[LMPE]

The worst part is that they won't believe the truth. These people are mental cases.

[Kaviraj]

Glenn Beck and Birthers:
misinformation
partial truths
outright lies
you tell the difference.