Conspiracy Theories: From Fox News to the Muslim World
A strong reason why the right wing media machine (Fox News, Talk Radio, Blogs) developed into a powerful force over the past decade is because they tapped into a feeling that the mainstream media had a liberal bias. I think that especially when it comes to social issues, there was/is at least a grain of truth to the allegation. Despite doing their best to maintain their journalistic integrity, people who have been to top universities and then worked in the big cities are likely to be pro-choice and pro gay-rights to give a couple of examples.
Unfortunately for anyone interested in journalistic standards, instead of providing objective coverage with a conservative bias, they have repeatedly resorted to dishonesty, smearing opponents and echoing Republican talking points. The suggestion that Bill Ayers wrote Barack Obama’s autobiography is simply a culmination of talking points which paint the Democrats as traitors who will make America communist.
My point is that I think conspiracy theories happen when people who feel disempowered by the conventional media, distrust everything they say and come up with alternative formulations. For instance, the Jeremiah Wright conspiracy theory that the government helped spread AIDS in the Black Community was probably spawned from a feeling of discrimination against people living in the inner cities.
Similarly, I think that a lot of Muslim conspiracy theories arise out of grievances and real media biasses. However just because the Israel/Palestine situation is unjust does not mean that four thousand jewish people didn’t attend work on Sept. 11 because they were warned off by the Mossad.
Just like the right wing machine has taken legitimate grievances and turned them into wild speculation, the same thing has happened in the Muslim world. This really hit home to me after the bombings in Pakistan. Rather than finally realising that the Pakistani Taliban/Al-Qaeda do not discriminate on nationality or religion and are willing to butcher innocent civilians, talk has turned to yet more conspiracy theories. I’m not sure what the solution is but I think its important to realise that this is a problem and is standing in the way of making progress.
“My point is that I think conspiracy theories happen when people who feel disempowered by the conventional media, distrust everything they say and come up with alternative formulation.”
Maybe. I would say a bigger reason is a desire to avoid humiliation. Rev. Wright’s comments about the govt spreading AIDS in the black community is a clear example. There has always been the stereotype that the black community is hyper-sexualized and thus has a higher infection rate of AIDS than mainstream America. One way to avoid the stigma of that stereotype is to come to rationale that the govt is conspiring to murder blacks through AIDS. The same could be said for the Muslim world and 9/11.
Shariq:
‘I think that a lot of Muslim conspiracy theories arise out of grievances and real media biasses’.
That and the almost totally subservient state-controlled media in most Muslim countries. You are correct that in the absence of free media space for the exchange of information, people tend to fall back on conpiracy theories.
There is also the absence of academia and development of critical thinking. I heard that little Israel produces more published works on everything from topics as diverse as home furnishings to nuclear pysics than the whole Muslim world put together. Yet at one time the libraries of Baghdad and the House Of Knowledge led the world in academic thinking. That is a scary thought.
Obama will stop at nothing!
Fair point, but who’s behind all these conspiracy theories, eh?
You could apply the same thinking to many things. Does the Jewish Media and various think tanks consider the mainstream media against them despite the fact that many media orgs are more sympathetic to Israel than anyone else?
The right wing in the USA has hijacked and bullied the media into submission and anything other than complete obedience is seen as unpatriotic.
America has no independent media. Most media is run by people who adhere to right wing bias. Indeed the Bush Whitehouse has threatened anyone daring to critically question it.
It isn’t because people didn’t listen to the right it is because the right wanted more and has pursued a policy of bullying which is unprecedented and then people like you sit back and defend this.
The whole point of an independent media is to criticise policy and not agree with it.
Muslim grievance is quite genuine and with merit. But it is the actions and approach which is simply put poor.
However the sooner the world sees America and its media for the bully it is the better. Colin Powell who was at the heart of this has seen it and commented on the need for change.
The fact is that the right is a bully and even McCain who has tried to run a decent campaign, the last week aside is being bullied for not being a bully!
It is sadly catching on here in the UK thanks to the Murdoch Press. The press is being ruined by blaming Muslims, Poles, Immigrants etc. for problems that are of the making of the right whose unfettered policies have brought the world to this point.
Anyone who can defend the likes of Bill O’Reily and say they are not being heard enough is simply blind to what has gone on as a project for nigh on 30 years.
The right identified what it needed to do and has done it for 30 years and even though it now controls much of the so called free media even this isn’t enough. This is how the Nazi’s rose to power and the same techniques are being used to submit the media to the right’s ideology.
The U.S.A. is the most religious “western” country and is famous for “paranoiac” aspects to its politics. That connects with both belief in conspiracies, genuine conspiracies- like Fox News, Murdoch may not believe in what people say on it, but he believes it makes money- and muslim conspiracy theories. Religion is a benign- if you’re a believer- conspiracy theory, usually unrecognised as such by the believers. If an all-powerful god is on your side- which believers assume- and all things will be well in the end, then the only reason your side hasn’t won is because you are the victim of an evil conspiracy.
Murdoch does believe in Fox News as by all accounts his represents his own political leanings.
Is the media in the USA any more independent than media in Muslim countries? Hell no they toe the line otherwise they are denied access to interviews, ability to ask questions etc.
The right in America has made questioning them into an unpatriotic duty which is Un-American. How is that different to state controlled media in other countries?
Even websites such as this bash the “Liberal Left” and yet fail to convincingly do the same for the right and the way it has destroyed investigative journalism and the right of people to know what is going on in the world. a simplistic world view is presented which in itself is a threat to democracy because people are ill informed when making a decision.
“Murdoch does believe in Fox News as by all accounts his represents his own political leanings.”
Economic leanings- probably.
Social and religious leanings- probably not.
Rather than finally realising that the Pakistani Taliban/Al-Qaeda do not discriminate on nationality or religion and are willing to butcher innocent civilians, talk has turned to yet more conspiracy theories. I’m not sure what the solution is but I think its important to realise that this is a problem and is standing in the way of making progress.
The solution is to identify the peddlers of these conspiracy theories and call them for what they are: a bunch of ridiculous crackpots. Start with Imran Khan.
Shariq,
A RESPONSE TO YOUR FIRST PARAGRAPH
It has been far to quite around here recently. I’d expect this thread to run to a couple of hundred angry posts at least
I am as interested in consipracy theories as you are. If I may, and I am doing this for the joy of contradictions as much as anything else, I’d like to take what you said ,apart, piece by piece:
We are talking USA here, y’know (USA!, USA!) are we not? This is in an era where media surrendered almost completely to the idea that government is patriotism. Any dissent was treason. You correctly identify the clean up troops for any dissent, the likes of Faux News and Talk Radio. Sweep up the detritious that don’t agree and call them traitors. It has been going on for a while, has it not?
That reduces some of us into a now mediated sound bite idiocy. We are Fox News. We have no opinions of our own.
So, that is what the USA, (USA!, USA!) was allegedly all about. It was about suppression of votes, suppression of opinion to the left of Ghenghis Khan, it was heading towards Hell on a handcart.
There was, at least as far as I saw it, a dominant or militaristic, opinion throughout the internet. Folk that thought the idea of ‘an illuminated parking lot’ was a sensible solution for the USA (USA!, USA!) faction.
It was never clear to me, during that era, that the media mouthpiece actually said, much, to contradict that political tsunami. Or, if you prefer, the genuine conspiracy of governments to lie to us about what they actually knew. These bastards lied to us. They did not allow doubt, they did not allow judgement, they simply lied. That is why the lying liars should, and sadly never will, have been called to account. A scared electorate is a stupid electorate, and that is the edge that they have over us. Blair should have been hung from a lampost, for the lies he told. But, we do not do that sort of thing. We allow liars leeway, we allow them to escape. So, the media, in particular, becomes the mouthpiece for the rulers.
It was not an hour of glory for investigative journalism, it was a ‘by jingo’ moment when lies were passed on to the people as revealed truth. Which was, of course, a heap of shit.
And still, we don’t call it for what it is.
That and the almost totally subservient state-controlled media in most Muslim countries. You are correct that in the absence of free media space for the exchange of information, people tend to fall back on conpiracy theories.
Whoa there. This is a nice soundbyte, but bullshit in reality. The USA has tons of free media space and, if anything, it has increased the capacity for conspiracy theories because word spreads around so quickly.
That Pakistanis believe in conspiracy theories is not new. That lots of Americans also believe in conspiracy theories is something not many people want to talk about. Right now you have an election which is the biggest story around, and yet people still believe a ton of conspiracy theories around Obama. The level of stupidity is obscene.
So it still doesn’t answer the question of why people choose to believe in them, and how to stop them.
Is the media in the USA any more independent than media in Muslim countries? Hell no they toe the line otherwise they are denied access to interviews, ability to ask questions etc.
Crap
Wow…real rhetorical brilliance there from David. A new Cicero is born.
It is all you need to do.
I wouldn’t say that Muslim countries are uniquely restrictive of freedom of expression. They’re not. There are also Muslim countries that have a relatively free press. Malaysia is one. Nevertheless, even in that country, papers are required to obtain a yearly permit, which can be suspended if the government takes the view that the paper is “prejudicial to the national interest.” Malaysia also has imprisoned a number of bloggers, notably RPK, on utterly spurious charges.
By contrast, a pop star’s management not giving a hostile interviewer an interview, or the activities of political spin doctors, just doesn’t being to compare with journalists being imprisoned or even killed.
I know that there are some people who like to think that we’re living in a sort of latter day Nazi state, but this is just paranoid fantasy. A conspiracy theory, if you like.
I’d like to suggest that conspiracy theories are simply the tip of the iceberg that everyones’ opinions are of equal value, whether they are evidence free or not. Quite often you get opinion stated as fact on t’internet. “Obama is an Arab”, for instance. This becomes a memetic process, in as much as when a lie is repeated often enough it takes on a semi-validity because enough people have heard it enough times for it to become a cultural icon – for them, hopefully not for us – despite it being obvious nonsense.
I was listening to the very wonderful Rachel Maddow this morning, who had a chap on who made the point that Washington did not cut down a cherry tree, that it was a fiction.
And yet, it is so embedded into their culture that denying it would probably be enough to make you appear Anti-American.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/
(select the Hogman segment)
This is what we are truly up against, idiots, such as Representative Bachmann being given air time to suggest that other Congressional members and Senators are somehow anti-American. Say it long, say it loud and some of the mud sticks. That is a society where a surprising number of folk believe that aliens abduct people with the sole intention of indulging in a bit of rectal probing.
Joining the Freemasons has been quite high on my To-Do list for some time now.
Conspiracy theories exist because we all know people do conspire. Often to commit a crime of some sort.
Somebody conspired to do 9/11, as others did to frame Iraq with WMDs.
So what’s the problem?
Some national security agencies will plant bombs in anticipation of political outcomes, as they will use assassinations as a tool of their trade.
Many have a handlers on national newspapers and media.
Conspiracy theories exist because conspiracies exist.
I can’t see why this thread exists, unless it is to say there are certain types of conspiracies we’d rather not see gain ground.
“Obama is an arab” is not a conspiracy theory. It is a product of the fact that his middle name is Hussein, combined with the emphasis placed on his middle name by both Clinton and various conservative pundits
“Obama is secretly a muslim” verges into conspiracy theory territory. However, its wrongness is essentially a conflation of two other, non conspiracist arguments:
(a) Some pundits have argued that, because his grandfather was Muslim, he and his father would be regarded presumptively as a Muslim by some Muslims. That is possibly true. So what?
(b) Some pundits have argued that Obama, when a small child, attended a school where he received Muslim religious education. Again, so what. I received C of E religious education. Doesn’t make me a Christian.
What we’re talking about here is idle hypothesising. The “Obama is a secret Muslim” meme is a conspiracy theory. The “Obama has Muslim heritage” meme is not.
And as Colin Powell says so what if he was a muslim.
The conspiracy would be to make muslims a target of vilification by a significant section of the population.
The essence of a conspiracy theory is that the evidence of the conspiracy is said by its proponents to include the absence of evidence, or by evidence which is not really evidence.
e.g. the Jews who were pre warned of 9/11. This lie was circulated by Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV station. They made it up. There is no evidence for it.
e.g. WMD: the evidence for WMD was certainly played up, but it was not wholly absent. It included the testimony of Iraqi defectors, and knowledge of past WMD programmes which we know did exist. The only question was whether Saddam Hussein had retained WMD capability. The difficulty in answering that question was the refusal of Saddam to allow inspectors in to verify that information. Therefore, the belief that Hussein had WMD was a hypothesis premised on evidence, rather than a conspiracy theory.
Do you see?
David T
“Saddam was affiliated to and was a proponent of Al-Qaeda” was a conspiracy theory making its rounds amongst pro-war supporters. It too was propounded on the basis of the absence of evidence.
Do you agree that that was a conspiracy theory David? Or would you now rather call it a meme?
“Therefore, the belief that Hussein had WMD was a hypothesis premised on evidence, rather than a conspiracy theory.”
Er, conspiracy theories aren’t defined by a lack of evidence, they’re defined by involving a conspiracy.
Or are you alleging that conspiracies never take place?
No, there is a difference between a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory. One is real, and the other is not.
Anyway, if we want to talk about conspiracies then how about the “Iraq may have been behind the anthrax attacks” claim?
“Sources” told ABC News that the anthrax contained the chemical additive benonite. As Saddam Hussein had used benonite, the media trumpeted it as compelling evidence of his involvement. Of course – as they later admitted – no tests ever showed benonite.
Coincidence?
Ben
Do you agree that that was a conspiracy theory David? Or would you now rather call it a meme?
It just about tips over into a conspiracy theory. It took the form of pretty speculative hypothetising about the links between Saddam and Ansar Al Islam and other Al Qaeda related entities that were present in Iraq pre-invasion. From there, pretty low level and unfruitful meetings were played up into a grand association that wasn’t really there.
“No, there is a difference between a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory. One is real, and the other is not.”
O Rly?
conspiracy theory
–noun
1. A theory that explains an event as being the result of a plot by a covert group or organization; a belief that a particular unexplained event was caused by such a group.
2. The idea that many important political events or economic and social trends are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.
David T,
Obama is an Arab. Repeating that mantra often enough because you suspect that enough Americans will be put off of the candidate by that allegation is a conspiracy. In the sense that a group of people who do not want him elected see a propoganda campaign based on an untruth as an effective tactic. If that is not a conspiracy….
Anyway, you appear to contradict yourself @ 20 when you say:
I’d have thought the fact that Obama is not an Arab fitted that definition fairly well. There is really no evidence that he is an Arab………so, there is an absence of evidence, is there not? Which rather handily fits your definition of what a conspiracy actually is.
Really? I was under the impression that UN inspection teams were operating in Iraq, and had found nothing of consequence. So, one or the other of us is probably subscribing to a conspiracy.
Refresh,
That would be one conspiracy. Another would be to tell a deliberate lie about a candidate in order to alienate him from your assumed racist target voter and thinik that that would be a useful tool in getting your man – McCain – elected. Whilst I don’t think the Bradley effect exists, it’s pretty plain that the Republicans do.
Douglas, agreed.
You would need to create the first to deliver on the second.
‘Conspiracy theory’ is a term that’s a god-send for the powers that be in the mood for a cover up. It’s no secret all the facts are rarely made public and, when they really want to do something dastardly and offer some bullshit justification for it, it’s convenient to dismiss anyone that disagrees (or dares to propose another more probable cause behind their actions) as a conspiracy theorist nutter.
Convenient.
So this is what’s happening in America. After being labeled bullies that want to bring darkies to their knees the world over, the powers that be are working overtime to restore America’s PR. So that’s why they’ve put up an fogey like McCain and his unlikable sidekick Pallin.
They want Obama to win. So when they engineer something that makes 9/11 look like a picnic in the park, they can reclaim the power, save the world and when they bomb Iran can say: ‘Shut up, we had a black president. America is the land of the free, innit?’
It’s like charles manson’s great plan of hiding his clan of white warriors in the woods, let black people take over the world, naturally fuck it up, then return from the woods and take over
But then I’m just a conspiracy theorist nut
Conspiracy theories do happen when people feel disempowered. It’s a form of penis envy. It begins with the assumption that there are people with the amazing ability to control world events far beyond what’s possible. It cannot tolerate that world events have complex causes, insisting instead on simple but hidden causes. Like the claim that a small group of people masterminded the French Revolution, WWI, and WWII. And then it continues with the frustration of not being one of those people. It restores a sense of power by claiming to be one of the few who understand what’s happening.
Kismet,
Spot on.
I used to rail against ‘conspiracy theories’, imagining myself to be some kind of protector of reason. But, of course, dismissing something because of its attatchment to a loaded term is about as irrational and incurious as one can get.
The thing is, some things keep on existing even if you stop using the words that represent them. If you stop using the phrase conspiracy theory, some people will continue making up things that they would like to be true, invent the set of facts necessary to prove themselves right. And you will have to discuss that without using the term that best describes what they are doing.
What’s more, given that stupid people exist, and speak, if you stop using a term every time stupid people misuse it, eventually you will have no words left and will be reduced to trying to convey complicated political concepts through mime.
That’s a recipe for either powerlessness and apathy, or feudalism, government by personal relationships instead of laws (which don’t tend to work so well without words).
It’s probably easier, all said, to get your head around a concept they seem to have stopped teaching in schools a while back: ‘wrong’.
If someone says 2 + 2 = 5, they are _wrong_.
If someone labels something as a conspiracy theory, and so dismisses it, when all it would involve is half a dozen people meeting and agreeing to do something that it is plausible such a group of people might want to do, no aliens, cabals or mind control needed, they are _wrong_.
If someone has a definition of plausible that lets them think you could take 6 random US military types and get them to organise and conceal an attack New York, or a mosque-full of Muslims and get them cover up a politician’s membership, they are _wrong_.
Not everyone would agree: those who don’t are wrong.
I see Dave T. is very selective with his words. The fact is that the right in the USA has destroyed mainstream reporting, investigative journalism etc.
Hiding behind patriotism to stop anyone questioning its follies and excesses. The way America has gone is a disgrace.
BTW The right whingers here love Bush’s America so much love the place so much and abhor what they claim the left has done here but why don’t they pack up and leave to those lovely pastures they find so ideal?
The Bush White House has used essentially bullying to ensure that reporters do not ask difficult questions. it has hidden behind procedure to ensure that its actions are not open to investigation.
How the hell people see that as free media is bleedin hard. This is the Administration which denies access to reporters if they displease the administration and then talk of a free media. If it is free then why are reporters told they will lose their access to white house briefings if they ask difficult questions?
You can’t have both free media and denial of access.
In a democracy challenging the actions of the President and the military should be given and not an issue of loyalty to the state. In fact the attacks on those who challenged the Bush doctrine and actions in Iraq border on the criminal for doing essentially what is right.
The question is why the right whitewash all the actions of the Republicans and portray anyone who is liberal and being unpatriotic.
This is the false legacy and damn lies which are being left behind by an administration that has the worst excesses of totalitarianism under the guise of democracy.
The Bush White House has set back the cause of democracy by a generation and induced the American people to have little trust if any in their politicians. Hell of a legacy to leave behind.
It is great to see the neocon vultures blame everyone but themselves for the mess they created and profited from. Amazing how many neocons have sat on baords or as advisors to so many dodgy dealings.
Avi, the right in America is frequently wrong, but free speech means the right to speak freely even when you are wrong. We might have a terrible press here, but it is most assuredly free.
Matt,
with respect it isn’t free. As I said the White House threatened reporters with limited or no access if they asked George difficult questions so that isn’t a free press now is it?
The USA Administration has pressured foreign press agencies such as Al-Jazeerah so that isn’t a free press.
As a UK national I can’t buy a US News Channel but a a US Citizen can buy a UK Channel. So do you have a free press when you limit ownership?
The Bush Administration restricted access to photos of Abu Ghraib, Guantanmo Bay, bodies of US Service personnel killed in war etc. So is that a free press?
Short of making it a federal crime the Bush Administration made out that anyone questioning its policies was unpatriotic so is that free press when the press is pressured to keep quiet?
I didn’t say you didn’t have free speech I said the press isn’t as free as everyone implies. It has its limits and those have been restricted severely by the Bush Administration.
The legacy of the right if anything is that it shouldn’t be questioned and if you do you are:
a) Unpatriotic
b) Liberal
You know when even the Daily Telegraph has a headline calling for an Obama Presidency that the right in the USA has gone too far!
Actually, yes, that is a free press. And so on…
Where did that come from??
“Obama is an Arab. Repeating that mantra often enough because you suspect that enough Americans will be put off of the candidate by that allegation is a conspiracy. In the sense that a group of people who do not want him elected see a propoganda campaign based on an untruth as an effective tactic.”
It is only effective with racists who would not vote for Obama anyhow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRqcfqiXCX0
I’ve been following this election very closely and am currently in the USA getting down to some grass roots politics to ensure the right man gets the job as ruler of the universe, for which the Americans have expressed their undying gratitude to me. As a dedicated supporter of John McCain (I have the box-set of all Die Hard movies), I was quite shocked to hear him in praise of Obama’s ‘natural sense of rhythm’ so I shouted ‘Obama is a bum boy of the Hamas’ to a round of hearty applause from my fellow Americans and then me and my new friends went and shot some aliens. I’ll keep you posted on further exciting developments as I tirelessly continue to help mankind
hahaha
digitalcntrl,
Yes, I’d agree with you. Which leaves me puzzled why the McCain camp persist with this sort of thing, or more accurately, coded surrogates.
Because the McCain camp are, by definition, hardcore McCain supporters, and so out of touch with what the majority thinks?
Of course, there will be some people around McCain reading the polls and thinking analytically. They realise how badly this stuff is playing out, and will argue against pushing it further.
Others will go with their belly instinct that they should have more fire in their gut, or something: damn the polls, call Obama names.
Obama loses election: O BUMMER
Why Obama loses election: BARACK TOO BLACK
Obama finds new career: BARACK LAYER
Obama turns to drugs and prostitution: BARACK WHORE
-The end-
This has been a party political broadcast on behalf of http://www.mccain.co.uk/our-food/chips/
Is this a piss take?
On http://www.barackobama.com
The opening words read: OBAMA BIDEN
Now what does that sound like?