Denialists are so cute.
I have noted many similarities between various "denialist" movements over the years.
So, just what IS a denialist? Is that a conspiracy theorist? Well, yes, it can be. But not always. A denialist, in the modern sense of the word, is a sort of rebel, a person who looks at the "established order" and discovers that they can either become an invisible cog in the great big wheel, or they can become what we used to call a "non-conformist".
They will look at the traditional rebellion method. Motorcycle riding...dammit, now its mainstream. Punkdom! Hmm...once the City of London started paying the punks to walk around Carnaby Street showing off their blue and red hair, it became mainstream. And its SO hard to rebellious when you are mainstream. Seattle Grunge? Have you SEEN the price they charge for those ripped trousers? Yet another sell out. Just like pot smokers and casual sex...yup...been decriminalized, so its not shocking any more.
So what CAN you do if you want to NOT be invisible in the machine? Well, you could loudly let people know that you don't vaccinate your kids, and its WRONG to deny them entry to the public school. Or you can join clubs and buy books, telling people on your blogs, your store, your church or whatever that "THEY" are controlling the worlds' banks, that "THEY" are keeping your kids from getting jobs or "THEY" are making sure that uncle Walter is not going to get his MRI, or for that matter, "THEY" are going to take all our guns away.
These people are "denialists".
I would not give a rats ass about stupid people except of course that, first of all, they are actually not stupid, and secondly, in reality, they really do NOT have my better interests at heart.
Two weeks ago, I attended the funeral of a very good friend, Kurt. He was a graduate of the Bergen Belsen school of "how to fuck folks up real good!" He told me a few years ago that he was seeing things happening in the modern world which reminded him of Vienna in 1937. I asked him what they were. His laundry list of social indicators was not what I expected!
Firstly, he said, the most important thing was the prevalence of a "conspiracy". In his day, it was a conspiracy that the Jewish banking establishment was the cause of the great world wide depression, which hit Germany and Austria harder than it hit the US and Canada! Now, there are so many conspiracy "theories" that they even hold conventions! Jesse Ventura even has a TV show which examines some of these conspiracies.
Secondly,
They always bring in fake experts to fuel the fire. Then, it was people who were enamoured with the concept of Eugenics (Ve shall have der Master Race!) (Jews are dogs, Blacks cannot fly airplanes.) Nowadays it is people who push explosive finding dowsing rods, and homeopathic medicine.
Thirdly, he noted that they always were very selective about their so called evidence. They would point to one Jewish Industrialist, and brand the entire tribe with collusion. They would note a couple of blond haired "Aryan" Olympic gold medalists, and would try very hard to ignore the Jim Thorpes and Black Kenyan distance runners. They even got Jim's medals taken away from him because of a summer of pro football, since they could not get them recinded because he was a native American.
Forthly, he noted that when they came up with nutty ideas like "Master Race" and "Jewish Banking Conspiracy", they would demand overwhelming proof from people who thought otherwise. Proof was lost in the book burnings of 1938, as the works of Jews, Communists, and pretty much any body who dissented from the "party line" went up in smoke. He noted that then, like now, you simply cannot prove a negative. (You think the ghost of Merlin is NOT whispering in my ear? Well prove it!) You think that there is no real conspiracy among the Jewish bankers of the world? Well, prove that there IS NO conspiracy! Can't do that. Well, in the absence of proof one way or the other, I guess there IS a conspiracy then!
Fifthly, he noted that they would use logical fallacies. The Taliban feels that people should stay healthy by going to the gym, get a job to support your family and read the holy book. Therefore, anything which suggests that you go to the gym or get a job must be radical moslem thought! He felt that the thing he hated most was what he called the "straw man". That was a concept that was brought up supposedly supported by the "opposition" and was easy to demolish. His exact words were "you cannot defend yourself against a straw man!" I wanted more examples, and he reminded me that many people in Europe thought Franklin Roosevelt was a Jew and therefore America was in the pay of the Jewish community. So, I asked him, what do we have nowadays that are like that? Well, he said, Chiropractors have been known to actually kill people with their spinal manipulations, and when called upon this, they simply say "Well, sure, but look how many people die under Medical Doctor's care?" This neatly sidesteps the issue that you don't need chiropracty, and like many things which are pleasant (smoking comes to mind) it might even kill you. So why would they need to side step at all? So, (I asked him) are you suggesting Chiropractors are Nazis? "Oh heck no...its just that they use the same tactics to cover the uncomfortable truth that there is no basis to their beliefs. (That was a relief!) (Oh, a link to support this statement is here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractic)
Sixthly, create doubt. Even if you cannot win the arguement for science, you can perhaps get "equal time" for "Intelligent Design". Even if you cannot round up all the gypsies, you can somehow blame every theft on them. Even if the reason your loser brother in law cannot get a job is because he is a walking dick head, you can always suggest that more money would be available if we could only kill all the mental defectives. Even if you know that one in thousand kids will get autism whether they are vaccinated or not, it is somehow more comforting to think that it was some sort of contaminated vaccine which made little Johnny autistic.
Rest in Peace Kurt. The tatoos were faded but the pscyhic scars remained. To any who suggest that it is all just fun and games, remember, it they delude themselves about someting like, (say) magnet therapy or detoxification, are they setting themselves up to delude themselves about something else? Say,
something that could hurt me?
