Posts by HORansome
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When Feelings Trump Facts: A new reality TV show from Fox...
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Well, Icke's position is a little more complex than that; he admits that several Jewish dynastic families are actually reptilians, so the few times when he is has been explicitly anti-semetic he has subsequently claimed he was just being anti-lizard.
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Soros is pointed at as one of the global financial elites who wants to control the world drug trade; he's taken to be a visible member of the conspiracy by Wishart. Wishart doesn't think he is conspiring on his own; he's conspiring with a cabal of his financial peers.
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Wishart gets his conspiracy theories about Soros from LaRouche but he never directly touches on the Rothschilds connection. However, I think it is reasonable to say that if Wishart thinks LaRouche is a good source for why Soros is a bad egg, then it is reasonable to think that Wishart thinks LaRouche is largely right about why Soros is a bad egg.
I say 'largely' here because it's a bit weird to think that even Wishart would agree to LaRouche's claim that George Soros is a hitman for the British monarchy.
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Such conspiracies are suggested frequently in leftish publications, without anyone accusing the author or the readership of anti-semitism.
And most of those leftish conspiracy theories, when prodded, end up being versions of the Zionist Banking conspiracy theories, as Mark Fenster, in `Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture' and David Aaronvitch in 'Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History' have shown.
Which actually gets us to another point. Wishart gets his Soros conspiracy theories from Lyndon LaRouche (based upon Wishart's anti-Soros stuff in 'Air Con'), and LaRouche connects Soros with the Rothschilds.
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Also, and this point is both serious and jocular; saying that someone's theory is akin to a Zionist Banking conspiracy theory does not entail that it is an expression of their anti-semitic feelings; contextually it might well suggest it, because such conspiracy theories and their corollaries are examples of unwarranted beliefs and are treated as pejoratives but, of course, it might turn out that they're all for the Elders of Zion controlling the world, which would end up being an expression of pro-semite sentiment.
(I can't find it now, but there was a political cartoon printed in Israel by one of the national papers in which some prominent bankers were seen joking over a copy of the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' wishing that it were all true.)
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A very good question; I'm italicising it here because it is italicised in my thesis, and it is italicised in my thesis because I don't think there is any set of necessary and sufficient conditions that allow us to describe some definite thing as a Conspiracy Theory; at best we have a family resemblance criterion that associates many things as being conspiracy theories. Thus the italics.
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Outside of the context of discussions about conspiracy theories, yes, you have a point. When it comes to suggesting a conspiracy on the part of a global financial elite, as Wishart clearly does in his article, however, the context is, I would argue, sufficient justification to alone one to point out that such a conspiracy theory is but mere steps away from other, similar, conspiracy theories.
Inferences are context-sensitive, which is why we can make them in some situations and not in others.
It is also, I think, important to remember that we should expect of a good journalist a keen mind and ethical standards; authors of such articles should not be suggesting these mere conspiracy theories just because they are unwarranted; they should also not be suggesting these mere conspiracy theories because they will be conscious of what certain elements of their readership will make of or do with them.
Finally, a side-note. In the world of conspiracy theories it doesn't matter if Soros does not appear to be Jewish; for a conspiracy theorist of that stripe the fact that he is a financier is sufficient proof that he will be a Zionist, a crypto-Jew, a Jewish sympathiser or a lackey of the reptiloids.
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I think the previous poster's point is the 'Secret Bankers' conspiracy theory is either a) one step away from the 'Zionist Bankers' conspiracy theory or b) the coded way certain conspiracy theorists talk about the Elders of Zion without having to actually mention 'the Jews.'
Now this might be a false dilemma, but its a dilemma that is fairly common in the existing conspiracy theory literature and it's not a an unwarranted inference to make. I think we can probably assume Wishart is at option a (he's talking about a conspiracy theory that certain readers will think reveals a Jewish plot) rather than option b (Wishart is an antisemite).
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This is why Rawl's 'Veil of Ignorance' is important; you need to consider these decisions from the position of not knowing who you might be in the population. Given the massive benefits of vaccination and their low, low risks, we should want to be vaccinated.