1. The acceptance of a refutable factoid as “fact”. The truth is that from 1921 to 1923, he talked about the Jews in 10 out of 11 of his speeches, and not in a kind manner. The central point itself is openly erroneous, nevermind that it’s designed to distract from the fact that there are plenty of other elements clearly illustrating Hitler’s and Nazi Germany’s regard for the Jews: The “Nuremberg Laws” as well as other “Aryanization” legislation, the Kristallnacht, the ghettos and the concentration camps, etc. Trying to undo the convergence of multiple pieces of evidence by citing a denialist myth is not sound debate, but the point here is that there’s uncritical acceptance of an unproven “factoid” simply because it’s congruent with the central, irreducible delusion that the Holocaust did not happen.

You also see these factoids manifest themselves in 9/11 trutherism: “Free fall”, “controlled demolition”, “expert airplane maneuvers that only a highly skilled pilot can do”, etc. All of them are wrong for various reasons, but again, what’s notable here is that any conspiratorial “fact” is almost certainly misrepresented from the get-go. That may sound obvious, but it’s surprising how often it catches even those who otherwise should be able to smell out the deception. As a personal example, I was introduced to 9/11 Trutherism via a debate where someone noted that jet fueled fires cannot burn hot enough to melt steel. I have a chemistry degree, I was able to discover that burning kerosene does in fact not burn in open air at temperatures hot enough to cause steel to melt, yet I didn’t know a rebuttal to that claim. I certainly didn’t know that it was irrelevant to 9/11 (for the record, steel melting most certainly not the cause of the tower’s collapses, plus no critical steel elements melted at all; the Ground Zero recovery and cleanup process established that). In spite of sensing that something was wrong with the argument, I did for the sake of that debate accept the central notion that steel melting was the cause of the Towers collapse. It just sounded right, and I floundered about figuring out the answer. The lesson here is that every claim needs to be sourced and examined at a very fundamental level, and that applies to any conspiracy delusion, 9/11, Holocaust denial, etc.

2. The sense of superiority that the conspiracy addict has in regards to “knowing something no one else does”. Supposedly, that little factoid mentioned above was unknown to us believers because we were inattentive students of history. Of course, the reality is that some of us (myself excluded) knew already that it was actually erroneous, and the rest of us knew that it wouldn’t have mattered anyway since Nazi Germany clearly established policies against Jewish people. But that doesn’t stop the arrogant presumption that the conspiracy addicts are the superior students of history, and that the rest of us are ignorant.

So… what does this all have to do with violence? Well, it’s that it forms the basis of a worldview opening the possibility of violence either being used to rectify the supposed injustice, or simply to highlight the “illusion” the rest of the uninformed populace supposedly accepts without question. But before going further, it’s worth noting that the two elements I mentioned above are not in and of themselves dangerous, nor are many of the others. They’re self centered, obnoxious, obviously delusional, and in too many cases, quite arrogant, but not actually dangerous by themselves. What they do allow for is the construction of a complex picture of society acquiescing meekly to governmentally constructed narratives of history for the good of their own selfish ambitions. Or in short, that everyone’s guilty of submission to dictatorial or tyrannical propoganda. Now, in many cases, the delusions stop there and conspiracy addicts just bitch and whine about society and life; the Holocaust denier and 9/11 truther I mentioned above thankfully falls into this category. In others, they progress towards something with the superficial appearance of being constructive: David Irving is one such example in Holocaust denialism, having produced (pseudo) scholarship for historians; 9/11 truther demonstrations and petitions (like NYCCan.org – a petition for another investigation into 9/11), as well as their infamous “politician ambushes” are others. Those are bothersome, and a waste of people’s time (especially in cases where it interrupts legitimate work, such as the truther invasion of NIST’s expert’s conference regarding their studies of the Twin Towers collapses), but you can argue that that’s simply an honest, albeit senseless, useless, and wasted exercise of free speech and therefore harmless in the end. But it’s the minority such as Bedell who are the worrisome members of the conspiratorially obsessed club because they’re the ones who can conclude for whatever reason that open violence is the only thing that will get people to pay attention to their cause. And they get driven forth by the rhetoric of other conspiratorially deluded individuals who, while careful to preserve their own hides through nonaction, openly advocate for violence (Keven Barrett of Wisconsin is one such example of this).

This goes on to show that deluded nutcases are still something to be concerned about even when the vast majority of them are not violent, because it only takes a single, unhinged individual to use their irreducible delusion as motivation to commit acts such as the one Bedell committed; the only saving grace of that incident is that he’s apparently a lousy shot. But the problem is that it’s difficult to pick those people out of the conspiracy addicted club to begin with; which truther/chemtrailist/Holocaust denier is going to just write missives and manifestos on the internet, and who’s going to decide that a firefight is the best thing to do? And that’s the reason behind my highlighting a possible link between Bedell and Holocaust denialsim: Those folks tend to talk big but not carry through. Yet, if one of them was agitated enough to pull a gun out at a major Washington location, then maybe it’s worth it for law enforcement officials to take a peek at the Holocaust-denial boards and groups to see if a substrain of violence-tendencies is cropping up. No, that’s not a case of “guilt-by-association”, but it is cause for a closer look, just to determine if he’s truly an aberration, or symptomatic of something larger.

Anyway, delusion as a driving force: Perhaps Neo here would know a bit more about the psychology behind delusionary worldviews, but there’s no doubt that those central, irreducible delusions are what motivates many of these folks to do what they do. We’re just lucky in this society that there are far more people who resort to Irving-type pseudoscholarship, or Truther type demonstrations than there are those who follow Bedell’s example.

ElMondoHummus: That interests me too and I would like to have seen more discussion of delusion in this topic since delusional is a far more apt adjective for Bedell than his wingedness.

Once they notice that non inner party members are reading their stuff, they’ll probably memory hole it…

“David Irving is a known right wing extremist. And Holocaust denial is known as a far-right-wing form of delusional extremism”

By left wing standards. A few academics have tried to tie those loons, along with racist groups, to US conservatives but many of them profess to be socialists… because capitalism is Jewish and all…

There are no tangible connections to US conservatives… who tend to be very pro Israel… while the progressives have been absorbing the anti Israel memes of the old Euro right.

The anti racism of the left is relatively new (60s?). Since then they’ve rewritten the history books to portray it as ‘right wing’ and tried to connect all racist groups with conservatives. Its nonsense… like most of their narratives.

ElMondoHummus: I figured out a couple postings in that you weren’t a leftist poking a finger at us.

I just don’t believe that a one-dimensional axis inherited from the French Revolution to graph all current political positions serves us well, especially when it comes to outliers like Nazism and Communism.

Like it or not, this debate of whether Nazism and Communism are on the same side or different has been going on since Orwell’s time and it’s not settled either way. I don’t see how it can be, since it depends on how one defines Right and Left and that’s arbitrary.

It certainly has hijacked the thread with leftist truthiness”

You tell me; am I a troll?.

I know I’ve posted what, 4 times since 2007? And I realize a lot of you don’t recognize me. But for the love of God, please look my history on this blog up before making the mistake of thinking I’m coming in from the left.

—————–

“huxley Says:

I agree that when it comes to political extremists there is usually a delusional component that is more important to understand than their proper seating assignments in a French parliament that no longer exists.”

I can agree with that; from what I’ve seen out of conspiracy mythologists for the past 4 years, the delusion is the primary driving force. Holocaust deniers, for example, are simply driven by a need to denigrate the Jewish, and they construct mighty absurdities to link them to either the communist left or the fascist right. And too often, it’s the same denier linking in the mutually opposed directions. And 9/11 fantasy peddlers do the same. Bedell is confirmed to be the latter, and may potentially also be the former.

My original point in bringing up the potential link to Irving was to identify a potential link to Neonazi delusion. I didn’t think people were going to jump on the distinction between rightist fascists and leftist socialists and then conflate that measure with US conservative philosophy.

“huxley Says:

ElMondoHummus: If we end up talking about different Left/Right spectrums for free nations versus socialist nations, I question the utility of Left and Right”

But if we end up consigning philosophies differing to the extent that National Socialist and Communism do to the same side of a spectrum, we destroy the concept of measuring along spectrums to begin with. It cannot be helped that the differences exist. This is not some logarithmic scale where the very real diffferences between the systems are minute relative to their differences to us in free nations. This is a case where glossing over the very real differences destroys understanding.

Furthermore, I do not understand why the castigation of an extremist political philosophy by correctly identifying it by its applicable measure is somehow taken to be the same thing as being derogatory towards US conservatives. Yet, that is what damn near every response to me has presumed I was doing.

—————–

“Oblio Says:

Now it becomes clear that you consider National Socialism to be “right-wing” and an opposite to Communism along some spectrum that doesn’t really apply to our normal operating definitions of Right and Left. This is interesting, but not on point. The CSM writer couldn’t have meant it that way, because it wouldn’t be understood by his readers. He clearly meant the label to have some negative political baggage for the meaningful opponents of the Left, i.e. the conservatives.”

Yes, that was what I was trying to get across; not economic class, but a lower “class” based on criterial other than economic measures. Even here in the US, where classes are primarily taken as economic ones, there are aspects to classes that have little to nothing to do with economic status? How many times has the term “low class” been used as an epithet when someone does something gauche?

And I’m sorry if this comes off as argumentative – that’s not my intent – but I fully believe that this is on point. My point is that if the links from Bedell to Hopsicker to Irving end up being significant, then it’s an indication of a change in who’s simply talking big in the conspiracy peddling community, and who’s actually attempting to be dangerous. My point was never to condemn US conservatives via association with Nazi’s, it was to point out that among the paranoid delusionists, the ones who’ve latched onto historical authoritarian philosophies may be deciding to spurn talk for action. People who’ve been fans of David Irving, as reprehensible as they are, have generally not been violent, choosing instead to project a mein of scholarly studiousness instead of Brownshirt thuggery. The whole reason I brought up the potential association was that the possibilty of Bedell deviating from this mold is a concern for the police, and therefore worthy of news coverage and public commentary. I didn’t think that the clarifications I attempted to make would drag the thread in this direction.

Those conspiracy delusionists happen to be right wing along their proper social philosophies spectrum. And as I said before, I can’t help that some dumb reporter wanted to allege conservative guilt-by-association; I was coming at this as a student of conspiratory delusions and those who peddle them.

—————–

“neo-neocon Says:

ElMondoHummus: the book I’ve recommended before, They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer, a study of German society during WWII and immediately after, mentions quite prominently that before the war Germany was a very rigidly stratified society in terms of economic class and profession (particularly education), and that the Nazis broke down those barriers to a large extent. According to many of his interviewees, the “little men” of Germany felt that for the first time they had a voice. So according to his book Nazism de-stratified Germany in economic terms, to a certain extent, rather than stratifying it.”

That’s true; that’s why so many of the hoi-polloi in Germany at that time were glad to see Hitler. Thanks for that link; I’ll take a look at that book at some point. And to speak towards what I posted above: I was talking about something other than economic classes when I posted. That’s why I invoked “Herrenvolk”, Uber- and Untermenschen, etc. Social and economic classes have elements that are interrelated, but I never have considered them to be the same thing. When someone is derided as being “low class”, it’s often a commentary on their behavior or some other characteristic, not always their pocketbook.

——–

Neo, I know I haven’t been commenting here that much in the past few years, not like I used to, but since the topic of Bedell converged with something I’ve been studying – conspiracy delusionalists – I figured I’d come out of lurking. It doesn’t seem to have been well received; I didn’t account for the fact that outside of strcpy and yourself, no one else here has read me before, and a couple of the obviously jumped to the conclusion that I’m left wing and coming to troll. I didn’t mean for things to get out of hand. I’m sorry the thread digressed so badly.

Okay, I’m not going to address the rest of your post because I think you’re suffering under some sort of misapprehension that I’m trying to smear the modern US conservative by associating them with historical Nazis. Nothing can be further from the truth; as I just said above: There is ZERO comminality between the Fascist Nazi and the modern Conservative. The US spectrum is completely different and separate from the one between Leftist Communism and Rightist Fascism.

Furthermore, please review my history at Neo’s blog from back when I was posting regularly, first under this handle and prior to that under E.M.H.. I am no leftist. With that, I’ll presume your initial hostility and judgement that I “don’t know what (I’m) talking about” is based on a misapprehension that I’m some sort of liberal, anticonservative troll. Again, please read my history. I’m not asking nor will I ever ask for some sort of apology, since I’ve jumped people pretty hard in the past here and elsewhere as well, but I do ask that you evaluate what I say with a clear head and an acknowledgement that I’m not pulling thoughts from a vacuum, nor trying to link current US conservatism with German Fascist Nazism. I’m pointing out the potential danger of someone associating with a Neo-Nazi taking the discredited philosophy seriously; I can’t help it that some idiot in the Christian Science Monitor is attempting to use the congruence of the term “right” to smear US conservatives with. A rightist in the US is the diametric opposite of a rightist socialist; one is about liberty, the other about supporting the dictatorial and antidemocratic.