New book on conspiracy theories by David Aaronovitch

[Chaos]

No, I'd be most interested in reading the book if I had any confidence that it actually was worth reading. But the inclusion of the Foster Case as one of the CT's the author supposedly debunks makes me doubt that. For all the reasons I listed. And no one who has supposedly read the book, so far, seems willing to dispel my concerns. Which makes me suspicious that the book treats the Foster case in an accurate manner. I'm not looking for confirmation of any of the other CTs he mentions. I'd love to hear what he says, provided I can trust that he is dealing with CTs in an accurate and fair manner. Call the Foster example the litmus test for that. You should use it too.

So it´s as I think... you´re not interested in reading these books, because you have no confidence that they will prop up your beliefs.

 

[BeAChooser]

Its cool to bring it up - however wrong you might be on it - i just didnt want this to be a multi-page thread on an arcane piece of forgotten CT lore.

But how else are we to judge the merit of a book that's been suggested to you than to discuss it's content? I think I'm being entirely fair and on-topic here. I've even given you a clearcut litmus test for checking whether the book in question is one that will inform your relative or fill her with more disinformation. You realize I can back up every one of those claimed facts. That should give you pause regarding the Aaronovitch book. Especially since no one on this thread who has read the book seems to want to challenge the validity of the facts I mentioned ... or even say that Aaronovitch dealt with those concerns in his book. My suspicion, just to be of service to you, is that Aaronovitch dismissed the allegation by leaving out most of the story ... just like you seem to want to do. So are you really trying to inform your relative ... or fill her with what you *believe* rather than the facts?

 

[BeAChooser]

So it´s as I think... you´re not interested in reading these books, because you have no confidence that they will prop up your beliefs.

LOL! This discussion sounds to me like YOU are the one with beliefs that need to be protected from the facts.

 

[Chaos]

LOL! This discussion sounds to me like YOU are the one with beliefs that need to be protected from the facts.

I´m not the one who states that a book cannot be useful unless it confirms your belief in the Foster Case. I´m willing to go whereever the evidenc leads me - you obviously are not.

 

[BeAChooser]

I´m not the one who states that a book cannot be useful unless it confirms your belief in the Foster Case.

If the author were sloppy enough, or biased enough in some way, to leave out major facts in the Foster case in his analysis of the CT, how could you know that he hadn't done the same in all the other cases he supposedly debunked?

And you are wrong. I'm not discussing "belief" right now. I simply stated some easily verifiable facts about the Foster case and asked whether they were addressed by Aaronovitch. Now a competent, honest and trustworthy author would have addressed those concerns directly in his book. Don't you agree? So far, I've heard no indication, even from those who supposedly claim to have read the book, that he did.

Now as far as belief is concerned, if he did offer non-CT explanations for each of the facts I cited, and they seemed "believable", then I'd have no trouble reading the book and even recommending it.

So how about it? Do you actually know anything about what's in the book and are willing to tell me, or are you just involving yourself in this discussion because of YOUR "beliefs" (sans evidence) regarding the Foster case?

 

[Sledge]

Go read the book, find out, and let us know.

 

[BeAChooser]

I just dont want a multi-page debate on vince foster, there's other threads you can pick up again with interested parties - if there are any...

Well, I linked the thread where I originally asked those questions about Aaronovitch's book. If there are any interested parties (and by that, anyone willing to back up their "beliefs" about the Foster case by citing evidence to support those beliefs and debunk my evidence-based beliefs), I suggest they go there and debate me. If noone does, maybe that should give you pause considering handing Aaronovitch's book to your sister. Afterall, she might read one of my Foster threads and end up questioning your beliefs even more. Disinformation has a habit of doing that.

 

[Nick Terry]

Well, I linked the thread where I originally asked those questions about Aaronovitch's book. If there are any interested parties (and by that, anyone willing to back up their "beliefs" about the Foster case by citing evidence to support those beliefs and debunk my evidence-based beliefs), I suggest they go there and debate me. If noone does, maybe that should give you pause considering handing Aaronovitch's book to your sister. Afterall, she might read one of my Foster threads and end up questioning your beliefs even more. Disinformation has a habit of doing that.

Short answer: Aaronovitch's Voodoo Histories doesn't even mention Vince Foster by name, and only mentions Clinton by analogy to Bush, in the context of discussing Mark Fenster's puzzlement as to why there were as many conspiracy theories for Clinton as for Bush.

Aaronovitch wasn't writing an encyclopedia addressing all conspiracy theories, but picked a few emblematic conspiracy claims to examine in a little more detail. Such are the constraints of the contemporary publishing industry.

This is not the thread to discuss the Foster case (which interests me not in the slightest, so please don't bother trying to engage me in debate on this), but to nominate books that Praktik might recommend or give to her sister. She has already ruled out Aaronovitch's book as his politics might not make it past her sister's prejudices.

I would concur, and recommend something like Ben Goldacre's Bad Science, Carl Sagan or Francis Wheen instead, to teach critical thinking and the importance of the scientific method by example, rather than directly confronting conspiracy beliefs head-on. Not sure if Praktik mentioned if her sister was an anti-vaxxer, but the saga of the MMR scandal ought to give all but the most fanatical true believer pause, especially when discussed alongside the uselessness of homeopathy and other forms of woo.

 

[Chaos]

If the author were sloppy enough, or biased enough in some way, to leave out major facts in the Foster case in his analysis of the CT, how could you know that he hadn't done the same in all the other cases he supposedly debunked?

And you are wrong. I'm not discussing "belief" right now. I simply stated some easily verifiable facts about the Foster case and asked whether they were addressed by Aaronovitch. Now a competent, honest and trustworthy author would have addressed those concerns directly in his book. Don't you agree? So far, I've heard no indication, even from those who supposedly claim to have read the book, that he did.

Now as far as belief is concerned, if he did offer non-CT explanations for each of the facts I cited, and they seemed "believable", then I'd have no trouble reading the book and even recommending it.

So how about it? Do you actually know anything about what's in the book and are willing to tell me, or are you just involving yourself in this discussion because of YOUR "beliefs" (sans evidence) regarding the Foster case?

How do you know he´s "leaving out major facts" - other than by seeing he´s coming to a different conclusion than you do?

 

[BeAChooser]

Short answer: Aaronovitch's Voodoo Histories doesn't even mention Vince Foster by name

Well how very interesting … given that Vince Foster is mentioned by name in numerous reviews of the book, and by Aaronovitch himself during interviews he gives promoting himself as an expert on conspiracy theories. Here are just some examples …

http://www.amazon.com/Voodoo-Histories-Conspiracy-Shaping-History/dp/1594488959

From Booklist *Starred Review* Like Michael Shermer in Why People Believe Weird Things (1997), or Damian Thompson in Counterknowledge (2008), Aaronovitch tackles the intriguing question of why people accept as factual things that are patently (and provably) untrue. Most of the popular conspiracy theories are here: 9/11 as an inside job; the faked moon landings; the secret Zionist world empire; the Priory of Scion’s mission to safeguard the bloodline of Jesus; the murder of Vince Foster; the noncitizenship of Barack Obama.

Now that one seems to indicate the book actually does cover the Foster case by name. Are you suggesting amazon.com is misrepresenting the book?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/books/review/Douthat-t.html

“Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History,” a sweeping tour of the paranoid style in Western politics by David Aaronovitch, a British journalist.

… snip …

The Clinton-era conservatives who insisted that Vince Foster’s suicide was really murder ceded the stage,

That one doesn't really say the book covers Foster, but the NY Times is certainly trying to link Foster to any CTs that might actually be discussed in Aaronovitch's book.

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/02/03/david_aaronovitch_conspiracy_theories

"Voodoo Histories": When smart people believe dumb things

… snip …

Salon spoke to Aaronovitch by phone about the Internet's role in spreading conspiracy theories,

… snip …

[Aaronovitch speaking] It’s interesting to me how the Clinton conspiracy [claiming that the Clintons were involved in the death of deputy White House counsel Vince Foster] really first took off on the Internet — when the Internet was just really getting started. It blindsided a lot of journalists as to where this stuff was coming from. And now it’s just so quick. Before you know where you are, there are a dozen stories saying something — and they’re circular.

That one clearly shows where Aaronovitch himself stands on the Foster case. However, he doesn't address the questions I asked or provide anything other than a dismissal of the allegation.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/david_aaronovitch/article6790709.ece

Obama gives birth to genuine hatred

David Aaronovitch

… snip …

The previous one, Bill Clinton, was enveloped — from before his first day in office — in a series of accusations of scandal that simply rose in volume: Whitewatergate, Troopergate, Travelgate, the accusation (made by supposedly serious journalists) that he had his friend Vince Foster, the White House counsel who committed suicide in July 1993, murdered.

There is Aaronovitch talking about Foster again, without mentioning details.

http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/016_05/5001

But then the book takes an odd turn. Aaronovitch provides a wealth of plot-driven (and lightly sourced) accounts of the deaths of JFK, Marilyn Monroe, and Princess Diana. From there, he hopscotches to a detailed account of the strange death of Hilda Murrell, England's version of the mysteriously killed US nuclear-power whistleblower Karen Silkwood. Then come chapters on Clifford Irving's fake Howard Hughes biography and other hoaxes, the 9/11 Commission, a conspiracy theory about the death of British Ministry of Defense employee David Kelly, and, finally, Obama's birth certificate and the death of White House counsel Vince Foster, a suicide that conspiratorial Clinton haters tried to pawn off as murder.

That's another source that suggests that you are either wrong about the contents of the book or it's a source misrepresenting the contents of the book. Which should we believe, Nick?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704238104574602042125998498.html

By DAVID AARONOVITCH

… snip …

These cyber-driven days, each new U.S. president has attracted theories of his own, assiduously spread mostly by partisans of the other side. So the saturnine Bill Clinton murdered Vince Foster

Here Aaronovitch is again, dismissing the Foster allegation without providing any details to the reader. Notice, however, that the man Starr hired as his top investigator in the Foster matter, could hardly be described as "partisan". Nor could the statements of the only doctor to actually see Foster's body at the crime scene … or the emergency responders … be considered partisan. The handwriting expert that the government used on the supposed suicide note wasn't partisan. Yet he now says it was a clear forgery. One that the people close to Hillary claimed to have found in Foster's briefcase. Shouldn't that make an honest investigator a little suspicious? And facts that incriminate aren't partisan. They just are facts that lead where they will. Sorry, but it sounds more and more like Aaronovitch doesn't actually know what he's talking about. I'd be happy to debate him or anyone else about the Foster case. Not here, of course, but on the thread I linked earlier. But I actually doubt he'd have the guts. I suspect he'd hide behind a handwaving dismissal of the allegation, like so many others have done … without actually reviewing the evidence or being willing to discuss it.

Which leads me to wonder how thorough a job he did with the other CTs in his book? Which leads me to wonder if he's perhaps a tool for someone. Because this reminds me of something I noticed regarding the mainstream media's treatment of another Clinton related allegation. One of the major TV network had a show making fun of UFOology. And during the show, they went internet browsing. And in the same sentence where they mentioned UFOology websites, they mentioned the Ron Brown allegation (not in detail, just in the same manner Aaronovitch did above). To me, the clear intent was to use UFOology to make viewers see the Ron Brown allegations in the same light. That's quite dishonest in my opinion. And I think Aaronovitch is just as dishonest in trying to link the Foster allegation to other much more wacky theories instead of dealing directly with the facts of the allegation.

please don't bother trying to engage me in debate on this)

I wouldn't dream of it.

nominate books that Praktik might recommend or give to her sister. She has already ruled out Aaronovitch's book as his politics might not make it past her sister's prejudices.

I'll drop the subject, having made my point.

 

[angrysoba]

My guess is that the Vince Foster stuff (as well as Barack Obama's birth certificate stuff) doesn't appear in the first edition which was originally published in Britain about six months to a year before it was published in the US.

When I found the paperback in a shop here in Japan I flicked through it and noticed there was an extra chapter that my harback edition didn't have so I imagine Vince Foster is a paperback/second/US edition addition.

 

[Nick Terry]

My guess is that the Vince Foster stuff (as well as Barack Obama's birth certificate stuff) doesn't appear in the first edition which was originally published in Britain about six months to a year before it was published in the US.

When I found the paperback in a shop here in Japan I flicked through it and noticed there was an extra chapter that my harback edition didn't have so I imagine Vince Foster is a paperback/second/US edition addition.

I'm going by the UK edition, and following the index for the Clintons and for Foster (not Vince). Not in there.

So colour me with a very British U totally disinterested in whether the US edition meets BeAChooser's litmus test.

 

[BeAChooser]

So colour me with a very British U totally disinterested in whether the US edition meets BeAChooser's litmus test.

Why would you be disinterested ... unless you simply don't care about the accuracy of the books your read and believe?

If it can be shown that Aaronovitch ... self-proclaimed expert on debunking conspiracy theories ... used a very sloppy and incomplete approach to dismiss a serious allegation, wouldn't that put the rest of what he claims in doubt?

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

can we not ride your pet hobby horse everywhere?

 

[angrysoba]

I'm going by the UK edition, and following the index for the Clintons and for Foster (not Vince). Not in there.

So colour me with a very British U totally disinterested in whether the US edition meets BeAChooser's litmus test.

Well, most of the discussion of the Foster case as it relates to Aaronovitch's book seems to be based on the US edition (or second edition) of the book. So your remarks about there being no mention of the Foster case in an earlier edition are irrelevant.

Have a nice day! (as, I hear, they say in the US of A!)

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

Not what I was thinking but OK

 

[Harpo]

Go read the book, find out, and let us know.

Seconded.

There seems to be a disturbing trend on this forum to criticise books without actually having read them. Do we now add BeAChooser to the same list as Jihad Jane, Magz et al?

 

[BeAChooser]

There seems to be a disturbing trend on this forum to criticise books without actually having read them.

There seems to be a disturbing trend on this forum of people who claim to have read books but not seem to know much about them. In *answer* to my question about the book's contents vis a vis Vince Foster, I've been told everything from *the book doesn't mention him by name* to *he "shreds" the murder accusation "to pieces"*. So which is it? And when I suggest a litmus test to tell whether the book is trustworthy, like a good skeptic, all I get are attacks and suggestions I take it elsewhere. Some skeptics forum. I don't have time to read every book that's out there. Certainly one that I've good reason to suspect is written by someone who hasn't responsibly dealt with the facts in a case that I'm quite familiar with. So again, I leave it up to those who actually have read the book to defend it. Did you read it? If so, then tell me, how does it treat the Vince Foster case? Convince me to read it, Harpo.

 

[Nick Terry]

Why would you be disinterested ... unless you simply don't care about the accuracy of the books your read and believe?

I am disinterested because I am not American and the yapping over the Clintons bores me to tears.

If it can be shown that Aaronovitch ... self-proclaimed expert on debunking conspiracy theories ... used a very sloppy and incomplete approach to dismiss a serious allegation, wouldn't that put the rest of what he claims in doubt?

Only if what Aaronovitch was writing about was entirely unique to Aaronovitch's book and nobody else had dealt with them. As he tackles well worn themes like Pearl Harbor, JFK and 9/11, then at best one ends up with the same conclusion as one can reach by another route, namely Aaronovitch is a journalist writing a work of popular synthesis. For JFK you're still going to have to deal with Posner and Bugliosi, and so on.

BAC, I'm putting you on Ignore, as you're evidently a tedious monomaniac.

 

[BeAChooser]

I am disinterested because I am not American and the yapping over the Clintons bores me to tears.

Yet if our government is so corrupt that something like what the facts in the Foster case suggest occurred, then not being an American will be no protection from that government. It behooves us all, even people who live in the UK, to understand if the government of the most powerful country in the world is indeed involved in stuff like what the facts seem to suggest in this case. And then try and help change that behavior.

I've no problem if it turns out the facts I listed above have a completely innocent explanation. It would restore my faith in our government. But as things stand now, my faith has been deeply affected by what seem to be facts that very few ... not even the so-called *skeptics* on this forum ... seem to want to go anywhere near. Instead, so many of you *skeptics* seem to take comfort in the outright dismissal of the allegation related to those facts, like Aaronovitch has done in several interviews, without any discussion of the facts. I guess those facts and where they might lead is simply too unsettling for you to even contemplate. Because then it might mean you can't trust the mainstream media or even self-proclaimed CT *experts* like Aaronovitch.

BAC, I'm putting you on Ignore, as you're evidently a tedious monomaniac.

LOL! I've posted on dozens and dozens of subjects, Nick, over the several years I've been at JREF. And almost every post I make contains the links needed to verify what I'm asserting (unlike so many posters here). I'd say I'm no more a "monomaniac" than anyone else around here. Nor anywhere near as "tedious" as those who refuse to actually debate subjects with sourced facts and sound logic. NOONE on this forum (or for that matter, any forum I've posted on) in more than a decade of participating in forums has been able to rationally debunk the allegations in the Foster case. Every person who sided with Aaronovitch's position on Foster has either refused to actually address most of the facts in the case, has been caught lying about the case, or has run (like you are now saying you will do).

Once in a while I get something wrong or get fooled by a source (afterall, none of us is perfect), but on the whole I'd suggest I'm a source of verifiable information that people like you desperately need to hear. Just because I ask a good question about a book that's been suggested we all read (to be good skeptics, we're told), you announce that you're going to put me on ignore? LOL! Why are you on a skeptics forum if you aren't going to act like a skeptic and deal with the facts as they come along, Nick? Instead you decide to filter out any poster that might disturb that "tedious" little world you must inhabit.