Merged "Among The Truthers" book to be published in May

Walter Ego

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Walter Ego
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Canadian journalist Jonathan Kay's book Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground will be published next month (the official release date is May 17). He's took his time writing it as I heard about this "forthcoming book" back in 2009 and forgot all about it until I saw it mentioned on the intertubes today.

Review of the book on Slate. Kay's rather sparse blog about the book here.

Kay, a reporter for the National Post, is taken to task by the execrable Anthony J. Hall for his "destructive" reporting about Lesley Hughes, a liberal parliamentary candidate outed as a truther, at a presentation in Walkerton, Ontario on May 24, 2009 in the video below.


For the masochists among you, there is this almost two hour interview with Kay talking about the book on a Candadian truther radio program, again from back in 2009.
 
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Print interview with Jonathan Kay on Salon.com.

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/...011/04/30/conspiracy_theories_truther_birther

"The second thing is, it's a cult. And you can't disabuse a cult member of their beliefs, because it's central to their identity. Hardcore conspiracy theorists are attached to their conspiracy theories with the same force of conviction that religious adherents are attached to their religions. You can't rationally convince someone not to be a Christian or a Scientologist. That's their identity, that's who they are."
 
Orphia Nay said:
Print interview with Jonathan Kay on Salon.com.

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/...011/04/30/conspiracy_theories_truther_birther

"The second thing is, it's a cult. And you can't disabuse a cult member of their beliefs, because it's central to their identity. Hardcore conspiracy theorists are attached to their conspiracy theories with the same force of conviction that religious adherents are attached to their religions. You can't rationally convince someone not to be a Christian or a Scientologist. That's their identity, that's who they are."
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I'm beginning to suspect this book is not worth reading. A quote from Kay from the Salon interview:

There are certain quiet scandals about 9/11 that have nothing to do with any inside job that haven't been talked about very much. One of the interesting things is the collapse of World Trade Center 7, which fell around 5 p.m. on 9/11 because of a fire. Truthers will tell you it collapsed because of an explosion in the building, and they will show you videos and say the footage proves it was controlled demolition. Now, National Institutes of Standards and Technology put out a report explaining how that building fell. It had nothing to do with explosives or anything like that. There was a progressive fire and one of the columns fell off the moorings and the building collapsed. However, it is to me an engineering disgrace that a modern, conventional, steel-frame skyscraper like WTC 7 -- which was a huge building -- collapsed due to what were essentially localized fires on just a few floors. I'm quite shocked it didn't get more attention.
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Walter Ego said:
I'm beginning to suspect this book is not worth reading. A quote from Kay from the Salon interview:
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And this is the tragedy that has been committed by truthers. There are legitimate subjects surrounding the event that should continue to be talked about, but when drowned out by a govt-plan-everybody's-in-on-it-controlled-demolition-stand-down-order, or, 911 WAS AN INSIDE JOB, for short, these real subjects cannot get the merit they deserve.

Were the buildings shoddily constructed? Were the intelligence communities grossly, even criminally, incompetent? Did the Bush Admin give enough credence to warnings, or were they too incompetent?

Sadly, and ironically, the greatest cover up of 9/11 has been indirectly perpetuated by the truthers themselves!
 
Richard Gage, Paul Zarembka, Barrie Zwicker together on same show

On the TVO program The Agenda which aired earlier Friday evening, there was a panel discussion involving 9/11 conspiracy theories which included Richard Gage, Paul Zarembka, and Barrie Zwicker as guests.

They were on the program to serve as rebuttals to Jonathan Kay's new book, Among the Truthers, in which he explores the 9/11 conspiracy movement and the mindset of those who believe in such conspiracy theories.

The program starts with an interview of Kay, then proceeds to the panel discussion. The episode's web page can be found here. The video of the interview is already available. The link to the video of the panel discussion is on the "The Truth is Out There" tab on the aforementioned web page, however the video has not as yet been made available. It will likely be put up on the site in the next day or two.
 
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Jonathan Kay will be discussing this book on Reality Check Radio next Thursday evening at 9 p.m.

Yours truly will co-host the show. Reality Check Radio focuses mainly on the birthers; we actually know very little about troofers, but this book discusses conspiracy theorists of all stripes.

Book will be released Tuesday.
 
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I am always amused by how polite and respectful Kay tries to be (very Canadian). He need not bother, if you don't buy into their worldview, you are no different than Dick Cheney in their eyes.
 
LOL, loved the bit where Zarembka claims not to be a conspiracy theorist about anything but 9-11, but when the host asks him who killed JFK he goes into how a recent book points out how angry the military industrial complex was at Kennedy. Then he refuses to answer the question of whether Bin Laden is dead.

Note as well that after Kay points out that he no longer believes that Truthers are also Moon Hoax believers, Zarembka and Zwicker deny being Moon Hoax believers.
 
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Foggy of the Fogbow said:
Jonathan Kay will be discussing this book on Reality Check Radio next Thursday evening at 9 p.m.

Yours truly will co-host the show. Reality Check Radio focuses mainly on the birthers; we actually know very little about troofers, but this book discusses conspiracy theorists of all stripes.

Book will be released Tuesday.
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The link says the show is on Friday, May 20, not Thursday, and the time of the show is 1:00 a.m. :confused:

Is Thursday, May 19, the actual date of the live broadcast and in what time zone is that 9:00 p.m. start time?
 
Jonathan Kay - Author: Among the Truthers

For those that are interested, a live blogtalkradio interview will be conducted with Jonthan Kay, author of Among the Truthers. The book explorers the mindset of conspiracy theorists, with a deep look into those that made up the 9/11 Truther movement.

The interview will happen this coming Thursday at 9PM EST
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rcr


He's also made some comments on Birthers (don't compare 9/11 Truthers to birthers)
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/...by-comparing-them-to-brain-dead-birthers.aspx
 
Arus808 said:
For those that are interested, a live blogtalkradio interview will be conducted with Jonthan Kay, author of Among the Truthers. The book explorers the mindset of conspiracy theorists, with a deep look into those that made up the 9/11 Truther movement.

The interview will happen this coming Thursday at 9PM EST
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rcr


He's also made some comments on Birthers (don't compare 9/11 Truthers to birthers)
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/...by-comparing-them-to-brain-dead-birthers.aspx
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This is the same interview as this one already advertised on this forum as coming on at 9 p.m. on Thursday, May 19.

Note to mods: Could we have a combined thread for these proliferating posts, including this one, about Jonathan Kay and his book?
 
OMG Right at the end alive hijackers.

It really doesnt matter that Gage got cut off, he's just a wind up toy these days anyway
 
Has anyone started reading this yet? I am tempted to buy this and read my frist book in over a year.
 
Scott Jurgenson said:
Has anyone started reading this yet? I am tempted to buy this and read my frist book in over a year.
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I just received my copy and am about half way through. It's a very good piece of journalism. No footnotes, but he does draw on relevant academic studies such as the work of Michael Barkun and Kathryn Olmsted.

The 'truthers' of the title are emblematic of the wide range of conspiracy theories discussed/acknowledged; in the first half of the book he discusses Birthers and WND (in some depth), Tea Partiers (not labelling all of them as CTs, but showing how they connect to the radical right fringe a la the Birch Society of yore), and given a fairly standard account of the origins of conspiracism and populism. I.e. Robison, Barruel, anti-Masonry, the Protocols, turn-of-the-century populism etc. But he's also mentioned HAARP, anti-fluoridisation, written pen-portraits of Alex Jones, Webster Tarpley, and various other assorted nuts.

Some of the insights will be *very* familiar to JREFers as they're standard observations. Some points might be disputable - eg his claim that Truthers are nonviolent.

As a summing-up of the phenomenon, this is waaay better than Aaronovitch's book, but less amusing than Matt Taibbi's Great Derangement. The publishing industry puts out several books a year written by journalists which document contemporary American insanity from a wide variety of perspectives and angles, and this is one of the better ones.

I'm just about to start reading his chapter of psychological profiles of different conspiracist 'types'. The first one is 'The Midlife Crisis Case' and he has opted for Richard Gage. Muahahaha.
 
Walter Ego said:
The link says the show is on Friday, May 20, not Thursday, and the time of the show is 1:00 a.m. :confused:

Is Thursday, May 19, the actual date of the live broadcast and in what time zone is that 9:00 p.m. start time?
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It's definitely tomorrow night, 9 p.m. Eastern (New York time). The link I gave you is good, even though it says 5/20 -- that's the date the show is expected to be posted so you can download it if you missed it.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rcr/2011/05/20/reality-check-radio

However, I just had a quick exchange of emails with Mr. Kay, and he can't call in until 9:30. Until then, we'll probably discuss Jerome Corsi's new book, Where's The Birth Certificate? and other happenings in the tiny Republic of Birtherstan.

Call in number is (347) 324-5546, if you'd like to ask questions. I'll be screening callers, so just tell me you're from the Randi forum and I'll try to get you on the air.
 
Nick Terry said:
The 'truthers' of the title are emblematic of the wide range of conspiracy theories discussed/acknowledged; in the first half of the book he discusses Birthers and WND….
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WND? Did you mean WMD? :confused:

If it was WMD, how would that fit in with conspiracy theories?

Nick Terry said:
As a summing-up of the phenomenon, this is waaay better than Aaronovitch's book, but less amusing than Matt Taibbi's Great Derangement.
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You can’t beat Taibbi for knife-welding humor. Truthers were just a sub-plot of The Great Derangement, and he’s moved on to cover the sharks on Wall Street. He did do some great stuff online about the TM, however, including an imagined and riotously funny planning session for 9/11 between Cheney, Silverstein, et al, showing the absurdity of pulling of such a complex “inside job” without being exposed. It would be great if this web material were included, along with the truther stuff from The Great Derangement, in a separate book.
 
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