Link between 9/11 'Truth' and Holocaust Deniers?

[Barber Shop]

Have many of you observed an overlap between 9/11 'Truthers' and Holocaust deniers? (Truthers are '9/11 deniers' I suppose...)

This is not something I had thought about or noticed until recently, but as I was perusing some older threads I saw a few of our resident Truthers 'just asking questions' about the Holocaust.

Is this a common overlap? If so, why would this be? Is it merely the same type of paranoid and conspiratorial thinking or is actually part of a worldview? (That is, are these people just oriented towards believing conspiracy theories or do both of these CTs fit into a larger belief system?)

How common is this overlap?

What other theories get mixed up into this conspiracy cocktail? NWO? Illuminati? Elders of Zion?

Can this overlap be explained by the simple fact that any time, anything bad happens, anywhere...the Jews are held responsible?



Holocaust denial is (typically) thought of as a right-wing movement. (There is probably some from the left as well, since some elements of the left are more critical of Israel). 9/11 Truth, if I understand correctly, began largely as a left-wing movement, if for no other reason than the President at the time was a Republican. It does seem that Trutherism has picked up a right-wing flavor in recent years however...




NOTE: The above contains generalizations about left and right that are meant to be rough guides rather than strict categories.

ETA - I put this in CT forum rather than the 9/11 subforum because it was not purely 9/11...But, the mods can certainly move it should that be more appropriate...

 

[Scott Sommers]

Have many of you observed an overlap between 9/11 'Truthers' and Holocaust deniers? (Truthers are '9/11 deniers' I suppose...)

This is not something I had thought about or noticed until recently, but as I was perusing some older threads I saw a few of our resident Truthers 'just asking questions' about the Holocaust.

Is this a common overlap? If so, why would this be? Is it merely the same type of paranoid and conspiratorial thinking or is actually part of a worldview? (That is, are these people just oriented towards believing conspiracy theories or do both of these CTs fit into a larger belief system?)

How common is this overlap?

What other theories get mixed up into this conspiracy cocktail? NWO? Illuminati? Elders of Zion?

Can this overlap be explained by the simple fact that any time, anything bad happens, anywhere...the Jews are held responsible?



Holocaust denial is (typically) thought of as a right-wing movement. (There is probably some from the left as well, since some elements of the left are more critical of Israel). 9/11 Truth, if I understand correctly, began largely as a left-wing movement, if for no other reason than the President at the time was a Republican. It does seem that Trutherism has picked up a right-wing flavor in recent years however...




NOTE: The above contains generalizations about left and right that are meant to be rough guides rather than strict categories.

ETA - I put this in CT forum rather than the 9/11 subforum because it was not purely 9/11...But, the mods can certainly move it should that be more appropriate...

This question has been beaten to death over on the 9/11 conspiracy forum. You can post over there for more details.

But let me straighten you out on one thing - 9/11 Truth is not a left-wing movement. I have written so much about this on this forum and elsewhere. One place to start is the link in my signature to the Skeptic article I published earlier this year. You can also look through this thread
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187454&highlight="left+wing"
which provides the logic of my position and counter arguments. If you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them.

 

[Barber Shop]

This question has been beaten to death over on the 9/11 conspiracy forum.

My apologies...

But let me straighten you out on one thing - 9/11 Truth is not a left-wing movement. http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187454&highlight="left+wing" .

I don't think I said that 9/11 Truth is a left-wing movement (present tense) but I do think it had support from people who opposed the right-wing during the Bush years. Even then I do not think it was linked to specifically leftist ideas. (Perhaps 'anti right-wing' rather than 'pro left-wing'....)

There does seem to be some dispute about this in the linked thread.


.

If you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them.

Thanks! From what I have read you are a good resource in this area...

 

[Barber Shop]

. I have written so much about this on this forum and elsewhere. One place to start is the link in my signature to the Skeptic article I published earlier this year. .

Great article Scott....Thanks!

 

[Scott Sommers]

In the conclusion that Shermer changed to call "Interpretation", I think you'll find most of my speculation on what's happened to all those left-wing Truthers.

 

[Walter Ego]

Have many of you observed an overlap between 9/11 'Truthers' and Holocaust deniers? (Truthers are '9/11 deniers' I suppose...)

This is not something I had thought about or noticed until recently, but as I was perusing some older threads I saw a few of our resident Truthers 'just asking questions' about the Holocaust.

Is this a common overlap? If so, why would this be? Is it merely the same type of paranoid and conspiratorial thinking or is actually part of a worldview? (That is, are these people just oriented towards believing conspiracy theories or do both of these CTs fit into a larger belief system?)

How common is this overlap?

Holocaust deniers are a small subset of the truth movement (though it is interesting, as you note, that most of the deniers on this forum are also truthers). Most truthers are anti-Zionists (which is not the same thing as being anti-semitic or denying the Holocaust).

What is true is that truthers will defend, or a least not denounce, the Holocaust deniers in their movement as illustrated in the video below and that truthers often find themselves in close quarters and in cozy relationships with the deniers.

 

[Robrob]

'According to some psychologists, a person who believes in one conspiracy theory tends to believe in others; a person who does not believe in one conspiracy theory tends not to believe another."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory#Psychological_origins

It's been my experience most "truthers" are antisemitic (they may claim to be anti-Zionists but usually exhibit open antisemitism) and will readily accept any contra-official CT. With their semantic gymnastics of trying to "prove" controlled demolitions (and not the impact of a jet airplane, tens of thousands of gallons of aviation fuel and an hour of raging inferno) caused the WTC to collapse, it's not that much of a stretch for them to fantasize Zyclon-B was a harmless insecticide or that millions of missing Jews were faking it.

 

[Scott Sommers]

'According to some psychologists, a person who believes in one conspiracy theory tends to believe in others; a person who does not believe in one conspiracy theory tends not to believe another."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory#Psychological_origins

It's been my experience most "truthers" are antisemitic (they may claim to be anti-Zionists but usually exhibit open antisemitism) and will readily accept any contra-official CT. With their semantic gymnastics of trying to "prove" controlled demolitions (and not the impact of a jet airplane, tens of thousands of gallons of aviation fuel and an hour of raging inferno) caused the WTC to collapse, it's not that much of a stretch for them to fantasize Zyclon-B was a harmless insecticide or that millions of missing Jews were faking it.

This is an assumption and not really based in research findings. Many of the references used in the Wiki page assume this to be true. There is actually very little in the way of measured findings about who believes what kind of conspiracy theories, and the work that exists focuses on particular conspiracies one-at-a-time.

My experience is somewhat different than I think you comment implies. Conspiracies occur in clusters. For example, there appears to be some overlap of HIV conspiracy with 9/11 conspiracy. But while 9/11 conspiracy activists rant on and on about Big Pharma and all its evils, they do not seem to have hooked up with HIV conspiracies, who seem to be overwhelming African-American and homosexual men.

 

[little grey rabbit]

In France Holocaust Denial has been mostly left-wing.

A comment that someone made to me on JREF sometime ago bears repeating: Once you have successfully negotiated the disappearance of several million Jews, you don't tend to break into a sweat over the disappearance of several hundred airline passengers

 

[uke2se]

I'd say Scott's article sums up nicely what the evidence show about the overlap between holocaust denial and 9/11 twoof. I'd like to note, though, that I have seen twoofers fervently defend the historical fact of the holocaust in the face of true believers. One notable twoofer on this site who did so is Miragememories who, however much we mutually dislike each other, I have to commend for taking such a firm stance on the issue.

Twoofers would do well to take Miragememories' example and stamp out the filth that is holocaust denial from their "movement". I doubt it'll happen, though, especially since the "movement" itself is pretty inert these days, and the remaining twoofers can be expected to cling to any allies remaining.

 

[Walter Ego]

Conspiracies occur in clusters. For example, there appears to be some overlap of HIV conspiracy with 9/11 conspiracy. But while 9/11 conspiracy activists rant on and on about Big Pharma and all its evils, they do not seem to have hooked up with HIV conspiracies, who seem to be overwhelming African-American and homosexual men.

Off topic but Big Pharma has engaged in corporate conspiracies, mainly to inflate the price of their drugs and to keep generics off the market. Not all conspiracy theories are false.

John le Carré, who made Big Pharma the villain in his novel The Constant Gardener, detailed the corporate greed and other corporate sins of Big Pharma in an article in The Nation magazine in 2001.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporations/InPlace_Nations.html

 

[Scott Sommers]

I'd like to thank everyone for their kind words about my paper. I hope to have more sometime next year.

Off topic but Big Pharma has engaged in corporate conspiracies, mainly to inflate the price of their drugs and to keep generics off the market. Not all conspiracy theories are false.

John le Carré, who made Big Pharma the villain in his novel The Constant Gardener, detailed the corporate greed and other corporate sins of Big Pharma in an article in The Nation magazine in 2001.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporations/InPlace_Nations.html

No argument from me that money is bad. My family is about as socialist as Canada has ever had to offer. The idea that people with power and money conspire to monopolize power and money is straightforward to me. That's one of the reasons I find conspiracy theory to be so repulsive. At it's very best, it's stupidity dressed up as radical politics. Increasingly these days, we're seeing the right wing dressed up like the left. It bothers me very much.

 

[Scott Sommers]

Here's a link to a very good Holocaust denier discussion.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=157577

 

[Brainster]

Lots and lots of overlap between Holocaust Denial and 9-11 Trutherism:

1. Eric Hufschmid, who wrote the first major American book and produced the first major American video of 9-11 "Truth", is a Holocaust Denier.

2. Jim Fetzer, a co-founder of Scholars for 9-11 "Truth" has dabbled in Holocaust Denial:

But now that I grasp your advanced state of mental deterioration, let me say, for the record, that I do not believe there are lizard people among us (though you may be the exception), I believe Elvis is dead, I am not a Holocaust denier (even though I'm inclined to believe the numbers killed have been exaggerated),

Of course, denying the number killed is a central element of Holocaust Denial.

3. Kevin Barrett, who was the first university lecturer to include 9-11 "Truth" in a college course, is a Holocaust Denier.

4. The American Free Press, started by Holocaust Denier Willis Carto, employed Christopher Bollyn, whose 9-11 Truth "research" is often cited by the guru of the Truthers, David Ray Griffin.

5. The February 2007 Arizona conference entitled 9-11 Accountability was organized by Eric D. Williams, who wrote two books of 9-11 Truth and one of Holocaust Denial.

6. The website Veterans Today often publishes articles of 9-11 Truth and Holocaust Denial.

7. Anthony Lawson, who created the famous Truther video "This is an orange," is a Holocaust Denier.

8. Sofia Shafquat, who created the influential 9-11 Truth video 9-11 Mysteries, sells the Ernst Zundel story on her website and credits Eric Hufschmid as inspiring her video.

9. This just covers some of the major players in 9-11 Truth; there are many minor characters such as Adam Syed, Nick Kollerstrom, Bishop Williamson, etc., who combine their 9-11 nuttery with Holocaust Denial.

 

[Robrob]

This is an assumption and not really based in research findings. Many of the references used in the Wiki page assume this to be true. There is actually very little in the way of measured findings about who believes what kind of conspiracy theories, and the work that exists focuses on particular conspiracies one-at-a-time.

My experience is somewhat different than I think you comment implies. Conspiracies occur in clusters. For example, there appears to be some overlap of HIV conspiracy with 9/11 conspiracy. But while 9/11 conspiracy activists rant on and on about Big Pharma and all its evils, they do not seem to have hooked up with HIV conspiracies, who seem to be overwhelming African-American and homosexual men.

Well certainly, I said it was "in my experience" and thus totally anecdotal. However, I can honestly say of the scores of truthers I have had the misfortune to encounter on the web, I can't recall a single one who did not advocate multiple non-overlapping CT. E.G. a birther/deather/truther (all CT of a similar vein) who also thought O.J. was a victim of a conspiracy and that the Fukishima earthquake/tsunami was actually a cover-up for Mossad's nuclear attack on the plant in revenge for japan selling nuclear power plants to Iran.

 

[Scott Sommers]

Well certainly, I said it was "in my experience" and thus totally anecdotal. However, I can honestly say of the scores of truthers I have had the misfortune to encounter on the web, I can't recall a single one who did not advocate multiple non-overlapping CT. E.G. a birther/deather/truther (all CT of a similar vein) who also thought O.J. was a victim of a conspiracy and that the Fukishima earthquake/tsunami was actually a cover-up for Mossad's nuclear attack on the plant in revenge for japan selling nuclear power plants to Iran.

I have no doubt you have found many strange people posting on the Internet. Let's try and make a serious count of all this. Let's try and count this in a way that a scientific journal would publish. How many people are you really talking about? "Scores"? A few dozen, then. Aren't there people with these ideas that don't post on the Internet? Angus Reid says 15% of Americans will endorse a 9/11 conspiracy item on their survey. Are they different from your Net friends? Maybe.

And if we really sat down and carefully counted your friends, as well as these other people you haven't met, would their conspiracy beliefs appear as random as this? I have sat down and counted these kinds of folks. They weren't nearly as random or confused as this. I'm not saying your friends aren't that messed up. But my guess is that a careful count of who believes what will be a little different than your gut feeling.

If you look between the lines on Walter's posts, he's not talking about some random crazy kind of thing. These guys are lined up along ideological lines that have a reasoning behind them. And that's what I'm saying, as well.

The JREF has been a great place for me. But one of the issues I have with the general JREF way of interpreting things is that conspiracy is not some sort of cognitive problem that leads to a willingness to accept any kind of weirdness. That may be for the really crazy crowd that posts on the kind of forums that the members here monitor. Once you start talking to people outside of that, conspiracy becomes a very different kind of thing. And it's not just this whacked out retarded bunch of people grabbing on to everything they can.

 

[Nick Terry]

I have no doubt you have found many strange people posting on the Internet. Let's try and make a serious count of all this. Let's try and count this in a way that a scientific journal would publish. How many people are you really talking about? "Scores"? A few dozen, then. Aren't there people with these ideas that don't post on the Internet? Angus Reid says 15% of Americans will endorse a 9/11 conspiracy item on their survey. Are they different from your Net friends? Maybe.

And if we really sat down and carefully counted your friends, as well as these other people you haven't met, would their conspiracy beliefs appear as random as this? I have sat down and counted these kinds of folks. They weren't nearly as random or confused as this. I'm not saying your friends aren't that messed up. But my guess is that a careful count of who believes what will be a little different than your gut feeling.

If you look between the lines on Walter's posts, he's not talking about some random crazy kind of thing. These guys are lined up along ideological lines that have a reasoning behind them. And that's what I'm saying, as well.

The JREF has been a great place for me. But one of the issues I have with the general JREF way of interpreting things is that conspiracy is not some sort of cognitive problem that leads to a willingness to accept any kind of weirdness. That may be for the really crazy crowd that posts on the kind of forums that the members here monitor. Once you start talking to people outside of that, conspiracy becomes a very different kind of thing. And it's not just this whacked out retarded bunch of people grabbing on to everything they can.

I think you're ignoring one crucial factor, which is that many of the sites pushing conspiracy theories advocate multiple CTs. This does not mean that every person believing in a particular (singular) CT is a devotee of Alex Jones or rense.com, or posts at Above Top Secret or the David Icke forums, but it should not be a surprise that there are indeed people who display all the signs of crank magnetism, because there are conspiracy gurus and gatekeepers who make it easy for at least some percentage of the total audience to believe in multiple CTs.

In terms of measurement, one can of course turn to opinion polls, as you just did above, and find that x percentage of a particular national public affirms a conspiracy-minded statement. Aside from Truthers the best data recently related to the Birther movement, which was obviously a much larger phenomenon which captured the minds of a significant proportion of the Republican voter base.

Outside of the US, probably the clearest example of mass endorsement of a politically motivated conspiracy theory in recent years comes from Poland, where opinion polls show that close to a majority - hovering +/- 50% of the Polish public believes that Russia conspired to kill the Polish President and many other Polish politicians in the air crash at Smolensk when they were on their way to visit the Katyn memorial. Belief in a CT like this doesn't imply that 50% of the Polish public are also prone to endorsing 9/11 Truth or Obama citizenship conspiracy theories, because they don't resonate with Poles. Birtherism is closer to this kind of CT than it is to the 'classic' Alex Jones type of conspiracism.

9/11 Truth sits halfway between Birtherism and hardcore conspiracism, IMHO. I don't doubt that the group of people who you keep going on about exist. But if we analyse the entire phenomenon, then we find the originators of the ideas (Steve Jones etc), the promoters (Alex Jones etc), and then multiple groups of footsoldier advocates, before we eventually reach the wider audience of passive believers.

So an awful lot depends on who you are talking about. The links between 9/11 Truth and Holocaust denial on the guru/gatekeeper level are much more easily quantified than the extent to which individual believers in 9/11 Truth also believe in the New World Order.

But, it's very clear from the discourse and patter produced on forums, websites etc that all these things do overlap. JREFers are reacting to that. There have been several threads about Alex Jones fans. They evidently do exist. Quantifying the beliefs of Alex Jones fans, however, may be very difficult. Many may drop out of that mindset after a while.

What we can do, however, is compare things like website traffic data and gauge the reach of the active promoters of these theories. There are going to be areas of overlap and also factions which are not plugged into a particular website.

A lot depends on what you're trying to measure. One thing that is causing severe problems in the internet age more widely is the shift away from things that could be more easily measured. The music industry used to be able to count record sales and concert goers and could thus say fairly objectively that there were x number of fans of a particular style or artist. Nowadays with YouTube and file-sharing this is not as easy.

Conspiracy belief is clearly a wider phenomenon than belief in a particular brand of fringe politics. The latter is relatively easy to count: there are only x thousand Larouchies or members of the Socialist Workers Party and only x thousand sales of their newspapers, magazines or books. The commitment involved in being a Larouchie or SWPer is obviously greater than the rather passive blah mentality involved in 9/11 Truth.

But, we can still measure the audience reach of 9/11 Truth websites, note that the theories are also advocated on omnibus CT sites, which often have much larger audiences, and compare with the audiences for, say, white nationalist or Holocaust denier websites.

And perhaps that draws attention to the question of where believers in CTs are getting their ideas from.

 

[Myron Proudfoot]

There is an overlap between 9/11 twooferism and Holocaust Denial since both involve there Jewish people and the Middle East. If you think 9/11 was carried out by Israel and not Al Queda then it's an easy jump to Holocaust denial and visa versa.

 

[aliensdidit]

Ah again the whole anti-semetic line. As soon as anyone joins a group that wants to find out the the truth will be suspected of being anti-semetic, classic tecchnique to muddle the waters by the powers that be.

 

[Robrob]

I have no doubt you have found many strange people posting on the Internet. Let's try and make a serious count of all this. Let's try and count this in a way that a scientific journal would publish. How many people are you really talking about? "Scores"? A few dozen, then. Aren't there people with these ideas that don't post on the Internet? Angus Reid says 15% of Americans will endorse a 9/11 conspiracy item on their survey. Are they different from your Net friends? Maybe.

And if we really sat down and carefully counted your friends, as well as these other people you haven't met, would their conspiracy beliefs appear as random as this? I have sat down and counted these kinds of folks. They weren't nearly as random or confused as this. I'm not saying your friends aren't that messed up. But my guess is that a careful count of who believes what will be a little different than your gut feeling.

If you look between the lines on Walter's posts, he's not talking about some random crazy kind of thing. These guys are lined up along ideological lines that have a reasoning behind them. And that's what I'm saying, as well.

So because I can't account for the beliefs of people I haven't met, that somehow invalidates what I have already described as my personal experience?

The JREF has been a great place for me. But one of the issues I have with the general JREF way of interpreting things is that conspiracy is not some sort of cognitive problem that leads to a willingness to accept any kind of weirdness.

In my experience it certainly has been. Why do my experiences seem to have offended you?

That may be for the really crazy crowd that posts on the kind of forums that the members here monitor. Once you start talking to people outside of that, conspiracy becomes a very different kind of thing. And it's not just this whacked out retarded bunch of people grabbing on to everything they can.

So you associate with a much better crowd of conspiracist? You believe in "special" conspiracies. Good for you but it doesn't mean a thing. Odds are still pretty good you believe in a lot more than one whacked out conspiracy theory.