irrepressible wrote:
Also I have noticed people singling out anti sematism as the worst of the worst. Whether or not they have an agenda is debatable, but it can get irritating
There's persecution and bigotry in all races and all walks of life. The world is made up of a hell of a lot of people.
I don't think antisemitism is worse than any other form of prejudice. But I think antisemitism is the most pervasive and this is probably because it's generally based on the notion Jews control everything it has a strong relationship with the other prejudices. For example, the article resistance was touting I linked to earlier in the thread is basically blaming Jews for 'sexual perversion'. This carries a homophobic subtext. It's like when you get the 'homosexual agenda' based on homophobic notions and then of course the Jews may be behind this. Of course not all homophobes are Jew theorists - like KOTG is a crazed homophobe but I don't think he's Jew theorist - but if you look at the usual suspects they have a worldview that links all these things together with the Jews pulling the strings. Same with multiculturalism - this is bad because we should all be fervent nationalists and not breed with foreigners who are undermining 'our culture' and of course it's often the Jews that wish to undermine our glorious white heritage for their nefarious ends. I guess it's Islamophobia that stands a bit on it's own - I guess it's stretching it a bit even for your average bigot to say the Jews are behind Islam. But it's the role ascribed to the Jews in bigotry based conspiracy narratives that gives them a particular prominence as prime orchestrators and hence pushes antisemitism to the forefront.
A secondary feature is perhaps because anti-Zionism is basically standard it's easier to mix in antsemitism with anti-Zionism, particularly since Zionists routinely get ascribed a supernatural level of power and stuff is ascribed to Zionism that really has nothing to do with Zionism by many people in the conspiracy scene in a way that basically mirrors and is actually ultimately derived from the standard Jewish conspiracy theory but is promoted by people who aren't self-consciously antisemitic. Just look at Icke. It's easier to push Jewish conspiracy theories when a mirror version of Jewish conspiracy theories is already widely accepted - though for most people it is genuinely not a Jewish conspiracy theory and not based on antisemitism. But flat out homophobia or racism can be a lot more jarring.
Ultimately the reason is seems 'the worst' because it's what people always go on about. Hence it precipitates more reaction.
This feeds into the 'agenda setting' nature of the conspiracy media. People only bang on about Holocaust denial and being suspicious of 'the official story' because the conspiracy media tells them to. In the English speaking world it's much rarer to find stuff that tells you to e.g. deny the Holodomor. So people aren't going to do that, because the internet isn't telling them to. It's pre-packaged media people consume and repeat. And the hook is it's presenting itself as some kind of 'hidden information' that gives you a sense you're somehow smarter than the average joe and have seen through the lies that delude them.
Many contemporary conspiracy notions originate in American notions that are right wing to greater or lesser degree. This is why you get so much stuff about 'Marxists' and all that bullshit you get about the Frankfurt School - people are basically regurgitating memes that originated in America during the cold war. Like anyone who seriously thinks there's anything remotely 'Marxist' about Obama needs their head examined, but it doesn't stop David Dees doing graphics suggesting just that. Similarly, all this stuff about the 'Satanic New World Order' is derived from fundamentalist Christiam ideas - the notion of the New World Order having its origins in both secular and Christian strands and the two seem to have become increasingly fused in the internet age. So for example, Pat Robertson's 1991 book The New World order played a major role in promoting the idea, and of course he's a major evangelist. And then of course people like Alex Jones know they have to pay lip service to and incorporate the ideas that resonate with Christians because they know they represent a sizeable component of their audience. Hence you get people who are in no way religious themselves becoming open to the idea 'the elite' are somehow 'Satanic' - just because they've imbibed a bunch of repackaged fundamentalist Christian stuff they wouldn't ordinarily believe.
Though I'm a 'conspiracy sceptic' I think it would erroneous to be dismissive of conspiracy ideas without thinking about whether they stand or fall on their individual merit irrespective of their political origins. Like it would be foolish to dismiss a Marxist analysis of something on the basis it's a Marxist analysis. Nevertheless, I think people tend to forget popular conspiracy ideas tend not to have evolved in a vacuum of 'impartial research', they have their own origins that are frequently heavily ideologically charged. That's not necessarily a bad thing - everything is operating from some kind of belief system - but I think it's important to remember this stuff is borne of political agendas just as much as anything else, even if it may have mutated over time.
Er sorry. Went off on one there.
What is it about the issue that they don't want discussed? 
