When I looked up the title to this post, in case anybody else had used it, I found a title that looked a little too similar for comfort: “Criminology, Conspiracy Theories and Theorizing Conspiracy“, an academic paper, published 30 January 2025. I took a long and increasingly appreciative look. I quote from the abstract:
The first part of the article suggests that a moral panic over conspiracy theories has given rise to a conspiracy theory research agenda that has pathologized and criminalized conspiracy theories. The second part of the article argues that although conspiracies are important sociological and political phenomena, the term ‘conspiracy theory’ functions to stigmatize certain narratives.
And from the beginning of the introduction:
In recent years, conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists have been lambasted and ridiculed by politicians and journalists, and psychologized, pathologized and criminalized by academics. This article challenges criminologists to adopt a more critical orientation to conspiracy theories and theorizing conspiracy. Rather than dismissing conspiracy theories out of hand, criminologists should consider hypotheses about elite wrongdoing on the basis of their merits and the evidence available to us.
Just so.
The other day, I sent a text message to an old fried. Roughly summarised:
News about Trump’s reversal on disclosure of the Epstein files and the resulting hullabaloo in USA is somewhat entertaining and a welcome distraction from news from Gaza. I never paid any attention to the sordid Epstein case, but I must admit his frequent meetings with Ehud Barak and his sex-services to members of the economic elite must have given a number of persons reason to want him dead.
The old “friend”, sent me in return four irate emojis, including two of scull and crossbones. No text. Knowing his abhorrence of “conspiracy theories”, I assumed he did so to indicate that he disapproved of mine, though I had not advanced any “theory”. I was merely indicating my lack of respect for and distrust of the country that has a military stranglehold over my country.
To my mind, the failure of the US courts to prosecute Epstein’s child sexual abuse clients – surely there must have been a number of very powerful clients, in view of his fabulous wealth – is intriguing. And how on earth were Israeli lunatics – the ones who invented the Gaza Method – able to persuade reasonably normal US politicians to very actively facilitate it, the Gaza Method, that is? Surely those US politicians must have known that children all over the world will hereinafter be taught to loathe and fear not only Israel but also USA: Having developed an effective method to exterminate entire populations, the hateful perpetrators are sure to use it again. Are they not aware of the scorn and revulsion with which references to the US political and financial establishment are met. Surely, they know that the very concept “American Democracy” has been as sullied as if the stars and stripes had been used as toilet paper. So how could they? Were they coerced, or were they merely greedy (i.e. bribed)?
***
Every day, Norwegians wake up to the morning news with the death toll from the last 24 hours in Gaza: “30 shot dead queueing for food”, “86 shot dead queueing for food”, “15 dead of starvation” Every single damned day!!! The number dying of starvation rises day by day.
However, the morning news does not report that Ukrainian males are being hunted as animals to serve as cannon fodder in the proxy war against Russia. The Norwegian media have not reported the realities of the Ukraine war. In Norway, as opposed to in USA, there is no market for independent media.
So where is the conspiracy? Whose conspiracy? Is there a conspiracy?
Of course there is! There have always been conspiracies, here, there and everywhere. During WWI (cf. Arthur Ponsonby’s little book Falsehood in War-Time ) and WWII (when a whole nation was bamboozled by the “Untermensch” narrative). During the Middle Ages, kings and prelates were incessantly engaging in all sorts of plots. Business and politics are all about conspiracies. Take the Mont Pelerin Society, for starters. Or take the Wolfowitz Doctrine (1992) or TheGrand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives by Brzezinsky, President Carter’s national security adviser. The book is one big conspiracy, as you will see if you download it from CIA’s website.
More correctly, then, who gets to decide what is a conspiracy theory as opposed to a real or a possible conspiracy?
Answer: The corporate media. To be de-platformed or cancelled as a conspiracy theorist you simply need to present information or suggest an interpretation that fails to conform with the information and analyses presented by the corporate media. It’s basically a loop. Increasingly, the corporate media all echo one another, because they all repeat, almost verbatim, statements from their respective governments’ spokespersons.
Yes, I admit I am suggesting there is some sort of conspiracy, here, but I have no evidence (in Norway) that active censorship is involved. All I know is what everybody knows: articles from a number of formerly respected political analysts are no longer printed by the corporate press. And I know for an absolute fact, that we – not least my old friend – are being subjected to Information omission.
In short, most people in my country, who rely mostly on Norwegian news outlets, have no idea of what has been going on in Ukraine, whereas we have been fairly honestly informed about developments in Gaza. We are in fact so dazed, now, and frightened, by what is going on in Gaza, that we hardly notice that Ukraine is losing its war, its territory, and its male population. But we know – we feel it in our bones – that something is very, very amiss. Everywhere.
My old friend has defined me as a conspiracy theorist. I define him as disrespectful. On Greyzone, Aron Mate disagrees with Max Blumenthal about the Epstein files. He does not think they are important. They disagree cordially, each arguing his case. I put to you that they set a good example.
Since I have been so disrespectfully reproved for holding opinions that differ from those of my old friend, I shall take the joyful liberty of cancelling him. I have wiped him off my contact list.
The moral of this post is: Don’t send scull and cross-bones-emojis to your old friends if you cannot even be bothered explaining why you are doing so.