H Koehli

Point by Point Rebuttal to Globe and Mail Hit Piece

Rejecting conspiracy thinking keeps it alive and well - Tossell should know!

H Koehli
Signs of the Times
Sat, 18 Aug 2007

In a fitting and prototypical example of the conversive thinking that runs epidemic among our hysterized society, Ivor Tossell of the Globe and Mail demonstrates in a recent article the very fuzzy thinking he attempts to deride. If it wasn't so sad, and so pitiful a look into the lengths to which a seemingly healthy mind will go to hang onto a belief system, it would be humorous. For Tossell, in his article, accuses others of the very things he himself epitomizes, as will be shown in my comments below.

Tossell begins:

The problem with deriding conspiracy theories is that it really does leave your columnist feeling like he's just playing his part in the International Bankers' plan for one-world government.

Comment: In his first sentence, Tossell shows how little he has actually thought about "conspiracy theories." Has he ever asked himself, "Just what is a conspiracy theory?" I doubt it. If he did, he would probably conclude that a conspiracy theory was a theory (a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something) that involves a conspiracy (a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful).

So Tossell is a conspiracy theorist whether he likes it or not, for he posits that a group (Al-Qaeda) came up with a secret plan to do something unlawful and harmful. Now, for some reason, Tossell has rejected the idea that the American government and intelligence agencies could have been involved in said plan, or that said plan was not entirely secret and that there was advance knowledge of the attacks.

Why should he make such an a priori judgment? We know military and intelligence agencies commonly take part in conspiracies of their own. They are called "covert or black operations." The are also called psyops, or psychological operations, in which a lie is told for propaganda purposes. Many people are often involved, and the methods and means are often "extra-judicial." Sounds like "conspiracy theories" to me.

Already, from Tossell's use of the paramoralism "conspiracy theory" (that is, it has an emotional and moralistic connotation that makes it particularly derogatory and contagious) his logic must be: a) conspiracy theories are inherently irrational, b) the idea that the Bush-Cheney administration had anything to do with the attacks is a conspiracy theory, therefore c) the theory is irrational and cannot be true. Furthermore, using this logic, it is unlikely that the government has ever or will ever be involved in such "conspiracies". To think so is irrational!

Ironically, while Tossell sardonically mentions that he feels he is playing his part for the "International Bankers," he isn't that far from the truth. He is one in a long line of useful idiots.

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