Rixon Stewart - May 18, 2004
In a clear sign that the powers that be are getting worried, an article appeared in Vanity Fair recently that explored the world of “conspiracy theories”. That is unusual enough. Vanity Fair portrays itself as sophisticated and intelligent, a magazine that embodies the ethos of the East Coast establishment. The one thing it is not is an “alternative” magazine. Nonetheless in its May issue it jumped in at the deep end with “Welcome to the Conspiracy”.
“Since September 11,” writes Rich Cohen, “we’ve been hit by a tsunami of freak out – the Internet, the newsstands, and the bookstores have been filled with counter-narratives that promise to unravel the web that controls everything”.
Accordingly, Cohen declares that he will explore this new phenomenon. He will “wade in” and “read the books that had begun to accumulate like cistern water on the table marked Alternative History at the bookstore near my apartment, a store, considering the Borgesian nature of my quest, appropriately called Labyrinth”.
So Cohen ventures forth into this shadowy world, talking with many of its leading figures to discover that: “The conspiracy theory … says less about the world than it does about the theorist…”
And what exactly is that? In answer Cohen suggests a tentative link “between the many thousands of people who believe in a global conspiracy of elites and the many hundreds of thousands who believe they’ve been abducted by aliens”.
In other words the conspiracy theorists are a fringe minority, fewer in number and maybe even weirder than those claiming to have been abducted by aliens.
But while Cohen portrays himself as a newcomer to “conspiracy theories”, it needs be said that he simply uses this as a ruse to gain the readers trust. By casting himself as an innocent abroad, a babe in the murky woods of conspiracy theories, he then quietly undermines many of the ideas he purports to investigate. While simultaneously discrediting those involved with subtle insinuation.
“Galvanised by 9/11”, Cohen writes, “conspiracy theorists have added the War on Terror to a multi-millennial narrative involving aliens, the pyramids, Freemasons, Skull and Bones and, inevitably, the Jews”.
It is a refrain that Cohen returns to again and again.
“Because history itself is manipulated by a secret elite…FEMA, the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, the Illuminati – the Council on Foreign Relations, the Rockefellers – the Warburgs, the Rothschilds, the Jews! (It always swings back and bites the Jews.)”
His interest in the Jewish aspect of “Conspiracy Theories” was apparent before the article was even published. Evident, indeed in the first line in a series of questions he fired at me via email.
1. Who created Israel? Why? What is its function? Will it survive?
2. Why does the world remain obsessed with Jews? What was the cause? When will it end?
If anything, it is Rich Cohen himself who is obsessed with such questions. He even got round to cornering Henry Makow Ph.D. on them, but omitted to mention that Henry is not the only Jew involved in such research. There are others too like Sherman Skolnick, but Cohen avoids mentioning them because to do so would undermine his insinuation that conspiracy research was somehow “anti-Semitic”.
Instead, Cohen chooses to concentrate his attention on the weirder, wackier elements of conspiracy research. Now if you are going to attempt to prove anything, you start with the known and work from there. Cohen however, does the exactly opposite, starting with the weird and working his way to the even weirder. He scrupulously avoids things that are central to “conspiracy research”, events and occurrences that prompted many to sense instinctively that something was amiss. Topics like Iraq or Princess Diana’s death, where there are abundant facts waiting to be verified are completely ignored. Instead we get “ a tsunami of freak out”: complete with references to aliens and cryptic codes, UFO’s and FEMA.
By concentrating on such topics, Cohen skilfully diverts the reader’s attention from very real conspiracies, such as Princess Diana’s death. Or the very real consequences of these conspiracies: such the bloody mess currently unfolding in Iraq.
But perhaps the article's most glaring omission is on the power of the central banking system. The US Federal Reserve and Britain’s Bank of England are both private banks and cornerstones of Anglo-American power. Together with their Zionist allies, they constitute central pillars of the New World Order. Cohen however, skirts this issue with references to Masonic rituals and aliens. But a hard examination is notable only by its absence.
In the end analysis, Cohen’s article has about as much integrity as a script for a Hollywood extravaganza, full of dramatic flair but a little short on hard, verifiable fact. And like a Hollywood extravaganza, it largely relies on artifice and illusion to make its point. Indeed after reading it, one suspects that Cohen may be an aspiring scriptwriter himself.
“Conspiracy theory,” he writes, “the spooky yet comforting belief that a secret force guides the affairs of men, reaches its purest form in the legend of the mysterious stranger, a wispy figure who turns up at key moments.”
“In The Godfather Part II”, he continues, “young Vito Corleone comes face-to-face with this force, its mark a small, inky handprint. The other toughs are terrified of the power the mark represents, and so, after each crime, give part of their take in tribute to the Black Hand’s representative, a dapper old man who wanders Elizabeth Street. To me, this film is a great work of art, and so it’s worth considering what transforms Vito Corleone into the Don: it’s his determined conviction that there is no Black Hand, there is no secret brotherhood, there is no authority, there is no Illuminati, there is no conspiracy, there is only this old man, and he has to be taken, as history has to be taken, by whoever has the strength to face the truth and throw back the curtain”.
Which is another way of saying there is no conspiracy. It’s simply a paranoid delusion, tinged with “anti-Semitism”, which belongs in the realm of Hollywood fantasy.
Essentially, Welcome to the Conspiracy is another step in the Illuminati game plan. The first phase was to completely ignore any notion of “conspiracies”, because acknowledgement would give them a measure of credence. However, as more and more people wake up to the fact that they are being manipulated, that they are indeed pawns in a much bigger game, a conspiracy if you will, so it becomes increasingly clear that the media is not covering this conspiracy. That it is indeed, deliberately ignoring it: hence the need to acknowledge the conspiracy and pacify such concerns.
Which is precisely what Cohen’s article does. Yes, it says, there are these “conspiracy theorists” but they are a fringe minority, few in number and vaguely anti-Semitic too.
But no, while the notions of these "conspiracy theorists" may seem unsettling, like Hollywood horror movies, they are in reality quite harmless. In other words, there is nothing to worry about, there is no such ruling elite, they are simply the fevered imaginings of a few paranoid "conspiracy theorists".
Last updated 06/01/2005
Homepage