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August 21, 2006

Conspiracy Theories, again

Firstly, the Glenn and Helen Show podcast's latest episode has David Dunbar and Brad Reagan - editors of Popular Mechanics - debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories. They say some of what I was trying to say in my last post about these theories, much better than I did - arguing that the Internet is a non-chronological medium, allowing already-discredited ideas to proliferate indefinitely. Well worth a listen (or two).

Secondly, have just watched bits of Alex Jones' Terrorstorm video (sadly not all - will be a while till I've got time/energy to watch this 2hr film from start to finish). The first things that jump out at me are that the production values look much better than other conspiracy theory videos, and it also looks like they've spent a lot of time watching Jarecki's (excellent) film Why We Fight. Terrorstorm combines details of past (alleged) government-sponsored terrorism with theories about the events of September 11 and the 7/7 bombings. So far as I can tell (as I said, I've only skimmed through the video) there's nothing terribly new or convincing in the actual content of the conspiracy theories it contains, but the presentation is a hell of a lot better than in the other videos of the genre that I've seen. Compare Terrorstorm to Loose Change, for example, and you can really see how far the 9/11 denial movement has come on in terms of the quality of its productions.

Posted by jon_mendel at August 21, 2006 12:17 AM