Conspiracy Theories and the Secret of My Secret Identity

I received a rather strange email this week which had been circulated to a number of people including Arutz 7's Tamar Yonah and Worldnetdaily's Aaron Klein and Reuven Koret accusing me of really being Steven Plaut.

Why Steven Plaut who has a successful career as a pundit would create an obscure blog to post long articles which he never places in media publications is unclear to me but apparently it involves my supposed involvement in a war against Barry Chamish, whose follower this person is. I've actually only written two pieces on Barry Chamish among over 400 posts in nearly a year so this blog isn't remotely Chamish centered.

I have pointed out that Chamish is affiliated with Neo-Nazi holocaust deniers and is himself promoting theories that amount to holocaust denial, e.g. the Holocaust was arranged by the Jews, a form of Holocaust denial innovated by the Soviet Union and repeated by some in the arab world which claims the Zionists were behind the Holocaust. I've pointed out that his claims are bizarre ranging from UFO's over Israel to claims that Yeshiva University is run by the Illuminati because they switched to a torch symbol and that he ultimately ends up discrediting the right by association.

In response to those pieces I received a number of angry comments, including from this person, as well as an angry email from Barry Chamish for calling him a holocaust denier. (Unlike what some of Chamish's associates have done in their fight with Steven Plaut and Daniel Pipes though I do not publish private emails on my site as this is a violation of elementary ethics) and now an accusation that I'm just a front for Steven Plaut.

It is a sign of how conspiracy theories can warp the mind that such accusations are even made but then when one lives in a universe in which everyone hides a hidden agenda and every seemingly meaningless act conceals a greater purpose, such modes of thinking become inevitable.

The conspiracy theorist like the religious believer assumes that nothing happens by accident but where the religious believer sees that as G-d's hand in the world, the conspiracy theory is gnostic believing that everything happens for a reason...because evil forces are manipulating the world.

Hard core believers in conspiracy theories create a gnostic world, one in which good contends with a nearly omnipotent evil conspiracy that turns the entire world into a web of lies and deceit and whose followers and leaders are capable of making the most convoluted plots succeed and directing the everyday life of the world without anyone but them knowing it. The 'secret knowledge' of the conspiracy theorist is his gnosis enabling him to find the truth in a world ruled by lies.

That very belief though ensures that such a person achieves nothing useful as they labor over what isn't instead of dealing with what is. The world is not run by great conspiracies. A handful of men don't sit in a secret room deciding the fate of the world. The truth is much worse than that. The state of the world is our fault. There are evil men but their efforts would come to nothing if we would stand up to them. Their plans tend to be laughable and pathetic. They succeed because good people do nothing. This blog is an attempt to do something.

I am not Steven Plaut. I am however the Archduke of Wisconsin. Really.

Sultan Knish