Guilt by Association
Soon after the Popular Mechanics report appeared, conspiracy buffs began parsing the names of the various researchers who contributed to the article, noting the odd coincidence that Benjamin Chertoff, then the head of the magazine's research Department, has the same last name as the then newly appointed head of the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff. In a rare instance of reportorial initiative (most 9/11 "Internet researchers" rarely venture beyond Google), Christopher Bollyn phoned Ben's mother, who volunteered that, yes, she thinks Michael Chertoff might be a distant cousin. "Chertoff's Cousin Penned Popular Mechanics 9/11 Hit Piece," read the headline on Bollyn's next American Free Press story. "This is exactly the kind of `journalism' one would expect to find in a dictatorship like that of Saddam Hussein's Iraq," he concluded. Later, a headline was added to his article: "Ben Chertoff: Propagandist & Illuminati Disinformation Tool."
As often happens in the world of conspiracy theories, a grain of truth--it's possible that Ben and Michael Chertoff are distantly related--was built into a towering dune. In fact, Ben and Michael Chertoff have never spoken. And no one at Popular Mechanics had any contact with Michael Chertoff's office while preparing the article. Moreover, Ben was one of many researchers on the story, not the author. (Then, of course, there's the question of why Ben--and his colleagues--would be eager to get involved with one of the greatest crimes in history.) But in the world of 9/11 conspiracy theories, coincidence is proof of collaboration.
The Paranoid Style
The conspiracist worldview is reflected in our culture of Oliver Stone movies, X-Files episodes, and The Da Vinci Code. But its roots go deeper. In 1964, historian Richard Hofstadter published his famous essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," in Harper's magazine. His topic was America's long history of grassroots movements organized to oppose various perceived conspiracies. While the targets of suspicion might vary--Masons, Catholics, "international bankers"--the tone of these movements, what Hofstadter calls their paranoid style, does not. He uses the term paranoid not in the clinical sense, he says, but because no other word captures "the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy" that is the hallmark of this worldview. He quotes a classic example of conspiracist rhetoric:
How can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men high in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? This must be the product of a great conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man. . . .What can be made of this unbroken series of decisions and acts contributing to the strategy of defeat? They cannot be attributed to incompetence. . . .
Compare that passage to this more recent expression of the same sentiment:
In fact, conspiracy is very plausible. People who control a grossly disproportionate share of the world's wealth will take measures to consolidate their position. They will destabilize the public by inciting a series of wars and other mind-boggling hoaxes. . . . The government-inspired 9-11 atrocity proves Bush and his accomplices are criminals, traitors and impostors. . . .
The first quotation is from Senator Joe McCarthy, speaking in 1951 about the vast army of Communists he claimed had infiltrated the U.S. government. The second is from the Web site
www.rense.com. Leaving aside references to Bush and 9/11, the two passages are essentially interchangeable. Both share the view that some disaster has befallen the country that mere bungling on the part of our top officials cannot explain. Grander forces must be at work.
Hofstadter's main focus was the rise of the paranoid style among far-right political groups such as McCarthy's supporters and the John Birch Society, an ultra-conservative anticommunist organization. At their most extreme, some members of this movement believed that Presidents Truman and Eisenhower were Communist agents. Hofstadter would have recognized today's 9/11 conspiracy proponents as the earlier theorists' ideological soul mates. Deep down, he argues, conspiracists revel in their self-defined status as society's Cassandras: "As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader," he wrote. "He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point."
Those barricades are getting crowded. The documentary Loose Change, a messy grab bag of thinly sourced conspiracy claims, became a campus and Internet sensation in 2005. Conspiracy groups recently began hosting conventions where hundreds of like-minded "skeptics" gather to compare notes. And conspiracy literature has become commonplace at antiwar marches and other political events. Most of those embracing the conspiracist mindset probably believe they are espousing a left-wing view. But dig deep enough in the "9/11 Truth Movement" and you come to a place where left and right collide.
The movie Loose Change, for example, frequently cites the American Free Press (AFP) as a source. According to the watchdog group, Center for Media and Democracy, AFP has its roots in the now defunct Liberty Lobby, a group associated with racism, anti-Semitism, and Holocaust denial. (Its founder,Willis Carto, was once described as "America's most successful professional anti-Semite and racist.") The award-winning liberal news site
www.alternet.org says "the ability of the right-wing media apparatus to dominate public discourse is at the expense of liberal and progressive values." The site's mission statement concludes: "This is what we are fighting against." Yet, when the Web site offers a roundup of conspiracy theories, it lists
www.rense.com as a source. Among the thousands of articles included on the Rense site are a disturbing number dealing with the influence of Israel on world events and doubts about the reality of the Holocaust. (In a disclaimer, Rense notes that inclusion of an article on his site does not constitute endorsement.) In one piece, titled "Auschwitz--Myths & Facts," the reader is informed that "Auschwitz was not an extermination center and that the story of mass killings in `gas chambers' is a myth."
Strange bedfellows, indeed. In truth, the worldviews of far-left- and far-right-wing conspiracists differ little. Both think that vast, malevolent forces have hijacked American democracy. And both believe that the press, our elected officials, and the American people--or "sheeple," as today's conspiracists like to call them--are too timid and ignorant to speak up. As Hofstadter shows, such sentiments have been around since the early days of the republic. But 9/11 gave modern conspiracists a huge historical tragedy to examine through their ideological lenses and to recast with their favorite villains.
The American public has every right to demand answers and all too many reasons to lack confidence in the government. Sadly, in such a climate, the fantasies of 9/11 conspiracists provide a seductive alternative to facing the hard facts and difficult choices of our time.