Thursday 26 May 2011

Making curiosity uncool…

[This is the heading over an item posted today on bensix's blog Back Towards The Locus. It contains the following:]

I’ve noted how media critics of “conspiracy theories” aren’t just opposed to grandiose, unfounded claims but to suspicion of official or quasi-official narratives. Here are some notes on how the charge of “conspiracy theory” works to discredit this scepticism.

For example, with regards to the Pan Am attack, Geoffrey Robertson wasted no time in dismissing sceptics of Megrahi’s guilt…

"If Megrahi was guilty of the Lockerbie bombing (and, conspiracy theories aside, the evidence justified the verdict), then Gaddafi must have given the order…"

I will say this for Robertson: he’s remarkably efficient. What’s the point of explaining the biased procedure, dodgy witnesses and meager evidence of the prosecution when you can dismiss all scepticism as the work of minor nutjobs?

[RB: Quite. Minor nutjobs like Benedict Birnberg, Ian Hamilton QC, Hans Koechler, Anthony Lester QC, Len Murray, Gareth Peirce and the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, to name but a few.]

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous26 May, 2011

    Thanks for the link, Robert.

    Robertson's also said that he...

    ...remains guilty until the conspiracy theory associated with claims of his innocence is proven to the extent that it raises a realistic doubt about the guilty verdict...

    It's good to know that he's remaining so open minded!

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  2. That would be the day the SCCRC report was published, then?

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  3. On Wikipedia, a number of people are categorised as ‘Conspiracy theorists’.

    I am in that category because I believe that the CIA ‘fitted up’ Gaddafi at the United Nations for both Pan Am Flight 103 and UTA Flight 772.

    Muammar Gaddafi is also one of Wikipedia’s conspiracy theorists, but can someone tell me why?

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  4. I think we need to get Ryan Giggs on board, or, better still, Sir Fergie!

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  5. If ONLY the UK media would get as excited, about injunctions taken out by Government ministers to hid the truth about Lockerbie, as they do about who particular footballers are sleeping with we would be home and dry methinks.

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  6. Either way, the ball is still in Salmond's court. To publish, or not.

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  7. I suspect that if you're not a conspiracy theorist then you're not really paying attention to what's going on. What started off as a dismissive label for dissidence has become the litmus test of rational appraisal.

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