Friday 26 May 2017

Minor nutjobs

What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 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.] 

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