Truth Action forum discussion about “bankers,” anti-Illuminism, and the religious right wing

On the Truth Action message board, there are now the beginnings of some discussion about the promulgation of right-wing-style anti-“banking system” hysteria and anti-Illuminism within the 9/11 Truth movement.

Taking responsibility for counteracting bigotry in our midst

Many people in the 9/11 Truth movement are appalled by the blatant Jew-hating of once-respected 9/11 Truth activists such as Eric Hufschmid and Christopher Bollyn. But how should we counter such bigotry?

Some 9/11 Truth activists think the thing to do is simply to refuse to associate with the Jew-haters. But that, in my opinion, is a band-aid solution. We need to address the deeper problem of how some bigoted ideologies, primarily though not exclusively anti-Jewish, are being promulgated these days within various political movements including the 9/11 Truth movement.

Jew-hating ideologies are most commonly promulgated in disguised form. The two favorite disguises seem to be:

Agent-baiting, guilt by association, and religious bigotry

When people in the 9/11 Truth movement accuse each other of being government agents, an all too common type of “evidence” is guilt by association. A has some connection to B, who in turn has some connection to C, who in turn has some connection to the CIA or some other spy agency, or perhaps a connection to an elite fraternity such as the Skull and Bones. Therefore, A must be an agent, or at least we should all worry that A might be an agent.

Similar “connections” to the Communist Party were a staple of the McCarthy-era witchhunts back in the 1950’s.

The problem with this kind of “reasoning” is that there are also huge numbers of innocent non-agents who, knowingly or unknowingly, are likely to have indirect connections either to spy agencies or to elite fraternities.

More about anti-Illuminism

While looking for info I could use in a pamphlet against anti-Illuminism, I came across Pat Robertson, Illuminism, and the New World Order by S.R. Shearer, a conservative Christian who opposes anti-Illluminism and some other fascist-like trends within the religious right wing. Of particular interest to me was footnote 11 of section II:

The linkage here that Robertson is attempting to make between the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers is critical in the modern day version of the Illuminati Myth; the conjunction is necessary in order to tie the Old World to the New World in the grand scheme of things – and how better to do it than by uniting what most people consider to be the wealthiest family of the Old World to the richest family in the New. All variations of the myth make this linkage; some versions even attempt to paint the Rockefellers as Jews – they were in fact Baptists. The fall back position apparently has been to tie the Rockefellers to Jacob Schiff (a Jew), and then join the Rockefellers to the Rothschilds using Schiff as the linkage – which is precisely what Robertson does here – using Warburg and the Aldrichs as additional ties. All this is straight out of the “Jewish-World Conspiracy.”

The recent growth of anti-Illuminism: Dreadful ideology about the dreaded Illuminati

In both the antiwar movement and the 9/11 Truth movement here in New York City, I’ve often run into people talking about “the Illuminati.” In the antiwar movement, I haven’t yet run into this in any official statements by any leaders or groups, but I’ve run into it a lot in informal conversation at anti-war rallies and at informal gatherings in restaurants after meetings. In the 9/11 Truth movement, on the other hand, a few of the major leaders and groups officially promulgate an ideology which has no official name, but which I will refer to as anti-Illuminism.

Anti-Illuminism is sometimes referred to, by its opponents, as “Illuminati conspiracy theory,” a term I don’t like because of the frequent propagandistic use of the term “conspiracy theory” to lump together truly wacky conspiratorial claims, such as Henry Ford’s The International Jew and David Icke’s claims about the Queen of England being an alien lizard, together with more reasonable theories about possible government wrongdoing, thereby discrediting the more realistic theories.

So, I’ve chosen instead to resurrect the late-1700’s word “anti-Illuminism.” (For some history of that word, see the Amazon customer review of The Politics of Unreason: Right Wing Extremism in America, 1790 1977 by Seymour Martin Lipset; Conspiracy Nation‘s review of Architects of Fear by eorge Johnson, reviewed by Brian Francis Redman; this page of Constructing Postmodernism by Brian McHale; and The Anti-democratic Movement by Paul de Armond.)

Based on what I’ve looked at so far, I’ve not yet found any good evidence that the Illuminati still exist, let alone that they secretly control the world. Most of the “evidence” I’ve seen so far has revolved mainly around various organizations’ use of particular symbols, as if the different groups couldn’t just be stealing ideas from each other, or perhaps using the same symbols to mean different things.

I also have big problems with many of the political beliefs and aims that typically accompany – and follow naturally from – belief in “the Illuminati.”