I became aware a few years ago of a phenomenon I call ‘fake scepticism’ (some prefer the spelling skepticism).

By ‘fake sceptics’, I mean people who purport to be sceptics – but their scepticism is highly selective. Perhaps ‘selective sceptics’ is a better term?

Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic Magazine, is a prime example. A well-known equivalent down-under with a parallel agenda is Phillip Adams, an ABC radio presenter and founding Patron of the Australian Sceptics.

These guys are such ‘sceptics’ they portray topics such as 9-11 – or the fate of Jewish people inside wartime Nazi-occupied Europe – as matters so thoroughly understood already that scepticism in such cases is a tiresome nuisance at best.

By combining haughty dogmatism on some issues with real scepticism on others, they confuse and ultimately subvert the meaning of the term ‘sceptic’.

Michael Shermer: sceptical about many things, extraordinarily dogmatic about others

A genuine ‘sceptical’ approach in relation to 9-11, the events of World War Two, the Port Arthur massacre – or any other factual topic under consideration starts with an open mind.

All significant available evidence should be acknowledged and all theories tested against the evidence. The quest is for hypotheses – theories about the truth – that can’t be falsified.

Open debate, rigorous logic and careful documentation are crucial throughout.

In other words, a genuine sceptic applies rational principles and the scientific method without fear or favour, following the evidence wherever it leads.

If, at the outset of an investigation, investigators are confronted with a range of competing theories, a true sceptic accepts this and gives fair consideration to them all. Theories are rejected when hard evidence disproves them, not on a priori grounds. This same principle applies as much to theories enjoying ‘official’ status as it does to any other theory.

Fake sceptics, on the other hand, imply we already know the basic facts about a select list of subjects such as 9-11 – and argue as though there’s little to be gained – and only offense to be given – by querying the ‘official narratives’. When it comes to phenomena such as UFOs, crop circles, ghosts and ESP, the same people typically subject every last detail of proponents’ claims to the most critical scrutiny. So they should! That’s what true sceptics do – ask the hard questions! But try expressing doubts or asking hard questions about topics such as 9-11 and these fake sceptics become dismissive, evasive, patronising, intimidatory, downright rude or any combination of the above.

Prominent fake sceptics typically enjoy easy access to mainstream media and use it to present one-sided hatchet jobs on their opponents. These are often extraordinary exercises in perfoming logical contortions, in which they always shy away from mentioning damning evidence that undermine the official verities. Michael Shermer’s recent Scientific American article about 9-11 – The Conspiracy Theory Detector – is a classic in the genre (see also Kevin Barrett’s succinct debunking here).

Fake sceptics rarely engage genuine sceptics in open debate on ‘sensitive’ topics such as 9-11.

In fairness to Mr Shermer, he has at least did engage in a handful of public debates on these issues in the last two decades. (To my knowledge, Phillip Adams never has deigned to do this).

But even the risk-taking Shermer has a low appetite for such debates. He got his fingers burned years ago. I doubt, for example, he’ll want to debate ’The Holocaust’ again in public after some experiences in the 1990s , notably his fascinating debate with Holocaust sceptics on Phil Donaghue’s TV show: (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 are on YouTube; Shermer makes his first appearance during segment 2). Much safer to stick to one-sided hit-pieces in friendly media!

Senator Joe Lieberman - faux Democrat who has demanded a 'kill switch' for the internet. His ability to deny obvious facts is unparalleled.

I presume combining part-time scepticism with part-time dogmatic conformism has its rewards. Certainly it must be a tortuous intellectual challenge – and only very nimble minds could make a fist of it. That’s the special skill of professional ‘faux sceptics’.

Grumpy congressional war-horses like Joe Lieberman, by contrast, aren’t up to that kind of slippery sophistry. When put on the spot, Senator Lieberman’s ‘scepticism’ is necessarily more blunt.

Faced with a question about the mysterious collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 and the need for a genuine new inquiry into the 9-11 atrocities, Old Joe simply declared that nothing had happened at all!

Watch him say it – just over a minute into the video below!

If anyone had residual doubts that liars are in key power positions in America, irrefutable evidence is here….

Of course, Lieberman’s reply could be explained away as ignorance. For me, that’s too much of a stretch; he is, after all, Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Certainly, if Lieberman hasn’t heard of the collapse of the Salomon Brothers Building (aka WTC-7) before – a 47-storey skyscraper which has been entirely rebuilt since 2001 – America is truly run by imbeciles.

The BBC's Jane Standley: her world-famous precognitive powers are apparently of no interest to 'sceptics' Michael Shermer and Phillip Adams

Joe Lieberman could swap notes with BBC reporter Jane Standley.

Ms Standly, a BBC journalist who discussed the collapse of WTC-7 (aka Building What?) live on-air during the afternoon of that fateful day, was so on abreast of the story she reported it half an hour before it happened!

________________

To ordinary peace-loving people as they wake up to these shenanigans, it’s all WAY beyond a joke.

• Where’s the outrage from journalists paid to report and analyse our news?
• Where’s mass media follow-up on the story of Joe Lieberman’s absurd and blatantly inaccurate statement?
• What happened to the media’s responsibility to report truthfully and advocate for due process?

By allowing prominent politicians to get away with lies as blatant as this, mainstream western journalists shred their own credibility.

It’s already in tatters.

Honest journalists and commentators need to club together for mutual protection so they can report the crucial issue of 9-11 accurately. Have they never heard of unions?

Those who continue to report on the 9-11 issue with all the truthfulness and finesse of Joe Lieberman will permanently tarnish their reputations. Like Joe, they should be reviled as liars.

The great French wit Voltaire said something like this:

As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.

How right he was!

Nine years ago, the general public was fed a quite absurd explanation of the events of September 11th 2001.

9-11: No questions please. It's unpatriotic...

This factually impossible and poisonous myth has underpinned a cavalcade of atrocities perpetrated ever since by western governments (above all by the USA): massive expansion in military, ‘intel’ and security budgets, draconian assaults on domestic civil liberties, at least two brutal overseas invasions and enduring military occupations, resulting in staggering  casualties and misery on a vast scale…

While the shock and awe 9-11 is slowly receding into history, more and more atrocities keep the pot of fear boiling. The sinister organisation allegedly responsible for 9-11, we’re told, keeps on slaughtering innocents.

The name of this wicked organisation is ‘Al Qaeda’.

Nine years after 9-11, it’s clear ‘Al Qaeda’ is not going away. More evil than the old Soviet Empire, more elusive than SMERSH, more anti-Israel than Yasser Arafat, with a leader more sinister than old Professor Moriaty himself – ‘Al Qaeda’ is more important today for the Masters of Deception than the transitory ‘rush’ of hate and fear unleashed by 9-11 itself. Focus on the events of September 11th 2001 is actually an embarrasment these days. It raises unanswered questions.

What matters to the manufacturers of the Global Islamic Terror Myth is not the origin of ‘The War on Terror’. That’s best forgotten. What matters is The War itself. The populace must believe The Enemy is still out there. We’ve been put on notice: the Islamic Extremist Enemy may be out there for generations to come…

The plot is a blatant rip-off from George Orwell’s 1984, of course, as many independent commentators have noticed. We have a sinister ‘Brotherhood’ (Al Qaida) and an evil, elusive Emanuel Goldstein (Osama bin Laden). Despite a cumulative spend in the trillions on beefed up ‘security’ and ‘intelligence’, governments in western countries seem no nearer to eradicating ‘Al Qaeda or finding Osama than when the saga began.

Uncle Sam wants YOUR support for the War on Terror (don't even ask who pulls Sam's strings)

Apparatchiks of the Zionist-dominated western military industrial complex have created a ‘perfect enemy’. It’s an enemy that keeps giving. It gives them ever larger budgets and unaccountable power. It gives the rest of us terror.

From Bali to Madrid, Istanbul to London, Baghdad to Mumbai… we’ve had one continuous narrative of ‘Islamic terror’ co-ordinated by Al Qaeda and its vicious associates. Each one of the ‘terrorist’ incidents, when subjected to detailed scrutiny, yields no proof of the existence of an authentic (Islamic) global terrorist network. But the atrocities keep coming, thick and fast – so fast it’s more than a full time job keeping up with it all.

21st century ‘Islamic terrorism’ has become like an extended fireworks display. Just when the audience is getting restive, another Catherine Wheel whirs into action and rockets explode in spectacular fashion.

To anyone who gives the matter serious thought, ‘Al Qaeda’  is an incredible enigma. I use the term ‘incredible’ here in its most literal sense.

‘Al Qaeda’ is simply not believable.

One the one hand we’re asked to believe in the existence of a network/organisation so fiendishly clever it can largely avoid interdiction for a decade, despite unprecedented growth in state expenditure purportedly made to eradicate the ‘threat of terrorism’.

On the other hand, ‘Al Qaeda’ doesn’t seem to have a clue about targets.

If there really was an authentic, global terrorist network informed and motivated by the values of ‘radical Islam’, one might expect – in nine bloody years – it would have landed a punch on at least one target in the following rather obvious categories:

• leading Israeli politicians
• leading Israeli businessmen
• leading American Zionist politicians
• leading American Zionists working in the mass media
• leading American Zionist businessmen

Of course that’s not close to a comprehensive list. What about leading British Zionists? How about Australian Zionist billionaires?

Geneva Conventions: bad for bu$ine$$!

All are likely targets for a genuine, embittered, international network of passionate anti-Zionist ‘terrorists’ – if such a network actually existed. Yet none of them ever seem to be attacked by ‘Al Qaeda’ – let alone hit.

Instead, we see bomb blasts at popular youth tourist spots, the slaughter of Muslims in mosques and Christians in Churches, the massacre of commuters using mass transit systems – even Pakistanis bombed on a Pro-Palestine march!

It’s as though these atrocities are designed only to enrage and terrify the general public.

I’m sad to say, I believe that’s precisely what they are.

How did the western world become the chief purveyors of terror worldwide? This has been achieved, after all, by deception and fraud pepretated on the populace as a whole. Why do most people in the Anglosphere continue to allow themeslves to be fooled so blatantly?

Media mass manipulation is a crucial part of the explanation, of course – but I’m sure there’s a historical dimension too. One reason why this generation of westerners finds it so hard to believe our current crop of  ‘leaders’ could have the most callous disregard for the security of ordinary people is because we’ve been systematically misinformed about our history.

Take Winston Churchill – a modern historical personage so well-known even most teenagers are probably aware of his role in history (or think they are).

In 2008, the American politician and commentator Pat Buchanan wrote a critical article about Winston Churchill entitled Man of the Century. Buchanan’s scepticism about Churchill’s record is a rarity. He explained:

As the twentieth century ended, a debate ensued over who had been its greatest man. The Weekly Standard nominee was Churchill. Not only was he Man of the Century, said scholar Harry Jaffa, he was the Man of Many Centuries. To Kissinger he was “the quintessential hero.” A BBC poll of a million people in 2002 found that Britons considered Churchill the “greatest Briton of all time.”

That’s quite a reputation! Small wonder dissent is not univerally welcomed.

In a fascinating lecture delivered in Canada some two decades ago, the much-vilified historian David Irving tells the story of Winston Churchill on the day of the devastating German blitz on Coventry in late 1940.

It’s a ripping yarn!

War on Terror 'collateral damage' in the proud tradition of Winston Churchill

According to Irving, Churchill received advance notice of a massive bombing raid from the RAF, which initally considered London the probable target. So the Prime Minister slipped out of the back of No 10 Downing Street on the fateful day, to be driven out of London far from the threat of German bombs. But just before his car departed, a courier brought a note saying that Coventry, not London, was the target for the coming raid. So Churchill returned to No 10, to the astonishment of staff, announcing he’d returned because the capital was under dire threat – and he wouldn’t desert Londoners in their hour of danger!

It’s one small, but very well-documented insight into the mind of a psychopathic egomaniac. The Real Winston would make a good movie – but don’t expect it out of Hollywood this side of the next millenium. Needless to say, Mr Irving’s detailed historical research is viewed as a political threat by entrenched vested interests – even more than 60 years after the end of World War Two as far away from London as the antipodes.

British Historian David Irving: banned from visiting his daughter in Australia (failed the Howard Government's 'character test')

The  real Winston Churchill, it turns out, could lie, joke, bully and smile, down a whisky and chomp on a cigar all at the same time. He was the very model of a modern major war-criminal.

His political legacy, which this generation is  exhorted to celebrate as our glorious inheritance, is akin to a rosy apple infested with maggots.

One fruit of Churchill’s rotten legacy – the rising ascendancy of Big Brother society throughout ‘Oceania’ (where its emergence was least expected until quite recently) – is with us still.

So it’s appropriate to give the last word to Eric Blair aka George Orwell, who back in 1949 wrote about his recently published novel ’1984′:

The scene of the book is laid in Britain in order to emphasize that the English-speaking races are not innately better than anyone else, and that totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere.

Yesterday someone sent me the Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense.

It one of those internet phenomena, currently doing the rounds. I saw it first via Twitter. It’s probably being emailed around too.

The Table of Periodic Nonsense v2.0: carefully designed disinformation

A Google search for the exact phrase “Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense” this morning yielded 68,500 results. That’s a lot. Then again, why not? The graphic is well produced and amusing, at least to a certain type of viewer. It’s obviously very popular.

But what is it?

Superfically, the answer’s obvious. It’s a graphic that looks like a periodic table, of the type most of us first encountered in basic chemistry lessons.

Yet it isn’t a regular Periodic Table.

Symbols for elements have been replaced with similar symbols (a Capital and small letter, both in roman script). These symbols are grouped and colour-coded in blocks, much like a regular chemical periodic table. Each symbol in the table is also named, but instead of the name of a chemical element such as Hydrogen, the names in this table are beliefs, belief systems, cults, religions, spiritual practices or something else of that general type.

In fact, it’s hard if not impossible to find a single descriptor for all the hundred or so terms arranged so neatly in the table. They represent many very different human traditions and beliefs. But the headline – prominently displayed in large type at the top of the table – does the job. It informs us these things are all ‘irrational nonsense‘.

That message won’t appeal to everyone. For example, followers of the world’s most popular religions such as Christianity, Islam and Hindusim might find themselves surprised to be categorized in the same block as Scientology. They might raise eyebrows over having religions classified as a sub-category of ‘irrational nonsense’ at all. Similarly, people who’ve obtained tangible relief from back ache through the services of a chiropracter might be annoyed that ‘traditional bollocks’ was all it really took to cure their pain. And so on… Look hard enough at the table and you’ll probably find a practice or tradition you actually like or respect, however much you consider yourself to be rational and scientifically-minded.

That – needless to say – appears to be the target audience: ‘rational’ and scientifically-minded’ people. The person who sent it to me is an IT expert. It obviously appealed to him. Scientifically-literate people may not be a majority of the population – even in secular countries such as the USA, Britain and Australia. But they are influential. These are folk who fix your computer, design bridges and test water supplies. They are people who live in the ‘real world’. From Richard Dawkins to your local medic, these are no-nonsense folk who ‘believe’ in science; conversely, they tend to be sceptical of ‘pseudo-science’.

That’s a lot of people, around the world. A lot of influential people. If something can help mould their opinion, it’s worth doing. Especially if it doesn’t take long to produce and it’s distributed ‘virally’. Whatever grabs the attention, however momentarily, of the world’s scientifcally-literate intelligensia, is of no small consequence. In a significant way, it helps to change the world – at least the important world of human belief.

Crispian Jago: mostly a sceptic

So who produced the table? That’s no mystery. At any rate, the graphic is copyrighted Crispian Jago. Crispian Jago, who apparently lives in Hampshire, England, has a blog that’s conveniently mentioned in small print on the image so we can easily look it up…

No suprprises to discover that Crispian Jago is a proud ‘scientific rationalist’ and ‘sceptic’. His blog’s title is Science, Reason and Critical Thinking – A Blog in Words and Pictures by Crispian Jago. The periodic table is only one of Jago’s many articles and images. He clearly has a talent for communication using both text and images.

Jago describes the role of his blog as: “Pointing a satirical and bogey stained finger at woos and faith-heads. In fact, general piss taking of the unenlightened who prefer dogma and irrational beliefs to the scientific method for determining the truth. With the occasional attempted poignant bleat.”

It’s also not unexpected that Jago’s blog includes links to no-nonsense atheists such as Richard Dawkins and well-known professional ‘sceptics’ such as Michael Shermer. Cynical bon-vivants Christopher Hitchens and Steven Fry are on the list too. But there’s more. I noticed David Aaronovitch is among Mr Jago’s links. Then I saw Nick Cohen. Both of those gentlemen may well dabble in ‘scepticism’, but only when it suits them, or so it seems to me. Back in 2003, for example, they were passionate and true believers in Iraqi WMDs, which proved to be nothing more than figments of their imagination. Both are well known as passionate supporters of Israel. Both went through a remarkable conversion, over the course of their lifetimes, from anti-establishment leftists to supporters of neocon wars in the middle east.

Is Crispian Jago, perchance, part of the same culture? Is he a Jewish Zionist too?

That seems possible, but if so, Mr Jago doesn’t wear it on his sleeve. Anyway, Crispian’s ethnicity and sectarian leanings are surely his own business? Even if he’s descended from Aboriginal natives of Tierra del Fuego, what does it matter to his output, as long as it is ‘rational’, ‘scientific’ and ‘value-free’?

But there’s the rub. Is the Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense really value free? Is this pure rationality at work? Or is it – as the sceptic in me suggests – a case of skilful but rather devious design, with an ulterior motive not apparent on first impressions?

Is there something else about the table and the messages it subtlely conveys that makes it worth creating – other than the high ideal of debunking irrationality? Is there a hidden meme in the bottle?

I’ll cut to the chase and give you my opinion. Then I’ll attempt to justify it. Naturally, you as reader can make up your own mind. You decide what’s ‘rational’ and what’s not. I’m sure some readers will dismiss what I’m about to suggest as ‘conspiracy theory’. By the time they finish the article, some  may even wonder if I’m a  ‘holocaust denier’ (horror of horrors).

There… that’s my suspicion, for what it’s worth. The ‘deep purpose’ of this graphic – it’s hidden goal – is twofold:

(1) to discredit concerns that the public has not been told the truth about some crucial events in the ‘post-war’ era – such the assassination of President John F Kennedy or the atrocity of 9-11. In the table, these are not mentioned specifically, but it’s a reasonable inference that they are intended to be subsumed under the category ‘conspiracy theories’; and

(2) to discredit the movement which seeks to critically review the facts about World War Two – and specifically the fate of Jewish people trapped inside German-controlled territory during the war. It’s a movement usually known to its adherents as ‘historical revisionism’ or ‘holocaust revisionism’, but which is labelled by its detractors as ‘holocaust denial’

What an outlandish suggestion, you may be thinking! How can this image pack so much devious punch? And why infer it has any ‘deep’ message at all? Isn’t it just a joke, poking fun at lots of things which the designer considers to be irrational mumbo-jumbo?

You may be right. But consider the evidence. Let’s look again at this very popular graphic – the one and only exhibit in this rather limited investigation.

It appears to have been produced with care. How does the eye travel when first viewing the image?

If you’re anything like me, your glance may hover first over the deep blue central block which has the heading ‘credulous’. It’s the largest block – and it’s right in the middle. When you check the names of elements, you discover it contains a lot of things that most scientifically-literate people consider to be nonsense.

Of course, you’ll glance up to the headline – if you didn’t start there first. It’s entitled ‘The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense’. That gives you a general idea about what you’re seeing. Your looking at a lot of nonsense!

Between the headline and the large deep blue block, various categories are depicted inside small rectangular boxes. There are nine boxes in total – four on the left, five on the right. All of them – from ‘Extra Terrestrial’ at the top left to ‘Alternative Medicine’ in the bottom right – are colour-coded.

Your eye may linger over this block of categories. Because it’s colour-coded, it guides you quickly to the equivalent block of individual symbols/’elements’. One category block stands out – at least it does for me. See if you notice the same thing. That’s the block entitled ‘Hoaxes, Frauds and Denials’.

Why does it stand out? Partly, it’s positioning. The eye tends to drift to the right of an image or sub-item within an image (at least, I believe that’s true for people accustomed to reading from the left to the right of a page). The main thing, however, is the sharp contrast between black text and the light yellow background colour of the box. The rest of the boxes are all quite subdued colours, but the yellow box is much lighter.

So strog is the effect that many people may view the entire graphic and read the phrase ‘Hoaxes, Frauds and Denials’ before they even notice the much larger main heading at the top of the page (‘The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense’). At least, it’s likely viewers soon capture both of these phrases. Ah.. so that’s what this table is about – ‘Hoaxes‘, ‘Frauds‘ and (malicious) ‘Denials‘ … all of which are ‘Irrational Nonsense‘!

Having absorbed this, the viewer may continue to explore the page. I suspect that the block they choose to view first often depends on what they do ‘believe in’ that might turn out be on the page somewhere. I quickly found chiropracters were branded as quacks. That was irritating to me, given my personal rather positive experience. I bet many people go through a similar process.

Even so, by the time you’ve explored a few blocks in the periodic table, you’re likely to acknowledge that this is mostly whacky stuff. Of course, some people won’t – people who aren’t impressed with mainstream science at all. They are typically (although not always) folk with little scientific training. They are the type who frequently drive scientists to distraction. So a scientifically-literate person is likely to absorb a general message too… anyone who believes all this stuff is nuts! Enough of their ‘irrational nonsense’!

The key is miscategorisation

While you’re exploring blocks that may interest you in particular, I bet that little yellow box nags at your attention. It’s near the centre of the graphic and it really does stand out. Each time you flash past you notice… ‘Hoaxes‘, ‘Frauds‘ and ‘Denials‘. Even if it’s not your main  area of interest, if you view the page for more than 30 seconds you’ll probably find yourself glancing at the easy-to-read yellow column on the right.

That, I submit, is the intention of the designer/s of this clever graphic. That’s where they want to get you. If you stay on the page that long, the task is accomplished.

The category ‘Hoaxes, Frauds and Denials’ is depicted in the form of a column. From top to bottom, the listed ‘elements’ are Conspiracy Theories, Apocalyptic Processes, New World Order, Moon landing denial, HIV Aids denial, Holocaust denial and Chemtrails.

Much has been written on each of these topics and readers may well have their own opinions about each topic. Scientifically-literate people, however, once they notice that the column includes ‘Moon landing denial’ and ‘HIV Aids denial’, will probably take the view that this is a column of extremely loopy stuff. As their eye drifts upwards, they may notice ‘Conspiracy Theories’ at the top and wonder if it really should be included in the list. People do conspire from time to time, after all, don’t they? Everyone knows that…

Even so, guided by the term ‘New World Order’ which they’ve probably already seen in articles alleging 9-11 was a conspiracy, often in quite zany and badly-written material… and in view of the fact that ‘Moon landing denial’ is in the same column, the effect is likely to be a reinforcement of any existing prejudice viewers have already that ALL the items in the yellow block are whacky stuff. Not just whacky… rather creepy too. ‘Aids denial’ smacks of hompohobia. ‘Moon landing denial’ is a frontal assault on the credibility of mainstream science. Then there’s ‘holocaust deniers’ – so brazen they even ‘deny history’ because of their perverted views…

I have little doubt that’s the intended take home message of the Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense.

To use a rather glib phrase, it is cleverly produced Zionist propaganda. It’s intended to divert intelligent, rational people from asking probing questions that Zionists find uncomfortable, such as what really occured on 9-11, what did go on in November 1963 and what truly took place in war-torn eastern Europe back in the early 1940s. The graphic is designed to help people dismiss these questions as the sole preserve of a lunatic fringe. It’s sneaky and I imagine it’s been very effective in achieving that objective.

Of course, not only Zionists find these questions uncomfortable. Many people with no particular allegiance to, or fondness for, the Israeli State, also find such questions disturbing. The mass media has helped mould that mindset, by informing them that only people with malevolent agendas ever ask such  questions. That’s not true, but it has been an effective way of cordoning off public opinion. To date, real sceptics have been marginalised in debates about these subjects, at least in the mainstrem ‘western’ media and in mainstream political discourse in the ‘west’.

It’s hard to argue openly that people should not ask questions – and that asking questions is intrinsically a bad thing. It’s hard to pursuade people directly that it’s only acceptable to believe in recieved knowledge. Scientifically-minded people are least likely – on the face of things – to be pursuaded that scepticism is bad. After all, they’ve been trained in the history of science. They know that questioning minds made the key scientific breakthroughs. They know that the pursuit of intellectual curiosity gave rise to modern civilisation. Lots of them have heard about a guy called Socrates, who insisted on the right to ask unpopular questions, many moons ago.

The most effective way to pursuade scientists that sceptics should be persecuted and marginalised is by mis-categorising sceptics as dogmatists. Do that – and scientists themselves will happily recommend the marginalisation of these people to each other. After all, marginalising irrational dogmatists is what scientists feel comfortable doing. If they hadn’t managed that at the time of the Enlightenment, we’d still be living without electricity.

The most effective way to achieve this marginalisation has been via phoney professional ‘sceptics’ such as Michael Shermer in the USA and Philip Adams in Australia. They have skillfully achieved the popular miscategorisation of certain types of scepticism – scepticism relating to someaspects of current affairs and recent history – as irrational, quasi-religious dogmatism.

Professor Robert Faurisson following one of several attacks by Zionist extremists: usually other academics would complain about this type of assault, but Faurisson has been branded a 'holocaust denier'

Chemists such as Germar Rudolf and literery experts such as Robert Faurisson have been marginalised and excluded from mainstream debate by impugning their motives and making it seem that, instead of being committed to asking questions and engaging in rational debate, these academics are driven by irrationality and hate-inspired dogmatism. Many people who read their work directly for the first time get a surprise – but most people never do. They are not to be found in mainstream bookshops or anywhere in the mainstream media. They are, however, available via the  internet – for now – free of charge for those interested. But most educated westerners have remained deeply suspicious of the motives of people who question the offical version of 9-11, the Kennedy assasinations or World War Two – sufficiently suspicious to avoid reading much about it. If they do start looking via the web, chances are they’ll encounter plenty of distracting, off-putting, badly-written and unconvincing nonsense before they encounter the more serious, substantial and well-referenced material that’s been written on these contentious topics. Plenty of folk give up before they find wheat amidst so much chaff.

The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense is only the latest in a long series of attempts to portray certain types of scepticism as dogmatism. It’s a nice try. But like all deception, it only works for a while. Someone eventually spots the man behind the curtain and tells their friends. Illusionists only get by with the same tricks for so long before the crowd starts to heckle.

Once I formed the impression that the table is a carefully-constructed item of Zionist propaganda, I was naturally interested to see if and how Judaism fitted into the Table. Its absence would stand out… but it is in fact on the table. Judaism is included in the block of religions. It’s at the top of the tallest column of (sky-blue) religions – out on its own – positioned above Christianity, Islam Neo-Paganism and the Bahai Faith. It also happens to have the number 13. Why? I have no idea. Is that significant? Pass.

There is, however, one remarkable omission from the table. I’ve stared at it now for several minutes and I can’t seem to find Cabbalism (aka Kabbalism) listed anywhere. Perhaps it’s my blindspot? Or maybe it’s a blind-spot for the designer/s?

I suppose they wouldn’t dabble in the Cabbala on the side, now would they?

That would be irrational.

If you’re under 75 years old and grew up in a ‘western’ country, chances are you remember from childhood that one of the things that made the Nazis especially wicked was their notion of ‘racial’ supremacy and Hitler’s lunatic ambition to spawn a ‘Master Race’.

Whether via my parents, school education, books, comics, movies or the mass media – from a fairly early age I absorbed the notion that under Adolf Hitler’s leadership, the Nazis – and they alone – sought to promote their ‘race’ to superdude status.

Wicked Uncle Adolf: we learnt at school that he wanted a Master Race, of people like him (with blonde hair)

I can’t recall the number of times I’ve heard reasoning along the following lines:

The Nazis believed the Aryans are a Master Race and wanted to lord it over the rest – didn’t they?

That’s why we had to fight them to the end – wasn’t it?

Sure, the 60 million or so deaths (and tens of millions of refugees) of World War Two were a lot of ‘collateral damage’ – but it was all worth it, wasn’t it?

After all, we can’t take chances with nutcases who want to take over the world – can we? Thank heavens for Winston Churchill! etc. etc.

It’s scary, persuasive stuff that may well have convinced all but the most recalcitrant pacifists to join the military struggle against Nazi Germany.

That’s doubtless why Anglo-American propaganda worked hard, during World War Two, to promote these anxieties.

But what basis did the western propagandists have for their claims? Is it true that the Nazi leadership promoted the notion of an Aryan ‘Master Race’? Where’s the evidence?

I used to think it was unquestionably true – and was sure there was plenty of evidence. Then I researched the topic a little. Now I’m not so sure at all.

A good place to start, when looking for information on a hot-button political issue such as this, is Wikipedia. It’s never a good place to end, as it is often heavily biased, factually inaccurate, subject to change at any moment – and it’s ultimately edited by anonymous people who, for all I know, could be Winston Churchill’s great-grandchildren. But Wikipedia is a good place to start. That’s where the mainstream conformist view of the day is likely to be articulated…

Sure enough, Wikipedia has an entry on Master Race. This is the summary tet which appears at the top of the entry, as of today:

The master race (German: die Herrenrasse, das Herrenvolk (help·info)) was a concept in Nazi ideology, which holds that the Teutonics (including the Nordic peoples), one of the branches of what in the late 19th and early 20th century was called the Aryan race, represent an ideal and “pure race“. It derives from 19th century racial theory, which posited a hierarchy of races placing Aboriginal Australians and so-called “African savages” at the bottom of the hierarchy^{[citation needed]} while Northern Europeans (namely the Germanic peoples) at the top.

It’s a summary I might have written myself back in high school, if asked to define the Nazi’s concept of ‘Master Race’. Germans on the top, blacks on the bottom – Nazis wanting to enslave the Untermenschen… that’s what I remember learning, all those years ago.

But glancing through the body text of Wikipedia’s entry, I find no references to speeches or written documents by leading Nazis in which they spell out their ‘Master Plan’ for a ‘Master Race’ to the populace. I turn to the discussion page, often the most informative bit of a Wikipedia entry. Scanning down, I eventually find one entry that directly addresses my question. It’s the very last one as of today. It carries the sub-title: ‘Any Proof?’

This is what it says:

Any Proof?

I hereby challenge the claim that the term master race or German: Herrenrasse was a concept in Nazi ideology. I claim it was not but rather a propaganda term used by the Allies.

Please give proof (original sources) that this term was used in speeches or publications by/of any Nazi leaders between 1933 and 1945. 62.226.30.93 (talk) 15:32, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

As of yet, no-one has replied to this comment…

After a little research of my own, I turned up a webpage authored by the professional translator and revisionist historian Carlos Porter entitled Master Race Note. I won’t quote it all. A couple of extracts will do:

The term “Master Race” is of French origin, and was used by Gobineau. I have been unable to find one single authenticated example of use of the term “Master Race” by National Socialists. [In fact, I can't even find it Gobineau; only in the introduction by somebody else -- "race des seigneurs". The plot thickens.]

One of the witnesses at Nuremberg maintained that he had never heard the term until he appeared in court after the war. The famous falsifier and faker, Hermann Rauschning, repeatedly uses the term “Herrenschicht” (“Master Stratum”, translated into English as “Master Class”) in his famous fake, HITLER SPEAKS, or THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION, a.k.a. HITLER M’A DIT (written one third in French by a ghost writer hired by the Hungarian Jew “Emery Reeves” and translated into German in Paris for the largest cash advance ever paid for a so-called work of “non-fiction”; the other two thirds were faked by Rauschning under the direction of Reeves). Rauschning met Hitler only 4 times and was never alone with him; one of the episodes in the book is borrowed from a famous short story by Guy de Maupassant, LE HORLA. Rauschning had written another book only the year before, entitled THE REVOLUTION OF NIHILISM, in which he never even claimed to have met Hitler more than a few times. This was all forgotten.

Since the term “Master Class” contradicts the National Socialist ideal of a classless society in which “Work Ennobles”, and presumably reflects the Marxist delusion that “fascism is the last phase of bourgeois capitalism”, it may be that the phrase “Master Class” was simply lifted from Rauschning and transformed into “Master Race” by American and British newspapers.

Update 15 September 2008:

Last year, someone gave me approximately 40 hours of National Socialist speeches in MP3 files, taken from a site called http://nsl-archiv.com/Buecher/ (not just Hitler, but also Göbbels, Göring, Hess, Strasser, Röhm and many others). I have listened to all of these and continue to do so, and, as far as I can tell, the term “Master Race” is simply never mentioned…

Mr Porter does acknowledge one case when a Nazi leader allegedly used the term ‘Master Race’. That was in Himmler’s so-called ‘Secret Speech’. But one speech in more than years of the Third Reich is not much evidence, especially when (a) the reference appears to be sarcastic, and (b) there are doubts about the authenticity of the entire speech.

Incidentally, on the same webpage, Carlos Porter also challenges the popular notion that the Nazis plotted a ‘1,000 Year Reich‘:

The adjective “jährig” in German, preceded by a number, refers to how old something is, nothing more. It does not refer to how long something will exist in the future. Ein “zehnjähriges Kind” is a ten-year old child. Ein “Funfzigjähriger” is a man fifty years old. It doesn’t mean he’s going to live fifty years in the future.

The term “tausendjährige Reich” refers to the fact that the First Reich was founded by Charlemagne; the Second Reich by Bismark; and the Third Reich by Hitler.

The Reich, or German Empire, was therefore one thousand years old.

Many countries are a thousand years old; the list is a long one (most countries, in fact).

Portugal is 1000 years old and had an Empire until April 25, 1974, but nobody ever accused them of trying to “conquer the world”. What’s the difference?

Americans keep harping on the term “thousand year Reich”, but forget to inquire what the term “Third Reich” even means. Very careless of them.

Careless indeed! But then, why take any care at all – when a careless myth does the trick?

Although I wrestled briefly with German as a boy, I’ve never learnt the language, a deficiency I regret. I blame the girls of that era, who were far too distracting. Anyhow, it makes it hard to do more than report the views of people who are able to read original German-language documents (yet ‘Holocaust expert’ Deborah Lipstadt doesn’t seem fazed by her reported lack of German; perhaps she has different standards?)

I invite comments on these topics. If anyone has relevant information, please share it here.

I’m more than a little curious to know whether the ‘Master Race’ and ’1,000 Year Reich’ phobias were yet more baseless Anglo-American-Zionist propaganda, cut from the same cloth as the legend of Saddam Hussein’s mythical ‘weapons of mass destruction’.