THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE? CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND THE FAR-RIGHT

By Owen Adams

An edited version of this article appears in the June/July 2013 edition of The Forest of Dean & Wye Valley Clarion http://www.theclarion.org.uk

In 1785, just nine years after it was formed, the Bavarian Illuminati ceased to exist, dismantled by the Catholic Church; in 1921, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was comprehensively proved a nasty anti-semitic fiction; and in 1991 the USSR and KGB became history.

Today, a frighteningly sizeable number of Eurosceptics talk of the EUSSR, claiming that covert Communist, Soviet and KGB power lies behind the EU “superstate”, thus recycling a fable invented by the US’s John Birch Society in the 1950s (then it was the UN and Eisenhower working for the “red menace”).

It was only a few years after its disbandment that conspiracy theories began to circulate about the Illuminati: it was seen as the shadowy puppet-master behind the French Revolution. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was informed by this wild theory. In 1975 the Illuminatus Trilogy, a tour-de-force satire on conspiraloons by American authors Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea was published. It’s a great yarn, and it was referenced by ravers Spiral Tribe and the Justified Ancients of Mu-Mu and KLF between 1987 and 1993.

But today many, many people, including quite a few who’ve been given ‘the knowledge’ by David Icke, take it all too seriously. They are convinced the Illuminati control the whole planet. According to this ever-growing army of believers – who like to call themselves ‘truthers’ – every political drama has been scripted by this cabal. Events such as 9/11 and the recent Boston bombing were orchestrated by the powers-that-be as a “false flag” operation, either as a bid to launch the ‘war on terror’, or as a Zionist plot under the auspices of the Rothschild banking dynasty.

The Rothschilds have been blamed for orchestrating everything from the Napoleonic wars to the Second World War and Jewish Holocaust, in order to secure the Zionist state of Israel. Hitler blamed the ultra-rich family for the Russian Revolution. He read it in the Protocols. It doesn’t matter how comprehensively a hoax has been debunked, there will always be some who cling to it as truth. The Nazis used the Protocols as a warrant for the extermination of the Jews. Now Hamas uses it against Israel, and David Icke uses it to justify his theory that lizards rule the Earth (he claims ‘Jew’ is code for our Lizard Queen and her co-conspirators).

It wasn’t long ago that, in Britain at least, the Illuminati, the New World Order, 9/11, the Rothschilds, the Bilderberg Group (an annual pow-wow of world business and political figures this year to be held in Watford, cited by ‘truthers’ as proof of the NWO/Zionist conspiracy) and the ravings of David Icke would only be found in the twilight zone, mostly confined behind closed curtains and in esoteric online mutterings.

The Occupy movement’s efforts, in the UK and worldwide, to open a dialogue about the excesses of capitalism and to experiment with participative democracy were increasingly hampered by ‘truthers’, including Anonymous followers who wear Guy Fawkes/V For Vendetta masks; many are anti-authoritarian, anti-state, anti-government libertarians who believe the powers-that-be are out to get them.  Many on the left spent hours and hours trying to persuade them their energy is wasted on battling paranoiac shadows, and would be much better spent opposing capitalism, an actual entity that causes real misery and destroys lives. But to little avail.

And lately I’ve discovered more and more ‘truthers’, some wearing those Guy Fawkes masks, have emerged, blinking in the light, not with anarchists but instead on the side of the far-right, linking arms with fascists, Nazis, white supremacists and the lunatic fringe that has now thrown its combined weight behind UKIP. The hate-filled morons and brainwashed paranoids are now at risk of outnumbering the disillusioned Tory unfaithful who turned to UKIP.

I’d always envisaged the Establishment to comprise Old Etonian billionaires who raised hell at the Bullingdon Club before making further fortunes hedging bets on economic collapses, and laughing all the way to their offshore banks. However, the “manifesto” of the Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik saw the Establishment and the mainstream media as “cultural Marxists”, propagating multiculturalism, paving the way for a Muslim takeover.

Breivik got what he wanted: a show trial to get primetime coverage for his “manifesto” – much of it cut and pasted from rightwing commentators, including the Mail’s Melanie Phillips. He wasn’t a Nazi or fascist, he insisted, but a fundamental conservative. I considered him hopelessly delusional, a lone wolf with no friends. But he must be smiling in his prison cell, as his views have become almost mainstream.

I’ve spent several months now delving into the world of UKIP, trying to understand the nature of the beast, and I’m horrified at its nasty, nasty murkiness – the racism exposed in the Mirror (almost alone – incredibly, even most articles in the Guardian and Independent equate to appeasing or fence-sitting) is only the tip of the iceberg of a deluge of brutal xenophobic lies.

So many supporters of the “I’m not racist but…” party insist that the Tories are left-wing; I’ve even seen Cameron and Osborne denounced as “closet Marxists” and the BNP as “left-wing”. They use the terms “fascist” and “communist” interchangeably – unaware that fascism means something more than totalitarianism. They claim the BBC is “Bolshevik” and use the same terminology as Breivik did.

“It’s but a short step from hearing about Common Purpose from someone at the back of a UKIP meeting to uncovering a world of inconvenient truth, anti-Zionism, the banking swindle, the New World Order and even more paradigm-shifting facts and conspiracy theories. Thus, far from leading pro-nationalist and anti-Establishment ideas and activists into a blind alley, UKIP is actually playing a historically crucial role in the political awakening of a whole new generation of grassroots radicals. Our time will come!”

So the swivel-eyed leader of the BNP Nick Griffin predicted in April. And I fear he might be right. Just after the election Griffin urged BNP supporters to join UKIP to form an electable nationalist force. Another party to accuse UKIP of stealing its clothes is the Oswald Mosley-worshipping New British Union, the only party to openly describe itself as fascist.

Kippers believe their leader Nigel Farage is a “good bloke” and trust him when he tells them Britain should brace itself for a flood of Romanian and Bulgarians, 29 million of them, in January, and that many of them will be benefit-scrounging criminals and gypsies.

I doubt the average UKIP voter in the Forest of Dean – roughly one in 10 of eligible voters proved enough to gain them three out of eight county council seats, and second place in many of the others – is tuned into the Illuminati or the Protocols of Zion. A recent national survey found that a large majority of those who voted UKIP did so only to kick the big three parties. Others presumably did, not because they necessarily buy into UKIP’s toxic hybrid of Thatcherism and fascism (for that is what it is – give me another 1,000 words and I’ll explain [or click here to see one analysis on UKIP’s fascism quota]), but because UKIP jump on every populist bandwagon: tax, potholes, parking charges, whatever’s a hot potato. And it’s becoming normal to hear people described as “coloured”, “half-caste”, “Pakis” and simultaneously deny prejudice or bigotry. Racists. No matter how much they deny it, that’s what they are – people within our communities.

And now all the media, the Tories and monarchy (QED the Queen’s speech) are all singing from UKIP’s hymn-sheet, aiding and abetting, and scarcely bothering to question the stream of unfounded mythology about immigrant criminal gypsies, “fascist” left-wingers, dole-scrounging flag-burners, climate-change denial and disabled people that should be put down at birth.

The Forest UKIP chairman, Richard Leppington labels anyone who opposes him a “red fascist”, sings the praises of Enoch Powell and announced to those congratulating him – including several notorious Gloucestershire fascists – on being made county councillor for Bream & Blakeney that he, flying his English and British nationalist and xenophobic flags, is representing “the whole Forest”.

This all perturbs me. And it perturbs many I know. I would hope it perturbs the majority of us in the Forest, and not only Clarion readers. The morning after May 2, I received desperate phone calls and visits from friends. Determined we just HAVE to do something to counter the rise of UKIP. The general consensus was to form a community association – one which wears no particular political hat – to promote the goodness of equal rights, tolerance, multiculturalism, compassion, peace, love and understanding and counter the corrosive and divisive bigotry and xenophobia propagated by UKIP, increasingly in concert with the Tories.

And so we’ve formed Forest Unity. We are all about having a good time and celebrating our togetherness in the face of adversity. Our first event will be a gig and social for all ages on Saturday June 29 at Ruardean Village Hall. We hope this will be the first of many positive events around the Forest, a non-combative way of resisting the rise of bullying bigotry with a mixture of entertainment and “communiversity”. Come and join us if you feel the same way. Email forestunity2@gmail.com for info.

As I write, giant corporations are holding our government, the people and our Forest of Dean to ransom, bearing down on our economy, exploiting workers, stealing our public services for their own nefarious ends, while evading taxes and responsibilities. Divided as we are, riddled with the poison of UKIP’s little-Englander brand of nationalism, divided by Tory propaganda, we have less and less collective bargaining power against global capital, which is playing nations off one another in order to get the best deal. All that is by the by, as UKIP’s poll rating is rising by the day.

The richest people in the world, whose incomes are rising at record rates as ours steadily decline, are perfectly content to see us fragment into smaller, embittered groups, one against the other. They will do nothing to stop the march of crypto-fascism and neo-Thatcherism from trampling on our heads.

Maybe that’s the real conspiracy?