Agreed with the majority of the article. However, Cohen more or less states without proof that "two lethal upsurges in paranoid fantasies…produced…global recessions." If the 1930s are referred to because of the worldwide depression the only thing remotely approaching "paranoia" that comes to mind is the punitive bill imposed upon Germany for starting WW1. It is more or less established that in the USA stocks were due for a drastic correction because they were insanely out of proportion to their fair values. Among other causes, Keynes illustrated that the depression was prolonged by the shrinking of the deposit base as banks failed and depositors withdrew their savings, seriously impairing banks' abilities to lend to companies, which in turn did not invest in expansion or even fired workers, which resulted in a vicious circle. I'm guessing a significant portion of the blame for the recession of the 1970s can be placed on OPEC and the inflationary pressures caused by the oil embargo. Not sure how great American support of Israel was as a component of OPEC's decision, but it still doesn't qualify, to me, as paranoia per se. In any case, it is not mentioned in the article. Regarding the abstract from the Open Chemical Physics Journal: is that a peer-reviewed journal? It is certainly not a major academic publication. It's curious that the authors were unable to just use another type of spectroscopy to characterize the "red thermitic material". It's also curious that they would describe the material itself as "energetic", which I would expect as a description of an object with high kinetic energy (i.e. moving). Explosive compounds may be unstable or may require heat to undergo an exothermic reaction to yield a more stable product, but I've never seen any scientific textbook or journal abstract simply call an unknown substance energetic, and since the implication is that this has a surprising catalytic effect on the thermitic reaction between iron oxide and aluminum, why didn't they investigate it further? I'm also not sure why they took pains to list iron as a product and not aluminum oxide.

I don't see how admitting that AIPAC lobbied for the war in Iraq is a conspiracy theory. AIPAC is a Right-wing group in the U.S and supports the Likud party in Israel. The majority of the Jewish people in the U.S are democrats and most opposed the Iraq war. Just because someone disagree's with the Likud party (which doesn't speak for the majority of Jews) that person will in todays political climate be branded an anti-Semite. We are confusing the Likud a political ideology which supports agressive land expansion and ethnic clensing with Jews in general. The inability for the American people to see this is far more dangerous than having a handful of people believing the Protocols of The Elder Zion is legit.

Priceless. Simply priceless. The article was good, but these comments are hilarious. I love to hear all the nut jobs defend "their" pet conspiracy theory as real.

I think the real problem with this column is the failure to differentiate between conspiracy and conspiracy theory. Conspiracies do and always will exist, and sometimes have caused extreme damage in their own or other societies. The difference between believing in a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory is really the supernatural element. Someone who believes JFK was assassinated by the Mafia or that Oswald was under orders of the KGB doesn't necessarily buy a conspiracy theory. It's only when he takes the next step and believes that the cabal that murdered JFK is secretly controlling everything is he buying a conspiracy theory. I know it's a fine distinction, but it's important; a conspiracy is a discrete action that has a certain impact and consequences, while a conspiracy theory is more like a religion-substitute. It serves so many needs; you get an excuse for your own powerlessness, while retaining the distinction of being an 'in the know' person as opposed to all the 'sheeple' who won't wake up. I used to collect conspiracy theories just for fun, and there are so many that the mind boggles. Whether it's moonbases on mars or the patriarchal conspiracy of cavemen tricking girls into having weaker muscles than boys, the acceptance of a conspiracy theory is an admission of weakness, an excuse for inaction and despair. It doesn't matter who you blame, even if it's a real conspiracy. The oldest pasttime in human history is finding a reason to believe we humans have no free will, and it runs the gamut from beliefs in destiny to evoluntionary psychology. If you want to study a conspiracy, fine. Remember though that explaining everything with one conspiracy is a losing proposition--and one of the things you lose is your sanity.

Wow, some of the 'troofer' nutjobs here are scary. With zero powers of analysis they project their fears and demons on modern events. And because of their paranoia, innocent people (usually the Jews) are killed or have their lives shattered. I despise them. And you've got to love their oh so scientific argument that because there was a King who murdered princes a thousand years ago then that explains the Diana affair. By the way, go on David Icke's website and the forums are a cesspit of conspiracy theory including Holocaust denial and coded messages to destroy the Jews.

The conspiracy theory is a favorite for the paranoid. It is a convenient answer when the numbers just don't add up. It takes no real proof, and often the absence of proof is just proof it exists! They all just KNOW they have "The Truth" and are uninterested in anything that might challenge that belief. Science doesn't matter. Evidence doesn't matter. Reason itself doesn't matter. None of that matters, other than how they can be twisted to reach the desired conclusions, and any scientific evidence conflicting with that belief system must to them be the result of a coverup. This is all just like a cult, where, the more evidence is presented to members that they are in a cult, the more tightly they cling to their cultish beliefs. http://www.dangeroustalk.net/a-team/Conspiracy

You had me believing until you wrote this little gem "And that the Bush and Blair administrations knew in advance that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction worthy of the name but lied and went to war under a false prospectus." Of course bush & blair knew in advance. I knew in advance Saddam didn't have any weapons, and I'm just a reader of the newspapers, but with a long memory. Shrub & co knew saddam did not have those weapons! Bush didn't allow filming of dead soldiers returning, you think he would risk 50,000 dead & injured soldiers during the first week of the war? The citizens would have howled for his scalp. Bush went after the only toothless member of the axis of evil. He was too afraid to attack N. Korea because they have weapons and a real army. Iran could harm the US in too many ways if we went there. Bush knew there were no weapons,he was too chickensh!t to attack anyone that has weapons.

Mr. COHEN I am a human a being capable of being paranoid, irrational, and just plain wrong. I speak because I know I am capable of being right. When you wrote this Mr. Cohen did you think that you might come off as paranoid saying that there are “real consequences” to people speaking: nonsense, illogical, xenophobic, harmful, hateful, and just plain stupid. You didn't seem to think that your speech which is somewhat paranoid classifies for belittlement, ridicule and classified as not fit for reasonable people to talk about. Please tell me what is worse: a person arguing that a politician is rationally betraying the trust of his people by committing knowledgeable murder, silencing opponents, lying about starting wars for personal reason when there is an ample amount of evidence for the contrary to be believed. Or a person who realizes a politician (Nixon) is conspiring to wiretap and spy on his enemy. Hindsight may be 20/20 but those who publicized accounts of unbelievable actions by a group of trusted people are called “Conspiracy theorist” before they are believed. You just take the losers and push them down. Humans by nature want to create patterns. It's how we learned math, science, logical arguments, literature, habits and everything else we learn. In the world of truth, the people who are right are not always the winners (can you think of a stupid elected official) and the people who are the losers are not always the people with the wrong information. Is it impossible that JFK was assassinated by the mob who used Oswald as a cover and that Jack Ruby killed Oswald for the mob knowing he would die later of cancer. In all probability it happened like the Warren Commission said but does the negative aspects of a consistency theorist really out way the positive effects of the discovery of truth. Perhaps I mist the point of your article, Maybe you just wanted to make yourself look smart. Or attack critiques of the bush administration by saying anyone who doesn't agree to your “truth” is a nut. Where you just attacking paranoia as a state of mind that has little to ? In conclusion, your article is wrong. You criticize conspiracy theorists while making some really paranoid accusations yourself. You manage to take several examples of situations where people labeled their opponents as “Conspiracy theorist” and put them in the category of “Conspiracy theorists” in an unbalanced way. Your article chooses opponents who look easy to defeat and attacks them with little to no attacks on their arguments and all attacks on them as nuts and xenophobes. You offer no solutions to the problems you speak of and your article only use is to be used as something to argue against. People can be wrong Mr. Cohen but people should never stop speaking.

Well Duh. I suggest you watch a show that the History Channel in the US did several years ago. Oswald was certified as a marksman by the Marine Corps. His practice records show he was consistenly accurate at the distance he had to shoot to kill Kennedy. They also had a 80 yr. researcher show that it was possible to get 3 shots off in 8 seconds. The Magic Bullet theory is based on Kennedy and John Connelly being seated at the same height. However Connelly was essentially seated on the floor so just his head was visible. When you compare their wounds the bullet travels in a corrected straight line from Kennedy to Connelly. Further if you trace the bullet back it was fired from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository and a clean shot to boot. I don't have anything to say about MLK although I probably schold know more about it. Are you really suggesting that the death of Princess Diana is connected to the murder of Thomas Becket 800 yrs. ago? Do you really believe that the people around the Queen today are as willing to kill as Henry the II knights were for a offhand remark? Suppose Diana had actually married a Muslim? Their child would not be in line for the Crown anyway. Remember revered as she is we know that she used the tabloids for her own personal vendettas and wanted to go off with Mother Teresa because she believed that she had been a Nun in a past life. The best way for the royal family to get rid of her was to let her live and wait till she discredited herself as a thoughtful stable person. Or not. Eventually people would have tired of her either way.

We have a very current and spectacular example of conspiratorial thinking, ie., Mr. Obama's (former) pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, under whose teaching/preaching Mr. Obama sat for almost 20 years said of him, "Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter, that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office." I wish I had some sort of "exit line" that made a salient comment to this conspiratorial rubbish coming from a very influential person, but I am speechless. Well, maybe not entirely. It's a terrible reflection upon Mr. Obama that he would ever have associated himself with such a lunatic & sought his counsel or teachings.