Entry #061: Willis Allison Carto

Willis Carto has for almost a lifetime been among America’s most prominent promoters of antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial (that’s not how he describes himself, but that’s another matter). He founded Liberty Lobby in 1955, and Institute for Historical Review (IHR) in 1979, as an organization dedicated to publicly challenging the "myth of the Holocaust." The IHR sought from the beginning to attempt to establish itself within the broad tradition of historical revisionism, by soliciting token supporters who were not from a neo-Nazi background such as James J. Martin and Samuel Edward Konkin III, and by promoting the writings of French socialist Paul Rassinier and American anti-war historian Harry Elmer Barnes to attempt to show that Holocaust denial had a broader base of support besides just neo-Nazis. The IHR brought most of Barnes' writings, which had been out of print since his death, back into print. However, most of IHR's supporters were neo-Nazis and anti-Semites, and while IHR included token articles on other topics and sold some token books by mainstream historians in its book catalog, the vast majority of material published and distributed by IHR was devoted to questioning the facts surrounding the Holocaust.

In 1984, Carto was also involved in starting the Populist Party, which was (not to be confused with the Populist Party of 1889 and) little more than an electoral vehicle for current and former Ku Klux Klan and Christian Identity members.

His wikipedia page is here. I am not going to link to his homepage or any homepage associated with his organizations.

To get a full picture of Carto’s insane conspiracy mongering, have a look at his earlier Liberty Lobby. Apart from standard conspiracy theories, such as New World Order related ones and John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracies, Carto and his gang has always been taken by the Bilderberg conspiracy, going so far as to send reporters every year to "infiltrate" the Bilderberg conferences and report on their nefarious activities.

This already sets the stage for crank magnetism, and Carto has been an ardent promoter of alternative health remedies, including colloidal silver, Laetrile, shark cartilage and chelation therapy. He is also a numerologist.

Perhaps most interesting in that respect is Carto’s involvement with Scientology. Back in the beginning, the Church of Scientology representatives viewed Carto's organizations as useful media for gaining popularity and respectability. Carto, with his critical view of "establishment" press (i.e. conspiracy theories), had reached quite a number of people, and scientologists flocked to the IHR and subscribed to Carto's publications. Many Scientologists, including the current International Public Affairs Officer Alex Jones, praised Carto and his magazine "The Spotlight" (the percurson to IHR) as "a defender of individual liberties." A scientologist was also the director of IHR (the scientology church has subsequently withdrawn its official support, notably after the tax exemption rules from 1993).

Despite his claims to the contrary, Carto and his group are ardent neo-Nazis (follow the link for recent activities).

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Diagnosis: Vile and utterly delusional loon. Zealous. Is still extremely dangerous, despite the fact that his impact is probably limited to a relatively small group (his conspiracy theories seem to draw sympathetic attention, by crank magnetism, from other conspiracy theorists and whale.to readers, however).

Entry #050: Kirk Cameron

Formerly beloved former child star Kirk Cameron is currently a dysfunctional apologist for the ever moronic Ray Comfort (to be covered later). He claims to have been an atheist who later found Jesus (yes, that one again). Since “Growing Pains”, his most prominent roles have been in the “Left Behind” movies and “Fireproof”. So, yes – he is currently a religious fundamentalist touring with Ray Comfort, possibly the most ignorantly inane road show ever, prominently featuring Comfort’s banana argument and the crocoduck argument.

Vigorously opposed to evolution, and has – together with Comfort – designed a board game (here and here). His project to hand out copies of his and Comfort’s annotated version of “The origin of species” generated this response (among many others).

And of course there is a conspiracy theory here. Cameron is worried that we are currently experiencing a whole generation “brainwashed by atheistic evolution” (I don’t think “brainwashed” means what Cameron thinks it means).

Here's Kirk Cameron trying his hand at American history. According to himself, criticizing Kirk Cameron is the same as criticizing freedom itself. I suppose it is superfluous to point it out, but sometimes Cameron says really stupid things.

More entirely unsurprising incoherence from Cameron here.

Here's Cameron entering hardcore David Barton territory, predictably with the same aptitude for truth and accuracy. A fine summary of the weirdness of Cameron's otherworldly pseudo-history is found here.

Would you believe it, but Cameron has come clean as a hardcore conspiracy theorist, and so thoroughly so that he seems to entertain entering the terrains of Eric Jon Phelps rather than Alex Jones. At least Kirk Cameron’s movie is out.

More Bartonisms from Cameron here.

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Diagnosis: Among the most breathtakingly moronic bozos alive, Cameron manages to make Mel Gibson look moderately intelligent. The Comfort/Cameron superteam is, I suppose, not taken seriously as anything who could even begin to pose a threat. I suspect their popularity is more due to their breathtaking inanity.

Entry #046: Harold Buttram

Advisor for the Medical Voices Vaccine Information Center, the kind of center you really should run away from as fast as you can if you have a medical condition (the center also promotes our previous loon, Rashid Buttar). Buttram is a notoriously vile anti-vaccine crank, conspiracy theorist and promoter of dubious practices and alternative medicine. A sympathetic presentation is here. He is also a member of the infamous Association of American Physicians and Scientists, which publishes Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (discussed here) and uses Andy Schlafly as legal representative.

Dr. Buttram is perhaps most infamous for claiming that the shaken baby syndrome is really due to vaccine injury rather than physical trauma and has published articles in his Association’s journal and elsewhere defending that claim. As a consequence he was personally responsible for almost getting baby murderer Alan Yurko off the hook (another witness for the defense was Mohammed Al-Bayati). As if the facts don’t prove his lunacy, Dr. Buttram also has his own page on Whale.to. That should settle it.

Oh boy; here's Buttram launching some real lunacy, founded upon the most ridiculous crackpottery. This guy is truly insane.

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Diagnosis: Unintentionally evil loon of the kind that is all too common. Needs to be stopped, but even if he is there’s ten more to take his place.

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(BTW, a good post on denialism in general can be found here)

Entry #032: Christopher Bollyn

A.k.a. "The Truth Seeker"

As 9/11-troofers go, Christopher Bollyn is in at the deep end. A self-proclaimed “independent American investigative journalist”, Bollyn is for the most part a contributor to the despicable cesspool of lunacy whale.to, but many interesting articles can be found on his webpage. Among the gems are articles with enticing titles such as “The Israeli Role in the Plundering of Iceland”, “How Ehud Barak Pulled Off 9-11”, “The Goldman Scam & John Paulson's Links to 9-11”, “The Gang of Czech Jews around the Collapses of 9-11” and “The Jewish Secret Society That Controls the U.S. Media” (I cannot be bothered to check out his explanation of why the US is involved in Afghanistan, but it is surely rewarding).

I guess the reader gets the idea. 9-11 was the product of a Zionist conspiracy (in particular organized by the Rothschild family) – the Zionist conspiracy that controls the US government and media. They have also infiltrated the Senate, as shown by Bollyn’s razor-sharp and fearless investigations, e.g. “Arlen Specter - The Elder of Zion in the U.S. Senate”. Henry Kissinger is at the top of the conspiracy, and “still a key player in the crimocracy as seen by the conspicuous fact that he was sent by the new Obama administration to meet with the leadership of Russia, although the nominal Secretary of State was Hillary Clinton.” I guess you can’t argue with evidence like that.

A tidbit: “Christopher J. Petherick, a self-avowed Satanist, was the editor of American Free Press and the former Spotlight, publications of the Liberty Lobby of Washington, D.C. It makes no sense that a Satanist would be the chief editor of a newspaper that is purportedly written for patriotic Christian Americans, unless one understands that the Liberty Lobby is actually owned and controlled by a Zionist Jew named Mark Lane. The paper is a controlled opposition outlet that acts like flypaper to create a list of active patriots -- for the Jewish intelligence organization Lane works for.”

Who is Petherick? Well, he is the newspaper editor who fired Bollyn back in the day. Of course he must be a Zionist – why else would he try to shut up a honest and brave journalist like Bollyn? Apparently Petherick later organized an assault of Bollyn (using police officers who tasered him) to … shut him up? It's a little unclear. And apparently the incident is related to the real reason for the war in Afghanistan. So it goes.

Oh, and apparently the sinking of Estonia wasn’t an accident and there is depleted uranium everywhere. And Denmark is being set up by the American Zionist conspiracy to take the brunt of Muslim anger (cf. the Mohammed cartoons).

There is really no end to the conspiracies and paranoia here. For a “best of” selection, you can go here. Enjoy.

For further entertainment, he's spawned his own dictionary entry:

bollyn (v.) - The act of noticing a strange car outside your house, assuming it's FBI, calling the police, having the people in the car tell you're they're just undercover local cops, not believing them, threatening them, telling them you're going into the house to get a weapon, getting arrested, losing your job, and then blaming it all on the Jews. Usage Note: Because of the low likelihood of anyone actually being stupid enough to do all these things, the word may be used in a looser sense to describe any attempt to blame a personal misfortune on some shadowy world-domination entity, when it was really your own stupid fault. "Example: All the 9/11 Denier candidates for Congress lost, so they'll probably try to bollyn the results off on Diebold."

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Diagnosis: Complete loon and master at interpreting the fact that anyone disagrees with him, for whatever reason, as evidence for the truth of his conspiracy theories. Specific impact uncertain, but his views are apparently relatively widespread and must be considered dangerous.

Entry #026: Rosalie Bertell

That she has updated her Wikipedia page herself in first person (using capslock) is a nice touch, strongly suggesting at least a degree of kookery. And Rosalie Bertell delivers. Now, Bertell has a background in science and cancer research, but at some point she unhinged and drifted off into uncharted territories. She is currently the leading “expert” on the chemtrail conspiracy – the idea that contrails are actually chemicals or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for a purpose undisclosed to the general public. Also discussed here. Bertell thinks “chemtrails” are carriers for all kinds of biological and chemical warfare which the government (military) is, for some undisclosed reason, going to drop on ordinary people (apparently the government is at war with Mother Earth, which, according to Bertell, is a living (sentient?) organism). She doesn’t believe the “official story”, that chemtrails are either combating global warming via spraying populated areas with aerosolized metals or aerial pharmacopeia (pollution modification). The fact that the chemtrail phenomenon is a myth makes one wonder who came up with Bertell’s “official story”.

She also explores possible explanations for recent earthquake anomalies (and again the anomalies are not recognized by anyone who knows anything about the issues, which Bertell does not) with the following suggestions: a gamma ray/gravity wave from space? HAARP-induced deep earth tomography (yes, Bertell is into that conspiracy as well)? Or a direct wave weapon, accident or purposeful? She is also very concerned with radiation, electromagnetic and radioactive, and magnetic fields, relying exclusively on anecdotal correlations, hearsay and intuition, and displaying no understanding of the processes or what counts as evidence.

You can listen to her here. A library of some of her kookiest contributions can be found here.

Bertrell is also a 9/11 troofer (and in general seems to accept every and any conspiracy theory that pits the evil government against noble ordinary people).

She is also a human rights and environmental activist and has done a lot of good in that respect, but her positive contributions are at present blurred with her crackpottery – at some point her environmental concerns turned into complete paranoia, conspiracy mongering and general crankiness.

And it appears we no longer have to worry about this loon.

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Diagnosis: Well-intentioned crackpot who has lost the ability to distinguish the scientific method from personal intuition; has a lot of followers, and at present she probably does more harm than good to important causes that she works on.

Entry #017: Glenn Beck

This guy needs no introduction. A non-comprehensive list of his travesties can be found here. Beck has, among other things, written the book “Arguing with Idiots” - an apt title. Also suffers from Nazi Tourette's.

I like the diagnosis offered here. MediaMatters has put together a Glenn Beck's fifty greatest hits. It's rather amusing, or whatever you wish to call it.

Task for today: Make sense of this claim (in fairness, I don't think Beck intends people to make sense of it, just nod in agreement). This video displays the empty idiocy of Glenn Beck rather well.

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Diagnosis: Idiot. Has a lot of fans, but the hope is that his influence might in the end be self-undermining.

Entry #014: David Barton

This one is my personal favorite. We have mentioned the historical revisionists/reconstructionists before, but Barton is perhaps the most prominent advocate for religiously zealous, Orwellian reconstruction of American history to fit Christian fundamentalist ideals. Barton is a crank historian and Christian Nation apologist (and activist) and founder of Wallbuilders; has written extensively on the alleged religious fundamentalism of the founding fathers and the “true intent” of the constitution as a foundation for a theocracy. Has been caught lying, cherry-picking and fabricating material many, many times, as discussed here (in particular fabricating quotes he attribute to the founding fathers). Many of the alleged quotes have achieved lives of their own, even though Barton has admitted to lying. More here and here.



The problem is that his writing has exerted profound influence over the Texas Board of Education and other radically religious curriculum builders. And of course, his ideological commitments ensure that he can say virtually whatever he wants without being called out by his allies.

Keeping up with Barton's lying, quote-mining and fact-twisting would be a full-time job. He seems, however, to have deteriorated to the point where he doesn't even seem to care to hide it. He knows he has no credibility among those who actually know anything, and he knows that his fan based on the extreme right is willing to accept whatever shit falls out of his mouth. I recommend this deconstruction of Barton's Stewart appearance in several parts: One, Two, Three, Four, Five.

Further:
• Hooy. He seems to be kicking it up yet another notch...Oh fucking dear.
• See David Barton "argue" that schools force children to be gay. A good primer on Barton's fraudulent revisions of history can be found here.
• Oh, hell. I can't leave him be. Here is Barton claiming that there is a "spiritual" solution to abortion and poverty because people of faith do not "choose to live in poverty." He claims that once poor people change their humanistic attitude that tolerates abortion, poverty will end. Seriously. Ok. To clinch it, Barton is claiming that actual demonic powers are literally running rampant in the current government. There isn't really much left to say. Barton has fully embraced the crazy of Bryan Fischer and Tony Perkins, but is an even more hardcore religious fundamentalist than either (Barton, for instance, is more or less explicitly a dominionist). And that takes some work.
• Ok. One more.
• As mentioned, we are not going to keep track of Barton's antics. That would be a full time job (in fact, Chris Rhodda is thankfully taking on herself that task), to say the least. Barton is nothing if no productive, and just in the course of two days did he manage to spill at least this and this example of insanity, as well as some breathtaking displays of dishonesty. Here's an example of why he is so dangerous.
• ... and from the department of alternative realities, we bring you this.
• ... and one more: Barton spectacularly commits a naturalistic fallacy.
• ...and this must be something of a record, even for Barton. At least he gets slamdunked here, though he'll of course never admit as much.
• And in yet another breathtaking display of wingnut stupid Barton blames the theory of evolution for the (state level) separation of church and state.
It is interesting that Barton doesn't even seem to care about hiding it anymore: He has come out as a pure Biblical literalist who rejects any scientific result that can be remotely interpreted as conflicting with a literal reading of any part of the Bible - and he rejects it precisely because it conflicts with a literal (that is "literal" - meaning reading the Bible so that it fully conforms to Barton's preconceptions about what it ought to say) of the Bible.
• Now, this must surely count as among the most ridiculous things Barton has ever said. At least he does not have the faintest clue about American history, and he props up his ignorance with the most ridiculous glassy-eyed, evangelical explanatory attempt we have yet to see. More of the usual stuff. Here's Barton claiming that secular law leads to sharia, because he doesn't know how words work, what expressions mean, what distinguishes reasoning from delusional ranting, or (even cursorily) how reality is put together. Chris Rodda has started a new series debunking Barton's newest book. You can read the first entry here.
• And here is Barton claiming that schools don't teach his version of history because of evolution. Which would, of course, be an argument against him if it were true, but Barton doesn't quite manage to see it that way.
• Barton is known to try to claim that it's not the religious right who is trying to institute a theocracy, but the liberals. His evidence, however, is more abysmally insane than you'd thought possible.
• This illustrates fairly well the danger a complete loon like Barton pose to civilization.
• A small sample of falsehoods from Barton's most recent book.
• Barton continues his battle against reality, as expected.
• Well, this man sure continues to astound us.

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Diagnosis: Liar and fraud, dishonest quack and zealot, and also a victim of severe confirmation bias. He has had a lot of influence however (Texas Board of Education, for instance) and must be ranked among the most dangerous, destructively influential forces of lunacy out there.

Entry #010: Ted Baehr

Baehr runs Movieguide, which, despite its neutral name, describes itself as a ministry "dedicated to redeeming the values of the mass media according to biblical principles, by influencing entertainment industry executives and helping families make wise media choices" (i.e. rave reviews of creationist propaganda). Baehr is also chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission and a columnist/movie reviewer for Worldview Times. He wasn’t happy with Religulous, as this review shows (and this review alone merits Baehr’s inclusion in the Encyclopedia)



Also a vigorous opponent of e.g. stem cell research (apparently he views The Family Research Council as an authoritative source here); staunch anti-elitist religious crackpot who argues that science (at least science whose results don’t support (his interpretation of) the Bible) is a liberal conspiracy, as in the article discussed here.

• And here you can see Ted Baehr blithely assume that non-theocratic forms of government equals Marxism.
• Ted Baehr reviews Hunger Games and is - predictably - unable to stay coherent.

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Diagnosis: Zealous, paranoid wingnut and pathological liar, religious fundamentalist and general loon. Angry. Influence: hard to tell; there are a lot of these guys out there, but he is relatively prolific and seems to have some readers.

Entry #009: Michelle Bachmann

Coming in at #9 we have one of my very favorite loons, the lovely Michele Bachmann. Bachmann is the United States Representative of Minnesota's 6th congressional district and a member of the Republican Party.



Judging by a number of trustworthy sources and good evidence (mostly the words that come out of her mouth), she may be the single stupidest person alive (perhaps in competition with Steve King, R-Iowa). Staunch supporter of the teabagging party (including all of their contradictory goals, apparently). Good mental compartmentalizer, for she is apparently completely unaffected by (or aware of) cognitive dissonance. Well, I don't think I can be bothered to update this one anywhere near continuously. This, for instance, is just far too typical. Following is a tasty selection of her wide variety of loony times.

• A quickly assembled but unrepresentative sample of the stuff that falls out of her mouth
• On CO2 emissions.
• On net neutrality.
• Discussion of her view on the swine flu (and the Democrats’ role in it).
• One more informative source of Bachmann quotes.
• An update on moronic crap falling out of Bachmann's mouth can be found here
• This one is pretty awesome.
• Anyone up for more falsehoods from Bachmann?
• Her husband isn't entirely well-hinged either, it seems.
• This one is also rather appalling. And here she claims that Terri Schiavo was healthy.
• At last she's also claimed that hurricane Irene was God's warning to America.
• And just to fill out the picture, she's finally accepted anti-vaxx rhetoric as well, falling for the simplest, most easily refutable talking points from the most insane conspiracy theory-laden antivaxx groups.
• Given the recent noise around Bachmann and HPV, this one deserves a link.
• This one is pretty good.
• Even though she’s obviously lost steam it’s kinda fun to keep track of her campaign. Here’s her claim that the US should follow China and drop the welfare state to boost the economy (the bizarreness of which is rather astounding). Indeed, she’s been making several, uh, interesting foreign policy suggestions lately. There’s a good Bachmann resource here.
• Oh, Michele
• And it never stops, even though you thought the last one was unbeatable.
• Here's the latest Bachmann endorsement of creationist and all the creationist talking points.
• Here's an illuminating interview with Bachmann on Biblical worldviews, public schools and a general lack of touch with anything resembling reality.
• And Bachmann explaining how she wishes to reform the courts to conform to her Biblical view of law. Charming.

Edit: A friend of mine has now provided us with a very detailed profile on Bachmann and what has created her thinking. Thanks!

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Diagnosis: Complete moron – a living embodiment of Dunning-Kruger. Obviously in possession of power and influence, and probably a large fan group as well; in other words very dangerous.

Entry #006: Steven Anderson & Zsuzsanna Anderson

Our sixth loon, Steven Anderson, is a rather frightening one.



An Arizona-based pastor at Faithful Word Baptist Church, Anderson is famous for sermons where he fervently prays (and asks his congregation to pray) for the death and eternal torment of people who disagree with him (mostly President Obama, democrats and gays), including urging his congregation to murder his enemies (i.e. gays and liberals). Strong advocate of Old Testament morality (“God didn’t change his mind”) but oblivious to the cognitive dissonance it brings with it. No qualms about lying about his opponents. Convinced that gays are currently bringing an end to America (and that liberals are really disguised gays – Anderson has several ad hominem arguments of the kind ‘x says p; x is a liberal; hence x is gay, hence p is false, a lie and part of a scheme to bring down America’).

Discussed here, for instance. And here.

After being out of the limelight for a year or so, Anderson seems to have decided to increase the volume.

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Diagnosis: Deranged, vile and very possibly clinically insane. Fred Phelps wannabe. Very dangerous to the extent that some of his (presumably relatively small) congregation might actually do what he tells them to do.
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Here we have an interesting and entertaining addition to my reproduction of the Encyclopedia of American Loons: the wife of Steven Anderson, who goes by the lovely name of Zsuzsanna. Here we have Anita Dalton of I Read Odd Books describe her:


She's one of the most vicious, nasty, mean, arrogant, lying pieces of shit one could ever hope to be the partner of the Pissing Preacher (PP) (explanation for this name here). It's like she was sent from Central Casting. She could not be a better partner to our Steven.
Over on Free Jinger, some think she is abused and should be pitied but I say dear ZsuZsu is Anderson's perfect helpmeet because her hate is just too heartfelt. She's raising her six, soon to be seven, children, to be virulent and ignorant homophobes and conspiracy theorists. And hey, if she births an army, she will never get breast cancer like all us childless lesbian atheists! She rejects all science except that which proves her spurious ideas - convenient!

Here's her blog. Literally every entry has some lovely bit of heinous ignorance, but here are some examples of the well of poisonous hate to be found in this stinking example of fine Christian womanhood:
• Here ZsuZsu says she disregards all science that is contrary to the Bible (she homeschools her kids, hahahahaha), every male OBGYN is a pervert, and she's psychologically torturing her neuro-atypical son, who has dyslexia except charming ZsuZsu says he's "artistic" which means he's thisclose to gay (in other entries she has said she would abandon and disown any child of hers who was homosexual). Don't miss the comments, where she is sure to point out her midwife IS NOT A LESBIAN!

• Here she chimes in on the extended breastfeeding issue, which is pure comedy gold coming from a woman having a baybee a year for Jesus and thinks the Bible has the answer for her every nutritional issue. A highlight: "Mammals are animals. Humans are - well, humans. NOT animals." SOTDT is gonna equip her kids well for life, no?
It's hard to find links when I just read her for fun because she is evil incarnate covered in baby barf, but some of her greatest hits include cursing down a couple down on their luck who came to their church asking for help because Jesus has no use for the poor - oops! ZsuZsu has no use for the poor and thinks that charity weakens people. Her views on welfare recipients are beyond hate speech. She believes that all church nurseries are run by pedophiles so any church that has a separate place for young children during services is probably raping children - found a link for that one. She encourages her children to demean other kids who attend school and have had vaccinations and her children are literally never out of her sight, which means they have zero friends because ZsuZsu hates all children but her own and would never permit other children in her house.

Her suspicion of modern medicine meant that one of her sons who suffers from extreme asthma was near death before she finally got him some proper care and he ended up in the hospital for days. She believes the government is out to get her and everyone else. Her children wear "9-11 was an inside job" shirts and have a poster on their walls that says the same. Though impoverished in every sense of the word, the family took a vacation this year to visit "Dr." Kent Hovind in prison. Hovind is a Christian martyr imprisoned for tax evasion and smurfing so no worries that the Andersons were taking their kids to see a rapist or a common liar and thief. (Editor's Note: We will be visiting the wondrous lunacy of Mr Hovind later on in our Loon Retrospective.)

Also the pictures on her site will warm your heart as the vomit surges forth. Her kids are off-limits to me because they did not choose that life but everything else... The PP in his underpants at the Thanksgiving table was a particular hit with those of us who just don't feel that we see the soft side of vicious hatemongers who want Obama dead.

Seriously, the next time you get the flu and can feel no sicker than you already are, read ZsuZsu's blog. She's the most charmless, jealous, wicked, stupid, self-impressed hate-mongering mommy blogger on the planet.

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Diagnosis: Just like her husband, she's deranged, vile and very possibly clinically insane - and a PERFECT MATCH for her Phelps-wannabe hubby. And despite her blogging, her influence is probably even less than her husband's, due to the subordinate role she would have in a Christian patriarchal community.