The Kristof/New York Times lie

Conspiracy theories can be harmless or they can be the opposite.

In the main, conspiracy theories are stories which try to create meaning in an often meaningless world. They try to impose order on chaos. Sometimes, they assign blame.

The Earth is flat. The moon landing was faked. Paul McCartney is dead. Birds aren’t real. Governments are seeding chemicals in the atmosphere using chemtrails. Area 51 in Nevada is where the remains of space aliens are kept. Those are among the many (mostly) harmless conspiracy theories.

Then there are conspiracy theories that aren’t harmless at all. They seek to instil panic and fear - and they do so by accusing a particular group of something particularly terrible. So: 9/11 was an inside job. Covid-19 wasn’t real, and vaccines don’t work. There is a deep state - or New World Order or the like - that secretly controls the world. The Sandy Hook Elementary School slaughter was false flag operation, carried out by crisis actors. And so on and so on. There many conspiracy theories like that - ones that hurt people, and sometimes lead to spilled blood.

The most persistent conspiracy theories, however, have to do with Jews.

Antisemitism is a conspiracy theory, in and of itself. It has been around since the Middle Ages: Jews killed Jesus, Jews consume the organs and blood of Christians, Jews poison the water and food. Some extremist and terrorist groups - the Aryan Nations, the Nation of Islam, the Christian Identity Movement and others - believe that Jews are the literal descendants of Satan.

There is an age-old Russian forgery, titled The Protocols of Elders of Zion, that asserts that Jews are behind a secret conspiracy to control the world.  Henry Ford, the automaker, distributed that at every one of his car dealerships.

Animals, bizarrely, have often played a role in some of these antisemitic conspiracy theories.

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