Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael
Society & Culture
On this edition of Parallax Views, fake news and the rise of conspiracy theories like QAnon have become political hot-takes since the 2016 election of President Donald Trump and events like the January 6th, 2021 "Stop the Steal" riots on Capitol Hill. But disinformation and conspiracy theories that stretch far beyond the limits of credulity didn't begin in the 21st century. Case in point with the strange case of UFO hobbyist Paul Bennewitz. and what has become know to UFO enthusiasts as "The Bennewitz Affair". It's a story that doesn't necessarily point towards beings from another world, but rather the mix of deliberate disinformation on one hand and flat-out kookery on the other hand that may play a role in phenomena of Pizzagate and QAnon.
Adam Gorightly, author Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks: UFO Disinformation in the Age of Aquarius, and David Perkins, who wrote the forward to said book, join us on this edition of the program join us to unravel how disinformation campaign involving a special agent of United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) and others participated in a disinformation campaign against Bennewitz after the enthusiastic UFO hobbyist began attracting unwanted attention to Kirtland Air Force Base.
The saga of Paul Bennewitz, as you'll learn in this conversation, ended in tragedy. More precisely, Bennewitz was driven off a psychological cliff into madness that culminated in instiutionalization. But the story doesn't end there. As it turns out the fanciful stories fed to Bennewitz about malevolent extraterrestrial, government deals with an alien presence and it's cover-up, an underground base at Dulce, New Mexico, and more formed the foundation of modern UFO mythology, from cattle mutilations to Area 51, in its most conspiratorially-minded form (which, incidentally, often overlap a great deal with far-right wing "Patriot" and militia movements). Regardless of whether one believes in UFOs or not, what makes the Bennewitz Affair and the late 20th UFO Conspiracy subculture potentially interesting today is what it may be able to tell us about disinformation and the current crop of conspiracy theories like QAnon in the 21st century. All that and more on this edition of Parallax Views!
The Gaza War, Militarism & the Rise of the Right in the U.S. & Israel, & the ADL w/ Jeet Heer
Argentina’s President-Elect Javier Milei’s Hawkish Foreign Policy w/ Eldar Mamedov
The Horror! The Horror! A Film Fanatic’s Obsession With the Cinema of the Macabre w/ Dennis Daniel
Armenians Under Threat from Israeli Settler Extremists in Jerusalem w/ Prof. Bedross Der Matossian
Beyond the Genocide Debate: Permanent Security Logic & the Gaza War w/ Dirk Moses/The ”Were the Nazis Better Than Hamas?” Discourse is Distorting Holocaust History w/ Waitman Beorn
The UN, the Gaza War, Protest, International Law, and the Beginning of the PalCast w/ Helena Cobban
Two Jewish Perspectives on American Jewish Political Discourse Before & Since October 7th, Antisemitism, & Israel/Palestine w/ Prof. Dov Waxman & JTA’s Ron Kampeas
Ariel Sharon’s Ghost Haunts Gaza w/ Geoffrey Aronson/Gaza, Permanent War, & U.S. Foreign Policy w/ Paul R. Pillar
The Potential Coming War in the South Caucasus, Israel’s Arming of Azerbaijan, and the Corruption of U.S. Foreign Policy by Lobbies w/ James W. Carden
Israel’s Strategic Culture and Its Failing + Israeli Information Warfare w/ Dr. Andreas Krieg
Negotiating with Hamas, the Quest for Peace, & More w/ Israeli Hostage Negotiator Gershon Baskin/The Enduring Global Disorder & Qatar’s Potential Role in Postwar Gaza w/ Jason Pack
The Longstanding Hostilities Between the United Nations & Israel w/ Ian Williams
The Israeli Covert Op Project Butterfly and the October 7th Intelligence Failure w/ James Bamford
The Postwar Future of Gaza Is Likely Dystopian w/ Prof. Nathan J. Brown
Israel/Palestine and the Joint Arab League-OIC Summit on Gaza in Riyadh w/ James M. Dorsey
On Gaza, Israel/Palestine, and the Arab World w/ Eric Margolis
Benjamin Netanyahu’s Worrying Use of ”Amalek” in His Gaza War Rhetoric w/ Ariel Gold
Uses & Abuses of the Settler Colonialist Paradigm, Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Zionism, Israel/Palestine History, Stalin’s Support of Israel, Misunderstanding Fanon?, & the Gaza War w/ Ralph Leonard
How George HW Bush Checkmated the Israeli Right and AIPAC w/ Ettingermentum
Gaza, Israel/Palestine, Palestinian Identity, and What It Will Take to Achieve Peace: Two Perspectives w/ Juan Cole & Shireen Hunter
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