How to build a conspiracy. Read the whole piece by Evan R Goldstein here, on the Jerusalem Post website.

As we learn from George Orwell, thought corrupts language just as language corrupts thought, and "a bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better." Indeed, "neocon" has breached the levee of mainstream discussion primarily by dint of a repetition born not of enmity, but rather stupidity. It is a truism of the trade that there are infinitely more stupid people in the world than hateful people, and The Stupids are the linchpin upon which your success depends. Always remember that as the last refuge of men with no serious argument, The Stupids are more concerned with making a good show of their own moral purity than with formulating serious opinions about the serious challenges of our time. Keep it simple and appeal to their self-righteousness and unreason. In short, rely on the unthinking boilerplate that has come to define much of the antiwar movement's sloganeering.

The neoconservative conspiracy theory, in all its splendid manifestations, succeeds on all these counts. The contagious potential of this artfully recycled narrative was captured, and legitimated, at the outset of its popularity a few years back by the historian Paul Buhle, who wrote in Tikkun that "It is almost as if the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion, successfully fought for a century, have suddenly returned with an industrial-sized grain of truth."

Read the whole piece by Evan R Goldstein here, on the Jerusalem Post website.