Posthuman Blues

Forteans As Populist Intellectuals

"Most Forteans are decent and reasonable in their social attitudes and political instincts. However, there are also those in the Fortean community who nourish darker impulses, disquieting symptoms of the 'Ideology of Resentment', such as a weakness for anti-Semitic, anti-Masonic, anti-Jesuit, 'Illuminati', or 'New World Order' conspiracy theories. Syracuse University political scientist Michael Barkun, author of Religion and the Racist Right: Origins of the Christian Identity Movement (revised ed., 1997) and Disaster and the Millennium (1986), has described the bizarre, alarming subculture of UFO enthusiasts who also zealously believe in Jewish, Masonic, 'Illuminati', or 'New World Order' world domination conspiracy theories in A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America (2003). He traces the print, radio, and Internet dissemination and popularization of such ufological and occult-tinged conspiracy theories by writers like David Icke, Milton William Cooper, 'Branton', and Jim Keith."

Add Jeff Rense to the list. The guy's a thinly closeted neo-Nazi with delusions of religious persecution (at the hands of "the Jews," naturally) and a porous mental barrier between political attitudes and outright anti-Semitism.

Or hadn't you noticed?