{"id":30850,"date":"2013-07-25T15:50:42","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T15:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativejonestown.com\/?page_id=30850"},"modified":"2015-01-23T03:58:35","modified_gmt":"2015-01-23T03:58:35","slug":"mccarthyltr","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=30850","title":{"rendered":"Comments on Reconstructing Reality:
Conspiracy Theories About Jonestown<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cConspiracy theory\u201d is a derogatory term as is the term \u201cconspiracy theorist.\u201d<\/p>\n

These terms are used not only to discredit individuals, but also to discredit the very discussion of specific topics.<\/p>\n

One frequently hears these terms used with this intention in the news media and in casual conversation. Certainly no one in academia would like to be called a \u201cconspiracy theorist\u201d in print and being called one is not helpful for one\u2019s career in any field.<\/p>\n

Rebecca Moore<\/a> herself points out that historians \u201cuse (the term) to indicate a lack of veracity and objectivity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later in her paper, Professor Moore claims that she has her own unique definition for this term and nothing derogatory was intended by its use.<\/p>\n

I will leave it up to the reader to draw their own conclusions as the soundness of her use of the language.<\/p>\n

However, I do strenuously object to having my work on Jonestown characterized as a \u201cconspiracy theory.\u201d<\/p>\n

My web site is nothing more or less than a collection of photographic and documentary evidence that shows that Jim Jones was a well connected member of the political establishment of the City of San Francisco, the place where he operated before moving to Guyana.<\/p>\n

I fail to see how this thoroughly documented historical fact merits being classified as a \u201cconspiracy theory\u201d either in the commonly used sense of the term or in Professor Moore\u2019s personal lexicon.<\/p>\n

Besides being unfair, this kind of name-calling does nothing to advance the spirit of inquiry which I\u2019ve always thought is at the foundation of what academics do.<\/p>\n

Ken McCarthy<\/p>\n

(Editor’s note: Rebecca Moore’s reply to Mr. McCarthy appears here<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cConspiracy theory\u201d is a derogatory term as is the term \u201cconspiracy theorist.\u201d These terms are used not only to discredit individuals, but also to discredit the very discussion of specific topics. One frequently hears these terms used with this intention in the news media and in casual conversation. Certainly no one in academia would like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":30911,"menu_order":20,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-30850","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30850"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62730,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30850\/revisions\/62730"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}