Simon in London comments:
I can understand why the average Norwegian doesn't give much credence to conspiracy theories; chances are his leaders aren't being particularly conspiratorial (even if they have decided to replace him with a bunch of third world immigrants, they don't make a secret of it). But Americans seem particularly unfortunate in that they have almost Norwegian levels of trust combined with a fairly high degree of conspiratorial behaviour by their ruling class, and a media incredibly* deferential to that ruling class, so they are more easily taken advantage of than most.
*From the outside the deference of the US media is very striking. France, Germany, Britain etc all have much less deferential media ... . Whereas the free US media consistently shills for the Powers-that-Be.
It's interesting to speculate upon the carrot-and-stick balance in the U.S. Occasionally, bad things, such as sex scandals, happen to inconvenient people. Perhaps something like that explains the hilariously weak 60 Minutes story recently on the NSA.
But it's really not a very scary place. For example, when the investigative journalist Michael Hastings died in Hollywood last year in a flaming one-car crash, I thought I owed it to him to actually leave the house and visit the site of his death. But the more I looked into it, the less suspicious it seemed: he was driving recklessly. Now, Uncouth Reflections has an interview with Hastings' brother that confirms that the poor man was going through another manic phase.
So that mostly leaves the carrot. And there are a lot of carrots in a big, rich country like ours.
the US media acts like lap dogs only when a democrat is in power.
ReplyDeleteReligious belief. America is filled with believers. In pc. And multiculturalsm.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of media friendly to the powers that be, here's one of America's leading financial journalists patting America's leading financial media/tech billionaires on the back on NYE.
ReplyDeletethe US media acts [sic] like lap dogs only when a democrat is in power. --anon
ReplyDeleteI don't recall much press resistance to the statements "Islam is a religion of peace" or "Family values don't stop* at the Rio Grande."
*Actually, they explode.
Actually, I think that the American elites - just like the Norwegian elites who more or less took their cue from all of that 1960s Berkeley 'equalities' bullsh*t - are pretty open and explicit about their desire to race replace white Americans, or at least none of them has ever, to my knowledge, ever spoken out against it. There was no American Enoch Powell.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the battle was fought and won way bak in the mid 60s with the climactic Kennedy/Johnson administrations in which the formerly WASP, and proud of it, USA turned its back on WASPdom and embarked on a truly multiracial agenda, in regards to immigration policy as much as anything. Only, perhaps, the significance was swamped in the more prominent balck/white, women's lib etc battles that raged during that era.
As I said, the Norwegian elite of 2014 are merely taking their cue from the American (and therefore 'good', 'progressive' and 'trendy' in their tiny little political minds) agenda of the 1960s, that has become the zeitgeist for the fools that run the western world.
Thank you for editing out my silly bit. :) Happy New Year to Steve & fellow iSteve readers!
ReplyDelete>>Reg Cæsar said...
ReplyDeletethe US media acts [sic] like lap dogs only when a democrat is in power. --anon
I don't recall much press resistance to the statements "Islam is a religion of peace" or "Family values don't stop* at the Rio Grande."<<
I agree - again, from an external perspective it's noticeable how little opposition GW Bush faced from the US media. Consider the Iraq war. Tony Blair had more opposition from the left-wing and supposedly policy-neutral BBC than George Bush had from the left-wing US broadcast media. They basically accepted the White House claim that querying the war was unpatriotic.
Margaret Thatcher faced almost insane levels of hate from the BBC and the UK left-media. Nothing like that is imaginable from the 'respectable' US media.
Anyway, my point about US media deference to government was that it makes certain sorts of conspiracy easier, such as the one that got us into Iraq via various false claims. And financial shenanigans (private or governmental) rarely seem to be uncovered, or publicised if they are uncovered - Bill Clinton's Whitewater was a long time ago. Shouldn't the Justice Department's guns-to-Mexico program have got a lot more attention?
Steve, any thoughts on this recent book?
ReplyDelete"Jesse Walker’s The United States of Paranoia presents a comprehensive history of conspiracy theories in American culture and politics, from the colonial era to the War on Terror.
The fear of intrigue and subversion doesn’t exist only on the fringes of society, but has always been part of our national identity. When such tales takes hold, Walker argues, they reflect the anxieties and experiences of the people who believe them, even if they say nothing true about the objects of the theories themselves.
With intensive research and a deadpan sense of humor, Jesse Walker’s The United States of Paranoia combines the rigor of real history with the punch of pulp fiction.
This edition includes primary-source documentation in the form of archival photographs, cartoons, and film stills selected by the author."
Some grossly ambitious historian needs to put what Richard Hofstadter called "the paranoid style in American politics" into a comparative international context. Is this style parochial or universal? Might it alternatively be called the "paranoid style of human beings in multiethnic polities"?
ReplyDelete"the US media acts like lap dogs only when a democrat is in power."
ReplyDeleteDemonstrably false. Go back to RedState.com or Michelle Malkin, anon.
"From the outside the deference of the US media is very striking. France, Germany, Britain etc all have much less deferential media "
An amusing, if oblique, example of this disparity was the 2010-2011 Golden Globes (less so 2012, tellingly), hosted by Ricky Gervais. He carried the traditional English imperative to cut down "tall poppies" across the Atlantic, and persistently suggested that the pomp of the ceremony was absurdly incommensurate with the importance of acting. It was also a rude shock for the entertainment media and even Americans in general to see a Globes host brutally mock some of the presenters.
What the hell are you talking about! When there are no conspiracies, there are no conspiracies to report. Duh.
ReplyDeleteBtw, did the captchas get more difficult? Now that's a stick. It's only on your blog. Or is it?
Indeed, the hbd blog-o-sphere is filled with high iq commenters who have failed in life and who blame their manifest personal failures on a "scotts irish conspiracy"
ReplyDeleteI think the carrot is also the stick. Paid media is downsizing so that outside of a very few prestige outlets, there's not very many jobs.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Whiskey that ultimately they are multi-culti true believers, so it makes use of the stick seldom necessary.
Simon in London said: I agree - again, from an external perspective it's noticeable how little opposition GW Bush faced from the US media. Consider the Iraq war.
ReplyDeleteHunsdon said: Spot on, Simon. I quailed inside as I listened to NPR reporters blithely blather about enhanced interrogation techniques----let's just say, it wasn't quite what one expected.
I think there's also an unspoken, maybe even unacknowledged understanding that, when they offer you plato, the alternative of plomo is a part of the deal.
ReplyDeleteNorthwest Europe is made of high-trust societies.
ReplyDeleteSimon in London's observations are even more interesting when we consider the relative freedom from intervention under which the US media operate. The British libel laws are much, much less forgiving of the medias' free speech rights than are US laws and the same applies generally to Roman-code-based laws on publishing slanderous materials.
ReplyDeleteOn top of that, most countries have legally institutionalized laws promulgating PC in ways that would be unthinkable in this country. For example just think of the inquisitorial persecution of Rushton in Canada, the convictions of David Irving in various countries, and the persona non grata status of many American public figures in the UK for things that amount to no more than a public expression of thoughts on various PC sacred issues.
In light of this the quietude od US media on political issues and persoanlities is all the more disheartening and disquueting. Obama had no clothes, no one in the US MSM (or foreign for that matter) pointed this out and we are stuck with a regime that has done more damage to constitutional order than any I can think of; all without a peep from the MSM.
Hilary Clinton's career has been an unispiring - sometimes appalling - string of failures starting with several attempts to pass the bar exam and a lack-luster performance as a congressional staffer. This unauspicious start was followed by a disastrous attempt to craft medical insurance reform, a failed primary presidential campaign against an even lighter weight contendewr than herself, and a disastrous stint as Secretary of State that began with a faux pas that caused the UK's Foreign Office to officially and publicly repudiate its soi disant "special relationship" with the US, continued with a string of ill-advised interventions in Nortn Africa whose repercussions are still playing out in tribal wars, distrust of the US, and increased disorder throughout that continent and the Near East, and culminated in the disaster at Benghazi and the ham-fisted and somewhat botched attempts to cover up Madam Secretary's direct role in that disaster.
The only really sharp decision Hil ever made was to marry Bill and the only time she's ever succeeded at anything is when she's been following his marching orders. Yet the utter failure of the MSM to deal with her amply demonstrated incompetence has created a strong probability that the to-date worst president in US history may well be succeeded by another record breaker.
Paul Walker's death also makes the Michael Hastings case less suspicious. It shows that a car can explode in flames after a hard frontal impact even when there's zero chance that the government rigged it with explosives.
ReplyDeletePeter
The problem is that the MSM now consists of members of the-powers-that-be.
ReplyDeleteLet's say you were a democratic president who succeeded a republican. Three months into your term you decide you want to have a journalist murdered. Let us further assume that somewhere within the deep state there are people who would do this for you.
ReplyDeleteHow would you find them? Unless it was covered by the last guy during the transition (here's the number you call to have Americans assassinated...only for emergencies) it seems like it would be very difficult. Do you ask your chief of staff to find out? What if he goes to the media? Everyone down the chain would have the same fear.
On the other hand, if you think maybe tea party groups need some extra attention from the IRS, you could get it done with the right order and a wink to a subordinate.
The stick is social pressure. In particular if you make the pit very nasty indeed then people will do almost anything to avoid falling into it.
ReplyDelete"the Norwegian elite of 2014 are merely taking their cue from the American"
ReplyDeleteThe multicult outside America - and to a large extent inside as well - was spawned by Hollywood.
"To Kill a Mockingbird" "Twelve Angry Men"
"In the heat of the Night"
"Evil White Southerners I"
"Evil White Southerners II"
"Evil White Southerners XVIII"
etc.
They targeted and molded youngsters who had no personal experience of diversity and thus created the first multicult generation. That generation are in the process of retiring now.
http://harvardmagazine.com/2014/01/made-in-the-u-s-a
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/books/review/just-babies-the-origins-of-good-and-evil-by-paul-bloom.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
"the US media acts [sic] like lap dogs only when a democrat is in power."
ReplyDelete1) supporting bankster capitalism
2) supporting cultural marxism
3) supporting attacks on the enemies of Israel
Entirely consistent.
There was no American Enoch Powell
ReplyDeleteThere was Pat Buchanan, but too many so-called conservatives didn't think he was conservative enough on a nation not his own.
Funny how in the end these conservatives expended more energy helping a nation not their own, that they now find they have lost their own nation.
Is so-called "immigration reform" Shamnesty a carrot or a stick? What about Obamacare - carrot or stick?
ReplyDeleteMethinks these be bludgeons.
Doesn't this rampant cheating on school tests:
ReplyDelete1/ Makes it quite possible that all those wonderful math results from Asia mentioned here may not be so wonderful.
2/ Makes it quite likely that (horrors) that the US will do very well in the future.
The powers that be can afford soft methods because they feel that their position is secure. If there is an economic collapse which leads to political unrest which leads to fear at the top, harder methods will be used. A bit of that happened in Greece recently.
ReplyDelete"But it's really not a very scary place."
ReplyDeleteYou've hit the nail on the head, Steve. The genius of the American system is that it allows enough people to have enough to lose that serious rocking of the boat is too dangerous. This is not just about money; it's about power and influence, and it's a sliding scale. The more money you have, the more power you have. We have no disenfranchised bourgeois or angry aristos.
We've let lots of people make lots of money in the last 70 years, including groups that might otherwise have become restive. (And those who did become restive--blacks, most obviously--were bought off with various government schemes.) Even more than making money, we've been amazingly successful at perpetrating the myth that the vast majority of Americans are middle class, fully invested in the power structure.
As a result, nearly everyone who has the means to rebel has, or thinks they have, too much to lose to do any meaningful rebelling.
"Youth, then and now", comparing Millennial's struggles with youth in the 1890s. Apology from the NYT to the younger generation for promoting debt, rapacious trade policies and near unlimited immigration? Never.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/01/opinion/anxious-youth-then-and-now.html?hp&rref=opinion
"From the outside the deference of the US media is very striking. France, Germany, Britain etc all have much less deferential media "
ReplyDeleteWhen it counted none took on Tony Blair.
These days you can see the farce surrounding French comedian Diodonne and his quenelle gesture. I cannot find a single news source that will claim the quenelle is not a nazi salute or not an anti semitic salute.
>>"So that mostly leaves the carrot. And there are a lot of carrots in a big, rich country like ours."
ReplyDeleteSteve, you have to finish the sentence. What about the sticks?
Where are the sticks, and where exactly are they located?
Steve, any thoughts on this recent book?
ReplyDelete"Jesse Walker’s The United States of Paranoia presents a comprehensive history of conspiracy theories in American culture and politics, from the colonial era to the War on Terror...."
Sounds vapid to me.
http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2014/01/best-of-13.html#more
ReplyDeleteThese days you can see the farce surrounding French comedian Diodonne and his quenelle gesture. I cannot find a single news source that will claim the quenelle is not a nazi salute or not an anti semitic salute.
ReplyDeleteThis lone comedian is causing a national crisis in France:
The Move to Muzzle Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala
The Bête Noire of the French Establishment
Anonymous 10:36 AM, you sound like someone too young to actually remember Buchanan's presidential run(s); probably you don't remember him on Crossfire most weeks either. Despite his admirable non-conformism Pat is a career Washingtonian for better or worse, i.e. really NOT the American equivalent of Enoch Powell. In fact he's not even the American Le Pen.
ReplyDelete"Simon in London comments:
ReplyDelete... even if they have decided to replace him with a bunch of third world immigrants, they don't make a secret of it). "
A "bunch" of third world immigrants? Why not a group? They are not objects, you know?
And why are you so worried about it? Are you not the superior white men with "superior IQ" and all the rest? Why are you afraid of them? Surely you can out-compete the Mexicans.
Admit it, you only cared about the last conspiracy because it centered on some podunk backwater called "Saylorsburg." But if it involved Pakistanis or North Koreans instead the names would be too unpronounceable to be interesting.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 10:36 AM, you sound like someone too young to actually remember Buchanan's presidential run(s); probably you don't remember him on Crossfire most weeks either. Despite his admirable non-conformism Pat is a career Washingtonian for better or worse, i.e. really NOT the American equivalent of Enoch Powell. In fact he's not even the American Le Pen.
ReplyDeleteSure, anyone who served in two administrations, Nixon and Reagan, is not an outsider. But that is what makes him close to Powell. It's one thing for Steve Sailer to take a stand on a controversial issue, but quite another for Buchanan.
And Pat has been sounding the alarm on immigration since at least 1992. He's written a series of books detailing the ill effects of third world immigration, and essentially lost his gig on MSNBC over a chapter in his last book lamenting the end of white America. Now how many 'insiders' on MSNBC, Fox, etc., talk about demographic change like Pat?
The bottom line is that Buchanan is the most high profile guy in the US to espouse those views. So yes, he is probably closer to Powell than anyone we have here.
But he's not a war monger, so conservatives ignored him in 1992, 1996 and 2000. I will never understood the mentality of those who can't, or won't, understand that it is immaterial to project power abroad when you are losing your nation right out from under you. Or as Buchanan would put it, what's the point in trying to saving Anbar Province, when you're losing Arizona?
Surely you can out-compete the Mexicans.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you assume they don't assimilate to become Americans. Why are you such as evil racist?
Steve if want a Nordic conspiracy movie watch trollhunter its funny.
ReplyDeletenfk
"It's interesting to speculate upon the carrot-and-stick balance in the U.S"
ReplyDeleteHere's an example of the carrot approach: http://news.yahoo.com/justice-sotomayor-drop-ball-not-gavel-2014-times-204002623.html
They must be getting nervous about her. I can't see Steve Breyer getting to drop the ball.
'France, Germany and the U.K. have much less deferential media then the U.S.....which shills for the powers-that-be."
ReplyDeleteThere is a certain ethnic group that controls the U.S. media, unlike in other countries.
HINT* Rhymes with few.
ReplyDeleteI think there is plenty of evidence that sticks, at least virtual sticks -i.e. blackmail - were important instruments in the governance of this nation. Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Hoover - they all dealt in blackmail, on both sides of the transaction.
And even then, the fact that carrots may have been employed more than sticks in the past, does not preclude the stick from finding greater use today.
The NSA has made it clear that it spies on virtually everyone. Certainly it is the avowed goal of the NSA to spy on everyone. If they can spy on everyone (millions of people) they can certainly focus their efforts on those few thousands of people who really have some influence. Who is to say that they do not now have actionable black-mail information on businessmen, congressman, jurists, and government officials? John Roberts changed his vote on the ACA at the last minute. He had already written the minority opinion against it, when he switched his vote so as to put the ACA over the net. Why? Perhaps somebody had the goods on him.
What about client number nine, Elliot Spitzer? Perhaps they burned him down as an instructive exercise for clients numbers one through eight.
"I don't recall much press resistance to the statements "Islam is a religion of peace" or "Family values don't stop* at the Rio Grande." - Like he said, whenever a democrat is in power.
ReplyDeleteMr Anon:
ReplyDeleteI imagine supreme court justices are among the hardest people to blackmail. since they have lifetime appointments and are almost impossible to get rid of.
Congressmen and media types are probably easier targets. But it seems like widespread blackmail of public figures should be hard to keep secret, given today's media environment. I mean, if Rand Paul wants to tell the world he is being blackmailed about his gay lovers to shut him up on NSA abuses, I suspect CNN will treat it as a joke, but it will still come out, in blog if nowhere else. But we don't seem to see a lot of this kind of revelation. Is this happening, and I'm just missing it somehow?
Larry Craig was a Representative for 10 years and a U.S. Senator for 16 before getting arrested in an airport men's room in 2007. But, 25 years before, he had been tarred in a pages scandal. From Wikipedia:
ReplyDeletePolitical career[edit]
Craig was elected to the Idaho Senate in 1974 and reelected in 1976 and 1978.[17]
In 1980, Craig was elected to an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Idaho's 1st congressional district. He succeeded Republican Steve Symms, who left the House and was elected to the Senate after defeating Democrat Frank Church. Craig was re-elected four times, serving until 1991. While in the House, he supported President Ronald Reagan's push to expand vocational education.
Allegations of cocaine use and sex with male teenage congressional pages by unnamed congressmen were pursued by investigators and journalists in 1982.[18] Craig issued a statement denying involvement.[19] Craig stated "Persons who are unmarried as I am, by choice or by circumstance, have always been the subject of innuendos, gossip and false accusations. I think this is despicable."[15] Craig served on the House Ethics Committee. ...
Craig married Suzanne Thompson in 1983 and adopted the three children she had from a previous marriage.[16] Through his adopted children, Craig has nine grandchildren.[17]
Larry Craig is an example of a fairly ripe target: a sizable political talent in a small, conservative state, but also an out of control homosexual. Perhaps nobody anywhere did anything to exploit that in the 25 years between Craig slipping by in the pages scandal and his airport men's room downfall. Or perhaps not. I don't know.
ReplyDeleteIn general, the gay thing suggests the GOP would be even more corrupt than the Dems. Gerry Studds and Barney Frank could brazen their way past gay scandals that would have brought down Republicans.
Of course the GOP is more corrupt than the Dems. Look at how they desperately tried to cover up the Mark Foley brouhaha. At the same time they were trying to get him to run for the Senate, no less!
ReplyDeleteanon:
ReplyDelete"When it counted none took on Tony Blair."
That's true. Up until the Iraq war, 1997-2002, the BBC was slavishly loyal, which is understandable because they shared the same agenda. In five years Blair destroyed our Constitution and turned us from a basically free country into a basically un-free country, and if anyone noticed they didn't report it. Maybe the implications of what he was doing weren't obvious at the time. It was cleverly done. But it seems in retrospect that surely some one who didn't share his agenda should have spotted this. Yet no one told us.
BUT: my wife did save a Daily Mail newspaper front page from right before the 1997 election. It said that a Labour victory threatened "a thousand years of British history". I had no idea what they were talking about - it just seemed like hyperbole. I know now. So maybe we were being told, it's just that we were brainwashed by the BBC not to listen until it was far too late.
lefty anon:
ReplyDelete"And why are you so worried about it? Are you not the superior white men with "superior IQ" and all the rest? Why are you afraid of them? Surely you can out-compete the Mexicans."
In the current post-Malthusian environment high IQ is maladaptive. Lower IQ correlates with higher fertility. The high IQ are out-competed by the low-IQ. It doesn't matter if red squirrels are smarter than grey squirrels, it matters which squirrels have the babies.
"NOTA said...
ReplyDeleteMr Anon:
I imagine supreme court justices are among the hardest people to blackmail. since they have lifetime appointments and are almost impossible to get rid of."
Yet, they still have family, friends, associations, and reputations.
"Congressmen and media types are probably easier targets. But it seems like widespread blackmail of public figures should be hard to keep secret, given today's media environment. I mean, if Rand Paul wants to tell the world he is being blackmailed about his gay lovers to shut him up on NSA abuses, I suspect CNN will treat it as a joke, but it will still come out, in blog if nowhere else. But we don't seem to see a lot of this kind of revelation. Is this happening, and I'm just missing it somehow?"
That's why it is necessary to occasionally burn one down. Pour encourager les autres.
"Steve Sailer said...
ReplyDeleteCraig married Suzanne Thompson in 1983 and adopted the three children she had from a previous marriage.[16] Through his adopted children, Craig has nine grandchildren.[17]."
I note in passing that Supreme Court Justice John Roberts married at 41 (later in life than did Craig) and has two adopted children.
"Steve Sailer said...
ReplyDeleteIn general, the gay thing suggests the GOP would be even more corrupt than the Dems. Gerry Studds and Barney Frank could brazen their way past gay scandals that would have brought down Republicans."
Having no shame certainly does improve one's chances of surviving a scandal.
"Margaret Thatcher faced almost insane levels of hate from the BBC and the UK left-media. Nothing like that is imaginable from the 'respectable' US media."
ReplyDeleteRight, it's not like the 'respectable' US media would use a fake document to try and defame Bush. Oh wait a second...
Anonymous said : Indeed, the hbd blog-o-sphere is filled with high iq commenters who have failed in life and who blame their manifest personal failures on a "scotts irish conspiracy"
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Similar to how the “scotts irish” have been persecuted for 5,000 years in almost every host society through no fault of their own. Rather it is entirely due to “anti-semitic” conspiracies.
"And why are you so worried about it? Are you not the superior white men with "superior IQ" and all the rest? Why are you afraid of them? Surely you can out-compete the Mexicans."
ReplyDeleteWhat I don't get about people that say things like this is where they expect it to end. There are, what, 7 billion people in the world, and every study that looks seriously at it says about half would move to the US if possible.
Do you really want 3.5 billion people moving to California (for instance)? It just won't work. That's about 1000 times as many people as are here now. Talk about things like water, environment, infrastructure, etc.. Whatever happened to all that liberal talk about sustainability? Was it really nothing more than a Political Front that never mattered?
Do you have a cutoff? For instance, would 200 million people in California be okay, and if so to you, why? Once you reach that cutoff, if you enforce it aren't you as "morally bad" as people that take immigration today to be a serious problem?
And why should Mexicans be privileged over Turks, for instance? There seems to be a lot of confusion once you get beyond "white bad, everyone else good" here.
It just doesn't make basic "fit it in the trunk" sense. It's like Nice White Lady that lives in a fantasy land. My suspicion is that a lot of people that think like this are, at core, innumerate.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-12-05/entertainment/8604010174_1_bronco-billy-heartbreak-ridge-clint-eastwood
ReplyDeletefanboy
anon:
ReplyDelete"Right, it's not like the 'respectable' US media would use a fake document to try and defame Bush. Oh wait a second..."
I don't know what you're talking about? Bush & fake docs makes me think of Iraq and the non-existent WND, yellowcake et al.
Michael Hastings death seems suspicious to me because it's odd. I'm not disputing a car can catch on fire but it has to have something to start it burning. I'm assuming(may be where I go wrong) to be engulfed in flames the gas tank must be on fire. Here's pictures of the fire.
ReplyDeletehttp://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18sjm2ivf6ml0png/ku-xlarge.png
http://nodisinfo.com/Home/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/michaelhastings09.png
http://www.policestateusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Hastings_Crash2.png
Only one problem. The gas tank is NOT on fire. Here's a not so good picture.
http://www.hollywoodcrashes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Michael-Hastings.jpg
Here's a video whith a clear view showing the gas tank is separated from the car and has not been burnt.
See the tank at 0:37
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou63u6Ekycc
The problem being just how much fuel is available to make this huge inferno if it didn't come from the gas tank. There are two fuel lines. Feed and return. A fuel rail for the injection and maybe pump. I bet all together not more than a cup full of gas. Probably much less. Could that be enough to get the plastics burning? Remember it would have to burn through the steel body to get to the plastics in the interior. And what about this picture.
http://www.secretsofthefed.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/1040713_548855921838058_940499517_o.jpg
You can see now 3/4 of our fuel is hundreds of feet down the road with the engine.
How did the fuel tank become separated from the car? They are held on by metal straps. Look under your car it probably the same. These are not light weight. You can see these same type metal straps strapping down large metal objects they haul across the country on trucks.
I say the whole think stinks. If you explain how a 1/2 cup of fuel burns through the metal body to ignite the plastic then I'll buy it. Calling me names or appeals to authority doesn't count. Only logic will be accepted as proof. Otherwise I assume someone bombed the car.