If Jon Ronson’s Them: Adventures with Extremists had never gone beyond its initial premise, it would have been a couple of long magazine articles, certainly not a book. Fascinating, top-drawer articles, to be sure; but the plot would have been too slim and classic, your basic boy-meets-fanatical-hatemonger, boy-befriends-fanatical-hatemonger, boy-loses-fanatical-hatemonger story. Since Ronson was inspired to go beyond, however, I’ll give that plot arc (of section one, “a Semi-Detached Ayatollah”) in more detail, for a better understanding of Ronson and of the book that Them became.

1. Boy meets Muslim fundamentalist, a young white Scotsman named Yacob, after a Trafalgar Square rally in which charismatic Muslim Omar Bakri Muhammed declared Holy War on Britain. (“The space had been rented to him by Westminster council.”)

2. Yacob tells boy that he has differences with Omar – e.g., “One time I wanted to release a swarm of mice into the United Nations headquarters. Women hate mice, you know. I thought it was a brilliantly simple idea. One swarm of mice would have crushed the whole UN process, don’t you think?” (“Women standing on chairs”, Jon nodded). “But Omar said no. He said it was a stupid idea”. Still, Yacob gives Jon the street address where Omar lives, because Omar is the best hope of English Islam.

3. Boy looks up holy warrior Omar in the telephone book.

4. Boy looks over holy warrior’s photo albums and watches him play with his baby daughter. “What is your daughter’s name?”, Jon asks. “It is a difficult name for you to understand”, Omar replies. “Does it have an English translation?” “Yes, it translates as ‘the Black Flag of Islam”. “Really?”, asks Jon, “it means the Black Flag of Islam?”. “Yes”, says Omar. “Really?”, repeats Jon. There is a pause. “You see”, Omar says, “why our cultures can never integrate”.

5. Boy watches new friend at work seeking converts. As passersby refuse to accept a pamphlet entitled Homosexuality, Lesbianism, Adultery, Fornication, and Bestiality: THE DEADLY DISEASES, and refuse to listen to Omar’s calls of “There are homosexuals everywhere! Beware the hour! Be careful from homosexuality! It is not good for your tummy!”, holy warrior has brainstorm. “Help the orphans!”, he calls, turning the leaflets upside down. Passersby start to accept the leaflets.

6. Boy gives holy warrior a ride in his car, not for the last time. (Later, boy will politely help guard large sums of money for holy warrior for a few minutes, feeling all along that is not really how he should behave.)

7. Boy lets holy warrior expound on his plans. Pubs will be closed down in Islamic England. Landlords will be offered alternate employment or arrested. Christmas decorations and store-window displayed will be outlawed. The Union Jack flag, a symbol of the old order, will be outlawed. The Spice Girls will be arrested. Pantyhose will be sold only in plain white packages with the word “pantyhose” printed as their identifier.

8. Boy is invited as a friend to a secret Islamic militant planning meeting, but other Muslims refuse to let him attend. Omar apologizes, gives boy ice cream, and later invites boy to go fishing.

9. Boy watches the crash and burn of a huge planned rally starring Omar at a 14,000-seat stadium. As ticket sales reach only 10% of capacity, holy warrior moved to Plan B (complain vigorously when the city of London seeks 18,000 pounds in extra security fees for renting the stadium), to Plan C (forbidding journalist attendance at what will be a “Muslim-only” rally), to Plan D (canceling the event and blaming censorship).

10. Boy attends Jihad camp and is outed as a Jew. Boy is affectionately denounced by holy warrior for not being a sincere enough Jew.

11. Boy is unaffectionately denounced by holy warrior when his magazine profile of Omar does not show, as boy had agreed, the warrior as “family man”. Boy protests, ineffectively, that since Muslim holy law prevented boy from ever meeting Omar’s wife, he was unable to write the family-man storyline. Boy is cut off.

That, at least, was the rise-and-fall plot arc when Them was published in England. Before it was published in the U.S.A., a twist happened: hijacked airplaned dove into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing 3600 Americans, and Osama bin Laden, a Saudi Muslim, was blamed. Omar Bakri Muhammed was quoted in the London Daily Mail celebrating the attacks, and was soon arrested. Jon Ronson, having spent a year with Omar, phoned him and found Omar sad. “This is so terrible!”, says the holy warrior. “The police say they will deport me. Why are people linking me with bin Laden? I do not know the man. I have never met him. Why do people say I am bin Laden’s man in Great Britain?”

“Because you’ve been calling yourself bin Laden’s man in Great Britain for years”, Ronson is forced to explain. “Oh Jon”, Omar sighs. “I need you more than ever now. You know I am harmless, don’t you? You know I am just a clown. You know I am laughable, don’t you?”

"Maybe", Ronson replies.

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There was a brief, almost forgotten moment there, though, early on, when Ronson was first meeting with young Scottish Muslim Yacob. Yacob nattered on about how the world was run by secret meetings of the Bilderberg Group, who select presidential candidates and world leaders and determine world finances. The idea would have been a seed planted in arid soil, except that Ronson decided to meet with Rachel Weaver, whose “neo-Nazi” mother and neo-Nazi pet dog were murdered in the standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

Rachel is an eloquent, intelligent young woman, and her father Randy is a weary, exhausted man, and their view of Ruby Ridge is an eye-opener for Ronson. They deny being racists (partly-convincingly – Aryan Nations being the local summer-camp is a valid-ish excuse for occasional attendence, but it’s still pretty weird, and “white pride” still implies a negative to me), and certainly are pleasant people. Their portrayal of the media is what’s truly convincing: how the simple words “white supremacist” allowed TV to portray cold-blooded murder as justified, how the Jewish Anti-Defamation League is given free reign to dub anyone “anti-Semitic”. “It isn’t true, of course”, says the Weaver’s friend Jack. “I am an honorary member of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms. Some people think this is a Jewish conspiracy, some think this is a Catholic conspiracy, some people think it’s a Masonic conspiracy. But I know what it really is… it’s a Satanic global conspiracy”. It’s the New World Order. And when Jon interviews the Anti-Defamation League, it is my opinion (as a Jew) and probably Jon’s (also as a Jew) that the ADL sound way crazier than the Weavers.

Jon meets the Weavers’ friend Bo Gritz, an extreme right-wing ex-war hero, who tells Jon more about the Bilderberg group. He watches the Weavers’ dismay at a TV appearance by David Icke, who accuses the New World Order’s masters of secretly being shape-changing 12-foot-tall lizards from the lower fourth dimension -- obviously, Icke is a pawn of the New World Order, sent down to discredit conspiracy theorists everywhere.

So Ronson meets David Icke, a former British sportscaster whose credibility as a lizard theorist was damaged in Britain when a predicted apocalypse failed to occur. Still, Icke's exposure of the 20+ species of extradimensional lizards who rule us strikes a chord with North American college students. Icke seems entirely sincere, an insane Anglican Noam Chomsky who happens to understand cricket.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, "12-foot-tall lizards” is a blatant code for “Jews”.

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As Jon gets more involved in meeting people, we see an anti-New World Order indie broadcaster named Alex get his television show interrupted right before he played a damning anti-NWO tape. We meet Thom Robb, the new leader of the Ku Klux Klan, who is trying earnestly to reform the KKK into a Dale Carnegie-friendly organization of love and self-help, and who is deeply suspicious of the media’s dismissal of the KKK as some sort of hate group. We meet Dr. Ian Paisley, an African missionary who believes the world is run out of the Vatican. (Paisley is greeted at one event with a coleslaw with carrot shavings that spell out “Welcome D.I.P.”)

We see Ronson track down this mysterious “Bilderburg group” and get followed by shades-wearing men. We see Ronson accidentally eat rat for dinner (it’s pretty good). Ronson even tracks down, and infiltrates, the mysterious annual Bohemian Grove meetings where it is said world leaders dress in drag, burn owls, and decide the fate of the world together. “So what’s the secret?”, Jon asks a local man. “How do we get in?” “Just walk right in up the drive”, he’s told. “That’s what I did. There’ll be one or two security guys sitting on the side of the road looking bored. You’re going to nod to them as you walk in, just nod and say hi… and dress preppy”. Which makes sense: if you’re some low-level security guard, do _you_ want to annoy one of the secret rulers of the world by asking him too aggressively for I.D.?

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That said, the legwork has been done: Bilderburg Group is real, the Bohemian Grove meetings are real, and here's where you can learn which parts the extremists got right. They're still odd, mind you. A sample conversation as the Bohemian Grove infiltration is planned:

Jon: “He comes from a different political persuasion than you. I don’t want your words to disturb him”.
Alex: “A socialist, huh? Well, if he wants to consolidate power and enslave the world’s population and kill 80% of us like the UN are publicly stating, then he ought to be all for Bohemian Grove”.
Jon: “I don’t think Rick wants to sacrifice 80% of the world’s population”.
Alex: “Well, you said he was of a different political persuasion”.

The cheering thing about Them: Adventures with Extremists is Jon Ronson’s own agreeableness. That all these differently paranoid people (and their opponents) feel comfortable enough to open up to him, that most of them have sweet and funny sides to them, that Jon is willing to see everyone’s point of view. After all, I’m against killing 80% of the world’s population, too – Alex might be a right-winger, but I agree with him on something big. And I believe as surely as Tears For Fears do that wanting to rule the world is, at least, a common syndrome.

Realistically, everyone who wants to rule the world probably can’t agree all the time with everyone else who wants to rule it; that’s the flaw I see in crediting the Bilderburg Group with complete control. Realistically, there are crazy, occasionally hateful people at the margins; it’s bizarre to think that the crazy, occasionally hateful people in the Supreme Court and the Defense Department are the only ones causing crazy, hateful things to occur. Realistically, the people who want to rule the world don’t pay their underlings enough to get their agenda fully set in place. Realistically, people who seem like they're in control can make large mistakes.

On the other hand, maybe that’s just what I’m supposed to tell you.

Recommended: Yes