In light of the 9/11 theme, Ill up load an essay I wrote several years ago,
The Truth!
"It's a conspiracy I tells ya!"
Just a thought.
When you think about it, if someone really knows, "The Truth" about the Kennedy assassination, 9/11, Port Arthur, Sandy hook, Pulse nightclub shootings AIDS, ISIS and Corona 19 and Zika virus etc etc etc (or any other conspiracy theories/fantasies out there) then wouldn't you think that the real people behind the conspiracy would do something about it?
I mean if the bad guys have no qualms about murdering 3000+ people on 9/11 for instance it shouldn't bother them in the slightest to pay off someone to be silent or put a couple more on the missing list that might be in the position to expose them and their evil plans now would it.
Unless of course...
Those exposing "The Truth" are actually part of the conspiracy, putting out false and/or ludicrous information just to confuse and mislead the "sheeple..."
Mmmmmmmmm, Now there's a conspiracy!
Conspiracy theories are about 99% fabricated and those who create, disseminate, and believe
them are either insane, gullible, opportunistic cynics or mischief-makers, and here's why.
I worked many years in media and real conspiracies defiantly exist and we probably hear of only a tiny fraction of the serious criminal, political, and business wrongdoings, cover-ups, and genuine criminality both large and small that goes on behind the scenes every day, some of which can have a detrimental effect on people and society. However not EVERY conspiracy is real and in this essay, I'm mainly referring to the promotion, creation, dissemination, and those who push the more dramatic, bigoted, irrational, and outlandish conspiracy theory's and fantasy's found on the internet such as; Pizza-gate, faked moon landings, flat earth, earthquakes, and epidemics and attempted world domination etc etc by aliens, Jews, Catholics, Pedophiles, Freemasons the Illuminati, the CIA, KGB, MOSSAD, NSA, FBI, MI5, NASA, and the deep state or other "Evil Overlords" and cabals of one type or another.
One wonders just how many of the big conspires have ever really been attempted, planned, or even contemplated...
First off, NEVER confuse a "whistle-blower" with a conspiracy theorist. The whistle-blower will almost always use official channels
and credible media to get the message out and more often than not do so for purely altruistic reasons and will often need to bare
severe consequences. These people are heroes in my book.
The conspiracy theorist will usually shun the mainstream media and official channels and spread their disinformation through less
trusted and often highly suspicious sources purely for self-aggrandizement, mischief, or profit and will take no responsibility for their
nonsense at all and the only thing they truly fear is accountability.
On the subject of the "Deep State," former Trump aide Steve Bannon admitted that the whole thing was a fraud invented purely to help prop up the Trump administration and that its proponents and supporters were "nut cases."
However, though the "deep state" is not an organized or coordinated entity and there is no "great master plan" I feel what is more likely is that you have very wealthy and influential individuals with vested interests quietly meeting in oak-paneled rooms over cigars and cognac and/or on golf courses etc scratching each other's backs for mutual profit, nothing more nothing less.
In other words, they are motivated by simple greed and not a world-dominating ideology.
Ok, let's get down to business.
Conspiracy theorists tend to have a lot of accusations and theory's but offer little in the way of hard evidence to prove their statements, in fact, their theories can be compared to almost any religion, believed in passionately by millions without provable evidence or logic to back it up, but this is a debate for another day.
Conspiracy theories are like fashion and will come and go and change over the years and with the social season.
In a nutshell, people will all to readily believe and defend all manner of untruths as cold hard fact no matter what, as long if it coincides with their own beliefs, dogma, or bigotry; and even with just a little bit of investigation or critical thinking on their part would prove the story to be untrue a fabrication or just plain utter nonsense.
However, "Confirmation bias" will almost always win out over common sense and this is the true stock in trade of the conspiracy theorist who
appeals to people who only want to hear, see and remember what they agree with.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities, readily verifiable facts or even basic common sense and reality; and the worst examples of this is when someone in their heart of hearts knows something is a fabrication but still promotes it as absolute truth.
Now to begin with there seems to be about eight main species of conspiracy theorist/fantasist who bombard the media, police, or government departments as well as infest all forms of social media and the internet and all go by different names and have different objectives such as Qanon, Infowars, etc but all purport to know, "The Truth" about what's really going on in the dark recesses of government and society, etc.
Let's break them down into who's who.,
1: The "Professional" will often be found in "Troll farms" working for business media or government, etc concocting story's to push an agenda or sway public opinion there is also a subspecies who will cynically jump on any story and produce webcasts, books, and videos for fame and fortune and often hawks dodgy products such as vitamins and supplements, etc and is basically trying to profit from their noncritical follower's ignorance, gullibility, paranoia, bigotry or fear, such as Alex Jones of Infowars and almost every televangelist that ever was.
Unfortunately, Rupert Murdoch's FOX and Sky News, OAN, etc must also get a mention for the deliberate spreading of disinformation
about Covid 19 etc.
I would truly love to see some of these conspiracy, bigoted, false, and Troll news merchants be made to justify their claims or face heavy penalties for their mischief, this would sift the wheat from the chaff very quickly, on the other hand, the genuine whistleblower must be protected at all costs.
Freedom of speech must be encouraged and defended at all costs but freedom to deceive must be challenged at every turn!!
2: The unmedicated, unsupervised, schizophrenic, or other mental patients with access to a PC and depending on how unmedicated
and unsupervised they are will depend on how much these people can produce and it can be a lot!
They mostly rant incoherently and often a great length, but some can make up all sorts of very well thought out and passable pseudoscientific, political, economic and/or biblical theory's along the way and some can be quite brilliant, lucid and insightful in their own mad sought of way.
3: The tinfoil hat wearing paranoid narcissist who tirelessly investigates, "joins the dots" and "uncovers the truth" and reveals the "false flags" of the deep state etc. These guys can find a conspiracy in a bowl of roses in the same way a religious nut can see the face of Christ in a half-eaten meat pie and similar to the unmedicated and unsupervised schizophrenic mentioned earlier, can produce vast amounts of product depending on how motivated they are.
4: The "Hate filled bigot" These people basically just want an excuse to blame and/or attack, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Blacks, Asians, Gays, etc, etc, etc for no other reason other than they hate them they are the object of their prejudice no matter what the subject or incident.
The "Intellectual/historical revisionist bigot."
Though the very foundations and core beliefs are often fundamentally and obviously flawed to most people, the Intellectual/historical revisionist bigot will often have very well thought out and cleverly worded arguments sighting historical, religious, or political instances (usually tenuous, popularest, and/or highly selective at best) to give substance to their claims that will sometimes require a little research to debunk if you have the time or inclination to do so.
Their lack of integrity will even go as far as to fabricate stories (Conspiracy fantasies) in an attempt to influence others into their
way of thinking and are very fond of saying, "history is written by the victors" however, rewriting history to fit into their prejudice
makes them nothing more than pseudointellectual frauds.
The "Childish bigot."
The Childish bigot is usually not even a real conspiracy theorist, just a lout who is often far too lazy, ignorant, and uneducated to do
any investigation for themselves (as it will no doubt disprove their prejudice) so they take the quick easy option of ignoring any real
readily available facts and just regurgitate and plagiarize the same old drivel the Intellectual/revisionist bigot and others of alike
mind comes up with and as could be imagined, both tend to be deeply narcissistic and aggressively arrogant.
In short, bigots are usually little more than predictable one-trick ponies, obnoxious oafs, or pseudointellectual frauds lacking even
basic common sense and empathy and all are, of course, immature moral pygmies.
5: The poor lonely immature attention seeking basement warrior who has nothing better to do and craves any sort of human contact
and/or validation for their sad and unfulfilled life.
6: The "Troll or Opportunist/Hobbyist."
This guy is not a genuine conspiracy theorist but an opportunistic mischief-maker who just likes to make multiple posts on multiple websites using their multiple accounts within an hour or two of an event happening purely for their own amusement.
He is the lowest of the low because, unlike the bigot or lunatic who may actually believe in what they say, the Troll has no integrity whatsoever.
They are very fond of calling the victims of mass shootings/bombings and other acts of mass violence, "Crisis actors."
7: The conspiracy "Enthusiast."
A bit or all of the above I'm afraid and like most of the above will have numerous accounts and personas all over the net and will blindly believe and slavishly disseminate, embellish, create and vigorously defend everything that comes their way no matter what!
They are very fond of saying things like, "Open your eyes, you are being controlled by pedophiles, psychopaths, and mass murderers" etc etc, however when challenged to name names they go silent.
They love conspiracy's, in the same way, others like fishing, football, and going to the movies.
8: The Troll farmer, these guys, and gals are merely in the employ of government, business or religious groups, etc to spread
propaganda and/or disinformation on whatever is required. A telling feature of all conspiracy theorists no matter who they are or what they espouse when challenged or being interviewed is the commonly used phrase, "I can't say too much/anything now..." often in hushed, "I might be in danger if I do" tones when they run out of material or find they have put themselves in a tight corner.
The internet is not only the perfect habitat for confirmation bias but it's also the natural home of the all-encompassing, great sweeping statement!
"All Moslems" are terrorists, "ALL Catholic priests" are pedophiles, "ALL Jews" control "ALL" the worlds media and "ALL" the worlds financial institutions and the ever popular, "you are being controlled by pedophiles, psychopaths, and mass murderers" etc, etc!
Of course to criticize or point out any shortcomings or superficiality of such statements made in forums etc or to ask for solid proof of their veracity is a total waste of time; The fact is the loonie, true believer and bigot are incapable of accepting anything other than what validates their beliefs and the Trolls simply never want to lose face, docent care or is only seeking attention in the first place.
Though the conspiracy theorist's/fantasist's/enthusiasts core beliefs are often inherently flawed, some, that are a little more intelligent, imaginative, and cunning will have well thought out replies to give substance to their claims and all will vigorously label you as a willingly ignorant member of the "Sheeple" who should "open your eyes" or a "Shill" of a villainous government, religion, deep state or big business by these brave, intellectually superior and all knowing guardians and revelers of "The Truth!"
They will also claim to be completely unbiased, open-minded critical thinkers; this is usually stated in an attempt to somehow justify or excuse their claims and all have a fondness for Memes, the internet equivalent of poking your tongue out and blowing a raspberry and just about as articulate, it is the only wordplay and retorts available to these immature dullards are capable of!
Rewriting history to suit an individuals prejudice or social objectives is a perfect example of confirmation bias and a fairly modern phenomenon; a well-worn phrase often used by neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, WW2 revisionists and Hitler/Starlin/Mao, etc fans and apologists, and more recently social justice warriors is that "history is written by the victors." Yes agreed, to an extent, but the fact those events are often reported and corroborated by numerous different sources and first-hand whiteness from both sides at the time seems to escape our devout theorist and bigot.
Rewriting history without solid scholarly peer-reviewed evidence must be challenged at every turn!
On a side note, I feel that with the challenging and steady decline of religious belief (not altogether a bad thing) in the world and the ridiculous war on science that has emerged in recent years not to mention the notion that almost all history has been tainted and the "Truth" altered or obliterated in some way has spawned an almost pathological adherence to one conspiracy theory/fantasy or another and is rapidly becoming a new religion in itself with its own clergy, holy books, scholarly works and usually containing just as much irrational intolerance, dogma, stupidity, and bigotry as any faith you care to name.
The other major problem with the devout seeker of "The Truth" is that if they can't find what they are looking for will all too often just make up "facts" to embellish and/or fit in with their conspiracy narrative and will then repeat them continuously, they can sometimes even produce flashy high quality (and not so high quality) PC documentary's and publications, etc to enhance the veracity of their false claims and in very short order these "conspiracy fantasy's" will rapidly become "The Truth" and so believed and doggedly defend as such. A perfect example is the 2020 US election where Donald Trump lost but insisted and repeated ad nausea that he had in fact won even though the claim was tested almost 100 times in court with no result in his favor.
To quote Einstein,
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result..."
Another perfect example of a conspiracy fantasy persistently defended as fact is the notorious anti-Semitic hoax, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, first exposed and debunked as a heavily plagiarized literary fraud as early as 1921. (Of course any good conspiracy theorist/bigot will readily claim Jews control ALL media and therefore ALL history and seem to be ALL endowed with the same mysterious ability (Hive brain?) that enables them ALL to plot together to be involved in the same evil plans ALL at the same time throughout ALL of history; Remarkable, surly you would think they would have taken over by now?!)
In fact the one true constant of almost all conspiracy theory's is anti-Semitism and the main reason for this is that anti-Semitism has
been one of the corner stones of christianity for the past 2000+ years and will continue to be so forevermore, as without the universal, seemingly all powerful bad guy to blame the death of christ and the worlds ills on, you don't have half as good a narrative.
You can also throw in for good measure, the anti-vaccination movement, NASAs faked the Moon landing the Kennedy assassination (there are well over 30 theory's and has become an industry in itself) Area 51, Roswell and UFOs, Elvis faked his own death, Paul McCartney is actually dead, all the works of Shakespeare were not written by Shakespeare, the Covid pandemic was invented by the Jews to reduce the worlds population of non-Jews and many many others.
The fun just never stops and it's all one big conspiracy of stupidity for the most part!
Though there are defiantly shills (some paid some not) who try to spin, shape and skew public opinion in the media, sometimes, just sometimes, things actually happened precisely in the way they were reported by the main stream, hard to believe I know (particularly when they constantly embellish, hype and spin the truth in their eternal quest for increased ratings, circulation and advertising revenue) but it still happens far more often than you might think and the guy who claims to know the "The real Truth" is all to
often one of the mischief makers mentioned earlier.
I believe a good workable conspiracy plan must have the following to have any real chance of success,
1:
Very few people involved, just barely enough to get the job done and maintain secrecy.
(This is just about impossible because someone will always spill the beans at some point either through carelessness or a fit of conscience, I mean if the president of the United States of America cant enjoy a nice quiet little blow job in the privacy of the oval office bathroom then what hope do conspirators have who are trying to take over the world?!)
2: The people involved will be dedicated to the conspiracy and/or have a vested interest in it's success and will benefit or see a benefit from their actions. (Political, religious, social or financial etc)
3: The people involved will willingly remain silent and protect each other and the conspiracy because of the above. (The threat of physical violence against a participant or their family etc is very risky to the conspirators and no guarantee of silence.)
4: The mechanics of the conspiracy must be as simple as possible and above all, subtle...
When a real conspiracy comes to the surface questions of its authenticity will always arise. Now depending on who is exposing it and how it is being presented and is there any apparent ulterior motive behind the whistle being blown will all be vital to its acceptance by the media and public as truth.
Presentation is all-important; If the story is presented in a "tabloid," hysterical or bigoted manner, blaming one or more religious, political or social groups or appears to be the ranting of a Looney, even if it's 100% true, it will rarely be accepted by those who could possibly do something about it.
Depending what the conspiracy is about, the mainstream media can be the most believable and accurate though not always as this will depend on the event and whether or not it affects the government, business, and/or society in some adverse way or is contra to the particular predisposition of the media owner so they will sometimes even present advertising, biased editorial, and "alternative facts" disguised as news... Criminal in my book!
This is where the "Fact-checkers" efforts at keeping the media and politicians etc on their toes are worth their weight in gold and their work must be protected, supported, and encouraged!
Alternative media can be the most truthful and objective though it is often considered the most unreliable and unlike the mainstream it has little or no accountability for what it produce's and is infested with the aforementioned conspiracy theorists and unfortunately is often an offshoot of the mainstream and is sometimes owned, funded and controlled (at arm's length) by the same big media company's.
Regrettably truly independent, accurate and unbiased fact-checked journalism is very hard to come by nowadays and it never ceases to amaze me how eager and desperate some people are to believe in any sort of convoluted and outlandish conspiracy theory without question no matter how tenuous the evidence, but will have grave doubts about something that was simple to explain when presented by the mainstream media.
It is often clamed that "They are taking our freedoms!" and yet, rarely can the conspiracy theorist tell us exactly what real freedoms have been permanently taken from us as we can pretty much still think, say, and do whatever we please without problems, that is unless you become a public hindrance by blocking the streets to protest "Land rights for gay whales" etc.
Freedom of speech is one they will point to but in reality, you can still say what you like, however you can't get away with overt bigotry or sexism as we once could. This is a two-edged sword as most humor back in the past and now is often bigoted and sexist to our eyes today, think Benny Hill, etc "God! You could never get away with that today!" and many uptight activists have boorishly thin skins.
We must always strive to strike a balance between personal freedom and social responsibility and the greatest threat to free speech, progress, education, humanity, culture, national identity, and civilization are the proponents and champions of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS!
There is nothing progressive or even good about political correctness, even the radical Islamist is nowhere near as dangerous or as destructive to a civilized society and its culture and identity, and the best way to defeat these foul villains is simply to have the courage to ignore them or like good Australians, square your shoulders, look the bastards dead in the eye, and tell them to "FUCK OFF!"
Now you might think after reading all this I am totally anti-conspiracy theory, not so, as many an outlandish theory could well become or is a fact;
I am however against ignorant bigots, mental defectives the politically correct, and mischievous trolls who continuously muddy the waters with their incessant rubbish and hinder us from getting to the bottom of events that may well need to be exposed and investigated.
In closing, for better or worse the internet gives voice to EVERYONE; You, me, mum, dad the kids the local school and boles club the government and big business, the religious and/or political Zealot and nutcase, the racist, bigot, mentally defective and semi-literate who would otherwise be totally ignored by normal people that wouldn't even bother to piss on if them if they were on fire!
Anybody can be on social media or make a Blog or website and post whatever they like (so much for the claim of taking our freedom of speech) and it can be as nonsensical, bigoted, ranting, and as far fetched as you like, and rest assured there will be someone who will believe every word of it as solid fact and doggedly defend and add to it as well.
It never ceases to amaze me that media outlets big and small who are under continuous scrutiny and can (and should) be called out for inaccuracy both deliberate and accidental are continuously criticized for spreading "false news!"
However, the peanut sitting in his basement with no oversight, social responsibility, or conscience whatsoever can invent and post what it likes with impunity and somehow be held up as the font of all knowledge and truth...!
You know, when we look at society and the dramatic events happening around us today, most of the time it's just the way the world turns, no deep conspiracies or "dark evil forces" are necessary to screw things up, "shit-just-happens!"
My advice for what its worth, don't believe everything you read even if you strongly agree with it, keep an open mind and take everything with a good healthy cynical grain of salt and understand that one kind of shit or another will always happen no matter what and someone will always try to take advantage of it.
If something doesn't affect you, try not to worry about it and if it does, then don't be a basement or keyboard worrier, get of your ass and do something meaningful!
In general, It's always important to be skeptical and keep an open mind about things but never to the point that your brains fall out.
And that's "The Truth!"
Now days everyone seems to know "the truth"
with the exception it seems of thoes were actually involved...
I would aslso contend if you want to make million dollars now days, invent a
new conspiracy theory or give an old one a makeover!
.
