- Florida’s 2000 election results were tampered with under the supervision of members of the Bush family.
- A Boeing 747 was accidentally shot down by a United States military sea-launched missile during training maneuvers near Long Island, New York, on July 17th, 1996, killing all 230 passengers aboard.
- Physical evidence from Roswell, New Mexico, of the crashsite of a flying saucer piloted by beings from another planet has been in the hands of the United States military since 1947.
- Marilyn Monroe was murdered by agents of the United States government when her romantic involvements with both John and Robert Kennedy were threatened with public exposure.
- Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
- Jack Ruby assassinated Lee Harvey Oswald under orders from agents of the United States government.
- 9/11 was orchestrated by agents of our own government.
- United Airlines Flight 93 was shot down over rural Pennsylvania on September 11th, 2001, by a missile launched from a US military aircraft.
The list of conspiracy theories tied to virtually every major event, organization and well-known person in history is incredibly long and varied. They seem to be everywhere as they beckon to us from the headlines of “yellow journals” in the checkout news stand at the local grocery store and lurk in shadowy, nefarious corners of the Internet. Indeed, conspiracy theories seem to have the uncanny ability to materialize from the minds and tongues of just about anyone at any time and in any place where human beings gather to discuss common concerns.
The credit for many different words and phrases found in common use today can be traced directly back to their roots in conspiracy theory: “Area 51”, “The Illuminati”, “grassy knoll”, “shadow government”, “men in black”, “skull and bones”, “New World Order”, “black ops” and “X files” (to name but a few).
The image of anyone associated with conspiracy theories is so ingrained into popular culture that, if you say the words “conspiracy theorist” to the average person on the street, I’d be willing to bet the image that is brought to their mind includes either a sweatshirt-hooded “Unibomber” with dark, wraparound sunglasses, a short-haired, baseball cap and plaid shirt-wearing “survivalist” or a pasty-skinned, overweight “computer geek” with taped-together reading glasses…
Are these images fair and accurate, do you think?
I wonder . . . because, curiously, within the collective mind of the public, there appears to be an unspoken, yet generally accepted, consensus that there are varying “degrees” of conspiracy theorism…
While some random sampling of the general population might have no trouble at all in conceding the possibility -- probability, even -- of J. Harvey Oswald not acting alone in the assassination of JFK, that same segment would probably react with immediate and intense disapproval and disgust at the notion of representatives of the United States government being directly involved in the events of 9/11.
If we are to discern whether or not we are guilty of “generalizing” as to the moral characters, relative intelligence levels and psychological profiles of those who advocate certain theories based upon their belief in the involvement (or lack of it) of some type of political conspiracy, it behooves us to ask ourselves a serious question:
“If there comes a time when someone’s particular assertion -- previously branded as a ‘conspiracy theory’ -- actually comes to pass, do we then remove the label of ‘conspiracy theorist’ from our collective mental characterizations of the person or do the unsavory aspects of that label remain which color our future perceptions?”
Because we, as a nation, very much need to admit the possibility that the crazy conspiracy theories of yesterday sometimes become the sad, indelible truths of tomorrow…
Before the U.S.’s invasion of Iraq and subsequent deposing of Saddam Hussein, the hypothesis put forth by a fairly large chunk of the politically-Liberal population was that there were no “weapons of mass destruction” which would justify such an overtly aggressive military action on our part.
Those who publicly voiced this particular hypothesis at the time were squelched by a larger segment of our population -- either by being summarily dismissed as “crazy conspiracy theorists” and “left wing nuts” or by being informed, emphatically and vociferously, that our leaders “would never lie to us about such a thing” and invade a sovereign country of no immediate threat to us.
…the crazy conspiracy theories of yesterday sometimes become the sad, indelible truths of tomorrow…
After he took up residence in the U.S., Beatle John Lennon was branded as “paranoid” when he announced he felt that he was under surveillance by U.S. government agents and felt that he had been singled out unfairly for deportation proceedings by the Immigration and Naturalization Dept. As it turned out, John’s troubles with the INS and the addition of his name to J. Edgar Hoover’s infamous FBI “blacklist” were personally arranged by President Richard Nixon because of John Lennon’s outspoken criticism of the Viet Nam War and Nixon’s perception that he wielded “too much power over the younger generation”.
…the crazy conspiracy theories of yesterday sometimes become the sad, indelible truths of tomorrow…
During the initial escalations of the Viet Nam War effort by President Lyndon Johnson, many political Liberals insisted that the “Gulf of Tonkin Incident” (cited by the Johnson Administration as the motivation behind the drafting of “The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution” -- the document used to sanction the escalations) had either been made-up entirely or blown completely out of proportion. During the ensuing years, these proponents of the creation of an intentionally-engineered incident by which the Administration justified its military escalations of the War were also branded with names akin to “crazy conspiracy theorists”…
In the mid-1990s, former Secretary of Defense under President Johnson, Robert McNamara, published In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, a book in which he stated that U.S. military involvement in the war had been “terribly wrong.” McNamara also admitted in the book that a decision had consciously been made in Johnson's own office to withhold information from the Congress of the United States and the American public concerning the reasons behind the escalation of the War.
…the crazy conspiracy theories of yesterday sometimes become the sad, indelible truths of tomorrow…
In November of 1986, a Lebanese magazine made the shocking assertion that -- under orders from National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane and his successor, Vice-Admiral John Poindexter -- Lt. Colonel Oliver North of the U.S. National Security Commission had brokered specifically forbidden arms sales to Iran to the tune of some $30 million in profits. Even more shocking, the report went on to say that the entire amount had been secretly turned over to Nicaraguan Right-wing “Contra” guerillas to aid in their efforts to overthrow their established “Sandinista” government (an act that was also strictly forbidden by the “Boland Amendment” passed by Congress in 1984) because agents of the then-Administration of U.S. President Ronald Reagan believed the Sandinista government leaned just a bit too far toward the political Left.
Every effort was then made by the Reagan Administration to deny the allegations and discredit the source of the article; however, later that same month, Attorney General Edwin Meese determined that the illegal sale of arms to Iran and the additionally illegal transfer of those funds to the Contras had indeed taken place.
While indictments of culpability for these acts never extended as high as the Cabinet or President Reagan himself, the “Tower Commission Report”, a special Congressional investigative panel’s final determination document, did conclude that, at the very least, President Reagan, his advisors and Cabinet Officers had demonstrated a complete lack of control over the blatantly illegal actions of the NSC and the CIA.
The indictment and conviction of Lt. Colonel North were later overturned by a higher court and McFarlane, Poindexter and other participants in the scandal were granted personal presidential pardons by the newly-elected President, George Herbert Walker Bush (Vice-President under Ronald Reagan), almost immediately after being sworn in as President.
…the crazy conspiracy theories of yesterday sometimes become the sad, indelible truths of tomorrow…
We must always keep in mind that when we speak of “the U.S. government”, we are really talking about the people who are employed by it and the people who administrate it. “The Government” can’t really do anything… “The Government” is an inanimate object -- incapable of performing illegal or unconscionable acts; however, the people who run it are another story… They are human beings… And, as such, they are subject to all of the frailties and potential for moral corruption to which all human beings are subject.
That is why it is the duty of every, single U.S. citizen to be vigilant, observant and exacting in their assessment of the actions taken by their government and always with an eye to The Constitution of the United States of America and its stated dedication to equal justice under the law, individual civil rights and the principles of Freedom, Liberty and Equal Opportunity -- not just for the citizens of our own country but for each and every human being on the face of the planet.
That is why words such as “our leaders would never lie to us about such a thing” have no place here… Words such as these make us complacent, lazy and detached in what should be our fierce promotion and defense, should that become necessary, of the sacred truths upon which this country was founded.
We must never forget that…the crazy conspiracy theories of yesterday sometimes become the sad, indelible truths of tomorrow…and it’s up to each and every one of us to do our utmost to make certain things don’t turn out that way…
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