It’s All A Giant Conspiracy! (part 1)
I recently wrote a song called “Take Me Back”. The first verse of the song goes;
“Strange days these days I say, things are upside down
Strange times these days I find, there’s madness going round”
That is certain, there is insanity going around the world these days, in various and evil forms. No matter what side of the political spectrum you fall on, conspiracy theories abound. On the left, they view Trump and his supporters as white supremacists, that are the greatest threat to democracy in our nation’s history. That our country is systemically racist, and only a “Great Reset” can change centuries of tyranny by a white Euro-centric culture. They will point out how our founders were all slave owners, and Masons, who believed that owning slaves was no problem. That our country was founded on racist principles, and therefore needs to be torn down, so that there can be a true equality among people. They will point to our sad history of enslaving Africans and the civil rights struggles they endured for so long. The genocide of native Indians, as proof of these horrible allegations. Our county’s history is littered with horrible, unjust, often bigoted, actions done by the people in charge, all of whom were white. A lot of them would be considered racist and extremists in today’s terms. The problem with that is you can’t judge the past actions of someone in today’s perspective, it lacks the necessary context. This isn’t an excuse for abominable behavior, it just means you have to look at everything, whether it be history, books, entertainment, whatever, in its proper context. I had a pastor who told me once “a text without context is a pretext”. You must apply discernment and the proper context to truly evaluate history.
On the other side there are numerous theories on the right regarding a deep state cabal that is working with the U.N. (which is basically run by the C.C.P.) to institute a “One World Government” with China as the predominate power, using their Belt and Road program to gain footholds in various governments. They point to U.N. groups like the W.H.O. whose leader Tedros Ghebreyesus was installed by the C.C.P. They will point to the World Economic Forum in Davos, where the video promoting the conference actually came out and said “In the future you will own nothing and be happier”, and are talking out loud about the “Great Reset”. This is said by the richest people in the world, who most certainly will still continue to own stuff. They look at the obvious problems with our last election as further proof of this nefarious plot. (That is a subject for an entire blog in itself).
My purpose for writing this is not to prove whether any of these theories are true. Perhaps, later in this series I’ll get into the nuts and bolts of some of the more probable ones. However, I did a bit of research into some conspiracy theories that have actually been proven to be true. My favorite one was the story that there is a link between the Illuminati and the N.S.A., and if you type “illuminati” backwards on a google search, you land on the N.S.A website! I did this, it worked and it literally sent a shiver down my spine! You can’t tell me that that isn’t a bit strange. Anyway, what I want to explore is the reason why we are so willing to believe them. I am just an average bloke, hence the name of this blog “meanderings of a COMMON man”. I don’t have any special training, or education in psychology, or anything like that, just a high school diploma. What I do have is the perspective of a common man, as someone who sees all the madness going around and needs to try to find a way to make some sort of sense of it all.
Conspiracy theories are a phenomenon that have existed for centuries, from the anti-Semitic beliefs that Jews consumed the blood of Christians in the middle ages, and were responsible for the rise of communism, to the MK Ultra theory, which in the words of my youngest daughter is “hella scary”, particularly because a lot of it turned out to be true, the C.I.A. DID do LSD experiments on people. Why are people, myself included, so willing to accept something that on the surface seems too outrageous to believe? Speaking for myself, I see the insanity going around, and all of the things that just don’t make sense, and I need to find a reason why all this is happening. It used to be that you could trust our sources of information, but with all of the “fake news” out there that has become an impossibility. I get a chuckle out of my generation of people that are now in the news business that used to constantly preach about how we can’t trust the government “F**K the establishment”, “down with the man” and “speak truth to power”. They are now the ones that are saying we should trust what the current administration is telling us. Without dependable sources of information, I’ve had to resort to surfing the web for reliable news. Obviously doing this is problematic as a lot of the info out on the web is as full of b.s. as the main stream media. Even the stuff that has been so called “fact checked” can’t be trusted, because the “fact checkers” themselves have been shown to have a bias, Snopes for example is good at the “mostly false” or “mostly true” to push their left leaning politics. The only thing left to do then is to research everything. Get multiple independent sources for your news and views, from both sides of the aisle. You do have to be very careful however, because you’ll start going down rabbit holes, with the truth getting mixed up with facts that can be interpreted in different ways, depending on your world view. That’s where the theories come into the picture, the deeper you dive into a subject, the more conspiracy theories you start to run into. Then, you run into like-minded people. That starts you to thinking that there must be something to this, because all of these people are saying the same thing. All of the sudden you find yourself in an echo chamber, where all your research and information is tainted by your own prejudice, and you disregard opposing views because they don’t fit the paradigm. This lack of objectivity is the breeding ground for conspiracy theories. Precisely what the purveyors of these theories are counting on. With everything and everyone being so divided these days, the field is ripe for extremists and just plain wackjobs to reap this harvest of insanity. Some of these are so outlandish that they can and ought to be dismissed outright. Some of them however are VERY plausible. The people promoting these stories have done a lot of research, and form a very believable circumstantial case for their theory. You can check their research and confirm that what they are saying is factual. But is it actually true? That depends on your interpretation of the evidence, and what sources you used. Your interpretation is based on your belief system, if what you are researching coincides with your beliefs, then you are more than likely to give it some credence. If it doesn’t, obviously you are more inclined to dismiss it. That is why some people are dismissed as “crazy conspiracy wackos” while others are lauded as brave, fearless warriors speaking truth to power. I believe that this is the primary reason for the proliferation of so many of the conspiracy theories we see today, we have become such a divided society, and everyone wants to prove that their side is righteous.
In a world that has seemingly spiraled out of control. Where it seems like there is one set of rules for the ruling class, and their constituents and another for everyone else. Where lies and disinformation have become commonplace. Where it appears as if we are being divided intentionally. People are struggling to find an answer that will explain all this madness. One man’s truth is another man’s wild conspiracy.
The key, to me at least, is discernment. As I was, and still am, and will continue to do, researching this project, I have to try and check my prejudices at the door. To try and eliminate the natural confirmation bias that is inherent to the human condition. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, “Don’t trust and always verify”, at least as much as you can. To try and not succumb to the zeitgeist so prevalent in the world today. The perpetrators of any good conspiracy theory will always cite “facts” that back up their beliefs. I try to check ALL of those out, and the rabbit holes they lead down. Then I check out what the naysayers are saying about the facts cited, then I check out the source for those naysayers to see where they are coming from. Because guess what? People Lie! I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true! Oftentimes the best source of confirmation, that I’ve found, are the actual sources of the conspiracies themselves. The U.N. for example has facts listed on their website that confirm a great many of the facts that the theory is postulating. In the end, it’s up to each of us as individuals to evaluate the information provided, to be as objective as possible and form our own conclusions. That is discernment. You need to look at the whole picture, not just your little corner of the world. We are so interconnected these days. What happens in some remote part of the world, Myanmar for instance, can have a great impact on the rest of the world for reasons you may not understand. You can’t just dismiss something as just some wild ass conspiracy theory, because history has shown us that some of these outlandish speculations have proven to be real. Practice discernment, research, research, research, there are truth tellers out there, the truth is out there, we just have to be unafraid to face it.
As always, brothers and sisters, ROCK ON Y’ALL!