Fwd: Conspiracy Theories

[Guest guest]

Conspiracy theories

Did Jesus and Ronald McDonald blow up the levees?

 

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson

9/10/05

http://www.mytown.ca/zepp

 

If you spend any time at all on the web, you’ll encounter a

conspiracy

theory for just about anything. Along with the usual ones

about the

Illuminati and the Elders of Zion, you’ll find conspiracy

theories about

such things as the twin towers being rigged with implosives

several days

before 9/11, or of human sacrifice by the nation’s ruling

elite in a

redwood grove in central California, or that the ruling

class of

humanity are secretly extraterrestrial lizards. After that,

it can get

sorta strange.

 

Today, for example, several people breathlessly told me

that someone had

deliberately blown up the levees around New Orleans, and

that it was

these sinister types with explosives, and not hurricane

Katrina, that

caused the city to flood.

 

This particular conspiracy theory is unconvincing. The

variations are an

unnamed member of the Army Corps of Engineers finds a piece

of debris

from the busted levee. It has scorch marks, and recognizing

instantly

that it could only come from an explosion, he sends it to a

trusted lab

for analysis. The lab reports that there is residue of two

esoteric

types of underwater explosives found (fast work for a

military lab) and

we’re off to the races. Someone obviously blew up the

levee.

 

OK, I’m going to hazard a guess that it was the Baton Rouge

Chamber of

Commerce. Baton Rouge (and note the close similarity in

name to the

murderous regime known as Khmer Rouge! Coincidence? I think

NOT!) were

out of their collective minds with despair and a deep sense

of injustice

because for years, school children around America would

identify the

state capital of Louisiana as being New Orleans. Sometimes

teachers

wouldn’t even correct them! Anyone from Sacramento or

whatever the hell

the name of the state capital in New York is can tell you

how bad that

feels. Especially when schoolkids identify New Orleans as

the capital of

New York. So when Katrina approached, Baton Rouge saw their

opportunity

and murdered New Orleans! Mardi Gras, my ass!

 

There’s two things to remember about conspiracy theories.

They aren’t

always goofy, and more important, they aren’t always wrong.

Nor are the

two different elements necessarily aligned; some of the

goofiest

theories I’ve heard were the ones that turned out to be

true. The US

really did use NY subway riders as guinea pigs in an

experiment to test

how gases spread through the tunnels. We really did perform

medical

experiments on Cubans, retarded kids, and soldiers exposed

to radiation

from the test atomic blasts.

 

And a third element is that there is enough real bullshit

going on that

often conspiracy theories are just gilding the lily. Even

if the theory

that someone blew up the levees turns out to be a load of

crap (which is

what I expect), there remains the fact that there was

something very

strange and very different about the national disaster

response in this

case.

 

In previous essays, we’ve talked about the general

ineptitude of Putsch

as a leader (The “My Pet Goat” syndrome, in which he

freezes – “goes

tharn” – in a crisis) and the ideological failure wrought

by the “get

government off my back” crowd that seems to think that

everyone could be

self-reliant and capable without any assistance in an event

such as a

major hurricane strike.

 

Now let’s talk about the entities that stood to GAIN from

the poor

response to Katrina. And that’s why I mentioned conspiracy

theories in

the beginning of this essay, since the immediate response

of any

rational person is that nobody could possibly expect to

gain from a

catastrophe like Katrina, and blow off anything else said

as just

conspiracy mongering.

 

There are two groups, both inimical to the government, who

would like to

a) make the public feel vulnerable and b) have demonstrated

the utter

inability of the government to assuage those concerns.

 

The first are the corporations. For years, they’ve been

using the GOP to

weaken government. This is called “creating a favorable

business

climate” and what it really intends to do is create a power

vacuum where

corporations can take over, more and more, the lives of

their consumers

and employees.

Their role in the events leading up to the failure of FEMA

last week

seems clear enough. Tax cuts, which heavily favored

corporations and

their managers, forced the GOP regime to make deep cuts in

government

services to the poorest and neediest of Americans. They are

the main

instigators behind the “you don’t need the nanny government

to run your

life. You are free and independent and can deal with us

mano a mano”

libertarian movement. And of COURSE you can depend on the

corporations

having your very best interests at heart once that darn

government isn’t

around to protect you from them.

 

A good example of how far they would go came this week,

when the

Congress approved a $50 billion emergency omnibus bill for

New Orleans

and other areas wrecked by Katrina. One amendment that the

GOP shot down

without discussion was a rider that exempted victims of

Katrina – people

who had lost their homes, their jobs, everything – from the

draconian

bankruptcy bill going into effect next month. Just because

a little

storm comes along doesn’t prevent you from paying what you

owe

MasterCard, you know. Oh, yes, and Putsch unilaterally

declared that

government agencies in the region could just ignore the

“prevailing

wage” rule and pay as little as they thought they could get

away with to

people desperate for jobs.

 

WalMart has been a model of corporate good citizenship

during the

recovery efforts in the Gulf, and indeed, they have a good

track record

of supplying goods and services when disasters strike. But

I’m sure that

they weren’t entirely upset when FEMA inexplicably stopped

a large

convoy of WalMart trucks bringing food, fresh water and

shelter to

people in the afflicted areas and turned them back. Not

only did it

bring media focus to WalMart’s efforts to help, but it made

them look

like the good guys fighting against an evil and inefficient

government,

and I doubt they minded that very much.

 

The other faction interested in destroying the secular

government of

America and replacing it with something else is the

religious faction –

the Dominionists. Nominally Christian, this lot resembles

the folks at

your local church about as much as the Gestapo resembles

the Salvation

Army. They’re called Dominionists because they believe

Jesus should have

dominion over the United States, and they want nothing less

than to make

the United States a theocracy, one where people can go to

jail or be

severely punished for heresy, blasphemy, or simple

non-belief. Nor is

this just some loony-fringe movement for disaffected

bible-bangers. Some

of the names of the Dominionists are familiar – Pat

Robertson, Jerry

Falwell, Ralph Reed. Some are surprising: Sun Myung Moon,

the deranged

messianic figure of the Unification Church of Korea, owner

of the

Washington Times, UPI, and Insight magazine, is a heavy

hitter in the

group. Mel Gibson is in it.

 

Some of the names are chilling: Clarence Thomas. Antonin

Scalia. About

three dozen members of Congress, ten Senators.

 

And, in all likelihood, the President of the United States.

 

This is not just fundamentalist nuttery. This is full-scale

anti-American political ideology using Faith as its shield

and its

justification for setting up a religious tyranny. These

people aren’t

just looking to “bring Jesus into public life.” These

people want the

western equivalent of Iran, the Europe of the 11th century.

Sovereignty

will pass from the people (they regard that as secular

humanism, as bad

in their eyes as atheism or communism) to God.

 

They want a weak and ineffective government, and more to

the point, they

want people to think that the government that represents

their interests

LOOKS weak and ineffective, so Jesus can look big and

strong.

 

In a government hag-ridden with fascists and falangists,

both working

together to destroy government so they can fill the

resulting power

vacuum, don’t expect government to work very well. It isn’t

supposed to

when they are in power.

 

Now. Wanna talk about conspiracy theories? Or is real life

good enough

for now?

 

--

If you're poor and steal during a national crisis, you're a

looter.

If you're rich and steal during a national crisis, you're a

Republican.

 

Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!

Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.

 

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peace. "

Jimi Hendrix