The Conspiracist

We Americans are way too likely to trust our institutions. Sure, we have a few whackos (visionaries?) who claim that Timothy McVeigh was the fall guy for the FBI or that a cabal of Masons really killed JFK. But for the most part, we attribute failure to “bad apples” and success to hard work. Wake up, people! Get paranoid!

Americans are, by nature, less paranoid than other peoples. Someone once said that if you want people in the Middle East to believe you about something, you’ll need to frame it in the form of a conspiracy. Great approach! Those Middle Easterners are on to something! Why? Because believing in a conspiracy motivates people to take action!

Look at some recent events that were OBVIOUSLY driven by conspiracies.

The Abu Ghraib prison mess. OBVIOUSLY there was widespread torture and abuse. And OBVIOUSLY it was policy to torture and abuse prisoners. But we’re told the bad deeds were the work of a “few bad apples” and there’s no conspiracy and so we shouldn’t worry, we should go back to working and shopping and surfing the Internet in our pajamas–evil has not been done in our names, and we can sleep peacefully at night. We wanted to believe this bedtime story, so we did, despite THE EVIDENCE.

Another example. The 2000 Presidential Election. OBVIOUSLY stolen. I’m not even talking about partisan politics here. Not judging the “winner.” Not advocating for the “loser.” Just stating the facts that are obvious to all paranoid peoples around the world. But not to us Americans. We don’t want to believe in the conspiracy–therefore, it was a very close race decided by our upstanding institutions–the election process, the Supreme Court, and a bunch of patriotic lawyers. And Santa Claus. And Jesus.

So has anything changed with these issues? Has torture in Our Names been ended? Will the next President be elected legitimately? No, No and No. (Or Maybe, Maybe and Maybe. There’s no way of knowing for sure!!!!!!!!) By WANTING to BELIEVE in our INSTITUTIONS and in BAD APPLES and in GOOD INTENTIONS and HARD WORK and in THE BEDTIME STORIES OUR MEDIA MASTERS TELL US, we don’t fix our problems, we don’t live up to our own ideals, and we don’t get angry enough to do anything about it. Being paranoid and getting angry GET IN THE WAY of watching UGLY BETTY on our iPods.

Have you ever tried to watch UGLY BETTY on your iPod while feeling paranoid and angry? You can’t do it!!!!! There’s a conspiracy to make us not be paranoid.

Q: What’s the opposite of paranoid?
A: WATCHING UGLY BETTY ON YOUR iPOD! BELIEVING YOUR VOTE WILL COUNT! SLEEPING SOUNDLY AT NIGHT!

If you love America, get PARANOID!

RESIST THE ANTI-CONSPIRACY CONSPIRACY!!!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 18th, 2007 at 7:49 pm and is filed under Of Apocalyptic Consequence, Don't Trust the Government, Don't Trust Anybody. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.