Cosmic Right vs. Cosmic Left

Into the conspiracy underground.

“My personal feeling is that citizens of the democratic societies should undertake a course of intellectual self-defence to protect themselves from manipulation and control, and to lay the basis for more meaningful democracy.”

Noam Chomsky.

Conspiracies exist. For example, throughout most of the post-war era the CIA and the American government were actively involved in the drugs trade, aiding and facilitating drugs traffickers in the production, distribution and smuggling of illegal drugs throughout the world, as part of their war on Communism. This fact was first documented by Alfred McCoy in his groundbreaking book The Politics of Heroin in South East Asia, originally published in 1972, and attested to by numerous investigations ever since.

Likewise COINTELPRO activities from 1956 to 1971 saw the FBI involved in covert operations to disrupt and undermine American domestic political organisations, such as anti-war groups and civil rights organizations, using psychological warfare, forgery, fake reports, entrapment, harassment, false imprisonment, violence and (probably) assassination.

Most conspiracies get very little coverage in the mainstream media. Often, when a report does appear, the bulk of the news outlets will work together to attack the reporter rather than investigating the story, as happened to Gary Webb in the 1990s. For those of you who don’t know this story, check out the 2014 film Kill the Messenger, directed by Michael Cuesta.

Most of this was going on long before the Internet was established and it’s unlikely to have stopped since. The Internet itself has become the latest battleground in the ongoing disruption, distraction and disinformation that has overtaken our world, so it’s hardly surprising that there’s an explosion of online speculation about the nature and source of such activities.

Conspiracy theories exist because conspiracies exist. I never tire of saying that. In a world where the vast majority of the population is entirely excluded from the decision-making process, in which faceless corporations game us with glamour and false advertising, in which clandestine organizations manipulate our politics, where the uber-rich hide their profits in offshore bank accounts and pay less taxes than their cleaners, where war is profit, children starve and the rest of the planet’s inhabitants are considered of no value whatsoever, where else can we turn for an explanation?

Whether you think that Satan-worshipping pedophiles are behind it, giant lizards, or just the ruling class, most of us are wrapped up in our own conspiracy beliefs. The alternative—that the world is completely out of control, driverless, heading fast for a precipice of no one’s making—is almost too horrible to contemplate.

Read more here.

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