Just A Conspiracy Theory... I Think.

How do I respond to articles such as this one?

There's a problem with conspiracy theories: They aren't always wrong. Usually they are. Usually there's nothing more to them than paranoid delusions on the part of people who want to believe someone is out to get them.

On the other hand, history is rife with examples of conspiracies which turned out to be real and true.

In the link I linked to above, journalist Naomi Wolf lists what she says are the 10 steps invariably taken when those high in the government of a free and open society want to close it down into fascism. She then goes on to detail each of the 10, how they have each been used historically, and detailing examples of how each are being used in the United States today.

Of course, the mark of a good conspiracy theory, a good scare tactic, is that it draws you in and makes itself seem reasonable. And so you sit and you ponder and you wonder. This one goes out of its way to show how as these steps are happening, the vast majority of the society to which it is happening remain blissfully unaware until it is far too late.

And so you don't want to be the poor schmuck who sat by and watched as his great nation crumbled around his ears, but you also don't want to be the sap who got taken in by someone who wrote a batch of reasonable sounding conspiracy nonsense just to increase sales of their book.

The hell of it is, many of the things she's pointing out are things I've mentioned here on this blog and elsewhere, things which I think bode ill for the United States and all she stands for, things which I'm afraid the vast majority of citizens aren't even noticing. So it's not like Ms. Wolf's list is a batch of "Wow, I didn't know that was happening!" assertions, it's a long list of things I already knew from independent sources were happening.

And so I sit here, in my bed, huddled in a ball and worrying. Wondering whether I'm better off avoiding being taken in by a paranoid conspiracy theorist, or whether in the end the potential risks inherent in a world where Ms. Wolf is correct in her conclusions is worth risking looking like another crackpot conspiracy theorist, just in case.

I wish I felt better tonight.

Liam.

P.S. I'm trying to take solace in the notion that if things were really as bad as Naomi Wolf would have us believe, she'd be putting herself in grave danger by publishing this article and her book on the topic. Thus, if she really believed things were that bad, she'd be taking some precautions, not going around in a high profile book tour. My problem isn't that I think she's necessarily right in her final conclusion about the direction this country is headed in, but that it brings up (again) many of the things I find most frightening about our country and our government in the years since my son's 8th birthday (9/11/2001). Whether President Bush is covertly trying to take down America, or simply ineptly eroding the foundations unintentionally, I still see it happening. Does it really matter if it's him or someone else later on that actually knocks the building down?