“For the first time in history, ordinary people now can spread their
opinions, no matter how hateful or eccentric, without them first gaining
approval of editors, publishers, broadcasters, or paying consumers.”
A British journalist who just interviewed me asked me to tick off the “top
10 conspiracy theories” making the rounds. In no particular order, here’s
what I came up with:
- 9/11 Truth: The notion that elements within the
American government engineered the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a pretext
to attack Afghanistan and Iraq.
- Obama Birtherism: The notion that Barack Obama is
an illegal alien who is constitutionally ineligible to be U.S. president
and, in its more ambitious variants, is a Manchurian Candidate-style
pawn of some nefarious foreign power, such as Islamism or communism.
- Vaccine conspiracy theories: These take several
forms. But the most popular is the enduring hoax that the MMR vaccine
causes autism. Another has it that seasonal flu vaccines are part of a
plot to exterminate human beings to “cull the herd”
- HAARP: The High Frequency Active Auroral Research
Program, based in Alaska, is a radio research facility that, for some
reason, has become an object of fascination among conspiracy theorists.
They blame everything from Japan’s earthquakes to American tornadoes on
HAARP.
- “Chemtrails.” This is what conspiracy theorists
call contrails — the white streams of condensation that emit from
passenger aircraft and appear as white lines in the sky. They are
harmless, but conspiracy theorists are certain that they contain harmful
chemicals meant to poison us or render us docile for the benefit of the
powers that be.
- Bilderbegers. The Bilderberg meeting takes place
every year as a wonky transatlantic confab involving American and
European elites discussing foreign policy and international trade.
Conspiracy theorists have decided that it is actually a sort of
all-controlling star chamber where the fate of the world is decided.
- FEMA concentration camps. There is a widespread
belief among American conspiracy theorists that the Federal Emergency
Management Agency — which provides help to victims of such disasters as
Hurricane Katrina — is actually part of a secret plot to imprison
millions of American “dissidents,” take away their guns, and otherwise
turn patriots into prisoners of Washington’s tyrants.
- Water fluoridation. Yes, this one is still around —
even though water fluoridation has been used safely for well over half a
century. Water fluoridation claim that the technology was invented by
the Nazis as a means to control captive populations.
- Global warning conspiracy theories. Many
conservatives have become convinced that the global warming is a
deliberate fraud designed by Luddites to destroy the world’s
corporations and push humanity back to the pre-industrial age.
- Libyan conspiracy theories. A popular theory making
the rounds is that Obama attacked Libya because Qaddafi was going to
switch Libya, and the rest of Africa, onto a pan-African currency called
the “gold dinar,” which would destroy the supremacy of the U.S. dollar,
empower the world’s poor, and bankrupt Western nations.
