COVID 19 is FAKE! Trump won in 2020! Vaccines don't work!
Literally millions of people honestly believe these and other such things. It is generally assumed that they are nuts. I don't think so.
These people are situating their belief systems in such a way as to adjust to the aspect of lying that has become the staple of Western political life.
Put another way, they have been lied to so often by so many, that the truth is no longer clear to them, and anything that seems to break through the assumed lies to an "alternate reality" often seems accurate, especially if it accords with their religious beliefs, economic status, and views on race.
Three time-honoured examples of...
The Lies That Launched An Age of Conspiracy!
Let's Wag the Dog!! - The Second Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
The USA launched its intervention in Vietnam after North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked two American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam on two separate occasions. Except that the second attack never happened.
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that was placed before Congress to launch the war said this..
“Naval units of the Communist regime in Vietnam, in violation of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law, have deliberately and repeatedly attacked United States naval vessels lawfully present in international waters, and have thereby created a serious threat to international peace..."
Former Secretary of State, Robert McNamara, admitted in 2003 that the second attack that was relied upon to justify the war never occurred.
Filthy Bill Rides Again! - Bill Clinton.
The man is a pig, plain and simple. Long before we discovered that he had been on the Lolita Express thirty times (i.e. Jeffrey Epstein's aircraft which ferried teen girls to be exploited on his rape island), Bill famously claimed this, under oath...
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky..."
Except that he did. Because of this lie and other actions, he was impeached by the House of Representatives and disbarred from practicing law in Arkansas.
Watch Bill's lie here...he is the master...you almost believe him even now!
Bill Clinton Lie - I DID NOT HAVE Sexual Relations with that Woman (Lewinsky) - YouTube
When he was finally cornered like a rat...
(32) When Clinton admitted to the Lewinsky affair - YouTube
Blow Up Trust Real Good!...The Missing Weapons of Mass Destruction.
In 2003, then President George W Bush justified an invasion of Iraq on Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction. The only problem with this was that he didn't actually have any. The Americans and their allies spent years looking for weapons that were not there.
Did they lie? Most people assume they did, and that the USA wanted to get at Iraq and used this excuse to do so. Certainly, the UN did not think there were any weapons there, having done hundreds of inspections before the war turning up exactly nothing. There is no question the American Government knew this when they claimed - falsely - that weapons would be found.
Public Discourse...
Along with these lies there has emerged a new standard in public political commentary as news outlets moved from reporting the news to commenting on it. The effect of this has been multiplied many times by the advent of social media, which operates absent almost any sense of responsibility regarding political and other such comment.
There is BIG money in spreading conspiracies, and tapping into the new staple of Western political life, which is The Big Lie. Maybe this isn't evil, just normal?
We used to live in the shadows of Giants...Lincoln, Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr. Today we cower after having sunk into a new post-reason Dark Age made more sinister by the lights of a perverted information technology.
But wait! There is more!
One final note on the method of conspiracy theorists.
The method of conspiracy is to assume a fantastical reality, then go looking for the evidence to prove it. The scientific and historical method does the opposite, where one seeks to engage in a search for evidence first, and then reach conclusions reflecting wherever the search has taken you afterward, with no preconditions. The first and illegitimate method is only possible in the Information Age, where all manner of evidence is available to anyone to abuse as they see fit.
Has unlimited access to information made us the most dishonest generation ever?
