I like conspiracy theories. Life is complex and the MSM peddles very simple stories. There's a disconnect somewhere.
When I was a kid I used to love John Buchan novels. The Thirty-Nine Steps and The Powerhouse remain my favourites, although there are many others almost as good. They were about conspiracies to take over the world. Or just to "destroy civilization." The head conspirator was often an immensely wealthy Jew, although nobody realized it because they were always dealing with his underlings. I loved the idea, could identify strongly with both sides, although I realized even then, in an Anglo-dominated world, how absurd the premises really were. Unfortunately, some resourceful, unflappable Englishman, usually a colonial, bought the whole conspiracy crashing down through a combination of iron nerve, common sense and just plain pluck and perseverance, notwithstanding that the conspirators usually had a million-to-one edge on the guy in pure brainpower. The conspirators lacked true grit. Physically the Jews were always grossly inferior specimens, but mentally they were way over the top. I loved the idea that brainpower alone might topple an empire.
During my adolescence, the whole nature of conspiracies changed. Because of Hitler, it was bad taste to speak of Jewish conspiracies or even (as in Buchan's novel, "Prester John," black conspiracies) to destroy civilization or take over the world. Now we had the Communist Conspiracy. This was a huge boon to Republicans, who were able to label the Democrats as soft on communism and a whole generation of meretricious Republicans, Richard Nixon among them, rode the wave right into the White House. The Communist Conspiracy was not only behind "socialized medicine", sex in the movies, fluoridated water, the "loss" of China, permissive child-rearing - - it was even the secret force behind rock 'n roll. I loved the great Communist Conspiracy and it seems, the Republican Party loved it even more. It was a godsend.
The whole nature of the conspiracy industry changed radically with the assassination of JFK and the botched cover-up of the Warren Commission. For the first time in American history, a successful coup d'état had been pulled off. Mark Lane and others smelled a rat. So did most of the world. There was now a real-life conspiracy at the highest levels, something that could and did affect the course of world history and continues to do so even today.
This real-life conspiracy by unknown elements of the U.S. "security" apparatus had a profound effect on conspiracy theories in general. For the first time, there was a strong motive within the U.S. government to thoroughly discredit what had originally been "merely" a literary and then a political concoction. The foundation of the U.S. government itself now rested upon an actual conspiracy, the existence of which was anathema to the legitimacy of that government. Not only had the theory of the conspiracy become something to be totally discredited, the believers in the theory had to be made to look like complete morons.
The first defence was to attack the conspiracy theorists head-on. This soon branched out into the production of alternative conspiracy theories, which proliferated like flies. Obviously some would have come out with or without CIA help, but I think the trend was either welcomed passively or helped along actively by those who needed to delegitimize the "real" conspiracy theorists (those that were in possession of or on the track of the real facts of the conspiracy) so that the present proliferation is the end result. If it was produced without any CIA help, well and good, and if it needed any help to reach its present level, that help was supplied. We all know at least some of the theories by now - - the CIA did it, the Mob did it, Castro did it, the oil industry did it, racist Southerners did it, the Teamsters did it, the Russians did it, some old guy in a nursing home did it - - you name it. It reached a point where anyone with any theory could be safely derided as a "conspiracy nut" or "conspiracy buff" and that would end the discussion. Hopefully, none of the theories would ever even get to the point of serious informed discussion, and that was fine with the people who actually had engineered the death of JFK and the rise of fascism and militarism as the permanent secret government of the U.S.A.
This latest group of conspiracy theories, including 9-11 theories, also is not purely accidental. In 9-11 theory particularly, there are some potentially valid arguments (the financial participation of Pakistan's ISI, for example) which bear discussion, but hopefully that can all be buried under an avalanche of crackpot theories. Again a proliferation of nutty theories both serves to obscure and inhibit reasonable investigation of 9-11 and contributes to the ongoing efforts to put all discussion of alternative theories of the JFK and related killings off-limits for the MSM.
