Of late, there has been a feeling that the conspiracy theorists have been vindicated. For years they tried to tell us about how the moon landing was faked, how 9/11 was an inside job, how Covid-19 is either a fake illness, or at least a less harmful one than the authorities are saying it is, and nothing they said was taken seriously. Alex Jones, probably the world’s most famous conspiracy theorist, was sometimes invited onto news shows, seemingly because his ranting provided a bit of light entertainment as opposed to believing he had anything of substance to say. It seemed clear to say that conspiracy theorists were, to put it bluntly, a laughing stock.
But then, something happened that shook that certainty that conspiracy theorists were just a bunch of people that needed to take the phrase “touch grass” a lot more seriously. And that was, the release of the Epstein files, which I’ve written about here:
It’s important to note that not all of the Epstein files have been released, because, well, certain powerful people are in them. But the release of the files that were released, I feel, shook the certainty that I, and I think, many other people had about the world. A certainty that the bad things in the world weren’t all a big conspiracy, as such, but rather that bad, powerful people, did bad things, in a way that wasn’t necessarily conspiratorial.
What then, are we to make of the recent revelations of not just a conspiracy, but an utterly sick conspiracy, to traffic girls and women and commit the most heinous acts of sexual assault and rape against them? I always understood that the people of power, did evil things, not because they got up every day and said, “Today I’m going to do something evil”, but simply because they didn’t care, one way or the other. They didn’t seek evil acts, it’s just that they didn’t care whether their actions were good or evil, and it just so happened that getting what they wanted brought them closer to evil acts. But what Epstein did, and what his extremely powerful associates did, almost seems, absurdly evil.
I’m always the first to say, no, you are wrong, the moon landing happened. Likewise, I’m always the first to say, no, while the U.S government exploited the tragedy of 9/11, they did not commit the 9/11 attacks. And I’m always the first to say that the Covid vaccine was not some government plot for control but was a necessary measure to keep people safe during an international health crisis. And sure, the governments of the world didn’t bring out the Covid vaccine in order to necessarily do the right thing, but rather because they were afraid they’d be voted out if the body count caused by Covid got too high. And, even a year ago, if you’d said to me, the vast majority of those in power are involved in, or at least know and don’t say anything, about a massive network of human trafficking that commits the most despicable acts of human cruelty, I would have instantly lumped that in with 9/11 trutherism or Covid denial, and got on with my day.
In a word, I wouldn’t have taken it seriously. But the recent Epstein revelations had me for the last few weeks asking the question, should we all just be conspiracy theorists now?
But wait, haven’t there always been conspiracies?
So I should start by asking, why is being a conspiracy theorist viewed as irrational, when conspiracies are most certainly a thing that exists? I mean, have you heard of the Iran-Contra affair?
The Iran-Contra affair was most certainly a conspiracy. Reagan was a big supporter of the Contras in Nicaragua. But congress was unhappy about the fact that much of the Contras’s funding came from the cocaine trade. So congress passed the Boland Ammendment, which meant that the United States could no longer fund the Contras.
Reagan’s response to this was, to keep funding the Contras anyway in secret. He did this by giving Iran weapons, and a substantial sum of money, in exchange for them releasing seven American hostages. 30 million dollars was allocated to pay for these weapons, but, some of that money went missing. And when I say some of it went missing, I mean 18 million dollars were secretly sent to the Contras.
Congress says Reagan can’t fund the Contras, can’t give them so much as a penny, and he sends them, 18 million dollars. That is a fairly large conspiracy.
So conspiracies definitely exist. Hell, the idea that they exist is even enshrined in law:
So it is not, and never has been the case, that conspiracies don’t exist. So why is there such skepticism of people we typically refer to as conspiracy theorists?
Conspiracies Don’t Explain Everything
I feel there is a big difference between looking at the evidence, and trying to figure out whether or not a conspiracy has occurred, and believing that pretty much everything that shapes our lives is part of a conspiracy. Think about it, why would everything the governments of the world do even need to be a conspiracy? Have you seen the shit they pull right in front of us?
Ireland has violated its own neutrality laws over and over again.
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/ireland-fight-end-us-military-use-shannon-airport
https://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/shannon-airport-iran
They just do it. No need for a conspiracy, they just say, “Your attention please, we are about to violate Ireland’s neutrality laws”, and they violate Ireland’s neutrality laws. It would be a costly, time consuming, and pointless exercise to commit a conspiracy to violate Ireland’s neutrality, when they can just do that shit in the open.
Or sometimes, random shit happens, and the powers that be exploit it. Take World War I. That was an excellent case study of exploiting random shit that happened.
World War I was a valiant attempt to heroically something something basically it was a land grab. And sure, they’d have come up with an excuse to do World War I sooner or later, regardless. But the inciting incident came about due to, well, random chance.
The first attempt to assassinate Franz Ferdinand failed spectacularly. The first two assassins failed to act, only Nedeljko Čabrinović actually attempted anything, throwing a bomb at Ferdinand’s car, which bounced off the car, injuring twenty innocent bystanders.
Knowing the consequences he would face, Čabrinović attempted to take his own life, but, bless him, he couldn’t even do that properly. The cyanide pill he took was a dud, and then he threw himself into a river that turned out to be only four inches deep. It almost seems like he should have been nominated for whatever the opposite of a Darwin Award is.
So, it looked as if the inciting incident that would start off World War I, would not happen. But, random chance, random, weird, unbelievable chance had something else to say about it.
The driver in Ferdinand’s car, took a wrong turn. And drove onto the same street where one of the plotters, Gavrilo Princip, just happened to be sitting in a cafe, no doubt comfort drinking a particularly unhealthy coffee in despondency over the failure of the plot. But then, no doubt to his most amazing surprise, he saw Franz Ferdinand right in front of him! He took his chance, and killed Franz Ferdinand there and then.
And that’s the story of how World War I kicked off, where the heroic muscular men of the toxic masculinity did a massive land grab.
This isn’t to say there aren’t high level conspiracies. There most certainly are. But I think it’s important to not fall into the trap of thinking all things are a conspiracy. Sometimes it’s a conspiracy. Sometimes they just do the shit they do, right in the open. And sometimes, a massive, horrific, shameful war can be kicked off by, well, a comedy of errors. That’s just the way it goes sometimes.
Have The Epstein Revelations Changed How I Think About The World?
The revelations about the absolutely despicable crimes committed by Epstein, and the rich, powerful people who stood by his side, have caused me to question my beliefs a bit. Indeed, before all this happened, if somebody had told me that Epstein didn’t kill himself, I would have just dismissed that as conspiracy theory nonsense. But I now think it’s plausible that somebody assassinated Epstein in order to silence him, so that he wouldn’t reveal information that would put the other people in his inner circle in danger of prosecution for their crimes. I don’t know if that’s what happened, but I now think it’s plausible, while I didn’t before.
The whole thing has really made me struggle with my worldview. Indeed I have asked the question, do me, and people with similar politics beliefs, owe the conspiracy theorists a massive apology?
Yes, it’s true that things in the world are a bit more conspiratorial than I realized. Indeed, while my difficulty with facial recognition means I can’t really comment on it one way or the other, many people who would not in any way be described as conspiracy theorists have noted that Ghislaine Maxwell, looks, well, kind of different.
Basically, I have no idea. Facial recognition for me is kind of all over the place, I can sometimes recognize someone I haven’t seen in twenty years, other times not recognize someone I only saw a week ago, so yeah, I’m not the right person to really make an assessment on this!
So yeah, it’s plausible that Epstein didn’t kill himself. And it’s, I mean I have to defer to the judgement of people with better facial recognition than me, but they seem to think it’s plausible that that’s not Ghlislaine Maxwell. So a potential fake suicide, and a potential body double. Is it time to hold up the white flag and declare, “You win conspiracy theorists!”?
Why I Still Don’t Think Being A Conspiracy Theorist Is The Answer
So after all I’ve learned, after all of the horrors we’ve all had to come to grips with, in a very short time, my answer is, no. I am still not a conspiracy theorist. As already explained, that doesn’t mean I don’t think conspiracies exist, but rather I feel that, we need to look at the evidence in each and ever case to see if a conspiracy occurred, rather than defaulting to conspiracies as the answer to everything.
The reason I reject a conspiracy theory mindset is because I believe that it contains absolutely no hope for changing the world for the better. If the world is controlled by an extremely well organized cabal who are always ten steps ahead, what, exactly, can we do to stop them? How could we realistically, form any kind of opposition to them? How would we know the opposition we form isn’t part of the conspiracy? If we vote out the current government, how would we know the new government isn’t part of the conspiracy? Hell, if we go all out and just overthrow the government, how would we know the new revolutionary government isn’t part of the conspiracy too?
That probably best explains my main opposition to conspiracy theorists. It leaves you with a load of big ideas about how deep the conspiracy goes, but gives you not a clue on how to stop something so big. It’s not just that I think the evidence shows that some things our governments do are just the result of acting really stupidly and luck still being on their side, though that’s part of it. But my main opposition to a conspiracy theory mindset, is the utter hopelessness it brings.
I will not accept that Epstein’s inner circle are so powerful, so cunning, and so untouchable, that they can never be brought down. They are made of the same flesh and blood as the rest of us, and they CAN be defeated. So, because I have hope that these bastards can be locked up and the key thrown into the deepest hole in the ground, I will reject being a conspiracy theorist every time.
If we allow ourselves to go down the conspiracy rabbit hole, it doesn’t scare those in power, but rather makes them breathe a sigh of relief. Because it puts all our focus on figuring out how vast and how all encompassing the conspiracy is, while our focus should be on taking down the fucking scumbags who raped all of those girls and women.
Let’s keep the focus in the right place.
Ponderings Of An Autist 