10 Credible Conspiracy Theories?

Since Obama's election, the constituent theories within the overarching narrative of the New World Order have increasingly made inroads into the mainstream national discourse. ... Joseph Farah's WorldNetDaily.com, for example, has grown its influence by peddling paranoia about the president's birth certificate and AmeriCorps' "domestic armies." Earlier this year, the John Birch Society, a group with a long history of hatching and promoting wild conspiracy theories (including the idea that President Eisenhower was a communist agent), co-sponsored the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual powwow of leading conservatives and Republican Party figures. Speakers at this year's conference included such mainstream names as Washington Post columnist George Will, former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner. Here is a compilation of 10 of the most popular conspiracy theories currently circulating on the radical right and, increasingly, on points of the political spectrum much too close to the center for comfort." – AlterNet

Dominant Social Theme: The lunatics need to be reined in.

Free-Market Analysis: While popular, left-wing website AlterNet cannot be considered mainstream media per se, this article partakes of the modern Western (mostly US) tradition of debunking suspicions that people may have about their government. It is especially a US dominant social theme – that the "paranoid style" of US politics generates fantastical suspicions about the US fedgov's intentions. Various "right wing" nutcases are flagellated for not taking the US-based corporatocracy and military industrial complex at its word.

Never mind that the US government is a US$3 trillion-plus entity with world-spanning power and that entities so powerful and complex have their own logic and their own over-riding agenda. Never mind that the US has been almost constantly at war (somewhere in some fashion) for the past 100 years or longer. (Never mind, in fact, that the US now employs so many domestic and foreign intel operatives that it cannot keep track of them anymore.) In fact, when one looks into AlterNet at Wikipedia it becomes fairly clear that the money behind the group comes from the predictable power-elite pocketbook, including the Ford Foundation which never saw a socialist cause it couldn't endorse and fund. (Henry Ford has been rolling like a top for decades.) Perhaps AlterNet is a promotion, too?

Anyway, such an article is of obvious interest to the Daily Bell because it counteracts (with the calm voice of reason) suspicions that the powers-that-be are in any sense aimed at US citizens themselves. These sorts of articles are actually quite numerous on the 'Net, but this is a very good example of one. Here are the top ten list of conspiracy theories from AlterNet and our comments beneath.

1. Chemtrails: In the world of Patriot antigovernment paranoia, New World Order forces attempt to manipulate and control the unwitting population from every conceivable source and direction -- from the images on your television screen to the very water that comes out of your kitchen tap. In recent years, the New World Order has been meddling most nefariously from above, high among the clouds.

We're certainly not wedded to the idea that Western governments are deliberately spraying poisons into the air regularly or trying to manipulate the weather with a secret intel-op/ airforce program. On the other hand, we did a little digging and found the following reported by the UK Guardian, a mainstream, left-wing paper in Britain (one from which we occasionally excerpt articles) Here's the report, from an April 2002 article, "Millions were in germ war tests ... Much of Britain was exposed to bacteria sprayed in secret trials."

Here's how the article starts: "The Ministry of Defence turned large parts of the country into a giant laboratory to conduct a series of secret germ warfare tests on the public. A government report just released provides for the first time a comprehensive official history of Britain's biological weapons trials between 1940 and 1979. Many of these tests involved releasing potentially dangerous chemicals and micro-organisms over vast swaths of the population without the public being told."

It continues: "In most cases, the trials did not use biological weapons but alternatives which scientists believed would mimic germ warfare and which the MoD claimed were harmless. But families in certain areas of the country who have children with birth defects are demanding a public inquiry. One chapter of the report, 'The Fluorescent Particle Trials', reveals how between 1955 and 1963 planes flew from north-east England to the tip of Cornwall along the south and west coasts, dropping huge amounts of zinc cadmium sulphide on the population. The chemical drifted miles inland, its fluorescence allowing the spread to be monitored. In another trial using zinc cadmium sulphide, a generator was towed along a road near Frome in Somerset where it spewed the chemical for an hour."

2. Martial Law: If Patriot groups fear anything more than the water vapor in the sky, it is the imminent imposition of martial law. A longstanding and central plank of the Patriot catechism is the belief that one day – very soon! – federal forces, in league with the states, will suspend constitutional government and institute a police state. During the first few years after the 9/11 attacks, this fear was also discussed on the left. But what was a temporary concern there has long been an absolute certainty on the far right. Today, hundreds of Patriot groups around the country are actively preparing for the declaration of martial law, some of them by mapping wilderness areas, learning how to set booby traps, studying and practicing guerrilla warfare tactics, and setting up short-wave radio communications systems. The question is not if, but when, the New World Order will come crashing down.

Don't US presidents keep signing executive orders setting forth various states of emergencies and providing the fedgov with ever larger "emergency powers" as a result? Didn't George Bush manage to do away with habeas corpus? Generally there is plenty of reason to believe that the Federal government has at this point convinced itself that it could declare martial law in case of "emergency" of some sort, and attempt to make that declaration stick across the whole of the US.

Here's an excerpt from an October 2008 Infowars article on the subject: "Democratic Congressman: Representatives Were Threatened With Martial Law In America Over Bailout Bill ... Warns that a panic atmosphere is intentionally being nurtured to get bill passed ... A Democratic Congressman has warned that a panic atmosphere is being intentionally created in order to get the financial bailout billed passed, further stating that several members of Congress were told before Monday's vote that martial law will be instigated in America if the legislation fails. ... Congressman Brad Sherman of California's 27th congressional district told the House in a speech yesterday evening that he personally knew of several Congressional representatives who have said they were threatened with the prospect of all out martial law should they vote in opposition to the $700 billion bailout."

Sherman continued, "Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day, another couple of thousand the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no."

3. FEMA Concentration Camps: Following the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Domestic Terrorism held hearings on the Patriot/militia subculture that bred and nurtured the bombers. Throughout the hearings, a running theme expressed by Patriots was a fear that "urban gangs," directed by Washington and possibly acting in concert with U.N. and foreign troops, would sweep in from the coasts, confiscate their guns, and round them up. This home- invasion force would hold down the streets during the imposition of martial law, then send the members of Patriot militias to internment camps run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which most Patriot groups consider to be "the executive arm of the coming police state."

We're not sure about FEMA camps, but the US government HAS been building various "camps." We went looking on the 'Net for information about such camps and found it at World Net Daily among other Internet sites. Now the AlterNet article cites World Net Daily as one of the conspiratorial websites that is responsible for spreading conspiratorial disinformation. But just calling a report conspiratorial doesn't make it so. The information itself must also be suspect, and in this case the reporting seems fairly solid.

Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the May 2007 article: "This way to the camps! ... Directive from Bush allows president extraordinary powers in national crisis ... Halliburton's former engineering and construction subsidiary has a contingency contract with the Department of Homeland Security to construct detention facilities in the event of a national emergency, according to WND columnist Jerome Corsi. As Corsi reported last week, President Bush recently signed a little-reported National Security and Homeland Security Directive granting extraordinary powers to the president in the event of a declared national emergency, apparently without congressional approval or oversight."

The article continues, "Houston-based KBR was awarded an initial $385 million contract in January 2006 for one year, with four one-year options extended into 2007. KBR held a previous emergency detention contract with ICE from 2000 to 2005. ICE spokeswoman Jamie Zuieback told Corsi the primary intent of the contract was to build temporary detention facilities that could be used in the event of a mass migration crisis, but she confirmed the facilities could be employed in national emergencies, including natural disasters."

4. Foreign Troops on U.S. Soil ... While "urban gangs" are considered a leading candidate to enforce a New World Order (NWO) lockdown, they are not the only threatening force clouding the Patriot mind. There is also a belief on the radical right that treasonous government officials are colluding with other governments to suppress Americans with the use of foreign troops. Patriots believe this foreign assistance will be necessary due to the patriotism of America's own troops. As explained on the Patriot website libertyforlife.com, many U.S. active military personnel and veterans would likely refuse orders to suppress the rights of their fellow citizens, and so "the US/NWO/UN government is importing foreign troops into the USA to do what US soldiers did to Iraq." Among the many Patriot groups dedicated to resisting this is the Oath Keepers, made up of veteran and active-duty U.S. military personnel.

What's interesting about this conspiracy theory is that the article itself provides its own debunking (counter argument) in the very next paragraph, as follows: "Whose troops, exactly, would be deployed here? Those of whichever allies the U.S. is partnering with at any given moment. For example, Patriot sites were atwitter with news that, in July 2009, FEMA organized a terrorist-response exercise in conjunction with troops from 14 allied countries, including Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom. After the 2009 exercise, the Web burst with YouTube clips attempting to alert people to the sinister presence of foreign troops."

5. 'Door-to-Door' Gun Confiscations: One of the defining features of Patriot/militia subculture is an obsession with firearms. Patriot groups stockpile them, train using them, and, perhaps most of all, worry about losing them. Any attempt to restrain their gun rights is viewed as the thin-edge-wedge of a New World Order crackdown. Patriots believe it inevitable that NWO forces in black masks and jackboots -- and possibly UN blue helmets -- will one day be sent door to door to take away their weapons by force. This fear is also stoked by mainstream figures within the conservative movement.

There was documented gun confiscation in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, so it seems to us that fears of gun confiscation are at least reasonable. But again we'll let the article itself debunk the particular theory; the article notes in the very next paragraph: "Wayne LaPierre, the president of the National Rifle Association, a major player in the Republican Party coalition, is the author of a book entitled, The Global War on Your Guns: Inside the UN Plan To Destroy the Bill of Rights. In 2006, Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter attached an amendment to a domestic-security spending bill that prohibited the confiscation of legally owned guns during an emergency. The measure passed by a vote of 84-16."

6. 9/11 as Government Plot ... The Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., were seen by both the far left and far right as fitting the bill for an intentional "crisis trigger." In the weeks and months after the attacks, a subculture of "9/11 Truthism" emerged in which the attacks were seen as anything but a simple case of well-trained Al Qaeda operatives flying planes into landmark buildings. Instead, "truthers" argued that the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed by controlled demolitions, that a missile brought down United Airlines 93, and that a missile -- and not an airliner at all -- struck the Pentagon. Who was responsible? The U.S. government, of course. On the far left, the reason seen for attacking the American people was to justify a perpetual state of war; on the far right, it provided an excuse for the government to, at long last, institute a police state.

We've written a good bit about 9/11 here at the Daily Bell. It is in our view the biggest conspiracy theory of them all. One of our analyses focused on a Washington Times story reporting on open questions about 9/11. Here's how the Times article started: "A lingering technical question about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks still haunts some, and it has political implications: How did 200,000 tons of steel disintegrate and drop in 11 seconds? A thousand architects and engineers want to know, and are calling on Congress to order a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center.

And the Times article continued: "'In order to bring down this kind of mass in such a short period of time, the material must have been artificially, exploded outwards,' says Richard Gage, a San Francisco architect and founder of the nonprofit Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Mr. Gage, who is a member of the American Institute of Architects, managed to persuade more than 1,000 of his peers to sign a new petition requesting a formal inquiry. 'The official Federal Emergency Management [Agency] and National Institute of Standards and Technology reports provide insufficient, contradictory and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers' destruction. We are therefore calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials,' Mr. Gage adds." You can see our story here: Washington Times Covers 911 Controversy.

7. Population Control ... For the conspiracy-minded, there is no such thing as an accidental tragedy or historical caprice. Each epidemic, mass industrial poisoning and medical advance (vaccinations, in particular) is just another highly suspicious example of the latest technologies being employed to further the agenda of hidden New World Order forces.

In fact, there are plenty of reasons to believe that the power elite would like to see the population lowered. The United Nations and other global groups have made it a goal, in fact, and the Chinese have gone much farther, making it illegal to have more than one child except in special circumstances. Then there are the engravings on the famous and mysterious Georgia Guidestones calling for a reduction of the world's population to 500 million. And there is the famous quote by Queen Elizabeth's husband Prince Philip (as related by the UK Guardian): "On death: In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, to contribute something to solving overpopulation." (1988)

The elite Club of Rome is well known for its aggressiveness as regards population control. Here's an anecdote as related by the ModernHistoryProject.com; "In 1976, [the COR] published RIO: Reshaping the International Order which called for a new international order, including an economic redistribution of wealth ... During the Carter Administration, a task force was appointed to expand upon this report, and on July 24, 1980, a two-volume document called Global 2000 Report, which had been written by former Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, was presented to President Carter, and then Secretary of State Edward S. Muskie. It attempted to project global economic trends for the next twenty years, and indicated that the resources of the planet were not sufficient enough to support the expect dramatic increase in the world population. The report called for the population of the U.S. to be reduced by 100 million people by the year 2050."

8. HAARP: This is the "Death Star" of the Patriot conspiracy galaxy, around which so many other conspiracies orbit and often intersect. According to the U.S. government, the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program is a joint scientific research project of the Air Force and Navy, based in Gakona, Ala., whose stated purpose is "studying the properties and behavior of the ionosphere, with particular emphasis on being able to understand and use it to enhance communications and surveillance systems for both civilian and defense purposes."

Once again, the article offers a rebuttal to its debunking in the very next paragraph, but interestingly does not finish what it begins. The article states: "Few true-blue Patriots believe that – and they aren't alone in their skepticism. Earlier this year, former Minnesota governor and tele-conspiracist Jesse Ventura visited the HAARP site for his TV show in an attempt to probe the official claims and find out 'what's really going on.' For those enthralled to a Patriot view of the world, the government's description of HAARP only scratches the surface."

We were intrigued because the article tells us that Ventura went to "the HAARP site" but then doesn't tell us what happened next. We went looking for the answer and found a summary of the Ventura program on "PureEnergyNet," as follows: "In his Conspiracy Theory series, movie star, professional wrestler, former Navy SEAL and former Minnesota governor, Jesse Ventura and his team take on HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. The official story of what the giga-watt broadcasting antennae array outside Gakona, Alaska is that it is for scientific research, primarily for communication studies: a premier facility for the study of ionospheric physics and radio science,' according to their official website. 'Why all the secrecy, then?' asks Ventura. And 'Why is the Army running the place?' The facility barred him from having access, even though he is a former governor and Navy SEAL."

The article continues: "The evidence that Ventura and his team uncover points to the facility actually being a weapon, with the ability to take down aircraft, manipulate weather (which is supposed to be illegal) and control your mind. The segment illustrated both the weather control and the mind control capabilities using much lower-power variations. Matt Imber asks and interesting question. 'Where are they getting all the energy to run that place?' Noting that there are no apparent over-land transmission lines, he wonders if maybe they don't have some kind of zero point energy or other exotic sequestered technology providing power."

9. The Federal Reserve Conspiracy: It wasn't long after its creation under Woodrow Wilson that the Federal Reserve System became a central fixture in the world of right-wing conspiracy. It was seen, rightly, as introducing European-style central banking into the United States.

We've written so much about the Federal Reserve that we'll rebut this one ourselves. Central banking generally is an open-conspiracy, which is how the power-elite likes to operate. Too much secrecy makes people suspicious, which is why the elite is always establishing think tanks and study groups that it can then use to put various schemes into action.

The logic behind labeling central banking an open conspiracy is simple. No one group of individuals can ever effectively control money, nor should a tiny handful of (mostly) men be allowed to print money at will – which is what central banking is all about. Because these men are deciding on how much money to print, they are essentially fixing the price of the money supply. Price-fixing doesn't work, as everyone knows, and thus after a while the stresses and strains of money supply distortion cause terrible booms and busts. These are all facts. Central banking is both an open conspiracy and a failed institution. That it continues, worldwide with all its ruin, only adds fuel to the arguments of those who see it as a conspiracy.

10. The North American Union: Since the passage of NAFTA in 1993, fears of economic dislocation and loss of sovereignty have animated both sides of the political spectrum. On the left, these fears are centered on the growth of transnational corporate power at the expense of U.S. labor and national policy. In some circles on the right, the trade bill is seen as the beginning of the so-called "North American Union" (NAU), the goal of a secret plan to merge the United States with Mexico and Canada and, in the process, eliminate sovereign government for each country. It is also a dominant conspiracy theory animating the hard-line anti-immigration movement, which overlaps heavily with Patriot territory.

How is the NAU a conspiracy theory? This is hard to fathom. As has been admitted many times by now, the European Union was sold endlessly as a trade agreement when the socialists behind it had in mind a full-fledged national government. Why isn't it possible that there are similar plans to combine Mexico, Canada and the United States (to begin with). There is already a South American trade union – Mercosur. It does not seem to be out of the realm of possibility that the powers-that-be would like to create an NAU as well. As we have already pointed out in a previous article, these unions are quite popular for some reason. There is even a common currency being planned for Africa!

Wikipedia tells us this about Mercosur: "The development of Mercosur was arguably weakened by the collapse of the Argentine economy in 2001 and it has still seen internal conflicts over trade policy, between Brazil and Argentina, Argentina and Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil, etc. In addition, many obstacles are to be addressed before the development of a common currency in Mercosur."

As regards the NAU, Wikipedia reminds us of the following from Mexico's former president Vicente Fox: "In 2001, President of Mexico Vicente Fox said in an interview for Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy that in the long term he sought with the United States a 'convergence of our two economies, convergence on the basic and fundamental variables of the economy, convergence on rates of interest, convergence on income of people, convergence on salaries.' ... After leaving office, he continued to support the concept, while expressing his disappointment with the changed American political situation which made it seem more difficult to come to fruition. In an online discussion of his book Revolution of Hope: The Life, Faith, and Dreams of A Mexican President Fox cited the process of European integration and asked a questioner, 'Why can't we be not only partners in the long term, but a North American Union?'"

Conclusion: There is ample evidence in our view (on the Internet) that the powers-that-be seek continued global convergence and control. Most conspiracy theories in fact deal with ways that the elite plans to create and increase this control. The Daily Bell itself is an outgrowth of this phenomenon, pointing out on a regular basis how elite fear-based promotions are initiated and configured to permeate Western culture. Each of these promotions has its goal, in our opinion, (cumulatively, anyway) the formation and expansion of world government. The pattern is not hard to detect, we believe. One does not have to be "paranoid" to do so.