04/10/2024
So having been through this and researched the phenomenon of conspiracy theorizing I will say this. The number one facet that aligns all of the ones I’ve heard over the last ten years is that the government cannot help you. This is absolutely false.
I have a conspiracy theory that these theories originate from a cabbal of ultra capitalist deregulation/possibly libertarian think tanks. Like an alternative pr campaign for a film. Each time the underlying theme is distrust of the government’s motivation regarding a crisis and actually helping the people. So….conspiracy time:
The ACA a flawed compromise between single payer health care and the free for all s**tshow health care was before scared the s**t out of conservatives. All efforts must be ramped up to continue the Reagan/nixon policy of depicting the government and its ability to help Americans as incompetent at best and malicious at worst. The pandemic policies of direct payments to individuals, paid cobra and other programs that were more easily paid for by tax monies as compared to the corporate hand outs, corporate welfare, low corporate taxes, relatively low capital gains taxes (this is how most wealthy people pay taxes which is a much lower rate than workers pay). Remember to see taxes differed or unpaid as equivalent to spending.
The 2020-2022 policies were a step back to new deal or great society policies.
Some facts. Only an entity as large as government can enforce equality. And “they” (wealthy, the cabal I am speaking of) don’t want that. So every time there is an emergency “they” generate conspiracies to discredit the help the government is giving to discredit the gov’t in really the one place that I think we’d all agree they are necessary. Major catastrophes. And they are gobbled up by a populace trained on Reagan’s words “the most frightening words are I’m from the government and I’m here to help you”(possibly paraphrased but accurate to the spirit of the quote)
All of this would have remained under the rocks of don’t tread on me scumbags and the fringes if it weren’t for:
The New York Times complicity in the march to the Iraq war in 2002-2003. Though academia and the press had colluded before to manufacture consent (Noam Chomsky, also a victim of conspiracy or fact. If he spent time on Epstein island it doesn’t discredit the veracity of his words. And it seems former presidents Trump and Clinton as well as RFK jr were big fans but I digress)
So…we have the conflagration of moneyed right wing entities (like the recent scandal the Russia was paying time pool and Dave Rubin to push anti Ukraine stories) and the left’s critic of mainstream news veracity to create an epistemological crisis where we find it hard to know what’s real. Add to that the destruction of scientific literacy via public school defunding and school voucher programs etc and you have the boiling point you have today where nothing is trusted and influencers paid for and perhaps directed by far right donors and organizations are filling the gap with these conspiracies designed to erode trust in the public sector while elevating the private sector.
In my opinion.
