The answer is still no. Americans are a pretty paranoid bunch of people in my experience.
And leave us not forget imagined plots Masonic, Mormon, Catho- . . . sorry, Papist, Illuminist, war-profiteer . . .
This kind of thinking is not always limited to marginal cranks. Sometimes it has real effects in American politics. There was an actual Anti-Masonic Party once. Anti-Catholic scaremongering was politically important in America throughout the 19th Century – many believed in an actual Church plot to take over this country.* The John Birch Society, which was a big deal in the 1950s and made Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign possible (though even Goldwater dismissed them as cranks), was originally based on Communist conspiracy-theorizing, and still exists but it’s now based on Illuminist/NWO-CT. Many Americans still blame everything on the Jews, by ZOG!* And then there’s the infamous “gay agenda” and “gay mafia.” And I’ve read countless screeds and blogposts connecting Obama to conspiracies socialist, Islamic, etc. See “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” by Richard Hofstadter (1964). No, Americans are not uniquely, nor even particularly, CT-skeptical.
*Surprising successful if real. The SCOTUS now comprises five Catholics, four Jews, no Protestants! :eek:
Sorry, I missed the point.
Of course, we can all rest a little easy, knowing that most CT’s have little or no effect at all… They waste a lot of bandwidth, but they rarely lead to major policy changes.
(The Birthers did get a little scary… But Contrail Theorists are pretty harmless…)
And we still have nothing on the Middle East, where conspiracy theories practically run countries to the extent they shape their policy on Israel.
No kidding. You should see some of the media from other countries. Whereas the US Media tends to ignore CTs, they feed them.
I dunno, take any group of ~311 million people with above-average access to electronic media and simple math says you’ll find lots of paranoids, and skeptics, and fundamentalists, and atheists, and Pauly Shore fans, and lactose-intolerants, and model railroad enthusiasts…
Heck, that’s the third-largest country in the world by population, and China and India are far less wired, thus lacking access to the internet-megaphone that would let them broadcast their nuttiness, of which they no doubt have in comparable or greater quantity.
Who is John Dillinger?
One of the men on the Grassy Knoll.
But it was Harold Canvera who made the shot.
fnord
Hey, wait, what just happened in Chimera’s post? Is there something so monumentus that we’re not allowed to see it? Or did the Illuminati communicate something subliminally to us there?
Is anyone else feeling an unease, a low-level prickliness, a fnord?
Nons
This is mostly true, I’d bet.
Of course, the Chinese try to keep their peasantry ignorant as much as possible, and their media is state-run, and their internet access is restricted, so there’s some difference there.
However, our media was the government’s bitch up until the 70s at least, so…we can’t claim that we are all that much of an exception.
I mean, for Pete’s sake, the media knew about JFK’s infidelity, and FDR’s handicap, but they certainly didn’t report on it. Can you imagine that now? Not even. Not to mention all the other military and government secrets they willingly kept.
If you’d just explain what the hell it is you’re talking about, your insane ramblings would be much easier to follow.
No, it’s unthinkable today. Whether anybody needs to know this stuff is an open question, but since everyone knows people like to read it, it’s going to be reported.
Truer words were never spoken.
You’re just prejudiced against Rabbits, man…
Investigate the Conspiracy, man…
You’re just WRONG!!!one!!!eleven!!!
Kosmik is right. Believe it, man… He’s telling you reality, man…
ETA: We will all feel like fools when he’s proven right, man…
Where’s my bong, man…
Good luck with that. The internet is mostly populated with idiots.
Once again, John Gabriel’s GIFT.
I couldn’t handle the truth until I modified a couple of oven mits. I’ve been thinking of selling them on the internet. Do you think anyone would be interested?