Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Conspiracies have been in the historical lexicon probably ever since man was able to tell a story but some of those conspiracies have lasted centuries. There is the Illuminati, the Templars, the Free Masons (which may be connected to the Templars), 100s of conspiracies around the Catholic Church, many around religion in general.

In the U.S. there are the tales of intrigue around Lincolns Assassination as well as JFK, there are legions of theorist that will tell you that the moon landing was staged or that the earth is actually flat. These conspiracies are fanciful and relatively harmless, as far a I know no one has injured or killed someone over their flat earth machinations.

The current round of ridiculous conspiracies are in fact dangerous and potentially life threatening. The belief that COVID19 isn’t real or that it was a manufactured bioweapon is ludicrous and deadly. The fact is that the virus Globally, as of 24 May 2023, there have been 766,895,075 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 6,935,889 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 23 May 2023, a total of 13,355,264,024 vaccine doses have been administered. I am sorry but those numbers don’t sound like the common cold to me. The insanity is that some how we stopped believing in science and I know that isn’t a historical anomaly. In the early 20^th century, a microscopic killer circled the entire globe in four months, claiming the lives of more than 21 million people. The United States lost 675,000 people to the Spanish flu in 1918-more casualties than World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined. There were many that didn’t want to acknowledge that reality either.

The potentially most damaging and completely absurd is the right-wing QAnon conspiracy movement emerged on the internet in late 2017. While followers of the QAnon movement claim a variety of different beliefs, the main threads of QAnon’s core theory are that a network of Satan-worshipping pedophiles control the government and media, and that a coming “storm” will sweep them out of power. The QAnon movement centered former President Donald Trump as its key leader, and said he was secretly fighting to unmask the evildoers who controlled the political and economic systems of power.

This madness was a genesis of January 6^th and the nearly catastrophic overthrow of the U.S. government. As bazar and unhinged as this conspiracy is it is still alive and spreading. I would rather chase my tail and believe that there is an Illuminati, a cabal of wealthy individuals that are pulling all the strings, than the democrats are all pedophiles and drink terrified children’s blood, i.e. adrenochrome, to stay young. That shit its f’ing ludicrous.

Throughout time there have been those that tell the truth and those who refuse to believe it. The catholic church jailed Galileo for saying that the earth was not the center of the universe and I know there are some conspiracist that will say how do I know that they aren’t right. They are the same ones that run away when I ask for definitive proof. Yes, I am a skeptic but if there is a glimmer of actual facts involved, I am willing to hear you out.

Thanks again for indulging my rant.