According to the Random House Dictionary, a conspiracy theory “explainsan event as being the result of a plot by a covert group ororganization; the idea that many important political events or economicand social trends are the products of secret plots that are largelyunknown to the general public.”

On the basis of that definition, conspiracy theories allow people to think they have unraveled the inside story on “secret plots that are largely unknown to the public.” In other words, conspiracy theorists are simply too smart and savvy to be tricked by the powers that be.

By subscribing to alternative explanations besides the “officialversion” allows us mere mortals to uncover “the truth” behind eventsthat are so sensational they could only have been orchestrated byhigher powers. Indeed, conspiratorial thinking is turning intosomething of a religious movement.

“The social theory of conspiracy is actually a version of… theism,” wrote the philosopher Karl Popper. “It is a consequence of the end of God as a point of reference, and of the subsequent question: ‘Who is there in this place?’”

That place, Popper observed from a skeptical point of view, “isnow occupied by various powerful men and groups – sinister lobbies,which may be accused of having organized the Great Depression and allthe ills we suffer.”

Rescueworkers search through the rubble of the twin towers at the World TradeCenter on 11 September, 2001 (AFP Photo / Doug Kanter)

In the world of the conspiracy theorists, no event of significancehappens by chance; by virtue of their very positions, the shadowy elitemust have had a hand in everything.

“Conspiracism serves the needs of diverse political and social groups,” writes academician Frank P. Mintz. “Itidentifies elites, blames them for economic and social catastrophes,and assumes that things will be better once popular action can removethem from positions of power… ”

Yet it must be admitted that the very elitist nature of Americansociety does little to dispel rumors of a cabal working "behind thethrone," secretly turning the screws. Indeed, a quick background checkof America’s movers and shakers shows that an uncomfortable number hailfrom various secret societies, including, but not limited to, Skull andBones (“the best connected white-man’s club in America”), theBilderberger Group (an ultra-secret “steering committee”) and BohemianGrove (an annual 3-week retreat in Monte-Rio, California, where some ofthe most powerful men in the world allegedly gather for lord knowswhat).

In light of what we already know to be true about suchorganizations, is it prudent to casually label those individuals whoquestion the powers-that-be as “conspiracy theorists,” as if there werenever any basis for their “irrational fears”? For example, do you haveto be a conspiracy theorist to wonder how it is possible – in ademocracy, mind you – that the members of the most elite clubs, eventhose individuals running for public office, rarely admit to theirmemberships in public?

The consequences of elitism gone awry became glaringly apparentduring the 2004 US presidential election between the Democraticnominee, John Kerry and the Republican incumbent, George W. Bush. Bothof these men, from opposing political camps, are members of Skull andBones, the Yale secret society that has groomed hundreds of young men(just 15 per year) for positions of power. In other words, not youraverage college fraternity.

In separate interviews with Tim Russert, thenow-deceased-at-a-very-young-age host (itself the subject of a minorconspiracy theory) of the political program “Meet the Press,” bothcandidates deftly ducked questions regarding their affiliation with the ultra-secretive club.

So who is really zanier: the so-called “conspiracy theorists,” whorightly see the irony, if not the outright criminality, of two alumnifrom the same secret society competing head-to-head for the highestoffice in the land, or the people who vote for these individualswithout bothering to ask more questions?

Are serious questions into serious issues being ignored due to thestigma of being branded a conspiracy theorist? Indeed, labelingsomebody a “conspiracy theorist” has the effect – not unlike chastisinga person who criticizes the foreign policy of Israel, for example, asan anti-Semite – of not only rejecting the alternative version ofevents put forward by the so-called conspiracy theorist, butquestioning the very psychological state of mind of the individual.

Here are just a few of the conspiracy theories now gnawing away atthe American psyche. Do they have any substance, or are they just,well, conspiracy theories?

Welcome to the GULAG, American-style

Homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina (AFP Photo / Robert Sullivan)

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an umbrellaorganization of the United States Department of Homeland Security, isprobably best known for its floundering rescue efforts in New Orleansafter Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, 2005, washing awaythe jazz capital’s system of levees and much else besides.

Although FEMA was caught with its pants down during that wanton actof God, the bloated government agency is much more prepared, conspiracytheorists claim, for a totally different sort of national emergency:civil disobedience on a massive scale that will necessitate theintroduction of martial law and mass detentions.

This conspiracy theory has been gathering steam ever since the 1980s,when the Miami Herald broke a story about an alleged “secretgovernment-within-a-government” operating inside of the Reaganadministration.

“Some of President Reagan’s top advisers,” the newspaper reported, “haveoperated a virtual parallel government outside the traditional Cabinetdepartments and agencies almost from the day Reagan took office.”

Congressional investigators concluded that particular individuals were responsible for drafting “asecret contingency plan that called for a suspension of theConstitution, turning control of the United States over to FEMA,appointment of military commanders to run state and local governmentsand declaration of martial law during a national crisis.”

The Miami Herald said the secret plan did not define “national crisis,” but that it was understood to mean “nuclear war, violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition against a military invasion abroad.”

The contingency plan was written as part of an executive order orlegislative package that Reagan would sign and keep on file in theNational Security Council until that “severe crisis” arose.

Fast-forward two decades later to the ultra-paranoid, ultra-violentPost-9/11 world, with George W. Bush in the role of Mad Max behind thewheel of the Global War on Terror, where everything and anything isfair game. But the enemy, as it turned out, was not just bearded menwho prayed a lot. The enemy, according to the conspiracy theorists, wasalso the American people.

Just before the United States was making preparations to “preempt”an attack by Iraq, armed as it was with weapons of mass destructionthat in fact never existed, a US federal appeals court ruled thatthen-President Bush “has the authority to designate US citizens as‘enemy combatants’ and detain them in military custody if they aredeemed a threat to national security,” CNN reported (January 8, 2003).

The ruling came in response to the capture of the “AmericanTaliban,” John Walker, a US citizen accused of fighting alongside themountain militants in Afghanistan in 2001.

Admittedly, Walker relinquished all of his rights the moment he tookup arms against US forces; he was a bona-fide enemy in the verymilitaristic sense of the word. Nevertheless, the case of the “AmericanTaliban” notwithstanding, the possibility of the US government abusingthe abovementioned legislation, possibly accusing and detainingAmerican citizens who are merely a nuisance, did not require afantastic stretch of the imagination.

The Bush legislation allows for the “indefinite incarceration of US citizens,” reported The Los Angeles Times. “And summarily strip them of their constitutional rights and access to the courts.”

This is where the alleged need for mass concentration camps across the United States comes into the scene.

In the event of “mass civil disobedience” in the United States –sparked by anything from flashfloods to pandemics to anti-warprotests – the government would need many facilities to detain thetroublemakers. After all, they couldn’t just put them all on a boat andsend them off to Cuba or thereabouts (Umberto Eco, professor andauthor, in his book “Turning Back the Clock” invited readers to imaginewhat would transpire in the event of an international conflict in ourage of globalization and open borders: “Imagine what it would belike if a global conflict broke out,” he asked rhetorically. “It wouldbe the first war in which the enemy not only lives in your own countrybut also has the right to national health insurance”).

These sort of dark hypothetical scenarios provided the spark toconspiratorial speculation that FEMA was constructing “American GULAGs”across the country.

“Since the nation will never be entirely safe from terrorism,liberty has become a mere rhetorical justification for increasedsecurity…” The Times article stated. “If we cannot join together to fight the abomination of American camps, we have already lost what we are defending.”

This story perfectly conforms to all the essential requirements of aconspiracy theory, which says that those individuals in power areforever looking for new ways to increase their hold on power. Theultimate goal being the creation of one-world government and the newworld order, held together by technologies so powerful and pervasivethey would make George Orwell roll over in his grave.

Moreover, this particular conspiracy theory is backed up byvideotapes that allegedly prove the existence of the internment camps.

Glenn Beck, Fox News’s provocative talk show host, recently ran asegment dedicated to debunking the existence of the camps. His guestJames Meigs, editor-in-chief of Popular Mechanics, inspected a handfulof the numerous facilities and came to the conclusion that they werenot camps to house unruly Americans in the event of some nationalparoxysm, but rather train repair centers.

“The truth is actually fairly evident,” explains Meigs. “This is an Amtrak repair facility in Beach Grove, Indiana. The woman who made this video [her name is Linda Thompson and she was a popular figure during the US ‘militia movement’ of the 1990s] initiallyclaimed that it’s some kind of American Auschwitz, and they haveoutfitted buildings with gas and they’ve got these strange turnstiles…”

Beck quipped with his trademark gallows humor: “Well, Auschwitz had trains… I’m just saying.”

They are coming to take away our God-given assault weapons

In the United States, a large number of people are (literally) up inarms over rumors that the government of Barack Obama is going to canceltheir “guns and ammo” subscriptions.

Although the American president has gone on the record as a moderatewhen it comes to gun ownership – he supports a ban on the sale andtransfer of all types of semi-automatic weapons; supports increasingstate oversight on the purchasing of firearms; supports child-prooflocks on all firearms – Americans are stockpiling ammunition andweapons at an unprecedented rate in the belief that the government willsuddenly revoke the Second Amendment of the US Constitution (“Awell-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a freeState, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not beinfringed”).

“In a year of job losses, foreclosures and bag lunches,Americans have spent record-breaking amounts of money on guns andammunition,” reported The Washington Post. “Gun owners havebought about 12 billion rounds of ammunition in the past year, industryofficials estimate. That’s up from 7 billion to 10 billion in a normalyear.”

The article attributed the bullet hoarding to bad economics and anupsurge in crime, as well as to suspicions about the Democrats nowsitting in the White House.

“I think it’s Katrina. I think it’s terrorism. I think it’scrime. And I also think it’s people worrying about whether they’ll beattacks by politicians,” Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA was quoted as telling the newspaper. “They’re suspicious, and justifiably so.”

Whatever the case may be, with so many politically-paranoid peopleloading up on guns and ammo it is difficult to say whether the Americanpeople are any safer for it.

Although US gun advocates like to cite safe Switzerland, a low-crimecountry where gun ownership is mandatory for all males, few peoplewould confuse Zurich and Geneva with Brooklyn and Detroit. Indeed, itis no surprise that America has the highest number of gun-relateddeaths in the world, and the trend shows no sign of leveling off.

Last April, for example, Pittsburgh police responded to a routinedomestic-disturbance call. The door opened and Richard A. Poplawski,22, opened fire on the officers with an AK-47 assault rifle. Three ofthe policemen were killed and one injured.

Four months later, in the same city, George Sodini walked into LAFitness Center with a duffel bag, turned out the lights in a room wherea dance class was in session, and opened fire. Sodini shot eight women,four of them fatally. The gunman used two 9 mm. semiautomatics and a.45-caliber revolver. His stated reason for unleashing hell: hecouldn’t get a date with women.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell called it “another senselessshooting and a tragic shooting. It’s a case where someone who clearlyshouldn't have had a firearm because of mental problems had a firearm.This guy had severe mental problems.”

In late November, four Seattle police officers were gunned downwhile sitting in a coffee shop. The killer, Maurice Clemmons, had beenreleased on bail six days earlier on charges of raping a child. In2000, then-Governor Mike Huckabee, a candidate in the 2008 USpresidential elections, commuted Clemmons’s 108-year prison sentencefor armed robbery and other offenses.

On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho, a student at Virginia TechUniversity, went on a shooting rampage on the campus, killing 32 peopleand injuring dozens. The massacre ranks as the deadliest shootingincident by a single gunman in US history.

The United States has yet to figure out how to keep firearms out ofthe hands of Americans with mental problems, while the gun lobbyrefuses to “violate the rights of Americans” by introducing mandatorysafety features on guns (like firearm safety locks that only recognizethe fingerprint of the gun owner). So now the heated gun debate isgetting closer to the halls of government than many politicians arecomfortable with.

On August 11, 2009, for example, William Kostric was spottedcarrying a holstered sidearm openly while participating in a protest ata town hall meeting of President Barack Obama in New Hampshire, a statethat permits its citizens to “open carry,” shorthand for openlycarrying a firearm in public.

Kostric, who quickly hit the US talk-show circuit, never attemptedto enter the venue where Obama was scheduled to speak, but rather stoodon the private property of a nearby church, where he had the legalright to be.

New Hampshire state law goes rather further in protecting itscitizens' rights to carry firearms in public. Carrying a pistol orrevolver openly is permitted without a license; carrying a concealedweapon requires permission from the state or local police. Any atemptto stiffen these freedoms will not be easy.

Yet given the bloody mayhem that guns and assault weapons haveinflicted on innocent US citizens over the years, some Americans areprobably hoping that the conspiracy-theory rumor mill is correct andthere really is a government plan to take away everybody’s guns. Butsuch an unconstitutional decision, should one ever arise, wouldcertainly trigger the ugliest debate America has ever known, at leastsince the Civil War.

Obama was really born in Kenya, or was it Indonesia

Punch the name “Obama” into Google and the third most popularselection for the American president involves his birth certificate,or, as a growing group of individuals called “birthers” would argue,the lack of one.

Theories concerning the legitimacy of President Barack Obama’scitizenship and his eligibility to serve as president have served aspolitical fodder before and since his victory in the 2008 presidentialelection. Some of these conspiracy theories allege that Obama was bornin Kenya, not Hawaii, and that his birth certificate is a forgery.Other theories allege the US president is a citizen of Indonesia.

Being a natural born citizen is a requirement to be President of theUnited States under Article Two of the United States Constitution.Thus, Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, the California governor, whowas born in Austria, is ineligible to enter a US presidential election.

In early December, this conspiracy theory received a stab ofadrenaline when Sarah Palin, John McCain’s vice presidential runningmate in the last presidential elections, told radio talk show hostRusty Humphries that it is “fair game” to question the authenticity ofObama’s birth certificate.

Now the “birthers” are back and more persistent than ever, demanding that Obama come clean with the coveted document.

In early December, the US Supreme Court rejected an emergency appealfrom a New Jersey man who claims President-elect Barack Obama isineligible to be president because he was a British subject at birth.

The court did not comment on its order Monday, rejecting the call byLeo Donofrio of East Brunswick, NJ, to intervene in the presidentialelection.

Despite the defeat, it will certainly not be the last time we hearcomplaints about the legitimacy of Obama’s birth certificate and hisright to serve as the president of the United States.

Swine Flu and Executive Order 13375

To casual observers, “swine flu” is a severe influenza somehowrelated to pigs that may result in death in the unfortunate carrier.Or, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, theglobal outbreak “represents a new strain of H1N1 influenza virus…first detected in April 2009, which contains a combination of genesfrom swine, avian (bird), and human influenza viruses.”

But for conspiracy theorists, swine flu is an entirely differentanimal. Indeed, it represents a deliberate effort to erect one worldgovernment out of the breeding ground of fear, death and disease thatwould invariably be a by-product of any global pandemic (Consider the1918 Spanish flu pandemic. It is estimated to have killed anywhere from50 to 100 million people worldwide, possibly ranking worse than theBlack Death. An estimated 500 million people, one-third of the Earth’s population at the time, were infected. In other words, swine flu is absolutely nothing to sneeze at).

The Internet underworld went into overdrive in April when BridgerMcGaw, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary, circulated the contagious“swine flu memo.” That devious little piece of paper reads: “TheDepartment of Justice has established legal federal authoritiespertaining to the implementation of a quarantine and enforcement. Underapproval from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), theSurgeon General has the authority to issue quarantines.”

CBS News speculated that McGaw “appears to have been referringto the section of federal law that allows the Surgeon General to detainand quarantine Americans ‘reasonably believed to be infected’ with acommunicable disease.”

So what is the big deal, the reader may be wondering? After all, if50 million people died in 1918 from Spanish flu pandemic, does thegovernment not have a duty, if not the right, to protect all thehealthy citizens from the infected ones? Apparently not, and this iswhere the now-infamous Executive Order 13375, signed on April 1, 2005,comes into play.

The ability of the US government to implement a quarantine order islimited to diseases listed in the presidential executive orders(tuberculosis, for example). But in Executive Order 13375, signed byPresident Bush, “novel forms of influenza with the potential to breedpandemics” were added among the outbreaks that could allow for aquarantine order.

Anyone violating a quarantine order can be punished by a $250,000 fine and a one-year prison term.

Later, in November 2005, the Bush administration released theNational Strategy for Pandemic Influenza, which envisioned closercoordination among federal agencies, the stockpiling and distributionof vaccines and anti-viral drugs, and, if necessary, government-imposed“quarantines” and “limitations of gatherings.”

For individuals with a conspiratorial frame of mind, the governmentwas tightening the noose around the neck of freedom, hedging their betson a global pandemic that would allow them to enact draconian measuresagainst the people.

The flames of suspicion were fanned when it was revealed that the USMarshals, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol,Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – not the most benevolentorganizations in the minds of the conspiracy theorists – would be thefriendly government agencies to enforce any quarantine order.

Even the Pentagon was enlisted to lend its unwieldy support in any future bug battle.

A Defense Department planning document summarizing the military’s contingency plan says the Pentagon is prepared to assist in “quarantining groups of people in order to minimize the spread of disease during an influenza pandemic” and “aiding in efforts to restore and maintain order.”

Now please imagine if you will, at a time when people cannot eventrust their neighborhood mailman, FBI agents showing up one sunnymorning to haul Mr. and Mrs. Smith N. Wesson off to somefederally-ordained quarantine zone (The Houston Astrodome, maybe, orthe local hospital?). The pure logistics alone to pull off such amassive operation boggles the mind; but to think that Americans, inwhatever physical condition they may happen to be, will open the doorto a unit of gas-masked, gun-wielding government agents is simplywishful thinking.

So perhaps the conspiracy theorists overestimate the evilness oftheir government officials, who, given their efforts to mitigate theeffects of other past disasters (think Hurricane Katrina), wouldcertainly not be able to carry out the evacuation of potentiallymillions of infected Americans. This is also the argument given toexplain away other "conspiracy theories," such as the massive oneinvolving the curious events of 9/11: governments are simply not competent enough to plan and pull off such elaborate schemes without leaving behind a messy trail.

But good luck convincing the conspiracy theorists of that.

Robert Bridge, RT