The Conspiracy that is the United States of America

The United States is a conspiracy. From it’s very start the idea of forming a union of aligning nearby regions into a larger power had the aim of changing the world. America was an idea — the greatest idea in world history some will proclaim, chanting whichever mythology of a mythic land they choose to believe. For conspiracies are harsh, inventors of blustering partisan rage, the spit of spite spat over every one of us — everywhere in the world — the dire demand for independence from everything that has ever come before.

Unlike most conspiracies the American revolution was not, at least in its early days, a power grab seeking to take over the world. America was an opposite, a far away land ready to take charge all on her own, the distant empire all the way across the sea no longer understanding the people of its greatest colony. The revolution was really a “leave me alone. I’m a grown-up,” childish rant, both parents and children at war over the name of the future. You are no longer living at home. We are all on our own.

Now please bear with me: Any of my handful of regular readers should certainly know that I am not a conspiracy theorist, one imposing truth as dialogue, arguing that any way other than my own is a lie. I am neither a debunker, some sneering cynic bashing everything down into fundamentalist atheism, worshipping the truth of nothing. My zone deals primarily with inquiry, the very question of belief. The whys and hows such opinions are formed; the consequence of joining one true faith or another.

My idea of the American conspiracy is the shrugging off of the old ways. The idea, in works for hundreds of years, clanged with vibrance — freedom! Liberty! Justice! A home of your own. And America was so cheerful, so optimistic, really still filled with primitive, superstitious people not yet ready for the crushing cynicism of the ages.

In Europe, however,

there thrived an older group of civilians, those civilized, educated kings of old, already well into their decline. The older civilizations had been busy fighting wars for rule over the world since long before the advent of Christ,

There is a dashed faith in humanity that comes from constant war, and this could not help but lead to a concussion, offering a new way of living with things, the birth of a “New World Order.” New World Orders are always remarkable ideas, no matter how many different directions they have pointed, despite the deepest heart of such many movements being the hope of future salvation.

And so the USA, even called “The Great Experiment” by some pretentious social historians, the excitable dive into different versions of facts in the face of ebullient praise, the USA was given a spotlight so the whole world could watch people forming a new world for themselves after throwing off the weights of tradition, inventing their own new traditions based upon victories in warfare and the birthdays of famous heroes. Traditions get perverted into “our way of Jesus,” and the celebration of sunshine and harvests, giving thanks for all the glory of space provided to us.

This last picture, during the siege of the capitol building in Washington, D.C. on January 8, 2021, this in the middle of a ceremony seeing every member of both houses of Congress, and the Vice-President of the United States cramped into a single chamber, this terrifying image of some stranger peering into the, for lack of a better term, hall of justice, seems even scarier while staring at the larger section of broken glass. One can see a dark hooded figure with glowing red eyes, overtaking the world with shadow. Guys are holding guns and you cannot tell whether the person on the other side is smiling. He is surely not backing away.

Somehow America itself, once celebrated for throwing off the secret nature of imperial conspiracies, announcing to the world its new way of living, has sunk into those same underground tar pits where subterranean people burrow in deeper to discover how things appear to work in the desolate core of the planet. There is a quest for lost knowledge, a quest for fame; the shattering breakthrough people need to find in order to make themselves special — in the know! — one of those few brilliant people able to see through the twisting, murky misdirections of the grand plot.

And now we are at war not just with opposing sides, but with one another individually. All the claims about the news being false, about the version of events we latch onto or condemn, do not have much validity in their own right. Sure, some news networks hire an angry, outraged partisans to comment on the events overtaking us. They do not necessarily invent the news, only sway and guide their viewers and listeners to their singular way of thinking. Bad, dangerous, right? And it is. There has been a long history of controlling the public flow of information, not the least of which

has helped to inspire public consensus. But the fake news, this revolution of imposed mistrust and doubt, has created a devastating impact on national unity On social media sites, the conversational places where apparently most of the public are getting their news, most of the chatter deals either with how someone is lying, or how one or another group of stereotyped believers are actively in kahoots, trying to destroy a nation or the world. Most of the information that people glean, therefore, in sneering, opinion-based editorials, far from detailed reports (no matter how flawed), are merely examples of cheap, cynical name-calling, or an appeal to one’s feelings, often mixed with out-and-out exaggerations and personal attacks of souring satire:

Opposition responds:

The above attempts to equate an attack on the capitol with these ridiculously activist, nervous people, clutching and stroking their guns, masturbating, because something unrelated to their universe is going on outside their front door. The term “her house” is not even remotely the same thing, diminished into treasonous indifference, pretending that the “People’s House” is just as much the rampaging mob in Washington’s home is the definition of the overused leftist phrase “false-equivalency.” These people being nervous versus being directly targeted and threatened by name does not exist in the same insurrectionist universe.

Of course the sarcastic response on the left to the attack, a dismissive shrug presuming that their kind of cynicism can crush the seething rage against them is expressed condescending:

And then, overreacting:

This one bothers me, not just the smug and angry reactions, but the very implication itself.

I have many times defined myself as a first amendment fanatic, one who holds free speech as the only valuable right people deserve. And even while I find Donald Trump’s mocking encouragement to his followers, the inspirational barking of directed rage shoving them out into the streets to wreak havoc — even in spite of this I find it troubling that gigantic, billion dollar corporations have chosen to block the words of this increasingly desperate man.

Some folks against Trump try the worn-out, sometimes oppositional old chestnut about businesses having the freedom to outlaw whatever they like, making corporate decisions in favor of their own interests. Lest we forget

.

One person even made the claim that Twitter made their decision in the interests of profit, an absurd suggestion considering just how many people are interested in the nearly ex-President’s next crazy rant. Besides, on the side of foresight, wouldn’t it be better to have warnings out there for everyone to see?

Now of course I get the fear people have right now, rightly assuming (I believe) that an angry, paranoid, conspiratorial man in the cradle of power might decide, on his way out the door, to tear the whole thing down because he feels he was treated like a spoiled brat. Because he imagines himself a patriot, isolating and alienating so many people in support of so few. And Trump worked hard that the unknowing few among his acolytes blossomed into many, a born-again religion meant to baptize a fallen nation in the victory of flame. And we can see the nervous logic of at least temporarily removing the words from public consumption. I think this is wrong, but I can understand the motives, the panicked fear over American conspiracy.

Yet the outrage in this outraged world is perhaps more devastating than the blocked words themselves:

And we are left with views such as this, belief that everything taken down, for whatever reason, perhaps even due to copyright violations, is somehow part of a social engineering program to block access to what is really going on.

No context, however, is provided. In this last one, which rights are people supposed to be standing for? Of course most instances are justifiable, even those creepy borderline threats related to guns,

but your rights versus another’s rights do not exist in the same mythical realm. When people say things like

• I have the right to tear this whole fucking world down if you try to tell me my I can’t walk into the White House with a gun!

we must step back a moment and consider the many things such a statement might mean.

Someone really did state this. They talk on and on about censorship while, just months before, were guilty of similar attempts, shouting down those they disagree with the way the left shouts down those they disagree with and we shout and shout and refuse to listen and oh yeah, wait . . .

Now as we inch toward inauguration day a few hindsight particulars might be worth considering. We fully know that the most fanatical of the capitol insurgents are members of numerous conspiratorial religions. Taking just the violent, Isis-like crusading of dedicated followers of Q as an example (please see my earlier “The Not-So-Secret Origins of Q for an historical judgment), here are some direct and repeated words from many of the threats received by police, Congress people, local residents and supporters of the current system of government — even the Vice-President of the United States received, (who more than one person claimed, verbatim, was “Doing his job, because without his treachery the revolution could never come”) on the build up to warning about “armed occupation militias” set to move on every capital in every state, and Washington D.C. itself, convinced that the “Great American Experiment” needs to end. If this does not sound like an organized movement to overthrow the US government then you should probably polish your gun and head to the capital. Here:

• We will storm the capital!
• The storm is coming!
• Millions of patriots will be storming every seat of government.
• The storm is here!
• We are the storm!

Do not think that many such people are not willing to die for their cause, or at least some of the true believers, destroying the world to save it. They are true radicals, fundamentalist absolutists seeing the world as pure evil outside of their biblical assertion. Radicals plan to storm (all the italics are mine) the nation, rain and wind and thunder (like an angry Elmer Fudd shrieking operatic apocalypse)

exploding until their rage is quenched and the land is barren and they can rebuild whatever they see, can reform their presumably beloved nation into something it never was nor was ever designed to be.

Treason is too formal a word for such people because treason is a crime still steeped in national law. Such revolutionaries belong to no nation, have no loyalty to anything other than their own selfish paranoia. They see conspiracy in everything, everything, my loving reversion to Bugs Bunny, a secret plot to undermine their credibility.

The United States is a conspiracy, as far as too many people are concerned. They wish to make the nation into a conspiracy — their conspiracy, one where the only people in charge, the only truth, is a secondary consideration of the new plot, denying freedom to anyone not of a like mind.