First you have to admit you're a wingnut

Okay, I'm a wingnut. I admit it. I'm also a conspiracy theorist. If you want to laugh, get it over with now. But open your mind to the possibility that conspiracies do, in fact, exist. That cover-ups are engaged upon on a daily basis. Sometimes it's a reason of pride and sometimes it's a reason of power/money.

Some conspiracies just aren't theories.

Still in denial? Consider this: Most of your parents concealed the fact that Santa Claus did not exist. And in fact, society conspired to help them ensure you believed that Santa Claus did/does exist. If you believe in Santa Claus, there's a Christmas. And if there's a Christmas, purchases are made at stores. So, it's a charming tale, it keeps the economy rolling but it's nonetheless a conspiracy. And the reason, "It's the economy stupid!" (Thx to James Carville, who saddled this country with a tinhorn southern governor who kept us all busy pondering conspiracy theories and whose only really smart move was tying the knot with Mary Matalin. If you decide to dump the bum, I'm here for you Mary darlin'.)

Or ... consider that Washington conspired to ensure the world never knew President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was suffering from polio. They feared the world would view the leader of the free world as weak, something they didn't want to chance while the world was at war.

Nearly everyone's afraid of being called a conspiracy theorist or wingnut. They're worried about being classified, categorized and not taken seriously. I'm afraid to admit it as well, but I've realized that a great strength of those hatching the conspiracies is to ensure that folk fear the "wingnut/Conspiracy theorist label." The sooner you can get over your fears of public humiliation and admit that you're a wingnut and conspiracy theorist, the sooner you'll arrive at the truth. And truth leads to freedom.

When you admit it, all you're saying is, "Sorry Jack, I CAN handle the truth!"

Just a few examples. But you get my drift. And perhaps that has opened some of the closed minds out there. That being said, no self-respecting journalist or educated person in their independently thinking mind -- right, left or MOR/undecided -- can deny they harbor gut feelings of conspiracies.

As I wrote to one fellow on the usenet following the alleged suicide of the late Navy Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Jeremy "Mike" Boorda:

Google Groups hyperlink
:)Not seeing a conspiracy or black helos, but there is something fishy here.
:)What is the questions.

:)Roger
:)AIRBORNE!

My greatest fear is that one day one of the conspiracy
theorists will be right.

But, alas, I've already realized that fear:

-POWs alive in Korea;
-LSD tests and atomic tests on unknowing Airborne Division soldiers;
-yellow rain, the chemical warfare against the H'mong in Laos;
-Agent Orange;
-the Scorpion Ops commandoes written off as dead to save a budget buck;
-the chemical testing deaths of many Korean War POWs;
-the cover-up on the U.S.S. Iowa;
-Filegate;
-My Lai;
-Gulf War Syndrome;
-FBI wiretapping of the press phones during the '60s;
-Nixon's Dirty Tricks Campaign; etc.

So, I've set the stage, cleansed your mental palate with some clarifying sherbet. You know what's coming next.

Correctamundo! My conspiracy theories.