Are there really dark forces out to rule the world, or are they actually a form of political id?
When I was a young man, my father and his best-friend would generally get around to the Kennedy assassination once every six-weeks or so; usually when Mr. Harry had switched to a neat Creme de Menthe and my father had called for his fourth (and usually, penultimate) Manhattan for the evening. Both sides of the argument rarely varied in approach or conclusion. My father very heatedly and persuasively argued his side and, Mr. Harry; hands folded judiciously on his stomach, would calmly argue his. Snifter empty. Rocks glass empty. The discussion would be tabled for another day. President Kennedy would still be just as dead; and there would still be "more to the story than anyone would ever know."
Sitting behind me as I write this, is my father's copy of the Warren Commission. Now, I don't want to start a fight, but anyone who reads this document would be bound to have doubts about it. Not because of anything nefarious, but because it's a sloppy piece of investigative work and reporting.
Whether John F. Kennedy was killed by a lone psychopath or a cabal we may never know. Certainly there were many who had both motive and opportunity to see him dead which brings up a key element in what makes a compelling conspiracy theory viable; cui bono or the idea that someone will benefit by a particular nefarious action. Take vaccines for example. You may reasonably think that vaccines are a ruse to filch global pockets and enrich pharmaceutical companies. This would allow (by applying the transitive property) that pharmaceutical companies have a vested interest in diseases and thus, pharmaceutical companies manufacture diseases to enrich themselves. All very logical from a purely cui bono standpoint.
But cui bono is only one factor in critical thought. It provides motive, but it does not necessarily guarantee opportunity, and that is where many a conspiracy theory breaks-down considerably.
Another recent example is of course voter fraud; the implied Democratic motive being the acquisition of the executive branch for their party at all costs. As for opportunity? Software, mail-in ballots, and absentee ballots all had their turn at bat; but each struck-out in the face of complicity and complication. It may be true that software could change votes, providing thousands of people just didn't notice. Same with mail-in ballots, and absentee ballots. When people claim for example, "hundreds of signed affidavits" citing voter fraud when there are literally tens of thousands of poll workers, it does not make a compelling mathematical argument for fraud, let alone for fraud extensive enough to sway an election. The cui bono isn't too compelling either. If the Democrats were trying to steal an election "at all costs," they came up with some pretty anemic results.
These break-downs in logic result in what I often refer to as"meta-thought." An example being: "there is voter fraud, but it is not known because the mainstream media is in on it." This added layer of course begs another layer of cui bono and opportunity. What does the mainstream media gain by a thrown election and how do they get around objective facts like dismissed lawsuits and recounts that change nothing? Curiously, if anything, the mainstream media actually looses with a Biden win; if nothing else, the outgoing president gave the media a ratings bonanza for years. I am sure there is many a publisher and programing executive mourning the departure of The Donald Trump Show (The Presidential Edition) - from a purely financial standpoint if nothing else.
So boring into the labyrinthine mine of conspiracy theory is not without its pitfalls, but it also has its gold strikes. After all, John Wilkes Booth did conspire to decapitate the government, and Jay Gould did conspire to corner gold; we should not just dismiss conspiracies out-of-hand with cavalier abandon or derisive laughter. Had Bernstein and Woodward done that (or worse yet, their editor, Bill Bradley) the full, sordid tale of Watergate might never have come to light. But likewise, we have to use some critical thinking. We have to ask the classic "W" questions of Journalism 101 (who, what, where, why, how) and see how they stack up to objective thinking regardless of bias. It's not as hard as you might think. Let's look at a random opening paragraph from Forbes excerpted here. Bolds are mine to indicate bias words:
As brightening vaccine prospects tease a return to pre-pandemic normalcy and employers map out when and how remote workers return to the office, analysts at Deutsche Bank are proposing a“privilege tax" on post-pandemic work from home to subsidize lost wages for low-income workers.
Who: Analysts at Deutsche Bank; What: proposing a privilege tax; Where: at companies that have remote workers; Why: to subsidize lost wages for low-income workers. How: by collecting a tax.
Everything other than Who, What, Where, Why and How, is to sway you to the position that this is a "good" idea, whether it is or not: brightening, tease, pre-pandemic normalcy, “privilege tax", low-income workers all imply a bias to influence: Who wouldn't want something that comes after brightening the darkness that came after a global pandemic? Who wouldn't want pre-pandemic normalcy? How can anyone object to taxing the"privileged" (whoever they are and however they might be defined) to benefit"low-income workers" (whatever they are or however they might be defined).
What the objective story says however, is this...
Bankers are proposing a tax to offset payments made to people who couldn't work during the pandemic.
In any legislature, that would be a valid tax to debate-- for a short period tax at least. The tax payers paid for the benefits and the tax payers should get some of the money back. The buzz-words however, are what make it scary to those on the political right; they infer class warfare and permanence based on a"righteous" position. No wonder people see a conspiracy with Deutsche Bank who is often featured as a leading player in so many such cloak and dagger dramas.
The reality of this bias is understandable as well; large media outlets, large banks, large corporations in general, benefit from large government. Large governments have money to spend, and there are many pockets to fill. Is it a conspiracy? Do people sit around hours on end clandestinely planning this? Doubtful. There's no need to go through all that effort; the law of common cause is plenty strong enough to provide cohesion of purpose without active collusion. This bias runs through many veins: government at all levels; media, academia, public education. The larger the government, the more hands can get into the purse. The only ones that do not line-up for this way of thinking are generally the burger class; small merchants and tradesman who derive little benefit from government of any size, and rather, find it a determent (if not a downright obstacle) to their continued survival and success. These are the folks that are primed for the shadows, stilettos, and intrigue of conspiracy theory.
Our federal government doesn't help either. When budgets get into hundreds of billions and debt gets into tens of trillions, and legislators are voting on bills they have admittedly never read, who wouldn't be worried? When globalism, driven by unified markets centered on cheap labor, produce consumer goods few can buy, because consumer confidence is in the ash heap, who wouldn't be tempted to suspect dark forces? When military strength is projected on dessert nations where some live in stone-age simplicity, who wouldn't raise an eyebrow?
Conspiracy is the easy answer; the harder answer is personal responsibility. We control globalization, and banks, and multinational corporations, and media networks and the government at all levels - simply by voting with either a ballot or our purse. We can remove the shadows simply by turning on a brighter light. If there are any conspirators to ferret out, it is most likely us, the voters and consumers.
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