Conspiracy Theories Around 9/11

by Mary

There are numerous articles about the conspiracy theories that are swirling around 9/11. They note that the theorists can be divided into two different camps: the ones who believe the government run by the neo-cons purposely caused 9/11 or just stood by because they needed an excuse to take out Saddam. It seems that these theories are being accepted by a growing number of people.

A nationwide poll in July by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University found that 36 percent of respondents think the federal government either assisted in the attacks or allowed them to happen as a pretext to start a war in the Middle East.

Evidently, this is a fault of the American public:

(By comparison, the same poll found that 38 percent think the feds are withholding proof of the existence of intelligent life from other planets.)

"Americans are prone to conspiracy theories because there's a residual faith in individualism and individual's control over history and a residual faith in the openness and goodness of the political system," Knight said. "When you have the loss of trust in authority that's been going on for 40 years, all of that feeds conspiracy theories."

What's surprising is that they didn't use another statistic about how poorly informed Americans are: namely, that 64% of the public still thinks Saddam had strong ties to al Qaeda. But for our media this is not considered a conspiracy theory.

Then there's the conspiracy theory that seems to be on the verge of being catapulted throughout the world that Bill Clinton was too obsessed about the sex scandal to worry about bin Laden and terrorism. Funny how that was not part of these articles about wacko 9/11 conspiracy theories.

It seems to me that the one thing that is a significant contributor to the growth of conspiracy theories is the knowledge that your government lies to you. Tom Kean's support of the ABC mockumentary is shredding the credibility of the 911 Commission Report. And everyone knows that Bush's administration has been lying from day one about everything: on the economy, on science, on sex education, on global warming, on Iraq, on not spying on Americans, on not torturing, and on and on and on. If anyone wants to know why so many people are irrational, one only need to point to the decades long conspiracy hatched by the VRWC to make Americans think Black is White and War is Peace. The Bush administration merely raised the irrationality level to the next tier and continue to do this as they wrap more and more of our governmental affairs under the cloak of secrecy. They've done a heck-of-a-good job in making sure the conspiracy theories could grow deep roots into the psyche of the American public.