Step Two: ???????????
Step Three: Profit!!
~From the South Park episode "Gnomes" Season Two.
There's something I keep seeing that's really starting to irritate me.
I've been mentally referring to it for awhile as the Underpants Gnome theory, a reference to, yes, unfortunately, a South Park episode. The basic idea of it is perfectly illustrated by this snipped Tweet. Basically, people have no idea how things work and they don't want to know. So they just assume that whatever they want to believe already is possible.
In reference to Mr. Miller's specific post, this is America. We elect our political leaders. If Joe Biden is "Unelectable" how then was he in office for 40+ years? How did he come to be Barack Obama's Vice President, an office that has a nomination process and to which the nominee must be elected along with the Presidential candidate?
His answer? Democratic Party Argle Bargle New World Order Something Something Gazpacho. Hell, I'm surprised he didn't find a way to throw in Commies, George Soros, the Illuminati and some ancient, sinister deal between the Assassins and the Knights Templar.
Joe Biden got reelected to Congress multiple times in Delaware over a period of decades and, as I remember Fred Clark of Slactivist...a Delaware resident at the time...pointing out, as gaffe-prone as he is, Delawareans *Love* Joe Biden.
Apparently, so did Black voters in South Carolina, and Democrats more generally as he's the nominee. Hell, even Bernie Sanders is on board now, as are a decent number of card-carrying Republicans.
American conservatism, and especially religious conservatism, is shot-through with deep strands of anti-intellectualism and paranoia and an even deeper strain of incuriosity. They don't want to know, and they don't want you to know either. But hey here's this crazy bullshit we just made up. That is Truth, just believe us. Would we lie to you? Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, and all those other lies. This is different. Despite numerous efforts to root out the kooks, going all the way back to William F. Buckley in the 1960's they always find a way to weasel their way back in.
Or, as I've put it elsewhere, if you don't know anything you can believe whatever you want.
And this time they managed to shove almost everybody who might restrain their antics out of the airlock.
Seriously, there is no such thing as the "New World Order" the phrase gained currency because George H.W. Bush used it in a speech attempting to define where we were going to go as a nation and a world in the post-Cold War era.
It was nothing more than a reference to the simple fact that with the end of the Cold War, and the fall of the Iron Curtain, some sort of new order would likely emerge after a brief period of sole-superpower American hegemony.
Pat Robertson immediately seized on the use of the term to, basically, create what became a cohesive narrative for a body of Evangelical End Times conspiracy theories that mostly already existed...itself largely devolving from the book "The Late Great Planet Earth" by American nominally-Baptist Evangelist and theologian Hal Lindsey, published in 1973...and the two texts, that and Robertson's New World Order book...were the foundational texts of the 1990's End Times Prophecy Movement.
I know, I was there. As I attempted to point out numerous times, none of this crap is in the Bible.
The New World Order, as a concept outside of the vaguest terms, as an organization or this, that, or the other thing, simply does not exist. It was a quote from a speech misconstrued by idiots.
It's worth noting that most of the "New World Order" bullshit is just an updated re-tread of various things that were used in anti-Communist propaganda at one time or another...just like most of the "Conservative" bullshit coming out the woodwork these last few years from racism to complaints against women dancing is not much more than recycled 1950's bullshit with a little generic religious Fundamentalism of the kind that seems the same from Kandahar to Kankakee thrown in to make it acceptable to the chuckefucks that are looking for excuses to buy into whatever dumb shit comes along.
And for the record, because some idiot will bring it up, Agenda 21 originated in the same era as the New World Order conspiracy theory, as a non-binding United Nations agreement to promote environmental health. Somebody from the Bush administration signed off on it, as it was a routine bullshit agreement of the sort that people will make simply to show international good faith and a commitment to progress. Anybody with a brain in their heads...those few of us that noticed, anyway, saw that it was routine bullshit and acted accordingly.
And if there was such a thing, why would any Americans...who seldom can even agree with each other...feel beholden to answer to it?
Never mind that we have documented evidence of the Republicans working with the Russians in 2016 and since. If the "New World Order" and all that crap would just identify itself as or make itself acceptable to Right-Wing Conservatism they wouldn't just be on board with it, they'd be working overtime trying to force everybody else to have to go along as well.
Partisanship is a hell of a drug, apparently.
It's like with the whole Q-Anon thing. Despite Jeffery Epstein and his suspicious suicide and the fact that his procurer-of-victims is in Federal custody and the fact that there are dozens of photos of both with Trump, the entire Q-Sphere is basically screaming "No, Not THOSE Pedophiles!!"
Most of the time, Right Wing conspiracy theories are just another effort to try and ratfuck somebody.
When a guy who goes by "Bongmaster" makes more sense than you do, it's probably time to hang it up and go home.
The truth is that there always is a truth, humans are always capable of finding it if they want to, and we can usually understand anything that's not of clearly supernatural origin...and there's very few things that really fall into that particular category in observable, let alone verifiable, terms.
Magic ain't really a thing, people, there are no Gnomes, much less Underpants Gnomes.
And note, I say that as a gamer. And as a former conservative.
We live in a world where anybody that can afford a $35 Smart Phone and a $45 phone card has literally all the knowledge of humanity at their fingertips and the ability to spread their knowledge or opinions over a scope just as vast. All one really has to have, past that, is the curiosity to look for whatever information they're trying to find and the integrity to try and verify as much of it as they can. Or the ability and desire to say something that resonates with people.
And because too many people are doing that, and it doesn't benefit the wealthy and those in power, people who don't want you to know what is true are engaged in a vast disorganized effort to try and make sure that as many people as possible don't have that $80 and to pollute and slow the flow of information by less technological means.
People like Donald Trump and Louis DeJoy. And no, they don't care what else they screw up in the process or who dies because of it, not even if it's their own supporters. People who profit from the Underpants Gnome theory of government and who would benefit from some Magic 8-Ball method of choosing our leaders instead of voting.
How's that for a conspiracy theory?
Hey, I'm just asking questions here.
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