Conspiracy theories

Perhaps one of the major ones of recent years is one that I can't help myself but subscribe to.  9/11.  Too much that happened that day simply doesn't add up.  I'm not sure who was responsible... but when I read testimony from architects, structural engineers, demolition experts, munitions experts, air crash investigation engineers, scientists, police patrol men, firemen and countless others who've either investigated the disaster or were present on the day, I can't help but believe that the world was sold a lot of half-truths at best, and a huge bunch of lies at worst.

In the simplest terms, WTC 1 and 2 should never have collapsed in the way they did.  And WTC 7 should never have collapsed at all, considering the minimal amount of damage it suffered.  Come to that, 1 and 2 shouldn't have collapsed at all, either.  Even a fully-laden passenger airliner striking structures of their size and strength would be the equivalent of a high-velocity rifle bullet being fired into a fence post.  It might do considerable damage to the post... put it would remain standing!

But that's just my tuppence-worth on the subject....

Maybe one man's conspiracy theorist is another man's truth-seer!

I’ve got an inquisive/observant mind but I think conspiracy theories are misleading. I see it more as truth-seeing, but if it’s thought of as a conspiracy theory, people treat it like it’s a piece of gossip or something, it’s alomst like they accept it while speaking outrage about it. People have been pulling strategies like 9/11 for hundreds of years. It’s all a big crazy game. 

That's right.  And once you start going down the route of some kind of collusion between the media and higher powers of government, then you soon begin to question what it is you actually know.  How much are we being manipulated by powers who have vested interests in maintaining a certain status quo, or in creating a climate of opinion (against, say, Muslims)?  People have a general tendency to accept things that they read in the newspapers and see or hear on the news, irrespective of any bias that might be being presented.  They expect correspondents to have researched the facts that they themselves haven't the time to research, and can only accept in digested form in brief spaces during the day.  People also, I think, tend to consume news media as it both identifies with and enforces their view of the world and their ideas of 'truth'.  People, for instance, regurgitate the 'facts' of any particular issue as they've read them in The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Mirror, or whatever.  So you have a polarisation of opinion as well as an 'adjusted' (at best) and a distorted, partisan, fabricated (at worst) version of anything you care to mention.  The tendency, too, of people to accept things they read on social media (memes, etc) shows how very easy it is to manipulate and distort what's actually going on in the world.

And who knows what that is?

It is true, though.  I'm not a religious person, but those words of Christ's are right.  And, unfortunately, people do use it as an excuse to carry on with their abuse.  I was in the town earlier and I passed the local baptist church.  Outside was a poster: 'All the mistakes you've ever made, erased through Christ.'  Which made me think - uncharitably, maybe - 'Okay... so you can do what you like, because you'll still be forgiven in the end.'  It's a bit like the Catholic confessional.  I used to work with a great bunch of guys who were all Catholic.  They were some of the most extreme blasphemers I'd ever met.  Some of them were abusers in other ways, too.  But then they'd go to confession to have the slate wiped down a bit.  I used to think of that as hypocrisy.  But, of course, they were simply being human.  I've been an abuser myself.  Verbally abusive to people (never physically - but verbal and psychological abuse is still abuse).  Even to people I love.  Perhaps mainly to people I love.  I regret it enormously, and I try my hardest to rise above it.  It's always a job of work.  An ongoing job of work.  I'll be working at it until the day I die, and still not finish the job.

It is true, though.  I'm not a religious person, but those words of Christ's are right.  And, unfortunately, people do use it as an excuse to carry on with their abuse.  I was in the town earlier and I passed the local baptist church.  Outside was a poster: 'All the mistakes you've ever made, erased through Christ.'  Which made me think - uncharitably, maybe - 'Okay... so you can do what you like, because you'll still be forgiven in the end.'  It's a bit like the Catholic confessional.  I used to work with a great bunch of guys who were all Catholic.  They were some of the most extreme blasphemers I'd ever met.  Some of them were abusers in other ways, too.  But then they'd go to confession to have the slate wiped down a bit.  I used to think of that as hypocrisy.  But, of course, they were simply being human.  I've been an abuser myself.  Verbally abusive to people (never physically - but verbal and psychological abuse is still abuse).  Even to people I love.  Perhaps mainly to people I love.  I regret it enormously, and I try my hardest to rise above it.  It's always a job of work.  An ongoing job of work.  I'll be working at it until the day I die, and still not finish the job.