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Conspiracy Theorists Need a Pep Talk
Joe Queenan is alarmed at the decline in the quality of conspiracy theories—but at least one theorist gives him hope
By JOE QUEENAN
19 COMMENTS
Recently, I have experienced grave concerns that conspiracy theorists are losing their touch, that their material is losing its sharp, preposterous edge. For example, last Saturday, while I was wandering through a farmers’ market in rural England, an earnest-looking woman came up and asked me if I cared about injustice. It seemed like a trick question. I said, “Yes, why do you ask?”
ENLARGEOh, for the golden age of nutty plots: the drama, the mystery. NISHANT CHOKSI
“Because at this very moment Big Business and the European Union are having a secret meeting in Brussels, giving global corporations the right to sue our governments for passing laws that damage their profits,” she said. “And a secret trade deal is being negotiated right now between the EU and the U.S.A. that will allow Big Business to do whatever it wants.”
“I don’t think that’s a secret,” I wisecracked. “I think it’s called the capitalist system.”
She could see that I was not a team player, so we didn’t get much further with that conversation. Nor did I make much headway a few minutes later with a very sincere woman who thrust a gaudy flier into my hand, reading “Power to the People!” She too was irate about that secret meeting in Brussels.
“Is Obama at this secret meeting?” I asked her. “Kerry? Exxon? Facebook ?” She replied, “That’s just the thing: We don’t know. It’s a secret meeting. That’s why we want them to tell us who’s at that secret meeting!”
“But if it’s a secret meeting, why didn’t they keep it a secret that they were having a secret meeting?” I said.
She had no answer. But the whole exchange left me feeling depressed and disappointed. I grew up in the golden age of conspiracy theories and have pretty high standards in the whole cloak-and-dagger, sotto voce, “Parallax View” department. But the gibberish being fed to me down in the Cotswolds made me feel that conspiracy theorists were running on empty.
For starters, I hated the fact that the secret meeting was being held in Belgium instead of someplace more conspiratorially exotic, like Trieste or Riga. It made the clandestine meeting seem drab and routine, like a bunch of suits getting together for a weekend at Hilton Head.
More to the point, who uses lame, juvenile terms like “Big Business” anymore? Whatever happened to “running-dog lackeys of the diseased capitalist system?” And does anyone seriously think that the expression “Power to the People” resonates with the public anymore? To me, it gives political activism a mildewy, Golden Oldies feel, as if no one had been able to come up with a catchy slogan since Eldridge Cleaver and Abbie Hoffman.
Conspiracy theories need drama and mystery. They need to involve the Trilateral Commission and the CIA and MI6. They need to involve macabre goings-on in Dar es Salaam and the Cayman Islands. They need to feature assassinations, coup d’état, Swiss bank accounts, South African mercenaries. If someone came up to me in a small town in England and told me the evil henchmen of the powers-that-be were secretly meeting in Locarno to collude with ex-Stasi contract killers in the pay of Rhodesian eminence grisewho were the direct descendants of the Knights Templar, you can bet your life I’d perk up and pay attention.
For example, I once chatted with an activist comedian who told me that John Belushi ’s death was directly related to his coming into possession of secret documents regarding John F. Kennedy ’s assassination. Now that’s the kind of nutty, hair-raising, multilayered conspiracy theory I can get excited about! But a bunch of faceless bureaucrats having a secret meeting in Brussels? You guys are pathetic.
Then I went online and read all about author Naomi Wolf ’s theory that the videos of the ISIS beheadings might be staged. Now there’s a conspiracy theorist who has the chops to do this kind of stuff. Sorry that I doubted you, wacky conspiracy theorists! All is forgiven!
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