There just ain’t no conspiracy Recently I had a nighttime meeting with some residents in the Garden Isles area of Pompano Beach. It was a backyard party and about 15 people gathered outside around a poolside setting. Some are activists and all speak their minds. All said they were concerned that wild spending could jeopardize our future, especially with the budget situation we are facing statewide, countywide and in the Pompano Beach. These same rational homeowners, a lot like the Leisureville residents that I spoke with in the afternoon, are angry about growing salaries, government waste and questionable spending. They wanted to know why I didn’t look deeper into the financial mess pending and expose all of the ‘dirty rats’ that continue to increase our taxes and participate in wasteful spending. Their concerns are real. Many feel that their concerns and frustrations prove there is a conspiracy afloat, by bureaucrats and elected officials; and it should be exposed before it ultimately financially destroys our lifestyle. There was also an outrage factor, and some are looking forward to the political bloodbath expected to take place in Tallahassee, because of the cutbacks ahead. I tried to explain that not everybody in state and city governments are participating clandestinely in a conspiracy. Unfortunately, we have elected some dullards and have appointed some dunderheads to work in government. But that seems to be systemic in our country. To prove that point you only need look at the last of the standing individuals who are Presidential candidates. Is this really the best we can offer to a nation? There are misdeeds and questionable acts that exist everywhere. In the non-governmental general population, one out of a hundred people in the United States is in prison. That’s correct; we have 300 million people in our country and there are three million people in prison. No other country even comes close to that figure or percentage. I told these residents I would continue to write and confront the problems that arise and tried to explain calmly that the trouble with conspiracy theories is that they really take a toll on a paper’s readership and The Sentry needs all the readers it can get. If you feature conspiracy columns and opinions, many readers write you off as a conspiracy nut and the result is you don’t get to have your voice in the mainstream dialogue. Since I like to write, and have been doing so for many years, that would not be an acceptable consequence. I am not wiser than anyone – but I am a tad bit older than most. In my lifetime there have been numerous conspiratorial theories. For example, the one that FDR never really died; he was alive in Warm Springs, Georgia. Another well-known conspiracy is that JFK was not killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, but by the CIA, and the shots came from the grassy knoll in front of the motorcade. We still hear that Elvis is not dead but has been the night manager of a Super K-Mart store in Detroit. The most modern one is that the US Government engineered the 9/11 attack, and the military shot a missile at the Pentagon. They go on and on and on, even after they have been debunked. Some fanciful rumors persist possibly because they are almost impossible to debunk. They range from the ridiculous to the sublime, and since I don’t work for the National Enquirer, I spend very little time on them. But once I did spend time on one particular claim and found it to be correct – not a theory at all. Bill Bennett, the noted Republican political analyst and operative, and former Secretary of Education, did in fact, in his youth, date Janis Joplin. That was frightening to learn. On the other hand, it was not as eerie as watching Ann Coulter delivering a speech while wearing leather pants suit. The term ‘conspiracy theory’ is not a literal description; it’s a label for ideas that cross certain borders – ideas that suggest some abuses of power and illegal activity by people in high places. In my opinion, I think we have had our share of these abuses of power and illegal activity in Pompano Beach City Hall – and we have been quick to point them out when discovered. Few mainstream writers support the wild ideas that are the framework for most conspiracy theories. The problem they face with ‘going there’ is not just that one can be proven wrong if the ‘supporting’ facts are incorrect. A mainstream writer who accepts and promotes the beliefs of conspiracy buffs will, if the facts are proven to be incorrect, be exiled from the mainstream journalism community. Early in an investigation, there can be many ideas about what happened, and they can include conspiracies. Those in control tend to attach the ‘conspiracy theory’ label to any idea that is at odds with the official story. The problem with most conspiracy theories is that the claimed conspiracy has to be kept secret by so many people that it becomes untenable, and the theory becomes impossible to believe. One easy example is the conspiracy theory that we never put a man on the Moon – it was all an elaborate hoax. One ‘proof’ was that there was a picture taken which included an American flag that was straight because it was blowing in the wind, but there can be no wind on the Moon. The official story was that supports were used to hold the flag horizontal. The conspiracy theorists failed to explain why, if the flag was actually blowing in the wind on Earth, there were no ripples we now expect whenever we see a flag waving in the breeze. ‘Holes’ like that in a conspiracy theory make no difference to the convinced faithful. The ‘proofs’ of nearly all conspiracy theories consist solely of perceived anomalies in the official account, or missing facts. The problem is that nearly all of these conspiracies would necessarily involve large numbers of people whose loyalties to the conspiracy could not be guaranteed. In criminal conspiracies involving a handful of perpetrators, there is usually one or more who just have to tell someone. In a conspiracy involving hundreds of people, how could it be there is NO ONE with actual proof of the perceived hoax? Where is the smoking gun? The simple answer is that there just ain’t no conspiracy. I think conspiracy theories emerge as a result of frustrations with those in control. People who hate Bill Clinton piece together facts, half-truths, and opinions that suggest the Clintons were assassinating enemies. People who hate George W. Bush piece together facts, half-truths, and opinions that suggest the Bush Administration engineered the attack on the World Trade Center. The fanatics refuse to believe otherwise. They don’t want to be confused with the facts because their minds are made up. In 2008 the abuses and outrages of the American political system have ballooned to such monstrous proportions, that there is very little room to think. That’s why the noise from the official media propaganda system is so overwhelmingly loud. I don’t like it either. I know that the mainstream press has usually had some political agenda, but not to the point of distortion. That’s different now, and I don’t want to be a part of it. I think that’s why my conversation with the Garden Isles residents raised the question, “Why do I write?” If one chooses writing as the means by which one seeks financial security, or one wants to write about politics and ‘go where the money is,’ then it is necessary to observe the boundaries and play by the rules of the media owners. That’s the price you pay for entrance into that club. Here at The Sentry, I have no such constraints. I am given a free hand to discuss any topic I choose. I also choose my words with some degree of care, and rarely am I overruled by editorial censure. But there are other reasons to write besides financial security. There is, of course, activism. One can write to effect change. One may wish to challenge authority, but must also consider that one’s audience will be larger if one’s writing appears in the mainstream. Even within the activist community, there are rules to be followed. In politics, one must ‘choose one’s battles.’ You can’t fight every battle, so it is better to choose the most important ones and leave others alone, especially avoiding issues that are so controversial one may lose credibility by engaging in them and risking being branded a conspiracy theorist or a nut. Unfortunately, we can see this every two weeks when certain Pompano citizens approach the City Commission dais to register the same concerns – meeting after meeting – without success; without proof, without credible documents and without organized thought. Unfortunately the only people that pay attention are the participating speakers. Also many writers and activists strictly avoid anything deemed ‘conspiracy theory’ in order that their writing on other issues will have more impact. But there are still other reasons to write besides financial security or political activism. Writing as a medium of exploration and inquiry has its own reason for existing – its own rewards. The pursuit of truth is its own reward. There is writing for social change and for the exploration of the human spirit. The latter does not mean writing only for oneself. The act of writing presumes a reader, although he/she may be far removed in time and place from the writer. Since a writer consumes but does not produce, his works remain gratuitous. Now we are in a new age, a new century and with the Worldwide Web, we are really in a new world and no one knows exactly where it is going. In this community, I’ve already committed far too many sins to ever be allowed entry into the mainstream thinking, so I’ll just continue to give vent to whatever stories produce themselves in my consciousness through the process of inquiry, resident input and record searches. I refuse to block my consciousness from pursuing a line of reasoning just because an authority says, “Don’t go there.” I don’t care what the implications are. I do not recognize any authority that tries to force me to relinquish my common sense. If I have a cause, that is my cause. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. I do not expect the power structure to relinquish their iron grip, certainly not because of anything I do. I am not Don Quixote, chasing windmills. Let them have their power. Let them wallow in it until it destroys them in the blood of their own greed. But I refuse to give up the integrity of my own mind. I respect my readers; so let whoever wants to read it read it. I have been around this community for some time writing about many misdeeds and during that time, I have seen a lot of shoddy work and incompetent officials, and even some conniving ones. And they can’t keep secrets worth a hoot. But there just ain’t no conspiracy. Well, there ain’t no VAST conspiracy. There is a smattering of amateur ones, and they get caught.