CONSPIRACY CRANKS: CREATING CRAZED '9/11 TRUTH'

I have been trying to figure out why so many people have fallen for conspiracy theories about 9-11. There seems to be an inherent distrust in anything American and a deep antipathy towards Bush. Why? I am not sure, it is possible in our relativistic society, that conservatives are mistrusted because they actually do believe in a yes or no, especially the issues on abortion, homosexual rights, war etc. (not that consevatives have a lock on truth). It is easy to turn someone who believes there is an absolute standard for right and wrong into the "bad guy" who desires to ruin our fun or freedom or whatever someone wants to call it.

I realise that the extreme right can also be blinded by their own ideology, and are dangerous (remember Timothy McVeigh?). However, it is a stretch to believe that George W. Bush is anything remote to a Timothy McVeigh. The polarisation and hatred emanating from conspiracy theorists seems to be almost pathological. Notice I am speaking about conspiracy theorists here and not just the left. They mistrust a president and political party so much that what they want to believe is more important than truth. There is an ignorance about Islam that cannot be ignored. Anyone who is not a Muslim is the enemy. We (the United States) are the enemy simply because we do not practice Islam. Under Islam there can be no separation of church and state. This ignorance mixed with a paranoid fear of conservatism has bred something ridiculous.

Bush/Halliburton/Zionist/CIA/New World Order/Illuminati conspiracy for world domination. That day, Popular Mechanics, the magazine I edit, hit newsstands with a story debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories. Within hours, the online community of 9/11 conspiracy buffs - which calls itself the "9/11 Truth Movement" - was aflame with wild fantasies about me, my staff and the article we had published. Conspiracy Web sites labeled Popular Mechanics a "CIA front organization" and compared us to Nazis and war criminals.

For a 104-year-old magazine about science, technology, home improvement and car maintenance, this was pretty extreme stuff. What had we done to provoke such outrage?

Research. Read More.

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Tags: 9-11, conspiracy theories, popular mechanics