Rumors and urban legends often do not arise from scratch. Even the most absurd conspiracy theories tend to be backed up by real historical facts - at least indirectly.
The government controls our mind
This is perhaps the most common conspiracy theory. At least among psychiatric patients. It is known as the "Foil Hat" and is as follows: the government has the ability to penetrate our heads with the help of special rays and inspire us with what it sees fit. For this, allegedly, the technology of the Illuminati is used (sinister organizations of conspirators who tried to secretly manage world affairs in Europe). This theory is so popular among crazy people for obvious reasons: that's why they are crazy to hear and see what is not. A common symptom. Mark Chapman (assassin of John Lennon) and Serhan Serhan (assassin of Robert Kennedy) claimed to have committed their crimes by obeying the orders of certain "voices."
And they are not the only ones who have heard the "voices." There were many people who, although they did not kill the favorites of the public, but also accused the government of trying to penetrate their cranium.
Some of them came up with the idea of putting on the aforementioned foil hats in order to protect their heads from the intervention of special services (as well as aliens, cosmic rays and any other vermin). So the tin foil hat became the symbol of everything related to conspiracies, and helped the cinema to create many vivid images of paranoid schizophrenics. This theory is not as crazy as it sounds: they can actually broadcast voices into your heads.
In 2006, such a story happened. One guy, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, took advantage of the freedom of the press law and requested all government documents related to research on microwave hearing, telepathy and hypnosis. Those that were not classified, of course. The act was quite consistent with the diagnosis and did not surprise anyone. In addition, before that, the guy convinced everyone that the backs of his boots evaporate under the influence of some kind of electromagnetic weapon. All jokes, but when the requested papers were received, many felt uncomfortable.
Page after page, documents certified by serious people confirmed the "delirium of a madman." It turned out that taxpayer dollars were actually used to fund various mind control projects. Such, for example, as the creation of a telepathic beam weapon or a laser that can disorient a person and make him less aggressive. And one of these projects was really connected with the study of telepathic transmission of the human voice using ultrahigh-frequency short-range radiation. During the experiment, the volunteers were "broadcast" directly into the brain with voices naming numbers from one to ten. So the government was not only interested in the issues of mind control, but also achieved some success on this path.
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Census as a tool of discrimination
Most of us fill out census forms without a second thought, but not all. And among the most suspicious part of American society, unkind rumors spread. One conservative website has suggested that the EDS coordinates of the homes of US civilians, collected by census workers, may be needed by UN soldiers. These coordinates will supposedly facilitate the movement of foreign military personnel around the country if the American government deems it necessary to resort to their help.
Michelle Bachmann drank oil on the fire. She refused to answer any census questions other than how many people live in her house. And she said that the Constitution does not oblige her to provide other information. This statement was dear to Bachmann. Her paranoid rhetoric immediately became the subject of much ridicule. Especially when the actual census results showed that her own state could lose its congressional district. We, of course, can laugh together at the paranoid who think that the government plans to drive everyone to the camps with the help of the census, but only … this is not as nonsense as it seems. The US government did, in fact, once use census data to pack people into camps.
In 2007, the world learned that during World War II, the US Census Service helped the secret services to round up Japanese Americans. As a result, about 120 thousand Japanese were in the camps, of which 62% had American citizenship. This became possible because then President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed legislation giving the executive branch extraordinary powers.
Until 1942, the information collected during the census remained confidential and protected. Everything changed when the bombs hit Pearl Harbor. A real anti-Asian hysteria began. Every American with a suspicious eye shape was automatically classified as a "hostile foreigner." So when the secret services knocked on the doors of the Census Bureau for the names and addresses of everyone with even a drop of Japanese blood, the Data Collection Center did not hesitate to provide this service. The law that gave the government such powers was revoked after the war.
But this was not the last time that data on nationality was transmitted in a politically charged atmosphere. In 2004, the Census Bureau provided the Ministry of National Security with information on the areas of compact residence of people from Arab countries or descendants of immigrants from the Middle East. Then over a thousand people were detained and expelled from the country.
The government controls the media
This is one of the favorite theories of all media markets, and it has long been a surprise to anyone. However, some of her followers go further. They claim that the federal government controls absolutely everything we watch, listen to, and read. To do this, they believe, the government uses its representatives' speeches in the media, distribution of subsidies, and even, in the case of war correspondents, direct pressure.
All this resembles the plot of the film by Robert De Niro "The Tail Wags the Dog": the Head of State comes up with a whole war in order to divert public attention from adultery in the White House. And news channels obediently broadcast staged patriotic videos, pseudo-interviews and even songs about soldiers of a fictional war. You say - absurd? Do not hurry!
In 1948, the Office for Policy Coordination was created within the State Department. It was headed by a certain Frank Wisner. He got all the authority he could to put forward his own version of American ideology and started a company called Mockingbird. Its essence was to seize control of all influential media with the help of journalists and editors under his control.
By the mid-1950s, the CIA had over 400 journalists working across the country. These guys weren't just budding reporters. These included professionals of the highest caliber who have worked for three major publications: The New York Times, Time Inc. and Associated Press. Each of them had the opportunity not only to post pro-government materials in the relevant media, but also to filter out insufficiently loyal ones. It wasn't that hard.
The good news: Mockingbird was revealed and disbanded by the mid-70s. Bad news: in the last decade, the US government put its sticky hands on all war reporting and uses information warfare to win the whole world over to its side.
Government agents are people too
All conspiracy theories have something in common. People who believe in them tend to think they are being watched. And not only special surveillance systems, as in the film "Enemy of the State", but also living agents of special services made of flesh and blood, who watch day and night from the dark alleys.
Yes, each of them firmly believes that the government pays someone full-time (including bonuses, pension contributions and an official car) solely to keep abreast of the affairs of his small group of radical vegetarians. And that they must have infiltrated their man into a local coffee shop to spy on him while he spreads a thick layer of cream cheese on a Hawaiian bun.
However, this theory is also not as absurd as it seems. And that's why.
In 1956, the head of the FBI Edgar Hoover launched a secret project called Cointelpro (or Counter Intelligence Program - counterintelligence program). They did use agents to spy on various political and social organizations in the United States, from the Black Panther party of black radicals to the National Guild of Lawyers.
Even individuals with a more or less active anti-government position could be targeted by Cointelpro.
For most people, the 1950s is synonymous with fluffy skirts, phone booths full of teenagers, and the birth of rock and roll. But when it comes to privacy, the 50s seem like a pretty dark time. Especially for those who disagreed with the government, in whatever form it was expressed.
Cointelpro's methods included a whole arsenal of dirty tricks. They, for example, managed to pit the Black Panther against other groups of black nationalists, and then leaders within the party itself. They introduced their people into Martin Luther King's inner circle to control his every step. In terms of misinformation, provocation and manipulation, these guys simply had no equal.
In the end, America still found out what the gallant FBI was secretly doing. In the early 70s, Cointelpro was banned. However, we still receive his "greetings". When, for example, the FBI declared organizations such as Greenpeace or PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to be an "internal terrorist threat". Or when one of Obama's advisers (meaning Cass Sunstein, a supporter of the so-called "liberal paternalism") offered to hire secret agents who would monitor Internet forums and expose "false conspiracy theories that discredit the government." Because, as you can imagine, the regulars on conspiracy theories are unlikely to appreciate irony.
The government is poisoning our food and drink
There is a fairly widespread theory that the Nazis achieved the obedience of concentration camp prisoners by adding sodium fluoride to their water. Many "conspiracy theorists" believe that the government today fluoridates tap water for the same purpose. And this, in their opinion, is only the tip of the poisonous iceberg. Almost everything from artificial sugar substitutes (which Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld got the Americans on!) To vaccines (to sterilize us, of course) are all part of a secret government operation.
Its goal is complete control over the population. This, of course, is very similar to nonsense. But … during the "dry law", the government tried to find a way to discourage people from drinking, without resorting to the traditional "grab and imprison". And he did not come up with anything better than adding poison to alcohol, which, most likely, was supposed to serve as a deterrent. But they grossly underestimated the population's attachment to the green serpent. By 1933, when Prohibition was repealed, this federal program had killed at least 10,000 people.
Yes, that's a fact. And this is not the last time Uncle Sam tried to wean citizens from bad habits with the help of poison. In 1970, the US government sprayed herbicides on marijuana fields in Mexico. Marijuana growers quickly realized that the harvest could be saved by harvesting it immediately after spraying. As a result, tons of herb, flavored with pesticides and mixed with regular marijuana, went to the United States. It was a time when smoking marijuana was the nation's favorite pastime.
The government shrugged off any accusations related to this story, as the poisoned marijuana caused "only" pulmonary fibrosis when ingested and throat bleeding when inhaled. Who would worry about such trifles!
Secret biological warfare
Many knowledgeable people, such as rock musician Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, have repeatedly tried to warn the world about treacherous government programs such as spraying various chemicals on civilians.
We are talking about "chemtrails" (the so-called exhaust lanes left by aircraft. Ordinary lanes dissipate quickly, are not long enough and depend on the operating mode of the engines. Chemtrails are continuously expanding, gradually turning into stratus clouds consisting of many rings).
You'd be surprised how many people are convinced that the government is spraying chemicals from planes to regulate the birth rate, control the weather, and that this nasty thing is why we get respiratory problems so often.
And then, we've all heard stories about how the CIA invented AIDS to wipe out blacks and other bad guys. And this legend did not appear out of nowhere. The federal government has not only tested some methods of biological warfare on US citizens. These experiments did cost some people their lives.
During the Cold War, there was serious research related to entomology. They consisted in the following: 300,000 mosquitoes were released throughout Georgia, and they began to wait for what would happen. No, mosquitoes were not carriers of any terrible diseases. Just mosquitoes. The government just wanted to find out what would have happened if they had actually released yellow fever-infested insects.
From 1949 to 1969, the US military conducted 239 outdoor biological tests. These are only those who have documentary evidence. This includes spraying bacteria “akin” to those that cause anthrax into the New York subway. Two more cases occurred in the San Francisco Bay and at the Washington National Airport, when supposedly harmless bacteria were sprayed on people.
How this experiment ended for airport passengers, we, for obvious reasons, will never know. And after tests in San Francisco, 11 people ended up in hospitals with a rare urinary tract infection, one of them died. These bacteria weren't really dangerous. For healthy people. Except for a slight weakening of the body, which, you see, is also unpleasant. But for those whose immune systems were already weakened, the bacteria posed a really serious threat.
“Interesting newspaper. The world of the unknown №20 2012