Well, let me make one exception... That's not totally accurate since there are many who still think we live in a democracy, view the world through a partisan prism, and trust the government. So if any reader falls into that category, then I admit, you are not a CT. I'm not going to get into describing what you are here, since in this diary I'm focusing on conspiracy theorists...
I was following the works of the Project for the New American Century's (PNAC) from the late 1990s. Back then we (lefties) were all focused on the neocons. That was the villain of the time, in our eyes.
From what I can remember, by the end of the 1990's I was starting to see the handwriting on the wall (at least in my tinfoil hat-wearing CT-kind of thinking, I was told many times)... The Neocons were setting the stage for the formation of a total-information-awareness surveillance police state.
After 9/11, there was much talk about the "New Pearl Harbor" in the PNAC "Rebuilding American Defenses" document:
Section V of Rebuilding America's Defenses, entitled "Creating Tomorrow's Dominant Force", includes the sentence: "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor"
Though not arguing that Bush administration PNAC members were complicit in those attacks, other social critics such as commentator Manuel Valenzuela and journalist Mark Danner, investigative journalist John Pilger, in New Statesman, and former editor of The San Francisco Chronicle Bernard Weiner, in CounterPunch, all argue that PNAC members used the events of 9/11 as the "Pearl Harbor" that they needed––that is, as an "opportunity" to "capitalize on" (in Pilger's words), in order to enact long-desired plans.
The emphasis is mine
The reason I bring this up is to try to put the situation we find ourselves today into historical perspective. This situation (fast-rising total-information-awareness for-profit corporate-controlled/owned/run police state) didn't just materialized out of thin air; there was very careful planning behind it.
Either way, the PNAC was so successful at realizing their vision, that they could not helped but to crow. I think one of the most important quote of the times is this one by Karl Rove, as reported by Ron Suskind in an October 17, 2004 article in the New York Times Magazine:
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
The emphasis is mine
Anyways, back to my point... I bring all this stuff up because that (and much more) informed my views at the time: There was a cabal of Neocons colluding to totally transform the nation into a veritable corporate-run Police State.
During the time I was heavily involved in technology, including the fast-growing Internet, and since I worked with issues related to security, fraud-prevention, and interaction with law enforcement agencies, I came to another conclusion: As the Internet grew and people plugged in, the ascending surveillance police state would use it to collect vast amounts of information on citizens (indiscriminately), and this situation would then threaten freedom and democracy.
So in my tinfoil hat-wearing type of thinking, I began to think about the implications of all this stuff (as CTs tend to do)...
Extremely rich and powerful individuals (billionaires) would fund think tanks (including fascist outfits like PNAC), and this would set the stage for a massive propaganda campaign to convince people to give up their constitutional rights.
Following, a fascistic infrastructure that included the technological and legal framework to support it, would be established.
And so I (and many others, including activists, civil liberties organizations, journalists, etc.) started raising concerns about how the PATRIOT ACT was going to be used as a subterfuge to sneak in a Police State, and about how this rising proto-fascist entity would start collecting vast amounts of data on citizens (indiscriminately), and how this situation would then result in the subjugation and enslavement of the population.
I (and many others) have been writing and warning about this for at least 12 years now, and for 11 of those years I (and many others) have been called conspiracy theorists for the trouble.
I got used to it, but now I'm concerned. I keep writing about the same exact thing, but in the comments I hardly ever see more than one of two system apologists calling me a CT anymore.
It's kind of scary to see many more people agreeing with me.
What happened? Are we all now conspiracy theorists?
P.S. Just in case... I have never believe in the proposition that 9/11 was an inside job, so I'm not a "truther." Because of the policies pursuit by our corporate-dominated government worldwide, we are constantly making enemies and as the list of enemies grows, the danger of attacks also grows, so when the proto-fascists behind PNAC mused about how nice it would be to have a New Pearl Harbor in order to shock the population into accepting the imposition of a Police State, I figure they were counting on the fact that eventually an attack like that would happen.