We'll Keep the Tin Foil Flying Here

It’s my view that those who believe in communism should be converted to aluminiumism. The commie anthem’s chorus could then be adapted to be

Raise the shining standard high
Beneath its folds we'll never lie
Though Experts™ flinch and journos sneer
We'll keep the tin foil flying here

I was musing (as you do) on conspiracy theories. I have long-admired those who can take a few strands of evidence and weave some fantastical story around them to show that we’re being overrun by flesh-eating alien space lizards (FEASL), or mind-controlled by the Illuminati, or that we just lived through an epoch-defining moment caused by the leak of a virus from a lab.

Oh. Hang on. That last one turned out to be true.

I hope they’re not right about the flesh-eating alien space lizards.

Of course, when someone is accused of being a “conspiracy theorist” the association with FEASL is precisely the one they want you to make.

The idea of a conspiracy theory is that there are some shadowy forces operating (conspiring) to direct events to suit some nefarious purpose.

These shadowy forces are said to influence things and steer things in all sorts of negative ways.

Bloody hell. Are they talking about whiteness?

That shadowy coalition of systems and people who strive constantly to keep the noble POC oppressed and to stifle the noble POC ways of doing things?

According to the Smithsonian, white people conspired to engineer a system to promote all sorts of really bad things; like hard work, rational thinking and being on time.

Why, I wondered, wasn’t this whole notion of invisible intersecting systemic oppressions that are said to exist classified as a conspiracy theory? It sure sounds like one, doesn’t it?

Suppose, it’s ridiculous I know, there was a lab that was researching certain kinds of viruses and they were deliberately trying to engineer those viruses to become more infectious in humans, and that there happened to be an outbreak of the very same kind of virus the lab was working on, in the place the lab was located, and that this virus had a few novel features. Wouldn’t we all be pointing like Donald Sutherland at the end of The Invasion of The Body Snatchers to identify the culprit being the lab?

Call me crazy, but isn’t this just a tad more believable than some improbable chain of transmission involving bats, pangolins, racoon dogs and Mulan’s dodgy uncle, Won Long Fook, who entertains himself with whatever animal he can get his hands on?

Yet those who thought the lab-leak explanation made more sense (which it does) than the zoonotic origin fabrication theory were derided as being “conspiracy theorists”.

Now, imagine you were one of the folks who may have worked with the lab, or funded the research, or sub-contracted out projects to the lab. When the spike of reality hit the whirring blades of the fan of destiny, when you realize the work you were involved in might just have unleashed horror¹ on the world, you might feel somewhat exposed, don’t you think?

You’d probably be scared shitless and, along with frequent changes of underwear, be doing whatever you could to point the finger of blame at anywhere but the lab.

Instead of that interpretation of events, however, we had the Science™ Opera of pangolins, bats, and god knows what else presented as “the truth” - and those of us who, after our fits of giggles had subsided, tried to point out the bleedin’ obvious were derided as “conspiracy theorists”.

These days we can see that pretty much anything that goes against some officially sanctioned narrative will, at some point, be derided as a “conspiracy theory”.

They want you to think FEASL whenever their own carefully-woven fairy tales start to fall apart and people point this out. Mind you, also these days, I’m not sure whether FEASL wouldn’t be a preferable truth to the ghouls we seem to have running the show.

Starmer & Co or flesh-eating alien space lizards? Hmmm. A surprisingly difficult choice to make, that one.

Yet, because of all of those myriad intersecting oppressions, said to be designed or baked into the “system” by white people, that are “rooted” in white supremacy, there’s vast swathes of people in the Oppressed™ class that are being continually squashed by these pernicious IFOP’s (Intersecting Forces of Oppression). Half the world and their neurodivergent, trans, three-legged dog from Mexico who likes shagging rabbits are just having it real bad.

As far as conspiracy theories go it has been quite successful. Thousands of academic programs now study IFOP’s either directly or indirectly. An entire industry of DEI has grown to unimaginable proportions. People kneel, raise fists, bedeck their entire countries with rainbow flags, fire people who question things, or prosecute people who question things in ways that are said to be hurty. They have an entire entertainment industry at their beck and call and almost the entirety of the media. And even police forces willingly join the grand carnival

Those IFOP’s seem to be rather piss-poor don’t they? You’d think all those nasty racist gits who set it all in motion would have done a much better job of “rooting” wouldn’t you?

Although perhaps they were afraid of getting monkeypox mpox from all that rooting.

Discrimination and racism exists. Of course it does - some people are twats and will likely never change. But, like the modus operandi of every good true conspiracy theorist, a whole fantabulous tapestry is constructed from meagre threads. It all gets elevated to the status of mythical invisible IFOP’s spreading like some fungus through everything that has ever been done or said by whitey willy wavers.

Why do so many young girls these days want to join the ranks of what is now the most despised group on earth? Do they think the plus points of transy queerness are going to be sufficient to overcome the stigma of being white and male?

Let’s go to town. Let’s start calling everything our opponents say a “conspiracy theory”. Lie like they do. I mean, as late as Feb 2024 this year, any mention of Prez Sharp as a Tack’s apparent senility was derided as a conspiracy theory

Things unravelled when the entire world witnessed Trump debating Resident Joe.

But you know what’s not getting all that much attention? An honest-to-goodness bona-fide real conspiracy. Not a theory, but an actual one. They conspired to keep Wandering Joe’s obvious impairments hidden for years.

People do not go from “sharp as a tack” to away with the fairies overnight.

When talking of Kamala as the next puppet I prefer thinking more of Pinocchio than a glove puppet, but there’s no doubt that Harris has been groomed to be the next Puppet-in-Chief.

Is that a conspiracy theory?

The flesh-eating alien space lizard sitting next to me tells me it isn’t.

1. The principal horrors being caused by governments and not the virus itself which was, in the grand scheme of virusy things, not all that deadly or consequential