Page Two: Lullaby for the New World Order

This column could begin, "American politics has long privileged the trivial over the substantive." But that would be misleading in almost every way. American politics isn't at all unique when it comes to that tendency; it's simply part of the international trend. Substantial problems, with their often overwhelming social, financial, and/or political stakes, are difficult to solve. Far better to take a tough stand against flag burning or gay marriage or (after dramatically misrepresenting how it is used) funding for Planned Parenthood than to deal with far more important and complicated problems. There is no better target than the inconsequential.

Those birthers who question the citizenship of President Obama have always struck me as a particularly offensive group. It's hard not to characterize this challenge, which makes a continent-spanning mountain range out of something less than a molehill, as anything but decidedly harassing and inherently racist. Watching the president show his long-form birth certificate on television was demeaning to all – including the Constitution, the country, the president, his supporters, and his opponents – yet it had no real-world value.

Although this seems to come as a surprise to some, to say one is not racist does not mean one is not a racist. Rather, it often strongly suggests just the opposite.

True believers defend the accuracy of contemporary conspiracy theories by arguing that they've made their collective case through the incredible accumulation of circumstantial details they offer (even though those are accompanied by a complete absence of smoking guns). They haven't. There is no real way to back up the accusation that the New World Order, in pursuit of world domination, has been responsible for almost every political disaster, financial collapse, and diplomatic failure of the last quarter-century (or half-century or whatever).

Nevertheless, this is the claim: The New World Order, a collectivist, conspiratorial power elite, pursues a globalist agenda aimed at creating an authoritarian, one-world government. This would facilitate the NWO's ultimate and malevolent goal of substantial world population decimation (by as much as 80-85%). In some versions of the narrative, they've been at this for decades; in other versions, it's centuries.

Opposed to this evil are those individuals and groups that can be said to constitute what might be called the revolutionary underground resistance. Self-declared patriots, they see themselves as the most devoted, commonsense supporters of the United States Constitution. Interestingly, not only do they get to decide that they are the true patriots, but they also are empowered to deny that label to any one who doesn't agree with them. Their devotion to the Constitution is even more shaky, as their fanaticism is for that document as they understand it; they tolerate no one else's interpretation. The main activity, besides preparing for a shooting war, seems to be accumulating and sharing information on the crimes, connections, and activities of the conspiracy.

One of the more consistent traits of our conspiracy hobbyist brothers and sisters is their extraordinary insensitivity to the rights and/or dignity of anyone who holds different views. The birth-certificate press conference was barely over before the conspiracy community offered its expected and sadly predictable assertion that it was not just a forgery but also a very poor one. A person might think that even if there were no events to which this group would not offer the most obvious responses, its various members still might take some time to fully consider them. Such a person would be wrong.

It was no surprise that the conspiracy grandmaster, Alex Jones, immediately nailed it as a forgery. As Jones regularly asserts, unlike most of us, he does not offer opinions but rather absolute statements of truth. Able to understand completely the mindset of the New World Order parasites, he has detection skills in that area that make Sherlock Holmes look like a barely competent Boy Scout. Other conspiratorially oriented talk show hosts quickly picked up the charge, going on about just how embarrassingly bad of a forgery the long-form birth certificate is, one of them routinely suggesting that it was so bad that it represented one White House aide's Homer Simpson moment.

Jones is a true multi- and new-media personality, appearing on television and the radio as well as maintaining websites. Given his charismatic zeal, extensive if very narrowly focused knowledge of conspiracy theories, and oratory skills, it is no surprise that he has emerged as a leader, though the extent of his national and international following may surprise many.

Jones regularly denies advocating violence, which is at best disingenuous. Not only does he have no use for electoral politics, but also, when speaking – especially when he works himself up to ranting – he often slips into demagoguery, demonizing all those he is determined to stop. Vaccine-caused fatalities are not unavoidable accidents but deliberate murders, part of the planned extermination of much of the human race. The NWO elite are power-mad, deranged visionaries who represent a real and ongoing danger to the world's population. Being being both vicious and immoral and having infiltrated all the traditional seats of power, especially in this country, they have viciously manipulated history to serve their ends and are to be feared.

This phase of the birther controversy indicated an ever-growing contradiction in the representation of the relationship between the NWO and those who resist it.

If you really want to claim that there are legitimate issues concerning the president's birthplace, then you have to assume that there has been and there still is a sophisticated network of supporters with access to power and very careful future plans. This is the NWO, all-powerful and easily able to sustain such a network.

Yet they fouled up the final forgery? And fouled it up so badly that it is painfully easy to recognize as such?

The good old American love of freedom and resistance to tyranny has to have some consequences. After 16 years of fighting in the trenches against the globalists, Jones' growing importance and his ego – as well as his finely tuned sense of the impact of radio's shared dramatic narrative powers – demand that new storylines evolve.

The NWO is all-powerful, but it also has become more vulnerable. They had momentum on their side, but now the decent American common folks are starting to awaken.

Still, the birthers have no endgame. Nothing is ever going to come of their vile obsessions. What proof could they present that would sway American elected officials to impeach the president, and the public to go along? If Hawaiian documents are so easy to forge, which documents from anywhere in the world would or could be trusted? What evidence would be so unimpeachable and compelling that it would not be suspect?

The conspiracy theorists in general seem far more interested in strutting their stuff, in being smarter and more aware than most citizens, and in congratulating one another on their intelligence, declaring the extraordinary nature of both their patriotism and bravery, than in showing any interest in promoting real change.