Who could believe that the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan was motivated by a desire to increase profits for Unocal? Who could believe George Bush and John Ashcroft are plotting a fascist takeover of the United States? Who could believe that Hilary Clinton ordered the murder of Vince Foster? Who could believe that Bill Clinton was a drug lord overseeing a huge cocaine smuggling operation? Who could believe that George Bush is somehow in league with Osama Bin Laden? And yet millions of people in the U.S. do believe these things. Some of them are my friends. It’s just a wild guess, but I would estimate that somewhere around 20% of the adult population believes one or more of these things, or any one of a number of other crazy conspiracy theories.
If an individual were 20% convinced of any of these paranoid fantasies, he or she would be considered to be at least border-line psychotic. And that’s just the U.S. if we look at the world as a whole, it is much worse. It would seem that the principles of the Enlightenment, i.e., the scientific method, the rules of logic, etc., have a long way to go, to propogate through the collective consciousness.
This is the world we live in. We are, and have been, under attack by affiliated organizations of millions of psychotics. And we are living in a time when rapidly advancing deadly technology is becoming available to more and more people throughout the world. And yet many Americans, more than 20%, believe that the Bush administration is exaggerating the threat. Myself, I think that, if anything, they are seriously understating it. Exaggeration would be very difficult.