Inciting Chaos: Paranoia and the New World Order

If America ever goes down in flames,  it will do so amidst the machinations of conspiracy theorists. . . 

What is worth noting is the similarity in tone,  sensibility,  and ideology to the right wing and rising opposing forces of our current debate crisis.  The fact that there is a deluge of rantings within the blogosphere,  and that Twitter messages have taken on the shrill tone which leads to hysteria,  should give us pause.  Every social futurist and scholar of cultural and political sea changes knows that there is always the pre-cursor phase,  when groups which resonate with undercurrents of fear and ignorance, first make their appearance on the cultural scene.  

From TPM Muckraker's  Justin Elliot,  this piece about the 1996 arrest of a right-wing insurgent group with parallels and ties to some of the anti-Obama activists of today: 




 

What is so disturbing,  and equally maddening,  about these charges of "New World Order"  -  and they are levelled at Obama daily  -  is that there is no historical comprehension of its reality,  and it is used as a vehicle to strike fear into the heartland populace, and incite them to unlawful behavior.  The fact of the matter is,  America and Europe, and the vast reaches of the globe,  are all part of an inescapable and natural chronology,  dating back to the Civil War period and the rapid rise of industry.  We are all bound up in it,  we all use its technology and engage in its civil discourse.  

Activists on the right speak of the old Republic and the founding fathers,  as if they, and they alone,  had desecended from their antecedents and principles.    In truth,  we are all part and parcel of this high-tech, super-scienced,  corporate-driven,  global-reaching and democratic rising new  world order.  It is no conspiracy.  It was most emphatically not cooked up by a few liberal elites.  It is the necessary and inescapable consequence and outcome of our history.  The right is growing daily more shrill in its paranoic rantings;  more sure that they are on a mission of noble purpose.  And yet to blame liberals for our current juncture,  is like a teenager blaming his parents for having conspired to change him from a little boy into an adolescent.  To work with our current President to bring about unity and real change is what the hour calls for.   The rising talk of guns and violence at Town Hall meetings  -  which are supposed to be about healthcare,  not Nazi conspiracy !!  -  is not a good sign.   

If we are to descend into the dark pits of historical hell,  it will not be because Barack Obama and his elite squad have taken over:  It will  be because a natural historical juncture was seen as a deliberate and malicious act of conspiracy,  because inciters found it expedient to sread this propaganda and disinformation to their own ends.  And it will be the inciters who have blood on their hands.