Copyright (c) Wendy M. Grossman, 1996 Published in the Daily Telegraph as "Trust no one", December 3, 1996 This is the pre-edit version as submitted. Don’t believe anything you read in this article. It, like the rest of this newspaper, is part of a giant, world-wide mass media conspiracy to feed the public meaningless lies and sensationalist pap. The Truth is too dangerous to be told. Instead, we divert you with stories about toe-sucking and the state of Tony Blair’s hair while the military-industrial complex/Corporate America/national governments/MI5 get away with murdering people, raping the planet, and hiding the aliens who are, even now, among us. It’s all on the Net (and a lot of other places), so it must be true. Probably. Anyone who is churlish enough to notice that the people publishing all this dangerous information on their Web sites haven’t actually disappeared, or that they cite plenty of newspaper stories, TV programmes, and books in evidence, probably shouldn’t tell anyone. You might be next. But that’s good. According to Lyndon LaRouche, the only Presidential candidate to have been convicted in a Federal criminal case, “the measure of a man’s virtue is often the numerousness and savagery of his enemies.” If that’s true, JFK was a winner. Even 33 years after his death there’s a whole newsgroup about it, alt.conspiracy.jfk, to rehash the the single-bullet theory, the multiple-assassin theory, and how the Warren Commission got it all wrong. The man is just as dead, but it was such a seminal moment in recent American history that many people can’t let it go. The biggest current buzz, of course, is all about TWA Flight 800, which may be the first case on record where a rumour seems to have started on the Net and then moved offline, rather than the reverse. The leading theory: the plane was shot down by a US Navy missile. This appeared only days after the crash on the newsgroup rec.aviation.military. It was almost immediately (sorry) shot down by knowledgeable experts, but the continuing official silence fuels the rumours. And the CIA and the Justice Department actually refused to accept a gift of 30 to 40 Stinger missiles in 1995, it says right there at the New World Order site (http://www.inforamp.net/twa800.htm). They have a memo to prove it. The same site tells us the crash of Pan Am flight 103 in Lockerbie was part of a drug pipeline operated by the CIA, which is being criminally covered up by Congress and the media. Well, of course an agency that would send exploding cigars to Castro is capable of anything, but cocaine-running? Trace that back through the newsgroup alt.conspiracy, and you find that the original source was a series of articles in the ever-so-respectable San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley’s local paper. The original articles are on the Merc’s own Web site, along with an article quoting an official denial. Significantly, Netscape actually crashed when I tried to print that out to read it properly. Someone does not want me to have this information -- and it’s obviously part of a systematic campaign because Netscape crashes a lot, especially when I’m trying to print. According to the Counterintelligence and technical security page (http://www.tscm.com/warningsigns.html) it could be anyone. “Spouses bug each other on a regular basis,” it says helpfully, noting that you are in a high-threat personal situation if you’re getting married, separated, or divorce, if you’re involved in political activism, if...basically, if you’re alive and over 18. But if being bugged is the worst thing that happens to you, you’ll be lucky. Another of the New World Order reports says the US and Canada are putting into place the infrastructure for a concentration camp system, which may be activated in the “not-too-distant” future. As if that’s not enough to worry about (mental health centres will be used as tools of repression), emerging viruses aren’t really due to changes in ecology, overpopulation, or any of those other scientifically supported factors. No, they’re part of a biological weapons race, which is detailed in a 700-page book costing $49.95. For free, Captain Joyce Riley, in a speech in Houston, Texas, in January 1996 which is preserved on the Web (http://www.all-natural.com/riley.html), says the US government is making biological warfare on its own people. She knows it’s true because she and two doctors presented their case on her radio show, and no one stopped them, even though they sent out press releases beforehand. Ebola virus, flesh-eating staphylococcus bacteria...you never heard about any of them before the Gulf War. She herself wasn’t in the Gulf War, but she got sick anyway, because she had the immunisations and she was in contact with troops whose bedding was impregnated with the biological agents. By this time, I’m ready for a dose of “consensus reality” from a quality Sunday newspaper -- which says that CND is accusing the British government of using 200 Britons in radiation experiments over the last 40 years. Good conspiracy theories never die, whether they’re on the Net or elsewhere: humans love mysteries, as anyone who has studied the history of paranormal claims knows. Like other material on the Net, most of the conspiracy theorising is derived from books, pamphlets, speeches, media coverage, and other information available offline. What the Net does is what it always does: make it easier for like-minded people to meet and distribute their ideas. Wendy M. Grossman is part of an international conspiracy to promote rational thought. She can be found at wendyg@cix.compulink.co.uk. Box Everything you know is wrong (http://www.disinfo.com): secession movements in US states; the McLibel trial; Prozac and drug politics; lots more. Aliens have long since landed on the planet and governments and the military are covering it up to keep us from panicking. For a British perspective, try the site of the British UFO Research Association (http://www.bufora.org.uk). Gulf War Syndrome, AIDS, emerging viruses such as Ebola and Lassa Fever, and even the flesh-eating killer bacteria are CIA biological warfare projects (http://www.all-natural.com/expose.html). Accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh is being set up by an unscrupulous government. An interview with a Grand Juror is at http://www.netwrk2000.com/intervw.html. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is working to destroy the US, “with applause from backers in London”. From Lyndon LaRouche, who boasts he is the only Presidential candidate ever to have been convicted in a Federal criminal trial (http://www.clark.net/larouche/welcome.html). The Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (http://www.csicop.org) is a CIA front. The US government wants to control our ability to protect our privacy by restricting export of strong cryptography and making key escrow a legal requirement (http://www.epic.org, http://www.eff.org). Uh...actually, that one is true.