The Internet, we’re told, is the place to go for the “real” information. Often, this is said by someone who discounts the commonly held account of a given event (whether we’re talking politics, war, sports or love) in favor of something they have read on-line.

I like the ‘net. We’ve moved beyond the days when, as Homer Simpson put, “people from all over the world can find out what some nerd thinks about ‘Star Trek’” and can find out what everyone thinks about everything. There is probably some info that’s not on the web, but not much and the reason it ain’t out there is less about secrecy and more about its uninteresting nature.

There are also many conspiracy theories out there on the web. I know, because I have a friend who believes them all (no matter how contradictory they may be of each other or even how self-contradictory within the given theory) and forwards them on to me.

Today, he sent me another one about how al Qaida was created (and is still controlled) by the CIA and how the whole war in Afghanistan/Iraq is just part of a neocon plan to take over the country and the world. It cited facts and speculations and had pictures which were clearly mislabeled and, all in all, it would have made a pretty good case in a vacuum.

The problem is, it’s not in a vacuum. For one thing, it had an advertisement for how to secure your own supply of bread when the impending food shortage and government takeover of the food supply leads to gummint controlled bread lines in the near future RIGHT HERE IN THE U.S.!! Call me a skeptic but, well, that ad made me skeptical of anything I might find below it.

Also, for every fact, real or imagined, there are a dozen (or million) web sites refuting said fact. Or acknowledging it but saying its purpose or significance is completely different from that espoused on the original web site. (It’s not that the neocons are taking over the world, it’s the Masons, or the Kiwanis, or the Brotherhood of Assistant Night-shift Managers, etc. And most of these other web sites look just as good and sound just as authoritative as the first one.

The funny thing is that every one of these sites claim to be champions of truth and to be blowing the doors off the “powers that be” by proclaiming “truth not heard anywhere else” or that the powers “don’t want you/us to hear” … et. al. The reality is that these sites (and maybe this IS a conspiracy!) are actually contributing to the general notion that there is no such thing as truth and everyone is lying, probably for personal gain.
Maybe the site I saw today had some truth in it, but I doubt it. I have been conditioned—by this site and others of its ilk—to not trust such web sites. It’s an agenda. (Maybe I should put “agenda” in italics, or some font that conveys menace, possibly one that looks like letters written in blood on an alley wall [is there such a font? And where can I get it?].) It’s part of someone’s SCHEME.

Speaking of the internet, it’s time I cruise on over to the real-time broadcast of the Astros game. Now THERE’s a good use of technology!