Conspiracy theories

The Oregon tragedy seems to have died without making any changes. Nothing about guns is going to be reformed until the gun industry is investigated and its propaganda-marketing apparatus exposed and/or prosecuted.

Some may wonder why guns have this kind power. Remember, that industry has a foot in the military-industrial-intelligence complex. This means the industry has undue political pull over Congress from several different sources. The National Riflery Association is now part of the gun industry's marketing arm. Most of its funding comes from the gun industry.  Yes, it has citizen membership, but it's an example of a grass roots organization captured by an industry. The grass roots have been removed and it's all astroturf now.

I'm not a conspiracy buff. There are conspiracies that absolutely can't happen, there are conspiracies that are unlikely, but there are ones that both can and do happen. There are certain ways of separating out the unlikely (or can't-happen) conspiracies from those that could be happening. Leonard Mlodonov's book The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. He talks about conspiracy theories and gives some hints about likely and unlikely ones. 


Any conspiracy with size and reach runs on money. The reason why the CIA was able to grow into the menace it became was because in its early days, it got its funding by skimming off the Marshall Plan.

The gun industry has plenty of money. It has guerrilla marketers to spread rumors of conspiracies to take away guns. These are bloggers, writers, editors for gun publications.

It is creepy, though, how consistently corporations behave in the same way. The tobacco industry had similar riches and used it to buy politicians, suppress data about the harm of tobacco, and put out its own propaganda and marketing. It convinced people that smoking was part of their freedom. The gun industry is pretty much doing the same thing. But many industries pit themselves against the interests of their clients, and the interests of the public at large, so they can continue to enjoy profits.

Look at the fossil fuel industry and Global Warming. Or not, because it's so depressing. Whatever we conjure up when we form for-profit corporations, it doesn't act like a human being with a conscience, never mind what the Supreme Court said.

PS. I've taken a large dose of Melotonin. I'm not sure if this entry came out right at all. I'll have to check it when I have time.