Last week I had a visit from my cousin and his new wife who we will call John and Barbara. I had always believed that he was rather ordinary but sensible and intelligent. We got to talking about swine flu. His wife Barbara told me that the H1N1 virus was less serious than ordinary seasonal flu and that the symptoms had been exaggerated by the big drug companies who wanted to make billions of dollars from drugs and vaccines. I might have wanted to blame the media but I could see that the hype would appeal to the self interest of these multi national companies so I nodded in agreement. She went on to tell me that the vaccines are in fact dangerous because they contain squalene (no idea what that is) mercury which can affect brain development especially in young children, antifreeze, animal tissue and various toxins. Apparently, we have witnessed swine flu before and the vaccine used in 1976 caused paralysis in a significant number of patients. ‘Swine flu isn’t the danger,’ they tod me, ‘it’s the vaccine.’ I am not sure what I felt at this point. I probably went along with the idea and began to wonder if I would have the vaccination if it is ever offered to me.

What happened next sent our discussion in another direction. John began to explain that swine flu had been developed by a drug company (which he named) and released on the public in order to create panic and death. He quoted an Austrian journalist called Jane Burgermeister who has filed charges against some of the world’s largest drug companies for what she calls ‘Bioterrorism’. He told me that the Ukraine had been sprayed with a deadly virus that gave the population of several cities a serious illness called pneumonic plague. I checked Burgermeister’s web site www.theflucase.com  and there I found an article dated Nov. 12th 2009 and entitled, “Population Reduction: Globalist Endgame Begins”. It contained all the details just as John had described them and there were lots of other articles by a number of authors all suggesting that there is some kind of global plot to use the vaccine to destroy unborn children, reduce the population and of course line the pockets of the big multinationals. It seems that Baxter International has been targeted in these articles and it is even claimed that some companies were manufacturing the vaccine several months before swine flu was detected in Mexico or in the USA. I had to admit that I didn’t believe what I was being told and for the next few days I avoided the subject so there were no more arguments about swine flu. However, the arguments didn’t stop completely.

The next evening over dinner I discovered that my guests also believed that the 9-11 destruction of the twin towers was engineered by the US secret service because the government needed an excuse to attack Afghanistan. I argued that no nation would develop an elaborate plot that cost the lives of thousands of its innocent citizens. It just wasn’t necessary to take such extreme measures and I asked them how they thought the US government would be able to persuade Arab terrorists to support their evil scheme. My cousin’s answer was that the details of the attack were known before it took place and there were powerful bombs placed in each building ready to be exploded as soon as the planes struck. The towers, he claimed, were built to withstand a much greater impact than the force of an aeroplane and powerful explosives would be needed to demolish them completely. How else, they asked could I explain destruction on such a terrifying scale. I didn’t want to argue with such madness any more but in the next couple of days I learned about corrupt judges. I learned that the European Union is just the first step in a plot to develop  United States of Europe and, I was warned, ‘It won’t stop there,. They told me about secret societies including one called Common Purpose that is, in their view, plotting against the common good and supporting the interests of an elite at the expense of the rights of ordinary people. There were other conspiracies involving social services and adoption agencies but I can’t remember all the details.

I have to ask myself why I don’t believe any of their stories however well documented they may be by Jane Burgermeister and the other writers who can be found by trawling through the websites. Firstly, it troubles me that my cousin and his wife don’t just believe one conspiracy but seem to believe a whole host of them. This seems to suggest that there is a particular personality type that needs to believe that we all live in an evil world in which we are being constantly deceived by secret organisations. The second thing that struck me is that the evidence is almost always quoting the opinions of authorities who claim to have privileged information. It is never or almost never the direct physical evidence that would convince almost anyone. Finally why is the evidence to support the claims about a conspiracy always so complicated? People die tragically in aeroplane accidents and in road accidents unless they are a royal princess or an important politician. If the victim of the tragedy is important enough then the conspiracy mongers comes up with a very complicated explanation involving covert operations carried out by an evil government, a ruthless big business, the Mafia or a secret society that is always careful to make it look as if someone else is responsible.

It’s all nonsense isn’t it? Unless of course you are the believing type in which case you probably take these and other conspiracies very seriously