In the wake of a series of explosions that occurred recently in Tianjin, China, the international community has responded with concerns, and a few hard questions, about the circumstances that allowed the accident to occur.
Citing general oversight and poor safety conditions, CNN reported on Monday that Chinese government officials, while taking proactive measures in the aftermath of this incident, have grown to be quite familiar with such tragedies in recent years:
The State Council is rolling out a nationwide inspection of all businesses using dangerous chemicals and explosives. Meanwhile, China’s public security minister says those found to be responsible for the Tianjin disaster “will be punished severely,” according to state news agency Xinhua.
The problem is China has seen and heard it all before, and the accidents keep coming, though figures from the Bureau of Statistics suggest that the rate of lethal accidents is falling.
Granted, there have been questions raised about Chinese Governmental response to the explosions. During a televised CNN news report that aired over the weekend, a camera crew with a Chinese interpreter could be seen being moved away from an area where firefighters were visible nearby wearing no masks or other protective gear. However, as one unidentified official in plainclothes approached the crew, placing his hands over the CNN cameras, the crew was told that the area was indeed contaminated, prompting the reporters to question why none of the officials on-site were wearing gear themselves.
Questions about the Chinese government’s official response and other happenings behind the scenes have not been limited to the kinds of inconsistencies apparent during the news report discussed above. The website CS Globe noted the following in an article that appeared over the weekend:
“Well-researched readers might be tempted to look at the deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Russia… Russia and China’s involvement in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) association, and attempts to create an alternative to the Western dominated World Bank — and assume this apparent accidental explosion could be an inadvertent attack on the enemies of the U.S. government.”
Elsewhere, Mike Adams, “The Health Ranger” over at Natural News, has gone on record saying this was an attack carried out by the Pentagon, using some variety of space-based “kinetic weapon.” Natural News was said to have been informed about this by what Adams refers to as Chinese “dissidents”, who explained that the Tianjin blast was actually retaliatory action taken by the United States, following the devaluation of the Yuan.
Considering this theory, perhaps the first thing we should ask is, does the notion of “retaliatory action” really make sense? Consider the circumstances: if China devalues its currency, which affects the international economy and places the U.S. in an unfavorable position for trade with them, how much logic would there be behind employing Star Wars-style technology to blow up a factory, murdering innocents, and further upsetting international economic stability (at least for a time)? In truth, the idea proposed by those alleged informants to Natural News makes very little sense at all, when considered realistically.
Then there’s the question of how the dissident informants would have known anything about a Pentagon secret weapon at all. Presumably, for this to make sense, they must have been among the myriad hackers who are constantly trying to gain access U.S. government servers; heck, maybe they learned about this after reading Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Granted, even with regard to the argument about whether the explosions in Tianjin could effect global markets, a recent Reddit Investing thread addressing the subject was similarly laden with theories that the chemical explosion was actually a U.S. attack, with many comments suggesting CIA involvement.
At times, I begin to worry that we’re getting to a point where the overtly-conspiratorial themes appearing in alternative media not only contradict themselves, as we see here, but perhaps even offer this sensational scare-mongering junk as a kind of entertainment. Which is shameful, considering that in this instance, the pseudo-entertainment of “conspiracy theories” about CIA or Pentagon attacks are occurring in the midst of a very different reality there in Tianjin, where hundreds of families are having to cope with the deaths of loved ones.
Rather than being purely the stuff of “conspiracy theories,” the adoption of a generally paranoid worldview by an individual, as discussed here, is tantamount to being conspiracism. Defined roughly, this involves a variety of scapegoating which focuses on the notion of an “enemy” that acts continually against the common good; in this case, it is the American government secretly controlling world affairs through acts of terror, which are then attributed to accidents or other groups or individuals in a “cover up” that presents what becomes the “official narrative.” Conspiracists are among those who generally refute anything likened to an “official narrative”, whether or not there is evidence to justify such an attitude.
To take our present analysis a bit further, I would even go so far as to say that this particular brand of “conspiratorial” thinking borders on a strange, self-loathing for American government that is almost anarchistic, and equally delusional in its need to constantly attribute every tragedy or terror act that happens elsewhere in the world to “false flags” carried out by the U.S. intelligence community.
Without question, I feel that there are legitimate conspiracies, as well as historical precedent for things like “false flag” operations, as well as covert U.S. involvement in international affairs. However, in the modern world of “pseudo-media”, when tragedies arise, many seem to be unable to settle for coping with them anymore; everything must be likened to a plot from a spy novel, and no senseless act of violence or terrorism, nor even an obvious accident or oversight resulting in tragedy, can be wasted in furthering the notion that behind the scenes, we know “they” were really the ones behind this.
Meanwhile, those of us on the side of what we might call “team reality” look at the worldview of paranoia that is constantly being shaped among the fringe thinkers, and at times find it genuinely disturbing. Perhaps it’s nothing really new at all, and instead, the appearance of growing factions among the perpetually paranoid are merely a byproduct of the wide reach of news and media in the digital age.
Freedom of speech is a good thing, without question, and yes, it must be protected. However, having an informed opinion on world happenings, rather than one that caters to wild speculation based entirely on hyped pseudo-media, is also a good thing. Thinking about world events, and thinking carefully, is important… rather than accepting blindly what is presented to us by equally uninformed individuals, who justify their aberrations based on some dutiful purpose that (they think) they must fulfill for the public.
Therefore, we might say that it is only right for the thinking individual to question government and its actions; in fact, it’s healthy. But it is of equal importance that the thinking individual actually thinks, rather than giving themselves to an ideology of knee-jerking that constantly points the finger at government as a scapegoat for every affront we are faced with, whether that be here at home, or abroad.
The latter of these, contrary to popular belief, isn’t being thoughtful at all: it’s simply being delusional.
Americans post WWII and in the early days of the Cold War confidently saw themselves as sitting on top of the world. America’s economic muscle was globally envied (and resented) and our military machine seemed invincible. That self view was at least a little bit based in truth, the part about the US as an unrivaled economic juggernaut (though, it was simply because our industrial plant, unlike much of the rest of the developed world, was untouched by the devastation of the recent war).
After a string of shattering events that began in the 1960s, America’s prestige and power in the world have been slowly, inexorably fading. Our uneasy sense of a paradise lost seems to have been accelerated by the ascension of a surging China that has become a major player (some would argue THE major player) on the world’s stage.
China seems to have attained the position that most American’s fear we have permanently lost. Meanwhile, being bogged down in a quagmire in the Middle East and Afghanistan since the early 2000s hasn’t done much to boost our diminished international prestige or self-esteem.
Couple that dis-ease with events such as the recent mass hackings of private/sensitive information coming at the US from China (allegedly), and we now are personally confronted with our high level of vulnerability to a powerful country with almost 20% of the world’s population that is also, by the way, the only source of some raw materials we depend on and that can manipulate the world’s currency markets and balance of trade at will by devaluing its currency.
When it comes to China, we now feel like a 90-pound weakling having sand kicked in our faces, a far cry from how we felt about ourselves in the middle of the last century.
So, is it any wonder that a tragic, major industrial disaster in China would spawn conspiracy theories (pulled straight from some alienholes) that the US somehow covertly caused it to teach China a lesson? By God, we might be down, but we’re not out. They can’t push America around anymore. We showed ’em we’re still in charge.
This isn’t conspiracy thinking. Far from it. It’s wishful thinking.
It’s a fervent hope that the US is still the powerful force it once was but feel in our hearts isn’t anymore.
I stopped going to conspiracy monger sites. I was sickened by the constant stream of paranoid fantasies about imminent mass detention and destruction. I came to the sad conclusion that these conspiracy buffs will never be happy until America is in flames.
As a Canadian looking down from the north, I just don’t get it.
These conspiracy theories are salable goods and, therefore, a source of revenue for their mongers, just as UFOs, ghosts, Bigfoot, NDEs, etc. are also salable commodities and a source of revenue for their mongers. When it comes to all things conspiratorial and paranormal, caveat emptor. Their are true weirdness and odd synchronicities in the universe, but they have nothing to do with those who proselytize about them and turn them into commodities.
Thank you for a thoughtful, balanced article Mr. Hanks. Purrlie makes some good observations on why these types of CT’s are so popular nowadays – much conspiracy minded thinking comes from wanting the world to be a certain way, then fitting ‘facts’ into that world view (as does, frankly, much non-conspiracy type thinking as well).
After the tremendously sad events in Sandy Hook and at the Boston Marathon, i heard a guest ‘researcher’ on th3 higher zide chatx admit this straight out – he has two little girls and can’t deal with bringing them up in a world where little children could be murdered in cold blood for no reason. So he looked into Sandy Hook and brought us the ‘good news’ that it’s all government-sponsored crisis actors – no need for worrying!
Cold cold comfort for the bereaved. This @sshat had the gall to ask why there were no descriptions of parents of their children’s bodies – apparently he broke his search engine and couldn’t find one mother’s heartrending description of the damage wrought on her young son’s body in that obscure publication ‘TIME’.
The aggravating thing is that there are plenty of actual conspiracies out there to investigate, for pete’s sake. I say let one’s theories be driven by fact.
There are plenty of good reasons for the “self-loathing” by all citizens, CTs and non-CTs alike.
How’s this for starters? If one reads the US Constitution and observes the current state of national governance, one will realize we have had a rogue state at the helm for quite some time. Pretty much does it for me.
Instead of “self-loathing” maybe it’s honest introspection….