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*                                                            * 
*                         CYBERSPACE                         * 
*         A biweekly column on net culture appearing         * 
*                in the Toronto Sunday Sun                   * 
*                                                            * 
* Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer                                  * 
* Free for online distribution                               * 
* All Rights Reserved                                        * 
* Direct comments and questions to:                          * 
*   <kamamer@yahoo.com>                                      * 
*                                                            * 
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The Great Net.Conspiracies

Part I - USENET

A new millennium is nearly upon us, communism is dead, 
governments want to take away your guns and tax your big cars, 
and a Democrat might win a second term in office. Oh boy. For 
kook watchers the next half decade is bound to produce a bumper 
crop of wackos. And there's going to be no better place to find 
them than on the Internet.

Now, kooks have always been with us but before the Internet 
they didn't get much exposure. You see, if you were pretty 
certain, say, the Canadian Auto Workers union was controlling 
the weather, you could maybe tell the two people you knew and 
write a letter to the editor of your local paper. Naturally, 
your letter wouldn't get published and that would be all the 
proof you needed that you were right and there was a 
conspiracy. 

Now with the Internet, you're not limited to telling a couple 
so-called friends and being censored by the local media. A 
USENET group called alt.conspiracy lets you share your ideas in 
an atmosphere where "reason" is just another word for 
"disinformation campaign backed by the highest levels of the 
military-industrial complex." For the less conspiracy minded, 
it's a ring-side seat for kook watching.

An Alt.Conspiracy Primer

The most popular conspiracy theme on alt.conspiracy is not that 
the commies are out steal our dissidents from Alaska and 
fluoridate our drinking water. No. The consensus on 
alt.conspiracy is that our very own government wants to put us 
all in concentration camps. Users of alt.conspirarcy are bit 
less clear on the how and why, but it all tends to break down 
into three shaky lines of reasoning:

Bankers: A cabal of international bankers wants to control 
North America. It has infiltrated the government and has begun 
bombings of its own buildings and burning down churches to push 
America into anarchy. Since North America doesn't have enough 
armed forces, reservists, police, police auxiliary, and prison 
guards to control the population, the UN will be called in to 
set up a "peace-keeping" operation, put all true patriots into 
concentration camps, and hand control of this continent over to 
the international banker cabal.

Space Aliens: Another version contends that space aliens cut a 
deal four decades ago with a secret government within the 
government known as Majestic 12 to give patriots to the aliens 
for food or strange breeding experiments. If word of these 
aliens should ever get out, like on the Fox network, there are 
back-up plans to put us all into camps. Trust no one, eh?

The Devil: Although there's no mention of this continent in the 
Book of Revelations, the Anti-Christ is fixing to get his hands 
on North America, put true patriots in camps so they won't be 
able to interfere with an outcome that, if you believe your 
Bible, is preordained anyway, and make us all part of a one 
world government under the Marxist UN's control. Think about 
it, is it any coincidence that kids go around collecting for 
UNICEF during Halloween? What more proof do you need? Hurry on 
over to alt.conspiracy.

Check out the next instalment of Cyberspace for Part II of The 
Great Net.Conspiracies: "The World Wide Web of Deceit."