Conspiracies

8bitagent wrote in about my Wildfire Conspiracy cartoon and post saying things echoed by a few others, so I thought I'd address them.

Some of [your] comics imply the reasons that the US went into war were based on lies, and it was a lot to do about war profiteering. But then I saw your blog today where you lambasted people who have questions about 9/11, or even JFK's death.

And I'm thinking "well wait a second, just a few years ago it was taboo to say the US government was lying to get into Iraq", as we saw in 2003 when Michael Moore got booed off the stage at the academy awards.

When you say "to all my liberal friends who believe in those nutty conspiracy theories read this"... I'm wondering if you realize how many mainstream articles there are that clearly state the Bush administration is covering up for deep Saudi and Pakistani involvement/funding, and how many FBI agents have blown the whistle on obstruction from going after the hijackers? The idea that 9/11 was merely the work of Osama with no outside funding or help, even if its from Arab governments is as bizarre as the idea that Iraq has hidden WMD's in the desert.

I do know the Administration blocked a section of the 9/11 commission report dealing with Saudi Arabia and there is a lot of speculation about where funding came from. I agree Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are the countries we should have been looking at after 9/11. But this is all a far cry from saying Bush planed it. If it were as high-reaching as many people seem to think and the commission was a fraud, it doesn't seem there would be a need to redact any information since they are all making it up anyway.

I'm not lambasting people with questions. I'll admit that when I first saw some of the conspiracy sites, some things seemed fishy about 9/11. Interested in figuring out what was true, I looked into it and found many of the anomalies easily explainable. The comic is mainly targeting the hardcore Internet truth movement, which seems to be led by Alex Jones, that tirelessly call talk shows, troll blog and message boards, interrupt shows, and are shrill, annoying morons.

In other words...Republicans are evil and mean to support the Iraq war, but people who dare question 9/11 itself(and not question it as in did it happen, but what we were told) are also evil?

We should always question governments and authority, but not to the point of trading nonsense for fact. The more outrageous claims by truthers--that the towers were demolished, that a missile hit the pentagon, that Flight 93 phone calls home were faked by the CIA--have been completely debunked and explained. If you adhere to these things simply because you want them to be true to validate your view of how world affairs work, then you do deserve the harshest ridicule. And I never said they were evil, just stupid.

Maybe I should make a comic making fun of liberals who think Bush stole the 2000 election and lied to go into the Iraq war? :)

If that's how you feel, then go for it!