The Left-Handed League: A Conspiracy Story

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No truly complete lineup, they say, lacks at least one left-handed power hitter. No bullpen is complete without at least one left-handed relief pitcher to oppose those left-handed hitters. But why are there so many lefties in baseball in the first place? Twenty-five percent of baseball players are left-handed, as opposed to only 10 percent of the general public.

Are lefties naturally more athletic? Rather, he argues, the science of the game, right down to the dimensions of the diamond, favors left-handed people. When a right-handed batter swings, his momentum takes him toward third base. He has to stop, and then re-start toward first base. Left-handed hitters fair better against righty pitchers, who are the majority, because they pick up the ball easier. But a lefty sees it in front of him the whole way. Lefty pitchers stay in demand because they can reverse that visual effect—left-handed hitters see the ball start out behind them.

But lefty-against-lefty is additionally troubling for the hitter—because there are fewer total left-handed people in the world, lefty hitters have less experience against lefty pitchers, and end up taking some goofy-looking swings. Left-handed pitchers face first base, making it easier to hold runners close to the bag or pick them off. Overall, the odds of any one person making it to the Major Leagues are remote. That is, unless you want to play catcher. At last, something designed for lefties!

For hitters who consistently hit solid ground balls, as opposed to weak or chopped ground balls, a slight adjustment in their stance or hand position may lower the bat position on the ball just enough to hit the lower back portion of the ball instead of the top of the ball. Hitters who widen their stance and bend their knees slightly may see the necessary line drives.

This may allow the hitter to get to the back of the ball more consistently. Yeah, but there have even been a few left handed catchers who have made it into the minor leagues because their hitting has been so good. They eventually get positioned at first base so they can take advantage of the lefti-ness.

Lefties also do not regularly play third, short or second base. They can pitch, play first and any position of the outfield. This right-wing anti-globalist conspiracism fuelled the Bircher campaign for US withdrawal from the UN. American writer Mary M. Davison, in her booklet The Profound Revolution , traced the alleged New World Order conspiracy to the establishment of the US Federal Reserve in by international bankers, whom she claimed later formed the Council on Foreign Relations in as a shadow government.

At the time the booklet was published, many readers would have interpreted "international bankers" as a reference to a postulated "international Jewish banking conspiracy" masterminded by the Rothschilds. Claiming that the term "New World Order" is used by a secretive elite dedicated to the destruction of all national sovereignties, American writer Gary Allen —in his books None Dare Call It Conspiracy , Rockefeller: Thus, after the fall of communism in the early s, the main demonized scapegoat of the American far right shifted seamlessly from crypto-communists , who plotted on behalf of the Red Menace, to globalists, plotting on behalf of the New World Order.

The relatively painless nature of the shift was due to growing right-wing populist opposition to corporate internationalism , but also in part to the basic underlying apocalyptic millenarian paradigm, which fed the Cold War ca and the witch-hunts of the McCarthy period [14] s. Bush described his objectives for post-Cold War global governance in cooperation with post-Soviet states.

Until now, the world we've known has been a world divided—a world of barbed wire and concrete block, conflict and cold war. Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order. In the words of Winston Churchill, a "world order" in which "the principles of justice and fair play A world in which freedom and respect for human rights find a home among all nations. The New York Times observed that progressives were denouncing this new world order as a rationalization of American imperial ambitions in the Middle East , while conservatives rejected any new security arrangements altogether and fulminated about any possibility of a UN revival.

Fundamentalist Christian groups interpreted Bush's words as signaling the End Times , while secular theorists approached it from an anti-communist and anti-collectivist standpoint and feared for a hegemony over all countries by the United Nations. American televangelist Pat Robertson , with his best-selling book The New World Order , became the most prominent Christian popularizer of conspiracy theories about recent American history.

He describes a scenario where Wall Street , the Federal Reserve System, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission control the flow of events from behind the scenes, nudging people constantly and covertly in the direction of world government for the Antichrist. Observers note that the galvanizing of right-wing populist conspiracy theorists such as Linda Thompson , Mark Koernke and Robert K.

New World Order (conspiracy theory)

Spear into militancy led to the rise [ when? From the mid—s on, the worldwide appeal of those subcultures transmitted New World Order conspiracism like a " mind virus " to a large new audience of seekers of stigmatized knowledge. Hollywood conspiracy-thriller television shows and films also played a role in introducing a vast popular audience to various fringe theories related to New World Order conspiracism— black helicopters , FEMA "concentration camps", etc. Fight the Future are often cited as notable examples. Following the start of the 21st century, and specifically during the lates financial crisis , many politicians and pundits, such as Gordon Brown [17] and Henry Kissinger , [18] used the term " new world order " in their advocacy for a comprehensive reform of the global financial system and their calls for a "New Bretton Woods" taking into account emerging markets such as China and India.

These declarations had the unintended consequence of providing fresh fodder for New World Order conspiracism, which culminated in talk-show host Sean Hannity stating on his Fox News Channel program Hannity that the "conspiracy theorists were right". In American film directors Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel released New World Order , a critically acclaimed documentary film which explores the world of conspiracy theorists—such as American radio host Alex Jones —who consistently expose and vigorously oppose what they perceive as an emerging New World Order.

There are numerous systemic conspiracy theories through which the concept of a New World Order is viewed. The following is a list of the major ones in roughly chronological order: Since the 19th century, many apocalyptic millennial Christian eschatologists , starting with John Nelson Darby , have predicted a globalist conspiracy to impose a tyrannical New World Order governing structure as the fulfillment of prophecies about the " end time " in the Bible , specifically in the Book of Ezekiel , the Book of Daniel , the Olivet discourse found in the Synoptic Gospels and the Book of Revelation.

In many contemporary Christian conspiracy theories, the False Prophet will be either the last pope of the Catholic Church groomed and installed by an Alta Vendita or Jesuit conspiracy , a guru from the New Age movement , or even the leader of an elite fundamentalist Christian organization like the Fellowship , while the Antichrist will be either the President of the European Union , the Secretary-General of the United Nations , or even the Caliph of a pan-Islamic state. Some of the most vocal critics of end-time conspiracy theories come from within Christianity.

Camp's book Selling Fear: Conspiracy Theories and End-Times Paranoia. Hughes argues that "New World Order" rhetoric libels the Christian faith, since the "New World Order" as defined by Christian conspiracy theorists has no basis in the Bible whatsoever. Furthermore, he argues that not only is this idea unbiblical, it is positively anti-biblical and fundamentally anti-Christian , because by misinterpreting key passages in the Book of Revelation, it turns a comforting message about the coming kingdom of God into one of fear, panic and despair in the face of an allegedly approaching one-world government.

Gomes , caution Christian fundamentalists that a " spirit of fear " can distort scripture and history through dangerously combining biblical literalism , apocalyptic timetables , demonization and oppressive prejudices, [27] [28] while Camp warns of the "very real danger that Christians could pick up some extra spiritual baggage" by credulously embracing conspiracy theories.

Freemasonry is one of the world's oldest secular fraternal organizations and arose during late 16th—early 17th century Britain. Over the years a number of allegations and conspiracy theories have been directed towards Freemasonry, including the allegation that Freemasons have a hidden political agenda and are conspiring to bring about a New World Order, a world government organized according to Masonic principles or governed only by Freemasons.

The esoteric nature of Masonic symbolism and rites led to Freemasons first being accused of secretly practising Satanism in the late 18th century. Despite the fact that Taxil admitted that his claims were all a hoax , they were and still are believed and repeated by numerous conspiracy theorists and had a huge influence on subsequent anti-Masonic claims about Freemasonry. Some conspiracy theorists eventually speculated that some Founding Fathers of the United States , such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin , were having Masonic sacred geometric designs interwoven into American society, particularly in the Great Seal of the United States , the United States one-dollar bill , the architecture of National Mall landmarks and the streets and highways of Washington, D.

Freemasons rebut these claims of a Masonic conspiracy.

Freemasonry, which promotes rationalism , places no power in occult symbols themselves, and it is not a part of its principles to view the drawing of symbols, no matter how large, as an act of consolidating or controlling power. Although the European continental branch of Freemasonry has organizations that allow political discussion within their Masonic Lodges, Masonic researcher Trevor W. McKeown argues that the accusations ignore several facts.

Firstly, the many Grand Lodges are independent and sovereign, meaning they act on their own and do not have a common agenda. The points of belief of the various lodges often differ. Secondly, famous individual Freemasons have always held views that span the political spectrum and show no particular pattern or preference. As such, the term "Masonic government" is erroneous; there is no consensus among Freemasons about what an ideal government would look like.

The movement consisted of advocates of freethought , secularism , liberalism , republicanism , and gender equality , recruited from the German Masonic Lodges , who sought to teach rationalism through mystery schools. In , the order was infiltrated, broken up and suppressed by the government agents of Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria , in his preemptive campaign to neutralize the threat of secret societies ever becoming hotbeds of conspiracies to overthrow the Bavarian monarchy and its state religion , Roman Catholicism.

In the late 18th century, reactionary conspiracy theorists, such as Scottish physicist John Robison and French Jesuit priest Augustin Barruel , began speculating that the Illuminati had survived their suppression and become the masterminds behind the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.

The Illuminati were accused of being subversives who were attempting to secretly orchestrate a revolutionary wave in Europe and the rest of the world in order to spread the most radical ideas and movements of the Enlightenment— anti-clericalism , anti-monarchism , and anti-patriarchalism —and to create a world noocracy and cult of reason.

During the 19th century, fear of an Illuminati conspiracy was a real concern of the European ruling classes , and their oppressive reactions to this unfounded fear provoked in the very revolutions they sought to prevent. During the interwar period of the 20th century, fascist propagandists, such as British revisionist historian Nesta Helen Webster and American socialite Edith Starr Miller , not only popularized the myth of an Illuminati conspiracy but claimed that it was a subversive secret society which served the Jewish elites that supposedly propped up both finance capitalism and Soviet communism in order to divide and rule the world.

American evangelist Gerald Burton Winrod and other conspiracy theorists within the fundamentalist Christian movement in the United States—which emerged in the s as a backlash against the principles of Enlightenment secular humanism , modernism , and liberalism—became the main channel of dissemination of Illuminati conspiracy theories in the U.

The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer

Right-wing populists , such as members of the John Birch Society , subsequently began speculating that some collegiate fraternities Skull and Bones , gentlemen's clubs Bohemian Club , and think tanks Council on Foreign Relations , Trilateral Commission of the American upper class are front organizations of the Illuminati, which they accuse of plotting to create a New World Order through a one-world government.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an antisemitic canard , originally published in Russian in , alleging a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy to achieve world domination.

The text purports to be the minutes of the secret meetings of a cabal of Jewish masterminds, which has co-opted Freemasonry and is plotting to rule the world on behalf of all Jews because they believe themselves to be the chosen people of God. The Protocols reflect themes similar to more general critiques of Enlightenment liberalism by conservative aristocrats who support monarchies and state religions.

The interpretation intended by the publication of The Protocols is that if one peels away the layers of the Masonic conspiracy , past the Illuminati , one finds the rotten Jewish core. Numerous polemicists, such as Irish journalist Philip Graves in a article in The Times , and British academic Norman Cohn in his book Warrant for Genocide , have proven The Protocols to be both a hoax and a clear case of plagiarism. There is general agreement that Russian-French writer and political activist Matvei Golovinski fabricated the text for Okhrana , the secret police of the Russian Empire , as a work of counter-revolutionary propaganda prior to the Russian Revolution , by plagiarizing, almost word for word in some passages, from The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu , a 19th-century satire against Napoleon III of France written by French political satirist and Legitimist militant Maurice Joly.

Responsible for feeding many antisemitic and anti-Masonic mass hysterias of the 20th century, The Protocols has been influential in the development of some conspiracy theories, including some New World Order theories, and appears repeatedly in certain contemporary conspiracy literature. They speculated that this secret society was working behind the scenes to establish a theocratic " United States of Europe ".

Politically and religiously unified through the imperial cult of a Merovingian Great Monarch —supposedly descended from a Jesus bloodline —who occupies both the throne of Europe and the Holy See , this "Holy European Empire" would become the hyperpower of the 21st century. Skeptics argue that the current gambit of contemporary conspiracy theorists who use The Protocols is to claim that they "really" come from some group other than the Jews, such as fallen angels or alien invaders.

Although it is hard to determine whether the conspiracy-minded actually believe this or are simply trying to sanitize a discredited text, skeptics argue that it does not make much difference, since they leave the actual, antisemitic text unchanged. The result is to give The Protocols credibility and circulation. During the second half of Britain's "imperial century" between and , English-born South African businessman, mining magnate and politician Cecil Rhodes advocated the British Empire reannexing the United States of America and reforming itself into an " Imperial Federation " to bring about a hyperpower and lasting world peace.

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In his first will, written in at the age of 23, he expressed his wish to fund a secret society known as the Society of the Elect that would advance this goal:. In , thirteen years after "his now famous will," Rhodes elaborated on the same idea: Rhodes also concentrated on the Rhodes Scholarship , which had British statesman Alfred Milner as one of its trustees.

Established in , the original goal of the trust fund was to foster peace among the great powers by creating a sense of fraternity and a shared world view among future British, American, and German leaders by having enabled them to study for free at the University of Oxford. Milner and British official Lionel George Curtis were the architects of the Round Table movement , a network of organizations promoting closer union between Britain and its self-governing colonies. To this end, Curtis founded the Royal Institute of International Affairs in June and, with his book The Commonwealth of God , began advocating for the creation of an imperial federation that eventually reannexes the U.

The Council on Foreign Relations began in with a group of New York academics who were asked by President Woodrow Wilson to offer options for the foreign policy of the United States in the interwar period. Originally envisioned as a group of American and British scholars and diplomats, some of whom belonging to the Round Table movement, it was a subsequent group of New York financiers, manufacturers and international lawyers organized in June by Nobel Peace Prize recipient and U.

It is a private organization established to foster closer cooperation among the United States, Europe and Japan. In the s, right-wing populist individuals and groups with a paleoconservative worldview, such as members of the John Birch Society , were the first to combine and spread a business nationalist critique of corporate internationalists networked through think tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations with a grand conspiracy theory casting them as front organizations for the Round Table of the "Anglo-American Establishment ", which are financed by an "international banking cabal" that has supposedly been plotting from the late 19th century on to impose an oligarchic new world order through a global financial system.

Anti- globalist conspiracy theorists therefore fear that international bankers are planning to eventually subvert the independence of the U.

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The research findings of historian Carroll Quigley , author of the book Tragedy and Hope , are taken by both conspiracy theorists of the American Old Right W. Cleon Skousen and New Left Carl Oglesby to substantiate this view, even though Quigley argued that the Establishment is not involved in a plot to implement a one-world government but rather British and American benevolent imperialism driven by the mutual interests of economic elites in the United Kingdom and the United States. Quigley also argued that, although the Round Table still exists today , its position in influencing the policies of world leaders has been much reduced from its heyday during World War I and slowly waned after the end of World War II and the Suez Crisis.

Today the Round Table is largely a ginger group , designed to consider and gradually influence the policies of the Commonwealth of Nations , but faces strong opposition. Furthermore, in American society after , the problem, according to Quigley, was that no elite was in charge and acting responsibly. Larry McDonald , the second president of the John Birch Society and a conservative Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives who represented the 7th congressional district of Georgia , wrote a foreword for Allen 's book The Rockefeller File , wherein he claimed that the Rockefellers and their allies were driven by a desire to create a one-world government that combined "super- capitalism " with communism and would be fully under their control.

He saw a conspiracy plot that was "international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent. For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will.

If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it. Barkun argues that this statement is partly facetious the claim of "conspiracy" and " treason " and partly serious—the desire to encourage trilateral cooperation among the U. The statement, however, is taken at face value and widely cited by conspiracy theorists as proof that the Council on Foreign Relations uses its role as the brain trust of American presidents, senators and representatives to manipulate them into supporting a New World Order in the form of a one-world government.

In a 13 November interview with Canadian journalist Benjamin Fulford, Rockefeller countered that he felt no need for a world government and wished for the governments of the world to work together and collaborate. He also stated that it seemed neither likely nor desirable to have only one elected government rule the whole world. He criticized accusations of him being "ruler of the world" as nonsensical. Some American social critics , such as Laurence H. Shoup, argue that the Council on Foreign Relations is an " imperial brain trust" which has, for decades, played a central behind-the-scenes role in shaping U.

William Domhoff , argue that it is in fact a mere policy discussion forum [53] which provides the business input to U. All the council does is sponsor discussion groups, debates and speakers. As far as being secretive, it issues annual reports and allows access to its historical archives. Wells promoted cosmopolitanism and offered blueprints for a world revolution and world brain to establish a technocratic world state and planned economy. When we attempt to evaluate its promise, we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents, many of them quite gallant and graceful-looking people.

Wells's books were influential in giving a second meaning to the term " new world order ", which would only be used by state socialist supporters and anti-communist opponents for generations to come. However, despite the popularity and notoriety of his ideas, Wells failed to exert a deeper and more lasting influence because he was unable to concentrate his energies on a direct appeal to intelligentsias who would, ultimately, have to coordinate the Wellsian new world order.

British neo-Theosophical occultist Alice Bailey , one of the founders of the so-called New Age movement, prophesied in the eventual victory of the Allies of World War II over the Axis powers which occurred in and the establishment by the Allies of a political and religious New World Order. She saw a federal world government as the culmination of Wells' Open Conspiracy but favorably argued that it would be synarchist because it was guided by the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom , intent on preparing humanity for the mystical second coming of Christ , and the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

According to Bailey, a group of ascended masters called the Great White Brotherhood works on the " inner planes " to oversee the transition to the New World Order but, for now, the members of this Spiritual Hierarchy are only known to a few occult scientists, with whom they communicate telepathically , but as the need for their personal involvement in the plan increases, there will be an "Externalization of the Hierarchy" and everyone will know of their presence on Earth.

Bailey's writings, along with American writer Marilyn Ferguson 's book The Aquarian Conspiracy , contributed to conspiracy theorists of the Christian right viewing the New Age movement as the " false religion " that would supersede Christianity in a New World Order. By this logic, anything that is not Christian is by definition actively and willfully anti-Christian. Paradoxically, since the first decade of the 21st century, New World Order conspiracism is increasingly being embraced and propagandized by New Age occultists , who are people bored by rationalism and drawn to stigmatized knowledge —such as alternative medicine , astrology , quantum mysticism , spiritualism , and theosophy.

Skeptics argue that the connection of conspiracy theorists and occultists follows from their common fallacious premises. First, any widely accepted belief must necessarily be false. Second, stigmatized knowledge—what the Establishment spurns—must be true. The result is a large, self-referential network in which, for example, some UFO religionists promote anti-Jewish phobias while some antisemites practice Peruvian shamanism.

Conspiracy theorists often use the term " Fourth Reich " simply as a pejorative synonym for the "New World Order" to imply that its state ideology and government will be similar to Germany's Third Reich. They cite the influence of ex-Nazi scientists brought in under Operation Paperclip to help advance aerospace manufacturing in the U.

This neo-Nazi conspiracy is said to be animated by an "Iron Dream" in which the American Empire , having thwarted the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy and overthrown its Zionist Occupation Government , gradually establishes a Fourth Reich formerly known as the "Western Imperium"—a pan - Aryan world empire modeled after Adolf Hitler 's New Order —which reverses the " decline of the West " and ushers a golden age of white supremacy. Skeptics argue that conspiracy theorists grossly overestimate the influence of ex-Nazis and neo-Nazis on American society, and point out that political repression at home and imperialism abroad have a long history in the United States that predates the 20th century.

Some political scientists, such as Sheldon Wolin , have expressed concern that the twin forces of democratic deficit and superpower status have paved the way in the U. Since the late s, extraterrestrials from other habitable planets or parallel dimensions such as " Greys " and intraterrestrials from Hollow Earth such as " Reptilians " have been included in the New World Order conspiracy, in more or less dominant roles, as in the theories put forward by American writers Stan Deyo and Milton William Cooper , and British writer David Icke.

The common theme in these conspiracy theories is that aliens have been among us for decades, centuries or millennia, but a government cover-up enforced by " Men in Black " has shielded the public from knowledge of a secret alien invasion. Motivated by speciesism and imperialism , these aliens have been and are secretly manipulating developments and changes in human society in order to more efficiently control and exploit human beings.

In some theories, alien infiltrators have shapeshifted into human form and move freely throughout human society , even to the point of taking control of command positions in governmental, corporate, and religious institutions, and are now in the final stages of their plan to take over the world. Skeptics, who adhere to the psychosocial hypothesis for unidentified flying objects , argue that the convergence of New World Order conspiracy theory and UFO conspiracy theory is a product of not only the era's widespread mistrust of governments and the popularity of the extraterrestrial hypothesis for UFOs but of the far right and ufologists actually joining forces.

Barkun notes that the only positive side to this development is that, if conspirators plotting to rule the world are believed to be aliens, traditional human scapegoats Freemasons , Illuminati , Jews , etc. Antiscience and neo-Luddite conspiracy theorists emphasize technology forecasting in their New World Order conspiracy theories. They speculate that the global power elite are reactionary modernists pursuing a transhumanist agenda to develop and use human enhancement technologies in order to become a " posthuman ruling caste ", while change accelerates toward a technological singularity —a theorized future point of discontinuity when events will accelerate at such a pace that normal unenhanced humans will be unable to predict or even understand the rapid changes occurring in the world around them.

Conspiracy theorists fear the outcome will either be the emergence of a Brave New World -like dystopia —a "Brave New World Order"—or the extinction of the human species. Democratic transhumanists , such as American sociologist James Hughes , counter that many influential members of the United States Establishment are bioconservatives strongly opposed to human enhancement , as demonstrated by President Bush's Council on Bioethics 's proposed international treaty prohibiting human cloning and germline engineering.

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Furthermore, he argues that conspiracy theorists underestimate how fringe the transhumanist movement really is. Just as there are several overlapping or conflicting theories among conspiracists about the nature of the New World Order, so are there several beliefs about how its architects and planners will implement it:. Conspiracy theorists generally speculate that the New World Order is being implemented gradually , citing the formation of the U. An increasingly popular conspiracy theory among American right-wing populists is that the hypothetical North American Union and the amero currency, proposed by the Council on Foreign Relations and its counterparts in Mexico and Canada , will be the next milestone in the implementation of the New World Order.

The theory holds that a group of shadowy and mostly nameless international elites are planning to replace the federal government of the United States with a transnational government. Therefore, conspiracy theorists believe the borders between Mexico, Canada and the United States are in the process of being erased, covertly, by a group of globalists whose ultimate goal is to replace national governments in Washington, D.

Skeptics argue that the North American Union exists only as a proposal contained in one of a thousand academic and policy papers published each year that advocate all manner of idealistic but ultimately unrealistic approaches to social, economic and political problems. Most of these are passed around in their own circles and eventually filed away and forgotten by junior staffers in congressional offices.

Some of these papers, however, become touchstones for the conspiracy-minded and form the basis of all kinds of unfounded xenophobic fears especially during times of economic anxiety. For example, in March , as a result of the lates financial crisis , the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation pressed for urgent consideration of a new international reserve currency and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development proposed greatly expanding the I.

Conspiracy theorists fear these proposals are a call for the U. Judging that both national governments and global institutions have proven ineffective in addressing worldwide problems that go beyond the capacity of individual nation-states to solve, some political scientists critical of New World Order conspiracism, such as Mark C. Partridge, argue that regionalism will be the major force in the coming decades, pockets of power around regional centers: As such, the E.

The question then is not whether global governance is gradually emerging, but rather how will these regional powers interact with one another. Following the Rex 84 and Operation Garden Plot plans, this military coup would involve the suspension of the Constitution , the imposition of martial law , and the appointment of military commanders to head state and local governments and to detain dissidents. These conspiracy theorists, who are all strong believers in a right to keep and bear arms , are extremely fearful that the passing of any gun control legislation will be later followed by the abolishment of personal gun ownership and a campaign of gun confiscation, and that the refugee camps of emergency management agencies such as FEMA will be used for the internment of suspected subversives , making little effort to distinguish true threats to the New World Order from pacifist dissidents.

Should Ben Simmons shoot right-handed? He doesn't seem to think so

Before year some survivalists wrongly believed this process would be set in motion by the predicted Y2K problem causing societal collapse. Skeptics argue that unfounded fears about an imminent or eventual gun ban, military coup, internment, or U. Conspiracy theorists concerned with surveillance abuse believe that the New World Order is being implemented by the cult of intelligence at the core of the surveillance-industrial complex through mass surveillance and the use of Social Security numbers , the bar-coding of retail goods with Universal Product Code markings, and, most recently, RFID tagging by microchip implants.

Claiming that corporations and government are planning to track every move of consumers and citizens with RFID as the latest step toward a -like surveillance state , consumer privacy advocates, such as Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre , [73] have become Christian conspiracy theorists who believe spychips must be resisted because they argue that modern database and communications technologies , coupled with point of sale data-capture equipment and sophisticated ID and authentication systems, now make it possible to require a biometrically associated number or mark to make purchases.

They fear that the ability to implement such a system closely resembles the Number of the Beast prophesied in the Book of Revelation. Following public criticism that the development and deployment of these technologies could potentially lead to a mass surveillance system, the IAO was defunded by the United States Congress in Although DARPA eventually removed the logo from its website, it left a lasting impression on privacy advocates.

American historian Richard Landes , who specializes in the history of apocalypticism and was co-founder and director of the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University, argues that new and emerging technologies often trigger alarmism among millenarians and even the introduction of Gutenberg's printing press in caused waves of apocalyptic thinking. The Year problem , bar codes and Social Security numbers all triggered end-time warnings which either proved to be false or simply were no longer taken seriously once the public became accustomed to these technological changes.

Conspiracy theorists of the Christian right , starting with British revisionist historian Nesta Helen Webster , believe there is an ancient occult conspiracy—started by the first mystagogues of Gnosticism and perpetuated by their alleged esoteric successors, such as the Kabbalists , Cathars , Knights Templar , Hermeticists , Rosicrucians , Freemasons , and, ultimately, the Illuminati —which seeks to subvert the Judeo-Christian foundations of the Western world and implement the New World Order through a one-world religion that prepares the masses to embrace the imperial cult of the Antichrist.

They believe that these conspirators use the power of occult sciences numerology , symbols Eye of Providence , rituals Masonic degrees , monuments National Mall landmarks , buildings Manitoba Legislative Building [80] and facilities Denver International Airport to advance their plot to rule the world. For example, in June , an unknown benefactor under the pseudonym " R.

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