You're Missing the Forest for the Conspiratrees

You have to give conspiracy theorists some credit. I mean, these folks usually spend countless hours pouring over pictures, reading articles, tracking down information, drawing links  and making all sorts of connections. They obsess over it, sometimes for years at a time. It becomes almost like a religion of sorts. God bless anyone who has that kind of dedication. I mean hell, I hardly have the attention span to finish most novels I crack open.

It's a shame that it's almost entirely a gigantic waste of time and resources. Now wait a minute before you get all angry and fire off a snarky reply, or click that big "x" in your browser window. I'm not here to debate the validity of any specific conspiracy theory. I'm just saying that in most cases, those involved with them are misdirecting their energies and missing the "real" conspiracy that may be in play. Or better yet, they are wasting time on entirely out there facets of a situation when a real, bonafide conspiracy is actually taking place. Let me take you down the rabbit hole with a recent example.

On April 15th, 2013, the US experienced the largest terrorist attack on our home turf since 9/11. The bombing of the Boston Marathon was a terrible and tragic event. And in record time, conspiracy theorists were all over it. Countless man hours have been spent looking at photos, analyzing frames of video, and finding connections and "holes" in the official story. Internet detectives have created an "intelligence network" that could rival our own national law enforcement apparatus.

Theories have popped up about everything. The list includes:

• Theories that the operation was a "false flag" perpetrated by our own government.
• Theories that the victims involved were "crisis actors", and amputees with fake injuries were used.
• Theories that the perpetrators were other people entirely instead of the two brothers currently implicated.
• Theories that bombs never actually went off, and all videos have been faked entirely.

The list goes on and on, and only gets crazier the more you go. Meanwhile, the real, verifiable conspiracy is taking place while internet detectives continue to zoom in on pixels from grainy digital photos.

Every minute spent chasing tails on inconsequential petty details and minutia, is a minute wasted on asking hard questions. Questions like:

• Why aren't we trying to fight back the calls from politicians to  use this as an excuse to further the use of public surveillance, facial recognition, increased losses of privacy, and the use drones on our soil?
• What effect has our actions in foreign countries had on creating "blowback", and what other risks are we subject to thanks to years of horrible foreign policy?
• Why does the FBI have a consistent history of having a hand in almost every failed terror plot since 9/11?
• Why was Boston shut down, and forced to endure without question a complete lockdown during the hunt for a single suspect?
• What did the intelligence community know about the older Tsarnaev brother, and when did they know it?

Since 9/11, billions upon billions of dollars have been spent on increased intelligence capabilities, law enforcement resources, and not to mention the start of two wars in separate countries. We've also increased by orders of magnitude the use of drones in countries we aren't even at war with. Our civil liberties and rights to privacy have been almost all  but eroded. But yet here we are 12 years later, left bleeding and shaken up by two kids from Chechnya.

I applaud anyone who is willing to stand up and ask questions. I just have to question the manner in which you do it, as well as the subject of those questions. There seems to be an awful amount of youthful energy out there, but it seems to be woefully misdirected. As somebody well past the teenage angst phase of life,  and the blunder years of my 20's, I understand what it is like to get caught up in chasing "the man". But you've got the wrong man in your sights.

Use that fire in your belly, and that never ending skepticism, and direct it towards the very real, and very hard questions that not many people are asking. Because at the end of the day, what good is it going to do if you prove that we don't have the "real" bomber? The fact still remains that we are left with a government on a seemingly unstoppable power binge. Whether or not our government perpetrated these acts ( which I entirely doubt happened, but whatever ), you still have a government that is grabbing at your very basic freedoms on a daily basis, and committing unspeakable acts with your tax dollars.

Focus on the end game, not the current play. All that time wasted could be better spent raising awareness, joining a protest, passing out flyers, lobbying officials, writing op-ed pieces, and questioning the very real and very much verifiable events that are taking place every day under our watch.

Or, you can just go back to YouTube and keep trying to find the "real" bomber. The choice is yours.