Secret Rulers of the World

You know what the true genius of David Icke is?  It's the way he has made the traditional conspiracy theory accessible to those of a liberal bent.  As I've noted in earlier posts, it is a depressing fact that the conspiracies presented by many contemporary conspiracy theorists, whilst ostensibly about modern, 'ripped from the headlines' subjects like child abuse and peadophilia, or the disappearance of that Malaysian airliner or chemtrails or whatever, are when you delve deeper, in fact still the same old anti-Semitic propaganda.  All the rest is just window-dressing.  The great 'truth' they all claim to reveal is simply that hoary old nonsense about the Jews being behind every evil in the world.  Sure, sometimes they throw in a dollop of homophobia for good measure, (because being gay is synonomous with being a paedophile in their warped world view), but by and large its all the fault of the Jews.  Obviously, this is exactly the sort of thing which completely discredits conspiracy theories in the eyes of anyone of a liberal disposition.  Even liberal cranks and crackpots find the anti-Semitic (not to mention the homophobic) aspects a turn off.

Enter David Icke, sometime professional footballer, sports presenter and self-proclaimed Son of God, who starts peddling what are essentially the same conspiracy theories, but with a major innovation.  The shadowy evil forces behind his versions aren't the Jews but instead giant shape-shifting lizards.  Which is a brilliant innovation - who could be offended by the idea of lizards being the evil secret puppet-masters of the world?  (Apart from giant lizards, obviously). Now, I know that there is a school of thought which contends that when Icke says 'lizard', he actually means 'Jew', but, personally, I think that he definitely means 'lizard' when he says 'lizard'.  If nothing else, it makes marketing sense - you can sell this kind of conspiracy to a constituency far wider than the usual bunch of right-wing nut jobs who subscribe to this kind of nonsense.  Suddenly it is OK for all those hippy dippy New Agers and their ilk to sign up.  Like I said, the man's a genius.  That said, I still don't know why we have to ascribe all the ills of the world to Jews or lizards, when it is quite clear that the real 'conspiracy' is what passes for modern capitalism and the tiny elite of super-wealthy individuals who use their accumulated wealth to manipulate the system to their advantage.  I say 'conspiracy', but it is all in plain view, for everyone to see.  But I guess it just isn't as exciting as mass child sacrifice plots orchestrated by a Jewish cabal who secretly rule the world...