the wrong conspiracy theory debunked

holy cow. we just watched ethos, hosted by woody harrelson and edited by members of the illiterati*.

this documentary, combined with hot coffee, fahrenheit 9/11, ungrip, the century of self and a couple of others, paints a phenomenally bleak picture of the united states, its motivations and its influences.

for the longest time i've found myself infuriated by 9/11 conspiracy theorists. i usually take a skeptical view of conspiracy theories because conspiracies are difficult to pull off and there aren't many organizations with that kind of intelligence, reach and discipline; in the case of the 9/11 conspiracies, the evidence supporting it was utterly refuted early on and there really wasn't any reason to go on and on about how the planes couldn't possibly have caused the amount of destruction that they did.

but what i never heard from 9/11 conspiracy theorists was how it was entirely plausible that the powers that be (presumably the wunch of bankers behind the federal reserve farce) arranged for the attacks in the first place: al qaeda could easily have been inspired and assisted in their attacks without involving so many people that someone would be able to spill the beans. i buy into occam's razor, and that's a fairly simple explanation that doesn't defy the evidence.

anyway, that's not really what ethos is about. i found the ending pleasantly surprising and warmly inspiring. there is hope! and as long as we don't let anyone limit the power that the internet has bestowed upon us, there are ways up out of this subterranean tunnel.

* the subtitles were surprisingly wrong a lot of the time and some of the quotes had spelling errors, one would expect a production like this to be slightly more serious about quality control