I have a friend that is big into conspiracies and it pisses me off to no end. In his eyes, EVERYTHING is the fault of some shadowy cabal, these secret people behind the scenes that are pulling all the strings. (((Them))). Whenever I try to direct the conversation towards "actually it is these politicians and these companies that are the ones influencing these decisions, and they are doing it right out in the open" I just get handwaved away. "You don't know the things I know." Ugh, maddening.
Tell the dude that he doesn't know what you know and that what he thinks he knows is propaganda to distract him from the reality of capitalism and towards anti-Semitism instead of real change.
To be fair to both sides, leftists watch Xi Jinping speak at Davos about the dangers of left populism and major regime officials in Venezuela get caught via the Panama papers for taking public oil money out of the country yet provide uncritical support to these places even in leftist circles where everyone knows these societies are largely better, or at least aim to be better, than western ones for the working class.
I have a friend that is big into conspiracies and it pisses me off to no end. In his eyes, EVERYTHING is the fault of some shadowy cabal, these secret people behind the scenes that are pulling all the strings. (((Them))). Whenever I try to direct the conversation towards "actually it is these politicians and these companies that are the ones influencing these decisions, and they are doing it right out in the open" I just get handwaved away. "You don't know the things I know." Ugh, maddening.
Tell the dude that he doesn't know what you know and that what he thinks he knows is propaganda to distract him from the reality of capitalism and towards anti-Semitism instead of real change.
To be fair to both sides, leftists watch Xi Jinping speak at Davos about the dangers of left populism and major regime officials in Venezuela get caught via the Panama papers for taking public oil money out of the country yet provide uncritical support to these places even in leftist circles where everyone knows these societies are largely better, or at least aim to be better, than western ones for the working class.
People in general do and think really dumb shit.