Jesse Ventura's Conspiracy Theory: 2012

Jesse Ventura's Conspiracy Theory: 2012

"The conspiracy plot to save the elite. But not you."

Okay, so, first of all, the 2012 thing? Not happening. The Mayans were just a bunch of people who lived a long time ago, and made a really big calendar, and every calendar comes to an end. Just like our calendars! Imagine someone were to unearth a Western calendar, then declare that "the world will end on December 31." No doubt the Mayans would say the same thing we would - "Don't be so literal!"

I trust it will come as no surprise to anyone that America is dotted with hardened underground bunkers for the military and governmental elite in case of war or whatever. I have difficulty seeing this as a grand plot against Americans. But then again, I do appreciate Jesse Ventura's populist appeal, getting his nose out of joint based on the fact that they won't save us all.

(But where would we all stay? We can barely fit together on the surface of the country. You would have to build an entire underground country to house us. Now I'm reminded of the 1990s science fiction movie "Slipstream" starring Mark Hamill, which is one of my guilty pleasures.)

The actual cause of the 2012 disaster is a bunch of stuff thrown into a bucket. Solar flares are one thing Ventura clings to as a possible source of catastrophe. It's true that if there was a massive batch of solar flares, we could all be in a lot of trouble. It's happened before: the Carrington Event. Frankly, there's not much we can do about it, given the amount of electronic infrastructure we rely on.

But please keep in mind that forecasts for solar activity two years from now cannot possibly be all that accurate. They are, after all, simply forecasts. No more or less reliable than weather forecasts. Saying that 2013 could be a big year for solar flares is like saying that it's likely to be an El Nino year. It may or may not end up being true, and even so, there's so much individual variation year by year to make the forecast almost meaningless.

In Narrative Derail #1, we visit a guy who is building a sort of exclusive post-apocalyptic underground resort in a former underground missile silo. I love reading about silo homes, so I got a real kick out of this.

So, this isn't exactly striking me as a conspiracy. Although they keep asserting that there's a conspiracy to suppress the truth about the coming apocalypse, so that "they" can escape unharmed. I don't buy it.

In Narrative Derail #2 we go to Denver International Airport, of course! DIA deserves a post all on its own. But suffice it to say, there is a lot of weird stuff there. Although I'm skeptical as to whether or not it "means anything." I mean, what's the point of being an elite future-knowing cult like the Illuminati if you go around painting murals about it?