You are about to listen to a sample of Ground Zero.

If you'd like to hear the podcast in its entirety, sign up at Ground Zeroplus.com.

I'm Clegg Lewis.

And this is Ground Zero.

The numbers to call tonight 503-2-2-5-0860.

That's 503-2-2-5-0-860.

Talk to an old friend over the weekend.

His name's Keith called me and he says,

hey, how do you feel about being right?

I said, what you mean by that? He says, well says well you know you were the weirdo conspiracy theorist way back when now you're the guy that tells the truth I've been lying all this time what are you talking about and I realized what he meant he meant that you know what you think of what you think of conspiracy theory I've been challenged before like at comic cons and places like where people say, who are you going to believe the conspiracy theorist? You're going to believe me. I'm a scientist. What does that mean me not, you know, do my research? Does that make me any, if I'm a conspiracy theorist or someone who has some really good heightened awareness and is sharp and you can pick up on patterns, does that make me sort of a misfit, you know? There are a lot of assumptions that are applied to anyone

labeled with conspiracy theorists and all of them are fallacies. I just, I've come to this

conclusion. Whenever somebody uses the word conspiracy theorists as a pejorative, I know they

have problems because the term conspiracy theory is nothing more than a propaganda construct designed to silence debate and censor opinion on a range of topics. Every one of them are interesting. Every one of them, look, there may not be truths to some of them, but we find the truth through the theory. Theory is theory. We know that. And people seem to think, well, no, conspiracy theories seem to think that their theories

are real.

Well, they're real only up to a point that the evidence says they're not.

And that's why I worry that, you know, when you're looking at, you know,

conspiracy theory or theorist, it's used as a pejorative to marginalize and discredit.

Whoever challenges the pronouncements and edicts of the state or of the establishment,

that is the public and the private entities that control the state and those who profit

from the state.

And those of us who have legitimate criticisms of government, we have legitimate wonders

and questions.

...