THE CONSPIRACY TO CONSPIRACIES

There's a new best-seller out called "Family." Another well-documented, investigative report aimed at convincing you we walk in a world of conspiracies....!

This one is about the secret network of evangelical politicians who are organized to use the fiery sword of the Bible as the way to re-shape America. Scary. Like all conspiracy stories.

Take your pick. The 1941 Pearl Harbor attack conspired by President Roosevelt...the ET's who landed in Rockwell New Mexico in the 1950s but have been hidden by the FBI...the grassy knoll conspiracy theory to the Dallas assassination of President Kennedy in 1963...the staged moon landing by NASA in 1969....the government's secret bombing of the Twin Towers in 2001....and now the birthers babbling about Obama not being a natural born citizen.

Then of course we always have the conspiracies by those handy international Jewish cabals who have been blamed for everything from World War I and II to the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II (oh you hadn't heard that one? well, I just made it up, because it sounds so perfect!)

The point to mankind's eternal fixation with conspiracies is they explain the unexplainable. While there are always enough authentic conspiracies to go around, the really big ones help us wrap our confused minds around the really big events that otherwise make no sense. In point of psychological fact -- conspiracies can be comforting.

Whenever you're inclined to buy into one, here's how futurist Alvin Toffler put it. A man got on his usual commuter train in the morning, and began reading his New York Times. After awhile he sensed the train was rocking on the rails. Later he sensed it was speeding up. After a few more fearful minutes he nervously worked his way up to the front car to ask the engineer what was wrong. When he finally reached there and knocked on the door of the now hurtling train he discovered ...

....that's right! There was no one at the controls!

Today's globalized world is rushing forward at ever more furious speeds, and no one, neither president nor prime minister is actuality in control. As Uncle Walter might have ended this report: "And that's the way it is."