Every day sneaky, under-handed, deceitful, exploitative things happen that should not. Sometimes these things are done in the open and sometimes they are done in the hope that no one will realise how, why or if they really happened at all.

For better or worse, our knowledge that the truth is often concealed or at least a little harder to access than it should be, makes us perhaps more susceptible to conspiracy theories than the average person. However, our critical thinking and our desire to look deeper into issues rather than to accept what we are told should not only be employed when watching mainstream media or listening to some politician. We also need to be critical of the claims that seem too good (for our cause) to be true. That is because they probably are.

In recent years there have been several films making sensational claims that have become incredibly popular thanks to the internet. I am thinking in particular of Loose Change, but a couple of my other favourites are Zeitgeist: The Movie and America: Freedom to Fascism. The incredibly broad scope of conspiracy covered in these three films is incredible.

These kinds of movies all share similar characteristics.

They very rarely talk to experts in the relevant fields. If they do, there is always the opportunity to misquote, take statements out of context and heavily edit interviews just as with any other media publication. Heavily biased sources as also easy to find and often used. They rely heavily on anecdotal evidence, or make claims without identifying sources, and they have the tendency to misrepresent the opinions of their opponents.

Finally, these films all share two absolutely critical elements, without which any conspiracy, no matter how credible, would be considered laughable. The first is a bold, serious voice with a hint of personal anguish and a generous serving of desperate defiance. The second is a subtle, yet gripping soundtrack that penetrates your innermost being, keeping you on edge and prompting an emotional connection to the theory at hand.

It is interesting to note that films which claim to expose deception often have a lot of deception implicit in their creation. A quick look at these films on Wikipedia usually provides enough criticism to get you started and there will usually be plenty more if you search. Obviously you also have to decide for yourself whether to trust these other sources, which you can do based on the logical progress of their arguments, the references they provide to back up their claims, and any bias they may have towards either side.

My favourite (and I think the most entertaining) look at the 9/11 cover-up theories presented in Loose Change, is an interview on Democracy Now! attended by the creators of Loose Change, Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas. They face off against the editors of Popular Mechanics who produced a book called Debunking the 9/11 Myths. You can find the interview on YouTube.

You can pick through and decide for yourself which of the many internet-popular conspiracy theories you will believe and which you will belittle, but I will make a few quick comments about the 9/11 cover-up, since that seems to be the conspiracy of choice at the moment.

If 9/11 was a government conspiracy - if the pentagon was hit by a missile and therefore flight 77 has disappeared off the face of the earth; if flight 93 never crashed in that field and has therefore also disappeared into thin air; if there were explosives placed in the WTC towers and building 7; if all the news and handy cam footage was doctored after the attacks and before it went to air minutes later; if it was impossible to make cell phone calls from aeroplanes; if hundreds of bystanders were all in on it so that they reported contrary to the few people whose accounts line up with the conspiracy theories; if a huge majority of the scientific community has been convinced to support unscientific reports and explanations; if coroners, rescue workers and flight control tower operators are also implicated - then the US government, or their corporate sponsors, or the Zionist lobby, or big oil, or the Free Masons, or the Knights Templar, or who ever is supposed to be behind this deception is infinitely more devious and powerful than we could ever imagine and we shouldn’t even bother trying to resist them.

If however, the US was attacked by a group of Muslim extremists - the US government being subsequently responsible for a messy, misinformed, under-planned and indiscriminately lethal over-retaliation; the restriction of rights and freedoms of its own citizens and others over whom it has no jurisdiction; the use of secret and not-so-secret torture prisons; the continued occupation of two middle eastern countries; the propagation of “anti-terrorism” laws which serve to hand out increased penalties for acts which have been considered illegal for a long time already; the stifling of political dissent; persecution due to religious belief; serving economic rather than humanitarian interests; the use of nuclear weapons; not to mention the contravention of multiple international laws and conventions - then we already have our work cut out for us and are only wasting our time in irrelevant speculation.

Perhaps a more plausible conspiracy theory would be that Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas are in fact government agents. Their super-secret mission is to discredit and render revolutionary social movements non-viable, by convincing them to focus their efforts on exposing grand and illogical 9/11 conspiracies, and to overshadow their efforts to organise around real issues.