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People wandered the plush carpets of the Marriott, sipping coconut milk from freshly split fruit as I spoke with a woman explaining Agenda 21, “You don’t understand! The government wants to take away private citizen’s property and rewild it.”
“Doesn’t that sound like a good thing?”
“No, you don’t understand, they want to turn this natural land into ######## ######## and sell the carbon credits to corporations, making millions of dollars!”
“h—”
“The government shouldn’t own anything! The government should be working for us and not the corporations,” she says, staring at me with eyes wide, unblinking, “Even if you’re a conservationist you should be against this. It doesn’t say anywhere in our Constitution that the government can own property!”
“u—-”
“They want to sell these carbon credits to the corporations and turn these tracts of wildlife progress into carbon equity, they’re trying to rewild the land!”
I looked at her, and smiled, which quickly soured, trying my absolute best to speak with her, “So you’re saying the Constitution, which was written in 1776 covers everything—? That, it’s right, and that, going back to the way things were like before we discovered the rest of America—I mean, before we took it away from the Native Americans—is a bad thing?”
Her face contorted, tan wrinkles appearing, lines above her mouth twisting in disbelief, she said, “Are you kidding me?! They want to take away our land and own it!”
“Oh. Okay. So, what’s your solution?”
“Have you not been listening?! End Agenda 21!!”
You’d think a roomful of conspiracy theorists would be more observant. I had stumbled into a veritable lion’s den without wearing the bright orange badge denoting my registration. Outsiders stalked the small room, listening to spiels on chemtrails, professing their love for Paranoia magazine (available in Barnes and Noble), explaining the lack of market for 2012 material now that we live in those end days, and promising to reveal the exact number of UFO types. (I guessed somewhere between infinite and zero but it turns out to be eight) A man offered coconuts and ear-coning, handing me cell-phone demagnifying holographic stickers for the low price of $10, while across the aisle another booth sold pamphlets and books emblazoned with the words, “Don’t use a cellphone!”
My, wouldn’t this be a great opportunity to wipe out all those dirty little truth seekers that nefarious government forces endeavor to shut up. Just pump a little poison gas in the ventilation system…
A woman tried to explain crystal power to me, that it would heal my chakras, but in this atmosphere of madness, seated next to so many other unique kooks she was lost to me before she even had a chance to speak. Two booths next to one another, one offering Tarot readings, the other esoteric DVDs of Illuminati knowledge (revealing President Obama as the clone of Pharaoh “whatever”) I spoke with a man, wondering how it was possible to recreate a mind like that from genetic material. I guess the point was, “He’s a puppet.”
“Oh yeah, totally. You heard that thing on Fox News, right? ‘Politics is creepy. And weird. And bears little resemblance to reality.’ Like, I wish politicians took their marching orders from us, people, rather than campaign contributors.”
“Yeah, I don’t think things will change.”
He proved to be very gracious, listening to me disprove/question his knowledge, as I explained that all matter was irradiant light vibrating along frequencies we comprehend as “everything” and he rarely allowed his eyes to wander and never spoke over my own explanations. To his credit, I must have sounded insane.
