On 10/4/07, Srini Ramakrishnan wrote: > > Call me gullible, I found the piece believable. The right wing think > tanks have some pretty wild ideas, I wouldn't put it past some of them > to dream of a right wing dictatorship. >
I don't think its being gullible. many of these conspiracy theories go both ways - and many of them have a valid historical basis (while others of course, dont). One that I find very common across africa is the theory that AIDS actually originated from an american polio vaccine trial gone wrong. most western commentators dismiss this as having no basis, yet a large number of the africans and african medical fraternity believe this to be true [most prominently the kenyan nobel prize winner wangari maathai] Given the history of botched medical trials, and unlawful medical experimentation by various pharmaceutical companies in the last few decades, its not possible to entirely dismiss the medical trial theory.
