The cinema was back open this week and doing good business - with all the power restrictions, a lot of people are thinking twice about turning on their TVs. Plus the cinemas dropped their prices a ton during the crisis, meaning you can go for £2 and the place is almost always packed. We saw the harry potter film that was supposed to be out in the summer - it was surprisingly fun, even if the moments in the real world were sad.

On my way back from the cinema with Uncle Andy, we were approached by a man that asked us for the time.

"Sure," Andy said, taking it all in stride, "It's 9.15."

"Where you guys been then," the man asked. "I'm Delroy, by the way."

He shook our hands. It felt rude to say no.

"the cinema," we said. It was odd to be approached in the street but the guy was strangely disarming and I didn't feel too unsafe with Uncle Andy there.

"it's nice that we can still go to the cinema after all that's happened," the man said. "It's like they're trying to keep us happy."

"Who's they?" I asked.

"Well, you know," he said, his eyes focusing on something that wasn't there. "This world is an amazing thing. You know, science tells us that energy is in everything, and that we're aware, right?"

"Yeah..."

"So if we're made of energy and aware, and you know there are particles where if you separate them, no matter how far apart, they know what the other ones doing? There's this quantum field yeah? and that means that everything's connected, everything's aware. You get me?"

"I understand the words you're saying..." Andy said with a half-grin on his face. "I just don't understand what you're suggesting it all means. I mean, how does all this come together?"

The man looked insulted, as if somehow we were supposed to follow this stream of consciousness speech perfectly. I hung back and let Andy deal with it.

"It means that if everything's connected, the whole world and energy, yeah?" Delroy continued. "That means that there must be something more, right? That it all means something, that it's all part of a higher force."

Oh god, I though, religion. Andy smiled. he seemed to be enjoying this.

"So you're saying this is all for a reason?"

"Yeah man, definitely," Delroy said. "I mean - look at all the CCTVs and the shrinking computers whilst they grow in power. Biotech and genetics? They're controlling us man. They could have done something about this crisis, they've known for a long time it's coming. They just wanted to take away some of our rights and possessions -we were getting too much freedom and the had to stop it."

"So all this was planned?" Andy was struggling to avoid laughing.

"All of the leaders of the countries and companies are in on this," Delroy told us, whispering like it was some deadly secret, eyes serious and preaching. "They want us for our money and our work but they want to control us."

"Nice talking to you Delroy," Andy said, pulling on my arm. "We got to go now."

"Don't forget what I said!" Delroy called after us. "We're all connected! This isn't random - there's something going on bigger than us we've got to wake up to!"

We wandered home, not quite sure what to make of the experience.

I understand how Delroy feels - wouldn't it put us out of responsibility if this was one big conspiracy to destroy and control the world as we know it? If we know there was some vast secret group scheming so much that nothing we did mattered? It's both orwellian-style scary and strangely attractive. Why attractive? Because if some group is controlling our destiny we have no responsibility and so can put away our guilt over what's happened and not feel bad about looking out only for ourselves and no one else - it was the evil overlord's fault!

If the companies knew that the oil was running out, and so did the governments and they conspired to organise the crisis, to take away our rights, then we could give in to the despair - because if we're being controlled that much, there's no hope of individuality surviving - we're pawns in this massive game.

But that's not what's going on. I don't believe it. I don't believe the people in charge, even the bad ones, are perfect or evil enough to plot such a massive scheme - it's silly. While some of the bad stuff has come from oil people and politicians looking to profit or being greedy, it's not part of some vast worldwide conspiracy. It's simply a lot of greedy people ignoring the consequences to get rich in the short term. And these CEOs and stockbrokers and oil executives are the ones to have lost the most in the crisis.

Whilst that means there's no easy guilt-remover, it does mean that we as normal people have the power to do what the greedy rich people did not do: make a change. We should have done it earlier, before it was too late. We shouldn't have let those in power take too much when they didn't deserve it. They didn't do it because they were part of an evil masterplan. they did it because they could. They did it because we gave them the opportunity. In future, we need to not let them have the chance to ruin everything.

There's no great conspiracy. If you were in their position, you might get greedy too, if there weren't enough safeguards to stop you overstepping your boundaries. There's no great conspiracy but there's a lot we can do to prevent those people from grabbing too much for themselves from us.

-Mia




[author's note: week 23

another action item from Daily Kos about US food, for those interested in making a positive impact now: As featured in this diary the USDA are trying to legislate to water down Organic standards in America - meaning you wouldn't have to use organic intestines in sausages, or organic hops in beer. This is basically a way for organic food to be pretty much wiped out as a class of foods. There's some talk of it being prompted by the drugs agencies because they make money from unhealthy people but take that with a pinch of salt and read Mia's story for today on conspiracies! whatever the reasoning behind this, any of you guys in the states that care about food production would be well advised to sign the petition and try and stop this legislation.

The Delroy character actually exists, under a different name, in Bristol. I've talked to him a few times whilst coming home from my girlfriend's or a bar. He's very friendly and interesting, even if what he's saying doesn't quite add up.He's basically a preacher for David Icke, as weird as that sounds. It's strange, a little disturbing but mostly fascinatingly odd.

The people-powered motif is an important one, one that can help us try and avert this kind of crisis in the real world. Accountability from the voting public is probably the most important thing we can do to stop it. In recent times politics has been pushed to one side by many people as 'not my business'. This has allowed those who would take advantage of it to gain much more strength. We can't let that continue. As the people of the world, we need to hold the greedy people accountable and keep them in check otherwise the real crisis could end up worse.]