By: Mike Redman
August 9th, 1999

Albert Einstein was one of the greatest scientists of this century, a century filled with marvelous technological inventions and revolutions. Einstein spent a formidable part of his life trying to develop the Grand Unified Theory of Physics, a sort of link between all things studied under the broad title of physics. Einstein, despite his intelligence, cunning wit, and abstract reasoning, could not discover the theory in his lifetime. In fact, no man has.

By now, you're thinking, "Great, I get to learn about physics! Gee willikers!" But it has nothing to do with that. I am telling you that I have topped all those scientists: I have discovered the Grand Unified Theory! Alas, it is not the theory of physics, but rather the Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory.

To start out with, the Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory (GUCT for short) envelops all conspiracies, no matter how large or how small, under one gigantic conspiracy. It is my belief that our lives, as "free" Americans, are lies. I'm not one of those freaks that sit out in the streets with signs that read: "The end is near!" or anything like that, I have come to my theory over seventeen years of rational living and reading, which has guided me onto this path. There are so many things that can be attributed to GUCT, but I will only cover a few things here. Basically, anything you hold to be true is false. The government controls everything. Freedom is a mirage: you can almost taste it, see it, feel it, but it doesn't exist.

Perhaps the "straw that broke the camel's back" in coming to this conclusion has been my recent voyage into newsgroups. Recent discussion in "alt.music.limp-bizkit" about boy bands like "Backstreet Boys," "N*Sync," and "98 Degrees" (to name a small few) has led me to believe that the government is controlling the record companies, and in turn all other entertainment industries. The government influence is the upper-level executives, who decide which bands to hire and promote. Obviously, teenagers have the least politically-minded personalities, so the above listed groups, as well as the likes of Britney Spears and so on, are hawked to young teeny-boppers. These people have no taste in music, but like the appearances of the singers, so they buy their records, driving the economy. This gets these young kids sucked into the pop culture, from which there is no escape.

As these young teens grow into older teens, their musical tastes evolve. They now like country, pop, or rock (as a general rule). These offshoots of the popular music have, in recent years, become fragmented into untold numbers of genres. In metal, and offshoot of rock, there is heavy metal, death metal, NuMetal, rap-core, punk-metal hybrids, hip-hop metal, and others that have come into prominence. The fragmentation is all a government plot to cloud the mixture of the culture, forming a "culture of distraction."

With so many choices, people are confronted with decisions about what to like and what to avoid. This also involves a little human nature, when peer pressure comes into play. Of course, government leaders push this along with marketing and ad campaigns that further befuddle people. With all this muck and garbage mixing with good, wholesome values, it is difficult for people to ever get out of this culture of distraction.

The culture of distraction is exactly what the government wants to happen – with it, people will not be able to focus on real issues, universal issues that are more important than what's playing on the radio. Or, perhaps more importantly, the realization that we are trapped in a system against which we can not fight, can not win, and can not be free.

Expect more on the COD in the very near future.