Spending time with OC's conspiracy wackos

Fear of conspiracies, "from the Freemasons to fluoridation, is woven deeply into the American identity," says a surprisingly even-handed piece in Orange Coast Magazine. "Nowhere is that particular American trait more apparent than in Orange County." Sept. 11 was an inside job. The government is poisoning the skies and implanting microchips in unsuspecting citizens. The president’s birth certificate is fake, Walt Disney was a Satanist, and comedian Andy Kaufman is alive. Believers are all there.

We certainly have the history. In the 1950s and ’60s, the county was the epicenter of Red Scare paranoia, a place where Walter Knott printed tracts at the Berry Farm, the John Birch Society found eager recruits, and the Anticommunist School of Orange County conducted classes on how to spot the Fifth Columnists seemingly lurking behind every palm tree.... Perhaps it’s a sign of Orange County’s increasing diversity that the latest generation of conspiracists spans the ideological, political, and cultural spectrum.

The magazine's newly revamped website has a lot more to read for free.