(Guardian) – MIA last year outlined to the Observer her earnest beliefs that Facebook and Google were creations of the CIA, and that during her adolescence, the London borough of Tower Hamlets had been flooded with heroin on the instructions of its local MP, with a view to pacifying the local Bengali population. This is a common conspirazoid trope: the powers that claim to protect us are actually seeking to destroy us. Chuck D of Public Enemy has claimed both in song (Race Against Time) and on stage (more than once) that the World Health Organisation is, in fact, engaged in the propagation of racially targeted biological warfare. This was, granted, a while ago now, and Chuck’s sporadic blog on Public Enemy’s website is generally more sensible, but just as excitable conspiracy-mongers in days of yore used to send journalists interminable letters in green ink, so Chuck’s website adheres to the equivalent contemporary trope of publishing in white writing on a black background for maximum eye-strain.
