Claire Bernish
April 23, 2016

It could easily be said 2016 has been the year so-called conspiracy theorists were vindicated — and we aren’t yet five months in.

Before explaining why that is the case, make no mistake — the term conspiracy theorist originated with the CIA as an effort to discredit viable theories from credible people who chanced upon the truth.

First revealed by the New York Times in 1976, pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request, the CIA had written a dispatch of its “psychological operations” — disinformation — specifically to “provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries” and to “employ propaganda assets to refute the attacks of the critics.”

That said, 2016 thus far has proven remarkable for the sheer volume of information brought to light by people, events, and the general crumbling of the deep-seated establishment narrative — and it’s no small matter for those whose claims had previously been met with scorn and derision.

Following are just eight items of erstwhile contention, which 2016 has confirmed for posterity — and perhaps to the ultimate detriment of the establishment paradigm.

1. Though trading a pinch of liberty for an ounce of security has never panned out for anyone but government, people continue to allow the fuzzy blanket feel of increased ‘protection’ from terrorism to cloud their perception of possible future outcomes. Such has been the case with the insidious PATRIOT Act, whose repercussions from blanket, indiscriminate surveillance culminated this year in a gloriously horrible way.

SNIP