Conspiracies

[FourScore]

In the thread I began yesterday

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=111397&mesg_id=111397

salvorhardin linked to a very interesting article from The Economist

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1489200

about conspiracies and conspiracy theorists.

Within that article, I found this quote:
"...Belief in conspiracies is not necessarily foolish. Some are real. The Holocaust, for example, actually happened, though few believed it before the camps were liberated. Consider also the Bolshevik revolution of 1917: a small group of violent fanatics seized control of a large empire, as millions of their victims could testify, were they still alive. Businessfolk conspire, too...Take more or less anywhere in the Middle East. The very borders of countries such as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are a product of the 1916 Sykes-Picot accord, a secret agreement between Britain and France to divvy up the region between themselves, despite earlier British pledges of statehood to Arabs..."

The article then goes on to describe other state-sponsored conspiracies which have (or have failed to) influence world history.

I ponder how successful Hitler and the Holocaust would have been if the internet had existed in 1933. Had there been, in 1933-1945, such a forum as this 9/11 forum -- stuck off in the bowels of a political website -- where people could share stories and such -- how would that have been percieved? Certainly within that group there would also have been the nay-sayers - those who would refuse to look at the compelling evidence brought forth and discussed by a "fringe few" who question their governments motives. How difficult would it have been for those people who were trying to expose the crimes their government? Would their families listen? Would their friends look at them in that same way our friends have looked at us?

Let me be very clear, the Holocaust was quite singular in it's scope. Nonetheless, it is the ultimate government conspiracy and it was very real and very lethal.

Conspiracies happen. They are real and they can be dangerous. (I like to think there can be good conspiracies too.) So when people call you a CT or a "conspiracist", it is intended to make a person sound wacky. What's really wacky though is the fact that conspiracies can succeed under our very noses.

Perhaps people do see conspiracies where there are none. But what is the greater tragedy -- ignore a dangerous conspiracy where there is one? -- Or to see a conspiracy where there are none?

[JackRiddler]

1. By definition...

The intel services are conspiratorial organizations. In turn, they harbor secret, self-organized networks (the Bush mob or "neocons" for example) that pursue their own agendas, but have appointed themselves as the equivalent of a permanent, secret state.

Any two people discussing a course of illegal action they wish to hide from a third are a conspiracy.

The structure of business is conspiratorial. The board knows things the workers do not.

The official story of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory.

Cheney's linking Saddam to 9/11 qualifies an "outrageous conspiracy theory," as Bush said of anyone questioning the official story.

Conspiracy laws fill the books and result in thousands of convictions every year.

The word is useless, obfuscatory in approaching covert operations, which are a mainstay of policy.

The problem is that we have tolerated a conspiracy-producing system for many decades.

The relevant terms as coined by Peter Dale Scott are deep politics (the actual politics beneath the open, official policy) and parapolitics (the actions of self-appointed operators, same connotation as paramilitary).

[MervinFerd]

2. Be Vigilant; don't be a Fool ("Conspiraloon").

Of Course governments do awful things. Sometimes they keep them secret. But usually that's not possible. People talk.

But, you believe every dumbass claim some website or huckster or paranoid nut wants to make, you are doing no good to no cause.

Except maybe the government, which is off doing seriously bad things and would just as soon see its opponents trying to prove the existence of holographic airplanes and controlled demolitions.

[rman]

3. So in attempting to debunk "conspiracism",

the poster provides support for a conspiracist world view.

"...primary force moving history is that of the secret machinations of improbably powerful organizations" (though i wouldn't say "improbably") -


"The very borders of countries such as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are a product of the 1916 Sykes-Picot accord, a secret agreement between Britain and France to divvy up the region between themselves, despite earlier British pledges of statehood to Arabs..."

A few more, of the top of my head:

US support for both Iraq and Iran in the Iraq-Iran war.

US support for military dictators, most notably in Latin America.

(the list is long, see "subversive documentaries" in my sig)


"Primary force moving history" indeed, and improbable or not, quite real.

[wildbilln864]

4. just...

kicking because...

[MervinFerd]

5. The Borders were secret? How do you do that?

<<"The very borders of countries such as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are a product of the 1916 Sykes-Picot accord, a secret agreement between Britain and France to divvy up the region between themselves, despite earlier British pledges of statehood to Arabs...">>

The agreement certainly wasn't secret once the borders were announced. There are no secret organizations--"Britain" and "France" can be identified on any map. It's no secret both have governments that do things in private. In what way is this similar to the "Conspiracy Theories" under discussion? What's improbable?



<<US support for both Iraq and Iran in the Iraq-Iran war.>>

No conspiracy here. Standard diplomacy. Lies in other words. Where are the secret organizations?



<<US support for military dictators, most notably in Latin America.>>

Never was a secret.

[pauldp]

6. "where are the secret organizations?"

Are you saying secret organizations are required for a conspiracy?

[John Q. Citizen]

7. That's what it looks like he's saying. It also looks like he's saying

that people within the US administration supplying, funding and training the Contras after Congress specifically outlawed it wasn't kept secret either.

I know that's not true!

[pauldp]

8. bingo.

In fact Iran Contra was a global conspiracy involving
a bank founded in Pakistan run by Saudi millionaires
who laundered arms and weapons for Iran and the United States
who used the proceeds to fund terrorists in Nicaragua
who were allowed to sell massive amounts of crack and cocaine
in poor urban areas within the US.


on edit:

Oh right but Ollie North got a slap on the wrist and a TV show,
and everyone else is either working with or for W.

[JackRiddler]

9. But hey...

The October Surprise/Iraq/Iran/Contra/Drugs/Banking Plunder history of the 1980s all came out as accepted in the scholarship within less than 30 years (true), so I guess that means conspiracies are impossible to cover up and no one got away with these crimes.

But, of course, they all got away with it, and even returned to power as heroes. Even though their crimes were exposed.

I wonder what lesson that taught them about what else they can get away with.

Now the OCT crowd can take all the evidence of 9/11 as inside job, including whistleblowers singing (and getting slapped with gag orders) and they can dismiss it out of hand because, see, it's there. If it were a "successful" conspiracy, there'd be no evidence, right? So the evidence of an inside job proves it couldn't have been. QED.

[mhatrw]

12. The whole concept of "conspiracy theorists" is a rhetorical

trick and our oligarchists' wet dream.

The general idea is that suspecting oligarchists of oligarchy is crazy talk. This is accomplished by creating a dichotomy in which every senseless, paranoid and far out "conspiracy theory" is linked to all currently unproven unpopular acts of oligarchy. Meanwhile, the scores of historically demonstrated oligarchical "conspiracies" are no longer considered conspiracies but merely unfortunate historical aberrations that, of course, have no bearing on any current events.

[JackRiddler]

17. Aint it the truth - Well, unless those oligarchs are foreigners

Basically, you can convict commies, Islamists, Russians, "terrorists" or drug dealers of any crime you please, just by say-so. "Conspiracy theory" only applies if it's your own oligarchs.

[MervinFerd]

11. Contras? For years I contributed to an organization that...

opposed the Contras. During the Reagan Administration.

Wasn't a secret very damn long.

Even if never revealed, its not a ConspiraLoon Conspiracy Theory. The CIA is no secret, and there would be no difficulty in carrying out the plot.

Unlike, say, planting thousands of ThermAte charges in skyscrapers before hitting them with holographic airplanes.

[mhatrw]

14. Are you saying that the CIA's distribution of crack cocaine in

our inner cities is self-evident while suggesting that the same PNACers who were praying for a new Pearl Harbor having anything to do with helping to actualize one is de-facto insane?

I'm having a hard time digesting your false dichotomy. The main difference is that enough time has passed for only one of these two conspiracies to be historically proven beyond any doubt to most general observers.

[MervinFerd]

15. Really, it's not very hard, or a False Dichotomy.

CIA (or part thereof) helps Contras run drugs: Not hard to imagine. CIA exists. CIA known to support RW elements. CIA has agents who would find no problem doing that. Fits ideology.

PNACers want terror attacks, don't mount vigorous effort to block attacks when in power, use attacks to advance agenda: Not hard to imagine at all.

PNACers want terror attacks, order CIA and Air Force to plan and execute attacks that will kill 1000s of Americans including very probably friends and relatives of the planners and executors, CIA and Air Force use 1000s of officers and enlisted men to do this without leak or error using technology never heard of before: ConspiraLoon Conspiracy Theory.


Why is this so hard? Some things are plausible. Some things are batshit crazy.

[MervinFerd]

10. For a ConspiraLoon Conspiracy Theory, yes, you need a Secret Organization

Otherwise, its just a plain old conspiracy.

The US Government has an Air Force. Bush may be secretly planning (Conspiring) right now to bomb somebody. That's no surprise and not improbable.

But, a branch of the gov't that supports trained suicide pilots or holographic airplanes and employs thousands of people and is capable of killing thousands of US citizens with nary a word leaking out, and the evidence of this convinces nobody but the True Believers---THAT is a ConspiraLoon Conspiracy Theory.

See? That's not so hard.

[pauldp]

13. I like how you always manage to get holographic airplanes in there. nt

[MervinFerd]

16. I left off EarthQuake machines, Invisible Elves, Scalar Electromagnetic...

Waves, Anti-Gravity Guns, White Plastic Chairs, Mind Control, Weather Control, The FreeMasons,

AND

SPONTANEOUS AIRFRAME COMBUSTION (tm)

[JackRiddler]

18. Only "True Believers"?

You mean, 1/3 of the US population (to date) and a majority of the world, who are so used to false-flag attacks they're basically apathetic when they see it happen here?

[FoxOnTheRun]

19. Ah!..the Economist

COVER: "GET READY FOR A WORLD CURRENCY"
Title of article: Get Ready for the Phoenix
Source: Economist; 01/9/88, Vol. 306, pp 9-10

THIRTY years from now, Americans, Japanese, Europeans, and people in many other rich countries, and some relatively poor ones will probably be paying for their shopping with the same currency. Prices will be quoted not in dollars, yen or D-marks but in, let's say, the phoenix. The phoenix will be favoured by companies and shoppers because it will be more convenient than today's national currencies, which by then will seem a quaint cause of much disruption to economic life in the last twentieth century.
At the beginning of 1988 this appears an outlandish prediction. Proposals for eventual monetary union proliferated five and ten years ago, but they hardly envisaged the setbacks of 1987.
...

http://www.singleglobalcurrency.org/documents/ArticleEconomist1988GetReadyforthePhoenix_001.doc


Some like it but most are allergic to World Government.

Consider also the Bolshevik revolution of 1917: a small group of violent fanatics seized control of a large empire, as millions of their victims could testify, were they still alive. Businessfolk conspire, too...

And who financed it? Nobody mentioning Max Warburg.
And who freed Trozky from Canadian prison? Colonel House.