(BBC News) We're all conspiracy theorists at heart

[Anarcho-Socialist]

Why are conspiracy theories so popular? We may not always believe what we're told, but we still can't resist listening to them. Guy Smith, producer of 9/11: The Conspiracy Files, suggests the answer may lie deep within us all.
I admit it. If I'm being really honest, I can't deny that I'm a bit of a conspiracy theorist. Perhaps we all are.
It's easy to dismiss all conspiracy theories as "bunkum", but remember just occasionally they do turn out to be true. Remember Watergate? Iran-contra? Special Branch collusion with loyalist terrorists in Northern Ireland?

(snip)

I've just spent the best part of nine months investigating the numerous conspiracy theories surrounding the al-Qaeda attacks on 11 September, 2001. They range from the plausible - that intelligence agencies in the Middle East may have had some inside knowledge about what was planned - to the totally wacky - that United 93's passengers were abducted by government agents.
But the deeper you dig in the dark world of conspiracies, the more you realise that different theories share much in common. The conspiracy theorist seizes on any apparent inconsistency and from that germ of truth the story is built up.

(snip)

When something awful, inexplicable or just plain evil rocks our world, we have an instinctive need to construct elaborate explanations to try and make sense of our anxiety and fear.
Many eye-witnesses to 9/11 thought, "This terrible event can't just be something as simple as 19 young hijackers armed with pocket knives. There must be more too it than that - because the alternative is just too horrific to contemplate."
That alternative is a realisation we are all vulnerable to forces beyond our control; even princesses and presidents aren't immune to "everyday" tragedies like road accidents or random acts of violence.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6368341.stm

[MervinFerd]

1. Not me, but I understand his point.

This always seemed to me to be the motivation behind the JFK theories. People just would not believe that history could be changed by the random act of an insignificant twit.

None of this explains why 911 theories have drifted toward the utterly daft. Nobody ever tried to claim that JFK was killed by a Death Ray from Space.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

3. I would have thought

that there has been some sort of talk of extra-terrestrial conspiracy theory (those Romulans?) regarding the JFK assassination. Not a million miles away from death-rays from space.

[Taxloss]

2. They want exposure.

They're about to get exposed.

[CJCRANE]

4. 9/11 *was* a conspiracy.

We just disagree on the details.

A conspiracy is just another word for a "secret plan". Govts and politicians make secret plans all the time.

B*sh said "no wiretapping without a warrant" and it turned out he had been doing it for four years.
B*sh said "no warplans on my desk" in 2002 before the invasion and now the plans have just been released.

That's not to mention the lies about the WMD that were never found, the dozens of warnings before 9/11 that were denied and later revealed. That's not to mention the lies about Katrina, Dubai Ports etc etc.

[MervinFerd]

5. "Conspiracy Theory" DOES NOT EQUAL "Conspiracy"

"Conspiract Theories" are Remote Controlled Planes, Pod Planes, Fake Fone Calls, Controlled Demolition, No Hijackers, Dustification of Steel, Death Rays from Space, etc.

"Conspiracies" are real; "Conspiracy Theories" are fantasies.

See the difference?

edit: because inequality signs don't show up in the banner.

[The Lone Groover]

6. Some conspiracy theories are...

..conspiracy facts in the making... not all of them... perhaps not most of them... but some of them.

Or is there no such thing as a conspiracy?

And if conspiracies do exist.. what were they before someone exposed them?

You can create your strawmen all you like... its what you do.

[CJCRANE]

7. I take your point

about remote-controlled planes etc. I'm not really interested in all those technical arguments - I guess some their proponents are genuine, some just trying to make a quick buck and others are trying to muddy the waters.

So, having set them aside, I thinks it's still possible to look at the evidence of 19 arab hijackers and there still be a possibility of a variant of the "inside job", "false flag attack", "useful idiots/patsies" or more likely as I see it a kind of joint venture between certain American and foreign interests. I'm more interested in the political and financial links between the players.

[The Lone Groover]

8. "trying to muddy the waters"

...some people are really good at that.

The muddier the better.

You just have to be aware that its going on, its a kind of internet false flag operation... as a general tactic it's as old as the hills.

[MervinFerd]

10. What's muddy? There -are- conspiracies; there ARE NOT dustification beams.

What's so hard about this? Some conjectures are plausible; some are "beyond madness".

[BeFree]

16. Yeah, know what you mean

Like the theory that an airplane became shredded into unidentifiable pieces and that black boxes were never discovered and the greatest air force in the world couldn't do a damn thing and a low-skilled pilot could make an airliner perform impossible moves and the secret service left their object completely exposed for the longest time before he ran scared and the man in charge at the white house gave orders that were never carried out and tall buildings defied physics while falling and those same buildings were the first steel framed to ever fall because of fire and all the warnings from all over the world were ignored and the people who were claimed to have done the deed were found to have addresses from US military bases and had contacts with the FBI, CIA, and foreign governments and whose multi-million dollar finances were deemed to have been of no use to investigate.

Why? It is all beyond madness, indeed.

[The Lone Groover]

19. "whose multi-million dollar finances were deemed to have been of no use to investigate"

...that's a real kicker ain't it.

When you here someone saying something like (was it the 9/11 comission?) that you just have to wonder what is going on.

[MervinFerd]

9. But, see, "911 Truth" has come to -mean- Controlled Demolition, or other...

things "beyond madness".

The very real possibilities of involvement of our "allies", the Saudis and Pakis, or even of some component of our own establishment just --WILL NOT-- be discussed while Controlled Demolition and "Loose Change" are taken seriously.

[The Lone Groover]

11. Convenient for some.

But I see not reason why other plausible theories should not be discussed along with the others.

Nice to see you acknowledge that our own Establishment may be involved.

[CJCRANE]

12. I agree with you there.

I don't know why the CTers concentrate on the technical stuff.

If Bushco were somehow in collusion with Saudi & Pakistani assets I think that it is much more shocking than the whole CD idea, it turns the whole war on terror on its head. Maybe that's too much for America to take, I think in the end the incompetence/negligence interpretation will be the dominant meme.

[MervinFerd]

14. "JFK was strangled, and his body never found."

The standard 911 theories are of this kind. They deny plain facts witnessed by hundreds or thousands as well as expert opinion.

It's quite unnecessary and unrelated to any fundamental issue.

I do not understand this.

[The Lone Groover]

18. " The standard 911 theories are of this kind. "

..No.. I think you will find that the standard 911 strawmen are of this kind.

Why do you bother?

[Contrite]

17. But they haven't really proven the official conspiracy.

A passport in the rubble? What about the passenger manifests? What about the supposed hijackers who are still alive and say their passports were stolen?

[twylatharp]

13. I was watching that show "Daybreak"

that was on for awhile, then they canceled it without showing the conclusion, but put the remaining episodes on the abc web site. On one of them, a guy who is being framed for murder, is figuring out that there is a conspiracy behind who really committed the murder and is framing him. He lays his theory out to the detectives who are questioning /accusing him and one of them says "Seen any little green men lately?" and dismisses what he is saying as a crazy conspiracy theory.
Of course, that show is fiction, but what he said was so similar to what the hordes of people on the internet say to people who are questioning 9-11, i.e.: "do you see ufo's too?" and stuff like that. It's like someone is writing both scripts.

[Bolo Boffin]

15. They finally put up the episodes of Daybreak???

Are they still there? I really liked that show.

[mhatrw]

20. Such nonsense.

This sort of nonsense is like an Orwellian "psychological" discussion of the people who don't believe in Emmanuel Goldstein.

Here are the facts about "conspiracy theories":

1) All sorts of "conspiracies" are historical facts.
2) Corporate media presents lies as truth daily.
3) Many "conspiracy theories" are not true.

Because these are the facts, every "news story" and every "conspiracy theory" must be evaluated on its own merits. Sometimes it is idiotic to believe one, and sometimes it is ridiculous to believe the other. There is no pat diagnosis either way -- unless your purpose to psychologically "criminalize" not believing everything Big Brother tells you.