Do you believe in a conspiracy?

I'm interested to learn what percentage of DU'ers actually believe in some conspiracy or another. By conspiracies, let's use this list to avoid confusion: MIHOP, LIHOP, any Kennedy, any RFK, Illuminati, Reptoids, faked moon landings, ZOG etc.

Iran-Contra
Plame
neocon-AIPAC espionage scandal
etc

Those are all real and really well documented. You'll note that they were not included in my list.

1. An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.
2. A group of conspirators.
3. Law. An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
4. A joining or acting together, as if by sinister design: a conspiracy of wind and tide that devastated coastal areas.

People who simply "don't believe in conspiracies" are dumb rubes who probably get ripped off on a daily basis. The official 9/11 story itself is a conspiracy theory.

Do you mean to say, "conspiracy theories not considered true by official government sources?" What is your definition of a 'conspiracy'? Maybe that would help me answer.

MIHOP, LIHOP, Kennedy, Faked Moon Landing and so on.

That implies that the items in the list have a commonality.

What exactly is it that they are supposed to have in common? Is it the mere fact that you do not consider any of them to be true?

in the past.

How do you decide which is a genuine conspiracy and which is not? There are reams of evidentiary material concernind JFK, RFK, MLK assassinations. Why put them in the same catagory as Faked Moon Landing, for which there is NO evidentiary material?

there is just as much evidence for a faked moon landing as for any of the JFK conspiracies.

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/moon.htm


PS and like all Kennedy conspiracies--it's also unedumacated horseshit.

of books written about the JFK assassination, I really pity you.

It's like talking to an Intelligent Design enthusiast. You're so sure you are right, with no evidence for it.

talking to a Kennedy Conspiracy buff is like talking to an evangelist when alll religion is just made up nonsense.

Like evangelists, those who dogmaticly deny any possibility of conspiracy think that they have all the answers already, and there are no questions to be asked.

Not one consiracy theorist in a thousand pretends to have the answers - that is, in fact, why they are interested. What they have are questions; questions which are not addressed by the accepted government explanation.

Closemindedness in the face of thousands of unanswered questions is worthy of the religiously insane.

Not too obvious what your perceptions are and how you are falsely manipulating the dialog to fit your "truth". You are looking like a fool here.

list, swinging wildly from the probable to the extremely unlikely, and assume they are bound together by a single set of criteria other than an imaginary one which exists in your mind.

I maintain you have no list of criteria at all, and this poll is a large pile of bull feces.

What are your criteria for assembling this wildly disparate list of events strung together so carelessly?

Answer, please, or we will KNOW that you have no criteria, except perhaps a desire to smear "Conspiracy Theorists", which is what Bushies and Coincidence Theorists do.

is a conspiracy.

Actually, unless you are making up a definition of "conspiracy," they all are, without any question, conspiracies. In fact, they all lead to criminal convictions in courts of law.

I agree that the word "conspiracy" comes from the Latin word which translates "to breathe together." Thus, the word has a very literal meaning, as well as a "legal" meaning: it involves two or more people doing something together. It could be planning ("conspiring") or actually carrying out a crime.

I think the OP asks a valid and interesting question. Thus, I responded.

The OP lists a select group, and I added a select group. His response suggested the two groups are distinct, and notes that he believes the distinction is that my group are well known and have been proven.

I would note that the JFK assassination is likely a topic more Americans are familiar with than the crimes that are known collectively as the Iran-Contra scandal. The Warren Report concluded that JFK was likely killed by Oswald, acting alone; the House Committee on assassination determined that JFK was likely killed as a result of a conspiracy. A district attorney named Garrison tried a fellow for being involved in the conspiracy to kill JFK; the jury found the fellow not guilty, though many jurors said after the trial they believed there likely was a conspiracy to kill JFK, though the DA had not met the burden of proof. Part of the defendant's statements to police had not been allowed into evidence; had it been allowed in, the DA may have met the standard.

A civil trial in California involved a well-known former DA named Vince Bugliosi attempting to introduce evidence of two or more people conspiring to assassinate RFK. Bugliosi recently published an interesting book, which concludes that Oswald acted alone in killing JFK, and Ruby acted alone in killing Oswald. Hence, I think that rational people can have different opinions on questions involving conspiracies, and that a court case or congressional investigation alone does not mean that there is any real distinction between cases.

No rational person can question that the events of 9/11 were a conspiracy, because one person did not carry the events out alone. Several people did. There was a 9/11 Commission. Yet rational people can question if it was accurate, partially accurate, or largely inaccurate. More, they can have differing opinions regarding who was behind the conspiracy.

Without any doubt, several government agencies withheld information from the Warren Commission. This alone does not mean that they did so to cover up their involvment in assassinating JFK. But it does mean that people within these agencies conspired to withhold information that they felt could have done things ranging from making their agencies look bad, to exposing sensitive ongoing operations. What is beyond dispute is that there were conspiracies to withhold information from the investigations.

Two Kennedy men in the car immediately behind JFK (Kenny O'Donnell and Dave Powers) told investigators that they were certain that some shots came from the grassy knoll. The investigators pressured them to lie to the Warren Commission. Though only one testified (and lied), both would tell others (such as Tip O'Neill) that they were uncomfortable with being pressured to not tell the truth. When investigators pressure witnesses to lie, for any reason, it is also a conspiracy to obstruct justice.

President Bush1 pardoned several of the Iran-Contra criminals. That does not mean there was no conspiracy.

My point is simply that the question in the OP is interesting and important, but that we should not accept false constructs of what is, or is not, a conspiracy.

That's why I kicked your post. Thank you, sir.

...

In any case, I think that there was more than one person involved in RFK's assassination. Does that fit your definition of conspiracy? Plus, I lean toward LIHOP for 9/11 - if ignoring vast arrays of data warning of the attack isn't "letting something happen on purpose," I'm not sure what is.

Plus, it's really COOL how you lumped in the wacky shit like faked moon landings (which are very very VERY unlikely to have been faked) to conspiracies like the Kennedy assassinations, who's benefits to the Bushies, coincidentally, are numerous, multiple and very well documented.

"Cui bono?" being the question that law enforcement asks itself at the outset of a criminal investigation for thousands of years including today.

Or the "Conspiracy Theory" that loonies like the BBC, reading from our own Congressional Archives, uncovered about the Bushies in 1934-5, how they were planning to overthrow FDR and put in place a Nazi-like style of rule, with Prescott Bush as Ambassador to Nazi Germany.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml

To say that things which were originally "loony conspiracy theories" that turned out to be TRUE, and use them to take aim at conspiracies which have not yet been investigated, and therefore cannot be proven true or false yet, is either purposeful obfuscation or just falling into the Bushie Frames because it is as pervasive as the air we breathe, it is part of our surroundings.

This poll, whether you intended it or not, is a Bushies' wet dream.

I will not vote in it as such, and I am trying to believe that you did this by accident, in which case you should seriously think about why you are giving aid and cover to what are possibly odious Bushie Crimes like the Kennedy Assassinations or the Attempted Coup of 1934 by lumping them in with UFOs and the idea that the moon landing was faked.

Lastly, and this is the most odious and disgusting of all, how you blithely dismiss the "loony conspiracy theories" WHICH TURNED OUT TO BE TRUE and unworthy of mention BECAUSE they turned out to be true.

If this is done purposefully, then what you really deserve is a ten-minute stream of the vilest curses imaginable, for you are doing the Bushies' work for them, whether you like it or not, and if you have done this on purpose (I cannot know, Bushiganda is very powerful in restructuring all of our thinking patterns and rhetorical frames, you, me, all of us) then you are enjoying your work, indeed.

:thumbsup:

The ultimate pancake conspiracy




I can see straight through their "National Pancake Day" as a secretly devious plot to make money by selling pancakes on "National Pancake Day"! Who is really behind this???

It's a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a crepe and smothered with delicious whipped cream!

Tell me I'm wrong!!!

So fattening yet so conspiracoully delicious.


And where's the "This poll is bullshit" option? Hidden? The conspiracy continues....

The proof is that they're in your same list.

This is the only case in which two or more people have collaborated to commit a crime or coverup. Well, that and the Zionist Occupied Government, because when is the last time you've seen a non-Zionist in DC? All others are just kooky and worthy of derision. Nobody wants to do anybody else any harm. Except for the Jews...








And the reptoids/saurians.

Jim Garrison uncovered quite a bit about his shadowy life in New Orleans and I think he was set up. He might have fired the shots but he was put up to it by his ultra right "friends" there. Why would somebody who proclaims to be a marxist hang around with far right anti-kennedy types?

The amusing thing (that's not really the right adjective) is that some DUers discount the simple and obvious ones but worship the most bizarre and impossible ones! Go figure. :eyes:

and I know why. Not surprised.

I won't say I know why, and I will even give this person the benefit of the doubt, as I did in post #49.

But this is a vile, odious and diasgraceful push-poll of the worst kind, and it is so effectively designed that I cannot help but wonder...

See post #49.

Brutus, and the Roman Senate's assassination of Julius Cesar
Benedict Arnold's betrayal
The Assassination of Lincoln
The Framing of Alfred Dreyfus
John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King's assassinations
The Slander and Libel or (War Against Gore) or brain washing of the American People by the monopolized corporate media, unless anyone actually believes he claimed to have "Invented the Internet", too many other etcs. to list, while they gave Bush a free pass to the White House.
The purging of voters in Florida prior to the selection of 2000.
No matter what you believe about 9/11, there had to be a conspiracy to pull it off.
The selective cherry picking of evidence used by the neocons and the media prior to the war with Iraq.
Gannon/Guckert's acceptance as a legitimate journalist by the White House.
The outing of Valerie Plame by the Bush Administration.

This is just a small sample, so I believe to claim there is no such thing as conspiracies is ludicrous if not insane.

believe in conspiracies". Really? They honestly don't believe that any group of human beings are capable of conspiring to do anything at all? That discounts a lot of history, doesn't it? Do those who don't believe that conspiracies exist believe that Bhutto and all those in the crowd the other day died accidentally?

...in compiling your list.

“For I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. Formerly bodily powers gave place among the aristoi. But since the invention of gunpowder has armed the weak as well as the strong with the missile death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor politeness and other accomplishments, has become but auxiliary ground of distinction. There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instructions, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi to the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy.” Thomas Jefferson to John Adams - 1813


“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” ibid. To George Logan in 1816


“I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.” Thomas Jefferson


“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Thomas Jefferson


“Many of our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have sought to make themselves richer by act of Congress.”

Andrew Jackson - Bank Veto message - 1832


“I am more than ever convinced of the dangers to which the free and unbiased exercise of political opinion - the only sure foundation and safeguard of republican government - would be exposed by any further increase of the already overgrown influence of corporate authorities.” Martin Van Buren - First annual message to Congress - December, 1837


“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country...corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” Abraham Lincoln -

November 1864 - (letter to Col. William F. Elkins)
Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY)



“Prohibition...goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes...A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”

Abraham Lincoln - 1840


“This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations.” Rutherford B. Hayes


“As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.” Grover Cleveland - Annual address to Congress - December, 1888


“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today.” Theodore Roosevelt April, 1906


“There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains.”

ibid. August, 1910




“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the U.S., in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive., that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” Woodrow Wilson


“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” . Ibid


“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson.”

Franklin Roosevelt


“My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.” Harry S. Truman


“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” (Ibid.) Message to Congress, 1950


“Of course I believe in free enterprise but in my system of free enterprise, the democratic principle is that there never was, never has been, never will be, room for the ruthless exploitation of the many for the benefit of the few.” (ibid.) Congressional Record 5/9/1944


“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

Dwight Eisenhower - Farewell speech


“The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.”

. Ibid


“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.”

John Kennedy


“The very word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society, and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.” . Ibid

what a surprise.

Probably a better correlation...

hell, I may only have a B.F.A but most of the rest of my family have Ph.D's. None of them are naive enough to believe that humans are incapable of conspiring to do illegal and/or immoral things (especially as most of them are psychologists)!

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gasoline...nah, too convoluted, and George Bush has NOTHING to do with oil or the Saudis. His father was never a part of the CIA and they'd never give weapons to both the Iraqis and Iranians so they'd fight each other and make the region ripe for "help" from overseas. The American buddies in Kuwait would never do slant drilling into Iraq to provoke them into actions that would allow foreign interests to march in and further soften the place for future control.

No Bush family member would have anything to do with any of that. They're politicians, not businessmen.

Neal Bush would never make money through lies and cost many their life's savings. No other Bush would ever use such a method to make their money either.

Bushes would never profit from the horror of war by investing in reconstruction companies (that would never have the Bin Laden family as members). Bush's friends in oil and reconstruction would never make it possible for their associated corporations to make vast amounts of money through no-bid contracts and overcharging.

No Bush would ever say on film "We're going to win Florida (where my brother here is Governor), you can count on it". Words like that mean absolutely nothing. And having created a voting debacle, would never plan ahead to use buddies in the Supreme Court to negate it completely.

These people have zero track record of malfeasance, and I happen to know that they HATE torture and cruelty to others. They hug bunny rabbits and give lollipops to babies. :hug:

Excellent work, Peake - you're not British are you? I can just hear John Cleese or Terry Jones delivering those lines!

I happen to find the "official" account of what transpired on 9/11 to be far more outlandish than any conspiracy theory.

And as far as the LIHOP conspiracy theory goes, all that is required for the Bush/Cheney cronies to do in that scenario is exactly what they did: jack shit.

It's not much of a stretch to acknowledge and understand that people in positions of extreme wealth and power share convergent interests and conspire to rig the game to the benefit of the monstrous, anti-democratic institutions, governments, orgs and corporations they are beholden to. This often requires plenty of smoke and mirrors, the "manufacture of consent," to disguise such aims in the trappings of retaliation {phony "war on drugs/terror"}, patriotism {Patriot Act}, necessary illusions {spectator democracy}, and so forth.

this is speaking nothing about history either.

this is such push poll nonsense. i'm glad it's blowing up in the poster's face. i can't stand this self-righteous bullshit. welcome to reality; sometimes people conspire. kinda the reason we came up with the word in the first place...

And the worst of them is the conspiracy to get me to admit what conspiracies I believe in on a public message board; you've just added to my evidence.

:wtf: is that?

Abu was the man who funneled several of the 9/11 hijackers through Afghani training camps. He was watched by the CIA and one researcher fingered him as a double-agent for the CIA. He was picked up post-9/11 and tortured. Coincidentally, it was his torture tapes that were destroyed by the CIA.

The Sheikh was also likely watched by either the CIA or FBI. He was the man who funneled the 100,000 to Mohammed Atta, a ring leader of 9/11. He did it at the order of the former head of Pakistani intelligence, ISI. The Al-Qaeda summit that took place in the late 1990s that saw the planning of the USS Cole attack and the 9/11 attack was also monitored by several allied intelligence agencies, including the CIA.

To say that nobody inside the government had an inkling that 9/11 or something terrible was about to happen is to admit that one has a major problem with accepting fundamental facts of reality.

In other words - are we being lied to?

Amass more power/wealth into the hands of the
fewest number of people in the history of the world-
therefore, it is not actually a conspiracy, rather
a researchable fact.
And yes, it has happened with the complicity
of both the democrats and the republicans which
is why people who say they will vote for Clinton
prove the complete ignorance of the masses.
Rant over.
BHN