Trump does not have a endearing or agreeable public persona. Trump is a conspiracy theorist, without a doubt (Obama birther, Cruz family and JFK, others). The crime of slander is comitted when the factually proven false conspiracy is still pushed and causes damage to a person. Part of my vote for him was because he is a conspiracy theorist. I wanted to get somebody in who could get a look behind the scenes for themselves. I want to hear what his conspiracy theories are after he leaves office.
I would like to hear from a Russian/Trump collaboration theorist on an update with how the recent Syria attack and Russia response fits in. What’s keeping Putin from publicly saying ‘Donald we were buddies and I got you in here and you betrayed me you bastard’? Its the only weapon Putin has against America, handed to him by the Russian/Trump conspiracy theorists.
Not all CT’s are from amateurs (Eisenhower and the War Machine, JFK and communism). 9/11 questioners are viewed as loonies because their theories were infiltrated by holographic planes, prewired buildings, etc and thus marginalized as a whole. The real 9/11 questions are around the things like extraditing Saudi nationals, eradicating the commission’s document, people on the 9/11 commission themselves saying they were railroaded and their own report is bunk.
Conspiracy theories are about ego, not facts. I doubt Trump will change his penchant for Conspiracy Theories one iota when he leaves office. He has obvious disdain for facts and for government operations. He won’t learn a thing while in office.
Trump is about theater. He huffs and puffs and make a huge noise about what he was going to do - to such an extent that we warned everyone that the area he was going to attack. He declared ‘Mission Accomplished’ with not one but of self awareness of the irony of that phrase, and he used it before the military could do anything resembling a BDA.
Syria is a blip to Putin and he could easily ignore Trump’s theatrics. His real reward would be an end to the economic sanctions on Russia. That won’t happen because even Trump has a sliver of self-awareness that the public wouldn’t stand for it.
One could say Putin’s investment has already paid off with having such an incompetent pair of clownshoes sitting in the Presidential seat of the USA.
ALl of those things have been answered ages ago. Even the most ‘rational’ of 9/11ers are far off base.
And you find they are a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total number of engineers in the USA. Furthermore, the vast, vast majority of those engineers are computer engineers, sanitation engineers, and electrical engineers - not the kind of engineer I depend on for information on what makes a building stand.
I was referring to vaccines, which are far and away the most economical method of disease prevention we have, and are not incredibly popular. Many doctors give them at a loss, and they are not very profitable for the vaccine manufacturers.
A simple google search shows Trump has cracked 50 percent approval:
There was no collusion with Russia. Collusion is also a synonym for conspiracy. So collusion theorists are also conspiracy theorists.
Conspiracy theory can be a helpful pejorative, to tell someone they are definitely barking up the wrong tree. On the other hand, it can also make people avoid looking at evidence they should consider.
There are numerous instances of smart people believing in “conspiracy theories”. For an example which won’t enrage people, Isaac Newton was an alternate chronologist. (And today Anatoly Fomenko is a prominent alternate chronologist, who has definite academic credentials to establish he is smart. At least I bet he is smart.)
What I don’t understand is why people get so enraged by what they think is a conspiracy theory.
I get the impression that Art Bell listened to some of the more outlandish theories and said “Perhaps”. I see this as low on the scale of media figures acting unethically.
The real problem with CTs is that sometimes they turn out to be true. The American Govt and American industry have a long and ignominious history of covering up and lying.
The tobacco industry, the automotive industry, the banking industry, the pharmacy industry, The Catholic church, the insurance industry, social media. . . have all not only covered up but outright lied to the American people.
The US govt has not only covered up but outright lied about such things as the “communist threat,” UFOs, certain aspects of military conflicts (the Korean war, the Viet Nam war, the Gulf war, etc) regime changes in Latin and South American countries and the middle east. . .
The reason these people see conspiracies and coverups everywhere is because there are conspiracies and coverups everywhere. Blaming radio personalities and internet whackos for this is not helpful.
Apparently there is a significant portion of America that feels it’s ok to lie to and deceive their fellow citizens. It’s become tradition. If you want people to stop believing in crazy things; **stop doing crazy things and stop accepting crazy things. **
Just because you WANT things to be true doesn’t make it so.
By voting for Trump because he is a conspiracy theorist means that Alex Jones would’ve been a better candidate for you?? Wouldn’t a CT as daft as Trump or Jones call "PROOF!"on Obama/Kenya because they saw a Kenya flag on government grounds? Is that how you define “behind the scenes”?
I think what many posters described what CT is and how it works is sort of why we had more than two people vote for him.
In all these cases there was a boatload of evidence available for all to see, consequences just came later.
Tobacco, for example: Sure the tobacco companies lied, but doctors suspected
(with strong evidence) from very early in the 10th century that it was causing lung cancer (and other cancers). Tobacco companies lied and denied it, even when the evidence was overwhelming, but Tobacco companies are not the government. BY 1964 the government - namely the Surgeon General - declared that tobacco use was dangerous. Hardly much of a coverup.
Now, you might argue that the Government should have done something sooner, but the fact was until 1964 the office of SG didn’t exactly have a lot of power to do things, and the government wasn’t keen on outlawing the stuff when several powerful Senators from Tobacco producing countries were on the defense (and the fiasco that was Prohibition was still fresh in their minds) This wasn’t a big government conspiracy, it was just self-interest. Plus the US had the attitude that smokers only had themselves to blame
It wasn’t until the 80’s that more and more lawsuits started flying. Again, no Government conspiracy, just the way our courts worked. Pressure came from the public as well as people learned of the danger of 2nd hand smoke marginalized smokers.
So yeah, the Tobacco industry lied, but their lies convinced very few people. The Government warned people once the evidence was irrefutable, but wasn’t about to outlaw the stuff.
This is hardly a warning marker for the possible viability of 9/11 truther nonsense or Birther crap.
They’re just good fun until someone does something crazy, like vote.
I love a good conspiracy theory, it shows where the collective imagination is. Unfortunately, they can easily lead to a dark place where believers reinforce each others alienation from common sense.
It’s not that “conspiracy theories” are inherently bad. It’s about keeping an open mind to the nefarious possibilities and angles of others. You cannot ignore evidence or just blindly believe everything you hear though. Understanding that someone or some group may have a hidden motive that can or may be used against someone or another group and searching for that possibility is a fantastic thing as doing so is an attempt at promoting transparency.
That being said, some can search so much that they will find anything to use against someone else, like those antisemitic conspiracy types, and that is never good. It’s pretty much about balance and assuming everyone has an angle and trying to find it if they do. As with anything some people take it too far and some sheep blindly follow without facts. Ahem FlatEarthersChemTrailsAntiVax Ahem
It is mostly a positive thing, it helps us identify the complete morons like Jenny McCarthy and opens our minds to different possibilities, always good things.
EDIT: When I say “you” I am referring to a general you.
Isn’t the entire network of Fox News one giant purveyor of conspiracy theories? The fact that it isn’t limited to one individual is what makes what they do so insidious and damaging. It fuels alternative reality.
Except these examples are not conspiracies whooped up by conspiracy theorists in the sense that 9/11, the lunar landing, alleged vaccine danger coverups etc. are.
The common thread in those and others is that a huge volume of people in government, industry, professions, research etc. are all conspiring in nefarious fashion to keep The Truth from the American people and have infinite resources to do so, yet screw up in laughably moronic ways*, allowing a relatively small cadre of dedicated amateurs to unravel their plots.
Of course there are conspiracies under criminal law, and conspirators in government and elsewhere, only never under the scale that the theorists imagine. Also, Internet sleuths and the like have never uncovered a real plot** on the scale they fantasize.
*what one-time poster Finn Again referred to as the Genius Fool principle.
**an outstanding example of amateur sleuthing was work on the Dreyfus case in France in the late nineteenth century. I know of nothing comparable since.
Racism is, however, corrosive and evil, and a huge drain on society. The fact that a racist joke told between two buddies over beers has little impact on anything doesn’t change the fact it’s wrong. It’s just that it’s a tiny, almost immeasurable wrong, dwarfed in its wrongness by forms of widespread institutional racism.
Little conspiracy theories, Art Bell and stuff, are ignorant and harmful. They may not be as harmful as the anti-vax movement, but they are harmful.
As with everyone, for the ones s/he chooses to be for, against the ones s/he chooses to be against.
To crib a deep cut from Yes Minister, it’s one of those irregular nouns: I’m a rational observer with an open mind, you have some weird ideas, that guy over there is a fucking loony conspiracy theorist.
.
So, you believe in the history in the world, everything is completely as it seems based on official stories, there have never been coverups? I won’t call you stupid, but that is awful naive. It’s also dead wrong, and I can cite several instances if you like.
I also wouldn’t consider UFO’s, flat earth, and Bigfoot to be “conspiracy theories,” I’d consider propagating urban legends. And I think that’s fairly harmless.
Wouldn’t a CT as daft as Trump or Jones call "PROOF!"on Obama/Kenya because they saw a Kenya flag on government grounds? Is that how you define “behind the scenes”?