My coworkers and I were BSing about the various conspiracy theories out there. After some jocular joking about “they” and a few “I’d tell you, but have to kill you”, we discussed what we believed and didn’t believe.
I accept these stories at face value:
[ul]
[li]Islamic extremists alone attacked the US on 9/11. The impact and fires from those planes caused the WTC to fall.[/li]
[li]JFK was killed by a lone gunman named Oswald.[/li]
[li]Military experiments caused debris at Roswell. I do believe life is out there, but their interstellar navigation systems can avoid crashing into New Mexico.[/li]
[li]Dropping two atomic bombs was more feasible than invading Japan directly. This was done because Japan was the enemy, not the USSR.[/li]
[li]Iraq had gotten rid of their WMD after the first Gulf War. The UN never found them from ~1992-2003 because there weren’t any. They didn’t hide them or send them to Syria. [/li]
[li]High gas prices are not gouging by oil companies. They are the result of consumption by populous India and China plus a weakened dollar.[/li][/ul]
Some conspiracies I do believe:
[ul]
[li]FDR knew the Japanese would attack the US in 1941. However, he felt Pearl Harbor was beyond the capabilities of the Japanese.[/li]
[li]The terrorists did not attack on 9/11 because “they hate our freedoms”. It due to our foreign policy, bases in Saudi, and support of Israel. (maybe not so much a conspiracy as unwillingness to accept the govt answer)[/li][/ul]
Since so many conspiracies were too “out there” (faked moon landings, no Holocaust) for non-joking discussion, we gravitated toward sports. I believe:
[ul]
[li]The outcome of some NBA playoff games were influenced by outside sources (like referees) and favored larger market teams. I don’t believe it was widespread or still happens.[/li]
[li]The Patriots did steal signals, which helped them win 3 Super Bowls, and the now-destroyed tapes would’ve revealed this.[/li]
[li]Pete Rose influenced the outcomes of Reds game for gambling purposes, even betting against the Reds. Rose and MLB know this is the reason he’s not in the Hall of Fame.[/li][/ul]
Which popular conspiracy theory(s) do you believe? You need not cite or defend it.
There is nothing you said that is really objectionable, with the exception that not even Dowd said that Rose bet against the Reds. If Giamatti had him dead to rights doing that there would likely have been no negotiation, Bart would have simply told him to hit the bricks.
I’ve laid it out before, and I’m sure I’ll have to do it again now, but I sincerely believe that Ne… the quarterback for the Steelers in Super Bowl XXX intentionally threw the Super Bowl. Of course you think it’s absurd. Had I not thought it through I would probably say the same thing. But this one has just enough plausibility to make a good circumstantial case, and the film is available and undoctored so it’s not like it’s made up out of whole cloth.
One conspiracy theory I consider plausible is that the Bush Administration, at least at the top, knew that 9-11 ( or something of the kind ) was coming and deliberately did nothing. My reasons for considering it plausible :
Motive : The neocons SAID they needed another Pearl Harbor to get what they wanted, and they got it when their guy was in office.
Ruthlessness : These are people who care nothing for anyone but themselves; killing thousands of people for their own profit and advancement hasn’t bothered them elsewhere; why not here too ?
They Were Warned : From the the warnings of the outgoing Clinton Administration onward, they were warned repeatedly that something was coming. Ashcroft refused to use commercial aircraft; the G-8 summit had anti-aircraft defenses.
Achievability : Unlike the idea that it was American agents in the planes or American missiles/explosives that brought down the towers, this doesn’t require a large number of people who might talk to go forth and do things they might be caught at. It requires a few people at the top to have deliberately done nothing; much easier to pull off without the truth leaking out.
Plausible Deniability : Assuming they did what I’m suggesting, the worst that could actually be proven is incompetence, unless someone breaks down and admits it.
No, I don’t KNOW that this is what happened; and for the last reason it’s highly unlikely that we ever will. But I consider it more likely than not.
I know for a fact that the Iran-Contra affair was real. The aftermath was extensively covered in trials leaving a lowly colonel (Oliver North) out to dry. Most people didn’t even understand Iran-Contra even though it isn’t that hard. The CIA sold weapons to Iran and then funneled the money to a group of insurgents in Nicaragua called the Contras to overthrow the government.
That was weird enough but Reagan maintained he knew nothing of it. So basically, he admitted that the CIA was just running around doing whatever bizarre scheme that they could cook up on a Friday night. It gets worse that that. The CIA pulled that type of shit for decades without getting caught. One of their biggest allys was the United Fruit Company now called Chiquita banana. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.
The one that I have a hard time with is TWA flight 800. A 747 is an aircraft with decades of service and there has never been a similar problem with one. Jet fuel isn’t especially explosive either. If the NTSB theory is correct, all 747’s should be grounded and retrofitted to prevent the problem again costing mega-bucks. I try to take their word for it but I am still skeptical that a 747 can just blow up.
Although the “knew” in the first post is a little strong, in my understanding, neither of these is a conspiracy. Many people thought Japan was going to attack the U.S. Relations were abysmal. The CT is that Roosevelt knew about pearl harbor, an idea you wisely reject.
I’ve read some of Bin Laden’s speeches and interviews. He never says he hates our freedoms. He wants us out of the Mid-east.
The same array of European, British & American business & financial interests (Rockefeller, Warburg, Schiff, Rothschild, Morgan, etc.) were involved in giving aid to the Bolshevik Revolution and the Nazis, and also developed the internationalist corporate socialist establishment that in the US works through groups like the Council on Foreign Relations and their more global counterparts, the Trilateral Commission and the Bildeberg Conferences.
However, those interests also probably gave aid to other competing interests in the Russian Revolution & the Nazi rise to power.
All this is pretty vague, so I’ll get a bit more conspiratorial.
Before he was the CFR’s founder & Woodrow Wilson’s advisor, “Col.” Edward Mandell House published a novel in 1912 about a democratic socialist American revolution titled PHILIP DRU: ADMINISTRATOR. It set forth the Establishment’s agenda for the 20th century.
I don’t fully believe any conspiracy theories (I say ‘fully’ because I think some have one or two elements of truth, but without neccessarily making the overall theory true).
However, while I don’t believe in any, I do take pleasure in reading about them. Just the other day in a moment of boredom I spent a while searching through wikipedia’s collection, many were quite interesting indeed.
While there are remarkably few conspiracy theories I “know” to be correct, there are a few which I consider to be within the realm of possibilility, the prime recent example being the one Der Trihs mentions. Stories of hologram-projecting missiles and media cover-ups re WTC7 are unnecessarily complex, but simply allowing a foreseen attack to happen for political gain is entirely reasonable to believe.
My own personal for-my-own-amusement conspiracy theory is that Bush’s pretzel-induced injury was in fact due to a fistfight between him and Cheney. It got much less media attention but Cheney was sporting a facial injury at the same time (caused by “his dog jumping up on him”) and certainly other revelations that have come out of the Bush White House about the personalities and interaction of the two would put it in the realm of plausibility (for example, Bush had to repeatedly insist at Cabinet meetings that the Cabinet members talk to him rather than addressing everything to Cheney). However, since the impact of such an event, were it true and revealed, is virtually nil beyond comedy value and historical trivia, it’s not exactly something I worry much about.
There was an incident back in March or April 1997 where Princess Diana had been shouting at the press from a rooftop (?) while on vacation: “if you think this is news, just you wait” or words to that effect. I immediately said “mark my words, Diana and Dodi are going to fake their deaths and go and live a peaceful life on an island somewhere”. And then what happened, eh?
I believe in the CIA/somebody else JFK conspiracy thing.
There was too much BS going on to gloss over the obvious inconsistencies of the Warren Report.
-One of the strangest things that I ever witnessed was when the book “Case Closed” came out, and, I can’t remember, Barbara Walters?? was reviewing it on Nightline, or whatever show she had in the evening in the early 90s. She, in a self-righteous, no, smug way, made some rant about 'there being more self-proclaimed eyewitnesses there that day, than Dealey Plaza can hold". I, for one, as a conspiracy believer, NEVER heard of anybody claiming to be a witness that wasn’t mentioned in the WC report, and there were less than twenty, mol. Anyway, the strange part was, after interviewing the CC author, the look of TOTAL, almost ecstatic relief that came over her face! It reminded me of the time that we thought that a co-worker had a heart attack, and it turned out to be something relatively minor-everybody’s face had that exact look on it.
-Another trick that was pulled, was the photograph of the re-enactment of the asassination, utting JFK’s standin into an older model Cadillac, which from the sixth floor window, would make substantially more of his body visible than would a whatever year Continental, to a sniper. With that car, you couldn’t miss him if you were firing the other way without a gun! (hyperbole)
There is too much antipathy towards those that believe in the conspiracy for a reasonable group to exhibit. Spittle is the dominant theme in describing the naysayers. Too many people try to ‘profile’ conspiracy theorists, without doing the same to the other group. The other group has just as many ‘needs’ for a non-conspiracy explanation as do the conspiracists for their viewpoint.
Not wanting to get into a debate about it, but ‘Rush to Judgement’ by Mark Lane, adverts to too many double standards in which witnesses were to be believed by the WC, and what canons to use for their reliability.
I don’t believe Randi’s explanations for the Roswell business, but I don’t think there were UFO’s there, either.
One use of conspiracy theories that I have always found interesting is the dissemination of the Protocols of Zion. Here we have a real Russian conspiracy aimed at Russian liberals, based on an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory taken from a fictional novel. The people that publicized the Protocols as real could not have known their latter effects (not that they likely would have cared).
Anyway back to the OP. I can’t think of any right off that I believe, and I have heard a lot. I took a course as an elective in college called “The Logic of Conspiracy Theories.” Ever read any David Icke? I had too and it wasn’t pretty.
I believe that in the mid-70’s, the CIA, working with Howard Hughes, consturcted a ship whose purpose was to raise a soviet nuclear submarine that had sunk in the Pacific Ocean. This was all conducted under a cover story that the ship was to be mining the ocean floor for manganese nodules.
I’d really like to believe the one where Sarah Palin is supposed to resign “in tears” just before the election and McCain is forced to appoint someone competent as his possible successor. Unfortunately, I think she is just a cynical grab at fundie nutjob voters.
Conspiracy theories… hm. Only one comes to mind at the moment… Regarding the 1993 siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, TX: I have been known to irresponsibly contend that the ATF and FBI were pretty certain that their actions were going to result in a fire. I’d be entirely cool with being proven wrong though.
I, for one, as a conspiracy believer, NEVER heard of anybody claiming to be a witness that wasn’t mentioned in the WC report, and there were less than twenty, mol. Anyway, the strange part was, after interviewing the CC author, the look of TOTAL, almost ecstatic relief that came over her face! It reminded me of the time that we thought that a co-worker had a heart attack, and it turned out to be something relatively minor-everybody’s face had that exact look on it.