I’m sure this has been done before, but let’s do it again. Do you believe the black helicopter come at night? Do you have a good idea of who really runs the world? Are you pretty sure you know what the government is up to? Let us know!
This isn’t the place to debate the validity of these theories or disparage each other’s views- take that over to GD. Let’s just keep this a nice friendly roll call of who believes what.
I’m more likely to believe a Govt stuff up than any conspiracy theory.
I believe that George W. Bush launched in order to seize Iraqi oil and justify huge contracts for companies like Haliburton and Blackwater. However, so many people have more or less admitted that this is true that I’m not sure it actually classifies as a conspiracy theory.
In fact, the same could be said about a lot of things. The government has covered up information about the health benefits of marijuana while propagating false information about its supposed dangers, but is that a conspiracy? The facts are out there for anybody who wants to get them. Government programs intended to tel lies are completely out in the open.
Deep Throat really WAS William Rehnquist; Mark Felt was a senile old man who they convinced that he had been Deep Throat to protect the Chief Justice.
I don’t know if this qualifies, but I was under the impression that the commerical Korean Airlines flight that was shot down in 1983 in Soviet airspace really did have spy equipment on board, and really was doing surveillance as the Soviet Union contended. I know that there really were innocent civilians on board - I was under the impression it was being multi-purposed, obviously without most passengers’ knowledge.
A recent thread in GD treats that like tinfoil hat territory. I haven’t bothered to do research.
I believe there’s a conspiracy to make the current credit card system seem reasonable and ethical.
I used to think none but then I realized there is one I like to believe - that Brandon Lee was murdered; it was no accident.
I hadn’t heard this one. Why would someone want to kill him?
I know he wasn’t murdered. My rational mind knows it. This is just a theory I like to believe. All that being said…
You can’t copy and paste from a snopes article, but the first paragraph references the Chinese mafia. Now it’s been a long time, but some years ago I did spend a lot of time reading about it, much more detailed than snopes and wiki, and I pretty much came to the conclusion that it was not by any means an *impossible *conspiracy. Only a few people would have to shut their mouths, not thousands, and a little racism combined with jealousy and money could certainly cause them to do so - i.e., there could have been motives, too.
So it’s just a…pet conspiracy theory, if there is such a thing.
While I don’t believe there are aliens living in some Air Force hanger in the middle of the desert, I do think something odd happend in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.
Oblgatory Wikipedia link
Whatever really happened was so sensitive that the US government needed to cover it up.
I don’t know if it’s a widely-believed conspiracy theory (I just came to the conclusion on my own) but I am pretty convinced that the last gas price hike in the US was just a ploy for the gas companies to get more money. In my mind, there was no real reason for it other than the fact that they could raise prices and we’d all continue to pay.
I believe that certain officials in the Reagan Administration conspired to sell weapons to Iran as part of a hostage negotiation, in flagrant violation of the President’s stated policy, and then used the proceeds to fund the rebel Contras in Nicaragua, circumventing the will of the U.S. Congress.
I believe that top officials of the Nixon Administration conspired to fund illegal wiretapping of Democratic headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, DC.
Whenever anyone dismisses evidence of high-level government malfeasance as a loony “conspiracy theory,” I point out examples such as these (there are many others). Both Watergate and Iran-contra were dismissed as partisan conspiracy theories unworthy of debate, before they became undisputed fact. In other cases, there is evidence to make a case for an alternative to the official story, but that evidence is not compelling enough to convince an overwhelming majority of people–that does not mean the official story is true, however.
OK, I’ll be honest - I’ve got one that is emotional and not rational.
I’ve always been suspicious about RFK’s assasination. Yes, RFK, not JFK.
At the last minute his route was changed, where tv cameras would not be. I’ve heard more slugs were found than Sirhan’s gun held. I’ve heard RFK’s jacket had powder burns, although Sirhan never got close enough for any powder from the muzzle to be on his jacket (I am not a forensic expert and I know that).
The thing that makes me most paranoid is the context, though. I believe RFK would have easily won the Democratic nom, and would have trounced Nixon in November.
Not that Nixon would evern try to eliminate a political opponent by unscrupulous means…oh, wait.
I believe there is a massive conspiracy to make up conspiracy theories.
I believe there is a massive conspiracy to try to convince us to believe crackpot conspiracy theories.
I believe there is a massive conspiracy to make us disbelieve the TRUE conspiracies.
I believe every single thing outside of my head is the result of a conspiracy, and so is my thinking that.
JFK conspiracy/Warren Commission coverup.
Sugar price fixing attempts in mid 70s.
CFR/Military Industrial complex stuff.
The problem with “conspiracy theories” is that one sees how easily they are broken? Look at Watergate and Iran-Contra, much less Bill Clinton’s sex life.
The longer the conspiracy lasts the more likely it is to broken eventually, if it’s true.
Somethings like credit cards or oil prices are simply that people don’t want to read the complex things that made it come about.
If there is more than one person involved usually someone talks, whether it’s a conspiracy or a murder. Of course you have cases like Lizzie Borden where she either did it and took the secret to her grave or she didn’t do it and the person didn’t talk or was killed off too.
Also it’s so easy to jump on a consipiracy to minimize your guilt. With Mr GW Bush and the oil companies. GW Bush is so hated it’s easy to blame your guilt on him because everyone dislikes him so much, they are willing to believe it. Just because someone says something before Congress doesn’t mean he’s truthful.
You really have to examine reasons why people say what they do. Jailhouse informants and people cutting deals are notorious for lying to get reduced sentences and better plea bargains, or simply to lessen their own guilt.
I believe Oswald was acting alone.
BUT-
I also believe that after the assassination, the FBI and other groups acted together to make it look like they were hiding a larger conspiracy.
I personally believe that everything from global domination to making dinner is, by definition, a “conspiracy”. The legal precedent is that when any two or more people share a common goal or plan, even if they’ve never communicated, they are guilty of “conspiracy”.
That said, I think bankers run the world, or TRY to…they are not always successful (same as they have for ages) and profit from the national debts of all nations (who pay them interest on the money borrowed) and foment wars and other crisis to increase their profit.
But that is only on that level…the “little people” actually run things, or COULD, if they were so inclined and informed.
Yeah, there are black helicopoters and they DO seem to appear at night and in broad daylight near odd events.
911 was both planned by elements high in the US government and allowed to happen to garner public support for a pre-existing agenda of war, profiteering from war, and civil legislation. Same as Pearl Harbor. No question in my mind.
Kennedy’s death was a conspiracy (nothing radical there…even the corrupt Warren Commision concluded the same) involving the oil companies, Mafia, anti-Castro camp, CIA, war profiteers, and international bankers. (his last directive was NOT, as usually reported, the withdrawal from Nam, but a return to the gold standard in the US so we could dump the Federal Reserve and stop paying interest on our own money. Both got him killed.
A VERY good book on this general topic is “Rule by Secrecy” By Jim Marrs. It reads like a tabloid or novel, but this guy is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter (for his book on the Kennedy assasination) and documents his wild claims meticulously.
I believe 19 men conspired to hijack four jetliners on September 11, 2001, and fly them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and an unknown target in Washington D.C., most likely either the White House or the United States Capitol.
I believe in the Combine, as described in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.
Basically, the people who have wealth and power work with each other (sometimes directly, sometimes not) in order to maintain the status quo and thus continue to hold money and power. The corporate CEO does not call his friends to some secret meeting and say ‘Let’s convince teens, though our multimedia empire, that they are being rebellious by buying certain products that are actually mass produced by a wholly owned subsidiary corporation of Time Warner’. But, that’s what happens. The Combine doesn’t need secret meetings. All it’s members simply want the same things and work toward the same ends.