Notes on Conspiracies

One of the discussion panels at SoonerCon 23 was a suggestion of mine,


None Dare Recall It, Conspiracy! -- In the mid-twentieth century, the conspiracy du jour was how the Communists were behind the fluoridization of drinking water.  Nowadays it’s Greys and their reproductive kidnappings.  What does the prevalence of conspiracy ideas say about society in general?  Why do we always need someone else to blame?

Here are the notes I made up for the discussion.  

Conspiracy  Panel  notes

          From Them: Adventures with Extremists by Jon Ronson:  “… I found that they had one belief in common: that a tiny elite rules the world from inside a secret room” (pp 7-8)

Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.

-- John Harrington  -- also true for “conspiracy”

PROPOSALS:

·        Conspiracy theories appeal to people who fear a loss of control over their own lives – in fact, one of the formal symptoms of clinical paranoia is a systematic organization of the paranoiac’s beliefs, an overarching structure

·        Conversely, the mockery of the “conspiracy mindset” enables actual conspiracies to flourish by making them “incredible”

·        It’s easier to mock conspiracy claims than investigate them

·        Knowing “the truth” makes you feel more important

·        Conspiracies have in fact taken place, from Caesar and Lincoln to the American Revolution

1900s and before

          JESUS:

• He didn’t die
• The present church is a hijacking of His principles
• His great-grandkids are kicking around

• The Jews are running everything – the Blood Libel, etc
• Protocols published in 1903
•  The Illuminati are behind everything, because they run everything
• Or maybe it’s the Freemasons
• The Catholic Church wants to run the world
• 1810-1850 The Underground Railroad conveying slaves to freedom in the USA
•  Jack the Ripper – lone slasher or Freemason preserver of the British monarchy?

·        1934-1940:  Stalin’s Great Purge: 700,000 “enemies of the party” killed

·        1944: failed Hitler assassination

Red Scare -- “In 1950, fewer than 50,000 Americans out of a total US population of 150 million were members of the Communist Party. Yet in the late 1940s and early 1950s, American fears of internal communist subversion reached a nearly hysterical pitch.”  Reasons:  unite against a “common enemy” – consolidate power – victimize political enemies

• Fear of communist mind control e.g. Manchurian Candidate
• Theory that fluoridation of water was due to communists who were going to use it to “control” consumers
• Commies in the entertainment media might use indoctrination techniques in their products on unsuspecting consumers

HOWEVER, release of records once classified have proven that many of McCarthy’s positions, e.g. Communists were attempting to infiltrate various USA military and other interests, WERE ACCURATE.  http://www.wnd.com/2000/02/4020/

MKUltra -- 1950-1973 -- “Project MKUltra — sometimes referred to as the CIA's mind control program — is the code name of a U.S. government human research operation experimenting in the behavioral engineering of humans.”

• Use of hypnosis
• Use of LSD & other drugs
• Attempts to use electronic influences
• The Shining by Stephen King was probably inspired by this once-secret program

Project Mongoose – 1961 – illegal CIA plans to assassinate Castro

UFOS -- The governments “know the truth” about UFOs but are keeping secrets

• To protect us
• For their own technological reasons (back-engineering)
• To keep the population in line -- “sheep” theory – you can’t handle the truth!

Major UFO theories…

• MIB
• Hollow Earth
• Reproductive abductions
• Ancient astronauts
• Time travelers
• They’re Satanic
• Ultraterrestrials / the Faerie Folk
• Cover story for government activities (via SFX, hypnosis, etc)

• n  JFK … FROM Thomas Buchanan’s Who Killed Kennedy? (Putnam, 1964), p 77:
• Citizens of the United States, observing that investigators have produced at least four reinterpretations of the way the shots were fired -- each one irreconcilable with all the others -- and that they have nonetheless deduced from this divergent evidence the same, unvarying conclusion, may be pardoned if they start to wonder whether the machinery of the investigation does not have some built-in flaw that presupposes it in one direction.
• If, as a statistician, I were solving problems with the aid of a machine and I discovered that, however the components of my problem altered, the machine would always give me the same answer, I should be inclined to think that the machine was broken.
• Paul is dead – miss him, miss him, miss him!
• RFK … too many shots for Sirhan’s gun; Sirhan’s evidence of programming; RFK shot from much closer distance than Sirhan ever reached, etc
• MLK – how did Ray get overseas anyway; not enough room to fire rifle in bathroom of rooming house
• The Philadelphia Experiment, supposedly 1943
• The conspiracy-theory label was popularized as a pejorative term by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a propaganda program initiated in 1967. The program was directed at criticisms of the Warren Commission.  The term “conspiracy theory” is evidence of a conspiracy!
• Moon landing hoax – or, Transformers! – or Apollo 18
• 1995 Murrah Building: Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier
• Cattle mutilations are secret government experiments testing things like the spread of BSE (you know what that is, right?)
• Vaccinations (they will give your kids DISEASES PEOPLE *foam at mouth*) – They cause autism!
•  One-world (UN troops – concentration camps – etc) – New World Order, Black Helicopters
• Big Business -- e.g. cars that run on water -- “The secrets THEY don’t want you to know!”
• Princess Diana was murdered by the Royals so she wouldn’t marry a *GASP* Muslim
• 9/11 (a power play by Bush)
• Bush stole the presidency
•  AIDS as a racial weapon
• HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) -- Some theorists believe that it is being used as a weather-controlling device that can trigger catastrophic events, such as floods, hurricanes, etc. Others believe that the government uses HAARP to send mind-controlling radio waves to humans.
• Electronic Banking is a tool of the Antichrist (mark in hand and forehead etc)
• Chemtrails are chemicals deliberately diffused to control the population
• Merchandise bar codes / Computers / cell phones / cable TV / HD televisions ARE WATCHING US – and don’t forget about RFID chips!
• The NSA
• The Matrix

As long as there are people who disagree on the backgrounds or origin of just about any occurrence, the idea of a conspiracy having caused it may arise.

If you think that the end justifies any means, then being part of a conspiracy is a valid tool in your quest to advance your goals.

          FINAL OBSERVATION:  From Them: Adventures with Extremists by Jon Ronson:  “…Nobody rules the world anymore.  The markets rule the world.  Maybe that’s why your conspiracy theorists make up all those crazy things.   Because the truth is so much more frightening.  Nobody controls the world.  Nobody controls anything.”

Just because conspiracies have existed in the past doesn't mean that any particular event is related to a conspiracy.  Conversely, some conspiracies are undeniable by their evidence, as in the participation by members of the military and government branches in the murders of RFK, JFK, amd MLK.