04-14-2019, 11:04 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-15-2019, 12:06 AM by Eric the Green.)
I agree very much with brower's two opening posts. Conspiracy theories now feed the distrust of the government, and people believe in them because they want to blame the government or a secret cabal for everything, in order to foment opposition to same. Most if not all of them have little relation to reality, and feed the trends of today toward the irrational and vulnerablity to demagogues.
I've looked into a number of these. The granddaddy of modern conspiracy theory is the ones surrounding the JFK assassination. The evidence is open and shut that Oswald killed Kennedy acting alone, and there's no evidence that he was part of a conspiracy. The facts are well known, and today he would be convicted in a court of law by a jury in a matter of minutes. His fingerprints were found on the gun proven to be his, and on the boxes he used for his assassin's den. The bullets found in JFK's skull and in his car, and the shell casings found at you know where, were proven to come from that gun also found there. And so on and on. But there are mysterious aspects surrounding the case that feed the theories. The Mafia and others probably conspired to kill JFK, at least as far as the talking stage, and maybe even failed attempts. Suspicious deaths happened afterwards. And at least at first, the autopsy was inadequate. And so on. But none of these things change the basic facts about the case.
More recently, the other big one surrounds the 9-11 attacks. So far I am satisfied that the heat of the impacts melted the connections of the floors where it happened to the warped walls, and that when they fell, the upper floors collapsed on them and the buildings pancaked. The notions of small amounts of thermite metals found at the scene that supposedly indicate a bomb are explained by the composition of the building. And so on. I would have loved it if Bush could have been blamed for this, and this would have brought down his presidency. But why persist with this theory now that he's out of office? Is there really a secret cabal doing all these things?
Chemtrails and geo-engineering is another big one, promoted mainly by a guy in Shasta County CA named Dane Wigington. But when you examine this, the supposed increase in chemtrails is explained by planes using more water in their exhaust to reduce pollution. But believers say that the contrails we see are made of aluminum and barium deliberately being used on us to reduce the population. But there's no evidence that these metals are falling on the ground all over the country, or that people are spraying them from planes. The theorists have expanded the fact that such spraying is being considered as an answer to global warming, to a supposed fact that it is actually being done for about 30 years now. And they actually blame global warming on the supposed spraying.
Other theorists go way beyond reality to say that the UN through "agenda 21" is spreading disease and abusing children in order to reduce the population in the name of environmentalism. But Agenda 21 has no power to do any of this.
This is only the tip of the iceberg of today's conspiracy theory jungle. I don't even have to mention the harm anti-vaxxers have done. It behooves us to do our own research, and look at the facts before believing this stuff. I used to believe in a lot of these, but now I see no point in using fantasies to discredit an oligarchic power structure that needs nothing more than its own actual misdeeds to discredit it.
I've looked into a number of these. The granddaddy of modern conspiracy theory is the ones surrounding the JFK assassination. The evidence is open and shut that Oswald killed Kennedy acting alone, and there's no evidence that he was part of a conspiracy. The facts are well known, and today he would be convicted in a court of law by a jury in a matter of minutes. His fingerprints were found on the gun proven to be his, and on the boxes he used for his assassin's den. The bullets found in JFK's skull and in his car, and the shell casings found at you know where, were proven to come from that gun also found there. And so on and on. But there are mysterious aspects surrounding the case that feed the theories. The Mafia and others probably conspired to kill JFK, at least as far as the talking stage, and maybe even failed attempts. Suspicious deaths happened afterwards. And at least at first, the autopsy was inadequate. And so on. But none of these things change the basic facts about the case.
More recently, the other big one surrounds the 9-11 attacks. So far I am satisfied that the heat of the impacts melted the connections of the floors where it happened to the warped walls, and that when they fell, the upper floors collapsed on them and the buildings pancaked. The notions of small amounts of thermite metals found at the scene that supposedly indicate a bomb are explained by the composition of the building. And so on. I would have loved it if Bush could have been blamed for this, and this would have brought down his presidency. But why persist with this theory now that he's out of office? Is there really a secret cabal doing all these things?
Chemtrails and geo-engineering is another big one, promoted mainly by a guy in Shasta County CA named Dane Wigington. But when you examine this, the supposed increase in chemtrails is explained by planes using more water in their exhaust to reduce pollution. But believers say that the contrails we see are made of aluminum and barium deliberately being used on us to reduce the population. But there's no evidence that these metals are falling on the ground all over the country, or that people are spraying them from planes. The theorists have expanded the fact that such spraying is being considered as an answer to global warming, to a supposed fact that it is actually being done for about 30 years now. And they actually blame global warming on the supposed spraying.
Other theorists go way beyond reality to say that the UN through "agenda 21" is spreading disease and abusing children in order to reduce the population in the name of environmentalism. But Agenda 21 has no power to do any of this.
This is only the tip of the iceberg of today's conspiracy theory jungle. I don't even have to mention the harm anti-vaxxers have done. It behooves us to do our own research, and look at the facts before believing this stuff. I used to believe in a lot of these, but now I see no point in using fantasies to discredit an oligarchic power structure that needs nothing more than its own actual misdeeds to discredit it.