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The strange need for conspiracy theories To my complete lack of surprise, the latest inquest into Princess Diana’s death in 1997 is expected to state that she died because her chauffeur was drunk and lost control of the car whilst evading paparazzi. Sad but it happens all the time.
Why is it that people have such need to concoct weird conspiracy theories to explain so many events when recourse to good ol’ William of Ockham usually provides a far simpler explanation for why things happen? In particular, government conspiracies are either obvious (revealed by ineptitude or crassness) or non-existent due to the extraordinary difficulty of any group of more than three people have in keeping anything secret for more than a short period of time. It is not that conspiracies do not happen, it is just that they cannot stay secret for very long.
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Nothing should ever be blamed on a conspiracy that can be blamed on incompetence and stupidity. Given how much incompetence and stupidity there is in the world, there is really very little need for conspiracies. This runs double if we are talking the remotest connection to government.
Spot on Michael.
Having worked for the Government I always check the cock up factor before I indulge in the admittedly warm glow of a conspiracy theory .
Diana died because she wasn’t wearing a safety belt .
If she had been she would still be alive. The only person in the car that was, was the bodyguard. Guess what? He’s still alive.
I have not heard that their seat belts were tampered with by Prince Phillip, even in the wildest ravings of Al Harrods. In fact if you had wanted to kill her and make it look like an accident you would have done it the week before.
She and Dodi were on a yacht in the middle of the Med.
Diving off and swimming free, as you do. Had you wanted to kill her all you would have had to do is put a navy seal lurking below the surface waiting for the opportunity to grab her by the ankle, drown her , wrap a bit of seaweed round and the headline would have read-
Princess Diana drowns whilst getting into difficulties whilst on holiday…..
The seal has it away on his toes in his mini Sub so to speak, and bob’s your uncle .
No there were far to many permutations for the Paris tunnel to be anything but an accident.
But this sad, slightly mad (in my opinion) tragic lady will be with us for ever it seems!
Those with a Progressive world view see conspiracies in everything.
If someone is poor, then it must be that rich people have planned it that way.
More males on the local Fire Department? Must be because Patriarchs planned for females to be excluded from that profession.
Marriage is a tradition of a man and a woman? Then ancient homophobes planned the tradition to opress gays. From pure meanness.
Large heavy cars (like SUVs) provide more protection for their passengers. Nope, the heavier cars are a crass unconcern for the safety of drivers of small light cars.
Parents that object to increasingly meaningless cirriculum in Schools are really attacking teachers.
Business owners who don’t want their business run by labor unions are of course anti-worker.
Don’t want Sharia to become the law of your country? You got it – Islamophobia.
Your party lost the election? Well then, obviously, the opposing party rigged the voting machines and dis-enfranchised minority voters.
I could go on, but every time I type one, I think of five more.
The trouble with saying “…they cannot stay secret for very long” is that the conspiracy theorist will just smile back at you and say “Secret? Everybody knows there was a second gunman! That’s not a secret at all!”
Ah Dr, but there could have been conspiracies that, properly organised, would leave no trace, beyond a deathbed confession by the inner core.
I still tend to believe both Kennedy’s were offed by a combination of the Mafia and rogue CIA dudes.
How do you shut up your second and third gunman?
Send out some thugs who think they are calling in a bad debt and get them to kill them wherever they are hiding and spending all the lovely cash you gave them for the original hit.
Repeat as nessessary, till the trail goes cold.
With the Zapruder film showing clearly that the shot had to come from the front (as well as the testimony by one of the doctors in the operating room), it would seem that the truth about JFK has yet to be revealed by people who can’t keep a secret.
RAB is right. It is a well established fact that Sam Giancana not only engineered Kennedy’s election by providing the Cook county votes that gave him the Illinois electors, but is resposible for his assassination. Even though Joseph Kennedy promised John’s loyalty to Giancana, John reneged on his father’s promise. This could not be tolerated as Giancana had a “business” to run and could not be made a monkey of. Jack Ruby’s murder of Oswald is only one of many murders Giancana ordered to cover up his role in the assassination. This is the truth and I have read much on the issue.
It may be the case that the Chicago democratic machines ballot stuffing helped Kennedy.
Nevertheless, the behaviour of Mayor Daley almost cost Kennedy the state of Illinois.
He announced the results from Chicago at en early moment, even before the votes in republican Southern Illinois were tabulated.
Having some target numbers, a lot of Southern Illinois residents rose from the graveyard, but they were not able to top chicago and cook county.
I love how the “Kennedy conspiracy” buffs have taken over the anti-conspiracy thread. An insidious plot, indeed.
Anyway, I think that these endless conspiracy theories about everything and anything that happens are the modern version of witchcraft claims.
In an earlier age, when the supernatural was accepted as an everyday factor in life, claims that witches, spells, and curses were behind all sorts of troubles were common and accepted. In some primitive, animist cultures, that assertion is still taken seriously today.
Just as the operation of the market’s invisible hand, i.e., the combined effects of thousands or millions of unchoreographed choices producing beneficial, or at least rational, results is hard for many to understand or accept, so too the idea that much of the woes of the world are the direct result of cumulative ignorance and irrationality, not malevolent purpose, is extremely difficult for many people to comprehend or accept.
If some evil plot, hatched by scheming, malodorous culprits for nefarious purposes, explains why this or that bad thing has happened, then all we have to do is root out the bad guys and everything will be all right.
It’s so much easier to postulate witches or scheming masons or some such than to actually do the hard work of re-examining economic theories or political assumptions.
A hidden cabal of “wreckers” or other disguised sabateurs is always easier to imagine than that one’s most deeply held social and economic theories are utter hogwash.
Better to burn a few witches, or shoot a few kulaks. After all, there’s always more scapegoats where those came from.
Perry’s original question could be paraphrased as, ‘Why do people have such a need to concoct weird conspiracy theories…?’
To which the simple answer is that they are disatisfied with reality and so try to engineer said reality to fit their preferred version. Inconvenient facts are discarded, useful ones exaggerated or, if non-existent, manufactured.
Our Dear Leader does it all the time. It’s nothing new.
I have just thought of a solution to the problem of conspiracy theorists, based on their very paranoia and desire to attribute actions to grand conspiracies. Much like judo, which uses the opponent’s assets against him – when a heavy man rushes at you, trip him and his weight is now his problem, as Douglas Adams would say.
Anyway, the solution is to locate three or four of the better conspiracy theorists and kill them in various devious manners. The remaining conspiracy theorists will immediately conclude that the government silenced them. Now, for the very first time, believing in conspiracies would have a negative consequence besides people rolling their eyes when you enter the room, and most if not all of the wingnuts would decide that discretion is the better part of running away and never mention JFK again.
Of course, you would have to locate them first. It’s not like blogs have embedded codes that easily provide the GPS coordinates of a JFK-kook commenter… right?
I’m a bit of a student of these theories, in particular ones relating to moon landings.
What I find most intriguing is that I simply don’t believe that many hoax theorists really believe their own theories. While some of their arguments are superficially intriguing, my little boy when he was 5 could explain the anomalies they rely on (mainly odd light dispersion effects). In many cases, their reaction is to see the stupidity of their arguments as sign of another, yet deeper theory – for example, that they did go to the moon, but the footage was faked to hide the martian landing bases.
I used to get worked up about this but now I just point people to http://www.badastronomy.com. There are so many more important things to get worked up about these days.
If I ever have to see one more newspaper headline about sodding Diana, that will be one too many.
She was shallow, self-centred, and rather dim. Why on earth are we still talking about her after all these years?
I suppose it’s because of the conspiracy theory, which in this case is driven by one man only – Mohammed Fayed.
Having started as a character one could sympathise with – the bereaved father – he has descended through obsession into farce and is now becoming a laughing-stock. I suppose he is too rich for the authorities to ignore, as they would a little person.
No Aldo I’m not “right” it’s merely my theory.
Like VR and others here I usually laugh my socks off at conspiracy theories. Under the slightest scrutiny the evidence falls apart quicker than candy floss. But it would be a mistake to go to the other extreme and believe there are no conspiracies at all.
Someone put Polonium 210 in that Russians drink, hence there was a conspiracy. I saw a story the other day that had the headline “681 attempts to asassinate Castro.” I read no further. Well the headline said it all. What kind of cack handed cretins were they letting into the CIA back then, I thought. But the fact remains that there were 681 conspiracies right there.
No most conspiracy theories are for children who want to believe that someone(albeit evil) is competent has a plan and knows what their doing.
But Kennedy is different. The thing that convinced me that there was more than one gunman was that I have actually tried the shot.
My father in law was in 2 Para in the war and was a gun enthusiast who won many a cup and medal at Bisley. Years ago out of interest, he borrowed a similar bolt action rifle to Oswald’s and we both tried to make the shots in the time limit. We both failed, and he was a crack shot. Oswald wasn’t.
In the case of Diana and Dodi the conspiracy was quite clearly bought and paid for by Mohammed Al Fayed. The man still is unable to deal with the fact that his own drunken staff at The Ritz killed his son and his potential meal ticket (could you imagine this gruesome man as Diana’s father-in-law?) and has in the past nine years employed various conspiracy merchants (including the late Simon Regan of Scallywag infamy) to try and blame anyone except himself for the events.
I do recall someone telling me that he was paid quite a large fee in 1997 to Photoshop a picture of Dodi’s gravestone in some suburban cemetary in order to make it appear that a ray of sunshine had hit the ‘di’ bit of his name, just as Diana was interred.
(He doesn’t work at Reuters now)
Just how easy it can be to crash a car in a tunnel without assistance, see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUoCheGaxm0
Fascinating Julian! That’s so very Al-Harrods. Duplicitous and utterly tacky at the same time.
RAB,
The BBC did a big documentary on the JFK shooting a couple of years ago. It claimed to be definitive and it certainly convinced me. Basically, the Warren Commission was right. Oswald was working alone. They absolutely nailed it and it’s highly recommended (though I can’t remember what it’s called or where you could get hold of it). And BTW Oswald was a crack shot. He’d won stuff in the USMC for shooting. And everyone knows Marines (whether US or Royal) are much better shots that Paras 🙂
In general an awful lot of the evidence conspiracy theorists like to cite is reasons why something was done, not how it was done. The fact they can’t come up with a convincing “how” is the reason the CIA, Mossad et al get roped into the mix. The conspiracy theorist always assumes that these big-budget organisations have a “how” and because they’re secretive organisations it stands to reason that the TFH-brigade don’t know it. “If I knew, I’d be dead” they’ll say with an annoying smile.
As to the “why”? Well, anybody sufficiently rich, famous or powerful will have somebody out to kill them. In the case of a US president, probably an orderly queue. The fact that a great many people want X,Y or Z dead does not mean that’s how they came to die much more than me wanting tomorrow to be sunny means I can take the credit if it is. Since JFK the closet someone has come to killing a US President was the Reagan shooting – and that wasn’t a conspiracy – just a complete weirdo who was obsessed with Jodie Foster. I think we can forgive the US secret service for not planning on that specific contingency. We should never underestimate the perversity of certain individuals or quite how devastatingly successful monomania can be. Think of John Lennon, or come to that, Jill Dando.
– Is this thread about Diana in particular or conspiracies in general? Because I really, REALLY want to have a go at the “Loose Change – The U.S. Engineered 9/11 So They Could Attack Islam” one!
Picture it – under the nose (or with the complicity of) eastern seaboard Air Traffic Control, the U.S. Government waylaid a couple of civil airliners, had “bogus” phone conversations originate from one before they crashed it, planted evidence in the WTC and then blew it up, dropped “some sort” of bomb on the Pentagon, landed the airliners elsewhere and killed all the passengers, then completely disposed-of all the evidence…
– A top-down project needing a year to set-up and 10,000-or-so personnel – not one of whom possessed the integrity to storm out of a preliminary meeting and lift the phone (or else the phones were all controlled and hit-squads waiting), not one of whom has done so since…
– in a country where secret government documents routinely appear on the front page of the New York Times!
I regularly visit a Muslim blog, and many regulars there swear by “Loose Change”. *sigh*
The BBC did a big documentary on the JFK shooting a couple of years ago. It claimed to be definitive and it certainly convinced me. Basically, the Warren Commission was right. Oswald was working alone. They absolutely nailed it and it’s highly recommended (though I can’t remember what it’s called or where you could get hold of it). And BTW Oswald was a crack shot. He’d won stuff in the USMC for shooting. And everyone knows Marines (whether US or Royal) are much better shots that Paras 🙂
I very much doubt that Diana was killed as a result of a conspiracy, but with regard to JFK I beg to differ.
The BBC show was just an ABC show revoiced with a British narrator. Without rehashing the whole thing, there were many holes in the programme.
One example springs to mind. The programme made great play of a computer reconstruction of the assassination, which purported to show the line of fire from JFK’s wounds led right back to the School Book Depository. The problem with this theory is that to this day, we do not know the actual position of JFK’s wounds. The autopsy report stated that there was a bullet hole low in the back of his head. The photographs and x-rays seem to show a bullet hole four inches higher. The bullet in JFK’s back had to be in the shoulder region for the single bullet theory to work. In the reconstruction they had the bullet hit him high in the back. However, the bullet seems to have hit him 5 to 6 inches below his collar. You can clearly see the bullet hole in his shirt and jacket, it is visible in the autopsy photogarphs, and is shown in that position in the autopsy drawing. Even the death certificate says he had a wound at the level of the 3rd thoracic vertebra. Yet if the bullet wound is there, it is lower than the front wound in his throat, so the single bullet theory cannot work.
Oswald was a competent shot, but he certainly didn’t win any prizes for shooting in the Marines. They trained him to shoot a semi-automatic M1 rifle, not the bolt action Mannlicher-Carcano allegedly used in the assassination.
I won’t go on about the JFK assassination unless you really want me to, but it is one case where there does seem to have been a conspiracy. If you really think a mobbed up guy like Jack Ruby would shoot the alleged assassin out of a misplaced sense of patriotism then I respectfully disagree.
I feel the only sensible point of view is to accept that some things are conspiracies, some aren’t.Thus Diana’s death wasn’t, Litvinenko’s was.
I believe that’s called “the common touch”
More to the point she was an adulteror and, arguably, guilty of treason.
As for JFK why would a bunch of right wing cuban exiles and the CIA work on a secret plot in order to deliver LBJ the presidency?
Srsly, I mean if you’re whole argument is cui bono, explain that.
Ok my angel, I’ll give it a stab.
I was 11yrs old when Kennedy got killed.
Like everyone else alive at that time I know exactly what I was doing when I heard the news.
Eating beans on toast and waiting impatiently for my father to come home from work cos we were going to see “From Russia With Love” at the Monico that night.
Frankly it was no big deal. Shocking certainly but it’s 1963 folks. It’s freezing cold and there are just two tv channels and they’re both in black and white.
No Satallite feeds. Any pictures have to be sent on a plane. Minimum time 5 hours. It was a very different world.
It was a world in which morals had not eroded(or loosened up, considering your point of view) to the extent that they have now.
So I can quite see a cabal of very pissed off Cuban exiles , because the Bay of Pigs went tits up, who are associated with the CIA, joining common cause with a bunch of very very pissed off Mafiosos, who (Aldo was not wrong in this respect) BOUGHT the Presidency for JFK, and then got An Organised Crime Commission for their trouble, headed by brother Bobby.
They saw that as taking the piss big time!
Honour was a word that had not been dishonoured back then. That’s why they did it. They could’nt have given a monkeys if LBJ came afterwards. Hell they might even like him! Wasn’t he made Vice Persident only because the Kennedy’s wanted him on the inside of the tent pissing out, rather than in? I’d make a John Prescott analogy, but LBJ was way smarter than Prezza!
So Yes I think the Mafia offed the Prez and his Brother as a matter of honour and to send a signal.
Much like the Polonium 210 case.
Nick I would very much like to talk to you. If my father in law was still alive , he would have had a few words to say about his prowess with a weapon. Knowing him, using the blunt end! : )
Seriously if you are in touch with Mid, Pick up my email ad and drop me a line.
With regard to JFK, we ought to remember that the last official word on this was not the Warren Commission, but the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which examined this case and the Martin Luther King case from 1976 to 1979. The conclusion of that Committee was that JFK probably was killed as a result of a conspiracy, that the conspiracy involved organised crime, but that it did not involve the CIA “as an Agency”, thus leaving the door open to the possibility that CIA operatives were involved. I rather think that they got it right. Of course, in the wake of this Congressional finding into the murder of a President, the response of the federal government was to do absolutely nothing. You’d almost think they didn’t want to get to the bottom of it, but that would be way too cynical.
I nearly spilled my tea on the keyboard. Did I see Gabriel actually write that Princess Diana was guilty of treason? What the f**k?
I suspect that conspiracy theories, like urban legends, play the same role in our culture as myths and fairy tales did in past cultures. Any factual truth in them is coincidental, but symbolically they express truths about people’s aspirations and fears, and about human nature. They are, in effect, a folk religion.
I don’t know who you are, but you better stop using Nick’s name. He could come back at any minute and he’s knows computers, so you could get hurt.
All though I gotta admit –
you do a pretty good impersonation.
Its all that salty water they all drink. Paras just stick to beer – it makes it easier to stick the bayonet in to the current underrepresented minority whose human rights they are repressing at the time.
The latest Alexander Litvinenko conspiracy theory is that he was trying to sell Polonium 210 back to Russia in order that he might go home, as a result he has contaminated poor innocent FSB men who were only going to examine the validity of his claims and then co-operate with the British authorities.
“Like everyone else alive at that time I know exactly what I was doing when I heard the news”: balls.
No really dearieme believe me!
We didnt go to the cinema very often
But Presidents were getting shot all the time 🙂
Let’s get down to brass tacks about this.
Men aren’t talking about her. Men seldom have (at least outside of England). I think I spent about two extra minutes watching the TV when the news was reported, and that’s about it.
The only people really interested in this are women.
Mystery is delicious. What if…? The face in the fog–is it a man or a monster? What really lies east o’ the sun & west o’ the moon? What is inside a black hole, or the mind of God? Knowledge is satisfying, but mystery sends chills up the spine.
Besides, if there’s a Mystery then I get to write my own story.
Solving puzzles is fun. If there’s no problem, there’s no puzzle. Finding answers is exciting, but the answer found is yesterday’s news.
Oh, we do love a drama! Soap opera is very popular. But drama is even better where there is surprise too, the fantastic, the not-mundane.
If there’s a conspiracy, well, then we can legitimately sound off, engage in a little overt rebellion, stick it to authority. Behave (perhaps only in our heads!) in ways that are distinctly prohibited. Besides, we’re vindicated–we just knew They were wrong. Plenty of reason for righteous indignation & even, if our theory is questioned, intemperate language!
Having Inside Knowledge not given the masses is another huge turn-on. And you get to be part of an In-Group.
The whole thing is just a fantastic adrenaline rush!
All right, you want a real conspiracy?
Try the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
According to the autopsy, he was shot through the spine, yet was somehow able to stand up and get into his car after Yigal Amir got taken down. And in the video of the attack, police personnel can be heard yelling, “It’s all right! They’re blanks!”
By the way, the pistol Amir used was given to him by an agent of the Shin Bet. (Not saying this to excuse Amir; as far as I’m concerned, he pointed a gun that he believed was loaded at the Prime Minister of Israel and pulled the trigger.)
Most likely explanation? Rabin planned a fake assassination to discredit the Religious Right in Israel, and someone in the know saw a golden opportunity. Rabin was shot in the car, possibly by a member of his security detail.
Who authorized it? Why? I have no idea.
“The only people really interested in this are women.”
My experience the day she died bears this out; it was the last day of our holiday and I was settling the hotel bill. The woman ahead of me was checking out early “because I can’t carry on enjoying myself after such tragic news”. WOT!
She remains our standard expample of the Great Public at its most rational to this day, and probably forever (I don’t see anyone beating that, please).
I don’t remember what I was doing when I heard JFK was dead, but I was only 4 so I probably had something more important on my mind.
Well, one thing about moon landing conspiracy theories is that my “Blame it on incompetence and stupidity” theory doesn’t work. Here we have to blame it on determination, money, and wonderful science and engineering. This is one case where reality is more wonderful and remarkable than most of the things believed by the conspiracy theorists. That is rare.
On those principles — if that’s what we can call them — I’d like someone to explain to me “Operation Menu”. This involved elements of 15th Air Force, 7th Air Force, SAC, PACAF, MACV, thousands of individuals in Southeast Asia (many of whom did not know of their own involvement — these people can be technically known as “dupes”), the Pentagon (very selectively, and only to manage “an elaborate dual reporting system to divert information from normal channels”), Norodom Sihanouk, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Melvin Laird, and “a few sympathetic members of Congress” (see Karnow): it was planned to go on for fourteen months “in total secrecy”, excluding (not trivially) the Secretary of the Air Force and the Air Force Chief of Staff.
This was the secret bombing of Cambodia. That really was a large-scale sooper-sekrit conspiracy, and all attempts to deny this fact are simply foolish denials of reality.
The whole thing was tipped-over within three months of active operations, but that really has nothing to do with the point, which goes something like this:
When we talk about “incompetence and stupidity”, we might bear in mind the incompetence and stupidity that attempts something like this. We’re not necessarily talking about the smartest people in the world, but merely some of the most audacious.
Other examples of this sort of thing include the CIA’s MK-ULTRA LSD tests, and the Tuskeegee syphilis experiments, both of which were concealed for whole decades.
Does anyone remember the allegations of cocaine-running from the Mena, Arkansas airport during the Ozark Long March? For a long time — several years — I never knew exactly what to make of all that. I personally interviewed a couple of the principals in that affair: Terry Reed and Arkansas State Police investigator Russell Welch, and came away with the conviction — which I hold to this day — that any number of very bad things happened there during the 1980’s. However, by about 1998, the data-state had developed to the point where I simply could not believe the specific allegations of cocaine trafficking. (Very briefly: “If the C-123 doesn’t fit, I must acquit.”) Through it all, though, I had no patience whatever with people who simply snooted-off the whole thing on the sorts of premises that I quoted, above. This is a stark failure to think, and that, right there, is the cover under which stuff like this grows.
“It can’t happen here,” is not a serious address of any given set of facts requiring investigation in order to determine what they mean. It’s just not.
BTW: if anyone can come up with factual evidence that Vince Foster shot himself with that Colt .38 in Ft. Marcy Park, then they should post it up, because that has never — ever — been done before, and I include every single official “investigation” of that affair. I don’t know how he died, but — on the official evidence to date — there is no way in life that it was what the official story says it was. No way.
What, exactly, was Anne Boleyn executed for?
RAB, that would explain the Mafia’s motive, but rather less so for the CIA and assorted cuban exiles. If it was just the mafia acting alone, though, how did they manage to organise a cover-up?
Beck:
None of those are very secret, so they are not much of a conspiracy.
The Kevin Bacon theory explains why conspiracy theories are complete madness. Conspiracy theories are the path to the Dark Side, and the animating, undead spirit of every jackbooted statist.
Witness the recent “alliance” of so-called “libertarians” with out-and-out communists. Why are they forming an “alliance” with those who would shoot all libertarians dead if they can?
Why, it’s the neocon conspiracy theory, of course!
Oh that’s easy Gab,
The responcibility for the investigation is with the FBI and J Edgar Hoover, and to say that the Kennedys and Hoover hated each other would be putting it mildly. In fact the Kennedys tried to fire him, but they couldn’t because Hoover had a file a foot thick on their voracious sexual appetites.
Hoover, as we all know, was a very strange man. Reputedly a transvestite, he also is quoted as saying that there is no such thing as the Mafia. And to prove it he used to go to Sam Giancanas parties.
So all in all, I dont think he knocked himself out delving for the truth, do you?
Like I said it’s just my theory, and probably wrong. The never ending stream of mad, lone gunmen that the Government kept coming up with has always rankled with me. It’s like the Government keep saying Move along now- Nothing to see here!
Hinkley definately wasn’t a CIA Manchunian Candidate though. I investigated that one myself. I couldn’t believe, when I got the surveilance material on Lennon under the FIA , how much time and money they had spent trailing one daft, unreliable, stoned hippie musician.
For failing to provide her psychotic royal husband with a healthy son. As a result, he killed her. Treason has nothing to do with it. Anyone who uses the word “treason” to examine Diana’s position needs to have their noggins examined. She had her faults and I disliked some of the circus surrounding her, but to accuse her of treason is daft.
“None of those are very secret,…”
Not now. They were while they were in progress. What part of this is escaping your understanding?
JP, treason is a legal term as well as a moral one, what Diana did could be defined as treason according to British statute law.
Actually I checked up and it seems that it was actually her boyfriends who would have the more solid case made against them. If someone was to prosecute Will Carling, I don’t see -barring some intervention from Parliament or the Queen- how he could possibly not be convicted.
RAB, I’ll admit it’s the mpst plausible I’ve heard. You should make a movie.
The idea that a woman separated from her husband could be accused of treason for her choice of boyfriends or the odd affair even while she is married shows then, just how batshit crazy that part of the law is. It belongs in the bloody annals of British history, not now. Treason ? Riiight.
Well Gab, if you can raise the Angels,
A la Zero Mostel
I would be very tempted to do a Producers
on this one!
Dear Oliver has cooked the golden goose already
I fear!
No. People knew. Many people. It’s how these got out in the first place, way before the Internet. How did you find out about them? Are you a freemason/Bilderberg member who blabbed? I would guess not.
Now it is extremely cheap to disseminate information, so you would think you would see less conspiracy theory. But I’m afraid it’s too far ingrained out leftist-tainted culture, people would rather speculate about “monsters under their beds” than actually think and investigate. Hence all the vile smears of feces about “neocons” and “zionists” etc. It’s the Weimer Republic all over again.
“No. People knew. Many people.”
(blink) Oh. You must mean the people who were in on it at the time. Like; “the conspirators”. Sorry I didn’t understand you the first time.
Sheesh.
Such as Kevin Bacon? After all, he is only six degrees from the hidden “conspirators.” And perhaps only six degrees from knowing you. Maybe you are a victim of your own conspiracy? Perhaps you are a gnostic, and believe existance itself is a conspiracy?
That complete weirdo who was obsessed with Jodie Foster was related to an oil family which did much business with the Bush interests…
No. He was way to young for Operation Menu. What’s wrong with you? Are you retarded?
Are you?
Do you even grasp the concept?(Link) Have you even tried? No, instead you want to invent fantasies about shadowy groups of hidden masterminds. Typical of gnostics (and psychotics).
Frank Sinatra(Link) was old enough, perhas he is your mastermind overlord.
(I was just telling Billy in a chat that I was not able to view Samizdata via Comcast, but was after routing it through a HideMyAss open-server redirect. So…..Samizdata MAY be on a Comcast block-list, or a block-list of a contractor for that purpose. Dunno.)
“No, instead you want to invent fantasies about shadowy groups of hidden masterminds.”
Don’t look now, dahlink, but I’m not inventing anything. For example, Menu, MK-ULTRA, and Tuskeegee all comprise well-known historical facts that you could go look up for yourself. And as for “the concept”: you’re the one doing the riff on “Kevin Bacon”. It’s really funny, and there’s no point in going all spectacle-adjusted serious at this point, especially when it’s still not accounting for the facts. And I didn’t mention Sinatra, nor did any of the history of these episodes. You did. Nobody else is responsible for that but you, but I’d go long green that you could attract an expensive therapist with it.
Best of luck.
Um, this 6 degrees something or other
Puts on shy and timid voice
I am a recluse who lives half way up a hill in mid Wales
Hello? Ah Hello??
No, It doesn’t seem to be working for some reason.
Hello.
Not even an echo.
Well, since Beck redirected me into this thing –
What y’all are lacking here is a QUANTIFIABLE measurement for “a conspiracy”. Halfway down is my quantitative test –
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/?entry=conspiracies_as_a_function_of
Detectable effects of conspiracies –
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/?entry=conspiracies_as_a_function_of1
Conspiracies as an information function of a p2p (i.e. “free market economy”) system versus centralized systems –
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/?entry=conspiracies_as_a_function_of3
Yeah, I never believed in conspiracies either.
Babelfish[Hornese into English]: “I don’t know shat about Menu, MK-ULTRA, and Tuskeegee — but I still want to *pretend* that I know what the hell I’m talking about when I use the same words other people are using.”
“Well, since Beck redirected me…”
Shut the fuck up, you crummy fraud. Don’t try to make it look like I have anything in the world to do with you, because we both know that I don’t.
Well, since large conspiracies are impossible, does that mean that the holocaust didn’t happen?!?!? After all, how many times was it mentioned in the Geman papers and on the radio that “We are making excellent progress in our extermination of the Jewish vermin in German society”? So either you are all holocaust deniers, or large conspiracies ARE possible.
Really, you don’t really need absolute secrecy for a conspiracy to be successful. All you need is plausible deniability.(They’re being “settled in the east”) And make sure only a few involved know the whole story. (How many guards at Auschwitz knew the plans of Hiter’s inner circle?) Leaks are no problem as long as nobody in the inner circle comes forw ardand convinces the media gatekeepers that the story is true.
Another example: when Sergei Kirov was assassinated in 1934, Stalin claimed it was part to a larger plot against the USSR. Now we know that Stalin himself arranged the “hit” on Kirov to eliminate a rival, and used it as an excuse to consolidate his own power and get rid of all his enemies. At the time, nobody publically assused Stalin of the crime (they wouldn’t have lived very long!) Now they everyone invilved is dead, the truth has finally come out.
IMHO, any present day conspiracies that ARE true won’t come out into the open until most of us are long gone.
Your description of the Nazi mass murder as a ‘conspiracy’ is semantic nonsense. I did not say “governments, particularly totalitarian governments, do not do bad things”… it is just that they are not very good at keeping it secret. Millions of Germans knew about what was happening to the Jews so that fails the first test… it was not a ‘conspiracy’. The fact the German government was not open about it does not make it a ‘conspiracy’ as by that definition almost everything they did was a conspiracy unless it featured in a propaganda film. People in Germany tended not to make a fuss about because either they did not care, they supported killing the Jews or it was hazardous to your heath to protest.