The Ignoble Conspiracy Theorist

[Ernie Nemeth]

What makes one a conspiracy theorist? What compels someone to even consider a conspiracy theory as an explanation?

What is a conspiracy theory? Can anyone give an example?

Is a conspiracy theory different than an actual conspiracy?


Is a company 'a conspiracy to offer a product or service for the sake of profit'?
Is government 'a conspiracy to maintain the integrity and continued existence of governmental authority'?

Is a family 'a conspiracy to rear the offspring of two adults of the opposite sex'?


Does a conspiracy have to be secret?

Can a conspiracy revealed still be a conspiracy?

When does a conspiracy theory cross the line into fantasy and speculation?
At what point does a conspiracy become collusion?
Is 'to collude' a crime in certain proscribed areas?

Isn't 'to collude' synonymous with 'to conspire'?


Can there be a conspiracy of one or is collaboration a requisite?

How does an orchestrated event, a conspiracy, collusion, or collaboration transform itself from merely a theory into fact?



If the world's elite, the corporate owners, the bankers, land barons, media moguls, famous shills and faces, influencers and talking heads, royalty, high ranking government officials, and the filthy rich, all gather regularly every year...is that grounds for speculation? Is it still a conspiracy theory when it is a fact?

Is the collusion of the world's elite a punishable crime in their respective countries?

Based on the state of the world and its recent history relating to the incredibly organized assault orchestrated simultaneously by media, government, big pharma, and corporations, does it seem as though maybe those yearly meetings in Davos might have had a bearing on the resultant outcome?


any and all comments appreciated and welcome
add your own conspiracy peeve
thanks

[norman]

At this point, the whole world is a crime scene.

It's perfectly clear that those who's job it is to investigate and 'prosecute' crime are either scared away from doing so are are part of the organised crime in the first place ( It's no coincidence that a very high proportion of the people officially tasked with law enforcement are members of at least one secret society ).

That leaves ordinary folks having to figure out WTF is going on and what they might be able to do about it.

Calling those people conspiracy theorists is as ridiculous as calling the chief C.I.D. investigator of organised crime a conspiracy theorist.

[Satori]

Legally, conspiracies fall into two broad categories: civil conspiracy and criminal conspiracy.

Generally, for a conspiracy to exist, two of more people must agree to do an illegal (criminal) or “lesser” injurious act (civil), and, at least one of those involved must take overt action in furtherance of the criminal or civil conspiracy. If two or more people merely think about carrying out, for instance, a criminal act, that is not a conspiracy. (Likewise, at least one of those involved in a civil conspiracy would also have to take overt action.)

Examples of conspiracies abound all around us at this moment in time. For a hint of an older moment in time watch a film noir, especially from the 1930-1950s, for examples.

As you might have surmised, the line or distinction between criminal conspiracy and civil conspiracy is often blurred, especially by those who have a stake in the outcomes.

For what it’s worth.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
add your own conspiracy peeve
thanks

My peeve is the very use of the term "Conspiracy Theorist". It was coined by the CIA after JFK's assassination to discredit, laugh at and sideline anyone who dared to question the official narrative.

It was maybe the most successful (and long-lived) linguistic psyop ever devised. Each time we use the term, we play into the Deep State's hands.

[shaberon]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
My peeve is the very use of the term "Conspiracy Theorist". It was coined by the CIA after JFK's assassination to discredit, laugh at and sideline anyone who dared to question the official narrative.

Well, it's one of these intellectual contrivances.


Like "Capitalism" = 1850s fiction, processed by and branded onto devotees of the London School for themselves.


"Conspiracy theory" has the same kind of origin, in this case, from the French Revolution.

Two authors, primarily, Abbe' Barruel (Jesuit) and John Robison (drunk) wrote material that has been taken as authoritative. This was the grounds for the U. S. Anti-Masonic Party (1801), later the Whigs, then the Republicans. As a literary genre, it was revived by Nesta Webster and then Lady Queenborough (British Fascist).

It is a Fascist scare tactic made up of "theories", i. e. all of those arguments are heavily flawed, but somehow the shoe is on the other foot and these "theories" are now basically law, while if you commit genocide or any other crime on film, apparently it is a matter of debate.


In actuality, a conspiracy is just a criminal agreement between two or more people. Doesn't matter if you ever do it. Doesn't matter what kind of crime.

And then the problem is, in terms of justice, it is mostly very immoral things that are fully legalized and protected by law.


Historically, it was the Greeks who found that occasionally they would find themselves under the nemesis of a Bad King. In that case, the population would revolt, and install a Tyrant, who was usually the one to restore justice. See, for example, Niger over the past few months. That would be an example.

It's really easy to define a Bad King, because this is where part of the Semitic lore in the Book of Leviticus actually *agrees* with the world system of its time, i. e. Debt Jubilee (yobel--ram's horn). Some of the Greeks tried to wiggle their way out of it, and then it was the Romans who caused it to become completely forgotten.

The old system was mostly credit and corvee' labor, and now we have one which automatically demands cash in order to live and for the privilege of working.

If you like patterns, I think we could be prone to see close agreement, and minor differences in details, between the Great Reset in different cultures:


7 x 7 = 49 years, Semitic

5 x 12 = 60 years, Indian

2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 64 years, Babylonian


The first two are more astrologically symbolic, and the latter a bit more empirical and based from the knowledge by experience that if you do *not* do this in the required time frame, then, there will be a revolution before it doubles again.

To be told to ignore this as obsolete, or that it would lead to people not working, is just more sleight of hand from the status quo to allow them to continue.

You can quote this idea back out of Leviticus, Quran, and Code of Hammurabi.

It is that psychological conspiracy, hypnotism, that won't let you.

A lot of fads come and go but for example there is the Bank of England since 1694, which has always supported two things, offshore tax evasion and Zionism.

My guess is, yes, I think this may have had an influence on the chain of events.

We have to deal with this artificial abstract called Immortal Property.

I suggest keeping in mind that it is limited--i. e., it is not Chinese or Egyptian-- and in this sense has already hit its dead end. That is why this kind of conversation is irrelevant in most of the world, but, in the affected countries, may assist in getting them to snap out of it.

[Ewan]

Posted by shaberon (here)

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
My peeve is the very use of the term "Conspiracy Theorist". It was coined by the CIA after JFK's assassination to discredit, laugh at and sideline anyone who dared to question the official narrative.

Well, it's one of these intellectual contrivances.


Like "Capitalism" = 1850s fiction, processed by and branded onto devotees of the London School for themselves.


"Conspiracy theory" has the same kind of origin, in this case, from the French Revolution.

Two authors, primarily, Abbe' Barruel (Jesuit) and John Robison (drunk) wrote material that has been taken as authoritative. This was the grounds for the U. S. Anti-Masonic Party (1801), later the Whigs, then the Republicans. As a literary genre, it was revived by Nesta Webster and then Lady Queenborough (British Fascist).

It is a Fascist scare tactic made up of "theories", i. e. all of those arguments are heavily flawed, but somehow the shoe is on the other foot and these "theories" are now basically law, while if you commit genocide or any other crime on film, apparently it is a matter of debate.


In actuality, a conspiracy is just a criminal agreement between two or more people. Doesn't matter if you ever do it. Doesn't matter what kind of crime.



I suggest keeping in mind that it is limited--i. e., it is not Chinese or Egyptian-- and in this sense has already hit its dead end. That is why this kind of conversation is irrelevant in most of the world, but, in the affected countries, may assist in getting them to snap out of it.

Not often that happens but you completely lost me, to the point where you seem to be answering a different question - or at least on a different level (where none of us usually reside).

When the CIA came up with the term was it immediately an "intellectual contrivance" or did a few people over several years have to think on it deeply before that status was achieved?

[Bruce G Charlton]

Conspiracy Theorist is one of those asymmetrical Establishment-Mass Media slurs, intended to shut-down and avoid addressing evidence and arguments.

It is asymmetrical/ one-sided because the Establishment do exactly what they accuse others of, on an everyday basis - it is indeed a standard mode of oppression.

What is ultimately at issue (as nearly always, at present) are fundamental - sometimes metaphysical - assumptions concerning the nature of reality.

For instance: Many accusations of CT are directed against those who dissent from the mainstream, in that they assume it is possible individuals or groups in "the leadership class" may primarily be self-seeking and corrupt; and/or motivated by evil intentions - e.g. to harm particular persons or peoples. Those who make the accusations of CT will not allow this assumption to have any validity - and the slur is intended to throw doubt on the intelligence, sanity or morals of anyone who assumes evil in the leadership.

[grapevine]

That there are conspiracies is a fact. That there are theorists is a fact. But put them together and the implication is ignoble. How clever of them, the ptb marketers, to coin a phrase which immediately gives the grazing masses an excuse not to apply any critical thought.

A Conspiracy springs from withheld facts, or unanswered questions; a Theory is "an idea used to account for a situation or justify a course of action". There's nothing Ignoble about either of those words, yet together the connotation takes off on its own. To a large extent it's our own fault as we're so used to being lied to, or given half truths, that we fill in the missing information with our own imaginations (based on our own life experience), which then muddies the waters; not always, but enough perhaps to justify the negativity and give those behind the conspiracy the opportunity to hide the truth altogether.

Where Conspiracy Theorist is negative, the Critical Thinker is positive, yet according to Wikipedia

"Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments in order to form a judgement by the application of rational, skeptical, and unbiased analyses and evaluation. The application of critical thinking includes self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective habits of the mind, thus a critical thinker is a person who practices the skills of critical thinking or has been trained and educated in its disciplines"

In the interests of positivity, I suggest that an Ignoble Conspiracy Theorist is really a Critical Thinker without all the facts.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

For a bit of fun...

I photo-shopped this "Conspiracy Chart" based on another that was originally an MSN hit-piece (see attached at bottom).

Open in new window to enlarge. My opinions only. By all means suggest additions.


Attachment: The MSN version:

[DeDukshyn]

 
I had a colleague ask me once ... "Do you believe in conspiracy theories?"

To which I replied ... "Do you believe words, or sentences?"

He looked at me puzzled, and so I continued ... "If you have something to ask me then just ask me; being condescendingly vague is not worth a response, but if you have an actual question, I'll respond."

I continued further ... "When in all written and oral history of humanity has men not conspired with other men to take advantage or manipulate people? Do you think that conspiracies are a phenomenon only occurring in the past?"

[John Hilton]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
My peeve is the very use of the term "Conspiracy Theorist". It was coined by the CIA after JFK's assassination to discredit, laugh at and sideline anyone who dared to question the official narrative.

It was maybe the most successful (and long-lived) linguistic psyop ever devised. Each time we use the term, we play into the Deep State's hands.

That's precisely why I call myself a "conspiracy analyst".

[shaberon]

Posted by Ewan (here)
Not often that happens but you completely lost me, to the point where you seem to be answering a different question - or at least on a different level (where none of us usually reside).

When the CIA came up with the term was it immediately an "intellectual contrivance" or did a few people over several years have to think on it deeply before that status was achieved?

Overlooking the "-ist" of the CIA, for Conspiracy Theory:


The earliest known usage was by the American author Charles Astor Bristed, in a letter to the editor published in The New York Times on January 11, 1863. He used it to refer to claims that British aristocrats were intentionally weakening the United States during the American Civil War in order to advance their financial interests.


and I am tying it to a genre of literature, which has a marked beginning, not long before that.

The "theory" of Barruel and Robison to this day still marches forward under the misleading "Illuminati" parlance.

On that aspect, then, yes, "conspiracy theorist" would meaningfully designate someone who believes something that is not true, which itself was probably politically motivated.


This, of course, does not mean that there are not conspiracies and other horrible things that happen, which is where the CIA steps in and brands them together, to discredit and alienate someone who may have credible evidence. Perhaps Mr. Bristed was doing that.

The "Illuminati scare" was practically dead until Nesta Webster revived it ca. 1914-1938. Because this put a lot of fuel into public consciousness, the CIA would not need to create anything, but just contrive and twist existing material for their own tactics. Almost the same thing could be said about UFOs, which could lead to mocking, marginalization, persecution perhaps. I don't actually know the first examples where psy-pressure may have been used on people...Ezra Pound comes to mind:


In 1945, Pound was captured by the Italian Resistance and handed over to the U.S. Army's Counterintelligence Corps, who held him pending extradition and prosecution based on an indictment for treason. He spent months in a U.S. military detention camp near Pisa, including three weeks in an outdoor steel cage. Ruled mentally unfit to stand trial, Pound was incarcerated for over 12 years at St. Elizabeths psychiatric hospital in Washington, D.C., whose doctors viewed Pound as a narcissist and a psychopath, but otherwise completely sane.




Probably over the 1960s there were more common and garden varieties of that.

Oh, and one of the reasons I put "irrelevant" is because most of the western ethos is a conflict between Catholic/Protestant/Jewish factions, which for example could not possibly happen in an Orthodox country. Or Zen. Or Hindu. No one would put themselves through that trouble.

[palehorse]

Lets band together, lets conspire!
The term existed since forever I guess, think of clans or just a group of people with a bold goal in mind, they will always conspire together.

Conspiracy & Blasphemy for Politics & Religion.


The movie Conspiracy from 1930

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=YtVFDm7rWsU

[kfm27917]

The Propaganda Model Has Limits

excellent articke on conspracy theory. Make sure to read re reader comments

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...del-has-limits

Authored by Mattias Desmet via The Brownstone Institute,

Normally, I let my pen rest during the summer months, but for some things, you set aside your habits. What has been happening in the context of the US presidential elections over the past few weeks is, to say the least, remarkable. We are witnessing a social system that – to use a term from complex dynamic systems theory – is heading toward a catastrophe. And the essence of the tipping point we are approaching is this: the propaganda model is beginning to fail.



It started a few weeks ago like this: Trump, the presidential candidate who must not win, is up against Biden, the presidential candidate who must win.

After the first debate, it was immediately clear: Trump will win against Biden. The big problem: Biden and Jill are about the only ones who don’t realize this.

The media then turned against Biden. That, in itself, is a revolution. They had praised President Biden to the skies for four years, turning a blind eye to the fact that the man either seemed hardly aware of what he was saying or was giving speeches that could only be described as having the characteristics of a fascist’s discourse.

I’m thinking, among other things, of the 2022 midterm speech in which he, against a bombastic-dramatic backdrop and flanked by two soldiers with machine guns, more or less directly called for violence against the Maga followers. Not to mention the shameless prosecution and imprisonment of political opponents and the intimidation and excommunication of hundreds of journalists (carefully kept out of the media by journalists who sided with the regime).

Huxley would not be surprised that Biden claims in almost every speech that he had to save democracy, including his most recent speech. I’ve shared the quote of Huxley below before, but it doesn’t hurt to read it a second time:

By means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms — elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest — will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial — but democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.

- Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

In any case, the media’s love for Biden was suddenly over when it became clear that he could not possibly win the election, even not with a little help from the media. If you want to know how that ‘little help’ worked in 2020, look at one of the most important interviews of the past year, where Mike Benz – former director of the cyber portfolio of the US government – explains to Tucker Carlson in detail how information flows on the internet were manipulated during the 2020 elections (and the Covid crisis). The guy eventually got disgusted with what he was doing and now runs a project striving for online freedom of speech. I would recommend everyone to spend an hour watching that interview. Such an explanation is what we need: calm, expert, nuanced, and extraordinarily revealing.

After the first debate, the media realized that even they could not help Biden win the election. They changed their approach. Biden was quickly stripped of his saintly status. The Veil of Appearances was pulled away, and he suddenly stood naked and vulnerable in the eye of the mainstream – a man in the autumn of his life, mentally confused, addicted to power, and arrogant. Some journalists even started attributing traits of the Great Narcissistic Monster Trump to him.

But even media pressure couldn’t make Biden change his mind. He was so far gone that he did not see the hopelessness of his situation. That did not change when the Democratic elite turned their backs on him. Barack, Hillary, Nancy – it didn’t matter, the presidential candidate who couldn’t win kept stumbling in a lost race.

Then things took another turn, a turn so predictable that one is astonished that it actually happened. An overaged teenager calmly climbed onto a roof with a sniper rifle, under the watchful eyes of the security services, and nearly shot Trump in the head. The security services, which initially did not respond for minutes when people tried to draw attention to the overaged teenager with an assault rifle, suddenly reacted decisively: they shot the overaged teenager dead seconds after the assassination attempt.

What happened there? There are many reasons to have reservations about Trump, but one thing we cannot help but say: if Trump becomes president, the war in Ukraine will be over. Anyone who does not attribute any weight to that should subject themselves to a conscience examination. And no, Trump will not have to give half of Europe to Putin for that. My cautious estimate, for what it’s worth: It will suffice for NATO to stop and partially reverse its eastward expansion, for Russia to retain access to the Black Sea via Crimea (something everyone with historical awareness knows that denying would mean the death blow to Russia as a great power and thus a direct declaration of war), and for the population of the Russian-speaking part of Ukraine to choose in a referendum whether to belong to Russia or Ukraine.

One of the biggest and most dangerous media lies of this time is that Putin started an ‘unprovoked war’ in Ukraine. I recommend a second interview by Tucker Carlson here (undoubtedly one of the most important contemporary journalists, one of the few who still fulfill the original societal function of journalism). The interview with professor and former top diplomat Jeffrey Sachs also has everything a good interview should have: given with great expertise, calm, and nuanced. Anyone who still believes that the war in Ukraine was ‘unprovoked’ after listening to it is kindly invited to explain themselves in the comments section of this article.

So, I repeat my point: with Trump, the provocation of Russia stops, and the war in Ukraine ends. Presidents who threaten to end wars are sometimes shot at by lone gunmen. And those lone gunmen are, in turn, shot dead. And the archives about that remarkable act of lone gunmen sometimes remain sealed for a remarkably long time, much longer than they usually do.

The media ultimately covered this historical event of the Trump assassination attempt surprisingly lightly. No journalist to be found pointed a finger at Biden because he had more or less literally called to ‘target’ Trump a few months earlier. Let alone the media admitting that they created the unspoken support in the population for this political violence. Neither did I find journalists who were greatly concerned that the overaged teenager was linked to Antifa – nothing wrong with Antifa according to them. I can imagine that the moral appreciation would have been different if an overaged teenager linked to the Maga movement had nearly taken down President Biden.

Anyway, we are not surprised. That reaction was predictable. We are used to the media. Some journalists even suggested that Trump had been shot with a paintball, others thought the most accurate way to report was that someone ‘wounded Trump on the ear.’

In any case, after the assassination attempt, the situation became even more dire for the mainstream: the presidential candidate who must not win is now even more popular, and his victory in a race with Biden is almost inevitable.

Then the next chapter begins. Biden suddenly changes his mind: he has come to his senses and drops out of the race. He announces this – of all things – in a letter with a signature that, even for his shaky condition, looked quite clumsy. Then he stayed out of the public eye for a few days. We are curious about what exactly happened there.

But the media are compliant again. Biden has now been sanctified again. Just like Kamala Harris, of course. They are already mentioning polls showing she will beat Trump. With a little help from the media, of course. Curious how this will continue, but I would be surprised if the rest of the campaign will be a walk in the park. Trump is not safe after the first attempt, that’s for sure. And to Kamala Harris, I say this: when totalitarian systems go into a chaotic phase, they become monsters that devour their own children.

It is hard to ignore: the indoctrination and propaganda model is creaking and groaning at all its seams. The Veil of Appearances that is meant to hide all dirty laundry from the public eye is tearing left and right. And that’s why the step toward terror is increasingly being taken. One can see something frightening in it, but it also heralds the beginning of the end of the propaganda model. No one knows exactly how long the endgame will last, but it is certain that the system is in deep crisis. From the fact that the Democrats ran with someone like Biden and then had to force him out in this amateurish and transparent manner, we can only conclude one thing with certainty: the desperation must be enormous.

What we are witnessing is nothing less than the failure of the greatest propaganda apparatus in history. And at that point, we also see a fact that people absorbed by conspiracy thinking make: they overestimate the perceived enemy not only as too evil but also (much) too powerful. In this way, one can only feel smaller and feel more and more powerlessness, anger, and hate, exactly the sentiments that will prove deadly in the coming years.

The general reduction of everything that happens to a conspiracy, not seeing a Reality behind the manipulation and illusions created, is itself a symptom of this time. Conspiracies exist. No one needs to convince me of that. And one problem of this time is that most people who identify with the mainstream discourse have a remarkable ability to deny that. And they have an equally great ability to ignore that they themselves eagerly produce conspiracy theories when it comes to Putin or Saddam Hussein or ‘extreme right.’

Conspiracy theories sometimes correctly relate to facts, and sometimes incorrectly. However, they do not provide a comprehensive explanation for global events. They do not touch the essence of the problem. The essence of the problem lies in rationalism and the associated human arrogance. And this hubris is certainly not the privilege of ‘the elite.’ It is even typical of conspiracy thinking itself, which ultimately attempts to capture the essence of social dynamics through a rationalistic construction. And precisely because of this, conspiracy thinking, just like the dominant discourse, falls prey to Babylonian confusion. Like the dominant discourse, they fail to bring true peace regarding the Real that increasingly imposes itself from behind the Veil of Appearances in this historical era.

In times when America is dangerously heading towards a civil war, the golden advice is: do not be tempted by the possibility of violence. Stay calm and composed. And continue to speak. Totalitarianism dehumanizes; the only remedy against totalitarianism is to always recognize a human being in the Other. Also in the Totalitarian Other. What is happening is historical. Stand on the right side of history. This is not the side of the Democrats or the side of the Republicans, it is not the side of Trump or the side of Harris; it is the side of humanity, it is the side of those who are not so convinced of their own words that they can no longer find any space for the words of the Other to exist.

Republished from the author’s Substack

[Ernie Nemeth]

The problem with conspiracy theories is that they often turn out to be true. Like just recently chemtrails were admitted to be a government organized effort to control the weather.


When a conspiracy theory becomes fact, are the affected compensated, are scathing reviews retracted with equal coverage?


If the government wants to conceal an inconvenient truth, to label that truth a conspiracy theory has only an upside, the downside is moot because no one is ever held accountable for such purposeful deceit.

[kfm27917]

https://www.sott.net/article/503482-...you-cant-unsee