if you're not a conspiracy theorist by now, you're not paying attention

[mopaul]

i'll never quite understand why suggesting that the u.s. government is involved in shady conspiracies always invites instant ridicule and derision. tin foil hat. take your meds. stop making us all look bad by constantly voicing your paranoid delusions. yet.........

if you can accept just one conspiracy, the lies told in the state of the union address to lead us to war, why can't you accept the related conspiracy theories? sure, they are not all true, but there are particles of truth in them. if, like they constantly told us under the last legally elected president, you tell one lie, how can we believe you ever again?

i suggest that there are numerous, real, actual insane conspiracies all occurring simultaneously in front of your very eyes. how can you not see them? perhaps because you have been programmed NOT to see them. not by a covertly implanted mind control chip, but by simple tried and true mind games used commonly throughout history.

what does conspiracy mean anyway? simply that several people somewhere conspired to do something bad. doesn't going to war with lies qualify as a conspiracy? or the stonewalling of the 9-11 investigations, does that qualify? or the stolen election and supreme court....does this rise to the level of a conspiracy?
you tell me.

my point is, one should not automatically poo poo every conspiracy theory put forward. let's not forget that some of the wackiest most unbelievable conspiracy theories have been proven to be true.

we should stop looking at people who suggest sinister motives behind our overlords as wackos, cartoon people, crouched over keyboards, frothing at the mouth and seeing spooks everywhere. there really are bizarre, unbelievable conspiracies going on right now. can't you see them?

[lcordero]

1. I consider most conspiracy theorists to actually be

"conspiracy FACTists".

[Speed8098]

2. It begs the question

If you think someone is after you, and they really are, are you paranoid?

No.....but if you tell others that people are after you, they will call you paranoid.

I think it's a matter of perception.

Personally, I believe in LIHOP, or maybe even MIHOP. Tell that to someone who is a non-thinker and they will say you're nuts. Perception.

[Cha]

3. I think the current selected administration is in a "conspiracy"...

up to their lying eyes and beyond!

But then I've been paying attention...only since 2000, though.

At least Time magazine has a picture of bush at the 2003 SOTU with the caption "Untruth and Consequences" coming out this week!

It may take a while but IMO it's not going away...they will go down one way or another.

Our Mission is the same as always ,,,HANG IN THERE!

:kick:

[Blue_Chill]

4. why can't you accept the related conspiracy theories?

The State of the Union issue came apart because insiders started making noise about it. As in most cases when a lie involves too many people the truth comes out.

This is not a conspiracy, in fact it's not even out of Character for the current administration.

The 9-11 conspiracy you suggest, that the goverment did it and that Islamic fundamentalist weren't even involved simply doesn't feel right. It doesn't click. Now I'm willing to believe that more mistakes were made then simply those by the FBI, the white houses stone walling of the 9/11 investigation proves that much. However to take it further and say that it was a goverment run operation is closer to the 'paranoid delusions' you mentioned in your post.

[MetaTrope]

9. But then...

: The 9-11 conspiracy you suggest, that the goverment did it
: and that Islamic fundamentalist weren't even involved simply
: doesn't feel right. It doesn't click.

Who says that Islamic fundamentalists (in name at least) weren't involved? What if, say, the hijackers of the flights got their orders from Bin Laden...Bin Laden got his orders from his father...and Bin Laden's father got his orders from another Carlyle Group stockholder, like say Bush's father? It's not like the federal government had to be involved (aside from preventing the launch of interceptor jets, anyway). Too bad we can't get a record of cellphone calls between Kennebunkport and Saudi Arabia.

[BOSSHOG]

5. They cannot tell the truth

The administration conspired to lie to the american people to go to war against iraq because they knew the american public would not accept the truth, that bush wanted to beat up saddam for trying to kill his dad and bush wanted to secure the oil fields for rich republicans. Visualize those excuses in the SOTU!! The truth could not be told, thus a conspiracy. Have we ended terrorism? - NO! Have we secured the oil fields for rich republicans? - YES!

The conspiracists knew that the moron base would accept anything bush told them and would object vociferously to anyone who dared voice the truth. Well, lets give them some more to object to.

[LiberalLibra]

6. mopaul: I agree with you 100% on this one. If a person knows/accepts....

....that Kennedy was killed by more than one person then they all know, whether they want to admit it or not, that our government is capable of anything and everything.

[quilp]

7. There is no need for "conspiracy".

Fox news does not need to "conspire" to distort the news. They hire people who actually believe the garbage they spout. Ashcroft doesn't have to "conspire" to destroy civil liberties, the Republicans just install judges who don't believe in them. Bush and Cheney don't "conspire" to get a supine media. They openly get any reporter who asks a real question fired. It's like shooting a hostage.

It is not "conspiracies" that bother me; it is what is done in broad daylight. The scandal in this country is not that the Republicans are breaking the law. The scandal is they are not.

[mopaul]

8. dictionary description

noun: a plot to carry out some harmful or illegal act (especially a political plot)
noun: a secret agreement between two or more people to perform an unlawful act
noun: a group of conspirators banded together to achieve some harmful or illegal purpose

[Karenina]

11. OK "those 16 words"

and the cover of Jul21 TIME Magazine.

First proper job they've done in a l-o-n-g time.

Has the 4th estate been engaged in a conspiracy, abdicating its traditional role of protecting the democratic republic and "purchasing" control of information sources?

It's quite obvious there was a BIG lie in SOTU. Did a "conspiracy" get it in there? WHO is responsible? So far it's anyone but the *dauphin. Let the blame game begin and pass the popcorn.

[JackDragna]

10. My problem with "conspiracy theories"..

..is that most of them are tin-foil hatted nincompoopery posited all too often by people influenced by movies and television. They see grandiose schemes in cases where such schemes would be overly complex or unnecessary for the powers that be to accomplish what they want. I, for one, think that the amount of conspiracies posited here about things our government might be doing are hogwash, mostly because any conspiracy worth its salt is not going to be discovered by people hunched over a keyboard. One can talk all one wants about conspiracies being "obvious", but for every crazy theory that's been shown to be true, there's a hundred that are the products of minds trained to see order where there is none. The only continuing conspiracy I see in the United States is that of wealthy people trying to consolidate the power of government and the media in their favor. This is the same thing wealthy people have done since the beginning of organized society and their methods are usually fairly overt and obvious. Subterfuge is rarely necessary when one has all the good cards in the deck.

[Ekaterina]

12. Agree about the wealthy and the government

but maybe we are just too hung up on semantics..which is silly. Someone already posted the dictionary definition of "conspiracy" so here are the synonyms from the Thesaurus....
1. (n.) A secret agreement or plan to attain a wrongful end:
• cabal
• intrigue
• machination
• plot
• scheme
• collusion
• connivance
• treason
• treachery
• sedition

Not every one who believes that this administration above all others in memorable history is the MOST scandal-ridden and dishonest pack of theives and thugs is a wild-eyed tinfoil-hat wearing lunatic.....look at the personal histories of these people involved going back twenty or thirty years and follow the converging lines to the present. Is it SO farfetched that we are where we are when the facts are considered about the players? I think not.

As for the right wing whack job blowhards on the television and radio dials BELIEVING what they spout....I am skeptical....I mean, BUSH probably believes it because he is venal and stupid (and base and a thousand other not so nice things) but I think those Hannitys and O'Reillys and Limbaughs and Coulters are nothing more than paid whores spouting whatever their corporate masters want them to while reaping fabulous monetary and ego rewards.....

[FlaGranny]

13. And folks who always

discount conspiracy theories can easily be convinced that none exist, even when they do. Skepticism is in order in both directions. Is everything a conspiracy? No. Is nothing a conspiracy? No. Do we have a small group in our government who conspire to bring about their ends by hook or crook? Most definitely, YES, and this meets the definition of conspiracy. Makes no difference that it has always been done that way.