Most people can't resist getting the details on the latest conspiracy
theories, no matter how far-fetched they may seem. At the same time,
many people quickly denounce any conspiracy theory as untrue ... and
sometimes as unpatriotic or just plain ridiculous. Lets not forget all
of the thousands of conspiracies out of Wall Street like Bernie Madoff
and many others to commit fraud and extortion, among many crimes of
conspiracy. USA Today reports that over 75% of personal ads in the
paper and on craigslist are married couples posing as single for a one
night affair. When someone knocks on your door to sell you a set of
knives or phone cards, anything for that matter, do they have a profit
motive? What is conspiracy other than just a scary way of saying
“alternative agenda”? When 2 friends go to a bar and begin to plan
their wingman approach on 2 girls they see at the bar, how often are
they planning on lying to those girls?“ I own a small business and am
in town for a short while.Oh yeah, you look beautiful.”
Conspiracy theory is a term that originally was a
neutral descriptor for any claim of civil, criminal or political
conspiracy. However, it has come almost exclusively to refer to any
fringe theory which explains a historical or current event as the result
of a secret plot by conspirators of almost superhuman power and
cunning. To conspire means "to join in a secret agreement to do an
unlawful or wrongful act or to use such means to accomplish a lawful
end. "The term "conspiracy theory" is frequently used by scholars and
in popular culture to identify secret military, banking, or political
actions aimed at stealing power, money, or freedom, from "the people".
To many, conspiracy theories are just human nature. Not all people in
this world are honest, hard working and forthcoming about their
intentions.Certainly we can all agree on this.So how did the term
“conspiracy theory” get grouped in with fiction, fantasy and folklore?
Maybe that’s a conspiracy, just kidding. Or am I?
Skeptics are important in achieving an objective view of reality,
however, skeptism is not the same as reinforcing the official storyline.
In fact, a conspiracy theory can be argued as an alternative to the
official or “mainstream” story of events. Therefore, when skeptics
attempt to ridicule a conspiracy theory by using the official story as a
means of proving the conspiracy wrong, in effect, they are just
reinforcing the original “mainstream” view of history, and actually not
being skeptical. This is not skeptism, it is just a convenient way for
the establishment view of things to be seen as the correct version, all
the time, every time. In fact, it is common for "hit pieces" or
"debunking articles" to pick extremely fringe and not very populated
conspiracy theories. This in turn makes all conspiracies on a subject
matter look crazy. Skeptics magazine and Popular Mechanics, among many
others, did this with 9/11. They referred to less than 10% of the many
different conspiracy theories about 9/11 and picked the less popular
ones, in fact, they picked the fringe, highly improbable points that
only a few people make. This was used as the "final investigation" for
looking into the conspiracy theories. Convenient, huh?
In fact, if one were to look into conspiracy theories, they will largely
find that thinking about a conspiracy is associated with lunacy and
paranoia. Some websites suggest it as an illness. It is also not
surprising to see so many people on the internet writing about
conspiracy theories in a condescending tone, usually with the words
"kool-aid," "crack pot," or "nut job" in their articulation. This must
be obvious to anyone that emotionally writing about such serious matter
insults the reader more than the conspiracy theorist because there is no
need to resort to this kind of behavior. It is employed often with an
"expert" who will say something along the lines of, "for these
conspiracies to be true, you would need hundreds if not thousands of
people to be involved. It's just not conceivable."
I find it extremely odd that the assumption is on thousands of
participants in a conspiracy. I, for one, find it hard to believe any
conspiracy involving more than a handful of people but the fact remains
that there have been conspiracies in our world, proven and not made up,
that involved many hundreds of people. It's not a matter of opinion,
it's a matter of fact.
One more thing to consider, have you noticed that if the conspiracy is
involving powerful interests with the ability to bribe, threaten or
manipulate major institutions (like the mafia, big corporations or
government) then don't you find it odd when people use one of those as
the "credible" counter-argument? What I mean is, if you are discussing a
conspiracy about the mafia, and someone hands you a debunking article
that was written by the mafia, it doesn't seem like it would take rocket
science to look at that with serious criticism and credibility. This is
the case with many conspiracies. In fact, I am handed debunking pieces
all the time written in many cases by the conspirators in question.
Doesn't this seem odd to anybody else but me?
While intelligent cynicism certainly can be healthy, though, some of the
greatest discoveries of all time were initially received (often with
great vitriol) as blasphemous conspiracy theories -- think of the
revelation that the earth was not the center of the universe, or that
the world was not flat but actually round.
What follows are some of these most shocking modern conspiracy theories
that turned out true after thorough investigation by our society. Some
through congressional hearings, others through investigative journalism.
Many of these, however, were just admitted to by those involved. These
are just 33 of them, and I still had a long list of others to add. There
are a total of 33 in this article. Many of these are listed with
original and credible news clips on the matter, as well as
documentaries.
1.The Dreyfus Affair: In the late 1800s in France,
Jewish artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus was wrongfully convicted of
treason based on false government documents, and sentenced to life in
prison. The French government did attempt to cover this up, but Dreyfus
was eventually pardoned after the affair was made public (an act that is
credited to writer Émile Zola).
2.The Mafia: This secret crime society was virtually
unknown until the 1960s, when member Joe Valachi first revealed the
society's secrets to law enforcement officials.What was known was that
organized crime existed, but not that the extent of their control
included working with the CIA, politicians and the biggest businesses in
the world.
3.MK-ULTRA: In the 1950s to the 1970s, the CIA ran a
mind-control project aimed at finding a "truth serum" to use on
communist spies. Test subjects were given LSD and other drugs, often
without consent, and some were tortured. At least one man, civilian
biochemist Frank Olson, who was working for the government, died as a
result of the experiments. The project was finally exposed after
investigations by the Rockefeller Commission.
A short video about MK-ULTRA from a documentary called Secrets of the
CIA:
4.Operation Mockingbird: Also in the 1950s to '70s, the
CIA paid a number of well-known domestic and foreign journalists (from
big-name media outlets like Time, The Washington Post, The New York
Times, CBS and others) to publish CIA propaganda. The CIA also
reportedly funded at least one movie, the animated "Animal Farm," by
George Orwell. The Church Committee finally exposed the activities in
1975.
5.Manhattan Project:The Manhattan Project was the
codename for a project conducted during World War II to develop the
first atomic bomb. The project was led by the United States, and
included participation from the United Kingdom and Canada. Formally
designated as the Manhattan Engineer District (MED), it refers
specifically to the period of the project from 1942–1946 under the
control of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, under the administration of
General Leslie R. Groves. The scientific research was directed by
American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.The project's roots lay in
scientists' fears since the 1930s that Nazi Germany was also
investigating nuclear weapons of its own. Born out of a small research
program in 1939, the Manhattan Project eventually employed more than
130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion ($22 billion in current
value).
It resulted in the creation of multiple production and research sites
that operated in secret.With the total involved, this makes it one of
the largest conspiracies in history.Entire towns were built for short
periods of time, employing people, all under secrecy and top national
secrecy at that.The government never admitted to it, the media never
reported on it, and people had no idea for over 25 years.Project
research took place at over thirty sites across the United States,
Canada, and the United Kingdom. The three primary research and
production sites of the project were the plutonium-production facility
at what is now the Hanford Site, the uranium-enrichment facilities at
Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the weapons research and design laboratory now
known as Los Alamos National Laboratory. The MED maintained control
over U.S. weapons production until the formation of the Atomic Energy
Commission in January 1947.
6.Asbestos: Between 1930 and 1960, manufacturers did
all they could to prevent the link between asbestos and respiratory
diseases, including cancer, becoming known, so they could avoid
prosecution. American workers had in fact sued the Johns Manville
company as far back as 1932, but it was not until 1962 that
epidemiologists finally established beyond any doubt what company bosses
had known for a long time – asbestos causes cancer.
7.Watergate: Republican officials spied on the
Democratic National Headquarters from the Watergate Hotel in 1972. While
conspiracy theories suggested underhanded dealings were taking place,
it wasn't until 1974 that White House tape recordings linked President
Nixon to the break-in and forced him to resign.
8.The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: The United States Public
Health Service carried out this clinical study on 400 poor,
African-American men with syphilis from 1932 to 1972. During the study
the men were given false and sometimes dangerous treatments, and
adequate treatment was intentionally withheld so the agency could learn
more about the disease. While the study was initially supposed to last
just six months, it continued for 40 years. Close to 200 of the men died
from syphilis or related complications by the end of the study.
9.Operation Northwoods: In the early 1960s, American
military leaders drafted plans to create public support for a war
against Cuba, to oust Fidel Castro from power. The plans included
committing acts of terrorism in U.S. cities, killing innocent people and
U.S. soldiers, blowing up a U.S. ship, assassinating Cuban émigrés,
sinking boats of Cuban refugees, and hijacking planes. The plans were
all approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but were reportedly rejected
by the civilian leadership, then kept secret for nearly 40 years.
Author James Bamford, "A Pretext For War", discusses the declassified
"Operation Northwoods" documents revealing that in 1962 the CIA was
planning to stage phony terrorist attacks on the US and blame it on Cuba
to start a war:
10.1990 Testimony of Nayirah:A 15-year-old girl named
“Nayirah” testified before the U.S. Congress that she had seen Iraqi
soldiers pulling Kuwaiti babies from incubators, causing them to die.
The testimony helped gain major public support for the 1991 Gulf War,
but — despite protests that the dispute of this story was itself a
conspiracy theory — it was later discovered that the testimony was
false. The public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, which was in the
employ of Citizens for a Free Kuwait, had arranged the testimony.It
turned out that she had taken acting lessons on request of the CIA and
was actually the niece of a major politician in Kuwait.Nayirah was later
disclosed to be Nayirah al-Sabah, daughter of Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah,
Kuwaiti ambassador to the USA.The Congressional Human Rights Caucus, of
which Congressman Tom Lantos was co-chairman, had been responsible for
hosting Nurse Nayirah, and thereby popularizing her allegations. When
the girl's account was later challenged by independent human rights
monitors, Lantos replied, "The notion that any of the witnesses brought
to the caucus through the Kuwaiti Embassy would not be credible did not
cross my mind... I have no basis for assuming that her story is not
true, but the point goes beyond that. If one hypothesizes that the
woman's story is fictitious from A to Z, that in no way diminishes the
avalanche of human rights violations." Nevertheless, the senior
Republican on the Human Rights Caucus, John Edward Porter, responded to
the revelations "by saying that if he had known the girl was the
ambassador's daughter, he would not have allowed her to testify."
11.Counter Intelligence Programs Against Activists in the 60s:COINTELPRO
(an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert,
and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at investigating and disrupting
dissident political organizations within the United States. The FBI used
covert operations from its inception, however formal COINTELPRO
operations took place between 1956 and 1971. The FBI's stated motivation
at the time was "protecting national security, preventing violence, and
maintaining the existing social and political order."According to FBI
records, 85% of COINTELPRO resources were expended on infiltrating,
disrupting, marginalizing, and/or subverting groups suspected of being
subversive, such as communist and socialist organizations; the women's
rights movement; militant black nationalist groups, and the non-violent
civil rights movement, including individuals such as Martin Luther King,
Jr. and others associated with the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People, the Congress of Racial Equality, the American Indian Movement,
and other civil rights groups; a broad range of organizations labeled
"New Left", including Students for a Democratic Society, the National
Lawyers Guild, the Weathermen, almost all groups protesting the Vietnam
War, and even individual student demonstrators with no group
affiliation; and nationalist groups such as those "seeking independence
for Puerto Rico." The other 15% of COINTELPRO resources were expended to
marginalize and subvert "white hate groups," including the Ku Klux Klan
and National States' Rights Party. The directives governing COINTELPRO
were issued by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who ordered FBI agents to
"expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" the
activities of these movements and their leaders.
This is a documentary on COINTELPRO:
Main Core is the code name of a database maintained
since the 1980s by the federal government of the United States, which
contains personal and financial data of millions of U.S. citizens
believed to be threats to national security. The data, which comes from
the NSA, FBI, CIA, and other sources, is collected and stored without
warrants or court orders. The database's name derives from the fact that
it contains "copies of the 'main core' or essence of each item of
intelligence information on Americans produced by the FBI and the other
agencies of the U.S. intelligence community."
The Main Core database is believed to have originated with the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 1982, following Ronald Reagan's
Continuity of Operations plan outlined in the National Security
Directive (NSD) 69 / National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 55,
entitled "Enduring National Leadership," implemented on September 14,
1982.
As of 2008 there are reportedly eight million Americans listed in the
database as possible threats, often for trivial reasons, whom the
government may choose to track, question, or detain in a time of crisis.
The existence of the database was first reported on in May 2008 by
Christopher Ketcham and in July 2008 by Tim Shorrock.
Rex 84, short for Readiness Exercise 1984, is a
plan by the United States federal government to test their ability to
detain large numbers of American citizens in case of civil unrest or
national emergency.
According to scholar Diana Reynolds:
The Rex-84 Alpha Explan (Readiness Exercise 1984, Exercise Plan; otherwise known as a continuity of government plan),
indicates that FEMA in association with 34 other federal civil
departments and agencies, along with other NATO nations, conducted a
civil readiness exercise during April 5-13, 1984. It was conducted in
coordination and simultaneously with a Joint Chiefs exercise, Night
Train 84, a worldwide military command post exercise (including
Continental U.S. Forces or CONUS) based on multi-emergency scenarios
operating both abroad and at home. In the combined exercise, Rex-84
Bravo, FEMA and DOD led the other federal agencies and departments,
including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service, the
Treasury, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Veterans
Administration through a gaming exercise to test military assistance in
civil defense.
The exercise anticipated civil disturbances, major demonstrations
and strikes that would affect continuity of government and/or resource
mobilization. To fight subversive activities, there was authorization
for the military to implement government ordered movements of civilian
populations at state and regional levels, the arrest of certain
unidentified segments of the population, and the imposition of martial
law.
Existence of a master military contingency plan, "Garden Plot" and a
similar earlier exercise, "Lantern Spike" were originally revealed by
journalist Ron Ridenhour, who summarized his findings in "Garden Plot
and the New Action Army."
Rex 84 was mentioned during the Iran-Contra Hearings in 1987. The Miami
Herald wrote subsequently on July 5, 1987:
See video of it here:
Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and the Federal Emergency Management Agency ... had drafted a contingency plan providing
for the suspension of the Constitution, the imposition of martial law,
and the appointment of military commanders to head state and local
governments and to detain dissidents and Central American refugees in
the event of a national crisis.
The basic facts about Rex 84 and other contingency planning readiness
exercises—and the potential threat they pose to civil liberties if fully
implemented in a real operation—are taken seriously by scholars and
civil libertarians.
Exercises similar to Rex 84 happen regularly. Plans for roundups of
large numbers of persons in the United States in times of crisis are
constructed during periods of increased political repression such as the
Palmer Raids and the McCarthy Era.
For example, from 1967 to 1971 the FBI kept a list of over 100,000
persons to be rounded up as subversive, dubbed the "ADEX" list. This
list contained many labor leaders, scholars, and public figures of the
time.
In 2008, for the first time an active military unit has been given a
dedicated assignment stateside for civil unrest containment. It is
assigned to Northcom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide
command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate
defense support of civil authorities.
12.The Iran-Contra Affair: In 1985 and '86, the White
House authorized government officials to secretly trade weapons with the
Israeli government in exchange for the release of U.S. hostages in
Iran. The plot was uncovered by Congress in 1987. The documentary
series, Core of Corruption, will be exploring details on the Iran Contra
conspiracy in greater detail. The series if 5 seperate films written
and directed by Jonathan Elinoff, investigative journalist and reporter
for the New World Order Report. During Iran Contra, drug smuggling by
the CIA was uncovered and to this day the United States population is
largely unaware of the findings of this information. Both posts on CIA
drug running in this article of 33 conspiracies that turned out to be
true are about this very topic of drug running during Iran Contra..
DW Description: Chris Langan is known to have the highest IQ in the world, somewhere between 195 and 210. To give you an idea of what this means, the average...
You need to be a member of 12160 Social Network to add comments!
Join 12160 Social Network