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Memories of the 28th Century

Detecting and Countering Conspiracy Theories

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To a large degree conspiracies are by and for people who are too lazy to think or who lack the intellectual capacity to think. Another large reason for such things is that those spreading or believing the theories lack the background information necessary for understanding that the theories are baseless. Then there are the conspiracy theories that were created as jokes but were taken seriously by some people. And I must think someone I would not speak to for reminding me to write this. Yesterday, I was nearby when someone who believes many conspiracy theories was harassing a relatively young person with regard to such theories. In the course of the harassment the conspiracy lover demonstrated most of the problems with such theories.

The particular person who was trying to convince someone of the silly theories appears to have mental problems beyond limited intellectual abilities and has been known to tout Lyndon Larouche. I don’t remember all of the conspiracies that he mentioned, but it was a typical selection that included the New World Order, Bilderberg, 9/11 having been done by the U.S. government, and something about the assassination of JFK, and there were a few others.

The New World Order is a good one to start with, because it is clear and right in front of us. I At the bottom of the Great Seal of the United States of America are the words “NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM”, which means "New order of the ages", and that’s how the U.S.A. was regarded by the founders. They were creating a country that was different from the old order. And this motto is sometimes translated “New World Order”, and that is where the phrase comes from. There are people who think that it refers to an evil conspiracy that will (or has) taken control and will make life even worse for them. Things have gotten much worse, but that has been through the ineptitude of people like Clinton, Bush, and Obama.

This dreamed of conspiracy is easy to understand, because the people who believe it have little education. A more difficult one is about the Rothschilds (and or other international bankers owning the Federal Reserve System.

I dealt with the falseness of this some weeks ago, but some people still believe it (maybe they didn’t read my blog). This can easily be shown to be false by simply pointing out that those bankers don’t have votes in matters of running, and more importantly the profits are handed over to the U.S. Treasury, and that wouldn’t happen if the international bankers owned the Fed. The page linked below tries to explain the ownership of the Fed and fails in a way that leads to the belief that the Fed is privately owned. The error there is “Each of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks is organized into a corporation whose shares are sold to the commercial banks and thrifts operating within the Bank's district.” In fact, no shares in those banks are sold.

The Federal Reserve System is wholly owned by the United States of America. (See link below) Some people mistake the deposits that the Fed requires from member banks are related to ownership, but they are not, and have more relationship to debt, because those deposits pay a statutorily required six percent annual interest. If you are interested in how the Fed is organized, then follow the links on the page linked from federalreserve.gov below or look at the U.S. Code. This matter of the ownership of the Federal Reserve is clearly a matter of ignorance. Anyone who looks at the facts quickly finds out that the U.S. government owns the Fed.


I won’t waste your time debunking the 9/11 attack. Anyone who has looked at the facts has no doubt that it was an attack by al-Qaeda. But the Bilderberg thing is more obscure.

The Bilderberg group is quite open and clear about what they are doing, just read their website. (Linked below) Real evil conspiracies aren’t so open about their activities. There is a list of conference participants on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...g_participants . If you look carefully at what they have given out, then you will see that they are a collection of talkers who have not done anything. I will leave the details to those who find the matter interesting.


One interesting conspiracy, or collection of conspiracies relate to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I can’t say with any confidence that there was no conspiracy, because it appears that a number of people were gunning for him. There is reasonably good evidence for several groups having had shooters in Dallas that day, including, Cuban refugees, the Mafia, and LBJ (according to his mistress). If everyone is believed, then there were at least five shooters that day. My favorite is James Files, who claims to have made the fatal shot from the “grassy knoll”, where he was dressed as a policeman; he was a contract hit man for organized crime. If you like mysteries, then read about it and see which shooter(s) you prefer.

For other conspiracies looking at the actual facts will usually tell the real story very quickly. Of course, there are people who would claim that I am working for the New World Order. If they were paying me, then I might work for them, but there is no such organization, unless someone has taken advantage of the term, so they aren’t paying me. Read and study, and you will avoid making a fool of yourself by believing that fiction is fact.

Suggestions for other conspiracy theories to debunk are solicited.





New Order
http://greatseal.com/mottoes/seclorum.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novus_ordo_seclorum

Misunderstanding the ownership of the Federal Reserve System
http://www.usagold.com/federalreserve.html

Actual ownership of Federal Reserve
http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_14986.htm

Federal Reserve in the U.S> Code
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/12/chapter-3

Bilderberg site
http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/index.php

Comments

  1. Dreamwoven's Avatar
    Edwin M. Lemert "Paranoia and the dynamics of exclusion" (Sociometry, 1962. 25, 1, pp 2-20) is one way to explain conspiracy theories. Exclusion creates paranoia on the part of the excluded.
  2. PeterL's Avatar
    Perhaps, but creating delusions to cover ignorance is probably at least as common. People are afraid to accept their own ignorance, myself included, so some people dream up explanations that give something vaguely resembling answers. I'll take a look for the article; it may be usefule.
  3. Dreamwoven's Avatar
    There are some real life practical examples to cite. One is that in Sweden there are strong vested interests who are not happy about the attempts to ban mobile phones while driving a car. You still see bus drivers holding a mobile in one hand and using the other hand to punch keys with. The car industry - Volvo, SAAB - and the mobile phone industry - especially L. M. Ericsson are not happy about legislating on this. Sweden is otherwise known for its concerns about safe driving, but until very recently did not legislate to ban the use of mobile phones while driving. A weak version of this measure has been passed recently though it is hedged about with qualifications.

    Company towns are another source of problems. Their political pressure can and do block the passing of city legislation to protect residents from pollution etc. There are numerous examples of this over the whole world.
  4. PeterL's Avatar
    There is nothing new or different about businesses opposing legislation that might hurt their profits, and that is also true for employees of such companies. That is to say that your example has nothing whatsoever to do with conspiracy theories.
  5. Dreamwoven's Avatar
    I agree, but the point I would make is that it is something that in political science is called "non-decision making", how vested interests can and do block decisions to implement changes. Bachrach and Baratz (1963) "Decisions and Non-Decisions: an analytic framework" in American Political Science Review December, Volume 56 No. 4 pp. 632-642 and Maurice Crenson (1971 The Un-politics of Air Pollution: a study of non-decision making in the cities John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore are just two examples of this kind of work.

    Is it not of interest to be able to distinguish between theories of non-decision making and theories of conspiracy formation? You can, of course just decide not to explore this grey area, which is fair enough.
  6. PeterL's Avatar
    Blocking decisions because the decision will hurt you is very different from dreaming up a piece of fantasy that may or may not serve any purpose, but there can be conspiracy theories based around a non-decision. I see non-decisions are a tactic that may go into creating a false conspiracy, and fantasy conspiracies can be tactics to make decisions one way of the other.