The Shady Agendas Behind 5 Popular Conspiracy Theories
Do you ever wonder why some conspiracy theories, no matter how retarded they sound, seem to never die? Where do these things come from, anyway?
Well, it turns out that politicians have realized that in the Internet age, a good conspiracy theory can work wonders. So why not just start one? You know, like...
#5.
Barack Obama's Citizenship
The Theory:
Barack Obama isn't a natural born citizen of the United States and so legally cannot be president. He wasn't actually born in Hawaii and the Government is concealing this fact by refusing to release his Birth Certificate (or releasing a forgery).
Who's to Blame:
World Net Daily.
This one started spreading through chain e-mails during the recent Democratic primaries, when office workers the world over were reading about how Barack Obama couldn't be president (in-between learning how to increase the size of their penis for pennies a day). For some strange reason nobody seemed very concerned about his citizenship when he was a mere Senator, but that was probably just an oversight on the part of the rigorous journalists and fact-checkers who create chain e-mails.
What are you pointing to? Space? Are you secretly from space, Barack Obama?!?
However, it wasn't until the idea escaped the confines of the Internet and forced its way into the mainstream media that it truly emerged as a full blown conspiracy theory. This was in large part thanks to WorldNetDaily, an ultraconservative news site that was the first major media outlet to report the idea. After that, WND columnists brought the theory to radio talk shows, and then it spread to FOX News and other TV outlets, snowballing from a series of e-mails into a national talking point.
So, Why do People "Believe" It?
Despite the overwhelming physical evidence (the Obama campaign did in fact produce a copy of his birth certificate, and others even dug up the local Hawaiian newspaper from 1961 that has the Obama family birth announcement), it was promoted quite heavily by some Conservative commentators right up to Election Day and lives on in places like the Free Republic forums to this very day.
After all, you already had a guy with a foreign-sounding name, so what better way to influence a Presidential election than by suggesting the candidate is about as American as borscht?
Now that Obama has been elected and the Supreme Court has shot down legal challenges regarding his citizenship multiple times, the vast majority of political commentators quickly let this one die. A few committed critics of Obama still cling to it, though.
After all, conspiracy theories never really die, they just wait for people to forget the evidence against it and bring it up later (hell, they've kept the JFK assassination conspiracy theory alive for 46 years). Right up until the day Obama leaves office, there will be a pocket of those who hold out hope that one day a birth certificate will emerge that shows Obama was born in the mountains of Pakistan from the womb of Satan, and then he'll be forced to flee the White House, revealed to the world as the gay communist Islamofascist terrorist they've always known him to be.
#4.
The "Clinton Body Count"
The Theory:
While Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, with the help of Hillary, was involved in a cocaine smuggling operation and that he's had upwards of 60 people assassinated for threatening to reveal his secrets or for just generally annoying him.
Who's to Blame:
Richard Scaife, a billionaire who really, really hated Bill Clinton.
Scaife was really unhappy about Bill Clinton being president. And not in the "I'll voice my displeasure with his administration with a rant in the comments section of this YouTube video about kittens" way. He preferred the "I'll invest millions of my dollars in a campaign to discredit him" method.
"This is the best possible way I can spend my money!"
So Scaife created the Arkansas Project, which ran a series of investigations designed to damage and ultimately end Clinton's presidency. A lot of what they looked into was legitimate, or at least believable: shady real estate deals, Bill's raging libido, and so on. And then, there was the suicide of Vince Foster, and they took the project to a new, crazy level.
Vince Foster was the White House Counsel (legal guy) who turned up dead. Three separate investigations ruled it a suicide, but members of the Arkansas Project produced a 1994 film that suggested, with the help of sinister music and shadowy witnesses, the Clintons were responsible for the murder of Foster and many more, killing anyone who was getting too close to their secret, drug-fueled past.
Well he certainly looks like a Soprano in this picture...
So, Why Do People "Believe" It?
Vince Foster's death became a huge talking point in Republican circles, fueling speculation about Clinton abusing his power. More importantly, it got people talking about the legitimate, non-fake scandals Foster was connected to, which ended up damaging the Clintons' image. And once something works in politics, you don't drop it until your dying breath. Or until the election is over.
A number of people involved in the Arkansas Project would eventually admit they thought the Foster thing was bullshit, and Scaife himself would later endorse Hilary Clinton for president, which suggests that either he agreed that the whole theory was retarded, or he had no problems with a mass murderer running the country.
#3.
The Jews Secretly Run the World
The Theory:
All of the "big" conspiracy theories, the ones that claim shady organizations secretly run the world, all seem to blame the Jews at some point (often this is coded into "international bankers").
Who's to Blame:
A Russian book called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
This is supposedly a book written by a secret cabal of Jews that details how Jewish people will take over the world through trickery and deceit. Also through porn, there are two chapters about that.The book is a hoax, generally believed to have been fabricated in 1895 by a Russian journalist named Matevi Golovinski. In an act of outstanding journalistic integrity, he wrote a fictional ancient document by plagiarizing a satirical work that criticized Napoleon III. All Golovinski really did was replace Napoleon with Jews and called it a day, making him the laziest anti-Semite in the history of the world.
This one has been proven to be a forgery and a hoax many times over, and there's also the fact that anyone who is serious about conquering the world probably wouldn't write their plan out and make sure it was widely distributed. In fact, it's been known that the book is a fake since 1905, after an investigation was ordered by the Russian government.
But don't tell the conspiracy sites, Neo-Nazis and the world's angrier Muslims who still quote it as their key piece of evidence against the Jewish conspiracy. To them, that shit is as sacred as The Torah.
So, Why Do People "Believe" It?
Remember when we said that conspiracy theories never really die? Well it's even truer when they involve the Jews, who have been persecuted pretty much everywhere they've lived since, we don't know. Abraham?
And these days there's this little Jewish state called Israel that isn't on the best of terms with some of its neighbors. Well, the book was the perfect piece of propaganda and soon after Israel was established surrounding governments started cranking out copies. It's a best seller in Syria and Iran. Saudi Arabia teaches it as fact in their schools, and organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah give away large numbers of copies.
Strangely enough the book is also very popular in Japan, but in that translation the Jews are all 12-year-old schoolgirls that pilot kosher robots, so it's difficult to make any comparisons.
Regardless if Obama was actually born on American soil, he is not a natural born citizen. His father was a citizen of a foreign nation thereby disquailying him from eligibility.
ReplyThis article is less like humor and more like some douche trying to push liberal political agenda on the same naive group that believes the conspiracy theories he is trying to debunk...
ReplyThis comment is less like a valid complaint and more like some conservative douche trying to convince us that the writer has an agenda other than simply pointing and laughing at the other crazies in the world.
both of you are right
I just checked out the Flat Earth Society and those people are well crazy. Thing is, I was all ready to get on board with them. We can't KNOW things we haven't seen with our own eyes. Essentially, we can't know even then. I DIG that, man. But they say loads of specific things, like the sun is 32 miles wide. You don't get to call bullshit on the entirety of science AND push your own random daydreams as fact.
ReplyI think cracked really went too far with it's conspiracy theory debunking. I mean, how many articles do they have on it? Less politics, less religion, more f*****g humor and better topics.
ReplyWhat are you pointing to? Space? Are you secretly from space, Barack Obama?!?
ReplyLol'd (also the "water the silent killer..except when it's on, then it makes that whoosh sound" comment killed)
Ok, isn't there a religion focused or relating to "The Elders of Zion?" I'm too lazy to look it up.
ReplyThere's a blog using the name based around the concept of Israel's right to self-determination...but that's about it.
i think we can agree however, that the jews definately own Hollywood
ReplyLet's say Jews really do have a conspiracy to take over the world. I must say that it's not a very good one if everyone knows you are trying to take over the world and not effective at all if every couple of centuries, there's a pogrom here and there. A good conspiracy allows me to stay in power without damage to myself. So no need to worry about Jewish conspiracies.
ReplyNow if I was going to create a conspiracy, I would add a bogeyman clause so anytime anyone came near the truth, I would invoke this clause so everyone goes looking for the bogeyman. "Look, it's the Jews/Freemasons/Lizardmen! Get them!" Attention will be deflected and I will go on happily for centuries
So take a look who's in power and hasn't had any sort of eradication program directed towards them, that's a more likelier conspiracy.
Ultimately I don't think humans can join in a conspiracy for more than a few years. Someone will ALWAYS blab. Some/Many people can't keep juicy secrets. Someone gets drunk, someone wants to show off.
Just playin a bit of devils advocate here...but; doesn't your comment of "Someone will ALWAYS blab" kinda give a reason for why the theory would exist even if it were true? Just sayin..
Yeah, and I'm a direct descendant of the priestly tribe of Levi, so why am I still broke? It can't possibly have anything to do with my art degree, the weak job market, or the fact that I'm- wait, can potential employers see this site? Never mind, I'm perfect.
I read somewhere that fluoride temporarily suppresses fertility in males, according to researching done on lab rats. However, the research shows that there has been far less tooth decay in the country since fluoridation began so that's good.
Reply"For some strange reason nobody seemed very concerned about his citizenship when he was a mere Senator, but that was probably just an oversight on the part of the rigorous journalists and fact-checkers who create chain e-mails."
ReplyNatural born citizenship isn't a requirement for being senator, so it wouldn't matter whether or not Obama was actually in Hawaii; either way, he would be allowed to become a senator.
With that little nitpick out of the way, I think the most ridiculous part of the birthers' argument is that even if Obama had been born in Kenya, his mother was still undisputedly an American citizen. Therefore, Obama would still be classified as a natural born citizen.
Not to mention that most of these birthers tend to ignore the fact that John McCain wasn't born in the U.S., and that he was still a legitimate nominee for President.
Fluoride is safe for dental use, but to ingest it in such large quantities is unhealthy. It serves no purpose being in our water. It does NOT purify it, that's what the chlorine is for. Seriously, get the F out of our water.
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesAt the concentrations at which fluoride (which these days is most often added as hexafluorosilicic acid, or H2SiF6, not as the F- ion) is added to drinking water, the LD50 (the dosage required to kill 50 percent of test subjects) of the resulting water is so high that you would easily die of water intoxication (where your cells basically absorb too much water to be able to continue to do the other stuff they're supposed to do) before you'd die of fluorine poisoning.
You basically need 20 grams of H2SiF6. The WHO recommends a fluoridation level of 1.5 mg/L. (Here in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] recommends 0.7 to 1.2 mg/L.) But let's go with the higher number: at 1.5 mg/L, you'd have to drink 1333.33 (repeating) L of fluoridated water in a relatively short time. That's not humanly possible.
So no, do not get the F- our of our water. The benefits to our teeth far outweigh the risks.
The purpose of fluoride in the water supply is not to act as a poison but crowd control. Although in high enough doses Sodium Fluoride is a great poison (see any rat or pest poison at your local store) fluoride is used in depression medications such as Prozac. Lacing the water supply with it is a good way to keep people docile. Also side effects of fluoride based anti-depressants include difficulty becoming aroused, erectile dysfunction, and lack of interest in sex. How convenient that Big Pharma has flooded the market with erectile dysfunction pills to counteract this.
But forget all of that, people like Boomshadow still cling to the idea that the government really does have our best interests at heart, and that fluoridated water is somehow beneficial. A large majority of European countries have rejected water fluoridation yet their teeth are just as healthy as ours. Odd.... shouldn't our teeth be statistically healthier from the use of fluoride? And if our teeth are not healthier then why the hell do we have fluoride in the water?
"Cuz the fluoride is good for your teeth?........"
Yes, that's it. For our teeth.
Again, ignore the overwhelming evidence of what water fluoridation is really about and look at it this way.
I don't want ANY risks associated with my drinking water because a few assholes forget to brush their teeth.
DonTheWho?'s post is the best satire I've ever read. He's like Jonathan Swift, but better.
DonTheWho, if you had anything besides paranoia in you're rediculous mind, you'd have done the research and known what you're saying makes you look like a f*****g retard. Good day.
European here. Might have something to do with the whole "socialized healthcare meaning we can actually visit the dentist without incurring bankruptcy" thing. When I heard that some people I know in the US had never been to a dentist, my mind boggled. I guess the fluoride counteracts the possible damage.
fluoride is flushed out of your system by the very water it is put in, so it's ONLY effect from putting it in our water is that it helps calcium chemically bond to our teeth by providing an ion that will help the two bond...
For those bitching and moaning about the lack of "liberal" conspiracy theories...
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesLook, us liberals are just bad at the whole conspiracy thing, okay? We've tried, but we just don't have what it takes to really make it work. None of ours are cool enough to make the list. We can't do the organizing, okay? We're even failing at the whole "War on Christmas". Hell, half of us aren't even aware we're at war with it!
There's a war on Christmas???
Ohh..I'm pretty sure there's a few out there... 9/11 was an inside job, President Bush caused Hurricane Katrina, Iraq was a war for oil, Republicans and their business allies are sabotaging the economy to offset Obama's stimulus programs...
And my very favorite one: I can't believe I actually heard this from a real person, and one that I used to consider intelligent too: big businesses are using the Republican party to attack the middle class- make the middle class greatful for any job regardless of how little it pays- so businesses won't have to rely on workers in India and China.
9/11- Clearly not an inside job. Four airliners were hijacked cruising the skies for almost two hours with IFF signals turned off, and not one jet was sent to investigate. WTC 7 falls into it's own footprint because it was hit by 'debris', but this doesn't happen to any of the other buildings. Ten of the eleven 'hijackers' have been found alive. George Bush has been caught in an open lie talking about when he first knew of the attack. Condoleezza Rice admitted during the 9/11 commission that George Bush had a dossier sitting on his desk with the title "Bin Laden determined to attack within the United States." Prominent politicians and celebrities warned not fly in the month of September. A suspicious amount of short sell options placed on American Airlines stock shortly before the attack. The owner of WTC takes out a large insurance policy on the towers a year before the attack. Yup, clearly not an inside job but the work of terrorists who hate our freedom.
Iraq was a war for oil- No, you're right. It was about freedom and democracy. The fact that it is a vital strategic asset in an oil and opium rich region of the world is purely a coincidence.
Regarding ColeKarlsen's comment,
No, big business is just using Republicans to reduce their taxes so that they have more money to hire workers in China and India. They're not thinking far enough ahead to realize that not paying Americans workers good wages is hurting people who could buy their products. They're all responsible for ruining our economy.
DonTheWho, you're such a retard it hurts my eyes to read your comments.
All of these were cause by either a conservative person or a conservative group. Just throwing that out there.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesJust goes to show the bias of the author.
@ColeKarlsen: Or, you know, an affinity for science and critical thinking by educated people. It's funny how right-wing pundits always slam the left for being "ivy-league elitist", which is just a way to get undereducated people to hate someone with an education, instead of aspiring to one themselves. Education trains one to critical thinking. It's really not a coincidence that 49% of liberals are the college graduates, compared to 26.5% among conservative groups. More education actually turns conservatives into liberals. The more you know :)
Look, aleatharea: I don't know where you got the idea that liberal elitism is at all relevant to my comment. You sound like all the other big-mouths on the internet that have amazing ability to misrepresent a guy's comment, change the topic to something else you'd rather be discussing, and shout about it from atop your soapbox.
It should be obvious that not all conspiracies/controversies are invented by right-wingers for the furtherment of a political agenda...As if leftist agendas haven't ever been behind a conspiracy theory (9/11 Truthers anyone?) By selecting the conspiracies/controversies that were, Mark Hill demonstrates an obvious political bias. That's all I'm saying.
As for my own political leanings: I'm a libertarian, my political philosophy is based primarily on John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty". Some see libertarianism as being conservative, although in reality it's influenced by classical liberal ideas... So before you get all condescending and arrogant about liberal elitism, perhaps you should produce a coherent definition of "liberal" before you try to associate it with education- which, by the way, has nothing to do with an individual's natural intellect.
@aleatharhea college is a brainwashing camp for liberals. In my four years I only had 1 teacher who openly leaned right with more than 10 that openly leaned dangerously far right. The only teacher that was a conservative was my economics teacher imagine that.
actual clinton body count: over 5000. bombing of yugoslavia
ReplyFuck, Bush killed 5000 of our own people.
The global warming debate just gives me a headache. Can't we all just agree that both sides are being insurmountable dicks with regard to the issue and nothing is going to change (at least not for the better) until we stop bickering and start doing something to preserve our ecosystems?
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesFor Christ's sake people even if (and I'm playing devils advocate here) global warming is either a natural phenomenon or blown out of proportion it still doesn't change the fact we're the cause of a lot of environmental damage on this planet. Extinctions, deforestation, and over fishing the oceans to the brink of collapse can't be blamed on 100,000 year planetary cycle. The great floating ball of trash out in the middle of the pacific ocean is not a natural phenomenon. And even if the amount of CO2 spewed out into our atmosphere is canceled out by aerosols doesn't change the fact that neither chemical is good for humans to breathe.
You make some good points, but your theories on deforestation and overfishing really don't hold much merit. Think about it, who besides the wildlife would suffer the most if all the trees and the fish on the planet were used up? I would say the logging and fishing industries. Consequently, those industries have taken steps to ensure that deforestation and overfishing is avoided. The number of forests in the world is actually growing because logging industries keep planting new trees.
If saying "I'm sorry for being a dick and believing acredited scientists with good research instead of corporation-funded conservative thinktanks and FOX news" would get people on the other side to "start doing something to preserve our ecosystems" I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Unfortunately I don't see it being that easy.
KatainKabal your forgetting the idea of the tragedy of the commons. The idea is that it would be in the best interest of every fishing company to stop overfishing. However, its in each individual companies best interest to keep fishing as much as possible.
Ayla, I wish I could thumbs up your post a thousand times. KaptainKabal, your argument holds no merit. Think about it. The kinds of trees the logging industry plants are fast growing trees like pine, after having deforested almost all of the old-growth forest. The ecosystems they destroyed are not replenished and sustained in fast-growing lumber farms. Plus what cdguy said.
Ah, okay, so this was written before the emails came out proving Man Made Global Warming is a hoax. So I will ignore #1.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesHa ha, that's funny. Because all that hard evidence like the opening of the North West Passage, species migration and ocean acidification just vanish in a puff of logic because of a few words in an e-mail.
What a wonderful new scientific theory you have found. Can I have a go: "there is a million dollars in my bank account."
Hey! Why didn't that work? Perhaps I need to use a Mac.
Whilst emails are never a good source of information, it should be pointed out that the first comment said "Man Made Global Warming" they never said that global warming wasnt happening.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeexcept those emails did nothing of the sort. They DID indicate that the ones crunching the numbers were not as unbiased as would be scientifically ideal, but the actual research held up. In fact more than one independent organization has since then double-checked the data and concluded that the results were scientifically significant.
Basically what the emails showed was that the people collecting data are getting really really really really REALLY f*****g frustrated with people claiming "climate change isn't real" which makes them an easy target for anyone trying to claim "all that research is being done by people that won't even consider the possibility that they're wrong!"
Ideally scientists should always be acceptable to the possibility that they're wrong, but after you accumulate a few mountains of evidence, it's hard to keep your cool if people are accusing you of being a liar making things up to get money.
What emails? O.o
Don't you people have junk mail filters?
(Don't take the joke as me stating a position on the argument btw, was simply me expressing my bewilderment at not recieving any of these emails globally conscious emails..all I get is viagra adds and money claims =[ )
Almost as good as the article were the ads that someone PAID to put on this website: "Fight back! Prevent the Republicans from rigging the elections in PA!" Hey Cracked, write more articles about porn.
ReplyYes. Groups are actually allowed to buy ad space for political and issue ads. Simply amazing revelation. You should follow the link. They're engaging in some pretty shady stuff.
That scientific method pictured up there is more accurate than you think, including the male hookers.
ReplyI hate reading a good article and knowing with absolute certainty that the comments are going to be filled with inane bullshit. If you really think you know better, write your own goddamn article and see if anyone gives a fuck. They won't.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesAs a Palaeoclimatologist I do happen to think that I know better than someone who writes articles for a website such as this and as is obvious from the article has no particular knowledge on the subject in question. I've also had papers published and the only people that would read such papers are people that give a fuck!
I think perhaps you should stop adding to the inane bullshit comments.
Me too Blue. It was hard reading it just thinking of all the people goddamn fuming over Obama, etc. Great article.
@Palaeorach I don't understand. What authority does a Palaeoclimatologist have to talk about the Zionist Agenda?
also, what's a Paleoclimatologist doing on a site like this?
Climate change is a natural cycle that ends with an ice age on Earth every 100,000 yrs, it is known as the Milankovitch Cycle and there is very little the human race can do to influence a change in this cycle. It is 18,000 years since the last ice age and so the Earth's temperature still has a few degrees to rise before it starts lowering again. Yes humans are emitting a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere but they are equelled by the amount of aerosols we put into the atmosphere, these counteract the effect of greenhouse gases. The amount of CO2 put into the atmosphere is very little compared to the amount from volcanoes. Yes global warming exists. No we are not the sole cause of it. There is nothing we can do to stop the Earth cooling or warming, the seas will melt and re-freeze but not in our lifetime.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesYou just proved this article correct.
It is correct. There are many so-called experts and scientists who mess with the data they publish so they can get more funding from the government to carry out more analysis and collect data. This is what they claim the money os for anyway. Some e-mails were leaked two years ago from the government advisors where they were talking about how to make the data look worse than it actually was.
Nobody ever said humans are the sole cause. All reputable scientific bodies agree that humans are accelerating it, and most agree that the results are likely to be catastrophic if we don't change what we're doing. Real scientists don't use strawman arguments.