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.
Nearly every entry here attaches blame to conservatives, and asserts anyone who disagrees with anything here is crazy. This is really piss-poor, incredibly s****y biased writing.
ReplyIt's worst sin though, is that it isn't remotely funny.
Call me crazy but I don't think you should compare JFK to "Obama Birthers". Also flouride really is bs and jews do control most of the world.
ReplyWhy would anti-Semites consider something that damns the Jews "as sacred as the Torah", which is a Jewish religious book, instead of say, the Koran, New Testament, or "The DaVinci Code"? And, I and every other person with more than 3 neurons firing in succession know that Obama is a US citizen, but the people that are saying he was born out of the country wouldn't have a problem with him as a US Senator because you only have to be a naturalized citizen to hold that office.
ReplyJust because something is labeled a conspiracy theory doesn't automatically make it false. During WW2, before the US entered the war, there was a conspiracy theory floating around the the Germans were trying to exterminate the Jews. Most people didn't believe it, until we entered the war, and the Allied troops began liberating the concentration camps, and saw the carnage firsthand.
ReplyYou bring up the Obama birth certificate which has been proven by several independant groups to be a poorly designed fake. I am not saying BHO is or is not a citizen all I want to question is why would he allow this to be a question when it could be solved by releasing one simple, and real, document which I needed to turn over to get my Social Security Card, Drivers License and variious other official documents. If he has nothing to be afraid of why not just release it and be done with the whole thing.
ReplyI question your ability to distinguish what is proof and what is not. Care to share sources for this? I mean since you're so certain and all, do you honestly think they'd let someone be president if they weren't truly a citizen? .... :P
ok, I'll bite, though judghing by the dat eof your comment it is rather possible that you were high
MLederman, which groups exactly, have proven it was a fake, what methodology did they use?
By the way, a popular conspiracy theory is that 9/11 waas masterminded by Bush and Dick Cheney, for all sorts of reasons. This is a liberal conspiracy theory. 9/11 conspiracy theories are probably more popular then communist water fluoridation or whatever that is.
ReplyAnd they are still making new YouTube videos of them. My newest favorite one is a guy who claims the planes were all CGI'd, based on him blowing up a video to the point that pixelization crossover occurred at the interface of the buildings and planes. Obviously more real than my coworkers who actually saw it in real life.
That chart at the end of the article, I want to point out that goes for global warming supporters too.
ReplyThe most evidence global warming supporters have dug up is a 2 percent increase in global tempuratures over the past 10 years. After an independant study confirmed by Democrats and Republicans combined, it discrovered there was warming every 50 to 60 years, following with a period of cooling. Remember in the hippie years, everyone was freaking out about Global Cooling?
Wait, why add UFO's to the picture up top if they aren't even included in the list? I mean sure, conspiracy theories do tend to include UFO's and the idea of extraterrestrails visiting our planet, but don't make us think that it;s on the list when it's not.
ReplyI know it's pointless to say it now, but still it bothers me.
I think it's pretty hilarious thinking of the Billary duo committing felonies together. Maybe a new summer blockbuster in the works?
ReplyI'd watch it.
But only if they add Obama as the stoner friend.
What the hell? I went from reading about crazy Jews to looking at a picture of a chick blowing a shemale down by the ads. I'm so confused......
Replyi think the ads are based on your Google searches because I search gun sites a lot and get mostly gun ads. You on the other hand might want to erase your cookies.......
Ok, I'll go first... My name is Rubylark, I am 20 years old, and I am... a conservative.
Reply Hide All See All 4 Replies*cowers in fear of other commenters.*
*looks around, and continues quickly before the onslaught*
I would just like to point out that all but one of these conspiracies on the list are pushed by conservative supporters (I'm not sure if the Jew one counts as that or not). It would it would be nice to read an article that doesn't just soley attack my political party. I'm not particularly politically active nor particularly crazy, so I'm not well informed on the subject, but I find it hard to believe that there aren't ANY "popular conspiracy theories" pushed by the crazy liberals in the world. And no matter what heartfelt supporters believe, there are crazy liberals - crazy doesn't discriminate. And this is politics we're talking about - it's full of shady agendas. But I guess conservatives are like fat people and the french - they're easy to make fun of.
*reassumes the fetal position*
The more popular ones tend to be from a conservative stand point. Being a liberal myself, I would agree with you that crazy doesn't discriminate. You have rednecks, we have hippies.
@Rubylark
PETA their you go....
Conservatism ISN'T a politcal party, it's a school of political thought. Republican doesn't automatically equal conservative, and more than Democrat automatically equals liberal. At one time in our nation's history (I'm talking before the early to mid 20th century) the Republican party was the LIBERAL party. The ones who advocated the abolition of slavery, Reconstruction, civil rights, etc.
Sometime betweem WWI and WWII--I'm not sure of the exact time or circumstances, the parties switched positions. Bottom line, the so-called "Party of Lincoln" is NOT the Republican party that it is today.
What you meant to ask, therefore, is to read an article that doesn't attack your politcal thinking, not your political party.
@Agent-13013 I'm not arguing with your overall point, but there's nothing inherently liberal about abolition or reconstruction. In fact, it's fair to say that the south was the liberal side of the civil war insofar as they were starting a revolution. That's about as liberal as one can get.
As for there being crazy liberal groups, how about the ones who make up conspiracies about why marijuana and other narcotics are illegal.
Actually, it would be very difficult to prove that the global warming we're experiencing now is human-made. We don't have an extra Earth to test out our theory. Also, there is a lot of evidence that the Earth has has periods of even higher temperatures in its pre-human past. There are many possible reasons why global temperatures fluctuate, and CO2 emissions, if a factor, are a rather tiny one.
ReplyCO2 emissions are definitely not a tiny factor. There have many multiple studies, some even by conservative studies (the Koch brothers) that have found that climate change is very real and very much powered by man made problems. Since you might want to ask for info, you can start with the 1987 Bruntland report, or the IACC climate change document.
Actaully Molly, the 97% of scientist not being paid by the big carbon polluters disagee with you. The Biggest Fallacy put about by the right is that there is a debate, the results are the debate is over. I mean one of the main guys that gets quoted is Lord Mockington who is not only not a real scientist he has been told by the house of Lord in England to Stop calling himself 'lord' becuase he is not one. They Guy is a professional liar and that is the best the Climate change deniers can come up with. Please use common sense there is no debate
so you're implying, by omission, that 9/11 was an inside job?
ReplyNah, there is no shady agenda to 9/11 conspiracies, just a lot of quack-jobs making s**t up.
The author of this article is wrong about who started Obama not born in the US. It was not WorldNetDaily, it was during the Democratic Party's 2008 presidential primaries, anonymous e-mails from supporters of Hillary Clinton surfaced that questioned Obama's citizenship in an attempt to revive Clinton's faltering primary election campaign. These and numerous other chain e-mails during the subsequent presidential election circulated false rumors about Obama's origin, religion and birth certificate
Replyu guys a idiots, the person hu made this article is clearly takin the piss.....
ReplyA pathetic attempt to push Progressive agenda.
ReplyThis is perfectly exemplified in the last one: Anthropogenic Global Warming *is* a hoax. Despite the fact that after this article was written the East Anglia document dumps happened which showed that yes, the lab coat consultants there WERE lying in order to push their academic agenda (and keep getting funding), AGW has never even been an actual scientific theory in the first place. There is absolutely no way that AGW can be falsified; therefore it's not science, it's a religious belief system... a belief system that has lost much of its credibility in the eyes of the public over the past few years. And even before the East Anglia exposure, independent scientists had gotten their hands on their modeling software -- which they fought tooth-and-nail against -- and put complete garbage data into the models and surprise, surprise it shows that the earth was trending warming over a thousand year period. How convenient, let's spend trillions of dollars on this.
"a pathetic attempt to push progressive agenda."
you say that like it's a bad thing. the progressive agenda is a helluva lot better than the conservative one.
Aha, that answers a lot of questions. I've tried and tried, but I can't prove gravity to be false. I guess that means it's a religious belief and must not exist.
Well in an Lasseiz-Faire capitalist society if a buisness harms the earth in any noticable way the public can boycott said buisness and encourage them to change their production habits. If the buisness does not change immediately it would see a steady drop in sales and eventually be forced to adapt or file for bankruptcy.
ReplyAnd in reality the public is either too apathetic/stupid to know or the company deliberately covers it up
That and also in a society that actually respects property rights, if a company does anything to harm the environment, private citizens or the government can sue them. That's why I laugh at supposed environmentalists who supports thing like the EPA -- the EPA *legalizes* pollution and destruction of property.
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.
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesSo, by your thoughts, anyone who is the child of an immigrant isn't a natural born citizen. By that logic, none of us born in the US are citizens because none of our parents nor their parents could have been natural born citizens.
He was born on American soil, giving him birth-right citizenship. By this same logic, Bruce Lee wouldn't have been an American and obviously neither of his parents were American.
hate to break it to ya pal, but being born in America is the definition of natural born citizen. The only way his parents legal status could possibly matter is if they were in the country illegally. Then you might have a case. Otherwise, you're gonna have to stick to the crazy falsified birth certificate theory if you wanna question that aspect of his eligibility for the presidency
Regardless of how many times you and your friends say it, you're still wrong.
I love idiots, entertaining indeed.
*facepalm* that is all that is required to be a natural born citizen, no matter where your parents are from.. god the stupid, it burns!
This 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.
Reply