As a non-duopolist leftist, I run into many nonsense claims. I hear other things that sound ... maybe real?
Well, it's time to tackle some of the more popular ones in American history of the past 75 years or so.
Here's the definitions:
A conspiracy is an individual or group actual acting in some underhanded way. A conspiracy theory is a claim or theory of such an event, not proven. That's the denotative definitions of both. Neutral language.
That said, and rightly so, "conspiracy theory" often carries a lot of baggage in a connotative definition. I'll give you mine as a good workaday one and that's what we'll use here.
A conspiracy theory is a claim or theory of such an event, disproven to a reasonable degree by both countervailing empirical evidence and logic, whether Occam's Razor or other items on the logic side. In other words, this is Informal Logic 101. Less than 50 percent strength of empirical evidence in your warrants and less than (as best as we can determine) less than 50 percent likelihood in your reasoning? If you fall short on one or the other, you're in a gray zone. Fall short on both? Conspiracy theory. Deep-fried conspiracy theory if your empirical claims not only fall short of truth but are demonstrably false.
Speaking of? I think there's a 20-year empirical evidence window that's also involved. No amount of suppression is going to hide all evidence for longer than that. Take the late 1970s House Select Committee on Assassinations. It found nothing new in support of conspiracy theories about the assassinations of JFK, MLK or RFK. Period. And, no, it did not.
Issues that are simply pseudoscience won't be addressed; pseudoscience or similar that spills over will be, in at least one case.
Let's jump in, with an update as of Dec. 3, 2023 to add a new conspiracy theory to the top of the list:
May 7, 1915:
Winston Churchill "likely" (note weasel word) coordinated the sinking of the Lusitania and Woodrow Wilson used it to drag the US into World War 1, per this Mises Caucus Libertarian.
Conspiracy theory. (And a weak one at that.)
First, on the US side? Wilson used this to SO MUCH drag the US into WWI that he asked for a declaration of war against Germany a full 23 months later! Now, he DID use the Lusitania to tighten the screws on Germany and unrestricted sub warfare without similarly tightening the screws on Britain on blockade by extension and food as a blockade tool, which led William Jennings Bryan to resign as Secretary of State — something that Wilson wanted even before this. But, drag the US into war? Wilson ran in 1916 on the slogan "he kept us out of war." (That said, note past tense.)
Churchill? Already on the outs in the British cabinet; would be shuffled out of First Lord of the Admiralty to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster just two weeks later over Gallipoli. This was a Cabinet demotion; imagine in the 1913-47 US government, being moved from Secretary of the Navy to official secretary of the cabinet. (Yes, I know that under the British constitution, it's No. 2 in precedence to the PM's office itself, but as far as what it actually does, it's a nothingburger.) But, apparently, this is Mises Org doctrine!
Dec. 7, 1941:
Franklin D. Roosevelt knew in advance the Japanese were attacking Pearl Harbor.
Conspiracy theory.
We knew from the breaking of diplomatic codes that Japan was considering war. We hadn't broken their military codes and therefore had no idea Pearl Harbor was a target. Also, FDR actually did not want war with Japan. Instead, per James Bradley, Dean Acheson helped cause that. Finally, no, the "vaunted" McCollum memo doesn't say what you think it does.
Aug. 6, 1945:
The Hiroshima A-bomb was really just a "signal" or warning shot to the USSR and Uncle Joe Stalin.
Conspiracy theory.
And a revulsive one.
July 8, 1947:
The U.S. Army Air Force covered up an alien landing at Roswell, New Mexico.
Conspiracy theory as stated.
Conspiracy when restated that "the U.S. Army Air Force may have covered up the crash of a Project Mogul nuclear test balloon at Roswell, New Mexico." (The "may have" is important because the July 1947 actions aren't clearly a cover-up.)
November 1960:
Richard Daley stole the election for John F. Kennedy
Mixed
The claim that Daley voted the tombstones or whatever in Chicago, but that Dick Nixon didn't want to undercut Kennedy's claim to legitimacy, is a tale of long telling, with many parts to it.
One of those is the "Poor Dick" image. Picture Pat with Republican cloth coat nearby.
The reality appears to be — as was then the case in other elections — that Republicans did their own vote-stealing in downstate Illinois and Dick's campaign staff was told this would be brought up if he went further.
LBJ surely stole votes in Texas, too; whether enough to swing the state remains unknown. But even Illinois plus Texas would only have thrown the race to the House, with Dixiecrats backing Harry Byrd.
Nov. 22, 1963:
A group of conspirators, who were or who worked for (take your pick): Castro, the CIA, LBJ, Moscow, the Mafia, or others, killed JFK in Dallas.
Conspiracy theory.
Previous presidential assassins Charles Guiteau and Leon Czolgosz were as nutty as Lee Harvey Oswald. John Wilkes Booth was as histrionic. From his own POV, beyond the megalomania of his one-man "Fair Play for Cuba" group, Oswald was defending a cause, and he really would have gone ape-shit had he known the truth of Operation Mongoose. And, beyond the evidence of Nov. 22, his previous attempt to assassinate Gen. Walker also tells against him.
As does all the physical evidence. I've discussed this plenty of times, most recently for the 50th anniversary.
In addition, the reality of Jack's Camelot was far different than Jackie O's legend-spinning, but —ironically? — was about exactly like the musical.
JFK is a good one to look at the two tools for distinguishing actual conspiracy from a theory. Occam's Razor is not foolproof, but it's a great start for the informal logic involved.
So, other possibilities?
1. LBJ? Too depressed.
2. CIA? Coups abroad leaked as they were happening. Think of one here.
3. FBI? Why? Hoover had already browbeat both Jack and Bobby.
4. Castro? WAY too smart to piss off the US like that.
In short, as illogical to us as Oswald seems, he's more logical than alternatives.
The empiricism fork also applies here.
1. The double-hit or double-strike bullet? It's not "pristine." Look at an actual picture.
2. Grassy knoll? Photo is a Rorschach test at best.
3. Kennedy's head? Gunfire to the brain does to exactly that.
In short, the man with the Mannlicher, etc., has plenty of empirical evidence pointing at him. None points elsewhere.
Aug. 4, 1964:
LBJ uses a fake incident in the Gulf of Tonkin to drag America into war.
Mixed
One real attack happened, inside what North Vietnam claimed as coastal waters and the US rejected. A "radar ghost" non-attack on Aug. 4, two days after the real attack, opened the door for LBJ.
That said, CIA's Air America was bombing NVM from Laos at the same general time, and inserting (quickly captured) infiltrators. And, the Maddox was deliberately sailing inside NVM's claimed coastal waters. Johnson has never said what the big game was, but he appeared open to wanting any opportunity to expand his powers on Vietnam.
Plus, per the above, what's not to say that a still-living Jack Kennedy wouldn't have done similar?
April 4, 1968:
Either other assassins than James Earl Ray, or James Earl Ray as a cutout, killed Martin Luther King.
Conspiracy theory.
Ray as a bitter, mudsill racist ex-con, had plenty of justification in his own mind.
June 30, 1968:
Somebody besides Sirhan Sirhan killed Bobby Kennedy.
Conspiracy theory.
Just a week earlier, and less than a year after the Six Day War, Palestinian-American Sirhan had seen a picture of Bobby in a Portland, Oregon, synagogue (during Oregon primary campaigning) wearing a yarmulke as the congregation celebrated Israeli Independence Day. And, as with the other two assassinations, the empirical crime scene evidence is all there.
Late October 1968:
Richard Nixon, through intermediaries, tells South Vietnam not to participate in peace talks.
Conspiracy.
Tricky Dick did this and LBJ knew it but couldn't figure out how to tell the public (if he really did want Humphrey to win). Nixon helped kill another 20,000 troops plus millions of Vietnamese.
October 1980:
One of Jimmy Carter's debate briefing papers sets was stolen.
Conspiracy
I think there's enough evidence to indicate the material was stolen.
October 1980, and before:
Reagan campaign staffers meet with Iranians to get the hostage release delayed.
Conspiracy, it seems
This one is tricky. Gary Sick has a decent amount of evidence, but not enough to be totally firm in my mind. Hence the "it seems."
Middle 1980s:
As a spinoff from Iran-Contra, the CIA helped import cocaine to America.
Conspiracy
First, Gary Webb wasn't the first to report on it. Bob Parry was, per the Intercept and others. Parry was a full decade earlier, though with less information. That said, Webb, as many supporters of the general idea do concede — RationalWiki is good here — Webb overstated some of his claims, and some of the overstatements were bad enough to saw off his own limb. Might have happened anyway, but he helped make it happen. RW notes professional jealousy might have driven other newspapers to pounce on his mistakes.
Sidebar: I consider it a conspiracy theory that the CIA murdered Webb rather than him committing suicide. Wikipedia adds that he had reporting issues on earlier Mercury News stuff and at the Cleveland Plain Dealer before that.
Sept. 11, 2001:
Rather than 10 hijackers in two jets, the (take your pick) CIA, Mossad, Saudi government directly acting took down the Twin Towers by (take your pick) pre-loading explosives on building girders, running suicide bombers into buildings or whatever.
Conspiracy theory.
Read Popular Mechanics.
Various times after Sept. 11, 2001:
The U.S. anthrax attacks remain a puzzler. I reject conspiracy theories that would try to tie them to 9/11, but I remain unconvinced — as do many other people — that Bruce Ivins did it. And, it's a botched investigation like this, as with Bobby's rushing Bethesda on Jack's autopsy, that fuels conspiracy theories. It's also (another?) black mark on his career that Bob Mueller refocused the FBI investigation on Ivins.
Conspiracy theory on a 9/11 connection, played up by whoever was the perpetrator. Unknown on classification otherwise.
Spring 2016:
A disgruntled Democratic National Committee employee named Seth Rich stole party and Hillary Clinton campaign emails then sent them to Julian Assange, instead of Russian cyberhackers stealing them, and that Rich was then killed to cover this up.
Conspiracy theory.
It's pathetic the number of people who aren't RWNJs who peddle this. (Some of them, if they believe in at least one of the above and are consistent Dems, let alone Greens, are of course LWNJs. And those people do exist, too. Ray McGovern at Consortium News endorsed Jill Stein, and is both a 9/11 falser [sic] and a JFK conspiracy theorist, so, whether or not he believes Seth Rich was murdered for a theft — and he does believe the emails were stolen, at a minimum — he's a LWNJ.)
Here's my counterargument.
If Seth Rich actually did steal the emails, why would either DNC linked operatives or if not the DNC, whoever his handlers were, kill him? After all, nothing that allegedly linked him to the emails became public until Assange started pushing the conspiracy theory idea after Rich's murder.
And, that then said?
"The guilty flee even when nobody pursues them," the book of Proverbs says.
So, why DID Assange peddle the conspiracy theory?
Just connect those dots.
Aug. 9/10 2019:
Jeffrey Epstein's suicide.
Who knows as of this time???? But, probably not. Maybe a 2 instead of a 1 on a 1-10 scale, but no more.
OTOH, per Lawyers, Guns and Money, given the scads of rich and famous who benefit from Epstein not speaking at trial, and given that he'd apparently attempted suicide a week earlier? At a minimum, jailers are criminally culpable at not having him on 24-hour suicide watch, or should be. In reality, they aren't; they could be civilly liable, but who would sue them. Did they — and if so, on some sort of orders — goad him into a second, successful attempt? Even so, "goading" is not a criminal offense. And, if he's off suicide watch, allowing an extra bedsheet is not allowing in contraband. Beyond THAT, in part due to jails and prisons being run ever more on the cheap, suicides inside bars continue to grow.
On the third or fourth hand, per Ken White, lots of prisoners die in abhorrent situations. His 32 stories are just the tip of an iceberg of jailer and prison system callousness, low pay, control issues and more.
And, many of those are suicides. We in Texas know Sandra Bland all too well, sadly.
Beyond the Roswell incident, some pseudoscience partially moves into conspiracy thinking world.
Earthquake conspiracy theorists (yes, they're a "thing") are a very good new example of that overlap.
Every one of these is a conspiracy theory:
1. No, the government isn't hiding a bunch of UFO evidence. "Truthers" believe that aliens magically visit only them when, in psychological reality, aliens advanced enough for interstellar flight would have no reason to visit earth, and no reason to visit "peons" and only them if they DID make contact.
2. No, the government isn't hiding Bigfoot, or Nessie, etc. And no credible evidence of such critters has been presented.
3. No, the pharmaceutical industry hasn't bought off the government to keep autism-causing vaccines on the market. That's because vaccines don't cause autism. This also ignores how the government's Vaccine Court works, the degree of and percentage of profitability for vaccines within the pharmaceutical industry and more.
4. No, HAARP isn't causing contrails, or climate change, or mind control. Contrails don't exist, your car and your hamburger cause climate change, and no mind control weapons exist today. That's also contra nutters like Bill Binney at Consortium News.
On all of this, there is a growing body of behavioral psychology research which says the more people feel out of control of their lives, the more likely they are to accept conspiracy theories. And no, the internet doesn't cause people to feel they lack control. The public internet was still a toddler at the time of 9/11, and not in existence at all for older events.
Part of why conspiracy theories may seem more common today is that, in aeons past, our ancestors attributed them to the gods, as in the claim that Yahweh broke the siege of Jerusalem by killing 185,000 of Sennacharib's soldiers. First, he didn't have that many, but, per Herodotus, it was likely the plague.
But, speaking of the gods? As I blogged recently, in many ways, conspiracy thinking is the new Gnosticism.
Anecdotally, it also seems that many believers in conspiracy theories also believe in pseudoscience or pseudomedicine. On pseudoscience, I'm thinking things like calling GMOs Frankenfoods. On pseudomedicine (not counting medical-related conspiracy theories like chemtrails), it starts with "wonderfoods" and usually goes to supplements next.
On the former, I know a lot of "greens," and a lot of Green Party Greens, who believe in Frankenfoods and also some conspiracy theories. On the pseudomedicine, I know people who believe at least one conspiracy theory and who also take supplements with expectations that aren't scientifically indicated, and in amounts that aren't scientifically indicated and are even contraindicated. Without going into too much detail, I know multiple people who think melatonin is a wonder drug sleep aid (no, it actually just resets your body's hormonal system in general) and in taking it at 10x a generally recognized as safe starter dose or more, and without medical consultation, could be doing harm if anything. You certainly can overdose at 30 mg, and taking any large amount without a doctor's consultation, given individual sensitivity, is not smart.
All of this puts me in mind that the "horseshoe theory," while not totally right, has a degree of truth, and not just on narrow political conspiracy theories like Seth Rich. Look at pseudoscience like antivaxxerism, or pseudomedicine on foods and nutrition.
