The Trouble with Conspiracy Theories

[William Kelly]

The biggest falacy is that there is a select group of people, like Democrats or Republicans, or liberals or conservatives, who can be defined as "conspiracy theorirsts," as in fact there is no such animal, despite the concerted efforts of people like Colby, Fesser and Tirdad Derakhshani to create them.

I don't quite agree, Bill. I agree that because you identify with a particular group does not mean you automatically believe in all the various theories. Because you believe that 9/11 was an inside job does not mean you believe there is a JFK conspiracy.

I do believe, however, that there are some people who tend to believe most of the conspiracy theories. These people often have nothing in common except their willingness to believe these theories, no matter how seemingly bizarre the theory is. Upbringing, intelligence, social standing, moral beliefs, etc, are not a common denominator and play no part in why this group holds the opinions they do.

Okay Evan,

Then say 10% of the people of USA tend to believe most of the conspiracy theories. That's 30 million people who believe that JFK was killed by a Secret Service agent, alien autopsies and a plane didn't hit the Pentagon. Well, where are they?

Bring them on because I want to debate them too. But they really don't exist.

It not only takes a small mind to believe in bizarre and unreasonable conspiracy theories, it takes a smaller mind to believe they are a threat to rational thinking.

What's worse, are those who attack the 80% who understand that it was a conspiracy behind the murder of President Kennedy, by placing them all in the same category as those who believe bizarre and unreasonable conspiracy theories, of which we can't find even one to debate, even though they are said to constitute a major percentage of the population and are a threat reasonable popular opinion.

Conspiracy theorists are the new communists, except they really don't exist, other than in the minds of people who want to debate them, but can't find one to debate.

BK

[Evan Burton]

I'd say 10% is too great a figure. Perhaps 0.1% would be more accurate (and that's still a guess). Some, however, may reside on this very board. You mentioned JFK and 9/11. Many people here believe both are conspiracies carried out by secret powers or cabals within the US government. Some of those people may believe in alien autopsies, though you'd have to ask them yourself.

On other boards I inhabit, there are people who believe in all three... as well as the Apollo hoax, chemtrails, weather control, etc, etc.

[John Simkin]

This is the central fallacy of Fesser and Simkin's view -- lump all conspiracy

theories together and then attribute all of them to "most" if not "all" researchers.

I am not sure you have actually read my posts on this thread. I have attacked Fesser's view of lumping together people who believe that there was a conspiracy to kill JFK and those that believe 9/11 was some sort of government operation.

As I tried to point out, this is an attempt to smear those who are part of the 80% who believe this as being “conspiracy theorists”. This is a common tactic. In the UK, whenever some one put forwards a theory that involves the government trying to keep something secret, they are immediately described as a "conspiracy theorist". Our main campaigner for freedom of information in Parliament is Norman Baker. When he wrote a recent book on the death of Dr. David Kelly he was immediately dismissed by the BBC (it is always vitally important that is the BBC that starts the ball rolling as it is accepted by the masses as being objective) as a “conspiracy theorist”.

As I tried to point out, this is an attempt to smear those who are part of the 80% who believe that there was a conspiracy to kill JFK. Unfortunately, there are a very small number of people who do appear to believe that a whole series of events are part of some sort of large US government conspiracy: 9/11, moon landings, alien visits, etc. It is indeed very tempting to describe these people as conspiracy theorists. Especially, as they are also the same group of people who claim that Andy and I use this forum to deny them freedom of speech by deleting postings, banning members, etc. As someone who has been on the receiving end of this type of nonsense, it is not difficult to believe that a group of people can indeed be categorized as “conspiracy theorists”. The existence of this group will continue to make it difficult for those who believe as I do, that in some cases, such as the deaths of JFK and David Kelly, governments conspire against the people.

[William Kelly]

I'd say 10% is too great a figure. Perhaps 0.1% would be more accurate (and that's still a guess). Some, however, may reside on this very board. You mentioned JFK and 9/11. Many people here believe both are conspiracies carried out by secret powers or cabals within the US government. Some of those people may believe in alien autopsies, though you'd have to ask them yourself.

On other boards I inhabit, there are people who believe in all three... as well as the Apollo hoax, chemtrails, weather control, etc, etc.

Well I would hope more than 1% believe that JFK was assassinated by a secret powerful cabal within the US government, as I do, one that will one day not be so secret but exposed.

I don't know anyone who believes in alien autopsies, so I wouldn't know who to ask.

If you know people who believe that JFK and 9/11 were government conspiracies, AND believe in alien autopsies, then you are putting all three together, and add on Apollo hoax, chemtrails and weather control for good measure.

Well, it just so happens that Agent Orange was sprayed on crops in Vietnam as a means of chemical warfare, and that the CIA did try to control the weather over Cuba in order to affect the sugar crop, so they aren't such radical conspiracy theories after all.

So now we have hard corps conspiracy theorists, as a defined class of people, down to less than 1% of the population, and Evan actually knows a few of them from some of the more bizarro forums he also belongs to.

I still don't buy it, and am now proposing the theory that such hard corps "Conspiracy Theorists" really don't exist, except in the minds of those who don't believe a conspiracy was behind the murder of JFK.

The only reason to link such bizzarre and unreasonable ideas to "conspiracy theorists" is to lump those rational and reasonable 80% of the people who beleive JFK was the victim of a conspiracy with those nut cases who really don't constitute a recognizable group of people at all.

Because, with the Feser article and now the one by Tirdad Derakhshani (is that a guy or a girl?), I thought I'd go over Tirdad's op-ed piece to see if there's anything really there.

BK in bold - The premise seems to be - everybody's a conspiracy theorist, and he/she is willing to gamble on it.

Conspiracy theories becoming self-evident truths.

By Tirdad Derakhshani

Everyone knows that John F. Kennedy was assassinated by an unholy alliance of the Feds, Cosa Nostra, and anti-Castro Cubans; that Princess Diana's car crash was staged by British intelligence; that the invasion of Iraq was never about WMDs.

Even if you don't believe these theories, I'd wager you still hold to others like them.

Ours is the age of the conspiracy.

Over the last four decades, more and more Americans have begun to accept conspiracy theories as if they were self-evident truths.

Four Decades - older than the person writing this, I'd wager.

Believers seem unconcerned about the growing chasm between their explanations of such tragedies as Hurricane Katrina (some say the Bush administration purposefully flooded New Orleans' poor, predominantly black neighborhoods) and the official story.

Establishing the conspiracy theory vs. the official story.

For their part, the news media write off conspiracy theorists out of professional prejudice or class bias, even when their claims may merit investigation. Not all conspiracy theories are fictions.

So there are serious conspiracies worth investigating officially, but the news media is reluctant to acknowldge this fact.

In an April 2001 Gallup Poll, 81 percent of Americans said President Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy. The numbers have steadily increased since 1963, when 52 percent said Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone.

81 percent of Americans are conspiracy theorists, up from 52 percent of forty-five years ago, and not to mention the continuing decrease in the lack of trust in government, which began in December, 1963 and has gotten worse and never recovered.

And, in an alarming commentary on our lack of trust in government, a 2006 Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll found that 36 percent of Americans believe federal officials assisted in the Sept. 11 attacks or did nothing to stop them.

This should not be surprising since any American who read the 9/11 Commission report knows that some of the hijackers stayed at the apartment of an FBI informant, they failed to uncover the network even after the first bombing of the WTC and assassination of Rhabi Kahane, and the Pakastani official who wired the terrorists the money for the job was in DC talking with officials on 9/11 when it happened. What more do they need to know to belive the feds assisted or did nothing to stop them? I'm surprised its only 36%, it should be more.

This irrational, contagious fever

Wait a minute. What irrational contagious fever? So far, we've established 80 percent of Americans believe JFK the victim of a conspiracy, and 36% belive the governemnt did nothing to prevent 9/11 even though they could and should have. What irrational and contagious fever? The truth?

is supported by an avalanche of often controversial, if dead-serious, books, TV shows, and films, including Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, Kiefer Sutherland's terrorist TV thriller, 24, Matt Damon's box-office killers, the Bourne trilogy - not to mention comic strips Doonesbury and Boondocks.

Wait another minute - what's "controversial or dead serous" about TV shows, fiction books and comics? That's what all these are right? Da Vinci Code, TV thriller, 24, Bourne, Doonesbury and Boondocks. Some good and funny, some not so good, but all fiction, right? Where's the controversary or dead serious what?

By comparison, a decade ago, the elaborate tales told in The X-Files and Millennium were taken with a grain of salt, if not dismissed.

And the others aren't?

There's a religious impulse behind the need to ascribe Diana's accident to a cabal of evildoers. Like the Christian notion of Providence, it helps us feel that there must have been some reason or purpose behind such a tragic accident.

That's what Ruth Paine and Priscilla Johnson McMillan say about the assassination of President Kennedy - those who see a conspiracy behind the wretched waif Oswald get to add meaning and understanding to an otherwise meaningless, tragic accident of history.

Some find it unbearable to see the universe as ruled by a play of contingent forces. For some, what we call an accident is merely a veil that hides mysterious motives.

Ah, yes, what Sun Tzu called "The Devine Scheim," world events orchestrated by unseen, heavenly forces, or as they appear when actually contrived by the wise leader who controlls all of the five types of secret agents, and gets them to work in a secret way that seems like magic. How the Oswalds met the Paines, how Oswald got the apartment in New Orleans and how Oswald got the job at the TSBD have all be demonstrated to be fatefull coincidences that no man could have contrived. Yet they had to be have all been contrived for there to have been a conspiracy. Yet they say there was no plan or meaning behind any of them, officially. The veil that hides mysterious motives.

The metaphysical need for meaning becomes dangerous when it hides the impersonal social, political, and economic processes that help define our lives. Raised on stories that locate the center of reality in the individual, we anthropomorphize these processes instead of investigating them.

anthropomorphize them instead of investigating them. Well this person certainly hasn't investigated the JFK assassination, or from what I can tell, any of the so-called conspiracies being discussed.

Consider how we talk about the stock market as if it were a person (of almost divine power). The business pages ascribe it volition, motives - even feelings.

Yea, the stock market is now more broke now than it was ten years ago, but it isn't panhandeling on the sidewalk. JFK was a real person, with feelings, the vicim of an unacknowleged conspiracy, but in death, is almost a devine power.

Conspiracy theories, which proliferate during periods of traumatic economic and social shifts, are a real form of protest by citizens angry over a system that makes them feel small, impotent.

Totally untrue. Conspiracy theories exist because there are conspiracies, and do not fluctuate with economic times, though it is easier for the masses to see governmental conspircies when they screw up, and may even spark political assassination if the masses do feel impotent.

Ironically, they end up reinforcing that powerlessness. Like the Greeks who preached amor fati in the face of the crushing power of Fate, conspiracy theories teach political quietism and social apathy. They shift the citizen's responsibility onto an imagined devil and make us self-identify as victims in need of salvation by a mythical hero.

I would think conspiracy theories encourage political activism to overcome the system that permits unbridaled assassination on a regular basis, and that there will be no salvaton by a mythical hero, who would be assassinated anyway.

Politicians and would-be demagogues capitalize on the frustration of people alienated from the mainstream by offering them scapegoats. Thus Sen. Joseph McCarthy's crusade against a Communist plot to infiltrate the highest echelons of government, a plot he called "a great conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man."

Now McCarthy saw the communist conspiracy taking over the government secretly, while JFK was killed openly, and the plot remains a secret.

Conspiracy devotees often talk in apocalyptic terms: They win assent not by appealing to logic but by whipping us into hysteria.

Whose hysterical? I don't see anybody frothing at the mouth over JFK being killed. Rather, JFK conspiracy devotes use logic to demonstrate the falacies of the official story, which begets a resignation, not hysteria.

Partisan politics is now waged in conspiracy speech, as Barack Obama learned when some Republicans made a big to-do about his middle name, Hussein. They implied that like Saddam Hussein, Obama must be a bad 'un. (Sarah Palin even suggested the Democrat hung out with terrorists.)

Isn't Tirdad Derakhshani doing the same thing here, by impliying a common bond between bizzare and irrational conspiracy theories and real conspiracies?

For artists, conspiracy tales can still be a potent form of social critique, as was the case during the golden age of paranoid films - the '70s. Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974) was a prescient allegory about the dangers of the surveillance society. Three Days of the Condor (1976), Winter Kills (1979), The Parallax View (1974) The Candidate (1972), and All the President's Men (1976) attacked systemic corruption and abuse of power.

These films often had bleak endings. Instead of offering comfort or closure, they inspired viewers not to hide from their anger. Since then, there has been a massive domestication of the conspiracy theory in the media and pop culture. (A conspiracy? More likely the result of economic and political shifts.)

With a few exceptions, today's conspiracy thrillers do not criticize the system itself. Films such as The Shooter (2007), The Bourne trilogy (2002, 2004, 2007), Wag the Dog (1998) and The Matrix (1999) ascribe corruption to evil persons who have infiltrated the system - which itself stays fundamentally good. The evildoers are invariably defeated, mano a mano, by a hero who perpetuates the myth of radical individualism.

These films offer catharsis and closure - the bad guys are killed or put away. We feel sated, not impelled to take political action to reform perceived corruption.

Most of all, they keep us in a realm of grand fictions that offer only imaginary solutions to real and often intractable problems.

The real and intractable problem stems from the Godmother of all conspiracy theories, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the failure of the government to properly investigatge and fully resolve the murder, which has led not only to a steady increase in the lack of confidence in the government, but makes political assassination the most significant threat to national security today.

The real solution to the assassination of President Kennedy will be devised when all the government records are released, the truth is revealed and those responsible for the crime and the coverup face justice.

[Evan Burton]

Bill - slight confusion there. You were talking about people who I said tended to believe most all conspiracies they hear about. I would put that group at about 0.1% of a population - and that may be too high. It does NOT refer to the percentage of people who believe JFK was taken down by means other than a lone gunman; I believe the percentage of people who believe that is significantly higher.

I don't want to sidetrack the thread, but the chemtrail stuff is not chemical warfare we know about. These people claim that ordinary contrails we see from jet airliners every day are some type of government plot. Likewise, the weather control is not the type we do know about; it's stuff like that Katrina was caused by the government, etc.

But yes, there are indeed "bizarro" people out there who believe all sorts of things. Souls being transported to Mars, which is actually green and has a atmosphere capable of supporting human life unaided? How about the lady who showed sunlight going through her sprinkler spray, which produced a rainbow. She said it was proof of chemicals in the water supply because it never happened when she was growing up.

Those type of people - very small in number - are the whackos. Just because someone believes in a conspiracy of some type does not make them unstable, unintelligent, stupid, gullible, etc, etc, etc. If you believe everything is a conspiracy, then you need psychiatric help.

[John Simkin]

Simplify ONLY SLIGHTLY, there has IMO only ever been one political conspiracy - ongoing over time and continuing today. That conspiracy is for a small group of powerful [rich] persons to try to control everyone and everything other. They do that through a variety of means and use persons, organizations, agencies, et al. They use deception, controlled media, circus, distracting attention, false-flag, lies and other means in their bag of tricks. I find all the conspiracies that I know are reality are connected in this way. To NOT see them is to be too embedded, in denial [Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome], too naive, or complicit.

These things can not be explained by coincidence and the evidence clearly points toward, or is clearly [sometimes even admitted or documented as] conspiracy. It is like a hydra - multi-headed that we see the various operations, but there is only one corpus running the entire thing [the would be Oligarchy] for their benefit, and for most humans [and other living things] deficit. Hasn't changed much in a few thousand years. Sadly. About time we do something about it.

I agree with this assessment. Since the introduction of democratic features of the political system in the 19th century (I would not go as far as to say it is a democracy), the power elite have been forced to conspire against the masses in order to keep control of the system.

[Dawn Meredith]

I'd say 10% is too great a figure. Perhaps 0.1% would be more accurate (and that's still a guess). Some, however, may reside on this very board. You mentioned JFK and 9/11. Many people here believe both are conspiracies carried out by secret powers or cabals within the US government. Some of those people may believe in alien autopsies, though you'd have to ask them yourself.

On other boards I inhabit, there are people who believe in all three... as well as the Apollo hoax, chemtrails, weather control, etc, etc.

You are just plain wrong on the JFk case. The percentage of Americans who believe it was a conspiracy has always been very high. Way higher than 10%. At one point it was about 70%. And higher in counrties outside the US.

Most people know the alien autopsy stuff was a scam. But this is what anti- conspiarcy folks like you do: lump true conspiracy with lunacy so you can better debunk it all.

Dawn

[Cliff Varnell]

This is the central fallacy of Fesser and Simkin's view -- lump all conspiracy

theories together and then attribute all of them to "most" if not "all" researchers.

I am not sure you have actually read my posts on this thread.

I did. Which is why your following statement was so jarring:

The problem with most “conspiracy theorists” is that they seem to believe everything is a conspiracy. They even think this forum is part of a conspiracy.

Anyone who posts heavily is going to be accused of being some kind of

"government disinfo agent" at one time or another.

I know I have.

Pays to have a thick skin, eh?

I have attacked Fesser's view of lumping together people who believe that there was a conspiracy to kill JFK and those that believe 9/11 was some sort of government operation.

As I tried to point out, this is an attempt to smear those who are part of the 80% who believe this as being “conspiracy theorists”. This is a common tactic. In the UK, whenever some one put forwards a theory that involves the government trying to keep something secret, they are immediately described as a "conspiracy theorist". Our main campaigner for freedom of information in Parliament is Norman Baker. When he wrote a recent book on the death of Dr. David Kelly he was immediately dismissed by the BBC (it is always vitally important that is the BBC that starts the ball rolling as it is accepted by the masses as being objective) as a “conspiracy theorist”.

As I tried to point out, this is an attempt to smear those who are part of the 80% who believe that there was a conspiracy to kill JFK. Unfortunately, there are a very small number of people who do appear to believe that a whole series of events are part of some sort of large US government conspiracy: 9/11, moon landings, alien visits, etc. [

Great!

We've gone from "most conspiracy theorists" to "a very small number of people."

It is indeed very tempting to describe these people as conspiracy theorists. Especially, as they are also the same group of people who claim that Andy and I use this forum to deny them freedom of speech by deleting postings, banning members, etc. As someone who has been on the receiving end of this type of nonsense, it is not difficult to believe that a group of people can indeed be categorized as “conspiracy theorists”. The existence of this group will continue to make it difficult for those who believe as I do, that in some cases, such as the deaths of JFK and David Kelly, governments conspire against the people.

Allow me this moment to thank you and Andy for the work you've done to provide

this wonderful forum.

Edited March 3, 2009 by Cliff Varnell

[Len Colby]

[...]

I defy you to show that I have made a “concerted effort” to show “that there is a select group of people, like Democrats or Republicans, or liberals or conservatives, who can be defined as "conspiracy theorirsts,"”

[...]

forgive the question, why should any US citizen give a good healthy s*** what foreigners or lost ex-pats opinions are concerning "defined" American conspiracy theorists? You, John Simkin, Andy the bowtie, etc.... have no dog in this beef why do you bother? Hobby? Or just keeping website hit numbers up?

What a delightfully dumb remark (even by your standards) since it was made on a forum dedicated to discussing the Kennedy assassination and other American (for the most part) “conspiracy” theories run by two Englishmen about half of whose members are “foreigners or lost ex-pats”. Perhaps Kathy should put John, Andy, the other mods and all members who don’t reside in the US on moderation only allowing them to opine on the goings on in their parts of the world. Shall I take you make an exception for John Costella to your view that no “US citizen give a good healthy s*** what foreigners…opinions are” regarding such matters?

[Len Colby]

33%-50% [[" of Americans"]] (depending on how you word the question) of Americans think 9-11 was also an alternate conspiracy (but NOT the official conspiracy!)...and growing much faster than JFK............sorry coincidence theorists...you will be buried by history, soon!

Rubbish! While many American's believe that Bush covered up aspects of 9/11 a relatively small number believe what Jack, Cliff and Peter etc do. A 2006 Scripps- Howard polled showed that only 16% of Americans thought it "very likely" that "People in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East." ans 20% though this "somewhat likely" (i.e. maybe). When asked about things like a missile hitting the Pentagon and explosives being planted in the towers the numbers are even lower.

IIRC More renct polls have show even less people subscribing to such theories

http://www.scrippsnews.com/911polldata

PS I love how Dawn blatently took Evan's quote out of context and then "corrected" him

[Evan Burton]

I'd say 10% is too great a figure. Perhaps 0.1% would be more accurate (and that's still a guess). Some, however, may reside on this very board. You mentioned JFK and 9/11. Many people here believe both are conspiracies carried out by secret powers or cabals within the US government. Some of those people may believe in alien autopsies, though you'd have to ask them yourself.

On other boards I inhabit, there are people who believe in all three... as well as the Apollo hoax, chemtrails, weather control, etc, etc.

You are just plain wrong on the JFk case. The percentage of Americans who believe it was a conspiracy has always been very high. Way higher than 10%. At one point it was about 70%. And higher in counrties outside the US.

Most people know the alien autopsy stuff was a scam. But this is what anti- conspiarcy folks like you do: lump true conspiracy with lunacy so you can better debunk it all.

Dawn

Dawn,

If you had read my previous post, you would see that I corrected Bill in that I was referring to the percentage of people who believed in all three conspiracies he mentioned (JFK, 9/11, and alien autopsies) and more - in other words, the people who tend to believe almost any conspiracy theory that is put before them. Nowhere have I said that the number of people who believe JFK was subject to a conspiracy was that low; I agree that it could be as high as 70%.

Please don't misquote me. Thanks.

[John Dolva]

Peter, the q re bush attack on iraq narrates statements

"Bush Administration exploited the September 11th attacks to justify the invasion of Iraq"

"Bush acted correctly by going into Iraq because Saddam Hussein supported terrorism."

"Who are you more likely to agree with?"

(agree with what?:

Bush exploited Sept. 11th attacks.

Bush justified an attack on Iraq

Neither/Not sure

conclusion: "People are completely divided on whether they believe President Bush exploited the 9/11 attacks (44%) or justified an attack on Iraq (44%). Approximately one in ten (11%) is not sure."

Does that make sense?

edit:typo

Edited March 4, 2009 by John Dolva

[Len Colby]

33%-50% [[" of Americans"]] (depending on how you word the question) of Americans think 9-11 was also an alternate conspiracy (but NOT the official conspiracy!)...and growing much faster than JFK............sorry coincidence theorists...you will be buried by history, soon!

Rubbish! While many American's believe that Bush covered up aspects of 9/11 a relatively small number believe what Jack, Cliff and Peter etc do. A 2006 Scripps- Howard polled showed that only 16% of Americans thought it "very likely" that "People in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East." ans 20% though this "somewhat likely" (i.e. maybe). When asked about things like a missile hitting the Pentagon and explosives being planted in the towers the numbers are even lower.

IIRC More renct polls have show even less people subscribing to such theories

http://www.scrippsnews.com/911polldata

By the way Len, you never answered my question posed to you. You always like to DEMAND others confront YOUR questions. My question again, is there any conspiracy you admit to having happened?

If you were paying attention you’d have noticed a few times I’ve mentioned the conspiracies I believe in JFK, October Surprise, faking the info on WMD’s in Iraq, covering up the toxicity of Ground Zero etc. Some of the items from your list are historic fact (Op. Paperclip, ULTRA, Iran-Conta, US involvement in various coups {Iran, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala}) others I never heard about.

What Len says above is just false. He thinks if he keeps saying it, or something like it, it will have some effect hiding the reality of a conspiracy. As, I said, 'like father like son'. You're 'blowing smoke' Len. Here is from 2006 [recent polls, show up your defense of the indefensible as even less regarded by most Americans.]

Saying you think

1) “the Bush Administration exploited the September 11th attacks to justify the invasion of Iraq”

OR

2) “the US government and its 9/11 Commission concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence that contradicts their official explanation of the September 11th attacks”

etc

…is not the same as saying you believe the USG perpetrated the attacks or intentionally let them happen especially when the respondents were asked leading questions. I would have answered yes to the first and perhaps even the 2nd.

More and more detailed polls whre up to 84% reject the official conspiracy en toto here

Typical Truther stupidity they count the people who said they were “not sure” (3%) and that “members of the Bush Administration… are mostly telling the truth but hiding something” 53% to get to 84%. Only 28% said they were “mostly lying”. Most of the other polls were internet ones which only a complete idiot would cite as being reflective of public opinion

[Thomas H. Purvis]

33%-50% [[" of Americans"]] (depending on how you word the question) of Americans think 9-11 was also an alternate conspiracy (but NOT the official conspiracy!)...and growing much faster than JFK............sorry coincidence theorists...you will be buried by history, soon!

Rubbish! While many American's believe that Bush covered up aspects of 9/11 a relatively small number believe what Jack, Cliff and Peter etc do. A 2006 Scripps- Howard polled showed that only 16% of Americans thought it "very likely" that "People in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East." ans 20% though this "somewhat likely" (i.e. maybe). When asked about things like a missile hitting the Pentagon and explosives being planted in the towers the numbers are even lower.

IIRC More renct polls have show even less people subscribing to such theories

http://www.scrippsnews.com/911polldata

By the way Len, you never answered my question posed to you. You always like to DEMAND others confront YOUR questions. My question again, is there any conspiracy you admit to having happened?

If you were paying attention you’d have noticed a few times I’ve mentioned the conspiracies I believe in JFK, October Surprise, faking the info on WMD’s in Iraq, covering up the toxicity of Ground Zero etc. Some of the items from your list are historic fact (Op. Paperclip, ULTRA, Iran-Conta, US involvement in various coups {Iran, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala}) others I never heard about.

What Len says above is just false. He thinks if he keeps saying it, or something like it, it will have some effect hiding the reality of a conspiracy. As, I said, 'like father like son'. You're 'blowing smoke' Len. Here is from 2006 [recent polls, show up your defense of the indefensible as even less regarded by most Americans.]

Saying you think

1) “the Bush Administration exploited the September 11th attacks to justify the invasion of Iraq”

OR

2) “the US government and its 9/11 Commission concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence that contradicts their official explanation of the September 11th attacks”

etc

…is not the same as saying you believe the USG perpetrated the attacks or intentionally let them happen especially when the respondents were asked leading questions. I would have answered yes to the first and perhaps even the 2nd.

More and more detailed polls whre up to 84% reject the official conspiracy en toto here

Typical Truther stupidity they count the people who said they were “not sure” (3%) and that “members of the Bush Administration… are mostly telling the truth but hiding something” 53% to get to 84%. Only 28% said they were “mostly lying”. Most of the other polls were internet ones which only a complete idiot would cite as being reflective of public opinion

"which only a complete idiot would cite"

Which most assuredly has not caused many here (& elsewhere) to cease to continue to cite completely idiotic claims in regards to the JFK assassination as well as many other "conspiracy" topics.

Yes Virginia! There is intelligent life on earth. It is alive and well in Brazil!

[Len Colby]

The truther illusion that about half the US population agree with them is not only contradicted by polls but by the verdict in the Zacarias Mousssaoui trial. If even one juror had “reasonable doubt” it would have ended in a mistrial, but all 12 voted to convict. The defendant never denied that Al Queda, which he admitted membership in, was responsible, he even admitted that he had be part of a similar plot.