Why spreading conspiracy theories is dangerous

Quiet you.

I'm being totally serious about the drug and anti-immigration thing. Have we talked about ALEC before?

 

Quite literally. We've had cases in the US of a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), supported by notable private prison companies like the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), writing legislation, then passing it on to legislators who enact it. An investigation found that ALEC coordinated meetings between legislators in Arizona and the CCA before SB 1070 (an anti-immigration law in Arizona) was passed. A Texas State representative and ALEC member drafted a Prison Industries Employment act modification that allowed for garnished revenues from prison employees to be put towards the expansion of private prisons - no possibility of corruption there. Recently a whistleblower released 800 different bills drafted by ALEC and then passed down to politicians.

Exposing ALEC: How Conservative-Backed State Laws Are All Connected

ALEC maintains that it's simply democracy in action; corporations have a right to advocate for themselves. By the same token, I'm not sure how much I trust the collusion between corporations dependent upon profit margins and politicians dependent upon big money donations from the same corporations that offer drafts of the legislation.

 

This very much sums up how I view most of them.

I see conspiracy theories pop up for every major event. I'm sure there are some cases were a conspiracy is true, but to have them appear so frequently is just the boy who cried wolf; they undermine any valid conspiracy that should be considered.

 

I'll leave that to the philosophers. Oh wait. :[

 

Speaking of conspiracy theories, Paul Manafort and Robert Gates have just been indicted for conspiring against the United States. At the same time, George Papadopoulos has pled guilty to lying and has furnished emails showing him attempting to give the Trump campaign damaging information on Hilary from Russian sources. Trump, in usual fashion, has defended himself by denying everything. Things are starting to get good. Whether this comes to anything given the current Congress and Senate is... well, I'm not sure that it will. If the tax deal is not pushed through, I'd expect more Republicans to begin defecting.

 

I sense some of you have had inoculations *thinking face*.

But yeah what @axelb said, Conspiracy hypothsis is not bad, its jsut the ones which have been proven right are far and few inbetween but you need to look at all them once, nothing wrong with being skeptical of anyones intentions or how things work. Its so easy to go "its a conspiracy theory thus wrong" though to try and shut down anything.

 

Yeah man, I remember you posting an article about a state representative forgetting to remove the ALEC pro former heading from a resolution. The Illuminati don't even have to try anymore...

 

Bizarrely I was looking up "true" conspiracy theories, and the entire lead in petrol thing does kinda count.

Industry funding of research into the safety of lead downgraded the health risks of inhaling lead.

The Secret History of Lead

 

Dupont and c8
True conspiracy

 

I've had a fascination with conspiracies and hidden history for as long as I can remember. One thing about conspiracy theories though; upwards of 90% of them lead to the Jews.

I've been reading a bit recently about US corporate investment in the Nazi regime. Henry Ford got a medal from Hitler! Alan Dulles was a partner in an international law firm that oversaw much of the US business ties to the Nazis, he was also working as a spy for the US but he saw the Communists as the real enemy (and, of course, Jews were responsible for Communism). Dulles then went on to become the first civilian head of the CIA, and was responsible for helping Nazi war criminals escape justice in return for their services. All of this is entangled with anti labour law, anti semitic strikebreakers, and leads to the McCarthy anti-American hearings that also targeted prominent Jews for their socialist views. Most people know about the Nazi's reliance on synthesised oil they produced from the coal mines of the illegally militarised Rhineland, but not many people know that it wouldn't have happened without the help of Standard Oil. Standard Oil being owned by the Rockefellers.

Just yesterday I was listening to a BBC radio documentary about a British secret service plot to facilitate the assassination of Lenin. To this day there are files the government won't release about it.

Then you have ones that often get tied up to silly fantasies, but are a genuine conspiracy, like the Freemasons. Anyone remember Tony Blair's manifesto pledge to create a register of police who are Freemasons? Once he became Prime Minister that changed to a voluntary register. If you get arrested and charged, it is not entirely unlikely that the arresting officer, your defence council, the prosecution council and the judge are all Freemasons. If that's not a recipe for corruption and conspiracy, I don't know what is.

 

Another couple of good ones:

CIA and DEA involved in the crack epidemic: CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking - Wikipedia

Alleged coup plot against Harold Wilson: Harold Wilson conspiracy theories - Wikipedia

Seeing a theme here? The people who control capital get paranoid about their ability to hold a monopoly on it, so they do terrible things against perceived conspiracies against them. Going back to Foucault's Pendulum, a lot of real conspiracies are created in reaction to imaginary conspiracies.

Crazy makes the world go round.