14 common features of conspiracy theories

[LoZoccolo]

Allegations exhibiting several of the following features are candidates for classification as conspiracy theories. Confidence in such classification improves the more such features are exhibited:

1. Initiated on the basis of limited, partial or circumstantial evidence;
Conceived in reaction to media reports and images, as opposed to, for example, thorough knowledge of the relevant forensic evidence.
2. Addresses an event or process that has broad historical or emotional impact;
Seeks to interpret a phenomenon which has near-universal interest and emotional significance, a story that may thus be of some compelling interest to a wide audience.
3. Reduces morally complex social phenomena to simple, immoral actions;
Impersonal, institutional processes, especially errors and oversights, interpreted as malign, consciously intended and designed by immoral individuals.
4. Personifies complex social phenomena as powerful individual conspirators;
Related to (3) but distinct from it, deduces the existence of powerful individual conspirators from the 'impossibility' that a chain of events lacked direction by a person.
5. Allots superhuman talents or resources to conspirators;
May require conspirators to possess unique discipline, unrepentant resolve, advanced or unknown technology, uncommon psychological insight, historical foresight, unlimited resources, etc.
6. Key steps in argument rely on inductive, not deductive reasoning;
Inductive steps are mistaken to bear as much confidence as deductive ones.
7. Appeals to 'common sense';
Common sense steps substitute for the more robust, academically respectable methodologies available for investigating sociological and scientific phenomena.
8. Exhibits well-established logical and methodological fallacies;
Formal and informal logical fallacies are readily identifiable among the key steps of the argument.
9. Is produced and circulated by 'outsiders', often anonymous, and generally lacking peer review;
Story originates with a person who lacks any insider contact or knowledge, and enjoys popularity among persons who lack critical (especially technical) knowledge.
10. Is upheld by persons with demonstrably false conceptions of relevant science;
At least some of the story's believers believe it on the basis of a mistaken grasp of elementary scientific facts.
11. Enjoys zero credibility in expert communities;
Academics and professionals tend to ignore the story, treating it as too frivolous to invest their time and risk their personal authority in disproving.
12. Rebuttals provided by experts are ignored or accommodated through elaborate new twists in the narrative;
When experts do respond to the story with critical new evidence, the conspiracy is elaborated (sometimes to a spectacular degree) to discount the new evidence, often incorporating the rebuttal as a part of the conspiracy.
13. The conspiracy is claimed to involve just about anybody;
Conspiracy tales grow in the telling, and can swell to world-spanning proportions. As the adherents struggle to explain counter-arguments, the conspiracy grows even more (see preceding item). Conspiracy theories that have been around for a few decades typically encompass the whole world and huge portions of history.
14. The conspiracy centers on the "usual suspects";
Classical conspiracy theories feature people, groups or organsations that are discriminated against in the culture where the story is told. Jews and foreigners are a common target. Likewise, organisations with a bad or colorful reputation feature prominently, such as the templars, the nazis and just about any secret service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theories#Features

Note to mods: permission has been given to reprint Wikipedia material under this license:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights

[pauldp]

1. Well I'm glad I don't have to worry about Diebold anymore.

I guess the voting machine suspicion is just a crazy conspiracy theory. Tom Delay was right.

[LoZoccolo]

3. Did you read this before you hijacked the thread? n/t

[AllieB]

5. How does one post constitute a hijacking?

Your assertion appears a bit combative.

[LoZoccolo]

7. Wait and see. n/t

[AllieB]

4. Yup, even though there's staitstical evidence

from various sources to back it up, it's still a conspiracy theory.

[LoZoccolo]

6. You know, I asked for stuff about Ohio.

I got a bunch of "if you don't see it, you're blind", so I stopped believing it. And then you people hijack every thread you can; it's obnoxious. Now whether or not something really happened, doesn't matter much in terms of raising awareness of it, because the tactics you people use to try to do so are giving it all the earmarks of something that's not true.

[AllieB]

8. I'm not 'you people'

and forgive me, but it appears that you have a history of posting threads that become divisive and could be construed as disruptive. Do you just enjoy seeing your threads disintegrate into flames, or are you really tryong to foster open discussion?

[LoZoccolo]

16. I admit my posts sometimes have a contrarian flavor.

I've explained this before: I do not like to post things which aren't novel. I don't like to "also-post", nor do I like to start a whole thread stating two lines of my opinion or expressing how I feel as opposed to how I think or what would be good for us. I don't like to rant just to see people cheer me on.

I don't think that posting a list of common fallacies, neutral of any political content, can possibly be construed as "divisive" to a reasonable person.

What's funny is that I get accused of being a disruptor time and time again, but my opinions are pretty in line with the mainstream of the membership of the Democratic Party (as opposed to people who count spending a lot of time complaining on the Internet as activism).

Yes, I think an examination of common erroneous rhetorical tactics used in conspiracy theories is a good topic for discussion. You got me to admit it. I confess.

[Nostradammit]

25. Are people conspiring to hijack every thread they can?

Is that what's happening here?

[LoZoccolo]

45. I'm not sure they need to conspire.

I've seen it happen so many times, for instance, where we're talking about what it would take to win 2006, and then someone comes on and says "none of that matters because the voting machines...", etcetera. That's just a simple little trick used to derail one discussion and start another that other of the voting-machine people can pick up on and imitate. There's really no conspiring necessary for people to put that tactic in their bag of tricks.

[sandnsea]

36. Actually, no you don't

You need to worry about ALL the computerized machines because ANY computer can have faulty programming, accidental or deliberate. The screw ups today in Pennsylvania weren't Diebold at all. So how do we confront the faultiness of those machines when we've been blathering about a Diebold conspiracy for 4 years.

[LoZoccolo]

46. EXACTLY.

There seems to be a common enough and demonstrated lack of reliability, and enough difficulty maintaining a voting machine of such complexity when something goes wrong, that a strong enough case can be made from the non-controversial and undubious information we already have.

[pauldp]

56. The way we confront the machines

is by demanding 1) a paper trail for existing ones.
2)opening the source code. 3) ultimately working to get rid of them
and replace them with more transparent systems like optiscan paper ballots
with high percentage random hand recounts.

Obviously we need to worry about all the voting machine maufacturers
Diebold is just the most high profile one. Just look at the Election
Reform forum and you will see plenty of effort is being made to
confront the machines. These efforts are being met with fierce resistance
from the Republicans in congress. A Diebold whistle blower has said that the company
knew about the security flaws and created an atmosphere of intimidation
to keep employees quiet. If you think Diebold's security flaws are
innocent you must really not be aware of all the evidence against them.

The point is it is the Republicans (Check out some of Tom Delay's remarks) who have pushed the "crazy conspiracy theory meme" with respect to this issue while simultaneously working to thwart efforts to build more transparency into the system.

[Junkdrawer]

42. Please. Stop offering legitimate contradictions to his putdowns...

It's just not nice.

[MervinFerd]

68. It's crazy only if its crazy. If its reasonable, its not crazy.

[shadowknows69]

2. 15

They're all TRUE!!! :bounce:

"He's gone funny"
-Berthold

[benburch]

9. Bookmarking this one... nt

[AllieB]

10. Yup.

:popcorn:

[Wonk]

11. You just described the official story of what happened on 9/11/01, too

[frylock]

12. the ironing is delicious

[raccoon]

47. What, you mean, the CIA ironed Osama's robes?

Don't you mean irony?

[MervinFerd]

69. In which of the 14 points does fit the pattern?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

13. So, I take it that you support the official 911 conspiracy? You know,....

...the one that the NeoCon Junta wants you to believe?

When terrorist events or assassinations take place in other countries they automatically ask who did it, how many were involved, and who was behind it. Nobody in those countries are ridiculed for asking those questions.

Why do you believe conspiracies don't happen in the U. S.?

How many NeoCons were involved in the outing of Valerie Plame? If your answer is two or more, that's a conspiracy.

How many people were involved in the assassination of Lincoln?

How many people were involved in Watergate and the associated cover-up?

How many people were involved in the attempted coup against FDR?

Gee...looks like conspiracies happen quite often in the U. S., doesn't it?

People who ridicule those who believe in conspiracies usually trot out the same tired list of 14 points as if it's the apex of critical thinking. Sorry, but no.

[pauldp]

15. You forgot Iran Contra

that was a doozie - and what did they get? a few slaps on the wrist and Ollie North got a talk show.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

18. Geez....how did I forget that one?? Yikes!

[LoZoccolo]

17. "Why do you believe conspiracies don't happen in the U. S.?"

Why do you believe that that's what I was saying?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

19. Gee...maybe it was the 14 points you posted.

[LoZoccolo]

20. That doesn't make sense.

My post was about clearly identifiable dubious features in conspiracy theories, not conspiracies themselves.

[bananas]

22. The official 9/11 conspiracy theory is wrong - it was pilot error.

All this talk of conspiracies is nonsense.
Bush was right - they were just lousy pilots.

[Yollam]

30. That's exactly what's wrong with your thread.

A theory of how a conspiracy is carried out is not necessarily baseless or fraudulent, crazy or full of logical holes. But here you are perpetuating that very meme.

There are plenty of theories that I can't put much stock in - pre-set charges at the WTC - esp. WTC7, the notion that a missile, not a jet hit the pentagon - these stretch credibility, IMO, but I certainly am glad that there are people looking at every angle of the story, since the government utterly refused to do so.

I will admit to misunderstanding your intent in the OP, but I vehemently disagree with your promotion of the use of "conspiracy theory" as a synonym for "crackpot theory". We should be trying to differentiate the two as much as possible.

[ClusterFreak]

14. Uh oh, some egghead has come up with a list....

...better never question anything ever again, or you're a conspiracy nut.

Nah. I'd rather debate, discuss, argue, debunk, and fight to find out the truth.

Fuck blind obedience to the official version of ANYTHING.

Ask questions, demand answers.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LoZoccolo]

23. I don't think you're allowed to tell me where I can stick it.

I think it would be construed as a personal attack.

I also do not tolerate people telling me that I did something in a "deliberate" fashion when they don't know that to be true. Your first two paragraphs were decent, but then you revert to manipulative tactics in the second two. As I'm managing my time before the 2006 election, which involves steering clear of people who disrespect me in particular and good rhetoric in general, you can just look forward to being put on ignore until then.

[Yollam]

27. YOU started the disrespect with your OP

Your lumping together of people who are curious and want REAL investigations rather than whitewashes in with UFO & Bigfoot crackpots under the umbrella of "conspiracy theory" is the height of disrespect. Much like the right has done with the word "liberal", people like who, defenders of the status quo, have taken a perfectly good word and turned it into something unrecognizable.

And lucky for me, I'm on your ignore list, so I don't have to read any tedious replies to this message.

Personally, I don't use the ignore feature. I read what everyone has to say, even if it's rude, or I disagree with it. I don't go run and hide behind a button.

But I suppose you deserve some credit - most Kerryites think he won in a landslide and that the election was a total fraud. But not you, you don't use 'conspiracy theories' like that as a copout for Kerry's dismally-run campaign. Kudos on your honesty.

[T Town Jake]

37. That "disrespect" you're yakking about, to the extent it truly exists...

...has been duly earned by the so-called "conspiracy theorists," aka the :tinfoilhat: crowd.

Your post here is Exhibit A in that catalog.

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[T Town Jake]

40. I take "conspiracy theories" with a BLOCK of salt, but you make a fair...

...point about the attempts to control the language by the Ranting Right.

I just don't see it here, vis-a-vi this issue. Guess that makes me a "status -quo" Democrat to some, but so be it.

[MervinFerd]

104. deleted

[On the Road]

24. People Need to Know How to Argue

And those 14 points are still violated routinely on DU. It does not help the cause. In fact, it can undermine it more effectively than any right-wing rejoinder.

Didn't anyone see "Thank You for Smoking?" In public debates, as long as you can disprove an argument of your opponent, it may unnecessary to prove your own point. You have won in the court of pubic opinion. Theories propounded as fact without sufficient evidence are the easiest thing for an opponent to seize hold of use to neutralize an entire set of issues that otherwise might have merit.

It's what happened with the Texas National Guard letters. It's even a reason to suspect (without being able to prove it) that those letters might have been a setup.

And much as folks here might not want to believe it, it's what happened with the September 11 attacks and the 2004 election. I don't know whether the machines were hacked, but I do know that in the court of public opinion, those are dead issues.

[pauldp]

28. The court of public opinion

is very influenced by the mass media wouldn't you say?

So is the problem that we don't know how to argue, or that the media
influences people to believe certain issues are "dead", or both?

[Yollam]

31. It's also the corporate mass media that has conditioned people to think...

...that "conspiracy theory" is synonymous with "crackpot theory". They are becoming so in the popular vernacular, and they shouldn't be. It's a deliberate way of shutting down ALL investigations into conspiracies of any kind, whether farfetched or obvious.

The that the supreme court of the state of florida found AGAINST Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush and for disenfranchised black voters in 2002, and mandated their reinstatement, was a matter of fact. It was barely reported by the news media in those Bush-loving days, but it did happen, and I have been called a "conspiracy theorist" just for mentioning that. It has become a catch-all word that the establishment and the right use to slap down ANY story that reflects badly on them.

[On the Road]

32. It's More Than the Media

There are many spheres. One of them is politically minded people who are either Democrats or independent but are willing to entertain arguments from the Democratic side.

If an issue doesn't get traction there, it's unlikely to move on to the general public. The MIHOP theories -- or the way they're typically argued -- demonstrate many of the 14 characteristics and have been unsuccessful. Some of them are better than others -- the French site ("Test Your Perceptions and Find the Boeing") was pretty good for a nontechnical argument. I personally gave a lot of weight to those arguments at the time.

However, in the four years since, I have gradually come across other explanations that to me seem more likely. I don't fault people for coming to a different conclusion, but I do fault people who persistently press their point using rhetorical devices like the 14 characteristics.

My point about the court of public opinion is a practical one. Let's say Bush knew about the Sep 11 plot and decided to let it proceed to create a new Pearl Harbor. Revealing that would create a political earthquake and sweep Democrats into power. The "conspiracy theories" have made it difficult for open-minded individuals to even conceive of that as a possibility.

Conspiracy theories have come to mean missiles at the Pentagon, scheduled flights replaced by remotely-controlled drones, and controlled demolition. Those eclipse political conspiracies and effectively bury them.

[pauldp]

34. there are also those in the "911 was an inside job" camp

who have observed the way the media distracts the public from relevant
news. Stories of missing white girls dominate the cable news while
the Downing Street Memo got buried for months. Revealing that
the administration lied about the case for war should have created a political earthquake.
Yet despite all the strong evidence to support that "conspiracy theory", the media continues to
distract and mis-direct. Conspiracy theories have come to mean missiles at the Pentagon and
controlled demolition in large part because the media dropped the ball on following
up on things like the Times of India reporting that the ISI paid Mohamed Atta. Or
Sibel Edmonds revealing that she saw documents detailing how the US government
knew specific information about the attacks before they happened, and now she is the
most gagged person in US history. The "conspiracy theories" have made it difficult for open-minded individuals
in large part because they were what the media reported (witness today for example) and simultaneously slandered.
Had they been doing their job they would have revealed the less sexy but equally disturbing truths for which strong evidence existed.

[Yollam]

39. Excellent post.

What he said.

[On the Road]

54. Absolutely in Agreement

Improbable conspiracy theories cause people to reject out of hand the kind of plausible conspiracies that have often happened throughout history.

[longship]

26. I just love the tin foil mad hatter responses here.

They fully substantiate the characteristics in the original post.
Special pleading, straw men, and all the rest of the fallacious logic are evident.

Oh, and let's not forget, jumping to conclusions.

The tin foil hat crowd are afraid of any discipline that requires accountability and a unbroken trail of evidence. They want to be able to create any theory, regardless of the facts (which they make up out of whole cloth anyway), and then cherry pick from the facts to substantiate their paranoid delusions.

Note that I am not saying that I accept the 9/11 commission report, nor do I say that there are an absolutely huge number of questions unanswered about 9/11. However, I am saying that space aliens, the comet Halle-Bopp, and the Canadian Triangle had absolutely nothing to do with the events of 9/11.

However, given the chain of evidence, which is available to anybody who wants to take the trouble to look at it, one cannot escape the conclusion that three airliners collided with three buildings on 9/11. Two of those buildings collapsed directly because of those collisions. A third building collapsed because of the severe damage done by the nearby collapse of the two. There were no missiles. There were no explosives other than the fuel laden airliners themselves.

Again, I am not buying the administration's versions of events. I am only following the chain of evidence that is available to anybody who wants to take the trouble to follow it. That, with my experience and education in physics and engineering is sufficient for me to make those conclusions.

Nice capture. These things need to be said over and over and over again on these forums. I'm sick to death of the lunatics who see global conspiracy in every event. They are people without a single shred of academic discipline. Unfortunately, that is precisely what is needed to come to the correct conclusions in matters such as these.

[Karmakaze]

41. The evidence is available for anyone who cares to look.

And yet it isn't.

In fact much of the evidence was intentionally and systematically destroyed before ANY investigation official or otherwise could take place.

The converse is also true. There is evidence that what happened that day was NOT simply the result of three airliners crashing into buildings. It's there, if only you care to look.

[longship]

60. For instance, Flight 77.

The tin foil mad hatters screech about "where's the video tape" and conveniently ignore the hundreds of eyewitnesses who saw a large airliner crash into the Pentagon.

[MervinFerd]

67. The witnesses were bribed. $91,100 dollars each.

[nemo137]

29. Hanlon's Razor?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock-up_theory

"Many journalists have fallen for the conspiracy theory of government. I do assure you that they would produce more accurate work if they adhered to the cock-up theory."

[applegrove]

33. Paul Krugman did a great piece on this last week. What it boils down

to is a theory that involves putting many people together who normally are not together and do not know each other.

If they know each other and work together as a team or follow a leader(s) then it is not a conspiracy theory. ie: believing neocons are evil is not a conspiracy theory because they actually do act together towards a common end. When it is a fact people all know each other and take a pattern of action - it is called reality.

[T Town Jake]

35. Historian Richard Hofstadter on this very phenomenon...

...more than forty years ago:

"The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms—he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millenialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date for the apocalypse...

"As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated—if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration (emphasis added). Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes...

"The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman—sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills, indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will. Very often the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press; he has unlimited funds; he has a new secret for influencing the mind (brainwashing); he has a special technique for seduction...."

Every time I encounter members of the :tinfoilhat: crew from either the Right (remember frothing-at-the-mouth conservatives going on about Vince Foster and Waco during the Clinton years?) or Left, I think of this passage from his groundbreaking essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics."

It is just as correct today as it was back then.

[LoZoccolo]

48. Lots of good stuff in your post.

Good find. :thumbsup:

[Yollam]

59. From a certain point of view, that makes sense...

But to the powerless millions trapped in poverty and wage slavery, the "paranoid's" vision of the "enemy" applies perfectly to America's corporate oligarchy. There's nothing paranoid about realizing that the system in this country is not democratic - maybe it never was - but at any rate, it does NOT work for millions of us, and we're not paranoid for thinking so. Sometimes, I'm almost glad that Bushco came to power. Maybe if their ridiculous policies make enough people miserable enough, the middle class will finally stand up and demand an end to the 3 decade long transfer of wealth from the middle and bottom to those at the top. We have whole classes of people in this country in indentured servitude to debt, record personal bankruptcy filings while the wealthy rake in ever more and build palatial homes all around us, and yet those in the intelligentsia would call us "paranoid" for noticing.

If someone told me 30 years ago that people would be spending 1/4 of their paychecks on just their health insurance premiums (and that's only half - the other half matched by the employer!), that people would be proposing schemes like throwing the social security trust fund into the stock market and not be laughed out of the room, that "flat tax" schemes would even be considered by anyone but John Birchers, that the union movement would be dead and millions of middle-income jobs would be outsourced to India, only to be replaced by jobs selling overpriced coffee at Starbucks, that the average price of even a modest home in any major metro area would be out of the range of any regular working couple, I'd expect that there would be millions in the streets with torches and pitchforks. But no, we're expected to take it and like it.

And to be fair to Hofstadter, that was written at a time when America's economic engine was at it's strongest, and economic wealth was as equally distributed as it would ever be. THings are very, very different now.

[John Q. Citizen]

80. What you are describing of course is the bush administrations

anti-terrorism policy.

"This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration."

We have the boogie man of Osama, everywhere and no where, in contact apparently with millions of Americans whose phones must be tapped. Never mind that Osama is on Dialysis, is what 6' 4", he's able to travel at will through the rugged terrain over mountain passes of Afghanistan and escape and reappear at will.

"The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms—he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millenialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date for the apocalypse...

This sounds to me much more like the ranking members of the bush administration than someone seeking to explain why many eye witness news reporters, firemen, emergency response people and ordinary citizens reported hearing and seeing multiple explosions over a span of time in the twin towers long after the towers were impacted by whatever flew into them.

The OP's list is a pretty good description of the official conspiracy theory. (OCT)

So I believe this is all quite useful in looking at the big picture of the events on 9/11 and beyond.

[HamdenRice]

43. THANK GOD! Cuz I was getting worried that Dick Nixon ....

had something to do with that third rate buglary at that Washington hotel. Now I know that's just one of those crazy conspiracy theories.

[alarimer]

44. Thanks for posting this

We definitely need a little logic and reason around here. But some people will cling to any fantasy of a conspiracy theory just because they think the Bush Administration is evil. And that's all it is, a fantasy. There is no evidence, absolutely none, that they made it happen.

I am afraid, though, that you will get a lot of criticism for being logical and rational instead of following the irrational train of bullshit surrounding 9/11. They cannot offer any proof, so they will engage in personal attacks.

[dogday]

49. Yes , I will just believe my government

on matters such as these.. Since they have been so truthful :sarcasm:

[Philosoraptor]

50. Really, why would we ever doubt the president and his buddies?

He's such a bastion of truth.

[MervinFerd]

74. Doubt them a LOT. Just don't attribute supernatural powers to them.

[petgoat]

85. Nobody's attributing supernatural powers to them.

Even the pod people and the hologram people and the missile people
and the Cleveland people theorize about quite mundane things
when you get down to it.

[MervinFerd]

94. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

Isaac Asimov.

It's supernatural for practical purposes if there is no realistic scenario in which the deed could be accomplished.

In this context

SUPERNATURAL = BULLSHIT.

[petgoat]

95. So you're saying that pods and missiles and plane-swapping

and remote control are impossible?

[LoZoccolo]

51. Nobody seems to be arguing with the 14 features themselves.

My opponents seems to have taken the tack that I shouldn't be posting them, or that I believe that there are never conspiracies. But you don't see people arguing with these points.

[Yollam]

57. I'm not disputing the features as they apply to CRACKPOT theories...

It's the bastardization of the term "conspiracy theory" into a synonym for crackpot, so that there is no legitimate avenue for laymen or non-"experts" to ever look into ANYTHING without being ridiculed by the government, corporate media and the establishment intelligentsia.

Why would you want to promote their agenda by further legitimizing a usage of that term that serves only to neuter ALL citizen inquiry?

Since I'm on ignore, maybe some other poster would care to pose this crucial question to you?


It's a shame you're so quick to ignore those who use language that isn't sufficiently sycophantic for your delicate ego...

[MervinFerd]

66. Then show your 'theory' doesn't fit the 14 points!!

If you are not a crackpot, then argue rationally.

Take ONE 9/11 assertion and show how it does not fit each of the 14 points.

A 15th point that might be added (due to Richard Hofstadter's 'The Paranoid Style in American Politics') is the use of a vast array of apparently scholarly references, but without any attempt to actually convince the unBelievers. Sound familiar?

[Americus]

78. Please show how the OCT doesn't fit the 14 points.

If you are not a crackpot or OCT Spin Doctor, then show how the OCT doesn't fit the 14 points.

[johnnie]

52. With all due respect LoZoccolo

Wikipedia isn't really a good source of factual information. It is a good place to start, but research is needed after that. The article you posted is an opinion piece. The "points" this person made are generalizations of what the writer's belief is on what a conspiracy theory is.

Technically, a conspiracy is a group of people getting together to do something that is usually wrong or against the law. Let's take the Watergate scandal. Go through each of the points that this writer expresses and then realize that Watergate was an actual conspiracy. Now each of those 14 "traits" of a conspiracy theory make absolutely no sense.

The sad truth is that when something big goes down, we are programed to not question it and we are continually reminded that if you think "out of the box" you are a wackjob. This is how true conspiracies are carried out. When questions are asked by anyone who sees a bit of a flaw in the "official story" the process of labeling the wackjobs begin. Then when people who consider themselves to be too rational to question authority get a hold of it, they begin their attacks on the "nutcases" that are too crazy to be as rational as they are. That is something you can see even here at DU.

I'm not writing this in support of any specific conspiracy theories, just in general. I was raised to question things that I am told that I don't feel right about. Questioning if a group of people conspired to do something to benefit themselves and hurt innocent people is a responsibility, not a reason to be ashamed. But as long as we have people who regard themselves as too "intellectual" to question authority, we will always have successful conspiracies and we will always have powerful people walking all over the "little guy".

[Grateful for Hope]

55. This is a very excellent response

Particularly when an administration such as this one has been caught in so many lies, I think it is irrational NOT to question what they tell us -- and this includes questioning the 9/11 official story.

[pauldp]

61. Excellent post.

thanks.

[pberq]

53. this pretty much sums up the official conspiracy theory

Take this for example:

" 12. Rebuttals provided by experts are ignored or accommodated through elaborate new twists in the narrative;"

When the original timelines given by the FAA and DOD didn't add up, the 9/11 Commission created a new timeline.

[Debunking911]

58. This is a perfect example...

3. Reduces morally complex social phenomena to simple, immoral actions;
Impersonal, institutional processes, especially errors and oversights, interpreted as malign, consciously intended and designed by immoral individuals.

[pberq]

62. Why were we given three different stories about the air response?

Flights 11, 175, 77, and 93: The 9/11 Commission's Incredible Tales

by David Ray Griffin

http://911truth.org/article.php?story=20051205150219651

(excerpts)
. . .

The First Version of the Official Story

On 9/11, however, that did not happen. Why not? Where was the military? The military's first answer was given immediately after 9/11 by General Richard Myers, then the Acting Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Mike Snyder, a spokesman for NORAD. They both said, independently, that no military jets were sent up until after the strike on the Pentagon. That strike occurred at 9:38, and yet American Airlines Flight 11 had shown two of the standard signs of hijacking, losing both the radio and the transponder signal, at 8:15. This means that procedures that usually result in an interception within "10 or so minutes" had not been carried out in 80 or so minutes.

. . .

The Second Version of the Official Story

Very quickly, a new story appeared. On Friday, September 14, CBS News said: "contrary to early reports, US Air Force jets did get into the air on Tuesday while the attacks were under way," although they arrived too late to prevent the attacks (141-42).4 This second story was then made official on September 18, when NORAD produced a timeline stating the times that it was notified about the hijackings followed by the times at which fighters were scrambled (143). The implicit message of the timeline was that the failure was due entirely to the FAA, because in each case it notified the military so late that interceptions were impossible.

. . .


In all three cases, therefore, NORAD's attempt to put all the blame on the FAA failed. Critics were able to show, especially with regard to the second and third flights, that NORAD's new story still implied that a stand-down order must have been issued. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that the 9/11 Commission came up with a third story, which is not subject to the same objections.

[Bryan Sacks]

63. No one can keep you from being obtuse if you choose to be

"Reduces morally complex social phenomena to simple, immoral actions;
Impersonal, institutional processes, especially errors and oversights, interpreted as malign, consciously intended and designed by immoral individuals."

The arch conspiracist does this, yes. But the arch structuralist (that's you, debunkers) is just as foolish to assume that "immoral actions" have no influence on the course of history, or that the dominant instituional structures do not enable the proliferation of immoral actions. Of course they do! They enable evil. Here is an obvious example:

Norman Mineta testified ON CAMERA, IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE 9/11 COMMISSION, that Dick Cheney was in the PEOC bunker MORE THAN 1/2 HOUR before the Commission report places him there, and that Cheney gave orders to an aide pertaining to an INCOMING FLIGHT HEADED TO WASHINGTON DC AT 9:25 AM OR SO. You will not find this anywhere in the Commission report. And why not? Because the Commissioners made a "simple, immoral action" to cover it up (one of dozens of such actions, as they did other incriminating testimony that came from the likes of Sibel Edmonds, Peter Lance, Col. Anthony Shaffer and several others). None of this is "oversight". It is a pattern of omission and distorition of the record.

The corporate press, true to its docility-inducing structure, decided not to follow up the Mineta matter. You can find the transcript of his testimony in 10 seconds if you look for it. If Mineta's testimony is correct, Cheney is very likely guilty of a world-changing "simple, immoral action": issuing a stand-down order regarding Flight 77.

I don;t see anyone making the mistake of thinking that the world will be set aright if Dick Cheney is removed from power. The strucutral inequalities that make our society what it is will remain. But the view that it is ALWAYS structures, and NEVER individual actions that shape world events is simply conspiracism flipped on its head: anti-conspiracism of the Chip Berlet variety.

Wake up already.

[MervinFerd]

64. Bump. Cause you guys need to read this.

[MervinFerd]

65. Bump. Cause you guys need to read this.

[Hoping4Change]

70. You sly dog. Your OP is referring to the Official Version of 9-11

isn't it.

[MervinFerd]

71. No, i think he means LIHOP/MIHOP

[MervinFerd]

72. 15. Proponents make no serious attempt to convince the general public;

claims that have been repeatedly refuted are simply repeated endlessly.

[Americus]

73. I think you are referring to OCT Spin Doctors

I've only read a fraction of the posts on this forum, but so far, the only people I've read about who have acknowledged changing their mind are those who once supported the OCT but now disbelieve the OCT. That, despite the numerous on-going efforts of OCT Spin doctors. I think it's a credit to the intelligence and reasoning skills of most DU members that they are able to see through the efforts of those whose mission appears to be something other than objective pursuit of the truth about what happened on September 11, 2001.

[MervinFerd]

75. No, I mean Conspiracists.

The "OCT" is accepted fact.

YOU are peddling arrant nonsense.

[Bryan Sacks]

76. 'arrant nonsense?' Does saying that make you feel better?

I gave you one of a number of scenrios for which the OP cannot account (post #63), and you ignored it. So did the other debunkers on this thread. Unfortunately, this is in character for most defenders of the official story in this forum. You ignore what you cannot explain, showing your true colors.

[Americus]

77. OCT is accepted fact? It's also a fact that it's arrant nonsense.

It is indeed an accepted fact by objective researchers that OCT conspiracists are peddling arrant nonsense. The question is: what do they hope to gain by doing so?

[John Q. Citizen]

81. The OCT is not accepted fact by over 40% of the adult population

unless you believe Zogby is "part of the conspiracy" to discredit the OCT.

And a majorty of NYC residents don't buy the OCT either.

So that argument is pretty week. Saying it is accepted fact does not make it so. Even if you say it 3 times.

What you are peddling is arrent nonsense.

[Hoping4Change]

79. What debunkers like you refuse to acknowledge is that

people can gravely doubt the official version WITHOUT embracing any conspiracy theory. And people can reflect on arguments brought forth by those who have alternate theories about 9-11 WITHOUT embracing any of those theories.

:spank:

[MervinFerd]

99. OK, but don't spend TOO much time on it.

It's OK to "reflect" on 'Alternate Theories".

But when the "theories" are idiotic on their face, it is better to spend your time elsewhere.

[Name removed]

100. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hoping4Change]

101. "a plenipotentiary unto himself."

:rofl:


A brilliant retort.

[MervinFerd]

102. bow down.

[rman]

82. Most if not all of those features do not apply to CTs

that i think do have merit.

Just about everybody in on it? Jews did it?
Classical RW framing.

[MervinFerd]

83. Name them please?

"Just about everybody" would have to be involved to pull off any of the standard claims: Flt 77 mysteriously disappears and replaced by planted wreckage and bodies. Thousands of explosive charges carefully placed in the WTC towers.

It -is- true that Jews are not usually singled out. In fact it is not true WHO is responsible. But that is because the theories are too incoherent to require a perpetrator. The villain seems to be "Bush', who is assumed to have supernatural powers.

[Americus]

84. Bush has supernatural powers?

MervinFerd said: "The villain seems to be "Bush', who is assumed to have supernatural powers."

Question for MervinFerd: Who told you that they assume Bush has supernatural powers?

[petgoat]

86. You're inventing imaginary complications again

How many people does it take to fly flight 77 into the sea?

What makes you think bodies were planted? Wreckage is easy on a construction site. Nobody would look
twice at another tool container. Thousands of charges for the WTC? Van Romero said a relatively
small amount of explosives planted in key places could bring the towers down. Tom Eagar said
a few broken truss clips would unzip all the floors. What supernatural powers are required for
any of this?

[MervinFerd]

88. Not imaginary at all.

They found the bodies IN THE PENTAGON. Either they came in on flt 77 or somebody planted them.

Yes, 5 guys could hijack a plane. But it would take a lot more to fake phone calls, fake the radar records, bribe the eyewitnesses. And WHO WERE THOSE GUYS? Trained CIA suicide spies?

Making a construction site look like a crash site would NOT be easy. GOOD GRIEF.

(And btw, why would the Secret Government plant wreckage but plant the WRONG WRECKAGE. And if it is not the WRONG WRECKAGE, what is the reason to think it wasn't from the crashed jetliner?)

If a relatively few charges, or "a few broken truss clips" could "unzip all the floors", why couldn't a jetliner and a fire cause the collapse, as advertised? And what are all those extensive pops, puffs, swooshes that are supposed to be evidence of "Controlled Demolition"? Special Effects?

Logic again: If small charges (or failure of a few components) can cause the observed collapses, then fire or crash damage could cause the observed collapse. The argument works only if the collapses required planting of extensive explosives, as in a controlled demolition.

If the Conspiracy Theories do not require Supernatural Powers then please give me a plausible scenario that explains ALL the facts of the case. Any one of them will do.

[petgoat]

92. ...

They found the bodies IN THE PENTAGON.

How do you know?

fake phone calls

2 calls. Renee May and Barbara Olsen. How do you know they were transmitted
in real time, or where they were tranmitted from?

fake the radar records False blips from the war games

Making a construction site look like a crash site would NOT be easy.

With a bomb and some conspicious debris I bet it would.

why would the Secret Government plant ... the WRONG WRECKAGE

If the wreckage was wrong, it flew in there.

what is the reason to think it wasn't from the crashed jetliner?

serial number data that should identify the aircraft has not been released.

If a relatively few charges, or "a few broken truss clips" could "unzip
all the floors", why couldn't a jetliner and a fire cause the collapse, as
advertised?

The truss clips can't unzip the floors. Nobody has bothered to defend the
zipper theory since NIST's buckled column theory has replaced it. A jetliner
and a fire couldn't replace relatively few charges because

1. The jetliner can't damage enough core columns severely enough
2. The fires weren't hot enough to weaken the steel
3. The towers didn't collapse until long after the damage was inflicted

Logic again: If small charges (or failure of a few components) can cause
the observed collapses, then fire or crash damage could cause the observed collapse.

Modern structures are highly redundant and failure of a few components can
not cause the observed collapses. The small charges have to be placed in strategic
points. A trained assassin can kill you with a credit card, but I bet you could
sleep naked with a credit card for a thousand years and it would never kill you.

re: Supernatural Powers... please give me a plausible scenario...

Which scenario requires supernatural powers? Even the wildest schemes (pod theories,
green-screen theories, switched-plane theories and, I believe, hologram theories (not
sure about that one)) are all based on technology, not supernatural powers.

The only thing requiring supernatural powers is paralyzing the air defense of the most
powerful military force the world has ever seen, shutting down the defenses of the
Pentagon, flying a 757 in a 270 degree turn while diving 7000 feet, obliterating all
those black boxes, and dropping WTC7 when it wasn't hit by any plane. Allah is indeed
great!

[leftofthedial]

87. except for #11, sounds like History is a conspiracy theory . . .

[MervinFerd]

89. To a Conspiracist, yes. To the rational, no.

[leftofthedial]

90. the rational!

:rofl:

[Americus]

91. 911 was a conspiracy and to the perps, a very rational one.

The only people who refuse to acknowledge that 911 was a conspiracy are either ignorant of the facts, irrational, or both.

[mirandapriestly]

93. this isn't about "conspiracy theories"

and everything to do with 5 companies owning all US major media. Information has come out about almost every major event in history, after the fact, which casts the event in a completely different light. This is no different.

[Americus]

96. Excellent insight, mirandapriestly.

Extremely cogent point.

[mirandapriestly]

98. Why, thank you

I thought for sure that a debunker would say, "prove that the corporate media covered up or concealed 9-11 by linking to no fewer than 5 main stream media sources written in the last 6 months". Cuz you know we can ONLY trust a media source if it is owned by a huge corporation(preferably with defense industry ties);)

[earth mom]

97. And your point is?

Oh yeah, to stir things up. :eyes:

Didn't know that YOU were the all seeing all knowing God-if there is one that is.

Why is it so important for you to post a thread like this which only serves to dis people who don't believe in group think like you do? Most of us can think for ourselves and don't need someone like you to do it for us, thanks anyway.

You know, once upon a time people thought the earth was flat while others thought it was round. No doubt those round earth thinkers were treated badly for using their brains. But whadda ya know? Those "the earth is round" thinkers were right!!! :D :tinfoilhat: :D

My advice? Never say never or it can and probably will turn around and bite you in the ass.

[MervinFerd]

103. Compare

[salvorhardin]

105. I would add a conflation of fact and fiction

Michael Barkun notes that conspiracists have a penchant for arguing that fiction is really fact and facts are often attacked as being fictions put out the alleged conspirators. An example of the former might be the adoption of Edward Bulwer Lytton's science fiction as being a factual account by Lytton disguised as fiction because the world wasn't ready for the knowledge. Examples of the latter may readily be found in this forum.

[Americus]

106. Was Mr. Barkun referring to 9/11 OCT'ers?

I assume Mr. Barkun is familiar with the frequency with which OCT'ers use the tactic of "arguing that fiction is really fact and facts are often attacked as being fictions"...and if he isn't familiar with OCT'ers here at DU, someone should let him know that his observations are in abundant evidence, right here in River City aka DU.

[salvorhardin]

107. You might want to read his book

A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions In Contemporary America

What do UFO believers, Christian millennialists, and right-wing conspiracy theorists have in common? According to Michael Barkun in this fascinating yet disturbing book, quite a lot. It is well known that some Americans are obsessed with conspiracies. The Kennedy assassination, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the 2001 terrorist attacks have all generated elaborate stories of hidden plots. What is far less known is the extent to which conspiracist worldviews have recently become linked in strange and unpredictable ways with other "fringe" notions such as a belief in UFOs, Nostradamus, and the Illuminati. Unraveling the extraordinary genealogies and permutations of these increasingly widespread ideas, Barkun shows how this web of urban legends has spread among subcultures on the Internet and through mass media, how a new style of conspiracy thinking has recently arisen, and how this phenomenon relates to larger changes in American culture. This book, written by a leading expert on the subject, is the most comprehensive and authoritative examination of contemporary American conspiracism to date.
Barkun discusses a range of material--involving inner-earth caves, government black helicopters, alien abductions, secret New World Order cabals, and much more--that few realize exists in our culture. Looking closely at the manifestions of these ideas in a wide range of literature and source material from religious and political literature, to New Age and UFO publications, to popular culture phenomena such as The X-Files, and to websites, radio programs, and more, Barkun finds that America is in the throes of an unrivaled period of millennarian activity. His book underscores the importance of understanding why this phenomenon is now spreading into more mainstream segments of American culture.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520238052

It's a sociological look at conspiracy theorists and quite even handed. It's a serious work and one which I highly recommend. As with Sagan, he deals with conspiracy theorists not as a group to denigrate and snark at (whereas I am all about the snark) but rather tries to understand them and their culture. While I doubt Michael Barkun holds very many conspiracy theories to be true he does acknowledge the origins in fact where they exist. It's a scholarly work and one that should interest you regardless of your stance regarding 9-11. At the very least you'll have a greater understanding of where people such as myself are coming from and I think skeptics can gain a broader understanding of how conspiracists believe what they do.

For a more historical perspective on conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists you really should read Richard Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style In American Politics. A copy is at my website.
http://www.neuralgourmet.com/theparanoidstyle

On edit: Don't be put off by Hofstadter's language and the use of "paranoid" as a descriptor for conspiracists. First of all, he's not using 'paranoid' in a clinical sense and secondly he came out of a very conservative (conservative, not neocon) culture where all kinds of words we consider offensive today were regularly used. For instance, 'moron' was still an accepted medical term at the time. Contemporary authors tend to use the word conspiracist as a neutral descriptor of people with the type of worldview Hofstadter describes.

On second edit: Barkun's homepage. http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/psc/faculty/Barkun.asp

[MervinFerd]

108. Inability