Conspiracy Theories

[nietzsche]

A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.

The political scientist Michael Barkun discussing the usage of this term in contemporary American culture holds that a conspiracy theory is a belief which explains an event as the result of a secret plot by exceptionally powerful and cunning conspirators to achieve a malevolent end.[8][9] According to Barkun, the appeal of conspiracism is threefold: First, conspiracy theories claim to explain what institutional analysis cannot. They appear to make sense out of a world that is otherwise confusing. Second, they do so in an appealingly simple way, by dividing the world sharply between the forces of light, and the forces of darkness. They trace all evil back to a single source, the conspirators and their agents. Third, conspiracy theories are often presented as special, secret knowledge unknown or unappreciated by others. For conspiracy theorists, the masses are a brainwashed herd, while the conspiracy theorists in the know can congratulate themselves on penetrating the plotters' deceptions.

What is your view on the conspiracy theory that claims the world is controlled by a group elite, specially the Rothschild, the Rockefeller and the Morgan in the US and a few other families of Europe?

Is this a thing of mad men or there's truth to this?

[Haggis_McMutton]

My uninformed opinion is that the world is far too complex nowadays to be controlled by a couple rich guys.

Do they exert influence on certain events behind the scenes? Sure.
Do they wish they could exert more influence and try to work towards that goal? Maybe.
Can they increase their influence to reach a point where it would be reasonable to say they "control" the world anytime in the forseeable future? doubtful.

It's interesting to read about what the Rotschild family were up to a couple centuries ago though. I think back then the world was much more amenable to being "controlled".

[Army of GOD]

[nietzsche]

I usually side with Haggis on the fact that the world is way too complex. But sometimes I like to entertain the thought that they do.

Do you think it's possible to control the world by controlling the money?

For instance, the US is in debt. HUGE debt, but they are not the only country, most third world countries are in debt, but who are they in debt with?

Banks are privately controlled, and they can print money when they want, lower interests, and all of the sudden they can just stop doing it. Then crisis come, like the great depression, or 2008, and the same people that creates all this gets richer.

The US went to Vietnam on an alleged attack (false), they went to Iraq on alleged WMD (false).. WWII was financed in both sides by the bankers.

Is this enough to consider that they control most aspects of our lives?

[Lootifer]

Its no conspiracy theory that the powerful will take actions to maintain their power (largely the fundamental problem with capitalism and/or big government depending on your political alignment).

The net effect of a lot of powerful people taking actions to maintain/increase power is identical to what would happen if there were one or two ultra elites playing the puppet strings.

So my thoughts are the conspiracy theory is not true; however the aggregation of the powerful has the same net effect. That is yes we, the small and weak, are being shafted.

[/]

I don't think any specific families or persons can get away with everything.
But for large corporations looking to turn a profit, the influence can be staggering depending on the money and the place.
I believe said influence wanes depending on how freely and quickly information can be transmitted and reacted to.
If you are a tobacco lobbyist in modern America, you can't get away with too much.
If you are Coka-Cola or Nestle in a third-world banana republic, you can pretty much get away with anything, including slavery and murder.

[nietzsche]

Its no conspiracy theory that the powerful will take actions to maintain their power (largely the fundamental problem with capitalism and/or big government depending on your political alignment).

The net effect of a lot of powerful people taking actions to maintain/increase power is identical to what would happen if there were one or two ultra elites playing the puppet strings.

So my thoughts are the conspiracy theory is not true; however the aggregation of the powerful has the same net effect. That is yes we, the small and weak, are being shafted.

I don't get exactly your point. You said the effects are there and the causes are the same just the name is not correct?

[nietzsche]

I don't think any specific families or persons can get away with everything.
But for large corporations looking to turn a profit, the influence can be staggering depending on the money and the place.
I believe said influence wanes depending on how freely and quickly information can be transmitted and reacted to.
If you are a tobacco lobbyist in modern America, you can't get away with too much.
If you are Coka-Cola or Nestle in a third-world banana republic, you can pretty much get away with anything, including slavery and murder.

But what if a bunch of families own the most important corporations? Exxon, Mobil, Citi, Chase ? Can their lobbies dictate enough policies?

How can a politician resist the money they have, or the power?

[_sabotage_]

No way are the Rothchilds conjoined with the Rockefellers, well they are now and for the last five decades, but in a, you know I'm rich your rich way. The Rothchilds aren't influential anyway. They just spearheaded the U.N., Isreal, and control most of the worlds central banks. But though their fortunes were built on funding wars they sparked, these strategy failed miserably for them during WWII, as their news agencies have widely reported and their Swiss banks lost huge amounts lending money to all the nations involved bc the taxpayers refused to repay these loans or something apparently. They therefore were unable to earn interest on the money they print from thin air with their symbolism all over it. Terrible business model, destined to fail.

[2dimes]

Plus the richest man is Bill Gates, remember?

[Lootifer]

I don't get exactly your point. You said the effects are there and the causes are the same just the name is not correct?

My point is that there isnt any small group of powerful families running the show (the conspiracy theory). However the net effect of lots and lots of powerful people and organisations all using their relevant power to maintain and increase their own power holdings has the same net effect as if it was only one or two individuals doing it.

[betiko]

Plus the richest man is Bill Gates, remember?

nope. the richest man on earth is mexican my friend.
regarding conspiration theories, I think some points are valid but there is too many paranoid bullshit on top that there is not one therory, there are multiple theories that are all supposed to converge. therefore the conspiracy theory is bullshit as it helds too many bs; but it would be stupid to deny everything.

by the way, any of you has seen zeitgheist?

[saxitoxin]

1. Any conspiracy theory you've heard about is bunk. Any group or person who has the resources and wherewithal to engineer a galactic conspiracy certainly is able to keep it off YouTube.

2. That said ... a few years ago Dr. Ola Tunander of the University of Oslo observed ...

In a 1955 study of the United States State Department, Hans Morgenthau discussed the existence of a US ‘dual state.' According to Morgenthau, the US state includes both a ‘regular state hierarchy’ that acts according to the rule of law and a more or less hidden ‘security hierarchy’—which I will refer to here as the ‘security state’ —that not only acts in parallel to the former but also monitors and exerts control over it. In Morgenthau’s view, this security aspect of the state—the ‘security state’—is able to ‘exert an effective veto over the decisions’ of the regular state governed by the rule of law. While the ‘democratic state’ offers legitimacy to security politics, the ‘security state’ intervenes where necessary, by limiting the range of democratic politics. While the ‘democratic state’ deals with political alternatives, the ‘security state’ enters the scene when NO ALTERNATIVE EXISTS. This aspect of the state is what Carl Schmitt, in his 1922 work Political Theology, referred to as the ‘sovereign’.

Logically speaking, one might argue that Morgenthau’s ‘dual state’ is derived from the same duality as that described in Ernst Fraenkel’s conception of the ‘dual state’, which Fraenkel described as typifying the Nazi regime of Hitler’s Germany. In the Nazi case, though, this duality was overt - unlike the US, where it is covert - combining the ‘regular’ legal state with a parallel ‘prerogative state’, a paramilitary emergency state or MACHSTAAT that operated outside the legal system, with its philosophical foundation in the Schmittian ‘sovereign.' Fraenkel refers to Emil Lederer, who argues that this has its historical origins in the European aristocratic elite, which still played an important role within European society after the triumph of democracy.

[2dimes]

Shake out the sillies Saxi. Obama is the most powerful man in the free world. Everyone knows he's the commander in chief.

[nietzsche]

Are you all ok with the fact that a private group gets to print money for free, without backing it out with gold, then give it to the government and the tax payer gets to work for that money? Money spent for instance for the 2008 bailout?

Americans were royally fucked in 2008. Banks caused the crisis and the government told them to print more money to save themselves, the taxpayer would pay.

Furthermore, after 9/11 Americans can be tortured, kidnapped, recorded, they lost their privacy. The government controls the use of force to their discretion, and the elite group controls the money. Politicians will pass but the elite group will stay there, controlling what politicians can actually be elected to the important charges.

If politicians aren't controlled by this elite group, why did they approve the bailout? That was a 12" inch dick up the American ass.