Time to investigate

Hopefully it won’t awaken anything

I went to a clearance store yesterday and the candy section was 80% unsold Dubai chocolate

Most of it had stickers or labels being like “The Viral TikTok sensation!”

So yeah

Conspiracy is a legitimate concept in law: the collusion of two or more people pursuing illegal means to effect some illegal or immoral end. People go to jail for committing conspiratorial acts. Conspiracies are a matter of public record, and some are of real political significance. The Watergate break-in was a conspiracy, as was the Watergate cover-up, which led to Nixon’s downfall. Iran-contra was a conspiracy of immense scope, much of it still uncovered. The savings and loan scandal was described by the Justice Department as “a thousand conspiracies of fraud, theft, and bribery,” the greatest financial crime in history.

Often the term “conspiracy” is applied dismissively whenever one suggests that people who occupy positions of political and economic power are consciously dedicated to advancing their elite interests. Even when they openly profess their designs, there are those who deny that intent is involved. In 1994, the officers of the Federal Reserve announced they would pursue monetary policies designed to maintain a high level of unemployment in order to safeguard against “overheating” the economy. Like any creditor class, they preferred a deflationary course. When an acquaintance of mine mentioned this to friends, he was greeted skeptically, “Do you think the Fed bankers are deliberately trying to keep people unemployed?” In fact, not only did he think it, it was announced on the financial pages of the press. Still, his friends assumed he was imagining a conspiracy because he ascribed self-interested collusion to powerful people.

At a World Affairs Council meeting in San Francisco, I remarked to a participant that U.S. leaders were pushing hard for the reinstatement of capitalism in the former communist countries. He said, “Do you really think they carry it to that level of conscious intent?” I pointed out it was not a conjecture on my part. They have repeatedly announced their commitment to seeing that “free-market reforms” are introduced in Eastern Europe. Their economic aid is channeled almost exclusively into the private sector. The same policy holds for the monies intended for other countries. Thus, as of the end of 1995, “more than $4.5 million U.S. aid to Haiti has been put on hold because the Aristide government has failed to make progress on a program to privatize state-owned companies” (New York Times 11/25/95).

Those who suffer from conspiracy phobia are fond of saying: “Do you actually think there’s a group of people sitting around in a room plotting things?” For some reason that image is assumed to be so patently absurd as to invite only disclaimers. But where else would people of power get together – on park benches or carousels? Indeed, they meet in rooms: corporate boardrooms, Pentagon command rooms, at the Bohemian Grove, in the choice dining rooms at the best restaurants, resorts, hotels, and estates, in the many conference rooms at the White House, the NSA, the CIA, or wherever. And, yes, they consciously plot – though they call it “planning” and “strategizing” – and they do so in great secrecy, often resisting all efforts at public disclosure. No one confabulates and plans more than political and corporate elites and their hired specialists. To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people.

Michael Parenti, Dirty Truths

This is my favourite conspiracy theory, the one about conspiracy theories. While the concept has existed probably forever, the term “conspiracy theory” didn’t start getting used until after JFK, and we start to see a lot of other stuff like fake moon landing, lizard people etc. getting their start and being lumped in with the JFK assassination around that time. The difference between a conspiracy and “conspiracy theory” is “Who benefits?” actual conspiracies have conspirators with specific goals in mind, “conspiracy theories” have some vague nebulous bad guys hiding the “Truth” for unknown but nefarious reasons, they’re often lumped in together because one automatically discredits the other just by being compared to it.

It started with Roswell. They were obviously testing classified aircraft, but because a bunch of people thought aliens were involved, they ran with it so every conspiratorial plot has two narratives: the official narrative where there’s nothing suspicious (it was a weather balloon) and the official crank narrative (it was an alien spacecraft) while the most plausible explanation (it was classified research) gets pushed off the stage by the first two narratives.

You see this with 9/11. There’s the official narrative (al-Qaeda hates the US because the US has freedom) and the official crank narrative (the US blew up the towers with a controlled demolition) when there’s far more explanations than “the CIA didn’t know about al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda didn’t know that the CIA didn’t know about al-Qaeda” and “the CIA rigged three buildings with explosives.”

Hell, they’re even trying to do this with Epstein. The official narrative is that Epstein killed himself. The official crank narrative they’re trying to push is that uh aktually Epstein didn’t die and is still alive. Both narratives take up space for what actually happened, which is that US intelligence liquidated an asset when the asset outlived their usefulness and became a liability.

There was a stat that was something like 25% of missionaries were wittingly or unwittingly informants for State Dept or CIA

Epstein was pretty close with Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins, as detailed by skepchick. Strange that friends of Epstien both turned out to be misogonyst creeps. Lawrence Krauss was also close friends with Christopher Hitchens.

Here’s an article that details some of the financial ties.

I think we’re both saying the same thing here ey

Literally thousands of green activists have died or disappeared just in the last 10 years and IIRC it was worse in the 00’s.

I do not doubt this at all but I am wondering if you have any good sources that go into detail with examples and names?

Yeah okay

Drop “the” and it scans too

it’s an extremely solid movie. i saw it way back when and went into it knowing nothing except liking Dafoe and pretty much any plot involving corporate conspiracy and environmental issues.

it’s not paint by numbers at all and surprised me with its emotional complexity. i still think about it sometimes. totally a movie that i would describe as “slept on”.

Sadly nobody irl understands me, they’re too stuck in capitalist brainwashing to see the oppression right in front of them. I feel like a crazy conspiracy theorist sometimes just for being a genuine leftist.