Dear Max,

Conspiracy theories are as old as time - and
either you're one of those people who believes
in them or you're not.

The two biggest proponents that come to mine
and who my father spoke of were I guess
Stalin and Hitler - agreeing in a secret pact
(Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty of 1939) to divide
Eastern Europe and allow the advances of the
Wehrmacht and the Red Army for the purpose of
dividing the hapless Balts, Poles, and others,
which led to the World War. Stalin and Hitler
were allies against the free people of Europe.

Of course you get the conspiracy theories of
1) The assasination of JF Kennedy.
2) The death of Princess Diana and Dodi.
3) 9/11
4) The death of Marilyn Monroe
5) Extra-Terrestrials.
6) Lone Pine
7) CIA
8) MI5
9) Mafia
10) KGB

And the list goes on...

Ah, where to begin.

"You obviously weren't in Sydney just before the invasion DD."
--

no I was not, but I was IN the lousy conscription for Nam and IN the protests of that time

You highlight [same as Foxy] RED HERRING CTs and [PC] protests [which lasted a weekend like march over bridge to "sorry" and now back to business as usual

The OP [or rather his MINDERS] are concerned with far more in yer face CT than "CIA/JFK" harmless junk.

THAT [ie legal ramifications] is the reason the OP was not "allowed" to give any actual INSTANCES of CT, but just waffled on, leaving it up to the Forum Faithfull to "do the hard yards"

and as we will see for next 4 days, you WILL do so

There are some conspiracy theories that are not backed by much evidence,however there are a few like the assassination of JFK that do carry a lot of credence.For anyone who has studied the JFK killing,there is no way Lee Harvey Oswald did it.It was not a single gunman and the evidence points to an inside Govt job.Kennedy was expected to tow the line but he made the mistake of being a man with a conscience and principle.He wanted to end the monopoly powers of Fed Res and bring the CIA into line.He had no chance against such an all powerful force.

All presidents since Kennedy now know their place and this includes Obama.

Arjay:"Only the small secrets need to be hidden.The really big secrets are not because they are repressed by our incredulity."

Jawohl, herr Goebbels. The "big lie" is a well-used tactic, honed to perfection by the Liberal Party under Howard and Crosby.

"Only the small secrets need to be hidden.The really big secrets are not because they are repressed by our incredulity."

Ahhh, The Hitch-hikers guide to the Galaxy invisibility principle , S.E.P.
IMO that one died with the birth of the Internet, no lie is big enough anymore.

Max,
Foxy makes a relevant point. That the subject matter is irrelevant the true issue is WHAT makes people dream up conspiracy theories.
Objectively four things.
• Ignorance
• Fear
• A need to ‘understand’ things in terms that the can emotionally accept.
• Self interest.
e.g. Take a primitive in PNG in the 30’s - 70’s
Strange white men arrived in the 30’s were they gods? No they went to the toilet and bonked our women some of whom had babies like us so what were they?
Later they came in planes with amazing weapons and ‘cargo’. White men always had ‘cargo’ and we have none why?
Their answer was that the heaven we talked about was above Sydney with a connecting ladder down which Jesus “Crise” sent all the cargo.
And the white man was greedy and with held the cargo from. (Grand conspiracy) in their case they imposed their experience of local disputes on the situation.

One enterprising local stole Geese eggs to hatch out American soldiers to get their share.

Today many people neither fully understand government nor economics (business) and therefore are subject to” the enemy de jure” manipulation etc. These people tend to project their limited level of control and therefore believe that mass evil must be an all encompassing conspiracy to get them and by way of empathy seeking others. This is indicated by the evangelistic need to attract others thereby justifying their fears and understanding in their terms.

The Iraq WMD had more to do with the flaws in neocon ideology and subsequent paranoia.
Anybody that pays attention would know that business that supported Bush etc did so because it would favour them. Was it an organized conspiracy by interested parties? Hell no. In reality most couldn’t agree on the weather let alone some convoluted plot.
Even Aussie box conspiracy between TWO groups self interest blew it out of the water. Is there self interested agreement between players yes but by nature they are limited. In truth Occam’s razor rules.