Good post. But it should go without saying that the minute a culture makes a term taboo, an intelligent person takes a closer look. When Bush said in a speech, "We must never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories," I immediately ask myself, "Why not? Don't we have free speech? And as long as they are theories, whom do they hurt? Any scientific truth starts with a theory. But it doesn't end there. We look for evidence. Making a term like "conspiracy theory" taboo tends to stop people from looking for the evidence that would move the thing under investigation from a theory to a fact.
"new.morning" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Conspiracy" has such broad implications and connotations. Kids can conspire to get their parents to go to a movie. Or titans can (allegedly) to "conspire" to create world wars, kill presidents, and create disasters. It may help for a further, better definition of ones terms when suggesting a conspiracy. "Conspiracy may refer to * An act of two or more parties working together to combine in such a way as to achieve a particular result often one of harm or inconvenience to a third party. Secrecy is not necessary for there to be a conspiracy. However, some 'unknown' may be involved.[1] * A group of people who make an agreement to form a partnership in which each member becomes the agent or partner of every other member and engage in planning or agreeing to commit some act.[2] * An act of working in secret to obtain some goal, usually understood with negative connotations." The Democrats are conspiring to elect Hillary. Whew. Call the press! A company conspires to get people to buy its product. Schools conspire to teach kids. Businesses develop elaborate strategies, in secret, to accomplish things. Most quite legal, if not innocuous. While these don't necessarily have negative intents, they are often plans, in "secret" -- that is not well known to others, in which several or even many are involved, to accomplish something. Are they conspiracies. or how nefarious does a secret strategy need to be to become a conspiracy. Freemasons strategize in secret. Is what they write about conspiracies itself a conspiracy? or a public service? Another issue with "conspiracy" is the degree of credibility. Some "conspiracies" -- not the best word to use IMO -- but that fit the above defs, can have high credibility. Or it can have zilch. Mobsters commit conspiracy in crime. RICO and all. Political parties do some dirty "conspiracy" shit in their horse-trading and strategies. Its done behind closed doors. Some nefarious as hell. Some simply a plan to accomplish strategy. An take corporate strategy. Often secret. Often not nefarious. Unless one is so out of it they see any earning of profits as nefarious. Growing up with the JFK, UFO, "conspiracies", makes me a bit jaded to talk of "no plane hit the pentagon" conspiracies. Yet the US entry into Iraq was a "conspiracy" of the highest and quite credible and established order. Because one "conspiracy" is true, does not in any way imply that others are. As some some imply. There seems to be a lack of credibility ranking. I give Roswell some probability of being true. And I give the "conspiracy" of tobacco firms to dupe smokers, teens and the government, about 100,000,000 greater probability of being true. How nefarious? How credible? These are good questions to ask and answer when using loaded terms like "conspiracy". IMO. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Angela Mailander <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Yes, she probably would have dismissed him out of hand just because he was a Freemason, which is one reason I didn't bring him up. But the thing about Pike is that not only did he predict WWIII, he also predicted WWI and WWII accurately long before they happened. Would that carry any weight with her? Moreover, he studied at Harvard. > > Bhairitu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: The first reference I can think of regarding world wars being planned > all along would have been Albert Pike, the Freemason, who wrote of it > back in the 1800's. But Judy would have dismissed that one out of hand > as being "wacko conspiracy stuff" even if wealthy Europeans valued his > advice. > > Angela Mailander wrote: > > Why would I smell a fish in your request for sources? Two reasons. Maybe because you called me a Nazi? There is some past history in which you have behaved very badly with me in my estimation, and I was told by others that it isn't personal, that this is just your style of interacting with people. Indeed, I've seen you do it with others, and I don't like it any better when it is directed at them than when it is directed at me. It is simply uncultured behavior and I have no wish to contribute to it in any way. > > > > The second reason I hesitated to give you a few names (you asked for historians, not their work) is just because I am a scholar. Giving you a few sources is an utterly inadequate substitute for ten years' worth of scholarly research, and only someone who is not a scholar would even ask such a thing. Giving you just a few names (or sources) leaves me completely open to adverse criticism. > > > > If I thought you would actually read some books, then that would be different; I could recommend where you might begin and how you might avoid some of the dead ends I had to explore to get where I am. But I do not get the sense that you wish to engage in any activity that would a) tend to vindicate me, and b) educate yourself. > > > > The history of Nazi Germany has been suppressed by American academic historians. There have been a few courageous souls who have published their work anyway, risking their careers and livelihoods. If you really were seriously interested in this question, rather than wanting to dismiss the possibility of conspiracy out of hand without any serious investigation, then I would begin with Gary Allen's "The Rockefeller Papers" and with Anthony Sutton's "Wallstreet and the Rise of Hitler." His "Wallstreet and the Bolshevik Revolution" would be another good choice. But again, these two men would be a bare bones beginning. You could not draw any hard conclusions based on their work alone. At a minimum, you would not only have to read their books, you'd also have to follow up on all their sources, as I have done. This would be a full-time assignment for a good semester's work. Obviously, I am not under the illusion that you would do this kind of work in order to learn that > I > > am not just talking through my hat. Yet, there is no other way to determine whether or not I am. > > > > A conversation in a forum such as this is not a scholarly venue. I can present my conclusions, but not the ten year process (which actually also includes a life time of experience as someone born in Nazi Germany) that got me where I am. So why talk about it at all? Because we are in danger as I write of going down that road again. It may, in fact, be too late. But still there is hope that, somehow, the American people won't walk into a fascist regime as blindly as did the German people. The ten steps that Naomi Wolf details are crude. By the time such things happen, it is almost too late. What about the brain washing that passes for education and that leads up to it being possible to fool a whole people into ignoring what is plain to see right in front of their eyes? > > > > > > > > Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com > Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
