Submitted by J. Keen Holland (United States), Nov 14, 2002 at 03:11
While most popular conspiracy theories must be taken with a grain (or maybe a ton) of salt, there have been historically important conspiracies and it would be foolish to think that none are extant at this time. After all, few readers take exception to Adam Smith's observation that a group of men engaged in some particular trade could hardly meet by chance on the street without hatching a plot to fleece the public. How much more should this be the case when the stakes are higher (a kingdom, if not the world).
John Wilkes Booth did not act alone in killing Lincoln; he had help. And, since they didn't take out an ad in the newspaper beforehand, I take that to be a conspiracy, even if it was considerably scaled down from the plan to simultaneously kidnap the President and Secretary of War.
We know there were at least three people involved in the OKC bombing (the two convicted and their associate in Arizona who turned state's evidence). That was a conspiracy.
Stalin had agents throughout the US government in the 30's and 40's, one of whom chaired the founding meeting of the UN. More than just espionage, they were also used to influence US government policy. Another conspiracy.
James Billigton's scholarly Fire in the Minds of Men examines, inter alia, the conspiratorial machinations leading up to the French Revolution, much of it done behind a smokescreen of Grand Orient masonic lodge ritual.
Why is the US government so concerned with UBL? Because he is (assuming he is still alive) the leader of a world-wide conspiracy to harm US interests by means of terrorism. So, while we ought to expose the flakey ZOG nonsense that excites the paranoid fringe, we do need to recognize the likelhood that there are indeed people plotting to do us harm. This is, after all, why the President is so intent on increasing the surveillance authority and capabilities of the FBI, CIA, etc.
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