[deleted]

One of the prime mission objectives of Mockingbird.

conditioning coupled with the general population encouraged to be stupid, lazy, betas who'll never stand up for themselves or learn how to or even embrace the idea.

Yep, just like any time someone talks about UFOs in the News it's given the Xfiles music and little green men are mentioned. Never is there ever any serious thought given through the mainstream media about the claims, video evidence, or what it could be(even if it IS something mundane like an experimental aircraft or Chinese lantern).

They call it the giggle factor. In conspiracy it's the "kook" factor. And it's made that way so that people don't bother questioning things that make no sense to them. So they don't investigate and just take a news anchors word for it. Because if they do, they will be marginalized

Social Conditioning. Makes me sick.

Because the Govt has paid shills to disrupt anything they don't want you discussing. This article was in 2010. They've become very good at it. http://www.prisonplanet.com/obama-information-czar-outlined-plan-for-government-to-infiltrate-conspiracy-groups.html

Everyone is a BIG number...

Neo-nazis

TPTB have used the MSM and have conditioned and programmed the masses, consciously and subconsciously, to hear the word conspiracy, and immediately, knee-jerkingly associate it with "crazy", "kook", "tin foil hat wearer", etc, etc. It's no accident.

Perhaps this will answer your question: CIA Popularized "Conspiracy Theory" Term to Silence Dissent

Abby Martin talks to Lance deHaven-Smith, Florida State University professor and author of 'Conspiracy Theory in America', about some of the US' most controversial events and how labeling truth-seekers as 'conspiracy theorists' damages democracy.

For further reading, here is an excerpt from Kevin R. Ryan's excellent article, Do we need another 9/11 conspiracy theory?

"The use of “conspiracy theory” to deter citizens from investigating historic events is paradoxical, to be sure. It suggests that those who commit criminal conspiracies can only be relatively powerless people who happen to live on the most strategically important lands, and conspiracies among rich, powerful people are impossible or absurd.

Basically, our entire legal system is based on the idea of conspiracy. Despite this fact we have been conditioned by the government and the media to blindly accept the official reports and to treat any questioning of those reports as “conspiracy theorizing.” That is, you are a conspiracy theorist if you don’t believe the government’s conspiracy theory. This cultural phenomenon goes back to 1967. At that time, in response to questions about the Warren Commission Report (which President Ford helped create), the CIA issued a memorandum calling for mainstream media sources to begin countering “conspiracy theorists.”[13] In the 45 years before the CIA memo came out, the phrase “conspiracy theory” appeared in the Washington Post and New York Times only 50 times, or about once per year. In the 45 years after the CIA memo, the phrase appeared 2,630 times, or about once per week.

Before the CIA memo came out, the Washington Post and New York Times had never used the phrase “conspiracy theorist.” After the CIA memo came out, these two newspapers have used that phrase 1,118 times. Of course, in these uses the phrase is always delivered in a context in which “conspiracy theorists” were made to seem less intelligent and less rationale than people who uncritically accept official explanations for major events.

President George W. Bush and his colleagues often used the phrase conspiracy theory in attempts to deter questioning about their activities. When questioned by reporters about an emerging scandal in September 2000, Bush said the idea that his presidential campaign was flashing subliminal messages in advertisements was absurd, and he added that “conspiracy theories abound in America’s politics.”[14] When in 1994, Bush’s former company Harken Energy was linked to the fraudulent Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) through several investors, Bush’s spokeswoman, Karen Hughes, shut down the inquiry by telling the Associated Press — “We have no response to silly conspiracy theories.”

Because Bush’s campaign had, in fact, been flashing subliminal messages in its advertisements, and Harken Energy was actually linked to BCCI, people began to wonder what Bush and his colleagues meant when they made diversionary comments about conspiracy theories. More importantly, that track record raised questions about Bush’s statement after the 9/11 attacks, in which he said in a televised speech — “Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th.”

There is no question that criminal government-sponsored conspiracies exist. History is replete with them and they usually involve the government claiming that the country was under attack from “terrorists.” This was true of Hitler’s Reichstag fire and it was true of the attacks that occurred in 20th century Western Europe under the guise of Operation Gladio. An example more relevant to 9/11 was the conspiracy behind Operation Northwoods, a plan drafted and approved in 1962 by the highest levels within the U.S. military.

Author James Bamford wrote of Operation Northwoods that it called “for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. [This would provide] the public and international backing they needed to launch their war.”[15] The signed documents are available to everyone today and because of this we know that high level U.S. government representatives do conspire, on occasion, to commit crimes against the American people for the purpose of starting wars.[16]

State Crimes Against Democracy: Relation To Conspiracy Theory:

The origins and rhetorical function of the term "conspiracy theory" constitute an important subject matter for SCAD theory and research. At least since the 1970s, the conspiracy-theory label has been applied pejoratively to a wide range of suspicions and allegations of official wrongdoing that have not been substantiated by public officials themselves. The label suppresses mass suspicions that inevitably arise when shocking political crimes benefit top leaders or play into their agendas, especially when those same officials are in control of agencies responsible for preventing the events in question or for investigating them after they have occurred.

Communication scientists Ginna Husting and Martin Orr, both professors at Boise State University, have studied the use of the conspiracy-theory label as a putdown and have explained how the label works to silence suspicion.[31] The conspiracy-theory label challenges the very rationality of persons who voice suspicions and thus shifts the subject of discussion from the suspicions to the speakers’ competency or lack thereof.

DeHaven-Smith has shown that the conspiracy-theory label was popularized as a pejorative term by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a propaganda program initiated in 1967.[6] The program was directed at criticisms of the Warren Commission’s conclusion that President Kennedy had been assassinated by a lone gunman. The propaganda campaign called on media corporations and journalists to criticize “conspiracy theorists” and raise questions about their motives and judgments. The CIA told its contacts that “parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists.”

SCAD scholars hypothesize that the CIA’s role in inserting the conspiracy-theory label into the American lexicon of political speech is only one of many instances when U.S. intelligence operatives have manipulated domestic opinion by structuring the terms of discourse. For example, deHaven-Smith has argued that the nomenclature surrounding the Global War on Terror—terms like “axis of evil,” “ground zero,” and “homeland security” that are associated with World War II - and the meme “9/11” used to denote the terror attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001 - emerged too quickly and were too sophisticated to have been developed without the expertise of public relations specialists.

By their very nature, SCADs are events that present a profound challenge to citizens’ most closely guarded beliefs about government and democracy. Laurie Manwell has written extensively on the many attitudes, biases, and faulty beliefs which can prevent people from processing information that challenges these pre-existing assumptions about government, reasoned dissent, and public discourse in a democratic society. In contrast to other academics’ suggestions on how to deal with conspiracy-related speech (e.g., Sunstein and Vermeule’s 2009 suggestions for taxing, fining, or banning conspiracy-related speech or for government-orchestrated cognitive infiltration of private and public beliefs),[32] Manwell’s recommendations all involved more open discourse, greater public education and media literacy, and increased political knowledge, participation and tolerance.[4] She argues that, for a functioning democracy to, at the bare minimum, survive, let alone thrive, “the right to dissent with the majority opinion, and the necessity to have this dissenting discourse within the public sphere, must be protected” (Manwell, 2010, p. 849).

CIA Instructions to Media Assets, re: Assassination of President Kennedy (CIA Document #1035-960, marked "PSYCH" for presumably Psychological Warfare Operations, in the division "CS", the Clandestine Services, sometimes known as the "dirty tricks" department)

b. To employ propaganda assets to and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (II) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories. In the course of discussions of the whole phenomenon of criticism, a useful strategy may be to single out Epstein's theory for attack, using the attached Fletcher article and Spectator piece for background. (Although Mark Lane's book is much less convincing that Epstein's and comes off badly where confronted by knowledgeable critics, it is also much more difficult to answer as a whole, as one becomes lost in a morass of unrelated details.)

And this: “Conspiracy Theory”: Foundations of a Weaponized Term - Subtle and Deceptive Tactics to Discredit Truth in Media and Research by Prof. James F. Tracy

Because thinking burns calories, that's why people prefer to talk about trivial stuff like football or celebrity gossip.

They fear. They fear fear. They don't like the idea of possibilities.

Conspiracy theory has been made into a joke about human beings who are bored with too much time on their hands.

And when you have too much time and money and power on your hands, you conspire.

I heard someone say that recently. "Too much time on their hands." Another one was "trying to blame the failings in one's life on a grand conspiracy".

Well, I would rather say "enough" time on one's hands, rather than too much. Admittedly, I would probably be far less informed about conspiracies if I had been working full-time the past few years!

Nah.

I say the people to whom money is no object, have too much time on their hands, and they are led by this to conspire.

Ever heard what idle hands were ?

Same reason people blindly answer "To End The War" when you ask them if dropping nuclear weapons on Japan was justified.

They dont like to think for themselves

because you're crazy if you don't believe government, why would they ever lie to you ? you must be crazy

you're crazy

I think its because most "conspiracy " theories tend to be so out in left field than fear. Most of them are so utterly ridiculous that no one can take them seriously.

There is a substantial, measurable difference between the nature of a conspiracy theory and conspiracy fact. The term "conspiracy theory" is normally latched on to any form of controversial viewpoint as a defense mechanism.

The way it was explained to me once before is, to designate the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln as a "conspiracy" is 100% accurate; there is no theory to it. A man (or group of men) conspired to kill Lincoln, and succeeded. Where the "theory" part comes in is the collaboration of facts or fiction built to support a hypothesis to explain the conspiracy in its entirety.

When it comes to people seeing the "big picture," it really begins with a willingness to acknowledge the completely logical and irrefutable fact that people - usually those in power - conspire to enact their agenda onto others. It actually happens every day, just not always on a global scale.

We can genuinely want people to see whatever picture exists, it is up to those capable of rational thought to actually be willing to see it. Some would rather relegate controversial information to the taboo of "conspiracy theory" merely as a defensive reflex, protecting the fragile facade from which their reality and definition of truth is made of.

most "conspiracy " theories tend to be so out in left field

Care to elaborate?

Most of us here on /r/conspiracy tend to subtract the propaganda from the news and we are left with whatever we are left with. Wild theories, when they arise, come from outside the community.

That's often said; to paraphrase – "most conspiracy theories are utterly ridiculous save the odd gem."

I ask, too. What are these utterly ridiculous conspiracy theories? I am of the opinion that "where there's smoke, there's fire." Even if someone was to completely invent a highly improbable conspiracy theory, it's improbable that they're doing it for their own entertainment. Likely, it's deliberate disinformation to cover something else up, so it's still valuable but not directly.

Or, it's a false flag type of thing, e.g., "swastika rabbi".

What are these utterly ridiculous conspiracy theories?

• Aliens are amongst us
• Biblical prophecy
• Bigfoot
• Boston Bombings being a false flag
• Chemtrails
• Climate Change only exists so they can tax us all... one day!
• Detox
• "Depopulation" agendas
• Electric Universe hypothesis
• Energy weapon explanations for 9/11
• Free energy
• Fukushima being blown up by the Jews
• HAARP being responsible for earthquakes / weather control
• Homeopathy
• International Space Station is a fake
• Miracle Mineral Solution
• Moon Landings faked
• Morgellons
• No plane / hologram explanations for 9/11
• Paul McCartney replaced by a body double in the 1960s
• Pyramids were built by / assisted by aliens
• Sandy Hook being a false flag
• Some everyday substance cures cancer
• The Titanic was actually the Olympic

There's a few anyway. Well... you did ask.

ok, thanks. What's the Morgellon's syndrome conspiracy? The sufferers conspiring to make us all believe that the insects on their faces are real?

Also, it really annoys me that people go on so much about homeopathy being fake. Yes, they're sugar pills, but they really do work a treat to bring about the placebo effect. Now what are hypochondriacs going to take?

"Overly General Ignorant Statements Now With Bad Grammar!!!!!!"