ACCEPTABLE CONSPIRACY THEORIES
In the huge "Dangerous Conspiracy Theory" push that is happening across the MSM, this is a thread to create a list of recent and past media narratives that are in reality claims of conspiracy. They are not deemed to be “Conspiracy Theories” simply because the (((gatekeepers))) who control such discussions have double standards and forked tongues.
–The Classic case being Russia hacked the 2017 Election.—
But what about claims of –White Privilege– or –The Patriarchy—
Are these not simplyConspiracy Theories that happen at this moment to be Acceptable
Neil Clarke has written on this subject in 2016, but now would be a moment to revive and re-invigorate the discussion.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/top-ten-acceptable-western-establishment-conspiracy-theories/5541112
His Top Ten in 2016 (UK centric) were as follows:
1. Iraq has WMDs which threaten the world!
2. Iran’s developing nukes!
3. Jeremy Corbyn deliberately sabotaged the ‘Remain campaign’ in Britain’s EU referendum.
4. Assad is helping/working with ISIS and wants them to expand.
5. Russia is providing ISIS with an air force
6. Trotskyists are taking over the Labour Party!
7. Russia was behind the DNC email leak
8. Putin orchestrated football hooliganism to get Britain out of the EU
9. Donald Trump is a Russian agent
10. Dr Jill Stein is a Kremlin shill!
Here’s an intro from Neil’s article in 2013
Conspiracy Theories? No One Does it Better than the Western Elite
For a long time elite establishment gatekeepers in the West have scoffed at that those who claim Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned. As to those who claimed he was poisoned by Israel – well-of course they’re crazy conspiracy theorists!
Yet these same people who ridiculed the idea of Arafat’s poisoning are, by and large, the same people who assert, without any shadow of a doubt, that the murdered spy Aleksandr Litvinenko was poisoned by the Russian authorities in London in 2006.
Now we still don’t know for sure that Arafat was poisoned, or that Israel was responsible, but after last week’s news that Swiss scientists have found levels of polonium-210 18 times higher than normal in his exhumed body, it is much harder for these elite gatekeepers to haughtily dismiss as ‘cranks’ those who maintain that Arafat was murdered.
What the Litvinenko and Arafat cases show us is that there are officially ‘approved’ conspiracy theories and those which do not receive official approval.
The labelling of people as ‘conspiracy theorists’ by gatekeepers in the West has nothing to do with how much evidence there is to support a claim or the quality of that evidence, but is a political call, based on who the conspiracy theory concerns and who is making it.
Establishment gatekeepers are not objective judges, but are heavily biased and label any idea they don’t like as a ‘conspiracy theory’. Labelling someone a ‘conspiracy theorist’ is their standard way of declaring that person to be ‘off-limits’, i.e. he/she is an unreliable source and a ‘crank’. It’s a way that dissent and debate is stifled in what appear to be free, democratic societies – and how people who challenge the dominant establishment narrative are deliberately marginalized.
Yet the greatest irony is that in the last 20 years or so, the biggest pushers of conspiracy theories have been these very same Western elite politicians and establishment gatekeepers so quick to accuse others of peddling conspiracy theories.
They were the ones who pushed, with great zeal, the conspiracy theory that Saddam Hussein had WMDs in 2003. This was one which had real, deadly consequences, leading to a blatantly illegal war and the deaths of at least 500,000 people. These elite gatekeepers have also pushed the conspiracy theory that . . .
>>https://www.globalresearch.ca/conspiracy-theories-no-one-does-it-better-than-wests-elite/5357943?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles
And for those autists with a mind for academic writing – there is a burgeoning area of investigation underway in the social and psychological sciences. See the attached paper from University of Otago,
NZ The conspiracy mentality scale:Distinguishing between irrational and rational suspicion
.