In 1961, President John F. Kennedy gave an address to the American Newspaper Publishers Association in which he stated: “We are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence – on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised.”12
What is a conspiracy theory? Let’s define what each word means first.
“To conspire” comes from a Latin word meaning “to breathe together” – “spire” meaning “breathe” and “con-” meaning “together.” This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You can conspire with someone to throw a surprise birthday party. In a legal sense, the general definition involves 2 or more people working together to commit an illegal act. This is the more common use of the word.
A theory is a hypothesis or idea that has a varying amount of supporting evidence but has yet to be entirely proven.
Now that we have both definitions, a “conspiracy theory” is “an idea that has some supporting evidence that 2 or more people are involved with something nefarious.”
With this definition established, how is the term to be properly applied?
Let’s say you and I wish to rob a bank. We spend months preparing. We get the access keys. We figure out the staff shifts. Come the night of the heist, we pull it off without a hitch. Come morning, the investigators deduce this could not have been a one-man job, based on the evidence they do have. It’s not definitive, but they are very certain. At this point, these investigators are literally conspiracy theorists. In fact, once you and I invariably get caught, when we get tried in court, we will be charged with “conspiracy” for working together in the planning and execution of the plot.
You can see, then, the term “conspiracy theorist” is not supposed to be a pejorative label about “crazy tin-foil hat-wearing anti-vaxxers who believe in such outlandish tales as Bigfoot, aliens, flat earth, and government corruption and who believe everything they read on the internet.” Do some conspiracy theorists believe in all of these? Sure, but that is by no means all or most of them.
How did this term become such a pervasive pejorative in the common vernacular?
Following the assassination of President Kennedy, the Warren Commission was set up to ascertain the truth about what happened and who was involved. Their conclusion was that it was Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone with no outside help (thus eliminating the possibility of a conspiracy), who had shot the President in Dealey Plaza from the School Book Depository on November 11, 1963.
After the commission released their report, many people questioned and presented evidence disputing the government’s claim that Oswald had acted alone and even posited that he was not the one to shoot the President. Many of these questions and criticisms towards the Warren Commission are put forward in the 1991 movie JFK by Oliver Stone.
Following this, in 1993, the CIA sent out Dispatch 1035-9603, the purpose of which is “to provide material for countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists.” This document was the impetus for the mainstream media to popularize the term “conspiracy theorist” as one of shame and contempt. This document also details tactics on how to deal with these “conspiracy theorists,” such as the tired old argument of “how can such a large conspiracy be kept a secret? Surely, someone would have said something.”
Since then, the term has been used ad nauseum by the mainstream media to mock and discredit those who would dare to question their narrative of history. I find it quite ironic that, based on the definition presented above, they themselves are conspiracy theorists, because they believe the official narrative of 9-11 which states that 11 men hijacked the 4 planes. The last time I checked, 11 is more than 1. Thus, 9-11 was a conspiracy no matter which explanation you believe.
Is there a way to counteract the negativity surrounding the term?
In his video “I am a Conspiracy Theorist” – which this article is inspired from – long-time researcher James Corbett suggests that rather than running from the term, we should embrace it, and I would agree. As demonstrated above, the term is not inherently pejorative. However, there are a couple other terms that may also help dispel the stigma surrounding so-called “conspiracy theories.”
Corbett and others use the term “conspiracy realist.” Given the mountains of evidence gathered over the past decades and centuries, this term is appropriate, as it indicates that the idea of a conspiracy is supported by facts and not just some ideas someone came up with in their back yard.
Another term comes by way of the book Conspiracy Theory in America by Lance DeHaven-Smith.4 While I have yet to read the book, James Corbett recently released a video going over some of the major points of the book.5 The book introduces the term SCAD, or State Crimes Against Democracy. While the term is not intended to displace the term “conspiracy theory,” it is meant to refer to “the type of wrongdoing about which the conspiracy-theory label discourages us from speaking.”
Lance DeHaven-Smith continues:
“…The SCAD construct does not refer to a type of allegation or suspicion; it refers to a special type of transgression: an attack from within on the political system’s organizing principles. For these extremely grave crimes, America’s Founders used the term “high crime” and included in this category treason and “conspiracies against the people’s liberties.” SCADs, high crimes, and antidemocratic conspiracies can also be called “elite political crimes” and “elite political criminality.” The SCAD construct is intended, not to supersede traditional terminology or monopolize conceptualization of this phenomenon, but rather to add a descriptive term that captures, with some specificity, the long-recognized potential for representative democracy to be subverted by people on the inside—the very people who have been entrusted to uphold the constitutional order.”6
While this term is not widespread, SCADs would encompass events such as the JFK assassination and 9-11.
While JFK was referring primarily to the Soviet Union when he gave his speech, I have found from the research I’ve done that this conspiracy goes far beyond Communism. However, this goes beyond the scope of this article. For a more detailed article, I would take a look at another of my articles “The History you were not Taught in School” for an in-depth look at just one aspect of the “Great Conspiracy.” At the end of the article, there are also many resources for you to follow and to begin doing your own research.
That is the point of this article – to get more people to do their own research beyond the mainstream narrative of world events. If enough people do their research, if enough people take a stand against the ever encroaching threats to our freedom happening all across the globe, if enough people can learn to think for themselves, then maybe we can secure a better future for our children and grandchildren.
So, I ask you. I am a conspiracy theorist. Are you?
- JFK’s 1961 speech to the American Newspaper Publishers Association:
https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/american-newspaper-publishers-association-19610427 ↩︎ - James Corbett discussing the speech along with the full audio version:
https://corbettreport.com/qfc-jfksecret/ ↩︎ - CIA Dispatch 1035-960:
https://www.docdroid.net/VBYi8Uu/cia-1035-960-pdf ↩︎ - Conspiracy Theory in America by Lance DeHaven-Smith:
https://archive.org/details/conspiracy-theory-in-america-2013-lance-smith/Conspiracy%20Theory%20In%20America%20%282013%29-Lance%20Smith/mode/2up ↩︎ - “Episode 476 – I Read ‘Conspiracy Theory in America’ (And You Can Too!)
https://corbettreport.com/i-read-conspiracy-theory-in-america/ ↩︎ - DeHaven-Smith, Lance (2013). Conspiracy Theory in America. University of Texas Press, p. 9-12 ↩︎
Super Success 