In a time when there wasn't freedom of speech and people had to be very careful what they said in public, it is no wonder that secret societies were very much in need during the 18th Century. That the "Founding Fathers" were Freemasons is quite understandable during the time.

Also, that the political, cultural or economic elite is in any country a rather small group shouldn't be a surprise. Having networks is and has been totally reasonable for the elite in history as it's now. Networks actually create an elite.

And knowing Americans, who naturally (thanks to their history) don't have an aristocracy, have always yearned for one (just think about the fascination with the Kennedy family), joining a "secret" society which has had so many US Presidents starting from the first one as it's members creates envy and interest to join. And finally conspiracy theories too. Especially when the political elite isn't so appreciated today in the society.

The not so secret society:

I think it’s weird that particularly religious (Christian) people seem especially worried about the Freemasons, when they are an explicitly Christian organization that won’t even admit non-Christians.

Fun fact: the short-lived historical Illuminati were essentially a secular humanist copy of the Freemasons, and were quickly eradicated by the theocrats of their time, but nevertheless have been blamed by religious nutbars for the rise of secularism and all other “evils“ ever since.

Yes I do. Freemasons come out of the Enlightenment, and base themselves on Hermetic and Esoteric philosophy.

Manly P. Hall, a great intellectual and philosopher, was a Freemason of the 33rd degree. Recommend his work.

Blamed? It's in their Constitution. The Illuminati were actually the apotheosis of the whole revolutionary Enlightenment political ethic. The whole idea is to use reason to achieve enlightenment. Robespierre wanted to build a temple of reason where the Cathedral of Notre Dame was.

But yeah, the revolutionary and insidious nature of the Illuminati is evident not only in their Constitution, but actually by Thomas Jefferson, Franklin, the Founders, who themselves were Freemasons many of them, publicly warned against the threat of the Illuminati.

Giordano Bruno is an interesting figure. Francis Yates’ scholarly work on him is pretty interesting if you’re interested in this area.

Francis Yates’ scholarly work on him is pretty interesting if you’re interested in this area. — I like sushi

Yes. Good book.

they've got a good list of abstract nouns, I'll give 'em that.

Not sure what you mean, but I said "blamed" because crazy conspiracy people think that everything that has happened to weaken the church and state since the 18th century is the fault of the Illuminati, despite them not having existed for anything but a tiny sliver of that time. But hey, their agenda continued anyway, Enlightenment spread across the world, so I guess in the eyes of paranoid religious freaks, the Illuminati must have secretly continued in the shadows pulling the strings on all the world leaders ever since their supposed "destruction", since there's no way crazy ideas like critical thinking and freedom could have caught on without some kind of nefarious agenda like that.

since there's no way crazy ideas like critical thinking and freedom could have caught on without some kind of nefarious agenda like that. — Pfhorrest

This is the problem typically with conspiracy theories. Everything that happens has to have been planned by someone, who basically is against the "ordinary" people. It has to be the Jews, the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Globalists, the Communists, the Cultural Marxists, the liberals, whoever acting as the instigators and following their hideous sinister plans.

The idea that large changes can happen without someone having planned them is far too difficult to understand.

↪h060tu Not sure what you mean, but I said "blamed" because crazy conspiracy people think that everything that has happened to weaken the church and state since the 18th century is the fault of the Illuminati, despite them not having existed for anything but a tiny sliver of that time. But hey, their agenda continued anyway, Enlightenment spread across the world, so I guess in the eyes of paranoid religious freaks, the Illuminati must have secretly continued in the shadows pulling the strings on all the world leaders ever since their supposed "destruction", since there's no way crazy ideas like critical thinking and freedom could have caught on without some kind of nefarious agenda like that. — Pfhorrest

No, but the Illuminati had a role to play. Just as Rockefellers, Morgans, Rothschilds, Cecil Rhodes, the British Empire, radical revolutionaries etc. etc. did. There's not just one shady group behind everything. There's multiple interest groups involved. Always are. That's how statecraft works. How empire is forged. How the elites run the show.

This is the problem typically with conspiracy theories. Everything that happens has to have been planned by someone, who basically is against the "ordinary" people. It has to be the Jews, the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Globalists, the Communists, the Cultural Marxists, the liberals, whoever acting as the instigators and following their hideous sinister plans.

The idea that large changes can happen without someone having planned them is far too difficult to understand. — ssu

Uh, except there are literally documents which show that there are things that are planned. Many of them. For example, the 1954 coup in Guatemala was planned to destroy the government, and kill the population to protect US crop interests. That's not a conspiracy theory, it's a fact. Another one, is MKULTRA. The government released the public documents of the secret mind control program. Again, not a conspiracy theory. And there are dozens of examples. Sir Rothschild said that he didn't care who ran government, as long as he ran the nation's supply of money. That's a conspiracy.

Uh, except there are literally documents which show that there are things that are planned. — h060tu

And what you have to use is source criticism. There are indeed conspiracies, and then there are those that aren't. And one has to understand which are true and which are not. Yet everything isn't planned and few things are conspiracies. The leaders are quite clueless about the future.

For example, the 1954 coup in Guatemala was planned to destroy the government, and kill the population to protect US crop interests. — h060tu

Taken literally what you said above, doesn't make sense at all. Really, to kill the Guatemalan population? Like Hitler with his "final solution" with the Jews? Likely that wasn't your intent, but this is what source criticism is like. That the civil war in Guatemala was the longest in Latin America 1960-1996 and about two hundred thousand died wasn't the intent. This is the typical error that conspiracy theorists make: the agenda of someone is inherently evil, totally diabolical. It's not just a bad policy or immoral and unethical, it is genuinely evil. This passionate stance destroys objectivity. You really have to make a credible argument that someone really planned to have a civil war going on for 36 years and the objective was genocide. Because otherwise the normal history of Guatemala holds: that the United Fruit Company, the largest landowner in Guatemala, protested that the government of Guatemala began expropriating unused Company land to landless peasants, lobbied and then got the CIA to orchestrate a military coup that lead to a long civil war. That the United Fruit company wanted to change the demographics of Guatemala like Hitler wanted with Europe sounds very peculiar.



In a way conspiracy theorists go a notch further than let's say Noam Chomsky, an archetypal long term critic of the US establishment who sees as his role to criticize the US in every aspect. In fact there's a surprising equivalence between Noam Chomsky and Alex Jones. A lot of the points are the same, which are facts. But then there's the difference. Chomsky doesn't see 9/11 as an "inside job", doesn't see that the Illuminati want to decrease the population by all the bad things happening in the World. Chomsky might see as the only good thing that the US funded and AIDS program under Bush (or similar events), but typically real conspiracy theorists don't see anything good. Except Trump when it comes to Alex Jones.

OK, so this is pretty scary shit. I'm out.

Taken literally what you said above, doesn't make sense at all. Really, to kill the Guatemalan population? Like Hitler with his "final solution" with the Jews? Likely that wasn't your intent, but this is what source criticism is like. That the civil war in Guatemala was the longest in Latin America 1960-1996 and about two hundred thousand died wasn't the intent. — ssu

Yes it was. That was the intent. Just like Madeline Albreight admitted, on tape, that a few hundred thousand if not a million Iraqis dying was a "sacrifice she was willing to make" or something to that effect. Yes, they knew what would happen if they installed a murderous dictator and directed him to kill the population. They knew, and they thought the sacrifice worth the action.

This is the typical error that conspiracy theorists make: the agenda of someone is inherently evil, totally diabolical. — ssu

Some people literally are. "We came, we saw, he died."

That the United Fruit company wanted to change the demographics of Guatemala like Hitler wanted with Europe sounds very peculiar. — ssu

Well, I never said that, so of course it would be. What I said was, the CIA made a calculation, on the behest of the Oligarchs, and decided that killing people would be worth saving however many millions of dollars and whatever supply chain they thought worth saving. It's just a Cost-Benefit Analysis, applied to human life.

In a way conspiracy theorists go a notch further than let's say Noam Chomsky, an archetypal long term critic of the US establishment who sees as his role to criticize the US in every aspect. In fact there's a surprising equivalence between Noam Chomsky and Alex Jones. A lot of the points are the same, which are facts. But then there's the difference. Chomsky doesn't see 9/11 as an "inside job", doesn't see that the Illuminati want to decrease the population by all the bad things happening in the World. Chomsky might see as the only good thing that the US funded and AIDS program under Bush (or similar events), but typically real conspiracy theorists don't see anything good. Except Trump when it comes to Alex Jones. — ssu

Because Chomsky isn't infallible. He doesn't know all of the evidence. Nobody can, by the nature of the human condition. Conspiracy theories are a hypothesis, everything is a hypothesis. Sometimes there are incommensurability of hypothesis.

Chomsky doesn't know that the Israeli app Odigo warned of the 9/11 attacks before they happened, as Haaretz reports and Al Franken admitted on live radio. Chomsky doesn't know of the existence of Thermite at the site of 9/11. He doesn't understand the physics of the fact that jetfuel cannot melt steel. He doesn't know of the dancing Israelis who gleefully celebrated the event. He didn't know of the Plan for a New American Century's aspiration for a "Pearl Harbor event" to justify invading other countries. He didn't know the existence of building seven and the Oligarch who just happened to buy insurance on the building, I think within hours of 9/11. And so on and so forth.

So, Chomsky doesn't know those things, so he doesn't make those arguments. On the other hand, Chomsky is potentially actually part of the conspiracy. Ironically enough. He himself admits that he worked at MIT at the very same time the military and Pentagon was working with MIT to develop new military technologies.

Anyway, suffice it to say, you just lambast "conspiracy theorists" just like the CIA intended in their memo literally inventing the term to discredit conspiracy theorists, and praise Chomsky, but you don't seem to know or care that perhaps Chomsky is simply unaware of, or never considered the evidence behind particular hypotheses (which is what "conspiracy theories" are, just a different hypothesis) and therefore the reason why he doesn't entertain them.

Christopher Hitchens just basically used ad hominems against people on the left who were against the war against Iraq (not "in Iraq") and people who pointed out the official story of 9/11 as a hypothesis doesn't take into account all of the relevant information and data.

Yes it was. That was the intent. Just like Madeline Albreight admitted, on tape, that a few hundred thousand if not a million Iraqis dying was a "sacrifice she was willing to make" or something to that effect. Yes, they knew what would happen if they installed a murderous dictator and directed him to kill the population. They knew, and they thought the sacrifice worth the action. — h060tu

You make my case.

First, it's Madeleine Albright. Second, the quote you refer Albright saying was about UN Sanctions, which were put on after the Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Later Albright was against the invasion of Iraq, so what has that do to with Guatemala, really? And thirdly, how about that the Carter administration barred all sales of military equipment to Guatemala and later extended the ban to commercial sales because of the atrocities? Even if Reagan came along later, you still simply cannot make these kind of simplified generalizations that don't go with the facts. Or, when you say that the intent was to kill the Guatemalan people, who would then pick the Banana's? Did the United Fruit Company, according to you, have an idea to replace the people with new ones or what?

What I earlier forgot to mention is also the omnipotence that conspiracy theorists give to the elites, the Illuminati and/or the US. How nothing happens by chance/accident and especially how nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING happens in other countries because of domestic actors due to their own agendas, which can be totally unrelated from the conspiracy discourse. No, those people are mere stooges and lackeys of the CIA and the powerful elites. Every tragedy in the World happens because of evil elites. That's the basic conspiracy theorists punchline today.

First, it's Madeleine Albright. Second, the quote you refer Albright saying was about UN Sanctions, which were put on after the Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Later Albright was against the invasion of Iraq, — ssu

That makes your case... not at all. It makes mine.

Later Albright was against the invasion of Iraq, so what has that do to with Guatemala, really? — ssu

Good for her. Give her the Nobel Peace Prize.

And thirdly, how about that the Carter administration barred all sales of military equipment to Guatemala and later extended the ban to commercial sales because of the atrocities? — ssu

I didn't say that there weren't different visions within the Oligarchic structure. There are. Wilsonianism is one of those.

Or, when you say that the intent was to kill the Guatemalan people, who would then pick the Banana's? — ssu

You're either not understanding what I'm saying, not reading, or not caring. They wanted to kill Guatemalans, but I didn't say they "planned a genocide of the population" those words never surfaced. They killed the Guatemalans that they needed to kill to secure the resource they wanted. They didn't kill them all. They killed as many as necessary to get what they wanted to get. It's the same reason Albright thought it was "worth it" to kill 500,000+ kids. Maybe 4,000,000 wouldn't be worth it. But to her 500k was. Again, it was a Cost-Benefit Analysis. It wasn't some mass extermination campaign, and I never even implied that.

What I earlier forgot to mention is also the omnipotence that conspiracy theorists give to the elites, the Illuminati and/or the US. — ssu

Which I never did. I always say that there are different factions, sects and interest groups within the superstructure of the Oligarchy which do different things and want different things. Case and point, MI6 has a different interest than the CIA, has a different interest than FSB, has a different interest than Mossad, has a different interest than the Vatican, has a different interest than the Mafia, has a different interest than the Rockefellers and so on and so on. Sometimes those interests converge, like during Operation Gladio, sometimes they do not. I never said anything different.

You're either not understanding what I'm saying, not reading, or not caring. — h060tu

Actually, I did understand that likely you didn't intend to saying that United Fruit / the US wanted to kill ALL Guatemalans, but saying that the "intent was to kill the Guatemalan people" can interpreted literally. That the Guatemalan junta wanted to kill all leftist rebels, their sympathizers and anyone helping them is a better way to put it. When in an insurgency the government response is unrestrained violence, the outcome can indeed be something approaching a genocide. But the intent then isn't genuine genocide of "lets eradicate all the people of this ethnicity/religion/class and we have solved our problem". There are examples of those genocides: the Holocaust, the Holodomor, the genocide against Armenians, Cambodia, Rwanda etc.

I didn't say that there weren't different visions within the Oligarchic structure. There are. Wilsonianism is one of those. - I always say that there are different factions, sects and interest groups within the superstructure of the Oligarchy which do different things and want different things — h060tu

And that's a great start, which I agree with.

But note what impact the above has on a lot of conspiracy theories. Yes, there might be a cabal of people trying to promote and advance their agenda, but large events are effected by a myriad of groups having their own agenda. Things can have unintended consequences. And you have to show that one specific cabal is really calling all the shots and all other actors are playing along. Conspiracy lovers seldom want to hear details that go in other direction from their conspiracy narrative. Simply put it, source criticism and detail are important.

Hence one of the errors we make is to assume a consensus among a large group of people who don't share a common agenda. We easily generalize and simplify and talk for example about "the CIA" doing this or "Moscow", "London" or "Beijing" doing that.

A great classic, a small booklet by Major General Smedley Butler called War is a Racket gives nice perspective on these issues. However my point is not to look at events from just from one viewpoint and with one narrative in mind. For example, studying history which has been written from different perspectives gives a far more clear view about these issues. Many times the history of Latin America, especially Central America is quite "US centric". Yet a lot of the structural weaknesses and societal problems come from earlier times of Spanish rule. And if a native American state would have somehow survived to this day without colonization, just like Ethiopia in Africa (as the Italians didn't hold all of the area during their occupation), the problems would likely still be there (just look at the history of Ethiopia). And when the "conspiracy theories" come up from various different approaches, that tells that they indeed have happened. That our historical understanding from other countries is usually even more limited doesn't help.