Most popular conspiracy theories without JFK assasination?

MorphyVSFischer

The assassination of John F. Kennedy is possibly/probably the most popular and well known of all conspiracy theories, a significant subset of Americans believe there's more to the official story and it dominated conspiracy thinking for decades.

Had Oswald not taken a shot at Kennedy that day (Say Oswald kills himself or has some accident) what would the most well known, wide spread conspiracy theories to the public? How would this effect pop culture.
 

overoceans

Well, there's the general, ubiquitous "Jews[or bankers Freemasons etc] control the world" deal. Of course, that overlaps with JFK in a lot of cases(I'd be interested to meet someone who subscribes to the cabalistic banking theory who also thinks that Oswald was just a lone nut).

Apart from that, I'd say Roswell(and allied UFO stories) would probably be the most popular. Though, again, they overlap with a lot of other conspiracy stuff.

And I guess 9/11 Truth, if that incident still happens in a world where JFK doesn't get shot.
 
Ameck16

Ameck16

I once heard these two guys talk about Kennedy's assassination and one of them was like, "my grandad was in the KGB and he told me there were people in the US that killed him because he was actively trying to avoid as war with them and the American generals wanted war".
 

MorphyVSFischer

overoceans said:
Apart from that, I'd say Roswell(and allied UFO stories) would probably be the most popular. Though, again, they overlap with a lot of other conspiracy stuff.
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That was my first thought as well, that alien related cover-up's would be even more prominent. I wonder if that would boast the moon landings were faked crowd at all? Then again the general public at large doesn't really buy into that the way they did with JFK and Roswell.
 

overoceans

Ameck16 said:
I once heard these two guys talk about Kennedy's assassination and one of them was like, "my grandad was in the KGB and he told me there were people in the US that killed him because he was actively trying to avoid as war with them and the American generals wanted war".
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A noticable aspect of conspiracy-theories is how often the goals that the conspiracists were allegedly trying to attain were never reached.

For example, the OAS assassination attempts on De Gaulle were a CIA plot to stop De Gaulle from pulling France out of NATO(because, Lord knows, the OAS wasn't really upset about Algeria or anything). Then, five years later, De Gaulle actually does more-or-less pull France out of NATO, and the CIA doesn't bother doing anything about it.
 

overoceans

MorphyVSFischer said:
That was my first thought as well, that alien related cover-up's would be even more prominent. I wonder if that would boast the moon landings were faked crowd at all? Then again the general public at large doesn't really buy into that the way they did with JFK and Roswell.
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Yeah, I didn't think of the moon landing. You're right, it doesn't seem as popular as Roswell or JFK, if for no other reason than there isn't enough ambiguity in the evidence for any credible photography-expert to go on record as saying the pictures were all faked.

Plus, from a psycho-political perspective, conspiracy-theories in the USA tend to evoke longings for some idealized American past that the cabal has taken away(JFK's "We've all become Hamlets in our country etc") But the moon landing was actually one cool thing America did, popular with steak-eating suburbanites and pot-smoking hippies alike. So, who wants to be the one to say that THAT never happened?
 

Maoistic

Banned
9/11 conspiracy theories have vastly overshadowed JFK's murder conspiracy theories. If 9/11 still occurred in a world where JFK wasn't murdered, that would be the most popular source of conspiracy theories. Aside from 9/11, I think Roswell is. Roswell kickstarted Ufology as we know it today. I don't see Erich Von Daniken or Zecharia Sitchin writing their crackpot books without Roswell and thus starting the whole ancient aliens phenomenon. and if they still did write them, they definitely wouldn't be as popular as they are now.
 

merlin

The opposite 'one' to the fake Moon landing, is that there were no more trips to the Moon, because the Aliens warned us off!
 

GunsCarsGuitars

Banned
Various Templar conspiracies, blaming them for pretty much everything.

CIA inventing crack and spreading it in U.S. urban areas.
 

overoceans

Derek Jackson said:
I have heard that the CIA DID use drug money to finance some activities. Is this true?
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CIA Dope Calypso

That's opium, not coke. I think it was credibly alleged that the CIA was collaborating with cocaine smugglers as well, though there is some debate about just how involved they were.

And I don't think the collusion was done with the intent of hurting the black community, as the conspiracy theorists in said community claimed, but was rather just a case of realpolitik alliances.

The San Jose Mercury News was the paper that broke the CIA-coke stuff in the 90s. There was a movie based on that a few years back, though it was criticized for inaccuracy.
 
Emperor Norton I

Emperor Norton I

The Kennedy assassination basically made conspiracy theories a thing in vogue. It began a mood of distrust which only worsened from there and spread out to everything. So without that, conspiracy theories across the board are going to be less popular and prominent.
 

overoceans

Emperor Norton I said:
The Kennedy assassination basically made conspiracy theories a thing in vogue. It began a mood of distrust which only worsened from there and spread out to everything. So without that, conspiracy theories across the board are going to be less popular and prominent.
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Agreed, although I think Watergate really added an extra injection of paranoia, and provided the general tone and aesthetic for 1970s/early 80s conspiracy oriented pop-culture.

Though, technically, Watergate doesn't count as a conspiracy in the sense used here, since it was pretty obvious that Republicans and Democrats were at each other's throats. People just hadn't previously realized how far Nixon was willing to take things.
 

raharris1973

overoceans said:
A noticable aspect of conspiracy-theories is how often the goals that the conspiracists were allegedly trying to attain were never reached.

For example, the OAS assassination attempts on De Gaulle were a CIA plot to stop De Gaulle from pulling France out of NATO(because, Lord knows, the OAS wasn't really upset about Algeria or anything). Then, five years later, De Gaulle actually does more-or-less pull France out of NATO, and the CIA doesn't bother doing anything about it.
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Other examples - My Spanish teacher in 1989-90 saying the invasion of Panama was ploy to take back ownership of the canal

American occupation of Afghanistan for pipelines and mines

American occupation of Iraq for oil
 

David T

It's odd that people think conspiracy theories didn't flourish in America before JFK. In the two decades before the assassination, consider the following: Roswell and UFO's; Paul Blanshard's warning of a Catholic plan to take over America and make non-Catholics second-class citizens; Frederic Wertham's reading of Batman and Robin as gay; the concern about subliminal advertising (and "hidden persuaders" in general); Robert Welch's belief that Ike was a Communist...
 
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Hammurabi

raharris1973 said:
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American occupation of Iraq for oil
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I really dont want to start a flamewar, but wasnt a byproduct of the occupation an upsurge in contracts between Iraqi oil and foreign firms? From what I understand, everyone got a slice of the pie that use to be a nationalized oil industry.
 

overoceans

Hammurabi said:
I really dont want to start a flamewar, but wasnt a byproduct of the occupation an upsurge in contracts between Iraqi oil and foreign firms? From what I understand, everyone got a slice of the pie that use to be a nationalized oil industry.
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Well, if the allegation was that the Americans invaded for the purpose of giving Iraqi oil to American companies, I don't think that was quite how it played out. Lots of other nations, including ostensible anti-imperialists France and China, saw their oil firms jumping into the feed.

That said, I don't know if making claims about the motivations of a particular action in and of itself qulifies as a conspiracy-theory, even if the claims turn out to be false. Historians debate politicans and governments' motivations all the time, without it being called conspiracy theory.

I think that distinguishes a conspiracy-theory from everyday historical theorizing is that the theorists' allege that the alignment of powers behind the scenes is radically different than what is generally assumed. For example, we might think that it was a bunch of disgruntled southerners who took out Lincoln, but in reality it was THE JESUITS! And we're all dupes for thinking that the Jesuits would never intervene in Americans politicis that way.

Also, they like to claim that certain extraoridinary events have happened that are being kept from the public's knowledge, eg. Roswell.
 
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Crunch Buttsteak

Crunch Buttsteak

Given that it’s ostensibly the causus belli for Vietnam, I would think that Tonkin Gulf conspiracies would be in vogue if Kennedy assassination theories weren’t.
 
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