Top Ten Real Conspiracies.

But why call them conspiracy theories even after they have been proven to be true, it's almost like calling them false at that point.

This is a loooong thread, so apologies if this has already been added to the list (I bet it hasn't).

In December 1999, it was proven to the satisfaction of a civil jury that Dr Martin Luther King Jr was murdered as the result of a conspiracy, and not by the designated "lone nut" James Earl Ray. The trial lasted a month and involved 70 witnesses, and not one English-language western media outlet attended or reported it.

You can read the King family's views on the verdict here. (They had to seek damages in order for there to be a trial in the first place, so they claimed a symbolic sum - just $100)

You can read the account of how the case was solved in the book "An Act of State" by William Pepper, the Attorney who solved the case. (Link is to Amazon.com - I have no financial interest in sales of the book).

So yes, we can now say that one of the 'big three' assassinations of the 1960s was a proven domestic conspiracy.

The Rosetta Comet NASA mission

Mission to land a probe, Philae, on a passing comet.

Conspiracy is that NASA wouldn't go to all that money and trouble just to probe a comet. And that the comet really has Alien infrastructures and communication on it.

i have to tell my story and you all will find it is a big conspirancy against me...can me grant the access to write thread?

originally posted by: audubon
This is a loooong thread, so apologies if this has already been added to the list (I bet it hasn't).

In December 1999, it was proven to the satisfaction of a civil jury that Dr Martin Luther King Jr was murdered as the result of a conspiracy, and not by the designated "lone nut" James Earl Ray. The trial lasted a month and involved 70 witnesses, and not one English-language western media outlet attended or reported it.

You can read the King family's views on the verdict here. (They had to seek damages in order for there to be a trial in the first place, so they claimed a symbolic sum - just $100)

You can read the account of how the case was solved in the book "An Act of State" by William Pepper, the Attorney who solved the case. (Link is to Amazon.com - I have no financial interest in sales of the book).

So yes, we can now say that one of the 'big three' assassinations of the 1960s was a proven domestic conspiracy.

Ray acted alone. the whole trial was about paranoid black leaders, all too willing to believe I-knew-they-were-out-to-get-us being fed nonsense by Ray in a cynical ploy to get attention, possibly a release. there was no Raoul. there was no conspiracy.

i'm sure there used to be a more specific definition of conspiracy... is it changed or lost? i can't really think about it, and i like them. Probably ruined it by own hands. a reply to: John bull 1

i support you and god bless youa reply to: delphos87

a reply to: John bull 1

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a reply to: John bull 1

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Awesome!!!!

I just gave a star and a flag to a 13 year old thread..... Wow ATS, your showing your age

originally posted by: audubon
This is a loooong thread, so apologies if this has already been added to the list (I bet it hasn't).

In December 1999, it was proven to the satisfaction of a civil jury that Dr Martin Luther King Jr was murdered as the result of a conspiracy, and not by the designated "lone nut" James Earl Ray. The trial lasted a month and involved 70 witnesses, and not one English-language western media outlet attended or reported it.

You can read the King family's views on the verdict here. (They had to seek damages in order for there to be a trial in the first place, so they claimed a symbolic sum - just $100)

You can read the account of how the case was solved in the book "An Act of State" by William Pepper, the Attorney who solved the case. (Link is to Amazon.com - I have no financial interest in sales of the book).

So yes, we can now say that one of the 'big three' assassinations of the 1960s was a proven domestic conspiracy.

That trial did nothing to prove there was a conspiracy beyond James Earl Ray, and is greatly exaggerated in regard to being any sort of legitimate trial. It was a civil case for $100, and the attorney representing the King family was the same attorney who represented James Earl Ray.

Since Jowers was being sued for $100 and no criminal charges, there was no reason to vigorously defend himself. He did not even testify. The verdict was that he was guilty, and so were "government agencies". Notice the general description instead of naming actual government agencies, calling members to the stand, and going through the procedures of a REAL trial.

In the end, you have a verdict that blames 'government agencies' as being part of the plot - and these unnamed defendants were not part of the trial, meaning - they also had no representation, no defense whatsoever - because nobody was specifically named, and no charges were being sought.

In other words, it's a joke - not a trial.

www.snopes.com...

originally posted by: blackaspirin
That trial did nothing to prove there was a conspiracy beyond James Earl Ray, and is greatly exaggerated in regard to being any sort of legitimate trial.

Except, you know, that verdict bit where the jurors unanimously agreed that there had been a conspiracy, and that it involved the government. And it was a completely legitimate trial by all legal standards.

the attorney representing the King family was the same attorney who represented James Earl Ray.

I'm not quite sure what you think this proves, or perhaps suggests.

Since Jowers was being sued for $100 and no criminal charges, there was no reason to vigorously defend himself. He did not even testify. The verdict was that he was guilty, and so were "government agencies". Notice the general description instead of naming actual government agencies, calling members to the stand, and going through the procedures of a REAL trial.

This was in fact a real trial. If you're suggesting otherwise, please do point out why it was invalid.

What you (and Snopes) are overlooking is that the prosecution case was that Jowers was part of a conspiracy. That is, although the case hinged on Jowers' assertion, if the conspiracy charges had been rejected by the jury the entire case would have failed, regardless of Jowers' claim to have been a participant.

Here is the list of charges that the Jury unanimously agreed had been committed:

THE COURT: In answer to the question did Loyd Jowers participate in a conspiracy to do harm to Dr. Martin Luther King, your answer is yes. Do you also find that others, including governmental agencies, were parties to this conspiracy as alleged by the defendant? Your answer to that one is also yes. And the total amount of damages you find for the plaintiffs entitled to is one hundred dollars. Is that your verdict?

That's a long long way from an old chap turning up with a cock-and-bull story and fooling a bunch of hicks in a rundown barn.

In the end, you have a verdict that blames 'government agencies' as being part of the plot - and these unnamed defendants were not part of the trial, meaning - they also had no representation, no defense whatsoever - because nobody was specifically named, and no charges were being sought.

This is piffle. It is completely commonplace for conspiracy charges to involve unnamed and/or unindicted conspirators. The term "John Doe" exists for precisely such unidentified figures in court proceedings.

In any case, the US Government has legal personhood. It can be sued as an entity (or as one of its subsidiaries) due to the actions of employees, without blame resolving to any employee in particular.

Snopes' dismissal amounts to a chorus of disapproving quotes, and most of them are from the sort of people you would expect to disapprove (such as that greasy spiv Gerald Posner). Snopes is good at checking photoshopped sharks, Jesus tortillas, and chain-email scams. But they get it wrong sometimes, and this selective cut-and-paste collage of quotes, I'm afraid to say, is one of them.

It is very telling, for example, that Snopes has not spoken to the judge or any of the jurors. The reason courts exist is precisely because we need ways to distinguish the actual truth from what popular opinion believes to be the truth.

That said, I'm not stating that Pepper's work is flawless. But a better place than Snopes to start looking into that would be Pepper's book on the case.

a reply to: audubon

You can read more about the case elsewhere. Needless to say, if you want to personally consider it 'proof' when unnamed defendants were not called as part of the trial, so they had no ability to defend the allegations - then that's your right.

In the world of law, this trial means absolutely nothing.

Jowers was at the end of his life when he started making these claims, and then recanted them. His supposed witnesses recanted.

There was a new investigation ordered by Janet Reno in 1998, and again - no charges.

I know how this works, though - that will be considered proof of just how big the conspiracy is, so if you are dead set on confusing a $100 civil trial stunt with 'proof of a conspiracy', then there's probably nothing I can do to help you recover. Just providing a little more insight for the people who might not have heard this before, and would be led to believe this civil stunt was anything remotely resembling 'proof'.

en.wikipedia.org...

"The Memphis county prosecutor said on several occasions that Mr. Jowers' claims were without merit and that he was motivated to sell his story for a book or a movie. Ray's lawyer claimed two sisters who worked at Jowers' restaurant would corroborate Jowers' claim, but both recanted their stories. One sister admitted that Jowers had fabricated the story so he could make $300,000 from selling the story; she in turn corroborated his story in order to get money to pay taxes. In a telephone conversation taped by authorities, Jowers' main witness stated that his story was false.

a reply to: blackaspirin

Ah yes, good old Wikipedia.

When you quoted that chunk of text, you omitted the footnote references at the end. These are footnotes [8] and [4] (in that order).

Footnote [4] is this six-par obituary of Jowers that doesn't support the claim that Wikipedia claims it supports.

Footnote [8] is this feature, billed as being reproduced from Newsweek magazine. Except, when you check it out, it's not a Newsweek story at all, it's extracts from Killing the Dream, a book by professional conspiracy-sceptic Gerald Posner.

Gerald Posner is a discredited journalist who was found to have committed plagiarism so extensively that he had to resign from Tina Brown's The Daily Beast. He was then found to have fabricated and misattributed key quotes in his writing.

Posner then started claiming that he was the victim of a "co-ordinated campaign" (i.e., a conspiracy!) to discredit him and was caught deleting damaging statements from the Wikipedia page about him (I wonder if he edited the page you were quoting?).

So yeah, you can believe Posner if you want.

a reply to: audubon

I don't need Posner for anything - the 'government agencies' weren't named as defendants, and therefore weren't called to the stand or allowed to present a defense.

If you consider that a trial worthy of calling 'proof', I won't waste any time trying to convince you otherwise. They could have included you (assuming you were alive) as a guilty party in the verdict as well, under the same circumstances - you weren't named, and weren't defended. Would you be proven guilty if they threw you in at the verdict?

a reply to: blackaspirin

"Don't need Posner for anything," my Aunt Fanny. You just brandished an entire chunk of Wikipedia at me as some kind of clinching proof and it turned out to rely 100 per cent on Posner. Who is a fraud.

(Also, I addressed the point about unnamed parties and governmental personhood a post or two ago, and you either didn't read it or are just ignoring it.)

a reply to: audubon

I 'brandished' further explanation of the trial and its problems, and your rebuttal was an ad-hominem against Posner, not a rebuttal of what I posted. Whether you like Posner or not is irrelevant to the fact that no defense was presented for 'government agencies', a term broad enough that it's essentially meaningless. Even the complaint about it somehow being an erroneous reference to Newsweek is spurious - Posner is the author of the Newsweek article. It's not like anyone tried to pull a fast one with that reference, you just want some sort of escape clause.

By the same methodology in the civil trial, as I stated - YOU could be named as a guilty party, without ever having been named in the initial case, and without ever having presented a defense on your behalf.

Would that 'prove you were guilty'? Same standard.

If you won't answer that, there's a very specific reason why not.

originally posted by: blackaspirin
a reply to: audubon

I 'brandished' further explanation of the trial and its problems, and your rebuttal was an ad-hominem against Posner, not a rebuttal of what I posted. Whether you like Posner or not is irrelevant to the fact that no defense was presented for 'government agencies', a term broad enough that it's essentially meaningless. Even the complaint about it somehow being an erroneous reference to Newsweek is spurious - Posner is the author of the Newsweek article. It's not like anyone tried to pull a fast one with that reference, you just want some sort of escape clause.

All untruth and bluster.

You claim Jowers was a greedy fraud. The evidence you cite is Posner. It then turns out that Posner is the greedy fraud. Suddenly you are complaining that I'm ad-homming Posner.

Your hypocritical doublethink has been busted.

The Newsweek article specifically states that it is extracted from Posner's book. So you still haven't checked your own source (or if you have, you are misrepresenting it).

For the record, I was not trying to insinuate that you were trying "to pull a fast one," only that you had relied on poor material. I am beginning to reconsider that initial approach now.

By the same methodology in the civil trial, as I stated - YOU could be named as a guilty party, without ever having been named in the initial case, and without ever having presented a defense on your behalf.

Would that 'prove you were guilty'? Same standard.

If you won't answer that, there's a very specific reason why not.

If I were found to be at fault in a civil case, when I knew I was not at fault, I would appeal the verdict. The provision already exists in law for the overturning of erroneous or misinformed rulings. This isn't some arcane piece of obscure wisdom, it's bread-and-butter legal basics.

Yet strangely, the DoJ has never appealed the 1999 ruling. Why do you suppose that might be? I mean, you're obviously keen to propose dubious motives if people don't respond to accusations. So, what's your explanation for the DoJ's failure to appeal?

originally posted by: audubon
You claim Jowers was a greedy fraud. The evidence you cite is Posner. It then turns out that Posner is the greedy fraud. Suddenly you are complaining that I'm ad-homming Posner.

Your hypocritical doublethink has been busted.

The Newsweek article specifically states that it is extracted from Posner's book. So you still haven't checked your own source (or if you have, you are misrepresenting it).

Again, whatever you think of Posner - it doesn't lend any credibility to a court case that finds unnammed, un-defended agencies as you said, 'proven' guilty.

originally posted by: audubonIf I were found to be at fault in a civil case, when I knew I was not at fault, I would appeal the verdict. The provision already exists in law for the overturning of erroneous or misinformed rulings. This isn't some arcane piece of obscure wisdom, it's bread-and-butter legal basics.

If you were never named as a defendant, and then the verdict stated that 'various persons' were guilty - you would assume you were one of the various persons, and go vigorously defend yourself? If you want apples-to-apples, 'various persons' at the place you are employed. How about then? Were you 'proven guilty' because you work there, and might be a various person they're referring to?

originally posted by: audubonYet strangely, the DoJ has never appealed the 1999 ruling. Why do you suppose that might be? I mean, you're obviously keen to propose dubious motives if people don't respond to accusations. So, what's your explanation for the DoJ's failure to appeal?

Who was found guilty, again?

originally posted by: blackaspirin
Who was found guilty, again?

There are two answers to that.

The first is that no-one was found "guilty", that's a criminal standard for conviction, and the 1999 trial was a civil case. Again, this is elementary stuff.

The second is that the US Government was found to have entered into a conspiracy, by civil standards of proof, and the US Government can be treated as a "legal person" in court, so the lack of individual names is irrelevant.

This is the third time that I have pointed this out to you, and it clearly isn't sinking in at all.