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Conspiracy Theories: Difference between revisions
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''Other''
* The "Paul is dead" theory has it that [[
* The "Birther" movement claims that US President [[Barack Obama]] is not a natural-born American citizen, which would make him ineligible for the position he currently occupies. The name "Birther" comes from the fact that they believe his birth certificate to be a forgery, and that his ''real'' birth certificate (which he is supposedly hiding) proves that he was born in Kenya/Indonesia/wherever. This rumor was started during the 2008 campaign by some of the angrier supporters of [[Hillary Rodham Clinton]], who were upset that she was losing the Democratic primary to Obama, and was picked up by many on the far-right fringe after Obama was elected. In order for this claim to work, it would require either a) planning by Them going back half a century (Honolulu newspapers [http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/rr147/spazeman/obama-birth.gif reported his birth]), in a time when the idea of a non-white President was laughable, as well as a lot of natural charm, brilliance and political success on the part of their [[The Dragon|supposed puppet]] to actually get elected 47 years later, or b) Obama not only successfully forging [http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/04/27/obama.birth.certificate/index.html?hpt=C1 his long-form birth certificate], but also fabricating those newspaper announcements, fabricating his college records, bribing immigration officials, ''and'' bribing or fooling election officials.<br /><br />For the record, under current laws, anyone born to an American citizen is also a natural-born American citizen, no matter where this occurred. The President was born before this law was implemented, but even under the statutes he was born under, he only needs to spend a few years in the United States to claim natural-born citizenship; his academic record alone validates that claim. Some claim that being a natural-born citizen isn't enough -- you must actually be born in the US to run for President. This is in spite of the fact that the Constitution does not make such a requirement, only requiring a) natural-born citizen status, b) having lived in the US for fourteen years, and c) being at least 35 years old. There ''isn't'' any strict "born on US soil" requirement, as several other men (including Senator John McCain, Barack Obama's opponent in the 2008 Presidential election) have been accepted as legal US Presidential candidates despite having been born outside the US.
** One variation claims that, since Obama's father (a native of British Kenya) held British citizenship at the time of his son's birth, then Obama holds dual US and British citizenship, which they feel would make him ineligible even if he was a natural-born citizen. Problem is, there is nothing in the Constitution saying that dual citizenship makes a candidate ineligible, and even if there was, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution<ref>"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside..."</ref> would override it. Other claims allege that Obama's mother had renounced her US citizenship and, by extension, her son's (she hadn't, and even if she did it wouldn't have affected Obama's status), that a trip by Obama to Pakistan in 1981 could only have been accomplished with a foreign passport due to an alleged ban on travel between the US and Pakistan (no such ban existed), and that Obama's enrollment in a school in Indonesia in his youth could only have been done if he wasn't a US citizen at the time (living outside the US as a minor, as ruled in ''[[wikipedia:Perkins v. Elg|Perkins v. Elg]]'', does not cause you to lose your citizenship).
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* Types 1, 2, and 5 of the [[Strawman News Media]], in all of their various forms.
* The alleged use of [[Subliminal Advertising]] to sell products. In 1957, a market researcher named James Vicary (who later [[Trope Namer|coined the term]] "subliminal advertising") performed an experiment at a movie theater in New Jersey. The words "Drink Coca-Cola" and "Hungry? Eat popcorn" would be flashed on the screen for 1/3000 of a second at five second intervals. Vicary alleged that sales of Coca-Cola and popcorn increased at that theater by 57.8% and 18.1%, respectively. Although the results have never been replicated, and Vicary himself later admitted to faking his results, conspiracy theories pertaining to subliminal messages persist to this day, and have inspired countless writers and filmmakers.
** One form of subliminal message used in music is "backmasking," or recording a sound or message backwards so that it is audible only when played backwards. Many bands, most notably [[The Beatles (band)|The Beatles]] and [[Pink Floyd]], used backmasking for effect and as a way of putting [[Easter Egg|easter eggs]] into their music<ref>The former's use of backmasking, incidentally, led to the "Paul is Dead" conspiracy theory, and the rumors that there was a backmasked homage to Satan in [[Led Zeppelin|"Stairway to Heaven"]] started a lot of the fears about rock music being specifically Satanic, instead of just rowdy.</ref>, and it is also used by radio stations as a crude way of censoring explicit lyrics. Conspiracy theories surrounding backmasking are often religious in nature, the idea being that [[Rock Me, Asmodeus|rock bands and other popular musicians]] are using it to, among other things, [[Subliminal Seduction|encourage devil worship, sex, drug use, and suicide]]. Psychologists have pointed out that listeners can't understand words heard backward, let alone be subliminally influenced by them, and [[Judas Priest|Rob Halford]] has pointed out [[Artistic License Economics|how bad a business model it is]] to brainwash your fans into killing themselves. This theory was at its height in [[The Eighties]], as a part of [[You Can Panic Now|the general hysteria]] over Satanic ritual abuse.
* A [[YouTube]] series called ''The Industry Exposed'' (or simply ''The Industry'') alleges that the music industry is controlled by occult/Satanic groups, including the Freemasons, and that they put subliminal messages and esoteric imagery into songs and music videos in order to seduce young people to [[The Dark Side]].
* It has been claimed that the ''[[The X-Files|X-Files]]'' [[Spin-Off]] ''[[The Lone Gunmen]]'' predicted not only the 9/11 attacks, but the alleged [[Government Conspiracy]] behind them, and that this is why it was canceled.
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