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Why there are so many kooky conspiracy theories about oil
Washington Post ^ | December 23, 2014 | Chris Mooney

Posted on 12/24/2014 4:50:47 AM PST by thackney

The sudden, dramatic drop in oil prices has changed the world almost overnight. Russia's facing an economic crisis, and U.S. consumers are saving a fortune at the pump. The reasons for the sudden swing are not particularly glamorous: They involve factors like supply and demand, oil companies having invested heavily in exploration several years ago to produce a glut of oil that has now hit the market -- and then, perhaps, the "lack of cohesion" among the diverse members of OPEC.

But now, right on cue, out come the conspiracy theorists — including Vladimir Putin — to tell us what's really going on.

Recently, Putin floated the idea that the oil price drop is the result of a U.S.-Saudi plot to hurt his country. "We all see the lowering of the oil price. There's lots of talk about what's causing it," Putin said recently. "Could it be the agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to punish Iran and affect the economies of Russia and Venezuela? It could."

With these remarks, Putin joined a long tradition of conspiracy theorists who have surmised that the world's great oil powers — whether countries or mega-corporations — are secretly pulling strings to shape world events. Prior oil-related conspiracies abound: 9-11 Truthers and JFK assassination conspiracists alike have sometimes given oil interests or companies an integral role in their theories.

Such thinking has a long history. "During the 1960s and 1970s, when the American conservative movement was taking over the Republican Party, the Rockefeller family was seen as this massive manipulator that controlled America from backstage," says Robert Alan Goldberg, a professor history at the University of Utah author of the book "Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America." The Rockefellers owed their wealth, of course, to...that's right, oil.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: energy; iran; lebanon; oil; opec; paranoia; russia; saudiarabia; venezuela; vladtheimploder
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1 posted on 12/24/2014 4:50:47 AM PST by thackney
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To: thackney
UNIFIED CONSPIRACY THEORY:

In 1908, an alien spacecraft exploded at Tunguska, Russia;

The Roswell alien spacecraft was a rescue mission for the Tunguska crash, but it fell through a wormhole and crashed in the New Mexico desert 39 years later;

A piece of alien technology from the Roswell crash was discovered by a teenager named Elvis Presley;

Presley turned it over to the Nazi scientists of Operation Paperclip (Presley was placed in a government relocation program in Memphis, TN, where he promptly blew cover);

The Nazi scientists reverse-engineered the alien technology and developed the Internet, GMO's, fracking and chemtrail technology, which in turn sucks our precious bodily fluids from the atmosphere and provides power for the HAARP array;

The HAARP array destroyed the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on the order of George W. Bush, who personally detonated them from his secret Skull and Bones man-cave beneath the campus of UT-Austin.

There, it all makes sense, Mulder and Scully were right, The Truth Is Out There, man!

2 posted on 12/24/2014 5:03:06 AM PST by Old Sarge (Its the Sixties all over again, but with crappy music...)
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To: Old Sarge

Oh, okay. That does make a lot of sense.


3 posted on 12/24/2014 5:05:03 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer.)
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To: Old Sarge

Sorry Sarge. No conspiracy theory worth it’s salt would have failed to mention the role played by Queen Elizabeth or the Buildaburgers.


4 posted on 12/24/2014 5:12:04 AM PST by DugwayDuke (Principles without power aren't worth spit.)
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To: Old Sarge
You forgot the Freemasons!

Or did you? < cue spooky music>

5 posted on 12/24/2014 5:14:58 AM PST by uglybiker (nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-BATMAN!)
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To: DugwayDuke

You’d like to THINK that, wouldn’t you?

You doubt the involvement and far-ranging powers of the evil-stupid-genius George W. Bush?


6 posted on 12/24/2014 5:20:33 AM PST by Old Sarge (Its the Sixties all over again, but with crappy music...)
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To: DugwayDuke; Old Sarge

Don’t be distracted. Sarge is in on it. And I speak as an employee of the Rothschilds.


7 posted on 12/24/2014 5:29:49 AM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: uglybiker
You forgot the Freemasons!

Please keep a lid on this.

8 posted on 12/24/2014 5:29:53 AM PST by Ken H (What happens on the internet, stays on the internet.)
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To: Old Sarge
That's it. You've been listening to way too much Coast to Coast AM lately....
9 posted on 12/24/2014 5:35:16 AM PST by RayChuang88 (Ferguson: put your hands down and go to work!)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...
It happens because of brain cancer caused by cell phones and microwave ovens, exacerbated by alzheimer's brought on by aluminum cookware and mercury amalgam fillings. This was documented by a woman scientist who was driven, by a program of neglect by judgmental privileged white males, to get silicone breast implants. She would have contracted hundreds of different diseases from the implants, but wound up gunned down by Teabaggers incited by Sarah Palin. And ALL of it grows out of the meat-eating racist sexist agist homophobic patriarchy.
Build-A-Burger

10 posted on 12/24/2014 5:35:47 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/ _____________________ Celebrate the Polls, Ignore the Trolls)
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To: thackney
So this guy who wrote 'The Republican War on Science' as well as 'The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science', is "worried" about conspiracy theories flooding the mind? Perhaps Mooney should check his head first.

No doubt supply and demand is at work here (Especially the increase of supply in the Americas), but Middle-East economic warfare has turned into conspiracy theories. Is OPEC one giant conspiracy theory? Did the Saudis really love the American consumer in 1985?
11 posted on 12/24/2014 5:40:53 AM PST by rollo tomasi (Working hard to pay for deadbeats and corrupt politicians.)
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To: Old Sarge

The Red Scare should have been add as I.V. Lenin VI (clone) helped with a special sound wave generator (the sub-harmonic algorithm is made from the Tammy Wynette song “Stand by Your Man”) to mind control the masses into buying high priced non-GMO, rain forest protected, fair trade coffee from dolphin free companies to support world saving environmental plans for total domination.

*Sound wave sample can be heard in the Bond movie “Golden Eye”


12 posted on 12/24/2014 6:05:27 AM PST by Liaison (qwesa)
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To: Old Sarge

Sarge, that’s just the version the Illuminati put out to take the heat off of themselves...


13 posted on 12/24/2014 6:19:38 AM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: SunkenCiv; Liaison; RayChuang88; uglybiker

We are staring through the looking glass, people.

Twists and turns abound in the labyrithine corridors of The Overlords...


14 posted on 12/24/2014 6:32:35 AM PST by Old Sarge (Its the Sixties all over again, but with crappy music...)
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To: thackney

gloBULLism sucks.


15 posted on 12/24/2014 6:34:03 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Old Sarge
"Weird Al" Yankovic - Foil


16 posted on 12/24/2014 6:35:36 AM PST by Joe 6-pack (Qui me amat, amat et canem meum.)
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To: Old Sarge

You also forgot that George H.W. Bush had JFK killed because the Industrial War complex wanted the US to continue the Vietnam War(where John Kerry served). They installed Lyndon Johnson(another evil Texan)who increased the war effort and made everyone rich at the expense of the poor African American man.


17 posted on 12/24/2014 6:39:12 AM PST by woodbutcher1963
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To: woodbutcher1963

Wait, wait whoa - you mean that John Kerry served? In Vietnam?!?


18 posted on 12/24/2014 6:40:12 AM PST by Old Sarge (Its the Sixties all over again, but with crappy music...)
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To: thackney
You don't have to believe in Rube Goldberg type conspiracy mechanisms to question whether the Saudis flooding the market with low priced oil may be intended to shut down more expensive North American oil production. If Wal Mart comes into a town and undersells the local hardware, grocery, and clothing stores, it is not a part of a scheme by the Illuminati, the Council on Foreign Relations, or the Masons, but Wal Mart's standard procedures.

Don't forget that President Obama is friendly to the Saudi royals. The Saudi Arabian regime is strictly opposed to the Iranians and consequently their Russian allies. Both Iran and Russia have ignored Obama. He may want revenge, so he and the Saudis have a mutual interest. Plus an added bonus: declining energy prices hurt the economies of the Oil Patch, an area very hostile to the administration.

19 posted on 12/24/2014 10:19:07 AM PST by Wallace T.
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To: thackney

A: Because people don’t understand Supply and Demand (Econ 101).


20 posted on 12/24/2014 1:22:06 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Boner and McTurtle funded Amnesty and 0bamaCare)
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