You’re Crazy If You Believe In Conspiracy, ButYou’re Crazy If You Don’t Believe In Collusion

If you want to see what it looks like to use words to deceive, look at the word collusion.

From my trusty old Webster: Collusion-A secret agreement for fraudulent or illegal purposes; conspiracy.

Now let’s take a look at the word conspiracy: Conspiracy-A planning and acting together secretly, especially for an unlawful or harmful purpose…

Pretty much the same thing, right? In fact, the definition for collusion uses the word conspiracy. They are synonyms for one another.

And yet…if you accuse someone of being involved in a conspiracy you are out of your mind. Whereas if you question an assertion of collusion, you are also out of your mind. How can that be?

These words are interchangeable if any are. And yet never will you hear anyone in establishment media use one for the other even as a means of word variety, if nothing else. Never once will you hear MSNBC say that Donald Trump conspired with Russia, though it is a perfectly acceptable substitution for the word they’ve surely used tens of thousands of times now. You would think one of the talking heads or their guests might, in all this time, use one almost identical word for the other. And yet they don’t. Why is that?

That is because the term “conspiracy theory” has already been established to label anyone questioning established narratives as a loony. The term “conspiracy theory” has been in use for a while, but the negative connotation it now has was acquired only in the 50’s and 60’s.

Professor Michael Butler wrote an article titled “There’s a conspiracy theory that the CIA invented the term ‘conspiracy theory’”. In it, he attempts to refute the notion that the CIA had any part to play in it. While making his specific case somewhat convincingly, a deeper read shows that he reveals more than he dismisses. For example, he says that the term conspiracy theory has been around for hundreds of years: “From at least the 17th century to the 1950s, conspiracy theories were a widely accepted way of understanding the world and often the official versions of events. They were articulated by elites and usually targeted external enemies or subversives who were allegedly trying to undermine the state.”

It was only in the 50’s and 60’s, according to Professor Butler, that: “conspiracy theories started to primarily target societal and political elites. They are no longer concerned with alleged plots against the state but with those orchestrated by the state.” In other words, conspiracy theories pushed by the elites are fine. Conspiracy theories that threaten the elites are a threat that need to be ridiculed and censored.

From the same article: “The Kennedy assassination was the first major instance in which conspiracy theorists accused the state of secretly plotting evil and provided alternative accounts that were then labelled conspiracy theories, as in the 1967 CIA document. So it is hardly surprising that conspiracy theorists — who blame events on the intentional actions of evil people — retrospectively see the emergence of the term as a deliberate attempt to uphold the official version of the Kennedy assassination.”

This, then, is the reason why conspiracy theories “articulated by elites and usually (targeting) external enemies” are referred to as collusion, not conspiracy. Because it backs up the interests of the elites. Donald Trump did not conspire with Russia, he colluded. The unproven allegations of the media against Russian interference and the implications that they were involved in everything from pee tapes, Taliban bounties against U.S. soldiers, spy dolphins, microwave weapons causing sickness in U.S. diplomats, Black Lives Matter, and so many others, are not conspiracy theory but evidence of collusion.

Words matter, and when people so assiduously avoid using words such as conspiracy, it means people are using words to manipulate your perception of reality. Those who abuse words are potentially capable of any crime, because the very worst of crimes cannot be achieved without the deliberate misuse of language. And the fact that so many are so willing to avoid using words like “conspiracy”, “conspiring”, or “conspiracy theory” regarding five years of unprecedented news coverage of an often absurd list of allegations without evidence, points to the idea that, as Professor Butler says: “conspiracy theories (are)…articulated by elites and usually (target) external enemies.”