• Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Well, it really did work in the US. This is literally what happened at Pearl Harbor.

    Roosevelt knew the attack was coming, very much so, our intelligence was good. But he needed the attack to happen, so he let it happen.

    At the time, Europe was at war and our allies desperately needed help, but the US had been dragging it’s heels about getting involved for years. Roosevelt wanted to enter the war and support our allies, but congress just didn’t want to make the official declaration of war. But after the attack on Pearl harbor, that declaration came in short order, just as Roosevelt knew it would.

    • Infraggable@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This is untrue. This is a false conspiracy theory that people keep repeating that has no facts to back it up. This one bugs me because my grandfather was in the merchant Marines and was stationed there when this happened. People parroting that untrue fact drove him bonkers.

      • jarfil@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This is untrue

        Which part?

        Did the people stationed there get warned? Did merchant Marines have access to top brass intelligence reports? Did Roosevelt have a different motivation? Did Pearl Harbor not happen…?

          • jarfil@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The problem with claiming the opposite, are things like Patton’s pretty much spot on prediction of the attack, the fact that intelligence at the time was routed through Washington, with capability to break the Japanese codes, or the still not declassified documents relating some pre-attack intercepts.

            It all suggests that Roosevelt, and/or his staff, had all the pieces to figure out what was going to happen. Whether they didn’t, or did and decided to do nothing, and the lack of proof either way… is what makes the conspiracy theory keep being a possible conspiracy theory. 🤷

            • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              is what makes the conspiracy theory keep being a possible conspiracy theory. 🤷

              Conspiracy theories continuing to be conspiracy theories requires no causation, because spurious theorizing in general sits outside of logic and reason.

              We still have lots of assholes who think the earth being round is a conspiracy pushed on us by big science or whatever, or that “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” (presumably they don’t understand how kindling works), or that 5g causes COVID, and even bizarrely that COVID is both a Chinese conspiracy at the same time as it is a hoax and/or harmless.

              Conspiratorial thinking isn’t driven by reason, logic, or facts. It’s tolerated most by people who have no issues with and/or sense of cognitive dissonance. It’s more similar to a distributed form of cultism. It’s one of creativity’s awful cousins.

              • jarfil@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                You’re conflating “conspiratorial thinking” with “conspiracy theories”.

                Conspiracies are a real thing, they happen all the time (and most are punishable by law); conspiratorial thinking is people coming up with, and believing, conspiracies no matter how impossible they are, which is way different from actual conspiracies.

                “Conspiracy theories” just happens to be a term that can be used in both cases, it doesn’t mean all of them are impossible.

                • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Nah, I’m not.

                  Conspiratorial thinking is what gives you the bunkum conspiracy theories, and the evidence or lack thereof has nothing to do with their production.

                  As far as I can tell from my reading they come more from an environment of distrust often combined with disordered thinking.

                  Sure there can be actual conspiracies, but they also usually come with accompanying evidence and more than hunches, hindsight, or temporally related events.

                  • jarfil@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    Sure there can be actual conspiracies, but they also usually come with accompanying evidence and more than hunches, hindsight, or temporally related events.

                    Evidence is what turns a “conspiracy theory” into either a “proven conspiracy” or a “debunked conspiracy”. Without the former, there would be none of the latter… not sure how is that hard to understand.