Quote from Wikipedia : Conspiracy

Conspiracy, conspirator or conspire may refer to:

Types of conspiracies

Cabal, an association between religious, political, or tribal officials to further their own ends, usually by intrigue

Conspiracy (civil), an agreement between persons to deceive, mislead, or defraud others of their legal rights, or to gain an unfair advantage

Conspiracy (crime), an agreement between persons to break the law in the future, in some cases having committed an act to further that agreement

Conspiracy (political), see Conspiracy (civil) and Conspiracy (crime), or to overthrow a government

Quote from : Wikipedia : Cabal

A cabal is a number of people together in some close design, usually to promote their private views and interests in a church, state, or other community, often by intrigue.

Cabals are sometimes secret societies composed of a few designing persons, and at other times are manifestations of emergent behavior in society or governance on the part of a community of persons who have well established public affiliation or kinship.

The term can also be used to refer to the designs of such persons or to the practical consequences of their emergent behavior, and also holds a general meaning of intrigue and conspiracy.

Its usage carries strong connotations of shadowy corners, back rooms and insidious influence; a cabal is more evil and selective than, say, a faction, which is simply selfish; because of this negative connotation, few organizations use the term to refer to themselves or their internal subdivisions.

Amongst the exceptions is Discordianism, in which the term is used to refer to an identifiable group within the Discordian religion.

Quote from : Wikipedia : Conspiracy (Civil)

A civil conspiracy or collusion is an agreement between two or more parties to deprive a third party of legal rights or deceive a third party to obtain an illegal objective.

A conspiracy may also refer to a group of people who make an agreement to form a partnership in which each member becomes the agent or partner of every other member and engage in planning or agreeing to commit some act.

It is not necessary that the conspirators be involved in all stages of planning or be aware of all details.

Any voluntary agreement and some overt act by one conspirator in furthance of the plan are the main elements necessary to prove a conspiracy.

A conspiracy may exist whether legal means are used to accomplish illegal results, or illegal means used to accomplish something legal.

"Even when no crime is involved, a civil action for conspiracy may be brought by the persons who were damaged."

In the law of tort, the legal elements necessary to establish a civil conspiracy are substantially the same as for establishing a criminal conspiracy, i.e. there is an agreement between two or more natural persons to break the law at some time in the future or to achieve a lawful aim by unlawful means.

The criminal law often requires one of the conspirators to take an overt step to accomplish the illegal act to demonstrate the reality of their intention to break the law, whereas in a civil conspiracy, an overt act towards accomplishing the wrongful goal may not be required.

Etymologically, the term comes from Latin con- "with, together", and spirare "to breathe".

Quote from : Wikipedia : Conspiracy (Crime)

In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement.

There is no limit on the number participating in the conspiracy and, in most countries, no requirement that any steps have been taken to put the plan into effect (compare attempts which require proximity to the full offence).

For the purposes of concurrence, the actus reus is a continuing one and parties may join the plot later and incur joint liability and conspiracy can be charged where the co-conspirators have been acquitted or cannot be traced.

Finally, repentance by one or more parties does not affect liability but may reduce their sentence.

Quote from : Wikipedia : Conspiracy (Political)

In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power.

Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination.

A conspiracy is to be contrasted with a cabal.

The two are similar but have quite different connotations; in contrast to a cabal, a conspiracy usually looks to overthrow a fixed power instead of usurping it from within.

Quote from : Wikipedia : Conspiracy Theory

A conspiracy theory alleges an event and/or events to be secretly influenced by a premeditated group and/or groups of powerful people or organizations working together.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
Brilliant - get ready for a Mega-Thread.

In my experience, Conspiracy-Theorists are smart enough to conspire themselves and therefore wary of others Conspiracies. People too naive to conspire are less likely to suspect Conspiracy elsehwere. Some get lost in negative-thinking though.

Conspiracy-facts are conspiracies which have come to full light. Examples

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
Alright, so now that I am back from lunch, I can address this situation you've placed before me Spartan .

I think the question you posed as I stated above is a bit of an oxymoron, reason being is that once something is proven to be truthful in regards to any conspiracy, it becomes history.

That or a sound byte.

Bush: "Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories..."

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
Conspiracy is something that is a theory in my mind, we talk about them here ofcourse and give our opinions and attempt to decipher the mountains of dis-information and factual evidence presented by various people, agencies and news outlets.

Once we as a community here at ATS come a concensus based on the factual evidence, and that the conspiracy theory is proven valid, I don't think we can classify it as a conspiracy, so long as the Powers That Be agree to the findings.

I would prefer to discuss theory myself, as fact is just too...factual .

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
I like it when there is room to speculate. It would usually provide a different avenue of thought, which then leads to more in depth reasearch of a particular topic from various different angles.

Much like analysing the MSM news sources, I like to go to every one of them, read the same stories, pick out the differences and then do my own research to figure out exactly what happened.

I may not come to the exact truth, but a better one than what is being presented as factual.

~Keeper

Originally posted by concernedcitizan
Common conspiracy targets are the military-industrial complex, "The Jew," the Masons, the Media, the Christian right, multinational corporations, and so on. These are more correctly referred to as "lobbies," or those who influence politics indirectly with money and favors and mass mobilization through media, and when they are successful as "oligarchs," or those who manipulate from behind the scenes with money and power and social influence. However, lobbies and oligarchs did not create the system as it is, nor do they control it, although they have power in it and profit from it. They are symptoms and not the disease. The disease is a bad social design that allows such things to happen.

Originally posted by concernedcitizan
It is beyond doubt that lobbies and oligarchs create damage and perpetuate the decline of a system, but it is a mistake to assign to them a shadowy role of controlling it or creating it, because one will be then fighting the lobby or oligarch -- which is one of many such entities -- and not focusing on fixing the system itself. Conspiracy thinking engenders a negative psychology of paranoia and symbolic thinking instead of directing the user toward a realism in which the social design is corrupt and can be fixed, and that fix will in itself eliminate the power of all lobbies and oligarchs, actually resolving the problem.

Originally posted by concernedcitizan
Most who subscribe to conspiracy thinking do so from the following psychological pragma: because X group is in control, and X group can never be beaten, there is nothing I can do of substance, therefore I will grumble and groan but I will not take practical action, because if I do so, X group will eliminate me. Conspiracy thinking is not only illogical, but it is a shallow psychological justification for inaction