artbrooks - It puzzles me why anyone would bother to refer to the general self-aggrandizing behaviour of a moneyed elite at the top of a society as "a conspiracy". It's not a conspiracy, it's simply a very well established way of getting things done, from their point of view and to their benefit...by the power of money. If there were only a handful of them doing it completely unbeknownst to the rest, then it would be a conspiracy. It's not hidden. It's normality. It's plain for anyone to see who bothers to actually LOOK.

Oh, wait...I know why you call it a "conspiracy theory"! ;-D You do that so you can just dismiss it out of hand and not bother to actually think about it very much. It's a way of not taking seriously an opinion that differs from your own. It's a form of ridicule which avoids actual discussion of the subject.

That's a very common "debating" technique these days. One sees political candidates doing it to one another too.