The Kennedy assassination theory is the most well thought-out one, but frankly I don't buy that either (I do love the movie JFK, but only as a fictional work of art; I don't believe the theory). I mean, technically it would be a conspiracy if Oswald didn't work alone, though that doesn't mean he was working for someone in the government, intelligence service, military or even the mafia or what have you. But at the end of the day I don't think there's sufficient evidence to support it.
The thing about conspiracy theories is that they tend to reduce the historical process to the actions of some shady cabal that secretly runs everything and bamboozles everyone (and only some intrepid tinfoil-hatters, usually libertarian types, have somehow figured it all out and manage to expose the plots on Youtube without being assassinated). There are actual conspiracies, technically any two or more people who agree to do something (usually something illegal) in secret is engaging in a conspiracy, but that isn't what conspiracy theories usually refer to. Most of the time, conspiracy theories are just evidence-free fantasies people use to explain things they don't understand, attributing ordinary but unpleasant or difficult-to-understand things to the plots of some shady cabal that secretly runs the world.
A lot of the time, people just confuse rich assholes being rich assholes with conspiracies. For instance the comments elsewhere on this thread about CNN, MSNBC and Fox being biased in favor of US presidential candidates. That's not a conspiracy, that's just companies owned by rich people reflecting rich people's interests. Conversely, lots of people use the term "conspiracy theory" to ridicule the very notion that governments, rich people and private companies (including media companies) are anything but 100% benevolent and honest and don't do things underhandedly that are in their own interests and not in the interests of the people as a whole. It's only natural that rich people are going to support things that are in their own class interests, and oppose things that are against their class interests. For instance they'll support certain political candidates, oppose others, and use their influence to demonize things that aren't good for them (such as communism, for example). That's not a conspiracy. That's just people with wealth and power doing things to perpetuate and expand their wealth and power, often quite openly, legally and brazenly.
Of course, there are actual conspiracies in the world. Any coup d'etat is a conspiracy. Any assassination or assassination plot is a conspiracy. A bank robbery is a conspiracy if it's done by more than one person. But most of the things conspiracy theories talk about are more mundane, just the ordinary behavior of rich people and politicians serving their own interests, or random events that unsettle people's sense of order and justice and they need to find some explanation for. Conspiracy theories are created by people who want to believe that the world and the social, economic and political system that prevails in it is inherently good, and who can't understand that rich people don't have the same interests as poor people, or that inexplicably bad events that they can't understand (such as 9/11) can happen without there being some big plan behind it, so they invent theories to explain why bad things happen under supposedly good social and political systems, declaring that some shadowy cabal (often from a scapegoated social group, like Jews or Muslims, or communists, or Russians, or Chinese, or what have you) has somehow subverted the legitimate working of government. This spares them the need to ask harder questions that challenge their own belief systems and question the benevolence of the people in charge and the political and economic system they represent. If everything bad in the world is the fault of some secret group, then nothing is fundamentally wrong and we don't need to ask deeper questions. This is a comforting thought for many.
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