>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 12/17/99 03:08PM >>>
Charles Brown wrote:
>Charles: If we could get a huge fraction of the population to think
>of capitalism as organized crime, that would be one giant step for
>humankind toward socialist consciousness.
Which project conspiracy theories actually hinder, since they imply that there's some virtuous norm from which the conspiracy is an exception - and if we could just let that norm flourish, all would be well. If it weren't for the Bilderbergers, capitalism would be ok, eh?
((((((((((
CB: The idea is exactly that conspiracies are the norm not the exception. In organized crime, conspiracy is the norm , not the exception. Gangsters are in a permanent and continuous conspiracy. Teach that capitalists are gangsters.
It is a lot easier step from "If they killed Kennedy they could kill anybody " to "Hey, wait a minute. If they killed Kennedy, they already have and are still killing a lot of other people secretly, and doing a lot of other dirty stuff." ; than " a lone nut killed Kennedy" to " the ruling class kills lots of people."
I'd even say the assassination of Kennedy was one of the things that contributed to the disilluionment with the system manifested in the later 60's. Most of the American people knew at some level that the assassination demonstrated how normal that type of thing was in the system.
And for those who think of reference to crisis as an indication of phobia, the assassination was also evidence of a crisis within the ruling class, just as the institution of fascism in other periods was an indication of crisis.
The whole thing is also a congame, pretending to be normally virtuous, but actually normally viceful. "Going" to capitalism is like going to a casino: The odds are rigged against you NORMALLY. Most people will only come to this conclusion by an accumulation of evidence of individual "conspiracies", "scandals". The sense that something is fundamentally rotten in the "state of Denmark" is a necessary but not sufficient condition for people wanting to change the system.
CB