I certainly agree the US government employs conspiracism. Frank Donner and others wrote excellent books about how countersubversion campaigns fueled by government and private right wing conspiracy theories about the communist menace were a major influence on US politics in this century.
But I think to claim that the US government is "the main purveyor of conspiracy theories in the world today" is a dubious assertion. A major source perhaps, but I am reluctant to get into this dualist either/or stuff. There is some stiff competition.
Also, is your point that since the US is a source of conspiracism we should then ignore other sources of conspiracism? We should not discourage conspiracism on the right from being fed into the left? After I wrote "Friendly Fascists: The Far Right Tries to Move in on the Left," in the Progressive, June 1992, there was a slew of angry letters defending conspiracy theory and arguing that facts were less important than indicting the government with any handy allegation. The publisher had to write a response that pointed out that facts were important.
Conspiracy theories are the bait used by the right to recruit the left into abandoning systemic and institutional analysis--the first step toward historic antisemitic conspiracism, called the socialism of fools for good reason.
I think this tendency needs to be challenged firmly, not glossed over.
I would be interested to have you list some of the main conspiracy theories peddled by the US government, as opposed to ideological positions with which you disagree.
-Chip Berlet
----- Original Message ----- From: michael perelman <michael at ecst.csuchico.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Friday, November 19, 1999 8:32 PM Subject: Conspiracy Theories
> It's easy to make fun of wacky right-wing conspiracy theories, but I
suspect
> that the main purveyor of conspiracy theories in the world today is the
> government of United States of America.
>
> --
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> Chico, CA 95929
>
> Tel. 530-898-5321
> E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
>
>