>>> Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> 01/17/00 10:44PM >>>
First: I think Doug should threaten with expulsion from the list
anyone who continues to return to this subject. All the possible
positions have been expressed over and over again -- and there
is *no* empirical evidence that can be relevant, for if there were
it would be widely known already.
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CB: I think anyone who denies that conspiratorial crimes are rife in U.S. ruling class practice, should be "expelled" from the left
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Even knowing that a conspiracy was responsible for the death of King would not add *one single thing* to our knowledge of the nature of the U.S. ruling class -- and would in fact subtract from our knowledge of that ruling class.
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CB: This finally manages to take a good basic left principle so far as to turn it into its opposite. The important thing here is that the left, such as it is, has developed a line of argument regarding panic mongering and conspiracy theory that has people popping up on a left list all of the time thinking they are real sophisticated in their political analysis when they mock someone else pointing to an instance of government murder of movement leader, such as MLK or Black Panthers. The world is completely turning upside down , and so we need some topsy turvy tactics, such as teaching people the a,b,c's of the viciousness of the powers that be.
The record of secret assassinations is, I repeat, important in undermining the average person's confidence and faith in the system. This was standard consciousness for a leftist 25 years ago, but now things have turned into their opposite and you have lefties resisting this as ordinary left consciousness.
The issue that the system is not a conspiracy has been overshadowed by the peaceful , unruffled mentality of the 90's ( goodie , goodie, the "90's" are over ! what are these people going to do next though ?)
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Now we know that it is utterly ruthless and willing and able to commit any crime to achieve its ends.
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CB: Unfortunately, "we" don't seem to know this anymore. We are back to square one in teaching this.
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The assertion that a conspiracy killed king is an assertion that the ruling class is not all that bad, that they could only get rid of a minor threat to their rule by dreaming up a conspiracy out of a third rate movie.
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CB: Anybody who says this forfeits their "leftness". It sounds like Ezra Pound.
Real life politics proceeds in the main like a "third rate"movie. Literary/cinematic criticism of real world , power politics is sort of a postmodernist political mentality.
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So the reformists are right after all. All that it takes to make capitalism the best possible
system is to get rid of a few crooks -- a few rotten apples in the ruling class barrel -- and all will be well. Conspiracy theory represents ruling-class poisoning of leftist thought.
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CB: This post is an aggravation of a serious deficiency in left thinking such as it is.
CB