> I thought this piece was rather good. Suspicion regarding
> 'conspiracy theories' is I think not always a well-founded suspicion
> of simplistic explanation but a failure to address the question of
> agency. After all, if one is concerned with the active struggle of
> the working class, why not also be interested in the activity of
> capitalists? They are also subjects who act, who plan and who
> conspire together. Could it be otherwise?
In addition to the excellent article by Ken Silverstien on the absurdity of the war in Afghanistan being a war for oil, there's also this danger:
RULE BY IDIOCY: WBAI FALLS FOR RIGHT-WING CONSPIRACY THEORY! By Bill Weinberg
<http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Pacifica/idiocy.htm>-
Hearing Jim Marrs speak in person was line after line of John Birch Society-speak. (Echoes of this are to be found on infoshop.org's "post-left anarchism" thread, where one author described the WEF as "the Bilderberg group with Bono in tow".)
The authors of conspiracy theories, and I agree the term is problematic, are rarely scholars or skeptics. At best, they're packrats of minute strung together by innuendo that reveals more about individual neuroses than the unseen forces behind global affairs. Take the nutjobs behind the 9/11 theories:
<http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=66>
Sometimes, they're John Salvi: murdering abortion clinic workers because of they're part of a conspiracy against the Catholic working class by the Freemason and the Illuminati. Chip isn't bluffing when he says it is a colossal mistake to euphamise conspiracy theories as idle speculation. They have been and remain a central component of many extreme right wing ideologies.
-- Shane
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