--I don't know much about the USS Liberty story, I hope it has more substance than the silly tales that April Oliver and right wing loons like Moorer and Singlaub drew up for her Tailwind Tale. ------------------------------
One member of the audience, a Steamshovel fan of long standing, effectively challenged Jerry Lembcke, a panelist who wrote the book CNN's Tailwind Tale:
--yeah, real 'effective'. he went on and on about the existence of a small number of conspiracy theorists who appear to be left wing. Then he got declared his belief that airplanes didn't take down the WTC...wow. Jerry was on the money about Ruppert being right wing, he demonstrates that clearly enough in his Tailwind book, as is Moorer,Singlaub, April Oliver. ----------------------------- While the book has a lot to recommend it, its author often makes his points by receding into the vagaries of "institutional analysis", the facts-avoiding tactic advocated by Noam Chomsky.
--I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. -----------------------------------
To describe parapolitical research, Lembcke uses terms like "conspiracism", a word that Fletcher Prouty pointed out long agocontains the subtle smear of "racism" within it.
---that is silly. on the other hand, maybe Prouty is nervous about the association of conspiracy theory and nativism? ------------------------------------
Lembcke also labeled Prouty "right wing", as he did people like Michael Ruppert and Jeff Rense.
--yes, he did. and in all likelihood that's an accurate association. ------------------------ To my great pleasure, the Steamshovel reader had my co-panelist trace this line of reasoning to the absurd point where he actually declared Peter Dale Scott "right wing" as well.
--actually jerry took no stance on Dale-Scott. What he did do was state that the theory that the CIA fed drugs to GI's and the population in the US was part of far right wing conspiracy theory and loopy. ----------------- The search for "credibility" also haunts the opinion industry, left and right. Jerry Lembcke defined respected conspiracy writers as "right wing" not just people whom he felt had it wrong - because it gave him more credibility as a critic coming from the left.
--nope, the more important point to take away is what the love for far right wing sources that are highly dubious in terms of both political * and* empirical content tells us quite a bit about the 'left wing' orientation of ostensibly left wing conspiracy theorists. ---------------------------- Stauber had little to say about conspiracy as a broadstroke concept, even though his work studies it in detail, because that would tarnish its credibility.
--or it might detract from the more important issue at hand, US foreign policy and its origins.