Aww, hyperbole is one of my favorite pastimes. Here's my current favorite:
Uzbekistan welcomed us with open arms after 9/11 and supported our efforts in Afghanistan almost unconditionally. We spent money refurbishing their military physical installations and supplied training personnel and "other" [heh] forces.
Now, Iraq is causing problems in the Muslim population, and the Uzbeks want us out. Within days of the Uzbeki government announcement of that fact, U.S. gives terrorist warnings for Chechnya... how unique!
A few days later, 2 Russian commuter planes go down, for reasons still not entirely resolved, and "terrorism" is suspected. Isn't that special!
I'm sure it impressed the Uzbekis, and re-assured them that everything will be *just fine* if the U.S. left the region[Sarcasm, dripping].
I think the real reason to watch the Russians now that the "Cold War" is over is not because they are competitors, it's because they are our allies in the next "Hot War", in Russia's backyard.
I could get *way out* on a limb, and extrapolate the above hypothesis to include the Russians helping the U.S. out "south of the border" in our neverintededtowin "War" on "drugs", or whomever happens to get in our way. But I won't.
[value/opinion = $0.02] =============================
---- Original Message ---- From: Joseph Wanzala To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2004 11:41 AM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Re: meat for 9/11 conspiracists]
> Serious investigative journalists, researchers, historians,
> academics, investigators and whistleblowers who have devoted
> careers and lives to exposing corruption and political crimes do
> not "theorize" about "conspiracies". They investigate, analyze and
> report---raise legitimate
> questions, and expose facts--- about structural rot at the core of
> the world's economic and political system, and the individuals,
> groups, agencies
> and institutions that commit crime. This work does not "deflect". In
> fact,
> it forces focus directly on the problems that a corrupted media
> (including
> Left media) purposely ignores. It forces focus directly on the
> "nature of
> capitalism".
>
> What deflects is the indoctrinated groupthink (fed to ignorant and
> naive
> idol worshippers by corrupted political thinktanks and alleged
> "progressive"
> icons), through which fundamental and painful realities are
> dismissed.
>
> As for "fascism", there is nothing inflammatory, no hyperbole, in
> using a
> word that accurately and unremarkably defines our current and
> historical
> reality.
>
> Joe W
>
>
>> From: srobin21 at comcast.net
>> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Re: meat for 9/11 conspiracists]
>> Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 17:14:45 +0000
>>
>> I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments below. But how does one
>> explain the vibrancy and the appeal that conspiracism has had for
>> many on the left and among progressive circles in recent years? No
>> matter how much a given conspiracy is discredited, conspiracism
>> itself continues chugging along. ( A good example would be Dan
>> Sheehan of the Christic Institute who injected conspiracy theory
>> into the Central American Solidarity movement in a big way back in
>> the 1980s. A few years ago Sheehan resurfaced peddling UFO
>> theories. When I point this out to former backers of his theories
>> they shrug their shoulders and start talking about 9-11).
>>
>> -------------- Original message --------------
>>
>>>
>>> I only browsed in the article itself, but my antipathy to
>>> conspiricism
>>> is independent of both its popularity in any given instance and,
>>> even,
>>> the correctness or incorrectness of any given conspiracy theory.
>>>
>>> I object to conspiracy theory because promulgating it (like
>>> throwing the
>>> word "fascism" around) tends to deflect from the nature of
>>> capitalism
>>> and of the fundamental policies of capitalist states. The charge
>>> "fascist" against Bush or the charge of administration conspiracy
>>> in the
>>> case of 9/11 (or of CIA involvement in the assassination of John
>>> Kennedy) have the _material_ effect of giving aid and comfort to
>>> the
>>> Democratic Party and to the arguments of those who claim that
>>> capitalism
>>> is the best system but is corrupted by bad people in one way or
>>> another.
>>>
>>
>>> The exposure of the Watergate conspiracy was _one_ of the factors
>>> in the
>>> steady rout of the left after 1974.
>>>
>>> Carrol
>>>