"If you want to mull over more dramatic versions of the story, go talk with the rest of the frothers and leave the rational people alone. "
Doug ------------------------------------
Doug is still in political bed with the despicable Chip Berlet. Why? (As in for the life of me, I don't know why).
Frankly, we should only care about the politics of conspiracy theorizing, and not as much about the particulars. It is impossible to gauge the truth value of plausible-sounding conspiracy theories; at the same time it is just as impossible to categorally deny to possibility of conspiracy - not even a Chip Berlet can take such a ludicrous position.
The only concern, then, should be for the politics and the only requirement should be that any connect-the-dots scheme should sound politically plausible. "Who will the conspiracy theory damage?" is the only real question.
We have just seen a dramatic example of the political power of conspiracy theory, one that launched 140,000 heavily armed soldiers in an invasion of another country on the other side of the world. American popular support for that invasion rested and continues to rest on the idea that Saddam was in cahoots with Osama on 911. A conspiracy theory elegent in its simplicity!
How much time and effort did Berlet put into debunking Cheney's conspiracy theory? Not nearly as much as he spent attacking those of leftists, one suspects. "That's not his job", one guesses.
But the political question all the "debunkers" have to address is this: WHY NOT propagate plausible conspiracy theories that can do damage to our political enemies, especially to the neocon fiends who comprise the Bush Gang? Huumm? Especially when one regards the incorrigibly pragmatic American mind, in its cultural genesis incapable of systemic thought and therefore most inclined to thinking in conspiratorial terms - as Dick Cheney has demonstrated. One only need look at the atmosphere within the Bush-hating left-liberal millieu of Democratic Party. It swims in conspiracy theorizing. Conspiracy theories are a natural for the degenerate American culture. It's a condition that will not be cured by the tiny "good works" of Berlet & Debunkers. Conspiracy theories can and should be used.
The flip side of this contains another political question: Why are people like Berlet so anxious to attack leftist conspiracy theorizing? How much time did Berlet put into debunking Cheney's conspiracy theory? I know, I know, there's another conspiracy theory that says Berlet is a police agent. But who knows, and more pertinently, who cares? Even police agents have to articulate a real politics to be effective. Therefore they can be countered on the basis of their professed politics rather than on the basis of (usually unverifiable) conspiratorial connections.
Berlet spends an inordinate amount of time attacking leftists, compared to his rather pedestrian info gathering on the American Right. This should be taken, and denounced, at face value, for what it is: a sadly misguided and even twisted politics that is mostly useless or even harmful to the Left. For instance, in 2000 Berlet and his Public Eye were quite blind to the imminent threat posed by the pro-Israel neocons, not seeing the domestic American implications of Sharon's staged provocation at Al Aqsa. A ferocious counterrevolution that stole an American Presidential election was about to get underway. But if we we to listen to Berlet in 2000, we'd be worrying about LaRouchites - a tiny sect that will _never_ amount to anything, but much of whose ideological style and substance can be found among the far more dangerous and powerful American Neocon faction, whose grandiose, meglomaniacal dreams of a new Anglo-Roman World Empire would make Lyndon himself blush - and smearing leftists as 'antisemites', rather than keeping our eye on the ball. (Of course, PublicEye has been forced by subsequent events - which have shown themselves to be worse than thought back in 2000 - to rearrange its focus to retain credibility. But this example is the correct basis for objection to Berlet .
And a final political question - for the second time- to Doug: Why do you insist on keeping - and worse yet, defending - such misleading, behind the curve - not to mention slanderous - sources on LBO?
Don't tell us it is for "variety" - pluueeeze!
-Brad Mayer