>CB: I'd say, as I have before, that anti-conspiracy theorism on this list,
>assuming it is representative of the left, has gone bananas.
Gee, you think? Maybe it's because the conspiranoids on the list have been going bananas lately.
>It's like an
>LBO superstition. It's become knee jerk.
Good. Knee-jerk conspiracism should be met with a response of knee-jerk deflating. It means we're getting used to seeing the crap and responding appropriately.
>Also, it's selective and
>inconsistent , in the sense, that nobody bats an eyelash when somebody
>asserts that , say 9/11, was a conspiracy by Al Q.
So? That _was_ a conspiracy. What conspiranoids do is drag in innuendo, lack of information, and intellectual laziness and parade it as research. Conspiranoid thinking posits that BushCo were "behind the whole thing". Or it was the Israelis. Or some such thing. No proof. Just iron-clad innuendo.
>For some reason, saying
>that is not conspiracy theorism. But if there is any discussion of U.S.
>government machinations, many people here feel compelled to point out that
>it's conspiracy theorism ohhhhh bad.
Where has anyone dissed the whole idea of, say, Iran-Contra Gate? Small-c conspiracies happen, and we usually find out about them after the fact. But conspiracISM is something of a different order.
>Some discussion of plots by the ruling class _should_ take place on the
>left, because it exposes them as "bad people", which is an elementary way
>of
>bringing some people to question the system , and thereby look bring them
>into the movement.
Why should a few plots (and what plots are you talking about?) be put at the center of what should be a plan of education? It's like arguing that history is best taught by the "Great Man" theory for beginners. Why can't people be taught primarily about systems of social power brought about by ownership? Less likelihood of their thinking that merely by "getting rid" of this person or that, that things can be made to change radically. It leads into electoralism and/or bourgeois revolutionism.
>Many people who joined the movement in the 60's and 70's
>had as part of their process of becoming disillusioned with the American
>Establishment the experience of"conspiracies": assassination of Kennedy,
>MLK
>and RFK, Hampton other Black Panthers, Cointelpro.
Starting off with "disillusionment", while a "fortunate" accident that gets people thinking outside of the box, doesn't equip them to "go further" and turn that disillusionment into something more positive. And this discussion of disillusionment has little, if anything, to do with conspiracism.
>When I say Chip is trying to "purge" it, I don't mean he has the power to
>put anyone in prison , but rather he is trying, by the force of argument,
>to
>make it unpopular with leftists.
I didn't think you thought Chip had police powers. Purging doesn't have to mean locking people up.
And I say more power to the Chip Berlets of the world for labouring to make conspiracism shunned by anyone, let alone our side.
(Even if those Chip Berlets don't reply to letters . . . . <grumble>)
Todd
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