"What makes me sad is that conspiracy theories such as Joseph Wanzala's lead away_ from awareness of the centers of power. They delude people into thinking that evil exists solely in the machinations of particular people rather than in the capitalist system."
Well your sadness is unecessary my good felllow; cheer up, for you are hopelessly wrong. I do not deal in conspiracy theories. The term conspiracy theory is a disingenous term of art used variously by the likes of Chip Berlet, Ari Fleischer and other sentinels of Imperium. Conspiracies in fact are the stuff of daily life in all aspects of society and people are daily prosecuted in courts of law for engaging in alleged conspiracies. Your argument that individuals engaged conspiracies should not be investigated or prosecuted is tantamount to saying that it is pointless to go after Kenneth Lay and all the other corporate criminals that have recently been fallen from 'grace'. The idea is to go after them with all the means at your disposal, if the courts help, use the courts, if investigative journalism ('conspiracism' in Berletlandia) works, use that, all the while you try to build alternative institutions (not spend all your spare time flirting with the captains of industry at the CFR).
You also create a false dichotomy between institutional analysis and investigative journalism. In fact there is rich complimentarity between both apporaches - because the political process is a function of both individual and institutional agency, which are somtimes in sync, sometimes not.
You make the amazing declaration (while conceding that conspiracies do exist) that exposing the Iran Contra affair was 'useless' and suggest instead that we 'show that the fundamnetal policies of the US state are destructive'. I ask you, how else are we to show this other than by carefully constructed, well documented cases like Iran Contra, the BCCI scandal, the October Surprise, Watergate, Enrongate, WMDgate and the Iraq war itself.
As to your remarks about the nature of racism and how it relates to 'conspiracy', I have for years confounded my American friends of all races for my not being fazed by indivudual expressions of racism - it doesn't bother me in the slightest, any more than 'tribalism' in Africa where I grew up. Race as we all know by now is a social construct designed to divide and rule us commoners whereever we might find ourselves. I think you should look to your friend Chip Berlet and the folks at the Southern Poverty Law Center who make a lot of fuss about the racism of certain individuals in Alabama and Idaho while running interfernce for the equal opportunity fascism of Bush & Co. by attacking people who go after the Bush Conspiracy - you know - as in the 'vast right wing conspiracy' made famous by the noted conspiracist, Hillary Clinton.
By the general tenor of your post, I will assume you are a Kerry booster. If individuals really don't matter, and it is exclusvely about looking the 'fundamentally destructive nature of the US state' to paraphrase you, then come and join us in the 'it doesn't matter whether Kerry or Bush wins' camp, because we are not worried about which 'individual' wins in November, nor which of the two 'parties', we are engaged in addressing the very nature of the state itself, for the longue duree.
Joe W.
"A conspiracy is rarely, if ever, proved by positive testimony. When a crime of high magnitude is about to be perpetrated by a combination of individuals, they do not act openly, but covertly and secretly. The purpose formed is known only to those who enter into it. Unless one of the original conspirators betray his companions and give evidence against them, their guilt can be proved only by circumstantial evidence..." ~ Special Judge Advocate John A. Bingham, quoted in The Trial Of The Conspirators, Washington, 1865
"Those who suffer from conspiracy phobia are fond of saying: "Do you actually think there's a group of people sitting around in a room plotting things?" For some reason that image is assumed to be so patently absurd as to invite only disclaimers. But where else would people of power get together – on park benches or carousels? Indeed, they meet in rooms: corporate boardrooms, Pentagon command rooms, at the Bohemian Grove, in the choice dining rooms at the best restaurants, resorts, hotels, and estates, in the many conference rooms at the White House, the NSA, the CIA, or wherever. And, yes, they consciously plot – though they call it "planning" and "strategizing" – and they do so in great secrecy, often resisting all efforts at public disclosure. No one confabulates and plans more than political and corporate elites and their hired specialists."
~ Michael Parenti, Dirty Truths, City Lights Books, 1996.
>From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Democracy Now 5/26
>Date: Sun, 30 May 2004 20:02:34 -0500
>
>
>
>Chip Berlet wrote:
> >
> > Wanzala wrote:
> >
> > So you [Doug]
> > > obviously have
> > > no point other than to attack 'conspiracism' which as far as
> > > I can tell, is
> > > a phenomenon which occurs chiefly in the mind of Chip Berlet and his
> > > dittoheads.
> >
> > The phenomenon of conspiracism has been studied in academia for decades.
> > Norman Cohn and Michael Barkun are hardly my "dittoheads," but serious
> > scholars who, along with scores of others, write about the phenomenon of
> > conspiracy thinking and conspiracism.
>
>What makes me sad is that conspiracy theories such as Joseph Wanzala's
>_lead away_ from awareness of the centers of power. They delude people
>into thinking that evil exists solely in the machinations of particular
>people rather than in the capitalist system. Joseph's arguments, that is,
>add up to an apology for capitalism and for u.s. imperialism. His
>theories also support racism, for the major form racist ideology takes
>today is the view that racist institutions are caused by the actions of
>racist individuals, making it more difficult to combat its structural
>sources.
>
>Even in those cases where there _is_ an actual conspiracy (e.g., the
>Iran-Contra events) an exposure of that conspiracy is politically
>useless, and the effort spent in publicizing it would be better spent
>in showing that the fundamental policiies of the U.S. state (with or
>without any conspiracy) are destructive.
>
>Carrol
>
>___________________________________
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