Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> >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.
>
> I agree up to a point, but your language ("system," "structural
> sources") makes it difficult to locate human agency. It makes us all
> look like pawns, puppets on strings operated by no one identifiable.
The limitations of communication in e-mail posts. Human agency is there, and there is no question of us being pawns of some mechanism. But it would take me about 18 months and a final draft of 30 to 150 pages to work it out.
For the sake of this exchange, I'll just stick to my original formulation. If someone else can work it out more delicately in an e-mail post or series of e-mail posts, I'm all ears and eyes.
Carrol