>From: "The 30 Pound Snail Who Lives on Gar Lipow's
>Monitor"<the.typo.boy at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Federal Air Marshal kills innocent ...
>Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2005 13:59:07 -0800
>
>On 12/9/05, Joseph Wanzala <jwanzala at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > But wasn't the transformation from the US into a warfare state where
>people
> > are routinely shot for real and/or imagined reasons brought about by
>some
> > sort of plan (conspiracy) or is this just a normal part of human
>evolution?
> >
>
>This is why I was being careful with the term. The idea that making
>violence easier to engage in was deliberate is not, by the definition
>I used a conspiracy theory - because it is always part of the normal
>process of the system to to take any opportunity, and escalate the
>level of violence routinely used by amount people will tolerate.
>Anyone who can become President would have used to 911 to do this to
>some extent -though I suspect that this particular bunch have fewer
>inhibitions than average and pushed it further.
>
> >You do not need conspiracy theory to find this idea 'attractive'. You
>only
>need to have lived outside the US in country where the state engages in
>targeted killing..... I assume that you are talking only about North
>America
>where many so called leftists persist in the belief that the 'system' does
>not engage in targeted killings for political reasons, but acknowledge that
>such things routinely happen in the 'Third World' (El Salvadorean death
>squads etc) and acknowledge that Western countries in fact train these
>death
>squads. But when people suggest the same sort of thing might be happening
>'here' it is is dismissed as 'conspiracy theory'.
>
>I think the key words are "routinely" and "targeted". Because
>targeted political assasination is not routine in the U.S. or Canada,
>the burden of proof is on anyone advancing a particular instance.
>Also, because it is non-routine, we face a hell of lot of other
>examples where the U.S. kills more people both outside and inside the
>U.S. routinely. For example, lack of regulation of the coal industry
>of something that routinely kills more than all the political
>assasinations combined.
>
> >As far as I know, it has not been the routine operation of the US to
>operate
>a global network secret prisons and 'render' hapless people unto them -
>would it meet your definition of a conspiracy theory to say that there are
>some people in government 'acting exceptionally' by doing just that - is
>America now a 'conspiracy nation'?
>
>Nope - because it has stopped being an exception. Note also that I did
>not claim that conspiracy theories are always untrue - merely pointed
>out a non-rational component that makes them attractive. Because of
>this we have to be very very careful. But your example is a good one
>for your case, because before it became routine, it almost certainly
>happened on a non-routine basis. That is , pre Bush I think most
>torture on behalf of U.S. intelligence agencies was done to people
>kidnapped by third parties, though often the actual torture took
>place in the presence of U.S. agents, with lists provided by the U.S.
>However it would surprise me if U.S. agencies *never* were directly
>involved in the actual kidnappings, or that *no one* was ever taken
>from the U.S.
>
>But even though I don't rule out secret conspiraces on the face of
>it, I'm always aware that a great deal more evil is done routinely,
>openly, in full compliance with U.S. law that is done secretly. Also
>most actual "conspiracies" are open secrets, that is widely known and
>document but officially denied and thus treated as problematic by the
>propaganda organs known as the main stream media.
>
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