The epithet 'conpiracy theorist' is not even deployed with any consistency as to actual subject matter or methodology - it is however uniformly applied to any interpretation of poltical events that lies outside a certain set of parameters. A recent example: Doug Henwood characterzied any questioning of the anomalies surrounding the London bombing as 'conspiracy theory'.
In fact, any attempt to understand a political event such as a terrorist attack is by definition a conspiracy theory. Whoever, carried out the bombing was part of a conspiracy so any line of investigation is necessarily a conspiracy theory. Prosectutors are by definition conspiracy theorists, but you never hear them derided as such.
And contrary to your postion that it matters not whether subterfuges asuch as the Gulf of Tonkin or the Downing Street memos are exposed, the exposure of the Gulf of Tonkin had an immeasurable impact on the level of trust people have (or had) for the US government. Exposing government subterfuge is certainly not an end in itself, but it has an important cumulalative effect on the popular consciousness. Watergate was certain an 'expose' that had a tangible impact.
It is also true that there a culture of impunity has developed in the face of all these exposes, but this too is what the struggle is against (assuming that anyone around here is still engaged in any kind of struggle)
Indeed, without the handy 'conpiracist' device with which to bludgeon 'oddballs', Doug Henwood and others would actually have to engage with those who have different interepetations of the facts and perhaps come up with some 'conspiracy theories' of their own. Instead, they default to whatever the official position is, and from the relative 'safety' of that position heap derision unpon those trying to figure things out for themselves.
The term 'conspiracy theory', as it is used on this list, is a notion that exists chiefly in the minds of those who deploy the term. It has little or nothing to do with what the recipients of the epithet actually do, say or think.
Joe W.
>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] conspiracism: manna for community radio
>Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2005 11:59:06 -0500
>
>
>
>Doug Henwood wrote:
> >
> > Apparently some 9/11-conspiracy-related premiums brought in $36,000
> > in pledges in 90 minutes on WBAI.That's a very big number as these
> > things go - the phones were ringing at capacity. I'm speechless.
> >
>
>There are with conspiricism, as with most isms, two 'levels': The inner
>core we see in one or two people on this list, who make the 'exposure'
>of conspiracy the heart of their politics. There is a much larger
>'outer' sphere of those who are interested in varying degrees, but for
>whom suspicion of conspiracy is merely a more-or-less important footnote
>to their politics, which are otherwise centered.
>
>There is no particular point with debating the first group, just as
>there is no point in debating creationists or right libertarians.
>(Unless members of the second group are present, in which case one
>directs one's remarks to them, not to the person one is nominally
>addressing.) And the content of one's argument, then, is not the falsity
>of the conspiracist's case (which one takes for granted) but the
>political futility of that case. And for that purpose, the focus can be
>on particular instances in which there was, not so much a real
>conspiracy in the conspiracist's sense but in a more restricted sense:
>i.e., the Tonkin Bay incident or, currently, the Downing Street Memos.
>The point is that even after being exposed, those Memos are having close
>to zero political impact. There are numerous other topics far more
>fruitful in turning people against the war or, what is far more
>important just now, in turning passive opponents of the war into active
>opponents. This is how Jan & I responded to the eruption of a
>conspiracist theorist in our local anti-war group -- and it worked quite
>well. We isolated him without needing to attack him personally.
>
>My suggestion is that, at least possibly, most of those callers belonged
>to this 'outer sphere' -- those who were merely 'interested' in the
>possibility but not really committed. Hence you need not be quite so
>speechless.
>
>Carrol
>
>P.S. This is also my rationale for urging people to stop obsessing about
>(or even attending to) the Fox News et al take on politics. Listeners
>who swallow that stuff can't be reached anyhow. And in talking or
>writing to others, there are more important things to talk about than a
>redundant refutation of the nonsense from Fox.
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