I think 9/11 conspiracy accusations are versions of a stab-in-the-back narrative .... <div>On 8/17/06, Doug Henwood <<a href="mailto:dhenwood@panix.com"> dhenwood@panix.com</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Hmm, he's refused to do this on my show, out of fear of all the flak he'd take from the conspiracoids, Doug ___________________________________</blockquote><div> JM: Is this your interpretation of why he refused, conclusion from contextual evidence, or did he tell you something along this lines? </div> </div> <div>On 8/17/06, Doug Henwood <<a href="mailto:dhenwood@panix.com">dhenwood@panix.com </a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> How about "psychotically delusional"? Would that pass muster? ___________________________________ </blockquote></div> JM: I think the people who believe "the Bush Regime planned 9/11" are wrong to the point of delusion, and the people who argue that the Towers were blown-up in a planned explosion just don't know very much,  but.... But I wouldn't call such people _psychotically_ delusional no matter how wrong they may be.  Such conspiracy narratives could become a dangerous phenomena, but I don't think they have reached that point yet.  I think trying to understand why such people believe as they do might be helpful, so I will hazard a few guesses. There may be psychological explanations but my reflections are political because mostly in these things I think the psychological explanations are of tenth order importance. I think such people are trying to find a quick, simple, strong narrative to explain all that they think has gone wrong since Bush came to power.  It seems to be a "left" (I think there are right wingers who also believe some of these 9/11 conspiracies) version of "stab-in-the-back" accusations after a war is lost.  It is mostly a lack of any other "good" _explanation_ (from their point of view) that makes such people grasp for a compelling _story_.  If Doug, Ravi, Carrol, and Chomsky were the leading lights in a mass working class oriented political party in the U.S. (we can have our fantasies) then I think that such conspiracy theories would be relegated to the extreme right and the seriously obsessed.  It is good to remember that such explanations of how and why the U.S . goes to war are common in U.S. history.  I think the reason for the need for such explanations have something to do with the fact that we USers are unable to accept that we have a real live ruling class.  The ideological belief that the U.S. is a democracy fosters an inability to accept that their are ruling class interests separate from the rest of us. Thus this leads people to narrative explanations of how the democracy was hijacked.  The FDR conspiracy-manipulations to get us into WWII, the "China Lobby" which backed MacArthur in Korea , the "Jewish Lobby", the JFK assassination, the Tonkin Gulf incident, Watergate, the October Surprise, Iran-Contra, etc. are all used to explain overall U.S. policy and how and why U.S. democracy has been somehow (recently) subverted.  One only needs to study the debates around the Mexican-American War to see these exact kinds of conspiracy theories spin out.  The use of conspiracy narratives as an explanation for the actual "structure" of U.S. rule is no less delusional when an actual conspiracy takes place.  Tolkin Gulf Watergate and Iran-Contra were actual conspiracies but they were used as explanations for why "our democracy was subverted" and why foreign policy is structured to serve narrow interests.  The explanation is the other way around. The conspiracies occurred as incidents of ruling class power struggles and not as a way to subvert the democratic polity.  My larger point here is that these 9/11 conspiracies are deep in are political culture in a way that is structural.  As long as people don't see clearly that we need no "special narrative" to explain why our rulers send us into brutal wars and use all kinds of disasters to their profit and in order to aggregate power, the only available explanation is a special narrative.  It is certainly the path of least resistance to believe that the U.S. is controlled by illegal conspiracies.  If it is a conspiracy that is "subverting" the country, one does not have to think through a structural explanation of our political-economy. Plus if there is a conspiracy there is a clear way to "take back" "our" country -- throw out the conspirators. There is no need to organize workers into unions, or neighbors into solidarity groups or even to debate whether any of these things are good or bad.  The goal is simple.  Get rid of the conspirators and the world will be better.  The thing is, until there is an alternative explanation that motivates people with hope I think such ideas will continue.  Jerry