These types are always around. During the Vietnam anti-war movement, they were ranting about the JFK murder. Then, there was "Bobby" and of course, MLK. Chuck's right about the religious/believer mentality. People attracted to these conspiracy explanations tend also to *believe* that the USA was a grassroots democracy before BLANK happened and now, "We have to expose this dastardly plot in order to put American democracy back to where it used to be in the past. Keep the faith, brothers and sisters."
Of course, sometimes these people are cops. Most of the rank and file conspiracy theory buffs are themselves theorectically challenged; kind of like the believers who spout Creationist Theory. And then, there are the mentally ill or combinations of all three of the aforementioned rolled into one person!
Suggestions:
1. Cops--assign them to do the shit work. Keeps 'em busy. 2. Rank and file--expose them to your theories about how and why the war began and historical materialist analyses of the U.S. in private one on one dialogues over beer AFTER the meeting. ALWAYS pick a strong chair for the meeting in order to keep to your agenda. Let the people who want to talk Creationist...I mean Conspiracy Theory..conduct a "workshop" on same at some time *after* the main agenda has been discussed. 3. Be nice, but not too tolerant of the wingnuts.
Mike B)
An injury to one is an injury to all http://www.iww.org/
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