On May 13, 2010, at 1:16 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
> Shane: "The elephant in the room is this: The entire rationale for the
> imperial war in Afghanistan is the 9/11 conspiracy theory (Cheney/
> Obama
> version)."
>
> [WS:] The logic of the above escapes me altogether.
>
Haven't you heard *any* of Obama's speeches about why we're "at war"
in Afghanistan?
> I think the elephant in the room is that conspiracy theories serve a
> function similar to magic rituals - they create an illusion of
> manageability
> of something that is no manageable - at least to ordinary schmucks.
> If the
> world events are procured by a small cabal of conspirators, then
> tracking
> and exposing these conspirators will produce a change in the world
> events
> and thus the conspiracy theorists can dream that they can save the
> world.
>
> Or put it differently, the elephant in the room is that conspiracy
> theorist
> tend to have difficulties in conceptualizing systemic causes of
> events and
> anthropomorphize these causes instead.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
> On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 12:59 PM, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> On May 13, 2010, at 12:01 PM, martin wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On May 13, 2010, at 7:14 AM, LBO News from Doug Henwood wrote:
>>>
>>> Anyway, I’ll drop this topic after this. But aside from the
>>> details of
>>>> the 9/11 obsession—the melting point of steel-type arguments—I
>>>> really don’t
>>>> get the political point of it. Is American imperial power just a
>>>> ruse? A
>>>> trick by a small cabal of plotters? Or something that permeates the
>>>> structures of global politics, economics, and culture—even the
>>>> insides of
>>>> our minds?
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Are they mutually exclusive?
>>>
>>> The elephant in the room is this: The entire rationale for the
>>> imperial
>> war in Afghanistan is the 9/11 conspiracy theory (Cheney/Obama
>> version).
>> Though craven acceptance of that theory does not necessarily imply
>> support
>> for the war, it absolutely precludes making any sort of convincing
>> political
>> case against it.
>>
>>
>>
>> Well, Dick Cheney is gone, and things go on pretty much as before,
>> folks.
>>>> Or do the plotters enjoy seamless and leakless transitions of
>>>> power?
>>>>
>>>
>> With Bush-litebrown in the White House it looks quite seamless.
>> Anything
>> that can be called "state secret" or "national security" (and that,
>> as far
>> as Obama is concerned, means anything at all) remains quite
>> leakproof.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Shane Mage
>>
>> "Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64