Here's how Wedel expresses -- in Unaccountable, a forthcoming book already on Google Books -- an aspect of the curious nature of formations like the citizens committees: "Flex nets ... are not conspiracies, whose members must keep their activities and, often, the very existence of the group, secret. While some of the activities in support of its goals are publicly unrevealed, others are fully in the open, invite media attention, and may even be crafted by public relations experts."
Much of what I find so interesting about the committee model is precisely this not-a-conspiracy character. The activity of each committee is an upside-down iceberg -- its activity, composition, and specific purpose ordinarily as high-profile as the group can make it, "only" the government connection hidden. Further, the pattern of the committees over time, and their interlocks with standing organizations, have been hiding in plain sight for decades, dots connected between at most a few of the groups in just a few accounts, most of them academic or otherwise comparatively obscure. The Birchers and Birchoids really fell down on this one.
"The real scandal is what's legal." Conspiracism falls down rabbit holes in search of smoking guns implicating rogue groups. (And it produces books rife with innuendo and wishful misinformation.) The citizens-committee saga sheds light on operations near the heart of the system, with the convenience of the participants' having left us full-page newspaper ads boasting their names and immediate objectives.
On 2014-10-01 13:27, MM wrote:
> On Oct 1, 2014, at 7:01 PM, Louis Trager wrote:
>
>> I have an article -- hnn.us/article/156791 [1] -- that contends
>> these citizens committees were instrumental in helping form and
>> maintain the liberal-moderate consensus across U.S. politics and
>> society from the 1940s through most of the '60s. And it explains why
>> the record is as incompatible with conspiracy theories as with
>> conventional pluralist models. I'd be delighted for you to comment
>> online or privately, and to share the link.
>
> Conspiracy precludes "personality conflicts, turf battles and
> disputes"? Has anyone informed the Attorney General?
>
> Seriously, the knee-jerk allergy to "conspiracy theories" - and if a
> reifying generalization ever demanded conceptual analysis, that one
> surely does - is as unhelpful as the belief that World Events™ are
> conjured by a cabal of cigar-smoking, kabbalizing rabbis in a Josefov
> attic.
>
> The problem with stereotypical conspiracy theories isn't that they are
> false - although most of them are - but that even when they are true,
> they are framed in a way that is radically disempowering. But trying
> to re-frame activities that clearly constitute attempts at what most
> people would call "conspiracy" as something else is just as unhelpful.
>
> Never, ever, ever lie to the class. And if you want effectively to
> operationalize that command, construe "lie" as broadly as possible -
> even at the expense of your intellectual vanity.
>
>
>
> Links:
> ------
> [1] http://hnn.us/article/156791