Hmmm. Secret societies and the state of the left, eh? I've often had the
experience of doing in-depth research on some important and neglected matter
and then running smack dab into a conspiracy kook's diatribe that discloses
pertinent and verified information (inevitably mixed in with sheer nonsense).
Part of what makes someone like LaRouche so scary is that _some_ of what he
says is true, worth paying attention to and systematically covered-up by the
"respectable" media. Any one remember ex-FBI agent Dan Smoot and his John
Birch Society rantings about the "Invisible Government" run by the Council
on Foreign Relations? How does one totally dismiss such a "right-wing
conspiracy theorist" and then seriously entertain, say, Noam Chomsky, Holly
Sklar or Phillip Agee? None dare call it coincidence.
One of the problems with the left is that people on the left have a
puritanical double standard about "conspiracies". It's kind of like
masturbation -- we only do it ourselves for hygenic reasons but those other
guys (who buy the dirty magazines) are ADDICTED to it, fercrissake.
The "all-encompassing conspiracy" is an incongruous concatenation of post
hoc ergo propter hoc stories, punctuated at key intervals by outright
forgeries. But aversion to conspiracy theories can have an anaesthesizing
effect on our understanding of the perfidy of imperialism. To give an
example, the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is an exposed forgery, but
that doesn't make the House of Rothschild a pure figment of the anti-semitic
imagination. Nor does it make the government of Israel beyond reproach.
The old litany of the International-Jewish-Communist-Bankers' conspiracy is
enough to make cosmopolitan lefties soft-pedal their suspicions of finance
capital just to make extra special sure they're not unknowingly endorsing a
passage in Mein Kampf. One can't avoid a certain quantum of cognitive
dissonance in this murky territory.
It might help to see conspiracy theory in the light of infantile attachment.
We all want to receive the security of a relationship that develops in a
straight line, although none of us can fully comply with the strictures of
giving such security. "Betrayal" is thus imminent in all of our
relationships. Culture and religion might even be seen as almost exclusively
concerned with deflecting the potentially explosive effects of the
inevitable betrayal. Sometimes this "deflection" might be better described
as a ricochet.
Let's face it folks, Jesse Jackson is a chump and Jack Kemp is an O.K guy.
Right? The worm of conspiracy offers to backcast today's unsettling
constellation of political facts and forces unto an "always already" fairy
tale. Personally, I remember hearing silver-tongued Jesse spin out some
hokum during the 1988 primaries about how federal revenues could be
"leveraged" without deficit spending. I thought, "What crap. What the hell
is "leverage" supposed to mean other than securing debt?" The deranged
conspiracy theorist can put two (privatizing social security) and two
("leveraging" revenues) together and get six: just what was _this guy_ doing
there on that balcony in 1968? Who has he really been working for all along?
And how do we know that Dan Smoot and Noam Chomsky aren't working together
in cahoots with the all-encompassing conspiracy to leak out just enough of
the invisible reality to put us all on edge? (Deranged laughter deleted).
regards,
Tom Walker
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm
