Here is a new angle on an old line about the Vietnam War. Going
through an issue of the NYRB last night from last yr. saw notice
of new academic book that alleges Shell Oil, in contravention
of trade sanctions regime, I'd assume,
shipped oil and inverstment capital to N. Vietnam during the
U.S. aggression.
Puts upside down, the allegation that LBJ and Lady Bird had investments
in S.Vietnam because of suppossed oil deposits off the coast.
Michael Pugliese
>Date: 3/26/01 2:35:54 PM
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>>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/26/01 05:23PM >>>
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>> I am very much against the trend around these lists to disdain
any
>conspiracy theories on today's politics. The ruling class had
a conscious
>policy to make Reagan look good. No more Watergates ! was the
discipline of
>the ruling class at the time.
>>
>> On the monopoly media methods, see Michael Parenti's _Inventing
Reality_
>>
>>
>> Charles Brown
>*************
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>Well we need to have some rather stringent criteria whereby
we sort
>deliberation and strategizing by the ruling class to achieve
and reproduce
>their hegemony from trying to see patterns of intentionality
that just ain't
>there. Problematic to say the least...
>
>(((((((((
>
>CB: Nobody said revolutionary struggle and thinking things out
is easy, but I agree we need the stringent criteria. On the other
hand, because the criteria must be stringent doesn't mean the
left can take the easy route, fall out of touch with realiity
into a never-never land that sees no conspiracies in the operation
of capitalism.
>
>I mean Marxism certainly holds that capitalism is a system
, not a policy, but that doesn't mean there aren't conspiracies
that we must point out in demonstrating the rottenness of the
way things work. Many people first come to the struggle because
they are fed up with a specific outrage, such as the CIA running
drugs in LA or J. Edgar Hoover murdering Black Panthers or JFK
Or lying conspiracies in the operation of the Viet Nam war, etc.
To ignore these and not be ready to explicate them or whatever
doesn't make any sense.
>
>I see the problem of forfeiting the responsibility to sort out
patterns of intentionality that are there as a much bigger problem
than claiming patterns of intentionality that are not there.
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>
