ravi wrote: > > > I think Doug wrote something about "Arabs can't fly the plane by > themselves. It requires the Great White father". With all respect to > Doug, I think this critique is a diversion, a [no doubt unintentional, > if at all] attempt to cast the opponent as a racist, and dismiss his > argument.
I do not think it a diversion at all. While particular believers may or may not themselves be racist, racism tends to be characteristic (implicitly or explicitly) of almost all conspiracy theory. This is often true even of instances where a conspiracy _does_ exist. I gather that spying had actually occurred in the Rosenberg case -- but what gave the case against them real traction had nothing to do with the facts and a great deal to do with _two_ racist assumptions: one anti-semitic (you can't trust jews) and the other anti-slavic (those stupid peasants in russia could never have done it on their own). > Often so called "conspiracy" arguments are useful even if they are not > entirely valid. One or more of the questions they pose may be genuinely > problematic and lead to facts that we might otherwise not have any clue to. No. Even actual conspiracies are best left alone, because the kinds of questions that can only be decisively decided in a courtroom or other special forum become pure diversion from serious politics when they are raised. Watergate, even when exposed and even when it drove a president from office had was of no help at all in left organizing. If anything, its impact was to drive people out of political activity as not being hopeless. Certainly a conspiracy existed in the case of the overthrow of Allende -- but that incident has zero agitational use. Anyone who can't be reached through pointing out the everyday and widely known horrors of u.s. imperialism will not be reached by meticulous arguments as to how the C.I.A. works. That last point is central. The crimes of capitalism and of imperialism can be demonstrated vividly with facts that no one disputes. Pushing arguable facts is a mug's game and only creates political confusion and apathy, as well (often or usually) also reinforcing tacit racist assumptions. Carrol
