ravi wrote: > > > I am sure that the US Iran-Contra connection was initially dismissed as > a conspiracy theory?
It's my personal favorite example of the uselessness of conspiracy theories even when they are true. There are innumerable narrowly focused "conspiracies" of this sort, and all of them, actually, rather out in the open, but nevertheless useless for agitational purposes. (I use "agitation" in the sense of brief statements that can be checked by the intended audience against their own existing knowledge and/or experience. It is through agitation that you reach new people -- new in the sense that they already agree on at least one vital point, on which point the agitation focuses), and on that basis are prepared for more leisurely consideration of other points.) But if a whole pile of evidence is called for (as in the Iran-Contra case) it only clutters agitation to bring it up. Put another way, the Iran-Contra case only persuades people who have already been persuaded on other (more obvious) grounds. Other such "conspiracies" which are useless politically were the Tonkin-Bay event, the WMDs in Iraq, the overthrow of Mossadegh, the murder of Lumumba, the u.s. kidnapping of Aristide, the u.s. support of Saddam in the Iraq-Iran war. These are all good to bring up _after_ someone has already been partly won over by use of events that are common knowledge. Considereation of them can move someone from an anti-war position to an anti-imperialist position, but they are useless in moving a non-active person to an anti-war position. Carrol
