On 6/14/06, Dan Scanlan wrote:
.... The preferred normal business of this American state is the preservation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for ourselves and our posterity. This is, of course, idealistic, but it is the mission statement paraphrased from the Preamble of the Constitution. ...
it's not there. It's from the Declaration of Independence. Dan writes:
The point I am trying to make is that when a conspiracy is even partially exposed, it is up to the citizenry, its press and its law enforcers to find out the truth of the matter. In every instance in my lifetime that is important and that has involved a conspiracy of some kind -- JFK, MLK, Fred Hampton, Gulf of Tonkin, Ruben Salazar, Iran-Contra, crack cocaine, BCCI, Iraq War, election of GWB, the 911 circus, for starters -- citizens, the press and lawmakers have all pull back on the reins as soon as they smell shit. Unless each of the segments -- the people, reporters and cops -- does its job, none have any right to complain of the smell on their plates and should not expect their lives to improve.
obviously, investigative journalism is a good thing to do. But we shouldn't reduce history to a bunch of conspiracies, but also look at the structure of society (and its "laws of motion").
Conspiracies exist naturally.<
do they? people get together to attain common ends. But can they agree among themselves consistenly over long periods of time? can they get their underlings to follow orders and not to reveal the inner workings of the conspiracy? do they have enough information about how the world works to make sure that what they're doing produces the results they desire? can they cancel out the efforts of competing conspiracies and anti-conspiratorial efforts from the citizenry? If groups can't do these things, they're not really conspiracies. in an earlier missive, Dan wrote:
This problem is further aggravated by the lower classes tending to
acknowledge the reportage of the upper classes, putting them in the situation of responding to the news of the day, thus keeping "progressives" forever reactionary, and forcing them to dabble in the logical and emotional nits of nuances of "conspiracy theories", at best a phrase for boxing out the answer to the question "What happened?"< this misses the point. The leftish forces in the US are in really bad shape, much worse than (say) 25 years ago. We need some sort of intellectual coherence. My problem with conspiracy theory is that it doesn't provide it, while providing only a poor guide to "what is to be done?" following the lead of our fearless leader (and book scalper), Michael Perelman, this is my last contribution to the thread on conspiracy theory (until it comes up again, of course). btw, did you notice that the word "conspiracy" includes the word "piracy"? But I think it has something to do with "breathing together." -- Jim Devine / "Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate." -- Bertrand Russell
