Another important point Gore Vidal made on conspiracy theories:
(Note the following is a spoiler for the end of his novel "Kalki". Do
not read on if object to having the end given away to you.)
At the end of Gore Vidal's novel "Kalki" only a a handful (seven I
believe) men and women remain alive -- all in Washington D.C. Since
all the women are sterile, the human race is extinct, in spite of
having seven living representatives. One of the men, wonders over to
Langley, and digs out the CIA archives. He now knows the real story
about what happened to both Kennedy's, Martin Luther King Jr. and all
th other great conspiracies. Nobody listens to him when he shares this
information and all consider him a great bore. Under the
circumstances, he is focusing on utterly trivial information.
This is a point that Noam Chomsky makes too. Aside from the truth or
falsity of conspiracy theories, generally they are utterly unimportant
compared to the broader historical forces that shape our lives. What
capitalism does routinely is far worse than than the occasional secret
exceptional cases. Too much focus on conspiracy theory implies that
oppression is exceptional, carried out by "rogue" operatives rather
than being the routine policy neccesary to an operating capitalism.
In general, this is the problem with the portrayal of the CIA (and the
rest of the intelligence alphabet soup) as rogue agencies. There are
no "rogue" U.S. intelligence agencies. U.S. intelligence carries out
policy of the U.S. government and of U.S. capital, pretty much as
instructed.
Seth Sandronsky wrote:
>
> Tom,
>
> Regarding how some on the left and right view conspiracy and the
> economy, I offer this from my favorite American novelist, Gore Vidal.
> "It's not a conspiracy theory," he observes, "money thinks alike." In
> Vidal's view, capitalists are motivated to pursue profit maximization as
> "naturally" as night follows day. Isn't his anti-conspiracy theory of
> capital's "nature" what separate the analysis of the Chomskys from the
> LaRouches?
>
> Regards,
> Seth Sandronsky
>
> >Date: Thu, 04 Mar 1999 09:19:57 -0800
> >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tom Walker)
> >Subject: [PEN-L:4129] Illuminaughtiness
> >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> >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
> >
> >
> >
>
> ______________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
--
Gar W. Lipow
815 Dundee RD NW
Olympia, WA 98502
http://www.freetrain.org/
