-Caveat Lector- "I pledge Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the REPUBLIC for which it stands, one Nation under God,indivisible,with liberty and justice for all."
visit my web site at http://www.voicenet.com/~wbacon My ICQ# is 79071904 for a precise list of the powers of the Federal Government linkto: http://www.voicenet.com/~wbacon/Enumerated.html ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 17:07:54 -0400 From: Nurev Ind <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [ctrl] Re: conspiracies 6/18/03 This is EXCELENT!!!!!!! Keep up this attitude. J2 At 05:58 PM 6/18/03 +0000, you wrote: >"CONSPIRACY THEORIES ARE ALWAYS WRONG" >The difficulty for a naive empiricist or rationalist like me is that >in a sense the people who are currently producing and recycling all >the rubbish about global conspiracies, the David Ickes and William >Coopers of this world, are right. But only in a sense. Some of the >world's politics and economics is influenced - but not controlled - >by little groups of people. The Bilderberg Group does exist, does >meet. The Trilateral Commission does exist, does meet occasionally >and discuss a new world order. After all, these are the guardians of >capital, and disorder is what they don't want. Global investment >likes order. There are bankers ripping us off - but few of them are >Jewish. David Icke and the many Americans from whom he has adopted >these ideas, have a little nugget of truth there, but thanks to the >way they use it, they contaminate the subject matter and unwittingly >play into the hands of the very people they think they are opposing. > >For most of the chattering classes - the media and knowledge >industry, academics, politicians and their assistants - the epithet >`conspiracy theorist' is the kiss of death. One of the bed-rocks of >the ideology of liberal democracies is that conspiracy theories are >always wrong, and those who espouse them are mental incompetents at >best. This unquestioned belief usually manifests itself in the >endless genuflections like this: "of course I'm not a believer in the >conspiracy theory of history", or: "as usual the cock-up theory of >politics turned out to be true". Indeed, I would say that the >espousal of the belief in the cock-up or coincidence theory of >history is at the heart of what passes for political and intellectual >sophistication in liberal democracies. > >This is understandable up to a point. Who wants to be associated with >nutters who believe the world's being run by a cabal of American >politicians and extra-terrestrials? Or the Masons? What irritates me, >however, is that this legitimate allergy to mega conspiracy theories >extends much further than the crazy fringe to a general prohibition >on conspiracies. And this is very strange, because it is blindingly >obvious - is it not? - that political parties, for example, are >intrinsically conspiratorial. Routine internal party politics is a >network of interlocking cabals plotting how to get their hands on >this group, committee, caucus meeting, council, party, pressure >group. It is only a slight exaggeration to say, as Carl Oglesby did >in the early 1970s, that conspiracy is normal politics. Yet this idea >would produce everything from outrage to patronising shakes of the >head from almost all intellectual and political circles in this >country. "Really, old boy, the world just isn't like that." > >I met this view of the world on my first visit the Newsnight office >in 1986. I was then trying to persuade the media to take seriously >the allegations of Colin Wallace about anti-Labour activities by the >intelligence services in the 1970s. Wallace was then still in prison - > he was framed on a manslaughter charge. I had written to him and >mentioned that I would be visiting Newsnight and Wallace wrote back >warning me that up in the higher reaches of the BBC was a man called >Alan Protheroe, who was an asset of the British secret state and who >knew Wallace and what Wallace had been up to in Northern Ireland in >1974. When I met the Newsnight journalist who was interested in >Wallace and was proposing to interview him when he came out of >prison, I said "Wallace says watch out for Protheroe. He thinks he >will ky-bosh your interview." > >I got the patronising smile of the higher media who know >everything: "Oh come on, the BBC isn't like that." What happened? >Wallace was interviewed, and Protheroe blocked its transmission. The >BBC then denied that the interview had ever taken place. About a year >later it was revealed that M15 actually had an office inside the BBC >from which it vetted applicants for BBC jobs. > > >HOW THE IDEOLOGY OF LIBERAL DEMOCRACY DENIES REALITY >The belief that our society "just isn't like that" is a part of the >ideology of liberal democracy, which I identify as the concept of >pluralism. This is mostly what's taught in Anglo-American >universities. The last time I took a look at it, British academic >politics was still wrestling with the discovery that interest and >pressure groups intrude into the model of Westminster party politics. >But the problem with `pluralism' is that it is essentially empty, >merely telling us that many groups in society have some power. The >interesting questions begin where pluralism stops. > >A real world perspective - what I would call a parapolitical >perspective - on the other hand, takes it for granted that there are >clandestine influences at work in society. Not the ridiculous, world- >controlling conspiracies like the Masons, or the Illuminati, or other >such nonsense, but more mundane things like intelligence agencies >manipulating domestic and international politics; companies buying >government policies by making anonymous donations to the Tory Party >etc. It became absurd to deny the existence of large-scale political >conspiracies, of powerful `hidden forces', as soon as the existence >of the CIA - or KGB or SIS - was revealed. The interesting questions, >the rational questions, are not: Are there such things as covert >influences - conspiracies - in political or social life?, but: Given >that there manifestly are such things, where are they? Whose are >they? How important are they? How can we tell fantasy from reality? >And - I would argue - how do we put a stop to them? > >Simple empirical observation says conspiracy is a very common form of >political behaviour. The mysterious thing is not that some poor >deluded fools insist on seeing conspiracies, but how it is that, for >so long, so many otherwise apparently intelligent people - most of >Anglo-American political science, for example - have, until very >recently, managed not to notice that conspiracy is an everyday and >rather important part of the phenomena they purport to be studying. >Let me give a couple of examples. Since its formation in the 1920s >until its demise about five years ago, the Economic League collected >and spent, in today's money, millions of pounds every year working >against the British left. It may have spent as much as the >Conservative Party since World War I. Yet there was not one academic >essay about the Economic League between its formation and 1980. Not >one in sixty years. No account of British domestic politics in the >twentieth century can be anything but hopelessly incomplete without >incorporating the Economic League, but I have never seen one that >does. > >Academic American history somehow manages to skip over the fact that >in a five year period in the sixties one President, the probable next >President, and the most important black leader since the war were >victims of assassinations which were never investigated properly and >remain unsolved. > >Not that it's difficult to explain why this odd situation has >prevailed for so long. Britain has been run for most of this century >by two intensely secretive, overlapping groups; one is the British >state, about which we know almost nothing - especially its secret >branches - about which even MPs are not allowed to ask questions. And >the other is the Conservative Party, about which even its members >know almost nothing of how it is run or who funds it. In the US, >since the war, a group of government agencies, with their satellite >supply companies, headed by the CIA and the Pentagon, have been >operating largely in secret, and very profitably, too. God knows it's >hard sometimes to show the links between ideology and interests, but >in these instances it looks pretty straightforward to me. The most >powerful interests in Britain and the US don't want their >conspiratorial activities examined; and gee whiz, it turns out that >being interested in conspiracies is intellectually forbidden in both >societies. > >Of course there's one obvious exception to the official prohibition >on interest in conspiracies. Since 1918 we have all been officially >encouraged to believe in the existence of one conspiracy: the red >menace. In Britain the most significant recent conspiracy theorists >were the cold warriors, who pumped out endless theories of Soviet >espionage and subversion in this country since the war. Mrs Thatcher >was one of those. She looked at the Trades Union Congress - at Uncle >Jack Jones, one of the nicest and most decent people who ever >existed - and saw Moscow subversion. And to ensure that we believed >in the reality of this approved conspiracy theory, the Anglo-American >intelligence services, the outstanding example of institutionalised >conspiracies in the twentieth century, have spent a ton of money - >your money - propagating it, while denigrating anybody who turned up >with any other kind of conspiracy. This hypocrisy reached some kind >of peak in the late 1960s when the CIA - a vast world-wide >conspiracy - put out a message to all its stations and personnel >about the Kennedy Assassination. The instruction from Langley was >that they were to use their political and media assets to put out the >line that the kind of conspiracy described by the Warren Commission >critics could not possibly exist! > >Four years before this comic event the CIA's relationship with the >Warren Commission investigating JFK's assassination was handled by >the late James Jesus Angleton, head of CIA counter-intelligence. He >believed, among other things, that the split between the Soviet and >Chinese communist parties (up to and including a shooting war on >their borders) was a disinformation campaign to lull the west into a >false sense of security. There are still people on the fringe of the >UK-US intelligence services who believe the collapse of the Soviet >empire in the last decade has been a deception operation. > > >THE CONSPIRACIES WHICH ARE THE STATE >My interest in conspiracies, not conspiracy theories, is political. >As well as being a naive empiricist, I am also a naive democrat. I >believe that the political process should be open, transparent. I >don't like secrecy, and that means I don't like conspiracies. Be it >the Trotskyist groups trying to enter the Labour Party; be it the >foot soldiers of MI5 and Special Branch trying to conjure up a new >enemy to keep themselves in work; be it companies bribing >governments. And, yes, be it the Masonic networks in the police, >local government, the state etc. The Masons are significant, though a >Mason I met recently told me that their membership in Britain was >falling; it's just that they don't - and never did - run the world. >The important conspiracies we should be looking at are those run by >the state - in this benighted country we might say the conspiracies >which are the state. > >The garbage we are now getting so much of, the global conspiracy >baloney, is simply background noise, a distraction. Anthony Summers, >the British investigator and writer, summed up the position very >well: he said he wasn't interested in conspiracy theories, but he was >interested in theories about conspiracies. > >Six years ago I wrote a piece about this subject - I was thinking of >Britain, not the US. We were then in the aftermath of three years of >revelations of official conspiracies, generated by the 'Spycatcher' >episode and the related revelations of Colin Wallace about the >attempts by the British and American intelligence and security >services to undermine the Wilson government. I concluded that piece >thus: > >"As a concept `conspiracy' would be of little interest or explanatory >value were it not for the defensive refusal of our chattering classes >to acknowledge its legitimacy. We can only look forward to the day >when the term has lost the connotations it has at the moment and >rationality finally prevails. Meanwhile, with our eyes and ears open, >we `naive empiricists' just have to get on with trying to understand >the nature of political and historical reality." > >And I will be doing this long after the mass media have moved on from >the X-Files agenda of the moment to something else equally trivial. > > > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- >---------- >http://www.serendipity.li/eden/laconspi.html > > > >To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >www.ctrl.org >DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER >========== >ctrl is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing >propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not >soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with >its many half-truths, mis-directions and outright frauds�is used >politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread >throughout the spectrum of time and thought. >That being said, ctrl gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and >always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. ctrl gives no >credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. > >There are two list running, [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [EMAIL PROTECTED], >[EMAIL PROTECTED] has unlimited posting and is more for discussion. >[EMAIL PROTECTED] is more for informational exchange and has limited >posting abilities. > >Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. > >Om > >Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
