by Dreams End » Sat Oct 01, 2005 6:33 pm
These are just some thoughts and also some generalizations...which are naturally limited in their usefulness. I thought this might help sort out why I pick on some people here...<br><br>Rightwing conspiracy theory: RCT has a long history not only in this country but in the world. I think back to the ancient blood libels, where Jews were accused of killing children and using their blood to make Matzoh. A very quick search showed this idea going back AT LEAST to the 4th century A.C.E.<br><br>In fact, and this is a side issue, much of those same activities which the Jews were accused of doing: ritual sacrifice, withcraft, are very similar to the stories of RA today. Extremely similar. So similar in fact that you can find sites that dismiss modern day SRA stories as just another version of the blood libel. Now, because some people around here, especially proldic, who surely cannot be accused of anti-Semitism, have experiences that show RA to be real, I don't know what to make of this little factoid. One way I will NOT interpret it is that Jews are at the heart of it. Sadly, and sometimes covertly, many of the right wing conspiracists do just that. I was pretty hard on sw when she linked to one such site...but it was right there in the first paragraph. <br><br>The irony is that the people who made most "effective" use of such theories, the Nazis, ARE THE VERY PEOPLE WHO WERE SO INFLUENTIAL IN DEVELOPING WHATEVER OCCULT/MIND CONTROL COMPLEX EXISTS IN THIS COUNTRY. So to use this material for Jew-bashing...well, irony doesn't even capture it.<br><br>But how to define rightwing conspiracy theory? I do it like this. RCT sees an overarching, all encompassing conspiracy, without which everything would be just fine. Conspiracy theory is seen as having so much explanatory value that there's no need to look for any systemic abuses that are simply part of our system of government and economics.<br><br>As such, at best, it can serve to misdirect attention from glaring inequities that require no such conspiracies to explain them. At worst, it can lead to revolutionary energy being directed into eradicating the alleged perpetrators of the conspiracies (Jews, communists...lizards?) and, basically, the creation of a fascist state. "Protection" from these evil folks is paramount. Civil rights, due process, well, all the stuff that's so out of fashion these days, must be sacrificed. We cannot stand by and let our country be destroyed in the name of "political correctness". America uber alles...etc. etc.<br><br>Leftwing conspiracy theory, to me anyway, would suggest that there certainly are elites with vast wealth and power who engage in conspiracies. We might argue (I include myself in this category) not that the system would be fine if the elites would go away, but that our system both creates an elite as well as being rigged to keep the existing elite in place. So you can't just go and knock off members of the elite and expect there to be meaningful change. The system itself, for example, demands a steady stream of propaganda so that people don't turn on it or don't turn on it in ways that could seriously threaten it. The actual purveyors of that propaganda are merely functionaries and bit players.<br><br>Those I'd call leftwing structuralists, simply emphasize the system and ignore the conspiracy. I won't deal with that here, but I think that if you don't acknowledge the conpspiracy part, you don't see clearly how the system is working and can fall into all kinds of diversionary traps. <br><br>When I think of it in these terms, it is why I always saw Christic Institute, for example, despite their work to expose Iran-Contra, as rightwing conspiracy theory. Danny Sheehan's position was always not that our government was going around blowing people up, but that ROGUE ELEMENTS of our government were doing so. Our government, by extension, is in perfectly fine shape. But the SECRET GOVERNMENT is the real problem. Sheehan has moved on to the world of UFO's and is basically putting forward the same sorts of arguments. As you probably know, among UFO researchers there is an element of rightwing conspiracy theory. (I'm a BIG UFO buff, so I'm not trying to disparage people who are into UFO's.) Hey, I would have been all for seeing Ollie North go to jail...but that's just a tiny piece of the puzzle. And G. Gordon Liddy went to jail and got rich and famous in the process.<br><br>I think there is also a sort of suprapolitical conspiracy theory. I think maybe Jeff fits into this category. That is, perhaps there is an elite which would exist no matter the underlying political system. In other words, I imagine Jeff would agree with the statement that even if you got rid of these elites, you'd still have lots of troubles but at the same time he might suggest that these elites are not really a product of capitalism, say, but are part of a much deeper conspiracy which transcends politics and is about amassing a sort of dark power that influences politics but is not in and of itself political. I'm having trouble, actually, defining this category. Let's try an example. I don't know what to make of the whole SRA phenomenon, but while I mentioned that the accusations are so similar to the old blood libels that they make me nervous, there's clearly more to the story. So let's assume for now that such a network exists*. This network could likely exist no matter what political structure it found itself in. And while those who are powerful in this network probably use this power in ways to shape world events when they can and to their liking, especially in ways to obscure our vision about them, they don't have an agenda that is political per se. Still, given what we are suggesting they DO, any world system they'd be most happy with would not be a place any of us would want to inhabit. If it turns out that the occult part actually had real world effects...then we have a whole other level on top of it all.<br><br>Well, that was clear as mud. Anyway, I wrote all this to explain how I could both be interested in various conspiracy theories and extremely alarmed at certain websites and articles that seem to be dealing with the same conspiracies. At best, in my view, RCT misdirects us...it lets too many people off the hook. And at worst...well, you simply have to read Mein Kemp in order to see where such overarching conspiracy theories lead. <br><br>And while I SUPPOSE it may be possible to have a belief that ISRAEL is the big, bad heart of the vast conspiracy without necessarily being anti-Semitic (note that this is different from merely criticizing Israeli policies) it still has the other detrimental effects of averting attention away from what should be an obvious target of concern, the US itself. The US is the richest nation in the world with the most costly (I was going to say powerful, but I'm not so sure about that) military and the largest intelligence structure. And we are going to suggest that anything bad they do is because of ISRAEL? Israel has only existed since 1947. So everything was fine in the world till Israel came into being? <br><br>This is diversionary (at best). <br><br>So I believe in conspiracies. Watergate was a conspiracy (especially the aspects that DIDN'T make it into the Post.) Iran-Contra was a conspiracy. The radiation experiments were conspiracies. MKULTRA tests on unwitting victims was a conspiracy. The overthrow of Allende in Chile was a conspiracy. The funding of Nicaraguan death squads was a conspiracy. The buying of media "assets" by the CIA is a conspiracy. And the really pathetic assassination attempts on Castro were part of a conspiracy. And all that crap marked TOP SECRET-EYES ONLY that we don't know anything about is a conspiracy.<br><br>But to me, much of this is simply the way our system works. The very rich have an agenda...to stay rich. They also happen to have the most influence. A phone call here, an offhand suggestion there...their wish is somebody's command. (I, on the other hand, can't even get my stepdaughter to clean up her room.) I simply can't think of a political system that could withstand such pressure no matter what voting machines you use or how much restrictions there are on campaign fundraising. <br><br>There are individuals so wealthy they could singlehandedly crash the stock market. What would YOU do if you were President and got a call from one of those guys who said "Pass this bill or else?" <br><br>Without addressing our economic system, which is merely another way of saying: how we figure out who gets what, who has enough and who goes without, there's not chance of taking on these elites. <br><br>As for the "suprapolitical" conspiracy theory...after all these months on this board, I'm as befuddled as when I started. There's high weirdness...that's for sure. Does that high weirdness have much relevant to how our world works...beats me. Can the elites aim magick at us as well as microwaves? Don't know. And when you get into mind control, the line between magick and technology grows very thin indeed.<br><br>But if there is such a powerful occult underground...well, maybe we're just fucked. On the other hand, even if we can't get at them directly, we might be able to restrict their movements so to speak. Shrink their territory. Working for economic justice and a system that leaves fewer people victim to hopelessness and despair is a great way to do that, I think. In a system that truly values people, for example, it would be a lot harder for children to simply go missing to be used we know not how.<br><br><br><br><br>*I don't want any of the RA victims here to take offense. There is so much misinformation and obfuscation on this subject that for someone who has not directly experienced it, it's really hard to tell what is truth. Sadly, testimony on a bulletin board, though compelling, is not really evidence. But I hope nothing I said here is construed as assuming I dismiss allegations of RA. Ponchatoula kinda sealed the deal for me as far as that goes. I just don't know how widespread it is and how high up it goes.<br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
