From the Review, June 2006:
– A conspiracy does not have to be illegal; it can merely be wrongful or harmful.
– The term ‘conspiracy theory’ was invented by elite media and politicians to denigrate questions or critical presumptions about events about which important facts remain unrevealed.
– The intelligent response to such events is to remain agnostic, skeptical, and curious. Theories may be suggested – just as they are every day about less complex and more open matters on news broadcasts and op ed pages – but such theories should not stray too far from available evidence. Conversely, as long as serious anomalies remain, dismissing questions and doubts as a “conspiracy theory” is a highly unintelligent response. It is also ironic as those ridiculing the questions and doubts typically consider themselves intellectually superior to the doubters. But they aren’t because they stopped thinking the moment someone in power told them a superficially plausible answer. Further, to ridicule those still with doubts about such matters is intellectually dishonest.
– There is the further irony that many who ridicule doubts about the official version of events were typically trained at elite colleges where, in political science and history, theories often take precedent over facts and in which substantive decisions affecting politics and history are presumed to be the work of a small number of wise men (sic). They are trained, in effect, to trust in (1) theories and (2) benign confederacies. Most major media political coverage, for example, is based on the great man theory of history. This pattern can be found in everything from Skull & Bones to the Washington Post editorial board to the Council on Foreign Relations. You might even call them conspiracy theorists.
– Other fields – such as social history or anthropology – posit that change for better or evil can come as cultural change or choices and not just as the decisions of “great men.” This is why one of the biggest stories in modern American history was never well covered: the declining birth rate. No great men decided it should happen.
– Homicide detectives and investigative reporters, among others, are inductive thinkers who start with evidence rather than with theories and aren’t happy when the evidence is weak, conflicting or lacking. They keep working the case until a solid answer appears. This is alien to the well-educated newspaper editor who has been trained to trust official answers and conventional theories.
– The unresolved major event is largely a modern phenomenon that coincides with the collapse of America’s constitutional government and the decline of its culture. Beginning with the Kennedy assassination, the number of inadequately explained major events has been mounting steadily and with them a steady decline in the trust between he people and their government. The refusal of American elites to take these doubts seriously has been a major disservice to the republic.
– You don’t need a conspiracy to lie, do something illegal or to be stupid.
1 comment:
As perfected by Mae Brussell, conspiracy theory comes out of Hedda Hopper and Hollywood journalism, covering an industry devoted to covering up scandals. Brussell was the daughter of a rabbi and possessed extraordinary spiritual optimism, hence her loyalty to Kennedy antifascism. Then there's Jim Garrison, who in a perfect world would have become a governor rather than judge, and then President. Although Costner did a good job, Donald Sutherland would have been cast closer to type.
The first modern conspiracy theorist was WEB DuBois who realized that historiography had become a cover up on behalf of the power brokers. This is why Black History has emerged in this decade as a ground breaking field roughly 150 years after events described. When LBJ locked up the JFK evidence for 75 years it was a similar timeline. The Senate still redacts the chapter of its report identifying the government(s) who were responsible for 9/11. What was remarkable about Brussell as an avid reader of investigative journalism was that her interpretations were immediately valid on breaking news, hence her weekly news show, and sometimes she anticipated events as when she and Garrison both worried about RFK, Brussell actually contacting Rose Kennedy. Conspiracy theory on the investigative model, looks objectively at who was at the scene of the crime and who do they associate with. The answers to such questions map the contours of a government that lies outside the constitution. This approach goes back to Washington's Farewell Address and was given partisan expression by JQA and the Antimasonic Party. The great failure of current politics is the loss of an Antimasonic expression.
Post a Comment