7th International

One way to divide American politics says my friend Richard Parker is between "Conspiracy Nuts" and "Conspiracy Denial Nuts." Displaying normal Establishment arrogance, Conspiracy Denial Nuts are in denial about any such category. Conspiracy denial as a form of "you can trust the Establishment," is just common sense realism and the rest of us are merely deviations from the norm.
The most prominent of these Conspiracy Denial Nuts include prestigious leftists - Chomsky certainly heads the list, Michael Albert of Z magazine is a special favorite of mine. Popular radical journalist Alexander Cockburn somewhat epitomizes the breed to the point of of being described as a "Coincidentalist" by Michael Parenti.
The descriptive term I prefer however is Establishment Leftists - what Claudio Katz in a recent Monthly Review may have meant in reference to Latin American politics by "the modern civilized left." Establishment Leftists are rooted, I believe, in the desperate desire not to appear Crazy.
Years ago, Richard Hofstadter, the fifties Dean of popular Political Science, took on what he called "the Paranoid Style" in American Politics. Hofstadter's thesis was that American Populism was the natural home of Paranoid Conspiracy theories, inevitably slanting toward the extreme right.
McCarthyism was the primal horror of the time that gave emotional reality to Hofstadter's thesis, ignoring of course the fact that Democrats like Truman and Humphrey were the first McCarthyites. Being a talented historian, Hofstadter grounded his category of Paranoid style in earlier movements, most importantly post Civil War Populism - exemplified by the career of Tom Watson. A brilliant leader of that movement, Watson began political life standing armed in the doorway defending a threatened ex-slave, yet ended it publicly defending the lynching of Negroes. Hofstadter deemed this an inevitable devolution.
Our Establishment Leftist takes this Hofstadter thesis as Gospel. Any form of Popular skepticism was viewed as dangerously tainted. Left credibility demanded instantly decrying any Populist Paranoids seeking a niche on the left. Thus the 911Truth movement can never be allowed access to leftist outlets unaccompanied by poisonous disclaimers. So Amy Goodman "allows" the author of The New Pearl Harbor airtime but only when dogged by a professional Nazi/Klan hunter. Or at a recent Media Accountability Conference at California's Sonoma State, primo Establishment Leftist Norman Solomon - two weeks before the Conference - demands that the presentation of 911Truth researcher Steven Jones be prefaced by disclaimers to Solomon's specifications.
Establishment Leftists can be selective in their paranoia. Recently David Barsamian whose shows are a much admired staple of my community radio station, KMUD, appeared locally as part of a book tour for his latest book Target Iran. Barsamian made it clear that war with Iran is a real possibility. Why then, he asked, did other Establishment Leftists like Chomsky and Tariq Ali believe an attack to be an impossibility? Because they mistakenly projected their rationality on otherwise thoroughly irrational players of the ilk of Bush and Cheney.
Nonetheless Barsamian discounted 911 scenarios that implicated the very irrational regime about to "target Iran." Instead he fell back on the thin rationale that Seymour Hersch told him "there was nothing to it." As if Hersch was the Platonic receptacle of Truth to whom all leaks flowed. As if the leaks Hersch was getting on Iran for instance weren't motivated by particular political self-interests on the part of the leakers.
Barsamian's service to truth is admittedly substantial - as is the case of otherwise totally admirable Establishment Leftists. My point in criticism such doyens of the Movement is not to deny their immense positive contributions. Establishment Leftists however are unable to encompass an important one of our grassroots political movements due to a fear of the loss of that illusory political commodity called Credibility.
Your average politician (and aren't they all?) needs to pile up credibility as a staging point for their next crucial lie. aradoxically, the Establishment Leftist fears the loss of credibility lest the Establishment reject them as a reserve receptacle for the next needed crucial truth! And, sadly, it may be the case for some that there is the fear that being tarred as a Conspiracy Nut could be that last straw: Down the drain would could an otherwise illustrious career in academia, journalism, political office-holding, executive directorship or some other source of nonprofit profit. Becoming a Conspiracy Denial Nut may be for some a relatively small price to pay for maintaining their minimum status by a minimal show of respect for the status quo.
This is not to assert some kind of moral superiority for us Conspiracy Nuts. In a world of limitless facts, scenarios and perspectives, each of us hobbles together by choice and chance a framework, a set homegrown categories, through which to grasp and order reality.Many Conspiracy Nuts are practically helpless in our ingrained skepticism - while others almost as instinctively cling to their rationality which is a career lifeline to the crackpot realism of the Established Order. Only a divine All encompassing can be expected to have an objective perspective outside our mere categories.
Barsamian meanwhile appeared in our locality under the sponsorship of Greenfuse of whose collective I am a member. He was pretty flawless on the Politically Correct Week in Review show that I co-host, as well as at our bookstore and at the Vet's Hall lecture. The Target Iran aspect of his talk was nicely summarized in the weekly newspaper. I have a host's responsibility therefore not to harshly handle my guest. So let me say that Barsamian proved that his silence on 911 when offered scenarios in the privacy of a bookstore book signing was not deafness. During his talk he admitted, apropos of another question altogether, that "he could be wrong" to have ignored the issue.
In defense of Conspiracy Nuts everywhere I had also unravelled my favorite flanking attack vis a vis 911: 1) given that war in general is a game between consenting parties in which "surprise" is not an absolute, and 2) given that in this game America has preferred her opponents to take the white pieces while reserving the black pieces of "surprise" attack to better involve her citizenry (Tonkin Gulf, the Maine, Pearl Harbor, the Mexican, Gulf, Korean and so on wars), why then 3) would this set of wars be any different?? Barsamian at the time stigmatized this view as crossing the line from skepticism to cynicism. This was not a particularly crushing rejoinder because after the 1st Gulf War I vowed to never say again "They wouldn't do that would they?" But I graciously accepted Barsamian's "apology" when he stated additionally apropos of nothing at his lecture that cynicism was perfectly understandable. Thank you, David.
More important to my education upon the actual appearance in the flesh of an Establishment Leftist even in so mild form was the renewal of my flagging interest in 911Truth and the revitalization of my chess piece thesis of American wars. I went back almost to the beginning of the Imperial Presidency - Truman, that unlikely Augustus Caesar. (FDR of course was The Caesar, a thorough Aristocrat leading the popular party against the failed oligarchy.)
See Part 2, The Gulf War syndrome - the New Korean War

Labels: Alexander Cockburn, Conspiracy Denial Nuts, Michael Albert, Noam Chomsky, Normon Solomon, Paranoid Politics