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THREAD THREE of CALLING OUT PROPAGANDA (numbers 30 to 39)
CALLING OUT PROPAGANDA No.30
“THAT’S A CONSPIRACY THEORY!” is a comment designed to ridicule, without needing to engage with an argument – and to warn others to stay away from the subject.
SOME conspiracy theories may be rightly dismissed as “nuts” and fit for sneers about “tinfoil hats”. But others should not be so easily dismissed.
People with power absolutely do conspire together in their mutual interest. It would be strange if they did not.
Adam Smith, father of economics, famously wrote, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
Here are just a few events previously derided as “conspiracy theories” which were or are “conspiracy facts”:- Watergate; various CIA coups; suppression of facts by the asbestos and tobacco industries about how their products are fatal; undercover police in protest groups; suppression of facts by the fossil fuel companies about the climate crisis.
Michael Parenti is funny and trenchant:
“[They mock]: “Do you actually think there’s a group of people sitting around in a room plotting things?”
For some reason that image is assumed to be so patently absurd as to invite only disclaimers. But where else would people of power get together – on park benches or carousels? Indeed, they meet in rooms: corporate boardrooms, Pentagon command rooms, at the Bohemian Grove, in dining rooms at the best restaurants, resorts, hotels, and estates, in conference rooms at the White House, the NSA, the CIA, or wherever.
And, yes, they consciously plot – though they call it “planning” and “strategizing” – and they do so in great secrecy, often resisting all efforts at public disclosure. No one confabulates and plans more than political and corporate elites and their hired specialists.”
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