In my new nationally syndicated column out today, I explore the root cause of America's anger at our federal government and the growing embrace of conspiracy theories - trends displayed in recent Scripps Howard/Ohio University studies. It is not just a reaction to fear in the age of terrorism, but is a more fundamental crisis of confidence in our public institutions.
Certainly, some of the conspiracy theories out there are offensive, inaccurate and should be ignored. However, the growth of conspiracy theories as a phenomenon should not be ignored, because they represent something deeper - a distrust of a government. This distrust, though it can go in crazy directions, is not crazy unto itself. In fact, it is quite rational. After all, everywhere we look, we see proof that our government actively conspires against the public.
The most pristine example, as I say in the column, was the recent behavior by the Federal Communications Commission. This week, this obscure commission moved to relax media ownership regulations - the final insult in a kabuki dance in which the public, quite openly, kicked in the teeth. When America sees this kind of thing happen on a daily basis, can we really wonder why so many people are angry, or why so many people believe the government is always conspiring against the public? I think not.
To be sure, many of these specific conspiracy theories are absolutely offensive. For instance, there is absolutely no proof that 9/11 was an "inside job" with government officials actively helping the attack - and those who push this myth without facts should be met with scorn. However, the media is also mislabeling some very clear facts as "conspiracy theories." For instance, it is not a "theory" that government officials knew of Osama bin Laden's growing determination to commit a domestic terrorist attack against the United States nor that terrorists were looking to crash airplanes into buildings. Those are just historical facts - not conspiracy theories.
But, again, more important than a debate about what is a conspiracy theory and what isn't, is the rise of conspiracy theories as a social phenomenon - and the roots of that rise is what should trouble us the most. We have a government that now openly and remorselessly ignores the public - and the public has reacted by losing all confidence in that government.
For the conservative movement, this crisis of confidence is great. Even if they lose an election or two because the Republican candidates of the moment take the blame, the more the public loses confidence in the government, the better chances their harsh anti-government rhetoric and policies could potentially get traction.
On the flip side, this loss of confidence is something awful for progressives (and the country) - and yet it is something I think many progressives fundamentally ignore. We think that all we have to do is point out that the government is corrupt in order to make our case. But that's just the starting point for most Americans these days. The majority of the public already believes that - and we can't win issue campaigns or elections simply by proving something people already know. We have the much more difficult task of 1) showing how conservative leadership is responsible for corrupting the government (not easy when many Democrats are part of the problem), and 2) making people believe that progressive leadership can restore that government and thus give people back some confidence in their public institutions again. This dual task is not going to be easy.
Go read read the whole column here. If you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use this directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site.
On one hand, in the mainstream media, you have, like Hofstadter in "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" (originally published shortly after the JFK assassination), a tendency to use the very word 'conspiracy theory' as an epithet, suggesting paranoia. Hofstadter himself lumped together the fact that a majority of Americans thought that there was a conspiracy & coverup behind the JFK assassination w/ various historical beliefs eg of the pope conspiring to rule the world or the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This lumping together occurs among many, including some who distinguish themselves from the particular silliness of dismissing JFK assassination theories as supposed paranoia (like the systematic trashing of the docudrama, JFK. Similar insinuations were made, unjustifiably, about Fahrenheit 9/11.) One good contemporary example of this approach, which I call the 'pseudo-liberal ANTI-paranoid style in American politics' is Todd Gitlin, who has made his career increasingly out of trashing the left indiscriminately.
But there's also those who propagate bogus conspiracy theories, like the 9/11 "Truth" movement, better termed "The 9/11 Horses*&^
movement". Peddling notions of simultaneous explosives being detonated in the World Trade Center, or denial that a plane crashed into the Pentagon, & not just a missile, etc. is useful to the SAME END as those who sneer at reasonable thinking as "conspiracy thinking".
Promoting bogus conspiracy theories widely undermines the REAL truth approach the way the Brawley case served to undermine the credibility of Civil Rights.
In short, much probing into this area is needed, and much willingness to expose those facets of life that many would prefer to keep 'clothed' in comfortable fictions -- a system that never has and never will give authentic progressivism in the US anything remotely approaching a fair shake.
Kudos to David Sirota for at least raising without undue prejudices, this difficult subject
The Democrats are a party of business interests. There is no left wing in this country. J. Edgar Hoover was ruthless with socialists and communists. Union-busting, including the use of RICO civil orders by Rudy Giuliani have left labor membership in the private sector at a mere 7% of the work force.
There are conspiracies. When two or more people decide to foment a war, for example, and then profit off that war, a conspiracy exists.
Without a legitimate union solidarity, as with the current two-tiered union contracts where newly hired part-time employees do not have the same benefits, even unions are of little use. Unions are co-opted by management.
Students are too apathetic to be of any use. Without a draft, they just want to listen to their I-Pods, drink, take drugs, party, hope for a job - in short, doing absolutely nothing to bring about change.
So there is a middle of the road Democratic party and a radical right wing party. Hillary Clinton is to the right of Richard Nixon.
Good luck with your new job in the media. Just don't expect even the slightest amount of positive change. Netroots will not stop the mega-corporations from globalizing international finance while sequestering labor within borders where it cam be exploited. Short of international solidarity of labor and students, finance will prevail. The militarization of foreign policy is expressly and openly "commercial." Was Saddam Hussein nuking us, as claimed? The slogan was that we cannot wait because the "proof of a smoking gun will come in the form of a mushroom cloud." No, it was a commercial enterprise from the start to get oil.
David, this war is a conspiracy of the largest order. Just follow the money and you will understand who is behind it. They have kept it paperless.
Biden appeared on CNN's "Late Edition." on Sunday 12/16/07
Biden wants an independent special counsel to investigate the CIA destroyed tapes which would lead to indictments of wrong-doers (jail) and an impeachment if the destruction was ordered by the White House. He has been saying this since day 1 of the news on the CIA tapes.
The FCC action is a great example, but there are so many more:
Prohibiting Medicare from negotiating with Big Pharma.
The TeleCom amnesty
Consulting big oil to write energy policy.
The so long overdue increase in CAFE standards - which if adopted 20 years ago would have made American cars more competitive.
(What are they trying to sell- gas or cars?)
The politicization of the Justice Dept.
Bush's 1100 signing statements.
THE LIST IS JUST ENDLESS!!!
Accordingly, it’s clear that our current government structure is simply no longer viable. It is impossible under our present system to separate the decision makers and the influencers to a sufficient degree to be able trust the outcome as having democratic reliability. A major reason that this is so is that we have no true means available to test the legitimacy of policy direction, let alone individual decisions, by declaring that a majority of us just lack confidence. We have virtually nothing available other than impeachment, and impeachment is so cumbersome as to provide no remedy.
The will of the most outstanding individual imaginable in the Whitehouse? That still leaves 535 other “deciders” who are susceptible to being bought and sold, especially with the sums available in a system where even a trillion dollars no longer qualifies as being too much money to imagine. Campaign finance reform? I’m not sure that helping high quality, but not well to do, people gain high office is really going to ensure that their votes can’t be “bought” in one of the many ways in which this sort of thing is done.
So is there an absolute answer. Possibly not, but even having the ability to vote the scoundrels out on a whim would seem to be a large improvement over waking up daily for four solid years and cursing the fools who clearly are not going to give us what we are vociferously demanding of them. THE SECOND AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION!!!
reference to 9/11. There's less skyscrapers
than there used to be in NYC, what happened
and how/why/where/who etc., that's a matter
for the pros to sort out, to whatever degree
they haven't already. But, JFK died 40+ years
ago, and they're still talking about that too,
so don't hold your breath for a topic change.
One thing is for sure, though, there's been
a lot of corporate housecleaning since it
happened, and there's a lot more awareness
about the oil thing, too, time will tell
what really comes of all of it, though.