"Worthy of Stalin"

The keeping-secret of Cheney's warrantless wiretaps, that is, according to Bruce Ackerman right now on The Diane Rehm Show.  Ackerman is a constitutional scholar whose thought experiment engages what might happen after the next attack.  It's good to see such hypotheticals finally getting some attention.  Now if only NPR would introduce their paltry whitebeard audience to David Ray Griffin and the impressive fiction of the 9/11 Commission Report.  But speaking of myths and such, can anyone explain to me why it's warranted for Giuliani to testify in the Moussaoui trial?  I mean, as opposed to any other accidental witness to this event, of which there seem to have been a few.

More worthy of note, John Berger has penned a couple of fine things lately.

Update 4/9/06:  With regard to neocon step two, and the explicit self-license to drop nuclear bombs on Iran in order to make them peace-loving and nuclear-free, the Lunatic administration simply must be stopped.  I dunno, apparently this is news.  Please see Seymour Hersh, in print and in person.

Comments

[Adam Kotsko]

You know what David Ray Griffin does for a living? He's a theologian!

[Matt]

Yes, first he's praying and then he's proclaiming, conspiracy theory theologisms reigning down upon the crowd (just listen to the clip). Thanks I'll be here all night.

Upon actual reflection, I suppose I understand why perp-the-homeless Giuliani gets to testify at show-trial. From a procedural, legal point of view, that is. Boy is the law dumb.

Surely Bush would've put on his fireman helmut for the weeping jury too, if only he wasn't so busy preparing to be...wait for it now..."embarrassed", once this Plamegate thing finally gets going (two years too little and too late, the blogs having lost all possible interest).

[Jodi]

I think this is unfair to Stalin.

[Matt]

C&L

Digby

Kos by Colbert

[warszawa]

Matt (1): "Now if only NPR would introduce their paltry whitebeard audience to David Ray Griffin and the impressive fiction of the 9/11 Commission Report."

Matt (2), i.e. when slightly challenged: "Yes, first he's praying and then he's proclaiming, conspiracy theory theologisms reigning down upon the crowd (just listen to the clip). Thanks I'll be here all night."

Matt, could you clarify what you are saying and what you are not saying? Is Griffin worth listening to or not? (And exactly what is a "conspiracy theory"?)

[Matt]

Oh crap, you've definitely got me there.

Unfortunately, I stand by the theologism joke with all my heart.

A conspiracy theory, meanwhile, is anything with 27,000,000 results from Google. By this I also stand, dear anonymous and humourless warswawa.

[warszawa]

There is a difference between humour and facetiousness. The former gets 94,400,000 Google hits, for instance, while the latter has to make do with a paltry 104,000.

More to the point, I would still be interested in hearing some actual answers to the two simple questions I asked. After all, it was you who started the thread, so you must have thought it mattered, in some way, somehow, possibly, perhaps.

[Matt]

Um, sorry. "Is he worth listening to?" Well, I think so, yes. I linked to him and his review, didn't I?

As for the term, "conspiracy theory", well. Great question! You seem like you're dying to answer it as well. Please feel free.

I guess my comment was intended to poke fun at those taking it–the pejorative–too seriously or self-evidently. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Thank you for this valuable lesson; I promise never to try cleverness again.

[warszawa]

"As for the term, 'conspiracy theory', well. Great question! You seem like you're dying to answer it as well. Please feel free."

You used the term, Matt; so I'd like to hear you say what you mean by it. You first.

"Yes, first he's praying and then he's proclaiming, conspiracy theory theologisms reigning down upon the crowd (just listen to the clip). Thanks I'll be here all night."

Frankly, it doesn't sound as if you think he's worth listening to. Considering the post you were responding to, it sounds as if you're pouring scorn on Griffin because you're worried that someone might think you agreed with a theologian about something.

"Thank you for this valuable lesson; I promise never to try cleverness again."

Is that what you were trying?

[Matt]

Frankly, it doesn't sound as if you think he's worth listening to. Considering the post you were responding to, it sounds as if you're pouring scorn on Griffin because you're worried that someone might think you agreed with a theologian about something.

Er, no. Bear in mind I *wrote* the post, if you will.

Alternatively: "Dude, some of my best friends are theologians."

Nice chatting, wars, but afraid I'm gonna have to sign off on this correspondence, that is, unless you have anything original to add here?

[warszawa]

Well, Matt, I've now asked you twice what you mean by the term "conspiracy theory", because you appear to believe you mean something by it. But when you can't throw that question back at me, you simply pretend it hasn't been asked. (Your responses here - all of them - could serve to illustrate the meaning of the word "arch".) Then you tell me you're leaving and taking the ball with you - because, after all, it's your ball, ain't it?

I do think it matters what you think you mean by that term, though, because it is such a terribly useful thoughtstopper, and Bush is demonstrably unworried by an opposition that's still zealously evading its own thoughts and the consequences thereof. If Griffin is working seriously to undermine a murderously mendacious government, then he surely desrves some sustained support, rather than an outbreak of tittering and a strained neologism about his full-time job.

Jamey Hecht makes the essential points:

"THE TERM ‘CONSPIRACY THEORY’

This phrase is among the tireless workhorses of establishment discourse. Without it, disinformation would be much harder than it is. “Conspiracy theory” is a trigger phrase, saturated with intellectual contempt and deeply anti-intellectual resentment. It makes little sense on its own, and while it’s a priceless tool of propaganda, it is worse than useless as an explanatory category. [...]"

http://www.911inquiry.org/Presentations/JameyHecht.htm

[Matt]

Thank you, warszawa, for saying what needed to be said. I am familiar with the problems of using this term.

And I agree with the spirit of that statement, certainly, but, if I may say so, I'm not sure that the simple oppositions it paints constitute a useful framing of the entire story. For instance, do we always know what we mean by "establishment discourse", and are we so sure that a dedicatedly "anti-establishment" discourse doesn't also partake in it (or its ideals) to some degree?

Of course the phrase "conspiracy theory" carries *some* truth to it, specifically with regard to what Sedgewick would call the "paranoid style" predominant today; the fact that conspiracy theories are "viewed [by their critics on both sides, respectively] as either too complicated or too simple" betrays a certain 'jouissance' as Zizek would say.

In any case, do stick around, with or without strained and misplaced, self-riteous and easily-caricatured indignation, for the upcoming reading of Jodi's book.

Here is a teaser. I'm not trying to lecture you; I think you may find it interesting:

When queer theory and conspiracy theory adopt a methodological paranoia, they are reiterating, adopting, but not without revision, the desire for truth at the heart of the ideal of public reason. Indeed, this method not only presumes an illegitimate nonconsensuality within the secret and private, but it also links publicity to consensuality–what is public is what is accepted by the "public." The assumption of surprise Sedgewick finds characteristic of the impulse to uncover thus points to an underlying fantasy of a public in which some know with certainty and constancy, in which others believe that there are some who know, and in which apparatuses of publicity materialize the fantasy that revelation and discussion will lead to justice. Critiques based on this assumption exhibit a confidence in their own significance.

...conspiracy theory takes the system at its word...it believes through the practices of publicity, that is, conspiracy theory operates within a system of distrust, acting as if discovery of the secret were the key to democratic legitimacy. Conspiracy theory literalizes the claims of publicity. (Jodi Dean, Publicity's Secret)

None of which is to speak any ill of David Ray Griffin, whom everyone should read.

[Charles]

Jodi's right, Cunt in chief does have more nukes than Stalin...