Understanding Conspiracy Theories....

[RadioRaheem84]

After listening to Alex Jones and the InfoWars.com stuff, I am impressed by how much dirt the guy digs up on the government and big business. Of course he includes his wacky doomsday spin on things, but other than that he seems to really understand the idiotic left-right spectrum, the fact that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer and that the State is getting more and more ferocious with dealing with dissent.

Buy why the wasted opportunity to tout a globalist, new world order conspiracy to pretty much state the obvious which was always prevalent in a capitalist society? Would he say that the daily dealings of third world country are a "conspiracy" or just the regular mechanisms of a capitalist nation not subject to any popular whim?

Do right wing conspiracy buffs simply believe that the American order was exceptional and that the only thing that could bring it down is corruption and conspiracy from within?

For example: I think that there is a planned construction of FEMA "camps" (Camp Algiers, etc) or more prisons, anyone can look that up. But the government is building them in cases of national emergency such as Katrina, and if there should just happen to be an economic collapse and rioting, the government would use them to round up rioters. Is that a conspiracy to control the world though OR just how the State deals with civil unrest in times of trouble?

The powers that be are highly fragmented and in constant competition with each other that I cannot for the life of me see how they can orchestrate a global order?

I think that with each crumbling piece of the old capitalist system that chips off, and the need for more State protection, the events just fuels Alex Jones and his conspiracy theories and proves them "right" to his listeners. It becomes utterly useless to dissuade them which is sad because a lot of them could potentially be good leftists.

I think it has to do with their patriotic fervor and lack of a real systemic and class analysis of things. I mean without it, you are left with a global conspiracy of inter-connected elites conspiring to enslave humanity.

What did they think of the whole of the 18th and 19th century? Was that era of immense and overt imperialism all a conspiracy?

[Psy]

The problem is conspiracy theorists don't take a systemist approach, they are looking for individual conspirators. They don't view the actions of the state as being completely rational within the context of the system the state operates in and that the leaders don't really have much self-determination and bound to the limitations of the system. It is hard for them to for example see the President of USA having realitivly limited power and mostly reacting to forces being enacted on him by the needs of the system he was entrusted to manage.

[RadioRaheem84]

Very well put.

[Red Commissar]

Most of it tends to feed into someone's political ambitions anyways- I mean look how many presidential hopefuls either cater to or mention in some form birther talk? The mistrust of "big government" is a pole of American far-right mentality anyways though I highly doubt they would do anything about it if given the chance to run things.

Psy is right with their whole fixation on individual figures or cabals, but not really focusing on the "big picture" so to speak. It's easier to make money for them talking about the next scheme for people to take away their guns or casting off some vague legislation as cementing fascist rule or something.

The funny thing to me (at least) is when they talk about the need to go back to the gold standard and what not, it benefited the "elites" just as much as fiat currency does right now, but seem hellbent otherwise in thinking that return would surely destroy corrupt politicians. The "Alex Jonses" of the 19th century were against the gold standard too.

[Yazman]

Most of it tends to feed into someone's political ambitions anyways- I mean look how many presidential hopefuls either cater to or mention in some form birther talk? The mistrust of "big government" is a pole of American far-right mentality anyways though I highly doubt they would do anything about it if given the chance to run things.

Psy is right with their whole fixation on individual figures or cabals, but not really focusing on the "big picture" so to speak. It's easier to make money for them talking about the next scheme for people to take away their guns or casting off some vague legislation as cementing fascist rule or something.

The funny thing to me (at least) is when they talk about the need to go back to the gold standard and what not, it benefited the "elites" just as much as fiat currency does right now, but seem hellbent otherwise in thinking that return would surely destroy corrupt politicians. The "Alex Jonses" of the 19th century were against the gold standard too.

I think its also worth noting that many of them tend to be quite different in their approach. Alex Jones in particular has a MUCH larger audience than the others in his crowd and so tends to have a much more broad approach as he generally attempts to appeal to various segments of his audience, which numbers in the millions. Thats why you can hear him talking about progressive politics with guys like Tom Morello, Boots Riley, or KRS-One (Morello & Riley both being revolutionary leftists), but then go onto something very reactionary in the next segment.

I essentially agree with your analysis though - much of what Jones in particular says draws similar conclusions regarding capitalism, but the construction of his worldview is at times drastically different and often prefers to blame a conspiracy of capitalists rather than just it being the regular workings of the capitalist system. This is the key difference here and it explains much of the core differences in what we advocate in terms of activism and political advocacy/action.

Its worth noting that if we're engaging in analysis of conspiracy theory, we need to remember not to just lump them all in together and treat them as 'them', a monolithic group which they are not. The world of conspiracy theory tends to be extremely varied and its mouthpieces usually hold drastically different views to one another.