Conspiracy Culture: From Kennedy to The X-Files

"Everything is some kind of plot, man." - Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

Agent Scully: "What makes you think that is a conspiracy? That the government is involved?" Kurt Crawford: "What makes you think it isn't? - Memento Mori / The X-Files

"The paranoid person is in possession of all the facts." - William Burroughs

Conspiracy theories are a particular and salient feature of post World War II America. From McCarthyism to postmodern novels, The X-Files, and gansta rap to feminist polemic, there is widespread suspicion that sinister forces are conspiring to take control of our national destiny, our minds, and even our bodies. Conspiracy explanations can no longer be dismissed as the disorganized ramblings of far right crackpots, the left wing intelligentsia, and the techno cognoscenti.

Particularly as evidenced by the popularity of a show like The X-Files, mainstream America became more than willing to embrace the idea that there is a cabal of men planning our futures, that we cannot trust institutions, that the enemy is closer than we were taught to believe. We have lived through grassy knolls, Cointelpro, the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, infiltration and disruption of a host of Chicano groups, especially La Raza Unida Party, as well as CIA-led coups in Chile, Iran, Namibia. Events of the last decade bear witness to this brave new world.

While the major spin on 9/11 identified virulent Islamic terrorist bent on destroying us, there were still news threads that linked the Bin Laden family with the Bush family and the Bush family to international oil interests. We had Dick Cheney heading the shadow government from deep in the bowels of the earth, and FEMA hawking duct tape and plastic sheeting as protection from invisible enemies. Can anyone say "WMDs"?

Conspiracy Culture author, Peter Knight, a lecturer in American Studies in Manchester, attempts to provide his own analysis using such diverse sources as Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, Don DeLillo's Underworld, Oliver's Stone's JFK, and soon his new flick, W, The X-Files, and a host of internet sites.

He explores how conspiracy theories developed from the 1960's through the 1990's. The focal points of these theories range from the Kennedy assassination, alien abduction, body horror, AIDS, crack cocaine, the New World Order; as well as what he terms "the usual conspiracies...of patriarchy and white supremacy." I found this level of research, its detail, and its scope impressive.

Beyond this, we part company. When it comes to his analysis as to why ideas of conspiracy have proliferated, Knight is completely ahistorical. He posits the growth in the wider acceptance of conspiracy as policy to intellectual inferiority and sloppiness, poverty, and a spiritual paucity. I was astounded at this polemic disguised as dispassionate deductive reasoning. I personally remember when, in the late 70's in Chicago, Black Panther leader Fred Hampton was murdered in his bed by Chicago police - police who were aided and abetted in that execution by moles paid by the FBI through the Cointelpro program of "neutralization."

Semiautomatic assassination appeared to be a fairly neutralizing force in communities and the community of social change as a whole. That level of challenge to the government, to capital, to imperialism and its domestic and international control has yet to be re-created, although perhaps we see the seeds of its rebirth in the resistance to the Iraq war. Rather than Knight's position that a conspiracy theory's popularity is solely due to a lack of sophistication, education, and contemplation, I believe the proponents are literate, distrusting the narrative of authority, and suspicious of the authorized narrative as to the health of the body politic. In a nutshell, what message may be taking root in a deep and irrevocable way is: Trust no one.

See Scully, I told you this was coming.

ISBN-10: 0415189780

Bad news:

Journalist Teresa Puente was laid off from the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board Today. She was the only Hispanic on the board and also wrote a twice monthly column. Puente also was the only writer at the Sun-Times that regularly covered Latino issues and immigration.

Also, her colleague, Deborah Douglas, the only African-American writer on the editorial board, was laid off Wednesday. This means there are no people of color on the editorial board any more.

To voice an opinion on this matter please send an email to:

Michael Cooke, Sun-Times editor, mcooke@suntimes.com

Tom McNamee, Editorial page editor, tmcnamee@suntimes.com

Cyrus Freidheim, publisher, cfreidheim@suntimes.com

Finally, GOOD NEWS:

The National Museum of Mexican Art celebrates Folk Art Week!

October 17 - October 26, 2008
10am - 4pm

1852 W. 19th Street, Chicago, IL.
For more information, please call 312-738-1503 or visit www.nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org



Artist Demonstrations:

Ceramic Sculptures by Demetrio Garcia Aguilar, Ocotlan de Morelos, Oaxaca
Textile Weaving by Celia Santiz Ruiz, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas
Huichol Yarn and Beadwork by José Benitez Sanchez, Santa Catarina, Jalisco
Wood Carvings by Jacobo & Maria Angeles, San Martin Tilcajete, Oaxaca
Wooden Masks by Orlando Orta, Tocuaro, Michoacán
Amate Paintings by Marcial Camilo Ayala, San Agustin Oapan, Guerrero
Sugar Skull Demonstrations by Alejandro Mondragón Arriaga, Elvira Garcia Zinzu & Elvira Mondragón Garcia, Toluca, Estado de México




Wishing for more good news,


Lisa Alvarado