Ron Paul and Conspiracy Theories

Ron Paul the Conspiratist

P. Schultz

December 29, 2011

Here is a link to an article in the New York Times on Ron Paul and his tendency to endorse what are labeled “conspiracy theories,” along with other charges thrown in to show that Paul is obviously unfit to be president. Of course, coming from the Times, it is obvious that Paul is unacceptable because he would not preserve the status quo or the current economic and political arrangements, which the Times is heavily invested in.

But more to the point, this opinion confirms what Noam Chomsky has argued for some time now, viz., that the phrase “conspiracy theory” is applied to anything that even hints at an institutional analysis of our current situation. Of course, some institutional analyses have a conspiratorial aspect to them, such as, the CIA killed Kennedy. [I have learned only recently that these theories were propagated by the Soviet Union after Kennedy’s assassination. See Brothers in Arms, a book about the Kennedy and the Castro brothers.] But of course we Americans are far more able to think that, say, Oswald was a lunatic than that his killing of Kennedy had anything to do with the facts that the Kennedys were trying to kill Castro. Almost anything that even hints at institutional analysis is marginalized and replaced by some inanity like bin Laden attacked the United States because he “hates us.” You know, like he was a well armed 13 year old girl.

Ron Paul is unique in that he is the only candidate, including Obama, who is willing to say that our institutions are to blame for our troubles, whether the institution be the Fed or the Department of Defense. And this makes him, of course, a kook and unfit for the presidency. But, hell, by these standards Ike would be unfit if he were to repeat his warnings about the “military-industrial complex.”

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/29/ron-pauls-world/?ref=opinion