David + the Reporter

Regarding “Sing a Song of Paranoia,” by Chris Willman (April 11):

In these days of revelations of U.S.-financed death squads in El Salvador and hot on the heels of the days of Iran-Contra, BCCI, looted S&Ls;, etc., etc. . . . , I find it personally appalling that anyone like myself who tries merely to look behind the headlines of the day is labeled a “conspiracy nut” or a “paranoid.”

One expects this from die-hard defenders of trickle-down economics and dedicated Cold War types. But at least an informed discussion is possible with those people. Their orthodoxy is understandable. Far more frustrating is the easy contempt of the uninformed .

Conspiracy theorist is a phrase used to dismiss everyone from Noam Chomsky to Oliver Stone, from members of the John Birch Society to supporters of Ross Perot. It incorporates whole masses of people who share nothing more than a suspicion that the easy lie triumphs over the hard truth in our increasingly corporate media.

It’s hard to find anyone in a bar to discuss, say, the intricacies of Byzantine architecture. This is because most people understand that they don’t know enough about those topics to have an informed opinion. But ask that same person if the Gulf War was a justifiable use of force, and everyone has an opinion.

But what opinion? The opinion of someone who reads Persian history, studies destabilization programs, is aware of the common Cold War practice of building up local “strong men,” who is aware of the April Glaspie memos and of the close business ties between the Bush family and the Emirate of Kuwait? Or the opinion of someone who glances at the headlines on the way to the entertainment and sports pages, trusting headline writers to keep him up to date?

To say simply “AIDS conspiracy” is to invite rolled-up eyes and a humorous pat on the back. But that also ignores the simple fact that in 1969, according to the minutes of the 91st Congress, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency began developing biological weapons that target the human immune system.

Dismissal of facts because they somehow fall under the banner of “conspiracy theory” is to do an injustice to those facts, to public debate and, ultimately, to the public interest. It was, I think, Thomas Jefferson who first noted that an informed electorate is the first cornerstone of democracy. The corollary is that an uninformed, manipulated and inactive electorate is the first cornerstone of totalitarianism.

DAVID BAERWALD

Venice