21-12-2013, 05:43 PM
As someone who works in the University, I see this 'lobotomization' everyday, although I think that people are generally willing to talk about cointelpro and the assasination of MLK but thats generally as far as it goes. (i suspect people accept govt involvement in the MLK assasination because they can attribute his assasination to racism rather than a grander agenda) ... I know when I talk to my "leftist" colleagues about the JFK assasination, all i get are blank stares... as Nathaniel regularly points out, Foundations fund certain kinds of social research and not others... and they fund social movements and university scholarship.... this funding is key to controlling the narrative coming from the universities and the NGO/social movement sector... the creation of "civil society" as an "independent' actor is ... im often reminded of the emergence of SDS and how the ford foundation literally picked off activists and offered them "grants" to re focus their energies from transforming society to projects of university reform...
Nathaniel Heidenheimer Wrote:David, I think part of the reason is 1) censorship and 2) new modes of academic fashion that made analyzing the Military Industrial Congressional Complex unfashionable.
As an example--one among millions possible-- lets look at the discoveries of Bill Kelly re Collins Radio and their role in Dallas, Air Force One , Vietnam and the the CIA's Indonesian Genocide (the last connection is made by Douglass not Kelley)
Now today this sort of article would be confined to very small circulation sites. Was this always the case? Wasn't there a time -- say late 1960s to mid seventies -- when this grey area between corporations and government was investigated way more by media and ALSO considered the proper domain of the left?
Not anymore.
How and why did that change happen?
Marketing.
Similar shifts have happened in academia to change what was once considered the rational domain of the left from public expenditures involving the MICC to culture wars. Leading writers on left sites, some of which are excellent like Glen Ford, are seemingly lobotomized when it comes to their writing about the the JFK and RFK. MLK is permissible exception because if feeds into the wealth of division, but this , ironically misses the reason that the National Security State had him assassinated: the coalition politics he threatened with his Vietnam activism and his poor people's campaign. That is never mentioned in academia anymore.
We have a fake left, and have had one for a long time. They often write great stuff, but it is quid pro quo and the quo is never again looking at the National Security State AS A SYSTEM, the way the left did in the 1960's and 70s. If you read, say, a book about the Brazil Coup of 1964 published in 1977 there will be all kinds of references to CIA and military intel. Not one published in 1985 or later.