Conspiracy theories

You may experience an eerie sensation while watching Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

In a key scene, we hear actual recorded telephone conversations in which Enronians gleefully discuss the rigging of the California energy crisis. These incriminating recordings allow us to ear-witness the sort of dialogue that conspiracy theorists can usually only posit. There it is: Everything we feared, a postulated evil transfigured into diamond-hard fact.

The first audiences to witness the Zapruder film ("back...and to the left...back...and to the left") must have felt the same goosebumps as they saw physical evidence of conspiracy, deniable only by those who possessed formidable powers of rationalization.

In 2001, the nation's pundits castigated anyone who suggested that California's misery was manipulated. Each and every one of these pundits made a clever reference to aluminum chapeaus. It was as though they worked from a template:

Reference to "conspiracy theories"? Check. Reference to "tin foil hats"? Required. Reference to Elvis-spotters? Recommended, but not mandatory. Reference to the Protocols of Zion hoax? Optional.

We've grown up a lot since 2001. Back then, even the more open-minded leftists would have dismissed many claims which we now know to be true: Massive, warrantless spying on Americans...a war based on faked intelligence cobbled together by old P2 hands...widespread bribery and influence peddling...a legion of pseudo-journalists doing the bidding of their rightist masters...

...and, of course, electronic vote-rigging.

Arizona's Secretary of State Jan Brewer, up for re-election, has had to explain her love for Diebold machinery to an increasingly angry citizery:

Brewer, responding to media questions, called the noisy protestors "anarchists" and said they were off base.

"I don't think there is a problem with the Diebold equipment," she said. Brewer said a committee investigated the bids and the machines passed on the guidelines.

"I think that there are a lot of conspiracy theorists out there that are trying to blow this completely, totally out of proportion," she said.

"Anarchists"? The last time a pol gained much ground by using that label was 1915. Today, the phrase seems rather antique.

And using "conspiracy theorists' as a term of political opprobrium won't fly any longer. Not after Enron. Not after our worst fears about the California energy crisis proved true.

And certainly not after numerous news stories revealed that Diebold and other e-vote firms have a history of offering cozy sinecures to key decision-makers like Brewer.

Now that we all know that the government spies illegally, that wars are manipulated, that politicans take pay-offs, that contractors steal massive amounts of public funds, that the IRS keeps tabs on who votes for which party, that elections are fixed -- the question is not "Are conspiracies real?" but "Which conspiracies are real?"

That's the point where I start to get worried. The rightists can, in time, turn these days of sordid revelations to their advantage.

My mind keeps reeling back to the mid-1990s, when the conservative media -- in contrast to today's practices -- did little else but traffic in conspiracy theories. At that time,of course, we had the fake Whitewater scandal, along with a host of similarly bogus claims made against Clinton officials. More than that: A suspiciously high number of "former" military and law enforcement personnel made the lecture hall circuit and chatted up late-night radio hosts. These Seeders of Doubt promulgated an ultra-paranoid worldview as they spoke about Roswell, underground bases, the Illuminati, mind control, Waco, assassinations, CIA drug smuggling, media manipulation, and much more.

Fear became chic. The X Files was on the air and in the air.

I followed the "fear chic" phenomenon at the time, and soon became paranoid about the paranoids. Legitimate research intertwined with phantasmagorical speculation. Reality didn't matter: The goal was to engender an inchoate hatred of "the Gummint," which translated into hatred of Bill Clinton, which translated into GOP votes.

That's why the right-wing conspiracists of that period even dared to commandeer topics normally associated with the left, such as the assassinations of the 1960s or the CIA's many misdeeds. The conspiracy-mongers became pushers -- they serviced a large clientele of fear-junkies who, as long as they got their rush, didn't care about exactly what went through the needle.

A decade has passed. The pseudo-scandals of the Clinton years have given way to the genuine scandals of the Bush era. And most right-wing propagandists have segued from a pro-conspiracy to an anti-conspiracy worldview.

Might they not switch back? I suspect that will revert to their mid-'90s ways in the run-up to the 2006 elections. Their message to the young: "Yes, all politicians are corrupt. The situation is hopeless. The corruption crosses party lines. You might as well stay home on election day."

And if, miracle of miracles, the Democrats gain one or both houses by year's end -- well, you know what the countermeasures will be.