Great diary to stir up old pots. On a cold and rainy day, I will ramble some, just for fun.

one of the things historians most often fail to discuss -- are the precise means by which the dominant class and those who serve it go about accomplishing their goals in politics.

It's not hard to see why.
The lives and activities of the "dominant class" are almost all shrouded in secrecy, - their homes, hobbies, recreational facilities and clubs, their phone numbers, ---and they react with angry defensiveness to those who would dig too deep. Trouble there.
Tis is even more apparent in France than in the United States.

Historians tend to fall into two categories- the academic historians and the writers of trade literature, of all stripes. The academicians often produce tomes to be used as texts, so need to tow the line -for them the term "controversial historian" is an oxymoron. Controversy in the typical American history classroom is anathema. If you want to remain publishable or get tenured, -or sell your text book- you're careful. I suspect this applies to European universities as well. After all, it's the dominant class who endow these places-or dominate them. Also, there's a distinct aroma of  authoritarian worship about many academicians, and the peer pressure from these guys can be extreme on any rebellious spirit, as my father discovered to his dismay.  

I praise the gods for people like Howard Zinn , Noam Chomsky, Peter Linebaugh, Markus Rediker, Chalmers Johnson, but note that though they all have some respect in the academic community- particularly outside the US- they write things that appeal significantly to the trade -- that is to say, the over-the-counter book sales business.

That said, an awful lot of human activities can be massaged into a conspiracy narrative, however, and most of them are fancifully false.
I think this human tendency has a number of precursors- the love of a good story, when reality offers a not-as-good narrative, the presence of real paranoid tendencies, and the consequent clumping together of those with this mind-set, and above all, anger.  Feelings of powerlessness, anomie, the certain knowledge that the "dominant class" has and will again screw you at the first opportunity-- anger is a reasonable reaction.
But if the story does not represent the real course of events, then decisions taken based on it will likely be poor ones. And narratives with cartoon-simple bad guys-good guys seem to draw out the dingbats- write one, even if it's true, and the round-eyed ones flock to it. It makes one reluctant to open those doors.

How then can one do the separation -of fantasy from reality?
A couple thoughts.
The techniques of reasoned analysis are not taught much these days. Analysis is subversive.
Believe it or not, the criminology area of most good sociology departments offer some treasures, as well as some rhetoric and journalism classes.
life teaches one to assemble puzzles pretty well, to a fair degree, or nothing we do would work.

Most of what could be onspiracies sink on the rocks of complexity. The whole thing is just too unwieldy to be managed without discovery, and discovery would carry consequences that outweigh the payoff. Bush is, of course, nuts, and hubris is the hallmark of today's Empire. Hm.
Also, the limits to risk need to be modified to include incredibly improved media control. Discovery today is often like a stone falling into a pond- with hardly a ripple. Witness Siebel Edmonds. Or the Downing Street Memo, though it got some press in the UK.

For me, one important part is knowing when to apply old Occam's Razor-- and when not to.
It's always a good idea to search out one's hidden assumptions, and eliminate those that just aren't germane, but the simplest explanation is not always the right one.
I think Occam must have occasionally cut off some useful parts while shaving. People just aint simple.

The puzzle of the failure of the Democratic congress is a great one. When it is finally known -if it ever is- it will likely be part history, part technothriller, and part plain megalomaniac nuttiness. Really good true story there, I think.

Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.