standard "9/11 truth" hit-piece on boing boing

[norton ash]

Naomi Klein gets to sell lots of books and go on Jon Stewart, Colbert, Moyers, etc.

If she got firm about 9-11 being a conspiracy and posited any theory of her own, she'd be off the A-list.

Just as many of us would lose our jobs if we started talking about how we really feel about things.

[Nordic]

What Macruisen said.

100%.

You can't get the smell of the elephant out of the room without kicking out the elephant first.

That's what's so absurd to me, and to many others I'm presuming.

It's like having an emphysema patient who chain smokes, and ignoring the fact that they're chain smoking. "We think we can help you with your lungs". Right.

And Naomi Klein's answer, to me, seems to indicate that she's acknowledging that 9/11 is quite suspicious (to say the least) but would disrupt her credibility to discuss it because it would thrust her into the realm of the "conspiracy theorist".

So the bad guys win. Again.

[MacCruiskeen]

Assent to most of what you say, MacC. But Kevin Barrett unfortunately is more relevant than your idiot in the pub, who never successfully placed himself up high as a spokesperson in the "9/11 truth movement" and then caused great and repeated damage to it for years through statements that are hard to dismiss as simply psychotic, demented and stupid, though they are that, but also suggest a systematic intent to destroy.

It's the incessant, utterly pointmissing and deeply counterproductive tit-for-tattiness that gets on my nerves, Jack.

(I thought we were talking false-flag attack theories, no?)

Well, the topics of this thread are not hard to identify: 1) The waggish Mr. Arthur Goldwag has churned out a metric tonne of standard-issue boilerplate and pretended it's solid gold; 2) The infinitely more gifted Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky have also come out with desperately weak, lazy and unconvincing rote-responses to some perfectly polite, reasonable and important questions.

Certainly there's more than one way to respond to all that. But I'd suggest that one notably unproductive response would be along these lines (these immovable railtracks): Duh, who cares! Look, someone on YOUR TEAM once said something even stupider!!

Essentially that was Jeff's response, and it's not the first time he's responded to precisely this topic in precisely that way. If it had been the response of somebody else, especially somebody I respected less, I might well have ignored it. But what Jeff says almost never deserves to be ignored.

It's tit-for-that, as I said. Playground stuff. Not only does it get nobody anywhere, it completely ignores the only really fundamental and essential point in this whole interminable argument: Where does the burden of proof lie? The answer to that question is blatantly obvious, or it really should be by now. And it's not altered in any way by the fact that Kevin Barrett (or Alex Jones, or Nico Haupt, or TheWebFairy or whoever) is a fool or worse. Nothing any of them has ever said, however peabrained or nasty it may have been, has ever made the Official Yarn any more plausible or any less grossly mendacious than it is.

And that's why I say Jeff's citation of Nasty Kevin Barrett was mere rhetorical sleight-of-hand and wholly irrelevant in the context.* Since there'll never be any shortage of quotable fools, this pointless tit-for-tattiness could continue ad infinitum while everyone continues ignoring the time-honoured principle of the burden of proof, just as they're doing now. Where there's a will there's a way, after all. But cui bono?

*Sure, it's relevant politically when fools or villains infiltrate your ranks and then acquire a bad name, but that's never been at issue here.

[Nordic]

Naomi Klein gets to sell lots of books and go on Jon Stewart, Colbert, Moyers, etc.

If she got firm about 9-11 being a conspiracy and posited any theory of her own, she'd be off the A-list.

Just as many of us would lose our jobs if we started talking about how we really feel about things.

That's why we need some leadership on this.

Other than Charlie Sheen. And AJ.

Somebody needs to take a risk with their A list status and go for it.

In the world which I inhabit, a surprising percentage of people don't believe the bullshit. Maybe that's because there's been such little work in my world lately that people are spending a lot of free time on the Internet. I don't know. But in my world people tend to be quite a bit higher in intelligence than average, and pretty anti-authoritarian to begin with.

Perhaps more importantly, we all work in the media.

I really think there's something of a powderkeg just waiting for a spark.

Nobody has the balls to provide the spark because they're all so worried about being credible OR perhaps, well, you know, the other Gary Webb-like repercussions.

You know, that whole thing where you commit suicide against your will.

"Stephen Colbert was VERY depressed lately ......."

[professorpan]

I would have preferred a movement that saw public intellectuals and activists who had yet to accept it but who were skeptical about the exploitation of 9/11 for war as its potential allies, rather than attacking them as "gatekeepers" and enemies, or demanding that they make immediate expressions of loyalty to demolitions theory.

Jack hits the nail on the head. People who act like fanatics, no matter how well-intentioned or how many facts are on their side, are the bane of any movement.

[orz]

Where does the burden of proof lie? The answer to that question is blatantly obvious, or it really should be by now.

That's a weird example to use as most 'normal' people/debunkers/journalists would (and do) just say that the burden of proof lies on those making" extraordinary claims" which you must accept that, by the standards of the 'mainstream', 9/11 inside job theories undoubtedly ARE whether we like it or not.

[orz]

I would have preferred a movement that saw public intellectuals and activists who had yet to accept it but who were skeptical about the exploitation of 9/11 for war as its potential allies, rather than attacking them as "gatekeepers" and enemies, or demanding that they make immediate expressions of loyalty to demolitions theory.

[orz]

You have to chose your rhetoric wisely, use counter-propaganda. If we want to convince the boingboing crowd then we're just gonna have to put 'controlled demolition' to one side and come up with convincing proof that steampunk zombie pirates destroyed the WTC using open source software operated from disneyland. For maximum effect write this up as a young adult novel and release it under creative commons.

[MacCruiskeen]

I would have preferred a movement that saw public intellectuals and activists who had yet to accept it but who were skeptical about the exploitation of 9/11 for war as its potential allies, rather than attacking them as "gatekeepers" and enemies, or demanding that they make immediate expressions of loyalty to demolitions theory.

Jack hits the nail on the head. People who act like fanatics, no matter how well-intentioned or how many facts are on their side, are the bane of any movement.

I would have preferred to have been born into great wealth, but you can't always get what you want. No doubt some members of the Paris Commune would have preferred their fellow rebels to have been more amusing or better cooks or less pungently sweaty, but you can't always get what you want. Not only can beggars not be choosers; they often can't even be successful beggars. QED.

potential allies

I would have preferred "potential allies" who didn't spend eight years balancing precariously on a fence while covering their ears, their eyes and their arses simultaneously, all the while lecturing me de haut en bas about the proper and productive way to spend my time. But, you know, that's the way it is in the groves of academe, aka the free marketplace of ideas.

[Nordic]

Where does the burden of proof lie? The answer to that question is blatantly obvious, or it really should be by now.

That's a weird example to use as most 'normal' people/debunkers/journalists would (and do) just say that the burden of proof lies on those making" extraordinary claims" which you must accept that, by the standards of the 'mainstream', 9/11 inside job theories undoubtedly ARE whether we like it or not.

You "must accept?"

What kind of fascist bullshit is that?

You "must accept" my ASS.

That's the whole point.

"You must accept my boot on your neck".

Uh .... NO.

[orz]

Oh sorry I thought I was talking to someone who could read english, sorry.

[JackRiddler]

orz, with regard to your three consecutive posts above, starting at 2:27.

Your third post really made me laugh. Thanks.

Your first post makes me object. Community standards aside, the idea that a covert operation originating within the American deep state and parapolitical realm engineered the September 11th events (bringing them to culmination a few months after an openly stolen election returned a well-known organized crime network of career spooks and heavies in guns/oil/drugs to the White House with plans for two foreign invasions already in progress) is no more extraordinary than the idea that other such covert operations sequentially overthrew two dozen democratic governments around the world (and got away with it), engaged in false-terror attacks on Western Europeans in the Gladio-era "strategy of tension," fabricated false-pretext events for wars that killed millions (including tens of thousands of Americans), ran mind control experiments and political assassinations on American citizens, or staged an open coup d'etat at Dallas and obscured it with the in-your-face kabuki show of the Allen Dulles-John McCloy Warren Commission. Just to keep the list short. If enough Americans did not just know but accepted these aspects of their country's history (they often know a lot of it without accepting its implications), they would have asked whether the WTC crashbombings were the result of a covert operation before the towers even fell, as I confess I did, although I also allowed that a surprise attack by Islamist "propagandists of the deed" was not at all implausible to start and the question therefore required research. They would have been waiting for a Reichstag Fire event soon after the Bush selection. The only thing making the idea "extraordinary" is denial, even among those who know and accept most of the history, that these things happen to "us."

Your second post, finally, is just perfect.

[JackRiddler]

potential allies

I would have preferred "potential allies" who didn't spend eight years balancing precariously on a fence while covering their ears, their eyes and their arses simultaneously, all the while lecturing me de haut en bas about the proper and productive way to spend my time. But, you know, that's the way it is in the groves of academe, aka the free marketplace of ideas.

Do they these lights then merit eight years of obsessive attention from people who if they want to make themselves useful through their penchant for harrassment could instead be dogging Zelikow, Kean, Rumsfeld, etc.?

Oh, and the relevance of Barrett et al. in this is that they make it very clear to Amy Goodman (the murderer of six billion people!) that if she chooses to show more courage about 9/11, she gets to be allied with them.

.

[Searcher08]

Is the process of accepting the Bush admin's OCT as fact, any different a mental process from the tranced out following of Brand Obama?
The same unwillingness to look at what might have to be true (US complicity / Barry being an actor and little more, respectively) if those givens are challenged?

I have done my best to engage with friends on both 9/11 and Obamamania in both direct and indirect ways and have failed utterly. I think many people are now suspicious of 9/11, however, it matters to them no more than the OKC bombing or the JFK killling. There is a total disconnect between 'being suspicious' and doing anything. I mean like watching a video like Press for Truth, not e-activism!

As for Obamamania, any meme which highlights a discrepancy between what they think he is about "Change" "Yes We Can" and the reality of him being Head of Community Building for USA INC hits an activated cognitive immune system and is posted as evidence of 'Evil Meanies hating St. Barry' and reinforces their position.

[MacCruiskeen]

potential allies

I would have preferred "potential allies" who didn't spend eight years balancing precariously on a fence while covering their ears, their eyes and their arses simultaneously, all the while lecturing me de haut en bas about the proper and productive way to spend my time. But, you know, that's the way it is in the groves of academe, aka the free marketplace of ideas.

Do they these lights then merit eight years of obsessive attention

Note the rhetorical sleight-of-hand (yet again): "obsessive attention". Wow, creepy! Those Troofers are just like stalkers!!

But as it happens, Jack, you're the one who's just described "these lights" as "potential allies"! - thereby demonstrating... well, what, exactly? That we should ignore them? That we should disdain them? That we should stalk them? That we should suck their dicks incessantly in the hope of extorting some favours, eventually? That you think it's good policy and good politics (and good morals) to pretend that evasiveness and careerism and moral cowardice and wilful ignorance and dismally lazy boilerplate rhetoric are not in fact evasiveness and careerism and moral cowardice and wilful ignorance and dismally lazy boilerplate rhetoric but in truth mere virginal shyness (or something)?

from people who if they want to make themselves useful through their penchant for harrassment could instead be dogging Zelikow, Kean, Rumsfeld, etc.?

Oh yes, it would be dead easy to "dog" those people. Piece of cake. Why, if we simply put our minds to it, then Donald Rumsfeld could hardly go to the pub, the bus-stop or the supermarket without being mercilessly dogged by you, me, Jeff, Mike Ruppert, Mathias Bröckers, Kevin Barrett or TheWebFairy.

By god, why has nobody never thought of this before? It's such a simple but effective tactic. Wake up, Left! Dog the US ruling class! Never grant them a moment of peace! Where there's a will there's a way, you lazy bastards!

But soft... perhaps I'm missing something important here. Maybe Chomsky, Klein, Goldwag, Taibbi, Monbiot, Cockburn and all the other really big guns of the much-feared Critical Opposition have in fact been dogging Rumsfeld, Kean and Zelikow tirelessly about 9/11 while you, I, Jeff, Mathias Bröckers, Michael Ruppert and the Jersey Girls have been wasting our time screaming irrationally at those tribunes of the Left and pelting them with dogshit for eight years?

Hmmm...

It's certainly worth thinking about. It's also worth dismissing with a loud but hollow laugh, once we've thought about it for approximately three milliseconds and seen how much truth there is in it.

Oh, and the relevance of Barrett et al. in this is that they make it very clear to Amy Goodman (the murderer of six billion people!) that if she chooses to show more courage about 9/11, she gets to be allied with them.

No. The relevance of Nasty Evil Barrett et al. in this is in fact precisely nil. It's equal to the the relevance of the fact that at least one of the people who objected, rightly and vehemently, to the wrongful imprisonment of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Maguire Five was a man who beat his wife. (No, I don't mean me, but I do know it for a fact because I knew him personally.) It's of no relevance whatsoever. None. Blatantly obviously.