9/11 fantasists pose a mortal danger to popular oppositional campaigns

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2016815,00.html

'You did this hit piece because your corporate masters instructed you to. You are a controlled asset of the new world order ... bought and paid for." "Everyone has some skeleton in the cupboard. How else would MI5 and special branch recruit agents?" "Shill, traitor, sleeper", "leftwing gatekeeper", "accessory after the fact", "political whore of the biggest conspiracy of them all". These are a few of the measured responses to my article, a fortnight ago, about the film Loose Change, which maintains that the United States government destroyed the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Having spent years building up my leftwing credibility on behalf of my paymasters in MI5, I've blown it. I overplayed my hand, and have been exposed, like Bush and Cheney, by a bunch of kids with laptops. My handlers are furious.

Why do I bother with these morons? Because they are destroying the movements some of us have spent a long time trying to build. Those of us who believe that the crucial global issues - climate change, the Iraq war, nuclear proliferation, inequality - are insufficiently debated in parliament or congress, that corporate power stands too heavily on democracy, that war criminals, cheats and liars are not being held to account, have invested our efforts in movements outside the mainstream political process. These, we are now discovering, are peculiarly susceptible to this epidemic of gibberish.

The 9/11 conspiracy theories are a displacement activity. A displacement activity is something you do because you feel incapable of doing what you ought to do. A squirrel sees a larger squirrel stealing its horde of nuts. Instead of attacking its rival, it sinks its teeth into a tree and starts ripping it to pieces. Faced with the mountainous challenge of the real issues we must confront, the chickens in the "truth" movement focus instead on a fairytale, knowing that nothing they do or say will count, knowing that because the perpetrators don't exist, they can't fight back. They demonstrate their courage by repeatedly bayoneting a scarecrow.

Like the millenarian fantasies which helped to destroy the Levellers as a political force in the mid-17th century, this crazy distraction presents a mortal danger to popular oppositional movements. If I were Bush or Blair, nothing would please me more than to see my opponents making idiots of themselves, while devoting their lives to chasing a phantom. But as a controlled asset of the new world order, I would say that, wouldn't I? It's all part of the plot.

[John Q. Citizen]

1. More unfounded theories about what other people should be doing. Oh woe is him.

[TomClash]

2. The first comment in response to Monbiot's article sums it up quite neatly

"The reality is that we do not as yet know exactly what happened on 9/11, nor who was responsible. There are many unanswered questions which are raised on various sites to varying degrees ranging from common sense to the fantastic."

[FiveGoodMen]

22. We don't know who did it, but we know who won't let us look into it!

Maybe that's a clue.

[CJCRANE]

3. Pathetic.

Why not just talk to the 9/11 Families Steering Committee. They're the ones who lost relatives and they're the ones who pushed for the original 9/11 Commission (and are still seeking answers).

[bemildred]

4. All reform movements start "outside the political process".

That's sort of the point of a reform movement.

[T_i_B]

5. Please explain what MIHOP theories are trying to reform...

...other then the laws of Physics.

[bemildred]

6. I'm not defending them, or their theories.

I'm saying they are no threat to reform movements, which this fellow claims to have spent a long time building. That seems to be this fellows argument, that the MIHOP people are somehow a threat to his efforts to build reform movements. I don't see any particular connection. He seeks to ascribe legitimacy to himself by trashing the MIHOP enthusiasts, a shallow argument.

Edit: I usually like Monbiot, but I think he's off the track here ...

[T_i_B]

7. No, I think Monbiot makes a valid point

As there is a credibility issue here, and people are much less likely to listen to people who put forward wild outlandish theories about how holograms, controlled demolition etc when they try and make their cases on other, more worthy matters.

A good example is the local Green Party. I know that one of their number in Chelmsford has been distributing pro-MIHOP literature (I know the woman in question from the anti-war movement and she does have some very odd views). Now if they go in for lunacy such as that who's to say their ideas about anything else are any more credible? The lunatic voices on the left do have an unfortunate tendency to drive out the more reasonable people.

[bemildred]

9. We disagree. Let's not fight.

There is no credibility issue, for example, about global warming. You can't really keep all the loons from agreeing with you if they want to, especially when you are in the right to begin with, and it's not realisitic to expect them to stop being loons ...

[Joe Chi Minh]

25. It's not a valid point at all. The evidence of a controlled demolition is unanswerable -

which makes you, at best, a moron. The mere fact that you use the term "lunatic voices on the left", tells us all we need to know about you. Homicidal maniacs in their thousands of the right - yes.

I've just been now watching "The World At War" again, and hearing how the Bushido code mean that the Japanese weren't interested in protecting their merchant vessels, because they wanted to do their own thing, as the lone cowboy. Result, a total blockade was easy.

Now bear in mind, that the little, Japanese pip-squeak militarists were so dumb, they wanted to take on the United States! And I don't mean in asymmetric warfare. That is lunacy, RIGHT-WING lunacy, you dolt; and it is a kind of stupidity that is a constant feature of the far right in every country. Their pathological mindset enables them to gain political ascendancy, then they usher in, once again, war and economic ruin.

Pardon me if I'm enraged at your callow presumption, won't you?

[CJCRANE]

8. But why is he so threatened by them?

And the jury is still out on WTC7 as the official report into it still hasn't been published.

[Zynx]

12. Because they are worthless and detract from actual wrongdoing

Btw, positing controlled demolition of WT7 means that one is also positing the rest of 9/11 was staged. Suffice to say, that runs into the same problems as the overtly broader conspiracy theories.

[CJCRANE]

13. Why is it always either/or with debunkers?

This means that. It's either this or that. It's either Bush or the terrorists. It's either the jews or you're an anti-semite.

Controlled demolition of WTC7 doesn't automatically mean 9/11 was staged. It could also mean foreknowledge, which is slightly different.

But anyway, why rule out the possibility of 9/11 being staged? E.g the hijackers are real fundamentalists but they're paid by a double-agent who's part of the set-up.

[Zynx]

18. Rigging WT7 requires exact advance knowledge and complicity in the plot

You need to know date, place and manner of attack. You also need quite a few skilled workers.

It's not easy or fast or covert to rig a building for controlled demolition. You would have to plan the op far in advance, which raises other issues since Bush had only been in any sort of power for nine months at the time.

If you want to posit an advance set-up, you are implicating the Clinton Administration as well as the Bush Administration and are seriously into New World Order land at this point.

~

Because 9/11 *was* a unified act, it's impossible to stage part of it without being involved in the entire thing.

[CJCRANE]

21. I don't care if Clinton is implicated

...but I doubt it. It's well known that there's been a RW faction inside and connected to the intelligence services for decades.

[YankmeCrankme]

10. Ironically,

By claiming some people on his side lack credibility because of their "fairytale" beliefs and it reflects on everyone else on his side, he seems to be giving credence to the perception that he lacks credibility also. Why take that stand? Kinda shooting himself in the foot, I think.

[T_i_B]

11. What he's worried about...

...is that the fringe of conspiracy wackos reflect badly on the whole of the left. It's a valid concern, and certainly freeper websites do use LIHOP/MIHOP to tar the whole of the left with a very broad brush. (and we do the same to them when they fall off the deep end).

I happpen to agree with him, at best 9/11 conspiracy theories are totally unproductive and at worst they taint all the other good causes such as opposition to the war on Iraq with the stench of loony, which causes everyone else to run as far away as possible.

[John Q. Citizen]

14. His unsupported theories are interesting, but where's the hard data? The

truth movement keeps growing larger, more and more people realize, as Senator Max Cleland stated, that "The 9/11 commission was compromised," and yet the left prevailed in the '06 midterms and regained both houses of Congress.

It appears the "real world" data would suggest that:

A. More and more people realize our government is covering up the truth about 9/11.
B. This growing realization is a good thing for progressives.

Do you or the author of the piece have any data to support your thesis? Or are you relying on unfounded fears to come up with your conclusions?

[pberq]

15. What you are leaving out of this discussion.

The official conspiracy theory of what happened that day is as far-fetched as any of them. The book below just scratches the surface of the unanswered questions about 9/11, and the author could hardly be considered a wild "conspiracy theorist":

http://www.interlinkbooks.com/Books_/911CommRep.html

The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions
A Critique of the Kean-Zelikow Report
By David Ray Griffin

“With this new book, David Ray Griffin establishes himself, alongside Seymour Hersh, as America’s number one bearer of unpleasant, yet necessary, public truths.” – Richard Falk, professor emeritus, Princeton
More Reviews>>


With US political leaders Democrat and Republican alike rushing to embrace the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, and an eager media receiving the Commission’s 567-page report as the whole story, the history we can stand upon forevermore, everyone who cares about the fate of American democracy will want to know something about what those pages actually say.

The Commission’s account, by popular reckoning, has made an impression with its heft, its footnotes, its portrayal of the confusion of that sobering day, its detail, its narrative finesse. Yet under the magnifying glass of David Ray Griffin, eminent theologian and author of The New Pearl Harbor (a book that explores questions that reporters, eyewitnesses, and political observers have raised about the 9/11 attacks), the report appears much shabbier. In fact, there are holes in the places where detail ought to be thickest: Is it possible that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has given three different stories of what he was doing the morning of September 11, and that the Commission combines two of them and ignores eyewitness reports to the contrary? Is it possible that the man in charge of the military that day, Acting Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Myers, saw the first tower hit on TV, and then went into a meeting, where he remained unaware of what was happening for the next 40 minutes? Is it possible, as the Commission reports, that the FAA did not inform military that the fourth airplane appeared to have been hijacked—contrary to both common sense and the word of FAA employees? Is it possible that the Report, upon which are based recommendations for overhauling the nation’s intelligence, fails to mention even in a footnote the most serious allegations made public by Coleen Rowley, FBI whistleblower and Time person of the year?

David Ray Griffin’s critique of the Kean-Zelikow report makes clear that our nation’s highest leaders have told tales that wear extremely thin when held up to the light of other eyewitness reports, research, and the dictates of common sense—and that the Commission charged with the task of investigating all of the facts surrounding 9/11 has succeeded in obscuring, rather than unearthing, the truth.

David Ray Griffin is Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Theology, Emeritus, at the Claremont School of Theology (California) and the author of twenty-five books, most recently The New Pearl Harbor: Distrurbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 and Two Great Truths: A New Synthesis of Scientific Naturalism and Christian Faith.

6” x 9” • 352 pages • ISBN 1-56656-584-7 • paperback $18.00

[YankmeCrankme]

16. I understand what he's saying

But, he should be arguing otherwise, not supporting it by endorsing the claim that the "fringe" reflects poorly on all liberals. To overcome his complaint, he should be pointing out that there are always "fringe" perspectives, but they don't diminish other people's facts. You support your argument with facts and its much harder to dismiss your point. If someone out-of-hand dismisses your argument because some other person over here said something silly, there's nothing you can do about it. And complaining about those other people is pointless and he gives credence, where none exists, to those people who do dismiss out-of-hand what is argued. The point is to win over reasonable people.

[T_i_B]

17. Fringe wackos do detract from the rest of us...

...and to be prefectly frank, wingnuts do the same for the right as well (Remember the anti-Clinton conspiracies?). And when it comes to MIHOP theories, "other people's facts" have a tendency to be anything other then fact, which makes the people who spout those theories not credible to the rest of us.

Just as an example, here is a blog entry picking through just a very small selection of the many fruitcake replies to Monbiot's article. It's not merely a claim that fringe lunatics reflect poorly on the whole of the left, it is a reality.

http://britishbullshitfoundation.blogspot.com/2007/02/joys-of-information-age-just-briefly.html

[YankmeCrankme]

19. Sorry, still your point seems self defeating

First a correction; you mistook the term "other peoples facts" as applying to the left fringe which Monbiot attacks, whereas, I was referring to the position of the other side.

What I was saying is if you have facts on your side or a well reasoned argument, you shouldn't be worried about somebody making your position look silly by how they are perceived, especially those you view as wackos. Also, I don't know how other people can make you credible or not, only you can do that. So, again...where's the worry. My experience shows me that the people you worry about not looking credible to, are the ones you aren't going to convince no matter what.

As to your link, frankly, if Monbiot had not wrote an article complaining about the "fringe" making him seem non-credible he wouldn't have given them a outlet for espousing their viewpoints that seem to bother both you and Monbiot so much.

[T_i_B]

20. People are judged on the company they keep

I'm sorry that it's like that, but it's a fact of life. And to that end we on the left attack those with links to far right wingnuts in the GOP and they in turn have a case when they bring up the proliferation of loony conspiracy theories on the left. And in both cases, the extremists both discredit the movement as a whole and prevent more moderate people from having anything to do with it.

A good example is the one I mentioned earlier in the thread about the woman from the Green party distributing MIHOP literature. If a representative of the Green Party (who was wearing a Green Party T-shirt just to make it really obvious) is making such a blatantly ridiculous argument, who is to say that both her and the party she represents are any less loony on any other issue?

Another good example of this is the school playground where if you keep company with one clique, another clique will keep their distance from you. And people don't improve as they get older I'm afraid.

[ShortnFiery]

23. Yeah, when Duncan Hunter blathers that "They serve a good chicken dinner at GITMO."

the republicans let him run for President. :crazy:

I submit, there are MANY more dangerous freaks on the right wing side of the political spectrum.

In other words, to get right wing war mongering ghouls to become pot heads would help promote mental health in these cruel and hateful human beings. CHILL! :P

[YankmeCrankme]

26. You're judged on the company you keep...

As an aside: That may give someone who knows nothing about another person a preliminary impression of their character, but you see the danger of judging people without getting to know them.

Do you and George Monbiot have links to "loony conspiracy theories" from the left? If so, maybe you're credibility should be questioned. :) The left ridicules Republican politicians because they embraced the far right wingnuts and their loony ideas. If they didn't embrace them the only thing the left could do is ridicule just the wingnuts. Hey, as long as you don't embrace what you think are far left wingnuts with no credibility no one can take issue as it has no reflection on you. Like I said before, people who don't use their intellectual faculties and have a hard bias against your side will not consider anything you say, even if there weren't any "loony leftists" to point to.

I don't understand what the Green Party has to do with this. Are you a Green Party member? Are the obviously wacky Twin Towers conspiracy ideas a plank in the Green Party Platform? For the Democratic Party officials, I would think a simple, "They don't speak for the Democratic Party" would be sufficient. As far as I remember, the Democratic Party does not support anything but the official story. I don't see the Democrats losing credibility over this.

I do understand your point. You don't want to be seen in the company of people that you feel will reflect poorly upon you. Great, just don't associate yourself with them. That said, I just don't see the logic of writing an article about how bad they make the writer look does him any good. Defeats the purpose by drawing an unwarranted association to the reviled group, seeming to give the complaint illusionary legitimacy.

Good luck!

[T_i_B]

27. Well, first off

I would actually like to thank you for getting to the main point brought up by this article! It may not sound like much but it beats debating the same old tired nonsense about whether or not it was an inside job that you get in the 9/11 forum from people who've barely skimmed the article. I'll make an attempt at discussing point by point because you've made a very good reply.

As an aside: That may give someone who knows nothing about another person a preliminary impression of their character, but you see the danger of judging people without getting to know them.

The trouble is, "preliminary impressions" is usually about all you have to go on when discussing politicians. How many of us here know George W Bush personally for instance? (And how many of us would not want to know him based on preliminary impressions for that matter!) Although I've seen my MP out and about on numerous occasions (I even caught the bugger leafleting my house personally last week!) I do not know the guy personally. And to that end preliminary impressions do matter because people do judge others without getting to know them. I may not like that, but sadly that's the way people are. :-(

Do you and George Monbiot have links to "loony conspiracy theories" from the left?

That's actually a good question. I can't speak for Monbiot because again I don't know the guy personally but I know he is involved with a number of left wing causes. One thing that both myself and Monbiot have been involved in is the stop the war campaign at the time of the Iraq war. Now this is a prime example of a good common sense worthy campaign that is at risk from people who think that to oppose the war you have to believe that Bush was in on 9/11.

Happily, whilst you do come across conspiracy theorists who are vocal in that way on the internet from time to time when I was in the anti-war movement they were very much on the fringe and a very tiny minority. I never once got given a leaflet promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories when out marching against the Iraq war, although colleagues of mine did, which we had a chuckle about in the pub the next day. However, I have not been part of the anti-war movement for some time and I can't speak for how far 9/11 conspiracy theories are into the anti-war movement at the present time.

And even when you leave conspiracy theories aside, the anti-war movement is forever being attacked because it is run by the far left and Muslim groups in alliance. A good example of this is the latest Nick Cohen book "What's Left". And yes, people did lump me in with the likes of the SWP for taking part in anti-war demos. I'm quite happy to be critical of the far left but they were right about invading Iraq and to that end the coalition was worthwhile and what's more we did at least try and do something productive, rather then just bitching from behind a laptop.

I don't understand what the Green Party has to do with this. Are you a Green Party member? Are the obviously wacky Twin Towers conspiracy ideas a plank in the Green Party Platform? For the Democratic Party officials, I would think a simple, "They don't speak for the Democratic Party" would be sufficient. As far as I remember, the Democratic Party does not support anything but the official story. I don't see the Democrats losing credibility over this.

I used the UK Green party as an example here because a couple of weeks ago, I attended an event where literature expounding MIHOP theories, and promoting a UK tour by a prominent MIHOPer was being distributed. And the person doing this was pretty obviously a member of the Green party whom I know from my time in the anti-war movement. The reason I posted that was as an example of the point I am trying to make from personal experience. I wouldn't worry about how that one affects the US Democrats, although it might well affect how people who were at that event view the UK Green party.

I do understand your point. You don't want to be seen in the company of people that you feel will reflect poorly upon you. Great, just don't associate yourself with them.

Most people don't unless they have to!

That said, I just don't see the logic of writing an article about how bad they make the writer look does him any good. Defeats the purpose by drawing an unwarranted association to the reviled group, seeming to give the complaint illusionary legitimacy.

Well, as George Monbiot is a man of the socialist left himself, who had written an article previously debunking Loose Change and been decried as a traitor, CIA mole etc for it I can see why he might be hacked off, especially when you consider that many of those who were flaming him on Comment is Free are the sort of people who would normally find much to agree with in his writing. I can see your point about it being better to ignore them but sometimes people will inevitably feel that they have to challenge something that is causing damage.

Like I said at the start, even if we end up disagreeing, at least we are getting to the bottom of what this article is about. :-)

[ShortnFiery]

24. Yes, but there is a difference between right and left wing wackos ...

The ones on the right love Authoritarian Rule and are, on average much more violent.

Plus, the Right Wing noise machine calls any evidence that proves negative to the Unitary Executive "hogwash." Valid conjecture from EVIDENCE is not, like FOX news and the DLC purports "Conspiracy Theory" but a plausible consideration for further testing of that thesis.