Frederick Douglass

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them..." Frederick Douglass

Monday, June 20, 2011

Against Stocastics: In Defense Of Wacko Nut-job Conspiracy Theorists

Great piece by Paul Craig Roberts. I've been working on something like this myself. I'm often bewildered at how easy it is to shut people's brains off with the phrase "conspiracy theorist." I recently had an argument in which the discussion-blunting shibboleth was hurled at me by a co-worker who was outraged by my incredulity vis-a-vis the recent Osama bin Laden media histrionics. I began to explain why it was I didn't believe the reports, but it is difficult to reason with someone whose mind is so compromised that they would use that phrase in the first place. One would think that it should suffice to say that one should be neither pro- nor anti-conspiracy theory, that one should take each case on its own merits, but this approach is of no advantage in discourse with someone who is unwilling or unable to emancipate himself from convention or cliche. As Swift noted, it's impossible to reason someone from an opinion which wasn't formed on the basis of reason. "Conspiracy theory" is a mantra, a shield behind which hide the world's worst state criminals.

As for 9/11, I believed the government's conspiracy theory for four years, but I listened to everyone with an open mind. The West had been sticking its big imperialist dick in the Mideast's oil-rich sands since Sykes-Picot, and it is plausible that they should wish to retaliate. (Which is not to say that such an attack would be, or would ever be justified.) However the weight of the evidence convinced me that I had been wrong. The straw which broke the camel's back for me was the presence of thermite residue in the WTC dust. Thermite burns quite hot, hotter than hydrocarbons, and it's used in controlled demolitions. One could crash a million jets into the WTC and one would not find any thermite residue no matter how long the resulting fires raged.

It's presence was reported before 2005 by a scientist from Utah (Jones, I believe), but I didn't know who he was or what his motivations might be, or how reliable his findings could be given the unscientific manner in which the samples were collected.

After the government agencies confirmed his findings, and went to absurd lengths to try to comport them to the official story, all doubt was removed and I concluded that the WTC buildings, all three that collapsed, were brought down by controlled demolition. After all, the owner of the WTC, Larry Silverman, had appeared on national television and related how the NYFD had come to him and asked his permission to demolish WTC7, which he gave.

There is only one explanation for the thermite residue. In any investigation, one seldom is presented with such definitive evidence as this. It's not merely evidence, it's proof. And once one accepts that these buildings were rigged with explosives before the first plane crashed into them, the official story is officially disproved.

There is a word for someone one cannot accept a controversial and/or unpopular conclusion even when the evidence is as compelling as this--fool.

Here's Robert's take:

As I reported earlier, I myself had experience with a Huffington Post reporter who was keen to interview a Reagan presidential appointee who was in disagreement with the
Republican wars in the Middle East. After he published the interview that I provided at his request, he was terrified to learn that I had reported findings of 9/11 investigators.
To protect his career, he quickly inserted on the online interview that my views on the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions could be dismissed as I had reported unacceptable findings about 9/11.

The unwillingness or inability to entertain any view of 9/11 different from the official view dooms to impotence many Internet sites that are opposed to the wars and to the rise of the domestic US police state. These sites, for whatever the reasons, accept the government’s explanation of 9/11; yet, they try to oppose the “war on terror” and the police state which are the consequences of accepting the government’s explanation. Trying to oppose the consequences of an event whose explanation you accept is an impossible task.


http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28377.htm