Saturday. Not thirty seconds after everyone willing to see
Little Miss Sunshine left without me, Graham called to invite me to a game of cheating-rules Illuminati! at Robot House. This is not the first time something like this has happened: the Blowhard clearly has our place bugged.
Unfortunately, Graham's friends weren't really
into the Illuminati thing — naturally, I'll never be friends with either of them — and we abandoned the game very quickly.
It was there, talking after the game, that I first realized I had been led down the rabbit hole. Not because they were talking about Hamline things I knew nothing about, that's just what Hamline people do around each other. No, suddenly the test was coming alive before my eyes, and several people in the room were failing it.
You see, just as I decided a few years ago that Illuminati was a near-foolproof Potential Friend Test, in my supreme political wishy-washiness (Graham continues to suggest that I'm conforming to some sort of cookie-cutter moderate ideal, probably because of my subscription to
Today's Moderate magazine) I also devised a near-foolproof Not Just Partisan, But Crazy Partisan Test: Would you wish (even if you wouldn't actually support or commit) assassination on a high-ranking figure in the opposing party?
Some of the Hamlinites said yes, or at least that they'd be glad rather than, say, outraged, if someone shot the current President of the United States. At least one Hamlinite thought that using his last name, let alone calling him President Bush, is more respect than he deserves, so I guess I shouldn't be
too surprised.
Personally, I don't really care for the guy or his accomplishments either, but no one is allowed to shoot my president. Note that this test doesn't work with idiots, who might wish for assassination when, due to their condition, they haven't really thought it through.
(Interesting side-conversation here: who would you take a bullet for? I think I'm with Graham, in that I'd take a bullet for a bunch of people, unless I had time to think about it. I'll admit that the idea of dying young, but a hero, was a little more satisfying when I believed in an afterlife. And would it be morally abhorrent, or just eminently rational, to base my decision on some measurement of our relative worth as human beings?)
And down down the rabbithole we went.
We moved to another apartment, with very delicious pickles, and I learned about the Quakers while a bunch of Hamlinites watched the Truther documentary
Loose Change.(I suspect they do or will come to hate the title "Truther," but that's life: ameliorate your labels or die)
I noticed that, at first, Graham was ridiculing the video as well, but eventually, perhaps realizing that the winds of truthiness were blowing in his direction, he started arguing for the conspiracy along with several of the other Hamlinites.
The one thing that bothers me — besides the fact that people were implying I was closed-minded because I wouldn't sit down and watch the video, had instead read the
Popular Mechanics article
presenting and then debunking many of its claims (you can find other refutations on the Wikipedia page I linked to above), whereas they seemed completely unfamiliar with the arguments against "9/11 Truth" (whew) — is that this time, and several other times I've found myself this deep in Wonderland, would-be Truthers never come out and say what they believe.
They just poke holes in the established narrative (or rather, enjoy the holes others have created). And while that's all well and good for atheists and neg LD cases, I think if you're going to be a 9/11 cynic in mixed company, you owe us your alternate 9/11 theory.
If you're going to be crazy by yourself, fine. I, for one, never grilled the Politician's wife about her dinosaur conspiracy theory or fear of manhole covers, and most Lawrentians knew to leave Jubb's views on evolution well enough alone. Wrong can be wrong in private. It's still wrong, but you've got no real power over anyone and you're not trying to sell anything in the marketplace, so it's none of my business.
It's time to come out of the conspiracy closet, kids. Are you a
Let It Happen On Purpose or a Made It Happen On Purpose? Perhaps you're a
No-Planer? We'll still let you snipe at the mainstream view, but the point of this sniping is to get at the real
how and maybe, if you're feeling ambitious, the
why. So please, tell us.
My understanding of
Graham's 9/11 theory, pieced together from pointless arguments I would rather not have had, is that he doesn't believe a plane hit the Pentagon and thinks there were demolitions (presumably placed by forces in the government) in Building 7.
My alternate hypothesis — because though Graham talks crazy-partisan, he's always had the habit of dramatic overstatement — is that Graham entertains these notions, perhaps even has doubts, but takes the Politician's wife's Cognitive Dissonance Approach to the various 9/11 Truths: interesting to believe in, but hermetically sealed from the rest of his beliefs, this whole thing is just a parlor game Graham is deeply committed to, like when we used to make up conspiracy theories in high school.
Whatever the case, I have to respect the Truthers for doubting, and then taking that doubt seriously. Even those who don't really care about counterarguments are reading more, to expand their doubt. It's one-sided, but it's more informed than nothing.
Compare my roommate. The next day I was trying to explain how weird it was to actually be in the minority in a room full of would-be (or, one hopes, C.D. approach) Truthers, but she said:
"Well, whatever. I don't know if there was a conspiracy or not. I guess I would believe in the conspiracy if it made me hate Bush more, but it really wouldn't." Here is someone who seems to honestly have doubts, but doesn't care that she has doubts, and doesn't realize what the implications would be.
Some of these Truthers, on the other hand, seem to grasp the stakes and care, if not whether they're right or wrong, then at least that they're
right. And they've got theories, beliefs, motives.
The comments are open to Truther and skeptic alike, though I want to hear from people who've at least met me, not total strangers. So like I said kids, out and proud.
Because I'm always accused of sniping at beliefs without presenting my own view (an opinion that was somewhat fair back when I was the self-appointed Token Moderate at pb.org), I'll start this off by saying that I think the debunkings are solid and I believe most of the 9/11 report (I read the graphic novel version at Slate). It's clear, however, that the 9/11 report lets a lot of people off too easy. No one let it happen on purpose, but a lot of lives could have been saved if a half dozen or so people had been less incompotent.
I think your "hermetically sealed" metaphor for my interest in 9-11 conspiracy theories is pretty spot-on.
I think it's a bit irresponsible not to doubt that a plane hit the Pentagon. I mean, it's pretty amazing to me, the power of authority over common sense and one's own eyes: if you look at the hole in the pentagon, it's just not big enough for a 747. Likewise with building 7. What did bring it down, Dan, if it weren't a controlled demolition? What's your alternate theory? None has been advanced by the government, officially, I don't think. Unless there's something in the 9-11 report.
And aren't there tons of passages blanked out of that report? I think those are the parts that deal with the bin Ladens and other Saudis that were flown discretely out of the country immediately following the attacks.
What I am getting at is: what reason at all do you have to believe that what the government has told you is even close to the actual truth of what happened? Do you believe the government in anything else they say, I mean, really?
If you do, then you must be bowing to the authority of office and position, because you certainly aren't following the authority of facts and figures.
I understand that there is an overwhelming amount of physical evidence that everything happened on 9-11 pretty much as portrayed by the government.
But the Pentagon crash and the Building 7 destruction are, I think, more open questions.
But, you're right, too. My beliefs that building 7 may very well have been imploded to collect extra insurance money and that the Pentagon may very well have been hit by a missle rather than a 747 do not have a significant effect on my overall political or world outlook.
It's a curiosity, and maybe we will have shocking answers with conclusive proof of obfuscation, lying, and cover-ups at some point in the far-off future, but I am not holding my breath.
One question, though. It looks pretty clear at this point that the Democrats are going to take the house and possibly even the Senate in the election. If this "democratic wave" keeps going (and polls show that it is) but fails to materialize in the final data about when then Diebold voting machines have calculated the results... if it appears that this election was in some way actually stolen... what would you do? What would you personally have to say about it? Would you believe the people in power? Would you be skeptical? Would you assume foul play? I am curious.
Though your insurance angle on building 7 was a fun surprise, I notice you didn't say why a missile would be hitting the Pentagon on 9/11. I'll buy that it's just a game for you, an exaggeration of your doubts, because that's what I really want to believe, but I'm surprised that you haven't come up with some theories for this hermetically sealed world of yours.
As for the claim that I'm "bowing to authority," though my reading did include the 9/11 report (which confirms the government's assertion that no Saudi nationals fled America before 9/13 -- my understanding is that these blacked-out parts you're blindly gesturing toward are more about the involvement of Saudi nationals before 9/11, something about diplomatic relations, but again, I haven't read the real thing either) and a National Institute of Standards and Technology report, most of my reasons for supporting the mainstream/government view of 9/11 come from experts in the private industry.
That Popular Mechanics article is a good start, but there are debunkings both more thorough and more recent; if you actually read some of these articles, you'll find that "common sense" (which I take it you're definitively not equating with Occam's Razor, what with all the missing passengers and photos of airplane debris at the Pentagon and huge number of people involved and all) isn't always going to lead you down the right path.
For example, you wouldn't think that WTC 7 was built foolishly, with some individual supports carrying much too much weight, or that someone would have a huge diesel generator on the fifth floor, connected to the basement by a pressurized line (I mean: fire hazard?), but there you have it, evidence of people acting without common sense. Yes, I can find what I think is a highly credibly explanation for all the doubts you stated, and I'll try to remember them next time I catch you preaching the 9/11 word, but this comment is long enough: check them out yourself if you care enough.
Last point, elections. Would you believe the "people in power" if their parties (and histories with Diebold, sad to say) were switched? I'm pretty sure that there is election fraud out there, but the Senate race is far from a lock for the Dems (this week, the clearly left-leaning Slate has had them at a 49-48 margin after midterms) and... I don't know anything about the House races. Who cares about the House?
That's where I'd expect to see fraud, if there was any, though no, I wouldn't suspect a massive interstate conspiracy between Republicans and Diebold, even though I want the Dems to control congress and don't trust Diebold voting machines. It's perfectly reasonable not to assume massive fraud, because for me that's still the kind of thing that falls under "extraordinary claims," and I guess that's the heart of my skepticism of Truther types -- extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Be sure to check out the book “Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory” due out in March by Dr. David Ray Griffin.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781566566865&itm=2
http://www.amazon.com/Debunking-11-Mechanics-Defenders-Conspiracy/dp/156656686X/sr=1-4/qid=1168895874/ref=sr_1_4/102-3028549-2492937?ie=UTF8&s=books
Dan at
10/23/2006 02:40:00 PM
