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SERIOUS IOWANS REQUIRE FISK
Robert Fisk—who believes the use of depleted uranium in the Middle East may be causing him to remove his pullover in Toronto—now indicates his faith in the Great 9/11 Conspiracy, as Andrew Bolt reports:
He often spoke in the US, he said, and “more and more people in the audience believe the American administration had some kind of involvement”.
"I have to say before you clap (indeed, some in his audience were applauding) I don’t have any proof of that.
"I mean, the worst I can envisage is that they know something was coming and they preferred it to happen so that their strategy could be put into place."
(Hmm. What sinister strategy would that be, Bob?)
But Fisk could not leave it even at that: “Serious people across the States are asking—people in Iowa, for God’s sake—are asking me in letters, ‘What really happened? How did those buildings fall so neatly down?’
"And I can’t answer them except to say I am in Beirut and not New York and I can’t investigate this. But there are a lot of things we don’t know, a lot of things we’re not going to be told."
If only someone of Fisk’s forensic talent could be found among New York’s ignorant citizenry. Until then, the serious people of Iowa—people in Iowa, for God’s sake!—will puzzle over the World Trade Centre’s allegedly controlled demolition.
Gravity in New York City is exceptional in that it all points _straight down_ (owing to its rock substrate foundation), which is more or less how buildings fall there.
Iowa on the other hand has tornados that strongly influence Iowan gravity, and buildings go all over the place when they fall down.
Mobile homes are impaled on telephone poles, and so forth.
This affects Iowa expectations about gravity, and so they’re all over the place on conspiracy thinking.
Sheen and Fisk on the same team; if this isn’t prima facieevidence that the 9/11 Bush-conspiracy spin is nuts, I don’t know what else could possibly be.
Fisk’s comprehension problems have most likely contributed to his strange belief in the fantasy-mongering of Iowans. In reality, what they probably said was, “Quit trampling my corn, you clumsy bastard!”
New license plate: Iowa, For God’s Sake
resisted urge to format incompetently
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 03 28 at 01:02 PM • permalinkSo, are they denying the existence, entirely, of the aircraft that smashed into the towers?
Or, if they concede that point, because, um, we all saw the damn things, are they saying that a fully fueled 737 at 400+ mph should not be enough to bring the towers down? That whatever “controlled demolition” would not be interefered with by the smashing of said aircraft into the target being demolished?
Are they saying that CIA agents sacrificed their lives to hijack the planes? Or that they were “electronically controlled”, so that every family member who talked to a passenger of that day is now lying?
And they ARE saying.... that the people who INVENTED airline hijacking, who INVENTED suicide truckbombing, who CELEBRATE suicide in the course of such activity, who discussed this very tactic with airplanes from the Phillipines in the early nineties ("How DARE the Bush admin and Miss Rice ignore such obvious signals, etc etc"), AND who came out after and clearly said, “Um, wasn’t us..... but all Muslims should avoid flying and big buildings in the US....” end quote)......
THESE people are innocent. It was all the CIA, et al.
Ponder the frightening and forthright suspension of all logic and history that is necessary to even entertain this notion.
There are times I wonder if wester civilization is indeed doomed.
There are times I wonder if Darwin is truly right, and we deserve it.
Who says militant Muslims are the only ones worshipping suicide?
Aww, come on Chinese Arithmetic, I wasn’t trying to be mean when I chided you about letting the italics out. Get out there and FORMAT!! Bold, italicize,
strike text! Look at me; not long ago, I was a 90 pound unformatted weakling, but now I get out there and do my formatting and linking push-ups with the best of ‘em.As I understand it, there wasn’t the needed asbestos & also the floors hung on the main outer frame. Things got very hot and the floor collapsed onto floor below and the building pancaked downward. We’ve seen what it looked like on video. To me on a roof in Queens, the South Tower seemed suddenly to just sink down.
It’s really annnoying that these bastards like Fisk must conduct circle jerk-offs all over it.
‘What really happened? How did those buildings fall so neatly down?’
If the point of the “conspiracy” was to commit atrocities that would justify any and everything Chimpeachment W. Pretzeljacker wanted to do -
Why would they then engage in a controlled demolition to limit the damage by making sure the buildings went straight down? Wouldn’t the “conspirators” prefer to maximize the damage by having the towers topple sideways?
What are these nuts thinking? That a building should fall like a tree? If it had fallen over, they’d be looking for those conspiratorial DU emitting, skyscraper gnawing, radically Islamic beavers who the Bush administration had created by their clandestine (and highly hypocritical) Republican Stem Cell Research Team, who also, by the way cloned MILLIONS of them.
They’re just not happy with the way the building fell. Nope, couldn’t have been hit by a jumbo jet, LOOK! That building went straight down! Through some means of special effect (provided by the ever-so-conservative Hollywood folks at Dreamscape) the Bushies made it appear as if two jumbo jets slammed into the Twin Towers (the eyewitnesses were actually sprayed with “dumb-ass gas” from the planes they thought they saw slam into the towers. Simultaneously, the evil Bushstapo detonated huge gas bombs (containing approximately 7000 liters of fuel, each) that they had secretly installed in the upper floors of the towers. Thankfully, no one had noticed the sudden appearance of 800 new “soda machines”. After waiting for a few hours to pass, and having paid numerous stunt people to jump from the buildings, they detonated the second set of explosives taking out the load bearing columns. Thus, we have a neat and controlled take down. It’s so clear. I can’t believe MILLIONS of people aren’t looking into this. I mean, after all, they didn’t find anything but tiny bits of aircraft. Hell, anybody could have put that there…I have so much more respect for the terrorists than I do for these scumbags. To quote our old friend Baghdad Bob, “may Satan roast their stomachs in hell”.
people in Iowa ... are asking me in letters, ‘What really happened?
And they said Flouridated water was harmless…
Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2006 03 28 at 01:33 PM • permalinkI doubt that these nutjobs are in the majority around the world, but they sure do get some press, don’t they?
In the meantime, Iowahawk has some ‘splaining to do.....
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 03 28 at 01:35 PM • permalinkPaco, I’m practicing on an old link. I’ll make you proud of me.
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 03 28 at 01:40 PM • permalinkThe whole point being to deny Islamonutter terror. First they said it was America’s fault, now it’s America’s doing
Posted by beautifulatrocities on 2006 03 28 at 01:52 PM • permalinkHey, Fisk, what is the word for someone who shoots off his mouth, making very serious accusations without a scintilla of proof? C’mon, you’re a word smith. Sleazy scum bag? close, but not close enough. Grasping fool eager to make a buck by spreading lies? Getting closer. Attention whore? Getting warm.
"I have to say before you clap (indeed, some in his audience were applauding) I don’t have any proof of that.
“I mean, the worst I can envisage is that they know something was coming and they preferred it to happen so that their strategy could be put into place.”
Well, of course! We don’t have the time machine for nothing.
As I recall in 1999, I was again chasing Stoop Davy Dave through time with the assistance of paco (who is absolutely no help whatsoever). We were supposed to go back two years to 1997 and prevent him from helping the Chicago Cubs win the World Series. Some things should never happen, you know? Well anyway, somehow, the Tardis took us forward to 2001. Probably due to a neutrino charge from a neutron star or maybe paco just fingered the destination chronometer without me noticing it, the little bastard.
Well, when we got to 2001, we noted the wretched developments that unfolded and we went right back to 1999 and reported to Karl. We told him everything. And the only response we got was “EXXXXXcellent”. You know, with those steepled fingers? Still brings a chill to my spine.
Well, things pretty much went off as planned. I called 5,000 Jews and told them not to come to work that day. I cleaned out our penthouse offices and moved the super secret YOU-READ-THIS-YOU-DIE files to the Papal Vault. I transferred the RWDB gold bullion reserves (and ok, a great quantity that belongs to central banks of some countries who think it’s somewhere in that big hole where the building had stood) and transferred it to our Swiss banks. I called the Wall Street Journal and suggested they open a Joisey office pretty darn quick. I omitted calling Time and the NY Times. I sold our stock holdings and sold millions of shares short. Bought bonds. You know, that kind of stuff.
Posted by wronwright on 2006 03 28 at 02:07 PM • permalinkI do believe Iowahawk, will counter strike soon...and devastatingly so.
And for those that follow the Frenchie that insists, in fact wrote a book, on the Pentagon NON plane....He’s correct, the U.S. is holding that plane HERE, along with all of those aliens.
The NON Pentagon plane, is in this aerial shot, disguised as a plane. You may be able to make out the wings, lower left hand corner....:).
That’s not how buildings fall down when Godzilla bumps into them!
Posted by Jim Treacher on 2006 03 28 at 02:16 PM • permalinkThe worst are the ones that come up with pointless observations to open up conspiracy theories without admitting to it, such as:
-Isn´t it strange that there were no recognizable airplane pieces at the Pentagon attack?
-I dunno, I haven´t seen much footage of airplane-hitting-buildings wrecks to make an opinion on how unusual that is, have you?
-No, but isn´t it strange?
-So what are you suggesting, that it wasn´t a plane? So what was it?
-I don´t know, I´m just saying it´s strange.
-Well if it wasn´t a plane and two planes collided with the WTC the same day, wouldn´t it be stranger that another plane vanished in the vicinity?
-I´m just saying it´s strange, not suggesting anything…The pointless obvservations are a sort of passive-aggressive conspiracy theororizing.
There were, btw, plenty of airplane pieces at the pentagon. See Snopes, http://www.snopes.com/rumors/pentagon.htm, and above top secret , http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/911_pentagon_757_plane_evidence.html.
The “controlled demolition” crap is stupid on many levels. Why wait 30 minutes before blowing them up, for example? If you blew them up right away you’d kill more people, before they could evacuate.
Posted by Ernst Blofeld on 2006 03 28 at 02:45 PM • permalinkWhat really happened? How did those buildings fall so neatly? Why didn’t they lean over onto the building next door where my wife works? How can this be? How is this possible? What Nobel-winning scientists could possibly puzzle out this unsolvable mystery?
(Since Fisk likes being beaten up so much, I’d like to meet him in person...so would Mrs. Doctrine.)
Posted by Monroe Doctrine on 2006 03 28 at 02:46 PM • permalinkExactly, blubi.
That “Loose Change” video (available on Google Video, et al) is the biggest thing people are latching onto these days. Why, it’s documentary-length! It has computer graphics! Sure, parts of it are over the top, but of course it must at least have a KERNEL of truth!
One of the big theses of it is that WTC 7 fell down, and it had no reason to unless it was demolished by controlled charges.
To which I have to reply:
What would the PURPOSE of demolishing it with explosives be? Most people, even the ones amenable to listening to this stuff, believe that at the very least it was the planes that brought down WTC 1 and 2; but if that’s the case, why on earth would the CIA (or whoever) want to make damned sure that WTC 7 fell down too? What would be the point? Would the Bush Administration’s nefarious strategy be easier to implement if WTC 7 came down too than if it were “merely” the two big towers? Or are they saying there was some super-top-secret thing in WTC7 that the CIA wanted destroyed-- and cooking up some amazingly convoluted and wide-reaching scheme to run terrorist-piloted planes into the Pentagon and White House and WTC was only a cover and a pretext under which they could demolish WTC 7 in the confusion?
I mean, what’s the logic?
Even completely sane and rational friends of mine will allow themselves to be spooked by the “It don’t all add up” insinuations… I suspect it’s sort of a mental forbidden zone that a lot of people like to play in. It feels dangerous and dirty, and that makes it exciting. Logic can help counteract it, but only if the person wants it counteracted.
Posted by Brian Tiemann on 2006 03 28 at 02:55 PM • permalinkOh yeah, and the bit I forgot—
If WTC 7 had no reason to fall down on its own just from stuff from the big towers falling on it, and the CIA were trying to make it look like it was just a terrorist attack—why the hell would they blow up WTC 7 themselves, drawing attention to something that shouldn’t have happened in such an attack? Wouldn’t it be a big ol’ giveaway? If they were trying to “frame” the terrorists in the planes, fictional or not, wouldn’t they have engineered the aftermath of the attack to look as much as possible like it would have looked if it were just planes crashing into the towers?
It’s the “Evil genius/incompetent fool” argument. The CIA/Bush must be more devious than Hitler and more bumbling than Ford, all at the same time.
Posted by Brian Tiemann on 2006 03 28 at 03:01 PM • permalink"Dick, we need to make sure those towers fall after our patsies run the not-at-all-similar-looking-to-commercial-airliner planes into them.”
“Um, G-Dub, shouldn’t we just use commercial airliners?”
“Hell, no, I’m stupid, remember? Use F-117s or SR-71s or anything else we got that’s weird looking. Remember, there will be thousands of eyewitnesses.”
“Er, OK. Whatever. 10-4 on the demolition charges - those buildings will topple like freakin’ sequoias!”
“Are you nuts, Dick? Do you realize how much damage that would cause? I want a controlled demolition. We’re looking at destroying two mammoth skyscrapers and killing thousands. We need to keep the collateral damage down.”
Y’know, that’s perfectly realistic.
One of Iowahawk’s AGENTS, starting his voyage to FiskLand
Courtesy of Iowahawk’s Legion of the Dumb
and Iowahawk
Conspiracy theorists are obnoxious. But the people who are really repulsive are the chickenshits like Fisk who don’t have the balls to say that crap straight out - they hide behind their cowardly winks, nods, and “I’m merely raising the questions”.
How is this man gainfully employed? Why is he more well-known and well-compensated than Mark Steyn? What the fuck is wrong with the world?
This seems the main source on the web of the “controlled demolition” theory regarding WTC7: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wtc7.html
From my short visit to the land of 9/11 theorism a few days back, my absolute favourite bit was a chatboard where someone raised the subject of the NYC 9/11 planes actually being “projected holograms”.
The poster was shouted down for being “crazy” and “a government plant” who was trying to ruin the “credibility” of the website by introducing discussion of “obvious delusions” designed to make all the rest of them look “disturbed” and “whacko”.
9/11 Denial is a growth industry, perhaps Fisk is looking to widen his readership?
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 28 at 05:05 PM • permalinkAnd this one: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/cutter.html
God damn it! Eighteen threads “down” from here, I just spent the whole morning slapping that ignorant lying bitch Drefuze around the room on This Very Topic, and now I find the topic has migrated ... actually, come to think of it, this is more of an opportunity than a problem, isn’t it?
Never mind.Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 03 28 at 05:20 PM • permalinkWhy would a secret US agency (or whatever) that has just pulled off a 9/11 conspiracy hesitate for a moment to “find” a pile of WMD’s in Iraq and stitch up Saddam good and proper? And AQ contacts and Iraqi plans or whatever else was needed for a good look?
Moral qualms? Yeah sure.
Technical difficulties? Come on.It just doesn’t add up.
Isn’t it strange ...That was some effective and comprehensive slapping over there, though, Stoop.
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 28 at 05:36 PM • permalinkot - meanwhile, in the real world, people are condemning real conspiracies
The former Czech president Vaclav Havel has condemned the police
violence in the Belarusian capital Minsk and called on President
Alexander Lukashenko to resign from office. Lukashenko was recently
elected for a third year term in elections that EU observers said were
neither free nor fair. Many people were injured and arrested in the
opposition demonstrations which followed.for those not watching belarus, communism is alive & kicking. the election results were announced prematurely, following counting of votes at army bases & similar concentrations of servants of the state. these results bore no relation to results observed elsewhere
TB 31
I can’t wait to find out what happens next…
Crapcakes man! I’m IN half of them and it’s always a surprise to me! Except for the parts about my bad behavior, that is…
LLL 42
I humbly yet meekly agree. Where is he now, d’you suppose? When will he again grace us with his lofty demeanor and perspicacious insights?“chink chink chink Dreyfuze ... Come out and Play-yay! Clink Clink Clink Dreyfuze ... Come Out and PLAY-yay!! CLINK CLINK CLINK…
nahhh, that never works.Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 03 28 at 05:55 PM • permalinkPeople in Iowa, for God’s sake, have been sending Tom Harkin to Congress for the last 30 years. It surprises me not at all that there are people in Iowa, for God’s sake, who would appeal to Robert Fisk in Beirut to tell them what really happened in New York on 9-11.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 03 28 at 06:04 PM • permalinkSettle down Stoop.
Anyone who tries to mess with the distinguished visitors like Dreyf may also have to mess with Margo’s Maid, armed only with my computer and The Truth.
This Keyboard Kills Fascists.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 03 28 at 06:06 PM • permalinkSlightly OT - but could be filed in the same abjectly moronically clueless categeory as Fisk’s conspiracy mongering was the Horizon Doco that screened on SBS last night that purported to be a psychological examination of Suicicide bombers.
I ended up switching it off about 2/3 of the way through when it became quite clear that the ideology and religion of Suicide bombers were not going to get a look in. The wilful and obsessive blindness of the makers is worthy of it’s own psychlogical study.
Good Christ, apparently actor Ed Asner is going on CNN tonight to declare his support for Charlie Sheen and “to raise questions of his own”.
How long will Tim Robbings and Susan Sarandon being able to resist joining the 9/11 Denial cult? A month? Days?
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 28 at 07:16 PM • permalinkI, too, was greatly troubled by the fact that the whole 9/11 event went so smoothly.
No damage to surrounding buildings, minimal mess to clean up (apparently the rubble from both “buildings” was carried off in a single Mini-Skip) and absolutely no loss of (white American or Jewish) life. Just a little too perfect, was it not?
And I heard there was, thoughout the entire “attack”, a guy in a nearby phone booth whose face was barely visible to the media. And later he was simply gone. You can draw your own conclusions from that.
Add to that all the new evidence coming to hand from impeccable Hollywood sources…
Actually, Fisk should keep it up.
He’s not nearly wacko enough...with his media reach his theories should be trumpeted across America.
Rope, sell him rope, buy him rope, give him more rope.
I work a block from the WTC with the most liberal and moonbatty New Yorkers you would ever want to miss meeting. They’ll try and argue that it was our pre-911 policies that brought on the attack, but most of them watched the 2nd plane hit.
Fisk should ask the people who lived thru that nightmare day who it was that brought down the towers...not barking moonbats in Iowa, for God’s sake.
But he won’t, will he.
Good Christ, apparently actor Ed Asner is going on CNN tonight to declare his support for Charlie Sheen and “to raise questions of his own”.
Asner doesn’t surprise me—in all likelihood, Castro sent him word, and Asner’s trying to see how high he can jump.
I’m a little surprised at CNN. It’s gonna happen on Larry King, right?
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 03 28 at 08:10 PM • permalinktrainer
I work a block from the WTC with the most liberal and moonbatty New Yorkers you would ever want to miss meeting. They’ll try and argue that it was our pre-911 policies that brought on the attack, but most of them watched the 2nd plane hit.
I sat in front of my large ass TV for the better part of 36 hours and with the exception of drinking and crying, did nothing.
our pre-911 policies that brought on the attack
May have a point with that one. We didn’t step on these psychotics hard enough, from the 70’s, forward. Until ‘01.....and for me, still not stepping hard enough.
#51 Hamish
Now that you mention it, I too have seen many empty phone boxes since 9/11.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 03 28 at 08:30 PM • permalinkCome on people, as Sheen points out:
"It feels like from the people I talk to in and around my circles, it seems like the worm is turning."
The worm is turning! And after all, he’s a celebrity! And celebrities have far more weight with their opinions than us mere mortals, and as such, should be taken with upmost seriousness. Old Fisky must more in the same circles as Sheen, and celebrity hanger-oners are only one level below (in awesomeness) to the real thing.
Here’s a distortature I’ve done of Sheen for your respective amusements.
And here’s one of Fisk.
Posted by Humblogger (the Younger) on 2006 03 28 at 08:32 PM • permalinkHere’s a question for conspiracy believers. You need to lead up to it with this:
The Whitehouse couldn’t cover up Clinton’s blowjob, or his extracurricular use of a cigar. Yet, somehow, they can cover up involvement in 9-11?
The actual question(s) comes now:
1: Do you believe that?
And question 2 is asked if the answer to 1 is “Yes”.
2: Would you like me to wipe up the drool you have on the front of your shirt?
Realistically, and as has been stated already, the only solutions for those who are enamoured with conspiracies is a good old backhand slap to the head (I’m also partial to a head-butt).
Posted by Humblogger (the Younger) on 2006 03 28 at 08:41 PM • permalink# 62. I believe he enjoys coke.
Posted by Humblogger (the Younger) on 2006 03 28 at 08:42 PM • permalinkLOL, Humblogger! That distortature of Sheen is great—his nose ought to hold plenty of coke now!!!!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 03 28 at 08:44 PM • permalinkMore Human Remains Found at WTC Site
NEW YORK — Construction workers cleaning toxic waste from a vacant skyscraper near the World Trade Center site have found more bone fragments and human remains, officials said Tuesday.
Must be from some of those careless demolition experts huh, Fisk?
Oh forgot, Charlie...dem·o·li·tion n. 1. The act or process of wrecking or destroying, especially destruction by explosives.
When I first heard of all those conspiracy theories about 9/11, I did some research about it and came up with the following two points that clinch the argument rather neatly (IMO anyway):
1. Since 9/11 every engineering school in the U.S. university system has been using the collapse of the twin towers as a case study in building collapse. To think that all those teachers and students could be so incompetant as to miss a controlled demolition and mistake it for a plane impact alone is to imply that they are all incompetant. As one structural engineer pointed out in an article I read, “...anyone subscribing to these theories is either ignorant or an idiot. Probably both.”
2. A controlled demolition requires a hell of a lot of preparation. Are the conspiracy theorists really suggesting that no one noticed all those explosives being packed into this heavily trafficked building? It would have taken weeks (if not months) to move in the explosive even for an open demolition, let alone a secret one.
I can’t believe that people are still bringing these theories up in a serious way…
Posted by Mr Snuffalupagus on 2006 03 28 at 09:05 PM • permalinkMy brother is one of the firefighters we saw staggering out of the brown cloud on 9/11. He claims it didn’t look very neat at all…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 28 at 09:09 PM • permalinkErnst, Brian: what´s annoying is their lack of honesty attempting to be open-minded and asking questions, with suggestions that they don´t honestly believe. Or to be generous, spouting off ideas they haven´t thought out because they are morons.
I had a similar experience with a friend who came up with the “US never landed in the moon” conspiracy. I tried the NASA=thousands of employees who wouldn´t have all held a secret for 30+ years and then ame up with a better argument: how come the USSR, which was in a space race with us, didn´t come up with any evidence to suggest it never happened? Her reply: how do you know that the USSR didn´t refute it? I replied that it would have been in the front page of the NYT, and when she didn´t react I gave up on the argument.RE. psychology behind conspiracies: people somehow feel safer believing the world is controlled, and when unforeseen events take place assume it is due to hidden sources rather than random acts. Here´s the proof: what´s the difference between Oswald and Hinckley? One succeeded, the other didn´t. If Hinckley had assasinated Reagan there would have been a myriad conspiracies.
Why are there no unsuccessful conspiracies?#59 “Maybe he got a letter from Tom Harkin.”
Maybe he got a letter from Iowahawk. And took it serious.
Posted by Old Grouch on 2006 03 28 at 09:14 PM • permalink#48, 50 I sat through the whole lot and if I got it right, they believed their “studies” proved that these four sick individuals -
1. Formed their cell
2. Decided to bomb the underground
3. Planned it, then
4. Did itAll without any any interaction or assistance from anyone or anything in the outside world. ie religion or ideologies had nothing to do with it. They must have spent their lives living within a perfect Boltzman box within a Faraday cage and it just .. sorta .. happened.
Or maybe it was as simple as - Mandrake gestured hypnotically.
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2006 03 28 at 09:26 PM • permalinkI hate to say it but the conspiracy theory nutjobs are making real ground with this. They’ve “won” the argument that Bush/Blair/Howard “lied” about Iraq, now they’re going in for the kill.
I have been utterly amazed by the number of otherwise seemingly sane people I have encountered who subscribe to the idea that the US govt enabled 9/11.
The government has such a horrible track record in pretty much everything else it has tried, what makes these people think it can hide things like aliens and blowing up the WTC?
Posted by MikeTheLibrarian on 2006 03 28 at 10:01 PM • permalinkThis is probably the best damn reason these ‘theories’ exist...outright despise for Bush. Anything, anything at all, they can throw his way, is thrown..
Bush’s Enemies, and the Country’s
An item yesterday brought the following comment from reader Ananda Gupta:
You write: “ ‘The enemy of George Bush is my friend’ might as well be the credo of American liberals at this moment in history. And since George Bush is the leader of our country, it follows that ‘the enemy of my country is my friend.’ “
This only follows if “the leader of our country” = “my country”. Are you channeling Louis XIV today? Are you sure that the president would appreciate your invoking the logic of monarchical absolutism in his defense (or, rather, to attack his political enemies)?
Several other readers raised similar objections, leading us to conclude that we constructed our argument carelessly in that we did not make clear the distinction we had in mind between the general anti-Bush attitude on the left and its specific, and much less common, manifestation as neutrality or sympathy toward America’s enemies. We did not mean to equate the man who leads the country with the country itself. Rather, our purpose is to criticize those on the left for making precisely this error.
Al Qaeda and the former regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq are enemies of America. They were enemies of America before George W. Bush became president--Bill Clinton used military force against all of them, albeit desultorily--and they almost certainly would be enemies of America if Al Gore or John Kerry were president. Neither Gore nor Kerry, after all, ran on a promise to make peace with these enemies.
It is the left that, during this administration, has tended to personalize the war, viewing it as a referendum on George W. Bush. The crudest and most striking example of this came from porcine propagandist Michael Moore on Sept. 12, 2001:
Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes’ destination of California--these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!
Why kill them? Why kill anyone?This was noteworthy at the time mostly for being shocking, but look at it with an analytical eye and you’ll see that it’s revealing of a certain mindset. Moore’s immediate reaction to the attack was to see it in terms of Republicans and Democrats--or, more precisely, of Bush backers and Bush detractors. He’s particularly outraged that anyone would kill Bush detractors. He can sort of understand if they would want to kill Bush backers, but a moment’s reflection leads even him to conclude that this would be overkill.
What seems never to have occurred to Moore is that this was an attack on America and it had nothing to do with domestic politics. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, almost everyone understood this. Moore was an extreme outlier. But since then, many liberals have moved toward Moore’s worldview, as evidenced by the box-office success of his “Fahrenheit 9/11” in 2004.
There is of course plenty of room, even in wartime, for reasoned debate over foreign policy. But to allow one’s views of international affairs to be determined almost completely by antagonism toward the man who happens to lead one’s own country at the moment is an extreme and potentially dangerous form of parochialism.
I think the best way to combat these idiots is to come up with our own conspiracy theories and get them circulating and just see how extreme we can get them. There will be plenty of eager customers. Tim should offer a prize for the best ones that readers of this site can show they started and was then regurgitated by some lefty sucker on some lefty site.
How about there was semtex with Mossad’s name on it discovered at ground zero and the bloke who found it has disappeared. They won’t even think to ask how stupid that would be they’ll run with it.
Or how about that a plastic turkey was found at ground zero in perfect condition with no dust on it. Like some sort of horse’s head warning.
regards Kingsley
Posted by the nailgun on 2006 03 28 at 11:13 PM • permalinkNot to mention the inconvenient fact that Bin Laden admitted doing the deed. Of course if OBL’s own words don’t convince his butt boy wannabe, how can the rest of us have a hope?
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 03 28 at 11:29 PM • permalinkGosh Miss Lane, has anyone ever seen Fisk and the Sheen family together?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 28 at 11:34 PM • permalinkA friend of my brothers works in building demolitions. He handles the explosive setups and safety checks. They have to strip back most of the interior to get at the structural members, cut off most of the restraint bolts clamps and wrap the explosive up against each member on every floor all the way up. Also they have to drill holes between each floor for the prima cord and detonation wiring to be fed thru. Plus the parts they want to get at, the weakest links for the members are right where the members meet the floor line. The Twin Towers were at the time of construction an example of a unique exterior steel support design. Everybody in NY would have seen this conspiracy happening. Blowing out the internals would have pancaked them but would have left a lot of the steel structure standing and also would have appeared very different.
As the poster above quoted
“...anyone subscribing to these theories is either ignorant or an idiot. Probably both.”
He’s doing it to sell books to the nubs who believe this stuff no matter what the evidence shows. Also I agree that they seems to have a pathalogical need to believe in the big bad governments gonna get me idea. Perhaps only to fit in with their worldview.
Fisk shows once again that he’s an expert on just about everything. His genius in structural engineering is matched only by his nuance on American foreign policy and choice of friends.
81 Yeah Richard, at Ed Asner’s house just last week. Edward Said, Paul Wellstone, Betty Friedan and Andrea Dworkin were there too on a double date! (Andrea and Betty make a good looking couple). It was a heckuva...Party. Get it?
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 03 28 at 11:42 PM • permalink#34 Dave S.
James Blish gave the answer to that in his science fiction novel The Quincunx of Time, in which he gave an organization the motto Mundus Vult Decepi. That is Latin for: The World Wishes To Be Deceived.Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 03 28 at 11:58 PM • permalinkKudos to El Cid. You were spot on in every post. Must be some kind of genius if you agree with me, huh.
But, you guys keep coming up with facts and laws of nature, as though that is somehow important to those who wallow in conspiracies. Hey, they’ve got a right to have an opinion, don’t they?
Such as this from an acquaintance [may have done some editing, but this is the gist]:
“If the government can get away with something like 9-11, well...not really get away with it because I was smart enough to recognize their nefarious goings-on, but they were too clever for most peoplewho just refuse to see that the assumptions I’ve made in forming my airy-fairy opinions is on a par with any kind of informed and reasoned argument someone else might make.”“There, I’ve run rings ‘round your logic.” Monty Python
#61 - Humblogger, your new and improved Mr Sheen is going to give me nightmares for weeks. I’ll come back for a look at Fisky around, say, Christmas. All right?
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 03 29 at 08:08 AM • permalinkForget that bit before about Ed Asner going on CNN to back up Sheen’s 9/11 Denial. He was supposed to be on ‘Showbiz Tonight’, but the interview got pulled at the last minute.
Cue hysterical cries of ‘Censorship’ from 9/11 Deniers.
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 29 at 09:54 AM • permalink#88 SwinishCapitalist, thanks. Whatever you do, you definitely should avoid the two we’ve done of Michael Moore - especially the “Handsome-ature“. The stuff of nightmares.
Posted by Humblogger (the Younger) on 2006 03 29 at 10:14 AM • permalinkWell I don’t know what Paris is “thinking”, but we do know what Chelsie Clinton thought.
One of her friends said that her first thought upon seeing the attacks was because of the Bush tax cuts there would be no money to rebuild NYC. Yep, Stanford graduate.
I really don’t know whether he actually thought that but what the heck. Serious people want to know.
Ens Wrongway 21
As I recall in 1999, I was again chasing Stoop Davy Dave through time with the assistance of paco (who is absolutely no help whatsoever). We were supposed to go back two years to 1997 and prevent him from helping the Chicago Cubs win the World Series.
Accursed interlopers! We’ll see who has the last laugh! I’ll taunt you now, with two (2) taunts, to wit:
1/ When spelled backward, “Nyahaha!” rhymes ominously well with “Nyarlathotep!”
(But don’t pronounce either of them backward aloud; who knows what psychotic imps you’ll invoke.)2/ Thanks to your bumbling interference and accursed interlopery, the goats are not only pregnant NOW, but have “now” been pregnant SINCE 1997! Nyahaha!!!
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 03 29 at 12:56 PM • permalinkM.L. 84 Mundus Vult Decepi
The very wonderful 19th-century Virginia novelist James Branch Cabell used that as a running gag in his multi-volume bography of the descendents of Manuel the Swineherd, probably long before Blish was even a merry twinkle in his daddy’s eye.Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 03 29 at 01:03 PM • permalinkNailgun 79
I think the best way to combat these idiots is to come up with our own conspiracy theories and get them circulating and just see how extreme we can get them.
Holy crap! What if that’s how this one that we’re now complaining about got started?
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 03 29 at 01:06 PM • permalink94 Another “D’oh!” moment at stately Stoop Manor: Cabell was an early 20th century novelist, not 19th. meep.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 03 29 at 02:45 PM • permalinkOld Grouch 71
Maybe he got a letter from Iowahawk. And took it serious.
Well ... wouldn’t you? I know I would. And Wronwright ... ha! He wouldn’t even be able to open it, what with his fingers doing that curly wriggly wiggly thing they do whenever Iowahawk’s even mentioned.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 03 29 at 03:17 PM • permalinkThey’ll try and argue that it was our pre-911 policies that brought on the attack, but most of them watched the 2nd plane hit.
Well, mistaken as I think the first phrase of that is, it’s hardly incompatible with the second half. (Mistaken in that their premise is doubtless that if the US had only been nicer, nobody would have been all angry at us, not the more plausible premise that the attacks were facilitated by an appearance of US weakeness and pliability in the face of attack.)
There’s no incongruity between believing that US policy decisions and actions brought about an attack, and watching the attack happen; assigning blame stupidly is not the same as denying the act happened.
But, Yojimbo, there’s more. From Chelsea’s Talk Magazine article:
"I was expounding on the detriments of Bush’s tax cut as we approached Grand Central Terminal and were met with hordes of people running out of the station. Once we stopped running, I started praying. . . . I stopped berating the tax cut and started praying that the president would rise to lead us. And I thanked God my mother was a senator representing New York and that Rudy Giuliani was our mayor. I have never reacted more viscerally to a leader, particularly not to one I had been criticizing just the day before for some insensitivity or other.”
See, Chelsea is deeper than you thought.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 03 29 at 06:54 PM • permalinkVanguard—I thought they might be taking turns wearing the mask.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 29 at 10:00 PM • permalinkRM, oh they were taking turns all right…
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 03 29 at 11:02 PM • permalinkWell Stoop I haven’t read anything by Cabell and I did read Blish’es book, so I had to go with that.
I suppose it can also translate into English as: There’s a sucker born every minute. Not quite as literal, but it gets the idea across.
Better check what Wronwright is really doing with the Tardis. Karl has been wondering why the Sumerian mead is in short supply.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 03 30 at 12:31 AM • permalinkNailgun 79 & Stoop Davy Dave 95
Holy crap! What if that’s how this one that we’re now complaining about got started?
I was just going to say!
Martin Gardner said that he invented the “Pyramid Power” meme, and expected that, when he announced that he had started it in order to make a point about silly New Age fads, all the Pyramid Power people with their pyramid hats etc. would be terribly embarassed. But they weren’t.
I first learned that pyramid power could sharpen blunt razors and prevent apples from rotting from my 4th grade teacher. He got us to make little cardboard pyramids and put apples inside to prove that the apple wouldn’t rot by the next day if placed under a pyramid. And my high school geography teacher repeatedly warned us of the new Ice Age that would overwhelm us before the year 2000 (perhaps because of the Y2K bug?). Mind you, the 4th grade teacher also kept telling us about his numerous imaginary friends who always happened to be professional specialists on whichever subject he was discursing at the time, and the geography teacher believed STD’s originated from necrophiliac mummifiers in Ancient Egypt. They were laughing stocks even among young pupils who had little experience of life. I just don’t understand how people supposedly much older & wiser can be taken in (or claim to be taken in) by Fisk and his ilk.
However, Sept 11 comspiracy theories were already going around while the ruins were still warm. This is one of the more convincing.
Posted by Jim Geones on 2006 03 30 at 09:09 AM • permalink
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Robert Fisk, meet Charlie Sheen, one of those “serious people”!
It took more time, but some people say FDR knew about Pearl Harbor and let it happen to get in the war and start the military-industrial complex.
*sigh*