Brooker on 9/11 conspiracies

[noel emits]

I'm happy to keep an open mind, and there is certainly a range of possibilities and a spectrum of plausibility, and I agree that there are holes in the official story, I just don't think its worth dedicating your life to.

Yes droid, agree with here on all fronts.

Still, I do think that the weight of evidence is that the officially approved narrative does not adequately explain those events or exactly who was behind them. And I don't consider this to be a 'conspiracy theory' as such. It is just obvious and logical that when on the one hand so much does not make sense or is highly improbable, and on the other hand you have a large amount of evidence, connections and 'coincidences' suggesting other possibilities, well at some point you have to conclude that 1+1+1+1+1+1.... might just add up to at least 1.5, no matter how difficult that may be to stomach or how resistant you are to the idea of 'conspiracies'. That's how I see it, that's how I weigh it up. This isn't a 'theory' though. And it might suggest the existence of a 'conspiracy', but that's kind of a meaningless term as it just implies people working together to do stuff they don't want others to know about. And that of course describes the function of many organisations, 'legitimate' or otherwise.

Spare me the self-righteousness, noel. I was pretty fair -- if I wasn't, and I included in my summary items not attributable to you, point them out.

Bollocks vimothy, it's not at all self-righteousness to object to having words put in one's mouth or one's position grossly misrepresented. If anything I was being polite and should really ask you to edit that post. I didn't because I don't think anyone read your 'summary' as having to do with what I was actually saying or my reasons for saying it.

In response to the rather one-sided, one-dimensional discussion and gang-banging of 'conspiracy theorists' or anyone who even questioned the tales of power that was going on here, I listed and discussed a number of ways in which aspects of those events and the background to them can and have been understood. What you stated as being 'according to noel' was to draw absolute lines between those dots as if to form a complete and definite statement about exactly what happened.

 

[noel emits]

no one from the inside has revealed it as an inside job, this would have happened ages and ages ago especially for something on this scale, which, would have meant a huge plot ( to murder friends and colleagues) that would have to be kept quiet.

Not to get into arguing over details again but I think this still supposes a rather either/or sort of viewpoint in terms of conceptualising this. And it includes quite a few assumptions anyway. As for what 'inside' means it depends on who 'they' are, and who 'they' consider themselves to be.

Also that there have been no whistle-blowers, and what would actually happen if someone did try to reveal something. How would they? What would they reveal exactly - documents? What channels would they go through? Would they believed? Would they get airtime in the mainstream media? Or would they be discredited by association with 'conspiracy theorists'? Or what would be at stake for them or their families? I think a better way to look at that is in terms of organised crime for instance, rather than imagining it would need some vast all-powerful organisation to keep insiders on the inside.
For one thing there's a code of loyalty and dedication to cause that overrides any other considerations and goes back generations. Secondly there is an assurance of absolutely guaranteed and brutal retribution for breaking the code. And thirdly there is a highly developed system of hierarchy of command, compartmentalisation and obfuscation of culpability.

And like people have said, governments and large organisations do all kinds of awful things all the time, often to their 'own' countries. And thousands of soldiers are sent to their deaths and to kill hundreds of thousands of others while bland beaurocrats dispassionately push papers.

Osama bin laden has claimed responsibility, discussed the bombing, on grounds which we all understand very well, threatened further attacks and further attacks have been carried out, men have pleaded guilty to them.

Bin Laden may well be quite convinced that he is responsible. I doubt it does his allegedly volatile ego any harm.

 

[noel emits]

9/11 conspiracy theories are interesting to me along two dimensions. Firstly, I find them to be a peculiar kind of solipsism. It's all about us, us, us, me, me, me at the centre of it all. If a tree falls in the developing world, it's somehow connected to the actions of the "west", probably some combination of colonialism and neo-colonialism.

Unlike the idea of 'blowback', then.

But I don't think that holds true anyway. Conspiracy theories are often exactly the opposite of this - they are about 'them', not 'us' at the centre of it all. That's why leftists and anarchists are often very reluctant to engage with those ideas at all because they consider them potentially 'dis-empowering', and I can certainly understand that in terms of conceptualising a large and powerful conspiracy.

9/11 conspiracy theories obviously come in many forms and arise for many reasons but broadly I would say they are about people saying 'this stuff you are telling us doesn't make sense and you guys are plainly lying'. And asking, why? And, how?

It's all about geopolitics as computer game, except we're the only ones playing.

Not sure what you mean by this. It's not like the 'bearded bad-guys plot in caves (not my idea!) in Afghanistan to fly planes into buildings which then dramatically collapse' bears no relation to a video game though! Are you referring to something like this idea from the article you linked to earlier?

'9/11 was the collateral damage of a clash within Islam. The view that 9/11 was the result of a conflict within the Muslim world was brilliantly articulated in early 2002 by middle east scholar Michael Scott Doran in a Foreign Affairs essay, "Somebody Else's Civil War." Doran argued that Bin Laden's followers "consider themselves an island of true believers surrounded by a sea of iniquity and think that the future of religion itself, and therefore the world depends on them and their battle." In particular, Egyptians in al Qaeda, such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, hold this view, inheriting it from Sayyid Qutb, who believed that most of the modern middle east is living in a state of pagan ignorance. The Egyptian jihadists believed that they should overthrow the "near enemy"—middle east regimes run by "apostate" rulers. Bin Laden took the next step, urging Zawahiri that the root of the problem was not the "near enemy" but the "far enemy," the US, which propped up the status quo in the middle east.'
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7717

That's still essentially a 'blowback' hypothesis.

Secondly, conspiracy theories tend to the belief that governments are all powerful.

Just because some types of thinking around scary and inevitably 'paranoid' areas involving unknowns tend towards inflation doesn't mean that such things don't exist. To paraphrase Woody Allen?

But would you disagree that state related organisations can actually be competent in certain very specific areas? And that logically those would be the one's they operate in. If the less scrupulous parts of state apparatus want to do illegal stuff then they have specialist retainers they can call on. It's not hard and doesn't for one second suggest omnipotence. al-Qaeda isn't all powerful. And again I would refer to the organised crime model.

The fact that problems persist is not proof that they are not, but that they are malevolent.

The fact that they should have to do extreme violent shit in the first place should be proof enough that they are not all powerful. It's desperate! But the scale of corruption that we see at those levels now are effectively malevolent, yes.

Hence, AIDS is curable but the cure is suppressed, the developing world could be rich if our governments wanted it, the US military can make people invisible, 9/11 was an inside job, the Apollo moon landing was faked -- everything would be fine if only the powers that be would click their fingers and make it so.

Well you can't conflate all these things as if they are part of a coherent belief system that must be subscribed to in bulk. But maybe things would be better if power and wealth hadn't been quite so effectively concentrated and wasn't so appallingly short sighted.

But I do appreciate that you are talking about conspiracy theory culture in general and I do think that is an interesting and useful discussion to have for sure. So maybe more later.

 

[noel emits]

Im gonna go and link to this article and institutional vs conspiracy thinking again. I believe this is the crux of the matter and it hasnt really been defined here.

Yeah, looks like good stuff. Link was broken though. This works: http://www.zmag.org/zmag/viewArticle/13107

And the original dissensus 911 thread: http://www.dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=3418

Good thread, I can see that a lot of this stuff was covered there - also that I didn't really want to engage with it at the time.

I do find myself in agreement with much of what Padraig has to say there in some ways.

I think the difficulty here is with the gratuitous labelling of some stance, any stance [political or otherwise] that is outside the dominant ideology and its media outlets as "conspiracy theory", for it presupposes some irrefutable, established knowledge [factual or analytic] on the part of the one doing the labelling, so conflating issues of paranoia with those of conspiracy. [For instance, is the claim that 19 members of Al-Kaida flew planes into the WTC itself not a "conspiracy theory"? If you refute this, upon what do you base your refutation? ie. conspiracy works both ways ... is inescapable, unless one is a smug gliberal post-modernist, who somehow always-already simply "knows"]

Yes, we know that the problems are inherently structural [the interpellated symbolic network of Big Other Kapital], but this does not mean that we should pay no attention to its Agents, or fail to continue to report on their behaviour.

The rational difficulty that arises with the outright rejection of all conspiracies of whetever ilk - because they're too "simple" or too "ridiculous" or just downright paranoid and devoid of "common sense" (another ideological construction) - is that the very power relations that conspiracies hint at or point to are also rejected, the world of social relations are depoliticised, the real of social power is rejected outright: such a reactionary move is thus away from the collective-political and towards the personal-subjective - one seeks refuge in personal fantasies, which then become the "real" while the "outside" world itself becomes a "fantasy", a dream, a crazy hallucination of meaningless phantasms, appearances and floating signifiers. The result of such a retreat into "solipsistic narcissism", into a limitless fantasy Ego, is the pathology of dissolving all analyses of actual power relations in the external world into mere "subjective neurosis", a reversal of the true state of affairs

This above is a really interesting point I think and deserves further consideration.

Theres a fine line between William Blum and Mike Ruppert, and the line tends to shift, IMO

Any love for Daniel Hopsicker? One of the few people actually doing on the ground investigative journalism.

http://www.madcowprod.com/
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6618076520601759159

Conspiracy theories can be a kind of creative dissent. Perhaps this is part of the reason we find them interesting; because they're a form of creative endevour.

So conspiracy theories as a kind of spontaneous mass correctional drive to deconstruct imposed dominant narratives.

 

[vimothy]

This above is a really interesting point I think and deserves further consideration.

Sort of what I said, but I think HMLT has it exactly back-to-front.

 

[vimothy]

What you stated as being 'according to noel' was to draw absolute lines between those dots as if to form a complete and definite statement about exactly what happened.

If you remember, you said them as if they were absolute because "it gets tedious finding innumerable ways to say 'it is possible that'". You continue to present pure speculation as some kind of evidence of "conspiracy"/"manipulacy". So,

at some point you have to conclude that 1+1+1+1+1+1.... might just add up to at least 1.5

represents the fact that if 1+1+1... then at least 1.5. IF. Nothing more than that.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Sort of what I said, but I think HMLT has it exactly back-to-front.

What, on the point about the narcissism/solipsism of believing/not believing in CTs? Yeah, I see what you mean.

 

[vimothy]

I think the idea that the world is run by one man/group, or at least that events are steered by a small number of people is actually much more conforting than the world as giant stochastic impersonal process, where we're barely meaningful, without-influence gnats in the machine.

 

[Mr. Tea]

So - to use religious language for a moment - do you think some people are so scared of the idea of a wholly godless universe that if they can't be saved by Christ, they'd rather be manipulated by the Devil?

 

[vimothy]

Exactly

 

[vimothy]

And -- as any fule satanist kno -- acknowledging the existence of the devil presupposes (in some sense) the existence, or at least, the possibility, of christ.

 

[noel emits]

Sort of what I said, but I think HMLT has it exactly back-to-front.

I don't think so. Although I wouldn't have introduced solipsism into this as a theme at all. Your point doesn't make sense for me - because it seems to be predicated in this case on the notion that 9/11 was all about middle-east stuff. No, wait - I have no idea what you are trying to say with that at all actually:

9/11 conspiracy theories are interesting to me along two dimensions. Firstly, I find them to be a peculiar kind of solipsism. It's all about us, us, us, me, me, me at the centre of it all. If a tree falls in the developing world, it's somehow connected to the actions of the "west", probably some combination of colonialism and neo-colonialism.

?

represents the fact that if 1+1+1... then at least 1.5. IF. Nothing more than that.

That's a deliberately most conservative assessment on my part - I'm saying that at the absolute very least there is something to some of that speculation, in my opinion. There just is, I don't care how it sounds.

I read Illuminatus! when I was a teenager and have long understood where the themes of conspiracy speculation can go. I've explored the ideas, laughed at them and been a total sceptic. This is not new territory to me - I'm not coming at it as some great revelation that OMG teh shadow govt. is up to no goodz!. This is different, I think there's something there. Being stuck on the idea that conspiracy theory is all loony just helps to stop otherwise sensible and intelligent people considering that. RAW said they wrote that stuff lampooning conspiracy culture but that subsequently he had to admit much of it seemed to be coming true!

I think the idea that the world is run by one man/group, or at least that events are steered by a small number of people is actually much more conforting than the world as giant stochastic impersonal process, where we're barely meaningful, without-influence gnats in the machine.

I'm sure I don't need to restate that a suspicion of 'conspiracy' in a particular instance does not necessarily imply that the whole world is absolutely controlled by a small group of people. There may be, well obviously there are, groups with certain agendas that have a certain degree of influence in certain areas, though. Stochastics, and good old incompetence theory, do not completely account for everything, or if they try to you end up doing away with the culpability of certain dickheads - some shit is done by definite people, sometimes for naughty reasons. It's not about plumping for what's more comforting to believe, that's nonsense.

I guess we should be clear about whether we are analysing conspiracy theory, conspiracy theory culture, 9/11 Truth culture, or 9/11 in particular. There is some interesting stuff here. For one thing how different sides of the debate can apparently paradoxically accuse each other of leading to potentially dangerous positions of perceived powerlessness, solipsism and/or taking refuge in comfortable fictions! Quite apart from differences of opinion that's a bit weird isn't it?

 

[noel emits]

Funny you should say this as those you have quoted above represent a spectrum of political views, some at the opposite end to the others. Maybe 'logical factionalism' would be more accurate.

'Logical factionalism', yes same point really I guess. Depends where you draw the lines, but they are always movable to an extent whenever there are unknowns involved, as there always are of course.

I read through the Zmag article you linked to - I thought the definitions given at the top were useful and some of it is fair comment, but I certainly didn't agree with all of it. It approaches some of the same logical problems we've seen through this thread as well, stuff like this - my comments in italics:

Why is conspiracy theorizing popular among critics of injustice?

First, conspiracy theories reveal evidence that can identify actual events needing other explanation.

Well that's not a bad thing is it, but anyway...

Second, conspiracy theories have manageable implications. They imply that all was once well and that it can be okay again if only the conspirators can be removed. Conspiracy theories explain ills without forcing us to disavow society’s underlying institutions. They allow us to admit horrors and to express our indignation and anger or undertake vendettas, but without rejecting the basic norms of society.

They might imply this or allow that but only I think if you are coming from such a position in the first place. Other than that I don't see that a given investigation of a posited conspiracy is exclusive with an underlying political or structural awareness.

How do conspiracy theories lead to harmful political inclinations and allegiances?

Not only is it a way to rationalize injustices and suffering without calling basic institutions into account, it leads to the thinking that injustice is an inevitable part of the human equation—some folks are bad, so we get lots of bad outcomes.

Not at all. You can spend a lifetime questioning basic institutions and assumptions and still take issue with a particular case or event. As for where where this leads surely it is also the opposite as the reasoning behind much conspiracy theory is actually that injustice is not all inevitable and is instead the result of actual people meddling in world affairs. This may not be the whole of the matter either but the logic in the above statement is missing. You could say exactly the same thing about stochastic 'explanations' and incompetence theory.

 

[vimothy]

Had an interesting chat the other night, that seems relevant to this discussion. A lad (Jaff) on our footy team is writing a PhD on the political economy of a development project in Mexico, using Lefebvre's The Production of Space. We had a pretty mint argument about stuff, but what struck me was something he said about Paul Krugman. He described Paul Krugman as a capitalist shill, a neo-liberal and a neo-colonialist! I thought it was weird that -- and Jaff is obviously pretty smart -- here is Krugman, arguably the most recognised, strident, progressive voice in American intellectual life, about whom Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said "I'd like to bitch-slap him", the man described by Donald Luskin as "America's most dangerous liberal pundit" and the subject of a regular hate column in NRO for years, being denounced as a right-wing shill!

I was also struck, when over at Moon of Alabama, how the NYT is regularly described as propaganda for the New World Order, whereas when over at, say, LGF or Belmont Club it is more likely to be described as propaganda for the 'hate America left'.

 

[vimothy]

& I can't help but read this discussion into your posts on religion, and vice versa, noel.

 

[noel emits]

& I can't help but read this discussion into your posts on religion, and vice versa, noel.

If there are parallels in the two discussions it's not inherent to my posts specifically is it?

As I see it this is simply a disagreement about evidence and interpretation. To bring in analyses of the pathology of conspiracy (um, theory) culture or the lack of imagination of the traditional left and all that stuff is to conflate issues as Padraig said.

Of course each side here sees the others as having a position based on conjecture, and of course that is inevitably true to an extent.

You continue to present pure speculation as some kind of evidence of "conspiracy"/"manipulacy".

It's not 'pure' speculation though is it, it's derived from evidence and circumstance and facts and background and opinion, at least as much what you think you 'know'. Really.

The discussion started with Brooker and others coming from the position that interpretations of these events other than the one laid down by the US Govt. and it's agencies were utterly inconceivable. So that's the basic point of contention isn't it?

I don't think I have the full picture, I don't think anyone does, I have some suspicions about it that I think are reasonable though.

 

[vimothy]

It's not 'pure' speculation though is it, it's derived from evidence and circumstance and facts and background and opinion, at least as much what you think you 'know'. Really.

!!!!

 

[noel emits]

I think the idea that the world is run by one man/group, or at least that events are steered by a small number of people is actually much more

conforting than the world as giant stochastic impersonal process, where we're barely meaningful, without-influence gnats in the machine.

This is carp IMO. For a start it's a false binary and the same kind of broad-stroke thinking as in the article that spawned this thread. It's also essentially getting into a discussion of perception and cosmic ontology which move I think demonstrates clearly the pervasive assumption that if a thing is called 'conspiracy theory' then it must by definition be simply the result of paranoid thinking and therefore to be immediately judged beyond the pale!

Universe as MEANINGLESS STOCHASTIC PROCESS vs MEGA-CONSPIRACY

Yes, it must be one or the other of these EXTREMES, which do you choose?

I think if you were to insist on that as a binary, or even relevant here, which I wouldn't, then you'd have say that both of those things would actually be located on the same negative pole anyway! The world as we generally experience it may reflect aspects of these 'realities' and others, but the truth as ever would be found somewhere in the middle with other axes operating simultaneously.

Further, to suggest that people might only be concerned with the possibility of such horrible goings-on as false flag terrorism or worse because they find it COMFORTING is a rather curious thing to imagine. Of course this would be nothing like the comfort of pre-emptively dismissing anything that doesn't appear to readily fit your preconceptions as evidence of others clinging to grim security blankets! For myself I'd say that sort of stuff is the last thing I'd want to think actually happens.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it might be COMFORTING to believe oneself MERELY an INSIGNIFICANT part of an IMPLACABLE MECHANISTIC PROCESS devoid of MEANING and therefore relieved of, for one thing, RESPONSIBILITY, because again it's an extreme pole on a false binary and, you know, a cheap shot.

So - to use religious language for a moment - do you think some people are so scared of the idea of a wholly godless universe that if they can't be saved by Christ, they'd rather be manipulated by the Devil?

Superstitious SAVAGES! Unable to face up to the STARK TRUTH and APPALLED by the cold light of REASON they must instead abase themselves with DEVIL WORSHIP! Do these FOOLS not know that SCIENCE has explained everything. thus removing all further UNCERTAINTY and need for ENQUIRY? Do they not trust the EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE of their SENSES which PROVES beyond question the existence of QUARKS and MESONS, thus dispelling forever such outlandish creations as ELVES and FAIRIES?

And -- as any fule satanist kno -- acknowledging the existence of the devil presupposes (in some sense) the existence, or at least, the possibility, of christ.

I don't think all Satanists recognise this, if they did they'd more correctly identify as crypto-Christians, is it not.

Of course there are Satanists and there are Satanists.

 

[noel emits]

Looking at all of this now I think something rather odd has happened here, and perhaps more broadly, in discussing conspiracy, and it really should have been apparent sooner. That is, the conflating of the idea of the 'classic' extreme paranoid conception of the universe, with the expositor / protagonist placed at the centre of a vast plot of some sort, with - the investigation of suspicious goings on in the world, elsewhere and separately. You know, for the most part the details of 9/11 conspiracy theories have nothing in particular to do with the people postulating or musing on them, they are generally not included except as curious or concerned spectators. Of course there is some overlap in some cases, and it is always somewhat perilous territory, but really these are different things and it's an example of how the phrase 'conspiracy theory' has picked up this curious baggage, unlike Mohamed Atta.

Anyway I'm glad that thorny Anthrax business is all neatly sewn up now. At least there's no suggestion of official deception there.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Superstitious SAVAGES! Unable to face up to the STARK TRUTH and APPALLED by the cold light of REASON they must instead abase themselves with DEVIL WORSHIP! Do these FOOLS not know that SCIENCE has explained everything. thus removing all further UNCERTAINTY and need for ENQUIRY? Do they not trust the EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE of their SENSES which PROVES beyond question the existence of QUARKS and MESONS, thus dispelling forever such outlandish creations as ELVES and FAIRIES?

Oh come on, that's not the point I was making, and you know it's not. I was just expanding on what Vimothy was talking about, namely the comfort some people might draw from belief in a (seemingly) all-powerful agent in the world, even if, paradoxically, it is largely malicious in intent.

If you want to talk (or even rant and rave) about evidence and empiricism, we could start with the dramatic disparity in the standards to which evidence supporting conspiracy theories and evidence supporting the 'official version' is held, by supporters of the former...