Terrorism/Media

[Clinamenic]

Virilio has been data-captured.

 

[luka]

 

[linebaugh]

@Mr. Tea

 

[jenks]

Read Richard J Evans Hitler Conspiracies recently in which he takes apart 5 key conspiracies and shows how patently untrue they are. It’s not hugely exciting to read - it is good old fashioned scholarship but I remember reading it and thinking how important it was that people like him are holding the line against the loons. He did similar good work in the Irving case many years ago where he forensically took apart every last part of Irving’s argument and tore apart any last vestige of Irving as a historian. Interestingly though when Evans came to write about this case - Telling Lies About Hitler - his publisher, Penguin, wouldn’t go near the book for fear of reprisals- Tariq Ali stepped forward and published it instead.

 

[craner]

We shamed all the authentic conspiracy theorists off the forum a decade ago, the ones that are left are merely gamers.

 

[luka]

this is one i read last night

 

[Mr. Tea]

@Mr. Tea

The interesting thing about the "inside job" 9/11 conspiracy theories, I think, is how totally solipsistic they are. They reduce history to a conspiracy perpetrated by the West, whether the victim is the rest of the world or the West itself. Bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and the hijackers are written out of the picture entirely. The idea that non-Westerners - but especially Arabs/Muslims, apparently - might have agendas and conspiracies of their own simply doesn't figure at all.

 

[Mr. Tea]

We shamed all the authentic conspiracy theorists off the forum a decade ago, the ones that are left are merely gamers.

Even for a noted sadist, this is a brutally crushing thing to say. I almost feel sorry for @luka.

 

[luka]

The interesting thing about the "inside job" 9/11 conspiracy theories, I think, is how totally solipsistic they are. They reduce history to a conspiracy perpetrated by the West, whether the victim is the rest of the world or the West itself. Bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and the hijackers are written out of the picture entirely. The idea that non-Westerners - but especially Arabs/Muslims, apparently - might have agendas and conspiracies of their own simply doesn't figure at all.

This is an argument that gets trotted out all the time, in various contexts. It's not a clincher. For some people it might be useful, to shake them out of a particular frame, but it proves nothing in and of itself.

 

[linebaugh]

Don't have much of one, as I don't know much about it. I don't think it was an inside job

The interesting thing about the "inside job" 9/11 conspiracy theories

Fair. But more interesting would be the response to what isn't the bottom of the barrell, hard line 'it was Bush's plan conceived with the devil' inside jobs types. There's degrees to the skepticism

 

[version]

This is an argument that gets trotted out all the time, in various contexts. It's not a clincher. For some people it might be useful, to shake them out of a particular frame, but it proves nothing in and of itself.

There's some merit to it, but it's also a sneaky way of just calling someone a racist instead of refuting their argument.

 

[luka]

thats essentially what it boils down to yep

 

[version]

Ive noticed 9/11 theories becoming slowly acceptable online in the way JFK theories are. I wonder how it's legacy will look in 50 years

Did Spike Lee prompt you to bump this thread?

 

[luka]

there's a lot of it about on twitter these days eg

 

[Mr. Tea]

This is an argument that gets trotted out all the time, in various contexts. It's not a clincher. For some people it might be useful, to shake them out of a particular frame, but it proves nothing in and of itself.

It completely skewers the hardline inside-job theory, because it requires the existence of a large number of actors so dedicated to helping the US "deep state" perpetrate a fake terror attack that they were prepared either to die in the process or to spend the rest of their lives in a prison camp. It's the fever dream of a halfwit, which is precisely why it appeals to you so strongly.

 

[luka]

not really. you dont think these things through. you just pick up what seems to you a useful line of attack from someone else, and keep using it, in every circumstance. it's a bit tedious really.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Fair. But more interesting would be the response to what isn't the bottom of the barrell, hard line 'it was Bush's plan conceived with the devil' inside jobs types. There's degrees to the skepticism

The idea that one or more fairly senior people in the US intelligence establishment had some idea that something major was brewing, and either failed to prevent it through massive incompetence or wilfully declined to do anything for whatever reason, is orders of magnitude more plausible, and at any rate far harder to falsify, than the inside-job idiocy.

 

[version]

The idea that one or more fairly senior people in the US intelligence establishment had some idea that something major was brewing, and either failed to prevent it through massive incompetence or wilfully declined to do anything for whatever reason, is orders of magnitude more plausible, and at any rate far harder to falsify, than the inside-job idiocy.

Both those theories fall under "inside job".

 

[Mr. Tea]

not really. you dont think these things through. you just pick up what seems to you a useful line of attack from someone else, and keep using it, in every circumstance. it's a bit tedious really.

That's not actually an argument though, is it?

 

[version]

😂