08-07-2011, 02:40 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-07-2011, 06:01 PM by Charles Drago.)
Ed Jewett Wrote:"Disinformation is not unique to the right, of course. Like other journalists, I have been the object of malevolent assaults from the 9/11 truthers' for not reporting their airtight case proving that the Bush administration conspired to bring about the attacks on the World Trade Center. How did they discover this conspiracy? As the independent journalist Robert Parry has written, the truthers' threw out all the evidence of al-Qaeda's involvement, from contemporaneous calls from hijack victims on the planes to confessions from al-Qaeda leaders both in and out of captivity that they had indeed done it. Then, recycling some of the right's sophistry techniques, such as using long lists of supposed evidence to overcome the lack of any real evidence, the truthers' cherry-picked a few supposed anomalies' to build an inside-job' story line.
My Dear Mr. Moyer:
Your second sentence reveals a controlling emotional subtext; you are offended, and you will have your revenge.
Next, you assert your understanding of the nature of disinformation. Yet in the same sentence you resort to presentation of the sort of straw man fallacy that is one of disinformation's most commonly utilized and effective components: you imply that those who find fatal fault with the parent state's conspiracy theory act as a monolithic entity as they proclaim that "the Bush administration conspired to bring about the attacks on the World Trade Center."
Are you, sir, a victim or a practitioner of disinformation? See below for my conclusion.
I inform you of the following:
1. There is no 9-11 conspiracy "community" other than that comprised of parent state-approved spokespersons and the "scientists" and media pimps who do their bidding. 9-11 research has been Balkanized by ego, greed, hostile actions by coverup facilitators, and honest differences of opinion.
2. I know of not a single 9-11 researcher with highly developed deep political insight who fingers the "Bush Administration" as the collective sponsor of the conspiracy.
3. Both you and Mr. Parry would inject "al-Qaeda" into this debate with the understanding that it exists as the parent state describes it. It's best that you learn this from me: Opinion to the contrary exists -- well-informed, courageously espoused, persuasive opinion. You and Mr. Parry, if I may borrow the phrase, have "thrown out" all such opinion in rushing to support the unsupportable.
4. You and/or Mr. Parry (talk about a distinction without a difference) assert that 9-11 researchers present "long lists of supposed evidence to overcome the lack of any real evidence" (itself a neat description of the actions of the parent state's propagandists). With yours and Mr. Parry's dismissals of all evidence suggestive of conspiracy (other than the model approved by the parent state), you would have us draw the inference that you have objectively reviewed said evidence and that your conclusions as to its collective lack of validity trump those of the thousands of accomplished and respected scientists whose objective studies have raised challenges to the official conspiracy theory.
Yet neither you nor Mr. Parry offer any support for your conclusions other than deference to arguments from your own cherry-picked "authorities."
5. You may have noted that I have not used the term "Truthers" to describe those who reject the parent state's official 9-11 conspiracy theory.
You fancy yourself a wordsmith, Mr. Moyers. Think, then, about how and why, in a single word, those who seek the truth have been marginalized and demonized.
One wonders how the authors of the line, "We hold these truths to be self-evident" would have been characterized by their parent state.
Which side would you and Mr. Parry have been on?
Finally, we return to my previously posed question: Are you, sir, a victim or a practitioner of disinformation?
The simple, inescapable answer: Yes.