Ron Paul Praises "Fantastic" Article on His Website Claiming 9/11 Was Perpetrated by the American Government

Ron Paul offers his standard defense here, the same defense he's used with respect to, say, his frequent appearances on the Alex Jones show -- he's such a rootin'-tootin' fan of liberty that he does not wish to discriminate against anyone on the basis of their belief system. More speech, not less. More voices, not fewer.

Of course, Ron Paul does not publish criticisms of Ron Paul on his website, nor refutations of his own various claims; if he's published a "Three Cheers for the Fed!" piece, I don't know about it.

So I find his claim that these pieces just keep on making it onto his website and into his newsletters (sometimes above the signature "Ron Paul") merely because of a studious commitment to strong-form non-discrimination against view points to be false and phony.

Obviously he exerts some degree of personal choice and discretion when he chooses to publish crap like this. Obviously he thinks this article has something important to tell us all -- indeed, he claims that 99% of it is "fantastic."

Reason has reprinted almost one-third of the article, or, by their accounting, 30%.

If 99% of the piece was "fantastic," that means that somewhere around 96% of the below must be "fantastic" as well:

The most serious blow of all is the dawning realization everywhere that Washington's crackpot conspiracy theory of 9/11 is false. Large numbers of independent experts as well as more than one hundred first responders have contradicted every aspect of Washington's absurd conspiracy theory. No aware person believes that a few Saudi Arabians, who could not fly airplanes, operating without help from any intelligence agency, outwitted the entire National Security State, not only all 16 US intelligence agencies but also all intelligence agencies of NATO and Israel as well.

Nothing worked on 9/11....

For the first time in history low temperature, short-lived, fires on a few floors caused massive steel structures to weaken and collapse. For the first time in history 3 skyscrapers fell at essentially free fall acceleration without the benefit of controlled demolition removing resistance from below.

Two-thirds of Americans fell for this crackpot story. The left-wing fell for it, because they saw the story as the oppressed striking back at America's evil empire. The right-wing fell for the story, because they saw it as the demonized Muslims striking out at American goodness. President George W. Bush expressed the right-wing view very well: "They hate us for our freedom and democracy."

...

Italians were among the first to make video presentations challenging Washington's crackpot story of 9/11. The ultimate of this challenge is the 1 hour and 45 minute film, "Zero." You can watch it here. [You can google this Truther movie if you like -- ace.]

...

It is impossible for anyone who watches this film to believe one word of the official explanation of 9/11.

The conclusion is increasingly difficult to avoid that elements of the US government blew up three New York skyscrapers in order to destroy Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah and to launch the US on the neoconservatives agenda of US world hegemony.

Paul goes on to claim that anyone who finds fault with him for continuing to peddle batshit-crazy conspiracy theories which appeal to infirm and broken minds are guilty of "political correctness."

It's not political correctness.

I know a lot of people on the right really dig conspiracy theories (as well as people on the left), but for people who take a more sober view of events and intentionality, who don't view at as an action-packed thriller movie in which all significant historical events are hostaed by a conveniently-detestable Black Hat Villain or Black Hat Organization working the levers and dials of History, this mode of thinking is crude, childish, and deranged.

Human beings are not particularly well-suited for thinking about abstraction. When humans talk about the quantum-level world, we describe in terms of "orbitals" and "spin," even though those things have nothing at all to do with quantum mechanics, and in fact are deeply misleading.

But we need to relate these imponderable abstractions to something that makes sense to us on a gut level, something that we have some tangible appreciation for.

Large events and impersonal social forces are often too big to wrap our minds around. They are largely abstract, and hard for us to process. Conspiracy thinking reduces large impersonal forces to something the average human can comprehend: Human intention, human villainy.

We all understand that some people are just wicked and cruel. And thus wicked, cruel events are most easily digested as originating from something comprehensible -- these Black Hat Villains planned this all.

When horrible things happen, we have emotional reactions, of course. But emotion is geared to be directed at other human beings.

In fact, even when we know exactly who committed a particularly distressing and large evil act -- as in the case of 9/11, or JFK's assassination -- some of us still find the need to postulate larger villainies behind it all.

More emotionally satisfying villainies.

That a great man (so the thinking goes) like John F. Kennedy could have been killed by a failure, a loser, a broken Communist weakling like Lee Harvey Oswald is too much to bear.

Thus, John F. Kennedy must have been murdered by the "dark chatter" of the rightwing in Dallas 1963.

Or even, as Oliver Stone's film suggests: President Lyndon Baines Johnson. After all, who has the power to kill one Warrior King but another Warrior King?

This isn't about political correctness-- it's about an aversion to thinking that frankly isn't "political" at all.

This sort of thinking is Shadow Politics. What it really is a psychological reaction to the incomprehensible and quasi-religious mythmaking.

It may appear political -- it's designed to -- but what it really is a deep psychological drive to make some kind of tangible sense out of a chaotic world that seems too big, and inventing mythic stories to explain it all, scarcely any different than early humans sitting around the campfire and positing that each night, a great dark serpent devoured the sun, and each morning he vomited it back up.

This isn't about political correctness, because it's not even about politics in the first place.

It's really just about deciding who is relatively sane, and whose judgment can be (to some extent) trusted, and who seems to be haunted by the Demons and Ghost-Snakes of 100,000 BC, and who seems, quite frankly, to be crazy.

It's Interesting That He Cites the Italians for Their Perspicacity... because that lets me talk about my favorite Italian word, furbo,, meaning full of cunning and slyness.

"Furbo" is very important in Italian culture. Even more than in our own.

Let's say, for example, I say I believe George Bush that Al Qaeda perpetrated 9/11.

The fact that I'm saying I believe him exposes me to several risks. What if he's lying? If he's lying to me, he's played me for a fool. I would have shown that my furbo is rather weak.

But what if I instantly claim he's lying, instead? Well, then I can never be accused of having had the wool pulled over my eyes by him. My furbo would be strong.

Now, most cultures, of course, respect skeptics and treat the guileless as amiable fools.

But in many cultures, you can only show so much furbo before you begin looking like a fool from the other direction. Not a fool because of what you believe; but a fool because of the incredibly long list of things you don't.

Italy, however, prizes furbo to the extent that it's pretty hard to be considered a fool based on your conspiracy-theorizing. Italy overvalues furbo, and undervalues skepticism about skepticism itself.

Italians pride themselves on their ability to offer a cynical conspiracy-theory counter-explanation for any event they witness. That guy just donated a million lira to an anti-hunger organization? Well, it's probably because he'll actually be selling them services and goods in their anti-hunger efforts. He'll wind up making out like a bandit, believe you me.

Furbo is king in Italy. And there's not nearly enough skepticism about these barely-considered conspiracy theories offered as alt-history explanations for everything. It's very hard to go too far with your furbo in Italy.

The more outrageous your conspiracy theory -- like, for example, that Amanda Knox killed her roommate because she was part of a Satanic cult that collected female genitals for use in summoning rituals -- the more furbo you're showing, and all the better.

I mean, sure there's no evidence against Knox and she appears innocent. But that's just what the Satan Cult would arrange, isn't it? If you believe her when she says "I'm not part of a Satanic cult killing women in ritual sex-orgies," you expose yourself to the risk of having her out-furbo you.

I mean, what if she's actually guilty? There's a one in a million chance of that, and we just can't take that risk.

Now in some quarters in America, furbo is also king. In Ron Paul's world, for example.

But we're not quite as enthusiastic about furbo in America, so the rest of us view this all as the babbling of silly clowns.

posted by Ace at 01:42 PM

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