How much does it really matter?

[Timothy]

On another forum I frequent, a "Where were you on 9/11?" thread was started. A diverse group, age range 18-50, mostly highly opinionated but not particularly political.

Of the 71 different posters, not one gave any indication of having any "troofer" tendencies; most simply posted where they were, what they were doing, and their sadness at the events.

Not one peep about conspiracy.

How much does the general public really care about 9/11 conspiracy theories? Other than on internet sites devoted to promoting or debunking, I have *never* had a conversation where someone claimed to hold conspiracy beliefs.

If anyone has references to scientifically conducted polls on the topic, I'd love to hear them (self-selected internet opinion "polls" are worthless).

While the "troofers" are incredibly vocal and prolific, how much do they really matter?

 

[quixotecoyote]

They cared enough for the History Channel and Popular Mechanics to devote time to...

 

[plumjam]

this has nothing specifically to do with 9/11.
but your demand for precise supported information would have been similarly useless during the made up Gulf of Tonkin incident which cost around 3 million lives, the Reichstag incident which cost at the least one life, and at the most 50 million lives. Also the Polish "infraction across the border" which was false, and cost the same 50 million lives.
All these were useful lies.
Whether 9/11 was a useful lie or not I'm not entirely certain... I'd say at the moment I'm a bit of an agnostic.
I'd just say that you should recognise the nature of governments and what is most useful to governments

 

[Gravy]

There are several posts about polls (some written by the truthers and conducted by Zogby) here: http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/search?q=polls

The percentage of people who believe that the U.S. government planned the attacks is small, but more believe that the government may have known in advance that the attacks were coming and did nothing to stop them. In Muslim countries the percentage of people who believe that the U.S., and not Islamist extremists, were behind the attacks is large.

It's important. There is a vast problem with critical thinking out there.

 

[Gravy]

I'd just say that you should recognise the nature of governments and what is most useful to governments

Or, you could just learn the facts. Give it a shot, plumjam.

 

[plumjam]

Or, you could just learn the facts. Give it a shot, plumjam.

yeah, i'm just wondering whether after the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" you'd have been up there, standing up for truth, to save society and your fellow man from the abuses of power...
I don't know for sure... cos I don't know you as a person. But from what I know about you just from the JREF forum you'd have been loathe to attack the lying government position of the time.
Maybe i'm misconstruing you, who knows.

 

[stanleywinthrop]

yeah, i'm just wondering whether after the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" you'd have been up there, standing up for truth, to save society and your fellow man from the abuses of power...

Your logic fails when the facts of the two "alleged" incidents are examined.

Golf of Tonkin:
Witnesses: maybe a couple of dozen.
Physical evidence: A single 14.5mm bullet
Casualties: 0

9/11:
Witness: Thousands.
Physical Evidence: A small mountain of it. (Ground Zero for example)
Casualties: Over three thousand.

 

[plumjam]

Your logic fails when the facts of the two "alleged" incidents are examined.

Golf of Tonkin: Witnesses: maybe a couple of dozen. At most.
Physical evidence: A single 14.5mm bullet
Casualties: 0

9/11: Witness: Thousands.
Physical Evidence: A small mountain of it. (Ground Zero for example)
Casualties: Over three thousand.

and 9/11.. what number of witnesses would have been officially acceptable?
Obviously you know about the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the consequent 3 million innocent people murdered.. and now you have doubts about 9/11... why would that be? reallly?

 

[stanleywinthrop]

and 9/11.. what number of witnesses would have been officially acceptable?
Obviously you know about the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the consequent 3 million innocent people murdered.. and now you have doubts about 9/11... why would that be? reallly?

Please quote where I have doubts about 9/11. Also please explain exactly how the U.S. would have avoided entering into the Vietnam conflict without the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

 

[plumjam]

Please quote where I have doubts about 9/11. Also please explain exactly how the U.S. would have avoided entering into the Vietnam conflict without the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

sorry, i don't know you, individually, well enough to know whether you have a problem or not about 9/11
that would have to be a long pub conversation

Well from my understanding the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a manufactured event purporting that US navy vessels were attacked by Vietnamese torpedo boats or the like... which was later shown to be false, and just another dirty shameless pretext for selfish war

 

[stanleywinthrop]

sorry, i don't know you, individually, well enough to know whether you have a problem or not about 9/11
that would have to be a long pub conversation

Well from my understanding the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a manufactured event purporting that US navy vessels were attacked by Vietnamese torpedo boats or the like... which was later shown to be false, and just another dirty shameless pretext for selfish war

Yet a more detailed examination of the events of the Gulf of Tonkin reveals that it consisted of two porported attacks: the first one was real enough, but as discussed the result was the almost laughable single impact of a 14.5 mm round. The second 'phantom' attack was the result of nervous sonarmen hearing phantom torpedos. Hardly the stuff of international conspiracies.

More recent analysis of the Vietnam war tells us that with the "stars aligned as such" with LBJ as president, McNamara as SECDEF, and the quickly faltering security situation in South Vietnam, U.S. intervention was inevitable, regardless of the Tonkin incident, and regardless of whatever moral judgments one may make about the following conflict.

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

sorry, i don't know you, individually, well enough to know whether you have a problem or not about 9/11
that would have to be a long pub conversation

Then why the hell would you say this?

and now you have doubts about 9/11... why would that be? reallly?

Think twice. Speak once.

 

[plumjam]

Yet a more detailed examination of the events of the Gulf of Tonkin reveals that it consisted of two porported attacks: the first one was real enough, but as discussed the result was the almost laughable single impact of a 14.5 mm round. The second 'phantom' attack was the result of nervous sonarmen hearing phantom torpedos. Hardly the stuff of international conspiracies.

More recent analysis of the Vietnam war tells us that with the "stars aligned as such" with LBJ as president, McNamara as SECDEF, and the quickly faltering security situation in South Vietnam, U.S. intervention was inevitable, regardless of the Tonkin incident, and regardless of whatever moral judgments one may make about the following conflict.

yes, appreciated for your fairness
but I'm only 35 years old and in every run up to war i've lived up to the prevailing question in the media has been something like "is war with....... inevitable?" watching the same process in the US media from the US before Iraq was absolutely disgusting for me.... like they were saying that the possibility of not murdering about a million people was not possible, because "war was inevitable".... someday you americans will see past your own controlled media, and see a bit more truth and reality, hopefully

 

[stanleywinthrop]

yes, appreciated for your fairness
but I'm only 35 years old and in every run up to war i've lived up to the prevailing question in the media has been something like "is war with....... inevitable?" watching the same process in the US media from the US before Iraq was absolutely disgusting for me.... like they were saying that the possibility of not murdering about a million people was not possible, because "war was inevitable".... someday you americans will see past your own controlled media, and see a bit more truth and reality, hopefully

Not saying war is inevitable in and of itself. I am saying in particular with LBJ and McNamara in office, and given the deteriorating security situation in South Vietnam, the Vietnam War was inevitable. Remove any of those 3 links, the war could have been avoidable. Like wise given that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Saddam, were in power, and sprinkle in a little 9/11 and the Iraq war was inevitable. Remove any of those links, and the Iraq war could have been avoided.

You see, cracking a book every now and then and spending some time thinking on the subject leads me to these conclusions. You might try the same.

 

[plumjam]

Not saying war is inevitable in and of itself. I am saying in particular with LBJ and McNamara in office, and given the deteriorating security situation in South Vietnam, the Vietnam War was inevitable. Remove any of those 3 links, the war could have been avoidable. Like wise given that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Saddam, were in power, and sprinkle in a little 9/11 and the Iraq war was inevitable. Remove any of those links, and the Iraq war could have been avoided.

You see, cracking a book every now and then and spending some time thinking on the subject leads me to these conclusions. You might try the same.

did you see the recent film of Mcnamara confessing it all and feeling thorougly ashamed of himself? Not that I'm mocking him... even though his decisions would have killed hundreds of thousands, at least he had the decency to realise when he was wrong, and the openness to admit it. I don't understand why any war in Vietnam, as you put it, was inevitable.... Vietnam was a quite small country, about 10, 000 miles away from the USA.... a country whose leadership had primarily appealed to the USA

 

[Timothy]

Nice thread hijack. Back on topic please. Go play with your Vietnam discussion somewhere else.

Thanks for the Zogby poll. It has some interesting aspects to it, especially the biased wording. Disappointing that the LIHOP numbers are so high, but I'd really enjoy seeing a poll that had the order of the choices changed for question 402, as well as polls asking whether people had previously heard of LIHOP or MIHOP. People who are unfamiliar with the subject matter are less likely to pick one of the extreme cases and tend to pick the middle choice. I'd like to think that the reason LIHOP was ranked high was because it was chosen by those who didn't know very much about the topic. (Wishful thinking, wishful thinking, wishful thinking.)

 

[Gravy]

yeah, i'm just wondering whether after the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" you'd have been up there, standing up for truth, to save society and your fellow man from the abuses of power...

You mean with all the other people who were protesting after the Gulf of Tonkin incident?

I don't know for sure... cos I don't know you as a person. But from what I know about you just from the JREF forum you'd have been loathe to attack the lying government position of the time.

Maybe i'm misconstruing you, who knows.

Everyone knows. You're exactly right. I'm well known for my knee-jerk, uber-patriotic conservatism, for my support of incompetent administrations, and for my pro-war stance.

 

[plumjam]

You mean with all the other people who were protesting after the Gulf of Tonkin incident?

well, it seems that from my pov over here in the UK (and to be honest I was born about 10 years after the Gulf of Tonkin incident) that ok, maybe I don't qualify, but it remains the truth that the whole Gulf of Tonkin incident was completely false, and that is now historically completely accepted... yet upon that state-propagated lie were built the supposed justifications for 3 to 4 million innocent civillian killings

 

[Gravy]

well, it seems that from my pov over here in the UK (and to be honest I was born about 10 years after the Gulf of Tonkin incident) that ok, maybe I don't qualify, but it remains the truth that the whole Gulf of Tonkin incident was completely false, and that is now historically completely accepted... yet upon that state-propagated lie were built the supposed justifications for 3 to 4 million innocent civillian killings

Your lack of knowledge of U.S. history is duly noted. There's nothing wrong with that, until you start opining about it and implying that others should base their actions on what you imagine to be the facts.

 

[leftysergeant]

It matters a great deal because the people planting the woo-woo in every venue they can are far from benign. Some are white nationalists, some are sociopaths who want to make life miserable for everyone else, some may even be sent by Karl Rove to distract us from the real crimes that some of the bush cabinet have been involved in to make any real evidence look like just another rant from "those crazies."

The white nationalists are the ones who scare me.

The worsdt the Wahabis will do is kill a few hundred or a few thousand of us and go home or to hell, as the case may be.

The white nationalists want to take over here and stay. Then my kind get marched off to the death camps.

So, when I see them, I have to swat them down before some innocent schlub buys into one part of their rhetoric and winds up packing a weapon on the wrong side of the RaHoWa.

Maybe, if I expose the link between Da Twoof and the Oraganization, I won't need to shoot anybody, because there will be no RaHoWa for lack of recruits.