[Marxism] Scott McLemee on 9/11 conspiracies

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect 
http://insidehighered.com/views/2006/09/06/mclemee
All Plots Move Deathward

By Scott McLemee

Last month, Thomas M. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton published Without Precedent, 
an account of their time as co-chairs (Republican and Democratic, 
respectively) of the 9/11 Commission. Whatever the uses of a deliberate and 
scrupulous bipartisanship in political life, it does not make for good 
memoir-writing. I read it, but kept slipping into that mild coma that is an 
occupational hazard for anyone who reviews a lot of not-very-good or 
just-sort-of-okay books for newspapers.

Yet one thing about Without Precedent did prove quite interesting: the 
strong emphasis on conspiracy theorists. Or rather, to be more exact, the 
authors' preoccupation with trying to head them off at the pass. The 
spectre of the Warren Commission must have haunted their dreams. They put a 
lot of thought into establishing what they call "core principles" intended 
to prevent "the kinds of conspiracy theorizing that have followed in the 
wake of other inquiries." They mention this guiding intention not once or 
twice, but roughly a dozen times.

(clip)

--

CB: Seems like the effort to head off conspiracy hypotheses is a lot broader
than Republicans-Democrats. It goes way over onto the Left. We have a
Republican-Democrat-Social Democrat-some Communist  unity on heading them
off.



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