RE: [Marxism] Cockburn on 9/11 conspiracy nuts

["Austin, Andrew" <austina@xxxxxxxx>]

The function of the "conspiracy theory" charge is to dissuade people from 
questioning elements of the 9-11 story.  Its function is to shut down rational 
thought by equating it with insanity.  The government doesn't want people 
questioning any aspect of the 9-11 story, and when Marxist help the government 
achieve that end by ridiculing their comrades who raise questions about it... 
well, that's odd, don't you think?
 
If one is prepared to dismiss something because it does not fit their model of 
the way some feature of the world behaves then one is practicing ideology not 
science.  I have a reasonably good grasp of the way bourgeois society behaves, 
and after Nazi Germany I wouldn't put anything past the capitalist class.
 
I read the commission report.  The government did not convince me that their 
version is the correct one.  The question remains open for me.
 
Andrew

________________________________

From: marxism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Lou Paulsen
Sent: Thu 9/7/2006 5:25 PM
To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition
Subject: RE: [Marxism] Cockburn on 9/11 conspiracy nuts



Andrew, here and in succeeding paragraphs you create a dichotomy between 
"accepting the official 9-11 story" and believing that the US government blew 
up the WTC.  I think we are ALL open to believing that "the official story" 
about 9/11 as about everything else is full of holes, but that doesn't mean 
that "the official story" must be wrong on every point.  We have had people 
post here that Darwinian evolution of humans is suspect because it is "the 
official story" and that global warming is also now "the official story", but 
this doesn't mean that it is bold Marxist iconoclasm to come out against those 
theories.  The official story was that Pearl Harbor was a raid by Japanese 
planes, not a hoax conducted by US volunteers in copies of Japanese planes, and 
I suppose I believe that official story as well.

I don't think that people who think the US government blew up the WTC need 
psychiatric treatment, and I don't dismiss their views because it's not the 
official story.  I dismiss their views because I consider them to be wildly 
unrealistic in their model of how the bourgeois state behaves (and because they 
don't have a fraction of the amount of evidence they would need to make me 
alter my model of how the bourgeois state behaves).


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