Credulousity and Its Discontents

Credulousity and Its Discontents

If we ever find the time, perhaps we should conduct a group analysis of the hit pieces emanating from the intellectual/academic left against the '9/11 Truth Movement'. Among other similarities, they each exhibit a noteworthy "dual consciousness." In a 1997 interview, the great 20th century sociologist Pierre Bourdieu used the phrase to refer to the mindset of media professionals who publicly deny the insidious workings of the invisible structures of corporate broadcasting - masking it even from themselves to an extent - all the while they take advantage of the media tool at their disposal and denounce their critics, claiming they have uncovered nothing which hasn't been known for ages about the media.

Thus we can hear in one breath from Alexander Cockburn that US intelligence infiltrates terror cells and foments terrorism for the purpose of catching the terrorists in the act, and in the next also that even the suggestion that 9/11 could have had false-flag origination is "nutty." Cockburn admits that "Sometime (sic) an undercover agent will actually propose an action, either to deflect efforts away from some graver threat, or to put the plotters in a position where they can be caught red-handed." But according to Cockburn it’s completely nutty to even consider the possibility that these same murderous double and triple-dealers would be utilized to plan a terror event that will ultimately be blamed on official enemies for the purposes of gaining a stronger hold on power. Has he heard of Operation Gladio? Of course he has, so his puzzling insistence on limiting the range of possibility needs explanation.

If you were Christopher Hayes, you might say Cockburn exhibits excessive credulousity. That's the phrase used by the latest batter to take a swing at the ‘9/11 truth movement,’ Christopher Hayes. There is some very good analysis in his piece, but regarding 9/11 skepticism Hayes turns out to be devastatingly blinkered. Showing signs of the Bourdieuian double-consciousness referred to above, Hayes first tells us the Bush administration has routinely lied with relative impunity over the last six years, so skepticism of its motives is warranted. But then we learn that skepticism about 9/11 is completely baseless, 'dangerous' and a 'waste of time.' This despite the fact that Hayes offers nothing approaching a detailed argument to back up the claims.

Now, he does reference the "Popular Mechanics" article of 2005, but he writes as if the piece was remotely comprehensive or somehow the final word on the subjects it raised (it was neither). One wonders: did Hayes even read the PM piece? Maybe if he did he'd know that the article studiously ignored the best arguments for US complicity and focused instead almost exclusively on interpretations of the hotly-contested 'physical evidence'...

Continued...
http://911truth.org/article.php?story=20061213220856690

> If we ever find the time, perhaps we should conduct a group analysis of the hit pieces emanating from the intellectual/academic left against the '9/11 Truth Movement'.

If "we" are the "truth movement" itself, surely "you" can find something better to do with your time (say, coming up with a credible case, and maybe cleaning up all the crap on the "truth" sites). One thing that's clear to me is that "truthers" seem to have an extremely hard time understanding what I think, much less why I think that. "Truthers" seem to have an especially hard time understanding "hit pieces emanating from the intellectual/academic left," but I find myself in general agreement with those "hit pieces." "Left gatekeepers" like Cockburn take a lot of abuse, but I think I understand his point of view perfectly, and I'm definitely pretty far to the left. So your PR problem definitely goes beyond the "mindset of media professionals."

I'm sure the converse is true, too -- I don't really understand "truthers" either -- but if so, I have to imagine that a "truther" would have about as little interest in my analysis of his psyche as I would have in his of mine. I suppose doing that would make one feel better, but it's not very realistic to think there's any good reason for wasting time like that.

the non-intellectual non-academic left? Or just simply non-intellectual and non-academic?

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you're a beacon onto us all.

but no one will lose any sleep over it.

An additional explanation for the hit pieces is authoritarianism. Many of the hit piece authors use a tone that is excessively defensive, smug and condescending. The underlying suggestion is "How dare you accuse our authority figures of such heinous actions!"

Another theory is projected guilt. The corporate media knows they lie to the public. So instead of acknowledging that their coverage of 9/11 is institutionally limited due to conflicts of interest (protecting corporate/government interests at the expense of truth), the guilt is expressed as anger at the source of the guilt--the 9/11 truth movement that is pointing out the stench of cover up and lies.