I met up with a few friends for coffee recently, and it turns out that one of them has become greatly enamoured with 9/11 conspiracy theories, after seeing the film “Loose Change”. I spent an hour – a very painful hour – listening to him spouting this tripe, trying to convince me that 7 of the 14 hijackers were still alive, that the United 93 plane never crashed and is still flying, etc, etc.
Nothing I said in response got through.
“7 of the hijackers are still alive – so what happened to the other 7, if there were no hijackings?” No response.
“How is it that noone realised the truth until some idiot decided to make a DVD?” Other people did realise it, apparently.
“If the US Government is so ruthless that they would kill thousands of people like that, why haven’t they killed the guy who made the DVD?” Because it would make them look guilty, of course.
“Have you read the websites of those who have debunked Loose Change?” No.
And so on, and so on, and so on. I could feel my brain cells dying.
This guy is something of an intellectual, so he said “The reason you don’t believe this is that you don’t believe that a Western government can do anything wrong. That is the same reaction that people first had when news about the Holocaust first started leaking out; they thought that the Germans were too civilized to do anything like that.”
What utter hogwash.
What really gets me is this: why do these people distrust the government, yet believe uncritically every half-baked thing a raving loony conspiracy video says?
Still, these theories do serve a purpose. It is as my brother said on an Internet forum concerning this subject:
I think 9/11 conspiracies are the greatest thing ever.
All you need to do nowadays is go up to someone and say ‘was 9/11 a US government conspiracy?’
If they say ‘yes’ you are then absolved from ever having to listen to a word that person ever says .. ever again.
Too true.
My friend is giving me a copy of “Loose Change”, which I have agreed to watch. I’m not looking forward to it.
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May 23, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Mat
Release the spiders!
Do you mean your friend is an intellectual in the ‘I’m an an uneducated moron’ sense of the word?.
May 23, 2007 at 7:37 pm
markk
The spiders are crawling your way, Mat.
And, erm, I’ll pass on calling said person a moron, just in case he reads this
May 24, 2007 at 7:28 am
themolk
Trust me, I’m a moron and no way would I want to be classed an “intellectual”…
May 24, 2007 at 5:50 pm
markk
Yeah Mat, stop insulting the morons already!
May 24, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Cade
I think people like this are crazy. These ideas probably tear at the people that were there and lived it. They know. Their friends and family members died there. It just shows how horrid our civilization has become and how quick we are to doubt. This is no different then doubting the holocaust to me.
May 25, 2007 at 2:41 am
Bucky
As long as there are people and a government, there will be conspiracy theories……
The Apollo 11 moon landing
Charlemagne never existed
Area 51 is a UFO / alien warehouse
The US military caused the 2004 tsunami
Several assassination theories
…..and I could go on and on.
True or not, I enjoy reading what other people have to say about this type of thing. It can really open your mind to accept the unacceptable, because one day, you might just have to.
May 25, 2007 at 8:41 am
themolk
sorry, I meant to say mormon… or did I…
I love the Apollo 11 conspiracy theories. How stupid is that. Even more stupid is the fact there is a guy SO serious about it he is ambushing Aldrin, Armstrong, etc, at every chance to challenge them about it. Freak.
I’ve even started hearing conspiracy theories about hurricane Katrina (my faviourite is that it was a military action under the guise of a storm to “clean out the mess” in New Orleans”… jeez…).
May 26, 2007 at 6:15 am
markk
If I may summarise all conspiracy theories …
1. Get an idea
- eg. the CIA caused the Pakistan quake
2. Gather any circumstantial evidence you can find
- The CIA have been seen in Pakistan for some reason!
3. Ignore any other evidence for anything more plausible
- like, the CIA could be doing war on terror stuff
4. Hey presto! Conspiracy theory!
Ultimately conspiracy theories start where Government disclosure ends. Anything the government wouldn’t tell us about if it did is fair game for conspiracy theories. So the more open and accountable government is, the less these theories should take hold.
Probably the worst one is Holocaust denial, which is all the more delusional what with the tens of thousands of eyewitnesses. I heard about a radio debate where one of these idiots was saying that all the accounts of smoke rising from the Auschwitz crematoria were false because smoke cannot be seen from crematoria in Sydney. Of course, the Sydney ones only handle a few corpses a day, whereas the Auschwitz ones, probably thousands ..