Parish
Conspiracy Theorists Are the True Patriots; Black Doth Protest Too Much
RECEIVED Fri., July 6, 2007
Dear Editor,
So strange, Louis Black's recent tirade against "conspiracy theorists" [“Page Two,” July 6]. Is all this genuine? An attempt to rabble rouse? Could a writer of his caliber seriously resort to so many self-refuting assertions and ad hominems to support his emotional claims? He condescends while complaining of conspiracists' condescension. He warns us of their dogmatism in an equally sweeping, dogmatic manner. While trying to inoculate us with his acceptance of past conspiracies so as to deflate counterattack, he instead deflates his own. No concrete political results from revelations of past conspiracies you say Louis? How about slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction? Jim Crow and the civil rights movement? Abuses of the robber barons and the rise of organized labor? McCarthyism and the liberal turn during the Sixties? And now, among several others, the abuses and crimes of the Bush administration choirboys and the turn of the electorate leftwards.
Far from being deluded, homebound paranoiacs, those who don't accept the official story of 9/11 are now a majority, including academics, former government officials, military/intelligence officers, and … perhaps 9/11 firefighters.
While the long arc of history may bend slowly toward justice, it does so because people, unwilling for long to allow such shadowy reactions to stand, asserted the presumed right and duty of every citizen, occasionally as journalists, to demand a full accounting.
Think the claims of 9/11 conspiracy buffs are all bunk? Then bravely read the interviews of the New York Fire Department. Start with those of Karin DeShore, Fran Pascale, Richard Picciotto, and Assistant Commissioner Stephen Gregory. They're not "conspiracy theorists.” I've never heard of them ever saying/asserting anything publicly; they just simply and quietly told their stories during internal interviews in the days following the attacks.
So strange, Louis Black's recent tirade against "conspiracy theorists" [“Page Two,” July 6]. Is all this genuine? An attempt to rabble rouse? Could a writer of his caliber seriously resort to so many self-refuting assertions and ad hominems to support his emotional claims? He condescends while complaining of conspiracists' condescension. He warns us of their dogmatism in an equally sweeping, dogmatic manner. While trying to inoculate us with his acceptance of past conspiracies so as to deflate counterattack, he instead deflates his own. No concrete political results from revelations of past conspiracies you say Louis? How about slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction? Jim Crow and the civil rights movement? Abuses of the robber barons and the rise of organized labor? McCarthyism and the liberal turn during the Sixties? And now, among several others, the abuses and crimes of the Bush administration choirboys and the turn of the electorate leftwards.
Far from being deluded, homebound paranoiacs, those who don't accept the official story of 9/11 are now a majority, including academics, former government officials, military/intelligence officers, and … perhaps 9/11 firefighters.
While the long arc of history may bend slowly toward justice, it does so because people, unwilling for long to allow such shadowy reactions to stand, asserted the presumed right and duty of every citizen, occasionally as journalists, to demand a full accounting.
Think the claims of 9/11 conspiracy buffs are all bunk? Then bravely read the interviews of the New York Fire Department. Start with those of Karin DeShore, Fran Pascale, Richard Picciotto, and Assistant Commissioner Stephen Gregory. They're not "conspiracy theorists.” I've never heard of them ever saying/asserting anything publicly; they just simply and quietly told their stories during internal interviews in the days following the attacks.
Robert Robinson
[Louis Black responds: Mr. Robinson writes "No concrete political results from revelations of past conspiracies you say Louis? How about slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction? Jim Crow and the civil rights movement? Abuses of the robber barons and the rise of organized labor? McCarthyism and the liberal turn during the Sixties?" If one believes that all historical activities involving discussions between human beings are, a priori, conspiracies, thus all and any actions/events in history are by definition conspiratorial, then I stand corrected. If, as I do, you find this a particularly silly and groundless argument, it simply reinforces my assertion that such theorists offer "self-congratulatory, self-nominating claims of heroic achievement."]
