Stanley Fish Dismisses "Truthers" And Avoids Facts
The Tea Party? Minutemen? Birthers? No, “Truthers,” left-wing conspiracy theorists who believe (among other things) that 9/11 was an inside job, that no plane hit the Pentagon, that Ted Olson did not receive a call from his wife, Barbara, shortly before she perished in the crash of Flight 77, that the anthrax scare was also a government hoax (although the anthrax was real and deadly), and that hurricane Katrina was the result of weather manipulation by racists or profiteers or both.
The thing about people who hold beliefs you find unbelievable (in two senses) is that they are in most other respects just like you and your friends.
Like many others, I was aware of these theories and aware too that a significant percentage of Americans (about the same percentage that believes President Obama is a Muslim who was born in Kenya) was at least partly persuaded by them. But on Aug. 15 I got an up-close look at the phenomenon when I attended a meeting of Truthers that just happened to be held in Livingston Manor, a small Catskill town about 20 miles from my house.
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“Left-wing conspiracy theorists”? Didn’t they just get done telling us 9/11 truth was a right wing conspiracy theory? These knuckleheads need to get their marginalizing ad hominems straight. Or maybe just, you know, do some actual journalism instead.
“The Tea Party? Minutemen? Birthers? No, “Truthers,” left-wing conspiracy theorists who believe (among other things) that 9/11 was an inside job, that no plane hit the Pentagon, that Ted Olson did not receive a call from his wife, Barbara, shortly before she perished in the crash of Flight 77, that the anthrax scare was also a government hoax (although the anthrax was real and deadly), and that hurricane Katrina was the result of weather manipulation by racists or profiteers or both.”
This paragraph simply REEKS of discrediting by association. He’s even talking about things that aren’t related to 9/11 Truth at all. The whole article is disgusting.
Imagine how happy the sentence, “on this rock the house of the Truthers is built” makes me.
“no plane hit the Pentagon, that Ted Olson did not receive a call from his wife, Barbara, shortly before she perished in the crash of Flight 77, that the anthrax scare was also a government hoax (although the anthrax was real and deadly), and that hurricane Katrina was the result of weather manipulation by racists or profiteers or both.”
Is this the kind of BS that was being promoted at Hick’s event? If so, it’s understandable that someone could get a negative impression, and that they might dismiss all 9/11 skeptics by association. However, while that kind of uncritical thinking is common, it’s irrational, and a “professor of humanities and law” ought to know better. He really has no questions about how and why 9/11 happened? He’s really satisfied with the 9/11 Commission’s report?
Perhaps Fish’s oped is disinfo, perhaps he’s just clueless- either way, it’s understandable how he would rate space at the NY Times- The NY Times is the paper that repeatedly published Judy Miller’s bogus reporting about WMD sourced from the same administration which then turned around and used it to sell Americans on bombing and invading Iraq; the paper which sat on the story about the Bush Administration’s illegal spying on Americans, until after the 2004 election and until they were about to be scooped by their own reporter James Risen’s book.
see these threads for more info on Hicks:
http://truthaction.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6528&highlight=sander+hicks
http://www.truthmove.org/forum/topic/640/page/2#post-2778
http://www.truthmove.org/forum/topic/640/page/2#post-9010
“A small gathering of 50 or 60 people; roughly 95 percent white, 90 percent male, a few blond-haired kids, average age 45”
The 9/11 truth movement demographics have always struck me as significant; other than this “average age 45”, this fits with what I’ve seen at every protest I’ve attended where there are truthers; every truther gathering/conference I’ve been to; and all the pics I’ve seen of protests and 9/11 truth events- while there are females and other races/age groups, it’s overwhelmingly white males (disproportionately teen/young adult).
The anti-war/peace movements are mostly white, despite non-whites being more likely to understand the wars are for profit and control rather than justice and national security. The percentage of females involved is more even than in the 9/11 truth movement, and there is a more even mix of age groups- many people with their roots in the Vietnam protests, civil rights movement, Kennedy and King assassinations.
According to the available polling demographics, those who are female, young and/or non-white are more likely to be skeptical of the OCT than those who are male, older and/or white.
Zogby 2006: http://www.911truth.org/images/911TruthZogbyPollResults-FrequencyDistribution.pdf
Zogby 2007: http://www.911truth.org/images/ZogbyPoll2007.pdf
There’s something fishy about Stanley.