Blamblog - Brett Lamb's Blog

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Loosey Goosey

Doskoch links to this Salon article about Loose Change and other 9/11 conspiracy theories. It reveals what can happen when you get a little too paranoid:

Ironically, Hoffman levels the same charge of government complicity at Avery. Indeed, here's where the conspiracy theories grow even stranger: Hoffman argues that the 9/11 planners specifically engineered the attacks in a way that would lead some people to embrace flimsy 9/11 theories. Avery, Hoffman says, has fallen into the government's trap; the government wants people to say that an airplane didn't hit the Pentagon, because the claim makes 9/11 skeptics look silly.

The article points out that while the details may be seductive, when you pull back and look at the larger narrative Loose Change proposes, it's ridiculous.

Instead, if you're hankering a good yarn, check out the excellent 3-part BBC series The Power of Nightmares [episode 1, episode 2, episode 3 on Google video]. Starting with the Cold War, it tracks the rise, fall (episode 2 has a gripping cliffhanger ending) and rise of the radical Islamists and the US Neoconservatives and reveals how closely the fortunes of each have been tied together. The series makes the case that the terror threat has been exaggerated by politicans in order to gain power.

Watching both that series and Loose Change, it seems like the conspiracy theorists are part of the problem. Belief in a giant conspiracy created by an all-powerful enemy who is capable of such tactics as swapping airliners breeds fear and a feeling of helplessness and doesn't promote understanding. The Power of Nightmares, on the other hand, strips away the nonsense and reveals two groups of idealists with motives and tactics that are not beyond understanding, who use fear to forward their agendas.

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