Eyewitnesses to Disasters

lewrockwell.com ^ | December 17, 2001 | Gary North

[tberry]

Eyewitnesses to Disasters

The old saying, "seeing is believing," is true most of the time for most people, but it isn't always true. A skeptic may invent alternative explanations for what he is seeing. I call this phenomenon "seeing isn't believing." In every Middle Eastern Islamic nation, the vast majority of those people interviewed so far think that the videotape of Osama bin Laden's bragging was faked by the United States. It is as if they all saw the movie,

Then there is another phenomenon, less familiar, "believing is seeing." It may be even more common that "seeing isn't believing." Psychology professors occasionally stage classroom events and then ask their students to summarize what they saw. The accounts vary widely.

When it comes to the events preceding and following the attack of 9-11, I would like to get to the bottom of them. I want to know what "really" happened. You do, too. Yet I know that this is highly unlikely to happen in my generation.

As a trained historian, I can assure you that sorting out any sequence of events that led up to a major historical event is no picnic. Initial reports are confused, and not all of them get published. Some reports are wrong. Others seem to be wrong, but later are shown to be accurate. By then, official stories have been set in concrete, so no one pays much attention. There is a lot of confusion from day one, and this confusion doesn't go away. It just gets worse. Follow-up reports and new explanations are added. Various versions are presented as making sense out of the confusion. Then official versions get floated, and revised, and re-floated.

Example: Who shot President Kennedy?

What Did Bush Know, and When Did He Know It?

On September 11, two planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. As surely as we know that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, so do we know this much. But beyond this, there is not much agreement. There is not even an official version. We have had several.

VIEW FOR "THE REST OF THE STORY"

[tberry]

Every where I look, I see government deception.

[CamperDad]

> Every where I look, I see government deception. Yep, and Chuckie Shumer telling us we should be thankful for having a large government.

- CD

[tberry]

Here is another example of Chucky. This is a letter I have sent the Opinion Editor at my local news paper.

"Sen. Charles Schumer and Sen. Edward Kennedy want the Department of Justice to keep personal data on law-abiding gun buyers from the National Instant Check System (NICS), and to offer the information for unlimited use by state and local agencies.

The language of their proposal makes no reference to terrorist investigations, and no limits are placed on the use of the information.

Anti-gun extremists have been attempting for weeks to invoke the specter of terrorists acquiring firearms as justification for their attempts to end traditional American gun shows. Now they are doing the same to promote their attempts to create the mechanism to establish a registry of law-abiding gun purchasers.

This will be the basis of a national firearms-owner computer registry that would profile decent honest citizens, violate their privacy, and provide a locator to assist in ultimately banning private ownership of firearms. Of more immediate danger are the civil data-sharing provisions in this legislation.

This is not about denying law enforcement any records that bear on criminals or terrorists and guns. This is about preserving the privacy rights of decent, innocent people.

Contact your Senator and ask him to vote against (S. 1788), Use NICS in Terrorist Investigations Act."

[JoeSchem]

Yes, the President said he saw the first airplane hit the WTC. What he meant to say is that he saw that an airplane had hit the tower -- which could be surmised from the images of the burning tower, which were on TV by 9:03 am.

So the President merely left a single simple word out of a single sentence while speaking to a child during an informal news conference. One of the President's more minor verbal fluffs, if you ask me.

And it's a pretty thin basis on which to propound a conspiracy theory, if you ask me.

Maybe we should all remember that 'Doctor' Gary North was just about the #1 advocate for the Y2K collapse-of-civilization hysteria. He excels at blowing things out of proportion. And here we go again.

[tberry]

"So the President merely left a single simple word out of a single sentence while speaking to a child during an informal news conference"

I assume you are a personal friend of Bush's and he personally called to explain things to you.

[an amused spectator]

It's called "Common Sense", which is short supply these days (especially at Spew Pukewell). ;-)

[tberry]

"It's called "Common Sense", which is short supply these days (especially at Spew Pukewell). ;"

It's called "SPIN", which is in great supply these days (especially at the White House). ;

[JoeSchem]

I assume you are a personal friend of Bush's and he personally called to explain things to you.

When confronted with a statement of this nature, I can assume two things: (1) it was an innocent verbal fluff, or (2) it was an inadvertent slip that reveals a massive conspiracy to take over the United States government and establish a totalitarian one-world dictatorship.

[sinkspur]

This dumbass is basing some kind of conspiracy on a verbal gaffe?

Does the phrase "grasping at straws" mean anything to you Lewsers?