On 9/18/06, Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
He wasn't well connected, he did not have inside information. He just knew the subject matter. There are thousands of structural engineers who should have been able to see the holes in the explanations of the collapse of the towers if the holes in the explanations were as big as claimed. The WTC collapse is at least one of the most, if not the most, studied building collapses in history. And, everyone but a few brave outsiders missed the obvious?
Who says it's obvious? Lemme share some personal experience with obviousness, if I may. I suspect that I've done many more investigations of public events than most on this list, so perhaps I speak with a bit of authority on this subject. As I think you know, you're writing to the guy who came up with the truth about the Reagan shooting when the rest of the Washington press corps missed the story and accepted the White House version. As you probably don't know, that's just the most famous of a number of investigative pieces I did over the years. And often I'd find that the truth is staring bright and well-connected people in the face but they don't see it. For example, there were a lot of people here in Silicon Valley back in the mid-80s who were certain that there was some kind of trickery involved in getting federal funding for a light rail system. Many, many of them had looked at the document that showed that the local preference was for light rail (part of the federally mandated Environmental Impact Report process) without seeing what was wrong with it. The report showed eight out of nine cities in favor and the one opposed was the smallest city in the county, the tiny town of Monte Sereno. The light rail backers had simply omitted six of the country's 15 cities from the report... and they just happened to be the ones that either voted against it or declined to take a position. Even though I had years og experience with this sort of public document, it was very hard for me to see what was missing. That kind of shenanigan happens all the time (throughout the Vietnam War, for example) and believe me, it is harder to see than you might think. I looked at that EIR document a number of times, intuition screaming at me that there was something wrong, before I saw the problem. Many, many others looked at it over the course of months and months, without seeing it. Large bunches of smart and/or well-connected people miss things that in retrospect seem obvious. I believe that given the concentration of power in media and government, that sort of thing is happening less and less often, as there are fewer and fewer people who are willing and able to question authority. More to the point, people see what they want or expect to see... and it can be very hard to overcome those misperceptions... which certainly are present on all sides of the 9/11 controversies. So... sorry, but I don't buy the idea that just because lots of smart and/or well connected people have looked at the evidence, we should accept their conclusions. The world just doesn't work that way much of the time... and I think we should encourage people to think for themselves rather than assuming that just because a bunch of people with authority say something, it must be true. I suspect that sort of attitude enables facism, despotism and other rotten leadership. I intend none of this to support any 9/11 conspiracy theory. I think it is just fine that people are raising questions... and even finer that we have a new medium that allows people with expertise to critique them. The quality of the debate often sinks low, but we're still learning how to use this new medium. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
