June 23, 2011
Jonathan Kay at it again, but why?
In his book Among the Truthers, Jonathan Kay asserts that society is at risk by what he refers to as "full-blown conspiracism." He further claims a universal regime of public education must be deployed to combat this "malady" before the so-called conspiracists - anyone who doesn't accept the official report of 9/11 - "have a chance to further infect our thinking."
Mr. Kay's proposal is reminiscent of the re-education programs that took place in totalitarian regimes like the USSR and Mao's China. Of course, advanced societies can use much more civilized and subtle methods: Mr. Kay is proposing classroom instruction designed to teach students to recognize and avoid the mental disease of “conspiracism.”
However, on a TV Ontario panel discussion, Richard Gage, head of the organization Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, said the 1,500 architects and engineers he represents don't have any conspiracy theories.
“What we have is scientific forensic evidence found in the debris of World Trade Center 1, 2 and 7 that is clear evidence of explosive demolition of all three buildings. We don't have this person talking about this evidence. He prefers to call us names.”
Indeed, while sceptics of government claims about 9/11 draw upon facts to support their claims, Mr. Kay chooses to ignore their evidence and instead focus on their psychological makeup. With no psychology or psychiatric training whatsoever, he paints them all with one sweeping brush stroke: He's decided that they're middle-aged men going through a mid-life crisis.
In his book he writes: “The children grow up, the hair falls out, careers plateau, physical powers ebb….. Like all forms of midlife crisis, the sudden lurch into conspiracism offers middle-aged men a sense of revitalization and adventure. In some ways it offers an even more complete escape than the proverbial mistress and sports car.”
Why does it matter whether or not these men are in the midst of a midlife crisis? All that matters is: Is what they're saying true or false? If Einstein were going through a midlife crisis would this have negated his scientific research?
On the other hand, Mr. Gage chooses to ignore Mr. Kay's attempt to psychoanalyze thousands of people and instead focus on factually-based evidence.
“We're talking about, for instance, the destruction of World Trade Center 7, a 47 storey skyscraper that drops cleanly, suddenly, uniformly, symmetrically, at free fall acceleration, down into its own footprint in the exact manner of a classic controlled demolition. Why are we not talking about this? Explosives found in the World Trade Center dust and it's documented in a peer-reviewed paper. We need to be talking about this, not defending ourselves against being called having a middle-aged crisis as Jonathan in his book refers to us as.”
After listening to Mr. Gage's comments, TV Ontario moderator Steve Paikin said: “As we listen to this conversation here people watching at home might think there's nothing particularly crazy about what they're saying. They sound like perfectly reasonable intelligent people. What concerns you?
“What concerns me is the idea that you have intelligent people , all well-educated, who are suggesting or who are receptive to the idea that teams of 100's of CIA agents spent months boring holes into columns inside the world trade center ... did this in office an building that has what 50, 60, 70 thousand people there every day, brought in tons of explosives, then murdered 1000's of people, all done in secret, with no one realizing it for ten years, all as a pretext to attack Afghanistan and Iraq, despite the fact that they then allege that 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. So it's a complete fantasy and that is being taken seriously, not only by the intelligent people on this panel, but by millions of intelligent Americans and Canadians. “It disturbs me that so many people inhabit a world of fantasy,” Mr. Kay said, countering with a bald assertion while neglecting to present any evidence to support his claims.
He actually got emotional when delivering his response, indicating that this is a heart-felt issue that he takes personally; but this isn't too surprising coming from a man who's made a career out of being a sycophant to the rich and powerful.
He has no problem defending almost anything corporations do, such as exposing people to cell phone radiation and putting fluoride in their drinking water. He explained, in one television interview, that concern about fluoride in drinking water was part of the “conspiracists' ” fixation on body integrity.
But he also has practical reasons for vehemently defending those in influential positions: his 9/11 Studies, were funded by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Its declared mission is to “fight terrorism” through public education. The directors and advisors include Senator Joseph Lieberman, William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Perle, Steve Forbes, Gary Bauer and Jean Kirkpatrick.
Mr. Kay’s book is one part of a series of initiatives aimed, during the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, at pointing audiences away from the reality that many conscientious professionals have already demonstrated: that the evidence does not support the official version of 9/11.
If the official version of 9/11 is called into question, so is the “War on Terror”, which has cost millions of lives – if one includes the indigenous peoples in the invaded countries – and trillions of dollars.
It's important to shore up waning public support for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as the Obama administration struggles with high unemployment, decaying infrastructure and the threat of default in a country which is already bankrupt, due in no small part to the “Wars on Terror” and the massive frauds, records of which were lost due to the destruction of the Securities and Exchange Commission office in the World Trade Center.
Meanwhile, speculation about pending military interventions in a number of other countries continues.
