Lou Pro: I don't mind exposing conspiracies. In fact when you do it effectively, the results can be devastating. I think that revelations about the Gulf of Tonkin helped raise awareness that decision to go to war in Vietnam was facilitated by a lie, just as revelations about the lack of WMD's in Iraq today has produced a similar "credibility gap". What I do object to is unproven speculation of the sort that surrounded the attack on 9/11 or more recent allegations that the levees in New Orleans were dynamited as part of some kind of gentrification scheme. The left has to be seen as authoritative. Here's something that I picked up on Gerry Levy's list that shows how Lenin stressed the importance of fact-based research: clip-
^^^ CB: Yes, few would argue with Lenin that the truth is the whole truth and the truth is the whole. The left must be trusted by the masses as a reliable source of the truth. On 9/11 ( for example , :>), take it one step back. Were the "facts" as presented in the monopoly media ( 18 men from various eastern countries conspired to do it) ever PROVEN to us ? No, absolutley not. Yet anybody who questions that version is readily labelled a conspiracy theorist, with the negative connotation that has today. Yet, we don't seem to hear many objections that the monopoly media conspiracy theory is unproven speculation. Proof seems to be demanded from the unoffical sources but not from the official sources. If the official version were thrown in there as speculative and not proven everytime with the others, I wouldn't mind. But what happens is that the non-monopoly media speculation is criticized as unproven speculation, but the media version is not so criticized. So , by a kind of default , lo and behold , the bourgeois version of 9/11 becomes credited as not speculation , as if it has been proven more than the other speculations. The version that should be labelled unproven speculation in the first place is the mainstream version of 9/11. That is the version of events that the left should be scrutinizing most strictly. There has to be equality of burden of proof between the different speculators, although given the state's record, there might even be more burden placed on the powers-that-be to prove their version. The first step in this is to point to claims in the official version that don't' "add up". Such questioning is exactly scrutinizing the evidence. The official version must be cross-examined. As far as the New Orleans levies, there was a report that some one saw some levies being blownup. The evidentiary task would be to followup that report.
