Stephen B. Presser (Northwestern University) "Ya'll are Conspiracy Theorists"

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/includes/templates/library/flash_popup.php?pID=280000-1&clipStart=&clipStop=

Label me a Conspiracy Theorist Professor Presser, I am PROUD of it! Keep defending bush, I label YOU a fascist.

It was Jeremy Rabkin that called me a conspiracy theorist



Sometimes they all sound alike and look alike to me :shrug:


I hear that happens to folks sometimes, lumping



His tesimony starts at 2:39

the utterly ludicrous notion that the Bush administration twisted the intelligence and lied us into the Iraq forever war. I would guess at least 90% of the resident OCTabots fit his definition of conspiracy theorist.

BTW, I watched the six hour CSpan hearing, and saw it got exactly zero coverage in the Arizona Daily Star, my local rag. How is this not news?

Thanks for posting this, SLAD.

I feel blessed that this was your second post here and it was in reply to me :hi:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=217367&mesg_id=217387">Lokijohn wrote:



Thanks for illustrating my point about the dangers of the rhetorical use of "conspiracy theory" and "conspiracy theorist" as a term of a priori dismissal.

I'm sure lots of similar rhetoric can be found amongst mainstream right wingers these days, in their attempts to defend Bush.

The hypothesis that the 9-11-01 attacks were manufactured by elements of the US Government is conspiracy theory unsupported by fact.

The administration manufactured 9-11 for the purposes for going to war in Iraq.

Risk vs gain, weak linkage, no WMD. None point to this.


"They Wanted War, And They Got It."

That this statement is true does not alter the facts.

For example, links between some of the "hijackers" and government agents and agencies are facts that provide at least some measure of support for the hypothesis. Put that together with the strange misfeasance of those same agencies and it forms at least a suspicious pattern of behavior.

Any conclusion drawn from those facts is debatable, surely, but to say that there are no facts whatsoever that even hint at any support at all is not a very helpful approach. To get the most truthful description of the status of the case we should list out all the facts that might point in that direction, evaluate to what extent they are merely circumstantial and might be explained by some other hypothesis, consider whether the facts aggregated together form a strong case even though each fact in isolation might not, and consider various conclusions based on weighing the evidence and the likelihood of different scenarios.