Victronix, that notorious forum disrupter is at it again... <sarcasm>
Kevin Barrett wrote:
More Ad-Hominem Attacks from People Who Won't Debate
Victronix, like Mark Roberts and screwloosechange, has apparently spent an amazing amount of time poring over my thousands of hours of talk radio and dvd lectures, and my hundreds of written publications, in search of the very few lines she can take out of context to attack me with.
Her postings on my blog are always ad-hominem attacks. They are never directed at the contents of the blog entry itself. 911blogger needs to have a policy against inappropriate comments and ad-hominem attacks, and repeat offenders like Victronix should be notified that further infractions will get them banned.
I have invited Victronix and her associate Jim Hoffman to discuss our differences of opinion civilly on the radio, and have always been refused. I renew my invitation for a civil, constructive radio discussion of the "big tent approach" (civility & fraternal feeling towards all pro-truth voices) that I advocate and Victronix opposes. http://www.911blogger.com/node/13704#comment-176385
Conflating critique with Ad Hominem
Kevin Barrett wrote:
Given all of this, I think that Jim Hoffman (a good scientist whose work I have always supported and linked at mujca.com) and his sidekick... Victronix (who I hope spends as much time on productive activities as she does picking fights with truthers) have had an overall negative effect on the 9/11 truth movement. They have gone out of their way to attack all of the most rhetorically effective DVDs and many of the most rhetorically effective writers and speakers, stirring up enormous dissension and bad feelings, damaging the congeniality that is so necessary to an effective movement, and wasting immense amounts of time that truthers would otherwise be spending on productive activism. I invite both of you, Jim and Victronix, to reconsider your approach. I would be happy to talk with either or both of you, on or off the radio, to find out more about our areas of agreement and disagreement and resolve any outstanding emotional issues... http://www.911blogger.com/node/13704#comment-176505
Jim Hoffman wrote:
Equating Critique With 'Infighting'
Critique of work purporting to be '9/11 truth' is typically unwelcome.
Some stigmatize all critique by framing critique as "infighting".
Science, evidence, rational discourse are irrelevant.
Jim Fetzer's conference in Madison in August of 2007, "The Science and Politics of 9/11: What's Controversial, What's Not" included Morgan Reynolds, Judy Wood, Dave Von Kleist, Barbara Honegger, and others, and featured conclusively debunked theories, such as hologram planes and Tower-vaporizing space beam weapons.
The demonizing of critique and conflating it with infighting is exemplified in a description of the conference on MUJCA.com:
Many participants lamented the phenomenon of "internet lynch mobs" comprised of angry emailers and bloggers demanding that this or that researcher be banished for heresy. Often these internet lynch mobs are made up of people who have not carefully studied the research issues that they so confidently pronounce on. Barrett urged those who find controversial research issues a distraction from 9/11 activism to either study those issues with an open mind, or ignore them and focus on activism. The worst thing to do is waste time and energy on fruitless infighting. http://911research.wtc7.net/talks/911mysteries/infighting.html
Saying one thing (while "protecting" promoters of nonsense):
Kevin Barrett wrote:
"The way I study [social interaction] is through dialog... I think we could use a little more conviviality within the Truth movement... one reason for that is that we want people to join us... by reaching out to them in a conviviality way... people will come on board... I think we need to enjoy dialog including with people that we don't agree with... [especially] non-9/11 truth people... I want dialog with [people who support the official story]--dialog is good... this is the key to the politics that we need to practice..." http://www.truthring.org/?p=4830
While at the same time doing another:
Kevin Barrett wrote:
"As I understand it, the usual penalty for treason is hanging, not death by firing squad. In that case, it is likely that Mr. Bush will be hanged, not shot, for treason. By making this prediction, am I running the risk of having my clothesline confiscated? I also think that there is a real possibility that Mr. Bush will be electrocuted for the mass murder of 2,500 Americans in the World Trade Center. By stating this, am I risking a court order shutting off my electricity? I also foresee a small but very real possibility that Mr. Bush will die in the gas chamber. Does raising this possibility mean that my gas could be cut off?" http://www.dailytakes.com/?p=825
"As the example of Nuremburg suggests, journalists who act as propagandists for war crimes may one day find themselves on the scaffold. You would be well advised to strive for more balanced and accurate coverage in the future." http://www.mujca.com/popper.htm
"Amy [Goodman], you will one day find yourself on the scaffold, condemned to hang alongside the other Goebbels-style traitors and mass-murder-coverup-conspirators from the corporate media you pretend to criticize." http://www.mujca.com/amy.htm
"The State Department doesn’t know what it is talking about, but what else is new? Frankly I wonder who wrote this for the State Department. We need to find out because they are going to have to go up there on the scaffold with the other people who planned the attacks and more importantly the people who covered them up. The people complicit in the attacks need to be tried, condemned and sentenced." http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/2007/06/more-on-kevin-hang-em-all-barrett.html
"First Kevin Barrett said that Fox News employees should be hung. Then he said that the producers of United 93 should be tried for inciting war crimes, now he is expanding his list of those on death row to include just about every journalist in the world, while discussing an e-mail exchange he had with a journalist for Harper’s Magazine: 'My response to that was, you know, I think that anybody who has drawn a paycheck from the major mainstream journalistic outlets in the past should be up on the scaffold for the crimes of high treason and crimes against humanity.'" http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/2007/05/kevin-barrett-calls-for-mass-execution.html
"If you are not aware that you're covering up for that traitor and mass murderer and yes insurance fraudster Silverstein, you'll figure it out when you're beside him on the scaffold. I'll be saving this email as evidence for your trial." http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/semiliterateparanoiacswhofantasizeaboutt
"The Capital Times ownership and editorial decision-makers, like those of other mainstream U.S. news outlets, are setting themselves up to be prosecuted as war criminals. By publishing the endless stream of lies that brought us into the Iraqi and Afghan quagmires, without exercising duly diligent skepticism, journalistic decision-makers are following in the footsteps of Joseph Goebbels -- a path that ends at the scaffold." http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/letter/202146
"Kevin Barrett contacted me after he heard that Kevin Ryan backed out of a debate opportunity with me. Barrett wanted to know if I was interested in debating him on his radio show, or perhaps in a live debate when he is in New York. In his email to me, he copied a response he had sent to a listener, in which he said that I was complicit in mass murder and a candidate for a war crimes tribunal, with the gallows perhaps in my future. I guess that's his idea of an inducement to debate." http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=91656
"By blinding people to the need to take the only effective action, [Noam Chomsky] is bringing on disaster. If he convinces even one person to do something other than work for 9/11 truth, he may as well have personally murdered all 6 billion people on earth." http://911blogger.com/node/12772
Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 10:39 pm Post subject: Truth
In his response, Barrett seems to imply that truth is somehow subjective.
This is not so far-flung from Jim Fetzer's position on information:
Information: Does it Have To Be True?
Journal Minds and Machines
Publisher Springer Netherlands
ISSN 0924-6495 (Print) 1572-8641 (Online)
Abstract:Luciano Floridi (2003) offers a theory of information as a strongly semantic notion, according to which information encapsulates truth, thereby making truth a necessary condition for a sentence to qualify as information. This inquiry offers various logical, epistemic, and ordinary-language grounds to demonstrate that an account of his kind is too narrow to be true and that its adoption would hopelessly obscure crucial differences between information, misinformation, and disinformation.
(end of quote)
so - it would appear that the 'dynamic duo' appear to overtly and systematically defend the insertion, elevation and (most importantly) validation of demonstrably non-true 'information' into the 9/11 Truth dialogue.
Putting it more simply - using this logic - a decoy duck should be placed in a zoo and offered up to the public as a kind of duck. Barrett would go as far as to request that we please not feed the wooden ducks until such time as we can ascertain the true nature of ducks - and ask us to sort out our differences on the radio - in the name of 9/11 Truth.
Perhaps he could have on an expert on wooden ducks to defend their dignity as living sentient beings. Just as long as he's civil. Fair is fair - right?
Perhaps Barrett should speak with an imaginary bunny rabbit on the air while he's at it. Why stop with space beams?
Hmm.....Just where is that line between reality and fantasy - responsible and irresponsible?
I suppose he could have the nutty professor on his show (the Jerry Lewis version - not the Eddie Murphy version) to represent the 911 Truth movement - just as long as he gives some bullsh*t scholarly dissertation that sounds like some fancy 'scientificationalizing.'
And then the nutty professor will drink his magic potion and become Buddy Love - and accuse other 9/11 activists of being in Al Qaeda.
one can easily see how this 'technique' was applied by Fetzer to the JFK movement as well. All the films and photos were faked. Promoting a raving lunatic 'researcher'. Accusing critics of being 'agents.' deja vu all over again.
and on a different point:
Barrett's motives seem to be transparent. He trumpets his desire for 'civility' while simultaneously promoting some of the most obnoxiously divisive and insulting personalities in this movement. He claims he is the victim of harsh criticism while giving voice to those very same activists who repeatedly attack, slander and defame others.
Maybe next week, Roy Shivers will find time in his busy research schedule to come on with Barrett & enlighten us as to what we should be focusing on. Or maybe Nico will catch us up?
>>Barrett's motives seem to be transparent. He trumpets his desire for 'civility' while simultaneously promoting some of the most obnoxiously divisive and insulting personalities in this movement. He claims he is the victim of harsh criticism while giving voice to those very same activists who repeatedly attack, slander and defame others.
Nice summary.
The problem for all of us is that he's working overtime to paper the movement with his name, and now with no job apparently to take up any of his time -- on the radio everyday, posting every peep he makes onto blogger, emailing his (likely large) MUJCA list with every peep he makes, publishing his books, creating more groups that are trying to outreach nationwide, potentially running for political office and likely a key organizer in someone else's political campaign, etc.
To me, he is no different than Fetzer, and this is why they are the duo in almost every way, except that he has skill in perception management that Fetzer didn't have, so people decide it's okay to put up with nonsense if someone is -- seemingly -- nice enough about it.
And this is why he always wants personal and individual dialog with people and not to have the facts of his public statements exposed in the open.
Or alternately, to use public radio challenges and debate to his favor in various ways. Being on a radio program is not nothing. The invitee comes to feel an emotional connection, affection, to someone who gives them a mic and is no longer a non-biased individual. The host becomes the person who gave them their break to reach out to the public, to be the center stage, and so the host is their friend on an emotional level. This is how WING TV did it's work, hosting everyone they possibly could and lavishing praise on people to get them to be come on the show. Later, after disruptions galore and getting the movement trashed in NYC in the paper . . . and once Ruppert was gone, they disappeared.
While on the face of it, what Barrett appears to want sounds good -- outreach, events, growth -- but that could be done without supporting nonsense and attackers. Those don't require that no line ever be drawn in terms of evidence and behaviors. His sucess depends on distorting his actions that keep nonsense flowing, through reframing them as having a positive purpose. Today he reframed his actions as "black humor."
I honestly don't know if he simply cannot control himself, or what the deal is, but in the end, what counts for our work is the percentage of nonsense that is funneled into the movement that works against our efforts -- both in recruiting people attracted to nonsense (often also belligerent types) and in presenting nonsense to the public as "evidence" -- because of his "outreach".
Joined: 19 Oct 2007 Posts: 1550 Location: Los Angeles
Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 3:16 am Post subject:
Victronix and I (Jules) inadvertently got Kevin Barrett to talk about his advocacy of the "big tent approach" on his radio show this evening with our critique of his comments over at 911Blogger. Good comments over there from a some of the regulars here.
He's got Tom Tweeden arguing for it in the first hour and Ken Jenkins arguing against it in the second hour. The second hour is not archived at the website.
>>black humor, hyperbole, and other rhetorical effects
Is suggesting that real planes didn't hit the WTC also a part of these effects? A simple yes or no answer will do.
Submitted by Victronix on Tue, 02/05/2008 - 5:16pm.
KB's response:
you actually have a sense of humor
I'm amazed ; )
The answer is no, I don't say (or "suggest") that planes didn't hit the WTC. Nor do I bully, ridicule, ostracize, or otherwise persecute those who do say or suggest that.
etc. . . .
Submitted by Kevin Barrett on Tue, 02/05/2008 - 9:29pm
My response:
>>The answer is no, I don't say (or "suggest") that planes didn't hit the WTC.
So you've changed your postion from your past public statements?
On the above video you describe the plane impacts as "alleged." To me, that sounds like you question whether planes impacted the buildings.
And in an OpEd News article promoting Jim Fetzer's conference, you said about TV Fakery:
"'I guess I'll have to take this possibility more seriously now,' Barrett said. 'In the past, I have assumed video fakery was far-fetched and that anyone who endorsed it was probably a crackpot! Now I'm not so sure.'"
Mounting Evidence of 9/11 Video Fakery:
New proof of media duplicity, Scholars claim
by James Fetzer; July 28, 2007
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_james_fe_070726_mounting_evidien...
There are other examples, like where you said you wouldn't rule out "pods" being on the planes, in a Von Kleist video you did with Jim Fetzer.
That you would now say you do not suggest such things is disconcerting.
Which is it? The old public statements, available online? Or this new one, where you make it sound like a joke that you would support no plane at the WTC theories?
Tues. 2/12 Wendy Campbell, pro-Palestinian activist, author "9/11 Truth and the Holocaust": http://www.countercurrents.org/campbell240108.htm and critic of Steve Alten's 9/11 truth novel The Shell Game: radicalpress.com/?p=624 I strongly disagree with her argument that The Shell Game is "just another Zionist scam" and am skeptical of some of her claims about the relative weight of Zionism versus other imperialisms, the findings of Holocaust revisionism, etc. so it should be a lively conversation!
Tues. 2/12 Wendy Campbell, pro-Palestinian activist, author "9/11 Truth and the Holocaust": http://www.countercurrents.org/campbell240108.htm and critic of Steve Alten's 9/11 truth novel The Shell Game: radicalpress.com/?p=624 I strongly disagree with her argument that The Shell Game is "just another Zionist scam" and am skeptical of some of her claims about the relative weight of Zionism versus other imperialisms, the findings of Holocaust revisionism, etc. so it should be a lively conversation!
Monday, February 11th 2008 marks the one year anniversary of Truth
Action Day. That’s the grassroots campaign for International Days of
Truth Action on the Eleventh Day of Every Month until truth triumphs
and justice prevails.
Over the past year the 11th of the month Truth Action Day has spread
from three American cities - San Francisco, New York City and
Louisville - to dozens of locations in countries around the world.
For more information on the 11th of the month Truth Action Day, check
out http://www.truthaction.org
What are you doing for Truth Action Day? If you're within striking
distance of Rockford, Illiniois, drop by 9/11 Truth Conference where
I'll be speaking along with Jim Fetzer -- tonight, February 11th,
2008, BTA Records, 1524 Broadway, Rockford, IL. The event is hosted
by Troy J. Tucker of Midwest911Truth. Free and open to the public.
Hope to see you there, and keep up the struggle for truth!
Barrett: "I cannot possibly dismiss the arguments of people like Green, Irving, and even Zundel. And even if the 6-million-deliberately-murdered-for-purely-ethnic-reasons figure is correct--which it very well may be; I have grown agnostic on that after studying the Big Lies of Zionism-- I would still have to characterize the Holocaust as it is taught in the US as a hideously destructive myth."
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