Diatribune

Abstract. Given corporation dominance of the media and its multiple sources of bias, dependence upon the internet for less subjective, if not completely objective, information has become important to those who want to discover truths about domestic politics and foreign affairs. Some of our most popular internet sources, however, can display bias of their own. I offer as an example my experience with the Daily Kos, a site that we would all expect to be “fair and balanced”. The abuse to which I was subjected was not only corrupt but actually self-defeating, if the aim is discovering truth rather than, say, misleading the public.

Madison, WI (March 30, 2008) – About two weeks ago, I received an email from someone who had read a piece I published on OpEdNews, Bush vendetta, in which I discussed the psychological dimensions that have enabled the Vice President to manipulate the President and how their tendency toward retribution for revealing information about the administration's malfeasance had led to exposing Valerie Plame, taking out Eliot Spitzer, and now removing Admiral Fallon. My correspondent suggested that it might find a welcome audience at Daily Kos, among the most popular web sites for discussion of political issues on the net.

So I visited the web site and, after poking around, discovered how to register. I identified as my website, http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/, and my email address, jfetzer@d.umn.edu, authoring a brief signature reading McKnight Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota, Duluth; Founder, Scholars for 9/11 Truth; Editor, Assassination Research. It would be a week before I could post a “diary”, so I bade my time and, when the week was up – Saturday, March 22, 2008 – I posted my first diary, “Hillary's Perfidy”, pointing out – as is now so painfully apparent – that she is willing to destroy the party to advance her own interests.

The Hillary post was moderately well-received with 19 comments. The next day, I posted my second – and, it would turn out, my last – diary, “What’s Wrong with Rev. Wright?” Like most Americans, I was aware of the enormous controversy surrounding sermons given by Jeremiah Wright, Jr., who was the minister at Barach Obama’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. (Given his attendance over a 20 year interval, it is astounding that his faith has been contested.) But, unlike most Americans, my background of scholarly research placed me in a better position to investigate and evaluate what he actually said.

In the space of just three hours – from its appearance at 9 AM/PT on Sunday, March 23, until noon – I would be called “a pathological liar” (Mia Dolan), “a banned troll” (Mia Dolan), my diary described as “tin-foil” (DHinMI), where “that sh*t (about the origin of AIDS) has been completely debunked” (Mia Dolan) and is “just pure garbage” (Mia Dolan). In response to the observation, “Generally, it’s well thought out and accurate, and he does make other numerous valid points about Wright”, Mia Dolan would respond, “How the f**k would you know?”, adding “He doesn’t link anything”, even though I cite eleven articles, twelve books and a DVD. Then, at noon, I would be banned.

Now I am only one person and I would not claim that my experience with Daily Kos is typical of the experience of others with that or with similar sites. Yet in certain respects, it provides a telling illustration of the abuse of a popular site to artificially constrain discussion of rather important subjects, which thus guarantees that those subjects cannot be adequately explored. When certain hypotheses are “ruled out” and banned on the ground they are (for some reason) “inappropriate”, we risk excluding the true hypothesis from consideration and thus make it impossible for the truth to emerge from (what should be) a process of rational deliberation and scientific evaluation, if truth is the objective.

What’s Wrong with Rev. Wright?

Taking the article, “Obama and the Minister” (The Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2008) as my point of departure, my diary had investigated nine of his more inflammatory claims. It was relatively effortless to determine that six of those claims were obviously true and that the other three were at least not obviously false. Having spent 35 years teaching logic, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning, I took it for granted that an analysis of evidence for or against the truth of Rev. Wright’s claims would be welcomed by those who post at Daily Kos. The first 18-20 comments on it were complimentary and appreciative.

Many of Rev. Wright’s claims to racism and the nation’s history were in the category of “common knowledge”, where almost everyone knows, for example, that the settlers were at war with Native Americans, who were eradicated in numbers that may rival those of the Holocaust, and that hundreds of thousands of blacks were kidnapped from their home in Africa and involuntarily relocated here to live the rest of their lives as slaves. Others were on more controversial subjects, including one on Zionism that I supposed would invite dissent. I wrote as follows:

Wright’s claim #8: “We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic. . . .”

Accuracy: True. Osama bin Laden long ago explained his displeasure with the United States, not because of our “freedom”, but because we had stationed military forces in Saudi Arabia, the home of Mecca and Medina, two of the most sacred sites in Islam, and because of our lopsided support of Israel in its dispute with the Palestinians. Anti-Semitism is discounting persons and their interests on the ground of their religion or their ethnic origins. Criticism of Israel or of the government of Israel or of the policies of the government of Israel is not “anti-Semitism”, yet it is common practice to condemn those who are even mildly critical of Israel as “anti-Semites”.

The blatancy of US support for Israel knows no bounds. As Wilmer Leon III has observed (“The Rev. Dr. Jermiah Wright and the Audacity of Truth”, March 22, 2008), the Arms Exports Control Act forbids providing military assistance to any country engaging in the gross violation of human rights. “In spite of all of the evidence supporting claims of the Israeli government’s human rights abuses of the Palestinian people, for FY2005 the United States provided $2.22 billion in military aid.” Indeed, I find knowledge that the tanks, planes, and bullets that are being used to subjugate and oppress the Palestinian people are being financed by the American taxpayer personally nauseating.

During debates for the Republican nomination, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) frequently pointed out that the United States had engendered the hostility and the hatred of foreign nationals, including many in the Middle East who happen to be Muslim in their religion, for those very reasons. Yet Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York, who campaigned as the hero of 9/11, suggested that Paul’s explanation was absurd. And yet, as Paul replied, even The 9/11 Commission Report (2004) outlined reasons of this very kind in its attempt to explain the events of 9/11, which, even on the official account of The 9/11 Commission, resulted as “blowback” for unjust foreign policies.

The Attacks on My Column

Rather to my surprise, the attacks took a different approach. Many of them were posted by one “Mia Doran”. Here is one of her first:

Wow

What is wrong with people here? Repeating long-debunked bullsh*t about the origin of aids? Fetzer is a pathological liar and the head of one of the big 9-11 conspiracy groups. He is also a banned troll who is going to be banned again very shortly.

by Mia Dolan on Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 11:22:23 AM PDT

This post reflected themes that would be repeated by her ally, one “Bouwerie Boy”, who would write, when someone asked, “Why?”, in reply to a post requesting a “Ban” button, Bouwerie Boy responded,

Ummmm, beause Fetzer is here to post

conspiracy theory diaries. That's what Fetzer does. As you know, posting CT diaries at this site is prohibited.

by Bouwerie Boy on Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 09:24:45 AM PDT

All of this came as news to me, including that I had been previously banned. Making a big deal out of my commentary about AIDS was completely misplaced, given that I was not asserting that AIDS had been deliberately designed to target specific populations but only explaining that, whether he (Wright) is right or wrong, the experts who hold that opinion are numerous enough and qualified enough to make his (Wright’s) opinion at least not obviously wrong. That Mia Dolan thought it was “long-debunked” was irrelevant to what I had said for understanding what Wright had had to say. I had written:

Wright’s claim #9: “We started the AIDS virus . . .”

Accuracy: Mixed. A variety of theories have been advanced according to which AIDS has been created deliberately as a disease intended to harm or even eradicate gays and blacks or as a mean of population control. According to Wikipedia (“AIDS conspiracy theories”), Jakob Segal, a biology professor at Humboldt University, has proposes that HIV was engineered at a military laboratory at Fort Detrick, by splicing together two other viruses; TIME magazine reports that Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai has theorized that the biological agent causing AIDS is not natural; and Dr. Alan Cantwell, author of AIDS and the Doctors of Death (1992) and of Queer Blood: The Secret AIDS Genocide Plot (1993), alleges that HIV is a genetically modified organism developed by US Government scientists.

Similar theories have been advanced by other experts, including Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz, author of Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola (1996) of the DVD, Death in the Air: Globalism, Terrorism and Toxic Warfare, who has offered the theory that AIDS virus engineered by U.S. Government defense contractors for the purposes of bio-warfare and population control. In Horowitz case, he believes that Jews, blacks, and Hispanics are prime targets of these attempts, which exemplify American preoccupation with eugenics and even the practice of genocide. If Rev. Wright is mistaken here, as elsewhere, he appears to be in good company. He is not obviously wrong.

Why They Were Off Base

Everything I wrote here is true. These experts – Jakob Segal, Wangari Maathai, Alan Cantwell, and Leonard Horowitz – have published books and articles advancing these opinions. One of them – Maathai – is a Nobel Prize winner! I thought this was convincing evidence that, even if he (Wright) were wrong, there is more than enough evidence on his side to make his opinion at least not obviously wrong. Moreover, how in the world does Mia Dolan know that these experts are mistaken? As a student of the theory of knowledge and of the philosophy of science, I wrote a response to explain that proof here would be difficult to find:

As a point of logic, hypotheses about the origin of AIDS are existential claims (like the existence of life in outer space) that can be verified (if you can find a specific example) but cannot be falsified (because you would have to examine every space/time point in the universe with a negative result). Consequently, we should not expect to establish the origin of AIDS definitively. Moreover, with the acquisition of new data or new hypotheses, previously accepted conclusions may have to be rejected and previously rejected conclusions accepted. I have no idea if these experts are right, but they afford a context for Wright’s views.

These may not be my exact words, because before I had even finished my response, it was deleted along with an earlier one that addressed the nature of conspiracy theories. It is correct that some of my work has been devoted to the study of political events that may have been conspiracies, including three edited books on the death of JFK, one co-authored book on the crash that took the life of Sen. Paul Wellstone, and an edited book and a DVD investigating 9/11. As a professional philosopher, however, my objective – and that of my colleagues – has been to take rumor and speculation out of each of these cases and to place their study on an objective and scientific foundation. Moreover, these five books and a DVD hardly exhaust the scope of my research.

Given my signature included “Founder, Scholars for 9/11 Truth; Editor, Assassination Research”, I doubted that it would come as a surprise to many that I am the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth or that I edit an on-line journal devoted to advanced study of the assassination of JFK. My offense, apparently, is that my applied philosophical research uses the principles of scientific reasoning to investigate political events that may have explanations that the government has suppressed, an area of inquiry I have referred to as “assassination science”. It has yielded significant results related to the death of JFK and the Wellstone crash, as anyone can verify by consulting a sample of our publications. So I wrote about the exclusion of conspiracy theories from any discussion:

Since conspiracies involve collusion between two or more persons to attain illegal ends, excluding any discussion of conspiracy theories is unlikely to contribute to the discovery of truth. Does this mean that we can’t discuss the exposure of Valerie Plame, the resignation of Eliot Spitzer, the removal of Admiral Fallon? Or the role of Halliburton, Blackwater, and KBR ripping off the American taxpayer in Iraq? Indeed, on the government’s official account, 9/11 was brought about by 19 Islamic fundamentalists who took control of four airliners and outfoxed the most sophisticated air defense system in the world to perpetrate these crimes under control of a man in a cave in Afghanistan. Since that is a conspiracy theory, is the most important event of the 21st C. something we can’t discuss?

Once again, this is a reconstruction, because this post, like my other post, was deleted when I was cut off from the discussion. The oddest aspect, however, is that I was alleged to have been previously banned in 2005 while using the handle, “Monsieur le Prof”. My research on Daily Kos indicated that someone using this name had made more than 700 posts on the web site, most prior to 2005, and had been banned. The only problem was that I was not really active on the internet before I founded Scholars in December 2005, that I have never posted under any name than my own, and that I had not previously joined Daily Kos. So I was being banned on the basis of a false identification!

Attempting to “Contact Us”

Presuming that Daily Kos was committed to fair play with its members and would want to correct any mistakes that were being made by its enforcers, such as a misidentification, I wrote to the founder of Daily Kos, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (“Kos”), using a Contact Us form from the site. Since Markos has received high praise for creating this site and appears to be a person of principle, I presumed this would lead to a rapid resolution of the issues that had arisen. That, alas, would prove to be very naïve of me, since matters only became worse and my efforts to correct the situation would prove entirely unavailing.

While I was waiting to hear from Kos, I noticed that Mia Nolan had taken it upon herself to change the tags to my article. Where I had used “Rev. Wright, Barack Obama, Obama's minister, racism, drugs, Zionism, militarism, Osama bin Laden, Ron Paul, AIDS, ‘God damn America!’, hypocrisy”, somehow along the line the last two had been dropped. But she had thoughtfully added “conspiracy” and “tinfoil” and, concluding those were not enough, “banned user”. I would have explained that those were inappropriate and even untrue, except my posting privileges had now been suspended. I was left a sitting duck.

In the absence of hearing anything from Kos, I had noticed a list of a dozen or more “authors”, whom I inferred were actually editors, as I confirmed when I read the page, About Daily Kos. Much heartened by the apparent quality of the editors, I proceeded to send a post similar to the one I had sent to Kos to each of them. In this case, I actually received a response from one of them, Mark Sumner, who goes by the handle “Devilstower”. In this case, I have a copy of the letter I sent to him, which laid out the odd experience to which I had been subjected:

On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 6:54 PM, wrote:

Devilstower,

I am a new member to Daily Kos. I am being viciously attacked for a very objective and informative piece on Rev. Wright. For noting that he is either right or at least not obviously wrong about any of nine controversial claims I address, including one about AIDS, where I observe that a number of experts hold views like his, I am being pilloried as a "f**king liar", "Nazi", and who knows what.

It is also claimed that I have previously posed here under the name, "Monsieur le Prof". From what I can tell, someone using that name put up more than 700 posts, most in 2005 and before. Whoever this person may have been, s/he was not me. I founded Scholars in December 2005 and was not active on the internet prior to that, to the best of my recollection. Certainly, if I had posted 700 times on Daily Kos, I would know that.

Can past records be checked? Some very inflammatory attacks are being made based upon the supposition that we are one and the same. That is false. Moreover, having reviewed a sample of "le Prof"'s posts, his style and mine are completely different. He writes in short and even simple-minded sentence, while I write in complex paragraphs. I did not expect to encounter universal agreement here, but there appear to be no standards for enforcing decorum. This is completely wrong.

Does Kos not take pains to make sure that a modicum of decorum is preserved in its exchanges? The abuse to which I have been subjected is outrageous. When I penned replies to some of these attacks, they were deleted. Now my capacity to respond has been deactivated. This is an extremely form of disrespect that does not reflect well on Daily Kos. Can steps to correct this situation and insure that it does not occur again? Thanks for listening.

Jim

James H. Fetzer
McKnight Professor Emeritus
University of Minnesota, Duluth
http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/

Since Mark Sumner has published 32 novels and is a winner of the “Writers of the Future” Award, I supposed I was in good hands and that the matter would now be rapidly resolved. When I found that Mia Nolan had changed the tags on my article, I sent him a brief note. In the end, however, I heard nothing more from him. So on March 24, 2008, I sent a note asking, “Can you fill me in on what happened? What am I missing?” But if Mark was troubled by what had happened to me, I never learned. If he was concerned, then he may have been outvoted or otherwise overruled in correcting a bad situation. This is as close as I came to actually hearing from anyone who runs the site.

“Lasers from Space”

One of the attacks I was looking forward to discussing was posted by Mia Nolan, which suggested that I endorse the position that the Twin Towers were brought down by “lasers from space” as follows:

Hey Fetzer

How are your Nazi friends in the 9-11 truth movement doing? I really enjoyed reading about how the towers were destroyed by lasers from space.

by Mia Dolan on Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 11:29:25 AM PDT

This is a perfect example of the adverse effects that follow from the artificial constriction of debate on complex and controversial issues. (I have long been convinced, by the way, that they are the only subjects worth discussing. The simple and uncontroversial don’t need debate!) In particular, having invested considerable time and effort in the study of 9/11, including the publication of one book and of a DVD as well as maintaining the Society’s web site since its creation in January 2006, I have been through a great deal of discussion and debate on topics like this one. Ordinarily, however, participants have a chance to respond.

Scientific reasoning involves four steps or stages: Puzzlement, where something has occurred that does not fit with your background beliefs and knowledge; Speculation, where alternative possible explanations are enumerated; Adaptation, where the hypotheses are evaluated in relation to the available relevant evidence; and Explanation, where the best supported hypothesis becomes acceptable when enough evidence becomes available (roughly, when the evidence has “settled down”). I have found that most students of 9/11 are not sufficiently familiar with the evidence to grasp the complexity and dimensions of what needs to be explained, where my book and DVD are intended as a contribution.

The alternative possible explanations for the destruction of the World Trade Center include natural phenomena, including, say, hurricanes, tornados or earthquakes; or aircraft impacts and jet-fuel based fires; conventional methods, including termite or thermate, RDX and such; or unconventional methods, such as (a) nukes (atomic or hydrogen, fourth generation) or (b) high-tech weaponry, such as lasers, masers, plasmoids or other devices. High-tech weapons like these could be positioned on the ground, in aircraft, on dirigibles or on satellites. The current state of research suggests that the effects observed on 9/11 were unlikely to have been produced by other than one or another of these high-tech devices, but how this was done remains unresolved.

The use of the phrase, “lasers from space”, advances what is known as a straw man, where an exaggerated version of a position is offered in place of the real thing to make it easier to discount. We don’t know if lasers were involved or, if they were, where they were situated. But Bob Bowman, Lt. Col (USAF, ret.), who earned his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Cal Tech, has recently acknowledged that the “Star Wars” research program, which he directed under Presidents Carter and Ford, as always intended to be offensive. That requires the militarization of space, which no doubt includes lasers on satellites. Those who ridicule the very idea thereby display their own ignorance.

Concluding Reflections

During the three hour interval between posting my column on Rev. Wright and my being banned, some 54 comments were posted. The first 18-20 were thoughtful, supportive, and frequently rather detailed. The onslaught of more than 30 attacks to which I was subsequently subjected, however, were very different in their character, typically – to borrow a phrase from Hobbs – nasty brutish, and short. One of the most interesting exchanges to occur, therefore, was the last to appear, where “bfitz” offered observations on the banning of trolls:

banning trolls

The trolls can easily be identified as those who have little if anything to add to the subject at hand and resort mostly to name-calling and insults. I am sure the distinguished professor of philosophy is shaking in his boots from your juvenile antics. If you are in disagreement with him, then present your case. Your current tactics only bring disrespect and contempt from the vast majority on this website.

by bfitz on Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 04:46:44 PM PDT

Not to be reprimanded for abusive behavior, Mia Dolan was on top of the situation and promptly replied in her own inimitable style:

Shut the f**k up

How the f**k would you know, since you signed up last week. Oh, that's right, you are a banned troll.

by Mia Dolan on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 01:33:59 PM PDT

The Daily Kos, of course, is a public website where anyone can view the diaries that are being posted and the commentaries about them. That I should have been treated so contemptuously by a handful of self-appointed “guardians of truth” perhaps ought to have come as no surprise. That false claims and verbal abuse was heaped on me for no apparent good reason could be dismissed as behavior that is expected on the internet. What bothers me is that I acted to inform those who manage Daily Kos about these forms of abuse and to let them know that I was not the person they had previously banned – to no avail.

That no one at Daily Kos – including Kos himself – cared enough to taken any corrective action bothers me. That not even the editor who was credited with having cut me off – Joan McCarter (mcjoan) – wrote back to seek clarification of what she had done astonishes me. That a web site widely celebrated for its important contributions should abuse its contributors sickens me. I can always find other outlets for my research. But Daily Kos describes itself as “the premier political community in the United States, with traffic of about 600,000 daily visits.” Sites like this are supposed to uphold the standards of freedom of speech and of inquiry, not suppress them. Surely Daily Kos can do better.

__________________________

McKnight Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota, Duluth; Founder, Scholars for 9/11 Truth; Editor, Assassination Research