trutherism?

Fri Sep 4 22:18:52 UTC 2009

Is this is a nonce word, something new, or something that's been around a while but I haven't seen?

>From Ben Smith at Politico.com   http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/

Trutherism-lite, and a second Jones tie

The White House seems to have decided yesterday that Van Jones could, politically, be saved: His statements on race and politics could be seen as rhetorical excesses; and he said he hadn't reviewed a statement he signed calling for a 9/11 investigation.

I corresponded yesterday with a couple of the other better-known signatories of the statement, Rabbi Michael Lerner and historian Howard Zinn, both of whom said they'd signed something narrower than the press release put out by the organization circulating it -- though something that clearly conveyed suspicions well outside the political mainstream about the September 11 attacks.

Call it a Truther-lite statement.

Lerner emails:

I was asked to sign a letter which I was told had four demands:

As Americans of conscience, we ask for four things:

1. An immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
2. Immediate investigation in Congressional Hearings.
3. Media attention to scrutinize and investigate the evidence.
4. The formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.

I did not authorize my name to be used for all the other stuff that I now see was included surrounding the letter, namely the sponsors of that 911truth.org, and would not have had I been aware that all that stuff was presented in ways that suggested that I agreed with it, and though I do recognize a few of the people I'd consider "nut cases" among the list of signatories, my guess is that most of those who signed were, like me, unaware of the context in which our names would appear.

Zinn sent me a curt email in response to a question of whether he'd intended to suggest Bush's complicity in the attacks: "I did not sign a statement suggesting that 'Bush had prior knowledge.' I signed a statement calling for an investigation.

That may be enough for some to disqualify Jones, but it's certainly somewhat weaker tea than some of the surrounding language, like: the suggestion that "people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war."

HOWEVER, just as that tends to get Jones off the hook slightly, bloggers have turned up another, damning connection to the 9/11 Truth movement: Jones is listed as a member of the "organizing committee" of a march to demand the "truth" behind 9/11.

It's hard to explain the second one as his having signed off on a statement he misunderstood or as, in the legendary words of the Obama campaign, a "staff error."

Labor Day Weekend is the sort of time when staffers "resign" to avoid being "distractions," so the White House will likely decide today or tomorrow whether ties to the Truth movement, the Birther movement of the '90s, are fatal.

UPDATE: In Jones's partial defense, a reader notes that the second link, to a January, 2002 march seems to be -- in part -- about the aftermath of the attacks, though the statement includes quite a lot of conspiracy theorizing.

ALSO: Another reader sends over a link to a 2002 "peace" event that included Truthers.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2002/09/09/1467721.php

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Either Google News or the New York Times left out a colon, with macabre results:

     Op-Ed Contributor Innocent But Dead

That is nothing compared to the following from Time magazine, which implies that China has adopted Chingis Khan-like operations:

    China dispatched thousands of security troops in Xinhuang

    - Jim Landau

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