I’ve reviewed the e-mails I’ve received this week and I’ve decided that posting the really invective filled ones won’t bring me the kind of catharsis I’d like. So, I thought I’d given you an overview of the general comments I got. All of these are actual quotes, but they are not the full text; like Climategate (as I believe ‘they’ are calling it) I might well be distorting the record for my own malevolent purpose.
Or not. You can decide.
The most common sentiment I’ve received since the Herald on Sunday piece goes something like this:
Anyway perhaps you were misquoted or quoted out of context; if so I hope a correction can be published.
That was what lead me to writing my clarification.
Another correspondent asked:
Could you please tell me if you believe you were accurately quoted?
I ask this because I have no such feelings of anti-semitism. I am however anti – criminal behaviour and pro – truth
I’d like to think we are all pro-truth in some way. Actually, this correspondent ended up being the one person I had a productive e-mail exchange with. We ended up agreeing to disagree, with Dany admitting that I certainly did sound very sincere in my convictions.
Winner of the ‘Irony Award’ goes to this correspondent, who after asserting the ‘Inside Job’ hypothesis wrote:
I think that those who claim to know the truth (any truth) about 9/11, like you implied to do, are either conceited or highly naive.
It’s a great example of the Inadvertantly Self-referring Self-sealing Fallacy; how dare you call someone naive for thinking they have a handle on what went on in New York on 9/11. Only naive people, like myself, think they know one way or the other.
He also accused me of calling myself a scientist. The cad!
Several of my correspondents wanted to blame falling media standards on me:
Wow….and here I was thinking that anybody would care about the deterioration of mass-media or the replacement of actual problems with discussions on fashion and sports in the general public…
Admittedly, perhaps he was concerned with soundbite culture. But, let it be known, I would like all sports pages in all papers to be dismissed and never seen again.
I do sometimes look at the fashion pages, though…
Whilst many of the e-mails I received did the softly-softly tactic of trying to get me to admit I was wrong, some tried the hard sell:
Your cheap comment about Richard Gage , AIA and founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth is typical based on your cognitive dissonance level. … You are a joke and bring shame to anyone who has done a PHD!
When that didn’t work he challenged me to call him an anti-semite. Charming man.
A convert to the Truther Movement wrote:
If you are truly getting a PhD on conspiracy theories, and you make a statement that “all the 9/11 conspiracies collapse when prodded” you must get a refund on your entire education, and become involved in mindless labor. Because you must be entirely incapable of critical thought.
I’m also entirely incapable of bilocation, but I keep trying.
The e-mail flood has not just slowed to a trickle; it has dried up. Unless any further excitement happens at Monday’s event, I think I’m now safely out of the Truthers’ eyeline.
Wonder if the lawyer ever found Jeanette Fitzsimons e-mail address, the one that is publicly available on the internet?
Comments
“You are a joke and bring shame to anyone who has done a PHD!”
Yeah, because of all the people who have ever done a PhD, you are clearly the worst and most evil.
I suspect I’m also insincere and a disinformation agent. I suspect a lot about me.