Thanks to Rob Breakenridge!
I have a lot of people tell me I should be doing radio and then I get on a show with pros like Rob Breakenridge or Andrea Shea-King and Mark Vance, or Jamie Allman and Smash and I realize I got a lot more guesting to do before I can dream about doing the midnight hour in Poughkeepsie.
Rob's producer Laura suggested this morning that he'd be interested in talking about the latest poll on 9-11, and I'm glad she did. I looked up the guts of the poll, and while I didn't find the crosstabs, I did find some interesting stuff:
1. It was part of a survey that included something like 50 questions, including a question that asked people to indicate who they would vote for in each of the last 12 presidential elections, what they thought about motorcycle helmet laws, and even if they’d ever eaten anything that had fallen on the floor without washing it first (54% said yes). Other questions asked whom you'd vote for president between Hillary and Bill Clinton, and Poppy Bush and George W. Bush. So there may have been set in the respondents' minds that this was kind of a just for grins poll. Not saying that's entirely what's going on here, but it does seem that asking serious questions after goofy ones is liable to yield oddball responses.
2. Lots of indications that those less intelligent or who have less wisdom are more likely to believe the conspiracy theory-- The poll found that a majority of young adults give at least some credence to a 9/11 conspiracy compared to less than a fourth of people 65 or older. People with only a high school education (and Democrats) were especially likely to suspect federal involvement in 9/11. Note: I think the Democrat thing is just partisan anti-Bush. If you asked people in the 1990s if the Clintons killed Vincent Foster, you'd find Republicans more likely to agree. The party out of power is more likely to believe in a ridiculous conspiracy involving the party in power.
3. For comparison purposes, 38% of the people thought it was very likely or somewhat likely that the federal government was hiding evidence of intelligent life on other planets.
4. Although they indicate in the article that those who get their news on the internet were more likely to believe in the conspiracy theory on 9-11, 88% said they never read blogs and 51% never listen to talk radio. So they’re obviously not that well-informed.
posted by Pat @ 8:48 PM
13 comments
13 Comments:
I think there is a difference between believing the Biblical version of the world and believing the 9-11 nutbars. And I'm agnostic myself.
BTW, the poll cited only showed 40% support for the JFK assassination by forces in the US Government theory. I was surprised at that particular result; I would have thought support for the JFK theories, which have been around for years and been the subject of much more famous movies than LC, would be way higher than that. Perhaps encouraging?
I have a lot of people tell me I should be doing radio and then I get on a show with pros like..
You'd be in good company with Rush "Pills" Limbaugh :D
For the record, i believe that God created the earth.
I don't claim to know wether he did in six days or six billion years, however. To me, that's not what faith is supposed to be about.
I feel your pain, jpslovanovski. This week, I discredited some fool on a mailing list I belong to who trotted out the "hijackers are still alive" claim. He offered this speculation as why I offered actual proof to the contrary:
"I'll even go so far as to guess that loyalty to a cause or country is likely involved."
Nice, huh?
You would need an Enron or other party desperate for some self-interest legislation before you would have a chance in your 'free country'. It isn't different in mine, so don't worry.
Oooooh the scare quotes! Fear them! Fear the Amerikkkan police state!
You wanna know why a 9/11 political party wouldn't work? You'd be laughed out of every state.
Again, you're using CT "logic" again. Past and future lies do not matter. You need solid evidence to claim something.
You do know prior bad acts are inadmissible in a criminal case, right?
Iraqi war wasn't started on the basis of lies.
Up to interpretation. A lie tends to be something you know to be false, which it isn't fact that Bush and company knew it was untrue. (Although they have uncovered pre-Gulf War stockpiles of sarin gas, let's not go there for the moment.) Practically every politician (Clinton and Kerry among them), believed Saddam had WMDs when the invasion was launched.
Did Bush and his folks use 9/11 to their advantage to invade Iraq? Certainly. That's not evidence they committed 9/11, though.
You do know prior bad acts are inadmissible in a criminal case, right?
Just to play devils advocate for a second....nobody is on trial for 9/11. "Prior bad acts" ARE sometimes enough to make you a suspect in an investigation. They won't get you convicted, but they will get you investigated. So if Da Troofers are really asking for a new investigation, pointing out past "bad acts" would make sense. However, they should be pointing out prior acts of whoever they beleive was responsible for 9/11, and not those of every US administration since Lincoln.
Aw get off the Iraq bandwagon JP. We've already explained to you why Iraq was justified regaurdless of any "weapons of mass destruction". You're starting to operate like a truther, simply ignoring the evidence you don't like.
FYI sadam was never forced to prove a negative. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see it.
Iraq was not a threat to the US, or its neighbors.
Nor was Germany in 1941.
JP, if you expect international politics to follow logic, you might wanna move to another planet.
No, Sadam was asked to prove that he had destroyed all the weapons. Which should have been easy to do unless he just burned them all in his back yard. He was also told to allow UN inspectors the freedom to check any site they wished without prior warning. He continued to defy that order. Furthermore he was later found to be building missiles with a range exceeding that allowed by the ceasefire agreement. Also, he violated the terms of the agreement when he had the inspectors ejected from Iraq. So all in all, he violated many, MANY of the agreements which were part of the conditions for the original ceasefire. It's like a criminal being released on parole, and then violating all the terms of his parole and thumbing his nose at the government. You can't just ignore that. You have to do something about it. Frankly, that's one of the biggest problems I have with Clinton; he failed to rectify that situation back when it was his responsibility. You can't let petty little dictators, whom you've already defeated milaterily and then gave a second chance to, thumb their nose at you and defy the conditions you placed on them. If you can't understand that then you're sorely lacking in the common sense department.
Based on all the data available about Iraq at the time, this is simply laughable.
Which is why every single intelligence agency arund the world agreed with him? Which is why numerous heads of state agreed with him?
Keep laughing pretty boy, but when it comes to American foreign policy you're as batty as some of the 9-11 deniers. You present fiction as fact on a regular basis.
And yes, the things I listed were more than justification enough. Defying UN resolutions doesn't matter as you so correctly pointed out. That's because the UN has no teeth, and is for the most part just a bunch of decadent old men sitting around wasting oxygen. They never ACT. Violating a ceasefire agreement with a foreign nation, on the other hand, certainly is justification enough for you to get your ass kicked a second time.
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