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I have been reading Cognitive Infiltration by David Ray Griffin.

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Stanchetalarooni Donating Member (838 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-11 03:56 PM
Original message
I have been reading Cognitive Infiltration by David Ray Griffin.
I love when intelligent people write intelligently. If you're an evidence-based thinker and you're not completely persuaded that the official narrative of 911 is completely implausible after reading this book then my guess is that you can't think logically or you are one of the infiltrators.

From a review by Thomas C. Fletcher at Amazon.com:
Shortly after taking office on January 20, 2009 President Obama appointed Harvard law professor (and personal friend) Cass Sunstein to the post of administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. In June 2009 Sunstein published an essay in The Journal of Political Philosophy entitled "Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures," in which he provided an "analysis" of conspiracy theories, viewing them, as his title indicated, as "caused" by "informational isolation" and requiring "cures", i.e., elimination. The article led to an outcry by civil libertarians of all political stripes, who especially singled out for protest Sunstein's call for covert "cognitive infiltration" by government agents of organizations the government deems "conspiracist".

Griffin demonstrates that Sunstein is completely unable to refute the major positions of the 9/11 truth movement, and doesn't actually even try to do so. Instead, Sunstein has produced a pseudo-scholarly fake "analysis" as a basis for a call for the government to infiltrate and neutralize the movement through activities which create "cognitive diversity," clearly not the least bit different from the FBI's Cointelpro operations. But in so doing Sunstein has provided Griffin the means to demonstrate yet again that defenders of the official account of 9/11 actually cannot proceed by using reason and fact. They are forced to resort to disinformation, suppression of evidence, lies, illogic, threats and intimidation, always with the same result: failure. The more people study the events of 9/11 the more certain they become that the government and its media outlets are lying.
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zappaman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-11 04:22 PM
Response to Original message
1. "f you're an evidence-based thinker...
and you're not completely persuaded that the official narrative of 911 is completely implausible after reading this book then my guess is that you can't think logically or you are one of the infiltrators."
I can think logically and I am not one of the infiltrators.
And Griffin is full of shit.
So, guess again.
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Stanchetalarooni Donating Member (838 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-11 04:28 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Ha, ha, ha, ha, haha, ha,ha,ha.
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Stanchetalarooni Donating Member (838 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-11 04:36 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. http://davidraygriffin.com/
David Ray Griffin is widely recognized as one of the leading spokespersons of the 9/11 truth movement. This is by virtue of his previous 8 books on the subject. Professor Griffin and a growing list of scholars, other researchers as well as diverse experts and activists, reject the official Islamist mastermind conspiracy theory about 9/11 advanced by Establishment interests.
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zappaman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-11 04:46 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. "Griffin is widely recognized as one of the leading spokespersons of the 9/11 truth movement."
Hahahahahahahahahaha
:rofl:

Don't you mean he's recognized as one of the biggest charlatans of the 9/11 truth movement?

http://sites.google.com/site/911guide/ryanmackey

The guy could not be possibly more full of shit.

:rofl:
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Stanchetalarooni Donating Member (838 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-11 05:09 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. I should cry instead. Zappaman, you have my sympathy...and hopes.
Someone reading just the Introduction or Discussion of Mackey's 180-page article might easily conclude that the entire article is composed of insults, straw man arguments, innuendo, and appeals to authority. However, the article contains a range of types of arguments, from the obviously fallacious ones to cleverly misleading ones to superficially persuasive ones having some didactic value.

Maintaining the Mirage:
A Foray Into the Fallacy Factory
of the Demolition Deniers

A critique of Ryan Mackey's essay: "On Debunking 9/11 Debunking:
Examining Dr. David Ray Griffin's Latest Criticism
of the NIST World Trade Center Investigation"

http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/mackey/index.html
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Bolo Boffin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-11 05:26 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. The linked Mackey paper already deals with that critique in an appendix.
Edited on Mon Jan-24-11 05:29 PM by Bolo Boffin
Got anything else?

ETA: Tell you what. Find one problem, just one, with the Mackey paper. Cite it in the article and explain why it's wrong. Let's discuss just one issue. I can give you a link to a thread where I brought forward one argument from the Mackey paper I found particularly apt. No one could mount an effective argument against it.

But go ahead, choose your best example of how Mackey gets it wrong.
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zappaman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-11 05:29 PM
Response to Reply #5
7. No different from any other huckster throughout history
A hundred years ago, you would be giving this charlatan money for a tonic that would cure your TB.
Keep giving this fraud your money.
And yes, you might as well cry,

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2007/08/why_david_ray_griffin_is_full.php

Good luck proving that controlled demolition.
9 years and counting....tick....tick...tick...
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William Seger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-11 05:32 PM
Response to Original message
8. Being an evidence-based thinker
Edited on Mon Jan-24-11 05:44 PM by William Seger
... I'm sure you'll want to read http://sites.google.com/site/911guide/ryanmackey">this criticism of Griffin's main arguments (ETA: Oops, which zappaman already pointed out to you) and if you're not completely persuaded that Griffin is neither factual nor logical, then my guess is that you are easily impressed with lots of footnotes but too lazy to fact-check or to actually examine Griffin's logic.

It seems that Griffin is too busy writing books -- or actually, rewriting the same book over and over -- to respond to Mackey.

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William Seger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-11 05:48 PM
Response to Original message
9. Tell ya what, Stanchetalarooni
I love when intelligent people write intelligently, too, so take your best shot at it: Give us three good reasons to think 9/11 was an inside job.

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jberryhill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-11 07:19 PM
Response to Original message
10. Striking another blow for unintentional irony /nt
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Stanchetalarooni Donating Member (838 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-26-11 10:49 AM
Response to Reply #10
11. Boo!
“Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” Woodrow Wilson

Truth, it is said, is the most powerful force in the Universe, verily indomitable. Gandhi demonstrated this beyond a doubt when he wielded Truth as his sole weapon to bring to its knees the greatest empire of our times.
The 9/11 Truth movement is a peace movement. It is a clarion call that heralds Truth in a world ripped asunder by lies.
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pberq Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-27-11 01:20 PM
Response to Reply #11
12. Excellent, Stanch
I like your reference to Gandhi.
They can try to suppress the truth, but they can't make it go away.
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Stanchetalarooni Donating Member (838 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-18-11 12:13 PM
Response to Original message
13. Wow...you guys can do that?
Wow!
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apocalypsehow Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-18-11 12:30 PM
Response to Original message
14. "always with the same result: failure." - A tidy way to proceed through life, eh? "We win all the
arguments, 100% of the time, because we are right, regardless of what facts to the contrary we encounter."

That pretty much sums up the gist of that paragraph.

"The more people study the events of 9/11 the more certain they become that the government and its media outlets are lying"

What is it with these bald claims lately, stated without the slightest shred of backing evidence? :shrug:

And notice, one & all, that cute little reference to "its (emphasis added) media outlets," as if CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, CNN and all the rest wouldn't be running actual, valid evidence of MIHOP/LIHOP 24 hours a day seven days a week if they had it. But since MIHOP/LIHOP are fictions, without the tiniest speck of credible evidence to back either theory up, they do not run those stories, other than to point out that no evidence exists for them. This, then, naturally, is added to the CT narrative: suddenly, the news media is in on it! They are part of the vast, shapeless conspiracy to suppress the truth!!!!!11

:eyes:
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Stanchetalarooni Donating Member (838 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-18-11 12:39 PM
Response to Reply #14
15. When one rises through the chain-of-command, whetner in Military or industry...
...each layer is on a need to know basis. Rise high enough and you learn how the mechanisms of power work. Sort of like poker...ever bluff in poker? Or sort of like a magician who only allows you to see the illusion. Most we have to figure out ourselves like the fact that Grandpa didn't really pull a quarter from our ears. That one is easy but it uses the same technique. Hiding things in plane view is really quite easy...like WMD's that aren't really there...or thermate residue? Ooops, there I go tipping my hand.
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apocalypsehow Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-18-11 12:51 PM
Response to Reply #15
16. "Ooops, there I go tipping my hand" - um, I'd say so. But not in the way you think or intended. n/t.
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AZCat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-18-11 01:42 PM
Response to Reply #15
17. Ahhh... I see we have a therm[_]te proponent here.
Nothing completes a fantasy like magical pixie dust.
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LARED Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-18-11 05:01 PM
Response to Original message
18. I think you are mistaking
Griffin's skilled rhetoric and articulation for critical thought. (assuming you believe intelligence automatically translate to critical thought)

Worse case his is just an intelligent sounding writer that really believe what he writes, no matter how shallow and speculative it is, or he's just a huckster. I'm voting the latter.

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Stanchetalarooni Donating Member (838 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-18-11 06:14 PM
Response to Reply #18
19. Are you one of the "cures" for my "informational isolation"?
In June 2009 Sunstein published an essay in The Journal of Political Philosophy entitled "Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures," in which he provided an "analysis" of conspiracy theories, viewing them, as his title indicated, as "caused" by "informational isolation" and requiring "cures", i.e., elimination. The article led to an outcry by civil libertarians of all political stripes, who especially singled out for protest Sunstein's call for covert "cognitive infiltration" by government agents of organizations the government deems "conspiracist".
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SDuderstadt Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-18-11 06:22 PM
Response to Reply #19
20. I don't believe your...
informational isolation is curable.
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Stanchetalarooni Donating Member (838 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-18-11 06:28 PM
Response to Reply #20
21. Giggle, giggle....
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LARED Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-18-11 07:52 PM
Response to Reply #19
22. Let me guess. You referenced Sunsteins paper in
response to my post because you think I am part of a organization that's trying to "cure" you.

Or something less ironic.
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