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Why Myths Persist
lottameez recommends an article in the Washington Post about recent research into the persistence of myths. In short: once a myth has been put out there (e.g., "Saddam Hussein plotted the 9/11 attacks"), denying it can paradoxically reinforce its staying power. Ignoring it doesn't work either — a claim that is unchallenged gains the ring of truth. Over time, "negation tags" fall out of memory: "Saddam didn't plan 9/11" becomes "Saddam planned 9/11." From the article: "The conventional response to myths and urban legends is to counter bad information with accurate information. But the new psychological studies show that denials and clarifications, for all their intuitive appeal, can paradoxically contribute to the resiliency of popular myths... The research is painting a broad new understanding of how the mind works. Contrary to the conventional notion that people absorb information in a deliberate manner, the studies show that the brain uses subconscious 'rules of thumb' that can bias it into thinking that false information is true. Clever manipulators can take advantage of this tendency."
You categorize this under "Science"? What passes for science in your world these days?
And BTW, no on ever believed that Saddam plotted 9/11. We do know that he publicly announced $25,000 rewards to suicide bombers and terrorists, that he hosted terrorist training camps in country, that he worked to create an environment throughout the middle eadt that set the conditions for terrorist organizations to thrive, and that he embraced both Islam and violent government.
we had to go in there and take him out because what he might have done. you can pretend he didn't have weapons of mass destruction but what if he did? Would you be willing to see the evidence in the form of a mushroom cloud over american skies ? I think not. Next stop Iran, we can't wait to find out that they really have nuclear weapons.. ahmadimajhad will pass those nukes off to al queda and that would be the end of america..
"After all, this is the guy who tried to kill my dad." - President Bush about the reasons to invade Iraq on Sept 27, 2002.
Of course the tin-foil hat explanation is "People were getting dangerously close to exposing the faked moon landing"
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Perhaps conservatives denying bad science, such as Carbon-induced global warming theories, is what keeps reinforcing it among the believers. Perhaps if the religious claimed that God made cows fart to cause global warming, the scientific community would actually allow more viable alternative theories to be assessed.
- Yes, I am posting at a -1, and no I will not use a proxy to bypass my circumstances.
Actually what I find most amazing about the 9/11 Saddam link myth: The ONLY people I have ever met that believes it are liberals. Not that they believe it themselves, but they constantly repeat it over and over and over and over (such as in this story) that conservatives believe the link exists, as "evidence" of liberal superiority.
No conservative I have ever met has ever repeated this myth as truth. Most conservatives have asked why do the liberals constantly repeat this tired mantra when no one believes it?
I mean, each group does enough stuff that is incredibly stupid without having to resort to lies.
Easier to believe? Sure, I'll buy that. Of course it's easier to believe the earth is flat too.
But then, you merely moved the goal posts. So, You have to believe that an all-powerful benevolent being capable of creating the Universe... "simply came into existence on its own" so I'm afraid I don't get your point.
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
"Iraq supports terrorism" + "Terrorists attacked the US on 9/11" = "Iraq had a hand in 9/11"
is the conclusion many people make. The "supports terrorism" line was used heavily by the Bush administration to justify the war in Iraq and one would be naive to think they didn't anticipate the blurring of the lines between Iraqi-supported terrorists against Israel and the group inside Al-Queda who planned the 9/11 bombing.
The very fact that the war in Iraq has been referred to by the Bush administration as part of the "war on terror" further indicates the intentional attempts to pool the middle-east into one giant "brown people" group and thus, linking them all, conceptually, to the 9/11 attackers.
One would be naive to think that the Bush administration has been clear and consistent about its reasons for invading Iraq before, during, and after the invasion and blind to not have seen the subtle and not-so-subtle attempts to link Iraq to 9/11.
A: You're using a logical falacy in your argument. You've invented and attributed a negative characteristic, "want to see the country fail", to anyone who disagrees with you.
B: He didn't say it directly, but he used manipulative and deceptive language to imply it, ie. The terrorists attacted us on 9-11. Saddam funds the terrorists.
Without specifying that he's talking about two different groups of the terrorists -- one that attacked us, and a completely different set that Saddam funds -- he's essentially lying. There's no way those speeches go through the sort of checks that they do and no one noticed the duplicity in them. It was clearly a coordinated, continuous and intentional attempt to disinform the population when he kept tying "the terrorists" and "9-11" to Hussein in pre-war speeches.
The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
this is all ridiculous hand-waving and baseless accusation. Petty partisan politics, in other words.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
For example, a large number of non-Republicans were informed of wrong and hurtful things, mostly rumors about a fixed election. that's why the country was together on 9/12, and couldn't be further apart, now.
:)
:>
In particular:
"It's an illegal war"; no, actually- the first half of the war ended in ceasefire, called in by the UN secretary general, and Bush Senior relented. During the cessation of operations, the largest amount of it, the Clinton Administration, Clinton ignored the 492 times SAM sites attempted to shoot down our planes. Schwartzkopf laments that it was his own idea to allow helicopters to be flown in Iraq, because Saddam wanted them to strafe and kill the civilians he didn't like. Upon the _first_ launch of a missile, it was legal to re-open the war. But Clinton had a 'don't rock the boat' term.
"9/11 was an inside job"/"Fire doesn't melt steel!" This concept suggested that an entire crew of properly-trained individuals snuck in, under the cover of darkness when *no one* was in the building (of as many as 50,000 people), used concrete saws, mounted the explosives and waited for the show. Ever watch one of these on The Discovery Channel? It takes _weeks_ to set up. Ignoring for the removal of useful things, tearing down the concrete-n-whatever to get to the right places to set the charges, this isn't something done by distraction. This is no simple job- ever see the ACRE PER FLOOR involved in EACH tower? It's just a stretch, but not completely impossible. And yea, Rosie O'Donnell actually claimed it must be true because "fire doesn't melt steel". This, folks is blind hatred.
"George Bush sat still for 22 minutes as the second plane hit" is another one; he was at a 'dog-n-pony' with a bunch of school kids...a scheduled thing a president does when he's not at war. The agents whisper into his ear, but he sits still. Why? History. No one today seems to remember that in 1947-48, a B-25 flying through fog smacked RIGHT INTO the Empire State Building. One can be an accident...there's no reason to scare the kids. And exactly what would he do, anyway? Strip to the waist, put on an ammo belt and play Rambo? It just doesn't work like that. With a similar whisper he can have a city nuked, respond to a terrorist event, or just get a piece of obscure information found for him...he has an entire section of the government dedicated to learning what happened, and offering responses.
The key with all of these ideas is hate. Enough people thought the election was rigged, because their news provider was certain Bush would lose. And since most people get 2-3 minutes of news each day, and it's usually one headline, this caused some anger. This, unlike the decline of Western Values, the melting of glaciers, Global Warming, and really bad music, is not George's fault.
But these ideas 'sold' so well because of these people; uninformed people. People who can't find America on a map, but can recall certain episodes of Desperate Housewives from memory. Unions used to drive the rank-and-file the same way. In a union dispute, in the hall with all the members there, they'd plant four people in the corners of the crowd. And at a certain point, they would, one by one, cheer "Yeah, let's strike" or "Those dirty bastards!" or whatever the script called for. Encircled by proponents, the crowd assumed this is the right thing, and that action was voted in. It's just human behaviour. (And they say P.T. Barnham left nothing behind.)
There's been a wildfire of propaganda this go-around. Know how to spot it? Ask someone what specific crime [Ashcroft|Donald Rumsfeld|Carl Rove|Tom Delay] was accused of: "What did he actually do?" They'll respond with disgust, with lines all the broadcast media dinosaurs have programmed them with, but can't recall. They'll also use the term "Neo-Conservative" even though no such people exist...I know, I've been a Conservative for 30 years. The Republicans are less Conservative than they used to be, but the
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov