Posted by Bunny.
As expected, we received several angry e-mails today from readers who didn't appreciate my post from yesterday. Apparently Pinky and I have an obligation to believe what they believe - that the U.S. government is responsible for plotting and carrying out the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks:
"I find it hard to believe that after considering the evidence you still aren't willing to conceed that the government may be responsible. What do you need besides a mountain of evidence? Did you even watch the whole film? In your so-called review you never list exactly what was wrong with the documentary. Do you think that just because a bunch of people organize themselves into a government then they are automatically incapable of conspiring against the American people? You pose as people suspicious of abuse of power but in the end you are just not ready to see the big picture. I dare you to post this in your sacred blog."
I think this one is fairly representative of the other e-mails we received today. I don't want to spend time crafting a carefully worded response to all of them so I'll just respond to the above one with a simple list of statements (sorry, it's just faster):
1. The evidence was weak. Should I be swayed by a mountain of weak evidence? You don't create a compelling argument by stringing together a long list of possibly-related (or not) documents, events, pictures, diagrams, video, thoughts, opinions, possibilities, and musings. That's not evidence. That's a collection of stuff.
2. Yes, I did watch the whole film. Which didn't help.
3. I didn't "review" Loose Change. I just wanted to point out that Pinky and I watched it and we thought it wasn't good. I only wanted to mention this because lots of people had e-mailed us "highly recommending" that we watch the film, presumably because they thought we'd enjoy it. Well we finally watched it and hey, I thought it was weak.
4. Do you really think that I think that governments are incapable of crimes? Are you stupid?
5. We are cats, not “people”.
6. I don't know exactly what "The Big Picture" (as you so neatly put it) really is, but I'm fairly certain that conspiracy theories isn't it. Why not study the history of Hawaii (1893), Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), or Chile (1973)? Or for that matter Mystic (1637), Sand Creek (1864), or Yucca Mountain (right now)? These histories clearly have much to teach us about "abuse of power", and yet none of them fall into the category of "conspiracy theory".
I'm sure some who sent e-mails today will not be satisfied with the above, and that's fine. Not a big deal - we don’t have to agree on everything or even anything.
~B.