by Richard L. Franklin
5/28/07
I was finally stirred to briefly come out of retirement after listening to a one hour interview with Al Gore discussing his latest book, 'The Assault on Reason'. As one who has dedicated himself to the encouragement and preservation of clear thinking, arguably the greatest gift entrusted to us by the Enlightenment, I was naturally curious about the apparent subject of his book. I've certainly had never thought of Gore as a rationalist, although he certainly can be quite rational about climate change. I've always viewed him as an aristocratic member of the Washington establishment. His deep interest in climate change was actually anomalous for one of his background and class ethos, but that hardly detracts from the great value of his missionary work in that area. Nonetheless, a leopard does not normally change his spots overnight. If it is a politician who is claiming to work toward X, his or her promise usually lacks credibility. True pols seldom fully change their spots.
I want to focus on one brief exchange in the Gore interview because it says a lot. The interviewer focused on Gore's claim that the invasion of Iraq was the 'single greatest mistake in the history of the United States'. With some prodding, Gore expanded. By 'mistake' he meant the acceptance of a panoply of lies by Bush and his associates that deceived the people into believing Saddam had played a role in 9/11. My ears perked up. Could it be possible Gore was inching toward a hint that something hugely nefarious had taken place behind the scenes? His claim that the American people had committed a monstrous 'mistake' in supporting the war and in allowing themselves to be foolishly deceived by Bush and his accomplices just might open the door for a rational discussion of 9/11. False flag ops are old hat in American history, and Gore knows it. I was on pins and needles.
The interviewer smiled. Did he also hope that Gore might be headed down the right path? The interviewer wasted no time in encouraging such a journey. He noted that grand deceptions were hardly new in American history when it came to preparing the people for the launching of a war. The Spanish-American war was triggered by a false flag operation, namely the blowing up of the Maine. Gore quickly agreed. The interviewer smiled. He then added that the Vietnam War was launched with the Tonkin Bay false flag op. Gore once again was quick to agree. The interviewer's eyes gleamed. They were truly getting somewhere.
At this point in the interview it's possible the interviewer was about to mention the sinking of the Lusitania, which was cleverly triggered by Wilson and the Brits so as to drag the US into WWI. He also may have wanted to add Pearl Harbor, a plot which followed the modus operandi of Wilson in managing to finagle an attack on US ships. In both cases, Germany and then Japan were forced to attack as a matter of national survival. Germany faced losing the war in Europe if the US continued with its generous shipments of war supplies, and the Empire of Japan would surely come to a crashing end if their oil supply lines were cut off as threatened by FDR. In both cases, the American people were led to believe the US had been attacked by evil enemies for evil purposes. 'Evil' is so damned handy as a cause for such events. As always, the existence of 'evil' enemies who had committed 'evil' deeds became key factors in US propaganda that cloaked the true complex mechanisms behind those two shocking events.
At this point in the course of the conversation, a light bulb seemed to go off in Gore's head. He sat up straight with a wary look. I suspect that at this moment he realized he was in danger of being sucked into the question of whether or not 9/11 had been yet another false flag operation in American history.
He quickly said, 'I think I see where you might be heading.' Not wishing to even say the words 'nine eleven' or the words 'false flag', he deftly trashed the ongoing 9/11 truth movement with these few words: 'All that other stuff is outside the range of possibility'.
Gore has named his book 'The Assault on Reason', and yet here he is claiming that the 9/11 truth movement is making claims 'outside the range of possibility'. With that one statement he has stunningly sabotaged his supposed defense of reason in his new book.
Phrases such as 'outside the range of possibility' often come close to being just plain nuts. Here's why. The one place where the concept of impossibility is carefully examined is logic. Please forgive me for using a tired old example, but we logically know there are no square circles anywhere among the furniture of this universe or in any other universe. The nice thing is that we can conclude this simply by looking at the claim itself. The mere locution 'square circle' is illogical. What rules here is the fact that if something is not logically true, it cannot be empirically true. When I was a young lad and this was pointed out to me by a teacher, I was absolutely delighted. It meant one could completely forsake the labor of an empirical investigation to determine the truth of certain claims.
This is hardly a stunning new maxim. When Christian missionaries first flooded Africa and then the Pacific islands to convert the natives, the biggest single block they ran into in converting the natives to Christianity was teaching them about the greater glory of the Holy Trinity. Much to the exasperation and anger of the missionaries, the natives kept rejecting the notion of a god who was simultaneously three discrete beings who occasionally melted into one seamless being. More than one native of the Americas were brutally murdered as a result of their 'stubborn' heathen inability to grasp this concept. One can scarcely find a more ironic and sad moment in the history of the Conquista.
I felt sad when Gore's interviewer allowed him to get away with a totally preposterous, ignoble statement. What was actually 'outside the range of possibility' was any sense to what Gore was so arrogantly claiming. One cannot quite so easily squeeze a false flag operation by our government into the same category as square circles. Trying to do so is the mark of a charlatan.
Undaunted, Gore kept harping on how we Americans had let the gang in the White House get away with all sorts of weak and even preposterous claims; yet Gore had just made himself a partner in the White House cabal's biggest fraud of all, not to mention making his own book title a depressing irony.
Mr. Franklin is the author of 'The Mythology of Self-Worth'
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