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| parrthenon@cs.com (Parrthenon) wrote:
I have to say that Larry Parr has rather distorted the context of my post.
For context, here's what I wrote (which Larry Parr snipped) *first*:
"For whatever it's worth, belief in 'conspiracy theories' seems common enough
in the United States. Evidently, many Americans do *not* believe the official
conclusion that President F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald,
'acting alone'."
--Nick
*Then* I wrote what Larry Parr has quoted (below).
quote:
> Nick wrote:
*Then* I wrote a *parenthetical declared joke* about Gertrude Bell in a
*separate paragraph*. (Please read my earlier post to confirm that fact.)
But Larry Parr *snipped both my parentheses and my paragraphical separation*
and combined my text in an apparent attempt to make it appear *as though*
my declared joke about Gertrude Bell were somehow intended as a comment on
the Pearl Harbor 'surprise attack' conspiracy theories. (Please read
Larry Parr's earlier post to me to confirm that fact.)
[vbcol=seagreen]
> Nick wrote, as 'quoted' by Larry Parr:
Larry Parr wrote:[vbcol=seagreen]
> To equate the possibility that Gertrude Bell might have been a Zionist agent
> (not!) with the possibility that Roosevelt permitted Pearl Harbor to be
> attacked is absurd.
That's a serious misunderstanding or a serious distortion by Larry Parr.
I did *not* 'equate (those) possibilities' (as I have explained above),
though Larry Parr has *rearranged my original text* in an apparent attempt
to suggest that. I wrote a *parenthetical declared joke* about Gertrude Bell
in a *separate paragraph*.
I knew quite well that Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was strongly anti-Zionist.
"An old Arab proverb says a woman should be beaten at least twice a day.
If you don't know the reason, she does."
--Larry Parr (12 May 2004, in rec.games.chess.misc)
On 13 May 2004, I asked Larry Parr for a 'specific citation' about
that supposed 'old Arab proverb', and I am still waiting for it.
quote:
> I have never heard of a theory that Bell, who killed herself
> and is a bit of a feminist heroine these days,
Gertrude Bell also had *opposed* granting women the right to vote.
quote:
> was a Zionist agent, though I don't say there is not one.
For the record (and in order to preempt more trolling misrepresentations),
I do *not* believe that Gertrude Bell was a 'Zionist secret agent'.
I wrote a *declared joke* about Gertrude Bell. To a 'conspiracy theorist',
the 'historical premise' *could* be that what Gertrude Bell had done in Iraq
(such as helping to draw up its boundaries) resulted in such a mess that Iraq
would find it quite difficult, if not impossible, ever to become a completely
united nation-state. (The Americans who now are militarily occupying Iraq
seem to be learning that lesson from bitter experience.)
quote:
> However, the view that Pearl Harbor was a set up to get us into war
> informs John Toland's Infamy, and Toland is a major historian, the
> author of The Rising Sun and an important biography of Hitler.
'Toland is a major historian'? Only to the more historically ignorant readers.
John Toland (who died on 4 January 2004) was a popular writer of books on some
historical subjects, but he was *not* considered a 'major historian', if he
was even considered a historian, by academic historians on those subjects.
quote:
> It also is part of the theme in Gore Vidal's The Golden Age.
Gore Vidal is known as a writer of fiction.
quote:
> In short the view that Roosevelt was a traitor for the Mikado (the right
> thought him a Communist) albeit a traitor for a higher cause, is held by
> respectable historians and writers. Moreover, odds are the conspiracy
> theory here is true because it accords with that most ancient of tests --
> cui bono? -- and it is not contradicted by the evidence, though neither
> is it proved.
For further reading:
"Pearl Harbor" (2001) by H.P. Willmott, with T. Haruo and W.S. Johnson
(I do *not* necessarily concur with everything written by H.P. Willmott.)
quote:
> Like all conspiracy theories in which there is no definitive proof,
> to hold the theory is to violate Occam's Razor. One's view then becomes
> one of judgment: on which side of the scale is there the greater weight.
> George Marshall's testimony that he could not remember where he was on
> the morning of the attack on Pearl Harbor was ever so telling.
H.P. Willmott has written that there was an organised cover-up to protect
George C. Marshall's reputation. But H.P. Willmott does *not* believe the
'conspiracy theory' that Larry Parr seems to believe is probably true.
'Odds are the conspiracy theory here is true...'
--Larry Parr
quote:
> Toland ended Infamy, his major look at the attack on Pearl Harbor,
> by admitting that he has NOT proved his case, which is true.
> But he presents a strong circumstantial case that Roosevelt sacrificed
> men at Pearl Harbor, the Rosenkrantzes and Guildensterns of their day,
> for reasons of state.
Would Larry Parr remember what happened to the USS Liberty in 1967? :-)
quote:
> One finds it interesting that Nick would offer as a conspiracy an example
> that I did not adduce,
My post was *not* intended as a specific critique of Larry Parr's examples.
My post was written as a general comment on the 'common enough' "belief in
'conspiracy theories' in the United States".
quote:
> while preferring not to discuss those that are taken as
> givens even among the most courtish of court historians.
Some historian acquaintances of mine have advised me simply to ignore, whenever
possible, most of the 'conspiracy theories' circulating among the public.
'I am fond of history, and am very well contented to take the false
with the true.'
--Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)
--Nick
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