By SHEILAH PEPPER
The Gazette Staff
For some time now, I've been hearing, viewing and reading things that make me wonder if some of my fellow citizens are actually from another planet.
The latest example of this happened when I recently turned Fox News on and encountered Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo.
The topic was a movie called "Loose Change" that, in O'Reilly's words, "asserts that hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans colluded to kill their fellow citizens on 9/11. That Al Qaeda didn't attack us, we essentially attacked ourselves."
I agree with O'Reilly that this fairy tale ranks up there with the Holocaust deniers. He also informed his viewers that billionaire Mark Cuban is going to distribute the film so people all over the world can see it. Actor Charlie Sheen may also be the narrator of this sorry production.
O'Reilly interviewed Mr.Cuban, who is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. O'Reilly said, among other things, that "you know this - Al Jazzera's going to take this, Mr. Cuban, and ram it down the throats of everybody in the world who hates America!"
Cuban responded that the story was already out there, all over the Internet. That's true. I encountered it on the net a couple of years after 9/11. But internet regulars are small in number compared to the world-wide movie and video audiences.
O'Reilly said Cuban was rationalizing and I agree. Cuban countered that "by making this available to whoever wants it, that anybody, anybody can refute it. When you have things that are in the shadows that people can't find and take on mythic proportions, that's what they can take. Once you can see something, you can refute it."
What has this gentleman been breathing? O'Reilly said you can't refute garbage, and I agree. It's impossible to refute raw craziness - which this insane conspiracy theory is. Mr. Cuban seems to have become entangled in the upper echelon of the Tin Hat Brigade.
As an immigrant to this great country, the attitudes of people like Mr. Cuban and Mr. Sheen, both of whom have been greatly blessed by this nation, perplex me greatly. I will never understand how they can hold the views they seem to hold.
This is partly because I can't imagine speaking against my country in a time of danger. But putting that aside, the whole silly theory flies in the face of reason and of simple logic. But, at least on the Internet, on the left wing blog sites, thousands of moonbats have bought into this nonsense.
When people of some prominence, like Mr. Cuban and Mr. Sheen, support this craziness, they lend it a measure of credibility, at least in the eyes of the Bash haters.
It's a dangerous place to play, especially a time of war and we are at war, as O-Reilly said, on several fronts: the war on the terrorists is one. The others are the culture war and the media war.
In Washington, the Democrats will stop at nothing to discredit the President. The Republicans just seem confused (I really, really miss Tom DeLay!). The terrorists play the world media like a banjo. The mess in Washington and things such as this crazy movie will only give Al Qaeda and others the aid and comfort they are seeking in the court of public opinion.
Meanwhile, some of our own citizens are aiding them in painting us as the Bad Guys. These are crazy times.
Copyright©2007SheilahPepper
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