Identity Politics as Humanitarian Shielding
Identity Politics as Humanitarian Shielding
The Culture Wars Part XVI
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The claim of identity to group affiliation is ultimately little different for the honest man or woman as it is with the criminal. Perhaps the criminal is less connected to the broader community, but that fact is largely invisible to the average person on the street. For this reason, the smart criminal knows the value of blending in with the crowd. With respect to identity politics, we might refer to this as humanitarian shielding.
"An attack on me is an attack on all True Scotsmen."
Or something like that.
Difficult Questions about 9/11
If you're like me, you're somewhere past the point of, "There are strange inconsistencies with the official narrative," but without commitment to a challenging mystery with lots of still-invisible details. But there are people out there doing their best to work some details out. One of those men is Richard Gage, whom I interviewed a few months back.
https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/propaganda-richard-gage-draws-parallels
A few days ago, stifled a bit by research projects and half-written long form articles, I restacked the following article that refers to a group of Israeli nationals who supposedly cheered the destruction of the towers on 9/11.
My restacking of the article was meant as an exercise in belief falsification. Most of us should probably make a better habit of hypothesis falsification, even if we think we are fairly even-handed in shielding ourselves from our biases (probably a game of never-ending strides). Robyn Chuter has been writing about this, lately.
Being plain about my opinion regarding 9/11, I do think that some strong power (group) intentionally destroyed three towers, and that two planes piloted by some barely educated Saudi bros certainly didn't cause all that.
Which power? The DoD? The Saudis? Israel?
Maybe. Maybe a conglomerate?
I'm not willing to state what I don't know, but I do hold probabilities in mind. That's the appropriate way to handle events with unknown information.