Hi Sandpuppy,
While you seem to have dismissed me for some reason, my question remains the same: How do you deal with the fact that some of your most important sources are not only clearly bigoted but also not based on facts, but rather are full of opinion based declarative statements?
And in my first post on this, I also did not word my question correctly, so sorry for that. In other words, I don't think that you are anti-Semitic, but I do think that you have bought into an anti-semitic body of so-called scholarship. And, to be clear, this does not mean that I think that the Neocons or that certain elements of the Israeli state (e.g. Likudniks, maybe Mossaad) had no role in 9/11. They may well have had such a role, along with some American leaders and organizations including, quite possibly, Dick Cheney, certain elements of the US defense/intelligence establishment, and certain US corporations. So I'm in no way - nor have I ever been - denying that there is no value to any part of Guyenot's thesis.
Nonetheless, it seems fairly clear that both Kevin MacDonald and Lauren Guyenot are both also anti-semitic in the traditional meaning of the word, which means, more or less, hostile or prejudicial towards Jews. Because of your posts, I have read Understanding Jewish Influence (MacDonald) and JFK-911: 50 Years of the Deep State (Guyenot), and also bothered to learn a little bit about both of these guys.
MacDonald's work is clearly prejudicial - really hateful - towards Jews. Do you dispute this? How do you reconcile the fact that you have lifted qualitative judgments from his work - such as the claim that American Jews as a whole attain a level of income and wealth far out of proportion to their percentage of the US population due to, in your words, Jewish "tribal loyalty and cooperation"? This sort of claim - wholly qualitative and almost impossible to prove one way or the other - has almost nothing to do with the Deep State or 9/11. It's just a unbacked claim, unsupported in the work of the overtly bigoted MacDonald, and repeated, in a slightly different form, by you. And, you don't even need to make this sort of claim to pursue Guyenot's 9/11 thesis, yet you choose to do so for some reason. Why is that?
So Jim, and all, this is what I mean when I say SP has stumbled into a sort of theoretical anti-semitism. I'm sure you're nice to Jewish friends and neighbors, SP, but you make claims that I see as clearly anti-semitic, without having the intent to do so, I trust.
I have already posted on MacDonald's position towards Jews and blacks. Have those of you who find SP's posts compelling forgotten what I posted on MacDonald? Are you aware, due to your own research of MacDonald's political and racial/ethnic views? Why is this not relevant?
SP and others here who agree with his posts on this topic, did you read the part of Guyenot's work that discusses Machiavelli's origins? If you don't know what I'm talking about, it suggests that you haven't read the work closely and may be doing what I think SP may be doing, which is to swallow a line of thinking whole that actually needs very critical and careful dissection, due to many unsound sections. PPers are supposed to be critical readers, and not to fall for propaganda or unbacked claims.
What about the fact that Guyenot saw it necessary to publish an essay on the role of Jews in the death Jesus on an anti-semitic French website, led by the openly bigoted Alain Soral? When you have made many qualitative claims about both Israel and the Jewish people/culture, why is it not legitimate for me to point to the fact that your sources have anti-semitic agendas that make them less reliable, if not totally unreliable?
This has nothing to do with being PC. These are not knee-jerk reactions on my part. I read the stuff you've cited, SP, and, at least in the case of Guyenot and MacDonald, we are dealing with people who are bigoted and therefore less reliable. Yet you have not made any effort to separate their bigotry from any legitimate claims that they may make nor to address my concerns about this.
Making broad, negative claims that cannot be proven and are in many cases simply opinion based about whole groups of people is at the heart of bigotry. Why is it that these sources are so high on your list?
I really shouldn't have to do anyone's homework for them. If you are really only interested in a better understanding of the role of the Deep State in 9/11 - or current political events - why haven't you read these works more critically? Why have you not bothered to differentiate between reliable and unreliable (and slanderous) claims by these authors?
Breaking a few eggs to make an omelet is exactly what Machiavelli justified, and in my view, SP, your discourse to this point has been sufficiently unconcerned with the harm it might cause to qualify as having a somewhat Machiavellian focus on "finding the truth" irrespective of the many falsehoods and harm that it can do by spreading prejudice. This lack of concern with messy - arguably unethical - means towards achieving a desired end is another example of how I think the PP community mucks up our local political behavior, making us less qualified to hold forth on national or geopolitics. And when limits to growth really start to bite, a lot more politics is going to be local, so we ought to be willing to more more nuanced in our discourse and more accountable for our claims.
If there is a diamond of truth among all of the other stuff in the work of MacDonald and Guyenot, then please differentiate for us and focus your research and your claims, as right now the brush you are using is far far too broad.
As far as other reading goes, again, I shouldn't have to do everyone's homework here for them. This is not my burning issue. I'm all about the three E's and constructive responses and have been since I first got here. I come from a political background, and I'm pretty tired of all of the emotion-based, unexamined beliefs found in political discussions both in my family, among friends, and here. But, the nature of some of the statements that you, SP, have made seem both to be untrue and potentially harmful enough to get me to respond, because this is still my chosen community of discourse.
Anyone interested in learning about the nature of the American deep state should be citing other books that don't focus so much on the Jewish role, and should be able to cite other hypotheses. I have found and read some of these works. Who else has? Can you name them?
Right now the narrow, Israel/Jewish line of research with regards to the Deep State reminds me of a senior essay I read on the extent to which Reagan's arms buildup was responsible for the end of the USSR. The student cited Rush Limbaugh as if he were a credible source for a history paper and did not mention, much less consider any alternative hypotheses. It was very obviously narrow, limited, and clearly biased research full of unbacked assertions. There are many other compelling hypotheses for the Soviet Union's collapse, but this students rather uninterested in arriving closer to the truth and allowed in her thoughts to congeal around one belief.
I'd be up for other viewpoints on the deep state, but it seems that there is little or no interest in alternative hypothesis. Are you guys really intrepidly following Alice deep into the rabbit hole, or did you get stuck in just one just one door in the great hallway, and have neglected to consider the many others? Does this maybe have to do with the fact that, as Dan Ariely has attested, people like to put a face on their problems, because it's cognitively easier to do so? So let's hear it. Who can name - and has read - other deep state books with a different emphasis or focus? I can and have, but I'd like to see who else has is genuinely curious enough about the nature of this phenomenon to do that.
And, for the record, I'd rather be gardening. In fact, after spending the first three days of my spring break back in March carefully reading and researching SP's claims, punctuated with that unpleasant interchange with Jim (who I like too!) I threw my hands up, went outside and started a school garden project - the first at my school - and it turned out to be super-successful this spring, at least in terms of student participation and learning. The slugs have gotten the better of a lot of our produce and I'm most definitely one rank amateur of a gardener. It doesn't look anything like the magnificent spread that Chris shared with us yesterday, and I'm too ashamed of it so far to show any pictures. But the sweat equity is paying off and the hours I've spent in the garden have been wonderful in terms of being outside and keeping things simple and satisfying. And, SP, we did a hugel, although it seems that something ate the little lupin starts I planted in it, which we started indoors from seed. Some peas are coming up, but overall, I still have a LOT to learn. 
Cheers,
Hugh
