On Point: 9/11 Kool-Aid

Published August 10, 2006 at midnight

Text size

More Opinion Columns & Blogs

"Eventually," my e-mail correspondent warned me, "the truth will win out, regardless of the sickening efforts of traitors like yourself."

Hate-spewing e-mails are as rare as dandelions, so why mention this one? Because it is representative of a surprising number I received this week from readers of the News' lead editorial Saturday on 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

That commentary suggested that "those who believe the U.S. government was somehow behind 9/11, or gave it the green light" - fully one-third of the country, if a Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll is to be trusted - suffer from an alarming delusion. They see government officials not merely as, say, confused and incompetent when dealing with al-Qaida hijackers - or self-serving and misleading in the aftermath - but as diabolically complicit.

The conspiracy theorists boast Web sites elaborating their complicated theses. They cite scientific experts to explain why the collapse of the 7 World Trade Center building looks an awful lot like a deliberate demolition; why fire and airliner impact alone could not bring down a steel-framed skyscraper; why the failure to produce the airplanes' black boxes from the rubble is so darkly suspicious, and so on, and on.

Like every conspiracy theory before it, this one covers all of the angles with the apparently relentless logic of a prosecutorial brief. It plies us with details - as if their accumulated weight will break down our resistance to the fantastic premise they are meant to support: that U.S. officials helped massacre their own citizens to provide a pretext for passing the Patriot Act, unleashing John Ashcroft and launching a couple of wars.

"Traitors" like me do indeed have a hard time swallowing that particular mix of Kool-Aid. To us, in fact, it bears a remarkable resemblance to swill.

Theother nuclear option

Isn't it Al Gore who prattles on about "inconvenient truths" regarding global warming and our energy use? Well, here's an inconvenient truth that he and far too many environmentalists - but not all, thank heaven - ignore: "You're not serious about greenhouse gases if you're not serious about nuclear."

The head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, James Connaughton, said that, as quoted in the current National Journal. According to the Journal, Connaughton "asserts that nuclear power is the only source of electricity that can deliver the massive quantities of energy demanded by the world's growing economies without producing CO2 emissions."

After reading the National Journal's painstaking analysis of the current potential of clean energy options, it's hard to see how Connaughton could be wrong.

Structural disagreement

The president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation thinks Denver has embarked on "an orgy of irrational destruction." Yes, that's what the man said. And who are the modern-day Visigoths and Vandals who've unleashed this pointless assault on our urban heritage? In Richard Moe's view, none other than homeowners and developers who invest their personal fortunes to upgrade the city's housing stock.

"The pace of teardowns (across the country) has amounted to an orgy of irrational destruction - including Denver," Moe reportedly said in discussing the practice of razing a structure to make way for a larger, more contemporary home.

If this is irrational destruction, then maybe we need more of it. Anyone familiar with Denver knows there are literally thousands of houses in many neighborhoods, even in some of the nicer ones, that were fine for their time but are cramped or otherwise subpar by contemporary standards. Many of these structures are undistinguished. And they will not - or should not - be missed.

Yes, this process of renewal occasionally threatens a true architectural gem, or a home steeped in history of broad significance. When that happens, neighbors should have the option of seeking landmark status for it.

Unfortunately, a growing number of Denverites seem interested in using landmark designation to immerse entire neighborhoods into a preservation amber and thus halt their organic renewal. Let's hope they don't buffalo Denver's Zoning Code Task Force, which is holding a series of briefings beginning today, into supporting their goal.

Vincent Carroll, editor of the editorial pages, writes On Point several times a week. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News