David Ray Griffin and the Politics Of Mental Instability

A friend of mine had a couple of extra tickets to see David Ray Griffin at Town Hall last Friday and he asked if I wanted to go. Sure, I said, why not. I’d love to see what all this is about. And that’s the story of this post.

In case you don’t know, Griffin is the author of a bunch of books, a couple of which are about 9-11. His theory is that 9-11 was an “inside job” and he is a leading light among what’s known as “conspiracy theorists.” My friend and I have and ongoing argument about this. He insists that certain factions of the government planned the whole thing and I insist that no, we were attacked, though we did have it coming. At times our argument has become heated and I have told him to stop sending me things about it in emails and so on. We remain friends – I give guitar lessons to his sons, and he is one of the best and most constant activists I know in the Seattle area. He is a Catholic Worker, and those folks are the real thing – you won’t find any more dedicated and hard working bunch. But there is a bit of “Catholic Supremacy” that runs through his thinking sometimes. The first thing he will point out about certain people is that they are Catholic – and he will overlook a lot of baggage if the faith is involved. So when he had first told me about Griffin a couple of years ago he was quick to point out that he is a Catholic theologian, a recommendation that doesn’t really do much for me. Griffin’s book had received mixed reviews, achieving a kind of cult following in certain circles and being laughed at in others. I sent my friend a few critical articles from the web, to which he never responded. There’s that blind eye again. So I let it drop. But here was a free ticket. I couldn’t turn it down…

We met at a downtown restaurant – he and I, plus a priest and mutual friend from Belfast. Drinking was almost mandatory so I had a few glasses of wine. Mistake number one. We drove up to Town Hall and went in. I perused the literature tables in the lobby, only some of which were familiar to me. Quite a few of them were of the Black Helicopter type – Idaho Survivalist stuff. $30 DVDs about Freemasonry and so on. After a while we took our seats and I began to struggle to stay awake. It was hot up there and the wine was taking its toll. The MC was a very strange tall man with abnormally broad shoulders, wearing a dark suit that looked like curtains. He introduced Professor Griffin and the audience gave him a hero’s welcome. I was ready to be intrigued.

Griffin’s new book is called “Debunking the 9-11 Debunkers.” There was a lot of ground to cover and I expected blazing arguments. Instead, Griffin proceeded to read from a prepared speech – and he’s not a very good reader. If he made a mistake he would start at the beginning of the same sentence and read it again. Real dry stuff. And his counter arguments seemed to be innuendo and sarcasm. Three times he mentioned a passport that had flown out of one of the airplanes – everybody laughed at this but he never used for anything. Everybody just seemed to know what he meant and it was accepted as a great hammer blow for the truth. At another time, as proof of the growing acceptance of his Truth Movement – and proof of the intelligence of his scholarship – he listed off a number of groups that had joined the fight. Groups like “Architects For 9-11 Truth” and “Scholars For 9-11 Truth.” Okay, I thought, anyone can make up a name – who are these people? He never said. He just kept reading.

I can’t say that I recall any great moments, because there were none. One of Griffin’s most serious critiques had come from Popular Mechanics, who had written a book debunking the conspiracy theorists, a lot of it being about him. I never read the book but I did read the transcript of their interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! They made sense to me and I thought they did a good job of straightening out some of the real curvy logic that Griffin uses. So the professor addressed them in Town Hall and I was expecting fireworks. No such luck. The best he could come up with was who owns the magazine – guilt by association. Nothing to do with the arguments. I could use the same logic on myself and say that I can’t write decent political songs because I play a Martin and the Martin company is very conservative. I’ll have to stop buying my own records.

I really wanted to take a nap but my friend was sitting right next to me and I’m told that I snore. Our buddy from Belfast was sitting on the other side of me, however, and he had nodded off several times. When the lecture was over everybody stood up to give Griffin an ovation. I stood up also, mainly to get the circulation going again in my feet, but also to be polite. Then the Belfast man and I went downstairs for some water. The air was hot up there (!). After a few minutes I went back up and sat in the rear. The Belfast man stayed downstairs by the water cooler. It was time for questions and answers. The questions had been written out and the strange man with the broad shoulders was reading them. To answer one of the questions Professor Griffin went on about how Christians in particular should be concerned with stuff because Christianity was by nature and anti imperialist religion because Jesus had agitated against the Roman state, and on and on, and I began to think, well now wait a minute - are Christians better than everybody else? I don’t have a deity – what about me? Then the professor began to spin his wheels and he said, “I’ve been biding my time trying to remember what the question was but I can’t do it. What was the question?” Everybody laughed but not the way that you would like them to. The MC said that Professor Griffin would be delivering the sermon at such and such a church on the following day and I got up and went downstairs for the last time. My Belfast friend was still sitting by the drinking fountain, talking with a custodian who was marveling that they could get so many people out for something like this. In all positive generosity he was saying that it was a good sign because at least people were distrusting the government. I agreed, with reservations. Our friend with the tickets came down and we went out for a late drink.

We had a pleasant after lecture evening, pretty much staying off the topic of David Ray Griffin. Alcohol and agitation can lead to hangovers. But the next day I got an email from my friend suggesting that perhaps I was having trouble accepting Griffin’s arguments and should give them a chance. I wrote back assuring him that we were still friends but making a couple of points: One - there are no theories of any kind - from Big Foot to the World Jewish Conspiracy - that are not supported by "reputable experts." Two - I have never met a religious person of any persuasion who was not aware that their particular version of reality was the best. Three - religion is predicated on the acceptance of the mysterious as proof of a greater design and therefore should be kept as far away as possible from the science of investigation. And I meant it.

And yes, we are still friends.

But really, do we have to suffer through the whimsies of soft skulled speculations just to be nice to each other? Shouldn’t we call bullshit when we see it? I think that there is a strange kind of America First thing going on here - the US is so great and powerful that no one could attack it except itself. And also a boring old magical “man behind the curtain” scenario. Like wishing for a good movie version where everything gets to be really exciting with lots of James Bond intrigues and maybe even some flying saucers. I know its boring, and maybe even a little depressing to think that the great Land of John Wayne could be brought to its knees by a handful of Arabs with hand held weapons, but you know…. History doesn’t play favorites. And even the gods have to get real sometimes.