Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Bush-The Mastermind behind 9/11? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sea_urchin who wrote (8373)	9/26/2004 10:24:14 PM
From: sea_urchin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20039

> it's far more comfortable for them to stay fooled than it is to admit something very terrible happened (2) Cognitive dissonance dmu.ac.uk >>Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation. It therefore occurs when there is a need to accommodate new ideas, and it may be necessary for it to develop so that we become "open" to them. Neighbour (1992) makes the generation of appropriate dissonance into a major feature of tutorial (and other) teaching: he shows how to drive this kind of intellectual wedge between learners' current beliefs and "reality". Beyond this benign if uncomfortable aspect, however, dissonance can go "over the top", leading to two interesting side-effects for learning: 1. if someone is called upon to learn something which contradicts what they already think they know — particularly if they are committed to that prior knowledge — they are likely to resist the new learning. Even Carl Rogers recognised this. Accommodation is more difficult than Assimilation, in Piaget's terms. 2. if learning something has been difficult, uncomfortable, or even humiliating enough, people are not likely to admit that the content of what has been learned is not valuable. To do so would be to admit that one has been "had", or "conned". <<

To: sea_urchin who wrote (8373)	9/28/2004 3:49:30 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Respond to of 20039

Re: You've put your finger on it. Denial. Self-deception. Control of reality by the imagination. Call it what you will. But there's no doubt that people are perfectly happy to accept and to believe that bin Laden and his bunch of terrible jihadist killers did it rather than confront the reality that it was done (or even could have been done) by a bunch of nice Christian and Jewish boys -- in fact, people -- JUST LIKE US. The Confederate Dirty War: Arson, Bombings, Assassination And Plots For Chemical And Germ Attacks On The Union by Jane Singer amazon.com Editorial Reviews Synopsis They echo modern headlines - a shadowy underground organization orchestrating plans to bring down the government; bands of saboteurs slipping in from Canada to attempt coordinated acts of destruction; plans to poison water supplies and spread deadly diseases among the urban populace --but these and similar incidents were part of a Confederate strategy to wreak "terror and consternation" upon the North during the Civil War. Elements within the Confederacy, acting officially or otherwise, developed --and attempted-- numerous plans to inflict terror and death upon the Union populace and bring down the government using a variety of unconventional means. These efforts are an overlooked and important aspect of the Confederate strategy during the Civil War. This is a history of Confederate efforts to terrorize, demoralize and defeat the North by attacking civilians and the government, using means outside the bounds of conventional warfare. It covers arsonists, "destructionists," engineers of chemical and biological weapons, bands of mobile operatives, and a variety of other nefarious characters and those who opposed them. Chapters cover prominent events in the campaign, from the efforts of the Sons of Liberty --an underground society allied against the Union and brought down by one heroic spy-- to attempts to destroy the White House and "decapitate" the government. Illustrations, photographs and relative documents are included, as is an appendix following the career of Confederate bomber W.S. Duepree, killed while setting one of his own mines. Notes, a bibliography and an index are included. ___________________________