As the humble owner of a post-graduate degree in History and a handful of additional credits earned by a love of the field, as a teacher of History for 29 years, I have bemoaned, regretted and been outraged by the abuse of the word History by a commercial television channel.
The task of the History Channel is to connect a group of viewers to a group of advertisers. This could be achieved by delivering a select audience of serious readers and ponderers of academic History to a narrowly aimed group of advertisers.
Or, it could be achieved by delivering a broader based audience of fans of the "drama of History" with biographical and incident based stories that are legitimately riveting.
Consider the 3rd Option!
Speaking for myself, I would drool at the prospect of serious Historical areas of contention being debated by the current and retired crew of American and foreign credentialed and admired historians. Imagine Simon Schama and Niall Ferguson hosted by Bill Moyers to discuss economic "bubbles".
I would be comfortable or happy for a History Channel that broadcast the equivalent of Showtime's Henry VIII, or a rebroadcast of the "Madness of King George". Accurate in detail, perhaps not. Attention to period and context, maybe a B+. Entertainment value to the historically literate.. better than than nothing.
However, as the humor magazine Cracked recently pointed out with wry accuracy, The History Channel is actively engaged in reducing understanding and context and meaning and proportion and significance about all things historical. One leaves the typical History Channel broadcast misled or misinformed or yanked out of proportion to a dead zone where Nostradamus assumes endless import and Frederick the Great of Prussia is of no lasting importance.
The History Channel is an intellectual desert where transport truck drivers who confront winter driving conditions displace the "triumph and tragedy" of the USSR's transition to "Russian free enterprise". There is no serious examination of anything historical on the History Channel.
That's why I find it meaningful that the counter-attack on the so-called 9/11 truthers is left to the History Channel.
If one cites the gonzo journalism out of Venice Florida about the documented behaviour of Attah, one is a conspiracy kook reliant on unreliable resources.
If one defends one's position with arguments articulated on "THE HISTORY CHANNEL", one takes on the mantle of a patriotic defence of common sense and demonstrable truths and proofs.
I call for a new, NON-partisan, as opposed to bi-partisan, inquiry into the events of 9/11. I hope I am not alone. I subscribe to no alternative conspiracy theory. I find the Kean-Hamilton Report's conspiracy theory to be insufficient to account for the events 9 years ago. Subsequent remarks by Kean and Hamilton only encourage me in my position.
If you have 9/11 all solved.. you have some pretty kooky friends.
Either you have Alex Jones to defend, or the History Channel to defend.
Tonight the History Channel decided to put its integrity.. yes ITS INTEGRITY..on the line... to attack the major lines of criticism about the official 9/11 narrative. The program, a repeat broadcast I am sure, scored a point here and there, and frustrated revelatory discourse far more often.
Let's just agree, if you have Alex Jones on your side, you have an egotistical and unsettling advocate. If you have the History Channel on your side you have a slutty broadcast tart of proven counter-factual intent and substance.
How about a panel non-partisans with expertise in civil aviation, defense department protocols, engineering and demolition, short-selling and put options, foreign policy and intelligence operations, ...
experts about interrogation techniques who can account for the very particular selection of North Korean and Chinese methods for extracting false confessions... You may have the right suspects, but why select those methods?
Norad and NATO and USAF expertise to review testimony that had Kean and Hamilton ready to press criminal charges against senior officers.
Whenever the impulse hits to use or permit the "ad hominem" attack on those who want 9/11 to be freshly investigated by non-players, ... omg..."crazy conspiracy theorists inspired by the Alex Jones types"... remember... contemplate..and digest the following:
The energetic defence of the "official conspiracy theory" is conducted by the magazine that said you would be in George Jetson's flying car 20 years ago, AND (lets adopt the conspiratorial and conniving announcer's voice now..and from..) ..... THE HISTORY CHANNEL.
At last the History Channel has abandoned shallow pandering anti-intellectual legitimization of mythology and mystification... and embraced the emperical truth!