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From: scottj@magic.dml.georgetown.edu (John L. Scott)
Subject: Luser!
Message-ID: <1993Apr16.141830.12457@sol.ctr.columbia.edu>
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Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1993 14:18:30 GMT
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Awesley wrote:
  That was the entire point to *you*.  What exactly did I claim?
     --------------------------------------------------
    "I've heard eye-witness descriptions of tanks using their main guns
  to respond to sniper fire.  Quite effectively."
     --------------------------------------------------
  
    I wasn't wrong . . . I've heard those descriptions.  If you're
  paying attention, I've mentioned that I saw the tanks with my own
  eyes, but the main gun firing was an account I heard.  That helps
  people judge whether or not to kick in the, to use your words,
  "bullshit filters".  Stating that I *claimed* this is a falsehood.
  
Later in the same post:
     Another part of my memories was that while most damaged building
  were burnt, some were in rubble.  Based on what I remember, I was and
  am inclined to believe an old sarge or two.

Fine, *now* you are stating that you believe their claims (or that you are
"inclined" to.  See below for a stronger statement of your beliefs).  Those
claims are still ludicrous, however.

Previously Awesley had written:
  You can also read of the troops using grenade launchers.

Prompting me to write:
  To fire fragmentary grenades?  I doubt that as well.  To fire concussion
  grenades?  Perhaps.  To fire tear gas?  Certainly.  But you would be
  perfectly willing to let us believe they fired frags, wouldn't you, since
  it makes your other claim seem more plausible.

To which Awesley replied:
  John, again, strawman techniques.  Do you feel you're losing it so you
  have to stretch what I said and knock that down?  What I read said
  nothing about what they fired.  And so I put nothing in there.  If you
  need some help, let me know and I'l take your side of this for a
  while.  You're not scoring here, you're boring here.

But why did you mention grenade launchers at all?  Because it supports the
notion that the tanks shelled buildings.  And it supports that notion
because it conjures images of troops launching fragmentary grenades.  But
that too is ludicrous.

I wrote:
  If tanks had fired their main guns in Detroit, people would have been
  screaming about it for the past two and half decades.  I would know about
  it. 

Awesley relied:
     Glad to know you're such an expert.  Nice to hear some an
  authority.  I especially appreciate your basis of knowledge -- if it
  had happened, you would have know it.  Since you are such an
  authority, you probably know that people did scream about an alleged
  massive cover-up in the number of people killed in the Detroit riot.
  Some claimed 100+ dead, others said 300.  The offical number is 43 but
  the Concise Columbia Encyclopedia says it was "several".  I've also
  heard some things about that but I won't dare repeat them.  You'd
  assert that I claimed they were truth.

Yes, if it happened I would have heard about it.  Everybody would have. 
Army tanks don't fire their cannons in American cities in the 1960's
without it becoming common knowledge, without minority leaders seizing on
it and condemning it over and over again, without civil libertarians saying
"this has gone far enough."  So, yes, my never hearing of it was the basis
for my disbelieving the claim.  Now I have more reasons to disbelieve it. 
Not one poster has written to say, yes, I lived in Detroit at that time and
everybody knew that the tanks had fired shells.  This is the UseNet.  If it
had happened, somebody here would remember it.  Furthermore, your own
research failed to come up with any support for the claim.  The claim is
extraordinary and it has no supporting evidence, extraordinary or not. 
Unless you count the brags of a couple of guardsmen shooting the shit.  I
do not.

I wrote:
  Unless you also claim that the National Guard managed to cover it up. 

Awesley wrote:
     Taking the tour after the riots, it was pretty easy to tell the 
  difference between Army and Guard troops.  Or so I recall from 26 
  years ago.  And I seem to recall it was the Army running the tanks.
  So it would have been an Army cover-up.

Quibble.  Fine, it was an Army cover-up.  Six years in the Reserves has
taught me the difference also.  But do you think that in two and half
decades not one guilt-ridden participant has come forward and said "yes, I
shelled Americans," or "I gave the orders to fire the cannons," or "I
helped cover it up"?

I wrote:
  If your mind is open enough to believe that, well, good for you.  I
prefer
  to live in reality.   And here in reality, I find it hard to believe that
  those tanks even had any shells, much less fired them.

Awesley replied:
    Given the level in destruction in Detroit, I'm quite willing to believe
  that they did fire their guns.

Good.  Then we can drop the junk about you not claiming that they did. 
Your belief fails a basic reality check: why isn't it known?

Awesley concludes:
     Now then, we've bored the shit out of anyone whose bothered to read
  this far and all you've managed to say is that you don't believe the
  account I cited.

Actually, now we have established that I don't believe what you believe, as
well as why I don't believe it.  And if it's boring, then I yield the last
word to you, if you want it.  You may say anything you like with
impunity--I am dropping the subject.

--John L. Scott
