...suppose NYC CAN is indeed being set up to fail. Suppose that the signatures will pass muster and everyone will be all pumped for the next step, a hearing to decide whether the proposed commission is kosher under the relevant "home rule" statute. What's the worst that could happen?

Mind you, I'm not a lawyer, but I do know that "precedents" are very important in deciding cases. If NY CAN is set up to fail, the case could end up being heard by a judge with an agenda--as a 9/11 related case who knows if it would be assigned to Judge Hellerstein himself (I don't know if that could happen given that he is a federal judge but whatever, suppose the judge was not entirely on the up and up, or just emotionally incapable of being objective on the subject of 9/11.) Should the case be dismissed, it would set a precedent therefore raising the bar for future similar attempts, attempts that could be made on much better grounds than the LIHOPpy NYC CAN petition.

Just how bad could things get? An example from the world of holocaust revisionism should give us all pause--with the caveat that it involves a legal proceeding in California where the law may not allow for a similar finding. The example has to do with the case of one Mel Mermelstein, who sued the Institute for Historical Review which offered $50,000 for anyone who could offer proof of homicidal gassings in a German concentration camp. Mermelstein's evidence was his own eyewitness testimony, which IHR rejected, hence the lawsuit. Here is how Nizkor.org, a site which supports Mermelstein's claims, describes what happened:

5. Auschwitz was in Poland, not Germany. Is there any proof that gas chambers for the purpose of killing human beings existed at or in Auschwitz?

The IHR says:

No. A reward of $50,000 was offered for such proof, the money being held in trust by a bank, but no one came up with any credible evidence. Auschwitz, captured by the Soviets, was extensively modified after the war and a mortuary was reconstructed to look like a large "gas chamber." It is now a big tourist attraction for the Communist Polish government.

 

The IHR says (revised):

No. Auschwitz, captured by the Soviets, was modified after the war, and a room was reconstructed to look like a large "gas chamber." After America's leading expert on gas chamber construction and design, Fred Leuchter, examined this and other alleged Auschwitz gassing facilities, he stated that it was an "absurdity" to claim that they were, or could have been, used for executions.

 

Nizkor replies:

Regarding the $50,000 reward offer: it was paid, to the last cent (actually $90,000), to Mel Mermelstein, an Auschwitz survivor who took the IHR to court. Here is the statement made by the judge:

The Honorable Thomas T. Johnson, on October 9, 1981, took judicial notice as follows:

Under Evidence Code Section 452(h), this court does take judicial notice of the fact that Jews were gassed to death at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland during the summer of 1944

 

and

It just simply is a fact that falls within the definition of Evidence Code Section 452(h). It is not reasonably subject to dispute. And it is capable of immediate and accurate determination by resort to sources of reasonably indisputable accuracy. It is simply a fact.

 

The IHR complains that they were not given a chance to dispute this fact, but then the American court system is not meant to be a place for people to try to prove crackpot theories. No "credible evidence" was produced because there was no call for it -- a courtroom is not the place to rehash the work of historians over the last half-century.

Regardless of one's views on the holocaust or the role played by homicidal gassings in it, what is instructive here is how a court case can lead to an official proclamation of something as "indisputable historical fact", something I would not have believed possible until reading about the Mermelstein case.  In fact, Nizkor only provides as much information about the case to make it look as if that was that--and most people who read their account most likely accept that.   For the whole story told by the other side, see: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v14/v14n1p25_Okeefe.html

I can imagine that some may object to my use of this particular example in an analysis of the potential pitfalls NYC CAN represents for the truth movement, but like it or not, the controversy over holocaust revisionism is very relevant to a movement that in the eyes of many is about historical revision (revising the established historical narrative of 9/11.)  As truthers we need not necessarily make common cause with other revisionists, but we ignore their experiences at our peril.