The facts of January 6, 2021: Information or misdirection?

A recent documentary makes an ambitious claim: “January 6th: a true timeline” [1].

The creator and producer of the video, A. J. Fischer [2], is among the defendants charged with criminal behavior because of activities on that day.

The description of the documentary on its website makes its motivation abundantly clear:

“to help contextualize the events of the day . . .”

“Fischer was both witness to and a victim of police brutality . . .”

“the attacks by police with munitions and physical violence were often unprovoked and at times deeply disturbing . . .”

In other words, things were not as the media generally portrayed them. And this is claimed to be an impartial, factual description:

“The purpose of this film is to set the record straight without favor to one side or another. January 6 is a dark day in American history, but not in the way it has been portrayed. The American people deserve the whole, uncut truth of what transpired minute by minute. In reality, J6 was a complex human event; one where a peaceful, joyous morning of First Amendment assembly became a riot for reasons that are much more nuanced than most want you to believe.”

But what was the purpose of the “peaceful, joyous assembly”? The reason for it?

Was there some basis other than the assertion, denied in about 60 court hearings, of fatal flaws in the presidential election?

The first question to ask about the significance and importance of January 6th is, “Significant and important to whom? For what reasons?”

For any defendant, the most significant thing is individual, personal guilt or innocence as charged. That other people, including the police, may have acted improperly or even criminally is entirely irrelevant to the innocence or guilt of the individual defendant.

If found guilty, contextual matters become relevant to decisions about the penalty to be imposed; but contextual matters are not facts about individual guilt or innocence.

For the wider public, for American society as a whole and for the whole world’s attitude towards the United States, the precise details of what happened are of relatively minor importance compared to the fact that something unusual happened at the Capitol; that anything at all happened at the Capitol other than the routine reporting of election results in the Electoral College.

Not only that. The touchiest part of arguments about what happened on January 6^th is actually about what was happening away from the Capitol, in particular at the White House, but also at the Pentagon and with decision-makers for the DC Police and National Guard.

By making claims of factual accuracy in adding new information, this documentary diverts attention from what is most important about January 6^th. The film exemplifies misdirection.

Deliberate  misdirection is the basis of all the techniques used by stage magicians and fraudulent psychics. I was fortunate to hear this explained and illustrated more than 40 years ago, at the first public meeting sponsored by the Committee for Scientific Investigation of the Paranormal (CSICOP), in a presentation by Daryl Bem [3], professional psychologist and amateur magician.

Politicians, and social activists quite in general, use misdirection deliberately, if they happen to be sufficiently knowledgeable and smart and unscrupulous; but misdirection happens also quite commonly without deliberate intent: It happens inevitably through sheer ignorance, when important things are simply not known, when they happen to be part of the “unknown unknown”. But we are all prone, as individuals, to misdirect through our personal ignorance of something pertinent.

 One might, indeed, describe the progress of science as continually overcoming misdirection brought about by ignorance. Research projects even by entirely competent scientists may lead in wrong directions just because some important matters are simply not yet known.

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[1]   https://open.ink/collections/j6

[2]   https://investigatej6.org/

[3]   https://psychology.cornell.edu/daryl-j-bem