Yo Team. Take the 15 or so minutes to watch or just listen to this interview from WISC-TV's "For the Record." It's quite an eye-opener, or eye-squinter, but you will not remain unmoved. Please comment on your take on this whole issue.
And for further viewing entertainment...peep dis
8 comments:
i think what's more ridiculous than all these theories is the fact this guy's teaching 9/11 for only a week... and no one seems to mind that. the topic is intriguing, though.
Dude this screams conspiracy theory.
First off...their argument relies heavily on science...while almost none of the people I find mentioned in these articles are scientists. They tend to be humanities, ethics of science, and all kinds of other B.A. degree people as shown in this list, linked from st911.org:
http://www.wanttoknow.info/911statement
The fact that engineers, physicists, etc. aren't grasping onto these theories makes me wonder. In the case that there is a scientist behind the theory...it tends to be him and 20 liberal artists screaming "investigate this shit!" while all his scientist peers shun him.
Second...of the two scientists I did find, Steven E. Jones of Brigham Young University, had the best argument on the subject:
http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html
While I didn't read the whole thing...it sounds pretty bling. Before I got trapped by his rhetoric, I wikipediaed him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Jones#Critics
and read what his critics had to say...since they are a bunch of science people. I'm going to go with them. Unless he submits that shit to be read by his peers he's a pussy. As I further read the wikipedia I found this nugget:
"Jones is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In addition to his research in scientific areas, he has also published papers on archeological clues supporting the LDS belief that Jesus Christ visited Latin America after his resurrection. An event chronicled in the Book of Mormon."
Now I'm pretty much convinced that not only is all this a conspiracy theory, but that Mr. Jones blew up the building himself.
damn gibbons, you doin' this shit at 6 am?
the hannity and colmes program always gets my bowels moving :)
i posted my long take on the subject in the blog post above this one..
Yes, most of the people that are "Full Members" of the Scholars for 9/11 truth are not scientists. There are however, several physicists that are full members. There is one key person though, an engineer who worked for UL named Kevin Ryan. His story seems very authentic to me. You can Wikipedia him and see his story and link to the e-mail he wrote his boss that got him fired.
As far as Steven Jones (a founding member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth) goes and not submitting his work for peer review, he has. The "problem" with Jones' paper is that it is "unpublished" because no one wants to touch the topic. It is open for review, and he's given lectures and presenatations to rooms full of skeptics on a couple of his main points and had them conceding that the government account of what happened on 9/11 is severely lacking. Further, the whole idea for Scholars for 9/11 Truth is that they want another, peer reviewed study. The real pussies are the 9/11 Commission and their report, because that has been taken as gospel and not subject to official peer review, which is why Sf9/11T formed in the first place, to independently investigate the gov's claims since the government would not conduct it's own peer review.
The site Gibbo linked to is not part of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, but is another site called 911truth.org, which supports the Scholars but is separate from them, and the list of those 100 people are not members of the Scholars, but, as the site says, "prominent Americans and 9/11 families" that support the idea of a fully transparent investigation into what actually happened. So yeah, those people are basically liberals yelling "investigate this shit."
Engineers and physicists though are grasping onto these theories. Here is a list of people on Wikipedia that are officialy opposed to the gov's 9/11 commission report and want further study:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Researchers_questioning_the_official_account_of_9/11
And about the nugget seeming to claim he's a crazy religious zealot: It says he wrote papers about Archealogical clues that support the LDS claim that Jesus walked on Latin America after he came back. It does not say that Jones himself supports the idea, or that he claims the "clues" are proof of Jesus doing that. It just says he wrote papers on some archealogical findings that, if confirmed, would support the LDS story. It doesn't even give links to his papers in the Wiki article, or say what the clues were that archeaologists found, and what his papers conclusions were, so it wouldn't be reasonable to take that nugget as confirmation that Jones is just a nutcase.
This really needs to be read to get an idea of what the Scholars are all about:
http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/AboutUs.html
What about the simple physics proof that a perfecly symmetrical collapse of all three buildings that fell that day could not have been achieved via the official "pancake theory?" There are so many more questions like this one that need to be answered before one can reasonably dismiss this as "conspiracy."
http://www.septembereleventh.org/audio.php
this page has mp3 or other audio of several interviews with key people who are leading the 9/11 Truth movement. start at the bottom with #12.
I honestly can't believe how deep this movement goes, it's been going on for years, and I just heard about it yesterday. WTF? There is definitely a reason for that...what is it?
Some of these audio files are over 2 years old. How is it possible that things like this have NEVER had ANY media coverage on the major or "mainstream" networks like CNN, ABC, CBS, etc., until a couple weeks ago when Kevin Barrett was almost lynched for, as Fox News put it, "teaching a course about 9/11 conspiracy theories," which wasn't even close to what he was doing. Over 50 fucking legislators signed a petition to get this guy fired, and pinche Hannity accused him in front of their however many millions of people who watch that show of being a "conspiracy nut" as well as "unfit for teaching any class at all," the UW provost investigated his course and syllabus etc, and found he was more than competent.
here's a list of about 30 articles, mostly from major news sources, about questions surrounding the official 9/11 story. the articles were published as far back as 2002. the list is from the wikipedia page you linked to listing the researchers questioning the official account of 9/11.
most of the audio files you linked to come from unabashedly slanted sources (air america radio, democracy now, flashpoints). this makes it hard to sort what is objective finding, and what is political or emotional editorial. this is the same reason why i don't try and get informed by fox news.. there's too much slant to sort through, and too much baiting of interview subjects. i'll go get opinion from fox and see where the party lines are, but i won't consider myself informed.
of course, there needs to be a place for opinion and editorial response. but any investigation into the factual thoroughness of the 9/11 commission that hopes to gain momentum or credibility is not going to accomplish that in a politically biased enviroment.
in the very first audio example (#12) on the page you linked to, the interviewer literally asks the subject: "what is your visceral response to how the Bush administration has been handling the situation?" she literally did the colbert "not with your head.. with your gut!"
and she begins the program with
"as the US continues its illegal occupation of Iraq and as more and more pictures circulate accross the globe of egregious and violent torture of Iraqi civillians, President "select" Bush and his administration try to deflect resounding calls for resignation."
doesn't that sound exactly like fox news to you? if not, imagine that paragraph read with a little twang and change the word 'bush' to 'gore' or 'kerry'.
before i get totally off track, i'll just say that i think yeah, there's definitely things involved with 9/11 that should be investigated further. there should be an accounting for how the twin towers could have fallen in the way that they did, and any other questions, if the given explanation flies in the face of reason. and i think that's happening, and the investigation will take its natural course. there's just too many fact-hungry people out there.. and that rules.
but it's completely premature to say that there was some kind of organized conspiracy on the part of the government. at this point, that's just starting with a desired conclusion and then working backwards to make the loose ends fit the intended outcome. like the dude from syracuse said, it's a way of feeling that "everything is connected, nothing happens by accident, and that there is some kind of order in the world, even if it's produced by evil forces." it's what many christians do.
but can you really think that the same katrina/harriet miers/nsa eavesdropping/iraq intelligence/abu ghraib/plame affair/halliburton/abramoff/dubai ports/guantanamo government that we (myself included) get on every day for being inept at keeping america afloat is really the same government that's also capable of orchestrating the most elaborate, dangerous, detailed, and leak-proof ploy in history? come on people, who you crappin?
word Horse. Yeah, I remember that interview with the "visceral response" question, and yes, many of those sites and sources are totally biased. I think it would be important to contextualize this situation by pointing out a few things though.
1. The mainstream media has done such a great job, from day 1 when the first questions arose at keeping people who asked the "wrong questions" from being heard. That much is obvious. Considering that, the only place that anyone, no matter if they were a homeless tinfoil hat wearing dude on the street or a lettered professor, could voice their opinion over any kind of airwaves would be with the slanted sources, since the mainstream media wouldn't dare.
2. With regards to the totally slanted interviewer and the "visceral" question, I think it goes a long way in validating the objectivity of the interviewed (Dr. David Ray Griffin, his books are on Amazon) that he pointed out to the interviewer that his "visceral reaction" was totally irrelevant, and he does a great job of being objective, even in the face of a slanted interviewer.
I guess my point is then that you can't discount what these people are saying because they're being forced to do interviews with biased sources. I think one could only reasonably discount what someone might be saying after hearing all they have to say. To me, the demeanor of Dr. Griffin during that interview and all his others is consistently level-headed, objective, and informed.
This debate is definitely ramping up publicly, though. The editors of Popular Mechanics have written a book called Debunking 9/11 Myths, I already pre-ordered it, because I am obviously wanting to see what they have to say. So far, no one has addressed directly the questions posed on the st911.org page, and a proposed debate set-up by members of the 9/11 truth movement between a panel of civilian experts and researchers vs. a government panel of officials surrounding 9/11 has been summarily denied by the government without citing a reason. There is way too much here to ignore. But most importantly for me, I honestly feel like it is our duty as Americans, if there is any honor left in calling oneself an American, that we learn as much about this situation as we can because I believe what little we had left of our democracy is rapidly and purposefully being eroded away, and our generation may have a chance to raise its voice and demand that our government be held accountable to the constitution it purports itself to be upholding and defending.
I do take issue though with one thing in Horse's last post, and that is that this administration would not be capable of orchestrating such an event. I would contend that the administration did not orchestrate or help plan it but that if involved at all, they knew about it and let it happen. It is much easier to believe, to me, that certain people in the administration presently, who are members of the PNAC, people like Wolfowitz, Cheney, Libby, and any other Neo-conservative zealot who had a hand in writing their "Rebuilding America's Defenses" statement (you can link to the actual statement from Wikipedia, it is a must read if you want to talk seriously about 9/11) could pull it off than someone like Osama without some serious help. The consequences of an event like 9/11 play right into their hands, and history has shown that they capitalized on it, and we are dealing with the consequences of that still in the middle east, and that is just getting started.
I can't dispute the symmetry between religious zeal and that of a conspiracy nut, but in the cases of most conspiracies, as you say, one starts with a desired conclusion and then fills in the middle parts with statements that seem to support their position. I think that if you look at the timeline of this 9/11 truth movement, it happened organically and naturally, and did not start with a Bush hater wanting for the administration to be guilty and then filling in the gaps, but rather that once the 9/11 commission released its findings, reasonable, educated people raised serious questions about its validity, and from that a dialogue was opened and then shut between them and the administration. Remember that Bush did not want a 9/11 commission investigation. Further, once he was pressured into actually creating one, he tapped fucking Kissinger as the head of it, until a group of 9/11 families asked him about his documented dealings with the Bin Laden family and he resigned. He was replaced, however, by Executive Director of the commission Phil Zelikow, hardly an objective candidate to take that position.
I guess my main point is that the 9/11 truth movement is not founded on a conspiracy theory, but on problems with the 9/11 commission's report, serious ones. Sure certain elements of society have latched onto it and there are some very "interesting" theories out there as to who was behind it all, but that should not undermine the people in this movement who are solemnly seeking the truth about what happened, because it is plain to a reasonable person that the commission's report cannot be taken seriously. One illustration of that point is that there is nothing at all in it about Tower 7, which imploded at 5:30 or so PM on 9/11. Is that not an egregious error on the part of a body tasked with explaining the events of that day? They have said since that that building was brought down by fire damage and assymetrical structural damage, even though it was not hit by any plane. I have seen a photo of the building from a "9/11 conspiracy debunking" website that purports to show a huge chunk of one of the corners of the building, several floors or so, missing. But, you can see the building implode into its own footprint at near the speed of gravity, which literally means that either all of the support structures, made of steel and only subject to "collateral" fires and some structural damage would have had to have been burned exactly evenly and symmetrically for the building to collapse like that, or it was purposefully brought down.
Just think about it. 3 buildings collapsing in on themselves as a result of an asymmetrical, yet serious, physical impact and the resulting fires? The science of bringing down a building and making it fall like that is so exacting that to think that it could ever happen as a result of the circumstances from a plane crashing into it would be like, mathematically speaking, saying that 1 equals 0. It's physically impossible. No one in the administration, the government, or anywhere else has addressed this key point of the 9/11 truth movement. If the buildings falling like that could not have happened as a result of the planes hitting them, especially the one that didn't even get hit by a plane, then someone purposefully took them down, and the government's refusal to come clean about it, and debate the issues, and sort it all out, implicates them. The MSM's refusal to give it anything other than H&C and the like, which only serves the administration's purpose by marginalizing the speaker, implicates them as well, as do many other stories concerning the job the national media as a whole has done in playing it's role as the PEOPLE's branch of the government as a check and balance. To me, then, it is reasonable to conclude, at this point and until a full and impartial and completely transparent investigation is completed, that the government is complicit in some of what happened that day.
best mindfuck yet.
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