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Getbig Main Boards => General Topics => Topic started by: 240 is Back on August 29, 2006, 09:59:17 PM
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Rumsfeld has brutally criticized the media this week for giving any props to Hez for their performance against Israel, and for what he calls the media's "unfair" coverage of the war in Iraq.
Today alone, there was a very damaging piece on CNN which focused upon promoting a website called http://porkbusters.org/secrethold.php which is singlehandedly "calling out" the senator who froze a bill allowing all federal spending to be made public. And, Brit Hume of FOX news did a pretty flattering 911 piece tonight.
I believe it was hedgehog who predicted a while back that this media would turn on the bush administration. I think it might be happening.
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Bush was interviewed by Brian Williams of NBC. Parts were played tonight on Hardball.
Brian Williams asked bush if he thought Americans should have to sacrifice for 9/11. Bush hesitated and the camera zoomed in on his eyes, oddly close, while he answered something about the war. My thinking is that they wanted to really get the look on his face as he answered this quesiton above all others.
Also- Bush actually brought up the 'crazy conspiracy talk' when referring to what people suspect him and his father talk about. Williams didn't bring it up. bush did. Said that people have the crazy talk about what he and his father talk about. I found this odd. Even in the 9/11 Truth community, people don't constantly harp on the connection of the Bushes to, well, you know...
So perhaps progress is being made. And, as the guy who watches the news all day while working, i will continue to keep you all posted on the media's treatment of the White House.
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About 3 weeks ago, Lou Dobbs of CNN called for a new 911 Investigation. He said there were too many lies, and that the Pentagon/NORAD specifically LIED ON THE STAND about the timeline of that day.
Since then, Big Lou, now a hero in the 911 Truth movement, has taken a 2 week vacation, came back for one day, then been off the air for another week.
He might just be on a summer vacation. But it's something to watch. If he is canned for speaking his opinion on 911 - on a show where the focus is his opinion, CNN could catch some heat.
Just keeping an eye on the media for yall :)
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From MSNBC - Keith Olbermann's blog - tackling Rumsfeld's fearmongering pretty hard-
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12131617/
Feeling morally, intellectually confused?
The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.
Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.
Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis—and the sober contemplation—of every American.
For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence -- indeed, the loyalty -- of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants -- our employees -- with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.
Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as “his” troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.
It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.
In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld’s speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril—with a growing evil—powerful and remorseless.
That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld’s, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the “secret information.” It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s -- questioning their intellect and their morality.
That government was England’s, in the 1930’s.
It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England.
It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords.
It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions — its own omniscience -- needed to be dismissed.
The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.
Most relevant of all — it “knew” that its staunchest critics needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile, at best morally or intellectually confused.
That critic’s name was Winston Churchill.
Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.
History — and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England — have taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty — and his own confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts.
Thus, did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy.
Excepting the fact, that he has the battery plugged in backwards.
His government, absolute -- and exclusive -- in its knowledge, is not the modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis.
It is the modern version of the government of Neville Chamberlain.
But back to today’s Omniscient ones.
That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely.
And, as such, all voices count -- not just his.
Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience — <b>about Osama Bin Laden’s plans five years ago</b>, about Saddam Hussein’s weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina’s impact one year ago — we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their “omniscience” as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris.
Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire “Fog of Fear” which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have — inadvertently or intentionally — profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.
And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer’s New Clothes?
In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?
The confusion we -- as its citizens— must now address, is stark and forbidding.
But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart — that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.
The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.
And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a “new type of fascism.”
As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.
This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.
Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.
But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: “confused” or “immoral.”
Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:
“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” he said, in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.
“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”
And so good night, and good luck.
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Media turn on George Bush etc..
HAHA
Remember the last election. The negative reports on Iraq. The message that he is going to distroy American freedoms. The riducle of the o child left behind program.
CNN does not like G W Bush. They tried hard to get Kerry elected.
The news would have turn positive for Bush if it was to turn 180 degrees.
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Media turn on George Bush etc..
HAHA
Remember the last election. The negative reports on Iraq. The message that he is going to distroy American freedoms. The riducle of the o child left behind program.
CNN does not like G W Bush. They tried hard to get Kerry elected.
The news would have turn positive for Bush if it was to turn 180 degrees.
You'll see more and more of it. I'm a news junkie, I admit it. I watch all day and note whenever a particularly flattering, or unflattering, story comes on about either party. The choice of guest has a big impact too. They bring on people who
All seriousness though, the WH has taken a lot of shots at the media lately, and they have been much less politicians and much more 'managers' lately. They're no longer trying to sell anything (as bush, rummy, cheney are all done in 2008). They're now trying to scare people into going along with their policy.
And the media is not linking the way they demean anyone who questions the war. I think I'm starting to like the media- standing up for itself. Did you see Olbermann take on Rummy last night? It's news all over today.
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Media turn on George Bush etc..
HAHA
Remember the last election. The negative reports on Iraq. The message that he is going to distroy American freedoms. The riducle of the o child left behind program.
CNN does not like G W Bush. They tried hard to get Kerry elected.
The news would have turn positive for Bush if it was to turn 180 degrees.
Slight correction.
All major news stations, including CNN, gave more air time to Bush.
Fox were most biased.
And I'm sure they will be this time too. But this time they'll support Hillary.
Which is just as bad. Media should never be driven by political agendas, trying to influence the public.
Hopefully, alternative news channels like youtube will work to get the message out for the smaller candidates.
And most important, hopefully people will vote.
Register to vote.
BTW, it's a disgrace that so many people aren't allowed to vote, due to past criminal records.
YIP
Zack
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I live in Canada,
Crimals vote here.
Media bias is used on both sides.
It exists but it is not nearly as bad as either the left or right think it is.
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I just caught on hardball that the White House will be using a 20 million $ grant to a private company to track media coverage of Iraq war.
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MSN Poll
Do you agree with President Bush when he likens the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism with the fight against Nazis and communists? * 231392 responses
Yes. Bin Laden and others are the Hitlers and Stalins of our times.
44%
Maybe. But I'm going to need some more convincing one way or the other.
4.2%
No. This is just dishonest, warmongering designed to scare voters about national security in time for this fall's elections.
52%
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I continue to believe the media is turning :)
came out today
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When something like that gets on USA today or some other major city newspaper then you'll start gettign what you been looking for. But i still maintain the conspracy was in knowing the attacks were coming not staging them.
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When something like that gets on USA today or some other major city newspaper then you'll start gettign what you been looking for. But i still maintain the conspracy was in knowing the attacks were coming not staging them.
You may absolutely be right man.
That is still treasonous behavior and worth of a new trial.
if planes and buildings could have been evacuated that AM, there'd be 3000 less tombstones in the world.
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hopefully all the attention is not just because of the upcoming anniversary of 911 and doesn't dissapear shortly afterwards :(
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hopefully all the attention is not just because of the upcoming anniversary of 911 and doesn't dissapear shortly afterwards :(
yeah. well, loose change THE FINAL CUT is coming out very soon after 911. it's going to be a near-hollywood quality production and is going to hopefully get a theater release. if 36% of people indeed believe 911 was an inside job, then the movie should sell some tickets.
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good news!
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CNN - just now...
Because so many issues have been raised, and evidence has been found of tampering, Ohio 2004 presidential ballots will be held and not destroyed as planned next week.
New legislations for all elecronic voting machines. each state does their own. there are no federal standards. Voter paper trail for every vote, audits, and other things proposed for 06.
You might recall that a FL programmer detailed an assignment he had form Jeb Bush in which he was paid to write election-altering software. He even passed a polygraph test. There was an investigator who said he was about to "blow the lid off the 2004 election", but he was suicided under very shady conditions.
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Also too there was the actor / temp worker who blew the whistle on Diebold's refusal to secure the software being used in their voter machines as well.
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You might recall that a FL programmer detailed an assignment he had form Jeb Bush in which he was paid to write election-altering software. He even passed a polygraph test. There was an investigator who said he was about to "blow the lid off the 2004 election", but he was suicided under very shady conditions.
Dude,
seriously...
you're shitting me.
I know there were some funny business in Florida, but nothing major.
What the fcuk are you on about...
election-altering?
suicide?
If there is any truth to this, which I highly doubt, Jeb Bush should be in prison.
And probably his brother too, or at least be impeached.
Spill it: What's the story?
YIP
Zack
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::)
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you're shitting me.
I know there were some funny business in Florida, but nothing major.
What the fcuk are you on about...
election-altering?
suicide?
If there is any truth to this, which I highly doubt, Jeb Bush should be in prison.
And probably his brother too, or at least be impeached.
Spill it: What's the story?
I wish I was shitting you. This is one of the more proven stories that the media has gone on about in a very lowkey way for the last 2 years, but no one will come close to prosecuting this.
here is the investigator who was suicided:
http://www.shoutwire.com/viewstory/26729/Florida_Election_Fraud_Investigator_Found_Dead_
Note how they even drove him over state lines to avoid an autopsy requirement, and among the other details, the fact that it's very strange for a guy to kill himself when he's very very excited he's about to blow the lid off the presidential election. And he slit his wrists to die - I doubt ANY cop with a gun would choose the razor to a bullet.
A programmer was hired to write software which "flips" the results of an election. his software may have been used to alter the results of the OH Prez election. Despite the repub's best efforts to have all the hard copies destroyed this week, a judgment was delivered which keeps them from being destroyed so that perhaps a recount can be done.
It's been brought up once about a week - called "2004 Presidential election electronic voting irregularities" by the media.
I voted for Bush in 2004. But the affadivit and polygraph results from the programmer have me convinced that a nonpartisan investigation is in order.
jag, you have more info on this? I focus my time on 911 more than anything else.
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Yes, the tide is finally turning and even the people on the Right are finally coughing up the Kool-Aid. I suspect that the reason why Rummy's points caused as much of a stir that they did is due to the fact that the fear-mongering and that whole "with-us-or-against-us" cowboy bulshit isn't flying anymore.
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Yes, the tide is finally turning and even the people on the Right are finally coughing up the Kool-Aid. I suspect that the reason why Rummy's points caused as much of a stir that they did is due to the fact that the fear-mongering and that whole "with-us-or-against-us" cowboy bulshit isn't flying anymore.
Yep. Insane if you step back and look at it. I mean, what would Jefferson and Washington had said if some pompous civilian defense guy like Rummy told them that questioning the govt's official line was unpatriotic? If anyone fits the definition of the word "fascism" that Rumsfeld's been using so much, it's the White house itself.
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I wish I was shitting you. This is one of the more proven stories that the media has gone on about in a very lowkey way for the last 2 years, but no one will come close to prosecuting this.
here is the investigator who was suicided:
http://www.shoutwire.com/viewstory/26729/Florida_Election_Fraud_Investigator_Found_Dead_
Note how they even drove him over state lines to avoid an autopsy requirement, and among the other details, the fact that it's very strange for a guy to kill himself when he's very very excited he's about to blow the lid off the presidential election. And he slit his wrists to die - I doubt ANY cop with a gun would choose the razor to a bullet.
A programmer was hired to write software which "flips" the results of an election. his software may have been used to alter the results of the OH Prez election. Despite the repub's best efforts to have all the hard copies destroyed this week, a judgment was delivered which keeps them from being destroyed so that perhaps a recount can be done.
It's been brought up once about a week - called "2004 Presidential election electronic voting irregularities" by the media.
I voted for Bush in 2004. But the affadivit and polygraph results from the programmer have me convinced that a nonpartisan investigation is in order.
jag, you have more info on this? I focus my time on 911 more than anything else.
This can't be real.
It looks real.
This is something different than the 9-11, mass murder of its own citizens, and there ain't no real proof of it...
But this... this suicide actually looks like something else if the facts in these articles are correct?
Why aren't the relatives protesting?
Why isn't this the new Watergate?
WTF?
Where is Bob Woodward?
YIP
Zack
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THIS WEEK - Both the state department and a federal science agency (read: NIST) put out new information explaining why it couldn't have been a controlled takedown.
First, this shows they KNOW that popular opinion is swaying. Ayone who watched building 7 fall, from several small fires, knows it was a controlled demolition.
(http://www.waronfreedom.org/pix/wtc7-demolition.gif)
U.S. moves to debunk 'alternative theories' on Sept. 11 attacks
By Jim Dwyer The New York Times
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/01/news/conspiracy.php
Published: September 1, 2006
NEW YORK Faced with an angry minority of people who believe the Sept. 11 attacks were part of a shadowy and sprawling plot run by Americans, separate reports were published this week by the State Department and a federal science agency insisting that the catastrophes were caused by hijackers who used commercial airliners as weapons.
The official narrative of the attacks has been attacked as little more than a cover story by an assortment of radio hosts, academics, amateur filmmakers and others who have spread their arguments on the Internet and cable television in America and abroad. As a motive, they suggest that the Bush administration wanted to use the attacks to justify military action in the Middle East.
Most elaborately, they propose that the collapse of the World Trade Center was actually caused by explosive charges secretly planted in the buildings, rather than by the destructive force of the airliners that thundered into the towers and set them ablaze.
The government reports and officials say the demolition argument is utterly implausible on a number of grounds. Indeed, few proponents of the explosives theory are willing to venture explanations of how daunting logistical problems would be overcome, such as planting thousands of pounds of explosives in busy office towers.
It's a one-sided response in the NY Times- their main argument is "How could they have planted bombs without security catching them?", an argument which becomes moot when you consider the brand new security team spent the 6 weeks leading up to the attacks doing all sorts of power-downs and upgrades. The main elevator shafts in each building were closed to the public. It wouldn't have taken long for a trained demo team to fill the shaft with explosives - the power was down for most of the towers for 36 hours the weekend before the 911 attacks. During that time, teams of engineers were seen going into the building nonstop.
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This can't be real.
It looks real.
This is something different than the 9-11, mass murder of its own citizens, and there ain't no real proof of it...
But this... this suicide actually looks like something else if the facts in these articles are correct?
Why aren't the relatives protesting?
Why isn't this the new Watergate?
WTF?
Where is Bob Woodward?
YIP
Zack
People are scared. your boy hunter S Thompson called radio shows and told the hosts repeatedly that he had been threatened, that people had gone through his house, and that he was scared he'd be murdered. Why? cause he was coming out with a project to let the world know about 911. Suicided while on the phone with his wife making plans. Sound strange? One of the early 911 Campus Truth kids was murdered. The movement is so fluid and broken up that we cna't keep track of who has come and gone.
Alex Jones (the controversial radio host who predicted the trade towers attacks TEO WEEN BEFORE 9/11 - and posted the White house phone number to call and ask them to stop the false attacks) is target #1 - he can't leave the house without a film crew.
Anyone remember all the suicides around JFK? The Clinton body count? This shit is very real.
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This if from today's San Francisco Chronicle
THE CONSPIRACY TO REWRITE 9/11
Conspiracy theorists insist the U.S. government, not terrorists, staged the devastating attacks
Jonathan Curiel, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, September 3, 2006
Dylan Avery has a theory that he says casts doubts on Mark Bingham's actions on Sept. 11, 2001. According to Avery, the San Francisco public relations executive never called his mom on a cell phone from the cabin of Flight 93, and never told her that "some of us here are going to try to do something." Instead, says Avery, someone using a voice synthesizer -- possibly a government official -- called Alice Hoglan on the morning that Flight 93 -- and Bingham -- became part of Sept. 11 lore.
"The cell phone calls were fake -- no ifs, ands or buts," Avery says in "Loose Change," a film he wrote and directed that's one of the most-watched movies on the Internet, with 10 million viewers in the past year. "Until the government can prove beyond a shadow of doubt that al Qaeda was behind Sept. 11, the American people have every reason to believe otherwise."
Avery is one of perhaps millions of Americans who believe the U.S. government -- or rogue elements within it -- either orchestrated the attacks or tacitly supported them for nefarious reasons.
As the five-year anniversary of the attacks approaches, the clamor of Avery and other conspiracy theorists has gotten stronger -- and more widely accepted. According to a poll by Ohio University and Scripps Howard News Service, 36 percent of Americans believe that government officials "either assisted in the 9/ 11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East." Twelve percent of Americans believe a cruise missile fired by the U.S. military -- not an American Airlines jet hijacked by Arab terrorists -- slammed into the Pentagon. Sixteen percent of Americans, the survey indicates, believe that "secret explosives" -- not two planes and the resulting damage -- brought down the World Trade Center towers.
Conspiracy fans are viewed by most people as gullible, opportunistic, disgruntled or simply suspicious. It's widely believed that conspiracy theorists emanate from the margins of society, that they're a combination of paranoid, powerless, undereducated and desperate (at least desperate to assign blame). But Avery and other prominent Sept. 11 conspiracy theorists claim to represent society's mainstream, which is skeptical of the Bush administration's rationale for the Iraq war and Washington's version of what really happened that day.
Some of them reject the term "conspiracy theorist," instead calling themselves "truth activists" -- people who want to expose hidden facts that the major media ignore or downplay because of their corporate ties. While many conspiracy theorists are politically liberal, they also include people on the right, including members of the John Birch Society, who imply that the Sept. 11 attacks were part of a continuing plan by U.S. elites to create a "New World Order" and impose greater control over Americans.
Some conspiracy theories are fantastical (CIA agents orchestrated the attacks; Israel planned them.) -- the epitome of preposterous beliefs that start with a conclusion and work backward to find evidence. Each new month brings a deluge of crackpot theories, but a growing number of people say there are too many improbabilities -- too many illogical holes -- in the government's version of what happened.
Robert Bowman, who directed the "Star Wars" defense program under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, reached his own conclusion after questioning (among other things) why the American military hadn't intercepted the hijacked planes before they hit the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, why the FBI had ignored repeated pre-Sept. 11 warnings that Zacarias Moussaoui wanted to fly a plane into the World Trade Center, why the Pentagon didn't release surveillance tapes of American Airlines Flight 77 hitting the military complex, and how, within hours after the attack, the government could so quickly produce the names and photos of the 19 hijackers.
A former U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel with a doctorate from the California Institute of Technology, Bowman says Vice President Dick Cheney and other top government officials may have had advance knowledge of the attacks. Bowman theorizes that Cheney and other officials stood to benefit financially (in Cheney's case, through Halliburton). Labeling these officials "neo-cons," Bowman says they had a long-standing desire to control Iraq's oil and to use the country as a strategic hub for controlling the entire Middle East. The Sept. 11 commission, he says, neglected to investigate these possible connections, leaving a huge gap in the official account.
"It's hard to believe that somebody at some (government) level wasn't complicit in this thing," Bowman said in a phone interview from his home in Florida. Bowman, who publicly turned against the "Star Wars" system because he believed the Reagan administration secretly considered it a first-strike option and not merely a defensive weapon, says, "How could someone in the FBI turn down requests 70 times from somebody (FBI agent Harry Samit) who said he thought Moussaoui was going to fly a hijacked plane into the World Trade Center? ... I'm calling for a (new) independent investigation that will clear up everything. If the investigation shows that there were people in the United States who were involved in some way, that's the story of the century, and the American people need to know it."
Like many on the left and the right, Bowman points to pre-Sept. 11 documents he says foreshadowed the attacks, including a paper published in 2000 by the Project for a New American Century, a conservative think tank whose members have included Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. The paper, titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses," talked about the fact that a "catastrophic and catalyzing event -- a new Pearl Harbor," would strengthen the American military because lawmakers would, given the urgency, green-light funds to continue the military's dominance over U.S. adversaries. For conspiracy theorists, the Project for a New American Century document is a smoking gun. Its reference to Pearl Harbor is both scary and damning, they say, because some historians believe President Franklin Roosevelt knew that an attack on U.S. soil was imminent but let it happen to rally American public opinion behind going to war.
If that isn't enough evidence to convince you that Sept. 11 was an inside job, conspiracy theorists say, there's more. What about the fact that NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) quickly intercepted golfer Payne Stewart's wayward Learjet in 1999 but didn't intercept the hijacked planes that crashed in New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pa.? What about the fact that witnesses at the World Trade Center reported hearing multiple explosions before the buildings' collapse, indicating to some that the towers were brought down by planted explosives? What about the fact that Building 7 of the World Trade Center -- the 47-floor structure housing offices of the CIA, the Secret Service and the Department of Defense -- collapsed even though it wasn't hit by planes?
Rebuttals have emerged to explain some of the biggest question marks. Last month, Popular Mechanics magazine published a full-length book, "Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts," which refuted 20 claims widely held by conspiracy theorists. For example, the belief that a missile hit the Pentagon was based partly on the visible damage to the building: at the point of impact, a relatively small portion of the wall was knocked over -- it wasn't the horizontal damage to be expected from a large-winged Boeing 757.
Popular Mechanics, which interviewed more than 300 sources for its book, quotes witnesses who said at least one wing of Flight 77 smashed into an on-ground generator before the plane struck the Pentagon. An engineering expert says the plane's outer wings likely sheared off before impact. "A jet doesn't punch a cartoonlike outline into a concrete building upon impact," the book says, citing an engineering professor.
What about a witness who supposedly told CNN that he saw a missile hit the Pentagon? Popular Mechanics interviews the witness, Mike Walter, who says his original words ("I looked out my window and saw this plane, this jet, an American Airlines jet, coming. ... I mean, it was like a cruise missile with wings") were truncated and distorted by conspiracy theorists. One of those theorists was French author Thierry Meyssan, whose 2002 best-seller, "The Horrifying Fraud," claimed the U.S. military instigated Sept. 11 as part of its plan to start new wars around the world.
In his film "Loose Change," Avery says Bingham and other passengers on Flight 93 could not have called from the doomed jetliner because cell phones rarely work at high altitudes. He cites a research paper by A.K. Dewdney, an emeritus professor of computer science at the University of Western Ontario. But in "Debunking 9/11 Myths," Popular Mechanics interviews experts who explain why Bingham's cell phone would have worked that day (the plane's low altitude helped, as did the fact it flew over rural areas, which often have cell-phone towers with powerful signal capacities).
Not surprisingly, conspiracy theorists have attacked "Debunking 9/11 Myths," saying that Popular Mechanics is a front for the CIA. They that one of its researchers, Benjanim Chertoff, is related to Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, which they say is an indication of the magazine's co-mingling with a government that was behind the attacks. (The magazine says the two Chertoffs might be distant cousins, but that they've never spoken.)
Conspiracy theorists might even look at this article as part of the conspiracy, because Hearst Corp., which owns Popular Mechanics, also publishes The Chronicle.
What sets "Loose Change" apart from other Sept. 11 works is that it's visually appealing, slickly edited (with hip music) and free to watch on the internet video site YouTube. It has an anti-authoritarian edge (Avery is 22 years old) that might appeal to someone who admires Michael Moore or Jon Stewart. The film has inspired a critical response, "Screw Loose Change," which repackages Avery's film with rebuttals interspersed.
Conspiracy theorists often cite "facts" that really are facts, but whether they really add up to anything is another question.
In his new book, "The Terror Conspiracy: Deception, 9/11, and the Loss of Liberty," author Jim Marrs points out that former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted that the United States began funding Afghan rebels in July 1979. Why is this important? Because, for many years, the official American version was that funding started after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Brzezinski now says the United States hoped the 1979 funding would draw in the Soviets and lead to a wider war, contributing to the demise of the Soviet Union. If the U.S. government would lie in 1979, why wouldn't it lie again in 2001? In 1979, says Marrs, it was about gaining access to oil and gas in Central Asia. Twenty-two years later, he says, it was about Iraq's oil.
Agreeing with Marrs is Scholars for 9/11 Truth, an organization that believes the U.S. government "permitted 9/11 to occur." Among the group's members are Paul W. Rea, a humanities lecturer at St. Mary's College in Moraga; Tracy Belvins, a research scientist in bioengineering at Rice University; Kevin Barrett, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose Sept. 11 views caused national controversy in July and prompted some lawmakers to insist he shouldn't be teaching at the university; and Stephen LeRoy, an economics professor at UC Santa Barbara who has been a visiting economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
"Conspiracists (come) from all parts of the population, they (come) from all racial and religious groups," says Bob Goldberg, a history professor at the University of Utah and the author of "Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America." "The fact that people who have advanced degrees believe in conspiracy theories does not surprise me because it's not an issue of whether you're smart or dumb. In fact, when you look at conspiracy theories, what distinguishes them is how rigorously logical they seem to be, that they are so intensely structured and that there's a belief that every single fact is important and connects to another fact. There's a rigor to (their) logic."
"But," says Goldberg, "there's (an inflexibility to) the logic that denies things you can't deny -- whether it's accidents, whether it's bureaucratic process, whether it's miscalculations, whether it's simply mistakes. In these theories, there are no mistakes, no accidents, no bureaucracy -- everything is crystal clear."
"Debunking 9/11 Myths" makes the case that mistakes, miscommunication and bureaucratic bungling contributed to the U.S. government's lack of immediate response to the Sept. 11 hijackings. Barrett and other conspiracy theorists will have none of it. They say the U.S. government's version of the events is itself a conspiracy theory -- a collection of assumptions bolstered by evidence, but nevertheless assumptions that are open to debate.
"After studying this fairly intensively over the past 2 1/2 years," says Barrett in a phone interview, "I'm convinced that 9/11 was orchestrated by top U.S. officials and presumably perpetrated by members of what could be called the American allied intelligence community."
Goldberg says conspiracy theorists -- especially those fearful and distrustful of a powerful, centralized government -- have existed in the United States since its founding. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Goldberg says, created a perfect storm for conspiracy theorists of every political and religious persuasion.
Five years afterward, the storm isn't abating.
E-mail Jonathan Curiel at jcuriel@sfchronicle.com.
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This if from today's San Francisco Chronicle
THE CONSPIRACY TO REWRITE 9/11
Conspiracy theorists insist the U.S. government, not terrorists, staged the devastating attacks
Jonathan Curiel, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, September 3, 2006
Great fcuking article.
I liked how it discussed the conspiracy culture as well.
Curiel writes a very good article, looking critically into all sides of the story. Beautiful.
I like how he brings up how Loose Change is a slick production. IMO, it's nothing but a propaganda clip.
This article is much more enlightening.
I seriously would like to know why not one of these planes were intercepted.
I also would like to know how all the names of the terrorists could be known so fast?
Just wondering.
YIP
Zack
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Great fcuking article.
I liked how it discussed the conspiracy culture as well.
Curiel writes a very good article, looking critically into all sides of the story. Beautiful.
I like how he brings up how Loose Change is a slick production. IMO, it's nothing but a propaganda clip.
This article is much more enlightening.
I seriously would like to know why not one of these planes were intercepted.
I also would like to know how all the names of the terrorists could be known so fast?
Just wondering.
YIP
Zack
I agree with you hedge - LC does have some holes and does a little stretching.
A far better movie - one which does not speculate at all, and delivers video evidence of everything is:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1350815371737518499&q=911+power+hour&hl=en
They do nothing but ask questions. No assumptions are made, and no accusations are made. Very logical. You should check it out if you haven't. I like it better than LC, but LC is a good 'intro to 911'.
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Great fcuking article.
I seriously would like to know why not one of these planes were intercepted.
Once the last two planes were identified and the shootdown order was given, the interceptors flew at 500 mph to reach them- not their very capable 1875 mph. No reason was given as to why.
I also would like to know how all the names of the terrorists could be known so fast?
All 19 names were delivered in an FBI file the next morning. Their families and girlfriends houses in some cases were searched. They had confirmed all 19 from DNA within 24 hours. incredible, as the towers were still getting hoses the next morning.
popular mechanics attempted to debunk the '5 to 7 hijackers announce they're alive' which ran in the BBC by saying the DNA evidence was collected for all 19 men, compared against samples, and verified, within 24 hours. When asked in a recent interview how they verified this and how DNA from men cooked in planes could be found so fast, and where comparison samples came from, they had no answer. Since that interview, they have cancelled all future radio appearances.
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Once the last two planes were identified and the shootdown order was given, the interceptors flew at 500 mph to reach them- not their very capable 1875 mph. No reason was given as to why.
All 19 names were delivered in an FBI file the next morning. Their families and girlfriends houses in some cases were searched. They had confirmed all 19 from DNA within 24 hours. incredible, as the towers were still getting hoses the next morning.
popular mechanics attempted to debunk the '5 to 7 hijackers announce they're alive' which ran in the BBC by saying the DNA evidence was collected for all 19 men, compared against samples, and verified, within 24 hours. When asked in a recent interview how they verified this and how DNA from men cooked in planes could be found so fast, and where comparison samples came from, they had no answer. Since that interview, they have cancelled all future radio appearances.
LOL at comparison samples for DNA.
Yeah, where the fcuk were they gonna get that shit?
LMFAO. Too funny.
You know, some DNA may survive. But how the FCUK... How the FCUK are they able to produce it so fast? In an ideal situation, where they could just walk into a small apartment and scan for DNA, it would take a few hours to get it in.
One of the biggest demolition sites ever?
HAHAHAHAHA.
19 hours.
Oh brother, monster truth.
YIP
Zack
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LOL at comparison samples for DNA.
Yeah, where the fcuk were they gonna get that shit?
LMFAO. Too funny.
You know, some DNA may survive. But how the FCUK... How the FCUK are they able to produce it so fast? In an ideal situation, where they could just walk into a small apartment and scan for DNA, it would take a few hours to get it in.
One of the biggest demolition sites ever?
HAHAHAHAHA.
19 hours.
Oh brother, monster truth.
I'm new to this - only started doubting anything this year when I spent a lot of time studying the facts. I don't know what is more shocking, the holes in the story or the efforts that have been made to prevent the day's events from being looked into.
I really wanna be wrong.. shit, I can't stomach the idea of my govt killing 3000 just to start a war. if they would come out and address the inconsistencies, of course I'd listen. But instead, they're on tv with a new PR campaign designed to scare people.
Diehard supporters don't care about the evidence. They don't care that the bin laden tape is fake, or that some of the hijackers are still alive, that some of the planes had no arabs, or that the file of the hijackers was all ready for the next day's news cycle.
They don't want to hear the evidence or look at the facts. 110 stories of skyscraper is converted to 40 feet of rubble and a 50-foot deep hole of molten steel in ten seconds, and they fish out 10 DNA samples by breakfast time? Come on... They just want to say "I trust my govt!"
hedge, I put responsibility on our US govt because
- they gave us this rediculous storyline
- they warned their ppl not to fly on 9/11
- they benefitted most from an attack.