Dressed in a black t-shirt that said “Investigate 9/11,” Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney addressed a New York City crowd this past September 12, at an event called “9/11 – Now Or Never.”
After being welcomed warmly, Ms. McKinney said, “It’s not that I just support the 911 Truth Movement; I love the 911 Truth Movement.”
Ms. McKinney went on to say the government lied about 9/11, and that her daring to ask questions and demand an investigation led to a bipartisan conspiracy to remove her from office.
“As a responsible member of Congress, I was compelled to ask those questions,” she said. “The true patriots are the ones who demand an answer.”
175 responses so far ↓
1 G.E. // Sep 27, 2008 at 4:42 am
Most courageous speech from a presidential candidate (other than Ron Paul) I’ve seen this year.
2 Catholic Trotskyist // Sep 27, 2008 at 5:50 am
Yes, the Catholic Trotskyist Party of America endorses this speech and calls on its own candidate, Barack H. Obama, to endorse it also.
3 WinstonSmith // Sep 27, 2008 at 7:21 am
Thank god she said it. Now she can take these delusional people from the LP.
4 Galileo Galilei // Sep 27, 2008 at 11:10 am
9/11 was obviousely an inside job. This is a smart vote-getting move by Cynthia.
Go ahead, Google video Cythia McKinney vs Rumsfeld.
You’ll see.
5 G.E. // Sep 27, 2008 at 11:11 am
How much more Orwellian can you get that a guy calling himself Winston Smith is a shill for Big Brother?
6 paulie cannoli // Sep 27, 2008 at 11:34 am
How much more Orwellian can you get that a guy calling himself Winston Smith is a shill for Big Brother?
Ah, you made it to the end of the book *and* looked at the name of the author! Very clever!
7 Galileo Galilei // Sep 27, 2008 at 12:11 pm
“How much more Orwellian can you get that a guy calling himself Winston Smith is a shill for Big Brother?”
Perhaps Winston has been brainwashed or water-boarded?
8 paulie cannoli // Sep 27, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Tortured with rats.
9 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Not believing in delusional 9/11 Truth conspiracies does not make you a tool of Big Brother.
It makes you sane and makes you look at the proponderance of evidence instead of ridiculous X-Files stories.
Winston is a tool for entirely different reasons.
This speech is a good reason I’m happy to not be a Green anymore.
10 G.E. // Sep 27, 2008 at 1:44 pm
You mean like the most delusional conspiracy theory of all, the official government story? You mean like ignoring the “preponderance of evidence” — i.e. eyewitness accounts on live network news and documented photographs — that there were explosives set off?
I agree.
McKinney did nothing at this event but tell the truth. Nader lacks the courage.
11 Trent Hill // Sep 27, 2008 at 1:50 pm
GE,
I disagree. Having read “Debunking 9/11 myths” and its counter by the 9/11 Truthers–the truthers are clearly wrong when they assert some sort of inside job or massive conspiracy.
I suggest doing some reading on the subject before allying yourself with the likes of Kevin Barrett.
12 G.E. // Sep 27, 2008 at 1:54 pm
You believe the government’s official story? It is comically implausible. There is a cover-up.
13 Trent Hill // Sep 27, 2008 at 2:03 pm
GE,
Cover-up does not imply “inside job” or “criminal complicity”. Certainly someone messed up in the government, and there asses are being covered for. Certainly our defenses were lax and someone is to blame. However, this doesnt have the hallmarks of a false-flag attack.
Furthermore, there is no coherant set of beliefs that all 9/11 Truthers adhere to. Some say it was MISSILES that flew into the buildings and into the Pentagon, nevermind the fact that I watched via CNN the second plane ram into that building.
GE, do yourself a favor and read some libertarian non-9/11 Truth literature on the subject.
14 Dylan Waco // Sep 27, 2008 at 2:09 pm
By far the most likely scenario is that Atta and friends were rogue assets of either U.S. intelligence agencies or our allies, who were doubling up and working for the other team all along. There is precedent for this (see Peter Lance’s book Triple Cross) and it explains some of the more bizarre behavior hovering around the hijackers and the government “investigators.”
Not surprisingly, this perspective is also the one that gets NO hearing, whether in “official circles” or “truther” circles.
15 G.E. // Sep 27, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Define “inside job.” The potential definition is so broad.
Point me in a direction where I can find refutations of the most damning evidence against the official story.
The incoherence of the arguments doesn’t matter.
You did not watch a plane fly into the Pentagon. There is no such footage.
How were the cell phone calls made? What accounts for the odd behavior of the callers?
How did the jet fuel melt the steel?
Why did WTC-7 fall?
Why did Larry Silverstein later say on TV that he gave the order for the building to come down?
Is it not true that there was a drill for an attack on the Twin Towers taking place that same day? Is it not true that on the day of the London Bombings, a drill was taking place for the exact same scenario on that day?
What about the dozens (hundreds) of reports of explosions on the site? What about the clear pictures of what appear to be controlled demolition?
Why didn’t Bush leave the school?
How did the hijackers perform those maneuvers when they weren’t good pilots?
How did the hijackers’ passports survive the supposed Pentagon crash?
If there’s a site online that answers these questions and more that I’m not even thinking of, point me to it.
How about all the puts? That’s classic insider info.
16 Trent Hill // Sep 27, 2008 at 2:12 pm
“By far the most likely scenario is that Atta and friends were rogue assets of either U.S. intelligence agencies or our allies”
This doesnt imply an inside job though. It implies a government cover-up because of inefficiency and corruption, but not criminal conspiracy.
17 Trent Hill // Sep 27, 2008 at 2:44 pm
“You did not watch a plane fly into the Pentagon. There is no such footage.”
Never claimed that. Can you READ before reponding? I said I watched a plane fly into the second tower.
“How were the cell phone calls made? What accounts for the odd behavior of the callers?”
To the best of my understanding, no one called from onboard an airplane with a cell phone–but I suspect it is far from impossible. I have never tried to make a cell-phone call from 20,000 feet, but I HAVE recieved and sent text messages from that height and speed. However, I dont know of any cell phone calls made from the moving planes. I only know of calls made from the plane’s phones. As for erratic behavior–these people were on a plane that was hijacked…that is a stupid question.
“How did the jet fuel melt the steel?”
This is my favorite. Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn’t need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength — and that required exposure to much less heat. Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F, and it is agreed by most that the fires got up to 1500F at least.
“Why did WTC-7 fall?”
Another favorite. WTC-7 suffered serious damage from the collapse of the two largest towers, that seriously damaged its south face and scooped as much as 10 stories worth of materials out of the building. The structural support for the building was unique in that each beam on the lowest floor supported over 2000lb per square foot, which becomes dangerous when just one of these columns goes down. Secondly, there were LARGE fires burning in WTC-7 for roughly 5 hours, with only a few teams of firefighters inside.
“Why did Larry Silverstein later say on TV that he gave the order for the building to come down?”
He said no such thing. He said he gave the order to “pull it”, which is NOT a slang word for demolition. It is a slang term used by two sets of people. The first, construction crews–who attach cables to small multi-story building and LITERALLY pull the building down. Obviously this isnt what happened. The other time it is used, by firefighting crews–when firefighters are to be pulled out of a dangerous area. At 3p.m. that day, Chief Nigro of the FDNY had already lost hundreds of firemen and decided to PULL his team out of WTC-7.
“Is it not true that there was a drill for an attack on the Twin Towers taking place that same day? Is it not true that on the day of the London Bombings, a drill was taking place for the exact same scenario on that day?”
The National Reconnaisance Office held a drill in which their employees were evacuated from their offices (nowhere near WTC) for a similar scenario in which planes were crashed into their four buildings. This doesnt prove anytihng though, only that EVERYONE knew that WTC was a possible terrorist target. It was attacked in 1993. NORAD held drills for YEARS involving WTC after that. Sen. Sam Nunn suggested planes might be crashed into WTC using remote control.
“What about the dozens (hundreds) of reports of explosions on the site? What about the clear pictures of what appear to be controlled demolition?”
There were explosions, first of all. Giant corporate jets crashed into towers–there WERE explosions, for hours afterwards.
I know of no “clear pictures of what appear to be controlled demolition”. The pictures seem to me to indicate an uncontrolled demolition–i.e., a long burning fire that collapsed vertically-aligned buildings along their own axises.
“Why didn’t Bush leave the school?”
Retarded question–what does this prove?
“How did the hijackers perform those maneuvers when they weren’t good pilots?”
a.)How do you know they werent decent pilots?
b.) I know of no maneuver that required serious skill.
“How did the hijackers’ passports survive the supposed Pentagon crash?”
Large pieces of the plane, seats, magazines, clothing, and bodies were found at the crashsite that were mostly unburned–I dont know why a few passports could possibly remain unburned…
“If there’s a site online that answers these questions and more that I’m not even thinking of, point me to it.”
Popular Mechanics is a good site for most of it.
18 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 2:52 pm
“McKinney did nothing at this event but tell the truth. Nader lacks the courage.”
Ralph also apparently lacks the courage to expose the fake moon landing, recovered flying saucers and the truth about Elvis still being alive.
I am really getting sick of the machinean starkness that the idiots in the Truther movement talk about 9/11.
It’s either a massive government conspiracy with a labyrinth of sub conspiracies, one of which going wrong could collapse the whole thing. And we’re not talking about a “we want a real investigation” movement.
It’s a movement with a predetermined outcome for which they have no real evidence, no whistleblowers, no eyewitnesses and nothing but circumstantial marlarkey and “fill in the blank” that happens to fill in gaps in knowledge. And where some of those gaps are filled we have evidence to debunk it.
And when debunked – like with, say “why would Bush kill the wife of his solicitor general, who was on one of the planes?”, instead of taking that as a long, they manufacture a complex sub-conspiracy involving poison gas and a second set of planes. For the conspirators, it would have been a helluva lot easier just to tell her not to get on the plane.
Because the best lies are the simple ones – and this “inside job” is not simple, it makes needlessly complicated situations to solve simple problems and requires so many of its participants to be evil for evil’s sake, rather than lust for greed and power. They’ve have to risk themselves time and time again, seemingly to just twist their mustache and cackle like cartoon villians unveiling their master plan.
But they have their outcome and they world backwards to justify it. And if you have five scientists that back up the “building taken down by planes” arguments, they denounce them as part of the conspiracy. Ten scientists? They’re in on it, too! Twenty? Shit, this is big!
It’s ridiculous. Yes, Dick Cheney is an evil Machiavellian bastard, but he’s not stupid.
He wouldn’t risk his ass on a house of cards that could so easily fall and so much depends on a cast of thousands all flawlessly carrying out their part and never blowing the whistle or fucking up.
Yeah.
Do I believe people lie about what happened on 9/11 to cover their own incompetence or fuck ups? Sure.
But what I don’t believe in is that this was a massive conspiracy to murder thousands of people to get into an unjust war.
First of all, since when has the government ever needed this to justify a bullshit war? The propaganda campaign has always been enough.
And here’s the big one. A government powerful enough to pull of a 9/11 conspiracy flawlessly DOESN’T NEED 9/11 TO GET WHAT THEY WANT.
They would already have all the power they need and wouldn’t NEED to invade Iraq.
The fact that McKinney has embraced these imbeciles causes me to lose alot of respect for her. Almost as much as her embracing the endorsement of a small party that recently put out a press release praising the “great leaders” of North Korea.
I call upon Greens with common sense to talk to her and yank her back to reality.
19 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Trent is right. The Popular Mechanics site debunks all of this.
This conspiracy is real flat earth stuff.
20 Trent Hill // Sep 27, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Suprisingly, I agree with everything Mike just said. Well said Mike.
21 Trent Hill // Sep 27, 2008 at 2:55 pm
“Trent is right. The Popular Mechanics site debunks all of this.”
Not JUST Popular Mechanics–but they’ve compiled the most information as far as I’ve seen.
22 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Thanks, I wish I could edit some of the typos out of it.
23 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:04 pm
You’re right, Trent, but the Popular Mechanics site collects all of the information from multiples sources in one place and just rips the conspiracy to shreds.
Sometimes I think people believe in conspiracies because it’s comforting to some extent to believe that someone actually IS in charge and has everything under control.
24 Trent Hill // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Jason,
Feel free to respond–I’m 100% confident you won’t be able to coherantly respond to the most important tenants, like the Steel/jet fuel arguement and the WTC-7 arguement.
25 Galileo Galilei // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:27 pm
“You’re right, Trent, but the Popular Mechanics site collects all of the information from multiples sources in one place and just rips the conspiracy to shreds.”
Mike;
I’ve got that book. It is the primary reason that convinced me 9/11 was an inside job. It doesn’t rip anything.
26 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Oh yay! Conspiracy metafiction!
Instead of convincing me by defeating my arguments with yours, you just tell a story about someone being convinced of your position.
The only thing that will convince me of this or anything is evidence and good arguments. The Truthers have neither.
27 Galileo Galilei // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:30 pm
“How did the jet fuel melt the steel?â€
This is my favorite. Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn’t need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength — and that required exposure to much less heat. Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F, and it is agreed by most that the fires got up to 1500F at least.
Comment:
The fires were at or above the point of impacts.
The WTC and its core was not heated at all below the 95th floor (north tower) or 80th floor (south tower)
28 Galileo Galilei // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:35 pm
“Why did WTC-7 fall?â€
Another favorite. WTC-7 suffered serious damage from the collapse of the two largest towers, that seriously damaged its south face and scooped as much as 10 stories worth of materials out of the building. The structural support for the building was unique in that each beam on the lowest floor supported over 2000lb per square foot, which becomes dangerous when just one of these columns goes down. Secondly, there were LARGE fires burning in WTC-7 for roughly 5 hours, with only a few teams of firefighters inside.
Comment:
Structural damage had nothing to do with the collapse of WTC7 as NIST now even agrees. You have fallen for qualitative spin.
Next Question:
“Why did Larry Silverstein later say on TV that he gave the order for the building to come down?â€
He said no such thing. He said he gave the order to “pull itâ€, which is NOT a slang word for demolition. It is a slang term used by two sets of people. The first, construction crews–who attach cables to small multi-story building and LITERALLY pull the building down. Obviously this isnt what happened. The other time it is used, by firefighting crews–when firefighters are to be pulled out of a dangerous area. At 3p.m. that day, Chief Nigro of the FDNY had already lost hundreds of firemen and decided to PULL his team out of WTC-7.
Comment:
There is another possible explanation. Silverstein may be pulling our chain.
29 Dylan Waco // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Popular Mechanics stuff is solid on certain things but not surprisingly (given their speciality) ignores all the issues involving intelligence and the behavior of the 9/11 hijackers, et. leading up to the crime. Folks like myself don’t have a dog in this fight, because no one will even listen to us.
30 Trent Hill // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:39 pm
“The fires were at or above the point of impacts.
The WTC and its core was not heated at all below the 95th floor (north tower) or 80th floor (south tower)”
So? With the top stories collapsing, the weight and movement of the falling building itself would be enough to crush the lower stories. You don’t have much of a knowledge of engineering,do you?
31 G.E. // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Trent – I was asking legit questions. You answered them. Now I’ll evaluate the evidence.
32 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Here’s another big problem.
If you’re going to just bomb the building, why involve planes and hijackings at all?
Why make things more complicated that they need to be and thus, make the conspiracy all the more risky?
Why not just say that the building was bombed, as was attempted in 1993?
It’s like these phantom conspirators just choose the riskiest and convoluted solution to every simple problem… like they’re compulsive gamblers or something.
And if there were charges up and down these huges buildings, how is it that NO ONE noticed or reported them, not the cleaning staff, the office workers, nobody?
33 Trent Hill // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:41 pm
“Comment:
Structural damage had nothing to do with the collapse of WTC7 as NIST now even agrees. You have fallen for qualitative spin.”
I did not attribute the collapse of WTC-7 to structural damage,but to mostly to fire. Certainly the structural damage didnt help.
34 Trent Hill // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:41 pm
“Trent – I was asking legit questions. You answered them. Now I’ll evaluate the evidence.”
10/4. I didnt know you were in the middle on this issue, I tohught you were a Truther.
35 Trent Hill // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:42 pm
“If you’re going to just bomb the building, why involve planes and hijackings at all?
Why make things more complicated that they need to be and thus, make the conspiracy all the more risky?
Why not just say that the building was bombed, as was attempted in 1993?
It’s like these phantom conspirators just choose the riskiest and convoluted solution to every simple problem… like they’re compulsive gamblers or something.”
HAHAHAHAHA. I laughed out loud.
I agree Mike–why the elaborate plan, if a more simply one will work?
36 Trent Hill // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I’ll tell you why–Evil.
It doesnt have to make sense.
37 Fred Church Ortiz // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:48 pm
“How did the jet fuel melt the steel?â€
This is my favorite. Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn’t need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength — and that required exposure to much less heat. Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F, and it is agreed by most that the fires got up to 1500F at least.
Trent is correct about the nature of steel. However, what is questionable on this point is why the building engineer, on camera on September 12, declared the smoke rising from the rubble to be from a pool of molten steel underground – he later recanted that he never said it. It wasn’t an ignorance of thermodynamics on the part of the masses, it was the testimony of the same kind of experts we’re expected to believe now that put that matter into question.
38 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:50 pm
And if the plan was to manufacture a case to invade Iraq after the attack, why not blame this on Iraqi hijackers than Saudi ones?
39 Fred Church Ortiz // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:53 pm
How about all the puts? That’s classic insider info.
I worked in a brokerage firm over the summer of 01. I never saw a piece of paper go through without a name on it, and I highly doubt that that much money would get moved around anonymously.
40 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Fred, he changed his mind. And he’s had more time to look at the evidence.
And his new theory is based on a more scrutinizing look at the evidence and is corroborated by other experts who’ve looked at the evidence and fact-checked each other through peer review.
How many 9/11 Truth insider job papers have survived peer review in a scientific journal?
And by peer review, I mean other scientists, engineers, architects… not bloggers.
41 Fred Church Ortiz // Sep 27, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Fred, he changed his mind. And he’s had more time to look at the evidence.
I can accept that from someone that admits their mistakes. He said he never said it, while he seemed pretty level headed when he declared it right there at the scene. So was there a pool of molten metal under the rubble, despite there not needing to be even under the official narrative? If so, why? If not, has anyone checked to see if he got his engineering degree online?
How many 9/11 Truth insider job papers have survived peer review in a scientific journal?
I wasn’t aware of any scientific journals publishing papers that discuss questions of eye-witness discrepancies and political motivations. If you know of one, I’d be interested in subscribing.
42 Galileo Galilei // Sep 27, 2008 at 4:11 pm
“So? With the top stories collapsing, the weight and movement of the falling building itself would be enough to crush the lower stories. You don’t have much of a knowledge of engineering,do you?”
The top 15 floors of a steel framed building do not crush the bottom 95 floors. The upper floors had thinner columns and weighed less as well.
What you say is crazy!
43 TheOriginalAndy // Sep 27, 2008 at 5:17 pm
It is a pretty pathetic situation for Libertarians when the Green Party’s Presidential candidate has got the ourage to point out all of the inconsistencies in the official government story about 9/11 and call for a real investiagtion, while at the same time the Libertarian Party’s Presidential candidate spouts the official statist propaganda about 9/11.
44 Trent Hill // Sep 27, 2008 at 5:32 pm
“The top 15 floors of a steel framed building do not crush the bottom 95 floors. The upper floors had thinner columns and weighed less as well.
What you say is crazy!”
Yea, just as I suspected–you really DONT understand engineering. The top 15 floors don’t have to crush the bottom 95. The top 15 crushed the 16th-20th (just for an example), the added weight crushed the 20th-26th. That added weight crushed the 26th-34th—so on and so forth, this is why you get the “pancaking” look on the building that Truthers, incorrectly, claim can only come from a demolition.
45 Ross Levin // Sep 27, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Well said, Mike and Trent. The thing that really worries me about the Truth “movement” is the anti-intellectualism. It’s the same kind of disdain for facts that got Bush into office and let him invade Iraq.
46 Trent Hill // Sep 27, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Ross,
Not all of the “truth” movement is anti-intellectual, but some of them have a bone to grind, and they twist the evidence to meet their specifications. It is a mixture of anti-intellectualism and highly intellectual members of academia twisting facts to suit their goals.
47 Galileo Galilei // Sep 27, 2008 at 5:49 pm
“Yea, just as I suspected–you really DONT understand engineering. The top 15 floors don’t have to crush the bottom 95. The top 15 crushed the 16th-20th (just for an example), the added weight crushed the 20th-26th. That added weight crushed the 26th-34th—so on and so forth, this is why you get the “pancaking†look on the building that Truthers, incorrectly, claim can only come from a demolition.”
The top 15 floors of the north tower were already on top of the bottom 95 floors before the planes hit it, and those 15 floors did not crush it to smitherines.
What you say makes no sense. Nor do the top 95 floors crush the bottom 15 floors.
I am Galileo, the founder of science!
Obey Authority!!
It wasn’t a conspiracy because we told you so!!!
48 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 6:28 pm
“I wasn’t aware of any scientific journals publishing papers that discuss questions of eye-witness discrepancies and political motivations. If you know of one, I’d be interested in subscribing.”
These sorts of things are irrelevant if the scientific possibility of the theory behind them is thoroughly debunked.
I can have all sorts of motivations and wishes, but unless there’s real evidence connected me to a crime, you have no reason to jail me for it.
Provide concrete evidence that the building was destroyed by anything other than hijacked planes hitting it before you come to me with conspiracies involving explosive charges and government involvement.
Peer reviewed journals and hundreds of scientists, architects and engineers have looked at the 9/11 attacks and concluded that were the result of planes hitting the buildings and by looking at the evidence put before me, I believe them.
Now I could believe them and the evidence that they’ve presented or I could believe that they’re all in fact part of a massive coverup that must have a cast of millions.
To listen to some Truthers, there are more people in on the conspiracy than out of it.
49 Fred Church Ortiz // Sep 27, 2008 at 6:47 pm
These sorts of things are irrelevant if the scientific possibility of the theory behind them is thoroughly debunked.
I can have all sorts of motivations and wishes, but unless there’s real evidence connected me to a crime, you have no reason to jail me for it.
Provide concrete evidence that the building was destroyed by anything other than hijacked planes hitting it before you come to me with conspiracies involving explosive charges and government involvement.
The only scientific claim I’ve made is one that both truthers and and scientists agree upon – the fuel didn’t melt the girders. The point of divergence is on the significance of that fact, with the controlled demolition theory being all speculative anyway. This would matter if I had come to you with conspiracies involving explosive charges and government involvement – which I didn’t. Communication can’t exist in an environment where one asks a question or puts forward an incident and is automatically assumed to be begging a conclusion. The same goes for the rest of your comment.
50 Galileo Galilei // Sep 27, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Peer reviewed Journals are not a good place to look for answers regarding politically controversial science.
So far, only the Journal of 9/11 Studies has done any good work in the area.
51 Galileo Galilei // Sep 27, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Oh, I forgot to mention, the scientific revolution is grinding to a halt.
Almost all science is confined to funding by big business or the government, and subject to disemination by six media corporations.
The “science” of global warming, secondhand smoke, and WTC7 should make this obvious.
52 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Peer Review is the only process for weeding out nonsense and junk science. It forces people to defend their work.
I highly doubt that the Journal of 9/11 Studies is a reputable journal. And unless Truther conspiracies can defend themselves under real scrutiny and peer review, they aren’t worth wasting attention on.
And “politically controversial science”? That’s the sort of thing said by people who can’t back up their claims with evidence.
53 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 7:06 pm
The evidence is there for secondhand smoke, WTC 7 and the massive human contribution to climate change.
You just have an ideological forcefield around your brain to it.
Penn Jillette on his show “Bullshit” attacked second hand smoke on his show and as new evidence was discovered, had the intellectual honesty to admit he was wrong.
And as long as we’re talking about the source of information, the consensus on the issues you mentioned is there among all but a tiny minority scientists usually working for industries that benefit from denial.
I don’t know any scientists who bolster your claims that DON’T directly work for such industries. If the consensus wasn’t so nearly unanymous, you would have a point. But reality is a tricky thing and very unforgiving.
And here’s the thing, as time goes on and the evidence becomes more overwhelming, you’ll see even those industries admitting they were wrong without overtly admitting it and changing course in respect to those topics.
Just like I would challenge you to find a single peer reviewed paper backing up your claims of the “inside job” that weren’t written by members of the 911 Truth Movement or someone directly connected to them.
54 Galileo Galilei // Sep 27, 2008 at 7:46 pm
“I highly doubt that the Journal of 9/11 Studies is a reputable journal. And unless Truther conspiracies can defend themselves under real scrutiny and peer review, they aren’t worth wasting attention on.”
When it comes to 9/11, there aren’t any “respectable” scientific journals.
The case of NIST and WTC 7 should be enough for you to see this.
First of all, WTC 7 is the only steel framed skyscraper to fall soley from fire, according to NIST. If this is so, then WTC 7 should have been a big news story for the past seven years, or at least a big news story when their report came out last month. The NIST report barely made the news at all and it lasted all of one day. It got less press coverage than Bigfoot last month.
Another odd thing, the 9/11 Commission report never mentioned that WTC 7 fell down. Odd, considering how remarkable of an event it was. Not remarkable if the goal is to have as few as possible people know there was a WTC 7.
Another odd thing, the NIST report says that the fire on the 13th floor (that went out at 3 PM according to photos), caused thermal expansion at 5:20 PM amd caused girder # 44 to break off from column # 79, and then the whole building went down.
This is remarkable as no steel from WTC 7 was preserved for NIST to study. We can recover items form the bottom of the ocean and the North pole, but not in downtown Manhatten.
Also remarkable, NIST says there is no evidence of any explosives in WTC 7. Of course Barry Jennings did several interviews where he stated that there were huge explosions in WTC 7 before either the North or South tower fell. He most recently told this to the BBC in June.
But Barry Jennings died last month, three days before the NIST report came out at the age of 53. He looked pretty healthy in June on the BBC.
And guess what, when Barry Jennings died, that never made the news either.
Also remarkable, is that the fire and security alarms in WTC 7 were all turned off at 6:47 AM the morning of the terrorist attacks. This was a high security building with the CIA and FBI and secret service so not just anyone could turn them off. They turned them just an hour before the “hijackers” plane flights took off, remarkable! But not remarkable enough to make the news. it must not have happened if it did not make the news, right?
And WTC 7 looks just like a controlled demolition, but it isn’t, because NIST scientists told us it wasn’t.
55 pdsa // Sep 27, 2008 at 7:52 pm
“Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report“, Popular Mechanics, March 2005
56 pdsa // Sep 27, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Neocons covering-up their incompetence, culpability, and negligence? They are Trotskyists, renunciation is the ONE thing they are good at.
57 Trent Hill // Sep 27, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Galileo,
You are completely out the box. I will not argue with those incapable of understanding said arguements, it’s like pissing into the wind.
58 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Again, nothing but assumptions, not concrete evidence.
And to be honest, it reminds me alot of this:
Death Star Truth Movement!
59 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 7:56 pm
http://www.debunking911.com/questions.htm
60 Galileo Galilei // Sep 27, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Mike;
Who turned off all the fire alarms at 6:47 AM. Did you know that when the owner of a building has all the fire alarms truned off, then says “PULL IT!” and then the building burns down, they usually go after you for arson?
I know the evidence about WTC 7 inside and out.
61 Galileo Galilei // Sep 27, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I’ve already read through all the debunking stuff. That debunking stuff proves that WTC 7 was a controlled demolition.
62 Trent Hill // Sep 27, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Galileo,
Some evidence of the alarms being turned off please?
63 Galileo Galilei // Sep 27, 2008 at 8:10 pm
“Galileo,
You are completely out the box. I will not argue with those incapable of understanding said arguements, it’s like pissing into the wind.”
Wrong. I am a brilliant genius who THINKS outside the box!
64 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 8:10 pm
I concur. Provide evidence that this happened. Don’t just make unproven assertions and treat them as self evident.
65 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 8:11 pm
If what you mean by “the box” is reason and evidence and sanity, then yes.
66 Galileo Galilei // Sep 27, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Trent;
It is in the NIST reports, you obviously have not read them.
You also obviously came to your conclusion about WTC 7 before looking at all the relevant evidence.
Do a google.
67 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Oh and that debunking site I linked to is a parody.
The destruction of the Death Star was an inside job!!
http://www.debunking911.com/questions.htm
68 Galileo Galilei // Sep 27, 2008 at 8:19 pm
FYI – I can’t post links here.
69 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Here’s a big question.
WHY would they detonate Building 7?
70 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 8:20 pm
just post the url, it’s automatic.
71 Galileo Galilei // Sep 27, 2008 at 8:29 pm
“Here’s a big question.
WHY would they detonate Building 7?”
FL93 was supposed to fly into WTC 7. They were going hit and then take down the three towers in 15 minutes intervels, with the Pentagon in between.
But FL93 got stuck in the runway for 43 minutes. By the time it was airbourne, it was too late to hiajck it and bring it back to New York.
Since WTC 7 was still loaded with explosives, they had to blow it up before someone found the explosives. They did it at dusk so it would be harder to see, but not at night when the charge flashed would be visible.
72 WinstonSmith // Sep 27, 2008 at 9:07 pm
How much more Orwellian can you get that a guy calling himself Winston Smith is a shill for Big Brother?
I’m a shill because I use common sense? Because I’m not one of you moron troofers I supposedly like big government? Yeah that makes sense.
Try thinking past some failed fiction writers Loose Change movie where he all of a sudden became an engineer. Never mind the fact he has changed the story over 10 times.
I don’t believe the government wouldn’t do it. I believe they couldn’t do it. Not only could they not keep something on this scale quiet, but they would not be able to pull this off as efficiently as it happened.
Never mind the fact that the motivation for “pulling” the towers is not really there. They could have justified a war in Iraq by just the hijackings and ramming into buildings alone.
But supposedly the same government everyone criticizes as being inept at everything pulled off the most elaborate inside job in history.
Thankfully I’m not dumb enough to believe things put out there by a failed fiction writer.
73 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 9:12 pm
That’s a whole lot of assumptions, G.
Provide some evidence. That’s something you have yet to do. You make assertions and don’t back them up.
74 WinstonSmith // Sep 27, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Mike,
I think you perfectly described every single 9/11 conspiracy theorist. They really have no evidence besides a bunch of thinks they think might have happened.
They claim a missile hit the Pentagon (which makes absolutely no sense), but can’t tell us where Flight 77 went.
They like to make things up to fit their arguments rather than using facts. As does their hero creator of Loose Change.
75 Sivarticus // Sep 27, 2008 at 10:05 pm
9/11 Truth is a theory, as is the official government story. What evidence have they solidly given? The FBI website doesn’t even list Bin Laden as being responsible for 9/11, even though his bombings against the Africa embassies and the USS Cole are on there. This suggests even they admit they don’t have enough evidence to charge him for 9/11.
76 WinstonSmith // Sep 27, 2008 at 10:14 pm
This suggests even they admit they don’t have enough evidence to charge him for 9/11.
While you are correct it doesn’t necessarily indicate any type of cover-up or government conspiracy.
77 kameelyun // Sep 27, 2008 at 11:11 pm
The Popular Mechanics literature has been refuted widely, most thoroughly in “Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory.” In the book’s introduction, the “someone would have talked,” “the govt is too incompetent,” “too many people involved” criticisms are answered. Then, slowly and methodically, he takes the debunkers’ attempts to rebut the truth movement, and shows the numerous omissions, distortions, logical fallacies, and attempts to smear via guilt-by-association. Dr. Griffin’s book, refuting Popular Mechanics, has been endorsed by people ranging from former CIA officer & presidential adviser Ray McGovern to “Father of Reaganomics” Paul Craig Roberts (asst. secy of treasury under Reagan).
9/11 researcher and mathematician (whose work has been published in Scientific American and Nature) Jim Hoffman has done an excellent online job deconstructing the spin in the Popular Mechanics magazine article:
http://911review.com/pm/markup/index.html
It should be noted that in addition to the Journal of 9/11 Studies, two papers have been published in mainstream scientific peer-reviewed journals. They are:
Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center: evidence for energetic materials (published in The Environmentalist)
http://www.springerlink.com/content/f67q6272583h86n4/fulltext.html
“Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction” was published in the Bentham Open Civil Engineering Journal:
http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCIEJ/2008/00000002/00000001/35TOCIEJ.SGM
78 kameelyun // Sep 27, 2008 at 11:17 pm
I should like to add: I wholly encourage people to read the Popular Mechanics literature, then read the rebuttals to it, and make up their own minds. The more people who try to defend the official lies by referring to the Popular Mechanics book the easier it will be to expose the 9/11 fraud–the book is really is that bad.
79 VTV // Sep 27, 2008 at 11:35 pm
I watched an episode of “Democracy now” where the loose change kids debated the popular mechanics people. The popular mechanics people seemed unwilling or unable to debate the data, they spent the whole time theorizing on the “pshycology of the conspiracy theorist.” It was funny to watch a couple of college kids slaughter the best popular mechanics had to offer.
80 Mike Gillis // Sep 27, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Someone doing horribly in a debate has nothing to do with the validity of the argument, only their skills as a debator.
Ross Perot did poorly and lost his temper with Al Gore on the Larry King Live in their debate over NAFTA. Gore supported it. Perot opposed it.
Perot was right. Gore was wrong.
Bad performance doesn’t mean that someone is wrong. Good performance doesn’t mean that someone is right.
And the book above listed was WRITTEN by a 9/11 Truther. It’s not a legitimate source.
It’s like saying, “Well, of course Comrade Stalin is a great leader! It says so right here in Pravda!”
Find a single — a single — peer reviewed paper in a reputable scientific journal and I’ll listen.
But if you answer this challenge by saying that they’re in on the conspiracy – then you’re giving me permission to ignore everything you have to say from now on.
81 G.E. // Sep 27, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Except Popular Mechanics is the pravda.
BTW: Gore and Perot were both wrong. NAFTA sucks but not for the reasons protectionist and welfare-leech Perot said.
82 VTV // Sep 27, 2008 at 11:56 pm
I don’t think it is a matter of being “part of the conspiracy” as much as it is that people don’t want to be labeled a “conspiracy nut”.
That’s also why I think some of the political candidates won’t speak out about it either.
83 G.E. // Sep 27, 2008 at 11:56 pm
“Peer reviewed” = reviewed by statist lackeys. Who employs academics? The state. Peer reviewers believe in man-made global warming. So do you. You just believe whatever the government sells you.
84 AnthonyD // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:00 am
wow. Bush and his warlords were smart enough to pull off 9/11, yet they couldnt sneak a small amount of WMD’s into Iraq to justify the invasion.
Imagine the additional power they could grab if they just put on a dog-and-pony show with some nuclear material they “found” in Baghdad.
You’d think the people in our government who engineered 9/11 could figure that out.
85 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:01 am
There’s no need for George Bush to have been involved for the “official story” to be false.
You “the government is always right” statists are really offputting.
86 AnthonyD // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:04 am
okay, so Bush wasnt involved. remove him from my post, and my point is the same. WHOEVER orchestrated 9/11 could sneak the nuclear material into Iraq and they would have their smoking gun.
sneaking WMD’s into Iraq would be a cakewalk compared to pulling off 9/11.
87 sunshinebatman // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:07 am
VTV – HearstCo fired most all the science writers and brought in a new staff on Popular Mechanics not long before they got into the 9/11 thing. Two lead authors on the 9/11 package were reveiwing tv for Entertainment Weekly and writing about high school sports in Pennsylvania a few months beforehand.
The chief researcher on it was a cousin of Israeli agent Michael Chertoff, but his involvement was downplayed after that fact was exposed.
88 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:08 am
AnthonyD – Not even close to true. If the hijackers were rouge CIA ops, getting nuclear material into Iraq would be beyond their capabilities.
The official story does not add up. Period. I do not know enough to form an opinion about what happened, but I know the people who defend the official story as if it’s an article of religious faith are quite disturbing.
I checked out the Popular Mechanics book. Foreward by John McCain. Yeah, a man really committed to the truth! This doesn’t disqualify the book, but clearly, it is a piece intended to shill for the Establishment.
89 paulie cannoli // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:11 am
http://wtc7.net
90 Spence // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:21 am
Did anyone hear McCain’s comments about how the Administration “stymied” his efforts for a true “independent” investigation? Hmm…
91 Ross Levin // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:51 am
Trent – the conspiracy theorists tend to find facts that fit their conclusion. I don’t have anything against people calling for a new investigation of 9/11, but I do have something against conspiracy theorists.
92 kameelyun // Sep 28, 2008 at 1:07 am
Mike Gillis,
You’re employing the very selectivity which “conspiracy theorists” are accused of in your attempt to defend the govt’s official conspiracy theory:
“Find a single — a single — peer reviewed paper in a reputable scientific journal and I’ll listen.”
You clearly read my post #77 because you alluded to Dr. Griffin’s book I mentioned, yet you seem to have forgotten what I provided later on in the post:
________________________________
It should be noted that in addition to the Journal of 9/11 Studies, two papers have been published in mainstream scientific peer-reviewed journals. They are:
Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center: evidence for energetic materials (published in The Environmentalist)
http://www.springerlink.com/content/f67q6272583h86n4/fulltext.html
“Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction†was published in the Bentham Open Civil Engineering Journal:
http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCIEJ/2008/00000002/00000001/35TOCIEJ.SGM
93 kameelyun // Sep 28, 2008 at 1:13 am
“Trent – the conspiracy theorists tend to find facts that fit their conclusion.”
Most true of the conspiracy theorists who support the govt’s official conspiracy theory.
94 pdsa // Sep 28, 2008 at 2:19 am
kameelyun 92
The Environmentalist bills itself as “an eco-investigative journalism site”. It hardly qualifies as a peer reviewed journal.
Your second cite isn’t an actual research article presented for peer review, but is instead an open letter:
95 Trent Hill // Sep 28, 2008 at 2:34 am
To be clear, no one here (not me, Mike Gillis, or anyone else) has endorsed the official government story. We’ve admitted, as Ron Paul did, that it was likely that there were coverups of certain information and such–but inferring something that is criminally complicit should involve irrefutable evidence.
As for GE’s assertion that all academics are “shills for the state”–Rothbard, Reisman, Block—all these men are shills for the state,right? These men all participate in peer-reviewed journals,by the way.
96 darolew // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:14 am
I agree with most of what Mike Gillis and Trent have said.
Conspiracy theories are all the same. They start with a conclusion and look for evidence that backs it up. It doesn’t matter if the end result is an incoherent theory and full of holes. It doesn’t matter if the conclusion doesn’t make sense, and fails to offer a motivation.
I’m not going to defend the official government story, it’s probably filled full of B.S. However, it’s hard to imagine it can be more pumped full of B.S. than many of the claims of 9/11 “Truthers”.
97 TheOriginalAndy // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:23 am
“Penn Jillette on his show ‘Bullshit’ attacked second hand smoke on his show and as new evidence was discovered, had the intellectual honesty to admit he was wrong.”
Maybe one day Penn Jillette will have the intellectual honesty to admitt that he was wrong when he attacked the 9/11 Truth Movmement and defended the official government conspiracy theory about 9/11.
98 darolew // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:27 am
“Maybe one day Penn Jillette will have the intellectual honesty to admitt [sic] that he was wrong when he attacked the 9/11 Truth Movmement [sic] and defended the official government conspiracy theory about 9/11.”
When flying pigs emerge from the frozen wastelands of hell with evidence and a coherent theory proving and explaining how and why the 9/11 attacks were an inside job, I’m sure Penn will admit he was wrong.
99 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:32 am
Trent – There are exceptions. But all academics (excluding the few at Hillsdale and Grove City) are employees of the state. For the most part, they advance in accordance with their subserviance to the state. That’s why great men like Rothbard and Block are not well known outside of libertarian circles, while socialists like Milton Friedman are championed.
100 darolew // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:35 am
“…while socialists like Milton Friedman are championed.”
While Friedman had many flaws (e.g. his monetary theory and the negative income tax) calling him a socialist is rather absurd. Rockwell does it too, and it’s dumb. Friedman supported far more economic liberty than we have, and far, far more than any real socialist would tolerate.
“Socialist” should be reserved for the socialists.
101 WinstonSmith // Sep 28, 2008 at 10:01 am
Most true of the conspiracy theorists who support the govt’s official conspiracy theory.
Actually, false. I started out not believing either side. After using common sense I found there is no way someone as inept as this government could have planned or taken part in this. Not only would it have required a massive cover-up on a scale never before seen, but you would have to figure every one of those people involved don’t care about American lives.
This is why conspiracy theorists get a bad name. They can’t admit when they were wrong.
Now if you want to argue they “let it happen” then you have far more credibility.
102 TheOriginalAndy // Sep 28, 2008 at 11:27 am
“Actually, false. I started out not believing either side. After using common sense I found there is no way someone as inept as this government could have planned or taken part in this. Not only would it have required a massive cover-up on a scale never before seen, but you would have to figure every one of those people involved don’t care about American lives.”
I started out ASSUMING that the official government story was true, however, after spending a lot of time analyzing the facts, I came to the conclusion that the official government story had to be a distortion of reality.
Saying that the government is too stupid to have carried out the 9/11 attack shows a lack of understanding out the true nature of government. While SOME people in government are stupid (they are mostly at the lower levels), not everyone in government is stupid, in fact, at the higher levels they tend to be highly intelligent. In addition to being highly intelligent, they are also quite diabolical. You see, government is both stupid and evil, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that all of the evil people in government are stupid, because they are far from it. They know exactly what they are doing and they are masters of oppression and propaganda.
It would not have taken a large group of people in government to have carried out the 9/11 attack. Just a few motivated individuals in a few key places.
103 WinstonSmith // Sep 28, 2008 at 11:35 am
TheOriginalAndy,
Its not that the people in the government is stupid, its the the government functioning as a whole is what makes this impossible.
And yes, it would have taken a large group to cover this up. Everything is leaked eventually and the government murdering 3000 American citizens would have definitely came out.
There is also no motivation for “pulling the buildings” as I have already mentioned. Hijacking the planes and crashing them into buildings would have been justification enough for a war in Iraq.
Thats not even going into the impossibilities of rigging a building for demolition which any expert will tell you takes forever.
104 kameelyun // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:36 pm
“Its not that the people in the government is stupid, its the the government functioning as a whole is what makes this impossible.”
Geez dude, ever heard of a Compartmentalized Intelligence Operation?
The Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb involved over 100,000 people and it was so secret that vice prez Truman didn’t know about it until he became president; and the Project didn’t become common knowledge amongst the general public til years after that.
105 kameelyun // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Is the Bush Administration Too Incompetent To Have Carried Out 9/11?
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2006/03/incompetence.html
When faced with evidence that elements of our own government orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, millions of Americans smugly respond that the Bush administration was too incompetent to have done it. A common statement is “They’re too incompetent to even win a war against a bunch of poorly-armed people; how could they have pulled off 9/11?”
Bush certainly acts like a bumbler and a good old boy. Cheney accidentally shot his hunting buddy. And Rumsfeld — Secretary of Defense when 9/11 occurred — apparently mangled the planning of the war in Iraq. Right?
Big Fish or Little Fish?
Before we get to whether or not Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were incompetent on 9/11, we need to distinguish between big fish and little fish. The way government actually works is that many government positions are filled by career civil servants, who stay through multiple administrations, both Democratic and Republican. In other words, there are some very powerful people within government who have been there for years, even if their face is never on television.
Therefore, even if Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld knew nothing about 9/11, a rogue network of government employees could have carried out the attacks.
In fact, I have consistently argued that rogue elements of the government were involved in 9/11, not the whole government (there are many, many good people in government). Those people could have been highly competent, even if, for example, Mr. Bush himself is incompetent.
Indeed, very few people would argue that America’s military leaders — our generals, admirals and other top commanders — are incompetent. We like to think that these military men are patriots. But the treason of even one of those leaders on 9/11 — for example, the head of NORAD — could have permitted the 9/11 attacks to succeed.
Are Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld Themselves Incompetent?
In addition, it is clear that Cheney has unprecedented power within the White House, and Bush would not even have had to have been on it for Cheney to have been able to pull it off. If you doubt that, take a look at this list to see how Cheney has coordinated illegal activities through his own office.
Moreover, as noted social historian and author Michael Parenti writes:
“Generally, US foreign policy is remarkably consistent and cohesive, a deadly success, given the interests it represents. Those who see it as repeatedly befuddled are themselves revealing their own befuddlement.
Sometimes the policymakers themselves seize upon incompetence as a cover. [For example, when the Iran-Contra affair was discovered, President Reagan plead incompetence.] His admission of incompetence was eagerly embraced by various analysts and pundits who prefer to see their leaders as suffering from innocent ignorance rather than deliberate deception. Subsequent testimony by his subordinates, however, revealed that Reagan was not as dumb as he was pretending to be, and that he had played an active and deciding role in the entire Iran-contra affair.
***
No less a political personage than Henry Kissinger repeatedly pretended to innocent ignorance and incompetence when confronted with the dirty role he and his cohorts played . . . .”
This strategy of “playing dumb” and acting incompetent has, in fact, long been employed by leaders on both the left and the right. Many liberals and old fashioned conservatives have been suckered by this dumb and dumber act.
A Trip Down Memory Lane
Let’s take a look at the actual history of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for insight into whether they are incompetent leaders.
After Bush lost his bid for congress because he was perceived as an over-educated, “spoiled rich kid from back East”, he cultivated a bumbling, “good old boy” image, and then started winning his political elections. That’s right: Bush actually cultivated a bumbling, misspeaking mannerism.
Moreover, President Bush proposed painting a U.S. surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire from Iraqi military, as a way to justify war against Iraq. Is this the kind of proposal that someone who is incompetent would make, or is it the kind of thing a conscious deceiver would suggest?
Rumsfeld and Cheney are also long-time experts at using deception to justify their military and political goals. They were, in fact, the folks who intentionally hyped the Soviet threat during the Cold War so that the defense contractors would make a killing and the U.S. would have a suitably scary “bad guy” to rally against (see this article). These guys, like other neocons, are students of Machiavelli.
Remember how the TV character Detective Columbo pretended he was bumbling and dumb, so that people would underestimate him? Or remember the TV show Matlock, where Andy Griffith pretended to be a slow-witted country lawyer in order to put people off their guard?
I would argue that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have also used this same trick: playing dumb.
(click the link for the rest)
106 Ross Levin // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:42 pm
There were a few real conspiracies over the course of the Bush administration: invading Iraq (that is, the lies leading up to it), the disregard for the Constitution, taking away our civil liberties.
Why not focus on those, instead of 9/11 “truth”?
107 kameelyun // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Is the Bush Administration Too Incompetent To Have Pulled of 9/11?
When faced with evidence that elements of our own government orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, millions of Americans smugly respond that the Bush administration was too incompetent to have done it. A common statement is “They’re too incompetent to even win a war against a bunch of poorly-armed people; how could they have pulled off 9/11?”
Bush certainly acts like a bumbler and a good old boy. Cheney accidentally shot his hunting buddy. And Rumsfeld — Secretary of Defense when 9/11 occurred — apparently mangled the planning of the war in Iraq. Right?
Big Fish or Little Fish?
Before we get to whether or not Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were incompetent on 9/11, we need to distinguish between big fish and little fish. The way government actually works is that many government positions are filled by career civil servants, who stay through multiple administrations, both Democratic and Republican. In other words, there are some very powerful people within government who have been there for years, even if their face is never on television.
Therefore, even if Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld knew nothing about 9/11, a rogue network of government employees could have carried out the attacks.
In fact, I have consistently argued that rogue elements of the government were involved in 9/11, not the whole government (there are many, many good people in government). Those people could have been highly competent, even if, for example, Mr. Bush himself is incompetent.
Indeed, very few people would argue that America’s military leaders — our generals, admirals and other top commanders — are incompetent. We like to think that these military men are patriots. But the treason of even one of those leaders on 9/11 — for example, the head of NORAD — could have permitted the 9/11 attacks to succeed.
Are Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld Themselves Incompetent?
In addition, it is clear that Cheney has unprecedented power within the White House, and Bush would not even have had to have been on it for Cheney to have been able to pull it off. If you doubt that, take a look at this list to see how Cheney has coordinated illegal activities through his own office.
Moreover, as noted social historian and author Michael Parenti writes:
“Generally, US foreign policy is remarkably consistent and cohesive, a deadly success, given the interests it represents. Those who see it as repeatedly befuddled are themselves revealing their own befuddlement.
Sometimes the policymakers themselves seize upon incompetence as a cover. [For example, when the Iran-Contra affair was discovered, President Reagan plead incompetence.] His admission of incompetence was eagerly embraced by various analysts and pundits who prefer to see their leaders as suffering from innocent ignorance rather than deliberate deception. Subsequent testimony by his subordinates, however, revealed that Reagan was not as dumb as he was pretending to be, and that he had played an active and deciding role in the entire Iran-contra affair.
***
No less a political personage than Henry Kissinger repeatedly pretended to innocent ignorance and incompetence when confronted with the dirty role he and his cohorts played . . . .”
This strategy of “playing dumb” and acting incompetent has, in fact, long been employed by leaders on both the left and the right. Many liberals and old fashioned conservatives have been suckered by this dumb and dumber act.
A Trip Down Memory Lane
Let’s take a look at the actual history of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for insight into whether they are incompetent leaders.
After Bush lost his bid for congress because he was perceived as an over-educated, “spoiled rich kid from back East”, he cultivated a bumbling, “good old boy” image, and then started winning his political elections. That’s right: Bush actually cultivated a bumbling, misspeaking mannerism.
Moreover, President Bush proposed painting a U.S. surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire from Iraqi military, as a way to justify war against Iraq. Is this the kind of proposal that someone who is incompetent would make, or is it the kind of thing a conscious deceiver would suggest?
Rumsfeld and Cheney are also long-time experts at using deception to justify their military and political goals. They were, in fact, the folks who intentionally hyped the Soviet threat during the Cold War so that the defense contractors would make a killing and the U.S. would have a suitably scary “bad guy” to rally against (see this article). These guys, like other neocons, are students of Machiavelli.
Remember how the TV character Detective Columbo pretended he was bumbling and dumb, so that people would underestimate him? Or remember the TV show Matlock, where Andy Griffith pretended to be a slow-witted country lawyer in order to put people off their guard?
I would argue that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have also used this same trick: playing dumb.
Read more at
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2006/03/incompetence.html
108 kameelyun // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Is the Bush Administration Too Incompetent to Have Carried Out 9/11?
When faced with evidence that elements of our own government orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, millions of Americans smugly respond that the Bush administration was too incompetent to have done it. A common statement is “They’re too incompetent to even win a war against a bunch of poorly-armed people; how could they have pulled off 9/11?”
Bush certainly acts like a bumbler and a good old boy. Cheney accidentally shot his hunting buddy. And Rumsfeld — Secretary of Defense when 9/11 occurred — apparently mangled the planning of the war in Iraq. Right?
Big Fish or Little Fish?
Before we get to whether or not Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were incompetent on 9/11, we need to distinguish between big fish and little fish. The way government actually works is that many government positions are filled by career civil servants, who stay through multiple administrations, both Democratic and Republican. In other words, there are some very powerful people within government who have been there for years, even if their face is never on television.
Therefore, even if Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld knew nothing about 9/11, a rogue network of government employees could have carried out the attacks.
In fact, I have consistently argued that rogue elements of the government were involved in 9/11, not the whole government (there are many, many good people in government). Those people could have been highly competent, even if, for example, Mr. Bush himself is incompetent.
Indeed, very few people would argue that America’s military leaders — our generals, admirals and other top commanders — are incompetent. We like to think that these military men are patriots. But the treason of even one of those leaders on 9/11 — for example, the head of NORAD — could have permitted the 9/11 attacks to succeed.
Are Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld Themselves Incompetent?
In addition, it is clear that Cheney has unprecedented power within the White House, and Bush would not even have had to have been on it for Cheney to have been able to pull it off. If you doubt that, take a look at this list to see how Cheney has coordinated illegal activities through his own office.
Moreover, as noted social historian and author Michael Parenti writes:
“Generally, US foreign policy is remarkably consistent and cohesive, a deadly success, given the interests it represents. Those who see it as repeatedly befuddled are themselves revealing their own befuddlement.
Sometimes the policymakers themselves seize upon incompetence as a cover. [For example, when the Iran-Contra affair was discovered, President Reagan plead incompetence.] His admission of incompetence was eagerly embraced by various analysts and pundits who prefer to see their leaders as suffering from innocent ignorance rather than deliberate deception. Subsequent testimony by his subordinates, however, revealed that Reagan was not as dumb as he was pretending to be, and that he had played an active and deciding role in the entire Iran-contra affair.
***
No less a political personage than Henry Kissinger repeatedly pretended to innocent ignorance and incompetence when confronted with the dirty role he and his cohorts played . . . .”
This strategy of “playing dumb” and acting incompetent has, in fact, long been employed by leaders on both the left and the right. Many liberals and old fashioned conservatives have been suckered by this dumb and dumber act.
Read more…
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2006/03/incompetence.html
109 kameelyun // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Is the Bush Administration Too Incompetent to Have Carried Out 9/11?
When faced with evidence that elements of our own government orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, millions of Americans smugly respond that the Bush administration was too incompetent to have done it. A common statement is “They’re too incompetent to even win a war against a bunch of poorly-armed people; how could they have pulled off 9/11?”
Bush certainly acts like a bumbler and a good old boy. Cheney accidentally shot his hunting buddy. And Rumsfeld — Secretary of Defense when 9/11 occurred — apparently mangled the planning of the war in Iraq. Right?
Big Fish or Little Fish?
Before we get to whether or not Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were incompetent on 9/11, we need to distinguish between big fish and little fish. The way government actually works is that many government positions are filled by career civil servants, who stay through multiple administrations, both Democratic and Republican. In other words, there are some very powerful people within government who have been there for years, even if their face is never on television.
Therefore, even if Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld knew nothing about 9/11, a rogue network of government employees could have carried out the attacks.
In fact, I have consistently argued that rogue elements of the government were involved in 9/11, not the whole government (there are many, many good people in government). Those people could have been highly competent, even if, for example, Mr. Bush himself is incompetent.
Indeed, very few people would argue that America’s military leaders — our generals, admirals and other top commanders — are incompetent. We like to think that these military men are patriots. But the treason of even one of those leaders on 9/11 — for example, the head of NORAD — could have permitted the 9/11 attacks to succeed.
Read more
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2006/03/incompetence.html
110 kameelyun // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Why not focus on those, instead of 9/11 “truth�
We do focus on those things every day; but they were facilitated by The Big Lie.
111 kameelyun // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Is the Bush Administration Too Incompetent to Have Carried Out 9/11?
When faced with evidence that elements of our own government orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, millions of Americans smugly respond that the Bush administration was too incompetent to have done it. A common statement is “They’re too incompetent to even win a war against a bunch of poorly-armed people; how could they have pulled off 9/11?”
Bush certainly acts like a bumbler and a good old boy. Cheney accidentally shot his hunting buddy. And Rumsfeld — Secretary of Defense when 9/11 occurred — apparently mangled the planning of the war in Iraq. Right?
Big Fish or Little Fish?
Before we get to whether or not Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were incompetent on 9/11, we need to distinguish between big fish and little fish. The way government actually works is that many government positions are filled by career civil servants, who stay through multiple administrations, both Democratic and Republican. In other words, there are some very powerful people within government who have been there for years, even if their face is never on television.
Therefore, even if Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld knew nothing about 9/11, a rogue network of government employees could have carried out the attacks.
In fact, I have consistently argued that rogue elements of the government were involved in 9/11, not the whole government (there are many, many good people in government). Those people could have been highly competent, even if, for example, Mr. Bush himself is incompetent.
Indeed, very few people would argue that America’s military leaders — our generals, admirals and other top commanders — are incompetent. We like to think that these military men are patriots. But the treason of even one of those leaders on 9/11 — for example, the head of NORAD — could have permitted the 9/11 attacks to succeed.
112 kameelyun // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:49 pm
^^^Read the rest at
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2006/03/incompetence.html
113 kameelyun // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:50 pm
^^^ Read the rest at
georgewashington(dot)blogspot(dot)com/2006/03/incompetence(dot)html
114 Mike Gillis // Sep 28, 2008 at 1:34 pm
There is a big difference between a military project carried on entirely in government facilities and completely legal and a criminal conspiracy based on creating a giant lie to the American people and killing thousands of them.
While you can get 100,000 government employees to work on a project to create the mother of all bombs during WWII, all with different levels of information, but knowing its towards the “war effort”, it’s really hard to imagine that you could get very many US soldiers to say — shovel burned up severed body parts and plane wreckage onto the grounds of the Pentagon to make it look like it was attacked.
There are just too many people involved who could easily have a crisis of conscience, who could fuck up and give the ruse away or could just crack under the pressure.
And that’s if you could get them in on it in the first place without having it fall apart as your growing castlist wasn’t horrified.
There is no part of a hypothetical 9/11 conspiracy that I can see anyone playing a role in with limited knowledge of their part and NOT see that SOMETHING messed up was afoot.
Because you just need too many high level people to receive insane orders and not go through multiple channels to verify them. And through that verification, this whole house of card comes tumbling down.
Because for so many people, their subsequent superiors and all of the people who make the wheels of government move, however sloppily, to just shrug and say “eh…whatever” to just go along with this, they’d have to be motivated towards this phantom ideological goal of attacking the Middle East.
And I just can’t see this widespread ideological motivation being something that pushes the head of NORAD or any other such figure to be part of this big lie.
This requires people to act entirely as robots and completely unquestioning of insane orders or in this not getting out. Or in a whistleblower not realizing what horror they inadvertantly took part in either coming forward or leaving a confession somewhere before killing themselves.
The sort of government so powerful that it would be able to pick up ALL THE LOOSE THREADS of a conspiracy with a cast of thousands was so powerful that it didn’t need 9/11 in the first place.
It’s just too damn implausible. To believe in the 9/11 conspiracy, you have to believe that the same government that couldn’t get even the planning of the Iraq invasion right — and remember that this was their big goal all along apparently – that that same government was magically so efficient, ruthless and brilliant that they pulled off the most convoluted conspiracy of all time with a cast of tens of thousands, no fewer than eight hijacked planes, poison gas, planted explosives up and down two office buildings without security guards, cleaning staff or office workers notices the giant explosive drums, a missile fired at the Pentagon and the potential for four planes full of people to either completely disappear to be killed somewhere else…
This makes sense. Yeah.
And the alternative isn’t “the government’s conspiracy story!” as it isn’t black and white.
I do believe the government has lied about 9/11, but I don’t believe they pulled it off or allowed it to happen.
I believe they lie to cover their collective asses and so that people won’t realize how fucking inept and worthless so many of them actually are. And I think so many of them love a crisis because it lets them roll out their wishlists of bad legislation for their big donors.
But the 9/11 Truthers believe in a conspiracy with no real hard evidence, with no eyewitnesses, no whistleblowers and a whole lot of assumptions and cutting and pasting conjecture into gaps of knowledge and rationalizing subconspiracies as those gaps are filled with contradictory evidence.
115 Mike Gillis // Sep 28, 2008 at 1:37 pm
”
There were a few real conspiracies over the course of the Bush administration: invading Iraq (that is, the lies leading up to it), the disregard for the Constitution, taking away our civil liberties.
Why not focus on those, instead of 9/11 “truthâ€?”
Seriously. There are real conspiracies out there and here’s the thing – they’re right out in the open! Like the influence lobbyists have on politics and our foreign policy. The cherrypicking of evidence in the lead up to the Iraq invasion and the government’s firing of dissenting opinion. The attacks on our civil liberties and domestic spying. Systemic torture and rendition flights. Imprisonment without charges.
All of these things are clearly happening enough that even corporate establishment news sources have to write about them.
Why not try to slay a dragon instead of a windmill?
116 kameelyun // Sep 28, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Mike Gillis,
Time to take the gloves off and call you a liar. Possibly a paid one.
“no eyewitnesses”
Google “firefighter John Schroeder”
“no whistleblowers”
Google Sibel Edmonds.
And no, those are not the only two. But if you’re sincere (which I suspect you’re not) you might want to start with those names.
That is all. I am done debating the debunker shills on this page. You guys are either paid blog trolls or you are simply unwilling and/or unable to look at and understand the evidence.
117 Ross Levin // Sep 28, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Oh, he’s a paid liar? Ha!
Have you looked at the evidence of the other side? I suggest reading “The Dark Side.” It explains the events leading up to and resulting from 9/11.
118 Mike Gillis // Sep 28, 2008 at 2:34 pm
If I was being paid to keep my mouth shut about 9/11, I wouldn’t have any credit card debt right now.
I’d certainly have a nicer car.
This is why I have such a low opinion of Truthers. Either you believe all of their cherry picked and out of context “proof” or you’re actually a paid employee of the BIG CONSPIRACY!
119 pdsa // Sep 28, 2008 at 2:35 pm
@ kameelyun “Time to take the gloves off …”
Why? We already know there’’s nothing up you sleeves. You laughable cites of “peer reviewed” articles proves that.
I am interested though in what exactly Sibel Edmonds has said about 911 being a planned hit by the government. Do you happen to have any specific cites, instead of a vague derogatory missive to search Google?
120 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I’ll ask again what peer reviewed proves?
There are peer reviewed articles on Keynesianism and global warming. If you want to join Mike Gillis in believing in those myths as well, then you’re free to join the Establishment (of which Nader is a peripheral member), or you can stop ascribing value to the academic institutions of the evil state.
121 AnthonyD // Sep 28, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I have a friend who is a civil engineer who has been on location for a few building demolitions. He just laughs when I ask him about 9/11 troofer stories, specifically in reference to the twin towers. He indicates people who believe the troofer stories have zero conception of how much material and work it would take to wire the Twin Towers for implosion. The idea that that could be pulled off with the general public seeing nothing of it is pure fantasyland.
Bear in mind, I say THE GENERAL PUBLIC. Not one deranged lunatic who says he saw some guys in blak shirts with wirecutters over the weekend previous to 9/11.
122 WinstonSmith // Sep 28, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Again, the 9/11 troofer movement was really started by Dylan Avery and his Loose Change series. I guess all the troofers conveniently overlook the fact that Avery was a failed FICTION writer. That is as stupid as scientologists believing Hubbard was actually some type of religious man.
Nobody has explained where flight 77 went. I’m still waiting on that explanation.
123 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 2:59 pm
None of this means anything.
The government’s official story is, at best, lie by omission.
Quit shilling for Big Brother, “Winston,” or change your name to O’Brien.
The “Truther” theories don’t have to be 100% accurate or complete. The government story DOES and it’s not.
124 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Ross – Why is it so funny to suggest that someone, not Mike Gillis, but someone, might be a “paid liar”? The Bush Administration does pay people to lie, probably even at lowly forums like this. Hell, the BARR CAMPAIGN pays people to lie. Just ask paulie who was offered. How many of these Barr shills are on the Barr payroll? At least some.
125 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Not to say the Bush administration is behind 9/11. That was an example.
The government pays millions of people to lie every day. They’re called public school teachers. Ross also thinks these people are great. He’s a sheep happy to be sheered and slaughtered. Don’t speak ill of Master. Ross has a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome and he loves his captors.
126 Mike Gillis // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Peer reviewed proves that people who know quite a bit about the subjects you’re talking about (engineering, physics..etc) pour over your theories and see if they hold water under scrutiny, and the more peer reviewed and more picked apart it is, the more likely it is to excise out potential bias.
And once they’re done picking it apart, the author can look at the problems in his research that the others have provided for him and a series of questions that he’d failed to answer and then he’d have to write it again and make it better and cover his bases and fill in the blanks better.
Peer review is how you can put forth ideas that aren’t just created in a conspiracy echo chamber of homogenized ideology. And a real scientific paper will have the author write at the end about all of the potential issues that their peers may have about their research and their explanations while those problems don’t cancel out the overall theory.
The conflict of ideas and fact checking make ideas better. And truth has nothing to fear from scrutiny. And the reason we can take any sort of research seriously is because of the peer review process, which is the best way we know to filter out bunk and trim the fat.
So far, the Truthers seem unwilling to even submit themselves to such a process and if they receive scrutiny, their kneejerk reaction is to, like what just happened with me, accuse the dissenter with being part of an ever-growing conspiracy.
127 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Yes, and peer reviewed papers that tout Keynesianism and global warming are also published.
People who ask questions about 9/11 lose their jobs. It’s easy for Big Brother to single them out.
The state lies. Period. Anything it says can be assumed a lie, and the burden of proof is on its shills.
128 AnthonyD // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:17 pm
G.E.,
NO theory about ANYTHING is 100% complete or accurate. You chose the theory that best fits the evidence.
Your argument is similar to that of the proponents of intelligent design, who expect the evolutionists to provide a 100% complete story on evolution, complete with every single transistional fossill, a task that is obviously impossible. We will never have the complete story on 9/11, one that ties up all the loose ends. Just the story that best fits the evidence. And that is obviously the official story of saudi terrorist armed with box cutters.
129 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Anthony – Not an accurate comparison. Evolution is a scientific theory, not a “what happened theory.” It is known that Evolution can never be definitive, and no one claims that it is.
The government, however, DOES claim that its story IS definitive. It’s not.
Terrorists with boxcutters? Sure. But there’s more to the story. I’m not necessarily saying it wasn’t terrorists with boxcutters. The point is, the Truthers can throw 500 theories at the wall and see what sticks. That doesn’t weaken their position at all.
There is a cover up, period. There are many questions that have not been answered. Evolutionists aren’t afraid to answer questions. The government is.
Comparison = FAIL.
130 TheOriginalAndy // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:23 pm
“Again, the 9/11 troofer movement was really started by Dylan Avery and his Loose Change series. I guess all the troofers conveniently overlook the fact that Avery was a failed FICTION writer. That is as stupid as scientologists believing Hubbard was actually some type of religious man.”
This is complete horseshit. The 9/11 Truth Movement was around before anyone ever heard of Dylan Avery. There were people like Alex Jones and Mike Ruppert who were talking about the official government story about 9/11 being full of holes right after it happened.
“Nobody has explained where flight 77 went. I’m still waiting on that explanation.”
This is one of many unanwsered questions.
131 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Andy – Yeah, “Winston Smith” here gives the criminal syndicate known as the government the benefit of the doubt, and says the burden of proof is on alternative theories. He says it is YOUR job to explain Flight 77, instead of the government’s to answer so many unanswered questions.
What is wrong with this picture?
I think this version of Winston Smith is the one who has already given up on Julia and learned to love Big Brother.
132 sunshinebatman // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:35 pm
They didn’t need to prepare the building with thousands of tons of supernanothermite or whatever the COINTELPRO truthlings are pushing this week. Those towers were turned to dust in ten seconds with the use of highly-advanced classified weaponry available ony to the military-industrial complex.
Libertarian scholar Morgan Reynolds has pointed to the firms SAIC and Applied Research Associates as likely culprits, as both are involved in prototyping and manufacture of such advanced weaponry and both were involved in writing the NIST (and Kean/Zelikow) reports.
133 Mike Gillis // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:35 pm
The burden of proof IS on alternative theories. But I’d be loathe to call them “theories”, as a theory is something that has held up to scrutiny.
You have to prove yourself correct. It’s not the job of others to prove you wrong. And this is the most intellectually dishonest thing about the Truthers.
The default position on any point is always disbelief and doubt, not belief without proof.
At best, if you have no evidence, the answer is “I don’t know” not a lengthy fairy tale that fills in the gaps, but has no evidence pointing towards it.
Unanswered questions are just that. Unanswered questions. But Truthers tend to treat “I don’t know” as if its evidence of their own hair-brained hypothesis.
“We don’t know, therefore I’m right.”
What an incredible waste of the human brain.
134 TheOriginalAndy // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:37 pm
“WinstonSmith // Sep 28, 2008 at 11:35 am
TheOriginalAndy,
Its not that the people in the government is stupid, its the the government functioning as a whole is what makes this impossible.”
The government functioning as a whole is not necessary to carry out something like 9/11. Like I said before, just a few motivated individuals in a few key places is all that is necessary.
“And yes, it would have taken a large group to cover this up. Everything is leaked eventually and the government murdering 3000 American citizens would have definitely came out.”
As I said above, it would not take a large group of people to carry out and cover up a false flag terror operation like 9/11, however, in spite of this, the truth IS comming out.
“There is also no motivation for ‘pulling the buildings’ as I have already mentioned. Hijacking the planes and crashing them into buildings would have been justification enough for a war in Iraq.”
Bringing the buildings down was far more dramatic and was necessary to whip the American people into a frenzy where they’d support going to war and giving up more freedoms for the promise of safety provided by more government. It was also good for destroying evidence and paying off Larry Silverstein with a fat insurance pay out.
“Thats not even going into the impossibilities of rigging a building for demolition which any expert will tell you takes forever.”
Wiring the buildings with explosives could have gone on for weeks or even months before 9/11/01.
135 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:42 pm
According to Nader supporter Mike Gillis, the government can tell a lie, and it is up to the citizenry to prove the government wrong.
Now THAT is “Citizen Power!”
136 pdsa // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:46 pm
@G.E> – if you notice, I have not objected to your opinion that Peer Reviewed research has no value. What I objected to was a false portrayal of citations as being peer reviewed research, which they obviously are not. These are two entirely different things.
Your opinion regarding the value of peer review has been noted, and as long as you do not in the future reference peer reviewed research as authoritative, I won’t take umbrage to your holding this opinion.
137 pdsa // Sep 28, 2008 at 4:01 pm
sunshinebatman – exactly what makes Morgan Reynolds a libertarian? From his Wikipedia entry:
The NCPA is an astro-turfing think-tank that has shilled for Exxon/Mobil . It is not libertarian.
He is the former chief economist for the Department of Labor during GW Bush’s first term. I have credibility issues too…
138 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 4:05 pm
It’s no worse than pointing to a book with a foreward “written” (as if!) by Arch-Idiot John McCain.
139 sunshinebatman // Sep 28, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Austrian economists are pretty reliably libertarian.
http://mises.org/journals/aen/aen23_2_1.pdf
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reynolds/reynolds-arch.html
http://www.nomoregames.net
140 pdsa // Sep 28, 2008 at 4:25 pm
sunshinebatman – Austrian economists are pretty reliably libertarian.
No they are not. They are reliably pro free-market. There is much more to being libertarian than that.
141 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 4:27 pm
No there’s not.
142 sunshinebatman // Sep 28, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Well, PD — readers can browse the articles at the links and decide for themselves whether the man is libertarian. You can continue to post comments on how libertarian it is to swallow the state’s fairytales in the meantime.
On another note, this seems the right page here to post this:
http://deadlinelive.info/?p=79
All Speakers censored at “We The People†fest
Posted on September 28th, 2008
By Jack Blood
Yep.
Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney and Jack Blood were prohibited from speaking at
WTP Fest in Los Angeles today. The event had been heavily promoted in LA by KROQ FM, and the LA Weekly etc….
I was on the main stage, ready to go on just after Fishbone and just before Suicidal Tendencies…about 7 PM 9.27.08
Dylan Avery was with me and I had planned to give him some time during my speach.
I was pulled from the stage, and told that if I spoke the local, state, and (agenda 21) police would shut down the gig. (We had about 8,000 people by then)
At this time I believe that the Mayor of Los Angeles made the call to stop us from speaking. (Earlier in the day he had asked to speak at the event, but only under the condition that the Three of us not speak on the main stage. I heard that the organizers told him no.) I interviewed several people who told us that “Political Pressure†had intervened to stop us from speaking.
We have much more on this, and will report the story on the Tuesday Edition of Deadline live.
None of the speakers were allowed to speak by nights end.
This all might have come down due to the massive Obama presence at the event.
143 WinstonSmith // Sep 28, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Andy – Yeah, “Winston Smith†here gives the criminal syndicate known as the government the benefit of the doubt, and says the burden of proof is on alternative theories. He says it is YOUR job to explain Flight 77, instead of the government’s to answer so many unanswered questions.
GE is a perfect example for the idiocy that is the troofer movement. Everyone he disagrees with is a goverment shill. Thanks for proving you are incapable of putting forth anything that could be considered a rational thought.
The government said Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. You didn’t. So the normal thing is for you to prove the government account wrong.
However, since you are unable to do so without calling someone a government shill I’ll say your evidence doesn’t exist.
Keep following whatever that failed fiction writer says though.
144 WinstonSmith // Sep 28, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Bringing the buildings down was far more dramatic and was necessary to whip the American people into a frenzy where they’d support going to war and giving up more freedoms for the promise of safety provided by more government. It was also good for destroying evidence and paying off Larry Silverstein with a fat insurance pay out.
That makes absolutely no sense.
The public would have been whipped into a frenzy by terrorists hijacking 4 airplanes and crashing 3 of them into buildings. To suggest otherwise is crazy.
Common sense would dictate that the government would not take an extra risk like rigging a building for explosion since it was not needed.
And it would have taken weeks to rig the building. Ask any demolitions expert and they will tell you that would have been impossible with people going to work on a daily basis.
145 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 5:54 pm
You should start following what the successful fiction writer, Orwell, said, or else stop using the name of his most famous protagonist as your own.
I am not a “Truther.” But as an independent on the matter, I will say that the answers and logic of the Truthers crush those who slavishly defend the government’s official lies.
146 Spence // Sep 28, 2008 at 6:03 pm
What’s wrong with being a “truther”? Since when did it automatically become synonymous with conspiracy-indulging, raving Paultard?
The key word is truth. I don’t include myself as part of the truth movement, but do I want “truth”? You bet.
And may I point out that not all truthers believe the government created the incident for public motivation. They simply want full accountability from government officials who may or may not have neglected to act on prior warnings, thus exposing unnecessary bureaucracy for what it is. If you are so against that, take this 1000-paged immigration packet and move to Western Europe.
Or is it Oceania? I can never remember.
147 WinstonSmith // Sep 28, 2008 at 6:17 pm
They simply want full accountability from government officials who may or may not have neglected to act on prior warnings, thus exposing unnecessary bureaucracy for what it is.
Which I think everyone is fine with. That is not what most people are talking about though. The troofers believe the government somehow pulled this off on their own.
GE,
You continue to make no sense. Just because I believe the government didn’t carry out 9/11 doesn’t mean I’m a government shill. Nice red herring when you have no real argument though.
I’m still waiting on your Flight 77 explanation also. You claimed it didn’t hit the Pentagon so I’m waiting on your evidence that proves otherwise.
148 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 6:22 pm
What is “the government”?
You shills are so broad. You basically state that if every single person employed by any level of government (i.e. half the country) didn’t have intimate knowledge of the attacks, then it wasn’t an “inside job” or the government’s official story is all true.
Did I claim Flight 77 didn’t hit the Pentagon? Um, no I didn’t.
149 WinstonSmith // Sep 28, 2008 at 6:26 pm
So a few people in the government (that don’t have the real power) were able to pull off the most elaborate inside job in history?
You troofers continually stretch or make up arguments as you go. No real intelligence or logic to anything that you type.
150 Trent Hill // Sep 28, 2008 at 6:29 pm
GE,
You never answered my question about peer-reviewed journals or members of Academia. You claimed BOTH were shills for the establishment–I pointed out that Block, DiLorenzo, Woods and others are all members of academia and all participate in peer-reviewed journals.
See, GE, you like to make a lot of flamboyant statements–but you refuse to ANSWER questions about them.
I’ll go one further and say this–you say either you believe in the “government story” or you dont–this is quite possibly the most illogical thing i’ve ever heard from you.
151 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 6:41 pm
I DID answer your question, Trent. Dig through the replys and you’ll find it.
It is fundamentally true that you either
1) Believe in the government’s story
or
2) Do not believe in the government’s story
What is false about that? It is objectively true. You like to have it both ways, though. You say initiation of force is wrong, but anarchism is bad; and that Chuck Baldwin doesn’t believe in the CP platform but isn’t lying when he says he does; or that I didn’t answer your question when I did, etc.
152 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Winston – Stop being a dumbass. I’m not a “Truther.” Your arguments suck, though. The Truthers can put forth 500 contradicting arguments, and if one of them is right, they’re right. The government story is a lie. That much is obvious. Which, if any, of the Truther theories is correct is not relevant.
Quit lying and saying I said things I didn’t say and ascribing positions to me that are not true.
153 WinstonSmith // Sep 28, 2008 at 6:47 pm
GE,
You have not put forth one argument this whole time. You have only went around calling people shills or statists. Not much content to that argument.
You say the government story is a lie and the burden is on you to provide the evidence. None of which you have done.
154 Trent Hill // Sep 28, 2008 at 6:52 pm
GE,
No–you have suggested that the “government story” is ALL right or ALL wrong. Obviously it could be partially right.
155 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Trent – No. I’m saying it is at least part wrong, and therefore untrue.
Winston – The burden of proof is on the citizen and not on the state? Yes, under Fascism you are correct. I don’t need to PROVE the government is lying — it’s their job to prove the story they are putting forward, and they haven’t. They have failed. I’m on the jury and I’m saying government is GUILTY.
156 Trent Hill // Sep 28, 2008 at 6:55 pm
GE,
Then you are argueing with yourself. I havent seen ONE person here that it couldnt be partially wrong,in that it covered up for non-criminal mistakes.
157 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Trent – See Winston Smith and AnthonyD.
BTW: The Popular Mechanics book you recommended had its forward written by John McCain. NOT RELIABLE.
There is a lot of reflexive government worship going on here.
The government story is a lie, there’s something more to it, there is a cover-up, and these are obvious facts. Period. Anyone who does not accept the above is brainwashed or idiotic or both.
158 WinstonSmith // Sep 28, 2008 at 7:01 pm
GE,
You clearly have no idea how arguments take place.
A claim is made and evidence is needed to prove that claim wrong. Otherwise it is accepted as correct.
The proof for the government is that 4 plane loads of people no longer exist, and the televised events of that day. Now it is your job to prove why those events couldn’t have taken place.
Your idea is nonsensical and backwards.
159 WinstonSmith // Sep 28, 2008 at 7:02 pm
G.E.
I’ve never once argued the government isn’t liable for negligence.
I’ve said they had no hand in the destruction of the buildings or hijacking of the planes.
160 Trent Hill // Sep 28, 2008 at 7:03 pm
“BTW: The Popular Mechanics book you recommended had its forward written by John McCain. NOT RELIABLE.”
Because John McCain wrote the forward the ideas put forth by highly specialized Engineers and Physicists is somehow discredited? This is an example of how your ideology colors your thinking GE.
161 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Jesus F. Christ, Winston! When have I ever said anything about the plains flying into the buildings or the people dying? That is obvious! That does not “prove” the government’s case! God!
Go lick the boots of your masters. This is worse than debating fundamentalists Christians. You both worship nonexistent gods and can never be convinced of anything that violates your slavish superstitions.
162 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Those academics are shills for the state. That they thought to include McCain — a borderline mentally retarded ass — in the forward of the book demonstrates their shillery.
163 WinstonSmith // Sep 28, 2008 at 7:05 pm
As usual GE puts no real argument forth and resorts to name calling and deflections.
You are definitely the best at introducing straw men and red herrings.
Maybe you should put forth an argument before you post any further.
164 Trent Hill // Sep 28, 2008 at 7:08 pm
“I’ve never once argued the government isn’t liable for negligence.
I’ve said they had no hand in the destruction of the buildings or hijacking of the planes.”
Doesnt seem to me that WinstonSmith is a “government shill”–he seems to be a libertarian that isnt off his rocker.
165 Trent Hill // Sep 28, 2008 at 7:10 pm
“Those academics are shills for the state.”
You have no idea who these men are, what their political ideologies are, etc.
GE–please take a debating class or something. Rudimentary ad hom attacks don’t help you to win, they make you look immature and foolish.
166 Mike Gillis // Sep 28, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Again, GE, you’re involved in a reverse version of “argument by authority”, in that John McCain wrote an INTRO to a book that it must be false.
All that means is that despite whatever horseshit McCain believes, he doesn’t buy the conspiracy story.
McCain buys into the “they did it because they hate our freedom” lie, which that book is NOT about. That book deals only with HOW the attack happened and debunks the X-Files fairy tales that too many people have about that day.
And you really have to drop the sad black and white mentality about this. You have repeatedly oversimplified all possible positions into only two categories “Us and Them”: the “government lies” and “the truth”.
It’s a lot more complicated than that. Anyone who sees it otherwise is looking at it with the eyes of a child.
Based on a look at the evidence, it looks like a group of terrorists associated with Al Qaeda hijacked planes and flew them into buildings. And if there’s a government lie about the attacks it’s not the “how” so much as the “why”. It wasn’t because they hated us for their freedom – the real lie – it’s because of decades if not centuries of imperialistic foreign policy. Blowback, as Ron Paul rightly pointed out.
The unanswered questions about the “how” of the attack is far more likely to be simple ass-covering of the government’s neglience, stupidity and incompetence.
The Popular Mechanics article and book should be judged on its merits, the evidence presented and its arguments, not the author of its foreword — who did not contribute to the book’s contents.
But the conspiracy stories that the Truther spit out are just too completely unrealistic, and require a labyrinth of convoluted subconspiracies – all of which need to go off without a hitch – and for intelligent people to act like morons. The ever devolving rationalizations that Truthers use to back up their claims only point to a story where people choose needlessly complicated solutions to painfully simple problems.
It just doesn’t hold up.
167 pdsa // Sep 28, 2008 at 9:04 pm
G.E. 136
Just two of Morgan Reynolds’ policy positions while at the NCPA:
April 4, 2001: Creating Factories Behind Bars
April 17, 2001 Racial Profiling Due To War On Drugs
There much more to being libertarian than preaching the free-market.
168 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Nothing unlibertarian with expecting prisoners to work to pay for their own room and board and compensate their victims — in fact, that IS the libertarian position.
What on Earth could be “unlibertarian” about suggesting a statist cause behind statist racial profiling?
169 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 9:07 pm
If you’re a George Phillies/Stato/tReason/Outright Libertarian, then contempt for the free market is the defining characteristic thereof. But real libertarianism = free market, period, and there’s nothing else to it.
170 pdsa // Sep 28, 2008 at 9:08 pm
sunshinebatman – 137
I said nothing about the quality of content in the links you provided to Morgan Reynold’s 911 views, only that it was dishonest to call him a libertarian. The false association is personally defamatory .
171 pdsa // Sep 28, 2008 at 9:09 pm
G.E. – really? even the ones imprisoned for drug usage? Even when the pay they receive is less than the free-market rate?
It’s called slavery.
172 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 9:12 pm
In a free society, no one would be imprisoned for drug usage, and the pay that prisoners received would be set in the open market. Holding people accountable for the debts they’ve incurred and damages they caused is not “slavery.” Putting a gun to MY head and making ME pay for the crimes of others IS.
173 G.E. // Sep 28, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Free market = non-aggression, private property, free exchange. That is libertarianism and there’s nothing else to it. If that guy supports aggression, socialism, or regulation, then he’s not a libertarian.
174 psikeyhackr // Dec 7, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Let’s just face some simple facts.
Skyscrapers MUST hold themselves up. They must also sway in the wind. The people who design skyscrapers MUST figure out how much steel and how much concrete they are going to put on every level before they even dig the hole for the foundation.
After EIGHT YEARS why don’t we have a table specifying the TONS of STEEL and TONS of CONCRETE that were on every level of the WTC? The NIST report does not even specify the TOTAL for the concrete. The total for the steel is in three places. So even if the planes did it that 10,000 page report is CRAP!
Conspiracies are irrelevant. The Truth Movement should be marching on all of the engineering schools in the country.
Watch that Purdue simulation. If a 150 ton airliner crashes near the top of a skyscraper at 440 mph isn’t the building going to sway? Didn’t the survivors report the building “moving like a wave”? So why do the core columns in the Purdue video remain perfectly still as the plane comes in?
That is the trouble with computer simulations. If they are good, they are very good. But if they have a defect either accidental or deliberate they can be REALLY STUPID once you figure out the flaws.
The distribution of steel and concrete is going to affect the sway of a skyscraper whether it is from the wind or an airliner.
LOL
175 libertariangirl // Dec 7, 2009 at 11:03 pm
im sick of 9-11 “truth” and No I dont believe the governments story , im just tired of the whole movement , nothings ever going to ecome of it . It will ever so slowly acclimate , until decades from now it will be accepted as truth , just like JFK assasination. and noone will ever pay.
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