“It’s a system that lies automatically, at every level from bottom to top – from sergeant to commander in chief – to conceal murder.” Daniel Ellsburg, Secrets, (Viking, 2002)
“Beneath all the fakes and lies and all the mental aberrations, however deeply hidden or wildly deformed, the truth still breaks through, still glitters, still breathes.” (Mihail Sebastian, Romanian playwright, as quoted by Nickolson Baker, Human Smoke, Simon & Schuster, 2008)
In the movie, Fair Game, about the travails of Valerie Plame, and her outing as a CIA agent by the Bush administration, Sean Penn, in the character of Joe Wilson, Plame’s husband, exhorts a group of students to “Demand the Truth!” Yet, very few of us have demanded to know the truth about 9/11 and the attacks on the World Trade Center. We have been content with the officially sanctioned explanation. Those who are not so content are ridiculed as “conspiracy theorists.”
It was a conspiracy – 9/11. That is indisputable. There is no “lone gunman” to confuse matters. To say anything meaningful about 9/11, you have to be a conspiracy theorist. It is only a question of whose theory of the conspiracy you are prepared to believe. It is incredible that anyone still believes anything the Bush administration said about that tragic day.
The magazine purports to value the scientific method but omits or distorts the vast body of scientific forensic evidence available in the aftermath of the destruction of the WTC Towers.
For 35 years, Skeptical Inquirer has fought the good fight. The bimonthly magazine publication of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry seeks to “criticize claims of the paranormal and pseudoscience,” promote “a balanced view of science in the mass media” and “teach critical thinking in schools,” according to CSI founder Paul Kurtz. Despite this noble mission, Skeptical Inquirer recently delivered what its author probably believed was a fiery smack-down to the 9/11 Truth movement.
Rutgers sociology professor Ted Goertzel’s double-length cover story in the January/February 2011 issue, “The Conspiracy Meme – Why Conspiracy Theories Appeal and Persist,” lumps the 9/11 Truth movement in with the “faked Moon landing,” and “AIDS was a government plot to kill gay people.” While Goertzel does some analysis and draws conclusions regarding the “conspiracy mindset,” when it comes to 9/11, he ignores the most important evidence. He indulges himself in ad hominems and other fallacies that, in particular he should know about, given how he and the periodical for which he is writing have positioned and marketed themselves. He’s dismissive and even derisive – in violation of the magazine’s stated policies. To his credit, it appears Goertzel did watch Loose Change: An American Coup, but that seems to be about the extent of his actual 9/11 research:
“Loose Change raises a long series of questions illustrated by tendentious information, such as the fact that the fires in the World Trade Center were not hot enough to melt steel. But no one claimed that the steel had melted, only that it had gotten hot enough to weaken and collapse, which it did.”
Perhaps Mr. Goertzel should have done some actual skeptical inquiry of his own. If he had, he surely would have found numerous quotes making precisely the false claim that office and jet fuel fires can melt structural steel:
Stanford University Professor Steven Block: “The intense heat could have melted the buildings’ cores, allowing for the collapses, he suggested.”
by Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff source: Project Censored/Media Freedom Foundation July 29, 2010
In his recent essay “Toxic to Democracy,” Political Research Associates (PRA) Senior Analyst Chip Berlet uses the very same methods of demonization by association that he so strongly opposes. Berlet convolutes historical context, ideological differences, and progressives vis-à-vis extreme conservative/neo-con/libertarians in a diatribe of meaninglessness.
Berlet lumps valid academic research on State Crimes Against Democracy (SCADs) in with anti-Semitic jingoism and far right wing extremism. He suggests that any research that even implies some sort of conspiracy is dangerous and suspect, seemingly forgetting a long list of proven US and other government conspiracies (SCADs) including: Operation Mockingbird, COINTELPRO, Gulf of Tonkin “Incident,” October Surprise, CIA-Contra Dark Alliance, Iran-Contra, WMDs and Iraq Invasion, and the overthrow of governments in Iran, Guatemala, Haiti, Chile, Greece, Indonesia, Panama, and many others.
Former Navy SEAL, professional wrestler, and Minnesota governor, Jesse Ventura, recently launched a new television show on the truTV (formerly known as Court TV) cable channel. The first episode debuted on Wednesday, December 2, 2009. And the final episode of this season aired this past Wednesday, January 13, 2010.
David Chandler is the author of numerous online videos that analyze the
collapse of the World Trade Building from the point of view of a
physics instructor. David’s contributions to the NIST final Report on WTC 7
led to their admitting to 2.2 seconds of “free fall” in the buildings collapse.
David is also the author of the popular internet site: http://www.lcurve.org/
about US income distribution.
Careful investigation leads one to notice that a number of intriguing groups of people and organizations converged on the events of September 11th, 2001. An example is the group of men who were members of Cornell University’s Quill & Dagger society. This included Paul Wolfowitz, National Security Advisors Sandy Berger and Stephen Hadley, Marsh & McLennan executive Stephen Friedman, and the founder of Kroll Associates, Jules Kroll. Another interconnected group of organizations is linked to these Cornell comrades, and is even more interesting in terms of its members being integral to the events of 9/11, and having benefited from those events.
After the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center (WTC), a company called Stratesec (or Securacom) was responsible for the overall integration of the new security system designed by Kroll Associates. Stratesec had a small board of directors that included retired Air Force General James Abrahamson, Marvin Bush (the brother of George W. Bush) and Wirt Walker III, a cousin of the Bush brothers. Other directors included Charles Archer, former Assistant Director in charge of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division, and Yousef Saud Al Sabah, a member of the Kuwaiti royal family.[1]
What has been reported to be one of the most fair and balanced television presentations on 9/11 is set to air tomorrow night on TruTV. The show, Conspiracy Theory, hosted by former Governor Jesse Ventura, has already been determined to be the most popular show ever on TruTV since the first episode aired last week. The first episode was on HAARP, the 9/11 episode will air tomorrow.
This week, Jesse Ventura, takes on America’s most controversial Conspiracy Theory: The attacks of Sept 11th, 2001, when nearly 3,000 people were killed as the result of four hijacked planes.
According to the official 9/11 Commission Report, the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history was caused by 19 men, with ties to al-Qaeda, who set off a series of coordinated suicide attacks. Two planes crashed into the buildings of the World Trade Center, one hit the Pentagon and the fourth plane landed in a Pennsylvania field before it could reach its target in Washington, DC. Read the rest of this entry »
Shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, President Bush asked the American public to “never entertain outrageous conspiracy theories.” The irony of his statement is easily lost. Most people consider themselves reasonable, thoughtful individuals that don’t believe in crazy conspiracy theories, but the Official story of 9/11 – that 19 radical terrorists conspired for several years to hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings – is, in fact, a conspiracy theory. It just happens that this theory has the official endorsement of the U.S. government. So, believe our conspiracy theory, not theirs, Mr. Bush asks us. Don’t look at the facts. Don’t investigate for yourself. Just believe what you’re told.
This is, in effect, what the government and the mainstream media is asking us when it labels any idea a “conspiracy theory,” and we can see how incredibly effective this tool has been in stunting rational debate.
With careers in wrestling, movies, radio and government under his belt, Jesse Ventura is adding a line to his résumé: professional conspiracy theorist.
A television production company announced Tuesday that the former Minnesota governor will host “Conspiracy Theories With Jesse Ventura” on cable’s truTV, a Turner Broadcasting System channel.
The launch of the program was initially announced last September, but apparently only a pilot was produced.
“Now I get to be a detective and seek the truth,” Ventura was quoted as saying in a news release at the time.
Posted by Brian 
