Wednesday, January 28, 2009

A Little Truth Dip for Your Super Bowl Party




Pat Curley of the Screw Loose Change blog posted this video as well, stating, "Kudos to the G-Men, and George Martin, Boos to the We Are Change punks trying to piggy-back their cause on the first responders."

Despite his disagreement on the issue of government complicity on 9/11, you would think he could still give credit where credit is due for truthers efforts in regard to 9/11 first responders.

As one commenter on his blog pointed out, "The 9/11 Truth Movement has always supported the 9/11 First Responders that are sick and dying. To say that we are trying to 'piggy-back' their cause onto ours is a lie. Their cause has always been apart of ours. To say anything otherwise is a lie. Pure and simple."

Indeed, the 9/11 truth movement has been raising the issue of health problems among 9/11 rescue workers long before many others. On 9/11/04, a 9/11 truth symposium was held that featured this issue early on in a presentation that lasted nearly 3 hours. Click here to watch Jenna Orkin of the World Trade Center Environmental Organization give a speech during the symposium. Later this presentation was made into a DVD entitled "Confronting the Evidence: A call to re-open the 9/11 investigation" that was subsequently mailed out to 300,000 people for FREE! If that isn't bringing attention to a subject I don't know what is!

The 9/11 truth movement is composed of many prior/overall political activists who do not put up with government misdeeds. For instance, to what cause was I piggy-backing when I wrote a blog entitled "No Vet Left Behind" that exposed the suffering of Vietnam veterans and citizens due to the toxic defoliant Agent Orange? Perhaps we honestly care about people getting screwed over?... 9/11 heroes and veterans included.

We are individuals that have come to believe that 9/11 either was, or could have been, an inside job to some degree, and we obviously are mad and passionate about it. Does it not make sense that we would also be mad and passionate about the EPA declaring the air "safe to breathe" at the behest of the White House; committing an act of mass manslaughter?

Well actually, in the 9/11 "debunking" world even the EPA's actions are excused!

Back in fact land, 9/11truth.org and others have asked, "If members of this government were willing to knowingly cast aside the wellbeing of tens of thousands of people in favor of 'competing priorities' such as opening Wall Street, what else could be possible?"



Please visit The Feal Good Foundadtion to help. Firefighters for 9/11 Truth are also selling T-Shirts to which all proceeds go to the aid of 9/11 first responders.

Related Info:

Families, First Responders, Survivors Speak Out

Monday, January 26, 2009

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

New A&E FBI Show Portrays 9/11 Truthers As Dope Smoking Terrorists

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, January 19, 2009

A new FBI drama currently showing on A&E portrays 9/11 truthers as dope smoking terrorists in its pilot episode, a ploy made all the more interesting for the fact that A&E is part-owned by Hearst Corporation, which has also attempted to debunk 9/11 truth with savage hit pieces via its subsidiaries The History Channel and Popular Mechanics.

The plot of the show, which stars Patrick Swayze, centers around an attempt to infiltrate a group who are suspected of smuggling Rocket Propelled Grenade launchers into Iraq. In one scene, a member of the group talks with an FBI agent who is operating undercover.

“Are you a truther or a sheep?” the man asks the FBI agent.

He continues, “9/11 was a false flag operation man, wake up, a self-inflicted wound to control the masses, you know there was no planes, all of them were holograms and CGI.”

The man then takes a drag on a marijuana spliff and gives the FBI agent a crazed look.

The insertion of the 9/11 truther caveat in the episode serves no purpose except seemingly to convince the viewer that the man is unstable and dangerous. The mention of CGI and holograms, an obsessive tenet of an extreme fringe that attempted to hijack the 9/11 truth movement a few years ago, also serves only to detract more credibility from the subject.

Watch the clip.



The A&E network, which stands for Arts & Entertainment, is jointly owned by Hearst Corporation (37.5% ownership), The Walt Disney Company (37.5% ownership) and NBC (25% ownership). NBC is owned by General Electric, a major player in the military-industrial complex and a huge benefactor of the 9/11 attacks, which of course could only have resulted in gargantuan profits for military contractors if the official story was upheld.

Hearst Corporation, the founder of which became synonymous with the term “yellow journalism” for his publication of dubious and sensationalized stories, also owns The History Channel and Popular Mechanics magazine, both of which attacked 9/11 truth in separate hit pieces in 2005 and 2007.

A&E also has close ties with the British Broadcasting Corporation, which has also attempted to debunk 9/11 with a series of hit pieces over the last few years.

Portrayals of the 9/11 truth movement in popular culture have manifested with both negative and positive connotations. An episode of South Park satirized truthers but a more recent episode of the firefighter drama Rescue Me showed actor Daniel Sunjata, himself a truther in real life, talking at length and with clarity about issues surrounding 9/11 being an inside job.

The very fact that the 9/11 truth movement has entered into popular culture alone and that giant media corporations and arms of the military-industrial complex are having to go to such lengths in a desperate attempt to debunk questions surrounding the attacks, is proof positive that the movement as a whole has had a significant impact on public consciousness, a fact that debunkers are loathe to admit.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

We Can't "Move Forward" Without Truth and Justice


"I don't believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards... My orientation is going to be to move forward."- President-elect Barack Obama

"If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated."- Presidential candidate Barack Obama

"President-elect Obama and I are not sitting thinking about the past... I think we should be looking forward, not backwards."- Vice President-Elect Joe Biden
"If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued, not out of vengeance, not out of retribution, out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no attorney general, no president -- no one is above the law."- Vice Presidential Candidate Joe Biden

I see two options here...

"Split personality: Multiple personality disorder, a neurosis in which the personality becomes dissociated into two or more distinct parts each of which becomes dominant and controls behavior from time to time to the exclusion of the other parts."

OR...


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I think Biden actually hit the nail on the head when he stated that we need to look into the Bush administration, "not out of vengeance, not out of retribution" but "out of the need to preserve the notion that no one is above the law." Because if we were to apply the logic of their recent statements regarding "moving forward" to murder cases, all murderers would walk free, I mean "sitting thinking about the past" isn't going to bring them back, let's just "look forward as opposed to looking backwards", right?

Even the President-elect's former statement of, "if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated," is ridiculous, IF THERE WERE CRIMES!? This isn't a matter of opinion,
U.S. Congressman John Conyers, Jr wrote a 350 page report detailing the crimes of the Bush Administration, you can read it in its entirety HERE.

As Arianna Huffington, of The Huffington Post, pointed out in her article, Memo to Obama: Moving Forward Doesn't Mean You Can't Also Look Back, Conyers has even proposed a way in which to deal with the content of his report by creating...

"A National Commission on Presidential War Powers and Civil Liberties -- a DC version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission created after the fall of apartheid in South Africa. The new Commission would come with subpoena power, a $3 million budget, and the mandate to investigate a host of issues ranging from Guantanamo, to torture, to extraordinary rendition."

On this past anniversary of the September 11th 2001 terror attacks Congressman Dennis Kucinich proposed a similar Commission in regard to the issues surrounding 9/11 with the...

"Establishment of a National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, which will have the power to compel testimony and gather official documents to reveal to the American people not only the underlying deception which has divided us, but in that process of truth seeking set our nation on a path of reconciliation."

Ironically he titled his webpage speaking of the matter "Remembering 9/11 and Moving Forward."

These two proposals are inescapably intertwined of course, as 9/11 was the foundational event that allowed all of the subsequent abuses. As Steve Watson of the website PrisonPlanet.com pointed out...

"Without 9/11 there would be no “war on terror”.

Without 9/11 there would be no “clash of civilizations”

Without 9/11 there would be no war in Afghanistan.

Without 9/11 there would be no war in Iraq.

Without 9/11 there would be no war in Iran.

Without 9/11 there would be no war in… (insert any country classified as part of the “axis of evil” or defined as being “with the terrorists”)

Without 9/11 thousands of U.S. troops would not have been sent to their deaths.

Without 9/11 hundreds of thousands of citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan would not have been sentenced to their deaths.

Without 9/11 there would be no inaction on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Without 9/11 there would be no civilian contractors in Iraq and the scandal that has followed them would have been averted.

Without 9/11 there would be no false military reporting (Pat Tillman, Jessica Lynch), and no crack down on the freedom of the press (banning photographing the returning coffins).

Without 9/11 there would be no Patriot Act.

Without 9/11 there would be no NSA warrantless wiretapping program.

Without 9/11 there would be no Camp Delta and no Camp X-ray at Guantanamo Bay.

Without 9/11 there would be no Military Commissions Act and no coordinated program of extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention and torture of those defined as “enemy combatants”.

Without 9/11 there would be no vast increase in secrecy and complete militarization of intelligence under the newly created office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Without 9/11 there would not be thousands of dead and dying emergency workers who are suffering crippling and fatal respiratory illnesses.

Without 9/11 there would be no vast increase in military and security spending that goes arm in arm with huge cutbacks in other key social programs (such as levees in New Orleans).

Without 9/11 there would have been no total abandonment of fiscal restraint, which has contributed to plunging the nation into an abyss of debt and looks likely to tip the world into a deep recession if not a complete depression.

And on and on and on.

Perhaps most importantly, without 9/11 there would be no “post 9/11 society/mentality”."

In light of all of these points, how can one argue that it is not imperative that before "moving forward" we ensure it is not on a false premise.

The conflicts of interest of the 9/11 Commission alone bring its conclusions into doubt...

Executive Director Philip Zelikow had "deep, lasting ties to several members of both the Bush I and Bush II administrations," co-authored a book with Condoleeza Rice, was a part of the Bush II transition team, participated in White House briefings on al-Qaeda in 2000 and 2001, and sat on Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

According to an unnamed source on the Commission Zelikow was "calling the shots" and "skewing the investigation and running it his own way."
One of the first Commission members Max Cleland even resigned calling the investigation a "white wash."
This in combination with the aftermath of 9/11 as detailed in Conyers' report should be more than enough to raise legitimate suspicion of complicity for any logical person, not to mention the massive list of reasons to doubt the official story, and those pesky things known as facts.

Obama stated that he did not want his "first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve."

Who cares how Republicans perceive him!? He should care more about how WE THE PEOPLE perceive him. At the same time that George W. Bush first dropped to an approval rating of 28 percent a scientific poll found that 61% of historians rate the Bush Presidency the worst ever. And in 2006 a Zogby poll found that 45% of Americans think "congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the 9/11 attacks."
Truth and reconciliation commissions as the ones proposed above don't even assign blame! What a perfect middle ground right? Politically safe, and all that jazz, I don't prefer it by a long shot, but I, and many others would settle for it. Granted it goes against the previously mentioned example of murderers walking free, but these are issues that are ongoing and global in scope, partial justice in this case means the saving of many lives through policy change. Professor David Ray Griffin recently voiced his support for such a Commission on the Alex Jones radio show...



The people are on Obama's side, history is already on his side, and the facts are on his side, and in light of all of this, the comparatively politically safe option of truth and reconciliation commissions, is even more so. So, unless those with grave doubts about him are correct, I fail to understand why he fails to understand all of this.
However, I hold hope that a failure to understand is the issue.

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Related:



Friday, January 16, 2009

FBI Helps Fight Cynicism Regarding a New 9/11 Investigation


At the risk of boring you with an old saying, I do think that if I had a nickle for every time someone told me that we will never get a real 9/11 investigation, I'd be a rich man. Well, maybe not, since today's dollar is 3 to 4 cents of its 1913 value, but I digress and you get the point. It's not that I don't understand their cynicism concerning a new investigation, I do. Shortly before his death last year, comedian George Carlin summed it up best when he stated...

"They don't investigate themselves in this country - it would be a whitewash, it would be like the Kennedy thing, it would be like everything."

While this statement may turn out to be true, it doesn't have to be a self-fulfilling prophecy either. This brings me to another thing I often hear from people on the other side of this issue, it usually goes something like this...

"There is no way they could get away with such a thing, it's just too big, blah, blah, blah, etc. etc."...

So, let's do an equation...

Cynicism = apathy, (This isn't always the case, but there is another old adage about cynicism breeding apathy, so I rest my case.) and cognitive dissonance = denial, which in the end is the same sum total of apathy, nothing changing! So, cynicism + cognitive dissonance = status quo.

So, I suggest to you that if there was government complicity in 9/11, rogue, or otherwise, they did a similar equation to this and knew that no matter what you thought, their bases were covered. Throw in the 4th branch of the government, AKA the media, and the only thing that could make them lose any sleep is old Jiminy Cricket, but they would have killed that little green bastard years ago!

Now consider this, if you asked a cynic about this issue whether they thought that a letter to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller would yield any positive results, what would they tell you? I'm guessing the common consensus would be that such a letter would result in a form letter response. I must admit, I can't say I'd be much more hopeful myself, but true cynicism would never allow the letter to be sent in the first place.

However, when Harold Saive the founder of Gators911Truth.org recently wrote Mr. Mueller a letter referencing the work of Richard Gage, the founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, he received an interesting response. Mueller did not personally respond, however Michael J. Heimbach the Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division did. Heimbach stated that, "Mr. Gage presents an interesting theory, backed by thorough research and analysis," after which he promised that case agents would investigate further and make an unbiased decision. Further stating that, Mr. Saive's, "observations and concerns have not gone unheeded."

So, ask yourself, why didn't Michael J. Heimbach send a form letter back in response? Well, I may be going out on a limb here, but I think it just might be that "Mr. Gage presents an interesting theory, backed by thorough research and analysis!" Of course the "debunkers" disagee, they think that "Gage really is no different from David Ray Griffin, a popularizer of other people's "work" who contributes little (beyond that "AIA" after his name)".

I'm actually gonna have to go with the FBI on this one.

So, in conclusion, don't give into cynicism, use the resources below and get involved!
911proof.com - Now What?
911truth.org: GET INVOLVED
TruthAction.org - What You Can Do
NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative
Citizens' Action: 9/11 Petitions
The Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth Petition
Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth - Action Items
Take a Stand for 9/11 Truth
Hitting the Streets With 9/11 Truth
Get Free Copies of the Rock Creek Free Press for Your 9/11 Truth Group
911courage.org
911blacklist.org
TruthMove.org
Truther.org
Meet The Truthers
WeAreChange.org
We Are Change Indy
IndyTruth.org Action Center
Peace Action
FealGood Foundation
REAL CHANGE = THE PROGRESSIVE MANIFESTO

Related:

Architect Richard Gage Thanks FBI for Endorsing 9/11 Evidence
Richard Gage, AIA Publicly Thanks FBI for Endorsement of 'Controlled Demolition' Analysis - bin Laden Still Not 'Wanted' for 9/11

AmBushed by Conspirituality

DjBall
January 15, 2009
YouTube.com

Vancouver911Truth.org - Conspirituality: BRINGING A WHOLE NEW LEVEL TO TRUTH
http://www.conspirituality.com
www.myspace.com/djball1

* No Puppets were injured in this video *

Directed By D.J BALL and JMO,

During his 8 years of terror,
President Bush launched an illegal war based on lies, killing an estimated million Iraqi's and thousands of his own soldiers.
His Administration committed multiple war crimes
violating the Geneva Conventions, United Nation Torture and International law, destroyed the Constitution, stonewalled and refused to testify under oath to the 911 commission, grossly abandoned Hurricane Katrina victims, destroyed the economy and robbed the treasury on his way out the door.
President Obama MUST assign a special prosecutor to investigate torture crimes or further tarnish America's reputation.
Waiting for the International Community to prosecute is not good enough.
The law is clear on this no matter what lawyer you find to write you an opinion stating otherwise.
Illegally invading a nation based on lies is beyond reprehensible.
Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Powell and Rice belong in prison for lying to go to war and mass murder...



(Extra back-up for the claims made have been added in the form of hyperlinks)

Monday, January 12, 2009

9/11 Truthers or Twoofers? You Decide...

By: FaithMichaels and John-Michael P. Talboo

Ever since people started questioning the facts about 9/11 they have encountered huge resistance from others. It is almost like people do not want to know the truth. It is like they are angry at us for not just swallowing down the official story and going along. They seem to be very upset that we dared to say "wait a minute" the story you are telling me does not match the evidence on the scene, or their own recorded facts of the incident. The official explanation does not add up when one starts looking at scientific and historical facts. The official government 9/11 committee's "facts" do not match a vast number of experts in the field; experts like architects, engineers, firefighters, and people who do demolition for a living. The 9/11 truthers have been insulted with repeated ad hominem attacks, told to go and take our medications, verbally threatened, called conspiracy nuts, kooks, etc. and cussed at.

Recently, Debunking the Debunkers blog contributor Stewart Bradley compiled various videos made by "debunkers" in an attempt to showcase their lack of lack of eloquence, venomous nature, and dependence on a priori objections and fallacious arguments. Sadly, and hilariously, they didn't get it. Upon finding and reposting Stewart's video, Pat Curley, of the "debunking" blog Screw Loose Change, commented that, "The best part is that the guy who put it together is a Troofer!" Of course "troofer," or "twoofer" is a derogatory term akin to calling someone a conspiracy nut, so right off the bat, Pat had proven Stewart's point! Instead of denouncing the people in the video for their lack of intelligent discourse, or proclaiming them to be the lowest common denominator of the "debunking" world, they were instead proud. The calls in the video for people to "put a bullet to their head" and "just kill yourself please" were not even decried. No, these people were apparently considered brethren of the highest order.

Surely Pat did not think it was funny when British man Kevin Whitrick hung himself live on the internet with 100 chatroom users watching, with one commenting “Fucking do it. Get on with it.” Who is to say some disturbed person doesn't take the advice offered in the "debunking" video? Granted, these are very different scenarios, but telling people that they should kill themselves isn't funny, or admirable, period.

After being shown that his video had been posted on the Screw Loose Change blog Stewart noted that, "They don't even get that the video is mocking them! One guy even posted that I don't understand irony. Don't that beat all!"

None of this is to say that members of the 9/11 truth movement, or this blog, always conduct themselves in the most saintly of ways. However, there is a difference between the proverbial straw that broke the camels back, and having one's modus operandi consist of flinging around insults. To put it another way, how many hundreds of "troofers" equals one "fuck you"?

After all, we are all conspiracy theorists when it comes to this issue, this fact is solidly demonstrated in the introduction to Professor David Ray Griffin's book, "Debunking 9/11 Debunking", in an essay entitled, Conspiracy Theories, General, Rational, and Irrational. It is pointed out for instance that when Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive, began his essay Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracies, Already by stating:

"Here's what the conspiracists believe: 9/11 was an inside job. Members of the Bush Administration ordered it, not
Osama bin Laden. Arab hijackers may not have done the deed... [T]he Twin Towers fell not because of the impact of the planes and the ensuing fires but because [of] explosives.... I'm amazed at how many people give credence to these theories."

He did not have a paragraph saying:

Here's what the government's conspiracists believe: 19 hijackers with box-cutters defeated the most sophisticated defense system in history. Hani Hanjour who could barely fly a Piper Cub, flew an astounding trajectory to crash Flight 77 into the Pentagon, the most well-protected building on earth. Other hijacker pilots, by flying planes into two buildings of the World Trade Center, caused three of them to collapse straight down, totally, and at virtually free-fall speed.... I'm amazed at how many people give credence to these theories."

We have been told that the "burden of proof" is on our side. Yet no matter how many testimonies we provide, no matter how much evidence we collect, no matter how many documentaries are made showing that people in power KNEW months and even years before , or how many "smoking guns" are collected, compiled and presented , 9/11 Truthers are still told " it is not enough evidence." OK, then how much evidence do we need and what kind of evidence would matter? There is more than enough evidence to raise reasonable doubt here already. People have been arrested and thrown in jail on far less facts than these. Guantanamo Bay was full of people who were arrested, kept in prison and tortured on way less evidence than what has been collected from 9/11 families and truthers. Murder cases have been thrown out of court and known rapists have walked free, on way less reasonable doubt evidence than what 9/11 truthers have put together. People have been convicted and sentenced to death and executed on way less evidence than the 9/11 truthers have collected. So again we ask: how much evidence will be enough to open a new 9/11 investigation? The people who verbally attack us, harass us, stalk us through-out the internet, will not tell us the answer to that question. It seems that all they have as an answer is to name call and try to cast doubt as to our sanity. What they are trying to do is cast doubt as to our credibility. Indeed that seems to be ALL they have to work with.

The people who question our sanity, our patriotism, etc. are the ones foaming at the mouth, spitting in your face, getting in your face, pointing fingers, using foul language, name calling, character assassinating and trying to push a person beyond any normal human tolerance level with actions and language that would test and sorely try the patience of even Mother Teresa.

These people behave like cyber bullies. They come to our blog site, YouTube channel, read?, and leave childish and foul profane insults. They behave in a complete out of control manner and appear to be people with deep anger issues. They speak as if they have no morals, no ethics, no home training, no compassion, and seem unable to have an intelligent fact-filled debate, or leave a sane comment.

All we have ever said is that there is enough evidence that counters the official story to open a new 9/11 investigation. One would have thought that we had asked for something sociably reprehensible and unforgivable.

These cyber bullies crawled out from under whatever cyber rock they were hiding and commenced to demonize, harass, and internet stalk anyone who dared to question our government's official party line.

They have been soooo dedicated to this demonizing, that one can't help but to wonder about THEIR sanity. Or to wonder; who are these people and if they are a tool of the government propaganda machine? They can't be "normal people" "normal people" do not behave this way, do they? Is this what happens to everybody who dares to question?

Look back in history; how many times have people been rejected and tormented by the "public perception of the world of the times" and official government ideology of the times"? Many of these people are well known. The name list includes; Einstein, Newton, Galileo, Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, etc.

Were our Founding Fathers called kooks, insane, etc. by the people of their times? What say you Mark Twain?

"In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." - Mark Twain

History has proven the above named people correct, and we believe that history will also prove the 9/11 truthers to be correct as well. We believe that it will show the 9/11 truthers to be true patriots, who helped to keep the Founding Fathers dream of this Republic and the people's dream of freedom and liberty alive and well for our children's children to enjoy.

History will show the governmental propaganda, party-line, fanatics to be just that, fanatics and spin-doctor propaganda people, that attempted to hide and distort the truth.

If you care about this country, if you just want to shut us truthers up, then give us a new investigation into 9/11. Of course Pat Curley of the ScrewLooseChange blog doesn't think it will result in us calling it a day, as he states, "the problem with the 'we just want a new investigation' people" is that, "Any new investigation will come to virtually the same conclusions as the original investigations, and the Troofers will yell "coverup" again. There may be some minor changes; a new investigation might come down a little harder on Bush and Tenet, but of course that will not be enough to satisfy 99% of the movement."

However, if we were to have a new investigation into 9/11 and the Bush administration by a panel of independent, non-government appointed experts, as opposed to the Bush administration investigating itself, we are positive his figure of 99% is a farce.

After all, the investigation was compromised with Executive Director Philip Zelikow having "deep, lasting ties to several members of both the Bush I and Bush II administrations." Not to mention the fact that he had co-authored a book with Condoleeza Rice, was a part of the Bush II transition team, participated in White House briefings on al-Qaeda in 2000 and 2001, and sat on Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

According to an unnamed source on the Commission Zelikow was "calling the shots" and "skewing the investigation and running it his own way." If these are not the epitome of a conflict of interest, then we are truly living in a comic book bizzaro world.

Even one of the first commission members, Max Cleland, resigned and called the investigation a "white wash."

We believe the only reason the government would not support and help institute a new independent investigation, is that they fear there is a strong possibility that the truthers have a lot of things correct regarding the happenings on 9/11.

If you are new to this please research both sides of this matter for yourself. If it is more research than you want to do/or is overwhelming and TMI, consider this: If the governments official explanation of 9/11 is the "truth" then the Bush administration at best is guilty of gross negligence; at worst it is guilty of treason and war-crimes. Perhaps it was Bush and his administration, or a rogue element within our government that needs to be exposed and rendered incapable of enabling and enacting these human atrocities ever again, perhaps none of the above, but we need a new 9/11 investigation to find out.

Pat can rest assured that we are not as concerned about being right as he thinks we are however, as the semi-serious book "The A-Z of Conspiracy Theories by Kate Tuckett" points out:

Of course, one can argue that obsession with conspiracy theories serves only to demonstrate the lunatic paranoia running rife in the twentieth century. Much talk about conspiracies is dismissed as paranoia and much of it is paranoia. But in reality, history has proved all too well that politicians lie, presidents lie and bureaucrats lie. Almost everyone lies to a degree. If we continue to be gullible and believe everything that is presented to us, the truth never comes out. It becomes not only interesting and revealing but an absolute priority to question authority and question the authoritarians.

Related Info:

Truther.org

Meet The Truthers

Truther Long Before It Was Cool

Give us a new Independent Investigation

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Face off with the Debunkers, Part 2 - Ryan Owens

I first learned of Ryan Owens work from critics of my own videos who would say things like,"All your Twoofer nonsense has already been busted by RKOwens4." So over several months I began watching his work finding many factual errors, unfounded speculation, and deceptive misrepresentations of 9/11 research. After watching his "Top 7 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Debunked in under 1 minute" I decided to respond to his claims with a video of my own. Ryan Owens contacted me shortly after I posted the video and began the exchange that follows:

Stewart Bradley:
Thanks for responding. First, I hope you aren't offended by my response to your video. I have been a subscriber of yours for a while and have watched most of your videos, so I know you are very knowledgeable about 9/11 and are one of the most popular debunkers on YouTube. Although I don't agree with some of your arguments and conclusions, I do have a sincere respect for you, and hoped we could have an open and honest exchange of ideas here.

A little about myself; I've been researching "deep politics" as a freelance journalist/ film maker for about 20 years following the work of people like James Bamford, Peter Dale Scott, Jim Marrs, and Gary Webb. In my 7 years investigation of the 9/11 attack I believe there is significant evidence of an LIHOP operation involving a handful of Bush administration officials. I also think there are enough anomalies concerning the collapse of the WTC buildings and the Pentagon crash to merit further investigation, but I try to focus in the questionable actions of key Bush officials as the most compelling argument to reopen the 9/11 case. This is laid out in the video "9/11 Cheney Connection" which I will attach. This is just the rough version, I already know of a few minor details that need to be clarified, but I'd be very interested to hear your take on it.

You may find it ironic, but I do appreciate your videos because I agree that there are WAY too many ridiculous claims and misinformation about 9/11. When these "Truthers" exaggerate and speculate it destroys their own credibility. But I must take exception with your portrayal of ALL 9/11 research as false, and all Truthers as either liars or nuts. There are many of us who take this subject very seriously and work very hard to separate the facts from the deceptions. We are genuinely concerned that we have not been told the truth about 9/11 and we want to, as you say,"save the historical accuracy of 9/11."

I do not doubt you have the best of intentions in trying to expose the errors in 9/11 theories, but I do find some of your arguments mis-repesent the claims of legitimate researchers and will jump to your own simplistic conclusions that do not match all the facts. Many of the sources you quote I would consider to be biased, other times I have to wonder what your sources are because they aren't listed. 9/11 is a complicated and emotional subject. I know how difficult it can be to remain impartial when presented with information that we do not want to believe.

So I hope you don't take it personally if I critique your work. I do promise to be fair and constructive because I'm sure you would do the same for my research. Even if we may disagree I hope we can maintain a civil debate. And my super quick response to the "Top 7 Theories" - nobody's perfect. We can only do the best with what we have. Right?

Ryan Owens:
You say that some of my arguments mis-represent the claims of legitimate researchers. Could you tell me exactly how this is so? I know there are many bizarre theories out there that the majority of 9/11 truthers don't subscribe to, like the no-plane theories or the "death ray from outer space" theory which Jim Fetzer and Judy Wood push. But I choose not to waste my time on these theories since they aren't representative of the mainsteam truth movement in the first place. If I made videos saying that the majority of truthers believe all videos of the planes hitting the World Trade Center were faked and/or mini-nukes took down the towers, then that would be misrepresenting truthers. But how am I misrepresenting anything?

Anyhow, what do you think is the strongest piece of evidence that 9/11 was an inside job (or that it was allowed to happen)?

SB:
Thanks for writing back. I'll try to keep this short and direct.
In reference to mis-representing Truther claims, I'm referring to things like "no 93 wreckage found, WTC at 75% tenancy, calling 77 pilot Burlingame a terrorist, flight 93 lands in Chicago, and other things I have never heard from my fellow researchers. I don't doubt that there may some misguided people out there making such claims, but I wouldn't consider these common Truther beliefs.

I am more concerned about when your conclusions contradict the facts. Just a few examples that I have recently spotted: In your "No Free fall Speed" video you claim South Tower collapse time at 15.28 and North Tower at 22.02. This conflicts with NIST's findings.

Section 6 states - "NIST estimated the elapsed times for the first exterior panels to strike the ground after the collapse initiated in each of the towers to be approximately 11 seconds for WTC 1 and approximately 9 seconds for WTC 2. These elapsed times were based on: (1) precise timing of the initiation of collapse from video evidence, and (2) ground motion (seismic) signals recorded at Palisades, N.Y., that also were precisely time-calibrated for wave transmission times from lower Manhattan (see NCSTAR 1-5A)"

Apparently they found your method of timing inaccurate saying,"Neither the duration of the seismic records nor video evidence (due to obstruction of view caused by debris clouds) are reliable indicators of the total time it took for each building to collapse completely."

I sympathize with you because I have also found NIST's findings to be wrong in many ways, but if you disagree with NIST's collapse times you should have attributed these times to NIST and not just Rosie O'Donnel.

And from videos like "Molten Metal Explained" and "No Pools of Molten Metal" you claim that the there was no molten steel, just molten aluminum. But I have never heard you address the WPI metallurgical study of WTC steel done for the FEMA investigation, which indeed found steel had melted by eutectic reactions, which caused "intergranular melting capable of turning a solid steel girder into Swiss cheese." I can't fault you for not knowing about the study because FEMA buried it in appendix C of their final report and NIST totally ignored it, but you can read it here.

You argue against the evidence of controlled demolitions because you couldn't hear explosioins. Yet both the WPI tests of WTC steel and Lioy tests of dust samples point to aluminothermic arson. True, while low-tech thermite would not account for the violent reaction seen in WTC, various engineered forms of aluminothermic materials have explosive power WITHOUT THE NOISE of conventional explosives. These are called energetic nanocomposites or metastable intermolecular composites.

But the strongest evidence I cite is the 4 fold;
1. Evidence the Bush administration planned before 9/11 to invade Afghanistan in October
yet lacked permission ( justification ) from public or Congress for any military action,

2. Evidence of ignored 9/11 warnings and obstruction of FBI investigations,

3. Evidence of NORAD obstruction and official misconduct,

4. Evidence of blocked 9/11 investigations and manipulation of 9/11 Commission.

I have no doubt that you would consider many of these websites biased, but please check their source links to confirm their validity. I am not suggesting that the Bush administration was involved in the planning of the attack, but when you consider the overwhelming amount of evidence it is difficult to escape the conclusion of Bush administration complicity. I suspect this notion may conflict with your ideology, but I hope you try to remain impartial and give this case a fair assessment.

I am also attaching a video below that conflicts with your information. Out of curiosity, how much of your research are you getting from sites like 911myths.com, wtc7lies.googlepages.com, or debunking911.com? I am not judging a bias here, I get a great deal of my information from 911research.wtc7.net and books by David Ray Griffin. It is difficult to find truly impartial sources so we can only try our best to stay true to the facts.

RO:
1.) Neither of the NIST reports, the one on the Twin Towers or the most recent one on WTC7, provides a detailed timeline for the collapse of the Twin Towers. You quote them on a comment in their FAQ section about the time it took for the first PANEL to hit the ground. No one is going to dispute that the panels fell at free-fall speed. Of course they did. But the building itself it another matter. However, this is much more tricky since dust and falling debris obscures the view of the buildings at about 11.5 seconds - in both instances. This is one reason the NIST report doesn't time the collapses. I don't pretend that my estimation is the official timeline for the collapse, but watch the videos and judge for yourself based on audio as well as the fact that huge portions of the towers are clearly still intact at 11.5 seconds (30 floors for WTC2, about 45 for WTC1). 11.5 itself is not free-fall speed, and even that's ignoring the fact that the collapse clearly isn't complete at 11.5 seconds.

SB:
"I sympathize with you because I have also found NIST's findings to be wrong in many ways, but if you disagree with NIST's collapse times you should have attributed these times to NIST and not just Rosie O'Donnell." (last post)

I should clarify my disagreement with your "No Free fall Speed" video:
You start by saying "...conspiracy theorists claim the World Trade Center towers collapsed at free-fall speed." Although the careful Truther will usually specify "almost free-fall speed" if they pay attention to the details. But then you back this up with a clip of Rosie O'Donnell saying "9 seconds".

I feel that this is misleading the viewer to assume that it was the conspiracy theorists who created this claim when the collapse time was based on NIST's estimates. You are absolutely correct that NIST does not provide a detailed timeline, which they should have, but the FAQ section supporting these collapse times is NIST's approved product.

Page 305 of the Kean Commission report also states,"At 9:58:59, the South Tower collapsed in ten seconds". It is not just conspiracy theorists who claim the "almost free-fall speed" collapse time, but it is promoted by the official investigations as well.

So when you attack the claim in your video, you are attacking the findings of NIST while only damaging the credibility of conspiracy theorists. This may seem a minor and petty point, but little details like this do influence your viewers opinion of Truthers as being deceptive, yet NIST and the official account as being trustworthy. And let's be honest here, influencing viewers opinions are what most political videos are about.

To your credit, I don't disagree that your total collapse times are more accurate than NIST's estimation, although you avoid the same question that NIST avoided in their FAQs. In stead of asking why the towers collapsed at "nearly free-fall speed?", the more relevant question is "why did the intact floors below the collapse offer little more resistance than thin air?" This is what defies both the law of "Conservation of Momentum" and Conservation of Energy."

Simply put, it is physically impossible for a "gravitational collapse" to proceed through so many undamaged stories below the impact zone, the path of maximum resistance, in anywhere near the same amount of time as it takes to free-fall from the same height.

It's an argument I'm sure you've heard before, but I have yet to see this adequately explained by either NIST or debunking videos. If have any, or know of any, I would be very interested in seeing them, but I still believe the LIHOP case to be the strongest evidence of complicity.

RO:
What is the Kean Commission? Do you mean the 9/11 Commission? (I had someone at Ground Zero say this. Maybe he was changing its name to make it sound less credible.) If so, this is not an engineering report. It did absolutely no investigation into the engineering aspects of the World Trade Center (that job was given to NIST, which published its first report a little over a year later). Anyone who watches the videos can see that neither building collapsed in 10 seconds. 10 seconds in the context of a political report is an anecdotal term. TV documentaries on 9/11 also often say 10 seconds, but these are not engineering reports.

For the last time, NIST does not suggest that the towers fell at free-fall speed. It says that the free-falling panels fell at free-fall speed, not the buildings themselves. The recent final report on WTC7 does provide a detailed timeline of the collapse for WTC7 and found that it didn't collapse at free-fall speed. The same report also times a part of the collapse of the North Tower, but the latest timing into its collapse is at 14 seconds, when the height of the part of the building remaining intact is level to the height of the roof of WTC7. (It gets too difficult to see after this point.) In other words, you can say that the official timeline for the collapse of one of the Twin Towers (WTC1) is at least 14 seconds, but likely well over that since roughly 47 floors are still intact.

Also, 15-20 seconds might still seem faster than expected, but you have to look at the unique design of the Twin Towers and the way they collapsed. The buildings were a tube in a tube design, with no columns anywhere throughout the floors themselves other than the core and perimeter columns. When the floors collapsed, they pancaked (don't confuse pancake collapse with pancake theory, which was rejected). The cores in both cases mostly remained standing, and the perimeter columns mostly peeled outward like banana peelings, to the SIDE of the pancaking floors, rather than UNDER them. Because there were no columns under the actual floor slabs, they probably collapsed faster than they would if the building was a more traditional design. Still, 15-20 seconds is NOT free-fall speed!

SB:
Again from my last post- "To your credit, I don't disagree that your total collapse times are more accurate than NIST's estimation, although you avoid the same question that NIST avoided in their FAQs."

Yes, by Kean Commission I refer to the 9/11 Commission Chaired by Thomas Kean. Did you really not know that?

As I already said, I do not contest that your estimate of 15-20 seconds is more accurate than NIST's often repeated claim of about 10 seconds, but 15-20 seconds is still to fast to account for the laws of "Conservation of Momentum" and Conservation of Energy. I would like to learn more about your theory that the perimeter columns peeled out leaving the core "mostly standing". Can you source that for me so I can see the calculations that explain this. If what you say is true then this building design lacked any safety redundancies and would never have passed NY building safety codes.

But I am willing to cede to you the WTC building collapse completely to focus on the LIHOP case that you still have not addressed. Fair enough?

RO:
I know who Thomas Kean is, but the name of the commission is the 9/11 Commission. I think that truthers think they can make the report sound less credible by calling it something like the Kean Commission. Bizarre, really. And pointless. Call it what it's called.

I've told you this three times already, and you keep ignoring it. Ready for a fourth time? Here we go! The NIST report did not conclude that the buildings fell in 11 seconds, only that it took 11 seconds for the free-falling panels to begin hitting the ground. (The building itself, according to the NIST report, took well over 14 seconds.) You do know the difference between panels (debris) and the building, right? If so, why do you keep confusing the two? Is it intentional? Deliberate? Are we going to have to go over this a fifth time?

The building did not fail to meet NY safety codes at all. No building in the world, either in the 1960s when the towers began construction or even today, is required to be able to withstand the impact of a jetliner. Yet, the WTC was designed for this anyway and withstood the impacts of the jetliners (travelling faster than even designed for) remarkably well, saving tens of thousands of lives. Any other building probably wouldn't have been able to withstand the impact and would have collapsed instantly. The World Trade Center went ABOVE AND BEYOND the code, so don't say they failed to meet basic standards. You have no idea what you're talking about. Name one thing about the World Trade Center which was below code. (You made this claim and gave no specific example, implying that just because it collapsed it was below code.) The Titanic went above all codes (by far) and still sank. It's fine if you want to believe LIHOP, since we can only speculate rather than prove or disprove it one way or the other.

SB:
Look Ryan, I am not trying to fight with you here but you seem stuck on this point.
I have already told you twice that I agree that your estimates of the tower collapse are more accurate. Get it, I agree with you on that.

And I asked very politely for some source information on your "banana peel" theory because it was a theory I had not seen and want to know more about. I'm not above the idea that I have overlooked something in the towers design and want to know how this theory explains what happened. Do you have a source that I can study?

The source I used to study the collapse was mechanical engineer Gordon Ross who calculated both the velocity (8.5 meters per second) and the kinetic energy (2.1 GJ) of the 16 upper floors after falling a story (3.7 meters), Ross concluded that the impact would absorb so much energy that "vertical movement of the falling section would be arrested within 0.02 seconds after impact".

I said I would give up the WTC argument completely to talk about the LIHOP evidence. All the elements of a criminal case; motive, opportunity, and evidence, are there. If you don't think so, can you please tell me why? That's what I'm asking.

I hoped we could have a civil and constructive discussion here. If you don't want to discuss the LIHOP case, fine, just say so and we can move onto other topics like the WPI study proving molten steel.

No response from Ryan Owens.

SB:
Again, I do hate to be a bother but since you are one of the most respected debunkers on YouTube, I really wanted your take on the LIHOP case. Thanks!

End of messages and again a complete refusal by a "debunking expert" to acknowledge the LIHOP case.

Thanks to JMT for all his inspiration and support...... Stewart Bradley

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Saturday, January 10, 2009

Give us a new Independent Investigation



Did you know that according to a scientific poll conducted in 2007 that 51% of Americans support a new investigation?

Left gatekeepers and "debunkers" have done everything they can to stop the research into 9/11 and discredit our motives. We have been called crazy, told to get a life, etc. Guess what, I have a life.

Here is what Vice President Joe Biden had to say about cover-ups:

It will take time, and we are NOT going away, nor will we be silent!

George Carlin took time at a book signing to give his opinion on 9/11:


George did not believe that we would EVER get the Truth from them investigating themselves.Yet that is what they did to come up with the Official story. I agree with George regarding this statement. Oh and just for the record: I have a FULL life, kids who are teenagers, home schooled, I help care for an aging parent, have a JOB, pay my taxes and vote. I do not do drugs, am on NO medications, and rarely drink. I am a Mom who refuses to sit idly by and watch, while the sacrifices won in Blood, for the freedoms of this country, go up in the Twin Towers and Building Seven demolition smoke. Use the resources below and get involved!

911proof.com - Now What?
911truth.org: GET INVOLVED
TruthAction.org - What You Can Do
NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative
Citizens' Action: 9/11 Petitions
The Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth Petition
Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth - Action Items
Take a Stand for 9/11 Truth
Hitting the Streets With 9/11 Truth
Get Free Copies of the Rock Creek Free Press for Your 9/11 Truth Group
911courage.org
911blacklist.org
TruthMove.org
Truther.org
Meet The Truthers
WeAreChange.org
We Are Change Indy
IndyTruth.org Action Center
Peace Action
FealGood Foundation
REAL CHANGE = THE PROGRESSIVE MANIFESTO

Thursday, January 8, 2009

A rare peek at Homeland Security's files on travelers


 
Is this useful information, or a waste of time?

travel.yahoo.com
By Sean O'Neill

I had requested the files after I had heard that the government tracks "passenger activity." Starting in the mid-1990s, many airlines handed over passenger records. Since 2002, the government has mandated that the commercial airlines deliver this information routinely and electronically.

A passenger record typically includes the name of the person traveling, the name of the person who submitted the information while arranging the trip, and details about how the ticket was bought, according to documents published by the Department of Homeland Security. Records are made for citizens and non-citizens who cross our borders. An agent from U.S. Customs and Border Protection can generate a travel history for any traveler with a few keystrokes on a computer. Officials use the information to prevent terrorism, acts of organized crime, and other illegal activity.

I had been curious about what's in my travel dossier, so I made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for a copy.

My biggest surprise was that the Internet Protocol (I.P.) address of the computer used to buy my tickets via a Web agency was noted. On the first document image posted here, I've circled in red the I.P. address of the computer used to buy my pair of airline tickets.

(An I.P. address is assigned to every computer on the Internet. Each time that computer sends an e-mail—or is used to make a purchase via a Web browser — it has to reveal its I.P. address, which tells its geographic location.)

The rest of my file contained details about my ticketed itineraries, the amount I paid for tickets, and the airports I passed through overseas. My credit card number was not listed, nor were any hotels I've visited. In two cases, the basic identifying information about my traveling companion (whose ticket was part of the same purchase as mine) was included in the file. Perhaps that information was included by mistake.

Some sections of my documents were blacked out by an official. Presumably, this information contains material that is classified because it would reveal the inner workings of law enforcement.

Here's the lowdown on the records.

The commercial airlines send these passenger records to Customs and Border Protection, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security. Computers match the information with the databases of federal departments, such as Treasury, Agriculture, and Homeland Security. Computers uncover links between known and previously unidentified terrorists or terrorist suspects, as well as suspicious or irregular travel patterns. Some of this information comes from foreign governments and law enforcement agencies. The data is also crosschecked with American state and local law enforcement agencies, which are tracking persons who have warrants out for their arrest or who are under restraining orders. The data is used not only to fight terrorism but also to prevent and combat acts of organized crime and other illegal activity.

Officials use the information to help decide if a passenger needs to have additional screening. Case in point: After overseas trips, I've stood in lines at U.S. border checkpoints and had my passport swiped and my electronic file examined. A few times, something in my record has prompted officers to pull me over to a side room, where I have been asked additional questions. Sometimes I've had to clarify a missing middle initial. Other times, I have been referred to a secondary examination. (I've blogged about this before.)

When did this electronic data collection start? In 1999, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (then known as the U.S. Customs Service) began receiving passenger identification information electronically from certain air carriers on a voluntary basis, though some paper records were shared prior to that. A mandatory, automated program began about 6 years ago. Congress funds this Automated Targeting System's Passenger Screening Program to the tune of about $30 million a year.

How safe is your information? Regulations prohibit officials from sharing the records of any traveler — or the government's risk assessment of any traveler — with airlines or private companies. A record is kept for 15 years—unless it is linked to an investigation, in which case it can be kept indefinitely. Agency computers do not encrypt the data, but officials insist that other measures — both physical and electronic — safeguard our records.

I wonder if the government's data collecting is relevant and necessary to accomplish the agency's purpose in protecting our borders. The volume of data collected, and the rate at which the records is growing and being shared with officials nationwide, suggests that the potential for misuse could soar out of hand. Others may wonder if the efforts are effective. For instance, I asked security expert Bruce Schneier Schneider about the Feds' efforts to track passenger activity, and he responded by e-mail:

"I think it's a waste of time. There's this myth that we can pick terrorists out of the crowd if we only knew more information."

On the other hand, some people may find it reassuring that the government is using technology to keep our borders safe.

Oh, one more thing: Are your records worth seeing? Maybe not, unless you've been experiencing a problem crossing our nation's borders. For one thing, the records are a bit dull. In my file, for instance, officials had blacked out the (presumably) most fascinating parts, which were about how officials assessed my risk profile. What's more, the records are mainly limited to information that airline and passport control officials have collected, so you probably won't be surprised by anything you read in them. Lastly, there may be a cost. While there was no charge to me when I requested my records, you might charged a fee of up to $50 if there is difficulty in obtaining your records. Of course, there's a cost to taxpayers and to our nation's security resources whenever a request is filed, too.

However, if you are being detained at the border or if you suspect a problem with your records, then by all means request a copy. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is required by law to make your records available to you, with some exceptions. Your request must be made in writing on paper and be signed by you. Ask to see the "information relating to me in the Automated Targeting System." Say that your request is "made pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, as amended (5 U.S.C. 552)." Add that you wish to have a copy of your records made and mailed to you without first inspecting them. Your letter should, obviously, give reasonably sufficient detail to enable an official to find your record. So supply your passport number and mailing address. Put a date on your letter and make a copy for your own records. On your envelope, you should conspicuously print the words “FOIA Request." It should be addressed to “Freedom of Information Act Request,” U.S. Customs Service, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20229. Be patient. I had wait for up to a year to receive a copy of my records. Then if you believe there's an error in your record, ask for a correction by writing a letter to the Customer Satisfaction Unit, Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Room 5.5C, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20229

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