Check Out NO LIES NEWS, My New Headline News Show on Pacifica
Please tune in to my new five-minute news headline show on No Lies Radio, a Pacifica Radio Network affiliate. "No Lies News" will be on seven days a week, eight times a day, and will be updated daily (well, five to seven times a week) to offer a 9/11 truth perspective on the latest headlines, spiced with the kind of offbeat humor that makes it all bearable.
Pacifica is the leading American left/alternative network, and No Lies Radio features Democracy Now, Free Speech Radio News, and 9/11 truth teach-in and music programming. No Lies News will be available for syndication to Pacifica stations around the country---please contact yours and urge them to carry it!
No Lies News runs every day, Monday thru Sunday (all times given are Pacific Time):
455 am
655 am
855 am
255 pm
455 pm
555 pm
755 pm
955 pm
To listen to the first episode, go to: http://noliesradio.org/
This is a different kind of show and audience from my talk shows on RBN, GCN, and WTPRN: http://www.mujca.com/airwaves.htm
Should be fun! Let me know what you think of the first episode (kevin@mujca.com).
When Pacifica starts sponsoring this kind of programming, you know the 9/11 truth movement is making headway!
- Kevin Barrett's blog
- Login to post comments
the schedule is Pacifica time, i.e. Pacific Time!
Since all my other shows are scheduled according to Central Time I thought I should mention that.
Also, I'd like to get more call-ins on my GCN show that runs Mondays and Fridays 4-6 pm. So from now until further notice if you call into those shows with a reasonable comment or question, I'll send you a free DVD of my latest half-hour interview on the local CBS affiliate (it's not available anywhere else) plus a free 9/11 truth music CD. The interview was broadcast on December 12th, 2007 and has not yet been seen by truthers, except perhaps a few who live in Madison. It's another amazingly balanced interview--hard to believe it was broadcast on mainstream American television.
So if you want that stuff, or even if you don't, call in to GCN at 866-582-9933 Monday or Friday 4:20-6 pm CT. Then email me your address: kevin@mujca.com
Recommended reading
Morgan Reynolds and Kevin Barrett at Wisconsin 9/11 conf
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp98T8rOcPs
"Morgan is a provateur in a good sense, speaking the truth in a full frontal kind of way, and some people just can't handle that"
"alleged plane hits on the Twin Towers"
"it's not that big a deal in terms of how the illusions of suicide hijackings were created"
More Ad-Hominem Attacks from People Who Won't Debate
Victronix, like Mark Roberts and screwloosechange, has apparently spent an amazing amount of time poring over my thousands of hours of talk radio and dvd lectures, and my hundreds of written publications, in search of the very few lines she can take out of context to attack me with.
Her postings on my blog are always ad-hominem attacks. They are never directed at the contents of the blog entry itself. 911blogger needs to have a policy against inappropriate comments and ad-hominem attacks, and repeat offenders like Victronix should be notified that further infractions will get them banned.
I have invited Victronix and her associate Jim Hoffman to discuss our differences of opinion civilly on the radio, and have always been refused. I renew my invitation for a civil, constructive radio discussion of the "big tent approach" (civility & fraternal feeling towards all pro-truth voices) that I advocate and Victronix opposes.
I agree, there are several posters on here
whom will desperately try to discredit someone for even the slightest slip up of any kind, they will ignore the 100s of hours of debate, the 1000s of pages of material that is all good and harp on one sentence or hell in the case of "Zionism" just one word.
Now personally I find it a bit odd that you associate with the likes of Fetzer but I don't know the situation so i don't raze you about it.
Other than that I fail to see why these cretins continuously attack you, you seem to be doing a lot of good for the 9/11 truth movement.
As for "banning" people, personally I find that as childish as I do those that constantly attack people for no reason.
I don't think anyone should be banned unless its just obvious spam from porn sites or other such manure, but opinions should not be banned from the site I think the system here works fine.
Where a post will be hidden once enough people vote it down which I am sure this post will be simply because I mostly agree with you.
I will be listening to your show.
Stongly disagree.
"The "big tent approach" (civility & fraternal feeling towards all pro-truth voices) that I advocate and Victronix opposes."
LOL!!!! Sorry, couldn't help myself. That statement is totally silly. Let me explain.
The 'big tent approach' has resulted in promotion of the very worst this movement has to offer. TruthMove got its start with the specific intent, based on an understanding of the history of social movements and negative experiences in the 9/11 truth movement, of operating on principle before association. We feel that this is totally essential, supported by many of histories great thinkers and activists, and the exact opposite of the 'big tent approach.'
Now to the definition of the 'big tent approach.' Civility? Oh, that's important. But it is not supported by the 'big tent.' In fact the opposite is true. The 'big tent' we see in the 9/11 truth movement has served to maintain the inclusion of people like Webster Tarpley and James Fetzer, whose behavior in recent months has become totally antagonistic to the point of irrationality or intentional disruption. They have not acted in a civil manner, and so including them under a 'big tent' does not serve to promote civility.
Fraternal feelings? I don't even know what to say about that? So were supposed to feel brotherly love for everyone who happens to subscribe to the premise that 9/11 was an inside job? So does that include the people who think there were no planes? Or the people who think the towers were nuked? No! Principle before association. And the principle here is validity. If you promote fallacy you are not any part of what I am trying to accomplish. In fact, you are doing something all together different. In fact, I might not just disagree with you. I might actually be against what you are doing.
Victronix has demonstrated a strong commitment to that which can be verified, and also speaking her mind with more concern for the truth than who might be upset by it. This movement is supposed to be a 'truth' movement. That does not include any kind of a big tent under which we make room for fallacy. Victronix and Jim Hoffman have very solid reputations in this movement for supporting a logical approach. Kevin Barrett, with such illogical support for a strategy that has proven to be damaging to this movement and many before it, does not.
http://www.truthmove.org/content/disinformation/
http://www.truthmove.org/content/2008-declaration/
So lets talk about it!
I have a very busy schedule, but I'll be happy to have a friendly radio debate on the relative merits of the big tent vs the my-way-or-the-highway approaches. Anti-big-tenters may apply by emailing me at kevin@mujca.com
Facts
It's interesting how just a few links and quotes -- statements which are readily available to anyone on the internet -- can cause such a ruckus.
Facts speak for themselves, just like quotes and links do.
quotes taken out of context
are not necessarily facts. You seem to be a little too quick to discredit people in the movement for the smallest transgression. I dont' know. It often seems that certain "truthers" within the movement are doing the jobs of the professional enemy debunkers outside the movement. If you ask me, I think you, Arabesque, Jules, and Hoffman, have gone overboard in attacking and discrediting far too many 9/11 activists and researchers, including good people like David Ray Griffin, simply because you disagree on certain things like the Pentagon attack - "the missing 757" situation.
For anyone in the movement to appoint themselves truth police attempting to speak for the entire movement regarding shutting down "bad arguments" and "Hoax theories", etc., why don't you try doing surveys and actually finding out what evidence and approaches work to wake people up to 9/11 truth, instead of spending so much of your time attacking and tearing apart the movement? In the case of the Pentagon, you guys couldn't be more wrong. In fact, the "missing 757 at the Pentagon" is one of the most common aspects that woke people up to 9/11, and the majority of 9/11 truthers do not believe that a 757 hit the Pentagon (36 million Americans/12% of the population according to a poll in July 2006), which completely contradicts your claim that the "hoax theory" that a 757 did not hit the Pentagon is harming the movement. Perhaps if you guys would actually do some constructive research and hold surveys to figure out the most effective ways to spread 9/11 truth, rather than continuing your often baseless and mean-spirited attacks, perhaps you guys could be more of a positive force for the movement.
That would be your turf. This is everyone's.
No thanks. I'm sure you could spin that as an indication of a lack of willingness to debate you. I could take your lack of willingness to simply state your case right here to be rather evasive. But unlike your rhetoric above, I'll assume that you aren't trying to be evasive, and simply like speaking more than writing.
That's unfortunate as many people feel much more comfortable discussing issues when they have the chance to collect their thoughts. Not everyone has public debating skills but that does not indicate a lack of ability to argue their position. People also feel more comfortable discussing differences of opinion in places that don't make one person feel a lot more comfortable than the other.
You might have noticed that your post isn't that popular here, nor your comments. Now, posters to 911blogger aren't the ultimate barometer of opinion in the movement. But you might take this as an indication that you should consider for yourself, without having to debate anyone, the merits of your position. I'm willing and able to change my mind. I feel very strongly about this issue, so you would have to make a really strong case to convince me otherwise. But I can still change my mind. Can you?
Now, on to your comment above. "Anti-big-tenters"? I suppose that might be literally true. I do not support the 'big tent approach' and have argued against it in many places over the last few years. But that term you've just created serves to focus attention on the messenger and not the message. Its not about me or those who agree with me. Its about the point I was making. And that point was that people who promote fallacy are not able to well represent a movement concerned with 'truth'. I didn't call you and anti-truther.
"My-way-or-the-highway"? That's an unfriendly way to put it. I'm sure you don't like it when people suggest that you are not behaving logically and that as a result that you should not play such a prominent role in the movement. But no one is forcing you out. I certainly don't have the ability to control your actions. I might recommend to others that they be weary of your contribution, but I also have no control over them.
So, I say something you don't like, and you stereotype my position. Not a good look for you. Doesn't really make me want to debate you.
crash physics issue not only for "no planers"
Kevin Barrett posts his show and Victronix comes and picks a fight, then you show up, Jules, and start lecturing because he responded to the attack. She constantly does the same thing with Patriots Question 9/11, just because they include a few people she thinks will discredit the movement.
This line of thinking suppresses debate for political reasons, not scientific. For example, it makes the airplane crash physics an untouchable subject, even though it should not be conceded because it is a core premise of NIST's claims.
Below is a response I have written to Professor Grabbe's recent letter at Journal of 9/11 Studies. It's just in draft, but seems appropriate here as an example of a potential inquiry squelched for reasons of political correctness.
NIST's claims about the crash physics are every bit as nonsensical as their claims about "collapse" of the buildings, and based on the same general principles. There's reason to question their crash physics models that are independent of "no planes" arguments. Or not. This is what I think, that's all. If it's fallacy, show me why. If you accuse me of being intentionally fallacious, I will respond.
------------------------------------------------
Professor Grabbe's letter states "There was never any issue of the energy and momentum the plane impacts had on the towers."
Professor Grabbe is of course correct that NIST has disingenuously responded to questions about conservation of momentum and energy in the supposed "progressive collapses" by saying that energy and momentum were conserved in their aircraft impact analyses, but it is not true that these impact analyses have not been questioned, nor that it is proper not to question them.
The crash physics should be questioned because they relate to how people died. This is a bit contradictory to my prior argument of focusing only on the "collapses" because that's what killed most of the people. In fact, most of the people were killed, it is said, because the planes either killed them directly or prevented them from escaping from floors above the impact zones. It is the claim that stairwells were blocked that interests me the most. Is it really possible that stairwells on the opposite side of the building would have been rendered impassable, completely in the North Tower and sufficiently in the South Tower
This is new to me - an impact analysis expert has been asking NIST to disclose its data.
http://911science.blogspot.com/2007/08/experts-cant-verify-official-911-...
I've long been frustrated by the reluctance of scientists, engineers, and architects in this movement to question the aircraft impact scenarios used by NIST. This reluctance may be because they don't want to lend support to controversial theories about the planes, but this is a huge mistake in my opinion.
First, I think we can all agree that aircraft impact analyses relate to the question of how many columns would be severed, how much fireproofing would be stripped, and how much fuel would be deposited inside the buildings. Thus, the crash physics are a core premise of NIST's findings.
Anonymous's recent letter to Journal of 9/11 Studies raises questions about the amount of fuel in the planes assumed in NIST's impact scenarios, which is an important element of kinetic energy models.
Anonymous' letter at page 2 shows that NIST assumed Flight 11 had 36% capacity and Flight 11 had 31% capacity, rather than 50% capacity as assumed in the study published in Journal of Engineering Mechanics by Karim and Hoo Fatt of the University of Akron. [Mistake. Actually, they assumed full fuel, and found that over 65% the difference was negligible.]
http://journalof911studies.com/letters/e/VisualizationAidsWTCTowers.pdf
But there is another issue that I think may have been overlooked---why so many people died in and above the impact zones, either at time of impact or because they were unable to escape.
NIST NCSTAR 1-7 discusses this issue:
http://wtc.nist.gov/oct05NCSTAR1-7index.htm
NCSTAR 7 at page 106 (144 of 298), NIST says that the majority of the 18 people who survived despite being at or above the impact zone in the South Tower were in the Sky Lobby on Floor 78, and that although the stairwell on the side of the building opposite the impact remained passable, it was severely damaged.
NCSTAR 1-7 at 120 (158 of 298) says that over 1,300 people died at or above the impact zones in WTC1, and over 600 people died at or above the died at or above the impact zones in WTC2.
According to the New York Times, roughly 800 people in WTC 1 and 300 people in WTC2 survived the crashes and lived until the collapses.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00E6DC153BF935A15756C0A...
These people are believed to have died in large part because they could not get down through the impact zones because stairwells were blocked. Reading 9/11 Commission Report Chapter 9, damage to elevators from the impacts also is said to have prevented firefighters from getting up to the impact zones where they might have . and damage to the security system is said to have kept doors to the roof locked.
NIST says that reports of blocked stairwells in Newsweek is an observable that matches their impact scenarios.
The New York Times also says in the above article that many people on Floor 78 were killed by a wingtip.
It doesn't appear that NIST supported this finding, and I could see that a the major impact on Floor 81 could result in an explosion killing people on Floor 78. Still, the question remains whether it would have.
Why did these people die?
All this is capable of interrogation by experts, and I hope they will take a look at this, just to confirm that hundreds of people above the impact zones were trapped there only because of planes.
And as stated above, even without this issue, the crash physics remain the core premise of NIST's explanation of how "progressive collapse" began, and should be questioned for that reason alone.
ad hominem
I don't see any ad hominem attacks.
_______________
Arabesque: 911 Truth
not a big deal
"it's not that big a deal in terms of how the ad hominems were created"
As long as you are one half of "The Dynamic Duo"
You singlehandedly keep Jim Fetzer attached to the movement. Why do you do this? Don't be surprised that people will have a problem with this and consider each and every blog of yours an implicit endorsement of that man. Of course you also explicitly endorse plenty of nonsense yourself as well. You seem to use "congeniality" and "fraternal feeling" as a smokescreen for keeping extremely low standards. This is not "ad hominem" attack - this is people having a serious problem with your effect on the movement.
My Radio Shows are Everybody's Turf
All pro-truth voices with something interesting to say are welcome to come on, and I give guests plenty of space to express themselves, as a cursory listen will demonstrate: http://www.mujca.com/airwaves.htm
Ad hominem means attacking the messenger, not the message. A negative comment directed toward the blogger, rather than toward the specific content of a particular blog entry, is an ad hominem attack.
I don't like to spend much time in internet flame wars for several reasons:
*They tend to become shrill, angry, defensive exchanges that escalate into shouting matches. Why? Maybe because deprived of the warmth and expressiveness conveyed by actual voices, people lose sight of the humanity of their dialogue partner. I've noticed that at 9/11 conventions where people actually meet face to face, folks who had hated and suspected each other, and wasted enormous time and energy on internet flame wars and mutual accusations, quickly recognized each others' humanity and moved into constructive-dialogue mode. The time that they had spent attacking each other on the internet then becomes available for doing public actions, distributing DVDs, talking to their 9/11-newbie neighbors, lecturing, writing books and articles and op-eds and letters to the editor, making and distributing their own films and music and bumperstickers, lobbying their congressional representatives, doing freeway blogging, creating 9/11 truth shows on public access TV, hosting or calling in to radio shows, and so on. I have invested and continue to invest enormous amounts of time and energy in every one of those activities, and have very little left over for interminable, ever-escalating arguments on the internet. (If there were actually any disinformation agents out there--I'm agnostic about this possiblity--their top priority would be to get truthers wasting each others' time in internet flame wars.)
*I am obliged to stare and the %#@ computer screen, simply to keep up with obligations, to the point that my health is diminished. I get hellish migraines from too much screen time, and suffer from repetitive motion syndrome in my right hand from too much typing. I get hundreds of emails a day, many of which I have to respond to, along with other necessary and constructive internet work. That leaves me little time for optional, non-constructive internet activities, such as finding faults with other truthers and picking fights with them.
* Most of the topics that start flame wars strike me as likely to generate more heat than light. The squabbles over peripheral evidentiary issues are trivial, because we already have more than enough evidence that we, and any reasonable person, will agree with. Evidence is no longer the issue--the evidence is in. Critical thinkers will find it. Non-critical-thinkers or pre-critical-thinkers (the majority, unfortunately) are not swayed by evidence anyway--to them, and even to newbies who ARE critical thinkers, controlled demolition is actually far more outrageous and crazy than no-planes.
Since our goal is to reach the not-yet-converted, we ought to do some surveys to find out how people's interest was stimulated in 9/11 truth. Personally, I came on board thanks to Griffin's lucid arguments in The New Pearl Harbor, because I'm an academic and a book person. But the vast majority of the truthers I've met have said their interest was stimulated by either the first or second versions of Loose Change, In Plane Site, 9/11 Mysteries, or (more recently) Zeitgeist. (Remember, Loose Change took off thanks to its rhetorically brilliant but factually shakier first version.) What do these films have in common? Scrupulous facts & zero speculation? No, what they have in common is that they are compelling, well-made FILMS. They are far more rhetorically effective than any "talking head" film and this rhetorical effectiveness has relatively little to do with their position on evidentiary issues.
That means that Jim Hoffman (a good scientist who seems to have a rather modest Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ) and who apparently has not studied how human communications work in the real world, which is what I have been studying from various disciplinary perspectives for 20 years) may be right in most of his evaluations of the evidence, but he is wrong in his simplistic, one dimensional "poison pill" theory. According to that theory, a DVD presenting 90% solid evidence and 10% weak evidence or speculation would be rhetorically ineffective, because the bad 10% would poison the good 90%. That's a nice theory, very appealing to scientific and/or anal types who think there's one right answer to every question. But it doesn't describe the real world. If you study rhetoric, the science of persuasion, you'll find that emotional, not intellectual factors are the key. The revolution in mind-control launched by Edward Bernays and described in the Adam Curtis documentary Century of the Self, Doug Rushkoff's book Coercion, and other sources relies on this discovery.
We can judge the effectiveness of a 9/11 truth DVD (or lecture, radio program, and to a lesser extent book or article) by its ability to address the emotional issues that keep most people blinded to the all-too-obvious 9/11 facts. The first version of Loose Change was probably the most rhetorically effective 9/11 DVD ever, with In Plane Site and 9/11 Mysteries tied for second, because these films reached their audiences at an emotional level, thanks to their rhythmic editing, compelling narration, music, gripping images, and so on. They provide a kind of shock effect that's analogous to the one Rushkoff describes as the key to coercive communication. Does that mean that these films are coercive propaganda? No! The shock effect CAN be used to regress the target to infantile dependency--that's what was done to us on 9/11. But at a more general level, this kind of shock effect is what's necessary to shake us free from our world-view so that a new world-view becomes possible. On 9/11, the authorities shocked us and then stepped in as our parent figures to coerce us into a worldview they'd designed for us. Rhetorically effective 9/11 truth communication likewise shocks us, but does not regress or control us. It shakes us free from our preconceptions and raises questions that cause us to take a second look at matters we had thought were resolved. All of that is accomplished more by the emotional quality of the communication than by the facts it cites.
Once we understand how communication works, the debates over peripheral evidentiary issues become less important, and we can stop wasting time on them and return to more productive activities. Let's take the extreme example: Raising questions about the authenticity of the Tower-hit videos. If the above theory of communication is correct, those who raise these questions may be helping the cause of 9/11 truth, even if they are completely and obviously wrong. Simply asking people to entertain the possibility that the corporate media is THAT controlled exerts a shock effect that tends to provoke curiosity and interest--which will soon lead to the discovery that the corporate media IS utterly and completely controlled and complicit in the 9/11 big lie, even if these particular videos are easily proven authentic. (For those who don't yet understand the extent of pre-scripted media complicity in enormous crimes, please check out Evidence of Revision Part 1, and watch the archival footage of the minutes before JFK's talk in Ft. Worth just prior to the assassination. You'll hear the announcer go on and on about how JFK is likely to be killed by a lone assassin, because it's always a lone assassin, etc. etc.--an obvious subliminal prep-talk to the American people, delivered just minutes before JFK's brains were blown out).
Given all of this, I think that Jim Hoffman (a good scientist whose work I have always supported and linked at mujca.com) and his sidekick Victoria Ashley a.k.a Victronix (who I hope spends as much time on productive activities as she does picking fights with truthers) have had an overall negative effect on the 9/11 truth movement. They have gone out of their way to attack all of the most rhetorically effective DVDs and many of the most rhetorically effective writers and speakers, stirring up enormous dissension and bad feelings, damaging the congeniality that is so necessary to an effective movement, and wasting immense amounts of time that truthers would otherwise be spending on productive activism. I invite both of you, Jim and Victronix, to reconsider your approach. I would be happy to talk with either or both of you, on or off the radio, to find out more about our areas of agreement and disagreement and resolve any outstanding emotional issues. Please email me so we can set up a time for a radio show or private phone call.
kevin@mujca.com
Recommended reading
>>A negative comment directed toward the blogger, rather than toward the specific content of a particular blog entry, is an ad hominem attack.
Recommending reading in the form of links and quotes provides a necessary context for the blog content in a movement peppered with overt nonsense claims which the vast majority reject, if they are aware of them.
Knowing that a public figure in the movement thinks that real planes may not have hit the WTC, is important for readership to be aware of in order to make informed choices about their own work and use of resources.
Pretty simple stuff.
I'll talk about this thread tonight on WTPRN, 10-11 pm CT
Mikey Weinstein of http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org just notified me that he's catching a cold and can only do an hour, so the second hour of tonight's show will be devoted to this topic and cast of characters. I have invited Ken Jenkins, an anti-big-tenter (with a three-digit EQ) to join me...also will invite Dr. Tom Tvetan of http://www.911dvdproject.com, a pro-big-tenter who also has a decent EQ. Phone-ins welcome!
9/11 and Empire Radio
http://www.wtprn.com
888-202-1984
Quoting someone is not a personal attack or a "flame war"
"Ad hominem means attacking the messenger, not the message. A negative comment directed toward the blogger, rather than toward the specific content of a particular blog entry, is an ad hominem attack."
Quoting someone is not a personal attack or a "flame war".
I think it's about time we have some accountability from some of our 9/11 truth "leaders" for some of the things they say.
"As I understand it, the usual penalty for treason is hanging, not death by firing squad. In that case, it is likely that Mr. Bush will be hanged, not shot, for treason. By making this prediction, am I running the risk of having my clothesline confiscated? I also think that there is a real possibility that Mr. Bush will be electrocuted for the mass murder of 2,500 Americans in the World Trade Center. By stating this, am I risking a court order shutting off my electricity? I also foresee a small but very real possibility that Mr. Bush will die in the gas chamber. Does raising this possibility mean that my gas could be cut off?" http://www.dailytakes.com/?p=825
"As the example of Nuremburg suggests, journalists who act as propagandists for war crimes may one day find themselves on the scaffold. You would be well advised to strive for more balanced and accurate coverage in the future." http://www.mujca.com/popper.htm
"Amy [Goodman], you will one day find yourself on the scaffold, condemned to hang alongside the other Goebbels-style traitors and mass-murder-coverup-conspirators from the corporate media you pretend to criticize." http://www.mujca.com/amy.htm
"The State Department doesn’t know what it is talking about, but what else is new? Frankly I wonder who wrote this for the State Department. We need to find out because they are going to have to go up there on the scaffold with the other people who planned the attacks and more importantly the people who covered them up. The people complicit in the attacks need to be tried, condemned and sentenced." http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/2007/06/more-on-kevin-hang-em-all-b...
"First Kevin Barrett said that Fox News employees should be hung. Then he said that the producers of United 93 should be tried for inciting war crimes, now he is expanding his list of those on death row to include just about every journalist in the world, while discussing an e-mail exchange he had with a journalist for Harper’s Magazine: 'My response to that was, you know, I think that anybody who has drawn a paycheck from the major mainstream journalistic outlets in the past should be up on the scaffold for the crimes of high treason and crimes against humanity.'" http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/2007/05/kevin-barrett-calls-for-mas...
"If you are not aware that you're covering up for that traitor and mass murderer and yes insurance fraudster Silverstein, you'll figure it out when you're beside him on the scaffold. I'll be saving this email as evidence for your trial." http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/semiliterateparanoiacswhofantasizeaboutt
"The Capital Times ownership and editorial decision-makers, like those of other mainstream U.S. news outlets, are setting themselves up to be prosecuted as war criminals. By publishing the endless stream of lies that brought us into the Iraqi and Afghan quagmires, without exercising duly diligent skepticism, journalistic decision-makers are following in the footsteps of Joseph Goebbels -- a path that ends at the scaffold." http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/letter/202146
"Kevin Barrett contacted me after he heard that Kevin Ryan backed out of a debate opportunity with me. Barrett wanted to know if I was interested in debating him on his radio show, or perhaps in a live debate when he is in New York. In his email to me, he copied a response he had sent to a listener, in which he said that I was complicit in mass murder and a candidate for a war crimes tribunal, with the gallows perhaps in my future. I guess that's his idea of an inducement to debate." http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=91656
"By blinding people to the need to take the only effective action, [Noam Chomsky] is bringing on disaster. If he convinces even one person to do something other than work for 9/11 truth, he may as well have personally murdered all 6 billion people on earth." http://911blogger.com/node/12772
"The way I study [social interaction] is through dialog... I think we could use a little more conviviality within the Truth movement... one reason for that is that we want people to join us... by reaching out to them in a conviviality way... people will come on board... I think we need to enjoy dialog including with people that we don't agree with... [especially] non-9/11 truth people... I want dialog with [people who support the official story]--dialog is good... this is the key to the politics that we need to practice..." http://www.truthring.org/?p=4830
_______________
Arabesque: 911 Truth
Why Not Enforce the Treason, Murder, and Conspiracy Laws?
9/11 was the worst crime in history--not because of how many people it directly killed (roughly 3,000) nor the number indirectly killed (over 1 million and counting) nor the number injured, psychologically scarred or terrorized (much of the planet's population) but due to the scale of the lie. As Rudolph Steiner said, every lie is a murder at the level of soul. A lie that big is a crime equivalent to the murder of all humanity and then some. It dwarfs all the holocausts in history put together.
If we are not going to enforce the laws that this crime, the largest crime ever committed by human beings, violated, then we had better stop enforcing all laws, period. Open the jails. Permanent immunity for everyone. As long as the 9/11 criminals and their journalistic accomplices walk free, arresting even the most vile mass murderer will be a grotesque injustice.
Hyperbole aside--and you may notice that the above quotes include black humor, hyperbole, and other rhetorical effects--I do think the laws violated on 9/11 should be strictly enforced, and punishments duly inflicted. I think we need new Nuremburg trials, and that a great many journalists, politicians, and military and intelligence officials should be tried and, if found guilty, punished in accordance with the laws against war crimes, high treason, and mass murder. If Dr. Goebbels and his underlings were guilty of war crimes, many decision-makers in the US communications apparatus are equally guilty--and, as I have said, the crime they are complicit in was vastly greater.
Arabesque, do you support immunity for the 9/11 criminals, including the propagandists? If so, do you also support immunity for other, lesser criminals? If not, why the discrepancy?
If you agree with me that the laws against war crimes, treason, and mass murder should be enforced in the case of 9/11, as I assume you do, then what you are objecting to is my use of black humor (in the case of the letter to the secret service) and hyperbole.
the relevance of science and evidence
>>black humor, hyperbole, and other rhetorical effects
Is suggesting that real planes didn't hit the WTC also a part of these effects?
A simple yes or no answer will do.
you actually have a sense of humor
I'm amazed ; )
The answer is no, I don't say (or "suggest") that planes didn't hit the WTC. Nor do I bully, ridicule, ostracize, or otherwise persecute those who do say or suggest that.
Tonight's radio show will address the merits and demerits of the "big tent" approach. (Scheduled guest Mikey Weinstein couldn't make it because he's stuck in an airport.) First hour guest will be pro-big-tenter and uber-activist Tom Tvedten. Second hour guest: anti-big-tenter Ken Jenkins.
This is your chance to hear what I really think, and call in to voice your concerns. Ken says you're likable, personable, easy to talk to...why not give it a shot? 9-11 pm CT , http://www.wtprn.com Call-in 888-202-1984 If you can't make it, catch it in the archives: http://mp3.wtprn.com/Barrett08.html
Critique, not attack
>>The answer is no, I don't say (or "suggest") that planes didn't hit the WTC.
So you've changed your postion from your past public statements?
On the above video you describe the plane impacts as "alleged." To me, that sounds like you question whether planes impacted the buildings.
And in an OpEd News article promoting Jim Fetzer's conference, you said about TV Fakery:
"'I guess I'll have to take this possibility more seriously now,' Barrett said. 'In the past, I have assumed video fakery was far-fetched and that anyone who endorsed it was probably a crackpot! Now I'm not so sure.'"
Mounting Evidence of 9/11 Video Fakery:
New proof of media duplicity, Scholars claim
by James Fetzer; July 28, 2007
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_james_fe_070726_mounting_evidien...
There are other examples, like where you said you wouldn't rule out "pods" being on the planes, in a Von Kleist video you did with Jim Fetzer.
That you would now say you do not suggest such things is disconcerting.
Which is it? The old public statements, available online? Or this new one, where you make it sound like a joke that you would support no plane at the WTC theories?
>>Nor do I bully, ridicule, ostracize, or otherwise persecute those who do say or suggest that.
Many many scientific articles now exist that are not bullying, but rather are careful and neutral which expose the fallacies in the no-plane theories.
These are simple facts, no emotion or bullying necessary.
Yet the person banned from this and all other forums for his behavior and advocacy of nonsense theories, openly rejected by the vast majority of the movement, is your partner in your radio program.
Reconcilation may be the better option
as I discuss below. Not sure your hyperbole is productive, but at least you are doing it in your own name and in principle I agree with you that complicity in crimes against humanity should be called what it is, and knowingly propagandizing to obstruct justice for the crime is serious complicity in those crimes.
The really sad and sick thing is that throwing a drug dealer in jail is seen as preserving the social order, while these high crimes against humanity, vile mass murder, are secretly justified as preserving social order. Fascist, I know, but perhaps we need to understand how these people sleep at night, assuming they're not socio/psychopaths.
Rather than immunity, consider it amnesty in return for truthtelling.
kill 'em all!
For a supposed anarchist you're surprisingly blasse about the idea of state sponsored mass execution.
I mean, you do realize that what you're talking about would entail the murder of thousands -- potentially tens of thousands of people, right? Where should we draw the line? Amy Goodman or Noam Chomsky? Sounds like the making of another "cultural revolution". If it was one or two comments taken out of context or spoken in anger I would understand, but you seem to be completely enamored with the word "scaffold". Your comments also strike me as an excellent way of repelling progressives who tend not to think of Amy Goodman as a deserving candidate for lethal injection.
As for "big tent", it's dumb. Just plain dumb. You don't have to be unkind to people who think space beams brought down the towers, or that Lizards run the world or whatever but to continually give these characters a platform and pretend as though their ideas are anything but lunatic is completely inappropriate.
You may have a point about the scaffold thing
Perhaps not the best word choice. I apologized to Amy Goodman last year, and changed the posting at mujca.com. (And have had a lot of folks take me to task for doing that!)
But "enamoured"? If you can find ten instances in which I've used the word "scaffold" during my four years of 9/11 activism, in over 500 hours of talk radio, many dozens of appearances on other folks' radio and TV shows, zillions of interviews, well over 100 of my own articles, countless emails and postings, dozens of talks, and two books, I will be amazed.
It's a start
"Perhaps not the best word choice. I apologized to Amy Goodman last year, and changed the posting at mujca.com. (And have had a lot of folks take me to task for doing that!)"
Ok. Well I'm glad to hear it. One of the many lessons I would hope people have learned from 911 is that revenge is not the answer. "Revenge, at first though sweet, bitter ere long on itself recoils", wrote Milton. Violence begets more violence. Although the people who planned and orchestrated 911 certainly deserve whatever's coming to them, a massive round of executions would not bring us any closer to the "better world" we're all looking for. Nuremberg was a failure. Most of the real criminals went to work for the CIA. Hitler's financial backers were not punished. It was essentially a show trial. And the war machine marched on.
The state is an abstraction. Allowing state officials to murder people for their crimes may sound good in theory but the reality is quite different. The reality is Sacco and Vanzetti, the Haymarket martyrs and African Americans now comprising 42% of death row inmates in the US. If everyone in Nazi Germany who bore some responsibility for the Reich (which would include remaining silent) were executed we'd be looking at large swathes of the population being charted off to the "scaffold"; it would begin to resemble the Reich itself, not anything approaching "justice".
As for the Big Tent, it doesn't look like you're going to budge on this any time soon, so I'll leave you to it. You should expect a great deal of (justified) criticism. I wonder where you WOULD draw the line. Is your sole litmus test for promoting someone's work the fact that they claim 911 to be an inside job? If someone believed that Cheney brought down the towers telepathically, for instance, would you still promote them on your radio show as a "truth" advocate? Because that's where your "logic" leads. There are "truth" advocates and there are people in need of medication. You should be able to distinguish between the two.
Agree in part
I think truth and reconciliation along the lines of South Africa should be considered. The Shell Game shows the kinds of rationalizations that the perpetrators and the obstructors of justice likely made. Take control of the game, oil for the sheep, preserve the union, etc. I've been critical of the Shell Game for this very reason but from another perspective perhaps we should empathize with Strangelovian utillitarian rationalizations likely made by the perpetrators and the less but still henious obstructors. Empathize, not condone: the question is whether this empathy would occur in the death penalty phase of a criminal prosecution, or during reconcilation. Even if the former is preferred, the latter may more realistically occur and be more restorative of our republic. Covering it up, of course, as the Shell Game seemed to condone, is destructive of what little republican government we have left.
A Truth and Reconcilation Commission with amnesty might encourage people to come forward, and without the requirements of criminal due process.
Don't agree with parts of the last paragraph but I'm not allowed to explain why.
Treason talk and peaceful possibilities
In terms of treason and whether our laws mean anything, I think I understand the imaginal power of the forced contemplation of legal consequences. And though, I never talk about the scaffold, I tend to remind folks, especially the snarkiest "debunkers" and jellyfish politicians, of the reality of treason that we are all living under, and the effective quality of their action or inaction, whether conscious or unconscious, in relation to that.
That being said, I like to envision a combination of treason trials and "truth and reconciliation" type commissions as leading to this profound transformative moment where the American people decided that even though there was never, in our history, any more deserving criminals of capital punishment, we thought it was time to become a more mature and wiser human society and remove the power of taking away life in such a pre-meditated way from the hands of the inevitably human and flawed, inherently-corrupted state. On an aside, I do think that life sentence prison terms are clearly called for and probably some psycho-social studies of the criminally and massively psychopathic psyche. Someone suggested that the best punishment, at least in the case of the Bushes, would be to have a living museum of their home that is completely open for the public to see their daily life under house arrest (and not in Patagonia).
We should admit, only God or the ineffable mystery of life and death has the power to "judge" such things. As I like to say in relation to abortion: I am pro-life and pro-choice. I see abortion as a very serious moral decision that has deep spiritual implications, and not something to ever be done lightly, or, IMHO (from the much easier perspective of being a man) ever except in the case of a threat to the mother, but between letting a woman or the apparatus of the state choose the destiny of a being in a woman's womb, I choose a woman.
As per the "Big Tent" issue, I see both perspectives very clearly. I think there has been alot of good articulation and clarification of positions here that will do much to moving forward more effectively and with more mutuality.
The problem of research and logic in relation to 9-11 truth and justice is profound. There is an inherent challenge that comes up when a movement based on ongoing, independent research in relationship to the truth of an event moves towards becoming a force for justice. The Logos, as the never-ending pursuit of the truth, refuses to give up its domain of open debate and diversity of opinions to the Ethos and Pathos elements needed to reach some people and to effectively pursue Justice. And it shouldn't have to. That is why I have argued for a healthy differentiation and individuation of 9-11 truth and 9-11 justice movements. I think this is beginning to happen. There are reasonable voices if you look for them who are willing to both push at the edges of "acceptable" discourse (i.e. plane dynamics) and understand the need for a "best case" to be put forward by the Justice-oriented activism.
And maybe we should even begin to align a 9-11 peace movement, which is already beginning to happen with an example being the "Conception Dollar," that can articulate the world that is possible after 9-11 justice, and simultaneously already here poking its head up and out.
The more differentiated the better. Let's argue amongst each other for our "best case" and what avenues we want to go with it. There is already and going to be more serious debate about strengths and weaknesses of tactics (i.e. civil informationeering vs. interrupting/confronting), so not having to spend much time on truth-vetting and debating around activism is crucial. Much of this is already clear and has been clear for awhile. Of course, we're also dealing with dis and mis(aka some not vetting info as well as we should)info. And we should be highly wary of the "infowar" we're being engaged in, while not allowing ourselves to take each other out in a barrage of friendly fire that would make any perp-sponsored cointelproer sit back and giggle in glee. And I imagine part of this dialogue going on is an attempt to decide who can be trusted as "friendly." And from what I've seen, I think all at the table can be considered that. There are still deep disagreements of course.
So, "best case" put forward with serious commitment and a vision of disciplined activism using it to push on through. There are legal and political considerations to this that we must consider. And a commitment to all out furious debate, debunking, calling out and sifting through on the ever-evolving truth front. And the permaculturalists, "anarchists," Viridian greens, eco-justicers and other such grounded visionaries to articulate the possibility of a profound, active, loving, evolving peace.
“Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught in falsehoods school. And the one man that dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool.” –Plato
"We must speak the truth about terror." --George W. Bush
Very thoughtful - thank you
And thanks for addressing this issue:
I'm definitely open to this kind of respectful and constructive criticism which doesn't use the cheap tactics of our opponents.
What I'm finding is that the "are you saying there were no planes" argument arises independently of the "no planes" arguments, because the planes are so deeply rooted in our minds as the reason the buildings collapsed and as "proof" of the official story.
Two anecdotes:
Congressman Markey of Massachussetts, who responds to a question about the buildings by saying he went to the funeral of local citizens who boarded planes and died. I don't know but I doubt he said this because of "no planes" arguments, which are seldom discussed in the mainstream press.
My Christmas party discussion with a mathemetician who models various things, from telescope lens to garbage routes (that's the best I can explain it.). Anyway, smart guy who deals with scientific phenomenon and enjoyed explaining them in a way I could understand. But no 9/11. His simple answer about the building collapses was that we saw planes on TV, as if this explained everything. End of discussion. I didn't push it because it was a party (others had brought up the Democratic party line "Bush didn't get bin Laden" so I couldn't resist a poke at the truth). We moved on to talking about his work on the Hubble telescope. Logic out the door on 9/11, because of the planes. This is not a guy who saw Morgan Reynolds on Fox or has seen a Nico Haupt video, he is one of the millions for whom the images on television explain everything.
That's why I cringe everytime I hear someone in this movement say "and a plane didn't even hit Building 7." That just reinforces the false idea that the planes could possibly explain the "collapses" of the two huge buildings. It's a shortcut, perhaps, but a truth movement should not make shortcuts with truth. Especially when no one died in Building 7, and thousands died in Buldings 1 and 2.
So I would suggest that the best case does not include "and a plane didn't even hit Building 7." That's not going to happen, so I would at least like to see it immediately followed by clear statement that planes could not have brought down the Twin Towers.
Anyway, you've got a point, and are the only I've heard make it thoughtfully and respectfully. it is a compromise that I am extremely ambivalent about because of the power of the plane images as explaining everything, and as implicating Muslims and justifying the wars regardless of whether Bush or whoever let it happen or even made it happen. The evil Muslims still flew planes into the buildings, goddamit, and we hit 'em back. And Bush didn't get bin Laden, so vote for Obama who will.
I've made that compromise, here and elsewhere. I've tried not to respond to attacks that are implicitly against my integrity and judgment, and will keep trying not to respond. Yours merited a response.
T&R's fine, but remember, I'm waging Truth Jihad ; )
This is a good, thoughtful discussion. I have always encouraged people like Bill Douglas who have promoted 9/11 T&R, though I generally add that it's awfully early for that, since we haven't even had regime change, much less any indictments.
Regarding T&R, I don't like muddled thinking and double-standards. When people talk about social struggles and violence versus nonviolence, citing South Africa as paradigm of nonviolence (and perhaps comparing it to the supposedly violent resistance in Palestine) I really scratch my head. Nelson Mandela was arrested and imprisoned because he led a violent resistance struggle--a guerrilla war--against the aphartheid regime. It was that guerrilla war, not nonviolent protests, that led the apartheid regime to fear an immanent "bloodbath" (the term was omnipresent in 1980s S. Africa) and surrender power. Only after the apartheid criminals were getting arrested did T&R become possible. (By the way, my friend the poet and anti-apartheid vet, Professor Daniel Kunene, a very sweet and peace-loving man, absolutely loathed the T&R project because it freed so many hideous criminals and impeded justice...) In Palestine, on the other hand, there are massive, ongoing nonviolent protests pretty much 24/7, yet the media blacks them out and casts the Palestinian genocide victims as "violent fanatics."
This is part of the massive double-standard Muslims face. Just as African-Americans were criminalized for Driving While Black, we Muslims are criminalized for Self-Defense While Muslim. My greatest political hero, Malcolm X, used what many considered inflammatory language, and recognized that force and violence play a huge and (for the foreseeable future) indispensable role in real-world political relationships. He organized armed Nation of Islam militias with the aim of helping oppressed people defend themselves, and his language was very, very strong. While he came to a more accurate and universalist Islam and a broader-based politics at the end of his life, Malcolm never renounced armed self-defense, nor did his hyperbolic verbal attacks on injustice slacken.
I'm still thinking all this through, but for the moment, I enjoy being just as inflammatory and controversial as Malcolm X was in his day. I am waging all out verbal Truth Jihad (using hyperbole and black humor among other weapons), aim to be utterly unconcerned with anyone's opinion of me but God's, and will happily accept martyrdom if that's God's will.
The hard part is sticking to righteous, prophetic anger/outrage, rather than petty ego stuff. If I ever go too far, or descend into pettiness, just email me a "Malcolm would NEVER have said THAT" message and if you're right I'll reel myself in.
Well other than your statement
"utterly unconcerned with anyone's opinion of me but God's, and will happily accept martyrdom if that's God's will"
Which I personally find to be virtually insane, I pretty much agree with you on everything else (assuming of course I understand your position correctly).
I don't think any of these bastards should be "let off the hook or scaffold" as far as I am concerned.
Obviously Bush, Cheney, Rice, Feith, Rumsfeld, Rove, Wolfowitz and at least a dozen or more others need to be facing Treason & War crimes charges, put on trial, sentenced and HUNG!
I personally would gleefully add such Reich wing propagandist like basically every single person that works for Faux Noise to that list of Treasonous war criminals because there is zero doubt of their guilt in covering these crimes up and their complicity in perpertrating them. If not for the complicity of the mainstream media in covering up the blatant election fraud, the bald faced lies about Iraq/WMD/Downing street minutes/patriot act/MCA etc. and the cover up and complicity in the false flag attack of 9/11 then NONE of this would ever have happened in the first place.
IF the media simply did its job then Bushco could have never gotten away with such blatant acts of Treason & war crimes.
For this they ALL should share the exact same fate as Saddam Insane.
Sadly the ONLY way justice will ever be served on these people is for 10s of millions of damn angry Americans to finally stand up and take this country back FORCIBLY.
Sadder still is I don't think that will ever happen because the American people by & large are fat, think they are happy and generally too damn ignorant to even know what the hell is going on and wont do anything about it if they did.
In a word we are Screwed and going to stay that way.
"In a word we are Screwed and going to stay that way."
Probably, but it makes their job easier for us to think that.
I try for Gramsci's "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will." The one spurs action, the other gives resilience to believe that such action will result in meaningful change even in the face of adversity. Thanks Wikipedia.
Not easy these days -- how depressing it is to hear Shenon turning a 9/11 Commission exposé into warmongering against Iran. Of course I should have expected no better from the New York Times, so my pessimism of the intellect failed me. Optimism of the will is not to give a damn about the New York Times degrading itself again, and be happy we still have real news and commentary on the Internet.
Somebody once got really mad at me for suggesting that her activism to stop a dam from being built by her government seemed doomed to fail. I didn't say it so bluntly, and couldn't understand why she got so mad, and why she said "so what"?
I don't mean to strongly propone T&R
I'm just wondering if it is a more realistic outcome. The goal can still be indictments. The leaders should be imprisoned, for sure. If we had a real Justice Department we could hope for indictments, and for immunity and protection to encourage lower level co-conspirators to come forward. I agree that T&R would be more likely to occur after indictments give leverage -- without support for the Constitution and the law by a real Justice Department, we'll not have T&R either, just like mediation usually follows lawsuits.
I'm pretty much a pacifist and reader of Jefferson's Bible, the Sermon on the Mount. So I don't support violence in any form. Nor do I condemn it under all circumstances, so I guess I'm not a pacifist. We're taught that violent resistance to an oppressive Crown is what created this country, and I see your point about the double standard against Muslims. Also, I don't know much about South Africa, so my thinking on this is probably muddled.
I see what you are doing, and don't really object to your rhetorical flourishes, which I see as advocating criminal enforcement under the law by the authorities, not vigilante justice. However, I don't support the death penalty, even for mass murderers, so I don't like rhetoric about hanging war criminals. I don't mean to belittle righteous outrage with the word "rhetoric."
I'd be a coward if I worried about Jane Harmon, Sheriff Reichart, Simon Weisenthal Center, and General Mukasey saying that means I support terrorism. I don't support violence, terrorism, hypocrisy, or war profiteering. That's why I'm here. And this is and always will be a free country, even if traitors to our ideals forget that for a while. Speak your mind, Kevin. Who am I to tell you not to? This is everybody's space, right Jules?
"scaffold"
>>But "enamoured"? If you can find ten instances in which I've used the word "scaffold" during my four years of 9/11 activism . . . I will be amazed.
If you read arabesque's post above, you'll see 6 instances.
A simple google search returns 340 instances for "scaffold" and "kevin barrett"
Your statement to the reporter critical of Fetzer's hoax conference openly referenced "the scaffold", and was published by his newspaper, likely to portray 9/11 truth advocates as aggressive, as well as nuts --
"As the example of Nuremburg suggests, journalists who act as propagandists for war crimes may one day find themselves on the scaffold. You would be well advised to strive for more balanced and accurate coverage in the future."
http://www.mujca.com/popper.htm
Yes, I agree that's too much
The issue of the media's responsibility is important. It's good to raise, but not that way. They are culpable. I don't think the issue is not so much propaganda for war crimes, but a form of terrorism, in which violent acts are used to intimidate and coerce people. Even if 9/11 happened as the government claims, and as terrible as it was, the risk to the average citizen is much less than that of being killed by a drunk driver, yet we are terrorized by the media blowing it out of proportion. Opinion leaders and those who control organs of mass communication should be held accountable for their actions in using terrorist acts for political purposes. But I would say "scaffold" is too much for them, even if I supported the death penalty for those directly involved in violent acts. "In the dock" would be good, though I'm not sure that Nuremberg is a precedent because Hans Fritzsch was acquited.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/nure-a16.shtml
Rwanda doesn't work either. Much more overt incitement to genocide, and even that decision has been criticized.as retroactive because they created a crime by intepretation.
http://www.crimesofwar.org/onnews/news-rwanda.html
The lawyer in that article probably overstates the free speech argument, but that would be an issue, as would be proving they knew they were broadcasting falsehoods.
So the culpability should be stated, but in a more realistic way.
A possible solution
I’ve been following this debate – and I think there is clearly a very simple solution for this problem.
We should simply call for Kevin Barrett to act as judge, jury and executioner of all those whom he deems ‘guilty’ of 9/11 related high crimes and treason. This should, of course, include anyone who disagrees with him – since he can clearly peer into the soul of all those evil gatekeepers he hurls epitaphs at.
We can get him a nice black hood to wear, and he can rant and rave from the guillotine as he pulls the lever.
Gee Kevin – it almost seems like you are INTENTIONALLY trying to make us look bad – because it is hard to believe that someone could be such a cartoon-cutout poster-child for poor judgment and adolescent incendiary speech.