thank you for being so persistent -- and thank you especially for pushing for mention of the plight of the first responders.
good for you.

ps: amazing that that woman tried to paint you as a larouche supporter. "what motivates you?" ... it's so incredibly sad that everything has to have some hidden, attached agenda. how about "i am motivated by peace and justice. i am motivated by survival of the species"?

More obvious frauds exposed by the touchstone of 9/11. I read Alterman's book about the media and thought highly of him at one time. It's interesting how far and fast the credibility of these people plunge when confronted about the most important event in modern history.

If I hear this excuse one more time my head is going to explode.

The proper way to answer this question is to point out that "argument by incredulity" is a logical fallacy. To dismiss 911 truth a priori based on some pet theory about the way the universe functions (ie governments can't keep secrets or governments are invariably incompetent) is not logical. As a supposedly rational species we are supposed to form opinions based on evidence. There is no evidence that Osama Bin Laden carried out 911. There is a plethora of evidence that 911 was carried out by entities within "Western" power structures.

Unfortunately the above rejoinder would not have impressed the audience. What did impress the audience? "Bush is an idiot!" The Eric Alterman's of the world are adept at pushing partisan buttons. It makes "progressives" feel warm and fuzzy inside to imagine that Bush and his cadre are a bunch of slack jawed yokels. Look at the chimp in chief! Hahahaha. Bush may indeed have a sub-standard IQ, but Cheney and Rumsfeld (and Bush's father) do not. Nor Henry Kissinger. Nor Bill or Hillary Clinton. Nor any other of these cretins who manage our affairs.

In future I recommend one of three responses:

1. You're RIGHT that they're incompetent. If 911 was executed by competent individuals we wouldn't have footage of Building 7 or fireproof passports or dancing Israelis or Sibel Edmonds.

2. Plausible deniability.

Who is to say that Bush, or Cheney, or any other Neocon would have had to have a hand in the execution of 911, and therefore be "competent" in said execution?

Christopher Simpson wrote:

“Other U.S. Army and National Security Council documents from the same period [the cold war] stress three additional attributes of the U.S. psychological warfare strategy of the day: the use of "plausible deniability" to permit the government to deny responsibility for "black" operations that were in truth originated by the United state; a conscious policy of polarizing neutral nations into either "pro-" or "anti-U.S." camps; and the clandestine targeting of the U.S. population, in addition to that of foreign countries, for psychological operations."

Simpson is not some wild-eyed "conspiracy theorist" but a highly respected historian.

We know, in fact, that Cheney had a pivotal role in the events of 911 (via the war games, for example), but the point stands: STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE IN COVERT OPERATIONS IS TO CONTRACT OUT THE WORK TO OTHER ENTITIES, THEREBY ALLOWING PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY. I would be surprised to learn that Bush was privy to the operational details of the attack before they happened. Does it require super-human intelligence to sign off on Northwoods Part II?

3. What is competent to you and I is grossly incompetent to elites, and vice versa. Why? Because our interests are diametrically opposed. Every dollar in your pocket is a dollar that could have gone to Halliburton. Every dollar in Halliburton's pocket is a dollar that could have gone to you. Viewed from a certain perspective, the Bush administration has been fantastically successful and therefore competent. It has transferred trillions of dollars in wealth from the middle and lower classes to a tiny handful of autocrats.

What is "competence"? I'll be the first to say that viewed objectively, the Bush administration is incompetent -- not only in terms of Plebeian values like honor, decency, justice and so forth but also in terms of values both the lower and upper classes share: such as the continued survival of the human race. Nevertheless, within the narrow vision of neoconservativsm, the Bush administration did all the right things. Most of the outcomes have (seemingly) been beneficial to elites (in the short term). They simply went too far. Not far enough for Obama, evidently, but about as close to Armageddon as I'd care to venture.

Each of these three responses is partly true imo. But I'm not sure they would sell like "Bush is an idiot!" Cluck cluck.

The WAC movement is driven by a (correct) evaluation that MSM has fallen asleep and is at the mercy of its corporate controllers. This is very true, and it's not just 911truthers who know this. So what should we do? We should, ourselves, become the media. The problem is with the definition of what it means to "be the media." The job of anyone in media is to collect information and disseminate it to the public through its network. Sometimes, that involves confronting public figures to get the "true" information, but more often it means hours of research and writing, and vetting the information for a sound presentation. Sometimes, the WAC reporters do a great job, cornering people like Rove, Zelikow, Silverstein and the like. But way too often, WAC is consumed with "celebrity" status and confronts people who's opinions have nothing to do with obtaining any real facts. It's a show -- one meant to embarrass and/or humiliate other media personalities or celebrities, and those being attacked see right through it. For whatever reason, the WAC crowd cannot see that "civil informationing" IS, in and of itself, being the media -- ie. getting info to the public via their network.

To be fair to Mark, he is a one-man truth movement himself -- out in the streets several days a week handing out flyers -- alone if no one will help him, monitoring web sites and supporting every truth activity in the Boston area, using all his disposable income for 911 truth. And yes, he likes to be on-camera and try to zing it to the media whores whenever he can, almost always getting his balls handed to him on a platter.

My advice to WAC is put in the hours of time researching your subjects, or don't bother going public or on camera. Public figures are hounded all the time and have an arsenal of weapons to deflect criticism. And don't think the "truth" is a weapon against these people. The "truth" is a cause, not a weapon -- at least with these types. And though I think it's a pointless endeavor, if anyone wants to confront someone in the media, it's the facts and inconsistencies about THEM, the people you are confronting and what THEY have said and written, and not the facts about 9/11 that will give you any hope catching them in their misrepresentations or blatant lies. If you want to confront someone who has written books and articles about 9/11, you better have read ALL their writing and dissected it very carefully, with iron-clad facts to prove them wrong, otherwise they will just crack a joke and make you look like a conspiracy loon. To be effective at "being the media" requires doing a better job at it than our corporate counterparts -- but the rules for doing a good job are the same for both.