National Post (Canada): Jonathan Kay: An evening in Montreal with Richard Gage, 9/11 Truth Movement prophet extraordinaire
Jonathan Kay: An evening in Montreal with Richard Gage, 9/11 Truth Movement prophet extraordinaire
Posted: April 23, 2009, 10:53 PM by Jonathan Kay
Three years ago, Richard Gage says, he was just a run-of-the mill architect, designing steel-frame buildings for clients in the San Francisco area. In March, 2006, that changed: While flipping through stations on his car radio, he caught an interview with David Ray Griffin, a retired philosophy and religion professor who calls the official account of the 9/11 attacks "one big lie."
Beginning that day, Gage became skeptical of the idea that "people living in Afghan caves" could possibly have brought down the World Trade Center. The more likely explanation, he decided, was a plot by warmongering elements within America's own government. Spreading this message is now the man's full-time job.
As radical as Gage's theory may sound to readers, it's surprisingly popular. The "9/11 Truth Movement," as it is now commonly called, has millions of adherents across the world. In a 2006 Scripps Howard poll of 1,010 U.S. citizens, 36% of respondents said it was "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that the U.S. government was in on the 9/11 plot. According to another poll conducted in Canada, 39% of respondents said they either disagree, or are unsure, that Al Qaeda was responsible for 9/11.
What makes Gage stand out from the millions of students and young activists who comprise the bulk of the Truther community is that he is an architect — and a respectable-looking middle-aged one at that, complete with suit and tie, and receding hairline. His group, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, even scored a booth at the upcoming American Institute of Architects conference from April 30 to May 2.
Last Saturday, I went to see Gage speak at a Montreal event hosted by the Mouvement montréalais pour la vérité sur le 11 septembre, along with about 150 others (not a bad crowd, given the 10$ cover charge, and the fact it was a hockey night).
As part of my research for a book I'm writing on the Truther movement, I've gone to see a variety of events like this — but none of the speakers I've seen are as lucid as Gage.
Truthers often are prone to rambling: Your average speaker at a 9/11 Truth event, taking the podium with an overflowing sheaf of Internet print outs, might start his presentation on the mechanics of the WTC attacks, segue into a denunciation of George W. Bush's war crimes, and then veer into a lengthy disquisition on the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, before bringing the audience back to the Twin Towers. Not Gage: His singular focus — laboriously examined in a 527-slide PowerPoint presentation — is the sequence of events leading to the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings. Expertise is critical to the mission of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, he says. "We're building and technical professionals," Gage told the audience. 'We're not conspiracy theorists."
Much of Gage's 2-hour-plus presentation was dry and technical — including a long series of slides analyzing the chemical composition of the WTC debris (an inquiry central to his claim that the Twin Towers were brought down from within by a particular type of iron-oxide-based explosive). But he also has plenty of videos embedded in his slides. And this is where the crowd came alive.
In one particularly effective segment, he puts up shots of the localized fires that broke out in the lower floors of WTC Building 7 hours before it collapsed. Seconds later, he shows footage of Beijing's Mandarin Oriental hotel — which suffered an epic top-to-bottom conflagration in 2009 … and remained standing.
It's a cinematic juxtaposition that plays to the Truthers' strongest card: Even architects and engineers who've never heard of Richard Gage will concede they aren't quite sure why WTC7, a fairly typical tube-frame structure located about a football field away from WTC1, would be struck down by localized fires and random debris.
As one would expect, it was a friendly crowd to begin with. (Who else besides a committed Truther, except possibly a journalist, or an exceptionally accommodating girlfriend, would spend their Saturday night in a community-centre auditorium listening to a man talk about thermite reactions and load factors?) Before beginning his presentation, Gage polled the crowd on their views. Five people — including me and my guest — said they believed the "official theory" of 9/11. Ten others said they were "unsure." Everyone else — 90% of the crowd — said the WTC came down through "controlled demolition."
The presentation only made the balance of opinion in the room more lopsided. There were emotional gasps and shouts when some dramatic bit of evidence was displayed. A couple sitting behind me seemed particularly moved. "How can those war criminals look at themselves in the mirror after what they've done," one exclaimed. (She wasn't talking about al-Qaeda.) Even my own guest, a conservative-minded woman who normally laughs off this sort of thing, seemed transfixed, falling silent at points where I expected she'd be chortling and eyeball-rolling.
During the Q&A, high passions caused the proceedings to turn somewhat nasty: When I took the mic and asked how such a massive conspiracy, presumably involving hundreds if not thousands of insiders, could possibly go undetected, the crowd began shouting me down. "Educate yourself," one audience member screamed after someone at the podium outed me as a National Post journalist. "Typical media bullshit," yelled another.
On the other hand, I protested, at least I’d shown up in the first place — the only working mainstream journalist (to my knowledge) in the room.
I'd hoped this would count for something: One of the Truthers’ biggest complaints is that they are ignored by the mainstream media. You do sometimes see stray mentions of the movement in op-ed columns or on radio programs, but usually it's in the spirit of mockery or passing sarcasm. No major media outlet has done a truly comprehensive profile or investigation of the Truther movement — which is what led me to my book project in the first place.
Even if you are — like me — part of the majority that believes the "official theory" of 9/11, it's a mistake to ignore a movement as large and passionately championed as this one. Across North America (never mind Europe and North America), millions of people have decided that the leaders of the free world are actually murderers — or, at least, in league with murderers – who’d wantonly slaughter thousands of their own citizens as a means to advance a geopolitical agenda. Isn't that something that should interest us?
And the movement is attracting new recruits, too. Once he’d finished his lengthy presentation last Saturday, Gage conducted a second poll of the room. This time, when he asked how many people supported the "official theory," mine was the only hand raised. Shocked, I turned to the friend sitting beside me.
After three hours in a room with Richard Gage, she’d changed her vote to "not sure."
- nobodyparticular's blog
- Login to post comments
Fairly fair but...
... I just cannot understand how someone can see WTC 7 drop and continue to believe the official story.
What would it take for someone like Kay to NOT believe the official story?
What if WTC 7 had not had even those small fires and been hit by debris at all? Would he still believe if NIST told him that the skyscraper dropped because the twin towers' collapse had caused an earthquake weakening its supports? (something that my pro-OCT colleague once suspected)
I can.
"I just cannot understand how someone can see WTC 7 drop and continue to believe the official story."
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."
Upton Sinclair
yeah, how else
can someone see Gage's presentation, and not be at least "not sure". In his article he gives credit to Gage, but doesn't refute a single point, let alone all of them.
Still, a surprisingly fair/positive/objective piece from an avowed conservative.
http://911reports.com
They have( National Post) comments option open on this story
by hawkeyi
Apr 24 2009
4:52 PM
Hi Jonathan, For your research please accept my invitation to our second EDMONTON QUESTIONS 9/11 event set for May 2, 2009 at the Stanley MIlner Library downtown Edmonton Alberta with my guest speakers author and journalist Barrie Zwicker and Co founder of Pilots for 9/11 Truth Robert Balsamo, Complete Details can be found on my web site www.edmonton911truth.com
Your's and mine co worker Todd Babiak of the Edmonton Journal calls the 9/11 Truth " Cheap Entertainment" I myself naturally don't agree with Todd's headline , but respect his right to his opinion (and yours on Richard Gage). My opinion is that Richard Gage along with over 600 architects and engineers are one small aspect of a greater 9/11 truth movement that have succeeded at what Martin Luther King once said" You Cannot hide the Truth" and they too "A&E" have uncovered the truth about 9/11. Even the mighty CANWEST is failing miserably at trying to cover up the truth of 9/11. For me its a matter of time when the wheels of corporate editorial policy puts on the breaks of corporate mud slinging at the 9/11 Truth movement and puts into reverse its policies to try to save face for years of neglect of journalistic integrity for 9/11 truth...(We'll be there to help you save face) I'll hold two comp tickets for Saturday May 2ND for you and your guest. Keep searching for Truth Jonathan! Best and regards ! Richard D. Brinkman
Story/ and Comments: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/04/23/...
The National Post...
...is a huge newspaper in Canada. This is the Canadian equivalent of USA Today running an article about Richard Gage, and I am proud to be part of the group that brought Richard Gage to Montreal.
"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government." -The Declaration of Independence
The National Post is
an invention of Conrad Black, and I wouldn't call it "huge". It's the smallest of the national newspapers, and its far-right-wing bias consigns it to the status of marginalized opinion in Canada.
"As part of my research for a book I'm writing"
"As part of my research for a book I'm writing on the Truther movement, I've gone to see a variety of events like this — but none of the speakers I've seen are as lucid as Gage.
Truthers often are prone to rambling: Your average speaker at a 9/11 Truth event, taking the podium with an overflowing sheaf of Internet print outs, might start his presentation on the mechanics of the WTC attacks, segue into a denunciation of George W. Bush's war crimes, and then veer into a lengthy disquisition on the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, before bringing the audience back to the Twin Towers."
I'm intrigued what the book will be like- a supporter of the OCT, who is covering Gage, but not attacking him, in this oped.
His example of an "average speaker" combines a number of logical fallacies; hasty generalization (not all or most do this), straw man (setting up a fake target; this example "truther" exists in his mind), slanting (many, many other approaches to presenting the evidence are used by truth activists), red herring (misdirection from the evidence and unanswered questions raised by the truth movement in general, to pointing at a fictional example of a "truther"). Also a bit of an ad hom against "truthers"; his example paints an unflattering portrait of a "truther", which will give comfort to truth-haters, despite the fact that the official explanations of the mechanics of the WTC destruction, Bush's war crimes and the OKC bombing don't fit the facts.
I couldn't post a comment for some reason, despite registering and clicking the community thing and refreshing a number of times, so i sent him this by email to help him with his research:
Hi Mr. Kay,
"how such a massive conspiracy, presumably involving hundreds if not thousands of insiders, could possibly go undetected"
This is a common objection to the claim the attacks were abetted by govt. insiders, but it assumes that Democrats, Republicans and the corporate media have the will to investigate the people who own them and fund their campaigns. Curt Weldon, Mark Dayton, Cynthia McKinney were all run out of office after raising questions. There was a massive effort to oust Kucinich in 08, but he survived. Sen. Charles Grassley went on 60 minutes in 2002 and called FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds "very credible", but he’s been quiet since, Rep. Henry Waxman never held hearings like he promised, and not a single broadcaster took her up on her offer to break her gag order in exchange for an uncensored tell all exclusive in 2008.
Search Sibel Edmonds, and FBI Agents Robert Wright, Harry Samit, Coleen Rowley, FBI translator Behrooz Sarshar, and Able Danger whisleblowers Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and Col. Scott Philpott on the below timeline- and while you're at it, read about the supervisors who obstructed the minneapolis investigation; David Frasca, Marion Bowman, Michael Maltbie. These people were promoted, the whistleblowers were ignored, threatened, harassed, gagged, punished, and in the case of Edmonds, fired.
Complete 911 Timeline
http://www.historycommons.org/project.jsp?project=911_project
In another sense, it hasn't gone undetected at all; millions of Americans have been raising serious questions, but there hasn't been any substantive investigation. The 9/11 Commissioners were Democrats and Republicans and all had political, financial, professional and or personal conflicts of interest. The investigation itself was run by Exec. Dir. Philip Zelikow, a Bush Administration insider, and 70% of the families' questions were ignored. Forget the disinfo about Pentagon missiles- how could anything hit the Pentagon, an hour and a half after the first sign of hijacking, a half hour after the 2nd tower was hit? Why in the world would jets be scrambled from Langley, when Andrews AFB is right outside DC, and supposedly had 2 squadrons ready to defend the nation's capital?
Guilty For 9-11: Bush, Rumsfeld, Myers Part 1
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/indict/indict-1.htm
The Failure to Defend the Skies on 9/11
http://www.historycommons.org/essay.jsp?article=essayairdefense
Generals Richard Myers, Montague Winfield, Ralph Eberhart and Cpt. Leidig all got promoted after the FAA/NORAD air defense failures, after offering numerous conflicting timelines about the response.
Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, Tenet, Mueller, Ashcroft- all of these people got a pass and a blank check after 9/11- they’ve never even been investigated yet for torture, rendition or illegal spying- whose going to investigate them for 9/11? Obama is trying hard to avoid investigating at all.
Cui Bono? The 9/11 Promotions
http://arabesque911.blogspot.com/2007/11/911-incompetence-sabotage-and.html
And as far as controlled demolition goes, NIST was mandated by Federal law to "establish the likely technical cause or causes of the building failure." (15 U.S.C. § 7301(b)(2)(A). NIST claims it found “no evidence” to support the hypothesis for controlled demolition (NIST FAQ 2 2006), but admits it did not test the steel or dust for residues of explosives or thermite (FAQ 12). And despite involving over 200 scientists and experts in a 3 year investigation (FAQ 2) with a $24 million budget and producing an approximately 10,000 page report, in response to a Request for Correction NIST answered, "we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse”. (Request) Indeed, its report only analyzes events leading up to the “initiation of collapse.” (NIST 82 n13) NIST’s explanation, in a nutshell, is that plane damage, jet-fueled office fires and gravity caused the upper approximately 15-30 stories to collapse onto the lower 80-95 stories, crushing them completely to the ground. NIST provides no calculations for the energy released by the upper stories, or for the energy that would be required to completely collapse the lower structure and produce the massive, rapidly-inflating dust clouds, instead simply asserting “[t]he potential energy released by the downward movement of the large building mass far exceeded the capacity of the intact structure below to absorb that through energy of deformation.” (145-146) Notably, it describes the lower stories of redundantly reinforced steel structure as a “strong, rigid box” (29), which it states ‘collapsed’ “essentially in free fall”, providing “minimal resistance” to the 15-30 stories above. (146)
Appeal Filed with NIST, Pursuant to Earlier Request for Correction
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2007/AppealLetterToNISTGourley...
National Construction Safety Team Act 107–231, 15 U.S.C. § 7301(b)(2)(A). 1 Oct. 2002. http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/cdocuments/sd107-18/pdf/pl107-231.pdf
NIST NCSTAR 1 http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201.pdf
NIST. “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (August 30, 2006)” http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm
And see these papers published in peer reviewed journals:
April 3, 2009. “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe”. The Open Chemical Physics Journal. Authors: Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley, Bradley R. Larsen
October 19, 2008. “Discussion of “Mechanics of Progressive Collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions” by Zdene˘ k P. Bažant and Mathieu Verdure” Journal of Engineering Mechanics. (pg. 915) Author: James Gourley
August 4, 2008. “Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center: evidence for energetic materials”. The Environmentalist. Authors: Kevin R. Ryan, James R. Gourley, and Steven E. Jones
April 19, 2008. “Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction”. The Open Civil Engineering Journal. Authors: Steven E. Jones, Frank M. Legge, Kevin R. Ryan, Anthony F. Szamboti, James R. Gourley
Sincerely,
Erik Larson
http://911reports.com
Thank you.
That's a very powerful summary.
Jonathan Kay changes his tune
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez1sY5g8_Uo
watch this video filmed at the conference in Montreal.
The most ridiculous thing...
I've ever seen. "Richard Gage, 9/11 Truth Movement prophet extraordinaire"
No offense to Richard.
Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?
Article has been re-published here;
http://www2.canada.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=f54cf9ee-4637-44...
In case anyone wants to drop a comment or 12.
deliberate discredit technique
"While flipping through stations on his car radio, he caught an interview with David Ray Griffin, a retired philosophy and religion professor who calls the official account of the 9/11 attacks "one big lie."
Beginning that day, Gage became skeptical of the idea that "people living in Afghan caves" could possibly have brought down the World Trade Center. The more likely explanation, he decided, was a plot by warmongering elements within America's own government. Spreading this message is now the man's full-time job."
This setup in the story makes it sound like Gage had made up his mind that it was an inside job based soley on the radio interview. Notice Kay makes no mention of the hours of studying the videos and research of the forensics that made him question 911. This implies that he heard it on the radio and believed it right away with little investigation and also implies that truthers are just gullable people.
I call BULLSHIT!