9/11 and Pearl Harbor Conspiracies on Front Page of San Diego Union-Tribune
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20061204-9999-1n4conspire.html
Prewar attacks fuel whispers of conspiracy
By Peter Rowe and Scott LaFee
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS
December 4, 2006
Historians agree that imperial Japan, hoping to cripple United States forces in the Pacific, scored a major – although fatally incomplete – victory 65 years ago this week at Pearl Harbor.
Pearl Harbor conspiracy theories were revived in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
But there's a version of the tale you won't find in textbooks. In this alternative history, Dec. 7, 1941, was also President Franklin Roosevelt's triumph. He had withheld information that would have warned the Pacific Fleet, willingly sacrificing a dozen ships and more than 2,400 Americans to achieve his goal.
FDR had dragged America into World War II.
That's the gist of the “backdoor to war” conspiracy theory, originally championed by Roosevelt's right-wing foes in the 1940s. This revisionist view of Pearl Harbor was dying when Sept. 11, 2001, cast it in a new light. The notion that an American president would welcome a surprise attack as a pretext for war was taken up anew. This time, though, the argument came from leftist commentators.
Underground, unofficial versions of history have flourished in most countries. In fact, some Japanese conservatives advance their own “backdoor to war” theory. In one Tokyo museum, photos, charts and texts “prove” that American actions in Asia and the Pacific had left Japan with no choice short of hostilities.
New York Times
John F. Kennedy's assassination has long been a favorite topic for conspiracy theorists. The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas is seen from the location where Kennedy was shot on Nov. 22, 1963.
If history was ever a static and universally accepted account of the past, that notion now is as outmoded as a stovepipe hat.
In the United States, it's increasingly a mainstream view that secret forces with mysterious aims shape our destiny. In 1998, CBS News found that three out of four Americans believe that the truth behind John F. Kennedy's assassination has been covered up. This summer, a Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll found that more than one out of three Americans believe it is “very likely” or “somewhat likely” that federal officials planned 9/11 or at least did nothing to stop the attacks.
Why people embrace conspiracy theories is a complex topic, touching on ideology and psychology. In our time, two factors have made these tales more pervasive:
The Internet accelerates the pace at which isolated mutterings can become national phenomena, exposed to a potential audience of billions. Video clips and documents, real and manufactured, zip through the ether and buttress tales that might otherwise be dismissed as cockamamie speculation.
From the Pentagon Papers to Watergate, late 20th-century scandals proved that the official version of events can be a smoke screen hiding a more sinister and more accurate story.
“Americans tend to be particularly receptive to anti-government conspiracy theories,” said Kathryn Olmsted, a University of California Davis history professor who is writing a book on this subject.
In the early 20th century, though, government was not the most popular villain. Then, Olmsted noted, various plots were blamed on forces based outside the United States, including religions (the Catholic Church, Judaism) and industries. The first World War, one theory held, was caused by an unholy alliance of European arms dealers and international bankers.
But as Washington's power grew, conspiracy theorists “found” more masterminds – past and present – within the federal government. In 1937, a book titled “Why Was Lincoln Murdered?” gave a startling answer. The Great Emancipator, author Otto Eisenschiml argued, fell victim to a plot cooked up by his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton.
“That attracted a lot of attention at the time,” noted William Hanchett, history professor emeritus at San Diego State University and an authority on Lincoln's assassination. “But it's been completely discredited.”
Many conspiracy theories meet a similar fate – they rise on the hot air of controversy; wobble as experts poke holes in their fragile underpinnings; and then drop into oblivion.
Scarred cathedrals
The Pearl Harbor conspiracy theories, though, floated anew in the aftermath of 9/11.
There are undeniable parallels between the events. Gazing into the battleship Arizona's watery grave is not unlike peering through the fence surrounding ground zero. In each of these scarred, secular cathedrals, Americans died in a sneak attack and America changed course.
All according to a secret White House plan, some claim. In the Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll, 36 percent of all Americans suspected that the federal government planned or allowed 9/11 because “they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East.”
This echoes the arguments about Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor found in books such as John Toland's “Infamy” (1982) and Robert Stinnett's “Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor” (2000).
“In these two conspiracies,” said Emily Rosenberg, author of “A Date Which Will Live: Pearl Harbor in American Memory” and a history professor at the University of California Irvine, “the conspiracy is at the heart of the government. That buys into the anti-government rhetoric that is so prevalent.”
Unfortunately, there is reason for such rhetoric. In 1990, a New York Times/WCBS-TV poll found that black Americans most apt to embrace conspiracies were also most familiar with U.S. history. They knew that the FBI had infiltrated the civil-rights movement in the 1960s and that the U.S. Public Health Service had withheld effective treatment from black men in the Tuskegee syphilis study of 1932-72.
For Americans of all races and backgrounds, well-documented government scandals have diminished faith in “the official story.” At the same time, though, even the most elaborate conspiracy theory can offer an odd sort of comfort.
“There is a natural tendency when a tragedy or catastrophe happens to try to make it comprehensible,” Olmsted said. (Full disclosure: Olmsted is married to Bill Ainsworth, a Union-Tribune reporter.)
People often reduce complicated issues to a single cause – the bigger the issue, the bigger the cause, said Patrick Leman, a British psychologist who studies the origins of conspiracy theories.
Leman's research also indicates that people who are inclined to believe conspiracy theories are also inclined to discard facts that run counter to those theories.
“It's called confirmatory bias,” said Michael Shermer, author of “Why People Believe Weird Things” and executive director of the Skeptics Society. “People tend to look for or recognize evidence that supports their ideas and ignore everything else.”
Case in point: Olmsted notes that every war that the United States has fought since 1900 has spawned a conspiracy theory, often inspired by the conviction that Americans love peace.
“Opponents of war, at the time or often later, argue that this is basically a peaceful country,” she said. “If everyone had known all the facts, we wouldn't have gone to war.”
Conversely, more commonplace, non-conspiratorial explanations can shake our faith in order and reason. Rosenberg cites the “clutter and noise” view, that catastrophes sometimes happen because authorities are distracted or incompetent. This can be a difficult, if not intolerable, reminder of chance's role in life.
A 'war frenzy'
Reviewing World War II, the first prominent “backdoor to war” advocates were Sens. Owen Brewster and Homer Ferguson, two Republican opponents of Roosevelt. Sitting on the 1945-46 Senate committee on Pearl Harbor, they argued that the White House was covering up Roosevelt's role in the war's outbreak.
The committee – dominated by Democrats, 6-4 – concluded its review by placing the sole blame on Adm. Husband Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Walter Short, the senior commanders at Pearl Harbor.
Kimmel and Short's long campaign for exoneration drew bipartisan support. In 1999, when the Senate voted 52-47 that Kimmel and Short had performed “competently and professionally,” the supporters included Democrats Joseph Biden and John Kerry. One of the “nays” came from John Warner, R-Va., and a former Navy secretary.
Still, Rosenberg said, this campaign played into the 1990s' culture wars, with some Republicans using the occasion to take potshots at Roosevelt, a venerated Democrat.
After 9/11, though, conservatives stopped hammering Roosevelt. Speculation about a U.S. president using a surprise attack as a pretext for sending troops into combat had politically uncomfortable echoes. “9/11 has so overshadowed Pearl Harbor,” Rosenberg said. “I don't think it is a right-wing Republican cause célèbre as it really had been for 50 years.”
Now the drumbeats are heard from the opposite direction, to “prove” another point.
Roosevelt's nefarious plot “is trotted out now by the 9/11 conspiracy theorists who want a historic precedent,” Olmsted said.
In a recent article in Australia's New Dawn magazine, “War on Terror: The Police State Agenda,” Richard K. Moore asserts that both Roosevelt and the Bush administration “intentionally set the stage for a 'surprise' attack” to whip the American people into a “war frenzy.”
“Unbelievable as this may seem,” Moore wrote, “this is a scenario that matches the modus operandi of U.S. ruling elites.”
Unbelievable or not, this backdoor has moved. Once a staple of the far right, it is now attached to the extreme left.
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Notice how, in this article....
....a proven, accepted historical conspiracy is a "scandal".....and anything not yet supported by the mainstream multinational corporate media is denigrated as a "conspiracy theory".....
According to our government and their lackeys in the MSM, everything is a ridiculous "conspiracy theory" until it is proven, then it is a "scandal". There are no "conspiracies" only "scandals", after the fact.
Ewwwwwhhhhhhh....god forbid, we should be "publicly ridiculed" as conspiracy theorists.....Ewwwwwwhhhhhhh....
Give me a break.
Read closely now
/////"People often reduce complicated issues to a single cause – the bigger the issue, the bigger the cause, said Patrick Leman, a British psychologist who studies the origins of conspiracy theories.
Leman's research also indicates that people who are inclined to believe conspiracy theories are also inclined to discard facts that run counter to those theories.
“It's called confirmatory bias,” said Michael Shermer, author of “Why People Believe Weird Things” and executive director of the Skeptics Society. “People tend to look for or recognize evidence that supports their ideas and ignore everything else.”\\\\\\
Conspiracy Theorists do what?
Tend to do WHAT?
this guy is so right..... I completely disregarded the testimony of Minetta....and the outlandish story of William Rodriguez..... missed all the signs of CD.....but I totally swallowed the pancakes
Try a switcheroo
If he changed all references from "conspiracy theorists" to "official version theorists," he'd have it just about right.
People on the left will believe this administration lies, lies, lies about everything, yet on this one humongous issue that wouldn't hold water in any known universe, their cognitive dissonance kicks in hard and they are reduced to dismissing all anomolies, counterintuitive facts, and historical analysis.
I'm so sick of circular logic I could spit out a lung. Feh.
The switcheroo works the
The switcheroo works the same when you sub in "Bush and his friends" for the "terrorists".... ummm... every time Bush opens his mouth..
when Bush speaks slow and clear.... does it make him sound like an idiot?... or do you feel like he's speaking to everyone like they are the idiots?
He sounds as though he is
He sounds as though he is heavily medicated in hopes of keeping the drool off his chin...
He is a moron, and he is English-impaired, but I think there is something else going on. His strange, halting cadence, weird pauses, and thought derailment make me think he is sometimes listening to a wire. This forces him to multi-task, which is like asking a hippo to dance. (There have been several interviews which made it SO obvious I can't believe Jon Stewart didn't do a bit on it.) The only time he seems smoother is when he's in the familiar and beloved territory of enemy rant.
And you're right, the rhetorical projection is absolute!
He's a remote controlled monkey.
I'm sure he's parroting input from his in-ear prompter. Sadly, some might say that as such, he's pretty well suited to represent mainstream America.
Read Closer
"People often reduce complicated issues to a single cause "
Something as complicated as the massive and succesful strategic strike directly at the heart of the nation's economic system and against the world's most dominent defense system ever to have existed on the planet, which is what occurred on 911, and you like to reduce it to the simplistic and idiotic assumption that 19 angry guys with boxcutters carried out the attacks with the bearded coordinator working off a laptop in a cave.
"People often reduce complicated issues to a single cause," from the article.
Please, save your reputation and bite your tongue when you are overwhelmed with things beyond your comprehension. Unless you think guys like the former head of the FBI, Louis Freeh, just can't keep up with your dillusional intellect, because, by the way, he has publicly stated the the Official 911 Commission Report is a fraud. Go back to your video games and favorite television programs because these are very serious matters and you need to get out of the way. We are trying to open an investigation into the mass murder of 3000 US citizens. Unless of course, you are trying to prevent such an investigation. If so, I'll consider you aiding and abetting the murderers, as will most everyone else, regardless of whether people hold a theory or not. Most people simply want an investigation to find out the facts and bring the culprits to justice. Why would anyone other than a criminal want to prevent an investigation.
"People often reduce complicated issues to a single cause "
Yeah, like "They hate our Freedoms"?
I agree: "they" do.....it's just I have a different "they" in mind than the government myth would have us believe....
Very good of the government to reduce it to a "single cause" for us. Saved us the trouble. Nice kids.
Great stuff
and I hope you will send this to the writers of this silly hit piece.
like...
like "there was no warning" ?
like "they collapsed simply due to fires" ?
like "simply, it was Osama" ?
like "Al-Quaeda is all evil" ?
like "there were WMDs" ?
the best one still is:
"They hate our freedoms"
Its not really a hit piece.
Its not really a hit piece. Its more of an attempt to explain why people believe conspiracy theories. While it might be a good article if it were referring to other conspiracy theories like Tupac or Elvis' death. Its too full of logical fallacies to be campatable with theories regarding 9/11. I find it strange that this was on the front page but any press is good press.
This is a propaganda piece
This is a propaganda piece plain and simple. Once again they try to make us look like simpletons who have problems processing information and we only select info that supports our ideas. Everyone has biases. Even that psychologist does. Using the scientific method helps to resolve the problems that arise from biases. This is how hypotheses are confirmed.
I did enjoy the fact that this author included the mention about how more African Americans are likely to believe conspiracy theories and then he mentioned that they were pretty much justified. He did omit the CIA-crack connection in south central LA which was pretty lame but then again his paper probably went to bat for the CIA when that story broke.
RIP Gary
RIP Gary Webb
http://www.narconews.com/darkalliance/
Webb was a great man. shot
Webb was a great man. shot himself in the head twice! now that takes skills........
seriously though, Webb was a
seriously though, Webb was a very brave man and was clearly murdered.
Misses the point and assigns labels
There's a lot I don't about this article but fundamentally it is nothing more than a distraction. An attempt to disparage conspiracy theorists rather than consider their theories.
I am also so sick of labels: "far right" and "extreme" (not far) "left"
No, it's just right and wrong. And, 9/11 was wrong.
"Probably" murdered. Theres
"Probably" murdered. Theres just no way to prove he was.
Gary Webb Will Not Be Forgotten
Whatever. He was the reporter breaking the story on the CIA's practice of drug dealing in order to finance their covert and unregulated practices. There was billions of dollars at risk with his continued coverage. And he was forced out of his job and found in a remote motel. Yeah, you believe whatever you want and the a beautiful lake in the middle of the Sahara that I want to sell you.
let me say this again. they
let me say this again. they were so friggin sloppy, they shot him in the head twice. do you really believe that he shot himself in the head twice?
Letter I sent to these 2 "authors"
Dear Mr. Rowe and Mr. Lafee,
I read your article in today's U-T titled "Prewar attacks fuel whispers of conspiracy".
Thank you for bringing this issue to the forefront where it should be.
I strongly disagree with some of the points you have made and the conclusions you have come up with.
Specifically:
1. "The Internet accelerates the pace at which isolated mutterings can become national phenomena, exposed to a potential audience of billions. Video clips and documents, real and manufactured, zip through the ether and buttress tales that might otherwise be dismissed as cockamamie speculation."
You call what is on the internet "cockamamie speculation", yet you provide no evidence of this. And what of the endless drivel we get on mainstream TV news? Are you saying we should take everything on TV as the gospel truth, but when it comes to the internet everything is false? I think most people would agree that our news does not give us the whole truth and we are forced to turn to alternative sources on the internet to get more of the real story of events.
2. "Many conspiracy theories meet a similar fate – they rise on the hot air of controversy; wobble as experts poke holes in their fragile underpinnings; and then drop into oblivion."
Again, where is your evidence of this? Why not give some examples? This certainly was not the case with JFK, and it's obvious by the numbers (36% believe there is a cover-up 5 years later) that 9/11 truth continues to build and not "drop into oblivion".
3. "People often reduce complicated issues to a single cause – the bigger the issue, the bigger the cause, said Patrick Leman, a British psychologist who studies the origins of conspiracy theories."
Isn't this what the official theory on 9/11 (the 9/11 Commission Report) does?
4. "Leman's research also indicates that people who are inclined to believe conspiracy theories are also inclined to discard facts that run counter to those theories."
This point can be applied to any group involved in any argument, including people who believe what the government is telling us regarding 9/11. Are you not discarding many facts surrounding 9/11 in this article by presuming that the 9/11 Commission Report has the correct theory?
5. "Olmsted notes that every war that the United States has fought since 1900 has spawned a conspiracy theory, often inspired by the conviction that Americans love peace."
Of course Americans love peace. Everyone loves peace. Who wants war besides rogue elements within governments? And, in ALL cases involved in war there is definitely a conspiracy involved, so those Americans who believe in these conspiracies have it right.
6. "Rosenberg cites the “clutter and noise” view, that catastrophes sometimes happen because authorities are distracted or incompetent. This can be a difficult, if not intolerable, reminder of chance's role in life."
There is always incompetence involved when it comes to government. But this does not explain 9/11 or Pearl Harbor.
7. "Unbelievable or not, this backdoor has moved. Once a staple of the far right, it is now attached to the extreme left."
It sounds like you are saying 9/11 truth is an extreme left issue, which is incorrect. People from all walks of the political spectrum do not believe the official theory on 9/11. 9/11 is not a partisan issue any longer.
Furthermore, if you are going to do an article like this, why not at least get a quote from David Ray Griffin, who wrote the book titled "The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about 9/11 and the Bush Administration"? Or interview someone from the local 9/11 Truth group, San Diegans for 9/11 Truth? Pulling quotes and researching both sides of the story would likely produce a more balanced version of this topic that will let the reader decide the conclusion instead of the authors.
Sincerely,
Excellent reply. I'm going
Excellent reply. I'm going to save a copy and incorporate it in my responses to similiar articles and discussions. Thanks for the great work.
Thanks GB!
And keep up your excellent work too!
Great letter
We'll have them all dizzy and spinning in circles soon.
Shill practice
Forgive me but I need to get some practice at being a govt shill. Here goes:
1.No the internet is not all "cockamamie speculation". Plenty of truth can be found at various trusted sources such as Foxnews.com and rushlimbaugh.com
2. The popular mechanic's book "debunking the myths of 9/11" is a fine example of experts poking holes in the fragile underpinnings of conspiracy theorists.
3.The 9/11 Commission Report was a completely accurate and bipartisan effort to document the events of 9/11.
4. Perhaps, but anyone who rejects the 9/11 Commission Report is likely to reject anything said by any government official. So there is no point in taking those kinds of people seriously.
5. So what was the conspiracy behind the korean war?
6. Incompetence alone does not explain 9/11, but incompetence combined with fanatical muslims who hate america, that does explain 9/11!
7. 9/11 conspiracy theories were all originated by the extreme left. Those conservatives who engage in such lunatic theories are merely confused and/or closet liberals.
Email addresses
Send these 2 shills a response to this article here:
peter.rowe@uniontrib.com
scott.lafee@uniontrib.com
Be polite!
I can't believe it took two
I can't believe it took two people to write such garbage.... can you say Beavis and Butthead?
That's an insult!
To the great Mike Judge creation!
Isent them this..
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6357586375896950217
Hello,
In this two minute video you see and will hear Rudolph Giuliani tell how he was told to move because the towers were coming down. No steel frame building had ever come down because of fire. He is told but does not tell the firemaen and rescue workers.
You will also see and hear Larry Silverstein recount how they made the decision to "pull it", clearly stating that they needed to demolish building 7.
Devote two minutes of your life as a journalist to viewing this short video, then write a story telling what you saw.
Sincerely,
Joe Stokes
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6357586375896950217
We must be the change we wish to see in the world. M Gandhi
crap
extreme left, just like san diego resident, john conner.
Interview with 9/11 Truther David Hawkins
David Hawkins, forensic economist, and former member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, (kicked out for questioning Fetzer role) explains how 9/11 government plot worked. New details of 9/11 inside job, bin Laden role as CIA agent.
URL of Hawkins interview
http://media.putfile.com/Interview-with-David-Hawkins-12032006
This is some great stuff!
listening now...
Whoa!
Can you push this to the top in a blog entry? This guy really sheds light on the mystery of Gnome Chomsky's 9/11 autism (hint: he's BFF with former CIA-head John Deutch). Also, I had never heard about the British company that was doing work on both the Pentagon wing and WTC7.
Well...
He seriously believes that massive jet engines inside each tower caused the collapses.
Just saying. Be careful.
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, wtf?!
"John F. Kennedy's assassination has long been a favorite topic for conspiracy theorists. The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas is seen from the location where Kennedy was shot on Nov. 22, 1963."
The author of that piece is obviously a total idiot!
As everybody with the exception of that poor scribbler knows that notoriously infmaous The Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas only promotes the government version, the alternative material only covers false leads like mafia did it, or castro did it, or ufos did it.
You won't find there Garrison's or Prouty's or any other serious book on the subject.
There is another smaller not CIA funded museum in Dallas..
Good post Realist
I will keep all this info in My notebook..I'm trying to put together a concise version of all things of 9/11 to use as a response. Even though using the term "concise" does not give credit to how extensive this all is, nonetheless it's great material.
The left or right side of the issues makes no difference to Me , but to other people who label Me as either are instantly slanting their minds to one side view, or that they are only allowing to hear one side and disregard anything else if it is not their "side"
It's irritating ,but it doesn't deter Me from telling them that I am neither and that I am both,it's the truth that matters,period.
This is what I wrote
Dear Mssrs Rowe and Lafee,
your article "Prewar attacks fuel whispers of conspiracy" gives the impression that you do not believe that conspiracies happen in the "real world" but explain them "away" as the result of psychological processes.
But surely you must know that history has *also* revealed numerous real conspiracies and proven many "conspiracy theories"? A few examples suffice to make the point:
The U.S. House Committee on Assassinations concluded in its 1979 report that the murder of President Kennedy was a result of a conspiracy (a really plausible conclusion when all the evidence is considered).
Recently declassified documents show that the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which provided the legitimation for the Vietnam War, was fictional.
Italian terrorism trials in turn revealed Operation Gladio, a Cold War operation in which NATO's stay-behind armies and Western intelligence agencies promoted and assisted right-wing terrorist groups, whose attacks, killing hundreds of people in several countries, were blamed on the political left. The Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti acknowledged Operation Gladion in his speech to the Parliament in 1990. See, e.g., historian Daniele Ganser's book "NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe" (2005).
The BBC document "Dead in the Water" investigates the attack on the American intellingence vessel "USS Liberty" during the Six Day War. People have wondered for decades why President Johnson recalled the fighter jets sent to defend this ship against the Israeli attack. Recent research has shown that the sinking of the ship was to be blamed on Egypt, which the USA was ready to attack. The conspiracy was foiled by the appearance of a Russian spy ship on the scene, which caused the prolonged attack to be interrupted and allowed the vessel to limp to safety. A detailed analysis of this case, as well as of many other historical false flag attacks, can be found in the recent documentary "Terrorstorm", which can be viewed on Google video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5792753647750188322&q=terror+storm
And closer to my own country, historians the world over agree that the famous Mainila shots, of which the Russians accused the Finns and used as a pretext for starting the Winter War in 1939, were in reality fired by the Soviet artillery into their own territory.
In fact, as everyone familiar with history knows, many, if not most, wars throughout history have been started as a result of some kind of a false flag operation -- or conspiracy, if you like.
Could the fact that various kinds of real conspiracies are common in human societies explain much of the prevalence of conspiracy theories?
Best regards,
[...]
* * * * *
One of the authors responded, noting that the article listed several real conspiracies but thanked me for my perspetive and forwarded my email to their public editor.
It's really easy to counter these "conspiracy theory" articles: just show their authors some of the conspiracies history has proven. Noting that it would be a miracle if conspiracies did NOT happen in human societies helps. :)
"Letter to the editor"
In connection with the Venezuelan presidential election results, this coded memo has been accidentaly intercepted and put on the internet by the Cuban media, enjoy:
====
Dear Mr. Rowe and Lafee,
Thank you for your latest piece on conspiracies. I think we need more of similarly eloquent articles like this. For instance, everybody knows since the senator Schweiker-Hart report for the Church Committee of the mid 1970s and the following HSCA panel, and especially its 1996-2003 declassified part, the so-called "Lopez" report that the Warren Commission is the funniest conspiracy theory of them all.
Therefore we need this kind of dedicated authors from our psyops team like you to continue influence the population, even though the JFK and the rest of the 1960s assassinations are clearly lost cause as the polls show, nobody believes the government account anymore.
You might recall the BBC Newsnight documentary from November of this year where they clearly identified three of our fellow CIA JM/WAVE operatives at the Ambassador Hotel during the RFK assassination, well so far we managed to keep it under a lid, and thus virtually no US media followed this “European” story.
But for one thing, even covering and referring to those older topics will help you to sharp both your mind and pen for the more current patriotic assignments like ridiculing those “9/11 truth activists” be it scientists, government officials or just radical youth elements.
Simply, we can still buy some more time before even higher percentage of the US population learns the true account of this story. As a new impetus and additional motivational aspect for you I can hint about our recent Top Secret survey that the world's opinion is already lost and it's only slightly above 95% of the earth inhabitants anyway. So, let’s keep the hard work on the US public opinion!
Best Regards
Yours supervising CIA case officer
FUF/LASH
PS I’m also honored to pass the warmest regards and congratulations to you from “Papa/Poppy” #41
====
www.savetheinternet.com/
"Why people embrace conspiracy theories is a complex topic, touching on ideology and psychology. In our time, two factors have made these tales more pervasive:
The Internet accelerates the pace at which isolated mutterings can become national phenomena, exposed to a potential audience of billions. Video clips and documents, real and manufactured, zip through the ether and buttress tales that might otherwise be dismissed as cockamamie speculation."
So the Internet is a competition and threat to the main stream media and to most of the political establishment not just in this country,but around the world. Nothing is worse to them than people refusing to be spoon fed ,trying to find their own information.
Not many of them will support net-neutrality now.
www.savetheinternet.com/ is the best reply.
Here we go again
It's just like Cockburn's counterpunch article. Just a bunch of psychobabble trying to rationalize the strawman's "conspiracy mentality".
Is this the template for how the corporate media is going to handle 9/11 from now on?
They are working off the assumption that there are no facts which contradict the official version of events. They are hoping that the people who aren't aware of these facts will just blindly fall into this belief where X% of the population is delusional and not worth communicating with at all.
Can you say "Divide and Conquer"
It has an almost machine-like quality to it. Cold and calculating... it goes something like this: "Well, we've lost 1/3 of the population, so lets focus on keeping the remaining 2/3".
good points. and also they
good points. and also they through in the "LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT","LEFT'", "RIGHT"...
On EVERY issue they attempt to explain it as "LEFT" versus "RIGHT" even though the two terms inevitably have nothing to do with it.
"Why would people believe in
"Why would people believe in conspiracy theories?"
Because they look at the EVIDENCE!
Here's my question
Why should people believe the media? What is this idiotic phenomenon of total absolute bowing down to the almighty TV? It's pathetic! "It can't be true, because if it was the news would be all over it" garbage, ughh, makes me puke!
Dear Mr. Rowe and Lafee, It
Dear Mr. Rowe and Lafee,
It troubles me to have to write this letter to yet another group of “journalists?”, “authors?”, “writers?” that have the unsuspecting American public as their audience. Unfortunately, you have yet again proven that investigative journalism is a dead pony, killed by the “profits” first mentality and the outright laziness of “journalists” such as yourselves. Having worked in many professional fields I have seen my fair share of less than adequate performers – it appears that journalism is no different.
Your article that targeted 9/11 Conspiracies was an utter shame and quite disingenuous. More explicitly it shows that your main avenue of information comes not from considered, independent research, but from reiterating shallow and biased journalism sourced from the main stream media blather.
The fact is that the Bush Administration (visa-via the 9/11 Commission headed by Philip Zelikow, a member of the administration) has covered up very important FACTS about 9/11. Facts that show the CIA’s Able Danger operation tracked the 9/11 hijackers. Facts that point to the funding of 9/11 by Pakistan’s ISI. Facts that show that VP Cheney lied about where he was on 9/11 (visa-via Norman Mineta’s eyewitness testimony). Facts that show the military lied about the 9/11 response not just once, but twice (they’re now on their third revision of history). Facts that show that the conclusions of the NIST report (WTC1 & 2) are not supported by the data in the NIST report. Facts that the collapse of WTC 7 is unexplainable without the use of explosives (FEMA report concludes their best fire theory only has a “low probability of occurrence”).
Asking questions does not make one a conspiracy theorist. However, running from the facts and making excuses for inconsistencies does make one a conspirator.
Sincerely,
University of Rhode Island 9/11 Course
http://www.projo.com/education/content/uri_911class_11-24-06_T7315SH.338...
New URI course to focus on impact of 9/11 on literature
01:00 AM EST on Friday, November 24, 2006
By Jennifer D. Jordan
Journal Staff Writer
Prof. Alain-Philippe Durand knew he had hit a nerve when his French class at the University of Rhode Island discussed a controversial novel about 9/11, Windows on the World, two years ago.
The book, written by Frederick Beigbeder, was then only available in French. Durand hoped its provocative subject — an imagining of the terror and violence that transpired in the North Tower just as the first plane hit the World Trade Center — would spark lively debate in the French conversation class.
But the professor said he was not prepared for the intensity of the discussion or the complexity of the issues it revealed.
“The students were divided into two camps. One side said, ‘Who does this guy think he is …. This Frenchman thinks he knows more about the U.S. than we do,’ ” said Durand. “The other half of the class was completely the opposite. They thought a novel on this should have been written earlier, and that the only way to confront these issues is to talk about them.”
A few months later, Durand edited a book, Novels of Contemporary Extreme, with his colleague, Naomi Mandel, an associate professor of English who specializes in literature of the Holocaust. Durand began to see a connection between writings about the Holocaust and the profusion of novels, documentaries, movies and nonfiction books about 9/11 that had started to come out.
“Who has the right to tell the story?” Durand said. “Should it be only those people who experienced it first hand? What do you do when all those people are dead?”
These questions prompted Durand to create a new class at URI’s Kingston campus. In January, an honors seminar for 20 students, conducted in English, will explore the impact of 9/11 through literature and film.
“What I am really hoping is that by having some discussion, that will help us come to terms with the event itself,” Durand said. “One of the main questions will be is there, or should there be, such a thing as the literature of 9/11 the way there is a literature of the Holocaust.”
The class will explore the terrorist attacks through various media including comic books, photography, nonfiction books, the federal government’s 9/11 Commission Report, novels, documentaries and feature films.
“There will be a section on testimonials of survivors put together by New York Times journalists and a section on theories about violence by intellectuals like Susan Sontag,” Durand said. “There will also be a section on the conspiracy theories about 9/11 by this group of people, educated people like professors and architects, who are arguing that September 11 did not happen as it was presented but that it was orchestrated by the U.S. government.”
Durand is already thinking about what form the discussion will take if some students believe the conspiracy theory.
“Maybe by going through all the materials in the course, they will change their mind,” he said. “But everyone will be free to say what they want as long as they are respectful to the other students.”
The course will also analyze different approaches to retelling the events of 9/11, comparing a French documentary about the New York firefighters who responded to the World Trade Center to feature films, such as United 93. That movie starred unknown actors and was filmed with hand-held cameras to capture the ragged, shocking nature of the hijacking of the doomed plane. Durand also plans to show Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, a big-budget studio production starring Nicholas Cage, and an HBO movie on the terrorists behind the attacks, called The Hamburg Cell.
“I want the students to discuss how different writers and filmmakers have chosen to represent such an event and also to discuss the different approaches,” Durand said.
Durand said that five years after the terrorist attacks, many people feel ready to explore the issues raised by 9/11.
“In part, it’s a question of time,” he said. “On September 12, people like [David] Letterman and [Jay] Leno didn’t have a show. They didn’t see how they could go on the air and try to tell jokes after what had happened.”
But within a few days, network television decided it was time to return to some semblance of normalcy, and late-night comedians returned to the air.
ADL ~ bankrolled ~ 9.11
I called it in 1993. Steven Roth- Chairman of the ADL/ unofficial player in the Silverstein Properties was involved in the first bombing.
I'm sure this will be in future textbooks, that is, unless he successfully enacts the "Hate-Crimes" -Bill! :) -Good Luck, suckers!