Democracy Now! Debate: Loose Change vs. Popular Mechanic

Thanks for posting this. Just spent the whole day singing down at St. Paul's and Trinity Church Wall st, just next to Ground Zero and all the ceremonies today. The Trinity Choir was a part of it.

Anyway, a LOT of the conspiracy theorists were out in numbers with tshirts, blowhorns, posters, etc. I wonder if this thing is gaining steam?

I appreciate you posting this becuase I just now came here to do a search on Loose Change to see 1) how many people agree with it, even a little and 2) to see if anybody has bothered to debunk conspiracy theorists.

 

I tuned into Democracy Now today and heard portions of the "debate." I thought giving those wacko nutjobs any kind of forum on the 5th anniversary of 9/11 was in incredibly poor taste.

 

The conspiracy theories as far as I know all started with a right wing French nutter who claims he knows what happed, but has never been to the US and claims that he has figured out the truth only from looking at the initial government reports. He also claims, "I haven't seen any proof that shows that man walked on the moon."

When people say things like, "Oh the buildings just didn't fall like they should. It didn't look right." or "Oh the thing that hit the Pentagon looks nothing like what an airplane would do if it hit a building." I have to ask them exactly how many planes they have seen hit skyscrapers or pentagon shaped buildings.

There is I think a very real desire to believe in the sinister nature of the government, and a lot of that is actually the government's fault, and there are lots of people who make money by making veiled innuendo and open ended accusations without ever actually tying their accusations into the facts.

There are still geeks who see the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, and the Worldwide Communist-Zionist conspiracy behind every slightly unexplained event that happens. Don't get drawn into their paranoia.

 

Conspiracy theories are a psychological tactic. They paint the picture of a controlled world in which freak incidents like these were in fact our doing and thus controllable. They paint a picture of a self-contained world in which we control our own destiny and that the nature of chance and uncontrollable circumstance don't exist.

That's why some people still insist that the government put bombs on the dams in New Orleans to flood the 9th ward. That's why there are those that still deny the holocaust, and those today that deny the possibility of terrorists, whom we cannot control, actually doing something like this.

And to make matters worse, the logic of conspiracy theories avoid the traditional scientific method. When we come to a conclusion via standard scientific thinking, we hypothesize, research, and then come to a conclusion. Conspiracy theories engage in a socractic way of thinking in which we constantly question and poke holes. These types of things can't be disproven because skepticism by its vary nature is impossible to disprove. You can continue to be skeptical about everything to the point where we ourselves may not exist.

It's incredibly sad and honestly angers me so much. I am normally an incredibly calm person but every anniversary of 9/11, when watching the news or listening to NPR, I just end up feeling so angry and infuriated at those who did this and those who continue to deny it in a disrespectful manner. What angered me the most about those clips was the haughty and generally disrespectful responses they threw out there. I'll never forget the time I was in new york city a couple of years after 9/11. I saw a couple who apparently had lost their son in the towers and were just staring at the hole in the ground and I couldn't help but almost lose it while watching them. But what made things worse was that some jackass was lacing the area with fliers claiming it was all a conspiracy and then outright hassling the couple trying to convince them that their son died in some ploy by the Jews. I've never ever hit someone or done anything violent, but I was as close as I've ever gotten to just running up and beating the **** out of that guy for the way he was treating everyone.

 

i agree, i can't believe that there's such a large number of people out there who actually believe these conspiracy theories. there are so many people that i've talked to about 9/11 who think that the government set the whole thing up. it is embarassing to the point that i don't even want to argue with them.

 

I heard some polling data that majorities in many countries don't believe this was the work of Al Qaeda.

 

If it's any consolation, movies like Loose Change and In Plane Sight have been discredited and distanced from the 9/11 conspiracy community early on.

It's hard to believe in a massive coverup, and the benefits to uncovering the truth, should there be one, is staggeringly small. 9/11 was a dark day in our lives and I wish those who spend energy committing and researching these allegations would devote their time to campaign for a better and more accountable government instead.

 

Loose Change and In Plane Site are bunk- (I saw them when they first came out- they are red herrings) at best there purpose is to discredit those who seek the truth of 9-11.

9-11 is the worse thing by far that has ever happened to America.


And the choices are-

Option 1. Every govt. security and defense mechanism in place to protect us broke that morning (and the months prior), things that are practiced relentlessly to ensure our protection, operations that have never failed in preparation or in practice failed (at the same moment on the exact same morning), our intelligence community had an unprecendented mental block and a communication meltdown coincidentally precisely when the hi-jackers needed us to go brain dead; along with 100's of coincidental, unusual and contradictoral decisions like ignoring every security warning given to the govt. concerning Al Queda's intentions to attack, inside stock trading, moving the Enron corp. to Wyoming, moving the Norad tactical response jets to Canada, federal take over of FFA flight screens that day, 5 military practice exercises that day, 2 of which involved plane hi-jackings and many more stupid and unprecedented security blunders all taking place at one time on Sept. 11, 2001. The govt. either had a massive failure unprecedented in all of history or the hi-jackers and Al Queda are the most sophisticated and brilliant strategists of all time. If it wasn't so obsurd to think it would appear it was orchestrated secretly by higher ups.

Option 2. The high-jackers were incredibly brilliant criminals, far more brilliant than the US security system. They were able to overcome extensive CIA and FBI surveillance, international warnings and intercepts of information and even though they had CIA infiltration and FBI intercept of their training and intentions they were able to stay under the radar and time their operation when they knew all of our nations security would short circuit at exactly the right time for them; the entire US military and security agencies would coincidentally fail to execute concerning their mission- Their timing and opportunity was nothing short of a combination of superior genius and a miracle. It is really hard to believe how many breakdowns of security happened simutaneouly on that morning. Every person in authority that day at NORAD, the defense dept., the State Dept. and the FBI should go to trial to answer for the absurdity of the breakdowns that occured. If this scenario is true these hi-jakcers acheived the impossible, without the technology to do it or any prior evidence they possessed the intelligence to do it.

Option 3. Some or most of the events were allowed and planned by powerful people in the govt., who are calculated and cold hearted in their agenda in the world and would not care if Americans had to die for their political cause either in NY city or on Middle Eastern soil.

To choose option 1 or 2 makes no sense.
To choose option 3 is ridiculous. I could not stand to think and I want to refuse to believe there are such evil men in the US govt. That seems equally imposssible.

I don't know the answer- honestly, but I know enough not to be able to pick one.

I do believe I have seen enough evidence to call the Popular Mechanics report bunk also and although I don't no what happened on 9-11 I am convinced the Kean Commission did not give us the truth. I don't know the truth but I for one am not buying the govt. version. So what does it matter?
Just pray for our country. Pray for the soldiers and the families in NY who lost loved ones.

Our church spent Sunday morning praying for the families, our soldiers, and our leaders in govt. God bless the families who lost so much on 9-11, God bless America, I wish we knew the truth, but I don't believe we will know the truth of 9-11 in our lifetime.

It breaks my heart, it was a day of infamy.

Forget conspiracy theories- focus on truth. Something none of us know concerning the 9-11 tragedy.

 

I was watching Tucker Carlson when this particular poll came out and he asked the best question I have heard about this. If 30% of Americans really, really believe that the government had a hand in carrying out the 9/11 attacks, why do they stay here? There is no way that I would voluntarily remain a citizen and resident of a country that murdered its own citizens. I do have this option, but I'd have resumes out all over the world for a job in any place but America.

 

Many Americans also believe the govt. had a hand in the Kennedy assination, prior knowledge to the attack on Pearl Harbor, broke promises to the American Indians and lied to cover up the conspiracy to break into the Watergate hotel.

Don't make asking honest questions with pure motives un-American.

Politicians aren't always right, and they have proven they can lie and deceive the American people. Same can be said of mainstream media corporations.

This government is one of liberty and of, by and for the people.

 

The root in this IMO is how much Political Capital was Gained by it
and
How it was used

when you look at the EXTRAORDINARILY BROAD AND SWEEPING POWERs
this Administration Gain because of it . . .

The Admin has been able to do whatever it wanted
without too much discord or disagreement [lest one be unpatriotic]

People think mmmmm
If 3000 people have to die to save a nation
well . . .. . that is just what we have to do
[that is assuming they are of the mind that what they doing
is saving the nation . .. real TRUE BELEIVER types]

Rocket River
not saying it is true. . but understanding the ideal

 

After watching Loose Change I began to feel more doubt about the official story of 9/11. I didn't believe in their version for sure, but the missing pieces really bothered me.

This video was great to watch, because it really showed the difference between the two sides. LC directors focused on lack of evidence, hearsay/non-expert testimony, and initial (largely inaccurate) disaster reports. Meanwhile the PM editors really stuck to the facts, using solid evidence and testimony whereever they could find it. The only part where the LC guys even made a dent are the parts where literally zero evidence was available to anyone and, of course, the part about "imploding" the building, which we will never know the total truth about, because you can't recreate that moment.

I still want to see these secret photos though from the Pentagon and flight 93.

 

For me-
My answer is going to sound stupid, but I believe God wants me to be here.
I was born here, I love my country (I am sick of politicians), and I tried being a missionary and found out my place is here.

 

I do not think that the government conspired to commit the 9/11 tragedy. I do believe that something along these lines happened and it is purely my opinion.

I believe the government knew and know much more than they care to tell us and the Bush administration saw 9/11 (or a similar tragedy) as an opportunity. There are way too many intelligent people in the upper levels of government to not have foreseen or planned for such an event. I think they were just waiting for something like 9/11 to happen so that they could take advantage of the situation. And that is exactly what they did. Unfortunately, it has not been as successful as they believed it would be. I think Bush and his cronies believed we would eat as much **** as they would feed us and by and large our country has done just that.

I am disgusted and ashamed of the country that I voluntarily served. If it were not for my kids, I wouldn't be living here in the US right now. I think we are headed for disaster and I have zero faith in our government.

 

The interesting thing to me is that a lot of the same people that believes the 9/11 conspiracy theory, are also the same people believes that the Bush administration is the most incompetent in history. Stop and think for a minute what kind of sophisticated elaborated plan is needed to cover up something on the scale of 9/11.

This is the same administration that can’t even cover up Abu Ghraib, if they can do 9/11, wouldn’t they be able to “find” some WDM in Iraq? This doesn't pass the smell test.

 

I for one find the Bush group highly competent. They pretty much have done whatever they wanted and have the support of between 40-55 % of the sheeple.

 

Mine is simpler

Like Van Halen had in their Video RIGHT NOW

RIGHT NOW - you government is doing things you think only other governments do.

The point is
what country can you goto that *doesn't* do this kind of thing
If the US did it [not saying they did] then is it hard to beleive
every other nation does too?

Rocket River

 

I think all of us should watch this trailer for the new movie coming out based on the attempts of 9-11 survivor families to get the truth.

link