After publishing a piece on the absolute idiocy of the Obama Birther movement and its potential to turn nasty, I've been inundated with literally hundreds of emails decrying my comparison of the Birthers to the 9/11 Truthers.
The offending paragraph:
The 9/11 truth movement was enormously helpful to the Bush Administration as it provided a giant distraction from the colossal crimes they committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. If their energies had been directed in a positive way, there's a good chance Bush would have been impeached and Dick Cheney thrown in jail. Alas, the 9/11 truth movement dedicated its time to proving the U.S government tried to kill thousands of its own people in exchange for gold/political power.
The Birther movement can be compared to the 9/11 truth movement, perhaps not in scale, but certainly in its potency.
The emails I have received have made for an entertaining read. The absolute certainty with which otherwise fairly rational people have asserted that the U.S. government planned, carried out and covered up the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon has blown me away.
I have been accused of complicity with the attacks, called a 'traitor to the human race,' and a terrorist. This is an example of a typical email:
You're either a complete ignoramus (see PatriotsQuestion911 -- http://www.patriotsquestion911.com, and the peer-reviewed article about nano-thermite found in WTC dust samples -- Google it)...
...or a Mockingbird sayanim flak covering up for the Mossad's involvement (Dominick Souter, Urban Moving Systems, Odigo, Zim Shipping) and an accomplice after the fact to mass murder.
Consider yourself outed.
And that was one of the more polite messages sent by the 9/11 Truth Movement foot soldiers.
Another theme that has come up over and over in the emails flooding my account are the 'facts' regarding 'Building 7'. I've skimmed some of them, and they mostly revolve around the idea that rich business men had insurance policies for the building that wasn't hit directly, and that it contained gold, and secret documents held by Enron, Exxon, and other evil corporations that helped orchestrate the attacks.
In fairness, I have also received some polite emails suggesting I do more research on the subject before offering an opinion, but the majority have come from arm chair warriors spewing language that would make a sailor blush.
I have done some research on the topic, but stopped fairly quickly into when it dawned on me that:
1. Any alternative to the official account of what happened is so absurd it simply cannot be true.
2. No reputable scientific journal has ever taken any of the 'science' of the conspiracy seriously.
3. The evidence supporting the official story is overwhelming, whereas the 9/11 Truthers have yet to produce a shred of concrete evidence that members of the U.S. government planned the attacks in New York and Washington.
A couple of years ago, I went to court to testify in a case against someone who had committed a crime against myself and three other people. I won't go into detail, but the case against the defendant was pretty air tight. All four witnesses provided independent, stunningly similar accounts of the crimes the defendant had committed, and all four witnesses had been living in separate countries for the previous decade without any contact whatsoever.
Regardless, the defendant was found not guilty and released without charge. Why? Because the defense attorney alluded to the idea that we had orchestrated a complex conspiracy against the defendant in order to destroy his life. The defense did not provide any evidence of their own, but simply picked holes in the witnesses accounts, all of whom were recalling events from over 10 years before. It was a simple, yet incredibly effective strategy, and the defendant walked free. The 12 regular folks chosen randomly to be jurors failed to see through the tactic, and believed there remained 'reasonable doubt' that he had not committed the crime.
And herein lies the ultimate weapon the 9/11 Truthers wield over your average 'Myth Busters' viewer: They don't have to prove a damn thing. They just have to raise enough doubt, pick enough holes, and use enough 'science' to make you think twice about the official theory.
It's the same type of intellectually bankrupt shenanigans the Bush Administration pulled when 'proving' the case for war against Iraq. They cherry picked evidence, ignored information that disproved their theory, and used a massive disinformation campaign to persuade people the Saddam Hussein was a reincarnation of Attila the Hun and the biggest threat to America since Adolf Hitler.
Given enough time and resources, you could prove that Barack Obama was in fact an alien invader from the planet Krypton, sent to earth to destroy America and turn everyone into slaves. I imagine you'd start with the whole Birther Movement nonsense, then move on to the fact that he alluded to it in a speech he gave when running for president.
The fact is, no one could have ever predicted what would happened to the World Trade Center when a two Boeing 767s were flown into it, because you couldn't exactly recreate the scenario in a laboratory. Science is often limited in its ability to predict, mostly because the real world doesn't conform to standards set in a lab. There are simply too many variables, and the best scientist recognize this and understand that their methodology is intrinsically flawed. While there have been planes flown into buildings before, nothing exactly like that had happened before, and no one really had any idea what would happen if it did.
There are so many variables at play, it is easy to pick holes in the official theory and claim that in fact what we saw (two massive passenger planes flying at high speed into a building) didn't actually happen.
The problem is, by all sane accounts, it did, and the alternative is so ridiculous, you'd have to be a moron to even entertain it.
The Bush Administration was far too incompetent to pull off anything as complex as the attacks on 9/11, and to think that they could have covered it up afterward is even more absurd. What they did do was carry out and monstrously fuck up two illegal invasions of sovereign nations for oil. And thanks to the 9/11 Truth Movement, a considerable amount of attention was taken away from the people trying to hold the Bush Administration accountable.
The 9/11 Truth movement is fighting a pointless battle for a pointless cause. They have spent enormous amounts of time and energy on the matter, taking attention away from legitimate criticisms of the debacle and the ensuing blood bath that followed. And for that, they are the traitors, not me.
And please, if you are part of the movement, don't email me any more. You're wasting your time.
Not that it seems to matter.
Ben Cohen is the editor of The Daily Banter.com
Follow Ben Cohen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/thedailybanter
----> you are 100% wrong.
By now, there is serious, scientific, peer reviewed, irrefutable, conclusive evidence of the presence of high explosive nanothermite in the pyroclastic dust of 9/11 WTC.
The journal is The Open Chemical Physics Journal, at http://www.bentham.org/open/tocpj/openaccess2.htm
see also http://AE911Truth.org, http://STJ911.org, http://Journalof911Studies.com, http://911UnitedWeInvestigate.blogspot.com, http://911Blogger.com , http://PatriotsQuestion911.com
"3. The evidence supporting the official story is overwhelming, whereas the 9/11 Truthers have yet to produce a shred of concrete evidence that members of the U.S. government planned the attacks in New York and Washington."
----> What evidence are you talking about?
Pancake theory has been disproved as impossible. Explosions, implosion, pyroclastic cloud, entire pulverization of both buildings is not even mentioned in the official story.
Official story says "Collapse of WTC7 has not been dealt or looked into" ... What kind of "supporting evidence" is that??
Petr Buben
you are COMPLETELY, FACTUALLY WRONG all accounts, regarding 9/11 controlled demolition. This makes you a very good propagandist and a your arguments a target of being called ridiculous.
Quoting you:
"I have done some research on the topic, but stopped fairly quickly into when it dawned on me that:"
----> what research have you done?
"1. Any alternative to the official account of what happened is so absurd it simply cannot be true."
----> what kind of factual, scientific, logical argument is this?? ...
start, and stick with facts. leave what "seems absurd" to you aside. ....
The truth about 9/11 is very serious, mind boggling, and yes - unbelievable, and will have very wide reaching and grave consequences for the country. ..
It is psychologically very difficult to admit you have been completely deceived, and to look impartially on the evidence.. .... so you call it "absurd" .. well maybe it is absurd, to you, you are young, and you, and nobody was and is prepared for grave events such as this to pass. ....
But the question also might be, why do you consider the true, factual "alternative" account absurd?
......2., 3., continued in the next comment
Petr Buben
http://friendfeed.com/petrbuben
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1569483
There's video where demolition charges are audible prior to the collapse of the first building, and where a loud explosion is heard seconds before the collapse. If the sound was caused by the collapse, it would've been heard moments after seeing the building begin to collapse, not before.
The majority of the truth movement is merely asking for a real independent investigation. There's enough evidence that counters the official story and provides strong enough reason to warrant an independent investigation.
Criminal charges should be brought against those who're obviously complicit in the perpetration and cover-up. I'm not claiming to know who they are, but I want to know, and I want to see them brought to justice. That isn't unreasonable by any account if you ask me.
I strongly urge you to research this topic. I stumbled on a video called "Find the missing 757". It showed that there was no physical evidence to support that a plane hit the Pentagon, but that the video and photo evidence show that a 757 couldn't have it the Pentagon. I thought the video creators were full of sh*t so began looking into it to prove them wrong. It turned out I couldn't prove them wrong. The more I looked into it, the more I found the official story handed down by the 9/11 Commission was almost completely false.
If such activity has been undertaken, then this action should apply the continuous pressure necessary to encourage an involved individual to come forward. Before they can be exposed and implicated by an accomplice. If no definitive evidence is submitted, then no reward would be paid.
2. Verification: The latest brain scanning machines can differentiate between the mental processes of retrieval and fabrication. Memory recall produces a different signature (area of activation), to that necessitated by invention.
It is however, not possible to determine the difference between what an individual believes is true, and what is actually true. Since the individual cannot determine that either. It is though, possible to reveal the production of falsehoods. Using questions which require the creation of data not currently stored. This method is not dependant on detecting/interpreting physical symptoms initiated by lying. But rather displaying the unavoidable mechanical manifestations of that process.
Obviously, a set of control questions could also be used, to confirm the legitimacy of such a test.
The fact of the matter is that there's no science at all to back up your proposal, and everything scientific to back up the fact that what we saw on 9/11 is what happened on 9/11!
Laws of Physics: conservation of momentum. The couple of scientists that support the official story get their knickers in a twist over this. The official story doesn't explain the huge dust plumes, the steel girders that are ejected 70mph horizontally, the molten steel hot spots or the many small body parts scattered hundreds of yards on top of neighboring skyscrapers.
And the chemistry: Google Prof Harrit, a respected Danish scientist and his work on the nanothermite found in the ground zero dust.
If you don't want to look then you will not see.
Those who wish to deny the Holocaust ever happened use the same warped logic. I am sure there were members of Dr. Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda who said exactly the same thing.
The bigger the lie, the more likely it is that there is some element of truth lurking about.
It wasn't until 2005 that I saw WTC7 and as soon as I saw it I knew something was wrong. You do not have steel framed building falling into its own footprint from a fire or any form of natural mechanism. It was deliberately knocked down. Why? Fraud files connecting Enron to Texan politicians is one theory (only a theory) - at least we have a motive and a means...
There is, however, sufficient reason for a reasonable person to be skeptical of whether the American people are fully informed of all the facts. First of all, (a) sure, a plane hit the first tower and it fell onto its own footprint, (b) a plane hit the second tower and it fell onto its own footprint -- both of these are indisputable, although there is already room for skepticism, since one does not expect two catastrophic incidents to play out in exactly the same way (because so many random, complex, and uncontrollable variables are involved). And then there is (c) WTC #7 fell onto its own footprint in approximately 11 seconds, even though no plane hit it.
BTW, the number of dollars of damage done is an utterly useless metric of the collapse mechanisms involved!
No, you couldn't, Ben. The problem with your article, and people like you in general, is that you never address actual evidence, choosing instead to paint the entire Truth Movement with broad strokes of caricature based on a few of its less eloquent members.
Have you read The Commission by Philip Shenon? There's a source I'm sure you trust (a NY Times reporter). Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, was a colleague of Condoleezza Rice and a Bush White House insider. Do you consider Zelikow an independent investigator? You shouldn't. So why would you accept anything produced by his commission?
That's one small fragment of the thousands of pieces of evidence that contradict the official story of 9/11. Why do you find it so difficult to accept that we MAY not have the truth? Why would you endorse such a compromised commission?
When legitiamte questions remain unanswered or even the asking of questions themselves is mocked, truth is not given its due to emerge.
And yet here you are, painting the "birthers" with the same broad brush you decry being used against the "truthers"...
I'm sorry, but you cannot have a secret that great and NO ONE tells it!!
If this is reasonable skepticism to doubt the alternate Twin Towers pulverization theories put forth by the 911 Truth movement, it is also reasonable skepticism to doubt the official pulverization theories put forth by the US Government and the media. This is why the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth group has been taking the science further and examining the Twin Towers debris for signs of explosives.
http://www.ae911truth.org/
It is unreasonable to demand from either side to 'prove' their case to the satisfaction of the other side. However, it is perfectly reasonable to ask for an independent investigation into the crime of the century with a budget and timeline and scope commensurate with the size of the crime. Such a study can pay for itself by the facts it will uncover. E.g. It will be very useful to know why/why not high rise buildings are safe to work/live in.
Mr. Cohen's piece got me searching google. I found this publication:
http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM
You say that the evidence for the official story is overwhelming. Perhaps you mean the passports that miraculously survived the plane impact, explosion, and collapse, to be found intact in the street (the first official claim had them found in the rubble but that was apparently too absurd even for the official story)? Or maybe you mean the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's "testimony, which makes up 25% of the footnotes in the 9/11 Commission Report? Doesn't matter to you that he was waterboarded a few dozen times? What other evidence is there? The phone records presented in the Moussaoui trial that show that Barbara Olson never in fact managed to connect with her husband Ted (Bush's solicitor general), which totally contradicts Mr. Olson's claims that h e spoke with her? What is overwhelming here is not the evidence for the official story, it is the problems with that story and the bizarre insistence of some people to dismiss all concerns as akin to talk of aliens and bigfoot.
http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM