Village Voice cover story: serious questions remain about 9/11

The Village Voice is considered "alternative", but it also is considered completely credible, with many journalists having won prestigious journalism prizes for reporting.

Now that the Voice is reporting these issues, can we come out of the dungeon now?

The cover story for today's issue is about unanswered questions re 9/11. Here is an excerpt:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0549,murphy,70685,6.html

Open and Shut
Four years later, we still have ten big questions

by Jarrett Murphy
December 5th, 2005 6:30 PM

photo: Joe Zeff
See also:
Running From the Truth
9-11 Commission dealt with several issues by simply ignoring them
by James Ridgeway


On Monday, December 5, the 9-11 Public Discourse Project—a private group formed by 9-11 Commission members after their official mandate lapsed in 2004—held a wrap-up press briefing in Washington, signaling the last gasp of official inquiries into the attacks four years ago. ...

6. Why did 7 WTC fall?

Seven World Trade Center—where, besides OEM, the CIA, Salomon Smith Barney, and other entities had offices—was the last building to collapse on 9-11. It was also probably the first steel skyscraper anywhere to collapse solely because of fire. We still don't know why. While NIST has completed its twin towers reports, it has delayed its 7 WTC report twice; it's currently not expected until next spring.

Several 7 WTC tenants, including OEM and the Secret Service, had tanks filled with diesel fuel to power emergency generators. If that fuel leaked and burned, it may have heated the building's steel supports to the point of failure, but according to FEMA's report on the collapse this "best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence."

7. How did the twin towers fall?

Many FDNY personnel who saw the south tower collapse reported explosions at the lower levels as the top began collapsing. These reports, as well as "squibs" of smoke seen on video of the collapses, have led to theories that the towers were brought down in controlled explosions. NIST dismisses these notions, claiming that the puffs of smoke were the result of air being forced down by the top of the tower collapsing.

NIST said the towers fell because the planes shook fireproofing loose from the steel superstructure, and the fire heated the floor-supporting trusses so much that they pulled in on support columns that were already holding more than their regular load. But NIST's computer simulation stops at the point the collapse begins, and does not document exactly how the rest of the buildings crumbled in 10 seconds. The reason for this omission could be the sheer complexity of the computations—even NIST's simplified model took weeks to run on a computer.

Conspiracy theorists aren't the only ones who dispute NIST's version: Some fire scientists also take issue with the institute's methods and conclusions. And the point isn't just historical. The lessons learned from the WTC collapse will inform decisions about the safety of other modern office towers.

Mods please leave this in GD. It is not conspiracy theory, it is legitimate questions of overwhelming interest to the public. - SH

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I have also read there is significant evidence to support the theory of controlled demolitions. When viewed in the larger context - who it served, how quickly we invaded Afghanistan, how quickly the Patriot Act was produced AND enacted, etc., it seems this was a planned event. We could not have moved into Afganistan and subsequently Iraq, if 9/11 didn't happen. And we know our administration came into power bent on invading Iraq. 9/11 is our Riechstag Fire. And the Patriot Act is our Enabling Act.

thanks for posting this.

This video is hosted on a wacky CT site. It is available as a download on more credible sites, but this site enables you to see it just by clicking through.

If the squibs are air venting to lower floors, as the building collapses, why do the squibs on WTC 7 start at the top floors and follow each other in such an orderly manner?

http://www.911hoax.com/gwtc7_1.asp?strPage=wtc7_1&intPage=60&PageNum=60

What about the 9/11 whitewash Commission? They have ignored or distorted anthything that does not fit in with the official conspiracy theory of what happened.

In this recent article by David Ray Griffin (posted yesterday on DU by Jon Gold with little response), he discusses how the official story was changed twice in order to cover up what really happened.

http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20051205150219651

<snip>
Standard Operating Procedures

Standard operating procedures dictate that if an FAA flight controller notices anything that suggests a possible hijacking--if radio contact is lost, if the plane's transponder goes off, or if the plane deviates from its flight plan--the controller is to contact a superior. If the problem cannot be fixed quickly--within about a minute--the superior is to ask NORAD--the North American Aerospace Defense Command--to scramble jet fighters to find out what is going on. NORAD then issues a scramble order to the nearest Air Force base with fighters on alert. On 9/11, all the hijacked airliners occurred in NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector, which is known as NEADS. So all the scramble orders would have come from NEADS.

The jet fighters at the disposal of NEADS could respond very quickly: According to the US Air Force website, F-15s can go from "scramble order" to 29,000 feet in only 2.5 minutes, after which they can then fly over 1800 miles per hour (140). (All page numbers given parenthetically in the text are to David Ray Griffin, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions). Therefore--according to General Ralph Eberhart, the head of NORAD--after the FAA senses that something is wrong, "it takes about one minute" for it to contact NORAD, after which, according to a spokesperson, NORAD can scramble fighter jets "within a matter of minutes to anywhere in the United States" (140). These statements were, to be sure, made after 9/11, so we might suspect that they reflect a post-9/11 speed-up in procedures. But an Air Traffic Control document put out in 1998 warned pilots that any airplanes persisting in unusual behavior "will likely find two on their tail within 10 or so minutes" (141).

The First Version of the Official Story

On 9/11, however, that did not happen. Why not? Where was the military? The military's first answer was given immediately after 9/11 by General Richard Myers, then the Acting Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Mike Snyder, a spokesman for NORAD. They both said, independently, that no military jets were sent up until after the strike on the Pentagon. That strike occurred at 9:38, and yet American Airlines Flight 11 had shown two of the standard signs of hijacking, losing both the radio and the transponder signal, at 8:15. This means that procedures that usually result in an interception within "10 or so minutes" had not been carried out in 80 or so minutes.

That enormous delay suggested that a stand-down order, canceling standard procedures, must have been given. Some people started raising this possibility.

The Second Version of the Official Story

Very quickly, a new story appeared. On Friday, September 14, CBS News said: "contrary to early reports, US Air Force jets did get into the air on Tuesday while the attacks were under way," although they arrived too late to prevent the attacks (141-42).4 This second story was then made official on September 18, when NORAD produced a timeline stating the times that it was notified about the hijackings followed by the times at which fighters were scrambled (143). The implicit message of the timeline was that the failure was due entirely to the FAA, because in each case it notified the military so late that interceptions were impossible.

(much more at link . . .)

How could three buildings, damaged in different ways, at different locations on the building, all collapse virtually straight down into their own footprint. It is the question that still confounds engineers and demolition experts, and they should know, given how hard it is sometimes to get even a controlled event to come off as planned. Witness the Zip Feed Mill in South Dakota.

This is the feed mill before it was demolished.

<img src="" alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com">

At a little over 200 feet, it was the tallest structure in South Dakota. Well, it was getting really old, and starting to fall apart, so they decided to bring it down with explosives. Hired a reputable company to do the work. But they ran into some problems, and the building didn't come down as it should have. Instead of crumbling, it merely lurched to one side and stayed upright.

<img src="" alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com">

Now then, if a controlled demolition can run into these kinds of problems, with deliberately and scientifically placed charges, how in the world can three buildings, all damaged in different ways, all hit in different areas, all come virtually straight down into their own footprint, and thus supposedly becoming the only three structural steel buildings ever to collapse from fire:eyes: Sorry folks, but one's suspension of disbelief can only go on for so long, and that time has run out. What we saw on TV on that day was the Big Lie being played out, live and on television. There is no way in hell those three building could have defied the laws of physics the way they did. And that is the 800 pound gorilla that everybody is ignoring. Continue to do so at your own peril.

That grain elevator in SD is 200 feet tall. The WTC towers were 200' wide on EACH SIDE. It's like comparing a mouse and a mountain and expecting them to behave the same way. Totally different types of structures. But it's all moot as it was the impact of the aircraft combined with fire damage which brought down the buildings.

The WTC towers were so big, massive, and lightly framed, there really was no other way for them to fall but down. They behaved exactly as physics should behave. When the upper floors failed, the downward force of the collapse combined with the with the weight of the fallen material to easily bring the building down. Why is this so hard to comprehend the obvious?

There were no controlled demolitions, there is ZERO physical evidence to support those crackpot bizarre theories.

Seriously.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=45315&mesg_id=45315

you are just ignoring the obvious

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/collapse.html

You must have posted the wrong link.

NIST says that the towers were pulled over because the floor trusses were so firmly fixed to the perimeter and the core that they pulled the towers over when the buckled. However, at the link you posted Dr. Thomas Eagar says parts he calls the "angle clips" broke in rapid succession, causing the towers to fall. The two theories are mutually exclusive.

Stop presenting a link of a theory that NIST itself DISOWNED and try reading the FACTS:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=45315&mesg_id=45315

1) No WTC-7 steel was recovered or analyzed.

2) No unprocessed, intact floor trusses were recovered or analyzed.

3) No testing for explosives (or sulfidation or other residue of any kind) was performed.

4) Only 12 total core columns were more than cursorily analyzed (from WTC-1 & WTC-2 combined).

5) Of the recovered core pieces, none showed exposure to temperatures in excess of 250 C.

6) Of 170 examined areas on the perimeter column panels, only three showed exposure to temperatures in excess of 250 C and for one of these three forensic evidence indicated that the high temperature exposure occurred AFTER the collapse.

7) No recovered steel showed any evidence of exposure to temperatures above 600 C for any significant time.

they're so, 2004.

. Yes, there was a plane. It destroyed weaker inner sections, damaged the outer steel columns. The jet-fuel fire and explosion could blow of the friable fire coatings over the steel allowing those interior supports to expand with heat and pop their rivets combined with already destroyed connections, allowing the floor/ceiling to fail shifting the whole structure to cause rivet failure on other sides of building, starting momemtum for a cascade failure -- just as the video shows.

Hmm. Popping support structures do not sound like explosions?
. That would happen prior to the cascade failure. Such popping of steel upon steel would resound through the columns of steel sending the noise up and down the building giving a sense of the sound being concentrated in the direction of first failures.

What's worse?
. This overly done "WTC msut have been bombed as well" still tries to make the LiBruls look like nuts. It's not necessary.

the leaseholder called for WTC 7 to come down himself
and it wasn't even hit by a plane.

now, let's move on to why they came down by controlled
demolition.

There is no evidence of any explosives. NONE.

Here is a picture showing "squibs" coming out of the top of the North Tower following an explosion:

You can see them clearly coming out of the black band of technical floors at the top of the tower, from the centres of the north and east faces.

Here is a picture of a "squib" during the collapse, coming out of the centre of the tower several floors below the collapse zone:

Similar, eh?

gimme a break , you are trying to tell me those little puffs brought down the WTC? You would have to blow out a huge percentage of columns and the floor slab and the interior columns to bring down that building with explosives. LOOK AT THE MASSIVE damage from the airplane and it still did not fall right away. It took additional damage from fire even after the towers were dealt severe structural damage to bring them down.

stop trying to find bizarre conspiracies and accept the truth. the building was severely damaged after a massive plane impact and subsequent additional damage from fire.

read this

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/collapse.html

How many vertical load-bearing columns do you think the WTC had?
How many do you think were severed by the planes?

It's not a matter of just the columns, it's the floor slab as well. Once the floor goes, the exterior columns lose strength. Each impact had a different effect on the building. The first tower was hit straight on, damaging fewer perimeter columns, but damaging more of the core. The second tower was hit at the corner, missing the core, but hitting more perimeter columns. The way the buildings collapsed has been documented and matches the way the buildings collapsed.

NIST got it right.

"The first tower was hit straight on, damaging fewer perimeter columns"
No, 35 perimeter columns were severed in the North Tower, 33 in the South Tower.

"but damaging more of the core."
NIST claims the opposite, but I am inclined to agree with you. The NIST model assumes that 10 core columns were severed in the South Tower, many of them on multiple floors. When NIST ran its computer model with five severed core columns, the building didn't collapse.

"The way the buildings collapsed has been documented and matches the way the buildings collapsed."
NIST did not even attempt to document the way the building collapsed; its simulation stops at the point the buildings allegedly became unstable.

unique claims?

See:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=45315&mesg_id=45315

you cut and paste what you like from NISTs report and achieve a different conclusions

VOILA! Instant conspiracy.

NIST's reports has hundreds of pages of evidence, photographic, scientific, computer modeling.

http://wtc.nist.gov/media/pubs/WTC_Part_IIB_CollapseSequence_Final.pdf


Check out the photos of the building bending due to weakening. Not due to demolition.

You link a pbs page that promotes a discredited theory and VOILA! Instant Official Conspiracy.

Yes, NIST's reports contain hundreds of pages of subjective interpretation of photographic and video evidence and hundreds of pages of made-to-order computer models reverse engineered to "explain" the observed collapses (of WTC1 & WTC2 only) -- models that were fed highly speculative and typically strained input values. In other words, hundreds of pages of pseudoscience supported by ZERO PHYSICAL EVIDENCE!

If you disagree, please feel free to bring the physical evidence that supports NIST's theories to our (and NIST's) attention.

next...

steel recovered from the site is physical evidence...

1) No WTC-7 steel was recovered or analyzed.

2) No unprocessed, intact floor trusses were recovered or analyzed.

3) No testing for explosives (or sulfidation or other residue of any kind) was performed.

4) Only 12 total core columns were more than cursorily analyzed (from WTC-1 & WTC-2 combined).

5) Of the recovered core pieces, none showed exposure to temperatures in excess of 250 C.

6) Of 170 examined areas on the perimeter column panels, only three showed exposure to temperatures in excess of 250 C and for one of these three forensic evidence indicated that the high temperature exposure occurred AFTER the collapse.

7) No recovered steel showed any evidence of exposure to temperatures above 600 C for any significant time.

See:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=45315&mesg_id=45315

and

http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1-3.pdf

Ever seen the heat waves on a highway in the desert?

Are you sure the "bending" isn't an illusion caused by light refraction by hot air?

http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/nist/

go look at the exhaust from a hot chimney on a cold day and see the shimmering refraction.

It was a warm day, there is no shimmering in any of those images which clearly show the building buckling just prior to collapse.

to WTC 7.

No one can prove either the official conspiracy theory or the alternative theories at this point. Both have improbabilities.

But the official conspiracy theory acceptance does require a lot of slippery mental moves -- such as assuming that all buildings that fell that day were damaged by airplanes.

WTC 7 was not hit by an airplane, had manageable fires and collapsed late in the afternoon for reasons that no official body has even tried to explain.

Once you recognize how inexplicable the collapse of 7 is, it casts other events in a different light.

In other words, the case for the alternate theory is circumstantial. When you begin adding up the improbabilities and outright falsehoods of the official story, you realize it makes no sense -- from the origins of AQ, its funding history, that some of the hijackers appear to have US military training in the US, that they were tracked by Abel Danger without intervention, the bizarre coke-liquor-stripper lifestyle the "devout" muslim hijackers led in Florida, their tracking by the Mossad, the pleas by Israeli, German, Russian, Saudi and other intelligence agencies to the US to do something, the frustrating of FBI investigation, the short selling of airline shares before 9/11, the refusal of certain officials to fly commercial airlines in the weeks before 9/11, the wiring of money to the hijackers from Pakistan's ISI, the presence of the head of P-ISI in DC on 9/11, the meeting between bush sr and bin laden's brother in DC on 9/11, Rumsfeld's bizarre prediction of a terrorist attack moments before it happened, the scheduling of military exercises concerning hijackings on 9/11 that confused the air force, the failure of the Pentagon to deploy its missile defense, the non-existence of the military chain of command on 9/11, the power down of the WTC the weekend before, a bush family company being placed in charge of security of the WTC -- it goes on and on.

Then you look at WTC7 footage, like this:

http://www.911hoax.com/gwtc7_1.asp?strPage=wtc7_1&intPage=60&PageNum=60

and it becomes impossible to believe the official story.

Open your eyes, put away your cognitive dissonance. Assume we don't know what happened and think about it.

that no fire fighters were managing

This was the fire at WTC7:





And this was a fire in the Windsor tower in Spain that raged for almost a day and that caused a partial collapse of the upper floors, but did not cause the entire building to fall:

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/windsor.html

apples and oranges again. Steel reinforced building with multiple transfer trusses, greatly reduced structural rendundancy.

vs.

reinforced concrets building including a solid concrete core and waffle slab but with steel columns at the perimeter. The steel columns at the perimeter did in fact fail. The floor slabs pulled down the curtainwall in a manner very similar to the WTC by the way. In the photo below the floor failed after perimeter steel columns and beams failed in the heat. The inner floor closer to the core was reinforced concrete waffle slab and did not fail. Good example showing a similar floor failure as the WTC.




See this link for more fact, less tinfoil.

http://www.arup.com/fire/feature.cfm?pageid=6150


from your link:

In fact, comparisons between the Windsor tower and the WTC towers are limited because of the very different structures of these buildings. The Twin Towers and Building 7 were both 100% steel-framed, with columns consisting of box-beams and I-beams as much as three feet wide and of steel up to several inches thick. In contrast, the Windsor building was framed in steel-reinforced concrete, with columns of concrete reinforced by thin sections of rebar. 3 The concrete pillars in the Windsor building are clearly visible in the photographs showing the intact core exposed by the collapsed facade. It is not clear what materials were used to frame the perimeter, but their apparent thinness indicates that the the core was the main load-bearing component of the building.


Compare these photographs of the Windsor building fire to photographs of the Twin Towers' fires and Building 7' fires
Steel-framed and steel-reinforced-concrete-framed structures behave very differently in fires.

Steel is a good conductor and concrete is a poor conductor of heat. Thus in a fire, a steel frame will conduct heat away from the hotspots into the larger structure. As long as the fire does not consume the larger structure, this heat conductivity will keep the temperatures of the frame well below the fire temperatures. The same is not true of steel-reinforced-concrete structures, since concrete is not a good thermal conductor, and the thermal conductivity of the rebar inside the concrete is limited by its small mass and the embedding matrix of concrete.

is like comparing apples to oranges.

to fail that steel buildings, because concrete does not conduct heat, and moisture trapped in the concrete can vaporize.

Get it?

They are saying that if the Madrid buildings did not fall, then certainly it is even more implausible that the steel WTC 7 should fall.

the conspiracy kook sight has it all backwards

Read the report in this link by Arup, maybe the BEST structural engineer in the world.

http://www.arup.com/fire/feature.cfm?pageid=6150

At the Madrid tower the concrete structure outperformed the steel framed portion of the building which did catastrophically fail. Reinforced concrete can fail in fires but it depends on the mass and cover depth of the reinforcement.

To say steel buildings are more likely to fail due to fire than concrete buildings is an incorrect assumption to make. Bottom line is the design itself.


http://www.arup.com/fire/feature.cfm?pageid=6150

"The jet-fuel fire and explosion could blow of the friable fire coatings over the steel allowing those interior supports to expand with heat and pop their rivets combined with already destroyed connections, allowing the floor/ceiling to fail shifting the whole structure to cause rivet failure on other sides of building,"
(1) The jet fuel burned up in about 10 minutes, the towers stood for 56 minues and 102 minutes after they were hit.
(2) NIST actually claims that the rivets didn't pop, but were so strong they pulled the building over.

1. 10 min is more than enough to start other fires.
2. The ligitures broke, whether the rivets ejected whole, sheared, or that the steel near the rivets failed is irrelevant to whatever of these popped, it made noise.

Still the overiding concern is that this whole topic works as a smokescreen to make liberals look nuts. Just like the RepubliCONS changed Murtha's withdrawl writ to a bill saying immediate, a word Murtha did not use.

"1. 10 min is more than enough to start other fires."
Yes, it is. However, the ambient temperature that can be reached by a jet fuel fire is higher than the ambient temperature reached by an office fire.

"2. The ligitures broke, whether the rivets ejected whole, sheared, or that the steel near the rivets failed is irrelevant to whatever of these popped, it made noise."
Do you have any evidence for this? NIST spent millions investigating the collapsed and they say the ligatures didn't break.

The evidence is either there or it isn't. How it plays doesn't concern me.

Then it made a noise.

Then what are you saying caused the collapse?

Perhaps the steel structure simply bent, quietly. Quietly enough that explosions were heard? Then, if you must believe in that quiet release of structural steel yielding inside its tension and compression limits, perhaps you would allow for the idea that the noises were the outer facade crumbling cracking and bursting as the video shows, still to transmit its failure as explosive sound down the steel column sound conduits -- not, necessarily, explosions of planted materials.

And which steel - floor trusses, perimeter columns or core columns?

nuts as well?

Each has varying levels of credibility.
More, some have multiple conspiracy theories.
9/11 has multiple.
The one about planted bombs is outlandish and, even if correct, worthless until we have a change of president.

whenever they question outlandish official theories (like the conspiracy of 19 Arabs led by a guy in a cave) by labeling them as "conspiracy theorists."

See, this is their plan - if you believe ANY parts of the official story, you are buying into 'anti-Arab' racism.

Don't you people get it? They set it up this way - if you believe that ANY Arabs, or pseudo-Arabs, or people of Arab descent had a hand in 9/11, you are motivated strictly by prejudice. THEY HAD THAT ONE READY. Who the hell do these 'Arabs' work for? Weren't we all talking about that a couple of years ago? WHAT HAS CHANGED?

This insinuation is really funny, because the cops and corporate criminals and other scum who either participated in or profited from this or who worked later to bury it(as is evident by their massive propaganda and harassment campaign) have no sympathy or respect for Arab-Americans.

After 9/11 happened, one of the first things I did was attend a local meeting for activists. My primary reason for doing this was that there had been anti-Arab attacks in the area, and I was terrified for the Arab community.

What's more - what makes you think I have no Arab ancestry of my own?

What's more, and what is most striking, is how the 'take' of this event on DU has changed. Why, back in late 2001 and 2002, all the talk was about the Bushes and their Saudi connections, and people were looking at U.S. involvement in the Arab and Muslim world. Now those who are 'talking' have curiously backed away from that! How come the nature of the 'investigation' has changed so much?

My friend, you are implying that if we don't accept YOUR theory, we are accepting 'the other one', not allowing for a 'neither' option.

Again, that is the thinking of zealots and true believers. That works against the principles of critical inquiry, and it is intolerant.

Please note how my criticisms were immediately turned into insinuations about my character ("I'm racist and hate Arabs").

I saw this coming. I think I probably have seen it coming since 2002 or 2003 at least.

The only 'theory' I espouse is that there appears to be a massive propaganda and disinfo campaign underway, and the reason I think that is because of the 'logic' and language and values employed in its service. Oh, and I also think that because of the harassment I've been getting...that dates to just after the World Trade Center attacks.

"Can you say 'GROUNDLESS EXTRAPOLATION'? I knew you could."

I hope that is not confusing. Your post seems unaccepting of that logic construct.

They,
who are alike to
citizen denigrators, who
question official theories, by
labeling them, as
CONSPIRICY THEORISTS!

A title I proudly take, on occasion.

But, not yet on the:
missing plane on 9/11,
not the explosives in the WTC,
not the second French book.
But, yes, on the first and third.

page....

keeps things "safe" ya know

Funny how that works, isn't it?


and how conveeeeeenient to have an out of the way place to put things they don't want to look at.


:loveya::hug:
DR

Uncle Fester liked fooling around in the basement but that was his choice.
:banghead:

:loveya: :hug: G_j

and now the Village Voice is too. It is SO DAMN OBVIOUS that the towers were taken down by CD, but of course, we the public aren't ever going to be allowed to know the truth because then the whole house of cards in Washington DC will fall down. :eyes: Everyone in DC-starting with the BFEE to senators like Kerry and Clinton are covering their asses-gotta justify that war in Iraq ain't that right?!

It's ALL so obvious to the point of being totally ridiculous, not to mention totally tragic with all those people then and since dying for a pack of manipulation and lies! :puke:

Let's hope the entire 'house of cards' - especially the Democrats and the Democratic Party, and all of those nasty professionals fall down, eh?

Any day now the 'rapture' is coming, right?

It seems that 9/11 is gradually getting more attention lately.

I've been reading the Village Voice for a long time. I used to read it religiously, in fact. I enjoyed the coverage of local politics and art and music, as well as the media criticism. However, I haven't had as much time for it in recent years.

HOWEVER...the respect that many people have for the writing in this paper does not automatically mean they are the most 'authoritative' source when it comes to vetting these 'conspiracy theories'.

The question is: what are the Village Voice's credentials when it comes to science and engineering coverage? In my experience, this is not their strong suit, nor should it be. Are we trying to fairly examine an idea, or are we simply trying to push it front and center, at the expense of all others? I do not think it is in the Voice's interest to capitulate to demands for one-sided advocacy of a certain ill-defined (and extremely limited, scientifically speaking - all these people want to talk about are fires, it seems) perspective on 9/11.

What sort of journalism is the Voice known for? The Village Voice's journalistic distinction is usually within the realm of urban society and culture, particularly within New York.

This is the problem we have with these people who keep trying to 'legitimate' their pet theories. Over the years, I have seen this process at work on many boards.

Let's say someone has an issue they would like to 'mainstream' (hopefully at the expense of others).

They might start out talking it up on message boards. These people KNOW that message boards are read by media figures, academics, and sometimes public servants. I'm sure many of you remember Elizabeth Edwards and Mark Crispin Miller coming to DU. That sort of thing is a 'sign' to some people with an agenda that they can use this forum to build 'support' for their 'theories' (or at least the illusion of it).

Even if the content of certain message boards goes largely unacknowledged in the papers or on cable news, you will see this board and many other boards get a cursory mention in, say, the New York Times. That is a cue for people with 'issues' to put on 'a show' for the media, to make sure their 'issues' (or beefs, in some cases) get placed right under the noses of those who read the boards.

They hope that the fire might spread to blogs as well. If 'the fire' spreads to enough places and gets talked up enough, it might show up in activist events, mailing lists read by academics who get quoted in the media, etc.

The goal is to get 'theories' or agendas legimated by repeating them as often as possible.

(We should ask: is the purpose of this message board to communicate, refine our ideas, educate ourselves, and meet people of like minds...or is our purpose here just to get stuff into the media?)

So the real purpose of the original message is to boast: 'hey, we got our little 'beef' into that left-wing (but still 'credentialed') rag the Village Voice'. In fact the description in the original post sounds as if it were written by a Voice marketing department...

My point stands : some of these self-styled 'conspiracy theorists' can't have it both ways. They cannot continue to complain that they're being 'silenced' by unnamed professional bodies and yet strive for 'validation' at the same time. Because that is the heart of their whole poorly defined 'theory' of American political life (it is IMPLIED) : that there is a massive 'conspiracy' on the part of the professional classes (the 'institutions' : government, academia, professions such as engineering and architecture) to keep 'the truth' away from 'the people'.

You see what is really going on here: scientists and academics and engineers and 'the government' do not have your best interests at heart. They are part of this enormous conspiracy. They don't care about you. And yet, at the same time - we TOTALLY want to to be 'legitimated' by being accepted by them! Oh look! One of 'them' 'validated' us by printing our story in their paper!

The only problem is, I can't recall this ever being a serious thesis among American progressive or grass-roots movements. Grass-roots movements are about 'people power' - they're not about seeking validation from 'the system' as it is.

I have a broader thesis regarding all of this, but 'discrediting' professional organizations and the government as a whole appears to be one of the goals of these propagandists. I repeat, this was NEVER the goal of progressive political activist groups. Only extremists and paranoids hold that view.

I don't want to take up too much of people's time here, so I will leave it at that.

that you are buying into a conspiracy theory?

Why is a conspiracy of 19 Arabs so easy for you to believe that anyone considering any alternative to this outrageous theory must be a propagandist in your estimation?

Did I say what I believe?

I notice that you focus on the phrase 'conspiracy theory' and have little else to say on the matter.

Did I say I 'believed in' 'a conspiracy of 19 Arabs'? More importantly, what makes you think I do, and what is your interest in what -I- believe?

My only interest is in separating a sincere and fair inquiry from obvious propaganda. The way to do that is to dissect the language used and the philosophy that appears to inform the tactics.

In other words, this isn't about me or what I believe.

on anyone who dares to question the official conspiracy of 19 Arabs led by a guy hiding in a cave.

Why are the beliefs of anyone questioning this outrageous theory subject to a generalized critique fraught with denigrating labels and extrapolated agendas while the beliefs of those promoting and defending it are held sacrosanct?

I am only 'imputing' values to people who, by their language, and by the implications of their arguments, and by extension of their logic, are engaging in the spread of disinformation, whether willingly, or whether they've been unwittingly employed to do so.

Hey, I thought we all thought the right wing or the Republicans or the BFEE was behind all of this. Didn't we? Well if so, why wouldn't their 'humble servants' be going all over the place trying to spread disinfo? They did this stuff in the sixties and seventies after all...

If I disagree with you about the extent of this obvious and proven practice concerning the events of 9/11, why do you assume a series of ridiculous and denigrating motives for my simple and straightforward pursuit of the truth?

to start.

First of all, you are conflating and reading into the OP and the Voice article a lot of conspiracy theory (CT) stuff that is not in my post or the article. One tactic of official conspiracy theory apolitists (OCTA) like you -- that is believers in the fanciful notion that a guy in a cave in the most primitive country in the world alone directed 19 arabs to defy physics and evade a trillion dollar air defense system -- is to confuse the questioning of the official theory with every bizarre CT in the country. Where did the Voice or I say "we" are being silenced by a massive conspiracy of various institutions?

There are people I consider not credible who believe that the planes had pods or were mere holograms. Just because I don't believe the official story, doesn't mean I buy every CT out there, like those, and I did not refer to them. If you ask me, I would say the conspiracy, if there was one, was very small, consisting of the criminals at the top who have already proven that they are both murderous and incompetent and callous toward human life, in Iraq and Katrina.

As far as this being a populist issue, you must not know New York very well. I see from your profile you are from Chicago. I work two blocks north of ground zero. 60 percent of New Yorkers polled believe the government was complicit in 9/11. That's a populist idea by my book.

It wasn't CT minded DUers or narrow minded bloggers that got this story on the front page of the Voice. It is that there is a big truth movement in NYC, supported by a majority of the population. There are lots of commercials on TV in the NYC market by a few rich guys who are clearly pissed at the white wash and believe that the government is lying about 9/11, saying the whole thing needs to be reopened. There are regular lectures in NYC by OCTA sceptics. So this is a populist thing in this city.

I'm amazed that you believe you can read my mind, and assume that I wrote the OP to boast that:

"the real purpose of the original message is to boast: 'hey, we got our little 'beef' into that left-wing (but still 'credentialed') rag the Village Voice'. In fact the description in the original post sounds as if it were written by a Voice marketing department..."

Now that's really horseshit. From the perspective of NYC, my only celebration is that the MSM -- and the VV is pretty much MSM -- is finally recognizing what another poster called the 800 pound gorilla in the middle of city's living room -- namely that the horrific, surreal attack that we all experienced has much deeper and more sinister meaning than we have been led to believe. Do you really think "we" are taking credit for it? That the reporters of the Voice can't see for themselves what is going on in NYC and with its public opinion?

As for the Voice, it is not just a lifestyle or alternative newspaper. The Voice is well known for investigative reporting, and its reporters have won Pulitzer prizes and other journalistic recognition for real, hard news reporting.

Finally, you wrote:

"but 'discrediting' professional organizations and the government as a whole appears to be one of the goals of these propagandists. I repeat, this was NEVER the goal of progressive political activist groups. Only extremists and paranoids hold that view."

So are you saying that criticizing the criminals who have hijacked our government is a sinister attempt to discredit all professional organizations and goverment? Is that your point? Don't talk bad about Shrub, Cheney, and Rumsfeld because it makes the US look bad? As though they represent the best of American institutions and government?

What you are really saying is that we have love bush and not recognize what he is doing, or else we will hurt America. I take a very different view, my friend. I say we have to call these criminals out to save America.

<edited>

Right on.

I started a reply to the "discrediting professional organizations... is the goal of.... extremists"
point, but HamdenRice said my piece much better than I could.

Lieberman said, "It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be commander in chief for three more critical years and that in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril."

Is Rich's Joementum showing?

to start.

First of all, you are conflating and reading into the OP and the Voice article a lot of conspiracy theory (CT) stuff that is not in my post or the article. One tactic of official conspiracy theory apolitists (OCTA) like you

Where did I define my beliefs? I didn't.

I'll note that you 'apologists' and whores for the perpetrators and profiteers have LONG used this tactic of borrowing OUR tactics...it's the old childish 'eye for an eye' bullshit.

Well, I'm not 'reading' anything into it. You're using the language of a religious zealot. Your gleeful 'proclamation' presumes unanimity...a unanimity that at its ugliest, New Yorkers, is enforced by harassment, trespassing and attempted murder, judging from the harassment I've gotten from your goon squads the past four years. I mean, as long as we're trotting out our 'victim' cred and all...someone tried to kill both me and my father in the past couple of years. And that's not all.


-- that is believers in the fanciful notion that a guy in a cave in the most primitive country in the world alone directed 19 arabs to defy physics and evade a trillion dollar air defense system

I did not say I believed this. Please acknowledge this, Ms. Authoritative, or retract.

I'm waiting for that apology. I do not believe in 'fanciful' (that's New York Press-speak for "Irish", by the way, as in..."oh those Irish all believe in 'fairytales') notions. Please do stop with your constant attempts and veiled threats that I am 'fanciful'.


-- is to confuse the questioning of the official theory with every bizarre CT in the country. Where did the Voice or I say "we" are being silenced by a massive conspiracy of various institutions?

Well, you did make a 'triumphant' post about how 'we' got 'our' side into the paper...and that clearly implies unanimity. You apologists DO have a problem with the concept of 'implication', don't you?

There are people I consider not credible who believe that the planes had pods or were mere holograms. Just because I don't believe the official story, doesn't mean I buy every CT out there, like those, and I did not refer to them. If you ask me, I would say the conspiracy, if there was one, was very small, consisting of the criminals at the top who have already proven that they are both murderous and incompetent and callous toward human life, in Iraq and Katrina.

No, you DON'T believe in every CT out there. But you are zealously pushing THE 'conspiracy theory' (note the quotes) of the moment, and quite heavy-handedly, with the constant implication that this is the 'norm' or SHOULD be for this board.

This is NOT a Protestant church - this is a Democrats board that should reflect ALL the views of 'Democrats and other progressives'. Your views are plain to anyone who doesn't share the values of mandatory unanimity.

And I will note that you AGAIN use the binary logic: "if you don't buy MY theory, you must believe in holograms and pod people and everything else." At this point, people have GOT to see that your language and the arguments you employ give you and your cultural origins away.

As far as this being a populist issue, you must not know New York very well. I see from your profile you are from Chicago.

Yes, some of you east coasters DO have a habit of 'one-upping' us and snooping in all of our business.

I work two blocks north of ground zero.

Well la-dee-da.


60 percent of New Yorkers polled believe the government was complicit in 9/11. That's a populist idea by my book.

What is the source of this 'poll' and the methodology? Moreover, if 'the government' - an idiotic phrase if I've ever heard one - was complicit, you are making a nasty and anti-populist, hateful and cynical conclusion about the American people, especially the urbanites who tend to work 'in government'. You DO realize that you're talking about millions of employees, many of whom are Democrats and many of whom post here?

It wasn't CT minded DUers or narrow minded bloggers that got this story on the front page of the Voice. It is that there is a big truth movement in NYC,

If there is, it sure as hell isn't YOUR 'truth movement' (is that anything like 'truth drugs'?) I mean, cut the crap, this 'truth' stuff has been so abused lately it's positively Orwellian.

supported by a majority of the population. There are lots of commercials on TV in the NYC market by a few rich guys who are clearly pissed at the white wash and believe that the government is lying about 9/11, saying the whole thing needs to be reopened. There are regular lectures in NYC by OCTA sceptics. So this is a populist thing in this city.

Why do you continue to use the word 'populism'? Tell me, where did you get this word? I didn't use it. I am wondering where you paid shills and PR people and slaves for the ruling class get all of these phrases...because they appear to come out of the research that has been done against me.

You see, that has been their tactic all along - stalk the shit out of me for years, monitor all of my research and thought and concerns (including 'populism' - a term whose political history you have no apparent familiarity with...you've been clearly TOLD to use it)...and then throw those terms back at me as a veiled 'we are watching you' threat when I get too 'uppity' and dare to talk back to the hateful Nazi WASPs who run the east coast.

Tell me, what is your actual familiarity with 'political populism' here? Because you seem to just throw the term around, and like a lot of bullshit that's been thrown at me the past four years, it's more than a little odd.

I'm amazed that you believe you can read my mind, and assume that I wrote the OP to boast that:

"the real purpose of the original message is to boast: 'hey, we got our little 'beef' into that left-wing (but still 'credentialed') rag the Village Voice'. In fact the description in the original post sounds as if it were written by a Voice marketing department..."

Now that's really horseshit.

No, it's not. I've seen enough of your tactics, veiled threats and propaganda. What's next...slipping my dog's name into your next response?


From the perspective of NYC, my only celebration is that the MSM -- and the VV is pretty much MSM -- is finally recognizing what another poster called the 800 pound gorilla in the middle of city's living room -- namely that the horrific, surreal attack that we all experienced has much deeper and more sinister meaning than we have been led to believe. Do you really think "we" are taking credit for it? That the reporters of the Voice can't see for themselves what is going on in NYC and with its public opinion?

Now you're getting cowardly and you're backtracking.

Look upthread - you clearly had a definite 'theory'...it was 'controlled demolition' and it was 'the government' that did it, and if you don't believe this, you believe the 'official story' in its entirety, you're being forced into a 'dungeon' (well, that's a fucking laugh considering how I've been treated the past four years).

Now you're moderating your 'explanation', I'll note. Well good.

As for the Voice, it is not just a lifestyle or alternative newspaper. The Voice is well known for investigative reporting, and its reporters have won Pulitzer prizes and other journalistic recognition for real, hard news reporting.

Yes, it is. Nice piece of PR writing there. You already said that. And I said that they have no expertise in the area of science and engineering writing. How polite and civic of you to ignore that.

Finally, you wrote:

"but 'discrediting' professional organizations and the government as a whole appears to be one of the goals of these propagandists. I repeat, this was NEVER the goal of progressive political activist groups. Only extremists and paranoids hold that view."

So are you saying that criticizing the criminals who have hijacked our government is a sinister attempt to discredit all professional organizations and goverment?

How exactly does one 'hijack a government'?
Well, actually, you ought to know more about that than I do. Your logic stinks. If 'the government' is 'hijacked'...then by logic, it's not 'the government' who did it - it's the hijackers! Well done, servant!

Your 'I'm so oppressed and in a dungeon, and apparently no scientist or engineer is my friend since we can't find one to support us...ergo, they must all be in on it' implication most certainly IS part of the extreme right-wing program to discredit government as an idea and professionalism (especially science) as an idea.

It's funny how on one forum on DU you can read about the Bush administration's attacks on science, but here you get the implication that the science and engineering community is soooo oppressive because they won't 'get behind' 'controlled demolition'.

Is that your point? Don't talk bad about Shrub, Cheney, and Rumsfeld because it makes the US look bad?

That is also incorrect and ludicrous.

As though they represent the best of American institutions and government?

You are backpedalling here.

What you are really saying is that we have love bush and not recognize what he is doing, or else we will hurt America.

This makes no sense whatsoever, and is curiously written in a different 'accent' from the rest of your composition.

I take a very different view, my friend. I say we have to call these criminals out to save America.

I say so, too. But 'the criminals' are not firemen, or civil engineers, or architects, or scientists, or even French filmmakers.

It sounds like from your post that you have been through some difficult personal experiences, but I hope you don't think that anyone here on DU in general or the 9/11 group in particular is part of that.

In your first post, you suggested that people on this board concerned about alternative theories believed in some kind of massive government conspiracy. I for one do not believe that is the case. That's what I meant when I said you were "reading in" or conflating. I believe that there are people who believe that; I'm not one of them. So the idea I was trying to get across is that just because I believe in one alternative theory (demolition) does not mean I believe in a massive conspiracy.

Also I don't understand why this makes me one of the "apoligists and whores for the perpetrators and profiteers." I don't understand the accusation that I am "borrowing OUR <your?> tactics".

Those of us who question the official story are not zealots with one theory in mind. We just want a thorough, open minded investigation. I for one honestly don't know what happened on 9/11, but I don't believe the official story. I for one am certainly not insisting on unanimity.

Now here is where your post became, frankly, a little scary:

"Your gleeful 'proclamation' presumes unanimity...a unanimity that at its ugliest, New Yorkers, is enforced by harassment, trespassing and attempted murder, judging from the harassment I've gotten from your goon squads the past four years. I mean, as long as we're trotting out our 'victim' cred and all...someone tried to kill both me and my father in the past couple of years. And that's not all."

Surely you understand that whatever terrible things have happened to you and your family, no one on these boards has threatened you with harassment, trespassing or attempted murder, right? We've never met, never come across each other on these boards and don't even live in the same city, right?

You also wrote:

"You see, that has been their tactic all along - stalk the shit out of me for years, monitor all of my research and thought and concerns (including 'populism' - a term whose political history you have no apparent familiarity with...you've been clearly TOLD to use it)...and then throw those terms back at me as a veiled 'we are watching you' threat when I get too 'uppity' and dare to talk back to the hateful Nazi WASPs who run the east coast."

Please understand that I (and I assume other DUers) have not been stalking you, monitoring your thoughts or otherwise surveilling you. This is a little too paranoid, don't you think? And I will not be slipping your dog's name into any posts; I don't know you or your dog. If someone has been stalking you, please take precautions and maybe it's time to go to the police. But I have not been any part of that and I can only assume that DUers also have not been.

And I never knew that fanciful was an insulting term for "Irish." And, btw, I'm a Mr., not a Ms. If you don't believe that 19 arabs carried out the attacks by themselves, I stand corrected.

Again, when you accuse this board of heavy handedly pushing one conspiracy agenda, I don't think that's true. There is a lot of debate here, and most of us just want to have the issue opened up for real investigation again.

As for my use of the term populist, I was really responding to your question -- that is whether the concern to reopen 9/11 was "American progressive or grass-roots movements" and about "people power". I thought that populist was short hand for those very same attributes. So I would call the atmosphere here in NYC of people wanting to reopen 9/11 a populist -- or grassroots -- feeling because the elites are not interested in it. It's coming from the bottom up, mostly. No knock on Chicago intended. It's just that the people who saw it up close and personal don't buy the official story.

The 60 percent figure comes from a Zogby poll. Let me apologize and clarify, after checking my sources. 60 percent of New Yorkers want 9/11 investigation reopened and believe the official 9/11 commission did not get to the truth. 50 percent (not 60 percent) of New Yorkers according to that poll believe elements of the government knew beforehand about the attacks, which is to say was complicit.

I should also mention, that I am not doing PR for the Voice. And I am not trying to discredit all government or all government employees, just the gang at the top of the Bush administration who have been such a disaster for this country.

:kick: