Fox news and James Fetzer (911 truth founder)

[seano]

[StevenAndWes]

[Mind Unraveled]

[HarryStottle]

[HarryStottle]

The 911 Truth movement is, I'm sorry to say, a sad example of both the strengths and weaknesses of this medium (viz, the Web). Jim's interview is a classic example of the problem.

We take it as read, of course, that Fox news is primarily a disinformation tool used, very effectively it has to be said, by the establishment, to ensure that the ignorant masses are kept that way.

Their handling of the interview was classic obscurantism

First they start by focussing on irrelevant detail - a bit like like asking Mrs Lincoln what she thought of the play.

Who gives a shit whether 911 conspiracy theories are being taught on college campuses? Such a question is only relevant once you've answered the real one: Was there a conspiracy on 911? Only if the consensus is "No" does the question of teaching it become an issue. Much as teaching Intelligent Design as an alternative to Evolution is an issue because the informed consensus is that ID theory is nonsense.

Then, once they've asked a relevant question: "What evidence do you have?" they permit an answer and instead of responding or asking a supplementary, they revert back to the irrelevant question and continue a petty dispute about whether or not Fetzer did or did not tell the producers that there was some kind of formal course on the topic. Anything to take the focus away from the hugely controversial charge that has just been implied regarding the conduct of the Vice President on 911.

Then instead of following up with another pertinent question regarding evidence, they turn to the size of the group which Fetzer has set up. Again, what earthly relevance has this to the story? It is, of course, a thinly disguised ad-hominem attack implying that (unless the answer is several hundred thousand) the group can be automatically written off as a lunatic fringe.

Fetzer - clearly prepared for these tactics - still manages to slip in references to what we've actually uncovered in the course of our studies and discussion, but former state criminal Oliver North immediately changes tack to another irrelevant line of questioning - viz the number of people who would have had to be involved in the cover up.

Fetzer sweeps that away and asks North if he's aware that the FBI admit they have no firm evidence of the involvement of Bin Laden in 911. North then drops the ball and refers to Bin Laden having claimed involvement and specifically states "they didn't manufacture those tapes" - which is, of course, precisely what they .

Finally, North asks the direct (and, mercifully, relevant) question all the people who died on 911 "died as a consequence of what our government did" to which Jim correctly replies that this is what we're trying to find out. Before he can develop that reply, the plug is pulled and the interview is over.

Result? If anyone came to that interview hoping to learn anything, they will leave it none the wiser. The truth movement chalks it up as a minor victory - just because we've forced Fox at least to confront the issue. But frankly I don't accept that. All that's happened is that they (Fox) can now argue that they're not suppressing that side of the story. In fact, when you treat such serious topics in such a deliberately dilettante manner, you ARE suppressing Truth.

So much for the opposition. Now to attack my own side!

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm a member of Jim's group and have participated at some length in some of its debates and watched most of the others and it has proved both enlightening and depressing.

Enlightening because we have members with expertise and sources which don't appear anywhere else in such numbers. Depressing because we have also been "infiltrated" by trolls, egomaniacs, disinfo agents and the usual trash we all too frequently have to wade through on the web and, not to put too fine a point on it, the noise is in danger of drowning out the signal.

But I am further depressed by some of the ways our information is being used. And Jim is as guilty as the others in this respect.

In response to Hannity's "evidence" question, Fetzer replies with the Cheney anecdote "Of course the order still stands".

How many times does it have to be said?



The fact that this conversation was overheard is only "evidence" that the conversation took place. All speculation as what "the Order" was is just that - "speculation".

Now, would it be worth asking Cheney, under oath, just what that order was? you bet! But we cannot leap from the evidence to an assertion of what that order must have been - which is exactly what Jim has done.

The 911 Truth Movement is stuffed to the gills with examples like that.

What we have found is evidence which raises an alarmingly large number of very interesting pertinent questions. What we have NOT found is definitive answers to most of those questions.

The only case we can make at the moment is that the official version of events is incomplete and, to the extent it can be tested without official support, it is also deeply unsatisfactory and, in many cases, highly implausible and highly improbable.

This justifies a series of public inquiries headed by trusted persons and with the full authority to sub poena witnesses all the way up to the President.

At this stage, what we ought to be doing is tightly focussing on a handful of key ananswered questions and insisting that the authorities are forced to provide plausible, scientifically robust answers to them. These are my three favourite examples:

1 What mechanism, other than a controlled demolition, could have produced the form and speed of collapse we witnessed in respect of WTC 7?

2 The official explanation for the collapse of WTCs 1 and 2 is the "progressive pancake" hypothesis. If that was the mechanism, how long would the towers have taken to collapse? And how long did they actually take to collapse.

3 What heat source could possibly have accounted for the significant quantities of molten metal found in the ruins of all three buildings?


So far, there are no experts on record anywhere in the world, who challenge the conclusion - in respect of WTC7 - that its classic footprint and freefall collapse could have been achieved other than through the use of controlled demolition. And the significance of that is that all demolition experts agree that such a project would take a minimum of weeks of planning and days or weeks to implement. Not, in other words, something which could have been decided and implemented on the day.

In respect of the "progressive pancake", the best support for this that we know of is a simulation conducted by two Chinese scientists Xinzheng Lu and Jianjing Jiang of Tshinghua University in Beijing. Their concludes that the theory is valid. Which ought to be good news for the Empire. However - and this is the kind of thing that makes the group worth being a member of - one of our members wrote to the authors and asked, given their persuasive findings, what the simulation revealed about how long the collapse should have taken.

The answers were fascinating:

North Tower: 1:53
South Tower: 1:32

and, as anyone can see for themselves, the towers each collapsed in under 25 seconds.

As regards the pools of molten metal both seen streaming out of the tower before its collapse and still being found in the ruins weeks after the collapse, no plausible explanation has been offered by any authority. The Truth movement has shown that the scenes of flowing metal and the long term presence of it after the event are entirely consistent with the use of Thermate, but though interesting and plausible, there is, as yet, no hard evidence to support that hypothesis.

If you've read this far, you're obviously interested in the issue, so if you haven't yet done so, you should read Prof Steve Jones paper on

This remains the least hysterical and most objective presentation of the case to date. Jones does not assert that any other persons were guilty, he simply states the case for a much more fundamental and far reaching inquiry than we've had so far.

And that's as far as we can honestly and objectively go - at the moment.

Which is not to say that we can't voice our suspicions and speculate till the cows come home, but we need to be VERY clear when we're stepping beyond the evidence and into the realm of speculation. Or else we're no better than Fox News.

[Mind Unraveled]

I will read the prof Steve Jones paper when I have a chance. I hope it will be a nice change from Alex Jones works. Most of what he does is speculation and it make me uncomfortable people believe some of the stuff he says. Plus he leans toward the christian fundamentalist side.