The Galloping Beaver
Matt Taibbi is a poor journalist and Alternet editors should be ashamed of themselves for publishing his transparent attack-pieces. I guess it is no big surprise tho, as many major "alternative" media outlets have been co-opted like their corporate counterparts.
Left Progressive Media Inside the Propaganda Model
http://www.projectcensored.org/a...opaganda-model/
Quite to the contrary DiscordStu, Tabbi is a top notch journalist that the more mainstream news outlets are afraid of, which is why he - like Hunter Thompson before him -- is plying his trade at Rolling Stone and not Newsweek or Time.
The problem with most conspiracy theories (and theorists) is that they are much to quick to attribute to evil genius what is more likely the result of stupidity and incompetence.
That was a terrific leading paragraph, Alison! Good post.
The 9-11 Truthers are to a person, insane. They have never shown a shred of evidence for their fabulous claims yet demand an almost un-reachable standard of evidence form the government.
They get ad hominem attacks because they richly deserve them.
Taibbi is absolutely right. The state is generally run by incompetents. FEMA couldn't get water to New Orleans but the US government COULD mastermind 9-11?
Right...
Alison, on Taibbi's new book, see also this Laura Flanders interview with him at FDL.
My sister, who is otherwise a highly intelligent woman who I have a great deal of respect for, has apparently succumbed to Truthism. I attribute it to her living in relative isolation in the magic bubble of Salt Spring Island.
Sadly, you cannot argue with these people, for much the same reason you cannot argue with the very religious. Every point you make is further evidence that you have been deluded by those who seek to hide the truth, so the rules of reason and logic do not apply.
I'm just going to declare the subject off limits when I visit this summer.
What Mike said.
There is one theory that has been floating around for years, it isn't sexy, but it does fit some of the evidence.
It goes like this, PNAC, wanted and desired a major terrorist attack so they could roll out their agenda, no really debates this point, it is truth and given.
In the Summer of before the 9/11 attack, the White got intel of the up coming terrorist attack, but nothing saying that they crashing planes into WTC Towers or Pentagon. The Brains in the White House figured that it would be a standard terrorist attack, hi-jack an airplane and threaten to blow it up. So they allowed it happen, but it wasn't until the crashes took place the true scope of the attack was understood and by then it was too late to act.
In the end the Neo-Cons had their excuse to roll out the PNAC agenda and the only thing they need to hit was the knowledge of the attack and their plan to allow it happen.
Now I'm not saying that this is what happened, but given the secrecy of the Bush administration, the document history of the PNAC, the major players of PNAC in the White House, the evidence that we do know that Bush and White House did receive advanced warning of the Attack in August and their lack of action,... this theory is not outside the scope of the possible.
Add into the mix the desire to stop Iraq from switching to the Euro from the US Dollar for oil trading, the secret US Cheney Energy policy, the whole Office of Special Operations (the unaccountable intell wing the Cheney Office) and the other countless pieces of evidence that point to White House Administration being less than truth with the public (putting politely) it is easy to see how theories like this could be plausible. Of course, if this is the case, it is the interest of the White House to allow the idiotic, wingnutter theories get the air time, cause no sane person would believe those far fetch conspiracy theories.
Taibbi a poor journalist?
Nah, don't think so.
That's also an excerpt from The Great Derangement.
Taibbi's a poor journalist? If your benchmark is supporting the 9/11 Truth movement's theories, I suppose.
But, nah. I don't think so.
(also an excerpt from The Great Derangement.)
Sorry about the double post. I think Haloscan's still a little wonky.
Zorph - I don't have a lot of trouble believing that the powers that be caught wind of something and allowed it to happen. I'm not sure it's likely, but I can entertain the possibility.
What freaks me out is the elaborate pseudo-science some of them concoct to 'prove' that no plane ever hit the Pentagon or that the towers couldn't have come down just from the planes and the fire. My husband did three years engineering at McMaster, and he can tell you exactly how those towers came down.
At best, it's foolishness. At worst, it's a dangerous distraction from the real issues.
My husband did three years engineering at McMaster, and he can tell you exactly how those towers came down.
Simple, fires lowest the yeild point of plastic deformation in the steal cantilever floor beams on the floors that were on fire. With the load of office furniture on the floors, the cantilever beams failed at the connection junk points at the centre of the towers, thus place their entire load on floor below. This continues until the cold yeild points were exceeded on the floors below and after that point the WTC Tower shedded it floor structures like stripping a pine tree of it's branches from the top down. This type of catastrophic fail caused massive damage to the central core structures and gravity did the rest.
Engineering Mechanics/Static Design Second Year.
Matt may very well be right, the US government is too incompetent to have orchestrated the attacks. The problem I have with Matt, is his insinuated, off-hand dismissal of the questions that are posed by the movement. And, to borrow a phrase from Jacob Burckhardt (recently quoted by Bill Moyers), "Beware the terrible simplifiers"... it's important not to throw all those who are searching for "truth" about 9/11 in the same boat.
Everyone who watches the fall of World Trade Center 7 knows it was not caused by "falling debris" and "fires":
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zv7BImVvEyk
Very credible and intelligent people want to know why this building fell the way it did... and perhaps you would too, if you took the time to look.
This question has terrible implications on the events of that day, and deserves a complete answer, not a complete omission (like the official report did).
I'll leave it there.
There are some left over questions though.
Like how come the hole in the Pentagon is so small and there's so little airplane debris around.
Ditto on airplane debris in Pennsylvania.
How could WTC3 fall so much later when it wasn't even attached to the towers?
What caused the sub-basements to remain at near meltdown heat levels for so long?
Why didn't the steel in several other high rise buildings that have caught fire around the world become flexible enough to bend? Especially in light of the fact that some of those other buildings burned for days on end and not just a few hours?
Just some questions I've never found satisfactory answers to. Doesn't have to be anything conspiratorial about it - just questions.
WTC 7 - not 3.
I don't think anyone can deny there are questions, but not wanting to be lumped in with the Truthers provides a very convenient excuse not to ask any of them.
I feel the same way about the NAU nutters with their racism and one world paranoia - they have claimed the discourse in such a way that no one sane wants to be associated with it or them. Meanwhile the important questions about deep integration go unasked.
Excellent observations, Alison . . . .
Alison, I understand what you mean:
"... but not wanting to be lumped in with the Truthers provides a very convenient excuse not to ask any of them."
I don't want to be lumped with the "insane" Truthers, but I still ask the questions, and I'll bring up the subject with people (at the risk of being called an insane Truther!).
Matt's article prevents many people from asking the important questions, in the same way officials dismiss questions on a possible NAU. Which makes me wonder why you posted it and how you feel about it... it's not clear.
I've heard and read some of Matt's work, and I think he has some interesting points, but the evidence he's dismissed, like Mike above ("... They have never shown a shred of evidence for their fabulous claims...") is actually incredibly well documented by some very professional people. Considering these projects are created/funded and operated by civilians/activists, I find it extraordinary.
Matt's article, beyond pointing out that the govt is stupid, shows he has a sense of humour, but also that he doesn't understand the core behind the Truth movement. The Truth movement shows the official account is wholly implausible. The evidence does not point with certitude directly to the US govt. The evidence shows there was controlled demolition. Period.
It's here:
http://www.wtc7.net/
Also, WTT7 housed many documents under investigation plus the fact that SOD had their headquarters up and running almost immediately after the 'asbestos dust" had barely settled.
Many questions but no answers.
Need to get the scientists who are for and against the theory together for a public paper so inquiring minds can compare.
Louis : I posted it because I liked it. Taibbi is not, despite what you say, preventing anyone from asking questions; in fact he isn't even addressing those questions here. Instead he's pointing to how, in the absence of any credible framework of informed investigation, some peoples' sense of outrage and betrayal has caused them to abandon their own critical faculties altogether.
Forty-five years ago people were consumed with the importance of the question of who shot John F Kennedy, because the answer - whether it was a lone nut, Lyndon Johnson, the Russians, the Cubans, the Mafia, the CIA, the military or the arms dealers - would make a difference to their understanding of how the world worked. We still don't know who shot JFK, but now we want to know who was behind/complicit in 9/11. It provokes the same responses, the same level of frustration at being powerless, lied to, manipulated. It's the same question.
Just my take.
Alison, I have to dis-agree. If you want to be picky about how it's phrased, sure, Matt is not preventing anyone from asking questions, but he is making those who ask them look like nuts... which ends up doing the same thing. Also, he *is* addressing almost all the questions the "Truthers" ask in his "fictitious re-enactment". He's dumped the "Truthers" all in the same boat and pushed them floating into a sea of sharks. I can hear his voice: "Go ahead, jump in, it's nice".
Comparing 9/11 to JFK is not valid. Firstly because of the internet and the ability to share information so quickly. Secondly, 9/11 affected the whole world.
The Galloping Beaver was reporting on and critical of the information the public received on the SPP when others were not. I think you all do a great job bringing important subjects to the fore. I wish 9/11 received the same scrutiny here.
The comments on Alternet (use View: Expand All to view them ) point to a desire for more investigation... and I hope it happens.
Matt Taibbi is wrong to simplify this.
Hey rev.paperboy, you compare Matt to Hunter S. Thompson... that's interesting, especially considering Hunter was posing good questions about 9/11... and check out this story:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/s...NTER26/TPFocus/
Who still really believes the official conspiracy theory?
For anyone who does, please go and do some research. It is worth digging into because its the excuse for so many horrors that have come since.
Watch the film "911 mysteries" on google video.
Visit the website www.ae911truth.org. This is a group made up of 400(and growing) professional architects and engineers who believe that the towers were demolished via controlled demolition. They don't claim to know who did it but they want to see a real investigation.
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