composted article
reporting
global
05.Sep.2006 11:54
imperialism & war
The Mindset of 911 Scholars for Truth and Other Conspiracy Kooks
author: Fredric L. Rice
e-mail: frice@skeptictank.org
911 conspiracy kooks detract from the legitimacy of exposing and
discussing the Bush regime's actual crimes against humanity and treason
against America. What drives 911 conspiracy kooks? Let's take a brief
look.
The article is reasonable and well written, begging the question of why it was dumped. Possibly further evidence group members had volunteers sabotaging the Portland IMC. Maybe if it hadn't been "composted", not as many people would have been duped into joining the group.
Most of the group members' profiles match the "eyes open" description, that is people who KNOW they are pushing a scam:
""Eyes open" conspiracy advocates deserve to be ridiculed and exposed as the frauds they are. They're preying on the honest beliefs of people who trust in what they mistakenly perceive to be authoritative figures, people who honestly think they've discovered truths that the vast majority of the world either don't know anything about or deliberately choose not to face."
Ergo the existence of this website.
The Mindset of 911 Scholars for Truth and Other Conspiracy
Kooks
Opinions on a Phenomena by Fredric L. Rice, Chairman,
The Skeptic TankFrom http://www.elmerfudd.us/kooks911.htm
The Psychology of 911 Conspiracy Believers: Introduction.....................................................................................
The Author. Skepticism
and Skeptics Groups............................................................................................................
Eyes Open 911 Conspiracy Kooks.................................................................................................................................
Eyes Closed 911 Conspiracy Kooks..............................................................................................................................
Determining Who is Eyes Open and Who is Eyes Closed........................................................................................
What the 911 Conspiracy Kooks Believe In Public.....................................................................................................
What the 911 Conspiracy Kooks Believe Among Themselves.................................................................................
Debunking the Kooks......................................................................................................................................................
"What we know and don't know about 9/11" Debunked Again...............................................................................
Free Falling Pancake..................................................................................................................................................
Air Force Stand Down Order....................................................................................................................................
Conflicting Authority and "Salad Bar" Kooks......................................................................................................
The Lack of a Criminal Investigation.......................................................................................................................
Denial of Science and the Irony of "Scholar" Kooks...........................................................................................
When Conspiracy Kooks Collide, it's a Conspiracy............................................................................................
Everybody's Crazy But Me......................................................................................................................................
The Majority Are Scared...........................................................................................................................................
So I'm NUTS, Am I?!.................................................................................................................................................
Logic Fallacy Ipso Facto Hoc...................................................................................................................................
They Lie To Us Constantly, Ergo Our Claims are Right.......................................................................................
Hijackers are Still Alive..............................................................................................................................................
Leaping Off Into The Weeds....................................................................................................................................
Them Zionist Jews and the Mass Media................................................................................................................
Unfortunate Occult Kook Stephen Jones...................................................................................................................
The Survival of Conspiracy Kook Notions................................................................................................................
The Psychology of 911 Conspiracy Believers: Introduction
In the aftermath of the September 11'th terrorist attacks
against New York city, a cottage industry of conspiracy kooks have risen to
exploit the attacks, seeking to advance their financial, political, and
ideological goals as well as seeking to justify and vindicate long-held and
deeply cherished preconceived notions.
Among the most notorious and decidedly unscholarly are the
handful of individuals calling themselves "911 Scholars for Truth[1],"
a rather ironic and euphemistic label for a set of individuals, ideologies, and
practices that are anything but scholarly.
This paper -- which, I should note, doesn't attempt to
even pretend to be "scholarly" (indeed, the wording of this document
is at times difficult to parse, problems which will be corrected as time
permits) -- takes a look at the mindset of 911 conspiracy believers and
what motivates them with particular focus on the "911 Scholars for
Truth" group of conspiracy believers.
The Author. Skepticism and Skeptics Groups
Fredric Rice is the Chairman of an organized skeptics[2]
group called The Skeptic Tank[3],
one of numerous organized skeptics groups which exist around the world whose
primary goals are the appeal to sanity and reason, focusing on the scientific[4]
debunking of testable claims of the paranormal.
An important aspect of skeptics groups is that claims must
be testable and falsifiable. Skeptics
generally aren't interested in evaluating and addressing untestable claims
since such claims are a matter of religious faith or the dysfunctional
pathologies harbored by the mentally unfortunate. When it comes to testable claims, however,
that are in opposition to well established scientific evidence, skeptics groups
are willing and happy to debunk.
We'll see in this paper that much of what 911 conspiracy
kooks believe fall within the venue of religious faith solely because what they
believe are demonstrably false, but despite the fact that what they believe is
false, a great many of their claims are testable and thus lend themselves to
scientific debunking.
Most skeptics groups make an effort to remain stoic and
professional[5]
while debunking outrageous claims however the author of this paper doesn't
subscribe to the philosophy of being nice and respectful to believers in the
paranormal and other typical venues of irrationality. Indeed, there's little to be gained from
refraining calling groups of unfortunate individuals (such as the handful of
unsalted nuts in the "911 Scholars" group) "unsalted nuts[6]." In fact, repressing laughter at the
shenanigans of conspiracy kooks is unhealthy.
The author is also a vocal and fairly insistent impolite
opponent of the Bush regime's numerous crimes against humanity and treason
against the United States. Most claims
issued by fascist regimes (such as the Bush administration) are often testable
and falsifiable and as such the author recognizes as legitimate the very outrageous
lies and deceptions that drives 911 conspiracy kooks to adopt their own
resulting delusional beliefs.
Eyes Open 911 Conspiracy Kooks
When it comes to self-proclaimed "psychics," astrologers,
palm readers, dowsers, Tarot card readers, fortune tellers, and other claimants
of the paranormal, such people fall into two camps. "Eyes open" and "eyes closed[7]." Conspiracy advocates also follow this stark
bifurcation of believer however the percentages of people who fall into the two
classes are starkly different.
"Eyes open" advocates of the paranormal are well aware
that the powers and abilities that they claim to hold don't actually
exist. Mentalists, magicians, conjurers,
religious frauds (such as Peter Popoff[8]
and all television-scale "faith healers[9]")
fall into this category, as do the likes of Uri Geller[10],
and Jean Dixon[11],
individuals who seek to make money or garner fame from the ignorant and
gullible -- though often desperate -- rubes they try to exploit.
"Eyes open" psychics and such are further divided into two
major groups of individuals: those who
use their cold reading[12]
abilities and other magic tricks to rook, swindle, and defraud their marks out
of as much money as they think they can get away with, and a second group of
those who are honest and employ their magic act to entertain or educate.
By far some 90% of all advocates of the paranormal are
"eyes open," knowing the claims that they make are false. Of those who are eyes open, perhaps 90%
employ their deceptive trade to financial gain while the rest do it for the
humor, fun, and entertainment it affords at the expense of the actual believers
they play with.
When it comes to conspiracy beliefs, advocates form up
into a reversal of the usual paranormal bifurcation: Some 90% of conspiracy believers honestly
believe while the rest proclaim to do so solely to rook and swindle the rubes
who actually believe.
Advocacy
|
Eyes Open
|
Eyes Closed
|
Paranormal
|
90%
|
10%
|
Conspiracy
|
10%
|
90%
|
There's a reason for this.
People who proclaim to be "psychic" or perform astrological readings and
the whole spectrum of paranormal claptrap typically require at least a minimal
of acting ability to carry off their deceptions, and a fairly large dose of
understanding of basic human nature.
The ability to perform "cold readings" where the advocate
can successfully impress the mark into believing the "psychic" knows things
about him or her that nobody could know without having paranormal powers is an
ability that takes time, intelligence, and practice to develop. Alternatively, conspiracy kooks don't require
any such mental capabilities or effort.
For conspiracy kooks, the only requirement these days is the ability to
turn on a computer and use the Google search engine.
"Eyes open" conspiracy advocates deserve to be ridiculed
and exposed as the frauds they are.
They're preying on the honest beliefs of people who trust in what they
mistakenly perceive to be authoritative figures, people who honestly think
they've discovered truths that the vast majority of the world either don't know
anything about or deliberately choose not to face.
Eyes Closed 911 Conspiracy Kooks
The "eyes closed" brand of conspiracy believer honestly
believes what they advocate, and while they may rook and swindle each other,
selling each other T-shirts, bumper stickers, conspiracy books and other
marketable paraphernalia, they do so because they actually believe what they
profess to believe in -- as opposed to the "eyes open" conspiracy advocates who
are in it for the money and fame.
David Hume -- a well known skeptical philosopher --
proclaimed that skeptics should choose to understand humans rather than to
laugh at or ridicule believers, and this is a philosophy that's certainly
reasonable for those conspiracy believers who are "eyes closed." I choose, however, to both understand them and
laugh at them since 911 conspiracy kooks are vastly entertaining.
At the same time "eyes closed" conspiracy believers are
deserving of some pity and a more friendly brand of ridicule than that which
rightfully should be heaped upon the "eyes open" variety of fraud.
Determining Who is Eyes Open and Who is Eyes Closed
The determination of which "psychics" and other paranormal
advocates are "eyes open" and which are "eyes closed" is a matter of
predicating one's assumptions on simple probability unless the advocate has
accidentally or purposely stated or otherwise exposed himself or herself as
"eyes open."
The same is true for 911 conspiracy crackpots. Probability designates that most every
professed "psychic" knows he or she is a fraud and doesn't actually believe any
of the claptrap he or she sells to the rubes.
Probability also designates that most every conspiracy advocate honestly
believes in what he or she professes to believe in.
The question then becomes one of how to determine whether
a 911 conspiracy kook actually believes the claptrap he or she professes to
believe from those who proclaim to believe simply to get money and fame from
the witless rubes who actually do believe.
There is no way to accurately make the determination
unless the 911 conspiracy advocate admits he or she knows they're shoveling out
claptrap. The fact that so many 911
conspiracy kooks are caught and exposed as deliberately lying is no indication
that they know they're deliberately lying, and getting caught can't be
used as a metric to judge an advocate's actual belief or not.
How can this be?
How can someone deliberately lie and yet not know it? In psychology the mental process which allows
such a phenomena among human brains is called "compartmentalization[13]."
Conspiracy kooks can honestly believe they're "scholars"
and that they're performing "science," and they can honestly pretend their
self-published "peer reviewed journals" are some how legitimate. At the same time in direct contradiction to
those beliefs they can also believe that actual scientists who perform actual
science and debunk conspiracy notions aren't being honest -- or worse, are part
of the ever growing conspiracy.
Compartmentalization is relevant to determine who is eyes
open and who is eyes closed because those who honestly believe contradictory
and mutually exclusive things can accumulate a cognitive dysfunction known as
"cognitive dissonance[14]"
which eventually manifests itself. The
conspiracy kook who grows increasingly violent and bug-shit insane, advancing
increasingly nutty notions as time develops are likely "eyes closed," actual
believers suffering from their beliefs.
The "eyes open" type of advocate may express increasingly
outrageous and amusing notions as time progresses however they generally don't
acquire violent and insane rhetoric and behavior. It's generally always the rabid true believer
that society physically suffers from the most, not the liar professing to
believe solely as a means to rook and swindle the rubes out of their bank
accounts.
What the 911 Conspiracy Kooks Believe In Public
Examining groups of conspiracy kooks such as the "911
Scholars for Truth," it becomes apparent that what such individuals advocate
and speak about in public outside of their circle of fellow conspiracy mongers
is often diametrically opposed to what such individuals profess and advocate in
venues among fellow believers.
(Or, to be more accurate, their claims grow in absurdity
when told safely among fellow kooks.)
The reason why there's stark differences in what
conspiracy crackpots say depending on who their audience is derives from the
aims and goals of the conspiracy advocates of the moment.
When speaking in public out among normal people who don't
share their apriori conspiracy beliefs, 911 "Scholars" and their ideological
colleagues, for example, such conspiracy believers won't mention some of their
more embarrassing beliefs such as the notion that some 4000 Jews who worked in
the World Trade Center buildings were warned in advance[15]
of the September 11'th terrorist attacks.
When speaking in venues where the majority of people are fellow
conspiracy believers, however, the claim about Jews being warned are routinely
expressed.
At issue is credibility and legitimacy, two attributes
completely lacking in such groups as "911 Scholars for Truth." Conspiracy mongers will express what they
hope and believe their audience will accept when they feel they need to appeal
to what they believe will be considered credible and will be accepted by their
audience.
Conspiracy kooks will convince themselves that this level
of deception is acceptable since the vast unwashed populace which laughs at
them or otherwise ignores their notions:
1. Don't
want to believe the truth.
2. Have
short attention spans and can't retain the truth.
3. Are
incapable of understanding the truth.
4. Are part
of the conspiracy.
5. Have
some financial or other motive for denying the truth.
6. Are
"electronically" brainwashed by the secret cabal.
So what are some of the more profoundly silly things that
911 conspiracy kooks proclaim to believe out in public among
non-believers? To be sure not all 911
kooks believe the same things, and to be sure there's infighting among the
kooks about what they're supposed to believe involves the conspiracy and what's
bullshit.
Despite that, there's some core notions held by the
majority. An exhaustive list would take
a considerable amount of time to compile however some of the major points of
belief are:
1. The
World Trade Center buildings were brought down by demolition munitions planted
at strategic locations within the buildings.
2. There
were explosions heard and observed[16]
by witnesses which are demolition munitions (rather than electrical[17]
transformer explosions and related phenomena.)
3. There is
overwhelming scientific evidence to support their demolition munitions notions.
4. There is
overwhelming eye-witness accounts and statements from fire fighters and such to
support their demolition munitions notions.
5. World
Trade Center building number 7 wasn't damaged badly enough to warrant being
dismantled and was demolished after the attacks to try to hide evidence of the
Bush regime's crimes and treason being stored in the building.
6. Video
admission of guilt by a fire fighter exists that World Trade Center number 7
was "pulled[18]"
with demolition munitions.
7. Pools of
melted steel[19]
exists which can't be explained through physical sciences unless one posits the
existence of demolition materials such as thermite[20].
8. Evidence
that thermite was used in percentages beyond the trace amounts detected and
accepted by actual scientists.
9. No
evidence exists that a jet airliner was crashed into the Pentagon.
10.Passenger jet airliner aircraft
were not crashed into the World Trade Center buildings but were instead crashed
into by automated or otherwise unmanned drone aircraft.
11.The "fourth jet airliner" that
crashed in a field and was reportedly targeted for the White House was likewise
unmanned and some how malfunctioned.
12.Cell telephone calls don't work
from inside of passenger jet airliners at certain altitudes and velocities.
13.The World Trade Center buildings
fell at "free fall[21]"
speeds.
14.Iron and steel don't burn. (Even head kook Jones stupidly claims that
iron can't burn. In fact it does around
1200 degrees f.)
Those are just a few of the notions proclaimed out in
public among the rational who recognize the conspiracy kooks' notions as
unevidenced.
What the 911 Conspiracy Kooks Believe Among Themselves
As the audience becomes a majority of fellow 911
conspiracy believers, the claims become ever more unscientific, untestable, and
outrageous. To be sure the majority of
the 911 conspiracy kooks don't believe all of the increasingly insane notions
listed here however from web sites and Usenet newsgroups, the increase in
rabidity appears to be spreading into the mainstream kookdom.
Some of the added "private" notions:
1) All of
the Jews who worked in the World Trade Center buildings were warned before hand
about the impending terrorist attacks and were told not to report to work.
2) The
history of crimes against humanity and treason against America at the hands of
the Bush regime extend to actually performing the September 11'th terrorist
attacks personally (that is ordering the attacks.)
3) The Bush
regime knew about the impending terrorist attacks and ordered the Air Force,
NORAD, FBI, and other agencies to "stand down" and step aside to allow the
attacks to happen.
4) The 911
attacks were part of a wider world-wide conspiracy involving "blood line
Illuminati" cabals and various "secret societies" of which Bush and his fascist
regime are part.
5) The
September 11'th attacks are part of the "end times" signaling the "return" of
the Christian Jesus godman.
6) The
"truth" about flying saucers, John F. Kennedy's murder, Roswell, Bigfoot, and
so many other traditional paranoid kookdom are intricately tied into the
September 11'th terrorist attacks with big oil, cocaine, and the usual world
domination
Some "911 Scholars for Truth" kooks
allegedly publicly proclaim quite a few kook notions that they later
allegedly deny when interviewed for wider audiences.
(One such kook allegedly called
himself an "agnostic" when it comes to whether the Bush regime
actually committed the terrorist acts when interviewed on a FOX channel's
fake news show in direct opposition to proclamations he allegedly made at
a Los Angeles kook convention among his ideological kook
colleagues.)
If this behavior is expressed by pathological liars, it's
an indication that the individuals are at least aware of the fact that they
lie. Often pathological liars have
difficulty noticing that they're deliberately changing their claims based upon
their target audience. When they
internalize the fact that they're deliberately lying to critical audiences,
they justify their deceptions as "appealing to a broader audience" while they
"disseminate educational information" among those who they believe are "asleep"
or brainwashed.
Debunking the Kooks
All brands of unfortunate conspiracy believer from flying
saucers believers, through astrology, all the way to 911 "Scholars" engage in
the behavior of continually restating claims that have been soundly and
scientifically debunked hundreds or thousands of times, some claims of which
have been debunked for centuries.
When presented with irrefutable scientific fact, such
believers simply blink their eyes, draw a deep breath, ignore everything they
have just been shown, and utter their just-debunked claims yet once again. It's a matter of religious belief; a factor
of the human brain being wired through millions of years of evolution to cling
to wishful thinking and things people want
to believe despite all reason.
Here below we take a look at a bevy of claims by a 911
conspiracy believer, an Internet entity named Paul Roberts. While we examine the usual and heavily debunked
claims, we'll comment upon them.
"What we know and don't know about 9/11" Debunked Again
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/08/344926.shtml
What we know and don't know
about 9/11
author: Paul Craig Roberts
08/16/06 "Information
Clearing House" -- I received a number of intelligent responses from
readers of my August 14 column, "Gullible Americans," The letters
deserve a reply.
[This is a fairly common behavioral phenomena among
believers in conspiracy theories and religious beliefs. After a fatal debunking, the believer will
almost certainly blink his or her eyes a few times, draw a deep breath, and
then restate his or her solidly debunked notions. Science, reason, or evidence don't factory in
beliefs.]
[The phenomena is apparently across the whole spectrum of
"must believers," people who have an emotional and psychological need to
believe at all cost. For example this
phenomena is witnessed among 911 conspiracy believers and Christian
Creationists to the same degree.]
[At core of the psyche is self-deception first and
foremost. Believers in such profoundly
debunked notions as "the World Trade Center buildings fell at free fall speeds"
and such notions as "the world was created 6,000 years ago" must deceive
themselves first before they can attempt to deceive others. That so many 911 conspiracy believers also knowingly
lie is part of the compartmentalization which can result in cognitive
dissonance. Taken to extremes, such
mental difficulties can become serious to the point of dysfunction.]
Moreover, some contain important
points that should be shared with a wider audience.
[This is another common behavioral aspect of conspiracy
believers. The "wider audience" very
often refers to people who are capable of applying reason, science, and the
rules of the burden of evidence.]
[Conspiracy believers often believe that "the people are
asleep" or otherwise too uneducated, too brainwashed, too fat, stupid, and lazy
to "accept" the notions that the conspiracy believer wants to believe is
obvious if only "the people" would wake up, do their homework, examine the
evidence, and discover the truth for themselves.]
[Those who don't adopt conspiracy beliefs can be generally
divided into two groups: Those who actually haven't examined the issues because
it doesn't interest them enough to, and those who have examined the evidence
and conclude with reason that the conspiracy kooks are wrong.]
[In the case where "the people" aren't interested enough
to actually perform minimal research into the 911 terrorist attacks, their
causes, and the Bush regime's response, 911 conspiracy kooks are partially
correct in their complaints that such people are asleep or lazy and don't wish
to invest the time and effort needed to examine the issues. At the same time such people who are "asleep"
likewise wouldn't be interested in the conspiracy kooks' unevidenced notions.]
[Among the 911 kooks, there's not a current of
"everybody's crazy but me," a phenomena that's fairly common among lone
delusionals who don't share the support and sympathies of fellow conspiracy
believers. In this aspect the 911 kooks are different than other kooks.]
Pundits such as myself are not
the only people who have interesting things to say. Considering the number of
letters and the time it would require to respond individually, I am replying
instead in this column.
[This individual's response was posted to and then
retrieved from the Portland Indymedia web site.
A search for the sentence "What we know and don't know about 9/11" using
Google turns up 11,900 web pages. An
additional search filtering out all web pages that don't contain the author's
name turns up 239 web pages.]
Most readers from whom I heard
understand the difference between loyalty to country and loyalty to a
government. They understand that to support a political party or a government
that is destroying the US Constitution and America's reputation in the world
is, in fact, an act of treason. Therefore, I did not have to read the usual
drivel about how doubting "our government" is un-American.
[This is irrelevant here.
The Bush regime is certainly guilty of committing massive crimes against
humanity -- few would care to dispute that -- and the Bush regime is certainly
guilty of treason against the people of the United States -- again, few dispute
that fact. What's at issue here is the
unevidenced, unscientific, delusional beliefs of conspiracy kooks.]
Among the issues raised are:
How could the complicity of the
US government, or some part of it, in the events of 9/11 be kept a secret?
[And in fact the Bush regime's deliberate involvement in
the terrorist attacks against New York aren't relevant here insofar as secrecy
is concerned. The so-called "Phoenix,
Arizona FBI Memo," the so-called "Downingstreet Memo," and numerous other
non-secret, well-evidenced crimes against America at the hands of the Bush
regime aren't secret. What's debatable is the degree of the Bush regime's complicity.]
For the most part, this question
comes from Americans who believe the government must have been, to some extent,
complicit in the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon.
[Either through deliberate treason or through gross
incompetence.]
How can we differentiate between
the real facts, the 9/11 Commission's reporting of the facts, and
"conspiracy theories"?
[Science and reason, obviously, neither of which are
employed or respected among 911 conspiracy kooks -- or to be more accurate,
both of which are dismissed when they debunk the conspiracy believers'
deeply-held and cherished notions.]
What about the role of suicide
flyers led by M. Atta?
[Atta had been a CIA asset for many years, a man who
worked for the United States government even before the Bush regime hijacked
the 2000 Presidential Election.]
[Atta was just one of hundreds -- if not thousands -- of
terrorists on US payrolls however such employment was for his efforts in
performing acts that the United States deemed favorable to the corporate
interests which run the United States.
There's no evidence that Atta's employment by the Bush regime was so
that he could attack New York.]
[Atta turned on his masters, by all available evidence,
and there's no evidence that the Bush regime specifically paid him (or
brainwashed him) into performing the September 11'th terrorist attacks.]
What about the Popular Mechanics
article and the TV documentary that debunk the skeptics and support the
official explanation of 9/11?
[This is the logic fallacy known as "begging the
question." There is no "official explanation" of September 11'th. The Bush regime and various Bush offices have
released a series of reports about the September 11'th terrorist attacks
however they're not what can reasonably be called "official explanations."]
[None of the reports issued by the Bush regime address the
regime's deliberate "stepping aside" which allowed the Saudi Arabian hijackers
to commit their crimes. None of the
reports issued by the Bush regime address evidence covering the regime's crimes
after the fact -- such as the "Downingstreet Memo" where a "Pearl Harbor" such
as September 11'th was greatly desired to justify treason and fascism against
the American people.]
What about the role of the US
media in propagandizing Americans with the official explanation instead of
examining the explanation, especially with regard to such truncated hatchet-job
interviews with 9/11 skeptics such as the hatchet jobs presided over by Donny
Deutsch on CNBC and by neocon Tucker Carlson on MSNBC?
[This is another behavioral trait among 911 conspiracy
kooks. There's a dedicated effort toward
attempting to describe 911 conspiracy kooks' notions as "mainstream" and anyone
who doesn't adopt or accept the conspiracy notions are themselves believers in
a conspiracy.]
[Among 911 kooks, the kooks are sane whereas everyone else
is delusioned by the Bush conspiracy.
The "9/11 skeptics" referred to here are the 911 conspiracy kooks. The fact that there actually is a Bush conspiracy is
irrelevant when it comes to the kook notions held by 911 kooks.]
Why are so many Americans
hostile to holding the Bush regime accountable for its obvious and documented
lies, lies that have misled America to war and gratuitously slaughtered and
maimed tens of thousands of people, including our own troops?
[Irrelevant when it comes to 911 conspiracy notions. There's always a percentage of any populace
that will allow their leaders -- elected or otherwise -- to commit any acts of
treason or crimes against humanity without calling for their leaders' trial or
execution.]
[It's not a conspiracy that a percentage of the population
on the planet don't call for the Bush regime to stand trial for their
crimes. It's just an artifact of human
nature, doubtlessly the result of humanity's evolutional development.]
Free Falling Pancake
I will begin by stating what we
know to be a solid incontrovertible scientific fact.
We know that it is strictly
impossible for any building, much less steel columned buildings, to
"pancake" at free fall speed. Therefore, it is a non-controversial
fact that the official explanation of the collapse of the WTC buildings is
false.
[Here we have one of the most common profoundly debunked
notions held by September 11'th conspiracy kooks, including the so-called "911
Scholars" who proclaim to know science and what science entails.]
[Here we also see another application of the fatal logic
fallacy known as "begging the question."
The buildings didn't fall at "free fall speed[22]." They fell at a rate of speed consistent with
their heights, mitigated by resistance from the air compacted between floors as
the building collapsed.]
[The conspiracy kook notion is that the Bush regime
employed demolition munitions as the "explanation" for the mistaken notion that
the buildings fell at free fall. In fact
the demolition notion has been debunked endless times. See "Thermite."[23]. Also see "explosions."[24]]
Air Force Stand Down Order
We also know for a fact that the
Air Force somehow inexplicably failed to intercept the alleged hijacked
airliners despite the fact that the Air Force can launch jet fighters to 29,000
feet in 2.5 minutes.
[Irrefutable incompetence doesn't equate to a deliberate
of treason. As yet there's no evidence
that the Bush regime issued any "stand down" order or was in any way
responsible for the failure to intercept hijacked aircraft. That doesn't mean the Bush regime didn't order the "stand down," it
just means that there's no evidence for such an order.]
[Some 911 conspiracy kooks don't accept the fact that
passenger jet aircraft were crashed into the World Trade Center buildings or
the Pentagon. Some have adopted the
unusual notion that the thousands of eye-witnesses who observed the passenger
aircraft are either part of the "Bush conspiracy" or just the typical poor
witness.]
[The fact that there are videotapes of the World Trade
Center buildings being impacted by passenger jet airliners prompts these kooks
to proclaim the videos to be faked. Some
kooks claim that the jet airliners shown on the videos are in fact unmanned
drones being controlled by the Bush regime.]
Conflicting Authority and "Salad Bar" Kooks
We also know that the two
co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission have just written a book that reveals that
the US military lied to the Commission about its failure to intercept the
hijacked airliners.
[Another behavioral trait of the conspiracy kook is the
"salad bar" approach to picking and choosing which "evidence from authority" to
accept and which to dismiss. When the
claims support their conspiracy notions, kooks accept it. When the larger mountain of claims which
dispute their kook notions is offered, the kooks reject it as "part of the
conspiracy" or the findings of the brainwashed and uneducated.]
[The failure to intercept the jet aircraft has numerous
mundane explanations which don't rely upon any orders from the Bush
regime. Conspiracy believers reject them
and adopt the most treasonous explanation to support their predisposed
beliefs.]
The Lack of a Criminal Investigation
There are various explanations
for this second fact. The military could have lied to cover up complicity or to
cover-up its incompetence. However, no investigation has been made to ascertain
the true explanation for the failure.
[The lack of any serious investigation into the Bush
regime's complicity into the September 11'th terrorist attacks and all the
events which lead up to it and took place after the fact is one of the factual
aspects of the Bush regime's crimes that 911 conspiracy kooks lament.]
[Eventually an actual criminal investigation into why the
Bush regime allowed the terrorist attacks to take place and what his regime's
motives were might conceivably take place some day however such a criminal
investigation almost certainly will not take place during out life times.]
This leaves us with the
incontrovertible fact that buildings cannot "pancake" at free fall
speeds.
The only explanation known to
science for the free fall collapse of a building, especially into its own
footprint, is engineered demolition, which removes the supports for each floor
of the building at split second intervals so that the debris from above meets
no resistance on its fall.
[A repeat of the "begging the question" logic fallacy, and
a repeat of the debunked notion that demolition munitions were employed.]
Denial of Science and the Irony of "Scholar" Kooks
To call this explanation a
"conspiracy theory" is to display the utmost total ignorance. Any
physicist or engineer who maintains that buildings can "pancake" at
free fall speed has obviously been bought and paid for or is a total incompetent
fool.
[There's often great irony -- and amusement -- at the
claims of conspiracy kooks who proclaim to employ science while scoffing at
those who actually do.]
The WTC buildings are known to
have collapsed at free fall speed into their own footprints.
[And in fact the video evidence taken of the buildings'
actual collapses prove otherwise.]
When Conspiracy Kooks Collide, it's a Conspiracy
This fact does not tell us who
is responsible or what purpose was served.
Since the damning
incontrovertible fact has not been investigated, speculation and
"conspiracy theories" have filled the void. Some of the speculation
is based on circumstantial evidence and is plausible. Other of the speculation
is untenable, and it is used to protect the official explanation by branding
all skeptics "conspiracy theorists."
I would not be surprised if some
of the most far-out "conspiracy theories" consist, in fact, of
disinformation put out by elements in the government to discredit all skeptics.
But I do not know this to be the case.
[Here we have another core aspect of conspiracy believers
across the spectrum. Some kooks are more
rabid or extremist than others, and while bands of kooks usually harbor many of
the same outrageous, unevidenced notions, there will be individuals who harbor
notions that others do not, expressing their notions along-side the core
beliefs of their ideological colleagues.]
[An example of this is the notion that thousands of Jews
were warned ahead of time to not come to work on the morning of September
11'th. A small percentage of these 911
conspiracy kooks have adopted that belief.
The claim is just as soundly debunked as any other the 911 conspiracy
kooks harbor however among those who don't subscribe to that particular belief
the claimants can easily be attributed to "disinformation campaigns" instigated
by the Bush regime.]
[Proclaiming fellow 911 conspiracy kooks and their claims
to be part of a "disinformation" campaign is one way to attempt to try to
distance oneself from the people and claims.
Additionally pretending that the "opposition" feels it necessary to
instigate a "disinformation" campaign to flood the conspiracy camps with
ever-increasingly outrageous and insane notions makes the conspiracy believers
feel important and noticed by their enemies.]
Everybody's Crazy But Me
How could government complicity
be kept a secret? It can be kept a secret, because so many Americans are
scientifically ignorant and emotionally weak. They are incapable of realizing
the contradiction in the government's claim that the WTC buildings
"pancaked" at free fall speed, and they are emotionally incapable of
confronting the evil of the Bush regime.
[This behavioral trait has been examined to some degree
previously. A great many conspiracy
kooks depict themselves as superheroes, super patriots out to expose the
conspiracy and wake the unwashed, uneducated, illiterate, gullible, brainwashed
masses from their sleep. It makes the
conspiracy believer feel important, recognized, worthy.]
Many Christians think that Bush
is "a man of God" who is protecting American morality from
homosexuals and abortionists.
Others who wear their patriotism
on their sleeves think Bush is standing up for America and innocent Israel, and
that they must not let anti-American anti-war protesters cause America to lose
another war and repeat the Vietnam experience.
[Here we see another suit of common conspiracy believers'
behavioral patterns. There's an effort
adopted fairly often by the delusional to try to explain to themselves why and
how rationally sane people don't believe as they do.]
[Among Christianity the reason is often attributed to
"Satan" and his deliberate attempts to deceive humanity and "lead them
astray." Among 911 conspiracy kooks the
majority try to convince themselves that the unwashed masses "just can't handle
the truth."]
Americans are both ignorant and
full of resentments against the left. This makes them easily manipulated by the
neoconservatives who dominate the Bush regime and the media.
[This is all undeniably true. In fact it's another aspect of the "must
believer:" mix undeniable facts with unevidenced, unscientific, soundly
debunked notions in the hopes that readers will fall for it.]
The Majority Are Scared
Also, many anti-war and
anti-Bush online sites are scared of being called "crazy conspiracy
kooks." They protect their sites by staying away from the 9/11 issue, just
as so many Americans are scared to death of being called "anti-Semitic"
and thereby do not dare criticize Israel no matter the heinous war crimes that
state routinely commits.
[Here's more of the same rationalization on why the
majority of the populace doesn't believe the outrageously unscientific and
debunked notions of the 911 conspiracy believers. There's also some irony in this specific
instance because the conspiracy kook is admitting that he's aware of how the
rest of the world sees him and his claims: crazy.]
So I'm NUTS, Am I?!
[This brings up another important aspect of conspiracy
kookdom that should be underscored. Some
of the 911 conspiracy kooks are profoundly insane, others are profoundly
delusional, still others are merely laboring under their poor education and
poor self-esteem, trying to improve their self images by pretending to be
heroes. By far the vast majority of 911
kook is, however, honestly self-deceived and not otherwise actually insane.]
[Insanity is a matter of degree; insanity and sanity are
spectrums, not things that come in an "either this or that" package. All Homosapien Sapiens labor under different
misconceptions, delusions, and preconceived notions, and all labor under them
to different degrees. What constitutes insanity as such is a matter of
social convention.]
[Religious belief in deity constructs, for example, and
irrational and conceivably evidence of marked insanity. The vast majority of the world's populace
which exhibits and harbors religious beliefs in their deity constructs would
not care to suggest that they're insane.
Thus religious delusion isn't considered insanity except by a small
minority of the world's populace.]
[Also some 911 conspiracy notions are more outrageous and
"crazy" than others. That the World
Trade Center buildings some how fell at free fall speeds despite the video
evidence that they didn't is a nutty notion that conceivably isn't what would
be considered "nuts." That thousands of
Jews were notified ahead of time -- there's a 911 conspiracy kook notion that
certainly comes close to evidencing a profound mental problem, one wherein the
claimant could conceivably be called "insane."]
[Thus conspiracy believers can harbor a mix of notions,
some of which are understandable (even though the notions are demonstrably
mistaken) and others of which could conceivably indicate actual mental
dysfunction.]
[Among the 911 conspiracy kook phenomena it seems apparent
that any actual insanity is in any event not a cause for concern for anyone's
health or safety. If the odd 911
conspiracy kook is violently insane, it's nothing to worry about. If the odd 911 conspiracy kook's notions were widely held, that would be
worthy of major concern.]
Of all the online subscribers to
my column, only vdare.com and NewsMax had the courage to post my column.
Realizing that even antiwar sites would serve as de facto gatekeepers for the
neocons, I offered the column to ICH, whose editor cannot be intimidated.
[NewsMax.COM is a right-wing religious web site which will
publish anything on their web site so long as one pays the fee. In any event there are literally tens of
thousands of web sites that contain 911 conspiracy kook notions, just as there
are many thousands of web sites which either are dedicated solely for the
debunking of such claims or otherwise contain such debunkings as a matter of
general interest.]
[The behavior being expressed -- that only a few web sites
"have the courage" to carry the kook's spew -- is another common behavioral
attribute. The inability to disseminate
one's notions outside of the circle of fellow believers or, as NewsMax is
concerned, are paid to carry it, is believed to be either part of the
conspiracy or the result of cowardice, not the result of the fact that the
conspiracy kook's notions are unevidenced and in any event soundly debunked.]
The Popular Mechanics article
and the TV documentary are obviously false since they both endorse the official
explanation that the WTC buildings "pancaked" at free fall speed, an
obvious scientific impossibility. Whether the false reporting by Popular
Mechanics and television are due to incompetence or to complicity in a
government cover-up, I do not know.
Logic Fallacy Ipso Facto Hoc
[Another common behavioral trait: The scientific evidence which debunks the
preconceived kook notion is defacto lies despite the fact that science says
otherwise.]
[A re-read of this individual's complaint tends to
indicate that he could have worded his complaint a little better. Regardless he's employing two fatal logic
fallacies: Ipso Facto Hoc and "begging the question."]
[The buildings didn't fall at "free fall speed" and the
Popular Mechanics article didn't suggest that they did. That's the 911 conspiracy kook's notion. Because the Popular Mechanics article
covering the detailed aspects of the buildings' collapses don't conform to the
kook's preconceived notions, the scientific debunking is post hoc dismissed.]
They Lie To Us Constantly, Ergo Our Claims are Right
We know nothing about alleged
suicide flyers led by M. Atta except what the government has told us, a
government that has lied to us about everything else, such as Iraq's alleged
WMD and alleged links to Osama bin Laden, and Iran's alleged nuclear weapons
program, a program for which the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors
cannot find evidence.
[This is all undeniably true. The logic fallacy employed here, however,
could be called "Factum Ergo Kookdum Hoc:" because the Bush regime continues to
lie, commit crimes against humanity, and commits massive treason against
America, the 911 conspiracy kooks' claims are therefore legitimate and not at
all soundly debunked.]
[Such reasoning is false.
Each claim must stand on its own merits regardless of what the claim is
and regardless of who makes it. Past
histories of lies or legitimacy certainly counts for or against the legitimacy
of later claims however past histories don't post hoc designate later ones to
be true or false.]
Hijackers are Still Alive
According to reports, the BBC
has found 6 of the alleged suicide hijackers alive and well in their home
countries. I do not know if the report is true, but I do know that the report
has been ignored and there has been no investigation. Both the US government
and the US media have turned a blind eye.
[A number of news agencies around the world have searched
for family members of the alleged 19 jet airliner hijackers and in doing so
have found relatives and non-related individuals in the Middle East to have the
same names, or to have names that are close to the alleged hijackers.]
[This fact has led a lot of the 911 conspiracy kooks --
demonstrably a majority of them -- to believe that many of the alleged
hijackers are still alive, a notion that allows them to further believe that
unmanned drone aircraft were flown into the World Trade Center buildings.]
[This notion -- that some of the hijackers are still alive
-- has been soundly debunked. The fact
that more than one person can have the same name is apparently irrelevant among
the majority of the 911 conspiracy kooks, as is the fact that regionally groups
of people hold the same names.]
We have no way of knowing if
Atta and his named accomplices hijacked the planes, or, if they did, whether
they were dupes of intelligent services that pretended to be a terrorist cell
and organized the cover for the engineered demolition.
The fact that we do not know any
of these things, and the fact that the 9/11 Commission co-chairmen now tell us
that their report is flawed, are good indications that we have no documented
information of who was behind the plot, why it occurred, or how it operated.
[All this is true.]
With regard to the role of the
US media, if it is indeed a media rather than a propaganda ministry, one reader
cited remarks by the distinguished investigative reporter, John Pilger, made in
an address at Columbia University on 14 April 2006:
["...distinguished investigative reporter..." This is another application of "salad bar"
data selection as well as another appeal to what conspiracy kooks accept as
authority.]
[Also there are a great many Internet kooks who have
learned how to use the Google search engine and like to proclaim themselves "investigative
journalists." While it's true that many
of them have web sites and post their "findings" to them, it's also true that
their legitimacy doesn't extend to honestly calling themselves "investigative
journalists." Having a web site and an
opinion doesn't make one an "investigative journalist."]
Leaping Off Into The Weeds
"During the Cold War, a
group of Russian journalists toured the United States. On the final day of
their visit, they were asked by their hosts for their impressions. 'I have to
tell you,' said their spokesman, 'that we were astonished to find after reading
all the newspapers and watching TV, that all the opinions on all the vital
issues were by and large, the same.
"To get that result in our
country, we imprison people, we tear out their fingernails. Here, you don't
have that. What's the secret? How do you do it?'"
This quote is probably
apocryphal, but it is well used to make a valid point. The answer to the
Russian's question is that during the cold war the American public viewed the
Soviet Union as a dangerous adversary and were amenable to reports to that
effect.
The fact that the Soviets were a
potentially dangerous adversary made Americans blind to the roles of the US
military-industrial complex, which benefited financially from cultivating the
adversary relationship, and the US government, which benefited politically from
cultivating the adversary relationship, in keeping the adversarial relationship
alive.
The uniformity of the US media
has become much more complete since the days of the cold war. During the 1990s,
the US government permitted an unconscionable concentration of print and
broadcast media that terminated the independence of the media.
[None of which is at all relevant to the conspiracy kooks'
claims. Much of this is undeniably true
however none of it says anything in support of the notions advanced by 911
conspiracy believers.]
["Launching off into the weeds" like this is another
curious behavioral trail exhibited by the broad spectrum of conspiracy kooks
around the world, not just various 911 conspiracy believers. Because there's no evidence to support a
conspiracy believer's notions, vaster still conspiracies are required.]
[Some 911 conspiracy theorists like to attempt to combine
all outrageously unevidenced and seriously delusional beliefs into one massive
conspiracy, combining the Roswell "flying saucer" crash, the John F. Kennedy
murder, and endless historic beliefs about various conspires into one
over-riding, world-spanning conspiracy.]
[Doing so allows the conspiracy believer to elevate his or
her own importance in his or her own eyes.
It makes them feel vastly powerful -- possibly even more powerful than
the superhuman powers that they're successfully exposing.]
Them Zionist Jews and the Mass Media
Today the US media is owned by 5
giant companies in which pro-Zionist Jews have disproportionate influence. More
importantly, the values of the conglomerates reside in the broadcast licenses,
which are granted by the government, and the corporations are run by corporate
executives--not by journalists--whose eyes are on advertising revenues and the
avoidance of controversy that might produce boycotts or upset advertisers and
subscribers.
[While much of this is true, what's ironic here is that
the claimant touched upon one of the solid reasons on why the United States
media caters to the Bush regime and refuses to cover the Bush regime's crimes
and treason: money.]
[It's ratings and money which drives the corporate power
structure in the United States.
Conceivably one might
be able to call the overwhelming greed of corporations and individuals which
places the health and safety of nations a distant second to profits a
"conspiracy," however it's not a secret.]
Americans who rely on the
totally corrupt corporate media have no idea what is happening anywhere on
earth, much less at home.
[True, however that doesn't explain why 911 conspiracy
kooks adopt a different suit of obvious lies to believe. It also doesn't excuse 911 conspiracy kooks'
own lies. Finally it says nothing about
the validity of so many of the outrageous notions that 911 conspiracy kooks
have adopted.]
Despite the dark days in which
we live, some readers find optimism in recent polls that show more than
one-third of the US public now disbelieve the official account of 9/11 despite
the Bush regime's propaganda faithfully trumpeted by the US media.
Bush's own rock-bottom polls
show that Americans, like the Russians of the Soviet era, can read between the
lines of the propagandistic US media. Many Americans can still spot a liar and
a cheat when they see one.
[And presumably there's mass irony in the inability to see
the mote in one's own eye.]
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor
of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National
Review. He is co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
homepage:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14566.htm
Unfortunate Occult Kook Stephen Jones
Another aspect about conspiracy believers in general is
the ability for otherwise intelligent people who profess to be scientists to
adopt unscientific occult beliefs which are then used as "authority" by
followers. Followers pretend that
because their "authority" has legitimacy, their leader lends credibility to
their unevidenced notions.
Nobody within the 911 conspiracy kook arena has managed to
obtain a higher level of this phenomena than a kook called Stephen Jones[25]
who works at the Mormon cult's University in Utah. (The cult's staff have issued statements
stating that while they uphold Jones' right to speak, they don't support his
amusingly unscientific notions.)
No legitimate, credible, peer-reviewed science journal
will publish the writings of conspiracy kooks who don't employ science. Traditionally such kooks are relegated to
publishing in political magazines, fake "journals" that are created
specifically for conspiracy advocates or for fellow cultists. (There have been exceptions to this. Some times kook papers are published in peer-reviewed journals and are then
followed by debunkings.
To be sure Creationist cults "self-publish" and play
pretend that they're scientists publishing in "peer-reviewed journals" more
than 911 conspiracy kooks do, but Creationists have been around for some 10,000
years and have been publishing and playing pretend since before the advent of
the printing press.
Like all other 911 conspiracy kooks, Jones employs all the
usual unscientific notions and fatal logic fallacies. He starts out from unevidenced notions --
such as the World Trade Center buildings falling at free fall speeds (see
"Building 7"[26])
and then launches off into a description of the physics involved in such a free
falling building, ignoring the fact that the buildings' collapse times are
consistent with resisted falling.
Fellow conspiracy believers examine such logic fallacies,
stumble through the physics offered, and believe that their unevidenced notions
are thus proven beyond all doubt since the physics "agrees" with them. The fact that the premise upon which the
conspiracy kooks' efforts are predicated are false and debunks the belief at
the start is ignored.
This is a very common behavioral trait among conspiracy
believers. They'll latch on to someone
they want to believe is an authority because the person validates their
unevidenced notions. The fact that ten
thousand engineers and scientists dismiss Jones as a kook is something that
believers either don't notice, attribute to "the conspiracy," or pass off as
"well, they don't know what we know."
The fact that physics
and science is what doesn't
agree with Jones and his fellow kooks is dismissed utterly.
The Survival of Conspiracy Kook Notions
One of the longest-lasting conspiracy notions in the
United States is the belief that the United States Air Force shot down at least
one flying saucer outside of Roswell, New Mexico, and recovered a number of
alien bodies from the wreckage.
This amusing belief became established solely due to the
United States needing to keep secret the actual Project Mogul balloon project
being conducted which sought to monitor Soviet above-ground nuclear
testing. Because of the secrecy involved
in the project, when the balsa wood, sheet plastic, flower-patterned adhesive
tape, and balloon fragment remains from one secret flight were recovered near
Roswell, the U. S. Government set the stage for conspiracy believers to adopt
one of the more long-lasting, soundly debunked kook notions that survive up to
today.
Conspiracy kooks who profess to believe that aliens from
flying saucers were recovered from New Mexico utilize their belief as
justification and as launching points for further unevidenced belief. Indeed, in the old "X-Files" television
series, Christ Carter -- the creator of the series -- had the show's writers
depict this phenomena rather amusingly.
In "X-Files" a flying saucer conspiracy kook is captured
trespassing on some government property while trying to collect evidence of
whatever conspiracy was afoot. As the
individual is handcuffed and dragged away, the flying saucer kook yells,
"Roswell! Roswell!" which was very
amusing.
At core in that obviously fantasy television series'
depiction of flying saucer believers is the behavioral trait of connecting
one's own predicament to grander, sinister, at times world-spanning
conspiracies, all of which makes one's predicament not of one's own making.
Get pulled over for speeding three times this week? It's a conspiracy, obviously, and not one's
own fault for chronic speeding. (In fact
something much like this has been observed in the Usenet newsgroup
alt.impeach.bush and on various web sites.
See "Secret Police[27]"
for specifics.)
The ability of obvious flights of delusional fantasy to
survive for decades certainly means that many of the profoundly and solidly
debunked notions advocated by 911 conspiracy kooks will be with us far into the
foreseeable future.
[1]The "911
Scholars for Truth" are primarily an Internet phenomena
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skepticism
[3]http://www.skeptictank.org/
[4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
[5]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume
[6]"Unsalted"
because salted nuts taste better than unsalted nuts.
[7]http://www.skepticreport.com/psychics/confessions.htm
[8]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Popoff
[9]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_healing
[10]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Geller
[11]http://www.onlymountain.com/blog/archives/2006_01.html
[12]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading
[13]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmentalization_%28psychology%29
[14]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
[15]http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040202/klug
[16]http://www.debunking911.com/overp.htm
[17]http://www.debunking911.com/explosions.htm
[18]http://www.debunking911.com/pull.htm
[19]http://www.debunking911.com/moltensteel.htm
[20]http://www.debunking911.com/thermite.htm
[21]http://www.debunking911.com/freefall.htm
[22]http://www.debunking911.com/freefall.htm
[23]http://www.debunking911.com/thermite.htm
[24]http://www.debunking911.com/explosions.htm
[25]http://www.debunking911.com/jones.htm
[26]http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html
[27]http://www.davidduke.com/?p=900
