You have taken to the streets, you have made the DVDs, you have been to the conferences, you have heard the testimony, you have made the calls, you have borne the brunt of criticism, (some of it deserved, some of it contrived to demoralize you), you have read the books, (the official and alternative theories), and you have decided where to cast your lot.

And, you have decided to act!

Ok, now what?

Now is the time to focus your energy like a laser beam. Now is the time to inject yourself into the political debate in this country, and by proxy, to inject discourse about 9/11 into the living rooms of America.

How to do it?

Here is a clue. Last month activists confronted John Kerry with tough questions on WTC7 in Austin, TX. The video was posted to the internet. Alex Jones' infowars.com ran a story on Kerry's obfuscation, and this story was mirrored across the web.

In David Ray Griffin's "DEBUNKING 9/11 DEBUNKING" the author added an appendix to the end of chapter 2 called, "My Ersatz Interview of Lee Hamilton". He describes the appendix in the opening paragraph;

Neither Thomas Kean nor Lee Hamilton, as I indicated above, have agreed to participate in the National 9/11 Debate. I doubt, moreover, whether I will ever have the chance to discuss the 9/11 Commission's report with either of them in a public setting. In 2006, however, Hamilton was interviewed for a television program on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This interview was conducted by a man who, having read some of my writings, asked many of the questions I would have asked. This exchange can, therefore, be considered my ersatz interview of Lee Hamilton, whose responses are quite revealing.

This is the interview to which Griffin refers;

http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/911hamilton.html

9/11: TRUTH, LIES AND CONSPIRACY

INTERVIEW: LEE HAMILTON
August 21, 2006

CBC News: Sunday's Evan Solomon interviews Lee Hamilton, 9/11 Commission co-chair and co-author of the book "Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission".

Evan Solomon: Tell me why you felt the need, with Thomas Kean, to write this book "Without Precedent"?

Lee Hamilton: We felt we had an important story to tell, 9/11 was a traumatic event in our history, every adult in America will remember exactly where they were on that day when they heard the news. We felt that the Commission’s work gave a lot of insights into how government works, and particularly how government in the national security area works. We had hundreds of people tell us, or ask us, how the Commission did its work, and so we responded by writing the book and tried to let people know the story, the inside story of the 9/11 Commission.

Solomon: Do you consider the 9/11 Commission to have been a success, and if so, under what ways do you measure that success? How do you call it a success?

Views on Science and Faith

Dr. Steven Jones - May17, 2007

The modern scientific method allows us to ask questions and get answers quite independent of the religious views we individually espouse. The key is repeatability, that is, an agnostic will get the same result in valid scientific measurements as will a believer in God – one's personal beliefs will not affect the outcome of repeatable experiments. Accordingly, ad hominem arguments that a person believes in the resurrection of Jesus Christ (for example) and so he is to be ignored -- are not valid arguments against the person's scientific research.

To denigrate a scientist's research because of his personal beliefs is therefore considered very bad form in the scientific community.

Note: The following exchange occurred on a website called Common Ground-Common Sense. The first piece was posted at a forum by someone writing under the name “progressivephoenix.” David Ray Griffin was notified about it on May 9 (2007) by a man who, being himself registered at the CGCS website, reported that the author is a well-known “9/11 debunker” there. He said that if Griffin would write a response, he would post it, along with his own response. These responses were posted very late on May 10. On May 11, however, the two responses (as well as the piece by progressivephoenix) were removed, before many people had a chance to see them, without consultation with the man who posted them. Griffin’s response and the piece that provoked it are reposted here in order to give them more exposure. (The response by the other man, Mssr. Jouet at 911blogger, can be read following Griffin's response.)

Incontrovertible Proof that David Ray Griffin
is a Neocon
progressivephoenix

Dr. David Ray Griffin, the author of several books that claim to debunk the official 911 theory, is in fact a charter member of the neocon movement. He is a member of the Disciples of Christ, a far right-wing christian group that focuses on unity among Christians and "restoration" of Christian dominion. The sect is associated with the Reverend Jim Jones, who massacred over 900 people in 1978. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciples_of_Christ He attended a little known school called The Claremont Colleges in Claremont, CA. The Claremont Colleges are is the current intellectual center of the neocon movement. Neocon mouthpiece, The Wall Street Journal called Claremont, "the intellectual capital of the western world." Dr. Harry Jaffa, professor emeritus at Claremont, is the world 's foremost interpertor of neocon founding father Leo Strauss, and a former student of Strauss. http://www.claremont.org/scholars/scholarID.3/scholar.asp http://www.claremont.org/publications/pubid.354/pub_detail.asp Strauss was the inventor of the concept of the "noble lie," a doctrine which gave cart blanche to neocons to lie whenever they please. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5010.htm Four students of Jaffa founded Claremont Institute, a nominally independent neocon think tank. Despite their pretense of academic independence, Claremont College and its shadowy satellite, Claremont Institute rely heavily on funding from both government and conservative sources. Much of this funding is to provide tuition to an elite group of handpicked students who will form the next generation of neocons. Prominent neocon alums of Claremont include Rumsfeld's Former Assistant Defense Secretary Steven J, Cambone;, Blake Gottesman, Personal Assistant to George W. Bush; Robert A. Day, scion of oil billionaire, William H. Keck; christian fundamentalist and skeptic, Michael Shermer; and David Dreier, US Congressman and former chair of the powerful House Rules Committee.

May 12, 2007 - Dave Emory has issued a correction to his broadcast, but the blog entry in which the correction is made is a further smear piece, expanding on the other, weaker points made by Emory, and reinforced by the person who maintains the blog. Correction noted Emory, now get to work on the last decade's worth of corrections. -r.

I used to listen to Dave Emory at length. I found his theory that an "underground Reich" is at work causing mischief, murder and mayhem all over the world fascinating. He bolsters his theory with an impressive backlog of archived radio programs that have been broadcast on station WFMU.

One of the cornerstones of Emory's theory is a book by Paul Manning, "Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile".

Much of the “For The Record” series deals with the Bormann Organization and the research done on that by the late Paul Manning ... The Third Reich has been able to survive—underground—in deadly, Mafia-like fashion ... His death at the end of the war having been effectively faked by Gestapo chief (and later security director for the Bormann group) SS General Heinrich Muller, Martin Bormann proceeded to lead the economic and political affairs of the Underground Reich and (in effect) the Federal Republic of Germany ... When Paul was finally able to get Lyle Stuart Inc. to publish the book, Lyle Stuart had both of his legs broken the week the book was published ... source

There is only one problem with this book. Martin Bormann is dead. D-E-D dead. He has been dead since May 2, 1945. This was proven once, when Bormann's skeletal remains were discovered in 1972. The remains were positively identified using the dental records of Bormann's (and Hitler's) personal dentist.

This proof wasn't good enough for folks claiming that the "remarkable and deadly Bormann Organization" was alive and kicking, so a mitochondrial DNA analysis was conducted, and the results published in the scientific journal, "The International Journal of Legal Medicine".

Contrary to statements of an eye-witness who reported that Martin Bormann, the second most powerful man in the Third Reich, died on 2 May 1945 in Berlin, rumours persisted over the years that he had escaped from Germany after World War II. In 1972, skeletal remains were found during construction work, and by investigating the teeth and the bones experts concluded that they were from Bormann. Nevertheless, new rumours arose and in order to end this speculation we were commissioned to identify the skeletal remains by mitochondrial DNA analysis. The comparison of the sequence of HV1 and HV2 from the skeletal remains and a living maternal relative of Martin Bormann revealed no differences and this sequence was not found in 1500 Caucasoid reference sequences. Based on this investigation, we support the hypothesis that the skeletal remains are those of Martin Bormann. source.

Maybe Emory should be calling it the "remarkable but bogus Bormann Organization".

"By late 1918, stalemate on the Western Front and the entry of America into the war forced Germany and the Central Powers to accept Wilson's terms for peace. The subsequent Paris Peace Conference of 1919 resulted in the harsh Treaty of Versailles...

Attending the Paris peace conference were President Woodrow Wilson and his closest advisers, Colonel House, bankers Paul Warburg and Bernard Baruch, and almost two dozen members of "the Inquiry." The conference attendees embraced Wilson's plan for peace, including the formation of a League of Nations. However, under American law, the covenant had to be ratified by the U.S. Senate, which failed to do so, apparently distrusting any supernational organization.

Undaunted, Colonel House, along with both British and American peace conference delegates, met in Paris's Majestic Hotel on May 30, 1919, and resolved to form an "Institute of International Affairs," with one branch in the United States and one in England. The English branch became the Royal Institute of International Affairs. This institute was to guide public opinion toward acceptance of one-world government or globalism." (1)

User GramatonCleric has an interesting 9/11 blog on the go over at GNN.

Goes well with Mssr. Jouet's “Is this real-world or exercise?”: Cyber-PsyOps Warfare & 9/11

(An oldie from the DemocraticUnderground archive... the difference between what's provable at the freeway collapse and the WTC should be obvious. Re-posted here for posterity. -r.)

NIST's New Mechanical and Metallurgical Analysis of Structural Steel (WTC)

by stickdog - Sun Jun-26-05

Highlights:

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 recovered 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.

http://tinyurl.com/yszxef

No way back...except forward..., April 27, 2007

If I really lived in a "free" country, I would not be the only air traffic controller speaking out about the events of 9/11/2001. There would be others much younger, much more up-to-date, but there would be none any more patriotic. So, if anyone were to claim that my statements quoted in this enlightening book are self-serving, I must deflect that aside and state that I am still serving my country as many current air traffic controllers, government employees and military personnel would also do if their careers were not threatened by the various agencies within the the United States Government. Current controllers will never forget the events of PATCO and 1981 as they were hired to replace us, and those in the military know that they must follow orders. They all KNOW that they would be punished somehow should they excercise their rights of free speech.

And with me being fired by a president of the United States might lead one to believe that I hold anger at this action, and I do, but it is only that the PATCO strike, as seen historically, was only the "labor" portion of a 40+ year plan hatched by conservatives to dismantle our democracy which they have done in ways far, far greater than just labor and income disparity issues. My road since hasn't been pretty, but I'm not yet "terminated".

Nearing my 60th birthday, coming of "political age" after reading The Pentagon Papers, and having an unusual vantage point from which I can view 9/11/2001 [I am also an experienced pilot] allows me to put this latest attack on our country into a longer term context. Eventually, as it is now known that FDR knew about the Pearl Harbor attacks and actually took precedent actions to provoke the Japanese into the attack, we will come to see that the attacks on 9/11/2001 were self inflicted and done for the self-serving reasons of a narrow band of wealthy people, the military industrial complex and huge multi-national corporations who operate above common law and use our planet and its resources for themselves, and for whatever it is that they believe in. Since most people's "belief structures" cannot accept this except perhaps through some form of knowledge "osmossis" over the years, it will take some time for this full knowledge to reach into their souls. This form of societal denial can be explained better by experts, but it exists.

When it does come time for the common person to gain the strength to look deeply into what has happened to our country, and they want to focus upon the events of 9/11/2001, they will not have to go any farther than Dr. David Ray Griffin's work on the subject, and "Debunking 9/11 Debunking" will serve as THE SEMINAL WORK on the subject. This will even be true to those of us who know a great deal about 9/11/2001...those of us who comprise what is known as the "9/11 Truth Movement".

Two brief videos on the Neoconservatives. The first is an excerpt from Rep. Cythia McKinney's 2005 Congressional Briefing, "The 9/11 Commission Report One Year Later - A Citizen's Response: Did They Get it Right?" An important thing to note is that the Neocons derive at least part of their ideology from an actual Nazi, Carl Schmitt, the "Crown Jurist of the Third Reich."

To follow-up, a few more minutes on Leo Strauss, from Adam Curtis' documentary, The Power of Nightmares

On Monday February 12, 2007, a man by the name of Paul Laffoley was interviewed by Mike Hagan on the radio program radioOrbit, broadcast on Columbia, Missouri's KOPN. (Download 16mb MP3 here).

Laffoley makes a number of remarkable claims. The first one is that he was tasked to design a host of interior elements for floors 15 through 45 in Tower II while he was employed at Emery Roth & Sons in Manhattan, during 1963-1964. This, despite the fact that Laffoley has no degree in Architecture, and was kicked out of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, sans Degree.

I think it's highly unlikely that one of the oldest and most prestigious architectural firms in the world, responsible for more buildings than any other architect in Manhattan, would find any need to hire a Grad-school reject as a designer on one of the tallest skyscrapers on the planet, especially considering that at the time, the WTC's design was on the cutting edge. It's more likely that he was getting coffee for an Art Director or keeping tables clean for the Architects.*

Anyhow, he goes on;

"I began to see some things going on there, that were kind of dangerous. Like, they were eliminating asbestos flocking, because they wanted to fast-track it. Meaning, they wanted to design and build simultaneously." - (36:50 mark.)

Sure "they" were. Pretty easy claim to make. A claim that makes experiments like shooting asbestos covered steel with a shotgun kind of redundant, no? The shock from the jet-crash didn't knock the asbestos off, there was no asbestos! How convenient.

"They started doing things like instead of welding steel together, they bolted it. And it turns out that those are some of the reasons why it came down..." - (39:33 mark.)

It doesn't take too much browsing time to find pictures of welders welding steel together during the construction of the WTC. The welding even extended to the floor pans:

Commentary on the Bazant and Verdure article Mechanics of Progressive Collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions; page 308; JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING MECHANICS (© ASCE); MARCH 2007:

by ShineOn*

At the outset it should be noted that if the articles published by Dr. Bazant are even modestly on target with regard to the analysis of the progressive collapse of the WTC Towers and (WTC 7), this still does not preclude the possibility that planted explosives were used to make sure that the demolition of the these buildings was achieved. This is basic logic and is contrary to one of his listed reasons for writing (and publishing) this latest article (2007):

“It could also help to clear up misunderstanding (and thus to dispel the myth of planted explosives).”

The formal fallacy of the above statement shows what appears to be a predisposition on the part of Dr. Bazant to only be willing to support one interpretation of these collapse events, namely that the airplanes and subsequent fires were the only causes of the rather “interesting” collapse sequences (dynamics) observed for the WTC Towers and WTC 7 on 9/11 (referred to throughout this commentary as the “official conspiracy story”).

For some reason, this documentary on the OKC bombing is much better than the "documentary" on 9/11, despite the fact that it's part of the same series, "The Conspiracy Files".

No mention of Benton K. Partin, though.

What Can Hegel Tell Us About Terror After 9/11?

by David MacGregor
King’s University College, University of Western Ontario
Paper delivered March 31, 2007

2007 Ontario Hegel Organization Annual Meeting
“Hegel on Conflict, Terror and War”
March 30-April 1, 2007, York University
Harry Crowe Room, 109 Atkinson

I suggest that Hegel’s political philosophy offers a unique standpoint for an examination of modern terror. His contribution revolves around the notion of a dual state – a growing, democratic social state emerging from the external state that characterizes civil society. In times of national peril the social state may face dissolution. At such periods, powerful interests from within the external state may establish a “state of exception,” an authority capable of dissolving the social state, and imposing its own mode of terror. As Schmitt said, “sovereign is he who decides on the exception.”

1. French Terror and The State of Exception

Hegel’s analysis of terror in the Phenomenology of Spirit may have a singular, though perhaps unnoticed, relevance for the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. Hegel was looking at the horrific series of arrests and massacres initiated by Robespierre during the French Revolution. In the turmoil of destruction, intermediary bodies, such as the guilds, were abolished. The national emergency posed by the prospect of invading foreign armies, and national uprisings against the Revolution, sparked fear of internal subversion. The original democratic arrangement ensuring liberty with a weak executive power evaporated. “In this crisis, no basis for a real ‘separation of powers’ existed.” (Harris, Hegel’s Ladder, v 2, p. 393). The National Convention, elected by the people, assumed absolute power. The line between individual will and the universal will of the state had disappeared. Absolute Freedom and the Nation became identical, “an undivided substance”. As noted in John Russon’s talk last night, with nothing to connect the extreme of individual will and the will of the Nation, there could be only one result of universal freedom represented by government: death.

http://www.bushflash.com/

I decided, last night, to take a bit of advice from ol' Molly, so recently departed. She would regularly speak before activist groups, and she would always admonish her audience to "have more fun."

In running this site, I hadn't had much fun in quite some time. I was tired of being sick at heart 24 hours a day about what's been going on, and, well- April Fool's Day was upon us, and I couldn't resist it. In times past, other websites such as Whitehouse.org put up right-wing hackery on April 1st, and didn't think any would actually take it seriously if I did the same...

In fact, far more than I expected did, indeed, take it quite seriously. I'm sorry if anyone was actually alarmed that something sinister had taken place (considering what we've all witnessed over the past six years, everyone's a tad gun shy,) but dang- it was fun.

It shan't happen again, if for no other reason that it took me a good hour to overwrite all 300 pages of the site (I do things in good ol' fashioned HTML.) Further, I fear a few links might have been screwed up- if you notice any broken or redundant links, let me know...

If you didn't visit during april 1st, you can see what greeted all of the visitors to the site, here:
http://www.bushflash.com/bikini.html