US Social Forum Supports Call for Independent, International Investigation into 9/11

During June 27th to July 1st, approximately 9,400 people from across the America, and beyond, gathered in Atlanta for the historic, first-ever United States Social Forum. Thanks to donations from some of our generous supporters, 911Truth.org was there, together with about 15 other 911Truth activists from Georgia, California, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Washington DC, and Maryland. We went with the idea we'd work to "convince" people to look at the need for a real investigation into the crimes of 9/11. After all, the various issues and causes represented by this diversity of People were predicated, to such a strong degree, upon the events of 9/11, and it made sense that if presented with the information, we'd win some allies.

We were wrong. What we found, instead, was that nearly everyone we spoke with was already aware of at least some questions about 9/11 and agreed with us! The People, in spite of resistance we've heard from many of their organizational "leaders," are already with us.

EDIT: Live broadcast over at 9pm EST.

We Are Change is broadcasting the Philadelphia Emergency Anti-War Convention today in Philadelphia, at the We Are Change home page;

Direct link to broadcast:
http://wearechange.camstreams.com
Use link above for Live Video + Chat

Supplemental feed:
http://www.stickam.com/profile/wearechange

Audio:
at www.wtprn.com and www.revereradio.net

Philadelphia Emergency Anti-War Convention Homepage:
http://www.actindependent.org/

(This editorial by Ian Woods is on page 2 of the new issue of Global Outlook, which is dedicated to re-presenting and analyzing recent MSM coverage of 9/11 activism. Highly recommended. -r.)

The Media Monopoly’s ‘Code of Silence’
Global Outlook, Summer, 2007
www.globaloutlook.ca

by Ian Woods

Bill O’Reilly, the infamous right-wing TV host of The O’Reilly Factor, asked one of his guests the other day an interesting question about the claim that “9/11 was an inside job”. (Kevin Barrett on ‘The O’Reilly Factor’, Fox News, Dec. 19, 2006)

O’Reilly: “If there is any evidence for this story, it would be all over the place. … Why won’t any major, responsible news organization print this stuff? … It would be the story of the century. It’s no place.”

My answer to this conundrum is that the major news organizations aren’t responsible ... at least to the public’s interests. Instead they are responsible to the corporate masters they serve. Hence the media blackout on any alternative theories about what might have happened on 9/11 and furthermore the lack of political will to re-open 9/11, despite the hundreds of unanswered questions.

There are two factors involved here. One is the amount of media concentration and the other is who it is that controls that concentration. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s capitalist neoconservatives that are controlling the US mainstream media and they are tied into the military-industrial-complex as well as Big Oil. War suits them just fine and the holy “war on terror” which “will not end in our lifetimes” – as Dick Cheney proudly says – is their trillion dollar dream come true.

The first factor is also a major part of the problem, because it’s a lot easier to control a handful of big companies than hundreds of little ones. It’s the essence of monopoly capitalism. The less competition, the more control you have of the news you report and the easier it is to ‘manufacture consent’ – in this case the consent to carrying on the “war on terror.”

Media baron Ted Turner apparently agrees: “There’s really five companies that control 90 percent of what we read, see and hear. It’s not healthy,” he said. (John Nichols & Robert W. McChesney in FCC: Public Be Damned, June 2, 2003.) These five huge US communications groups control 85% of prime-time viewing (according to FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps at Columbia Law School, Jan. 16, 2003).

Others say: “Six major companies control most of the media in our country.” (Common Cause and Wikipedia, May 21, 2007.) Together they “own more than 90% of the media holdings in the United States.” The difference in opinion apparently is that the sixth company, which is German, is more involved in publishing in the US than in television broadcasting. But it does have a huge impact on the print media in the US.

WHO OWNS WHAT IN THE US MAINSTREAM MEDIA?

(Continued after the jump)

(EDIT: This just in: Hatfill seeks reporters' anthrax sources.)

Anthrax Coverup: A Government Insider Speaks Out

By Steve Watson

Is it possible that the anthrax attacks were launched from within our own government? A former Bush 1 advisor thinks it is.

Francis A. Boyle, an international law expert who worked under the first Bush Administration as a bioweapons advisor in the 1980s, has said that he is convinced the October 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people were perpetrated and covered up by criminal elements of the U.S. government. The motive: to foment a police state by killing off and intimidating opposition to post-9/11 legislation such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the later Military Commissions Act.

"After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush Administration tried to ram the USA PATRIOT Act through Congress," Boyle said in a radio interview with Austin-based talk-show host Alex Jones. "That would have set up a police state.

"Senators Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) were holding it up because they realized what this would lead to. The first draft of the PATRIOT Act would have suspended the writ of habeas corpus [which protects citizens from unlawful imprisonment and guarantees due process of law]. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, come these anthrax attacks."

"At the time I myself did not know precisely what was going on, either with respect to September 11 or the anthrax attacks, but then the New York Times revealed the technology behind the letter to Senator Daschle. [The anthrax used was] a trillion spores per gram, [refined with] special electro-static treatment. This is superweapons-grade anthrax that even the United States government, in its openly proclaimed programs, had never developed before. So it was obvious to me that this was from a U.S. government lab. There is nowhere else you could have gotten that."

Continued...