Starts off like a hit piece, but ultimately ends by telling people to think for themselves and to question government. Thanks to Chris for sending this in...
http://www.playphilly.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18284754&BRD=2766&PAG=461&dept_id=578220&rfi=6

Conspiracy videos like Loose Change have been recieving a lot of attention on the internet and other media - is it freedom of speech or harmful propaganda

In America we have become accustomed to a life of privilege. Liberties that we consider to be the intrinsic rights of every human are not seen as such in other nations. Here we have the privilege to basically speak, write, believe or do whatever we wish.

This is what makes our country so beautiful.

However, these freedoms can easily shrivel and decay if they are neglected or taken for granted. These rights, outlined in our constitution, become nothing more than words on paper if they are not acted upon, utilized and appreciated.

With great freedom comes great responsibility.

Our favorable, yet challenging, societal foundation is due in large part to the fact that we have a government "for the people and by the people." In theory, the system seems ideal, but that doesn't mean that it isn't flawed. Though corruption comes in many forms, there is often only one way to fight it - from within.

This is where we, as responsible, informed and active members of our democracy must come into play as the true power and force within this country. It is our job; it is our duty to make sure that the United States and its elected leaders are simply doing the right thing. It is up to us to question, to think for ourselves and to speak out.

There are countless ways to become active citizens, but when it involves questioning the government conspiracy theories seem to get the most attention. And these can be both beneficial and damaging. On one side, conspiracy theories can serve as the finest example of our freedoms in action. On the other, they can merely distort the facts and take advantage of an undereducated populace.

Either way, with the arrival of the internet age, it has become a whole lot easier to find these controversial viewpoints. In recent years, the most popular conspiracy theories revolve around the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

There are dozens of websites, books and videos all claiming that the "official" story of what happened that fateful day is not the whole story. They range from the obviously absurd to the seemingly possible. Some claim that our own government plotted the attacks or allowed them to take place, while others focus on the questionable post-9/11 policies and actions taken by the government. All of them point to motives surrounding money and power. But it is the fact that these theories exist, and are allowed to exist, that is important. This is not about patriotism or loyalty or allegiance; or even lack thereof. This is about the freedom to ask the tough questions and the freedom to further question the given answers. Again, this is what makes America so special.

Professor Kenneth L. Kusmer is a respected author and longtime member of the History Department at Temple University. Recently, he gave PLAY his take on the effect of conspiracy theories in this country since 9/11.

"Many people denigrate the idea that shadowy conspiracies are behind unforeseen, violent events such as assassinations and the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001," he says. "However, we should remember that real conspiracies do occur in history sometimes. Watergate was a criminal conspiracy that sent a dozen men to jail and forced a president, Richard Nixon, to resign. The Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s was a conspiracy to circumvent laws passed by Congress."

Kusmer stops short of validating any extreme 9/11 theories but does acknowledge the fact that our government has used the tragedy as a pretext for other actions.

"While it is unlikely that anyone in the U.S. government encouraged, or consciously allowed, the [September 11th] attacks, it is still an open question whether people in the George W. Bush administration conspired to misrepresent the causes of that tragedy in order to justify the invasion of Iraq."

Kusmer advocates a level headed, researched approach to dealing with such complicated and sensitive issues such as 9/11. So too does Jason Bermas. He, along with writer/director Dylan Avery and producer Korey Rowe, is behind Louder Than Words Productions, the company responsible for the film Loose Change. Bermas and Louder Than Words have been asking questions and searching for answers for years now.

"I realize that these questions are very uncomfortable and I don't think we have every single answer," he says, "but it will only get worse if we don't confront them."

Loose Change and Loose Change 2nd Edition have been viewed by millions of people on You Tube and Google Video. It has been aired on the History Channel in 14 countries, including Australia and New Zealand, and is in the works for a big-screen release sometime this summer across the U.S. Actor Charlie Sheen, who has previously spoken out against the ways in which the events were portrayed by the media and the government, is set to narrate the documentary.

In short, Loose Change claims that 9/11 was an inside job, conceived and perpetrated by certain members of our government, all with corporate interests in mind.

Naturally this is a viewpoint that is not easy to swallow. Many feel that theories like these denigrate the people who died in the attacks. Bermas and others have been called liars, traitors and America-haters. In dealing with such a sensitive subject, criticisms like these are both understandable and expected.

Despite all this, Bermas believes in his work, as grim as it may be.

We will not dissect the individual points and claims made in Loose Change for several reasons. First and foremost, there are just far too many, each with implications far too serious to discuss in this brief forum. About this, you must make up your own mind and come to your own decisions. Even Bermas does not want you to accept his theories and claims on his word alone. He'd be a hypocrite in suggesting someone to fully and quickly subscribe to the content found in Loose Change, just as he feels is done too easily with the government/mainstream media's version of the events.

"You have to educate yourself before you can activate yourself," says Bermas. "I understand that, at face value, when you come to somebody and tell them about this, you're going to get a lot of resistance. When I first came across some of this information, I resisted it heavily."

"But corruption has been around since the beginning of time," he says.

"I mean, let's be honest. The problem is that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's an amalgamation of corporate interests with government interests. We already see that."

Bermas came on board with this project after Dylan Avery began work on the first version of Loose Change. At that time, producer Korey Rowe was in the U.S. Military. Once Rowe's year in Iraq was complete, the three filmmakers began to move forward with the project.

Loose Change was completed on a shoestring budget and it was edited on a laptop computer. However, it has thrust the three young men to the forefront of what has been called the 9/11 Truth Movement. But since then, Bermas has seen conspiracy theories so outlandish that, according to him, actually hurt the movement as a whole.

"You know, I'm just a young guy trying to do the right thing," he says. "It's good to see real academics getting behind it. Then on the other side you have these people that are pseudo-academics, basically philosophers who try to hijack the scholar movement and say stupid things like no planes hit the towers. They just discredit the actual science. So you've got to watch out for that too."

Bermas, Avery and Rowe have participated in multiple protests and gatherings and marches all in the hopes of bringing attention to their cause.

"I mean, that's why we basically give this movie away for free and encourage people to burn it and all that because we know that this is important," he says.

"I'm not doing this, you know, to get famous or to be a movie guy for the rest of my life. I'm doing this because I want my Constitutional Republic back. I want real elections. I want reality. I want accountability.

I want to see the people that actually did this, be punished for it. It really just disgusts me that 3,000 Americans died - especially in New York. I'm a New York guy and it breaks my heart that they did it in Manhattan to the World Trade Center. And then to go and use [9/11] to go into other nations and just do what they want."

In talking with Bermas it becomes clear that his motives are genuine. Usually that is all you can ask for in talking to someone about this issue. He may be totally correct, he could be severely mistaken, or he could land somewhere in between, but the overriding sense you get from Bermas is that he only wants the truth.

So where does this all end? According to Bermas, and assuming the horrifying premise presented by Loose Change is even remotely accurate, there is a solution.

"Well I'm not in this to lose it," he says. "The first thing we need to do is we need to somehow get subpoena power into a committee of family members [of the victims] who want to ask the tough questions."

This suggestion is similar to what a group of 9/11 widows have undertaken over the last few years. Their plight has been documented in a video called 9/11: Press for Truth (911Pressfortruth.com). Though the views in this documentary do not completely line up with those presented in Loose Change, Avery and Bermas both endorse the video and support the women's quest.

"Hopefully we'll find the people with the stomach to do this and then basically we find and prosecute these people from within," Bermas says.

"And then the ultimate goal, in my eyes, is that we need to take special interest money out of lobbyist's hands. We can't corporatize the government like we are right now. Basically, you can't become a Senator or a Congressman unless you're backed by some kind of huge special interest. We need to put it in the hands of regular people and pay them a regular wage. We can't entice people who want power into office. We need to bring back checks and balances. We used to have that in this country. It's a slow road, but you've got to start from within. I really, really feel like we can do it."

If nothing else, conspiracy theories can teach us lessons about ourselves. If something is slick and well produced - whether it be a 9/11 conspiracy video like Loose Change or the U.S. government's official 9/11 Report - we can oftentimes be too easily convinced.

Says Professor Kusmer, "Even when conspiracy theories seem far-fetched, they may perform a useful function. They can help to keep alive a critical attitude toward government policymakers. Looked at in this way, they provide important examples of the exercise of free speech in a democratic society. Complacency about the actions of people in power is much more dangerous than conspiracy theories about them."

So become informed. You may decide that Bermas and Loose Change are onto something, or you may decide that they are utterly misguided. Question the conspiracy theories. Question the government. Just never stop questioning. Because when the questions stop, the caring stops, and the truth is decided for us.