Rethinking Conspiracy by Shawn E. Hamilton
Examiner.com ranks 1384 on Alexa http://alexa.com/siteinfo/examiner.com and has 8904 sites linking in. They appear to be a news aggregator that also published original writing. This article points out the House Committee on Assassinations investigation found there was a conspiracy in the case of JFK's shooting, and that the term "conspiracy theorist" has been used to malign questioners and dismiss legitimate inquiry. Unfortunately, the 2 main points he brings up about the 9/11 attacks at the end of his article are strange-
1) The Pentagon; he says, "9-11 critics, for example, wonder why there was no significant wreckage at the Pentagon. The official version says that jet fuel fires evaporated the titanium engines, yet the passengers' bodies could be identified. Does it take a conspiratorial nutcase to see a discrepancy?". The official version does NOT say the engines evaporated; claiming that it does sets his article up to be discredited and dismissed. I posted more about the lack of "significant wreckage" in my comment at the Examiner; pasted here below his article, following the fair use notice.
2) Also, about the WTC he says, "According to witnesses, including numerous police and firemen, explosions were happening all around the Twin Towers even before the planes hit. Were all these trained professionals mistaken? Is someone a conspiratorial nut for asking the question?" Again- "explosions were happening all around the Twin Towers even before the planes hit." This is a very strange statement- other than William Rodriguez, has anyone reported on even a single explosion before the planes hit- let alone "all around the Twin Towers"? No mention of the latest paper by Harrit et al- in my comment i noted its publication, along with Fourteen Points and NIST contradictions.
http://www.examiner.com/x-4172-Sacramento-Statehouse-Examiner~y2009m4d18-Rethinking-Conspiracy
Rethinking Conspiracy
April 18, 7:25 PM
The terms “conspiracy theorist” and “conspiracy nut” are used frequently to discredit a perceived foe using emotional, rather than logical, appeals. It’s important for the sake of true argument that we define the term “conspiracy” and use it appropriately, not as an ad hominem attack on someone whose point of view we don’t share.
According to my Webster’s Unabridged dictionary, the word “conspiracy” derives from the Latin “conspirare” which means literally “to breath together” in the sense of agreeing to commit a crime. The primary definition is “planning and acting together secretly, especially for a harmful or unlawful purpose, such as murder or treason.”
Conspiracies are common. If they weren’t, police stations wouldn’t need conspiracy units to investigate and prosecute crimes such as “conspiracy to import cocaine” and any other collusion on the part of two or more people to subvert the law.
A good example of how the term conspiracy is not only misapplied but incorrectly used is how it’s employed to disparage people who find fault with official versions of major events. The John Kennedy Assassination and “9-11” events provide excellent examples.
After Kennedy was murdered, very few people questioned the Warren Commission’s verdict that Lee Oswald had shot the president, unassisted, and anyone who challenged that belief was called a “conspiracy nut (or buff)” and not to be taken seriously. Nearly fifty years later, roughly 75% of the US population believes there was a conspiracy and that certain elements of the government helped cover it up. I'm not making up figures. A simple web search will verify them. Apparently there is a certain percentage of the population with a psychological need to protect themselves from such realities, so it is easier for such people to label others as conspiracy nuts than to assimilate the hard but discomforting facts. In the case of the John Kennedy assassination, even a congressional committee, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, concluded in 1979 that there was a conspiracy to kill John Kennedy.
They tried to soften that reality by calling it a “limited conspiracy,” as if Oswald’s drunken cousin was involved and not elements of US Intelligence, but the fact is the US government admitted there was a conspiracy. “Conspiracy nuts” were finally vindicated, but I’ve never heard anyone apologize for unfairly calling them names and questioning their sanity.
The current topic that yields the most accusations of conspiracy nuttiness involves the circumstances surrounding the 9-11 events. Anyone who challenges the 9-11 Commission’s conclusion are called conspiracy nuts and theorists, as were their predecessors when JFK was killed.
History repeats itself.
The strange thing about the 9-11 affair is that even the 9-11 Commission called the events a conspiracy. In its view, the conspirators were fanatical Muslims, but somehow that investigative body has been exempt from accusations of being conspiracy theorists even though they called the event a conspiracy. Apparently one must disagree with the government in order to qualify as a “conspiracy theorist.” That might feel good if you’re inclined that way, but it’s not sound logic.
The critics of the 9-11 Commission have some good points, and it’s not fair to simply dismiss them as conspiracy kooks when the very people they’re countering are also claiming there was a conspiracy. The only question is: whose conspiracy was it?
9-11 critics, for example, wonder why there was no significant wreckage at the Pentagon. The official version says that jet fuel fires evaporated the titanium engines, yet the passengers' bodies could be identified. Does it take a conspiratorial nutcase to see a discrepancy?
According to witnesses, including numerous police and firemen, explosions were happening all around the Twin Towers even before the planes hit. Were all these trained professionals mistaken? Is someone a conspiratorial nut for asking the question?
This isn’t the place to debate the pros and cons of various conspiracy theories, but keep in mind that conspiracies exist. They have always existed, and a person’s not wanting them to be true does not invalidate their existence. Be prudent when using the term “conspiracy nut,” and if you do use it, be sure your usage reflects your target’s lack of logic, not your own.
Fair Use Notice
This page contains copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of political issues relating to alternative views of the 9/11 events, etc. We believe this constitutes a "fair use" of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond "fair use", you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
This was my comment:
Whose conspiracy was it? The 9/11 Commission was run by Executive Director and Bush insider Philip Zelikow, all the Commissioners had conflicts of interest, the report ignored 70% of the families questions, and more have been raised since. A Zogby poll in 2007 found 51% of Americans supporting a new investigation.
urls and links not allowed, google the titles:
A recent paper by Niels Harrit and 8 other authors including Steven Jones documents evidence of nano-thermite in the WTC dust:
April 3, 2009. "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe"- Open Chemical Physics Journal
I never heard "explosions were happening all around the Twin Towers even before the planes hit." but as far as controlled demolition goes, NIST and FEMA's own statements, reports and findings do a pretty good job of disproving their own conclusions- see this paper:
April 19, 2008. “Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction”. The Open Civil Engineering Journal.
NIST Mandate: "establish the likely technical cause or causes of the building failure." See 15 U.S.C. § 7301(b)(2)(A)
NIST response to an RFC filed by 2 family members, scientists incl. Jones and architect Richard Gage: "we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse"
About the WTC towers, the NIST report describes "a bottom section below the impact floors that could be thought of as a strong, rigid box, structurally undamaged and at
almost normal temperature." (29)
The NIST explanation of the "global collapse", as outlined in Section 6.14.4 is, essentially, that after the 15-30 stories of building mass started moving downward, it overcame the 80-95 stories of redundantly-reinforced steel structure below. In fact, NIST admits in Section 6.14.4, that these stories provided "minimal resistance", and the buildings came down "essentially in free fall".
NIST omits mention of the size of the core columns, and provides no calculations for the energy released by the descending upper 15-30 stories, or for the energy that would be required to overcome the lower 80-95 stories of steel and concrete structure.
Also, regarding what hit the Pentagon; the official conspiracy theory doesn't say "jet fuel fires evaporated the titanium engines"; one witness made this remark regarding the obliteration of the plane- however, other crashes have also left surprisingly little debris, 757 parts were photographed and witnesses reported them, there's a fuselage sized hole in the middle of a 90' gash in the first floor, a damage path that matches a 757's wing span, and over 100 witnesses on record, that saw a 757 hit the Pentagon. Certainly, the govt should stop suppressing pictures, video, other witnesses and documents; what are they trying to do- fuel conspiracy theories and cause controversy, in order to distract from real questions?
google it:
"Is the 9/11 ‘Pentagon Hole’ a Psyop to Distract from Real Questions?"
- loose nuke's blog
- Login to post comments