Letters From a Grassy Knoll

I was at the gym a few days ago, and grabbed a copy of Vanity Fair to peruse while mastering some stairs. In it, I read a brief article about an incendiary documentary called Loose Change, which purported to connect all the dots to prove that 9/11 was orchestrated and caused by those who have the most to profit (with opportunity and motive) from such a disaster, namely the current administration.

Because I love me a good conspiracy theory, I checked it out today (you can watch the documentary online here.) I must say, I was persuaded more than I had cared to be. The interviews with the NYFD crew were heart-wrenching, and described multiple explosions going off in the buildings after the planes hit.

Why was W's brother (Marvin, not Jeb) in charge of security and insurance on the WTC? Why were bomb-sniffing dogs removed from the scene the week before the collapse and lots of drills with people evacuated the week before (an opportunity to plant explosives)? Why is there no trace of any airplane or airplane-like explosion at the Pentagon? Why was a disaster "like Pearl Harbor" touted by people like Dick Cheney as a necessary catalyst for justifying removing Saddam . . . years before 9/11? Why were so many investors gambling that airline stock would decrease right before 9/11? Why did the buildings collapse (video footage shows flashes of explosions, like a planned demolition). And et cetera.

There is a lot there, I am still digesting it.

Now if you read this blog, I am asking you to comment. If you never comment, or rarely comment, or even if you comment sometimes. For this post, I need your help. I need your feedback. Seriously.

Assuming, arguendo,* that the current White House administration conspired to stage an attack on the WTC, killing thousands of our citizens, in order to to justify (however lamely) initiating military action in the Middle East, inflaming hatred and killing thousands of others and more of our own, what is the appropriate response of our citizenry?

I'm not saying this theory is true just because I tend to believe it. But even if you don't believe it after watching the video, I need to know (humor me and suspend your disbelief for a few moments) ~ what would be the acceptable, right thing to do, for us to do if it were true? What would you be prepared to do, personally, if this were the case?

*Hey, I spent $80,000 on an education that entitles me to use Latin. Was that worth it, you ask? Res ipsa loquitur, my bitches . . . Please answer my questions if you can because I am seriously having a crisis of faith, of will.

Comments

[Melissa]

I haven't watched the documentary yet, and I must admit I'm a little scared to do so, because I don't know how severe my reaction will be, but we all know I will watch it as soon as I get a chance to. And if I believe it? And if it turns out to be true? Ten, I think maybe our country should take a hard look at firing squads and public executions...

[Melissa]

Ten = Then. Just fyi.

[caroline]

Impeachment immediately. Taking it to the streets if that does not work. This news is bad, very bad. It says something equally bad that I am not that shocked nor surprised. It may be time for me to do more than sign petitions. As in march as in contribute from diminishing funds to turn the election tide, etc, etc.

[les]

If you were upset with what you saw in Loose Change, then I would suggest watching 9/11 Press for Truth (google it). This documentary is brought to you by the 4 Jersey Girls that brought you the 9/11 Commission. While Loose Change is interesting, there are quite a few debunked items in it. However, it's overall theme certainly has value in the discussion of what really occured on 9/11. After watching these two videos, you will understand that 9/11 was not a surpise by any measure. Who and Why are still not fully answered questions. What should distress you more is what has been reported since these videos were created. A) It has come out (in the touted Vanity Fair article) that the story provided to the 9/11 Commission by the Pentagon was intially a lie and new a new story is being told based on released FAA/NORAD tapes, and B) that the Bush admin (via Condi Rice) pressured the EPA (Whitman) to say that the air at Ground Zero was "safe", even through the EPA (and NYC) tests showed there were toxic and horrible acidic (PH 12!). The former goes to show that no one in the "military" was willing to come forward to say that the original story was false (or that the new story is false). The laster goes to show that the Bush admin is willing to put people's very lives at risk to get what they want (as if lieing about Iraq wasn't proof of this to being with).

The fact of the matter is that the truth will never be known because there will never be a new 9/11 investitation, the people with the answers will never be asked the right questions under oath.

Have a nice day.

[Jayne]

Melissa: No kidding. As you're a resident of NYC, I'd really like to hear your reaction to this film.

Caroline: Yeah, impeachment for sure (this ain't no blowjob) and the rest must happen too.

Les: You're not a regular reader of my blog that I can tell, so you are bringing awareness to a competitor documentary? That's cool. I will check it out. Your views are appreciated (though I don't always appreciate being told that I should feel more distressed about X) and as for debunked items in this doc - I am always wary of that. In my profession, I know you can get (buy) an "expert" to "prove" anything. Eye witness/bystander accounts very close in time to the events, are the most credible - the interviews with shaken people on the streets talking about all of the explosions in the WTC, from the basement, to the elevators, to all of the floors as they were trying to leave (the buildings did not come down because of either the plane crashes or the fires - of this I am convinced now. This was a planned, controlled demolition.)

We just have to be like a jury, review all of the available evidence then make up our own minds, whether the case (whatever it is) has been proven to our satisfaction beyond a reasonable doubt (or by a preponderance of the evidence for civil matters). We need to look at the credibility of the sources and witnesses, whether they have any motive to lie, etc. Anyway, I look forward to (dread) seeing yet another documentary on this matter because I can't help but be compelled to ACT, you know?

[Kelly]

I haven't watched the documentary yet (I'm at work) but I've heard some of this stuff before and find it horrifying at how easy it is for me to believe that my own government would do something like this. I already think we should impeach Bush based on the lies his administration foisted on the american people to get us into the war so I'm not sure what "extra" punishment I'd give him if this turned out to be true.

It would be great if we could hand the whole gang (cheny, ashcroft, rumsfeld, rice and bush) over to the parents of all the soldiers who have been injured or killed in Iraq, they could probably come up with a fitting punishment.

[SBW]

I haven't watch the documentary yet either but I'm with Melissa on the firing squads and executions; a life-time jail sentence would not be harsh enough. I would need to see some blood and gore to be satisfied.

Personally, I don't believe that what happened at the WTC was a controlled demolition or any of the other conspiracy theories, but again I haven't seen the documentary yet.

As far as the towers falling down when they were struck by the planes.....this hasn't ever happened before so how do any of us know exactly the way that it "should" have happened? I've never seen a building hit by a plane full of fuel before or after that day. I also know several engineers. They didn't learn during their studies about what exactly happens when planes hit multi-storied buildings that haven't been evacuated. There were thousands of people that worked in the towers and none of them ever saw anything suspicious that looked like it could be an explosive device or any objects that appeared out of place? The janitors, custodians, and window-washers never saw anything being planted or saw any strange boxes in storage rooms?

The sheer number of people that would have had to have been involved for something like this to be pulled off if it were a conspiracy is mind-boggling. All of those speculating investors, the people that created and executed the evacuations, the clean-up crews and scientists that sorted through the rubble.....none of them had any hard evidence of anything other than what it appeared to be. The fact that none of them has come forward and there is no hard evidence to actually prove it makes me wary of the conspiracy theory.

I once saw a gentleman who was an engineer that worked in the towers being interviewed on tv. He said that as he was trying to get out of the building and going down the stairs he heard the structure of the building faltering and knew that the building he was in was going to collapse. The metal structure of the building couldn't handle the combination of the heat and burning fuel from the the plane he said.

I would expect to see flashes of light and after explosions from a building that didn't collapse from a controlled demolition. There were thousands of light bulbs in the building, storage rooms filled with cleaning solutions, all of the electricity and gas was still turned on and flowing through the building, the water delivery system was still active, computers/printers/other office equipment that ran on batteries and electricity was still turned on and plugged in.....

And George Bush? That man is about as bright as a dead lightbulb. He sat there for 7 minutes after hearing about the tower because he didn't know what to do. He is a white man, from a rich and well-connected family who has had every single privilege that anyone could even dream of. Every job, every appointment, every business venture the man has ever had was handed to him on a silver platter. When he was in the military he didn't show up for physical exams and few people remember him ever being there.

As someone married to a person in the military, you know as well as anyone that the likelyhood of being able to skip mandatory physicals and few people remembering having any contact with you is slim and none. Unless, of course, you were rarely there.

What could anyone have expected this simple-minded fool to do when the towers fell other than sit there? He had never done anything of his own volition in his life!

The wealth and power in this country is concentrated in the hands of a few; all of the power players know all of the other power players and everybody is doing business with each other so that they can maintain their power and wealth.

I apologize for being so long-winded. I got on a roll and had to stop myself!

[V]

I haven't watched it yet (no speakers here at work) but I have heard a lot of the elements of the theory before. And in general, I tend to be (possibly overly) very persuded by these kinds of things. BUT, I do have to say, that sometimes, they seem like a distraction to the issues that could be solved, that were apperent to everyone and in no need of grand conspiracy theories. For instance...after Katrina, there were a few theories floating around about the levies being blown up, on purpose. And the real issues, the fact the no one in the administration really gave a shit enough to get in there quick enough and help anyone not on line for country club membership got completely obscured and lumped in with this conspiracy theory...and thus completely dismissed. The real issue got sacrificed to the sacrificial burning of the conspiracy theory.

With 9/11, I tend to think they knew SOMETHING, but that maybe they thought it was going to be a 1970's style hijacking with hostages and Bush probably thought he could John Wayne himself through that, and could even use it for the many advantaged that he has used 9/11 for....fear, war in iraq, etc...

Anyway...blahblahblah....more long winds...sorry. Hope that made some sense.

[V]

Oh, and this part:

(the buildings did not come down because of either the plane crashes or the fires - of this I am convinced now. This was a planned, controlled demolition.)

I totally don't buy. I can see how it could be convincing, but in talking to architects and engineers after it...even a guy I knew who's dad was in the steel business when the towers were built...it seems to me that they fell. Steel melts and the "protective coating" they used back in the those days was insanely thin, thin enough to disintegrate under such heat. Even with the accounts of explosions...can you imagine how many flamable things were in the towers? I mean, you turn your car over on the highway, and it might explode and no one has to make it do that. I mean even LIGHT bulbs were probably exploding...windows....really anything that would expand under high heat....which is like....everything. I don't know, and like I said, I haven't watched it yet, so feel free to ignore.

[Shephard]

More food for thought.
I saw a film years ago, and they claimed many of the same things, most of which were logically and pretty conclusively debunked.
Interesting comments here. I just entered the title of the film and the word "debunked"

http://digg.com/general_sciences/_Loose_Change_documentary_is_debunked

[Jayne]

Shephard - that link is funny, basically debunking the purported debunker (read the comments there)!

All - my hope was that folks would watch the actual film and let me know their thoughts, or at least answer my question - assuming the film's thesis is correct, what should we do? (A hypothetical question.) But I understand the desire to offer an opinion without actually seeing the movie at issue (one of my favorite passtimes! ; ))

The movie has about 300 points - and SO MANY good questions. Some of the conclusions that the filmmakers drew have since been more persuasively argued, but the rest of it, the totality of the cicumstances, raises important questions (like 200 or so) that need to be discussed. Seriously.

But "debunked" implies the filmmakers were perpetuating a hoax or a lie. If you actually WATCH it, they raise mostly questions about suspicious facts that are not debunked but are part of the public discourse, records, etc. I can't list all of the points the filmmakers draw attention to here, and I am not saying every single one is correct (they are not engineers, aviators, etc. but 20 something documentarians), but the majority of the issues raised are records, "cooincidences" and generally suspicious FACTS.

[SBW]

I couldn't watch the movie because my computer is about as old as the dinosaurs but I'm looking into trying to rent it from somewhere or other sources of alternative viewing methods. I'm gonna watch it and then get back to this post and comment again.

[Popeye]

I keep looking at Hungary. . .

The main reason I think this administration didn't do it is because, at the root of it all, they are so damned incompetant.

[Rather Notsay]

I've seen the film a couple of times, and I don't believe the premise that the U.S. government did the attacks of 9/11. As secretive as they are, the current government can't keep anything secret, much less a plot this huge and heinous, and yet nothing's leaking.

If I did believe it, though (since that is your question), I would load up a van with survival stuff, be ready to disappear VERY quickly, and then lay low and watch the proceedings. Why? If "they" had done such a thing, they would not let you impeach them - they clearly believe they are above the law. So legal redress would be out. Revolution? Coup d'etat? If you accept the film's premise, look what they are capable of. They would crush any revolt, and cruelly.

If this is what the U.S. has come to (and I don't believe it is), then the best strategy would be to blend in, keep smiling and hold a first-class ticket to Finland (or someplace).

[Jayne]

Rather: Fascinating perspective, thanks for sharing. I think tons of things have been leaked and will continue to leak, it is inevitable.

Though I respect your perspective (and that of all of my readers) I don't agree with either of your points (but will keep reading, learning, etc. and reserve the right to change my mind) and I hope that if things HAVE become this bad that smart, brave people will stay here and reclaim our country. Even though I am convinced we no longer live in a democracy (torture, secret prisons, rigged elections, etc.) I must hold out hope for the future.