We Now Return to "As The Truther World Turns"

The soap opera just got a little more operatic. Our commenter Patrick pointed out this mind-boggling discussion of the NYC Ballot Initiative fiasco waiting to happen over at Truth Action Forums. It's a delight, but I do have to wonder; don't these folks read Screw Loose Change? There is so much that we were pointing out months and years ago that suddenly seems blindingly obvious to the geniuses over there.

Much of the discussion is over whether Les Jamieson is a good person to be running the initiative, and as to whether he'd control the purse-strings of any commission. There is much moaning and gnashing of teeth, as if Jamieson's initiative had any chance of getting enough signatures to begin with, and then passing.

Les' split with the We Are Change boys comes up, and Arabesque is startled to hear that Luke Rudkowski and Tom Foti don't have any money to do their street actions. Of course, this was the case back in February 2007, when the missive he refers to was written.

Jon Gold checks in and says if you New York guys don't like Les, ease him out of the picture. Easier said than done, replies Albanese (which is true). So Gold writes an email to Jamieson suggesting that he step down in favor of somebody named Jules. But Jules demurs, saying he doesn't want the job. LOL! Gold's point is established; Les is only running the show because everybody else stepped backwards when they asked for volunteers.

My favorite comment may be this one, by somebody who attended one of the St. Mark's "organizational" meetings:

It's useful to read the different perspectives of this ballot initiative. I've been curious to what is really at work here. It sounds like a good idea, but there seems to be little support behind it. With a basic grasp of the background info, I went to the 9/11 Ballot Initiative meeting at St Marks last month to witness first hand the dynamic. It was strange. There were only about 70 people (attendees/organizers), and mostly very old. Several people spoke, but the actual plan was never discussed. Two older women helping were both German, maybe irrelevant, but interesting.

Paula Gloria and Webfairy were there. Paula got kicked out after bothering William Rodriguez while both were in the audience (asking him to be on her show). There was a big commotion about that lasting nearly 10 minutes. It almost seemed staged, but that's probably disinfo paranoia affecting my perspective. It's just that the doorman could have handled it better, it seemed like he was being louder than needed and not taking it outside right away.

Les seems robotic, like a droid. I know that is subjective, but it stood out. No charisma or genuine enthusiasm. The event had a sense of going thru the motions, but lacked a sense of purpose or spirit.

As we discussed, the split in New York was generational; hence all the young people are in WAC and all the older people are with Les.

The Chandler conference comes up again, and somebody (Albanese I think) makes the claim that Eric Williams released his book of Holocaust Denial "literally days" before the conference. Not true; for one thing, Stephen Lemons and I broke the story on February 1, 2007, three weeks before the conference. And I picked up the story two weeks before that. And the copyright date on Eric Williams' book was several months before that.

Jon Gold chips in that he threw Stephen Lemons out of the press conference; actually he made the suggestion that Stephen be thrown out, but it wasn't until hotel security arrived that he agreed to leave (and was allowed back in five minutes later by Phil Berg).

At any rate, it's a hilarious discussion. Great find, Patrick!