As Seen in Vanity Fair's August 2006 Issue!
As Seen in US News & World Report's September 11 Fifth Anniversary Issue!
As Seen in Time Magazine's September 11, 2006 Issue!
As Seen in Phoenix New Times' August 9, 2007 Issue!
Friday, April 04, 2008
Troofer Appointed by UN to Monitor Human Rights in Israel
I can't believe I overlooked this--and that everyone else has, as well: Princeton prof Richard Falk, newly-appointed by the UN Human Rights Council as its "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967," is also a devoted supporter of the crackpot "9/11 Truth" movement, which denies that Al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001.
I haven't paid a lot of attention to Falk around here. Noam Chomsky has mentioned him several times as somebody who's dabbled in Trutherism and not seen his career suffer for it.
In fact, this is one of the safest forms of dissidence and activism I know of; the Griffin-Falk examples are typical.
Over at JREF, they are voting on the dumbest quotes from 9-11 crackpots in 2007. Some of the finer examples:
Try this.
Stack four eggs one on top of the other. Glue them together and make a tower out of them. Ensure the structure is stable and will not topple.
Now break the top egg. Hit it with your spoon and similate an aircraft hitting it.
Will the three eggs below the top egg break all the way to the floor?
No because the mass of the top egg will be difused and free to deflect around the shells of the lower eggs.
Exactly like the towers.
Or the Looser Boys:
Like Rosa Parks, Simon Wiesenthal, Winston Churchill, and Nelson Mandela, we will not veer from our course and we will not shut up.
Or this one:
you suck and your comment too. [Zeitgeist] is one of the best alternative independent documentations you will ever see. even when 100% of the information therein would be a lie, you would still find a lot of truth in it.
But I went with Mr January:
My see-saw analogy renders any need for "calculations" moot.
Of course, the film's potential scenario provides a feast for conspiracy theorists. But while some of the unsolved mysteries in the history of our country can't be denied, don't expect Voight to buy into any arguments about who may have killed John F. Kennedy other than Lee Harvey Oswald.
As for any conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11, don't get him started.
"The conspiracy theories about 9/11 are not only coming from addle-minded people, they are coming from sick-minded people who are anti-American," Voight said. "Who knows why? Most of the people who are party to that stuff are people who have been abused somewhere in their lives and are striking out at their parent figures -- the government being the great parent, in a sense."
This is hilarious. Somebody named Moe from Columbus, Ohio, gets on the Rush Limbaugh program and proceeds to educate Rush on the real facts about 9-11:
CALLER: All right. Well, listen to me. You're quick to play sound bites on the Democrats and all the dumb stuff they say and done. I'm not knocking that. But you have not one time played anything on Condoleezza's court trial, when she was brought up on charges for not letting the American people know about the 9/11 incident. She was warned six months, three months, and three weeks before it happened. Before you cut me off. Now, the funny part is, you're quick to say that the Republicans didn't know about it. Well, two weeks before they went down, Cheney bought insurance on the World Trade Center. Now, him being in the circle that he was in, you think Bush didn't buy insurance on it? You think Condoleezza didn't buy insurance on it? You got all these people out here thinking that the Democrats are the bad ones, while you guys are the ones who -- I'm not saying you, but Bush and them are the ones who didn't let anybody know. Now, if they'd have told some people that there is a possibility that these planes were going to be hijacked and rammed into buildings, do you think they would have flown? Do you think they would have flown? They couldn't tell them, because this is the reason why we got to go to war. Now, don't say (unintelligible) but we're gonna get insurance on it. We're going to get insurance on the buildings just in case they happen to go down. So when you say that they didn't know about it, dude, they knew about it. They knew about it six months before it happened. When she was on trial, that guy that was -- again, whoever it was, the prosecutor socked it to her. He read back the memo she had on her desk. He asked her, "What part is not important enough to alert the American people?"
Rush, of course, may not know specifics about Trooferism, but he quickly spots the two gaping flaws in the claims:
RUSH: How could a private citizen buy insurance on buildings owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, New York City and New York State?
(Note: Silverstein did not own the buildings; he had a lease to operate them, so Rush is technically right here, although I'm sure he doesn't know the details.)
RUSH: Condoleezza's never been in a court trial.
After Moe gets off, Rush does a humorous bit about what awaits Moe now that he's spilled the beans on Cheney's insurance scam:
RUSH: Moe, one more thing. Since you've blown the whistle on this whole insurance scam of Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, I may as well tell you something else that you may not know, since you've blown this up and everybody now knows about it. You, sir, Moe, are a candidate for waterboarding. I understand that Cheney has expanded it to domestic threats, and you, Moe, have definitely qualified. Now, you constitute a domestic threat with your inability to keep secrets. Nobody will be interested in how you found out about it, Moe. Well, they will be, actually. That's where the waterboarding comes in. The only people happy about this, Moe, are the insurance companies, since you've blown the whistle on Condi's scam. They're not going to have to pay her the $5 billion in insurance she took out on the World Trade Center. Maybe not Cheney, either. So, Moe, you have caused a lot of people to lose (perhaps, maybe) a lot of money here. Some people just don't know when to shut up. I tried! I did everything I could, but he wouldn't listen, and since we don't cut people off...
Hilariously the guy who posted this over at 9-11 Blogger reads that as "threatening" the idiot Troofer.
Rush then gets into some spot-on analysis:
If they really believed this stuff -- what they're saying is, if it were true -- action is required. If the government in fact blew up the World Trade Centers, for whatever reason, if they actually did it, if these people actually believe that the administration is spying on them and monitoring their phone calls, if they actually think that Bush lied about everything to go into Iraq, don't you think that there would be far more public demands and protests in the streets on the part of these people for redress and to stop it? These are really, really serious allegations, and I don't think they believe it. I think that they are just deranged. I think that they need something to give their lives meaning.
Perhaps because it is written by David Lindorff, and perhaps because it's seen as tangential to the Blackwater story, but it's 9-11 nuttery being shoehorned in.
What makes this history of particular interest is that Alex Brown was the investment bank that handled most of the suspicious short-selling "puts" that were placed on the stocks of four companies—United Airlines, American Airlines, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Merrill Lynch—that were pummeled by the 9-11 attacks.
As has been reported in Bloomberg Financial News Service reports and in the San Francisco Chronicle, in the several days preceding September 11, 2001, unidentified investors placed an unusual number of "puts" on the stocks of the two airlines whose planes were hijacked that day, as well as on the two investment banks, one of which occupied 22 floors of one of the World Trade Center towers and the other of which owned a building directly across the street which was significantly damaged and forced to close down.
The stocks of those four companies, following the attacks and the collapse of the Twin Towers, subsequently tanked, making the combined puts worth about $16 million. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, no one collected the $2.5 million in profits from the puts placed on United Airlines. The identities of the investors in the put orders have never been disclosed by Alex Brown.
Incredibly, there was never any serious investigation of these peculiar and suspicious investments, though they clearly suggest that someone knew something was going to happen that would make those four companies’ stocks plunge in value.
The US corporate news media has never pursued this story or in many cases even reported it, nor was it seriously investigated by the FBI or the 9-11 commission.
Yes, the US corporate news media has never pursued this story. Well, except for Bloomberg and the SF Chronicle, which is the only reason Lindorff ever heard of it. Hilariously he repeats the silliest claim:
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, no one collected the $2.5 million in profits from the puts placed on United Airlines.
I've gone over this before. The reason the SF Chronicle reported that no one had collected the profits on the United put options is because they had not expired as of the date the Chronicle wrote their story (September 29, 2001).
These were October options, which expired on the third Saturday of that month, or October 20, 2001. And remember, according to the 9-11 Commission (which did investigate the options) the investor who bought put options on United also bought shares of American Airlines a few days before the attacks. If they'd really had warning of 9-11 wouldn't they have been short AA and not long?
More disturbing than that Lindorff repeats the usual crackpot talking points on the put options is that the Daily Kos community apparently tolerated the posting; we see none of the "Troll Diary" tags on this one, even though the first tag is 9-11.
Giuliani moved slowly through a crowd outside Loveland Coffee Co., shaking hands with potential voters, when Sander Hicks, who said he was a reporter for a newspaper based in Brooklyn, N.Y., tried to ask a question.
He said, "On 9-11, when you-" and was cut off by boos. Giuliani laughed and smiled, moving through the crowd and saying little.
Hicks tried again, but to no avail. Then Giuliani stopped to say hello to Tom Buchalski, a Loveland resident and Bergen County, N.J., native, who opened his jacket so Giuliani could sign his T-shirt. It had a photo of lower Manhattan and it said "Tribute in Light 2002," commemorating the first anniversary of the attack that destroyed the World Trade Center. Giuliani signed his name to the shirt.
Video of the event is here. It looks like there was a sprinkling of Troofers throughout the crowd, somewhat like the Bill Maher hecklivism.
Hicks appears to be trying to resuscitate the claim that Rudy knew the Towers were going to collapse in advance. This is another one of those "mysteries" that only the kooks point to; as I have pointed out numerous times, EMS Battalion Chief John Peruggia was warned by a NYC building engineer at 9:58 AM that the North Tower was in imminent danger of collapse. Presumably either Peruggia or the building engineer proceeded to warn the Mayor. Unfortunately Giuliani has compounded the problem by denying that he had any advance knowledge, perhaps because the kooks generally frame it that he had plenty of warning, when in fact even the famed clip with Peter Jennings makes clear that he was told almost at the instant that the South Tower collapsed.
Note as well the protester screaming about the evidence being shipped off before it could be examined. I found a moderate debunking of this nonsense as well, in an unusual location. Among the board members of the FealGood Foundation is Alan Forcier, whose bio notes:
Alan Forcier, from Kings Park NY, is 47 years old and is a former NYPD undercover narcotics detective. He now lives in Nesconset and is the father of Ryan and Jessica. Alan spent seven months at the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island where he searched and collected evidence during the WTC recovery operation.
Later: I love Sander's explanation that he was not pushing them, he was doing a delicate little dance....
She mostly talks about how Bush and Cheney didn't want an investigation. Undeniably, the highlight comes with about 2:40 remaining when she talks about how the failure to prevent 9-11 was in her mind, an impeachable offense, and that she "hand-drew" up articles of impeachment, but her mother talked her out of it. "Leave it alone, Cynthia, because they will kill you."
This speech is apparently given to a bunch of Greens, but the "Truther" stuff seems to get the most applause.
In this second segment she gets into a discussion of the mainstream media and somehow uses a Wizard of Oz allegory. She talks about the New York Times taking money to run an ad by Mike Ruppert, but then refusing to run it because she couldn't prove we were in Oz. Or something:
I have to admit that I do this with some trepidation. I can already feel the assault on my inbox. But after a good long think about potential time and energy being lost by our entire community to senseless and ultimately inconsequential musings, I have to come out and say it: the alternative theories about 9-11 are wrong. Worse, the endless theorizing and speculation about trajectories, explosives, military tests, fake airplane parts and remote control navigation actually distracts some of our best potential activists from addressing the more substantive matters at hand.
I suspect that last part is wrong unless the antiwar community really lacks for pimply guys in black shirts who can stare at YouTube videos for hours. But he inevitably goes off the rails here:
In fact, the most logical conclusion I can draw from the existing evidence is that 9-11 theorists are themselves covert government operatives, dedicated to confusing the public, distracting activists from their tasks, equating all dissent with the lunatic fringe, and provoking the counterculture’s misplaced belief in the competency of its foes. That’s the real conspiracy.
Never ascribe to malice that which can be chalked up to stupidity. Still, a mostly good discussion of why the crackpots are wrong.
Lest all the attention be focused on New York today, here's a terrific page of photos and videos from the San Francisco "Troof" parade and subsequent bash at Golden Gate Park. Our old buddies Wonder Woman Brouillet and SpiderTruther are there; no sign of SuperTruthMan. Warning: Page may take some time to load due to all the graphics, but it's worth a look!
Update: Commenter Manny: Appropriate, since the Imperial Stormtroopers' most notable feature is the ability to shoot and shoot and shoot and never once hit a target.
It's amazing watching these 9-11 Deniers after awhile. They're all so concerned with who is a disinfo agent, and what evidence is just a trap that they're almost paralyzed from doing anything whatsoever.
A perfect example is the NORAD tapes, which Dylan managed to obtain a copy of this week. I listened to the first couple hours on Revere Radio last night, and it was quite gripping to hear these folks go from "Is this real world or exercise?" to absolute furor and efficiency as the scale of the disaster becomes apparent. I have even more respect for NORAD and NEADS after listening to these tapes.
But of course, the release only spurs more paranoia. After all, hasn't the great God Griffin denounced these tapes as fake?
Of course, since this is Dylan's shiny new toy, he gets upset at any hint that it's cheap plastic:
I strongly disagree with David's assertion that these are fabricated.
There's 120 hours of audio here.
Of course, Dylan's right, but it does raise an interesting point. If your fact checker says something's phony and you use it anyway, what good is your fact checker? Pretty obvious, right?
Dont want to piss on the parade but If DRG has listened the tapes and ends up saying they're fabricated, the content must not be very favorable to the cause.
Yep, that's why Griffin says they're fake; not because they are but because they don't suit his needs.
First - I have always had my doubts about Alex Jones's *Warning* before 9/11. He makes a very accurate prediction before 9/11, the off the cuff matter in which he blurts out intimate details of the unprecedented attack has always made me wonder - How Did He Know. He didn't mention any specifics as to his sources he just saw it coming, but with such precision is still unsettling. After 9/11 Alex earn a premiere spot, he was alone in front of any one else for he was the one who predicted the attack. No one else could claim this thus he would always be seen as the defacto leader of any movement which was inevitable to spring up in the wake of such an attack.
Of course, Jones didn't make any accurate prediction, as our old buddy Perry Logan never tired of pointing out. He simply said that if a terrorist attack occurred, they were going to blame it on Bin Laden. Of course he was reading from the script.
So as all the lines seem to be converging and with the speculation that Alex Jones' WARNING was not a warning after all but a plant to insure his position in the front of the movement, I see this WARNING from Tarpley with similar intent. To proceed what the disinformation artists like to call 9112b. This along with other suspect leaders in the movement actions of late, like Barretts promotion of "Inside Job?" Banner rolls. All the while Fezter is no more than a step away.
Check out some of the comments on that post:
There is no doubt that one if not several of the high visibility names associated with 9/11 truth are moles. If 9/11 was indeed a gov't black op, then they would have definetly planted people to control the public's inevitable curiosity and handle the many details that have been mismanaged by the 9/11 operational team. Alex Jones seems to be a good candidate, so does Dylan and perhaps a few big name activists and bloggers. I'd say we should follow the money and access, who is making a living off of this stuff?
Dylan's not on my mole list. But then again, I could be lying to protect one of our most valuable assets. But now that I've admitted that, isn't it obvious that I'm just trying to get Dylan in Dutch with the movement? And now that I've admitted that....
Mary MacAlveen is back with another column touching on a topic we've discussed quite often around here:
I often wonder if those who believe in conspiracy theories act in a cult like fashion in which anyone who questions the group as a whole is often shunned. One definition of a cult is a small group of devotees. In challenging the conspiracies that surround 9/11 even though I said I would not address this issue again, I felt the need to. It was in challenging these beliefs I was told by someone that I was in the minority and as stated previously, I asked; who was this person polling.
I will state again that while in the beginning I too believed in these theories, I had to open my mind to other possibilities which brought about the devastation of that day. In speaking to so many people outside the Internet community, I did not find one who did believe that it was a grand conspiracy perpetrated by our government. When I relayed to most of the people I spoke with that certain articles were being circulated around the Internet that Virginia Tech was a perpetrated by the government, it was met with complete outrage and disgust. I stated to those I conversed with, do not shoot the messenger, meaning me. But, they were dumbfounded.
Some excellent discussion of controlled demolition, especially this very telling point:
In this feed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79sJ1bMR6VQ which was NOT a CDI (Controlled Demolitions Incorporated) project, you will clearly see how the building is first weakened throughout the structure through a series of timed and sequential blasts. But at the bottom is the major blast which takes down the building. Please tell me if any janitor at the bottom of the Twin Towers could live to tell about it. The answer is no. Also take note of the sounds coming from that structure as they are blowing it. In the case of all of the towers, you did not hear anything like that.
