The Many Looks of Sander Hicks

Sander did this vanity video to introduce himself and his "Truth Party", which is clearly headed towards major electoral success. Note how often his facial hair changes; this guy has more looks than Lady Gaga. Note as well his occupation (shown near the end). Maybe he, Brian and W-Rod could form another professional group: Mop-jockeys for 9-11 Truth!

Sander's Song

Sander Hicks has released a new single which is zooming up the Conspiracy Theory chats, called "No Conspiracy Theory". It sounds rotten. And no, I don't mean Johnny Rotten.

Lyrics here if you want to save your ears.

How did those Towers fall?
Were there bombs in the walls?

What melted all that steel?

Truther Party Gathering Coming Up

This sounds like an event not to be missed:

A conference, a gathering, a be-in, & teach-in. A communal vacation from stress and the economy, a big open mike.

Sounds like 1967 all over again!

Save the Country. Change the World.

Wait a minute! I thought it was save the cheerleader, save the world?

Confirmed speakers include Sander Hicks, Box Boy Gage, and Luke Rudkowski. Raphael Diaz will facilitate "early morning movement" sessions. I assume that means he will be directing traffic to the toilet.

Sander Hicks Starts Truther Party

Well, these guys never pretended to be more than one-issue dolts, so it's hardly surprising.

We are talking about starting what will soon become a major political force: something optimistic, smart, and savvy.

We will win elections. We will change the world.

Yeah, that's what all third parties say. Few of them ever win more than a local council seat. But:

I’m not talking about starting a “third party” or anything marginal like that. I’m talking about starting something that has great appeal, great politics, smart marketing, empowering culture, and a winning strategy.

Yeah, he's not starting a third party; he's starting an eighth or ninth party.

Greens Reject Truther Hicks; Will Libertarians Go for Truther Hancock?

Sander Hicks is leaving the Green Party after failing (again) to receive its nomination for Senator from New York.

On Saturday, May 15, 2010, in Albany New York, the Green Party State Committee nominated its state-wide slate of candidates. I was a candidate for US Senate, and indicators were positive for the nomination. There were two open slots, and a dearth of candidates.

I was shocked when I lost. My surprise defeat, and the process on Saturday, were products of a process so flawed, I am prompted to resign from the Green Party State Committee, and its adjunct “Campaign Committee.”

I hereby resign from the Party as a member, as well.

In his resignation, he blasts the party's "cowardice on the 9-11 question." Predictably, Hicks wheels out all the tired arguments:

Even the heads of the 9/11 Commission admit now that they were “set up to fail.” Even the Chief Counsel of the 9/11 Commission, John Farmer, in a new book says that the Bush White House lied to the Commission.

Meanwhile, the Libertarian Party is in the midst of an uproar over the potential election of Truther Ernie Hancock as the national chairman.

In their April 24 head-to-head debate, Libertarian National Committee Chair candidate Wayne Root said of his opponent Ernest Hancock: “If you want to destroy this Party, name a national chairman who believes that 9/11 was an inside job by the government.”

Hancock is talking about sending Jason Bermas' new film to the LP delegates who will decide his fate:

Hancock mused about the DVD that he’ll be sending to St. Louis delegates: “I want everybody to know what it is that [Root] will not talk about. [...] I’m going to be controversial. I’m not even sure exactly what I’m going to send to the delegates. I’m leaning towards Invisible Empire.”

As usual, the real nuttery comes out in the comments section:

This makes me wonder if Root is a plant or is he just a guy who doesn’t really comprehend the big picture and/or is too scared or too narrow-minded to search for the truth.

Yep, paranoid people are paranoid about everything. I like this comment:

This shows how little you know about marketing. The 9/11 Truth Movement is MANY times larger than the Libertarian Party. 9/11 Truthers are skeptical of government and are anti-war and pro-civil liberties. Many of them are already libertarians or are libertarian leaning. These are people who SHOULD BE ripe picking for the Libertarian Party.

I doubt if the Troofers are really much bigger than the Libertarians, and if they are, that says more about the latter than it does about the former.

Hat Tip on LP story: Bikerman in the comments.

It's Official; Two Separate Troofer Fests in NY for 9-11

But they do kind of feature similar lineups. Sander Hicks' We Demand Transparency confab has Sunjata, Gage and Bermas; so does Luke's Real Change snoozer. The difference is that Hicks' event also has Steve Alten, Daniel Hopsicker, the CIT boys, Barrie Zwicker, Kevin Barrett and Mike Berger. The We Are Change crew are highlighting a few first responders; you know things are tough for Luke and company when they feature Manny Badillo as one of their headliners. The Chip-In Widget over there is now up to $110 with about three weeks to go.

Sander Hicks "Attacked"

I find it amusing how truthers imagine themselves as some sort of brave warriors against an oppressive omnipotent government, sort of a real world Neo from the Matrix, yet they cry like an oversensitive schoolgirl anytime anyone says anything remotely critical of them. Prominent truther and author Sander Hicks posts this breathless account of his recent appearance at Stanford University, in which he describes being "attacked by the National Review Online" at Stanford.

Attacked at Stanford!
I was attacked by National Review online, just as I was speaking at Stanford Law School, about “Civil Rights in the Post-9/11 World.”

I spoke from the heart about my experiences publishing and writing on topics taboo to the American media establishment. I spoke about the police assault against me when I asked now-failed candidate Rudy Giuliani about the 9/11 anomalies. I talked about 9/11, and the FBI linked death of Dr. David Graham.

This is an interesting development. The NR critique is defamatory, and calls my argument “deranged.” But that’s a cheap shot, and it lacks gravitas. Critics of better
moral character would take on my facts, not attack me personally.

Geez, from reading that you would think that they hurled insults about his mother at him while beating him with trunchions, but in fact it was a fairly mild announcement of his speech on their educational blog.

The Civil Rights Civil Liberties Society has invited Sander Hicks to speak at the law school today, billing him as "a multimedia political activist committed to the preservation of civil liberties and civil rights for all Americans."

In fact, Mr. Hicks is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist committed to the proposition that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were orchestrated by the United States government, which is now murdering its citizens to cover up the truth. In his own words:

"The 9/11 commission was a coverup. . . . 9/11 was the product of a conspiracy — specifically a conspiracy between the CIA, Pakistani intelligence, and the so-called al-Qaeda organization, which is really most likely just a product of Pakistani intelligence and CIA intelligence."

They don't seem to understand the concept of free speech. You have the right to speak freely, despite your idiotic claims of a police state, and others have the right to criticize you when you say something stupid. That is free speech.

Sander Hicks and Rudy Giuliani

Sander got the boot from a Giuliani appearance in Colorado.

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....

The Bird on Kerry

Our buddy the Feathered Bastard got an email from Sander Hicks alerting him to Kerry's supposed conversion to 9-11 Denial. He checked with the campaign:

I got an answer later that day from Kerry's press secretary Amy Brundage via e-mail that, "The only comment we've got for you is that of course the Senator would never say that."

Stephen never fails to delight with his use of language:

The 9/11 conspiracy movement is basically a religion, with folks looking for Christ's bearded mug in a taco shell. Ridicule is helpful, I think, in preventing others from going to sleep with the pod beside their beds. I don't know if it does any good, though, once the body snatchers have already replicated.

BTW, I've been meaning to get around to doing a review of Hicks' book, The Big Wedding. I'll try to do it some justice later, but Hicks' big problem is that he trusts too many shady characters like Delmart Vreeland, Randy Glass, Daniel Hopsicker, and of course James' favorite, Ambassador Leo Wanta, the wealthiest man in the world. If you're skeptical about the official story, but find Wanta credible, I've gotta wonder whether your BS detector is a little faulty.

Swastika Screen Saver?

Stephen Lemons reports that Sander Hicks noticed one on Eric Williams' computer during the 9-11 Accountability Conference.

151-Proof Troof; My Afternoon With the Deniers

Update: See also Stephen's terrific and much better written summary of the event.

Okay, just got back from the Chandler 9-11 Accountability Confab. So that I don't get accused of burying the lede, Eric D. Williams was there! So much for him being disassociated with the event. In fact, one of the conference organizers (a very nice guy named Lloyd) told me that Eric has a table in the Vendors' room to sell his tracts. Presumably The Puzzle of Auschwitz has been left behind in favor of The Puzzle of 9-11.



(Click pix to enlarge)

Fortunately, I went with Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times, because otherwise we would never have gotten into the press conference, which was filled with "Truthers". As it worked out, Stephen was the only "real" media at the event; unless you consider the Idaho Observer real media.



The panel taking the questions were (reading from left to right): Meria Heller, Jim Marrs, Steven Jones, Janette McKinlay (9-11 artist), Sander Hicks, Kent Knudson (local knucklehead) and Uncle Fetzer. Stephen didn't waste any time asking them how they could talk about "Accountability" without being accountable for having a Holocaust Denier. A groan rose from the crowd. Amazingly, Janette McKinlay said, "Well, Eric's right here! Let's ask him! Do you think that horrible things happened to a lot of people in World War II?" When Eric dutifully acknowledged this meaningless assertion, she appeared to consider the matter settled.



Fortunately Stephen was not to be deterred with this. He asked about the credibility of sources; did people think that Eric Hufschmid is a credible source. Fetzer got on his high horse and declared that while Hufschmid's Holocaust musings were indeed unfortunate, when it came to 9-11, Hufschmid was an "exemplar in excellence in research."

Bob McIlvaine (9-11 father) introduced himself prior to asking a question, and got a round of applause, leading Stephen to ask if this was a press conference or a pep rally. I winced at this, but obviously Stephen didn't know the circumstances. Jon Gold gave some heated comments.

At this point the crowd drew restless. "Throw him out!" By this point I had separated myself from Stephen physically (not from fear, but to make sure one of us could at least remain as an observer). A man who identified himself as hotel security arrived and started escorting Steve out the door. Fortunately, cooler heads (including Phil Berg, who was the moderator) prevailed and after a minute or two he was allowed to remain.

There was a lot of "what can 'we' do" to hold the government accountable for 9-11, which was a pretty good clue that these were not media people asking questions. Berg finally asked how many real working media were in attendance, and about 3 people raised their hands, including the guy from the Idaho Observer.

I got a chance to ask one question, so I tried to make it a zinger without appearing to be a Debunker. Was the 9-11 Truth Movement being infiltrated by the government and/or cults? I pointed out the Haupt/Jamieson dustup video that I'd seen at 9-11 Blogger. Fetzer took the bait, talking about how of course that the FBI was trying to infiltrate them, but that Haupt was not a agent, he was just a nut. Ah, an opening! So I quickly asked why, if he felt that Haupt is a nut, did Fetzer link to 9-11 Researchers at the top of the (new) Scholars for 9-11 Truth site.

Fetzer just about turned purple. Was I accusing him of guilt by association? No, I said, but the link is very prominent at the top of his page and I asked aren't there some things, like the Star Wars Beam Weapon from Space that are dead ends? Well, I threw in the "from space" bit intentionally because I knew that would set him off on how Judy Wood had never said it was from space, to which I retorted that she was the one who called it a Star Wars Beam Weapon, of course people were going to assume it was from space.

Fetzer did a spiel on how areas of research couldn't be closed off without study that this was how science advanced, and (getting back onto the guilt by association thing) that just because one was a kook on one thing you couldn't assume they were a kook on another, and he pointed out that Sir Isaac Newton belonged to some weird cult--I can't remember what it was--and that did that mean his theory of gravity didn't hold. And I did the nodding head thing to assure Fetzer that I was being swayed by his argument and sat down. Fortunately Jones wouldn't let the slander against Sir Isaac Newton go uncorrected; he had personally seen the great scholar's bible or something during a trip to England and was absolutely sure that he was a Christian, not a member of this weird cult that Fetzer was claiming. And as for the Star Wars beam weapon, Greg from the DC group was submitting a paper to JONES on the possibility. So I brown-nosed the teacher by piping up that "It's an energy issue, right?" and he said, well actually it's power, but he gave me a nod of approval. So I felt I had pretty much pulled of a pretty good imitation of a Jones groupie, not a debunker.

Stephen did get to ask the panel members whether they felt Flight 77 had hit the Pentagon. No big surprises. Jones averred that the subject needed more study while mostly thinking it was AA77; only Sander Hicks said he had no doubt it was Chic Burlingame's plane. Fetzer and the rest were firm in the "no-plane at the Pentagon" camp.

After the conference a guy came up to me and asked if I was Patrick Curtiss. I said no, looking at his badge. It said 'Lloyd" and I remembered that a guy by that name had mentioned me on Air America. He asked again, was I Patrick Curtiss from Screw Loose Change?

Well, no, I was not Patrick Curtiss, but I was from Screw Loose Change. So we talked for about ten minutes, and he absolutely thanked me for exposing Eric, saying that the movement had to absolutely dissassociate itself from characters like him, that he absolutely felt they needed solid criticism from people like me. I mentioned how stunned I was when they pointed him out in the crowd, and he just about floored me when he mentioned that Eric still had a booth in the Exhibit Hall. I mean, the only thing dumber is if he turns out to be selling the Puzzle of Auschwitz along with his 9-11 Denier books.

And then a very nice and somewhat scary lady from the LA Truthers engaged us for awhile with the six hijackers are alive, there's no fire in this one picture at the Pentagon and the clocks stopped at 9:31 not 9:37... ad infinitum. And we'd point out the BBC story was early, that if the Loosers wanted to make a mint on their next movie they should go over to the Middle East and find one, that yes, there are many pictures showing the fires at the Pentagon, that there's nobody who says there was a bomb that went off at 9:31. It was all very entertaining, but as I pointed out, why, when I had the answers for 37 straight bits of BS did she think that the 38th was either going to stump me or convince me that 9-11 was an inside job. I think the Truthers are like the IRA; they think the Debunkers have to be right 100% of the time; they only have to be right once. As if there isn't a little thing called credibility that is used up after 37 tries.

Sander Hicks came over after hearing us debating and he was also very pleasant. I should have given him a complete profile, but when I asked him if he thought Mohammed Atta was on Flight 11 he said yes, he was the lead hijacker. He did go into the ISI connection and had some interesting things to say, but I didn't really get why he thought the US had supposedly had the head of the ISI fired if they were behind the operation; surely they should have thanked him for helping out?

He offered me a copy of his book, The Big Wedding, and even autographed it: To Pat: Screw Loose Facts. Then he was out and we were back with Lynn from LA who had a dozen other bits that she wanted to try out on us. At one point she felt compelled to tell us some really bizarre story about how the stone on one of her rings was squeezed out from the hand of a statue of a saint or maybe it was from her hand, and that she had witnessed ten miracles in her life. Stephen got that on tape, I think; I'll ask him to transcribe it because it was the only time all day I didn't have a rejoinder.

She got into the cellphone calls, and she tried all the gambits--Barbara Olsen, Mom, this is Mark Bingham, cellphones don't work at altitude. Finally I turned to Stephen and pointed out that she could go on like this all night and we packed it in.

I took some digital movies as well and will see about getting that up. I got some of Fetzer's ire on tape.