And despte being the most watched video in the world and America on
video-google, Loose Change has never been played on American national
or cable television.

The Nation weakly trashes 9/11 skeptics
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_david_ca_061220_the_nation_we...
by David Caputo

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News and Commentary by David Caputo of Positronic Design

The Nation Magazine, one of my all time favorites and the very model
for my own news magazine from "back in the day", is all-kinda
squishy-washy about 9/11, and what really happened that day. They
constantly rip the Bush administration a new one for all manner of the
dreadful things they do, but they seem largely incapable of even
QUESTIONING the official government line on 9/11 facts and figures,
even when they blatantly contradict themselves.

Their most recent piece on this subject, Christopher Hayes' "9/11: The
Roots of Paranoia" was typical of the genre, although politer than
most. I offer my thoughts and commentary because I thought such a weak
overall analysis should not stand unchallenged, especially by a
long-time fan of The Nation.

-------------------------------

Dear Nation Editors,

While I am somewhat impressed (compared to recent efforts from
Alexander Cockburn) at the reasonable tone and interesting theoretical
arguments of Christopher Hayes' article "9/11: The Roots of Paranoia",
his analysis, sadly, still comes up wanting in many ways.

The article opens by citing a July 2006 Scripps poll which shows that
33%% of Americans believe either LIHOP (let it happen on purpose) or
MIHOP (make it happen on purpose) theories of US governement complicity
on 9/11.

He's disturbed by these findings (although unsurprised by them, which
I'll discuss later) because he detects no ferment among the masses that
would correspond to knowing that the country is being led by mass
murderers. This ignores, of course, the fact that it is undeniable that
our government IS being led by mass murderers, as 100k - 600k victims
of unprovoked international violence would attest. The question, it
seems, is whether or not our country is led by mass murderers of
Americans. (Not counting, of course, the 3000+ fellow citizens who have
lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the tens of thousands of
permanently maimed, on both sides)

A later poll is more instructive, I think, and speaks to why he thinks
the first phenomenon is unsurprising.

----
Question: When it comes to what they knew prior to September 11th,
2001, about possible terrorist attacks against the United States, do
you think members of the Bush Administration are telling the truth, are
mostly telling the truth but hiding something, or are they mostly
lying?

..........................Oct. 2006 ...May 2002

Telling the truth..........16%%.......21%%

Hiding something........53%%.......65%%

Mostly lying................28%%........8%%

Not sure.....................3%%........6%%

Source: The New York Times / CBS News
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 983 American adults,
conducted from Oct. 5 to Oct. 8, 2006. Margin of error is 4 per cent.
----

Now this new poll reveals that 81%% (!!) of Americans believe that Bush
administration is covering up either something or everything about
9/11. Notably, the portion that thinks the administration is "mostly
lying" is up 20%% since 2002. That's almost double the amount that think
the administration is actually telling the full truth.

Americans' complete lack of confidence in the "Truthiness" of this
administration is reflected in these overwhelming numbers. It's almost
like: Q: "How can you tell when Bush or Cheney are lying?" A: "Their
lips are moving."

C'mon, more than 80%% think they're not being straight with us about the
single biggest crime ever to happen on American soil. A crime that's
led us into not just one but two wars of mayhem and cruelty almost
beyond description. A shocking event that's led to the ritualized
disembowelment of democratic institutions and civil liberties as the
public has largely watched mesmerized, like a frog enjoying the hot
tub.

One reason for the expansion of interest in 9/11 Truth and related
research is not just Loose Change, which he cites with
look-down-his-nose contempt for its low-budget, 20-something approach
to purported debunking, but C-Span, which has broadcast several 9/11
Truth events, much to the pleasure of their ratings manager. Videos of
these events have collectively gotten as much play as Loose Change,
which has never been broadcast on national TV, let alone repeatedly.

One paragraph gets to the core of his argument:

This pattern of deception has not only fed diffuse public cynicism
but has provided an opening for alternate theories of 9/11 to flourish.
As these theories--propounded by the so-called 9/11 Truth
Movement--seep toward the edges of the mainstream, they have raised the
specter of the return (if it ever left) of what Richard Hofstadter
famously described as "the paranoid style in American politics." But
the real danger posed by the Truth Movement isn't paranoia. Rather, the
danger is that it will discredit and deform the salutary skepticism
Americans increasingly show toward their leaders.

OK, point by point.

1. Wouldn't it make sense for a "pattern of deception" to logically
lead people to think that if they'd lie in order to send thousands of
Americans to their deaths, and kill hundreds of thousands of others,
that they just might lie about the event that led them to do this?

2. If you ever watched the excellent dissection of media fear
projection featured in "Bowling for Columbine", you'd realize that
"paranoia" has long been a central fixture of the American psyche.
Paranoia about the Russians, the Communists, Anthrax (the mail),
Snipers, Killer Bees and poisoned Halloween candy... you name it, we've
been coached and coaxed to be paranoid about it. It's hardly the result
of the burgeoning 9/11 Truth movement.

3. The main point. After dismissing the spectre of paranoia he has
just summoned (for effect maybe?), he says that 9/11 skepticism will
"discredit and deform" the otherwise laudable skepticism that Americans
are only just now starting to show any real signs of. Discredit to
whom? Deform how? He doesn't say. You'd think if this was the "real
danger" (a highly alarmist phrase), he's at least cite ONE example of
how this might be true. Nope. We are left to our own devices to imagine
how.

Moving on to the "raising questions" paragraph. Mr. Hayes cites a small
number of apparent (he says perceived) physical anomalies that have
attracted 9/11 researchers' interest, but offers no direct refutation
of any of them. He ignores certain key facts, like the tower's
free-fall-speed collapse, the pools of molten steel in the basements
that persisted for months, and the even-officially-unexplained collapse
of WTC-7, to make it seem like carefully analyzed events were merely a
collection of vaguely-informed hunches. He mixes scientific analysis
with whacko/provocateur assertions to smear one with the other, without
differientating between them at all.

When he brings up the Reichstag fire, he purports that the majority of
historians now share his view (no doubt appreciated by Nazi
sympathizers) the a lone anarchist was really the architect of the
crime. This is despite the fact that the Nazi's DID stage an attack on
a frontier radio station in order to falsely claim that Poland had done
it and officially launch WWII. A review of available scholarship would
easily conclude that historians have actually developed NO consensus on
the subject, other than the fact that the Nazis were most likely
involved in some way.

He also makes no mention of the legal mechanisms the Nazis used in
conjunction with the Reichstag fire that have eerie and haunting
resonance today. The Patriot Act, obviously prepared long before 9/11
and designed to rip the heart out of what we had always considered
"normal" civil rights protections, is our modern day "Enabling Act", a
fact to which he makes no reference.

His "strongest" argument for his confidence in the Bush
administration's theories about the events of 9/11 is presented next,
in a one-paragraph, three-sentence oblique sideswipe of the quite
outdated and already thoroughly discredited March 2005 Popular
Mechanics cover article. Read Jim Hoffman's systematic dismantling of
this report on WTC7.net if you think this report has any scientific
merit. Using this report as the central foundation for his rejection of
9/11 scholarship demonstrates the lack of depth with which he has
actually pursued his investigation. "Superficial" would be charitable,
I think.

Of course, he then goes on to describe the 9/11 Commission Report as
"something of a whitewash", but blythely moves on as if an obvious
coverup involving a major mass murder was nothing to be concerned
about. He mentions that Bush was only interviewed by the Commission in
the presence of Cheney, but he fails to mention that they were not
under oath, or recorded, or videotaped. Or that no commissioners were
allowed to take notes and that the entire panel and staff had only
three hours to meet with them, both. Is this what you at the Nation
call "investigative journalism"? Sounds like conspicuous ignorance of
inconvenient facts to me. Or was it just edited out to copy-fit the
print edition? Just how much of a "whitewash" was it? He doesn't go
into much detail, and ignores David Ray Griffin's authoritative book
and lectures on the subject, lest it detract from his overall argument.

The rest of Mr. Hayes' article is pretty much a plaintive beseeching of
the establishment media to take a more active role in resisting the
tendency to print whatever the administration tells them, even when
they know it to be a lie, cause "the people" are on to something and if
they (the media) don't wise up they'll get the rabble all fired up and
suspicious of everyone.

He posits two world-views, one credulous, one paranoid. I posit a
third: thoughtful. Thoughtful as in imaginative, creative, intelligent,
discerning, investigative, and wise. The 9/11 Truth Movement is not a
"rabbit hole of delusion" as he would suggest. Indeed, those of us who
insist that physics and chemistry follow strict laws, and that standard
law enforcement investigative techniques and rules of evidence
preservation should be used in all murder cases, and democratic
openness and conflict-of-interest transparency should be the rule of
the day in all major government operations would say that far from a
"rabbit hole", the 9/11 Truth Movement is the most genuine example of
citizen challenge to the forces of destruction around us.

Why is it that so many liberal/progressive publications and columnists
have such a hard time seeing that?

Phillip Agee wrote in "Inside the Company" that the CIA had paid or
blackmailed assets in almost every major news organization in almost
every country in the world. For 25 years Lane Kirkland, head of the
AFL/CIO, was actually a paid CIA asset. Is this what's going on here?
Is someone on the company payroll? Does someone have some juicy dirt on
y'all and is holding it over your heads?

That would at least make sense. This systematic failure to even look
closely at the carefully reviewed and vetted research and the casting
of insults and negative aspersions is more commonly the province of
drug-addled right wingers like Rush Limbaugh. I bet it's the one thing
that Rush and the Nation agree on, that 9/11 Truth folks are whacky
kooks.

It's hard to understand all of this, but I'm standing my ground.

Come up with some better arguments or seriously investigate the
reputable facts and research on 9/11 and see if you've actually been
wrong on this one. The weak arguments presented just make the Nation
look silly, and stupid. Far from 9/11 research "discrediting the left",
it's just this kind of weak, unsupported blather that makes us all look
like confused morons. Aren't you guys better than that?

I look forward to your reply,

David Caputo
Positronic Design

http://www.PositronicDesign.com

http://TotallyFixed.blogspot.com

Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress
people:
Call for a new citizen's investigation of 9/11

Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps
and local newspapers

www.PositronicDesign.com

President of Positronic Design, Holyoke, MA www.PositronicDesign.com
Editor and Publisher of Totally Fixed and Rigged Magazine
http://TotallyFixed.blogspot.com

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9 comments
Thanks for Your Rebuttal to Nation

David,

Thanks for making the effort to rebut Hayes' article.

Here's some additional useful information: 60 senior American military,
intelligence, law enforcement, and govt officials who question the
official story of 9/11, plus a dozen internationals
http://PatriotsQuestion911.com.

Best regards, Alan

by AlanMiller (0 articles, 3 comments) on Saturday, December 23, 2006
at 10:36:35 PM

The Nation's problem

I think it is an article of faith, unquestioned, in traditional liberal
circles, that the differences between true liberals and true
conservatives are principled differences . . . that conservatives are
as much motivated by principle as are liberals (which may have once
been the case). What they overlook is that a hard-knuckle game has
taken over the arena. Principle increasingly has less and less to do
with what is going on, but is merely a shield for the exercise of raw
power. And raw power plays the game any way it sees fit.

(I try, myself, to cling to the illusion that Democrats are 'good
guys,' but the developing course of events as we move toward the
installation of the 110th Congress is daily increasing my discomfort.)

In the light of that old illusion-of-decency that won't die, the
thought of such a malign --indeed, monstrous-- goverment as would be
implied by the 9/11 conspiracy construction is simply too much for the
traditional liberal mind to get its grasp of. Hence, the knee-jerk
denial of it.

In this instance, it's the 'illusion of the pure,' that possesses The
Nation. But it is just as sturdily, blindly rooted there as any
illusion of the impure.

by irvthom (4 articles, 18 comments) on Sunday, December 24, 2006 at
12:13:46 AM

I agree...

Good comment. While I agree that "true" conservatives are motivated on
principle, the neo-cons who have taken over the asylum are all
Straussians, and that's pretty much the Nazi-inspired raw grab for
power that you describe.

My point is that The Nation's "sniff test" sniffers aren't working here
if they believe that the lines of B.S. presented in that article are
going to snooker anybody with half a brain. Maybe that's what they did
it for, so their weak position could be exposed by my article and the
truth really would seep out that way, but it sounds like a reach...

And as I pointed out, one only needs to open one's eyes to the facts on
the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan to realize how truly monstrous these
people are, 9/11 or no 9/11.

So for me it's not too big a leap to at least try to bust them on the
9/11 cover-up. That's what I'm essentially working towards. THAT can be
proven, relatively easily, in my opinion.

All we have to do is insist that the new Congress try.

Thanks for your contribution.

by Positronic (2 articles, 4 comments) on Sunday, December 24, 2006 at
1:08:20 AM

Credibility and Ridicule, and they go both ways....

The Nation is a major publication. They are really afraid of being so
far outside the mainstream of American thought and awareness that they
lose that status.

Let's face it, liberal publications have taken a beating in the last 35
years or so.

Nevertheless, we are reaching a tipping point about 9/11 and doubts
about the official myth.

The best way I can think of to push that tipping point is to launch an
email campaign to the media, all of them, as well as to our elected
officials, laying out the unanswered questions and new ones created by
the 9/11 Commission and the anthrax investigation.

Hell, people, it isn't all that difficult. Just pledge to send three a
day. Guilt you friends into doing the same.

The effing corporate media never report anything big, politically,
until they know that we already know, and that their credibility is
heading for oblivion if they do not get a effing grip.

by winterfire6 (0 articles, 54 comments) on Sunday, December 24, 2006
at 1:28:40 AM

Where is decency?

I keep looking for it, but it seems to be nowhere in site. Joseph Welsh
asked where Joe McCarthy's sense of decency had gone. There was no
answer, but at least there was someone there to ask the question.

It seems there is no one asking the question in this day and age. Even
the staunch and gutsy Keith Olbermann has yet to ask it of DUBYA face
to face.

I am not one given to conspiracy theories. I believe that Oswald shot
Kennedy. I believe that nothing other than a piece of military garbage
fell in Roswell. However, when evidence arises that seems to make a
strong case for the possibility of a conspiracy, I have to sit up and
take note.

Such is the case with 9/11. There are a lot of, to my mind, cockamamie
ideas floating about surrounding the 9/11 debacle that tend to color
everyone who believes in the possibility of an inside job look like a
nut case. Most of them, such as money trails, lost airplanes, and so on
make no sense to me.

However, there are some irrefutably real things that happened that day
that suggest there's a lot more about it we aren't being told. The fact
that both towers and WTC 7 fell perfectly, like a controlled implosion
has yet to be answered satisfactorily. The issue of molten steel
lasting for weeks/months at ground zero is also suspicious. The fact
that all three buildings that fell are the only three buildings that
have fallen before or since that were felled by seemingly mysterious
means.

Until those questions are answered, as far as I am concerned, we are
NOT getting the complete story.

Do I think our government is capable of such a thing? Yes, I most
definitely do. Do I think there is a serious cover-up going on? Yes. Do
I think the truth will eventually come out? Yes, I do. Will that truth
radically change the face of America? Let's hope so!

Blessed be!
Pappy

by pappy_mcfae (25 articles, 362 comments) on Sunday, December 24, 2006
at 1:33:19 AM

Funeral for 9/11?

I admit to being taken in by the 9/11 conspiracy ideas, about two
months ago for about a month, and also that the more I read, and the
more video clips I watched, the more I became convinced there was a
great deal to it. I even did a scale drawing of one tower on graph
paper and became convinced that the jet fuel released near the top
could not possibly have brought down that tower.

Realizing that I still needed more information, I was contemplating
various models I could build, out of various materials, which I would
then set on fire with fuel at the same scale, and thus demonstrate to
my own questioning mind whether the official story was possible. I was
contemplating the densities and strengths of different materials, when
I got sidetracked by something, probably the elections or maybe writing
stuff here.

It is very easy to see how someone could become obsessed with the
conspiracy concepts, and surely it is about impossible to conceive of
anything the Bushies wouldn't do.

However, just last night I was going through a handful of magazines in
a Barnes & Noble bookstore; one of them was a long-time favorite of
mine, The Skeptic.

There on the cover was their lead article 9/11 Was There a Conspiracy?

Given the respect this magazine has earned with the most highly
skeptical ME over the years, I consider seriously what these folks have
say. I don't always agree, such as happened not long ago with their
article on "self-help" books, which made too many sweeping
generalizatons and contradicted my own experience.

However, after reading the 9/11 cover story, I doubt I'll be paying
much more attention to the conspiracy theorists. That said, I can only
suggest to anyone seeking what I think is a remarkably objective look
at the fundamental arguments surrounding 9/11, that this article might
put your wondering to rest, as it did for me.

by danielgeery (10 articles, 162 comments) on Sunday, December 24, 2006
at 6:48:31 AM

Skeptical about the Skeptic...

I just tried to review the article, but alas, it's not available
online.

How convenient...

If anyone can email me the text of the article, I'd be happy to
critique their argument too.

I'm not convinced that someone has put the matter to rest with a single
article (or two), but I like to be open minded so we shall see...

by Positronic (2 articles, 4 comments) on Sunday, December 24, 2006 at
7:59:08 AM

Baby and bath water

Its interesting to note that the people being distracted by 9/11 Truth
are those writing articles trying to dissuade others from listening to
it!

However, it is obvious they aren't spending too much time on their new
found evangelizing, because they all overlook the irrefutable
indications of foreknowledge and cover-up.

Forget about the stupid pod theories, forget about the no-plane
Pentagon scenario. Forget about controlled demolitions if you want.

Also, forget about pinning the blame on the Bush administration, let
alone Bush or Cheney. We can't possibly know who was involved, nor
should the 9/11 Truth movement be held to account on that. When someone
lays dead in the street, you don't have to be able to tell the police
who did it before you can call for help!

Focus on the unbelievable changing stories of the US military about
their response (or lack thereof) on 9/11.

Focus on the fact that there were many coincidental military games and
other emergency exercises scheduled on and around 9/11 that contributed
the attacks succeeding on 9/11.

Focus on all the well documented events where FBI, CIA and other
government investigations were thwarted prior to 9/11 that might have
lead to it being discovered and stopped before it happened.

It could be that all the secrecy and stymied investigations have other
reasons. It could be covering up for incompetence, or simply some deal
being made, trading one evil for another.

The bottom line is that as the polls show, the American people know
they were lied to. The numbers are irrefutable.

The bottom line is that regardless whodunnit and why, 9/11 was the
result of illegal and immoral activities.

OpEdNews, Alexander Cockburn and others on the left are the only ones
who are allowing themselves to be distracted from investigating 9/11
for the right reasons! They are guilty of throwing the baby out with
the bathwater.

by blogbart (0 articles, 1 comments) on Sunday, December 24, 2006 at
10:34:16 AM

Exactly my point...

Good job BlogBart, you nailed it.

"It's the COVERUP stupid" Should be the slogan of any Democrat running
for President.

The coverup is provable, as you correctly noted.

That's my strategy, and there should be little controversy about it by
those who are true opponents of the neo-con war agenda.

Thanks for the comment.

by Positronic (2 articles, 4 comments) on Sunday, December 24, 2006 at