By dz 500 Conspiracy Buffs Meet to Seek the Truth of 9/11 - NYTimes.com For the record, I am not a 'conspiracy buff' - nor would I consider many of those at the conference 'conspiracy buffs'. In fact I am a concerned citizen that believes my own government was involved in 9/11 - an opinion that came after many months of reading and researching, an opinion I believe any open minded researcher would reach as well. In the foyer, there were stick-pins for sale ("More gin, less Rummy"), and in the lecture halls discussions of the melting point of steel. "It's all documented," people said. Or: "The mass media is mass deception." Or, as strangers from the Internet shook hands: "Great to meet you. Love the work."
Such was the coming-out for the movement known as "9/11 Truth," a society of skeptics and scientists who believe the government was complicit in the terrorist attacks. In colleges and chat rooms on the Internet, this band of disbelievers has been trying for years to prove that 9/11 was an inside job.
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"We feel at this point we've done a lot of solid research, but the American public still is not informed," said Michael Berger, press director for 911Truth.org, which sponsored the event. "We had to come up with a disciplined approach to get it out."
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The former owner of a recycling plant outside St. Louis, Mr. Berger joined the movement when he grew skeptical of why the 9/11 Commission had failed, to his sense of sufficiency, to answer how the building at 7 World Trade Center collapsed like a ton of bricks. It was his "9/11 trigger," the incident that drew him in, he said. For others, it might be the fact that the air-defense network did not prevent the attacks that day, or the appearance of thousands of "puts" — or short-sell bids — on the nation's airline stocks. (The 9/11 Commission found the sales innocuous.)
Such "red flags," as they are sometimes called, were the meat and potatoes of the keynote speech on Friday night by Alex Jones, who is the William Jennings Bryan of the 9/11 band. Mr. Jones, a syndicated radio host, is known for his larynx-tearing screeds against corruption — fiery, almost preacherly, addresses in which he sweats, balls his fists and often swerves from quoting Roman history to using foul language in a single breath. I don't think I have ever seen Alex Jones use 'foul language', in fact he avoids it.At the lectern Friday night, beside a digital projection reading "History of Government Sponsored Terrorism," Mr. Jones set forth the central tenets of 9/11 Truth: that the military command that monitors aircraft "stood down" on the day of the attacks; that President Bush addressed children in a Florida classroom instead of being whisked off to the White House; that the hijackers, despite what the authorities say, were trained at American military bases; and that the towers did not collapse because of burning fuel and weakened steel but because of a "controlled demolition" caused by pre-set bombs.
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Like a prior generation of skeptics — those who doubted, say, the Warren Commission or the government's account of the Gulf of Tonkin attack — the 9/11 Truthers are dogged, at home and in the office, by friends and family who suspect that they may, in fact, be completely nuts. For those that missed it, the government released new documents at the end of last year proving that the Gulf of Tonkin never did occur, you can find them here.It would even seem the Truthers are not alone in believing the whole truth has not come out. A poll released last month by Zogby International found that 42 percent of all Americans believe the 9/11 Commission "concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence" in the attacks. This is in addition to the Zogby poll two years ago that found that 49 percent of New York City residents agreed with the idea that some leaders "knew in advance" that the attacks were planned and failed to act.
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"I hope you don't end up dead somewhere," a companion said to a participant, hours earlier as he dropped him at the Loop. "Don't worry," the participant said. "There's too many of us for that." I did hear/see a few responses at the plaza including being flipped the bird, and "I hope the terrorists drop a bomb right here and kill all of you" - typical emotional responses.Be sure to send the author of this article, Alan Feuer, a thank you and encourage him to continue his coverage of the subject. You can find an email link to him on this page here. | |
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