They remain convinced: U.S. behind 9/11

Old article dated in August of 2006, around the same time the new wave of "truthers", both scammers and dupes, began to appear.  Archived for historical purposes.  As more and more scam/spam 911 conspiracy websites disappear, these become easier to find.

http://www.lowellsun.com/front/ci_4173789

They remain convinced: U.S. behind 9/11

By EVAN LEHMANN, Sun Washington Bureau

Updated:   08/12/2006 06:34:17 AM EDT

WASHINGTON -- The sudden collapse, the seamless downward cascade of the crumbling World Trade Center towers planted doubt in Bruce Henry's mind.

The way the buildings fell didn't seem right. The implosion-like plummeting, the absence of central beams and girders refusing to fall, the speed of the collapse -- all raised suspicion for the retired mathematics professor from Worcester.

"That was the seed," said Henry, who taught at Worcester State College. "To me it seems so transparent with a minimal amount of reflection that there's something catawampus," or cockeyed, with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Finally, he came to a shocking conclusion that runs counter to the accepted history of America's darkest day: The towers, he believes, "were brought down by planted explosives."

He's not alone.

Henry and several other Bay State residents are members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a controversial group that claims elements of the U.S. government, not Osama bin Laden, masterminded the deadly attacks that killed almost 3,000 Americans.

Members of the group, including about 80 professors nationwide, generally believe the attacks were designed around building support for an aggressive U.S. strategy in the Middle East.

Members point to a string of what they describe as discrepancies in the accepted history of the attacks, including continuing uncertainty about why a third World Trade Center tower, known as Building 7, collapsed without being struck by a plane.

"There is something hugely wrong with the official story," said Gwendolyn Atwood, 45, of Lincoln, a clinical psychologist trained at Harvard University and a group member.

The group's theories collide with the findings of the 9/11 Commission and an exhaustive investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a government agency, launched to determine the cause of the buildings' collapse.

Fires resulting from the impact of the fuel-laden airliners destroyed the twin towers, according to reports by the NIST, which assigned 200 employees to the two-year investigation.

The agency interviewed more than 1,000 people near the scene of the attack or who helped design the buildings, analyzed 236 pieces of metal from the wreckage and studied 150 hours of video and almost 7,000 photographs capturing the collisions and collapses.

The agency's final report rejects "alternative hypotheses suggesting the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives planted prior to September 11, 2001."

Many people, however, are not convinced.

A poll released this week by Scripps Howard News Service found that 36 percent of Americans believe "people in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted to United States to go to war in the Middle East."
Guido H. Stempel III, director of Scripps Survey Research Center, believes the poll highlights discontentment with the Bush administration, which has struggled to convince Americans that the war in Iraq is justified, faced criticism for its domestic eavesdropping program and weathered declining approval ratings.

"The (administration's) effort to tie 9/11 to the Iraq war is just something a lot of people don't buy," Stempel said. "What I'm saying is if (government officials) tell you a story that's not correct, people say 'What else is wrong?' "

Fifty-one percent of Democrats responding to the poll said the government was involved in 9/11, compared to 18 percent of Republicans, Stempel said.

Conspiracy theories are popular in American culture. Forty percent of Americans still believe the government was involved in President John F. Kennedy's assassination, and 38 percent believe the government is hiding proof that aliens exist, according to polls taken last month.
Lacking a smoking gun to make their argument, Scholars for 9/11 Truth members point to a list of reasons they say proves their point when taken together. 

"It's sort of a cumulative effect," said Gustavo Espada, 31, of Somerville, a member and graduate of Harvard, where he works in information technology. "I don't think anybody has a 100 percent view of what actually did happen on 9/11."

Espada spends about 10 hours a week handing out literature, Web logging and talking with people on the street about his views on 9/11. A 90-minute symposium organized by Scholars for Truth was also broadcast on C-SPAN last month.

"There's a point of view out there ... we just wanted to shed some light on it," said C-SPAN spokeswoman Jennifer Moire.
The message, however, has not reached Don Goodrich, whose son, Peter, died aboard Flight 175 when it struck the second tower of the WTC.

"I don't pass judgment on the groups," said Goodrich of Bennington, Vt., adding that they are "unimportant to me."

Goodrich, too, has searched for evidence that could explain the attacks -- an exercise that has generated little fulfillment.

"The inevitable consequence ... is that much is unknown and forever will be unknown about what happened that day," he said.

Also of historical relevance is the "symposium organized by Scholars for Truth was also broadcast on C-SPAN last month" refenced.  This was promoted at Alex Jones prisonplanet website:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2006/310706cspan.htm

It linked heavily  to 911blogger, though many links are dead:

This is another hammer blow to the establishment kingpins who had hoped questions about 9/11 would evaporate as we approach the 5th anniversary of the attack.

The 9/11 Blogger website is coordinating numerous activism campaigns in alliance with the C-Span coverage, including encouraging UN members to view the broadcast, targeting left and right radio and TV gatekeepers, and also a flyer campaign.

We implore everyone to get onboard with these campaigns and help spread 9/11 truth to the four corners of the world via the exemplary platform of the American Scholars Symposium.

But never fear, where there's a will to document conspiracy con artists, there's a way:

http://www.911blogger.com/2006/07/urge-un-members-to-watch-c-span-aug.html

Monday, July 31, 2006

Urge UN Members to Watch C-Span Aug. 1st

In addition to the Talk Radio Mass Mobilization discussed above (an excellent campaign), Nila Sagadevan sent me the following invitation to contact the UN. (Sorry for the long post, but this has not been posted anywhere else on the web). Personally, I don't recommend stressing Chavez -- whatever you think of him, the U.S. has basically declared him an enemy.

BELOW YOU'LL FIND A MESSAGE AND THE EMAILS OF THE ENTIRE UNITED NATIONS PERMANENTE MISSIONS FOR THE ENTIRE WORLD. Please A) Send the below message to them, and B) forward this entire email action on to all your contacts, urging them
to do the same. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE C-SPAN'S AIRING IT TOMORROW!!
========================================

THE SUBJ. LINE TEXT FOR UN MESSAGE:

C-SPAN, Aug 1st, 6:10 EDT - 9/11 INSIDE JOB !! Media MUST WATCH !!

THE BODY OF MESSAGE TO SEND TO UN MEMBERS:
It is incumbent upon ALL United Nations members to watch this program, and
to investigate the evidence analyzed at BYU Physics Dept. proving 9/11 was
an inside job, by way of the controlled demolition of the 3 WTCs.
Thermate/Sulfer traces on WTC debris.

Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and other leaders are discussing launching a global
International Tribunal to Investigate 9/11. PLEASE JOIN THEM.

This HISTORIC telecast can be seen worldwide over the internet as a video
stream over the internet at http://www.c-span.org/homepage.asp

C-SPAN at *06:10 PM EDT*
1:50 (est.) Forum
September 11th Terrorist Attacks
Alex Jones Productions
Alex Jones, rtd. Air Force Lt. Colonel Dr. Robert Bowman, BYU Physics
professor Dr. Steven Jones, James H. Fetzer , Scholars for 9/11 Truth

At below link, click on the:
American Perspectives: Sept. 11, V.P. Cheney, & Congress (07/29/2006) to
watch this C-SPAN coverage. If there is a problem watching it from the
C-SPAN site, another link is below of video coverage of the same event.

http://tinyurl.com/jl65q

VIDEO COVERAGE OF THE 9/11 INSIDE JOB EVENT C-SPAN COVERED:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5004704309041471296&q=alex+symposium

ALSO, if you've yet to see the "LOOSE CHANGE" DOCUMENTARY - which is covered
in a four-page article in "VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE"s AUGUST 2006 ISSUE:

View the FREE ONLINE VIDEO DOCUMENTARY that raises many important issues
regarding 9/11, by visiting:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=94448691996878155&q=9%2F11+loose+change+2nd+edition

70 MILLION AMERICANS NOW WANT AN INVESTIGATIONS OF POSSIBLE US GOVT.
COMPLICITY IN THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER, 11, 2001. (Zogby poll)
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20060522022041421

PLEASE FORM AN INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL TO INVESTIGATE THE EVENTS OF
9/11/2001, THAT HAVE LED OUR WORLD INTO WAR.

======================================
UNITED NATIONS MISSIONS OF ENTIRE WORLD:
albania@un.int, algeria@un.int, andorra@un.int, agoun@undp.org,
antigua@un.int, argentina@un.int, armenia@un.int, australia@un.int,
austria@un.int, azerbaijan@un.int, bhsun@undp.org, bahrain@un.int,
bangladesh@un.int, barbados@un.int, belarus@un.int, belgium@un.int,
belize@un.int, benin@un.int, bhutan@un.int, bolivia@un.int, bosnia@un.int,
botswana@un.int, braun@delbrasonu.org, brnun@undp.org, bulgaria@un.int,
burkinafaso@un.int, burundi@un.int, cambodia@un.int, cmrun@undp.org,
canada@un.int, cpvun@undp.org, caf@un.int, chad@un.int, chile@un.int,
chnun@undp.org, columbia@un.int, comun@undp.org, congo@un.int,
costarica@un.int, ivorycoast@un.int, croatia@un.int, cuba@un.int,
cyprus@un.int, czechrepublic@un.int, drcongo@un.int, denmark@un.int,
djibouti@nyct.net, dominica@un.int, dr@un.int, ecuador@un.int, egypt@un.int,
elsalvador@un.int, guinea@un.int, eritrea@un.int, estonia@un.int,
ethiopia@un.int, fiji@un.int, finland@un.int, france@un.int, gabon@un.int,
gambia@un.int, georgia@un.int, germany@un.int, ghana@un.int, greece@un.int,
grenada@un.int, guatemala@un.int, guinea@un.int, guinea-bissau@un.int,
guyana@un.int, haiti@un.int, honduras@un.int, hungary@un.int,
islun@undp.org, india@un.int, indonesia@un.int, iraq@un.int, ireland@un.int,
israel.un@israelfm.org, italy@un.int, jamaica@un.int, japan@un.int,
jordan@un.int, kazakhstan@un.int, kenya@un.int, dprk@un.int, korea@un.int,
kuwait@un.int, kyrgyzstan@un.int, laos@un.int, lvaun@undp.org,
lebanon@un.int, lesotho@un.int, liberia@un.int, libya@un.int,
liechtenstein@un.int, lithuania@un.int, luxembourg@un.int, macedonia@un.int,
madagascar@un.int, malawi@un.int, malaysia@un.int, maldives@un.int,
mali@un.int, malta@un.int, marshallislands@un.int, mauritania@un.int,
mauritius@un.int, mexico@un.int, micronesia@un.int, moldova@un.int,
monaco@un.int, mongolia@un.int, morocco@un.int, mozambique@un.int,
myanmar@un.int, namibia@un.int, nepal@un.int, netherlands@un.int,
newzealand@un.int, nicaragua@un.int, niger@un.int, nigeria@un.int,
norway@un.int, oman@un.int, pakistan@un.int, palau@un.int, panama@un.int,
png@un.int, paraguay@un.int, peru@un.int, philippines@un.int, poland@un.int,
portugal@un.int, qatar@un.int, romania@un.int, rwanda@un.int, rusun@un.int,
samoa@un.int, sanmarino@un.int, stp@un.int, saudiarabia@un.int,
senegal@un.int, seychelles@un.int, sierraleone@un.int, singapore@un.int,
slovakia@un.int, slovenia@un.int, solomonislands@un.int, somalia@un.int,
southafrica@un.int, spain@un.int, srilanka@un.int, stkn@un.int,
stlucia@un.int, stvg@un.int, sudan@un.int, suriname@un.int,
swaziland@un.int, sweden@un.int, syria@un.int, tajikistan@un.int,
thailand@un.int, togo@un.int, tto@un.int, tunisia@un.int, turkey@un.int,
turkmenistan@un.int, uganda@un.int, ukraine@un.int, uae@un.int,
tanzania@un.int, uk@un.int, usa@un.int, uruguay@un.int, uzbekistan@un.int,
vutun@undp.org, venezuela@un.int, vietnam@un.int, yemen@un.int,
yugoslavia@un.int, zambia@un.int, zimbabwe@un.int, francophonie@un.int,
redcross@un.int, vatun@undp.org, switzerland@un.int, palun@undp.org"

posted by George Washington at 1:14 PM EST

http://www.911blogger.com/2006/07/talk-radio-mass-mobilization.html

Monday, July 31, 2006

TALK RADIO MASS-MOBILIZATION!

(The following activism appeal was sent in by the owner of False Flag News.com [site currently being updated] and enthusiastically endorsed by Webster Tarpley. Tune in to KPFK this afternoon around 12:30pm Pacific time for a live demo.)

Nag the Neocons-Grab the Gatekeepers: Radio Mass Mobilization For The 9-11 Roundtable on C-SPAN TUE 6:10PM EDT

What if you could stop the next false-flag terror attack and the descent into World War III?

On Tuesday August 1, C-SPAN will re-air the 9-11 Roundtable discussion at 6:10 pm EDT. This is an opportunity we cannot squander, because it may be our best opportunity to expose millions of Americans to the truth about September 11 as a new world war approaches. Anyone who likes to be considered a real 9-11 truth activist must flood the radio stations over the next two days with one point in mind: alerting listeners to the 9-11 conference Tuesday at 6:10 PM on C-SPAN.

Call in to neocons like Sean Hannity & Michael Savage, and make them squirm while alerting their millions of listeners. Get on the phone and badger left Air America jockeys like Randi Rhodes and Al Franken who have avoided 9-11 truth for so long. While mentioning the evidence of an inside job is important, the key must be constantly re-stating the August 1, Tueday 6:10 C-SPAN information.

One key tip:

Remember your audience. When calling neocon stations, talk about the evidence pointing to an inside job, but avoid shrill name-calling of Cheney/Bush and instead try phrases like "real conservatives should investigate 9-11, and they can do so Tuesday on C-SPAN at 6:10. This is not a left/right issue."

When calling the lefty shows, you can probably be more open with your rhetoric, but do not forget to keep mentioning the date, time, and network. Repetition is key! (Did we mention C-SPAN, Tuesday at 6:10 PM?)

In both cases, try to stress the scholarly nature of the conference and the credibility of the speakers.

These next two days are not the time for excuses or self-pity. Last night I called in on Drudge's national show and got the word out to hundreds of thousands, while he could only meekly compare me to Oliver Stone. I called WBZ in Boston and forced the neocon host to say "Wow, those are good points." We must overtake the airwaves in the next two days in order to save the lives of those who will be killed in the next false-flag terror operation, and the ensuing global war.

So get off the message boards, and on to your phones! End the defeatism! Reach millions of middle Americans, not just ten of thousands of like-minded activists in the blogosphere. We have a day and a half to get this done. 100 people making 10 calls a day could be the difference between millions waking up to the truth about September 11.

Will you be amongst those 100 who will save the planet? Or will you just sit at your computer waiting for the next false-flag and nuclear Armageddon?

Go pick up the phone! As one person you can alert millions!

(all times Eastern, if you see a mistake, note it in the comments section below)

NEOCON RADIO HOSTS:

9am-12pm Glenn Beck 888-727-BECK

8:30am-1pm Neil Boortz 877-310-2100

8am-11am Laura Ingraham 800-876-4123

10am-1pm G. Gordon Liddy 800-GG-LIDDY

12-3pm Rush Limbaugh 800-282-2882

12-2 Bill O'Reilly 877-9-NO-SPIN

3pm- 6 pm Sean Hannity 800-941-7326

6pm - 9pm Michael Savage 800-449-8255

LEFT RADIO HOSTS:

Amy Goodman/DemocracyNow! 9am-10 am (212) 209-2900 mail@democracynow.org

Mark Riley and Rachel Maddow 5am-9am 1-866-303-2270

Al Franken 12pm-3pm 1-866-303-2270

Randi Rhodes 3pm-7 pm 866-303-2270

Majority Report with Garafalo and Seder 7pm-10pm 1-866-303-2270

Mike Malloy 10pm-1am 1-866-303-2270

Try your favorite local call in show as well! Get creative: try college radio, urban radio, anything where you can reach people. More talk radio networks in major markets can be found here:

http://www.radiotalk.org/newstalk.html

http://www.radiotalk.org/alltalk.html

posted by reprehensor at 1:16 PM EST

http://www.911blogger.com/2006/07/fliers-for-tuesdays-cspan-broadcast.html

Monday, July 31, 2006

Fliers for the Tuesday's CSPAN broadcast

Matt from 9eleven.info was kind enough to send these in. If you want to promote Tuesday night's C-Span broadcast in your community, these are a great way to do so:

1 Page Flyer
2 Page Flyer

These flyers are also available here: 9eleven.info

Also, Cynthia McKinney is on C-Span tonight at 7:30 EDT:
http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/cspan.csp?command=dprogram&record=187963850

posted by somebigguy at 12:48 PM EST

The fliers:

Bet the bastards thought this was all lost to the mists of time, eh?

This proves that there was a deliberate strategy to target the mainstream and anyone else they could can, and also proves the top inventors of 911 conspiracy propaganda were involved.

And it proves even C-Span can be fooled by a well funded propaganda campaign into believing the conspiracy astroturf was a grassroots effort.


It won't end well.

C-SPAN video can be seen here:

http://www.c-span.org/video/?193155-1/september-11th-terrorist-attacks

Life after "Loose Change"

It's nice to see Avery seems to be free of the "truther" octopus , though he is marked.   I don't know if the author intended this, but the title is a clue to the phoniness of the movement Avery and company were seduced into fronting.  No one rises that fast to fame on very few credentials or history without a backing interest.  And that interest may not have your best interests:

 https://www.vocativ.com/usa/us-politics/rapid-rise-fall-dylan-avery/

The Rapid Rise and Fall of Dylan Avery

With his 9/11 conspiracy doc "Loose Change," director Dylan Avery became an Internet sensation and a leader of a movement. Then the film grew into a monster that nearly ruined his life

 Highlights:

At 30 years old, Avery is still dealing with the aftershocks of his movie, which he released in December 2005 when he was just 21. In a matter of months, Loose Change had been viewed on the Internet more than 10 million times, by 20,000 people per day (All before YouTube was a household name). Suddenly, Avery became a youth icon and a kind of national celebrity, galvanizing the 9/11 Truth Movement—those who fervently believed the Sept. 11 attacks were coordinated by the U.S. government.
He was referred to as “a real hero” and earned praise from renowned artists like director David Lynch, who said of the film: “It’s not so much what they say, it’s the things that make you look at what you thought you saw in a different light.”

...

Even now, the second edition’s appeal is obvious. The presentation is rough and edgy, a compilation of stitched-together images culled from raw TV news coverage of 9/11, set against a backdrop of hypnotic hip-hop beats. For 80 minutes, Avery, in his distinctly skeptical post-adolescent voice—the sound of youthful arrogance—directs the viewer’s attention to suspicious activity, basically saying what to think.
Early on, for instance, there is a picture from the Department of Justice’s terrorism manual, released in 2000, that shows the World Trade Center set in crosshairs. Soon afterward, a sentence from “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” a 90-page report published that same year by a neoconservative think tank, pops up on the screen: “The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” (The quote’s context, describing a timetable for a technological makeover of the military, is conveniently left out of the narrative.)

Bold mine.  This was one of the many dishonest  and deceptive pieces of propaganda and Avery didn't start it.  He just fell for it.

Avery then points out that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are among the report’s authors, the setup for a key assertion that comes later in the film: The twin towers, made of steel, could not have been brought down solely by airliners, since steel melts at 2,750 degrees while jet fuel burns up at 1,500. We watch grainy footage of the structures collapsing, the nature of the destruction apparently consistent with that of a controlled demolition. Taken together, the sequence is enormously effective (though debunkers were quick to point out that steel loses half its strength at 1,200 degrees, enough to have brought down the towers).

So much for termites, er, thermite.

 “It came out when the 9/11 Truth Movement was at its peak,” says Jonathan Kay, author of Among the Truthers. “All this new technology was available. At the time, people were not used to grassroots activists making high-quality video propaganda. People assumed that if it had high production values, it was something to take seriously.

Kay, dense or oblivious about other connections in the "truth" movement, makes a very good point here that can be expanded into all sorts of promotions: T-shirts, webdesign, signage, etc.   It used to take a significant investment of resources and skills to create and print logos.  Now branding can be virtually instant and distinguishing a legitimate grassroots organization from conspiracy astroturf is almost impossible based on  production values alone.  [One of the more pathetic attempts to appear grassroots that's still used is crude signage in black felt or tape.  In the post digital world it just looks strange.]  

When the boys were 17, Rowe dropped out of high school and eventually enlisted in the Army, while Avery applied to film school, at SUNY Oneonta, but didn’t get in. After he graduated, in 2002, he took a job doing local construction and began to sketch out a screenplay. It was a fantastical caper about a couple of boys who, sensing something nefarious, decide to investigate 9/11, unearthing a vast conspiracy and becoming heroes in the process. “It was fun,” Avery explains. “About kids fucking shit up. The original script ended with a rally on the White House lawn, and then I think we all fake our own deaths.”
The plan was to splice the fictional story with real-life news footage, but then it turned into a documentary. “It was kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he admits. “The feature script definitely paved the way for what was about to come.”

Hindsight being 20/20 it could also have been a flag for the psychological yearnings behind the fiction, yearnings that could be played.   

The next two years were a whirlwind. The boys toured the country, screening their film and attending Truth conferences, where they were the stars. They were courted by Alex Jones, the rabid conservative conspiracy theorist and radio host who, among other things, believes the MSG found in juice boxes and kettle chips is part of a “chemical warfare operation” to spread homosexuality. He was at the forefront of the Truth Movement and rubbed shoulders with celebrities like Charlie Sheen, who was a Truther himself and a big fan of Loose Change. In early fall 2006, Jones facilitated an introduction between Sheen and the boys, suggesting the actor might narrate the next version of the movie, which would, with his cache, lead to a theatrical release.

From here the rest is a foregone conclusion:  the rise, the heady feeling of self importance inflated by ego flattering "minders",   the attempts at manipulation, some successful, some not:

 Avery was tired and beginning to grow wary of both the Truth Movement and his place in it. “There were anti-Semites saying the Israeli intelligence agency pulled off 9/11,” he says. “They wanted me to put that stuff in my films.” In a bizarre twist, some in the movement accused him of working for the government, conducting a disinformation campaign to discredit Truthers.

This is one of the many signs Avery and others were drawn into a complex political fraud instigated by Holocaust deniers and White Power organizers.  that and the perennial lie there are "agents" in the movement.

Others, who disagreed with his ideas, berated him on a popular blog called Screw Loose Change, where commenters regularly said things like, “Jeez, fucking Hitler must be proud of Dylan.”

Ironically Screw Loose Change was one of the worst enablers of the "truther" fraud.  By refusing to distinguish between people inventing the theories and the people conned by them, they validated the con.  Calling everyone scammed by the "truth" movement a Nazi is not helpful and appears to confirm the false idea of "agents" spreading "disinfo".

“Loose Change happened because I wanted to make a film,” he said. “It was born out of the passion of wanting to be a filmmaker. And then Loose Change took over my life, and it’s almost like filmmaking is completely out of the question.”

 ...

Yet he’s excited about his new film, Black and Blue, especially because it’s grounded in fact-based stories, not theories, about people who have been abused by the police. And though questions still linger about 9/11, such as why, on Sept. 6, 2001, the daily average for put-options on United Airlines stock quadrupled, he no longer tortures himself with speculation. “In my truly angry times, in 2005 or 2006, if you asked if the Bush administration planned the attacks, I would have said, ‘Fuck yeah’.”
But now?
“I don’t think Bush could plan a bowl of cereal,” he says.

 ...

 Avery is silent for a moment. “It’s a dark, dangerous world, the world of conspiracy. You make a commitment and either stick with it to the very end, or you don’t. It’s easy to get sucked in, and really hard to get sucked back out.”

 I don't know.  The minute I knew a network of racist con artists were behind all the major "truther" talking points, it was really easy for me.

.....

My biggest criticism of the interview is  Vocative itself, a relatively new media outlet.  It's great Dylan is coming forth with his story, but try to chose a media platform with a history, like Huffo or Salon.  No offense to "vocative", but it's only a year old:

Vocativ is an online news website founded by Mati Kochavi.^[2] The site publishes trending worldwide stories and highly-produced, documentary-style videos for broadcast online and on television. Vocativ was launched in 2013 by Mati Kochavi. Vocativ has a team of about 80 news editors, writers and producers from publications like the New York Times, CNN and Reuters.^[3][4] Vocativ utilizes "Deep-web" technology to publish news articles. Kochavi is an entrepreneur owning a security firm AGT International and 3i-MIND, a data-mining outlet.^[5] In February, 2014, Vocativ announced a partnership with the NBCUniversal News Group to produce short video segments and prime time hours for the MSNBC cable network and other NBCUNG platforms. The New York Times reported that the chief executive of talent agency William Morris Endeavor, Ari Emmanuel, had taken a personal interest in Vocativ and that his company was negotiating for an equity stake.^[6]

Those who have broken free of the "truth" movement need to be on guard against unconsciously falling into old patterns. This has the marks of Avery shunning the "mainstream media".  If he thought about it a moment, the mainstream media wasn't responsible for most of the attacks; it was cowboy bloggers operating off deceptive information, usually obtained from con artists and social engineers.  And while MSM is not undeserving of criticism, they are far and away more responsible than cowboy bloggers with an ax to grind against the left.

Good luck, Dylan.

Stormfront, Obama and Murder

A couple days before Hitler's birthday the Guardian reported on the Southern Poverty Law Center study linking the highest profile Nazi website to hate killings.  This hardly came as a surprise:

More than 100 hate-crime murders linked to single website, report finds

• Southern Poverty Law Center singles out Stormfront.org
• Report says users disproportionately linked to major killings

• Amanda Holpuch in New York
• theguardian.com, Friday 18 April 2014 08.16 EDT

People charged with the murders of almost 100 people can be linked to a single far-right website, according to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

The White Nationalist web forum Stormfront.org says it promotes values of “the embattled white minority,” and its users include Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a 2011 massacre in Norway, and Wade Michael Page, who shot and killed six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in 2012.
After a two-year investigation, the SPLC said (pdf) that since Stormfront became one of the first hate sites on the internet in 1995, its registered users have been disproportionately responsible for major killings. The report was released a month early after white supremacist Frazier Glenn Miller, also known as Frazier Glenn Cross, was accused of killing three people at a Jewish center in Kansas City on Sunday.
“We know that the people who are going to commit the kinds of crimes, like the kinds of crimes Miller committed last weekend, this is where they live,” said Heidi Beirich, report author and a director at the SPLC’s Intelligence Project. The report, released on Thursday, calls Stormfront the “largest hate site in the world” and “a magnet and breeding ground for the deadly and deranged.”
Of the site’s more than 286,000 users, only a small sliver are highly active, the report found, with fewer than 1,800 people logging in each day. While the SPLC only identified 10 murderers out of this large user base, researchers think the murderers’ connection to the site is important because it shows how the website offers a community for people who commit these crimes.

“It’s pretty clear that websites like Stormfront are breeding grounds for people who are just enraged at their situation, it’s there that people find the reasons their lives aren’t as they had hoped and Stormfront helps them find the enemy that is standing in their way – whether it be Jews, African Americans, immigrants and so on,” said Beirich. “Unfortunately it’s not very surprising that people who live in this kind of stew of violent racism eventually pick up a gun and do something about it at some point.”

Stormfront proudly declares that “every month is white history month” at the top of its site and forum discussions concern things such as the latest news stories, ideology, poetry and creative writing.

“The fact of the matter is that more people have been killed domestically by radical right extremists than Islamic extremists since 9/11 and where you find a lot of these people is on these sites,” said Beirich.

SPLC also identified 10 characteristics shared by killers who were active online including unemployment, posting on more than one hate website, and sustained activity on these sites.

Stormfront founder Don Black, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, criticized Miller for giving users of his site a bad reputation. “We have enough of a problem with how we are portrayed without some homicidal whack job coming along and reinforcing that,” Black told the Daily Beast. After he was banned from Stormfront, the SLPC said Miller posted more than 12,000 times on a similar forum, Vanguard News Network, whose slogan is “No Jews, Just Right.”

The SPLC’s report said hate killings skyrocketed after Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009.
“We have seen and documented at the SPLC an enormous growth of groups on the radical right, particularly in the last five years,” said Mark Potok, the report’s editor and a senior fellow on the Intelligence Project. “That growth quite clearly seems to be driven by the appearance of Barack Obama on the political scene in the fall of 2008 and of course his subsequent election.”

Potok noted that these hate sites are protected by first amendment rights because they don’t contain concrete plots to commit crimes. He said that law enforcement official unquestionably pay attention to these sites, but criticized how much analysis is done on users by federal authorities.

“We feel pretty strongly that the Department of Homeland Security, which is the lead agency in this country for developing intelligence about these groups and individuals, has more or less taken its eye of the ball in the sense that since 2009 the department seems more focused on Jihadists terrorism,” Potok said.

 Bold mine.   The radical right was mobilizing from day one of Obama's election, because , you know, he's BLACK.   You'd think the collapse of civilization was immanent.  Two memes were fast tracked and spread heavily in the "truther" communities:    Joker Obama, a repurposed joker Bush, and Obama Hitler.

One of the first places to report Joker Obama is a website devoted to battling "liberal bias":

Obama Joker Poster Popping Up In Los Angeles

By Noel Sheppard | August 1, 2009 | 20:06

 Have you seen this poster?
Apparently, it's beginning to appear in odd places in Los Angeles, but nobody seems to know who's responsible for it.

Radio host Tammy Bruce posted some pictures of this odd creation at her blog Saturday morning (h/t Pamela Geller) leading me to investigate further.
At this point, all I could find on the subject was an April 25 article from Bedlam Magazine:

 A poster of Barack Obama in Heath Ledger-style Joker make-up with the legend 'Socialism' beneath it has been popping up recently on surfaces around L.A. It does not appear to be in the same category as the many benign take-offs on the Shepard Fairey 'Hope' poster, such as the one by Australian James Lillis (more of a straightforward spoof that merely substituted a Shepardized image of Heath Ledger as Joker on the Obama poster). 

 Here are Tammy's snaps:

 Makes you wonder who's behind this.

It's not difficult to figure out.  Though I expect Sheppard is angling for something more specific than the "hide the white women" crowd.[Wikipedia attributes this image to Firas Alkhateeb. Only later would "socialism" be added. Previous version are by Ross Brummet  and a couple college Republicans. ]

A couple days later the same blogger would opine about a double standard:

Not surprisingly, the Obama Joker Poster reported by NewsBusters Saturday is already drawing some outrage.
According to a television station where the posters have been spotted, "Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable President Earl Ofari Hutchinson is calling the depiction, politically mean spirited and dangerous."
Yet, when Vanity Fair's Politics & Power blog published a somewhat similar visual representation of George W. Bush last July, nobody seemed to complain. In fact, throughout the Bush years, demeaning drawings of the President and Vice President Dick Cheney were quite commonplace.

 And:

 Hmmm. I wonder where the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable was when Vanity Fair published this last July:

And where was the outrage when the Village Voice published this on the cover of its October 26, 2004, issue:

Like many conservatives  Sheppard misses the point.  Unfortunately he doesn't provide links for context, but at a wild ass guess the Bush images were a commentary on Bushes policies, and the fact, let's face it:  as  president Bush was a joke.

The Obama Joker is more offensive not just because of the undertones of racism, but the outright lie he's a socialist.  There is a difference between criticizing someone for something they actually are vs. making up shite to support reactionary paranoia.   This is a false equivalency.  Mind, it's possible Sheppard isn't even aware of this, perhaps believing organized political racism no longer exists.  The SPLC's report pretty much demolishes that idea.

While these were popular with the KKK friendly crowd, they didn't invent them.   And Obama Hitler comes directly from the marketing department of the Larouche cult:

These are relevant to this blog because the more blatant racist "truthers" and libertarian crowd around them were pushing the Obama joker meme from word go.  In fact "Infowars" had a campaign to push the meme, and much like Paultards, was able to mobilize the fringe base to make it a reality:


 http://www.infowars.com/joker-obama-posters-to-go-viral/

‘JOKER’ Obama Posters to go viral

Infowars
August 5, 2009

DON’T ALLOW POLITICALLY CORRECT OBAMANOIDS TO STOP FREE SPEECH & POLITICAL DISSENT.
POST THESE EVERYWHERE YOU CAN IN YOUR AREA AND ONLINE

Note: Obama Joker posters should be posted in public commons where other fliers, public announcements, handbills, etc., are posted. Please do not post on federal or private property as this will be considered vandalism and will be counterproductive and diminish the message of the Obama Joker poster.

This was four days after the NewsBusters report.  The posters in Tammy's pics were probably part of a campaign in progress Alex Jones almost certainly was aware of. 

Invented, reporposed or coopted, the anti-Obama memes were a great moral boost to racist fringe culture.  A picture doesn't make anyone kill and I certainly don't think it should be banned.  But it's not too much to expect the agencies that should be tracking these things to use this as a flag to follow the trend. It comes as no surprise that Stormfront.org was a hotbed for discussion around the Obama Joker: Google search

What is a surprise is the link to the first News Busters article about the poster the same day it was published:

http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t626350/

Calling into question exactly how unaware NewBusters was of the origins if a faithful reader picked it up so soon.  Posted by  a self described Libertarian:

salvete amici

Forum Member

Join Date: Oct 2005

Location: Christian, Free-market Libertarian

The subject clearly has support, wandering into the delusional:

Spread as many as such posters as possible on the most busy places, if enough people see through the deception they fall.

Oookaaaaay.  LA is still standing.  Guess the poster brigade didn't put up enough.


Meanwhile the people sucked into conspiracy culture and particularly the "truth" movement would do well to shun memes of racist origin.  Better yet, shun the entire culture before being labeled a race traitor and targeted by violent nuts.

One last thought: could the embrace of Obama joker in  9/11 "truth" been the death knell of the fake "leftist" truther groups?   People pushing "truth" were always a pale faced bunch.  Only in the very early days was there even a smattering of dark-ish complected truthers.  This would be paralleled in the Tea party, and much like the Tea Party, is a sign someone, somewhere is LYING about the origins and goals of the "movement".  Except in the "truth" movement the lie was more believable because the anti war left was very critical of Bush's handling of 9/11.  What Black Tea Partiers were thinking I don't know: the anti black racism of the Tea Party was far, far more obvious on the street than the anti-Jew "truthers".

 In any case, the Obama Joker was actively pushed by "truthers" in mid 2009.  I remember seeing it and being neither offended nor impressed.  I don't remember seeing the socialism tag though.  Had I known it's origins, I would have been much less impressed.  I do remember a spin off of the meme, Hopenosis, which I thought was forced and idiotic. This was offensive because it mocked people's quite understandable desire for economic relief after the Bush years. Mocking a public figure is one thing; having a go at people while they're down is mean spirited. Perhaps if it had been coupled with thoughtful criticism it would have been different.  But I did feel the aversive effects of Hope-nosis.  Like Obama Joker it signaled the end of any attempts to woo the left into 9/11 "truth" and the complete abandonment of any leftist "truther" fronts.

Michael Ruppert: R.I.P

I have mixed feelings about Ruppert. 

I think he was a victim of a very elaborate fraud, that entangled him in the "truth" movement net.   Some people observe much of his conspiracy material is repackaged Larouche propaganda;Ruppert even admitted to being impressed with Larouche, though clearly he'd never heard of the death of Jeremiah Duggan, or he'd be less impressed :

 http://www.thenation.com/blog/155983/september-11-x-files#

  On March 31 of last year, for instance, he published a report on an economic conference in Moscow where the opening speaker was a fellow who works for Lyndon LaRouche, the conspiracy-theorist/political cult leader. "I share a near universal respect of the LaRouche organization's detailed and precise research," Ruppert wrote. "I have not, however, always agreed with [its] conclusions."

Also, Ruppert had a girlfriend who he believed was a CIA agent:

 http://www.thenation.com/blog/155983/september-11-x-files#

The Ex-Cop Who Connects the Dot

By his own account, Ruppert has long been a purveyor of amazing tales. In 1981 he told the Los Angeles Herald Examiner a bizarre story about himself: While a cop in the 1970s, he fell in love with a mysterious woman who, he came to believe, was working with the mob and US intelligence. Only after she left him, Ruppert said, did he figure out that his girlfriend had been a CIA officer coordinating a deal in which organized crime thugs were transporting weapons to Kurdish counterrevolutionaries in Iran in exchange for heroin. In an interview with the newspaper, the woman denied Ruppert's account and questioned his mental stability.

Hmmm...the exact MO of a political or cult operation: when caught, accuse target of being "crazy".

After sifting through the sifting facts, I'm of the opinion Ruppert was socially engineered by frauds who wanted to convince him the CIA was after him; this would make him open to their conspiracy propaganda.  From there they could rely on Ruppert to mis-connect the dots, knowing full well the proof of CIA involvement with 9/11 or his personal life was non-existent. 

It never appeared Ruppert became suspicious a private group of  organized political conartists could just as easily explain his experiences as the "CIA".  Or perhaps he did become suspicious or even discovered it...and realized his life was wasted pushing a fabricated lie by some persons pretending to be his friends.


It looks like we'll never know for sure.   He's gone now:


http://www.collapsenet.com/free-resources/collapsenet-public-access/news-alerts/item/12454-collapsenets-founder-michael-c-ruppert-has-committed-suicide

Tuesday, 15 April 2014 04:56

CollapseNet's Founder, Michael C. Ruppert, Has Committed Suicide - UPDATE 04-16-2014: MCR's Suicidal Tendecies and the Note He Left

UPDATE 04-16-2014
Mike's Suicidal Tendencies
from Jenna Orkin
In response to the internet sages who have concluded, in the face of all known evidence from the people who were most intimately familiar with him as well as with the admittedly real dangers that had faced him over the course of his life as an investigative journalist, that Mike did not kill himself but was in fact murdered, his suicidal ideation goes back at least eight years.  As a small example, below are excerpts from a few of his emails sent from Venezuela in 2006.  In addition, he would call at any and all hours to be talked out of jumping from the roof or offing himself in some other way.
A foray into the seedier barrios of Caracas during a protest was one part journalistic adventure but one bigger part, courting danger.  For a hero's death was devoutly to be wished.  Failing that, he'd settle - as happened in the end - for death by any means available.  On one occasion, he confessed to having tied his necktie around his neck as part of an effort to hang himself - and you can be sure I would not put forth such an implausible notion if it were not true - from the shower fixture.  He said that he didn't go through with it because he wished to spare his roommate at the time, Carlos Ruiz, the trauma of finding him the next morning.
He finally left Venezuela in November, ending up, after a detour to Canada, at my apartment.  But his reprieve from the alien environment that had not welcomed him the way he had dreamed brought only brief respite.  For the next fourteen months, he contemplated suicide on an almost daily basis so that whenever I went to work or the grocery store, I made him promise not to kill himself before I came back.  His word - his "honor" - mattered to him more than anything so we took it one day at a time, a notion that was familiar to him from AA.
More on this period in due course.

To Jenna Orkin, 9-24-2006
...Every day I long for death because I just don´t see how this current limbo is ever going to end. I just keep waking up and going through motions. I wrote a new article today and start another tomorrow. I do miss the US and especially my loved ones but I know I can´t ever go home. That would betray my moral decision and put my life at greater risk than I feel it is here.
   I may wind up being the writer that no country wants. Then what?
   Sigh. I´ve been doing the anger thing, especially at those close to me who betrayed me so deeply. That´s what´s really taken the heart out of me...

To colleagues at Fromthewilderness.com,  9-26-2006
...I am flat out of energy, spirit and hope now...  
   I am ready to die and the only thing I want to know is that I am totally clean with all the people who are FTW.
   I saw a great documentary on Socrates last night. They made him drink hemlock because he kept throwing peoplés [sic] bullshit and sloppy thinking in their faces.
   Sounds a little familiar. I am not trying to torment or worry any of those who love me and care for me. I am hanging by a thread here.   best,  Mike

To colleagues regarding plans for dissolution of Fromthewilderness.com and Mike's possible return to the US, 10-19-2006 :
...anythng I do now will be out of the public eye. Guidance yes, but I need to get offstage for a good long while. That is both a pressure and a drug I need to detox from...
  With the push of a button [referring to the 'send' key] the world leaves my shoulders.
Recipients unrecorded, 10-19-2006 21:32
...The bridge is still calling. I say that not to threaten or pressure. I share it just to get it out of my head. I have had two close suicides and the breakup of an engagement in less than three years. Only now am I coming to grips with all of that and much more...

***********************************
From Wes:
It is my one affirmative goal in all of this mess to make sure that the truth be told, and that Mike’s death not be bastardized or be made the product of “conspiracy theory”, as had happened to his good friend, Gary Webb.
I can personally back what Jenna has said above. Mike threatened to kill himself on multiple occasions, verbally and in writing. As just one example, the following is an excerpt from an e-mail exchange I had with Mike on July 19, 2012:
“On 7/19/2012 7:14 PM, Mike Ruppert wrote:
You can just tell me how much came in and I can write myself a Collapsenet check for it.
I have been following very clear and specific spiritual direction since May. It could not have been more clear.
The weeks since have been, without exception, the happiest time and most growth-filled time of my life. All I did was farm and live with the land and pray. My leaving the company was essential so that you guys would have something to lean on. You have done well. You need the company. I don't.
48 hours ago I was well into planning suicide out back. I had nowhere to go.The crops are unbelievable. The corn is eight feet high. There will be 50 pounds of potatoes, watermleon, squash, pumpkins and we brought four trees back to producing that didn't do anything last year; peaches, plums, pears. It's wonderful.
Then Doug called and he had it all figured out, without even knowing how bad it was here. Mount Blanca is a sacred and very special place right now and I am being called there... no "ordered" there, with no more than what I can take in the Rav. I know this is true because I have already begun grieving for the loss of this place and the connection I have made here. Now I understand what it was like for the native people to lose their lands.
The objective is to save the crops and see them used lovingly and to get as straight as possible with the landlord and to get me to Colorado ASAP. Every time this has happened to me something even bigger has come from it. Every time.
There's a ton of shit in play right now on many, many levels.” (emphasis added)

But far more relevant than Mike’s past threats are the actual notes that he left before committing suicide - one for his friend who found him (Jack), and one for his life partner (Jesse). I have read them both, and can confirm that both are in Mike’s handwriting and both contain the same basic confession to suicide. His note to his friend, Jack, appears below. We will not publish the second note to Jesse, as it is personal to her and we want to respect her privacy as best we can.
This is MCR's note to Jack:
[image]

There is absolutely no doubt or question about it, Mike Ruppert took his own life.
Rest in Peace, my brother.
Wes
Wesley T. Miller
President & CEO
Collapse Network, Inc.
*******

04-15-2014
I have been informed that MCR has committed suicide. I am devastated, and very, very sad...

We'll report more as information becomes available.

PLEASE DO NOT SPREAD SPECULATION!

MCR was my friend, my client (I was his attorney) and business partner in CollapseNet. We will gather and report THE FACTS about MCR's death, and nothing else. On my honor, the truth of MCR's death WILL BE TOLD, and his memory will be honored.

Media inquiries should come right here, to me, via ceo@collapsenet.com.

Rest In Peace Mike. I am so sorry that you are gone. You fought the greatest of fights, you opened thousands of eyes and you have earned your place in history, and in our hearts.

Much more to come...

Wesley T. Miller
*****
04-15-2014
From Jenna Orkin:
A brief Comment on Mike Ruppert's Death:
We always knew it could come to this.
To write about Mike requires the tranquility of recollection but at the moment, all is turmoil.
Mike, you told us, "Evolve or perish."  Yet in Apocalypse Man you merged them, speaking of death as the ultimate evolution.  One day we'll all find out whether that is, in fact, the case but it's not the message you used to impart!
Among the emails that have tumbled in this evening is a wonderful link which is sorely needed at such a time: Hope and Courage http://www.oilempire.us/hope.html.  Accompanying it, the following quote from Thomas Keneally's Schindler's List:
"Where's the electric fence?" Clara asked the woman.  To her distraught mind, it was a reasonable question to ask, and Clara had no doubt that the friend, if she had any sisterly feeling, would point the exact way to the wires.   The answer the woman gave was just as crazed, but it was one that had a fixed point of view, a
balance, a perversely sane core.
"Don't kill yourself on the fence, Clara," the woman urged her.  "If you do that, you'll never know what happened to you."

It has always been the most powerful of answers to give to the intending suicide.   Kill yourself and you'll never find out how the plot ends.   Clara did not have any vivid interest in the plot.  But somehow the answer was adequate.  She turned around.  When she got back to her barracks, she felt more troubled than when she'd set out to look for the fence.  But her Cracow friend had -- by her reply -- somehow cut her off from suicide as an option.  http://www.amazon.com/Schindlers-List-Thomas-Keneally/dp/0671880314/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397569391&sr=8-1&keywords=schindler%27s+keneally 
****
The hardest part of this, for me, is that everything I did with or for Mike was in an effort to prevent this day from ever happening.  CollapseNet was literally formed to provide a means for Mike to make a living. In doing so, he was brought back into a world of despair that he thought he had retired from. He absorbed the pain of the world on a daily basis until he could not take it any longer, and he left CollapseNet when it got to be too much. But that pain kept following him, and there is nothing that anyone could do about it for him.
He told me many times that Jenna saved his life after Venezuela. I reached out to him in 2009 to help resurrect his career and his honor, and help get him back on his feet again. I know his death is not on me, but I still can't help feeling, unlike his experience with Jenna, that I failed...or that by "helping" him, it merely brought him back on his path of self-destruction.
My grandfather once told me, "Never mourn the death of a fool," and suicide has always fit into that category to me. But not this time...this time, it just really fucking hurts.
I'm so sorry you're gone, Mike. I hope you are finally at peace, and one with Gaia.
Wes

Cue now for all the vultures to start exploiting Ruppert's corpse and legacy to promote the "truth" scam.

Michael Ruppert was a disillusioned idealist who thought he could help people. "Peak oil" spoke to the progressive left fed up with the West's oil dependence and apparently doing little to reduce it.

Unfortunately, he was manipulated and preyed on by a toxic malignant scam known as the "Truth" Movement.  Remember this with humility: anyone can be conned.

Rest in peace, Ruppert, you deserve it.

For more on Ruppert:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ruppert

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703932904574511942676683258

Revleft: Occupy and the Tides Foundation

Insightful comment on Occupy.  The relevance of the Tides Foundation to the "Truth" movement will be the subject of a coming blog.
For clairty, while I agree with many of the author's points, I don't share their aversion to all foundation funding on principle. As long as the connections and goals are not fraudulent think tanks and foundations can have a place in a democratic socio-political system.

In comparison, Vis Mises and Campaign for Liberty are frauds: they pretend to be for everyone's freedoms, but actually are working to roll back civil rights.
 
----------------------
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2269900&postcount=13

21st October 2011, 06:47

by  Prairie Fire 

 Regarding the "occupy" movement...

You need to consider that Adbusters itself is funded by the Tides foundation, who's contributors include prominent capitalists (Rockefeller, Ford, Pew, Heinz, Mellon, Gates, Hewlett, Packard, Johnson, Soros,etc).

So, Adbusters itself is co-opted from the beginning ( as are other moderate "left" Tides recipients: ACORN, Amnesty, Democracy Now, Greenpeace, Human Rights Watch, League of Women Voters, MoveOn.org, NAACP, PETA, Ploughshares, a bunch of anti-Tar Sands "environmentalist" organizations in Canada,etc), so it is fair to say, I think, that by following the money trail one can see whom the initiators of the "occupy" movement are taking marching orders from.

In my city with the "occupy" movement that sprang up, we noticed a marked disparity between the way that the city municipal government was actually quite accommodating to the "occupy" protesters, as opposed to how they handled large-scale demonstrations in previous years (i.e. G8, etc).

Contrary to all the claims that there is a media black out on the occupy movement, it seems to get front-page coverage in every publication and news outlet that I come across. Sure, some of the coverage is a bit displeased about what is taking place (of course the bourgeoisie have different factions with their own agendas, so some of the more die-hard rightist factions are going to gripe a bit), but ultimately the "occupy" coverage in the bourgeois press has translated into publicity and promotion for a movement that otherwise never would have went global.

While I'm told that some sectors of organized labour are starting to get involved in these things from city to city(i.e. some of the Postal Workers Shop stewards in my city), ultimately what stuck out to me most like a sore thumb was the total absence of the working class in the "occupy" movement, and that in and of itself was enough to get me to take a closer look at it.

While the anarcho-syndicalists that I know have been crowing at how it is a "movement without leaders!", it is also a movement without objectives. It is a movement without a program, a movement without tactics, and in the face of the very real attacks on labour across North America (in my country, the government is again passing back-to work legislation against the Air Canada workers, as they did previously this year against the Postal Workers), it is fulfilling a diversionary role and is undermining the fighting forces of the working class that were already in place, rather than strengthening them.

I know that many in my city were excited to run out into the milieu of the local "occupy" movement that sprang up, start disseminating literature, and bring some level of political coherence to the forces gathered.

Me, I avoided this movement like the plague for a few reasons:

1. What (class) forces where behind this endeavour

2. the working class, by and large, was not participating (let alone in a leadership role)

3. Marxist-Leninists organize on a definite basis (i.e. a given workplace, a community/town, an educational institution, etc), because this is the way to build concrete political forms and organizations, and these are the precondition to actually having some real socio-economic power and overthrowing the existing relations of things.

Best case scenario, the occupy movement is going to be like the Battle of Seattle, or similar movements. If I had to make a clairvoyant prediction, I would guess that:

* Frustrated petty-bourgeoisie students will hang out in the park at the centre of my city for a few days, their numbers constantly declining,

*The revisionists, anarchists and other "usual suspects" of the activist "scene" will come out of the wood-work and hand out conflicting literature and pamphlets to these people. Over-all, they will descend on the "occupy" movement like carrion birds on a rotting corpse, all the while declaring that this is the revolution (or at least a preliminary stage,), because they are too fucking lazy and incompetent to organize anything themselves, so they attach themselves to any mass-movement like a leech attaches itself to a swimmers leg, tailing the liberals and social-dems (again). It also doesn't help that they have no understanding what-so-ever of the class forces at work here.

* A few token reps from this or that Union will show up for a day or so, but ultimately the composition of those gathered will be Students and the usual suspects from activist circles.

* There will be some interesting experiments with forms of mass participatory democracy, but ultimately it will be self defeating because they are chasing an idealized conception of "consensus", rather than (perish the thought) Democratic Centralism, or any other majority decision making method that involves a majority decision and responsibility to commit to decisions that have been taken (even if you voted against them).

* This movement without a program will run out of steam within the month, and that everything will return to how it was.

* Several forces will be derailed from ongoing work that was already in progress and was not initiated by a post-modern bourgeois magazine.

This is the situation as I see it. While all of these hipsters keep trying to re-invent the wheel every decade, the tactics and game plan for a revolution are more or less unchanged for over century now.

What works: Organize the working class, Organize on a definite basis so that you actually have real power (i.e. if you organize in a work place, you can call a strike), have defined objectives, and by doing ongoing work among the people you will develop the subjective conditions for revolution because the more you lead the people into even the most minor confrontations with the status quo (i.e. wage and benefit disputes, etc), the more they learn first hand about the nature of the bourgeois state and stratified class society, and all reformist options are revealed as ineffective and are exhausted. Solidify these organizations into the party, and seize power as an organized class force from another organized class force (the bourgeois state).

What doesn't work: Gathering a bunch of students and random individuals downtown when a call is issued by a capitalist-backed "left" magazine, no agenda, no program, no participation of the working class, no real power or clout (because the random individuals gathered don't represent collectives with the power to disrupt production, etc), no organizational forms, no game plan, and waiting with signs in a given area until people get bored/see how ineffective it is and go home. 

That last paragraph 100% applies to people conned into the "Truth" movement:  leaders claiming to be experienced organizers just calling for random gatherings "in the streets"(or wherever).   And when it did "work", it was because is wasn't really random; it was the Alex Jones patriot base being rallied under the pretence of grass roots.  

It won't end well.

9/11 Truth? I Don't Think So by William Arkin

 Another blog on the "truth" movement lost to the memoryhole.  Formerly at the Washington Post, now only found on some private archives:

https://hydrablog.csusm.edu/2006/05/911-truth-i-dont-think-so.html

Mostly resurrecting this for further documentation of 911truth.org.  Arkin's analysis of the "truth" movement leaders and political context is, as usual for persons unaware the movement was a rightwing front, accurate and yet incomplete.  Bold mine where he nails it.

-------

9/11 Truth? I Don't Think So

William Arkin
5/27/2006

Every day, I receive a half dozen Emails and a score or more comments from 9/11 rejectionists. The 9/11 cover-up, according to these correspondents, is that the U.S. government was complicit, even responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Like those who often write to tell me that the Pentagon, the FBI and/or the intelligence agencies are following them, that they are mind control victims whose lives have been ruined by directed energy weapons in space or the transmitters implanted in their teeth, I have a special place for this mass of correspondence. It is called delete.

So when the headline crossed my desktop on Monday that "Over 70 million American Adults Support New 9/11 Investigation," I admit that I fell for it and clicked on the link.

The tale is depressing. The 9/11 truth seekers, that self-declared movement who now count in their membership a number of high profile celebrities, turn out to be exactly what I thought they were: predatory and devious, seekers of polarization and not light, abusive of the political system, contemptuous of anything that even resembles the "truth."

There was a moment in December 2004 after President Bush nominated Bernard Kerik to be Secretary of Homeland Security that I thought the national security paradigm had finally changed in America.

Kerik, to refresh flagging memories, led the New York City Police Department through 9/11.

I always interpreted the White House's selection of Kerik as a need and a desire to neutralize the 9/11 families. I don't mean a specific organization, nor a specific cause. I mean the mass of civilians who had become a powerful political force. Lives torn apart by a diabolical terrorist attack, they demanded action, accountability and investigation, speaking out despite the "men working" signs guarding national security making.

Normal citizens found themselves compelled by loss and shock. These were not anti-war activists, nor a partisan special interest working on behalf of a single agenda. In the aftermath of 9/11, they were instantly conferred with respect and given voice: their very presence insured that the events of that day remained specific and devastating, that 9/11 would not become some political football or reality show for the administration or its opponents to abuse.

But national security is men's work, and by the end of 2004, the men in charge had had enough. By appointing Kerik, I thought the President was specifically someone who could represent a sanctioned view of 9/11. Kerik would turn the citizen's movement into just another constituency, a special interest that needed to be dealt with but one marginalized rather than revered.

Fast forward to 911Truth.org's press release Monday. "Although the Bush administration continues to exploit September 11 to justify domestic spying, unprecedented spending and a permanent state of war," it said, "a new Zogby poll reveals that less than half of the American public trusts the official 9/11 story or believes the attacks were adequately investigated."

The poll, conducted from Friday, May 12 through Tuesday, May 16, shows, according to 911truth.org, that:

42% of Americans believe there has indeed been a cover up,
45% think "Congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the attacks, including whether any US government officials consciously allowed or helped facilitate their success"

Janice Matthews, executive director of 911truth.org said that there was "mounting evidence for U.S. government involvement in 9/11."

911truth.org went on to quote poll co-author W. David Kubiak as saying that the 9/11 "myth" is "the administration's primary source of political and war-making power."

The organization then offered the view that if more Americans were exposed to "independent 9/11 research," that is, the mass of conspiracy theories that is being exploited by this Star Wars bar of "justice" activists, "about 90 percent would support a new investigation of the events of that fateful day."

Zogby then put out its own press release warning that 911truth.org was offering its opinions, and not Zogby's as to the "meaning of the poll results." It pointed out that Mr. Kubiak was not a "poll co-author" but a member of the organization. "Zogby International had no role in interpreting the survey results for the sponsor or in producing the news release," Zogby warned.

Zogby then gave its own narrative summary of the poll:

In the question, "Some people believe that the US government and its 9/11 Commission concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence that contradicts their official explanation of the September 11th attacks, saying there has been a cover-up. Others say that the 9/11 Commission was a bi-partisan group of honest and well-respected people and that there is no reason they would want to cover-up anything. Who are you more likely to agree with?"

US government and 9/11 Commission are NOT covering up (48%)
US government and 9/11 Commission are covering up (42%)
No sure (10%)

People are "completely divided" on whether they believe President Bush exploited the 9/11 attacks (44%).

People are "closely divided" on whether there should be another investigation, with a slight plurality (47%) saying the attacks were thoroughly investigated, while 45% feel the attacks should be reinvestigated.

9/11truth.org refers to 9/11 "crimes," of "motives" involved in the attacks, it asks "who profited."

Isn't the answer self-evident? The organization itself exploits the 9/11 families and the American public's confusion.

For a moment, the 9/11 families -- and again I don't mean a specific set of families or any organization -- recognized that 9/11 was the largest governmental failure in history, that if "we" the people were going to have security we were going to have to involve ourselves. 911truth.org might pretend that this is their goal as well, but in fact there is no amount of investigation, no amount of fact, no amount of government action, no amount of intelligence information, no amount of war, in fact no amount of security that is ever going to change anyone's mind here.

These are not typical Americans who just want better security and government and pray for successful prosecution of the war on terrorism. This is a purely partisan political and cynical anti-everything group looking to exploit 9/11, just as they accuse the administration of doing.

Though 9/11truth.org and the blogosphere continues to rail against the mainstream media for ignoring their issue and their cause, the only gratifying element of the story is the restraint so far shown by the media in ignoring the thinly masked craziness and the Internet hype.

Oh, I know I'm giving them air time, and surely the "news" will cover the "growing" 9/11 rejectionist movement as we get closer to election time, but what is really interesting here is not some cover-up but the enormous disillusionment that exists not just with the war in Iraq but also the fight against terrorism.

 By William M. Arkin | May 26, 2006; 8:19 AM ET | Category: War on Terrorism
Previous: America's New China War Plan |

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Quote:

  Kerik would turn the citizen's movement into just another constituency, a special interest that needed to be dealt with but one marginalized rather than revered.

In many ways Bush administration policies with contempt for transparency share responsibility for creating the environment in which the "truth" movement thrived,  Marginalizing the family members was one of them.  Once marginalized, they turned to the very predators and vampires known as "truth" movement leaders who would use the families in their anti Semite conspiracy schtick.

2006 Scripps Poll: Third of Americans suspect 9-11 government conspiracy

This was one of the past 9/11 polls that seems to have disappeared  from the web for some reason.  A dead link remains at Wikipedia, but the article only exists in Wayback now. It gives a good overview of context and public perception at the height of the Bush regime.  Not necessarily flattering to those sucked into the truther scam, but the truth isn't always pretty.

Debunker types should pay attention as well, because these figures explain why, in the Bush controlled information vacuum, conspiracy theories featuring his incompetence thrived.  Bold mine.

We also have a nice little confirmation of dating of when the  Conspiracy groups started to go public:

 "Conspiracy groups for at least two years "

Putting the astroturf Zeitgeist at about 2004.

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http://www.scrippsnews.com/911poll

 Submitted by Thomas Hargrove on Tue, 08/01/2006 - 14:33

• National News
• News
• Politics

By THOMAS HARGROVE
Scripps Howard News Service

More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.

The national survey of 1,010 adults also found that anger against the federal government is at record levels, with 54 percent saying they "personally are more angry" at the government than they used to be. 

Widespread resentment and alienation toward the national government appears to be fueling a growing acceptance of conspiracy theories about the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Suspicions that the 9/11 attacks were "an inside job" _ the common phrase used by conspiracy theorists on the Internet _ quickly have become nearly as popular as decades-old conspiracy theories that the federal government was responsible for President John F. Kennedy's assassination and that it has covered up proof of space aliens.

Seventy percent of people who give credence to these theories also say they've become angrier with the federal government than they used to be.
Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them "because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East."

"One out of three sounds high, but that may very well be right," said Lee Hamilton, former vice chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also called the 9/11 commission.) His congressionally appointed investigation concluded that federal officials bungled their attempts to prevent, but did not participate in, the attacks by al Qaeda five years ago.

"A lot of people I've encountered believe the U.S. government was involved," Hamilton said. "Many say the government planned the whole thing. Of course, we don't think the evidence leads that way at all."

The poll also found that 16 percent of Americans speculate that secretly planted explosives, not burning passenger jets, were the real reason the massive twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed.

Conspiracy groups for at least two years have also questioned why the World Trade Center collapsed when fires that heavily damaged similar skyscrapers around the world did not cause such destruction. Sixteen percent said it's "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that "the collapse of the twin towers in New York was aided by explosives secretly planted in the two buildings."

Twelve percent suspect the Pentagon was struck by a military cruise missile in 2001 rather than by an airliner captured by terrorists.

Many conspiracy Web sites have posted the video loops and report the films are inconclusive or were manipulated by the government.
"Some folks will never be convinced," Fitton said. "But I'm hoping that these videos will dissuade reasonable people from falling into a trap with these conspiracy theories."

University of Florida law professor Mark Fenster, author of the book "Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture," said the poll's findings reflect public anger at the unpopular Iraq war, realization that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction and growing doubts of the veracity of the Bush administration.

"What has amazed me is not that there are conspiracy theories, but that they didn't seem to be getting any purchase among the American public until the last year or so," Fenster said. "Although the Iraq war was not directly related to the 9/11 attacks, people are now looking back at 9/11 with much more skepticism than they used to."

Conspiracy-believing participants in the poll agree their suspicions are recent.
"I certainly didn't think of conspiracies when 9/11 first happened," said Elaine Tripp, 62, of Tabernacle, N.J. "I don't know if President Bush was aware of the exact time it was going to happen. But he certainly didn't do enough to stop it. Bush was so intent on having his own little war."

Garrett Johnson, 19, of Manassas, Va., said it was "well after the fact" before he started questioning the official explanation of the attacks. "But then people I know started talking about it. And the Internet had a lot to do with this. After reading all of the different articles there, I started to think we weren't being told the truth."

The Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University has tracked the level of resentment people feel toward the federal government since 1995, starting shortly after Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City. Forty-seven percent then said they, personally, feel "more angry at the federal government" than they used to. That percentage dropped to 42 percent in 1997, 34 percent in 1998 and only 12 percent shortly after 9/11 during the groundswell of patriotism and support for the government after the attacks.
But the new survey found that 77 percent say their friends and acquaintances have become angrier with government recently and 54 percent say they, themselves, have become angrier _ both record levels.

The survey also found that people who regularly use the Internet but who do not regularly use so-called "mainstream" media are significantly more likely to believe in 9/11 conspiracies. People who regularly read daily newspapers or listen to radio newscasts were especially unlikely to believe in the conspiracies.

"We know that there are a lot of people now asking questions," said Janice Matthews, executive director of 911Truth.org, one of the most sophisticated Internet sites raising doubts about official explanations of the attacks. "We didn't have the Internet after Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin or the Kennedy assassination. But we live in different times now."

Matthews' Web site averaged 4,000 "hits" a day last year, but currently has at least 12,000 visits every 24 hours. The site, according to its online policy statement, is dedicated to showing the public that "elements within the U.S. government must have orchestrated or participated in the execution of the attacks for these to have happened the way in which they did."

Participants in the poll were asked to respond to "several serious accusations that some people have made against the federal government in recent years." Five conspiracy theories were described and participants were asked if each was "very likely, somewhat likely or unlikely."

The level of suspicion of U.S. official involvement in a 9/11 conspiracy was only slightly behind the 40 percent who suspect "officials in the federal government were directly responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy" and the 38 percent who believe "the federal government is withholding proof of the existence of intelligent life from other planets."

The poll found that a majority of young adults give at least some credence to a 9/11 conspiracy compared to less than a fourth of people 65 or older. Members of racial and ethnic minorities, people with only a high school education and Democrats were especially likely to suspect federal involvement in 9/11.

The survey was conducted by telephone from July 6-24 at the Scripps Survey Research Center at the University of Ohio under a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation. The poll has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

(Thomas Hargrove is a reporter for Scripps Howard News Service. Guido H. Stempel III is director of the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University.)

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Quote:

Janice Matthews, executive director of 911Truth.org, one of the most sophisticated Internet sites raising doubts about official explanations of the attacks.

This is very important in exposing the "truther" fraud and how long it was planned. 

More to come.