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Loose Change

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Not sure who said this first but it always rings true: If the president can't keep getting a BJ secret, how do you expect to cover up something as large as the twin tower conspiracy?
 
manny said:
I don't get how anyone gets past that argument.
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They get past it because they're not thinking critically. Watch the documentary sometime. It just bombards you with anecdotes and sinister implications. They never put the pieces together enough that you could call what they're presenting a "theory." They just drop enough hints to prey on what people want to believe. Yes, I think they want to believe it. I don't understand why, but it seems like these people want to live in a bad Tom Clancy novel adaptation directed by Jerry Bruckheimer.

My room mate is a smart guy. The other guy who recommended the video to me is a Computer Science PhD student. They just weren't being critical thinkers.
 
How come the Bush administration was so good at carrying out and covering up the reall 9/11 operation, but so incompetent with so many other things?
I mean, they can't even "find" any WMD in Iraq.
 
brodski said:
How come the Bush administration was so good at carrying out and covering up the reall 9/11 operation, but so incompetent with so many other things?
I mean, they can't even "find" any WMD in Iraq.
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Yeah, Lewis Black said it best:

"At least have the common sense to send two fifteen year olds to Kinko's and tell them 'Look I need a picture of a camel with a nuke on its back.'"
 
brodski said:
How come the Bush administration was so good at carrying out and covering up the reall 9/11 operation, but so incompetent with so many other things?
I mean, they can't even "find" any WMD in Iraq.
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They're faking incompetence to make us believe that they couldn't possibly have pulled off the 9/11 hoax, and meanwhile they're profiting royally off Iraq. The longer they can stretch this thing out, the more they profit. Or at least that was the gist of a particularly loony rationale that one guy presented to me.
 
chipmunk stew said:
They're faking incompetence to make us believe that they couldn't possibly have pulled off the 9/11 hoax, and meanwhile they're profiting royally off Iraq. The longer they can stretch this thing out, the more they profit. Or at least that was the gist of a particularly loony rationale that one guy presented to me.
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Did you ask him to stop and actualy listen to what he was saying himself?
Why would a government fake incompetence, when it comes so naturaly to all of them anyway.
 
delphi_ote said:
Yes, I think they want to believe it. I don't understand why, but it seems like these people want to live in a bad Tom Clancy novel adaptation directed by Jerry Bruckheimer.
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Control, oddly enough.

Think about, lightning was much "scarier" before we understood what caused it. It still has the exact same properties, but because we know the causes, it loses some of its ability to cause fear.

Same with other pehenomena. The "conspiracy" angle removes the accidental/random/unpredictable elements from the event (the buildings didn't fall unforeseen, they were intended to fall!). So that's one aspect, I think.

Also, I think it actually provides security of a sort. In the U.S., we've always had the "it can't happen here" attitude. Even after Oklahoma City, we didn't expect any foreign terrorists to be able to attack us here. 9/11 showed conclusively that this is false. Terrorists got into the country, lived here for some time, planned their attacks, trained fo their attacks, and carried them out without us being able to stop it.

Positing conspiracy also elemenates some of this type of fear. "Terrorists can't just get in without people knowing, the government allowed them in. They still have control." In a backwards sort of way, it's a way to cling to a sense that we aren't out of control at all.

Least, that's my ideas. Take 'em for what they're worth (unless you have small pipes on your septic system).
 
I don't understand the "free fall" problem.

But I do have some ideas about the "secondary explosions".

The film makes a big deal out of free fall, saying it would take 10 seconds for something to free fall that distance.

Later, they start to discuss the secondary explosions in the WTC. And they play a tape recorded on the 36th floor where you hear two explosions, 9 seconds apart.

They then talk about marble panels blown off the lobby by a raging fireball which travelled down the elevator shaft.

The film then says there was no way the fireball was able to burn since the elevator shaft was airtight and therefore had no air for the fire.

But what about the air that was already in the shaft?

As for the janitor, when he heard the first explosion, he thought it came from the basement. He said the second explosion came from directly overhead.

I would say that when he heard the first explosion, he was not in any state of awareness of something unusual going on and made a guess where the sound originated. Trying to guess at what could make such a noise, he says he thought it was a generator exploding. Since the generators were in the basement that is where he thought the sound came from.

By the time of the second explosion, he was more aware and was able to make a better estimate of the direction of the source.
 
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brodski said:
Did you ask him to stop and actualy listen to what he was saying himself?
Why would a government fake incompetence, when it comes so naturaly to all of them anyway.
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Unfortunately, at the time I was so dumbfounded by the idea that I didn't have a response. I just sort of sputtered. I think he thought he'd made a really good point and had won the debate. He was a casual acquaintance, and I never had the opportunity to bring it up with him again. Not that it would have mattered. I mean if you're willing to take the conspiracy theory to that level, reason alone is not going to bring you back.
 
I've not really paid much attention to the CT on this, but I have just watched the video. The only bit that confused me was the Pentagon bit. From what they showed there really didn't seem to have been a plane there. The hole being tiny, no ground marks for entry etc. I could see however, that they were picking the facts that suited. Is there an explanation for this that is so simple I'm just being idiotic by missing it?
I watched the clip of the plane entering the second tower three times over due to the commentary saying that it just clips the building or something like that. It didn't look like that to me, looked like one hefty hit! These people must think that we aren't paying too much attention.
 
sat556 said:
I've not really paid much attention to the CT on this, but I have just watched the video. The only bit that confused me was the Pentagon bit. From what they showed there really didn't seem to have been a plane there. The hole being tiny, no ground marks for entry etc. I could see however, that they were picking the facts that suited. Is there an explanation for this that is so simple I'm just being idiotic by missing it?
I watched the clip of the plane entering the second tower three times over due to the commentary saying that it just clips the building or something like that. It didn't look like that to me, looked like one hefty hit! These people must think that we aren't paying too much attention.
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And does this look like a 16 foot hole to anyone? That's what Loose Changes says is all that was created in the Pentagon by the attack.

overview.jpg
 
The film also claims there was no wreckage of the plane at the Pentagon, but if you look at the photo I posted above, you can see what looks like a jet engine in the red box. And it ain't the small engine part shown in the film.
 
In the film, the narrator says there was only a single hole, 16 feet wide, made by the plane's impact. They are very careful about what photos they show and seem to deliberately avoid showing the hole to the right of what photos they do show that looks like a hole created by an engine. And then they go on to say that the engines should have made holes!

ETA: Look at the hole below and to the left of the American flag in the photo I posted above. That is the hole they avoid showing in the film.
 
Great links, Luke! Thanks a lot. The more I learn about this, the more I'll be able to nip this BS in the bud next time I encounter it. I'm sure I'm likely to encounter it again in my line of work...

By the way, if you want a detailed analysis of the Pentagon hit, check the Snopes article on it.

Claim: The damage to the Pentagon on September 11 was caused by something other than a hijacked Boeing 757's being crashed into its side.

Status: False.
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Doesn't get any clearer than that.
 
Huntsman said:
Control, oddly enough.

Think about, lightning was much "scarier" before we understood what caused it. It still has the exact same properties, but because we know the causes, it loses some of its ability to cause fear.

Same with other pehenomena. The "conspiracy" angle removes the accidental/random/unpredictable elements from the event (the buildings didn't fall unforeseen, they were intended to fall!). So that's one aspect, I think.

Also, I think it actually provides security of a sort. In the U.S., we've always had the "it can't happen here" attitude. Even after Oklahoma City, we didn't expect any foreign terrorists to be able to attack us here. 9/11 showed conclusively that this is false. Terrorists got into the country, lived here for some time, planned their attacks, trained fo their attacks, and carried them out without us being able to stop it.

Positing conspiracy also elemenates some of this type of fear. "Terrorists can't just get in without people knowing, the government allowed them in. They still have control." In a backwards sort of way, it's a way to cling to a sense that we aren't out of control at all.

Least, that's my ideas. Take 'em for what they're worth (unless you have small pipes on your septic system).
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Well put, Hutch. I think that's definitely part of the appeal, but I think there are two other factors: excitement and simplicity.

Excitement: We've heard the same story over and over about the towers. There's not enough drama involved. Some of the characters are almost totally unknown. The conspiracy makes it all so much more exciting. We see Bush on T.V. every day. The characters get a face (especially the villians.)

Simplicity: International politics and different cultures are too complicated. The facts don't give us someone to directly hate. They can't get self-righteous and scream and yell. They don't have anyone to track down and take action against (remember, I'm talking about the couch sitting gossipers. They're not going to strap on an M16 and go fight anyone.) The enemy is not a vague ideology thousands or millions of people loosely identify with, but 10 guys smoking cigars in a room together. They can track down the "real" terrorists watching T.V. and surfing the internet.

You can see where control, excitment, and simplicity might all play into one another. Make it simple so you can bring the problem into a realm where you can pretend to have some control. Get excited about each bit of information you string together on your couch, because it brings the situation that much more under control. Simplifying the complex realities makes it easier to get worked up and excited about.

Hmm... the more I think about it, these three points could equally well apply to anti-evolutionists, Holocaust deniers, moon landing hoaxters, anti-big-pharma alternative medicine advocates... and on and on. There's definitely a pattern here.
 
delphi_ote said:
Doesn't get any clearer than that.
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It's also worth noting that among the passengers and crew who would have been killed or otherwise disappeared to "complete" any fictious story about AA flt 77 doing something other than crashing into the Pentagon was Barbara Olson, the wife of Solicitor General Theodore Olson. Ted argued Bush v. Gore before the Supreme Court. So in order to believe this theory one must suppose that one of the people most responsible for putting the President in office (and a long-time Republican fix-it guy in any event) either a) was left out of the loop on the conspiracy or b) desired to kill his wife, an unbelievably popular political commentator in her own right or c) Barbara Olson is alive and in perma-hiding.
 
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