Loose Change

[dubfan]

Maybe just a glitch because the thread was moved, I'll try again tomorrow.

Fixed now. One of the mods there said it was a setup error they have corrected.

 

[Gravy]

Those sons of bitches. You have to be logged in to see it.

ETA: trying to get an answer. I'm at a loss as to how Gravy can see it if he's been banned, though.

Don't know. I definitely can't post. Anyway, I'm not sure that being able to view has made me a better person!. It's sad over there. Some "Truth Movement" they have going. Why don't they pool their money and purchase a nice bunker and some weapons?

 

[Xraye]

I agree with your sentiments to a certain extent. Debate is good, so long as it is honest. The problem is, I do not believe most CT'ers are in fact honest in their debate. They repeat the same unverified, totally debunked claims over and over, and either shout down, condemn, or ignore the responses that prove them wrong. In fact, they do all in their power to stifle true debate, banning people for no other reason than they disagree with the CT orthodoxy (such as it is). It's impossible to respect anyone who does this.

Finally, I must frankly question how much serious attention CT'ers actually merit. For example, imagine that I started a baseless rumor that you are a dog-kicking drunk who cheats on his taxes and sleeps with sheep. And no matter how much evidence you provided to the contrary, my cronies and I kept spreading these rumors across the internet. Would you still feel that both sides of the "debate" deserved widespread public airing and attention? Some theories are too stupid to deserve consideration, and for me, the 9/11 "Bush did it" theory is very much one of them.

I do aknowledge that many CT people make many baseless claims because they draw hasty conclusions. However there are also skeptics who will never believe no matter what evidence is shown. It's the same phenomena in both cases, a refusal to look at the facts due to an attatchment to one's point of view. But for those of us who are attatched to our ideas in such a way, public debate forces one to confront the facts or else withdraw from the debate (or of course engage in slander and summon up the herd to bolster one's own sense of rightousness).

 

[Xraye]

One issue we've been facing is that the CTs have a HUGE head start in terms of getting their views "widely known." If someone new to these issues Googles a topic, they will see dozens of CT sites and probably no anti-CT sites. That amounts to an argumentum ad numerum in favor of conspiracy theories.

When I first heard of these CT claims 6 weeks ago, I assumed that they were limited to a small group of believers. Well, I certainly "misunderestimated" the power of the internet. 'Loose Change" is in the top 5 of Google Video views.

A time-tested CT technique has been to make wild allegations first and worry about evidence if anyone challenges the claims later. Meanwhile, lots of books and videos get sold. That's an extremely dishonest way of presenting a case to the public, and I resent the fact that if we don't respond to that dishonesty, more people are going to be duped every day.

Speaking of dishonesty, I noticed that you brought up, on the LC forum, the issue of people being banned there as opposed to here. A few people, such as Roxdog, said that the JREF mods are LESS tolerant than the LC mods. As usual, Roxdog and his cohorts are lying. The ONLY reason Loose Change people have been banned here is that some chose to deliberately break the forum rules more than once and then say to the mods, "Go ahead, ban me." And they received fair warning. If you hang with the Loosers you'll be with an incredibly dishonest crowd. I don't get it.

That's very true, this conspiracy theory is recieving a lot of attention. The other side of the debate, however, is being recieved through the mass media in a much larger and much less informative way than the CT documentaries.

And as for misinformation, perhaps you're right and perhaps not. I'm still researching that claim, but I do have to say that thus far it looks like y'all bring up some good points. However I by no means agree with everything and intend to formulate my case to substantiate that.

 

[Xraye]

Another possibility which you do not mention is that some but not all of the conspiracy theory is true --- indeed this must be so since there is more than one conspiracy theory.

If this is the case, then it would be as well to separate the solid facts from the unsubstantiated rumors; and how else to achieve that but open debate and critical analysis of each aspect of the theory?

Good point.

 

[Gravy]

That's very true, this conspiracy is recieving a lot of attention. The other side of the debate, however, is being recieved through the mass media in a much larger and much less informative way than the CT documentaries.

And as for misinformation, perhaps you're right and perhaps not. I'm still researching that claim, but I do have to say that thus far it looks like y'all bring up some good points. However I by no means agree with everything and intend to formulate my case to substantiate that.

I understand your second paragraph and it sounds reasonable, but I don't understand what you're saying in the second sentence of first paragraph. I'm not being coy...I don't know what you mean. And do you mean that "this conspiracy" is receiving attention, or "this conspiracy theory?"

 

[Manny]

One issue we've been facing is that the CTs have a HUGE head start in terms of getting their views "widely known." If someone new to these issues Googles a topic, they will see dozens of CT sites and probably no anti-CT sites.

Speaking of which, it wouldn't hurt things if people who have websites or blogs linked to both versions of the debunking. Maybe someone could even convince Randi to write some commentary about it and give it a front-page plug for a while? No offense to James van Praagh (well, OK, yes offense to James van Praagh) but I think this issue at this time poses a bigger threat to critical thinking than proving a third-rate "psychic" wrong for the millionth time.

 

[Xraye]

I understand your second paragraph and it sounds reasonable, but I don't understand what you're saying in the second sentence of first paragraph. I'm not being coy...I don't know what you mean. And do you mean that "this conspiracy" is receiving attention, or "this conspiracy theory?"

ya, I meant conspiracy theory. I'll edit that.

what I was saying in the second paragraph is that the skeptics of the CT are supporting the official story of 9/11 comision (from what I understand) and that this position is supported by the mainstream news. therefor in one sense the skeptical position is already the status quo and the most popular postition. However, I do aknowledge also that by "skeptical" it means skeptical of the CT, which in effect is a reaction to the CT and is therefor different than the official story. So I also aknowledge that you're right, the skeptical point of view isn't understood on the same scale that the CT is.

 

[Stellafane]

I do aknowledge that many CT people make many baseless claims because they draw hasty conclusions. However there are also skeptics who will never believe no matter what evidence is shown. It's the same phenomena in both cases, a refusal to look at the facts due to an attatchment to one's point of view. But for those of us who are attatched to our ideas in such a way, public debate forces one to confront the facts or else withdraw from the debate (or of course engage in slander and summon up the herd to bolster one's own sense of rightousness).

I will echo what others have already said, that thus far you seem to be approaching this debate with sincerity and honesty. And I apologize if there's an obvious sense of wariness on my part, but the behavior of other Loose Change members who have come here has not been exemplary. The evidence they present has been invariably weak and unconvincing. They refuse to acknowledge when they have been proven irrefutably and demonstrably wrong (not in matters of opinion, but in objective facts). They present theories that are at best far-fetched and internally inconsistent. They ignore direct questions. They are rude without provocation. The call others liars without cause. And so on.

But all that is nothing compared to how JREF members are treated in the Loose Change forum. They are banned for simply not agreeing with the prevailing theory. They are called monsters, liars, and worse. They are accused of being disinformation agents for the government. This treatment is so egregious and so obvious, that I'm having a difficult time with your earlier post expressing surprise that anyone would not feel welcome on the Loose Change forum.

And although I agree that there are closed-minded people of all persuasions, I'm not for a minute going to agree that "both sides" are equally at fault. The Loose Change people have been vastly more guilty of dishonesty, immaturity, and baseless claims than JREF members have been.

I say this not to heap all this on top of your head, but rather to explain why I may not have all the patience in the world when it comes to 9/11 CT'ers. I'm afraid your predecessors haven't exactly distinguished themselves here, so you have a rather uphill road to climb to gain my complete trust -- a road already made surpassingly difficult by my incredulity that any intelligent, reasonable person could review the available evidence and honestly believe that there's a viable possibility that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolitions, that a missile and not a commercial passenger jet crashed into the Pentagon, that the calls made by passengers on Flight 93 were faked and the real passengers were offloaded somewhere, and all the other fellow-traveller claims made by CT'ers.

Be that as it may, I wish you luck in your quest for the truth behind 9/11. If truth is what you truly seek, I believe in all sincerity that you have come to the right place. Good luck!

 

[geggy]

I just noticed this.

Where I live if you're going to call someone a liar, you'd better be able to back it up. Name a single lie I've told, geggy.

I'll make it easier for you. Point me to a single exchange that you and I have where you were right about a factual matter and I was wrong.

If you can't do that, I'd appreciate an apology.

And you might want to answer some of the questions that were posed to you today, just to show that you're sincere and not a troll.

No time to talk but will post a link to dispute your claim that max cleland was angry at bush for not connecting saddam to the attacks. Don't know where you got that info from but it's the other way around...read transcript to radio interviw here...
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/23/1546256

as you can see here, he was hinting that sept 11 may have been allowed to happen by the bush admin and the fact they've covered up the amount of information and evidence of foreknowledge they had heading toward sept 11, which pretty much makes them complicit in the attacks...

 

[dubfan]

Looks like I was mistaken before.

Labour MP Meacher is going to screen it for both Houses of the UK Parliament. Presumably all the Ministers will see it (or have a chance to). It's not just a private screening with Meacher.

 

[Gravy]

ya, I meant conspiracy theory. I'll edit that.

what I was saying in the second paragraph is that the skeptics of the CT are supporting the official story of 9/11 comision (from what I understand) and that this position is supported by the mainstream news. therefor in one sense the skeptical position is already the status quo and the most popular postition. However, I do aknowledge also that by "skeptical" it means skeptical of the CT, which in effect is a reaction to the CT and is therefor different than the official story. So I also aknowledge that you're right, the skeptical point of view isn't understood on the same scale that the CT is.

Thanks for the clarification. I do think that you've made an important distinction. I'm sure that quite a few people here find it both bizarre and hilarious to be called "agents" of the U.S. government. Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas accused me of that to my face. I have a deep, abiding anger towards the people running this country. But I'm not willing to lie to put them in a worse light than they're already in.

 

[Gravy]

Looks like I was mistaken before.

Labour MP Meacher is going to screen it for both Houses of the UK Parliament. Presumably all the Ministers will see it (or have a chance to). It's not just a private screening with Meacher.

Cool. I doubt it would draw a crowd. Do the Brits need "Loose Change" to discredit the Bush administration? But I'll send Meacher my critique and see if he still thinks the screening is a good idea. If so, I'll send the link to all the MPs. It's astonishing that someone with such political experience would support such shoddy work.

 

[Gravy]

No time to talk but will post a link to dispute your claim that max cleland was angry at bush for not connecting saddam to the attacks. Don't know where you got that info from but it's the other way around...read transcript to radio interviw here...
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/23/1546256

as you can see here, he was hinting that sept 11 may have been allowed to happen by the bush admin and the fact they've covered up the amount of information and evidence of foreknowledge they had heading toward sept 11, which pretty much makes them complicit in the attacks...

There you go again, geggy. How do you think your standard of proof would do in a court of law?

By the way, I said Cleland was angry at Bush because he believed Bush was covering up the fact that Saddam was NOT connected to the attacks, not the other way around. Do you disagree?

 

[Pardalis]

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/23/1546256

as you can see here, he was hinting that sept 11 may have been allowed to happen by the bush admin and the fact they've covered up the amount of information and evidence of foreknowledge they had heading toward sept 11, which pretty much makes them complicit in the attacks...

You're full of it geg. There's nothing like that in the interview.

So, now if we really examine 9-11, we find that this administration, President Bush, has used 9-11 and the tragedy to this country and to the families in this country, the over 3,000 people who were lost, used that as an excuse to go after Saddam Hussein, not a reason to create the war in Iraq. So, they created a war that they were already predisposed to do and 9-11 gave them the excuse. That is why Osama bin Laden is still on the loose.

That's no secret to no one. Everybody knows the Bush admin used 9/11 to justify going into Iraq. It's wrong, but that's not the issue here.

That's not the staff director's fault, it is the White House's fault. It's president Bush's fault. President Bush personally has nixed the effort of the 9-11 Commission to get all the documents in the White House, especially the Presidential daily briefs, which basically tell the Commission and the American people what the President knew and when he knew it in regards to the potential attack on 9-11 and the attack itself and the follow-up.

emphasis mine

Let me translate for you: The documents might tell us how much Bush knew of a potential attack before 9/11, the attack itself on the day it happened, and later the info he received after the event.

He's absolutely not hinting that Bush knew specifically about the 9/11 plot before 9/11. READ CAREFULLY

 

[Pardalis]

BTW geggy, can you explain to me how a controlled demolition can fake a collapse from the top?

 

[geggy]

You're right about bush admin using sept 11 as one of the justifications to invade Iraq to be able to reach their agenda. But the question here is would they still had invaded iraq if the sept 11 attacks were never to happen? Long before sept 11, bush and friends were overly obsessed with overthrowing the saddam regime. In the year before the attacks, PNAC called for a new pearl harbor as a pretext to invade the middle east and they got what they needed on sept 11. The question is was it a mere coincidence that the attack occured at the time the bush admin had been reinstated in the white house and regained mighty powers after being ousted by clinton or were they already aware that a new pearl harbor was coming and did nothing to prevent it because they needed a pretext to invade the middle east? Moreover, how do you explain the reason for the security standdown on that day?

 

[Gravy]

You're right about bush admin using sept 11 as one of the justifications to invade Iraq to be able to reach their agenda. But the question here is would they still had invaded iraq if the sept 11 attacks were never to happen? Long before sept 11, bush and friends were overly obsessed with overthrowing the saddam regime. In the year before the attacks, PNAC called for a new pearl harbor as a pretext to invade the middle east and they got what they needed on sept 11. The question is was it a mere coincidence that the attack occured at the time the bush admin had been reinstated in the white house and regained mighty powers after being ousted by clinton or were they already aware that a new pearl harbor was coming and did nothing to prevent it because they needed a pretext to invade the middle east? Moreover, how do you explain the reason for the security standdown on that day?

Yes, you do have many questions. The same questions. Why?
I'll ask again: have you read my "Loose Change" critique, which covers these issues? The PNAC "Pearl harbor" quote is covered near the beginning. I didn't put that document together for my benefit, geggy. I did it for yours.

 

[juryjone]

No time to talk but will post a link to dispute your claim that max cleland was angry at bush for not connecting saddam to the attacks. Don't know where you got that info from but it's the other way around...read transcript to radio interviw here...
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/23/1546256

as you can see here, he was hinting that sept 11 may have been allowed to happen by the bush admin and the fact they've covered up the amount of information and evidence of foreknowledge they had heading toward sept 11, which pretty much makes them complicit in the attacks...

Thanks, geggy. As everyone suspected, you are trying to use a former member of the commission, Max Cleland, to further your idea that the Bush adminstration planned and carried out the attacks. What does Max say in your article?

He (Richard Clarke) has come out with a scathing indictment of President Bush, saying he has handled the problem terribly because he had an obsession, basically, he and his top advisers, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, with Iraq. Not an obsession with Osama bin Laden and the terrorist cadre that was increasingly being formed in the 1990's that is responsible, we now know, for the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 sailors, or an increasing number of attacks and then ultimately the attack on 9-11.

So now you back off and say they just had foreknowledge. Which is it? Did bin Laden and Al-Qaeda do it with planes, or did the Bush administration do it with a controlled demolition? We all know what Max Cleland thinks. (Hint: Cleland never mentions controlled demolition.)

 

[Regnad Kcin]

I do aknowledge that many CT people make many baseless claims because they draw hasty conclusions. However there are also skeptics who will never believe no matter what evidence is shown. It's the same phenomena in both cases, a refusal to look at the facts due to an attatchment to one's point of view. But for those of us who are attatched to our ideas in such a way, public debate forces one to confront the facts or else withdraw from the debate (or of course engage in slander and summon up the herd to bolster one's own sense of rightousness).

I'd like to take issue with this, if I may.

I think yours is a generalization not based in fairness. I don't know of too many "skeptics who will never believe no matter what evidence is shown." Certainly not on these boards. What I do see here, if I may say so, is a high level of rigorous thinking. Frankly, I'll suggest there's no such animal as a "skeptic." Skepticism is a frame of mind. And it comes in various degrees, often depending on the topic.

You see, there are people today who are "skeptical" of the official 9/11 story, and people who are "skeptical" of the whole or parts of the various conspiracy theories which are being discussed. The difference is that there is a very modest default position: the perfectly logical and reasonable official story. I, nor others I'm aware of, are, to use your words, "attached to this point of view" any more than I'm attached to the view that there are only two Beatles left alive; it's pretty much common sense. Rather, it is up to the alternate theorist(s) to present a case, if they feel they have one, for the quite remarkable theories they're floating. Allegations on a par with the possibility John and George are breathing at the moment. However, so far, they've done next to nothing, except engage in conjecture and float allegations.

So it's not, as you put it, "the same phenomena in both cases, a refusal to look at the facts due to an attachment to one's point of view." You're certainly welcome to name or list the "facts" presented by the CTers. The reason I haven't looked at them, much less refused, is because I have yet to see any.