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Merged ReThink911 - a Richard Gage ad campaign
- Thread starter Oystein
- Start date
DGM
Skeptic not Atheist
Why would you not address the rest of my post? I think it sums up the "truth" movement and Gage fairly well.
DGM
Skeptic not Atheist
And your query is advancing the discussion how?
I hate to tell you, you're making a perfect case for my sig.
Robrob
Philosopher
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2011
- Messages
- 5,497
For a POV that claims to be spreading the truth, it seems to be very hesitant in providing things to support their claims but very adamant in demanding others respond to them.
DGM
Skeptic not Atheist
One also should ask how his first post was aimed at advancing a discussion.
* I'll grant this whole thread has no real value in that regard.
Here is a link to what appears to be a pdf of the above-mentioned letter from Mark Graham to members of AE911, dated September 11, 2013. It's seven pages long, so I'm not going to post it here.
http://davis911truth.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Insider-Analysis-of-AE911Truth-n.pdf
The letter frequently quotes from a 2010 book named "Nanomanagement: The Disintegration of a Non-Profit Corporation", written and self-published by former AE911 member Michael Armenia. Is anyone here familiar with it? I never heard of it until now.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/michael-ar...orporation-sc/paperback/product-18804425.html
Sceptic-PK
Illuminator
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2010
- Messages
- 3,831
Just desserts. Ohm nom nom.
I don't like to get into the nasty politics of AE911T. But I essentially agree with Mark on this one. I also happen to have up close and personal experience and know about the skeletons in the closet at AE911T in the period I served on their board.
As most people my default is to assume people are honest and their intentions are above board and operate in the interest of the community at large and not for self serving self aggrandizement which we can now see as the case with Gage and a few others in the truth movement. Some are cashing out, some are getting big ego massages and several both such as Gage. It doesn't take many fooled people to keep these phonies energized and ticking.
When I volunteered at Ae911T in Oct 09 I was genuinely interested then as I am now in understanding how those towers collapsed as they did. Despite being an architect, or maybe because of being one, the mechanisms for the collapses were not self evident and they needed to be for me. NIST was supposed to explain them and so I waited for that and frankly found the explanation for the twins hardly made sense and when they issued their report for 7wtc sometime in '08 or so the explanation was even more lacking. I did not read the reports at the time only read the main thrust of their arguments and this inspired me to turn to architect and engineers who claimed to be after the truth. I joined because they claimed to want a new investigation. I agree with that because I felt then and do now that the NIST one did not satisfy me and perhaps no investigation can, certainly at this point in time, but their explanations on closer scrutiny do not pass the sniff test. It's well beyond flawed details and absence of data I am thinking.
Once inside AE I tried to get Gage to use the intellectual resources of the professional petition signers to do what NIST didn't.. explain how those three buildings came down as they did. THAT suggestion was not well received and was the beginning of my fall from grace and rather quick ouster.
My work with AE was all about helping Gage get his operation to work better. I had no expertise in these matters but I did research and as a result produced all sorts of suggestions.
They needed a mission statement
They needed some sort of business plan (business plan does not have to be about profit as a goal)
They needed an efficient organizational structure
They needed a searchable database of signers (for the purpose of contacting for any manner of assistance)
They needed a technical resource library
They needed a chat or discussion forum for professions to discuss the technical issues of the the buildings and their demise(s).
They needed virtual office software since their (unpaid) workers were scattered about and connected by only the www
They needed to conduct or sponsor research and or technical analysis
They needed to get their professionals to produce content, analysis and research and not only financial support
They need to get a 501c(3) status and become a legal non profit for fund raising purposes (they were not "legal" when I joined and their finances were a mess)
They needed to publish their own building performance studies for the WTC and the pentagon
and more which I've forgotten by now.
Only a few of my suggestions were adopted... the virtual office software - Basecamp and a mission statement which I played a minor role in authoring. I sent Gage papers on management of non profits and so forth... I still have them on my HD.
Several were rejected out of hand (apparently counter to the way Gage envisioned the group.
It became increasingly clear that AE911T was a marketing operation whose sole purpose was to support its marketing operation. It's message... the hook was that the OCT was bunk and this was supported by their bullet points many of which were simply wrong or did not support their CONCLUSION of CD.
The internal "office politics" of AE was nasty to say the least.
There clearly was a contradiction in demanding a new investigation and having concluded that the official story was completely wrong, and that the towers were brought down by CD and that there were no Islamic hijackers. I think many signers signed for the reasons I had... they expected AE to further research and understanding about the collapses ON THEIR OWN as well as agitate for others to investigate including official government agencies. They did at some point set up a congressional outreach presumably to inspire a legislator to press for a new investigation.
They did begin and obtain a 501c(3) status while I was on their board.
When the tide turned against me it was for several reasons. All of them swirled around the notion that I was disrupting and destroying the AE911T culture which has been so successful prior to my appearance on the scene. To the volunteers who HAD NO TECHNICAL BACKGROUNDS in engineering except a very few, Deets, Cole, Szamboti (not a volunteer), Brookman (not a volunteer) were the only ones aside from Gage which come to mind. They did pull in some others after I departed I believe such as William McCoy AIA who may now serve on their board and Kevin Ryan who has some expertise in chemical engineering.
Volunteers perhaps were threatened because they had no technical expertise and my thrust was to make the organization a more professional one and less of a marketing one. I don't know.
I do know that at the time the whole thing about infiltrating conspiracy groups was proposed by Cass Sunstein. This turned up the gain on their paranoia antennas and I came up as a target. Even David Griffin decided without any contact with me, that I represented a cognitive infiltrator and needed to be purged from the group because my presence WOULD change the culture and perhaps the mission and who knows what that would mean and there was a definite down side to it. Get rid of the guy. He's only trouble. They did.. for no cause I was expelled.
In the period I was made aware of a former volunteer or board member, Michael Armenia who had before me undertaken the task of "changing the culture" and or the operations of the group. I don't recall what he actually did, but it was clearly deemed a threat and he was expelled.
Essentially Gage wants complete (undemocratic) control of the group. He has veto power over the board, he intimidates volunteers or is able to cajole and charm them. In this sense he is very much like a cult leader. he refuses to let anyone have any management authority or make any key decisions. He is sole proprietor, dictator but the group hides behind the illusion that it anything but.
People such as Mark are were naive (like me) but slower to see through the smoke and mirrors that Gage needs to operate with. Sadly most people can't or won't and some such as Harrit, Szamboti are self deluded and unable to admit they've made errors. Not an easy thing to do. They hunker down and go nasty. They relish the celeb attention.
The vast majority of supporters don't know that its operations are BS and don't have the technical background to know it in any case. Gage is able to skate on the appeal to authority fallacy. He's taken in smart and dumb alike.
Some realize and just leave the discussion such as Gordon Ross PE. AE has fouled the issue because ironically NIST did not supply very credible explanations and DID make some errors. While the MAIN points of the OCT are correct, planes WERE hijacked and hit the towers, mech damage and fire did lead to the collapses, NIST got the explanations wrong. To some the details amount to a hill of beans. To others such as your truly, I want to understand the real reasons the towers collapsed as they did and so SOME details DO matter.
My up close experience confirmed to me that Gage is a fraud, Griffin is a scammer and an unethical scoundrel. Jones is a fraud as well. Harrit is simply crazy in my opinion. My opinions don't matter to anyone but me.
Gage will get his one of these days... it's only a matter of time. But as long as there are enough idiots to support him he will continue his scam.
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Robrob
Philosopher
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- Aug 29, 2011
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A common occurrence in personality cults is what I call the "doubling down effect." Leader A runs the group on force of personality and strength of mystical predictions. New Sub-Leader B shows up and begins to outshine Leader B in personality/stories. Leader A then "doubles down" into extra-special forms of crazy in order to maintain control. It's all about the control.
See Jonestown, Manson Family, Hale Bopp, etc...
Does he take out social security on his pay? Then why is he not taking 117,000 dollars for pay, does he realize why he should max out his SS?
No big deal but he seems like he is paying himself to the 25 percent bracket to keep the tax dollars saved for travel, but when he is 65 and taking SS, his benefit will be bigger.
However, if he is hiding money for later, then never-mind. Not sure what the benefit would be either way.
This is exactly the kind of stuff the IRS should be all over. Richard Gage, IRS, ...
Has anyone called the IRS? There should be a big tax on stupid.
Richard Gage reminds me of evil, acting so nice but spreading lies. He looks like the Hale Bopp nut.
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Horatius
NWO Kitty Wrangler
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- 29,691
Well, recall what was posted above:
The rent, car, et al. probably counts as income for tax purposes, but is easier to hide from his donors. It makes it less obvious that this organization is mostly just a cash cow for Richard Gage.
And he doesn't really need to worry about SS; there's no reason to think he won't still be pulling in some good cash from this until his dying day. No need to retire if your "job" is basically sitting around talking to people about stupid stuff, with no expectation of you ever actually accomplishing anything.
He doesn't know what he's doing. The finances were a disaster and they had to get William Schapp a lawyer to get them the 501c(3). I suspect his shenanigans are too small to bother with. They have bigger scammers to go after like scientology and so on.
He fell into what turned of the be a new career with multiple benefits.. He is a Regan repub and an xtian and conducts his talks like revival meetings. He's not giving up a good thing and no one is calling him out. Chris Mohr are you listening?????????????????????????????????????????
Thanks very much for your view from inside AE, JSO.
You made excellent suggestions. What possible objections could Gage have against his experts conducting and producing research?
You made excellent suggestions. What possible objections could Gage have against his experts conducting and producing research?
Do you mean what did he say to those suggestions? IIRC he would set a list of priorities.. to do lists for various "projects"... all of the items were marketing related... all about outreach using the Blueprint for Truth... things like translation into other languages, training "presenters" and receiving reports of their BFT presentations... verifying new signers and that of stuff.
Thanks. So he didn't even acknowledge the subject of getting the expert signatories to do new research into 9/11?
To him, it's all about pimping his own presentations (which regurgitate the same old truther canards from 2005).
ozeco41
Philosopher
With a strategy based on "It looks like CD so it is CD - New Investigation"
Starting IIRC 2009 when CD was already dead in the water.
A certain recipe for a political loss.