More Conspiracy - But Who's Conspiring against Whom?

Maybe SUPERMAN did it? We can't prove he didn't, so that proves he might have.

In the United States, a hyper-capitalist nation un-matched by any other in that regard, any opportunity to commercialize – to prostitute or pimp - is seized. Any such matter, like the conspiracy theories having to do with the world trade center and “9-11,” is certain to produce a myriad of hucksters, persons seeking to “capitalize.” Video tapes, books, posters, tee shirts – you name it – they will appear for sale. Some - those like tee-shirts - rely simply on the “hype-able” nature of the matter, and the subject’s “notoriety.” Others rely upon the need for the individual to self-aggrandize with his fellows by appearing expert on an otherwise esoteric topic or study. These, of course, infest the internet in the form of Websites with their mendacity.

While obnoxious in their selfish irresponsibility, they are nowhere as much so as those willing to go to the time and expense of producing video tapes, even movies. Pure propagandist theatre, this mass-produced lie preys upon the ignorance of its audience for both monetary and political purpose. Like a movie-maker seeking to entertain, it foists nonsense like that of John Wayne exploding dynamite with a rifle shot, detective John Shaft using a potato as a silencer on a rifle, Hopalong Cassidy shooting the bullet of his opponent in a gunfight out of the air, a slim and sexy slip of a woman knocking the snot out of a pro football lineman type in a street-fight or easily enduring U.S. Navy SEAL training. It’s Billy Dixon’s “Long Shot at Adobe Walls.” All depend upon the ignorance of the viewer for their credibility, using the magic of “special effects” to create otherwise credible illusion.

The principal difference, of course, is purpose.

There is another difference, however, that of simply responsibility. Here, the purpose of the individual or group is the deciding ingredient. Each of us, especially as citizens of the United States, originally a democratic republic and now a nation struggling to regain its former control of government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” has a certain responsibility created by our historic mission as a people. RESPONSIBILITY. Perhaps as old as mankind, the tendency of man to spread hearsay and rumor unverified by either reason, logic, or science, has come to be called “gossip.” In that, it has acquired a certain innocuousness and therefore – supposed, at least – innocence. Just fun. “Dishing dirt,” et cetera.

That cannot be claimed in the case of those like the exploiters of “9-11.” One of the purposes of these people is the spread of hate, hate easily expected to lead to violence. Another, while less damaging in its potential, has the purpose of widespread political effect. Recent surveys suggest that as many as one-third of the U.S. public believe their government deliberately murdered 3,000 people in order to create Reichstag-like reasons for war. That is serious, even catastrophic effect, with serious, possibly even more catastrophic portent.

Like election of a president even worse than the present one, and even more unassailable power for those who by silent coup d’etat have gained control of our nation. I speak, of course, of those in obvious and open control of our government and its policies (another matter for discussion, of course).

As with almost invariably all events of this nature and caliber, there are lessons to be learned, “lemonade to be made from lemons.” “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” the old German Sprichwort and heraldic motto says. Video tapes like “9/11 Guilt: The Proof is in Your Hands,” by Don Paul, Jim Hoffman, and Celestine Star, while outright (remember John Wayne and the dynamite exploded by rifle fire, the beauty queen U.S. Navy SEAL, and the like?) fraud intended for profit alone, are exemplary of Operation Mockingbird-like propaganda tommyrot also used by tent-show evangelists and fundamentalist preachers the like of Elmer Gantry, Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggert, and others who use hypnotic technique to dupe and seduce their gullible congregations.

Their hypocritical piety sickens – yes, and infuriates – me. I detest these people!

They are also like the Elmer Gantrys of political punditry, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. They are the odious equivalent of hate-sellers like Ann Coulter, Al Franken, and Rosie O’Donnell. These people are not innocent purveyors of mere gossip. They are the Josef Goebbels, the Vladimir Lenins – and the Henry Kissingers - of propaganda. Make no mistake, they mean, and they serve, those who would rule the world for their own reasons and profit.

I spoke of responsibility. In our miserable schools, and among a people brought under the behavioral yoke that is illegally unreasonable and burdensome totalitarian taxation, the word has lost most of its meaning – even use. What is the responsibility of one who repeats, and thereby spreads, a rumor based upon hearsay and his own ignorance of the rumor’s subject and subject matter?

I digress with purpose here, the better to explain my view. Among the literally dozens of people with whom I have disputed and debated “9-11,” I have not found one – let me repeat that: not one – who had even a smattering of the education or knowledge required to either understand or discus the essential science of his subject. One such individual encountered recently is archetypical of the “’9-11’ Conspiracy” “theorist.” I use italics (digressing even further) with “theorist” because these people are not sufficiently knowledgeable to merit being called such, and the italics denote special meaning.

This is gossip, witnessed by the fact that again and again and again, I have posed questions seeking to learn the credibility of the individuals in question, questions like how to know or calculate the overpressure from the explosives supposedly involved, how to calculate the energy of the falling upper stories (most could not even calculate the mass in question, couldn’t define or calculate mass, had no idea of the forces acting upon structural steel or how it is calculated, how to estimate the speed and energy of the airliners, the actual theory and practice used to bring buildings down by controlled demolition, and fifty more). The answers I received were more typical of today’s evasive, dissimulating, and lying political figures. Some were down right comical. One, for instance, and asked to explain how the Herculean task of preparing the WTC for demolition without prohibitive notice might have been accomplished, responded that is was “well known” – I’ll bet I heard that expression used in this regard five hundred times (think about the logic of that one) – “the government has developed a lot of invisibility techniques just for this kind of thing.”

When I asked how the cutting, sawing, carrying, and hauling, the miles (that’s literally) of wire and equipment, the relatively huge number of personnel, their effects, and more might have been made invisible, I didn’t hear from “Greg” anymore. Too bad, only Jerry Lewis and Red Skelton have ever kept me in mirth longer.

I digress even further because I can’t resist (this one is good to keep to myself): speaking to scoffer concerning anthropogenic global warming recently, I presented the argument that is that of Pascale’s Wager (to date, incidentally, and while I have posed the question repeatedly to those of similar persuasion everywhere including the Web, I have not received a single rebuttal [think about that one, too]). My victim (I admit a certain amount of glee at exposing these intellectual charlatans for what they are in fact), stared. When I delivered the second of the one-two punch, that in any closed system like the earth’s environment, changing even a little – let alone massively - the balance of ingredients as it were could not possibly be done without repercussions of catastrophic proportions – we can’t, for instance, breathe carbon dioxide - he said, and you’ll note that I quote, “Well, we’ll just have to evolve. We have to use fossil fuels – that’s all that’s to it!”

The WTC conspiracy theorists are like that guy (a retired army officer, by the way). The stupid is understandable, but – unless stupidity is its own excuse – the irresponsibility isn’t. If you don’t know about the use of guns and things potentially injurious or lethal, don’t give others advise on their use. To do that is not unlike opening an emergency medical center, despite knowing little or nothing about medicine or treatment of injuries, masquerading as an auto mechanic to provide the public advice concerning care of their cars as an auto mechanic, or pretending to be a psychiatric counselor on the basis of having read the Bible or Koran – in all instance basing your advice upon what you’ve heard from other experts of your kind, gleaned from quick “mouse” trips to Internet website for information.

Small wonder that in some parts of the country licenses are required even for things like mowing others’ lawns professionally. To masquerade as an expert or one knowledgeable entails responsibility for results, something that seems to have escaped the attention of the WTC conspiracy theorists.

Continuing examination of the World Trade Center conspiracy theory, we come to that of “No Stand-Down Order.” Theorists claim that no fighter interceptors were “scrambled” from any of the twenty-odd airbases within close proximity to the high-jacked airliners. Following the suspiciously illogical (I find it hard to believe, still, that anyone – let alone the sort of people invariably cited in these tales – could be so stupid) reasoning of the theorists, one, for instance, says, "On September 11, Andrews AFB had two squadrons of fighter jets with the job of protecting the skies over Washington D.C. They failed to do their job, and there is only one explanation (aside to the reader – check the brilliant logic and reasoning of that one!) for this - our Air Force was ordered to Stand Down on 9/11."

Whew (have I said that before?)! Let’s look at what I found out when I checked this one (from an officer friend at Andrews). On 9/11 there were no more than 14 fighter jets on alert in the contiguous states (later, realizing I had failed to ask how many those were, I learned from another source it meant all of the forty-eight on the continent – something, I might add, that shook my up not a little).

More, there was – as of this writing, still isn’t (think about that one, too) no automatic computer network alarm capable of alerting the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) of the threat represented by the missing planes. Sources other than my friend – who later confirmed them, however – said that civilian air traffic controllers had to use the telephone (reminds me of the guy on Grenada that time who had to use his credit card for a phone call in order to get combat air support in the battle there, then) in order to call NORAD.

I “go parenthetical” again to point out that conspiracy theorists contribute by the kind of nonsense I’m describing here to situations like this. Stupidity, like fear and the effects of nonsensical gossip like this, spread like disease. They infect all levels of society with their spastic effects. Irresponsibility, in short, is like a disease virus, capable of a Butterfly Effect of unimaginable proportions. As our society and nation continue to proliferate and grow, irresponsibility becomes a cancer cell, eating away at the very heart of our political, governmental, and security systems. This isn’t a damned disaster movie – this is real!

I proceed to quote from my notes, these taken from a website I have neglected to record. They are general, so I use them advisedly only - using Google, I could find them, but inasmuch as I make no claim of authorship – and take no credit for them:

"They [civilian Air Traffic Control, or ATC] had to pick up the phone and literally dial us," says Maj. Douglas Martin, public affairs officer for NORAD. Boston Center, one of 22 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regional ATC facilities, called NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) three times: at 8:37 am EST to inform NEADS that Flight 11 was hijacked; at 9:21 am to inform the agency, mistakenly, that Flight 11 was headed for Washington (the plane had hit the North Tower 35 minutes earlier); and at 9:41 A.M. to (erroneously) identify Delta Air Lines Flight 1989 from Boston as a possible hijacking. The New York ATC called NEADS at 9:03 am to report that United Flight 175 had been hijacked — the same time the plane slammed into the South Tower. Within minutes of that first call from Boston Center, NEADS scrambled two F-15s from Otis Air Force Base in Falmouth, Mass., and three F-16s from Langley Air National Guard Base in Hampton, Va. None of the fighters got anywhere near the pirated planes.”

And, of course, any pilot who flies in the air traffic system knows why it couldn't find the hijacked flights. When the hijackers turned off the planes' transponder signal identifiers, Air Traffic Control both local and continental had to search the literally thousands of absolutely identical radar blips in what may be the country's busiest air corridors. Doesn’t anybody remember the German kid who flew his Cessna through the Soviet Union's much-vaunted air defenses into the Kremlin?

Of course, to the conspiracy theorist, trained intensively as he is by Hollywood, that is the proverbial “piece of cake.” No problem!

And what of NORAD's sophisticated, radar surveillance of the continent? Remember what I said about corollary lessons “9-11” can teach? Check this one: “NORAD may ring the continent,” one source said, but it’s looking outward for threats, It’s like a doughnut – no coverage in the middle.” When I wrote my paper in 1978, one of the observations I made concerning the feasibility of an attack using high-jacked airliners or National Guard jets (bet you didn’t think of that; and when, after enough senators had read my paper, a “red flag” operation revealed that literally hundred of armed jet fighters could have been stolen – in one instance sixteen WERE) was that NORAD was prepared to track and flight originating in the United States. They weren’t seen as threats and NORAD wasn't therefore prepared to track them.

Are you still wondering how New Orleans and FEMA’s pratfall there could have happened? You’re going to vote for all these Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giulliani, John McCain “leaders” who have brought us this “clusterf---” in the first place? Hell, you deserve the “9-11” conspiracy pimps.

Let’s see – where were we? Oh, yeah (and we’d better hurry – more nonsense daydreaming is undoubtedly going on, with even more wondrous theorization and “evidence”): theorists and “9-11” pimps asseverate that it has long (it’s like “everybody knows”) been SOP – standard operating procedure - to immediately intercept off-course planes failing to respond to communications from air traffic controllers. Obviously unaware that she was talking to a nearly life-long pilot, one bloviating bubblehead on the Truthout website sagely informed me, “When the Air Force ‘scrambles’ fighters to intercept off-course aircraft and those that enter restricted airspace in a matter of minutes.” At least, she got the “scrambles” jargon right. The facts? This from the same Website I quoted a moment ago:

“In the decade before 9/11, NORAD intercepted only one civilian plane over North America: golfer Payne Stewart's Learjet, in October 1999. With passengers and crew unconscious from cabin decompression, the plane lost radio contact but remained in transponder contact until it crashed. Even so, it took an F-16 one hour and 22 minutes to reach the stricken jet. Rules in effect back then, and on 9/11, prohibited supersonic flight on intercepts. Prior to 9/11, all other NORAD interceptions were limited to offshore Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ). ‘Until 9/11 there was no domestic ADIZ,’ FAA spokesman Bill Schumann tells PM. After 9/11, NORAD and the FAA increased cooperation, setting up hotlines between ATCs and NORAD command centers, according to officials from both agencies. NORAD has also increased its fighter coverage and has installed radar to monitor airspace over the continent.”

Once again, bald-faced lying by persons with obviously only television and movie theater schooling, and supposed facts without the most remote basis in reality made up out of whole cloth, all taking advantage – or, astonishingly, availing itself of - the audiences similar “expertise.” Incredible!

Next, we have the mythology engendered by and grown up around the “9-11” attack on the Pentagon. At 9:37 A.M. on 9/11, 51 minutes after Flight 175 hit the World Trade Center, the Pentagon was struck by a Boeing 757, American Airline Flight 77. More than a hundred people, all of them interviewed on the record, saw the plane hit the building, yet conspiracy theorists insist the evidence demonstrated that a missile – or a much smaller aircraft – hit the Pentagon. The amateur – not really, actually; “amateur” by definition implies the knowledge of one devoted to the practice of study of something, hardly the case here – sleuths claim that two holes were visible in the Pentagon immediately after the attack.

Neither of the two holes, the would-be Sherlock Holmes’ say, is big enough to have been made by a wide-bodied jetliner. That, you will notice is people who have never been to the scene of a plane crash, much less ever investigated one. They have never seen an aircraft burn or explode. That’s except, of course, on television or in the movies.

The impact of the Flight 77 left a 75-ft.-wide entry hole in the building's exterior wall, and a 16-ft.-wide hole in Ring C, the Pentagon's middle ring. Conspiracy theorists claim both holes are far too small to have been made by a Boeing 757. "How does a plane 125 ft. wide and 155 ft. long fit into a hole which is only 16 ft. across?" asks one Website "dedicated to discovering the bottom line truth to what really occurred on September 11, 2001."

The shear naiveté of such a remark betrays the speaker for his ignorance, assuming as it must that the building and its composition would have no effect on the aircraft. Presumably, the “expert” believes a 757 or other aircraft could just fly through the building and depart, to leave a perfect silhouette of its frontal profile in the building. What is astonishing – and worrisome in what it implies concerning the intelligence of the Websites readers – is that anyone dares say anything so vapid to an audience.

Neither Internet cuckoo-birds alone. Books have been authored by the dozens and hundreds, each lasting testimonial to its author’s lack of knowledge, information, and powers of ratiocination. One unhinged individual, Thierry Meyssan, writes, "This attack could only be committed by United States military personnel against other U.S. military personnel."

The truth? Pretty much what a real expert said, that being ASCE team member Mete Sozen, a professor of structural engineering at Purdue University (note that the italics are mine). “In this case, one wing hit the ground; the other was sheared off by the force of the impact with the Pentagon's load-bearing columns,” Sozen who specializes in the behavior of concrete buildings, said. “What was left of the plane flowed into the structure in a state closer to a liquid than a solid mass. If you expected the entire wing to cut into the building," Sozen told Popular Mechanics Magazine, "it couldn't happen."

And the reader may (if he’s more astute than the conspiracy theorists) note that the ASCE and other experts - unlike all the supposed firemen, policemen, and other nameless witnesses and experts cited by the conspiracy theory hucksters - are both on the record and available for contact.

Next time, even wilder stuff – the U.S. Government shot down Flight 93 (and, by now, probably others, Flight 175 was a tanker, not an airliner, and it was flown into the World Trade Center by radio control, there was no plane wreckage at the Pentagon, and much, much more.

Actually, I believe I can prove that the CIA had Superman hypnotized, and that it was he who seized first one aircraft after another and hurled them into the building. One wonders why Superman would have bothered with the airplanes - oh yeah, of course – the government wanted to be sure the public had an excuse to go to war. If Superman had done it, why . . . Hmmmm.

Maybe we need to think about this some more? Next time, more discussion of the “World Trade Center cover-up.”