Land of the free?

[Fish]

John, I never said that the media in the U.S. can

Edited September 12, 2008 by Fish

[JohnG]

But this is about an event that changed the world. And it did not make the world a better place at all. Wars were justified with it, resulting inthe loss of the last bit of credibility for the U.S. dollar and resulting in robbing the american people for the benefit of those who took profit on these wars. And it resulted in undermining the constitution of the U.S. which is a world superpower. These are very good reason for all countries to be concerned about the changes that came to the world and are still in progress. Iraq, Afghanistan, the Georgia conflict, provocating a new (cold?) war with Russia, an undermined constitution, a NATO as a tool for global political games and a collapsing economy are not only U.S. private matters, it will hit all of us. And these things are good resons to be concerned about the direction the world has taken.

Yes, it

[Watchman]

Interesting - if it appears anywhere in the U.S. media you guys say it can't be trusted - it is all fabrication and lies. But if something is reported in the media in another country - it MUST BE TRUE.

I don't know about Germany but in the States you can watch shows that purport to prove that NASA staged the moon landings. And here in Spain there are shows that talk about how aliens built the pyramids. ALL on "mainstream" TV.

Conspiracy theories are primarily entertainment. That is their function. But the reason you don't see things like this in the U.S. is that broadcasters know the shows would provoke public outrage and controversy - not entertainment. In Germany it is far enough removed from most people's experience that they don't have strong emotions associated with the event. Therefore, it is acceptable to use these theories and the "experts" promoting them as fodder for popular entertainment and to generate advertising revenue.

Well, I would go so far as to say that media in general cannot be trusted. And this becomes more and more true every day. Media in all countries (not all media in all countries) today sometimes serve partisan interests. And we have seen such things in Germany with the "Springer Press" and also TV-Networks like SAT1, which was formerly owned by Leo Kirch, who was a good friend of our former Chancellor H. Kohl and took every opportunity to help the Christian Democrats (the "conservatives") in campaigning. The conspiracy "theories" that have been circulating about 9/11 are hilarious and you'd have to be cynical beyond measure to even consider such crap. I found those "theories" especially revolting that were obviously making use of the dull anti-Semitic dispositions that you will still find rather widespread in Germany (and other european countries).

[Fish]

Everything you write above I agree with.

But that is a far cry from suggesting that 9/11 was a conspiracy perpetrated by people within the U.S. government. You didn't explain in detail what the German show is suggesting but that is what I assumed since it has been a prevalent theme in these threads recently. If that IS what was being insinuated, then yes, I relegate those theories to the category of Area 51, faked moon landings, and crop circles. It is pure pulp entertainment of the lowest form.

I am well prepared to believe the government has not been totally forthright - because to me it is entirely believable that people are running around covering up their own incompetence. What I don't find believable are the theories springing up like weeds, backed by the slimmest circumstantial "evidence" and cherry-picked "experts", all dolled up with glossy graphics and frame-by-frame "analysis" of one of thousands of images from that sad day.

That kind of BS turns my stomach.

Hi John,

the documenttion did not blame the U.S. government for the 9/11 tragedy, but it showed that there are several aspects of the official version that have to be doubted. Did you know for example that the twin towers were designed to resist the impact of a Bing 707 (the biggest civil aircraft in the days when the WTC was built)? Slightly bigger than a 767 by the way... Next thing the report stated that the collapse of the buildings was accompanied by many events and technical details that show every sign of a controlled demolition and that a controlled demolition would in fact have been well possible since the occasions fot that were there or have been artificially created short befor that incident. For example, there were no more dogs that were used to search for explosives inside the buildings. this had been stopped a few weeks ago. Then Alan Silverstein made a real big fortune with the collapse of the (asbest contaminated) WTC from the insurance coverage of the incident. (He did not pay much for taking over the WTC which was sliding into red numbers by then.) Gold depots in the basement of the WTC site were found empty. Melted steel was reported from ground zero, but officially there was nothing that could cause temperatures in excess of 600

Edited September 12, 2008 by Fish

[Watchman]

Today on NPR they were talking about what other countries think of what really happened on 9/11 and it is pretty much what here in usa John and other people dont want to hear... i am glad to hear about germany. im sure many other countries are picking this up too.

Ok, I suppose that you are referring to "theories" that state that it was the CIA/the jewish world council that were actually behind that vicious act (or condoned it) and that have produced "evidence" for this. Suggested reading for starters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories.

While it is obvious that A LOT of things went wrong before and after 9/11 regarding intelligence, investigation and actions taken on the base of such intelligence and investigations and while it is probably also true that interested parties and cliques within the US government chose to "make the best of it" in terms of seizing control, cutting deep into civil liberties, deliberately misinforming the American people, I cannot get myself to even take into consideration in any of the theories mentioned above. I even believe that most of the actions taken after 9/11 were taken in the faith that it would do good to the US and "the rest of the world".

I recall seeing a program in which average Muslims were asked on the street who they thought was responsible for 9/11. A lot of the answers were based on and even cited such conspiracy theories. When the people were asked why they believed that, the answer was in many cases "because muslims wouldn't do this". This reminds me of post-war Germany. After the war many Germans were led through concentration camps and were shown gruesome pictures of piled up bodies, gas chambers and so on. Many of them said that they would never believe that Germans had committed these atrocities. It did not take long for "theories" to emerge that it was "all staged by the Allies or the 'jews themselves' ". And those manifested themselves later on to the present day in "theories" like the "Auschwitz lie" and STILL TODAY there are Germans that fail to believe that the Nazis actually killed millions people because of their ethnicity (or sexual orientation or religious believes or ...). Still TODAY the Turkish state and a MAJORITY of the Turkish people fails to acknowledge the genocide committed among the Armenians.

Most of this doesn't come from "hard facts" but instead from a psychological DENIAL that ones own people could commit such acts.

Take this, add some (partially comprehensible) resentment of US foreign [and domestic] policy as fertilizer and you will have a flourishing ecosystem of conspiracy theories. And those theories are rather strong "memes" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme) because the mind finds them easy to absorb.

[JohnG]

Hi John,

the documenttion did not blame the U.S. government for the 9/11 tragedy, but it showed that there are several aspects of the official version that have to be doubted. Did you know for example that the twin towers were designed to resist the impact of a Bing 707 (the biggest civil aircraft in the days when the WTC was built)? Slightly bigger than a 767 by the way...

So this is yet ANOTHER variation on this theory. In this one the culprits are not the Rockefellers or the Bush administration, it is a consortium of the buildings' owner and a bunch of people accused of SEC violations.

Did your documentary happen to mention that the architects of the building themselves gave interviews within a year of the collapse of the buildings addressing this very issue? The buildings were designed to withstand the impact and they did. What they were not designed to resist was the burning off of many many thousands of pounds of jet fuel carried by planes loaded for long transcontinental flights. The reason? Because when the towers were built it was technically impossible. The architects themselves are on record as saying they did not build the building to resist this type of impact AND extended fire because they could not. Are THEY part of the conspiracy too?

I am not going to go point for point. It is clear these shows are entertainment. They pick ONLY the facts that favor their hypothesis. That make people watching the show say, "wooowwwww.... really makes you think!" and stay tuned in during the commercials. If it was a serious documentary, half the viewers would change channels.

In the end, the people who choose to believe this stuff are not going to let logic or common sense stand in their way, so really the debates are meaningless.

[Fish]

I agree that several theories about the things happening in the world today are just plain wrong, nonsense. But we have to face the fact that something unhealthy is happening. What really happened with the WTC? I don

Edited September 12, 2008 by Fish

[Watchman]

I would like to do a final addition to the subject. Many people, even if they do not believe in such theories, say that "the US is responsible for 9/11 because of their partisan position in the middle east and their aggressive and imperialistic bullying around the third world". If this is true, ALL OF US WESTERNERS, in Germany, France, Belgium, Liechtenstein are just as guilty. We ALL have ignored the threat that was growing in the third world out of poverty and ALL our governments. Our wealth (originating from colonial times) is partially built on the poverty of the third world. Even if our governments didn't want to get their hands dirty by proliferating dictators and juntas that seemed acceptable or by starting/feeding the proxy wars in the last century, we are all guilty of ignorance and bigotry. On 9/11 this hit us right in the face!

[Watchman]

I agree that several theories about the things happening in the world today are just plain wrong, nonsense. But we have to face the fact that something unhealthy is happening. What really happened with the WTC? I don

[JohnG]

Who picked that stuff and for what reason? Just cheap entertainment? I don