I’ve had my misgivings about Project Censored for a number of years. That’s why I haven’t nominated Earth Island Journal for any of the stories we’ve published over the last five years: the winning stories seem divided between the categories “no shit Sherlock” (“Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US”! “Federal Whistleblower Protection in Jeopardy!”) and “yeah right.”
(Yes, to a large extent publications self-nominate for the awards. I’m aware of at least one award that was given a publication that merely reprinted a story first run by another publication. It’s a way of preening among one’s peers in the “alternative” media, and who needs it? I’d rather spend my limited time on, you know, actually doing journalism.)
But this ices the cake. The Sonoma State team has actually given an award to the crackpot 9/11 conspiracy set.
Useless. And embarrassing to publications who have past Project Censored awards on our resumes. I can tell you I’m not gonna be touting those awards.
Jeebus, next you’ll be saying the 2004 election wasn’t rigged. Appeaser!
Breaking - Denis Hastert is as fat as Michael Moore. Do I win anything?
Y’know, I have always rolled my eyes at the 9/11 conspiracists myself. But everything I’ve seen in the past has been something some dKos poster cooked up himself. And though of course Hitler used the Reichstag fire to get Weimar Germany’s democratic system to give him dictatorial power, I always thought one of the best pieces of evidence against 9/11 as an analogue was the basic fact that Bush reacted so poorly on that day (though he did get it together by the time he was on the rubble with the bullhorn).
Still, I clicked through out of curiosity…and don’t you think this is a little different? First of all, I thought some of the points made were interesting—but then I was even more intrigued by the people involved:
The group is headed by Jones and Jim Fetzer, University of Minnesota Duluth distinguished McKnight professor of philosophy, and is made up of fifty academicians and experts including Robert M. Bowman, former director of the U.S. “Star Wars� space defense program, and Morgan Reynolds, former chief economist for the Department of Labor in President George W. Bush’s first term.
My mom is a professor emeritus at Minnesota-Duluth, and I wondered if she knows Fetzer. Still, a philosophy professor doesn’t put a huge imprimatur of credibility on something like this. But how to explain the involvement of Bowman and Reynolds?
A director of a federal program based on fatally flawed physics and a Bush administration political appointee don’t move my credibility indicator much either.
And as for the BYU prof: Let’s just say that Utah physicists who send their claims to the media rather than to peer review don’t have all that great a track record.
Zuzu, I hear ya—that’s been one of my strongest reasons for scepticism as well.
But what if we get back to what Eisenhower warned of (and which I do believe was behind the JFK conspiracy: I definitely don’t believe in the Warren Commission), the “military-industrial complex”. Bush wouldn’t have to be in the loop at all—in fact, it would probably be safer if he were not.
It’s a thought, anyway…
Thanks for the post, Chris. I’d like to add a few things.
You have no idea how incredibly furious this crackpot theory makes most people in NYC.
The rationale the conspiracy-theorists offer reminds me of the Rodney King video, where the defense team dug up a team of so-called experts to narrate the video; they played it slowed down and narrated every second to prove that the common-sense interpetation most people had (Cops using way excessive force) was incorrect.
These narratives rely on supplanting common-sense and established facts with a narrative that panders to primitive thinking, suggestibility, ignorance and wishful thinking, and the excitement of paranoia.
Guys armed with box cutters flew enormous jet planes completely full of jet fuel into the buildings. Their timing was impeccable and they were very very lucky. The truth is our whole system of civilization is incredibly incredibly fragile and susceptible to human madness. And that truth is too frightening to the conspiracy theorists.
Building 7? Hundreds of thousands of tons of burning shit fell on it. There was rubble piled stories high for blocks around the whole area.
Shame on Project Censored for elevating this big lie of a narrative to the status of the other twenty four stories.
Some like this story because it feels like a narrative big enough to counter the big lies of the Bush administration. Fuck that shit.
Buzz Aldrin was plagued by a fellow who maintained the moon landings were staged; he ended up punching the guy out. I totally sympathize.
I recommend Erroll Morris’s “Mr. Death,” for a study of how a crackpot thinks and the credibility he’s given. This particular one is a Holocaust-denier.
We humans are crazy motherfuckers and every institution has more than a few credentialed examples of this.
Grr.
So, 9/11 was five years ago, there are many unanswered questions and unasked questions but, pause for dramatic effect…. the real problems are current and contemporary. The election is now less than two months away, and that day will have a much larger and more dramatic affect upon the future of the US and the world, than what “really?â€? happened five years ago.
I do agree that 9/11 was one of the most overrated events of history (especially if the conspiracists are wrong, which I agree they probably are). Ask some octagenarians in Hiroshima, Dresden, London or the former Stalingrad (not sure what it’s called now) to tell you some stories if you want to hear what getting attacked is really all about. I mean, sure, it was spectacular and horrific for those right at “Ground Zero”, but in terms of both loss of life and direct economic damage it was pretty minor compared to past wars.
Volgograd, I think.
Yeah, well a lot of Americans don’t have other countries’ suffering on their radar (Iraqi deaths since 2003? Shit happens). My two-bit theory is that the U.S. has never really had a major modern war fought on it’s own territory, so most Americans can’t grasp the idea of such mayhem. Either that, or you guys have a much larger than average share of omphaloskeptic assholes.
=v= What’s particularly grating about this is that the mainstream media is covering this conspiracy theory.