Salon's resident coincidence theorist weighs in on Loose Change

[iconoclastNYC]

This is the same guy who attacked the Barbara Boxer for contesting Ohio's electoral votes, Mark Cripsin Miller for his book fooled again, and RJK Jr for the Rolling Stone Piece.


"The 9/11 deniers"

The success of the documentary "Loose Change" spotlights the online sleuths who believe the U.S. government was behind the terror attacks -- to get gold, justify war, or serve Satan.

Who, in Avery's telling, is the dark force behind all this destruction, the spinner of the big lie that Avery believes envelops the popular perception of 9/11? A most usual suspect: "The first person I'd bring into a court of law would be Dick Cheney," Avery says. "He's the person in the administration who I think is most responsible."

Quizzing Dylan Avery on the events of 9/11 is like taking a peek into an alternate history, a parallel universe of half-truths and audacious propositions that rarely ever disturb the peace of the reality-based world. In another time, that long-ago pre-digital age, you might have dismissed such theories as the rantings of a crank; what a young man like Avery believes about a world-shattering event like 9/11 would seem to be of little consequence to the larger narratives that have grown out of the misery of that day.

But these are days of amateur experts and self-made provocateurs, an era in which a young man with a laptop and a few far-out ideas can easily garner a huge audience in the self-referential online watering holes that dominate modern rhetoric. In the spring of 2005, Avery released "Loose Change," a feature-length documentary film that proposes that the terrorist attacks on America weren't terrorist attacks at all, and were instead conceived, planned and executed by people at the highest levels of the government. Though it has not been distributed in theaters, Avery's film -- sold on DVD and available for free online -- has emerged as the leading gateway drug for thousands, and possibly millions, of converts to the "9/11 truth movement," the loose affiliation of skeptics who doubt the official story. The film has transformed Avery into one of world's most influential proselytizers of the theory that the 9/11 attacks were an "inside job."

I've heard some of Avery's fans describe his movie as "the red pill," the drug that takes Keanu Reeves down "The Matrix's" rabbit hole. During the past month, I've swallowed the pill about a half-dozen times, following Avery and other 9/11 skeptics down a treacherous path toward the alleged truth. I'm sorry to say I didn't find it; much of Avery's film has been debunked even by fellow 9/11 skeptics, and some of its theories verge on the bizarre. If you care to look, you won't find a shred of proof that Flight 93 landed in Cleveland, or that the World Trade Center was stuffed with gold bars, or that the Pentagon was hit by anything other than a commercial jet.

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2006/06/27/911_conspiracies/

[Bolo Boffin]

1. This here is precisely the problem with alternate CTs

Manjoo goes from revealing the "craziness" of Kennedy's article to reviewing the craziness of Loose Change. In a classic sense of brand dilution, one of the most important articles about the 2004 is being painted with the same color as a documentary that claims hundreds of billions of dollars in gold bars were at the bottom of the WTC.

This is what comes of trying to prove these outlandish theories. Political opponents use your "researching" to smear the people that really pose a threat.

[democraticinsurgent]

2. ok, then, let's all stop looking for the truth, it's much easier

fareed manjoo is clearly not interested in the truth, only in throwing cold water on those who have open minds and open eyes.

I am ashamed to be a Salon subscriber. They have lost me forever.

[Bolo Boffin]

3. You can have your mind so open that everything falls out. n/t

[dailykoff]

4. When are you going to wise up.

Manjoo is a plant. They're in every media outlet and have been for years. It used to just be the CIA but now the Pentagon and White House have gotten into the act, too.

Reuters, February 25, 2002: U.S. Planting False Stories Common Cold War Tactic

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/02/re022502.html

[rastafan]

5. stop the press

It is troubling that this reporter holds the obviously corrupted
9/11 Commission as the authority of the events of that day.

The 9/11 Commission Report: An Elaborate Fiction:
http://911research.wtc7.net/post911/commission/report.html


That said, it is very refreshing to see a mainstream publication
that does not consign all 9-11 "truthers" to the same boat.

[Rich Hunt]

6. I finally saw "Loose Change"

....what a piece of crap. It doesn't even offer a conspiracy theory - it just looks at shadows on the plane and shit. I think the guy even mentioned missles.

Please, can we not have other conspiracy theories?

[hpot]

7. Here is a better video (Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime)

Statements from government officials. Hard to dispute.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6757267008400743688

[Ferry Fey]

8. Good time to try for a little chat with Norman Mineta?

Though as Gregor Holland says in "The Mineta Testimony: 9/11 Commission Exposed,", "Mineta ultimately expressed the obvious, that the standing order was an open question only Cheney could answer. The fact that the 9/11 Commission Report discarded his testimony has never been explained. Secretary Mineta did not respond to an open letter addressed to him. It is not known whether the letter got past his spokesman Robert Johnson, who did not respond to multiple messages. It might be worth noting that Johnson was formerly the spokesman of Arizona Congressman Jon Kyl, who was meeting the morning of 9/11 with Porter Goss, Bob Graham and at the time Pakistan ISI Intelligence Chief Mahmood Ahmed. Ahmed was linked to the wiring of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta."



Mineta responds to an opening question by Commissioner Hamilton about the events in the PEOC and an alleged shoot down order. He describes a conversation between Cheney and a young man:

Mineta: "During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President...the plane is 50 miles out...the plane is 30 miles out....and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president "do the orders still stand?" And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said "Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!??"

Mineta explains that while he had not known it at the time, he had surmised that the standing order the young man asked about must have been a shoot down order. Hamilton, looking a bit confused, seeks clarification about which flight the conversation was regarding, and Mineta once again clarifies that it is the flight that hit the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. on September 11.

9/11 Commission Report - one year later...
By Gregor Holland
911truthmovement.org
July 22, 2005

http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20050724164122860

[democraticinsurgent]

10. Don't forget Who Killed John O'Neill? Video

A fabulous background analysis with great historical insight. Not to mention, entertaining as hell.

http://www.wkjo.com

[reprehensor]

9. Et tu, Salon?

http://www.gnn.tv/B16343

Manjoo is going to have find an easier target.

I suggest "Playground Safety" or somesuch.