Having complained of people posting off topic, it seems a reasonable solution to give an opportunity for people to discuss the topics I am banning from other threads – of which 9/11 seems the most popular.
I do not believe that the US government, or any of its agencies, were responsible for 9/11. It would just need too many people to be involved. Someone would have objected. There are some strange and dangerous people in America, but not in sufficient concentration for this one. They couldn’t even keep Watergate quiet, and that was a small group. Any group I can think of – even Blackwater – would contain operatives with scruples about blowing up New York. They may be sadly ready to kill people in poor countries, but Americans en masse? Somebody would say it wasn’t a good idea.
I asked a friend in the construction industry what it would take to demolish the twin towers. He replied nine months, 80 men, and 12 miles of cabling. The notion that a small team at night could plant sufficient explosives embedded at key points, is laughable.
The forces of the aircraft impacts must have been amazingly high. I have no difficulty imagining they would bring down the building. As for WTC 7, again the kinetic energy of the collapse of the twin towers must be immense.
I admit to a private speculation about WTC7. Unfortunately in construction it is extremely common for contractors not to fix or install properly all the expensive girders, ties and rebar that are supposed to be enclosed in the concrete. Supervising contractors and municipal inspectors can be corrupt. I recall vividly that in London some years ago a tragedy occurred when a simple gas oven explosion brought down the whole side of a tower block.
The inquiry found that the building contractor had simply omitted the ties that bound the girders at the corners, all encased in concrete. If a gas oven had not blown up, nobody would have found out. Buildings I strongly suspect are very often not as strong as they are supposed to be, with contractors skimping on apparently redundant protection. The sort of sordid thing you might not want too deeply investigated in the event of a national tragedy.
Precisely what happened at the Pentagon I am less sure. There is not the conclusive film and photographic evidence that there is for New York. I am particularly puzzled by the much more skilled feat of flying that would be required to hit a building virtually at ground level, in an urban area, after a lamppost clipping route – very hard to see how a non-professional pilot did that. But I can think of a number of possible scenarios where the official explanation is not quite the whole truth on the Pentagon, but which do not necessitate a belief that the US government or Dick Cheney was behind the attack.
In my view the real scandal of 9/11 was that it was blowback – the product of a malignant terrorist agency whose origins lay in CIA funding and provision. Also blowback in a more general sense that it was spawned in the nasty theocratic dictatorship of Saudi Arabia which is so close to the US and to the Bush dynasty in particular. As with almost all terrorist activity, I do not rule out any point on the whole spectrum of surveillance, penetration and agent provocateur activity by any number of possible actors.
But was 9/11 false flag and controlled demolition? No, I think not.
(Now I have given full opportunity to discuss 9/11 here, any further references on other threads will be instantly deleted).
Clark: There’s an awful lot of far-right fantasies about blue-helmeted UN shock-troops taking over the US, and much in the way of lies about gun-grabs and weapons bans brings this nonsense up. John Goss’s 30,000 guillotines is along the same lines, as are the FEMA concentration camps.
It’s rather tragic that people who regard themselves as fairly right-on will echo these crazed far-right fantasies, thinking they are somehow helping a progressive movement. Hence the “Sandy Hook was a hoax!” lies. The far right doesn’t want to believe their precious little guns could actually hurt anyone innocent – they only protect freedom, after all! Therefore every example of genuine harm is explained away, or in the case of the most horrendous massacres, denied altogether.
No – Sandy Hook didn’t happen, it’s all part of President Carter, sorry, Bill Clinton, sorry, Al Gore – no, make that Obama’s programme to take away everyone’s Freedom Protector, to make things easier when the UN declares a one-world government and takes everyone prisoner.
Apparently the likes of RoS, Lyasis and Goss have no idea they are being useful idiots for the far right when they promote that cruel nonsense.
Michael Meacher: This war on terrorism is bogus, 6 September 2003:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/sep/06/september11.iraq
This is what all the brouhaha about deliberate demolition, hologram aircraft, media fakery, nukes etc. is distracting us from. The US authorities KNEW. Look at this, written four days after 9/11:
http://europe.newsweek.com/alleged-hijackers-may-have-trained-us-bases-152495
Does anyone care? Or is everyone still obsessed with deliberate demolition?
Interesting Wikipedia page, used to be called “9/11 advance-knowledge debate” but changed to “September 11 attacks advance-knowledge conspiracy theories” with the disclaimer “This article is about 9/11 conspiracy theories. For historical discussion, see September 11 intelligence prior to the attacks. For the mainstream account, see September 11 attacks”. Well, for a “conspiracy theory” article it’s exceptionally well-referenced to mainstream sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks_advance-knowledge_conspiracy_theories
Wikipedia is like that. You won’t find any mention of confessions extracted under torture in the page “9/11 Commission Report”; you have to look at the page “Criticism of the 9/11 Commission”. The information is there if you can find it; there’s a Wikipedia rule against removing well-sourced material, so spooky editors force it to be moved to obscure pages instead.
Clarke, yes people care. I see what you are saying. Nonetheless pictures can be viewed from many angles. WTC7 and demolition issues are just one aspect, or gate. Find a gate and a person can begin to look around at the other aspects and start to put the 9/11 jigsaw together. Similarly, 9/11 is in its own way an obsession for some. For others it has already become history. But as your post above Michael Meacher quote suggests 9/11 is itself a piece in the jigsaw and so a gateway to understanding today.
Didn’t do much for Michael Meacher’s career did it.
To me the two obvious facts at work in all our minds are: 1) it sure looks like something more than two planes; 2) speaking out doesn’t do much for one’s career.
If a day came when the media consensus stated the buildings were demolished I suspect many ordinary people would say they knew ie were not asleep and wouldn’t say they were frightened, but just prudently cautious and following the flock. The eagle pucks off the straggler.
And on that note have a nice weekend.
Fwl:
Well it hasn’t exactly done ME much good, saying that I think the Twin Towers weren’t deliberately demolished, has it? John Goss has accused me of spreading “spook stories”, Node held back but virtually accused Kempe of being part of the 9/11 conspiracy, Exexpat started playing to the gallery almost immediately accusing me of “forum sliding” and worse, Maxter announced that anyone still doubting demolition after watching a video must be a troll, Glenn was off down the path of dismissal but sympathy for my rejection of hologram aircraft made him rethink… You, Fwl, have been the sole exception, throughout treating me as inquiring in good faith (for which I’m grateful).
Well I don’t think there’s a powerful and secret conspiracy to enforce belief in deliberate demolition, so I have to apply the same reasoning to supporters of the official narrative, don’t I?
Polarisation – Human minds must have a very strong urge to polarise issues.
People seem to make up their minds at some point, and beyond that point they cherry-pick which evidence they’ll accept and which they’ll reject. To support the cherry-picking they then classify the sources and supporters into Good Guys and Bad Guys.
Nearly all crime, action and conflict movies exploit this human tendency. Who spares a thought for the Star Wars Stormtrooper, burning and writhing in agony within his white body armour? Who cares if he has a wife and kids he won’t be getting home to after this shift? “I have a bad feeling about this”.
We see it on nearly every thread on this blog – actually, every thread that runs long enough.
This is the human condition, this is what we’re up against. This is why us humans are failing to solve the problems we’ve created and resort instead to blaming each other.
Fwl, you have a good weekend, too.
Thanks, I agree with what you say about how we all attach to our concepts. There is a wonderful statement in The Unfettered Mind (Zen advice for sword fighting), which if I remember correctly encourages that your mind should be like a ball on a wave. The moment it fixes, it attaches and your opponent if he is skilled has his opening and strikes.
This tendency to polarise; each of us is going to fail to see it in ourself. We’re each going to see it in our “opposition”, and our own viewpoint is going to seem utterly reasonable.
It’s recursive. It’s a positive feedback. It inevitably reinforces itself.
The only solution I can think of is to accept that we have this blind-spot, and attempt to compensate for it consciously. Or maybe meditation and self-reflection can reveal the distortions it creates, or the feelings that drive the process. But consciously compensating, deliberately maintaining self-doubt, seems essential.
“Like a ball on a wave” – I like that. I’ll contemplate that.
Node held back but virtually accused Kempe of being part of the 9/11 conspiracy,
Clark, twice previously I’ve corrected you for saying that but you repeat it yet again. I can only conclude you are deliberately trying to rile me. It’s as though you want to provoke people into retaliating so you can say “There, I told you so, everybody is against me.” Well, I’m not against you, I wish you well, I think you’re still in a dark place but you’re coming out of it, and once you do I’ll engage in debate with you again, but not now.
Re ball on a wave:
I would’ve expressed better if had said let one’s attention be like a ball on the rolling wave of the mind. ?
Or the sea of life
Or the ses of sensory data
Or the sea of experiences
Or the sea of one’s theories
Or the sea of others’ theories thoughts and arguments
We are free.
Animals seem to lack our ability to think in the abstract. Consequently, they don’t build cars, planes or bombs and they appear not to philosophize but they keep their wits about them with attention like a ball on a wave. Some such as birds apparently count and obviously construct simple homes (so perhaps there is some idle philosophizing in the language of the birds ?).
Watch More-4 right now, for the next few hours – some rare footage of the whole event, mostly amateur work.
Node, I wasn’t trying to rile you. I think that I did overstate your position, so I apologise for that. I have been disappointed that you haven’t engaged with most of the arguments I’ve put forward since then, particularly the ones about the collapse of Building 7; it was you who asserted that Building 7’s collapse was indisputably controlled demolition. I’ve addressed that directly but you’ve remained silent.
One reason I get disappointed is that it appears to me that people pick up other people’s theories from the Internet and if they find them convincing they propagate them and defend them, but they don’t subject them to further critical thinking. When such propagated theories meet a serious challenge their proponents stop engaging. That is disappointing because it is from contention that new ideas emerge.
“Molten steel in the basements” is one such theory. It gets repeated and repeated, and claims about necessary temperatures are made based upon it. But how do we know it was steel? If anyone took a sample I’ve yet to hear about it. Might it have been lead, for instance?
Too much assumption, assertion, repetition; not enough questioning.
Node, you’re right that this is part of the dark place I’m in but I don’t really expect to come out of it. Us humans seem to lack the qualities necessary to secure our future, and the sort of polarisation that seems to hijack nearly all discussion reinforces my pessimism. I have no family or relations so I lack the comforting but narrow focus upon progress of those related to me. The only allegiances available to me are humanity as a whole and our planetary home, and things look rather hopeless for both. Often I wonder if I should just do myself in so I at least stop getting everyone else down, but then that in itself might get folks down; it’s just impossible to know how to do the least harm. Sorry.
Don’t go worrying about doing the least harm. The world can look after itself. Life is full of light. If it wasn’t for the dark moments we wouldn’t know the light. If your feeling down then it is best to avoid these threads and conspiracy arguments
whatever the truth of the incidents its not easy to unravel and is something of a vortex. Just doing stuff, working, playing, cooking, building etc is much better. Work and play. Answers come in their own time.
Fwl; on the threads, in the real world; what difference does it make? People are shallow; people want to be shallow. Nearly everyone made up their minds what they believe long since (especially about their selves), and from there on they try to convince others by any means necessary. It’s so boring and pointless.
Just look at the level of “debate” was like.
Thank goodness Craig posted.
Above started here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/02/hillary-clinton-is-the-guardian/comment-page-6/#comment-578720
I’ve just looked at
Momentum Transfer Analysis of the Collapse of the Upper Storeys of WTC 1
by Gordon Ross; degrees in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, filename Journal_5_PTransferRoss.pdf
Shall I shut up about it? Would someone else like to lead?
Its sometimes enough to engage lightly with people in the real world. Being yourself and understanding yourself is (somewhat strangely) difficult enough. Others can do as they please. If you can help others in some little way that is good, but they don’t have to get it if they don’t want to. Anyway there are hidden depths to people and they can’t always be judged by what they say (even more so by what they type on a blog).
Exceedingly true, Fwl – as when you find great wisdom which can be most welcome, from sources where you least expect it, when you most need it. And there’s grief from others that you could do without, particularly when you don’t need it. All part of life’s bittersweet symphony, I should imagine.
Can the lectures please.
What can anyone tell us about Journal_5_PTransferRoss.pdf? Do proponents of deliberate demolition cite this paper, or should I be looking at others?
This has gone on for years. I’ve repeatedly been called a troll because I didn’t accept an assertion. So I want to find out what it is that is so convincing that scores of people will dismiss me as a person and drop out of communication unless I accept it.
This matters. I’m not the only person affected by this social issue. There must be many millions at odds with each other. There must be loads of matters that just can’t be discussed. If we imagine that our society was in psychotherapy, it would have some pretty serious hang-ups, wouldn’t it?
I learnt about To Have or To Be also by Erich Fromm when I was in school. Great influence – although I am a slow learner; very slow when I look back. I may read some more Fromm now that you have reminded me of him.
OK I’ve waited a fair time; are there any “deliberate demolition is the smoking gun” theorists who are prepared to recant?
That, or discuss physics with me.
Glenn, I know you’ve admitted that deliberate demolition is only a possibility, but there’s still an outstanding matter. Before you swapped horses from an argument about momentum to an argument involving mechanical strength, you criticised my crude approximation saying that a proper analysis would involve an “integral function”, or something like that.
I made a couple of hints but you haven’t responded so I’ll ask outright. Is there a particular paper you’d rather I didn’t take a look at? If so, either please link to it, or assure me that you’ll desist from “appeals to authority” arguments based upon it.
Node, I’m lacking satisfaction from you, too.
Maxter, I will watch the video you linked eventually. For now, you wrote:
Yes, and they say they designed the towers to withstand impacts from substantial aircraft. Two points:
(1) The Twin Towers did withstand impacts from large, fast-moving aircraft. The aircraft impacts did not of themselves cause major parts of the structures to collapse.
(2) If the Towers weren’t deliberately demolished, what would you expect those engineers to say? “Oh yes, we said at the time of construction that the Towers would withstand major aircraft impacts, but we were lying. We deliberately overstated the resilience of our buildings”?