Discussion of Thierry Meyssan's 9/11 The Big Lie and John Gravois's "Professors of Paranoia? Academics Give a Scholarly Stamp to 9/11 Conspiracy Theories" starting on February 26, 2007.

Reading “Professors of Paranoia: Academics give a scholarly stamp to 9/11 conspiracy theories” raised so many concerns for me that I think it best to merely list them (in the order they arose).

1. “They feel sure the post-9/11 era is built on a lie” (Gravois 1). Here I would mirror Sean’s(?) question of “Who do these pictures help?” in the way of “Does it matter if it’s built on a lie?” The post-9/11 era is here, we are living in it…what exactly will or would we have changed if something else had caused the events besides terrorists? No matter what, the event has occurred and irreparably changed our course of history.

2. “Or that the conference would draw so heavily on references to The Matrix” (Gravois 2). If this is an attempt of the author to discredit the conference, I think he failed. Every contemporary literature and theory course I’ve taken since The Matrix was released has mentioned it in some way, shape, or form. Guaranteed. Nor would I be surprised to hear about it at a conference that is so obviously concerned with what may be the dystopic future of The United States.

3. Gravois’ Matrix referenced seems to be self-serving as he is then able to create characters out of the conference goers he quotes. Alex Jones is certainly portrayed as Morpheus giving his speech to Zion in The Matrix Reloaded. AND, the only typo that I noticed in the article was in Jones’ speech as well: “…they’ve got another think coming” (Gravois 2).

4. The paragraph that (physically) describes the conference goers is *so* demeaning that, for me, Gravois lost his credibility. “…serious-looking youngsters wearing backpacks and didactic T-shirts…” This is yet another group in which I’d certainly be placed, along with many others who I would not want to be associate with. Gravois is not being critical, he is being demeaning.

5. FYI: I was not sure what Occam’s razor was, so I looked it up. Here’s the wiki link if you don’t know and you’re curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor

6. Clearly, I found Gravois’ use of language to be the main problem with his article. What I most amused by was the wishy-washy rhetoric used be Thomas E. Eagar of his proposed answer to Jones’ assertion. In his statement, he uses all of these words: “could,” “perhaps,” “likely,” “Occasionally,” “probably,” and “possible” (Gravois 4). How much confidence can we really expect to put into such an idea?

7. Lastly, Fetzer’s speech claiming, “The degree of perfidy involved here is so great, that in the time of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, frenzied mobs would have dragged these men out of their beds in the middle of the night and ripped them into shreds!” (Gravois 7) made me lost all sense of trust in him as well – and he was on thin ice after suggesting arming citizenry, but at least that wasn’t a direct quote. For those of us fortunate enough to have read the Classics, we know that much of the violence carried out in these texts is often regretted or met with equal and worse revenge. (Especially in Euripides’ The Bacchae where Pentheus is tricked into dressing as a woman and then torn limb from limb by his mother and a frenzied mob). So I am not sure this is a good or sound example of the time or actions that our country should emulate.

After reading "Professors of Paranoia," I agree with the points that Justine made. I am always willing to listen to alternative opinions and whatever evidence is available on both sides, but I am not willing to listen to a long string of insults and condescension, no matter how articulately it is presented.

The entire essay treated the conspiracy theorists like lunatics or small children, foolish and silly and unable to see how very stupid the world thinks they are. Is it at all necessary to take this tone in the essay? If you are writing a scholarly paper trying to persuade people that a point of view is incorrect, do it objectively and intelligently. Gravois simply berated those of the opposite opinion from him and threw in every reference, however unrelated or unimportant, that he could find to make them look foolish.

In fact, I have noticed this trend a lot whenever dealing with the idea of September 11. Any discussion seems to degenerate to an argument where neither side is trying to inform or sway the other anymore – they're just hurling insults: "You're wrong because you're wrong and you're stupid and ugly to boot!" On the conspiracy issue in particular, people seem to cling to one opinion or the other with religious zeal, picking out the weak points in the other's argument and ignoring any legitimate points they make. Such disagreements never lead to anything constructive.

A prime example of this can be found here: http://forum.starmen.net/?t=msg&th=31729

The above link goes to a topic on a forum on a web site based around the Super Nintendo game “Earthbound.” The topic was posted in the “general” forum, which is reserved for off-topic discussions. The initial post was a list by one person of the “big 40” reasons why 9/11 must have been a conspiracy. Following this is a reasonably intelligent debate for a while, with various members of the forum pointing out holes in the conspiracy theory, and the original poster responding to them. The problem was that original poster (Revival of Buzz Buzz) failed to address certain arguments, only responding to the ones that he had evidence for. He refused to even acknowledge any points that he couldn't refute, let alone admit that he couldn't explain them. Several people pointed this out, and he ignored that as well. This slowly led to the degeneration of the discussion into nothing more than insult-slinging, which was eventually locked by a moderator because it was going nowhere.

Why is it that people appear to be incapable of sitting down and having an intelligent conversation about this issue? Why does neither side ever listen to the legitimate points made by the other? In my opinion, resorting to insult slinging is proof positive that the insulter has run out of intelligent evidence and can no longer defend him/herself without distracting the other party with name calling.

I just finished reading John Gravois' "Professors of Paranoia", and there were a number of interesting things which he said that I wanted to respond to.

First and foremost, I want to agree with Justine's (I think it was Justine, I apologize if I'm wrong as I'm not looking at the post right now) comment regarding the author's use of language throughout the article. While it seems as though Gravois is attempting to provide an intellectual report and analysis of this movement, his clearly biased use of language really makes it hard for me as a reader to take him seriously as an intellectual. The particular comment about the conference-goers was especially bad in my opinion. If he has a strong opinion on the matter (which from reading the article it seems as though he does), then perhaps he should not be attempting to write an essay from an objective perspective.

Next, on the first page of the article, the author describes how interest in 9/11 conspiracy theories has increased monumentally in recent months, and asks "Why now?". Part of this class has been a discussion of when it is okay to talk and speculate about 9/11, and I think that this makes an interesting way of determining the answer. Why now? It seems as though we have moved past not being able to talk about 9/11 if the interest in conspiracy theories is suddenly increasing.

The next comment which I found interesting was on the bottom of the first page, where Gravois asks, "what happens when science tries to function in a fringe crusade?". This statement could have easily been applied to scientists who supported the idea of global warming a decade ago, when sustainable development was still a "fringe crusade". In fact, this statement could probably be applied to dozens of scientific and social discoveries over the centuries which were considered "fringe crusades" before they were accepted as mainstream - Copernicus anyone? New ideas and discoveries are almost always part of a fringe culture, so applying that question to 9/11 conspiracies seems out of place considering the rest of his argument.

Another section of the article which I found interesting was Gravois' discussion of the "common problems" that an average person has with most conspiracy theories. He states that "One of the most common intuitive problems people have with conspiracy theories is that they require position such complicated webs of secret actions. If the twin towers fell in a carefully orchestrated demolition shortly after being hit by planes, who set the charges? Who did the planning?" After reading the 9/11 Report and watching Hamburg Cell, I find it hard to believe that any 9/11 conspiracy could possibly be any more complicated that the official account of what happened. Years of planning, including sending people to live, work, and study in the United States, involving thousands of dollars and hundreds of people - how is that not complicated? And further, I dislike the assumption that people don't like conspiracy theories because they are complicated. It almost sounds like the author is saying that your average person is not intelligent to really understand such a complex idea, thus they are likely to dismiss it as too messy. I disagree, and I dislike the implications of that statement.

I thought of something interesting today, in relation to our discussion of the community versus personal reactions to 9/11. In a class on Ethnic Humor last semester, we had to watch Sarah Silverman’s DVD "Jesus is Magic." She has a joke where, to paraphrase her, she says that September 11, 2001 was an especially difficult day for her because it was then that she found out how many calories there were in a soy latte at Starbucks. Silverman goes on to rant about how “when you hear soy, you think healthy...”

The joke had obvious shock value and the audience thought it funny, but I really think it speaks to people's personal responses to the events as well as brings up the question of who is allowed to make fun of the events &c. For example: is Silverman justified is saying 9/11 was especially bad for her because she’d been drinking high-caloric coffee for months without realizing it?

Thoughts?

"Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
-former President Eisenhower

It was this warning that Eisenhower gave, that I feel we should heed with respect to 9/11. President Bush asked Congress, our representatives, to not investigate in order to show unity in America. That is horrible leadership.

Some facts I feel give reason for a deeper, public investigation-

1) Operation Northwood proposed to McNamara describes events that would sacrifice American lives to engage the emotions of Americans, and subsequently allow America to war with Cuba.

2) Lack of evidence suggesting a commercial airliner hit the pentagon. The Boeing 757 would have had two 6 ton titanium engines that cannot vaporize from jet fuel and were not found in the crash.

3) Mark Vreeland gave a sealed envelope to officials describing attacks planned on New York *before* they occurred. This in combination with his link to US Naval Intelligence.

4) Warnings given to some in WTC prior to attacks. Warnings given to some officials not to fly on Sept. 11th.

5) Ties of bin Laden to CIA and Bush family.

6) Insider trading which allowed profit of hundreds of millions of dollars, this got the attention of SEC, but was never investigated fully. This involved Boeing and American Airlines stock.

...

There is more. While reading I couldn't believe the incestuous behaviour of our government and security agencies. I have looked into some of the conspiracy theories before, a lot of them are BS and give the factual ones a bad name. My thought is that deceit will continue if we don't have alert and knowledgeable citizens. Hopefully that will change sometime soon.

I found Thierry Meyssan's book 9/11: the Big Lie an entirely incredible piece of writing. Through parts of the book, I could see that he had some valid points. For example (and as Drew mentioned above), who profited from 9/11? What about the lack of plane parts around the Pentagon? How could an airliner get into the Pentagon's protected air space without setting off millions of alarm bells? However, there comes a point when critical and intelligent hypothesizing end and increasingly incredulous statements start. I found that I could not read through all of Meyssan's book without having to put it down, read more rational things, and then return to the vagaries of 9/11: the Big Lie. I also felt like the photos in that book were supposed to be incriminating (especially the one of Laura Bush near the end). At times, I felt like I could have added any ludicrous thing I wanted to say in there too. It seemed that at points in that book, anything was acceptable.

I highly doubt some of Meyssan's arguments such as the appointment of the new FBI director just happened to be the week of 9/11 and that the government was in on it. I have to say that as a political science major, and one who has interned in a public office, the government really does not have it together. Sure, I'll be the first to admit that there are some super efficient organizations in the intelligence area; however, I cannot see most appointees and elected officials engaging in some grandiose and universal scheme of 9/11. Just like Andrew said in another class, his father received warnings that there would be some type of attack that might happen in the US at some time. Nothing was certain and most of the agencies did not even have enough Arabic translators to find out who these hypothetical attackers were. Most government agencies and offices slosh through so much paperwork and hierarchy that they are unaware of what is going on. That was definitely clear in the 9/11 Commission Report and it mirrors my own experiences with government.

The Pentagon's Phantom Plane is one of the mysteries that I cannot get over. Members of the press were kept away from the scene, "not to hinder rescue operations"? There was no interception, and US Armed Forces remained passive during the attack? I don't understand what happened to the plane at the Pentagon, and why only FEMA's special Urban Search and Rescue teams came into contact with the plane.

However, I have to say that while the idea of 9/11 as a big lie is tempting to believe, I have to agree with Kristen that many of the points in Meyssan's book seemed over the top. One was the point he made that the hijackers carried cutters, and then the CIA later discovered cutters in a house in Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden once had stayed. Also, on p.32, his statement that "In the public's collective imagination, it's a well-known fact that Arabs, and thus Islamic militants, like to slit their victim's throats. The cutters allowed people to infer that all the hijackers were Arabs, although this remains to be proven".

It seems like he is really preying on the American public's willingness to quickly associate Islam or Arabs with terrorism.

There seemed to be some typos/grammatical errors in the book, which in my mind discredited the author further. On page 55, he was talking about the number of innocent victims on each plane and wrote, "46 on United Airlines flight 77, (which crashed into the South Tower), 51 on American Airlines flight 77 (the one that supposedly crashed into the Pentagon)". He obviously meant to say 175 instead of 77, but still. Get a publisher to proofread your book before it's published! (In fact, one of you or some other previous reader wrote in the margin "wtf? edit". I'm glad you noticed it too.

While the book was entertaining to read, I really can't imagine that so many government and military officials could be in on a plot that would kill thousands of American civillians solely for the US government's personal agenda: to give them an excuse to start a war against Afghanistan, Iraq, or anyone else whom this "war on terrorism" will be against in the future. I'm completely agreeing with Kristen's statement, "I cannot see most appointees and elected officials engaging in some grandiose and universal scheme of 9/11."

Articles regarding 9/11 conspiracy theories have been written by people to help explain away the things that regular everyday science cannot explain. In regards to the John Gravois's article, conspiracy theorists try to put forth the proposition that the building was a controlled demolition and that it was a government conspiracy theory, which is insane. I believe that most Americans would not have participated in such an event; better yet the thousands of people it would have taken to do that would have been unable to have gone unnoticed and silent for this long. Architects and engineers claimed the WTC to be undestructible, but the math they used was not in calculation for a jet aircraft that resembled the properties of a cruise missile. No one is actually sure of the structural damage that occurred in the WTC because the building fell. Whenever things like this happen some crazy people will always say that it is a government conspiracy. These are the same people that form militias and bombed the Meaureau building in Oklahoma City.

The Pentagon crash, is the one I feel that is the most worthy of investigation. In the 9/11 report, the order was given by both the President and the Vice President to shoot down that aircraft and by the time the jets arrived to intercept the plane. It was reported as crashed. The only security camera the Pentagon claims that had seen the crash showed it briefly. It is almost for sure that the Pentagon has more than one camera. Why haven’t we seen it from any other angle that a parking garage camera? While I read all these claims of conspiracy theorists I realize that most of these people are dead enders looking for a revolution that will never occur and come across mainly as mad men. The one thing that may help the conspiracy theorists is a part in the 9/11 Commission Report that regarded an attack of such a magnitude would allow America a free hand to intervene any way and anywhere in the world it saw fit. Maybe no one planned the attacks they just did not stop them or realize how serious Al Qaeda was on intending to strike a target on the American mainland.

I would, at first, like to echo some of the comments already made about this book, in particular, the fact that I could not read the entire thing without needing to take "reality checks." Now granted, i am all for a good yarn and what Meyssan has to say is extremely interesting in that regard, however, there comes a point where one has to say enough.

At first I was extremely taken in by his assertions about the "phantom plane." The lack of plane parts and the "pool" of fuel seemed pretty convincing and damning in terms of evidence. But, it was not until later, after putting down the book, when his arguments started to fall apart. Meyssan's book is one of the most glaring examples of bias I have ever read. The information he presents in the book is severely trunicated, offering the same level of disinformation that he accuses the administration of disseminating.

He does not bother to trouble his own arguments, which is why they are so attractive; there is nothing for them to be placed up against. Not once does he consider that, upon impact, the wings of the phantom plane could have collapsed into the plane itself thus entering the building. Also, his argument about the holes through the other layers of the building, it sounds a good deal like the "bullet speech" at the beginning of the Departed where it is explained how a bullet mushrooms once it enter's the target. At 500 plus miles an hour, any plane is essentially a large bullet.

I guess I am simply let down by the book. I wanted to see more of an argument as opposed to the one-sided rant Meyssan engages the reader with, continually offering his version of events without respect for the thoughts or accounts of anyone else.