Friday, March 19, 2010

The 9/11 Truth Gestapo

One of the main reasons which kept me away from the 9/11 Truth movement for 8 years was the tone and tactics of some of the most vocal members of the 9/11T movement. The video below is a perfect example of the kind of tactics these guys use:



Seeing this video made me recall one evening in Melbourne, FL, where I had travelled to listen to Amy Goodman make a presentation. Amy was about halfway through her presentation when some young guy suddenly jumped up and began screaming that "9/11 was an inside job! 9/11 was an inside job!". Amy calmly thanked him for having made his point and asked him to sit down and please let her continue. They guy then got even more hysterical and began yelling at her "why don't you say that 9/11 was an inside job!!!". Amy calmly retorted to him "look, I don't tell you what you have to say, what gives you the right to tell me what I have to say?!". By then, the entire hall was booing and hissing at the screaming truther and it took the campus police to finally get the guy out. And what was the result? The rude and arrogant behavior of that truther turned roughly 300 people completely off the topic of 9/11. I know, I was one of them.

The sad reality that next to such wonderful gentlemen like Richard Gage, Steven Jones and many others, there is a real "9/11 Truth Gestapo" out there which, just like the Saudi or Afghan "mutaween" morals police (The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice) feels that it has the right to hound and harass any and all persons who happen not to endorse the 9/11 Truth movement. This "9/11 Gestapo" has made folks like Amy Goodman, David Rovics and Noam Chomsky the targets of special vitriol since all of them are anti-establishment resisters with a track record of standing up to Uncle Sam which very few of us can match (that all three of them are Jews probably also makes them prime targets for anti-Jewish bigots who think that all Jews must be crypto-Zionists).

I am not sure about Noam Chomsky, but I know for a fact that both Amy Goodman and David Rovics do support a new and independent investigation into the events of September 11. But that is not good enough for the "9/11 Gestapo police"! No, they want *everybody* to already pre-judge the findings of this investigation and, God forbid, anybody would dare to doubt or, even worse, disagree with the *dogma* that "9/11 was in inside job"!

I am absolutely convinced, beyond any doubt, that 9/11 was, indeed, and inside job. And I would be delighted to have Amy Goodman, David Rovics and Noam Chomsky to declare that they came to the same conclusion has I did. But that hardly give me the right to constantly harass them with rude and obnoxious demands that they think just like I do. That kind of 9/11T fascism is not helping the 9/11T movement at all.

Some folks out there seem to like Alex Jones, Jesse Ventura and the rest of the "screaming" truthers a lot. I guess stuff like "Prison Planet" "American conspiracies" or "Infowars" sound great to their ears. To me, this sounds like just another version of the kind of what I call "Texan crap" we had to put up with for 8 years of Dubya. You know, cowboy stuff. The kind which appeals to IQs at, or under, room temperatures.

There is no denying that this, shall we say, "cowboy 9/11" stuff does appeal to some people. And for all my dislike for Alex Jones (he does even sound and look like Dubya, no? "Give me a visor!" as Caliendo would say), he has been in the 9/11T movement a heck of a lot longer that yours truly. So I have to set some of my own preferences aside and not begin doing exactly what this "9/11 Gestapo" does: to assume that everybody who does not agree with me is therefore evil, dishonest or some kind of 'gatekeeper'. But not making assumptions about the motives of these people, I still have the right to clearly state that I believe that their demeanor, tactics and mindset alienate the right side of the Bell Curve and that is very bad for the entire 9/11 Truth movement.

The idea that we will all walk to the 9/11 truth in lockstep is morally wrong and practically misguided. The truth about 9/11, as any other truth, will only come out of a free and contradictory discussion, in which many different views will be heard and judged on their merits. In the meanwhile, as a very practical matter, we should consider everybody who agrees to a new investigation into 9/11 as an ally and a person we should express thanks and gratitude to, and not a target for scorn or harassment.

The Saker