by Joel S. Hirschhorn
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.foavc.org
August 10, 2009
As we approach the eighth anniversary of 9/11 consider this paradox. In the post 9-11 years the scientific evidence for disbelieving the official government story has mounted incredibly. And the number of highly respected and credentialed professionals challenging the official story has similarly expanded. Yet, to the considerable disappointment of the international 9/11 truth movement, the objective fact is that there are no widespread, loud demands for a new government-backed 9/11 investigation. The 9/11 truth movement is the epitome of a marginalized movement, one that never goes away despite not achieving truly meaningful results, which in this case means replacing official lies with official truth. What has gone wrong?
Akin to the definition of insanity, the hallmark of entrenched but marginalized movements is that they continue to pursue exactly the same strategy and tactics that have failed to produce solid results. They indulge themselves with self-delusion, defensive thinking and acting as if the world at large must surely and finally wake up, see the light and embrace the Truth. Years and, potentially, decades go by, but this quixotic status quo remains embedded, as if set in intellectual concrete. There is no brain tumor to blame. Nor any mass hypnosis of true believers to prove. There is just monumental disinterest among the dominant culture, political establishment and the broad public that is far more engaged with other issues, problems and movements.
The 9/11 truth movement, at best, gets meager public attention when it is derided and insulted, used as an example of persistent conspiratorial insanity.
Make no mistake; I concluded a few years back, after using my professional engineering and materials science background to study the evidence, that the official government story is a lie. As a former full professor of engineering, I firmly believe that elements of the US government were involved with contributing to (not just allowing) the 9/11 tragedy, but that does not necessarily eliminate the role of those terrorists publicly blamed for the events. Science, logic, evidence and critical thinking told me this.
Who should we blame for the failure of the 9/11 truth movement to fix the historical record and, better yet, identify those in the government who turned 9/11 into an excuse for going to war, getting them indicted, prosecuted, and punished for their murderous acts?
It is too easy to blame the mainstream media and political establishment for refusing to demand and pursue a truly comprehensive and credible independent scientific and engineering investigation. President Obama with his tenacious belief in looking forward, not backward, exemplifies a national mindset to avoid the painful search for truth and justice that could produce still more public disillusionment with government and feed the belief that American democracy is weak at best, and delusional at worst.
Marginalized movements always face competition for public attention. There are always countless national issues and problems that feed new movements and distract the public. There have been many since 9/11, not the least of which was the last presidential campaign and then the painful economic recession, and now the right wing attacks on health care reform. The 9/11 truth movement illustrates a total failure to compete successfully with other events and movements.
This can be explained in several ways. The 9/11 movement has not been able to articulate enough benefits to the public from disbelieving the official government story and pursuing a new investigation. What might ordinary Americans gain? Would proof-positive of government involvement make them feel better, more secure, and more patriotic? Apparently not. In fact, just the opposite. By its very nature, the 9/11 issue threatens many things by discovering the truth: still less confidence in the US political system, government and public officials. Still more reason to ponder the incredible loss of life and national wealth in pursuing the Iraq war. In other words, revealing 9/11 truth offers the specter of a huge national bummer. Conversely, it would show the world that American democracy has integrity.
The second explanation for failure is that the truth movement itself is greatly to blame. It has been filled with nerdish, ego-centric and self-serving activists (often most interested in pushing their pet theory) unable to pursue strategies designed to face and overcome ugly, challenging realities. The truth movement became a cottage industry providing income and meaning for many individuals and groups feeding the committed with endless websites, public talks, videos, books and paraphernalia. They habitually preach to the choir. Applause substitutes for solid results. In particular, it embraces the simplistic (and obviously ineffective) belief that by revealing technical, scientific and engineering facts and evidence the public and political establishment would be compelled to see the light. Darkness has prevailed.
Proof of this are the views expressed days ago on the truth movement by Ben Cohen on the Huffington Post: “I have done some research on the topic, but stopped fairly quickly into when it dawned on me that: 1. Any alternative to the official account of what happened is so absurd it simply cannot be true. 2. No reputable scientific journal has ever taken any of the ‘science’ of the conspiracy seriously. 3. The evidence supporting the official story is overwhelming, whereas the 9/11 Truthers have yet to produce a shred of concrete evidence that members of the U.S. government planned the attacks in New York and Washington.” Similarly, in the London Times James Bone recently said a “gruesome assortment of conspiracy theorists insists that the attacks on the US of September 11, 2001 were an inside job. It is easy to mock this deluded gang of ageing hippies, anarchists and anti-Semites.” Truthers continue to face a very steep uphill battle.
A common lie about the truth movement is that there have been no credible scientific articles in peer reviewed journals supporting it. But those opposing the truth movement will and do find ways to attack whatever scientific evidence is produced and published. It takes more than good science and facts for the movement to succeed.
Besides the movement having too many genuine crackpots (possibly trying to subvert it), a larger problem is what has been missing from it: effective political strategies. Besides pushing scientific results and more credible supporters, it did nothing successful to make a new 9/11 investigation a visible issue in the last presidential campaign. It did nothing effective to put pressure on a new, Democrat controlled congress to consider legislation providing the authorization and funding for a new, credible investigation. It seems that people who want to blame the government are often unable to also see the political path forward that requires the government to fund a new investigation.
To its credit, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth does have a petition aimed at Congress, demanding a new investigation, but has fewer than 5,000 signers. The petition effort in New York City to get a new investigation is commendable, with just under 75,000 signers, but national action is needed. Pragmatically, both efforts are unimpressive compared to other campaigns seeking political action. To get both media attention and political support the movement needs a hundred times more documented supporters, willing to do a lot more than sign a petition.
The tenth anniversary of 9/11 will come fast. The opportunity is making 9/11 an issue in the 2012 presidential campaign. The least delusional and defensive in the truth movement should think deeply and seriously on what needs to change to accomplish the prime goal: having an official investigation that compels most people and history to accept the truth, no matter how painful it is, including the possibility that it finds no compelling evidence for government involvement.
[Joel S. Hirschhorn is a co-founder of Friends of the Article V Convention; contact him through through www.delusionaldemocracy.com.]
see
US poet Jerry Mazza: 9/11 was an inside job
Bombshell: Bin Laden worked for US till 9/11 by Luke Ryland
NYCCAN Press Conference at City Hall + Testimony from 9/11 Survivor by Eileen Coles
Dandelion Salad 
Hi Joel
I have thought much about the lack of progress, and I feel that it is due to the predominance of a certain personality type in 9/11. A couple of years ago, a truther friend sent me a copy of Please Understand Me 2 (http://www.keirsey.com)
The 4 basic personalities are Rational, Idealist, Guardian, and Artisan and as I analyzed different people, I realized that the Rational personality type is only about 5% of the general population but reaches a much much higher proportion in 9/11 truth (engineers, scientists, architects, analyticals etc tend to be of this type) This type is not socially sensitive, we tend to be information oriented to the detriment of our human relationships. Only a Rational will argue away all his close friends with science!
More gentle personalities like Idealists are driven away by our brusque judgments and more tradition bound personalities like Guardians are reluctant to take positions that set them against society and government. Artisans bounce around and are not so determined to take a hard nosed position as they seek sensation.
Breaking with dogma has always been hard no matter what personality you have. Understanding the aspects of personality has helped me comprehend why people are resistant to facts. Facts are less important to other personality types than to Rationals.
For this movement to be successful, we need to remember to tolerate and not attack each other and that will make it possible for the less opinionated and more cooperative types to become active. What happened to Kevin Barrett is an example of how Rationals looking through a magnifying glass at his shortcomings failed to see the value of his expansive Idealist spirit and blackballed one of the greatest activists of all times.
Thank you for your article!
Joel, you’re right that this requires national attention, and you’re right that the 9/11 Truth movement has been hobbled by some who try to financially exploit the event, but you also have to understand that a fraud as massive as this will have a HUGE cointelpro effort aimed at it. The ones who covered it up have NOT gone away and they work daily to discredit witnesses, demoralize workers in this movement and weaken it as a whole. No 9/11 truth group has failed to be infiltrated by screamers, chaff-strewers and trolls. They are right there in people’s faces, bold as brass and earnestly working to derail the movement. Without naming names, I will quite frankly state that there are indeed some forums whose LEADERSHIP provides the subversion and the demoralization, and that is very much BY DESIGN.
Unfortunately the only and best way to detect a cointelpro effort is to view the results. Sincere 9/11 truthers need to understand that we are fighting against one of the most sophisticated information warfare machines out there, shrug it off when we are targeted for their loving attention, dust ourselves off and keep going where and when we can.
NYCCAN deserves a great deal of credit for their clear eyed and sensible effort to bring the need for a new investigation to the forefront of world consciousness. Perhaps intentionally, perhaps not, they worked in tandem with Richard Gage and AE911Truth in DC and the release of Prof. Harrit’s television interview where he discusses the discovery of thermitic material in the WTC dust. This kickstarted the movement in a big way and with the eighth anniversary of the attacks coming up in a few weeks has put many more eyeballs on the problem.
I had been asking NYCCAN to expand their petition to the greater NYC area so that more support could be shown. Due to the legal nature of the petition In response they were restricted to NY City residents only, but put up a second petition on their web site that family and friends who lost people that day, survivors, and first responders involved with the event could sign to show their support. I am extremely impressed with NYCCAN and support them fully.
Don’t let the cointelpro creeps get you down. I saw what they did to you on DailyKos. In some ways, in fact, what they did to you, a Jewish professor of physics, publicly revealed much more about their agenda than they ever would have liked to myself and others.
You know in your heart that you are right, and the role you have played in bringing the truth of what happened that day to light is important and valued. You are not without people who deeply appreciate your efforts. I am one of them.
Best wishes,
Eileen Coles
The ‘truther’ movement was discredited and ignored because it got hijacked by Alex Jones and his hype to sell books, and his deranged radical right wing.
When a conspiracy starts to stink of McVeigh, Ruby ridge and Waco, it can’t help but be dismissed.
Even Maher must distance himself by refusing to admit Botch’s foreknowledge, which is of course a farce, since Botch was presented that intelligence memo about BBF Bin laden ‘determined to attack within the US’, while on Vacation in Waco.
The rest of it was eaten alive by the antisemitic racist neonazi skinhead conspiracy theorists, a branch of the above whose born-again bigotry discredits all genuine indictment of Zionists and their crimes.
Unfortunately the radical right wing racists in their insistence on foisting fraud, like the ‘illuminati’, ‘bilderberger’, ‘Rothschilds’ and ‘protocols of the elders of zion’ antisemitic banker conspiracy creationism crap, completely co-opted and discredited what should have been a purely scientific investigation.
The crazed right-wing racist conspiracists managed to ruin a perfectly likely conspiracy, which was complete with motives, money, militaristic nationalist neocon ideology befitting the Third Reich, and lots of malice aforethought.
These are the same populace who want endless war, who collect assault rifles, who build suburban bunkers to protect their scotts/irish/german deliverance-dwelling descendants of failed europeans who fled personal failure for the purpose of greed; those frontiersman Indian-killing, immigrant-hating descendants of immigrants and their Baracknophobic families ready to fight to the death against descendants of their freed slaves and those commie peace-loving hippies and those Mexicans who do all the hard work, still swearing the commies and the ‘coloreds’ are after their daughters and their right to be creationist cave-dwellers.
They got what they wanted, endless war, and the truth will no doubt bite the dust. Literally.
Two items that make me wonder about 9-11 being an inside job; yet fails to convince me, is because there’s never been a follow-thru — official or otherwise, as far as I know.
1) A jet engine laying on the Pentagon lawn, left virtually intact after the crash, was supposedly from a Navy Skywarrior (a twin engine jet I am familiar with from my Navy Aviation days). Who was the person that identified the engine?
2) The videotape from a gas station camera, showing the entire crash sequence, was confiscated by the FBI within minutes after the Pentagon strike. Where is this tape? Has it been made public?
Which website is the BEST overall presentation?