San Francisco Chronicle targets 9/11 Truth

Jultra

One school of journalism dictates that:

1. 9/11 inquiry is a bunch of conspiracy theories

2. Such inquiry is the pursuit of lunatics, anti-Semites and weirdos.

3. Use name calling to silence opponents

A problem with this doctrine is that one can end up pulling two thirds of their 9/11 articles and blame weeks, if not months, of editorial policy on their cat, (while at the same time conceeding that Lee Harvey Osward didn’t kill John F. Kennedy)

Capitol Hill Blue were so obsessed by the pursuit of point 2, in a response to blogger Kurt Nimmo, CHB wrote a rebutal ¹ of sorts to criticism in which they stated "[journalism] requires training and hard work, two items we find lacking in those who claim to know more than us about our chosen profession", but which, like two thirds of their recent 9/11 articles they had to pull as well, the rebutal made the allegation:

"For example, over at HaloScan.Com, one of those anti-Semitic web sites where anti-Jewish propaganda flies like lightning bugs in spring…"

I kid you not. Haloscan is of course a comments service for blogs.

Yesterday, the San Francisco Chronicle decided to have an attempt at this too, with essentially yet another piece of off-the-shelf propaganda, where 9/11 inquiry can be squashed with name calling and finger pointng, and that even included the assertion that the ‘country saw the plane hit the Pentagon’ , a point which they then had to retract ².

The problem with these kind of articles is, they are all the same:

They don’t tackle the issues at hand and go to great lengths to attack those presenting them.

With the mainstream media psychosis over 9/11 briefly shattered by Charlie Sheen in recent weeks, the reality is, and here’s the crux of the point which the SFC author Cinnamon Stillwell misses and Doug Thompson missed: there is just no public rally behind 9/11 scholasticism.

And it doesn’t matter how painstakingly you try and infer the search for 9/11 Truth as largely or solely the preoccupation, product or badge of fruitcakes and Nazis, the only thing made clear in doing so is your intention to silence the debate.

Stillwell says:

The underlying factors likely have more to do with psychology. Indeed, it is often said that conspiracy theories are born out of a sense of powerlessness

All Americans were affected by such fears. But instead of facing the daunting truth, the Sept. 11 conspiracy theorists chose the path of denial.

I’m sure for many it’s not a path of denial as in a choice because it’s more cool, perhaps it’s more a case of the data not being perceived compelling enough, and too contradicted with too many controversies to sustain unquestioning public support behind the official line.

Yet Stillwell makes the same mistake Doug Thompson did of trying to frame the intentions of 9/11 inquiry as essentially the goals of Nazis and crackpots, but this description is so dangerously incorrect now and equates to nothing more than ‘I don’t like what I’m hearing so I’m going to try to descredit it’

Indeed no one likes what they are hearing, that’s why the world has to continue to push for answers to the difficult questions on 9/11 rather than attacking those trying to do that. It is not satisfactory to waste your time writing smear pieces hoping that if you keep littering your articles with terms like ‘anti-Semitism’, ‘Neo-Nazi’, ‘denial’ that eventually those difficult questions will just magically be buried underneath inflammatory name calling.

Equally, It’s no good citing ‘debunking’ articles from Popular Mechanics; they simply don’t address the real problems and essentially create a handpicked collection of issues of great controversy that can be safely ridiculed while ignoring others.

Stillwell inadvertantly answers this dilemma in her piece: The debunking articles and documentaries didn’t persude, now 9/11 Truth is one of the burgeoning issues of our times.

She also notes that the US Government point to tapes of Bin Laden confessing. On this she concludes,

"It would be comforting to think that such information would have an impact on the Sept. 11 conspiracists — but, alas, true believers are rarely moved by facts that contradict their preconceived notion"

But of course, this assertion is not entirely compelling, because exactly the same argument can be made from the opposing point of view.

I encounter this kind of thinking in the form of feverish e-mails from readers insisting that if I just "knew the truth" I too would understand what’s behind it all. And no doubt I’ll receive more than a few in response to this column. But I’ve looked into the abyss and I have yet to see or hear anything to validate such fantasies.

Then again, I could be part of the conspiracy, too.

Well more part of a trend. Part of trend of being allowed to write articles on 9/11 Truth as long as they are written in a disparaging light so as not to offend government or advertisers. Part of a trend to uncomfortably look over your shoulder, twitch the net curtains and attack those trying to do the hard work. And as the mainstream media can no longer so easily maintain the self-induced autism on 9/11 it once did, part of a trend to waste it’s resources in trying to rubbish those raising concerns, instead of doing some serious investigative journalism on the topic.

Did Stillwell’s article tell us the Truth about 9/11 Conspiracy theories as it’s title stated ?

No, it just poured on the denial, although as it was so copiously linked to sites trying to make people aware of the issues perhaps partly to try to discredit them, to lump them together, I detect more than a hint of a concerned piece buried inside a hit-piece. But that is no excuse. It would be much better for Cinnamon to drop the fluff, and at least say yes I am concerned about this and America, and it’s allies and the world now deserve better answers. Indeed skeptics should welcome such a drive too insteading of trying to resist it.

The real truth is, irrespective of whether one feels it is a good thing or a bad thing, sanitised, unquestioning serfdom towards 9/11 orthodoxy has became as effectively evaporated as sections of the steel members of the WTC 7 were reported to be by the New York Times.

Again skeptics should vigourously debate the issues, but predominantly, that’s not what Stillwell is doing, it’s not what Doug was doing, instead she’s presenting a case to attack 9/11 inquiry itself.

Nonetheless, the SFC article is sadly just another hodgepodge of name calling and willfull denial of the problems at hand, and whatever you personally feel about 9/11, about conspiracy theories, about anything, that just isn’t good enough anymore.

Please sign the petition over at Scholars for 9/11 Truth.