Lest We Forget

[dlevere]

I will never forget.

[bungholio]

I saw an interesting video on it. A video showed random bombings of buildings and then them collapsing. It then showed controlled demolitions of buildings and them collapsing. The 2 towers were identical to planned controlled demolitions. After all I've read and stuff that seemed to be hidden from mainstream media, I'd honestly believe our government did this to us to make things more of a police state whatever land. I never believe anything I see in the news anymore, I believe it all to be lies. I believe they've tricked us into believing terrorists did this to us when they did to gain control and get the right to send out the military as an act of power for the new world order.

[BeyondTheStatic]

I'd honestly believe our government did this to us to make things more of a police state

Many people that I know believe the same. The first thing I thought upon turning on my television and seeing the destruction was, "Bush did this!" After the Florida Debacle, it was hard to trust the Bush Administration one iota. The whole War on Terror caught on like wildfire; it might as well have been scripted. As far as I can tell, the wars haven't helped our world popularity. If anything, they've only helped stir up some very patient, but very angry ants.

You just can't fight terror with more terror, yet that's war for you.

Gah, we must be the stupidest smart species in existence For being as intelligent as we are, we can't even fix our own poor conditions. Our leaders won't listen to reason, and our masses could usually care less. Mental health is breaking down, the Earth is warming up, and everything's going to shit before our very eyes.

I say: let's send lithium into the air and water everywhere, and see how things turn out. I'm joking, of course...

[Lazy Bastard]

After the Florida Debacle, it was hard to trust the Bush Administration one iota.

I'm no Bush fan (I wouldn't even count myself as a Republican, although I definitely wouldn't count myself as a Democrat), but the Florida vote recount-recount-recount was, if anything, a debacle that made Gore look bad. After multiple recounts, with Democrats even having their chance to recount to make sure no "filthy Republicans" were cheating, Bush actually GAINED votes in the end that had been miscounted. Gore won the election in general if you count raw votes, but the electoral college has always dictated the presidency, and it's not something that can be retro-actively changed to suit someone's fancy.

Incidentally, I used to be of the mind that the electoral college should be abolished in favor of a straight vote...but as I've grown up, I've realized that universal suffrage and pure democracy simply means that the intelligent minority gets washed out by the unintelligent majority, and politics becomes a game of who can trick the most sheep. It's not far from that as it is, but breaking down the electoral college would be the last straw toward the fall from partial to complete idiocy. I don't even like our existing system anymore. A dictatorship by force isn't the answer either, but we need to at least implement an intelligence test before giving out voting rights, or something.

Then again, we can't even manage to enforce voters showing ID before voting, as it might "disenfranchise minorities who can't afford to pay for an ID"...and then, when state governments offer to provide ID for free, there's still the backlash of "but some people can't afford to drive to the DMV to get their free ID". Democrats (who stand to lose the most votes if their constituents have to actually get off the couch for two things rather than just one) scream that voter fraud hardly ever happens, yet there's no real way to measure that since voting booth locations are not allowed to check ID or investigate suspected cases of fraud. I've read quite a few anecdotal reports of people who've worked voting booths and who've complained of twenty absentee ballots coming in with identical handwriting, Latino voters who can't speak a word of English voting with names such as "David Li", and a myriad of other oddities, and being told by supervisors that they're not allowed to question it at all. If we have no protection from such feats, it would be foolish to assume this is an insignificant problem.

As for the original topic of this thread...who knows. There is certainly a veritable slew of strange facts concerning the 9-11 incident, and a lot of false information was spread to the public, especially in the beginning (of course,a lot of false information is spread around the 'conspiracy theory' circles as well). Nonetheless, I'd hesitate to call it a 'vast conspiracy', simply because such a thing is not easy to keep quiet. More likely, it's somewhere between "Absolutely transparent, truthful disclosure" and "Outright conspiracy", in the realm of "Israeli and US government agencies had foreknowledge and did not act", which is fairly well accepted as fact even in mainstream circles, or perhaps even "Israeli and US government agencies were complicit in indirect ways", but I doubt it would go further than that, simply because the potential cost of such a thing being uncovered would be unthinkable.

[BeyondTheStatic]

but the Florida vote recount-recount-recount was, if anything, a debacle that made Gore look bad.

That's a shame, since I think Gore would have made a good president. Having Bush in there set us back when it comes to changing our environmental footprint. The tipping point is too close for us to keep dragging our feet, and ineffectual feel-good "green solutions" like turning edible food into fuel just don't work.

More likely, it's somewhere between "Absolutely transparent, truthful disclosure" and "Outright conspiracy", in the realm of "Israeli and US government agencies had foreknowledge and did not act"

Who knows for sure? What we do know is the impact the events of 9/11 made on American society, how our freedoms have taken a hit.

[OldSchoolGamer]

All governments hide some things from its citizens... and sometimes it's for the best. But to believe that the towers fell from controlled demolition is not only practically impossible and foolish, but disrespectful to the victims. Conspiracy theorists are better off saying that we purposely let the planes hit the towers, instead of the ridiculous controlled demolition theory. But neither theory is true of course because there was no conspiracy. The Taliban evil doers were responsible, they admitted it, and they continue to commit acts of terrorism.

[Helder]

This thread will soon turn into a battle of who believes what, but OSG there is no way a plane crashing into these towers made them fall down that fast especially when there are other plane crashes reported around the world with similar type building and NONE ever fell like ours did and also WHY did tower 7 or whatever its called which was like a block away fall down the same way with no plane hitting it?

[Pyriel]

My problem with this is that nobody is really interested in questions. You can read the NIST reports and so forth on the towers collapsing, and point to reasons why the theory doesn't make sense, or ask for a more thorough explanation of how something that seems so unlikely could happen. The discussion might get a little tedious after a while, but there's nothing wrong with it. However, everybody wants an alternative explanation, and feels like they have to answer their own questions with one. A few inconsistencies or gaps in the evidence or narrative leads people to invent vast conspiracies and stories of increasingly sinister plots afoot, and those theories generally have zero physical evidence, hinge on wild assumptions about recordings and accounts, or infer freely from one piece of dubious evidence like some paint chips that don't match anything you can buy at Lowe's. It's hilarious and slightly infuriating to watch.

The fact that people can compare videos of demolition and the towers collapsing and declare them identical always makes me laugh. Most of the video of the towers falling cuts off several hundred feet from the ground, so the comparison typically just proves that falling stuff looks like other falling stuff. And people's source for the idea that a collapsing building should require a million lumber jacks running around shouting "timber!" over half a mile of street is pretty much superhero movies.

[OldSchoolGamer]

Let's not forget the small army that would have had to been used to set up that controlled demolition without anyone else seeing or finding out along with hundreds, maybe thousands of people who have to keep it a secret and not let their conscious get to them knowing that they killed thousands of their fellow Americans. They are an extraordinary group of people to be able to keep quiet about that demolition secret when everyone knows that a secret can't be kept in a room between 3 people . That conspiracy theory is the most ridiculous theory I probably will ever hear in my lifetime. It's amazing that even after practically every theory was debunked from that movie Loose Change, people still refuse to face the facts.

This thread will soon turn into a battle of who believes what

True. And that is why I am going to end my part in this discussion and not say anything further.

[Helder]

I will end it with this video alot of it makes sense and there is obviously evidence and again tell me how a fire in a building far away from the hits collapsed the same way from a fire that started and not from jet fuel? Like I said this is the last of my speculation as this is going to continue into a massive debate.

[Pyriel]

What's his face recut that thing half a dozen times. I watched the first two cuts, and they were flaming crap. I refuse to watch any more. Like I told my cousin when he started in on the thermite bunk and sent me a two hour video filled with "evidence", I'll entertain specific claims and I'll read papers or transcripts, but long-winded videos that jump from topic to topic like a flea on a hot brick are out.

The official report detailed how a failure in the support columns on a lower floor, caused by a combination of fire and damage due to ejecta from one of the towers, resulted in the collapse of tower 7. People have argued the physics, and that's valid. Although, most of the arguments espoused by Truthers rely on oversimplifications, the truth is that every event and variable cannot be accounted for, and it's not impossible that the official account has some details incorrect. In any case, I've never seen any credible evidence for detonators, explosive materials, and everything else required by demolition. So on one hand, we have a theory that works with available evidence and concludes that something fairly unprecedented caused unprecedented things to happen, and on the other a host of theories that utilize fantasy evidence, and rely on the Mission Impossible movies being seen as near-documentaries to provide people with subconscious precedents. And if you've watched the earlier cuts of Loose Change, where Flight 93 was landed, the passengers replaced with willing sacrifices or dupes (or something like that), and then crashed as a propaganda tool, you know I'm not being all that hyperbolic with the Mission Impossible slam.

[CRACKdown]

I won't delve into this topic too much here since it is a rabbit hole of unthinkable proportions but I would like to refer a YouTube channel that has collected many credible videos on the subject.

http://www.youtube.com/user/cappucinokid100

and 1 other video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRk2mdsXhuw&feature=plcp

[Pyriel]

To hell with videos. The History Channel has programs that can make Nostradamus seem almost credible. As far as I'm aware, only one group has published a scientific paper on evidence of explosives in WTC dust. The paper was published in a vanity journal--you pay 800 dollars and their peer review board that has people with Fine Arts degrees on it will pencil-whip your paper through. He had some fine graphs and spectra for his sample, but offered no comparisons. An independent reviewer stated that the spectra didn't match known thermite samples. Further, based on the paper's own graphs, the sample contained chemicals inconsistent with thermite. The paper itself even said as much at one point, but then went on to claim it must be top-secret, super thermite that the government has. Naturally, nobody knows the exact composition of this super-thermite, but if we did, we could surely prove beyond any doubt that that's what the residue is, and it's never rust-proofing treatment or anything else. When they present that evidence in video form, it sounds damning. In paper form, it reads like they have a massive case of confirmation bias.

[CRACKdown]

"combination of fire and damage due to ejecta from one of the towers"?

Those buildings where built to withstand earthquakes. Look into Building 7, Larry Silverstein said they decided to "pull it" which is the exact kind of terminology used in Controlled Demolitions. He profited millions of dollars out of insurance claims also. The BBC even reported that the building had fell before it did, you can actually see it in their video but they cut away when it actually fell. But again not going to argue this, all I did was provide information. Choose what you want to believe.

[Pyriel]

Larry Silverstein said they decided to "pull it" which is the exact kind of terminology used in Controlled Demolitions.

It's also the exact kind of terminology used when you present your finger prior to farting. Using that standard of evidence is pretty much the reason we spent most of a decade in Iraq looking for shit.