By Craig McKee
Is standing up for what you believe worth losing friends over?
Sometimes those friends don’t give you a choice. Other times, you can decide to stay away from certain subjects with certain people.
Recently I parted ways with two people I’ve known for more than a quarter of a century. Admittedly, we haven’t hung out for some time, but we do have a history. I don’t think we’re going to be adding to it, though.
In fact, there are five people I connected with on Facebook who are no longer among my online friends. The short version of the story is that they don’t much like my opinion that 9/11 was an inside job and a Continue reading
Tag Archives: Pentagon
Teach kids conspiracy theories are ‘bad for society’: an interview with Jonathan Kay
By Craig McKee
It’s a challenge to interview someone you’d rather be debating. That was the case when I interviewed Canadian writer and journalist Jonathan Kay this week. Kay, an editor with the National Post, is the author of Among the Truthers, which attempts to examine and explain the world of conspiracy theorists. Why do these otherwise intelligent people believe the “bullshit” that they do, he wonders? He sees the 9/11 Truth movement as being ridiculous and based on arguments that “even an eight-year-old” would see through. I chose to try and cover as much ground in 45 minutes as I could rather than getting into an in-depth debate on any one point. I did find things in his arguments that cry out for further argument , and I will offer my analysis of his remarks in a subsequent post. I encourage readers to offer their own comments at the end of this article.
CM: What is the difference between a conspiracy theorist and someone who does legitimate research to unearth a real conspiracy?
JK: I define according to the method of argumentation of the people who advance the theory in question. I give the example of Iran/Contra, Teapot Dome, the Sponsorship Scandal or Watergate, which of course were real historical conspiracies. If you’re advancing something like this, one person will advance evidence and the other person will refute it, and by that method you Continue reading
Pure fiction: Bigelow’s bin Laden chase film will reinforce 9/11 myths
Kathryn Bigelow plans new film on the chase for bin Laden.
By Craig McKee
I can see it now: Robert De Niro as Osama bin Laden, George Clooney, Matt Damon, and Brad Pitt as the handsome and fearless Navy SEALS, and Morgan Freeman as the “president.” Or Denzel Washington…
Okay, I might have the casting wrong, but the upcoming film Kill bin Laden by Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) is certain to be fascinating – and fictional. It will take its place alongside United 93 and World Trade Center – a sort of Continue reading
10 ways I got sucked into believing the fabricated 9/11 cover story
By Craig McKee
On Sept. 11, 2001, I was part of the majority. I believed that Osama bin Laden had led a group of Islamic fundamentalists to crash planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
There were many things that made me accept this, but mostly it was because I believed what I saw on TV. Sure I was cynical about the media then, but to believe that they got it so wrong would be to believe they were complicit in the cover-up.
I believed that the attacks – while reprehensible – were a logical result of America’s imperialist policies around the world. It was the typical “liberal” reaction, which unfortunately still dominates how the left sees 9/11. We were all so sure that Uncle Sam was screwing everyone that the idea that someone would want revenge seemed reasonable – even inevitable.
This made me and people who agreed with me valuable dupes for the real criminals. We helped establish our view as the “left” end of the spectrum of 9/11 opinion. The “right” believed Bush’s claim that the “evil-doers” had attacked America because they hated Continue reading
London 7/7 bombings follow 'successful' Kennedy, 9/11 playbooks
By Craig McKee
When something works, why change?
The price of not scrutinizing the evidence in horrifying acts of destruction, terrorism, and murder is that they just keep happening. If the perpetrators get away with it once, there’s no reason they wouldn’t keep going to the same formula that has worked in the past.
With the help of the mainstream media, we keep believing the lies we’re fed. And we keep paying a terrible price.
John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 by his own government, and we believed the flimsy scenario that a lone nut named Lee Harvey Oswald did it. Although the evidence overwhelmingly shows that Oswald was a patsy who was set up to take the fall, our newspapers and television programs still refer to him as the man who shot JFK. No trial, no proof. No matter.
We know that Franklin D. Roosevelt provoked and allowed the attack on Pearl Harbor to take place to create public support for getting into World War II. The wishes of the people were not to be listened to, they were to be manufactured. While America was officially outraged at the brutal invasions of the Nazis, American corporations were enthusiastically doing business with them, helping to keep the war machine humming.
JFK wanted to pull soldiers out of Vietnam. He also wanted the U.S. government to start printing its own money for the first time since the private Federal Reserve came into existence in 1913. Both bad news for the power elite that is used to Continue reading
Is Internet control the prize in supposed ‘cyber war’ over WikiLeaks?
December 12, 2010
By Craig McKee
I can’t help but get the feeling that there’s more to the whole WikiLeaks phenomenon than meets the eye. A lot more.
On the surface of it, this organization and its public face, Julian Assange, seem like the best things to come along since Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers. Like many people who believe in transparency, and that secrecy is the enemy of democracy, I want very much to believe in WikiLeaks.
But frankly, the whole thing is making me very uneasy. It all seems too good to be true, and you know what they say about things that can be described that way.
I love the fact that the fledgling organization (which seemed to spring from nowhere in 2007) has released literally hundreds of thousands of documents, videos, and diplomatic cables. This material has shone a light on a number of very bad things the American government and other governments around the world have done and are doing. And the rhetoric on their web site is right up my alley.
Take this excerpt from the “about” section of the WikiLeaks site:
“Consider Daniel Ellsberg, working within the US government during the Vietnam War. He comes into contact with the Pentagon Papers, a meticulously kept record of military and Continue reading
The tilting south tower gives it away
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance – Albert Einstein
November 26, 2010
By Craig McKee
People who believe in the official government theory of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 must find the laws of physics to be a real pain in the neck. They must hate it when these silly laws keep showing how their neat story of Islamic terrorism simply isn’t possible.
There are so many examples: the too-small hole in the Pentagon and lack of wreckage outside; the scattering of debris from Flight 93 over an area of several miles and virtually no wreckage at the crash scene; molten steel under the three World Trade Center towers that came down; the fact that fire was simply not hot enough to have brought down both of the twin towers; and that they couldn’t have been destroyed so quickly without explosives. And those are just the big ones.
There’s another aspect to the destruction of the twin towers that doesn’t get as much attention but that is huge when it comes to proving the fiction of the official theory.
When the destruction of the South Tower started at 9:59 a.m., just 56 minutes after it was hit, the top of the building began to tip over (as you can clearly see in the photo above). And, according to Sir Isaac Continue reading
Are we all hard-wired not to question 9/11 official story?
I’m not into conspiracy theories, except the ones that are true or involve dentists. – Michael Moore
November 11, 2010
By Craig McKee
The human brain is a fascinating thing. It controls everything we perceive. It is the vehicle through which all information passes, the filter through which all external events are processed. We can use it to search for the truth, but it can also stop us from looking.
We believe that any opinion we might have is based simply on our understanding of the facts. Sure we all have our biases, but we’re aware of them, right?
Not necessarily. We may be aware of the obvious ones, but the subtle ways we resist facts presented to us often slip under the radar. The things that motivate us to defend what we Continue reading
‘Box cutter’ nuts and their wild theories: a gem of 9/11 satire
I came across this wickedly dry bit of conspiracy analysis from 2003 recently and really enjoyed it. Since the author offered it freely for reproduction (with credit given) I thought it would be worth including in this blog. Sadly, the author passed away from cancer earlier this year. He was just 51.
His piece goes to show that when the government and media offer an explanation of an event like 9/11, their story is never looked at as a theory. But it’s worth turning the tables occasionally – Craig McKee
November 7, 2010
Debunking conspiracy theorists: Paranoid fantasies about Sept. 11 distract from the real issues
By Gerard Holmgren (Copyright Gerard Holmgren, Jan. 9, 2003)
Astute observers of history are aware that for every notable event there will ususally be at least one ,often several wild conspiracy theories which spring up around it. “The CIA killed Hendrix” ” The Pope had John Lennon murdered “, “Hitler was half Werewolf”, “Space aliens replaced Nixon with a clone” etc,etc. The bigger the event, the more ridiculous and more numerous are the fanciful rantings which circulate in relation to it.
So it’s hardly surprising that the events of Sept 11 2001 have spawned their fair share of these ludicrous fairy tales. And as always, there is – sadly – a small but Continue reading
More impossible 9/11 ‘eyewitness’ accounts: Renaud and McIntyre
November 5, 2010
By Craig McKee
One of the most bizarre and unbelievable accounts given by anyone with TV network connections on Sept. 11, 2001 was that of Theresa Renaud, described as the wife of CBS Early Show producer Jack Renaud.
Her account is available on the Internet and was presented in the film September Clues, which alleges that video we saw on and after Sept. 11 was tampered with to deceive the public.
Renaud was recounting live on CBS how she had been at her window and had heard the North Tower explosion. While telling the story, she sees the second alleged impact. Her account of that, live, was very revealing.
Before that second impact, she explained to host Bryant Gumbel that her office building in Chelsea looked “directly on to” the towers (even though it was several miles north). She described how her building was the tallest in the area, giving her a good view of the World Trade Center.
Renaud described the first impact this way: “I would say that approximately 10 minutes ago there was a major explosion from, probably it looks like from the 80th floor, it looks like it’s affected probably four to eight floors, major flames are coming out of the, let’s see, the north side and also the east side of the building, yes.”
Gumbel then asks her if she heard the explosion. She continues: “Oh yes, yes we did as a matter of fact, in fact we did hear because I was standing there pretty much standing looking out the window. I didn’t see what caused it or if there was an impact.” Continue reading