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| quote: | 9/11 TRUTHERS GUT PUNCHED BY HISTORY CHANNEL
CATEGORY: Moonbats, History, Science
In what will surely be seen as a defining moment for the 9/11 truther movement, the History Channel has delivered a blow for sanity and rationalism by airing a superior documentary entitled 9/11 Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction.
There’s no other way to say it; the truthers got reamed.
They got reamed to the point that the truthers who produced the internet video Loose Change are scrambling to alter the third version of their conspiracy mongering tripe, even going so far as to drop any reference to the twin towers being blown up by the government (they continue to insist WTC #7 was brought down by explosives).
The documentary took no prisoners as it destroyed almost all of the major conspiracy theories associated with 9/11 while revealing the real motivations of the truthers; that they are part of a political movement driven by raw, unreasoning hatred of George Bush, the American government, and to some extent, America itself.
Prominently featured were historians like David Brinkley, Editor in Chief of Popular Mechanics James Meigs, and structural engineers, explosives experts, and a host of scientists, military experts, and eyewitnesses to the disaster. The cumulative effect of the testimony of the anti-conspiracists was absolutely devastating. The show left little doubt of the unhinged nature of the truthers, showing many of them – including radio host Alex Jones who has given vast amounts of air time to every kook, crazy, and nutcase with a theory on 9/11 – looking like the anti-intellectual fruitcakes they truly are.
The format was perfect. A truther would lay out a conspiracy theory which was then immediately debunked by 2 or 3 experts. Over two hours, a couple of dozen myths associated with 9/11 were laid to rest permanently including the “missile” that hit the Pentagon, the shoot down of Flight 93, the “implosion” of the towers,” and other theories not based on fact.
The implosion theory was debunked several times over. First, by the best forensic structural engineer in the country who, with the help of some excellent graphics and animation, showed exactly how the planes caused the towers to fall. An explosives expert (a young guy who was flabbergasted at the ignorance of the truthers regarding demolition) pointed out it would have taken weeks to rig the buildings for implosion and would have involved stripping drywall and ripping out walls. The nail in the coffin was supplied by one of the engineers who prepared the final report (working for the independent American Society of Civil Engineers) who showed how the collapse of the towers accounted for such things as the puffs of smoke seen in lower floors as the collapse was occurring as well as the speed of the collapse.
By the end of their presentation, I was on my feet cheering.
The emotional highlight of the documentary occurred when they had members of the victims families responding to the truthers. A confrontation at Ground Zero on the anniversary of 9/11 with the truthers screaming at family members who disagreed with them was shocking. One family member said every time she heard one of the conspiracy nuts it was like “a stab in the heart.”
Not that these nutcases care much. As the documentary showed, the truthers real goal is to blame Bush. And the disturbing poll numbers showing that 46% of the country believing the whole truth about 9/11 is being hidden by the government shows why this documentary should be viewed by everyone.
You can tell how deeply this program hurt the truther movement by the fact that they didn’t try to answer any of the points made by the piece but rather attacked the source:
An upcoming documentary entitled The 9/11 Conspiracies, to be aired on the History Channel, may represent the biggest hit piece to date on the 9/11 truth movement and is rife with bias, cronyism and conflicts of interest
The so-called documentary promises not to look at the flaws in the official story from a neutral perspective but to start out by suggesting that any deviation from the official line is “outrageous”.
The program also features so called independent “experts” who are actually in the employ of the program makers themselves who in turn rely on scores of multi-million dollar contracts with the government and the military-industrial complex.
Hit piece? It is hard to see how much more fair minded the History Channel could have been. They allowed the truthers to spout their conspiracy theories to their hearts content and then rationally, reasonably, calmly poked so many holes in them they resembled a piece of swiss cheese.
Pat Curley of the excellent truther debunking site Screw Loose Change called the documentary “the dream debunking piece. It’s Hiroshima for the Truthers.” One might throw in Nagasaki as well.
Pat concludes:
Overall: Devastating blow for most of the kooks; ironically the CIT nuts get a little thrill as their theory at least gets a little boost. The cumulative effect is pretty overwhelming. The voicemorphed calls thing gets smashed in their faces. Awesome, absolutely the most satisfying moment in a very satisfying two hours!
He is referring to the jaw dropping theory that all the communications from passengers on the doomed planes were faked! Family members tearfully rebutted those outrageous charges. And the young editor of Popular Mechanics, who tried very hard not to laugh when he was debunking some of the more unbelievable theories, actually said he was personally disgusted by the implication that family members were somehow involved in the conspiracy by covering up the fact that the phone calls were not really from their loved ones.
The show will air again this weekend. Check your local listings but I have it in the Chicago area airing at 7:00 PM central Saturday night and 11:00 AM central on Sunday morning.
Don’t miss it. |
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