Cyberspace is the perfect place for this contradiction to thrive, for it is both “the Petri dish for paranoids” and also the home of Snopes and other scam trackers. Wikipedia is a battleground between conspiracy hounds and the thousands of amateur sleuths who aspire to do at least as good a job as the fact-checkers at conventional encyclopedias (whether they do so is a matter of considerable debate, including within Wikipedia itself). The Internet is full of bunkum and debunk ’em. Like matter and anti-matter, they should cancel each other out. But the relationship more aptly resembles that between bacteria and antibiotics. Develop an effective tuberculosis vaccine, and the TB bacterium will develop a stronger resistant strain. The American body politic, weakened by successive waves of government lies, media oversights, and the relentless repetition of demagogues, is susceptible to these highly infectious theories.

Most toxic of all perhaps are the myths generated by 9/11. Over the years, I’ve received lots of letters about 9/11 and why it was an inside job. One recent letter insisted that Osama bin Laden was not behind the 2001 attacks, that an Israeli firm in the Twin Towers “received a fax warning them about the 911 attack that would come in a few hours” (which presumably allowed it to warn Israelis and/or Jews to evacuate the building), and that it was not a plane that struck the Pentagon on that fateful day.

Although bin Laden initially denied responsibility, an overwhelming amount of evidence surfaced that linked al Qaeda to the attacks (including, of course, bin Laden himself eventually claiming responsibility). As for the Israeli firm, Odigo, it did receive such a warning, but it was an instant message, not a fax. The message arrived at its office in Israel, did not identify the location of the attack, and was hostile rather than friendly. It in no way demonstrates that the firm, which didn’t even have offices in the Twin Towers to evacuate, was part of a U.S.-Israeli plot to bring down the buildings. As for Flight 77, there were lots of eyewitness reports of its crash into the Pentagon in addition to calls made by people on board. And where exactly did the flight go if not into the Pentagon? I could go on — about the misrepresentations of the size of the hole in the Pentagon, other hoaxes involving advanced warnings of 9/11, and all the other fanciful theories about who was behind the attacks.

The “9/11 truthers” are as resistant to rebuttal as the right-wing “birthers.” They both draw strength from their deep-seated distrust of government and the mass media. They believe not in Occam’s Razor, which argues for building a case on the fewest new assumptions, but in Occam’s Hairball, a partially digested lump of every new assumption that has stuck in their craw.

Long before the Internet, historian Richard Hofstadter warned of the “paranoid style” that periodically grips the American body politic and directs the crowd’s fury at Masons or Jesuits or Jews or Communists. In his recently updated book on conspiracy theories, legal scholar Mark Fenster takes a more benign view. Such theories reflect populist suspicion about the concentration of economic and political power, a suspicion “that can have violent, racist, and antidemocratic effects (as well as salutary and democracy-enhancing ones) on the political and social order, but a strain that is neither independent from nor necessarily threatening to the country’s political institutions or political culture.”

I agree that conspiracy theories do not threaten the status quo, for they usually distract attention from more serious and systemic problems (for instance, bridges and highways and buildings are collapsing all over the United States because of the defunding of infrastructure, and the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth focus all their energies on explaining how an exploding plane could never make the Twin Towers collapse?). And yes, before you prepare your flaming emails, some conspiracies turn out to have a basis in fact (the Iran-Contra affair, for instance, or the right-wing mobilization to bring down Bill Clinton).

The danger of conspiracy theories lies not so much in whether they are right or wrong but in how they erode our democratic institutions. Instead of democratizing the state, conspiracy theorists tend toward a libertarian downsizing of government; instead of breaking the corporate control of the media, conspiracy theorists create their own dogmatic blogs and websites. Conspiracies sap our will, for who except Jesus or Keanu Reaves can stand up to The Matrix? In fact, conspiracies are the exception to the rule of big institutions, which err on the side of incompetence more often than not. Conspiracies overstate the power of the powerful. As the Iran-Contra affair demonstrated, even authentic conspiracies are fairly inept.

I fear that conspiracies have become the only way for us to organize the unruly flow of information that assaults us daily. We create all-encompassing, quasi-religious explanations to make sense of the supernova of our post-modern experience.

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David, who describes himself as a pacifist, talks in great depth about his journey on the campaign for 9/11 Truth and Justice to which he is passionately dedicated. Many of you may be aware that it was David who is credited with getting NIST to admit that WTC Building 7 fell at a an acceleration consistent with freefall due to gravity, which I and many others view as the single most powerful debating tool for us as 9/11 Truth advocates. David disputes that he is solely responsible for this and says that Steven Jones, Kevin Ryan and others were central to this achievement but it was his question that drew the answer in the end so it seems. David also talks about the highly political timing and nature of the NIST Building 7 report.

We then move on to talk about David’s new DVD, 9/11 Analysis, which is comprised of a compilation of his most powerful work to date and some new material into one concise resource. This DVD is available for sale now and can be purchased here.

From the site:

“The 9/11 Analysis DVD project is a compilation of the many short analysis videos David Chandler has produced and uploaded to the internet over the last few years, woven together with an interpretive narrative. The current release is in English, but the plan is to follow this with a multilingual release. We need to raise funds to cover the production costs to make Phase II a reality. Please order your copy now and/or help out with a donation.”

In the second part of this frank and informative interview, David talks about his strong stance on the Pentagon fiasco that is now threatening the whole credible body of 9/11 research. The aggressive nature of the advocates of “no plane hit the Pentagon” has lead to a situation that is already out of control as has been seen by Jesse Ventura’s terrible error of judgment with his episode of Conspiracy Theory for True TV on this subject. The case made by David for us not to be seen as a “Pentagon Movement” for it could mean our destruction is the best I’ve heard to date.

For David’s analysis of the Pentagon Debate please see his and Jon Cole’s page dedicated to the issue:

Here is an excerpt: “The Honey Pot – On the other hand the mystery that surrounds the Pentagon makes it an attractive target of speculation and the subject of truly wild conspiracy theories. (This kind of attractive diversion is sometimes called a “honey pot,” a “setup” to be discredited at a later time.) This is not the only instance of theories that seem designed to be easily discredited. There are groups that insist the towers at the World Trade Center were taken down by space lasers. Others claim no planes hit the Twin Towers at all: they were just holograms. What better way to tar the movement than to seed it with absurdly false theories that fuel a media circus, while making the Movement look ridiculous?”

NOTE: You may have seen or heard on the net that CIT has said that I, John Bursill, made a commitment to them to leave this issue alone in a discussion I had with Craig Ranke. This is true. I changed my mind many months back after the work Dr Frank Legge was doing around the Digital Flight Data Recorder data re-analysis, of which I was involved. This, and the aggressive moves by CIT and Pilots for 9/11 Truth to convince the 9/11 Truth Movement that the “fly over” was a proven fact, has forced me back to this issue. I apologize for my backflip but I feel it is that important that I speak out and support those that do the same for the survival of the 9/11 Truth Movement’s credibility.

Intermission music by AJ Perez.
Ending music by Coppermine.

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