Showing posts with label GROUND ZERO MOSQUE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GROUND ZERO MOSQUE. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Thursday, September 16, 2010
The making of 9/11 activists
Jerry Mazza
Infowars.com
September 15, 2010
Infowars.com
September 15, 2010
Among the clash of voices near Ground Zero this 9/11, we had the shouts for and against an Islamic learning center this year, creating another layer of chaos and diversion amidst the people, thanks to the Islamic learning center’s Council on Foreign Relations funded Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. The bullhorns could be heard from the intended site of the old Burlington Coat factory several blocks away from where I stood with members of WeAreChange at Trinity Church in near silence.
This as a zealot of Terry Jones ignited a Koran during the event. It seems “A hate-filled fanatic ripped pages out of a Koran and lit them on Saturday amid the chaos outside the planned community center and mosque near Ground Zero. His logic was "If they can burn American flags, I can burn the Koran.” He also claimed, we “Americans should never be afraid to give our opinion." Are we, ever?
Witnesses called it “a ghastly display of fervor,” inspired by the Florida nut-case pastor who swore he’d torch the holy book earlier in the week. All of this overshadowed what should have been a somber day. BTW, the book-burner was not arrested but escorted away.
Add to that, the Right-to-Lifers, who had decided to attend, bringing a billboard carrying truck featuring a full-color, blown-up picture of a dead fetus, plus amplified hymns of Country Western voices singing Christian hymns, others passing out quotes from the bible, and so on.
On top of that, we had a small army of cops, with sirens, blip horns, and white plastic wrist bracelets dangling amid guns, flashlights, cells from their waists, and tons of locking barricades, all as the red double-decker bus tourists waved by.
Yet the flinty members of WeAreChange, even with their Reinvestigate 9/11 posters and such, lined up both respectfully and quietly outside Trinity Church at 8:30 AM to hear the tolling of the bell at 8:40 AM, in memory of Flight 11 that hit Tower 1 at that time. We each had a single flower in our hands to be tossed in the fountain in front of Tower 7, to mark its importance in the scheme of infamy.
The original Tower 7, as you may know, was not hit by any “hijacked airliner” but nevertheless fell in its footprint within 6.5 seconds at 5:20 PM on 9/11/2001. In fact, at about 3 P.M. of that infamous day, its owner, Larry Silverstein, came on television and said, there had been “so much pain and suffering that we [he] had decided to ‘pull it’”, that is take down the 47 story, steel-framed tower in an explosive, internal demolition, which is what the term “pull it” means.
Lo and behold, at 5:20 PM, Tower 7 slid down into its foot print in 6.5 seconds. Blasting experts around the world agreed that could only be accomplished with an internal demolition. The rub was that you couldn’t set up a steel-framed building of that size for an internal demolition in less than two and a half hours. You would need more like two and a half months. Experts also extrapolated from it Tower 7 that internal demolitions were used on Towers 1 and 2.
In fact, the 22-year, working architect Richard Gage, who formed Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth, AE911Truth.org, provided books, DVDs’, technical papers brochures, cards for use in educating the public about these Tower 7 facts. At the site above you will find, “1292 verified architectural and engineering professionals and 9526 other supporters including A&E students who have signed the petition demanding of Congress a truly independent investigation. The petition is open to everyone to sign.
Richard Gage would appear himself at 1 P.M. for a press conference at the fountain in front of Tower 7, introduced by Manny Badillo, one of a dozen founders of WeAreChange, a family victim member and First Responders First advocate, an action program to get the Senate to pass the law providing funds to care for Ground Zero’s victims, now numbering more than 900 dead, and countless thousands sick unto dying.
Earlier, during the reading of the names of the lost, Manny read a tribute to his lost uncle, Thomas J. Sgroi who had been the Vice President of Internet Technology (IT) for Marsh & McLennan. Chris Bollyn writes about that day and flight, “Moving at about 440 mph, the nose [of Flight 11] hit the exterior of the tower at the 96th floor. The aircraft cut a gash that was over half the width of the building and extended from the 93rd floor to the 99th floor.
“All but the lowest of these floors were occupied by Marsh & McLennan, a worldwide insurance company, which also occupied the 100th floor.
"The fuselage was centered on the 96th floor slab and filled the 95th and 96th floors top to bottom," the NIST report says.
“So, what was on the 95th and 96th floors of the north tower, which were rented by Marsh & McLennan, Lewis Paul "Jerry" Bremer’s company?” The copious, computer plus data rooms of the big insurance companies dealing, photos on Bollyn’s link.
At that time, AIG owned Marsh, and Hank Greenberg was the CEO, and Hank’s son Jeffrey was Marsh’s CEO. Marsh was then under scrutiny for financial malfeasance. And it was ironically convenient that all of Marsh’s financial records were destroyed in the blast of its central computer room, another one of 9/11’s unsolved anomalies. In 2005, Greenberg was asked to resign from AIG as CEO, and the insurance giant fined $126 million for boosting income reserves, i.e. cooking the books.
A year later, 2006, was the year that Manny Badillo, came to believe that 9/11 wasn’t the conspiracy of some low-tech Muslims operating from a cave somewhere on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan and who suddenly turned out to be 19 Saudis who had boarded the airliners with box-cutters to skirt a $60-billion US intelligence apparatus to do their thing with a minimal of flight training on single-engine Cessnas.
It was around this time as well that Badillo had a great awakening, reading the retired US Army General Chalmers Johnson’s book The Sorrows of Empire
, which revealed the true nature of the American Empire and its constant war-making to overtake the resources and land of people around the world. Though the book did not cover 9/11, it pointed out how the use of previous false-flag operations had been of great use in goading the American people into war, and how they were used by one nation against another to go to war, blaming other countries for crimes they had committed against their own nations to incite their people.
, which revealed the true nature of the American Empire and its constant war-making to overtake the resources and land of people around the world. Though the book did not cover 9/11, it pointed out how the use of previous false-flag operations had been of great use in goading the American people into war, and how they were used by one nation against another to go to war, blaming other countries for crimes they had committed against their own nations to incite their people.Previous to this, Badillo had spent six years in the US Air Force, working in public relations as a writer, putting “a positive spin” on every story he cranked out for the military machine. At the time, he describes himself as a staunch conservative. Ironically, it was the conservative 9/11 Tea Party given in Boston in 2006 that put him on the path to 9/11 Truth. His eyes and mind opened wide to the counter theories of what 9/11 represented, which was mainly a march to world hegemony, based on the false flag operation of 9/11.
Badillo went on to lead the formation of NYC CAN, New York City for Accountability.
The organization gathered 81,000 signatures for a voting initiative to be put on the ballot for a new 9/11 investigation. Nevertheless, the votes and the legality were questioned, though they were both perfectly legal. New York Supreme Court Justice Edward H. Lehner was brought in to be the final authority on whether or not the will of the people should be heard. Unfortunately, his hearing wasn’t too keen.
As the plaintiffs discussed the issue of Tower 7’s internal demolition, Justice Lehner’s big question was, “Building what?” Badillo and the plaintiff attorneys explained what had occurred at Tower 7. They utilized educational materials developed by Richard Gage to reveal the internal demolition. In short, Lehner nixed the initiative for reasons only he and his conscience must deal with throughout eternity.
Nevertheless, though down, Badillo was not out. Both he and other 9/11 victim family members produced an excellent 30-second television commercial which you can view here. It explains to laymen viewers the story of Tower 7 very clearly. You can also make a contribution here to make sure the TV spot runs enough times to wake up the deaf. This commercial can have an enormous impact with enough running time. The message is crystal clear and it leads you perfectly to BuildingWhat.org. for more information, again provided by Richard Gage, who, by the way sacrificed his practice and family life to assume the role of a 9/11 architect/activist.
Again, amid the dizzying array of voices on this latest 9/11, here is Manny Badillo at the reading of names on the morning of 9/11, 2010. This comes from NY1’s coverage. It takes place 18 minutes and 12 seconds in on the tape that covers 8:40 to 9:40 AM. If you click on the NY1 logo, a line with an arrow and a ball on the line will come up. Click the arrow to stop and start. Put your cursor on the ball and move it to the time of 18:10. Manny begins two seconds letter. Here is what Manny says as he holds his uncle’s photo, continuing the reading of names…
“…and my Uncle Thomas Sgroi… Uncle Tom, you remain the light of our lives, a loving man who teaches us still, your smile, your humor. You are the rock defined. Your sister [Manny’s mother] is here for the first time this year. Just last year, 80,000 New Yorkers petitioned for the comprehensive investigation into your murder that we all need. Without the truth, there can be no justice. And we know the truth of this unsolved crime saves countless lives and brings us towards the justice and accountability we all deserve. We miss you dearly and love you so much, Uncle Tom…”
Interestingly, Uncle Thomas’ wife received $1.8 million from the Victim’s Compensation fund for herself and her two sons, Manny’s cousins. The net effect was that she disappeared from the fold of the family, another loss for the family. Perhaps she believed someone would ask her for money. Perhaps she was warned to stay clear. Who knows? Meanwhile, Manny and his siblings miss their cousins.
On the positive side, this was the first year that Manny’s mother could bear to come to the ceremony commemorating her brother and the other victims. Hearing her son’s words led her to attend.
But Manny’s words must have jolted or solaced more than one family member. Only one other family member, a young woman, made an even more potent, pointed statement to the effect that the government conspiracy statements were all lies. But here is this young man, Manny Badillo, who a handful of years ago, was writing spin-copy for the US Air Force, now challenging the US Government to come clean.
Manny also pointed out to me the somewhat improvised, circular, wooden tub that has stood as an unfinished pool or monument for years now. It was overflowing with the thousands of flowers that victim family members placed in it. So there were the muck-a-mucks, including Mayor Bloomberg and Vice President Joe Biden, speaking to the victim families, kneeling before this ersatz if not shoddy monument. But only several hundred feet away, Silverstein’s new 50-story building stood, having been built higher and wider with $500 million in insurance money, with a real-life fountain before it, around which we gathered in the morning, and in which we tossed our flowers.
Of course, our silence at this point was broken with the chant, “Pull it, Larry! Go ahead, Larry, pull it!” And so on.
But Manny’s words I believe echoed in many ears. As he walked back to his family that morning, he received many nods for from other family members. As he passed Bob McIlvane, who lost his son Robby on that awful day, Bob threw his arms around Manny, and said, “That was great, Manny. You said it perfectly.” Bob is an outspoken unbeliever of the government conspiracy theory, a man who also went from a quiet successful life to one of an activist who speaks around the world. They are all great people, their seeming ordinariness a disguise for their exceptional selves.
Also, as Badillo walked off stage, through the NYPD Honor Guards and families waiting to speak the names of their loved ones, he read a text message from family member Jane Pollicino. With all her family in the crowd at the time, Pollicino, widow of Steve Pollicino, a trader at Cantor Fitzgerald, wrote “Wow, you rocked it!” Pollicino volunteered last year in the NYC CAN court-mandated signature verification at the Board of Elections in downtown Manhattan. Her work helped to move the legal process through to the almost infamous court hearing in State Supreme Court when Judge Edward Lerner blurted the words “Building what?” replying to the lack of proper investigation into the late afternoon demise of the Salomon Brothers building, WTC 7, on Sept. 11th.
Then, too, leaving the makeshift wooden memorial, Badillo ran into US Dept. of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano who spoke quickly with Badillo. She gave her answer to his question about when WTC 7 would be investigated by the Department of Homeland Security. Badillo said “We still have no memorial here ad first responders aren’t getting help they need. The biggest mystery of all is what happened to Building 7?”
Napolitano stated, “We leave that to the [New York] City.”
Badillo then asked, “So you say New York could begin to look into what happened to Building 7?”
Napolitano replied definitively… ”It would be up to the City.”
Napolitano would be encouraged to know that the position of the DHS is being advocated by NYC CAN’s “Building What?!?” campaign by informing and lobbying the New York City Council, a 51 member legislative body, which has yet to act on the efforts of family members, first responders, survivors, architects, engineers, and the citizens of New York City to begin an official, comprehensive, fact-driven inquiry into the events which took down WTC 7.
After parting, Badillo moved on to his 1 PM function, to introduce Richard Gage at a press conference. Gage announced how the ubiquitous presence of the government-developed explosive, nanothermite, was found at Ground Zero. Beneath tons of debris, molten pools of steel and iron were still simmering weeks and months after 9/11. The red thermite dust was found in these pools, and on debris about the Ground Zero area, and most probably sitting in the lungs of first responders and others who worked there.
The nanothermite was distributed to a group of scientists around the world, and they all agreed that it was the nanothermite explosive that would be perfect to bring down the buildings, and that the collapses weren’t caused by fire that purportedly had weakened the redundant steel frames. The fires burned at a significantly lower temperature to melt the steel. And, of course, NIST had politicized the science, seeing how it was a government contractor.
In fact, on the previous evening’s meeting at All Souls Church on Lexington and East 80th Street, which included speakers Bob Schulz (We The People Foundation), Anthony Shaffer (Army Intelligence), William Rodriguez (WTC Key-holder), Cindy Sheehan (Anti-War Activist), Wayne Madsen (investigative journalist extraordinaire), Annie Machon, Colleen Rowley (FBI Whistle-blower), Ray McGovern, (CIA analyst), First Responder John Citara, Jason Bermas (Loose Change, Fabled Enemies, Invisible Empire), Gary Franchi (FEMA Camp), Daniel Sunjata (Fox’s Rescue Me)… the Dutch, physicist Niels Harrit again affirmed his agreement with Dr. Steven Jones discovery of nanothermite and his own belief in nanothermite as the explosive element that brought down Towers 1 and 2 in a pyroplastic cloud of dust.
Harret’s closing comment was that “when his future grandchildren asked him “whose side were you on, grandpa,” he would say “yours,” which brought the house down. He also reminded us how many professors of all kinds who had sided with Jones were now retired, i.e. lost their jobs.
Count all of these great people above as the newly created 9/11 activists, although there are thousands, millions more around the world, ready, willing and able to join in. Just as hundreds of members of WeAreChange joined in after Gage’s press conference and marched down Broadway, eastward to City Hall, and back again to Tower 7, opening eyes, minds, and consciousness with our chants, signs, brochures, and street seminars, despite the day’s other distractions.
And count it as a minor miracle that on the night of 9/11, when the two blue beams of light were shot into the air to commemorate Towers 1 and 2, there was a third beam of blue light shot into the air next to them, to commemorate Tower 7. This business of being an activist, even for this aging writer, had its rewards. And certainly another one was meeting these fine people of all ages. Life doesn’t make people better than this. So we will win in the end, no matter how long it takes.
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer, life-long resident of New York City. His book “State Of Shock – Poems from 9/11 on
” is available at www.jerrymazza.com, Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. He has also written hundreds of articles on American and world politics as an Associate Editor of Online Journal.
” is available at www.jerrymazza.com, Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. He has also written hundreds of articles on American and world politics as an Associate Editor of Online Journal.Live Superfoods
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Justice Breyer Suggests “Globalization” Trumps First Amendment
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
September 15, 2010
Infowars.com
September 15, 2010
Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer was indecisive when answering a question about whether or not Pastor Terry Jones’ proposed Koran burning was protected by free speech, suggesting that “globalization” now trumps the First Amendment in the eyes of lawmakers.
During an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America” to promote his book, Breyer was asked by host George Stephanopoulos if Jones’ ability to broadcast his actions in an age of global media poses “a challenge” to the First Amendment.
“[W]hen we spoke several years ago, you talked about how the process of globalization was changing our understanding of the law,” Stephanopoulos began. “When you think about the Internet and when you think about the possibility that, you know, a pastor in Florida with a flock of 30 can threaten to burn the Koran, and that leads to riots and killings in Afghanistan, does that pose a challenge to the First Amendment—to how you interpret it? Does it change the nature of…what we can allow and protect?”
“Well, in a sense, yes; in a sense, no,” responded Breyer indecisively“People can express their views in debate, no matter how awful those views are — in debate, a conversation, people exchanging ideas. That’s the model so that, in fact, we are better informed when we cast that ballot.”
Breyer went on to say that while the “core values remain,” the application of the First Amendment can change over time.
Breyer compared Jones’ actions to yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre, an action not protected by the First Amendment by legal precedent because it could lead directly to violence and harm.
“And what is the crowded theater today?” Breyer asked. “What is being trampled to death?”
Whether you support or abhor the actions of Pastor Jones, his right to burn a book in public can hardly be compared to yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, which is an action clearly intended to cause mayhem and unrest, whereas Jones’ stated reason for burning the Koran is a form of protest against the ground zero mosque controversy.
Jones’ actions are clearly protected under the First Amendment because they represent a form of political protest.
As we have documented, the ground zero mosque controversy is clearly being contrived in an effort to goad extremists on both sides of the religious divide into committing acts of violence which then give authorities the pretext to crush everyone’s free speech.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a globalist stooge, being a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and also having direct ties to a myriad of elitist organizations.
There is also a direct relationship between the group behind the mosque and CIA front companies, as well as the U.S. military.
This is about getting everybody at each other’s throats and provocateuring situations that demand the strong arm of the state to respond to the consequences of these artificially manufactured tensions. It is also about stoking resentment against Arabs to grease the skids for an expansion of war in the middle east.
Constitutionally speaking, the mosque should be allowed to be built and Pastor Jones should be free to burn the Koran, but this story goes far deeper than those surface issues because people on both sides of the debate are being deliberately manipulated into advocating positions that will only harm the liberty and livelihood of both Muslims and Christians in the long run.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.
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O’Reilly Says 9/11 Truth Activists Are Dangerous Radicals
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
September 16, 2020
Infowars.com
September 16, 2020
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| Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan recently said she believes the 9/11 attacks were an inside job. Maybe O’Reilly would have the government keep her away from Ground Zero? Photo: Bob With. | |
Bill O’Reilly is at it again. Remember when he called for squashing the First Amendment of Americans opposed to the illegal invasion of Iraq? “And it is our duty as loyal Americans to shut up once the fighting begins, unless — unless facts prove the operation wrong, as was the case in Vietnam,” said Bill on March 3, 2003.
Facts soon revealed that the neocons had bamboozled the nation into invading Iraq under false pretense, but we didn’t get a retraction from Bill. Now O’Reilly is characterizing 9/11 Truth activists as dangerous radicals.
Earlier this week, O’Reilly linked the Ground Zero imam Feisal Abdul Rauf — who worked with the FBI on its “counterterrorism” effort in March of 2003 and engages inconversations with the Council On Foreign Relations — to the “truther” Faiz Khan, a Muslim scholar and educator who was a first responder on September 11, 2001. Khan participated in two memorial services for the victims of 9/11 and is involved with the New York group Muslims Against Terrorism.
Bill O’Reilly would restrict Khan’s freedom of movement for his assertion that 9/11 was an inside job. Khan should not be “allowed within ten miles of Ground Zero,” said the Fox News teleprompter reader.
We can only assume that O’Reilly would extend this ban to all people who believe 9/11 was an inside job and possibly those who have reservations about the official fairy tale that pins the blame on Muslim cave-dwellers half way around the world.
According to a Zogby poll conducted in 2006, 42% of Americans believe the U.S. government and the 9/11 commission covered up the truth behind the attacks. Is it possible O’Reilly and Fox News consider millions of Americans to be dangerous radicals and would prevent them from traveling to Manhattan? Maybe a yellow star is in order?
Mary Katharine Ham, a scribe for the neocon house organ, the Weekly Standard, told O’Reilly Khan’s relationship with his “buddy” Feisal Abdul Rauf is “problematic” and Khan is making a “blatant excuse” for terrorism.
In other words, if you don’t accept the official government version of September 11 as gospel, you are a terrorism facilitator, at least according to the neocons who apparently also consider millions of Americans as little more than apologists for Islamic terror.
The hyped-up Ground Zero Mosque affair was designed not only to further demonize Muslims and create religious tension and spread xenophobia and thus promote the phony war on terror, it is also an effort to criminalize the 9/11 truth movement.
Fox News attempted to demonize the 9/11 truth movement earlier this year when the mental case John Patrick Bedell was killed outside of the Pentagon. On March 7, Fox’s Geraldo Rivera linked Bedell’s violent rampage to “truthers.” Rivera invited Alex Jones on his show to refute this absurd accusation.
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Kurt Nimmo edits Infowars.com. He is the author of Another Day in the Empire: Life In Neoconservative America.
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Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Bill O’Reilly uses Ground Zero ‘mosque’ controversy as front for attack on 9/11 Truth
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| The slogan “fair and balanced” being associated with Fox News has become as infamous as the statements “War is Peace” and “Slavery is Freedom” in George Orwell’s 1984. | |
Last week various activists successfully managed to generate publicity for 9/11 truth:
• Richard Gage of AE 911 Truth and former Senator Mike Gravel held a press conference in Washington DC presenting evidence that the Twin Towers and Building 7 were destroyed by controlled demolition. Along with that, local press conferences were also held by people throughout the world, presenting the same evidence. Mainstream media covered the story and wrote of AE 9/11 Truth’s findings without the usual spin, bringing the issue of Building 7 to the forefront.• On 9/11/10 Richard Gage, 9/11 victim family member Manny Badillo, and others shined a third beam of light into the sky over New York City in a symbolic representation of Building 7 to accompany the traditional two beams that shine every year for the Twin Towers.• We Are Change held successful protests in New York City around the anniversary of 9/11, as it does every year, along with various speaking events. One of them featured anti-war hero Cindy Sheehan, who said that she now thinks the 9/11 attacks were an inside job.
Nine years after the attacks, having suffered the plunder of their wealth by Wall Street, seeing the wars continue under Obama, and recognizing more clearly the endless stream of disinfo and lies that their government and mainstream media are feeding them, more and more Americans are slowly begining to look at 9/11 and the improbable collapse of the 3 buildings in New York with a more critical eye.
9/11 Truthers aren’t the only ones who recognize this.
Enter Bill O’Reilly.
Using the drummed up issue of the Ground Zero cultural center as the backdrop, O’Reilly dedicated most of his show on Monday to a transparent and desperate attack on the 9/11 Truth movement by “exposing” that Feisal Abdul Rauf — the Imam behind the cultural center — has connections to Faiz Khan — a Muslim who has publicly stated that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job. Though disguised as a new twist to the tired ‘mosque’ controversy, the true aim of O’Reilly’s attack is to isolate those who question the official story of 9/11 by sending out the message that any connection with 9/11 Truthers is not only undesirable, but potentially criminal. In O’Reilly’s attack piece there was no discussion of the issues raised by the 9/11 Truth movement, only how much Rauf will distance himself from his Truther associate.
In the clip below Bill opens with a hysterical introduction of the issue, demanding that Rauf explain himself and why he didn’t make his association to Khan public. Bill interviews Roy Locker, who is the managing editor for The Investigative Project on Terrorism — a data-gathering center on Islamist groups. Locker describes Khan’s past speaking engagements in a cautious and somber tone, as if they equated to participating in brutal massacres instead of exercises of free speech. Towards the end of the interview O’Reilly and Locker imply that Rauf’s association with Khan now opens the door to the possibility that the Ground Zero cultural center will become a haven for terrorist activities, thus associating 9/11 Truth itself with terrorism.
This message carries into the next segment in a panel discussion with Mary Catherine Ham and Juan Williams. During the discussion Ham claims that Khan’s statements regarding the government’s role in 9/11 somehow amounts to excusing terrorist violence, (without actually clarifying how that is so). She also proclaims, “public figures are required to distance themselves from 9/11 Truthers because that is the decent and right thing to do.”
In the following video Bill O’Reilly and Brit Hume discuss the political ramifications of the new Rauf and Khan angle. Sounding like a B movie cop telling a teenage rebel to “get a haircut, young man,” Hume says, ”Truthers are in bad odor in America,” and then goes on to tell Americans precisely what they feel when they listen to people who know that 9/11 was an inside job.
Though O’Reilly is leading the charge, if the issue takes off no doubt Obama will maintain the script of condemning 9/11 Truth as a vile, hateful cause. The mainstream media’s hope is that if both presented sides of the hyped issue show disdain for 9/11 Truthers, a weak-minded American public will too, and 9/11 Truth will fade into the shadows out of fear of public scorn.
It’s an old strategy that still fails to work. As the mainstream media’s power gets weaker and the alternative media gets stronger, people are beginning to see the propaganda-laden cable news networks as annoying relics of the last decade, reaching out in a dying grasp for America’s heart and soul. While sometimes useful for gauging which direction the fake establishment right wants to steer the public in, Fox News has very little credibility left. The slogan “fair and balanced” being associated with it has become as infamous as the statements “War is Peace”and “Slavery is Freedom” in George Orwell’s 1984.
As is often the case, mainstream media attacks on the 9/11 Truth movement help the cause by bringing the subject to the public’s attention, prompting individuals to research the issue for themselves.
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Saturday, September 11, 2010
The Quran-Burning Coverage Conundrum
by BROOKE GLADSTONE\
Brooke Gladstone is the host of NPR's On The Media from WNYC.
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| Joe Raedle/Getty Images Pastor Terry Jones speaks to the media outside the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla. Much attention has been paid to the pastor's threat to burn copies of the Quran. |
Pastor Terry Jones was clearly on another planet when he told ABC’s Terry Moran that his plan to burn Brooke Gladstone is the host of NPR's On The Media from WNYC.
Pastor Terry Jones was clearly on another planet when he told ABC’s Terry Moran that his plan to burn Qurans was divinely inspired. Jesus “was very nice,” he said, “so I think Jesus would not run around burning books, but I think he would burn this one.”
But the pastor had feet solidly planted on terra firma when it came to working the media.
You can read NPR's coverage of the latest developments in this story by clicking here.
We love crazies — they pull in audiences like a tractor beam. Even the mildly aberrant — say, a runaway bride — can dominate news cycles for days. But there was much more to the story of Pastor Jones. He is the fun-house mirror reflection of a certain segment of Americans. To politicians accused of racism or intolerance, he provided cover — “we would never do that.” To the world outside, he offered confirmation of what they believed they already knew.
The problem for journalists was that in this political season, the story grew like a snowball rolling down a hill, and we have to take some responsibility for pushing it. The media, awash in controversy over the so-called ground zero mosque, smelled a pungent parable in the pastor’s tale. So how should we have covered it?
“This is a desperate man seeking the attention of the better part of the world,” said Press Secretary Robert Gibb. “I think we would all be served, for the safety of ourselves and for those that protect us each day, to cover something besides him every hour on the hour.”
As the week wore on, many mainstream news outlets made public avowals of their intention to approach the story with an emphasis on context, and a minimum of visuals. Fox News said it wouldn’t cover the story at all. The AP declared that its policy is not to cover events “that are gratuitously manufactured to provoke and offend,” which obviously this was. As Jones said: “A radical message is necessary. … We expect the Muslims that are here in America to respect, honor, obey, submit to our Constitution.”
Under the Constitution, people have the right to brazenly misconstrue the Constitution.
Small wonder that America’s freedoms of speech and religion are so often misunderstood abroad — given the muddled debate that dominates the media here. And in fact, this story was not just about politics and intolerance. It was also, at its heart, a proxy argument among a wide range of ruminating, saliva-spewing, talking heads over our Constitution.
Most journalists here are guided by what’s called a sphere of consensus. What is commonly held to be outside that sphere is rarely heard. There was a time when moral condemnation of slavery was outside that sphere. But now with so many people producing media, the contours of acceptable speech have grown indistinct. We reap the whirlwind of unbounded freedom of the press, now virtually indistinguishable from freedom of speech.
We say our enemies hate our freedom. But sometimes we seem to hate it, too.
Weeks before it caused a ripple here, reports of the pastor’s plan, carried by the Internet, reverberated across the Middle East. So did the American fracas that followed, generating much wonderment and confusion. The impact abroad is a real story — but it wasn’t created by our media.
It is, in a sense, about our media.
You can listen to this story by tuning in to On The Media this weekend on your local NPR station.
A divided nation marks tumultuous 9/11 anniversary
Nine years after the worst terrorist attacks on US soil, the country is marking its most tumultuous anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks amid an acrimonious debate over an Islamic centre near Ground Zero and a US pastor’s incendiary threat to burn the Koran.
The commemoration at New York’s Ground Zero started, as it has each year, at 8:46 am local time, marking the moment American Airlines Flight 11 smashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. It was the first of four hijacked planes to crash on a horrifying day that saw nearly 3,000 people killed and changed the course of US and world history.
The families of the nearly 2,700 people killed in New York gathered at the memorial site on Saturday morning.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg addressed a gathering shortly before 8.46 am and then paused for a moment of silence before the audience, many of whom held aloft photographs of their loved ones.
Shortly after, the now-familiar reading of the names of victims who perished at the World Trade Center commenced.
Reporting from Ground Zero, FRANCE 24’s Nathan King said September 11 had turned into a day of carefully choreographed respect for the lives lost.
“Every year we go through this and every year it’s a solemn moment here – not just for New York, but for the entire country, and the world, because we all remember where we were and the shock we all felt as we saw those towers hit and then come down,” said King.
Four moments of silence are maintained at Ground Zero every 9/11 anniversary to mark the time when the two airliners crashed into the Twin Towers and also when the towers collapsed.
A moment of silence was also maintained at 9.37 am local time at the Pentagon to mark the exact time when, nine years ago, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the building, killing 184 people.
Addressing the gathering at the Pentagon minutes later, US President Barack Obama maintained that the US will "never" be at war with Islam.
"As Americans, we will not, and never will, be at war with Islam," said Obama before adding, "It was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was al Qaeda, a sorry band of men which perverts religion."
Linking the Koran-burning proposal to the ‘Ground Zero mosque’
Obama’s remarks followed months of an acrimonious public debate over terrorism and Islam.
Protests are expected to break out near the former site of the World Trade Center, a site considered hallowed ground for many Americans.
Disregarding New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan’s call to refrain from making Sept. 11 “a time for protest and division”, demonstrators for and against the building of an Islamic centre near Ground Zero are planning to hold rival rallies.
According to King, many families of the victims were distressed that a day of loss and remembrance had been politicized. “The New York archbishop put it very well when he said we must not let September 11 become a time for protests,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s a bit too late for the ninth anniversary. Perhaps for the tenth, we can manage that.”
The controversy over the Islamic centre - dubbed the “Ground Zero mosque” - took a bizarre twist over the past few days, when Florida pastor Terry Jones linked his proposition to burn the Koran to the mosque project.
The controversial cleric - who heads a congregation of roughly 50 people in Gainsville, Florida – has been giving mixed messages over the past few days about whether he intended to carry out his plan.
As the media frenzy in the US peaked and the international fury across the Muslim world mounted, Jones set off for New York City on Friday evening.
In an interview with NBC’s "Today" show on Saturday morning, Jones said his church would never burn a Koran.
Anger across the Muslim world
In the lead-up to Saturday's anniversary commemorations, Jones’ Koran-burning stunt sparked angry demonstrations across the world, with leaders of countries such as Indonesia and Afghanistan imploring Obama to intervene to stop such an event.
Protests broke out in Indonesia, Pakistan and India, countries with the world’s largest Muslim populations. In Afghanistan, demonstrations turned deadly when one protester was shot dead on Friday, which also happened to be the day Muslims marked Eid ul-Fitr, one of the biggest feasts in the Muslim calendar.
The families of the nearly 2,700 people killed in New York gathered at the memorial site on Saturday morning.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg addressed a gathering shortly before 8.46 am and then paused for a moment of silence before the audience, many of whom held aloft photographs of their loved ones.
Shortly after, the now-familiar reading of the names of victims who perished at the World Trade Center commenced.
Reporting from Ground Zero, FRANCE 24’s Nathan King said September 11 had turned into a day of carefully choreographed respect for the lives lost.
“Every year we go through this and every year it’s a solemn moment here – not just for New York, but for the entire country, and the world, because we all remember where we were and the shock we all felt as we saw those towers hit and then come down,” said King.
Four moments of silence are maintained at Ground Zero every 9/11 anniversary to mark the time when the two airliners crashed into the Twin Towers and also when the towers collapsed.
Addressing the gathering at the Pentagon minutes later, US President Barack Obama maintained that the US will "never" be at war with Islam.
"As Americans, we will not, and never will, be at war with Islam," said Obama before adding, "It was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was al Qaeda, a sorry band of men which perverts religion."
Linking the Koran-burning proposal to the ‘Ground Zero mosque’
Obama’s remarks followed months of an acrimonious public debate over terrorism and Islam.
Protests are expected to break out near the former site of the World Trade Center, a site considered hallowed ground for many Americans.
Disregarding New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan’s call to refrain from making Sept. 11 “a time for protest and division”, demonstrators for and against the building of an Islamic centre near Ground Zero are planning to hold rival rallies.
The controversy over the Islamic centre - dubbed the “Ground Zero mosque” - took a bizarre twist over the past few days, when Florida pastor Terry Jones linked his proposition to burn the Koran to the mosque project.
The controversial cleric - who heads a congregation of roughly 50 people in Gainsville, Florida – has been giving mixed messages over the past few days about whether he intended to carry out his plan.
As the media frenzy in the US peaked and the international fury across the Muslim world mounted, Jones set off for New York City on Friday evening.
In an interview with NBC’s "Today" show on Saturday morning, Jones said his church would never burn a Koran.
Anger across the Muslim world
In the lead-up to Saturday's anniversary commemorations, Jones’ Koran-burning stunt sparked angry demonstrations across the world, with leaders of countries such as Indonesia and Afghanistan imploring Obama to intervene to stop such an event.
Protests broke out in Indonesia, Pakistan and India, countries with the world’s largest Muslim populations. In Afghanistan, demonstrations turned deadly when one protester was shot dead on Friday, which also happened to be the day Muslims marked Eid ul-Fitr, one of the biggest feasts in the Muslim calendar.
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