UKC

20 years ago tomorrow, although I have just failed to find the thread on here where people were watching it happen while it happened - wasn't the title something like "turn on your television now"?

Anyway, 16 or 15 years ago virtually any talk about conspiracy theories was 9/11 truth and its spin offs. Remember the Loose Change video? I can't even remember why it was called that, but comparing that to the sort of stuff we've been exposed to in the last few years, it seems almost endearingly amateurish now.

There were massive arguments here on UKC with people who thought it was an "inside job" and the rest of us "sheeple" who had a hard time not believing our own eyes, but beside the often thinly veiled antisemitism, 9/11 truth always seemed like a position taken by people who at least thought they were taking a critical perspective - so like a fantasy leftism. Now, down the rabbit hole of covid denialism and those in the west who will amplify and probably believe Russian dabbling in liberal democratic political systems, the politics of conspiracy feels clearly hard right wing, even if a fantasy rightism also. Even anti-vax has gone from being predominantly post-hippy brainless "progressive-ism" to just more hard-right boilerplate in covid times.

So did anyone come out of the 9/11 truth movement and change their mind on it being an inside job? Or are they now the same people who are convinced that Bill Gates is controlling our minds through nano tech microchips in the C19 vaccines and that for some reason Big Pharma is trying to stop us from taking cattle de-wormer that will save us from the pandemic?

I’m here darling.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/for_those_of_you_with_tv_access...

It was probably "So, the s___ has hit the fan in your generation". [edit: I see the 'TV' thread has been found; my suggestion must have been the immediate analysis]

And yes, they're probably still Truthers, only the Truth is now anti vax, anti lockdown, etc.

Woolpack is tha username that I remember. I wonder if they still walk amongst us. The one or two truthers that I have met in real life are certainly fully paid up on the anti-vac, Covid isn't real bus.

I shared a long train journey with a 9/11 truther a few years ago.  It was a challenging time for me.

Now they are regularly pushing content on LinkedIn that aligns with a certain direction over Covid. 

I don't actually believe the US did it. But it has helped the state (Governments) pass a load of laws for watching/spying on people online. Especially in the past few years, even more laws have been passed to allow this.

FriendlyJordies does a good video on it. Its mainly about Australia but is still relevant.

youtube.com/watch?v=U49pq-Ctf_A&

I don't think it should come as any great surprise that the same people who believe 9/11 was an inside job should also believe that covid isn't real. If you're capable of evaluating the abundance of evidence before you and reaching a conclusion which has no rational justification once then why wouldn't you do it twice?

Some people at the margins (of the conspiricy theory brigade) will be swayed one way or another by their (usually extreme) politics, but the politcal spectrum isn't linear as usually depicted with the hard left and right furthest apart. It's more circular with the extremes tending to meet up round the back, they just got there by a different route.

It's a bit odd that you seem to think me or anyone else who was conscious on 9/11 doesn't understand how it was used afterwards in the US and elsewhere to justify creating a security state? I don't think many people with an interest in current affairs need an Aussie youtuber (who looks like he would have been a toddler in 2001) to explain that!

For kids, sure - they don't remember Abu Graib or Guantanamo Bay opening. But anybody who remembers eating aircraft meals with metal cutlery pre 9/11 to Blair's government losing the vote on extending the limits to holding someone without charge I reckon the political impacts of 9/11 are reasonably clear.

And this is a comment not aimed at anyone in particular, but has anyone else noticed how how people who seem to think they have taken the red pill and now know the 'truth', be that on 9/11 or covid-19, were just incredibly naive to begin with?

I just watched a movie length documentary (link below) about a group of black minor criminals in Miami post 9/11 who said a lot of stupid things but had no terrorist links, no weapons, no online evidence of obsessions. The FBI heard about them through an informant, set up an investigation (sensibly) but then effectively groomed them with money to pledge to Osama bin Laden and photograph government buildings. Long story short, they were jailed on a third trial (after mis-trials) for periods from 6 to 13 years, and one was deported on immigration legislation that means a US resident suspected of terrorism can be deported irrespective of criminal conviction. In contrast, the extent of Saudi citizen links to terrorist funding continue to be denied by the US government.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14157218/

I don't think I'm one of those crackpot 'conspiracy theorists'. I believe in the moon landings, dont think the earth is flat, have had 2 covid jabs and although i believe in aliens, I dont believe them to have visited.

HOWEVER,

I do believe that the fourth plane on 9/11 was shot down by the government. 

I am still suspicious that a plane hitting the pentagon did so little visible damage/ wasnt captured by cameras.

A quick Google finds pretty dramatic photos of Pentagon damage. It's a low level reinforced concrete building so damage did not spread horizontally to the rest of the building. How far would you expect fire to spread in a reinforced concrete building?

I remember seeing CCTV long ago of the plane hitting the Pentagon. It may have only been a few frames as the plane was 500mph or something. Looking online it was released about 15 years ago.

So I'm not sure why you say "suspicious that a plane hitting the pentagon did so little visible damage/ wasnt captured by cameras" when there was a burnt out collapsed section and CCTV.

I'm inclined to agree, the debris footprint was huge. 

Wiki has the cctv

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_77

+1

The damage to the pentagon was entirely consistent with being hit by a large aircraft.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_93

Compare photos of Lockerbie or mh17 shoot down - recognisable cockpit or fuselage and engines on the surface as broke up in the air and fell under gravity rather than buried deep or reduced to fragments by impact under power.

Like flight 93, a crash under power such as the German pilot who committed suicide and mass murder in the Alps reduces the fuselage to small fragments.

Obviously flight 93 could have been shot down, but the evidence suggests impact at full speed or dive speed of an aerodynamic aircraft rather than relatively slow fall of un-aerodynamic debris after breakup in mid-air.

There was a documentary the other night with interviews with people involved in 9/11. There was a military pilot who was scrambled to intercept flight 93, and she said they were unarmed because they simply didn't have armed aircraft ready and waiting in the area. The plan was to crash into the airliner in order to bring it down. In the event, the passengers had crashed the plane before they got near it.

I think it's quite plausible that they would have shot down flight 93, but it didn't happen because it crashed first. I don't see why it would be necessary to cover it up, because it would have been justified given the situation.

Article and interview here.  Scary stuff

https://abcnews.go.com/US/fighter-pilot-reflects-911-suicide-mission/story?...

Indeed, if you watch the film the impact is at 1min 27.

There is a single huge impact at this point. If the aircraft had already been shot down multiple debris fragments would have hit the buiding in a scattergun manner.

I think that interview rings true. Prior to 9/11 there wouldn't be armed fighters bimbling around civilian airspace on the off-chance there might be something to shoot down, and you just don't chuck a set of ignition keys at a pilot and they climb into a waiting conveniently fuelled and armed plane and set off.

It might well have been a case of fly into the tail if necessary and hope you can eject afterwards.

Plus I thought there was audio of the passengers storming the cockpit?

Yes, I think there was already pretty conclusive evidence that the passengers brought the plane down. Only the complete nutjobs dispute this. But this was the first time that I'd heard an actual admission that the military intended to deliberately take down a plane full of innocent people. 

The vice president gave the order if I remember correctly. He talks about it on the BBC doc currently on iPlayer, 9/11 inside the president's war room I think it's called. It's so long since I read it but I'm sure that the shoot down order and the potential suicide mission for the first pilots asked to intercept airliners when unarmed is all in the 9/11 Report. I've still got my copy somewhere, I'll look it up if I get chance!

There's still some around, going on facebook, but this is quite interesting. 

https://inews.co.uk/news/9-11-conspiracy-theories-twin-towers-truthers-rabb...

So, the evidence is pretty conclusive. Referencing the thread subject and OP, will you change your mind? 

Politicians lie to us all the time. Most people believe that, even if they also have a favourite political party they vote for.

I think some people extend their distrust to the state controlled, or at least state funded, institutions such as civil servants, scientists, schools, universities, the NHS, the BBC, the police, etc. Many of us will have experienced incompetence or dishonesty from some people working for these.

This all leads to people not trusting any 'official' information about anything, so they then look for information from other sources. Then they get a variety of nonsense ranging from people who are just wrong, to the manipulative and dishonest. The government, or state institution, line will be considered a lie, so something else must be The Truth.

My personal view is that Covid 19 is a virus that can make you very ill, or kill you, vaccination can be effective at reducing the potential harm from a virus, and The Twin Towers were destroyed in an audacious terrorist attack.

I don't believe that everyone in the NHS, research departments at universities, or the BBC is a lying lackey of Boris trying to trick us.

I know people who don't believe any 'official' line on this stuff. 'Why would I take medicine if I'm not ill' they say. 'If vaccinated people can still catch Covid, then the vaccine doesn't work'. They have no understanding of what a vaccine is. And they can't trust the BBC, so let's go to YouTube for some Truth. While we're there let's look at photos of the nose of the plane coming out from behind the tower. Look, there's a picture on the internet. How much more proof do you need? Don't believe what you saw on the news. Don't you know, they can manipulate the images to show you anything they want? 

I understand why that person doesn't trust The State. They squandered any trust from him long ago. I'm sure there are other people with very good reasons not to trust governments and state institutions, even if I also think some things they choose to believe are conspiracy theory nonsense.