LOOSE CHANGE vs. TIGHT CONTINUITY

THE CHANGE IS LOOSE AND SO IS THE BACKLASH (AND IT AIN'T PRETTY)
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic / The Frustrating Fraud
January 2007
updated, correction spurred by a reader, 2/12/07

After taking the underground by storm in 2005, Loose Change went mainstream in 2006, with widespread screenings, celebrity endorsemenrts, etc. By September, the Telegraph (India) reported “the runaway success of Loose Change has garnered the mainstream press’ attention and has begun to influence how the public perceives the entire 9/11 Truth Movement,” which seems to be taken by the author as a good thing for the "Truth" movement. [1] Over at least three evolving releases, the video went viral with free posting on the internet, and by the time of its second edition in 2006, it was a phenomenon. It was boosted by a more tolerant attitude in the media, no doubt partly due to receding memory of 9/11 itself. Notably, the August 2006 Vanity Fair ran an uncritical piece, whose writer Nancy Jo Sales summed up that “Loose Change has struck a nerve.” [2] Sales asked Director Dylan Avery what he thought was going to happen when this growing wave hit shore. He predicted a “second American revolution. […] There's going to be a lot of anger. […] When it becomes irrefutable public record that 9/11 was done by our government, the shit is gonna hit the fan.” [3] I have a hunch that mess will not occur in this country in any near future - after the initial long odds plus wave after wave of false promises like Loose Change leaving the movement drained, it will fall to another generation if to anyone to collectively reach and live the truth about that day.

But in the meantime, with its appeal to legitimate questions, its techno-savvy editing, and cartloads of crippling crap sneaking in behind good compelling evidence, it has risen to the top and dominated and skewed the entire field; Avery told the CBC by August its viewership was in the “millions, millions, is the best way to put it. I would even go so far as to say 100 million people have seen our film.” [4] The video remains in the top ranks of downloads, number one for a while, at Google’s new video page, and if he’s exaggerating, it isn’t by much. Reports of awkward, scripted-seeming lectures on controlled demolitions and obscure defense contractors have been sharply on the rise. Indeed, the "change" is loose.

So is the backlash, as seen in the Popular Mechanics 9/11 Myths book, and in recent 5th anniversary articles on 9/11 in Time, US News, etc. that treat the “conspiracy theories [that] won’t die” almost exclusively by examining Loose Change and its flaws, as if it were the truth movement. Their claims were lampooned prominently by South Park in October 2006.

A new internet force clearly inspired directly by the video and taking it as its window onto the movement is the Screw Loose Change weblog. The site’s “Chief,” James B., describes himself as “a combination software geek from Bellevue, part-time Chief Warrant Officer in the Army National Guard (thus the clever name), and current MBA student,” and interesting to me he’s also a “graduate in Russian and East European studies from the University of Washington.” His cohort on the site is more mysterious: Pat, like the SNL character, is just Pat. They delve well beyond Loose Change into the wider 9/11 Truth scene, who all in all give the site plenty of material to ridicule. The rich pickings, some clever words and decent work tackling them have earned them Michelle Malkin’s praise as “the single best clearinghouse on the 'net for fighting the tinfoil hat brigade.” The partisan slant is muted but evident, and clear enough from its enthusiastic support by a halfass be-bunking ‘blog called “The Truth About 9/11/01,” dedicated to the propositions that “over 90% of people don’t have common sense,” and “believing in any conspiracy theories about 9/11 is anti-american [sic].” [5]

A member of Screw Loose Change named Mark Iradian put together his own edit of Loose Change with “corrections” and commentary inserted, and released it under the title "Screw Loose Change," which like the original later spawning a revised version called the “Not Freakin’ Again Edition.” Iradian summed up his reason for the sarcastic video: “when you try to label the government for being a butcher and slaughtering 3000 of his own people, you better provide concrete evidence to back that up.” [6] Another cohort, Mark Roberts, put together a detailed critique of the video and later a list of telling interviews in which "Loose Change Creators Speak (and it ain't pretty)." The latter spawned another Iradian video of the same title comprised of audio interviews overlaid with contrasting text and images to make them look as heartless as possible in their casual mocking of the deadly attacks.

Even as disbelief of the official version surges to all-time highs on the back of Loose Change in the second half of 2006, others like James and Pat and Michelle and Mark and Mark are taking issue with their approach; Avery’s flippant attitude is one lightning rod for controversy, his laughing in phone interviews about the absurdity of hijackers taking over Flight 93 in particular with box cutters or even plastic knives. It sounded to Malkin like “a taste of how sick these people are and how much they enjoy mocking the suffering of 9/11 victims” [7] Listening to the interviews I do cringe at the lack of tact, but this of course could be blamed on Avery’s age – he’s barely out of High School remember. I also know from experience that one gets a bit desensitized when dealing with dark subjects day in and day out; the whole hallowed ground thing is hard to keep up, and gallows humor often simply happens. Ask any mortician or soldier.

Avery’s flippancy, as revealed especially in his treatment of the Bernard Browns seam, is a telling clue to the emerging script in which grave charges are laid out in a sloppy and immature way, ordinary folks see that Loose Change represents the “Truth” movement and it’s clearly wrong, and so in the long run there’s nothing to worry about. This paranoia is an adolescent phase, based on simple misunderstandings, deep anxiety and an irrational hatred of Bush, both of the latter fed by the extended Iraq War. PopMech, Screw Loose Change and the others have the misunderstandings largely under control, the Iraq war will be changing course shortly, and Bush has only two years left. And while the “Long War” rolls on into its planned decades, new battlefields are being laid out, and other elites and other catalyzing events wait in the wings, of course there are drugs to treat that anxiety and counseling to rescue minds lured by the "cynical imaginations" of "extremists here in the United States." [8]

Mary Katharine Ham’s analysis at Town hall.com is telling; after first dismissing them, she realized “I shouldn’t have moved on. I should have stopped and looked at the Truthers and listened to them a lot sooner.” She urged other to listen closer and understand – via the filter of Screw Loose Change and the PopMech book – to confront the “dangerous deniers we’re facing in our own country.” [9]

[1], [2] Ray, Turna. “11/9, a conspiracy?” September 3 2006.http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060903/asp/look/story_6682430.asp
[3] Sales, Nancy Jo. “Click Here for Conspiracy.” http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/060717roco02
[4] 9/11: TRUTH, LIES AND CONSPIRACY." Iinterview with Dylan Avery. Canadian Broadcasting Croporation. August 22, 2006
http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/911avery.html
[5] Screw Loose Change video website. http://www.lolloosechange.co.nr/
[6] Welcome to the Truth about 9/11/01. http://www.threegroup.net/personal/adam/Opening.html
[7] Malkin, Michelle. The 9/11 Tinfoil Hat Brigade.” September 10 2006. http://michellemalkin.com/archives/005885.htm
[8] "9/11 Debunking the Myths." Intro. the editors. Popular Mechanics. March 2005. page 71.
[9] Ham, Mary Katharine "Beware the Truthers. Don't Ignore Them." Townhall.com. Monday, September 11, 2006 http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=beware_the_truthers_dont_ignore_them&ns=MaryKatharineHam&dt=09/11/2006&page=1

THE CHERTOFF TANGENT

POPMECH SPEWING DHS PROPAGANDA?
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic / The Frustrating Fraud
December 2006, updated 2/5/07

911 In Plane Site's approach of focusing on the mechanics of the government attack – and doing so piss-poorly – could not long go unnoticed. First-released in mid-2004 to wide acceptance, the first ill effect the video suffered was the early unraveling of its popularity through well-timed interventions like those of Oil Empire and 9-11 Research, which surfaced before the end of 2004. The next was its widely read flogging in the pages of the March 2005 issue of Popular Mechanics. Thus many Americans first heard of the video that “will change September 11” in between articles about Jay Leno’s giant trucks and a “lawn tractor face-off.” The article looked at a narrow slice of easily-debunked 9/11 theories in its areas of expertise and sponsorship, and spent much of its ink slaying the then-popular IPS. But wait! The article was principally by Benjamin Chertoff, Popular Mechanics’ 25-year old research editor. He was immediately suspected by many 9/11 Truthers of being a cousin (or a nephew in one report) to the just-appointed Director of the Department of Homeland Security, one Michael Chertoff. DHS was a new agency with little-understood powers, and some now suspected they included propaganda, with deals to be made over heaping plates of potato salad at family reunions, and with revalations targeted to the PopMech crowd - a segment of the population best known not for their seething political power but for their manual skills and prominent ass cracks.

Most people who care simply state the cousin link as an evident fact with no source needed; when they do cite anything, the only source seems to be Christopher Bollyn at American Free Press (AFP), a paper suspiciously suspicious of Israel, alternately accused of anti-Semitism by the Anti-Defamation League, and accused by others of ADL infiltration. A dedicated 9/11 Truth warrior, Bollyn had already discovered “cousin” Michael held dual American-Israeli citizenship. He says he called Ben Chertoff directly, and questioned the editor until he became “uncomfortable.” Unable to get a confirmation there, he called Ben’s mother in New York and got her to admit “yes, of course, he is a cousin.” In his March 6 article Bollyn included the first name and home city of this alleged mother of a possible Israeli-Illuminati agent. He also dropped the line “this is exactly the kind of “journalism” one would expect to find in a dictatorship like that of Saddam Hussein's Iraq,” referring I presume to the PopMech piece, not his own work. For what it’s worth, Bollyn was fired from AFP in late 2006 for “disloyalty” and submitting false stories, including pushing Sam Danner's fictitious account of the Pentagon attack despite numerous red flags. [2]

In a March interview with Art Bell, while the “wing nuts” were still following this lead, Ben could neither confirm nor deny a relation to the just-appointed Director. His only line of defense was that he was unaware of the possibility until after the article had gone to press. He later postulated a relation “back in 19th century Belarus,” but by the September 11, 2006 US News, he was stating categorically “no one in my family has ever met anyone related to Michael Chertoff.” He would not likely say this so firmly if it could be proved wrong, and so far no Internet sleuth has shaken the family tree and posted any juicy fruit.

In fact Ben’s little article that caused such a big uproar was later expanded into a book: “Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can’t Stand Up to the Facts” (Hearst, August 2006, with a forward by Senator John McCain). Ironically enough, the book was able to take advantage of this whole tangent to illustrate their point: in the afterword, PM’s Editor-in-Chief, James Meigs noted “as often happens in the world of conspiracy theories, a grain of truth - it's possible that Ben and Michael Chertoff are distantly related - was built into a towering dune. In fact, Ben and Michael Chertoff have never spoken.” And more to the larger point everyone else has glossed over, “no one at Popular Mechanics” by any name “had any contact with Michael Chertoff's office while preparing the article.” [3]

Nonetheless, there may still be more than coincidence to this episode, with the same uncommon name appearing twice in as many months, both flanking the official 9/11 story - especially when we consider the proximity to the release of the curiously bad IPS. Just as von Kleist’s video has sunk into the collective mind of that certain skeptical segment of the population, in January 2005 Michael was appointed to head DHS, a post created by 9/11. At the end of February a hit piece slaying “lies” about the terrorist attacks, primarily those advocated by IPS, went public with another Chertoff listed as in charge. This certainly seems odd to the people who are into the Truth scene. It seems odd to me. I was there, and saw the movement surge with anger and strengthened resolve. It may have sounded silly and blatant to task such things to one’s cousin, but after all, we remembered Jeb Bush handing his brother the election in 2000...

In retrospect, I would go so far as to speculate that Bush’s people in fact helped somehow in getting In Plane Site out there, probably through some intermediary – since I’m speculating, let’s say Karl Rove - to set up the straw man in advance. While they were grooming Michael Chertoff for DHS, the video was at work shifting the debate to the mechanics level while shedding all circumstantial evidence of motive that allows the plot to make sense. On top of this, it analyzed the mechanical evidence with unprecedented ineptitude so Popular Mechanics could easily take it on. The operatives behind the scenes of course knew a “Chertoff” was working there and would be in charge of any such article, giving the wing nuts yet another red herring to stumble over for a while.

Sources:
[1] Bollyn, Christopher. “Chertoff's Cousin Penned Popular Mechanics 9/11 Hit Piece.” American Free Press. March 7 2005. via Prison Planet.
[2] World Independent News Group/WING TV. “American free Press Fires Christopher Bollyn.”
[3] Meigs, James B. “The Conspiracy Industry.” Afterword to Debunking 9/11 Myths. June 2006. Published online October 13, 2006.