The Minnesota "Sustainable Energy" Scam: From T. Paw to T. Boone

The Minnesota "Sustainable Energy" Scam

Jim Fetzer


The "Sustainable Energy" Billboard

It was my pleasure to interview Mary Hartman and Kristi Rosenquist on "The Real Deal", an internet radio program I host on M/W/F from 5-7 PM/CT, which took place on 17 June 2011 and has been archived at http://radiofetzer.blogspot.com. I was taken aback to discover that the sustainable energy program in Minnesota is by and large a scam designed to enrich the Texas billionaire, T. Boone Pickins.

I learned from them that a program being sold to the residents of Minnesota as an "environmentally friendly" enterprise actually appears to conceal a major rip-off of the public, where the purchase of land for wind mills is being use as a front to conceal taking control of mineral and water rights. The scam is so bad that the utility monitoring the production of energy has been derelict.

Not only has the utility not been properly monitoring output but the cost of the energy that is being consumed by these enormous devices -- the windmills themselves -- has not been taken into account in determining their output, which is a fraud in itself. Without knowing the cost of production, the actual benefit is unknown.

In addition, these enormous structures are littering the landscape of rural areas in a way reminiscent of grotesque horns extruding from the earth. The sound is bad enough, but the effects upon health of the vibrations they are generating has yet to be measured. It appears to be both serious and enduring -- a bad combination!


A "Tipped" Turbine for Your Yard

While former Governor Tim Pawlenty wants to take credit for this "green" initiative, I believe that anyone who looks into what is actually going on will discover that it is as terrible a scam as Minnesota has ever known. If it is not brought to a halt now, there is scant change the state will ever recover -- and the citizens of the land of 10,000 lakes may actually have to pay for its own water.

The idea of producing 25% of the state's energy using sustainable resources by the year 2025 as the "25 x 25" program appears to have been a marketing mechanism to conceal the real objective, which is converting state resources to private benefit -- a disgrace being promoted as a benefit, which means that what's really going on here is a massive scam. Remember that green is also the color of money.

Here is a link to the interview. I urge every American who cares about their own state to listen and weep. This is a tragedy in the making, which puts the lie to politicians and officials who are selling the states most precious resources -- its land, minerals, and water -- to private investors who stand to make fabulous profits at the public's expense:

http://nwopodcast.com/fetz/media/jim%20fetzer%20real%20deal-hartman%20rosenquest.mp3

Here's a summary of what Kristi and Mary have turned up, but it's only a summary. For more details and exposure of what's really going on, listen to the interview. It runs 100 minutes -- four segments of 25 minutes apiece -- and you will never feel the same way about "green" projects being promoted by the state! It's simply stunning.

From T. Paw to T. Boone

Kristi Rosenquist with Mary Hartman

Government of the lobbyist by the lawyer for the benefit of industrial wind developers is a serious problem. Touted to protect the environment, the Minnesota 2007 Renewable Energy Standard is instead enriching out-of-state corporations on the backs of Minnesotans.

The New Generation Energy Act was a Governor’s Initiative championed by Tim Pawlenty. Edward Garvey & Christine Brusven wrote the MN Renewable Energy Standard (RES), then shepherded it through the legislature for Governor Pawlenty. Now Mr. Garvey is a principal at WeberJohnson lobbying for wind energy. Ms. Brusven is the lawyer for Texas billionaire T. Boone Picken’s company, AWA Goodhue LLC. Her firm, Fredrickson & Byron, is a WeberJohnson client. They wrote the law, now they lawyer and lobby for the beneficiaries of the law.


And whose home is being destroyed thereby

The RES requires utilities to get 25% or their energy from renewable sources 2025. The law exempts wind from the normal checks and balances required of other electrical generation sources. Wind is exempt from showing need, environmental impact, negative effect on rate payers and negative effect on the electrical grid.

The Public Utilities Commission reviews wind development applications with support from the Department of Commerce’s Office of Energy Security. The lawyers and lobbyists did a fine job of writing and tweaking the RES and related laws to force the hand of the Public Utilities Commission and the Office of Energy Security to meet the mandate laid out in a law written entirely for the benefit of wind developers.

This has left Goodhue County and her Townships in the dismal position of having a small amount of power and influence over a poorly defined, untested portion of the wind permitting process. The real stakeholders are left trying to discern reasonable setback distances from houses for 450 foot turbines that reasonably should not exist.

The only reason T. Boone Pickens is signing 30-50 year leases with landowners in Goodhue County is huge financial gain with little or no risk. State mandate, MN Community Based Energy Development (C-BED) tariff on rate payers, federal subsidies, federal production tax credit, ten year depreciation, federal tax shelters, current transmission capacity in Goodhue, and the MN Flip business model do nothing to reduce carbon. Pickens declared in 2008 that his 68,000 acre ranch located in the Texas Panhandle, one of America’s windiest regions, will not have a single turbine. “I’m not going to have the windmills on my ranch," he said. "They’re ugly.”


And even more so when they are fried . . .

I spoke with Shane Myre at Governor Pawlenty’s office both by phone and in person. Mr. Myre assured me that he passed on my concerns to the Governor. He also assured me there was no chance Governor Pawlenty would meet with the citizens of Goodhue County to hear our concerns. The results of Pawlenty’s Governor’s initiative are a fiasco.

Tim Pawlenty is a fiscal conservative on most issues. When it comes to wind-generated electricity, Tim Pawlenty is generous with tax and rate payers’ money to fund the feel-good illusion that industrial wind turbines will reduce carbon emissions. Lots of money combined with the expertise and inside track of Pawlenty’s former Commerce Department staff make Minnesota the perfect target for a billionaire with a few hundred extra turbines. That’s why I say, “Pickens gets the gold mine; we get the turbine shaft. Thanks T. Paw.”

Mary Hartman and Kristi Rosenquist are long-time residents of Minnesota who believe that citizens can contribute to better government as long as they keep informed.Source URL: https://0832zy.blogspot.com/2011/06/
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Barry's Conspiracy World: The "No Plane" Theory

Barry's Conspiracy World
Exploring Conspiracy Truth

The "No Plane" Theory

Barry Berman

To the uninitiated, this seems like the most idiotic crock of crap. Let's take a look at the facts of the morning of 9/11 and see how this "silly" idea came about.

No one saw a plane crash in PA. There was very little wreckage at the "crash site." There were no pieces over two feet long. There were no bodies. There was not "one drop of blood." There was no black box. There was a second debris field 8 miles away. This is very odd and if anything would give credibility to the idea that the plane was shot down, however, there was also very little debris present at the second location.

No one saw a commercial plane hit the Pentagon. Some witnesses thought they may have seen what appeared to be a small passenger plane or missile.

There were no flight manifests for Flights 11 and 77. To many aviation experts, this means that the flights never existed. These flight numbers are for the planes hitting the north tower and the Pentagon.

Let's say for a moment that there were no planes at the Pentagon and in PA. If that is the case, why would there necessarily be any planes at the WTC? Well, people saw them and heard them. There is video of the planes hitting the towers. That's tough to get around. But what did they see? And what did they hear?

They saw a Boeing 767 fly over New York city at 580mph. This is a problem. The maximum speed of the Boeing 767 at sea level is 360mph. That's not a 20 mph difference, but a 220 mph difference! Given that drag varies on the square of the velocity and the power required to push through that drag varies on the 4th power of the velocity. A discrepency of 220 mph is enormous! Pushing a large aircraft an extra 220mph at sea level is not a trivial matter. This amounts to an increase in power of 674% -- above full power! This could not be accomplished by dive bombing the plane, which was not the case as the speed was taken while the plane was at a level cruise. (The 767 would most likely break apart if somehow it was powered to cruise at 580mph at sea level -- sea level being an enormous difference from a 40,000ft cruising altitude, where the air density is less than 25% of air at sea level.)

Let's examine the footage of the planes striking the WTC.


"Fight 175" entering the South Tower

Editor's note: See, for example, the Hezarkhani footage: http://killtown.blogspot.com/search/label/No-Planes

Flight of the Hologram

If you look closely, the plane passes into the building rather like a phantom. Also, quite significant is the fact that when it hits the building, there seem to be numerous explosions along the surface of the building. Not metal and glass crashing, but explosions. Furthermore, they don't seem to be timed exactly -- they fire off at slightly different moments, which don't really coincide with the plane hitting the building. Why would there be numerous small explosions from a plane hitting a building? (I'm not talking about the big ball of fire explosion, but the small explosions along the surface. These explosions seem to be making the Wyle E. Coyote cut-out on the face of the building.)

Another obvious question is "What could else it possibly be? It looks like an airplane!" Well, examine this link and scroll down to Topic 7: Hologram Technology. Most people are not familiar with the above top secret classified holographic technology which can project solid looking objects from fast flying fighter planes. Witnesses heard a plane overhead, but it is not impossible that they heard a missile and when couple with the image of a plane, assumed it was a plane. It would be fairly simple to add in a sound effect of loud low frequency rumble, that when added to the sound of a cruise missile, closely models the spectral make-up of a Boeing 767.

Hologram Technology

There have been anecdotal reports of people giving speeches on stage at business conferences, while engaging the audience. Several minutes into the speech, the actual person walks out and stands next to his hologram which has duped the audience. A friend of aviation legend John Lear was driving in the California desert and spotted an enormous military cargo plane flying overhead. He found it odd that such a plane would be flying at such a location -- out in the middle of nowhere. He looked up and it vanished into thin air. The witness felt that this must have been a test run of holographic technology.

WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE?

This is seemingly a huge problem with the whole "no plane" theory. Real people died on 9/11. There is no denying that. However, the passenger lists are actually supportive pieces of evidence to the idea of "no planes." The 4 planes all had low loads -- less than 200 people total were onboard, including the crew. It turns out that many of the names were employees of Boeing and other military contractors or were in the military itself. The government set up a compensation fund for families of the victims of 9/11. Each family would receive $2 million compensation. Only a small percentage of the families entitled to money came forward to collect! For one plane of 40 victims, only 6 families tried to claim the $2 million! Moreover, six of the alleged hijackers were seen after 9/11. One of them spoke in length with his father the next day. Another hijacker was interviewed on the BBC on 9/12! One must ask, "How can a pilot fly a plane into a building and do an interview on the BBC the next day?!"

Passenger lists

So what happened to the people? It would be fairly simple for CIA operatives or black ops NSA security to pick up the crews and the few actual passengers from the planes.

Considering the 9/11 attacks as a whole: What would be the most effective way to carry out the operation? If the goal was to bring down the world's biggest office buildings in grand fashion (while making it look like an enemy attack), would you want to use commercial airplanes? Hell no! Even if you wanted to fly the planes into the towers and THEN implode them with tons of nano-thermite, you still would not want to use planes for such an operation. (Tests of the WTC dust has shown it contains nano-thermite). Experienced pilots have testified that it would be extremely difficult to achieve a center hit with the plane. You would need a totally reliable pilot who could be counted on for a suicide flight. By all accounts, the hijackers were not very capable pilots. If just one of the planes just nicked the edge of the tower, it would look enormously fake to still implode the building.

There is also the problem of the flight path of the plane that hit the Pentagon. The plane made a nearly 360 degree sharp turn and decent, which would have been difficult even in a large military jet. This maneuver would not have been possible in a Boeing 767. Furthermore, the alleged pilot to this craft Hani Hanjour, was not competent to fly a Boeing 767 at any speed. He could barely fly a Cesna in flight school. Here is one of many articles on "pilot extraordinaire" Hani Hanjour.

Pilot extraordinaire

Pilots for Truth examined the flight data recorder for Flight 77 and found it to be faked. If an accurate barometer reading had been used for the data, the flight would have passed over the Pentagon at an altitude of 273 feet. There is a run through simulation of Flight 77 on the Pilots for 911 Truth site.

Pilots for 9/11 Truth

There are many more reasons why the idea of airplanes does not hold water. Pilots for Truth realize the many problems with this notion. So I ask, "If there were no planes, what happened?" That is a great question. So far, the evidence suggests that cruise missiles were flown into the Pentagon and WTC 1 and 2. (Of course nothing hit WTC 7 -- it imploded seemingly by itself.) The cruise missiles projected a hologram of a Boeing 767 over NYC. They didn't bother projecting anything over the Pentagon. Flight 93 most likely never took place. "Let's roll" was some creative writing, as was "Hi mom, it's your son Mark Bingham. You know who I am? [I'm about to crash and die.]" It turns out that cell phone calls from planes were not possible in 2001.* The Flight 93 calls could have been faked with available Voice Morphing Technology.**

Nearly 3000 people died for a false flag to justify a false war. There were no weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. simply wanted to proceed with military control of the Middle East.

* The calls from Flight 93 were made from an altitude between 34,300 feet and 40,700 feet. Canadian scientist and mathematician A.K. Dewdney determined that cell phone calls at an altitude of 20,000 feet could be completed at a rate of less than 1 in 100 in 2001. Higher altitudes would have been more difficult. The chances of two callers making successful calls would have been less than 1 in 10,000. According to reports, there were 9 cell phone calls from Flight 93 at an altitude of over 30,000 feet.

** As reported in the Washington Post in 1999, William Arkin wrote "By taking just a 10 minute digital recording of anyone's voice" voice morphing experts can "clone speech patterns and develop an accurate facsimile."

The original of this article, http://barryb911.blogspot.com/2011/05/no-plane-theory.html, has just appeared on Barry Berman's blog.Source URL: https://0832zy.blogspot.com/2011/06/
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9/11: Seismic Proof + Video Fakery = Inside Job

9/11: Seismic Proof + Video Fakery = Inside Job

Jim Fetzer

Many sober citizens are reluctant to conclude that 9/11 was an “inside job” because they cannot bring themselves to believe that their own government would deliberately kill 3,000 of their fellow citizens to promote a political agenda for the sake of oil, Israel, and ideology. The evidence, however, extends to the apparent use of video fakery on 9/11, which, I now believe, was necessary to create a pseudo-explanation for explosions in the sub-basements of both Twin Towers. Either should be sufficient to make the point, but in combination they are devastating.

Two studies that initially seem far removed from one another turn out to be intricately interrelated. In "Seismic Proof: 9/11 was an 'inside job' " (original), http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/Article911SeismicProof.html (also republished in a slightly revised version that does not affect the key points), Gordon Ross and Craig Furlong followed up on the report of an explosion in the subbasement of the North Tower PRIOR TO reverberations from the alleged plane impacts by William Rodriguez, the senior custodian in the North Tower, which he had lived through.

Using seismic data from a laboratory run by Columbia University and FAA and military radar data to establish the relationship between these "events', they found that explosions in the subbasements of both towers occurred 14-17 seconds before "impacts". They were meticulous in their research and their conclusions are well-supported by their data.


Data Table from "Seismic Proof"

When Willie mentioned to me that the subbasement had filled with water, I realized the principal purpose of those explosions had been to drain the sprinkler systems of water. Since most of the jet fuel burned up in spectacular fireballs within the first 15-20 seconds, the modest fires that remained could have been easily extinguished by the sprinklers, had they not been drained.

Evidence that the videos of the airplane impacts were faked -- which I have summarized in several arguments in "New Proof of Video Fakery on 9/11", http://www.opednews.com/articles/New-Proof-of-Video-Fakery--by-Jim-Fetzer-080729-132.html -- thus appears to have been to effect a precise temporal coordination of the "impacts" occurring prior to the intended subsequent explosions as their pseudo-cause.

The reason is that the perps needed a semi-plausible explanation for why they had occurred at all. The one they chose was to claim that jet fuel had fallen through the elevator shafts and exploded in those basements. There are several problems with this account, however, including that the primary elevators are staggered in the towers, which means the fuel could not have fallen through them into the subbasements.

Another is that, while there are one or two that extend all the way up and down the towers, a co-worker of Willie was in one of those in the North Tower. He survived the experience without having been burned alive, which would have been his fate if the official account were correct. And, of course, there was a human error in coordinating the "impacts" with the explosions, where Ross and Furlong confirmed that the explosions actually happened first.


"Fight 175" entering the South Tower

The indications of fakery here include that the plane – allegedly a Boeing 767 -- is traveling at an aerodynamically impossible speed (as Pilots for 9/11 Truth has confirmed); it enters the building effortlessly with no loss of velocity, no impact, and no debris; and it passes through its own length into the building in the same number of frames it passes through its own length in air – impossible unless a 500,000 ton building poses no more resistance to the plane’s trajectory than air!

Now it might seem reasonable, on first consideration, to suppose that it would have been simpler to use real planes instead of resorting to video fakery. The problem, however, is that hitting a target that is only 208' on a side is a very daunting task. Pilots for 9/11 Truth, for example, has reported that many of their members, who were far more highly qualified than any of the alleged "hijackers", had made repeated attempts to hit a 208' wide tower using a 767 simulator without success.

The only one of whom I know had any success was Rob Balsamo, who had one success in ten tries, where the speed of the plane (at 560 mph as seen in those videos) made it extremely difficult, indeed. In their efforts to GUARANTEE that those impacts would occur at the times required to "explain" the subbasement explosions, therefore, it was necessary to resort to the tactic of video fakery, where how it was done -- with CGIs, compositing, or holograms -- is an open question.

Jim Fetzer, McKnight Professor Emeritus at UMD, is the Founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, http://911scholars.org.Source URL: https://0832zy.blogspot.com/2011/06/
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WHERE DID THE TOWERS GO? by Judy Wood, Ph.D.--Essay-Review I

An Essay-Review of Where Did the Towers Go? by Judy Wood, Ph.D. Part One

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Donald Stahl

This is a magnificent book, and a magnificent gift to the 9/11 Truth Movement and to humanity. Speaking as someone who has tried for several years to stay abreast of developments pertaining to 9/11, I must say that the amount of work that went into it is not just amazing it is shocking. It is a beautifully produced book of five hundred glossy pages, printed in “China,” filled with labeled, annotated and diagrammed photographs, maps and charts, completely referenced. How it can be offered at such a low price I don’t know.

Years of piecemeal perusal of such material give no inkling of what happened, compared with the clarity now provided by Dr. Wood. I found many, many photographs I had never seen before. Everyone should insist that their public library have at least one copy. You should buy your own at Dr. Wood’s websites, www.WhereDidtheTowersGo.com, or www.drjudywood.com.

Many readers, especially those who see themselves as Dr. Wood’s adversaries, will be tempted to treat the book as a work of reference, looking only at the sections they have a particular interest in. Such treatment would be profoundly unfair. The book’s case is, among other things, cumulative, and it should be read starting at the beginning, proceeding through the middle, and continuing to the end. She is a writer deserving of this, too.

Such a magnificent gift should be celebrated widely. Things being what they are, however, this will not happen immediately.

The Truth Movement is unlike other movements commonly identified as political in nature, in that it is concerned not with values but with facts; not with good or bad, better or worse, but with true or false. Feelings, theoretically, play no part. Since this is so, it should be much easier, it would seem, to come to agreement.

But there is a further matter. If something is true, what is the best way to communicate it to another? To large numbers of others? These questions are much more like matters of better and worse. If there is a fact of the matter, it is certainly unknown to anyone. It is much more like the question, “What is the best thing for me to do now?” Each one is likely to have their own opinion, and comparison and testing of such things is only beginning. We are in the alchemical stage. Chemistry does not yet exist.

The less fact is available, the more strongly opinions are held opinions about what should be said to what audience, in what circumstances, when. Fellow alchemists, we are dealing, let us recognize, with explosives.

I attended Dr. Wood’s lecture “9/11 - The New Hiroshima” in Madison, on 7 August 2007. By the time I read her book I had forgotten that I had. I was well into the video of that lecture, before it came back to me. In 2007, it made little impression on me because I was viewing all 9/11 evidence through the prism of how easily it would be likely to be accepted by Joe Six-Pack. He was the one who counted, in my mind. Dr. Wood concentrated on things like the fuming of the debris pile, holes in buildings and streets, toasted cars, and the vanishing spire. I knew how easily Joe would shrug those things off.

I recently met an engineer who is a long-time employee of a defense contractor. He had somewhat heard of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, but drew a big distinction between that group and other “Truthers,” on the ground that the Architects were the only ones concerned with facts. Although no Bushnik, the others were, to him, just Bush bashers. It still seems to me that the process of informing him should not start with the (very real) difference between smoke and the fuming of the debris; and perhaps Dr. Wood would agree. But often Truthers talk among themselves, as we should, and there is no reason for us to silence ourselves when doing this, pursuing our own areas of special interest, and expressing our own differing views.

Unfortunately, most of what is called the Truth Movement has not even gotten as far as considering the question of the best way of getting the truth to be believed privately, much less the distinct question of getting it publicly accepted, of overcoming pluralistic ignorance. Mere repetition is called discussion. Someone whose idea of the best way to proceed differs from one’s own is not unlikely to be perceived as harming, not helping: a “disinformation agent.” Such partings of the ways may discourage for a while, but they are inevitable as the Truth Movement grows to encompass more and more divergent sectors of humanity, and they are of decreasing importance as the Movement grows larger and ceases to be a mere “movement.”

One mistake the Truth Movement in its early stages has made is to judge the effectiveness of messages as if they were all directed to the same sort of audience; and that audience has typically been taken to consist of the media’s Yahoo Chorus and the Morlocks who pay attention to them. For reasons you may discover in the books of Bob Altemeyer, they are not typical of the population as a whole, and they are not the ones we should address ourselves to.

A common tactic of the enemies of Truth is to speak as if anyone who disbelieves the Official Conspiracy Theory, or as I prefer to call it, the Patsy Cline (“I Fall to Pieces”) Theory, must have a fairly detailed alternative to put in its place. Such an alternative, if provided, is then taken to be a statement of the Official 9/11 Truth Movement position, when no such position exists.

Another common tactic is guilt by association. Because the Chorus is sure to use this weapon, the Movement has decided to adopt, or has not thought to disown, the idea it presupposes: that anyone appearing on the same stage or the same page as someone else, anyone guilty of talking with another, anyone belonging to the same organization or who believes some of the same things, must be as disreputable as that discredited other.

There are indeed people whose idea of evidence is pretty hard to discover, and who are ready to believe and recommend anything that has the emotional tone they find congenial. Some of them have little learning, and little interest in getting more. Some of them must be frauds. Of course some of these people may be Truthers, just as they may be lefthanders or former Republicans. And some may be spies.

The perception of a problem posed by this fact is illusory. Of course the media will say we are all like this. Let them. Be what you are, say what you think, and people will eventually recognize you. You need not wage war on heresy, because the Truth Movement is not a religion. It is more like what Dennett and Dawkins recommend.

But note that saying what you think doesn’t have to mean, always and everywhere, “Say EVERYTHING you think, all the time.” When so many New Yorkers have never even heard of Building 7, much less younger people who could not be expected to be aware of what was happening then, and have yet to discover the world beyond the corporate media, does this make sense? I recognize that my ideas of what is true and what it is appropriate to say will not always match others,’ but I do not see in that a reason not to further a project I approve of simply because another activist is involved; much less to shun them for life.

The bare minimum of what unites the Movement is simply the position that the Official Conspiracy Theory is false. What most of the Truth Movement has been advocating since its inception has been precisely a public, (as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States was not) unbiased investigation, with subpoena power, to determine what did happen. It is a close corollary of that minimal position that the OCT, or Patsy Cline Theory, cannot have been put forward honestly, and that, therefore, what is also called for is a National (or International) Commission on the Cover-Up of the Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

One of the things I much admire about Where Did the Towers Go? is its control of language. 9/11 showed the world things it had never seen before, things for which it had no words. Forced to talk about them, the world used the nearest words it could find, the most prominent one being ‘collapse’, (‘fall’ is a close second) which was instantly suggested and supplied by the media. Dr. Wood refuses to be coerced in this way, and creates her own, more truthful, vocabulary. I hope the growing Truth Movement at large will follow her lead and burst the linguistic straitjacket it was born wearing.

We were shown an airplane crashing into an extremely tall building, shortly after another plane had crashed into another building. However horrific, those events were comprehensible. Then, an hour and more later, we were shown something no one had ever seen before: entire buildings disappearing by dissolving into dust from the top down. Wood says that they “went poof,” and they did. Her title’s question is quickly answered. According to Chemical and Engineering News, a million tons of building were turned into aerosol in a matter of seconds. (pubs.acs.org/cen/NCW/8142aerosols.html). This was accomplished, according to the Patsy Cline Theory, with no deposition of energy, but strictly by the force of gravity. Then they were literally blown away by the wind.

One piece of terminology which I think is indisputable is ‘disappeared’. I think there can be no disputing that at one time an immense building was there, and a few seconds later it was not there. There was nothing left standing. “Gone, man.” If the Truth Movement had from the start adopted the use of this and similar and more effective terminology (‘vanished’, etc., and also ‘gravity’) the last ten years would have been quite different. How does steel and concrete “collapse” to dust? In seconds? By using their words, as Lakoff says, we allowed them to frame the issue to our disadvantage. Initially, everyone was too frightened to insist on an apparently pedantic accuracy. Both the crashes and the disappearances were terrible to think about; therefore, the first must have caused the second. Obviously, the first had something to do with the second. If it didn’t cause it, what was its reason for happening, for taking up so much space in our minds? Only much later did it become apparent that the planes had crashed to make us think that they had “collapsed” the Towers. No one could have dreamed of such a thing at the time. The point, the payoff, of The Big Wedding was then in the future.

Oliver Wendell Holmes’ one-hoss shay broke everywhere, all at once, into dust, but he was only amusing his audience; he did not pretend, in real life, to be reporting on something he actually saw (or videotaped). The Towers, and the people in them, took about ten seconds to turn into dust, and when people were told that gravity did that to the Towers, just as gravity did it to the one-hoss shay, many accepted the story as complacently as his poem. But it is not amusing.

Dr. Wood writes for two classes of her readers: A, the Patsy Cline Theorists, those who think steel and concrete disappeared because of gravity, and B, those who either,

1.) don’t believe directed energy devices were involved because they don’t exist, or,

2.) don’t think they should be mentioned in public even if they do, because they are too unheard-of, and will make people discount everything else that is said about the absurdity of the Patsy Cline Theory.

But the Patsy Cline Theory is so absurd that nothing can support it rationally. That Theory is a profound insult to the intelligence of the world, offered on the basis of a shrewd estimate of its courage. Its only hope lies in the ignorance of those who don’t know what it says, and the fear of speaking of those who do. (And the loud support of those who favor everything that the sacrifice of 9/11 was designed to bring about, and are sorry that it didn’t accomplish everything it was supposed to. There’s always next time, though.)

The Patsy Cline Theorists constitute group A, and the Truth Movement constitutes group B. Such is the state of things that Dr. Wood puts quotes around the Truth Movement, and does not consider herself part of it. But we need a name for group B, and ‘Truth Movement’ and ‘Truther’ are pretty well entrenched. (And the opposite of ‘Truther’ is ‘Liar’.) I prefer to use the term simply as the complement of A, and as including Dr. Wood just as much as myself. Her alienation is due to the antipathy of those Truthers in subclass 2., who are so firmly persuaded that mentioning such things is the Kiss of Death for the Truth Movement.

Why should it be? The hypothesis explains things nothing else does, and the Chorus will exercise its scurrility regardless of what we say. Instead of being coerced into answering questions about how secret weaponry works, (if we knew, would it be secret?) let us simply retort a question about what causes cars to catch fire spontaneously before peoples’ eyes; how they are moved into impossible positions with no apparent damage to them or their surroundings, how steel beams are suddenly bent into pretzels, and flat three-story sections of cladding are rolled up like carpets. By gravity?

Cindy Sheehan was originally of the Patsy Cline school of thought, and was eventually converted to 9/11 Truth, but she draws the line at ideas she calls “bat-shit crazy.” That line will eventually recede, as she learns.

Both Dr. Wood and subclass 2. are correct, or at least plausible, in what they advance positively, and ineffective in their attacks on what the other side says. Dr. Wood describes the ecumenical attitude of that last sentence as “The Kitchen Sink.” (p. 126.) Both she and her detractors have both right and wrong in what they say. Sorting out what, in my opinion, is which, is a large task, which I shall address in Part Two.

http://beforeitsnews.com/story/729/258/An_Essay-Review_of_Where_Did_the_Towers_Go_by_Judy_Wood,_Ph.D._Part_One.htmlSource URL: https://0832zy.blogspot.com/2011/06/
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Conspiracy Theory

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/06/20/conspiracy-theory/
June 20 2011
Foreign Policy Journal

Conspiracy Theory
Paul Craig Roberts

While we were not watching, conspiracy theory has undergone Orwellian redefinition.

A "conspiracy theory" no longer means an event explained by a conspiracy. Instead, it now means any explanation, or even a fact, that is out of step with the government's explanation and that of its media pimps.

For example, online news broadcasts of RT have been equated with conspiracy theories by the New York Times simply because RT reports news and opinions that the New York Times does not report and the US government does not endorse.

In other words, as truth becomes uncomfortable for government and its Ministry of Propaganda, truth is redefined as conspiracy theory, by which is meant an absurd and laughable explanation that we should ignore.

When piles of carefully researched books, released government documents, and testimony of eye witnesses made it clear that Oswald was not President John F. Kennedy's assassin, the voluminous research, government documents, and verified testimony was dismissed as "conspiracy theory."

In other words, the truth of the event was unacceptable to the authorities and to the Ministry of Propaganda that represents the interests of authorities.

The purest example of how Americans are shielded from truth is the media's (including many Internet sites') response to the large number of professionals who find the official explanation of September 11, 2001, inconsistent with everything they, as experts, know about physics, chemistry, structural engineering, architecture, fires, structural damage, the piloting of airplanes, the security procedures of the United States, NORAD's capabilities, air traffic control, airport security, and other matters. These experts, numbering in the thousands, have been shouted down by know-nothings in the media who brand the experts as "conspiracy theorists."

This despite the fact that the official explanation endorsed by the official media is the most extravagant conspiracy theory in human history.

Let's take a minute to re-acquaint ourselves with the official explanation, which is not regarded as a conspiracy theory despite the fact that it comprises an amazing conspiracy. The official truth is that a handful of young Muslim Arabs who could not fly airplanes, mainly Saudi Arabians who came neither from Iraq nor from Afghanistan, outwitted not only the CIA and the FBI, but also all 16 US intelligence agencies and all intelligence agencies of US allies including Israel's Mossad, which is believed to have penetrated every terrorist organization and which carries out assassinations of those whom Mossad marks as terrorists.

In addition to outwitting every intelligence agency of the United States and its allies, the handful of young Saudi Arabians outwitted the National Security Council, the State Department, NORAD, airport security four times in the same hour on the same morning, air traffic control, caused the US Air Force to be unable to launch interceptor aircraft, and caused three well-built steel-structured buildings, including one not hit by an airplane, to fail suddenly in a few seconds as a result of limited structural damage and small, short-lived, low-temperature fires that burned on a few floors.

The Saudi terrorists were even able to confound the laws of physics and cause WTC building seven to collapse at free fall speed for several seconds, a physical impossibility in the absence of explosives used in controlled demolition.

The story that the government and the media have told us amounts to a gigantic conspiracy, really a script for a James Bond film. Yet, anyone who doubts this improbable conspiracy theory is defined into irrelevance by the obedient media.

Anyone who believes an architect, structural engineer, or demolition expert who says that the videos show that the buildings are blowing up, not falling down, anyone who believes a Ph.D. physicist who says that the official explanation is inconsistent with known laws of physics, anyone who believes expert pilots who testify that non-pilots or poorly-qualified pilots cannot fly airplanes in such maneuvers, anyone who believes the 100 or more first responders who testify that they not only heard explosions in the towers but personally experienced explosions, anyone who believes University of Copenhagen nano-chemist Niels Harrit who reports finding unreacted nano-thermite in dust samples from the WTC towers, anyone who is convinced by experts instead of by propaganda is dismissed as a kook.

In America today, and increasingly throughout the Western world, actual facts and true explanations have been relegated to the realm of kookiness. Only people who believe lies are socially approved and accepted as patriotic citizens.

Indeed, a writer or newscaster is not even permitted to report the findings of 9/11 skeptics. In other words, simply to report Professor Harrit's findings now means that you endorse them or agree with them. Everyone in the US print and TV media knows that he/she will be instantly fired if they report Harrit's findings, even with a laugh. Thus, although Harrit has reported his findings on European television and has lectured widely on his findings in Canadian universities, the fact that he and the international scientific research team that he led found unreacted nano-thermite in the WTC dust and have offered samples to other scientists to examine has to my knowledge never been reported in the American media.

Even Internet sites on which I am among the readers' favorites will not allow me to report on Harrit's findings.

As I reported earlier, I myself had experience with a Huffington Post reporter who was keen to interview a Reagan presidential appointee who was in disagreement with the

Republican wars in the Middle East. After he published the interview that I provided at his request, he was terrified to learn that I had reported findings of 9/11 investigators.

To protect his career, he quickly inserted on the online interview that my views on the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions could be dismissed as I had reported unacceptable findings about 9/11.

The unwillingness or inability to entertain any view of 9/11 different from the official view dooms to impotence many Internet sites that are opposed to the wars and to the rise of the domestic US police state. These sites, for whatever the reasons, accept the government's explanation of 9/11; yet, they try to oppose the "war on terror" and the police state which are the consequences of accepting the government's explanation. Trying to oppose the consequences of an event whose explanation you accept is an impossible task.

If you believe that America was attacked by Muslim terrorists and is susceptible to future attacks, then a "war on terror" and a domestic police state to root out terrorists become necessary to make Americans safe. The idea that a domestic police state and open-ended war might be more dangerous threats to Americans than terrorists is an impermissible thought.

A country whose population has been trained to accept the government's word and to shun those who question it is a country without liberty in its future.

Paul Craig Roberts was an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration.Source URL: https://0832zy.blogspot.com/2011/06/
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ISIS trips, stumbles, and falls

ISIS trips, stumbles, and falls

Jim Fetzer

As a student of the history and the philosophy of science, I have been dumbfounded to discover that ISIS, a prominent journal in the history of science, has published a review of a book on astronomers that was edited by T. Hockey, THE BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ASTRONOMERS, by N. M. Swerdlow, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago (ISIS 101:1 (2010), pp. 197-8), in which he assails Nicholas Kollerstrom, Ph.D., an historian of science and scholar whom I admire, on the alleged ground of anti-Semitism.

While Kollerstrom has conducted scientific research on the Holocaust related to the use of zyklon gas to exterminate inmates, it has nothing to do with his contributions to THE BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ASTRONOMERS, where his entries on John Couch Adams, John Flamsteed and even Issac Newton are completely independent of research related to the Holocaust. The only reason for introducing it at all, therefore, has to have been to fashion an ad hominem attack on Kollerstrom, a gross abuse of Swerdlow’s role as a the author of a review, which ISIS should not have accepted for publication.

Even if he disagreed with Kollerstrom about the Holocaust, those views ought not have been cited or used to attack him. They had nothing to do with his research on the astronomers whose entries he authored, which included one on Newton, which reflected great confidence by Hockey in Nicholas. It is as if Swerdlow had intended to demonstrate to the world his ruthless dedication to the extermination of any vestiges of (what he considers to be) anti-Semitism. Astonishingly, he not only adopts the extreme measure of discouraging any library from purchasing the encyclopedia but outrageously suggests that the book itself should be pulped!

So Swerdlow not only commits the ad hominem fallacy by discounting Kollerstrom’s research on astronomers because of his interest in questions about the Holocaust, a point that should have been apparent to ISIS, but he practices an extreme form of guilt by association by condemning the entire contents of this volume on that basis, which means that he compounds one fallacy by committing another—and it is one that, from the perspective of intellectual history, actually appears to be even more egregious as a form of group punishment for the sins of one of its contributors.


IMAGE OF NICHOLAS KOLLERSTROM

Having spent 35 years teaching students to avoid fallacies of this kind and having an extensive background as the founding editor of MINDS AND MACHINES, of which I was the sole editor for ten years, and having spent another decade as an associate editor of SYNTHESE, which is devoted to methodology, epistemology and philosophy of science, I was shocked that a journal of the stature of ISIS should have permitted this offense to have occurred, which not only taints Kollerstrom but stains the journal itself.

The charge of “anti-Semitism”, alas, has often been used to impugn the character of anyone who conducts research on issues that may adversely affect the interests of Israel and its Zionist allies, which I, as the Founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, have repeatedly encountered as a consequence of discoveries that implicate the Mossad as having a role in 9/11. I have published about this myself, “Is 9/11 research ‘anti-Semitic’?” While Nick has made no such charge, the evidence supports it.

Significantly, Kollerstrom has conducted rather extensive research on 7/7, including publishing TERROR ON THE TUBE (revised and expanded, 2011), which exposes the role of government agents or of those acting on its behalf to arrange for the terrorist acts that were attributed to four young Muslim men, who appear to have been used as patsies, when the circumstances of the case—including missing a train that would have brought them to London—made it physically impossible for them to be present.


COVER IMAGE OF TERROR ON THE TUBE

This case has been brilliantly exposed by John Anthony Hill, who is also known as “Muad’Dib”, in his DVD, “7/7 Ripple Effect”, which I recommend to everyone who cares about 7/7. We live in a world, alas, where governments lie more than they speak the truth and spend much of the national treasury promoting initiatives, such as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that are inimical to the interests of their citizens, squandering enormous resources both financial and personal for the benefit of corporations and their profits.

Because it is extremely difficult to expose government complicity in atrocities of this kind, I have greatly admired Muad’Dib and Nicholas Kollerstrom for their dedication to exposing falsehoods and revealing truths about these events, which has included featuring them both as guests on “The Real Deal”, an internet radio program I host, where those interviews can be found in its archives, http://radiofetzer.blogspot.com and as the authors of or the subjects of blogs at http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com.

Swerdlow’s actions are so unwarranted by any reasonable professional standard that I personally suspect that they were deliberately contrived to punish Nick for research not only on the Holocaust but on 7/7 as well. I therefore volunteered to compose a letter to ISIS, in which I explained why I believed Swerdlow’s assault was completely unjustifiable and deserved to be remedied. Nick and I discussed my letter in some detail, which the journal accepted and published in ISIS 102:1 (2011) as follows:


COVER IMAGE OF ISIS

Re: ISIS 101:1 (2010), pp. 197-198

Dear Editor,

During a recent visit to the UK, I met the scholar, Nicholas Kollerstrom, whom I have previously interviewed on "The Real Deal", an internet radio program I host, about 7/7, his book, TERROR ON THE TUBE (2009), and aspects of 9/11 and other atrocities.

He has been a productive author with multiple books, including ASTROCHEMISTRY (1984), THE EUREKA EFFECT (1996), and NEWTON’S FORGOTTEN LUNAR THEORY (2000). For a fine collection of his articles, visit http://dioi.org/kn/index.htm.

Nick is one of the few academicians I know who has the courage, the mentality, and the integrity to assume the role of a public intellectual, not only relative to 7/7 and 9/11 but also by pursuing scientific questions concerning the history of the Holocaust.

Reading N. M. Swerdlow’s revisew of Thomas Hockey, ed., THE BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ASTRONOMERS, I was taken aback to find a discussion in ISIS that commits fallacies I spent 35 years teaching freshmen and sophomores to avoid.

Nearly 30% of this review is devoted to a slashing "ad hominem" attack on Nick Kollerstrom! After cursory remarks about Nick's entries, Swerdlow makes a variety of allegations that are either false or completely irrelevant to the essays in question.

Nick, for example, is an historian of astrology, not an astrologer. With N. Campion, he has co-edited GALILEO’S ASTROLOGY (2003), perhaps the definitive work on the subject, which is relevant to his essays but Swerdlow does not deign to acknowledge.

He also has a (perfectly legitimate) intellectual interest in horoscopes, which he has pursued, as well as in the factual accuracy of the (widely embraced) history of the Holocaust, both of which Swerdlow either exaggerates or grossly distorts.

Neither these interests of his nor his conclusions that 9/11 and 7/7 were "false flag" ops in which elements of the US and UK governments were complicit, however, has any place in a review of his essays in a collection of biographical studies of astronomers!

Laws against expressing doubts about the Holocaust, in my view, are simply absurd. If you believe in the Holocaust, as I do, then it should be apparent that serious research will lead to its vindication and, if it does not, we are all entitled to know. Truth is paramount.

Something that stuns me, moreover, is that, unless Swerdlow has studied 9/11 and 7/7, he cannot possibly know that Nick is wrong! Having done quite extensive study of 9/11 and considerable on 7/7 and it is obvious to me that, on the contrary, about both, Nick is right.

The very idea that the reviewer should single out Kollerstrom because of his research on matters unrelated to the essays he authored and discourage other scholars and libraries from purchasing the book on that basis “crosses the line"! It smacks of burning books.

Nick and I discussed the matter and agreed that it would be preferable for me to speak on his behalf, since a letter from him might be interpreted as self-serving. As another scholar who has devoted himself to issues of this kind, I have been glad to address this matter.

Swerdlow has conducted an unprofessional and unwarranted vendetta for which he owes the profession an apology. We should be standing in support of those few among us who have the strength, integrity and courage to investigate the controversial issues of our time.

James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.
McKnight Professor Emeritus
University of Minnesota Duluth

The editor of ISIS, Bernard Lightman, apparently felt that Swerdlow deserved another opportunity to wield his axe, which he pursued with relish. Swerdlow asserted that he saw no reason to modify his position, suggesting that Nicholas regarded Auschwitz, for example, as a very hospitable environment, where Zyclon-B was used as a disinfectant rather than as a method of extermination. While he has concluded that there were certain amenities at Auschwitz, which he has discussed, without having studied the evidence, how can Swerdlow be so certain that he is right and that Nick, who has actually been studying it, is wrong?

Strikingly, Swerdlow compounds his assault with a counterpart attack on me for research I have done on the death of President John F. Kennedy and for editing a collection of studies on 9/11, which he presents in as unsympathetic a fashion as possible. This attack is even more revealing than his assault on Kollerstrom, since I organized a research group in 1992 consisting of the most highly qualified experts and scholars to investigate the death of JFK, which, I am confident, he himself has never studied.


IMAGE OF N. M. SWERDLOW

These have included a world-authority on the human brain who was also an expert on wound ballistics; a Ph.D. in physics who is also an M.D. and board certified in radiation oncology; a physician who was present when JFK was brought to Parkland Hospital and, two days later, was responsible for the care of his alleged assassin; a legendary photo and film analyst; and another Ph.D. in physics with a specialization in electromagnetism, the properties of light and of images of moving objects.

I have chaired or co-chaired four national conferences on the subject, published three books by experts on different aspects of the case, and produced a 4.5 hour documentary about the assassination. I have made hundreds and hundreds of presentations and interviews, including lectures at Cambridge, Harvard and Yale. Indeed, my background with respect to 9/11 is comparable, where I edited the first book from Scholars, THE 9/11 CONSPIRACY (2007), organized its first conference in Madison, Wisconsin, and produced its first DVD, “The Science and Politics of 9/11”.

In lieu of reasoned arguments, Swerdlow appeals to popular sentiments by taking for granted that widely-held beliefs must be true and that views at variance with them have to be mistaken. Thus, unless you have actually studied the evidence, it might be difficult to appreciate that there are more than fifteen indications that JFK was set up by the Secret Service, where he appears to have been taken out by the CIA/military/anti-Castro Cubans/local law enforcement, where the FBI covered it up and LBJ and J. Edgar Hoover were principals with financing from Texas oil men. For an overview, see my “Dealey Plaza Revisited: What Happened to JFK?” , which I presented at a national conference featuring Theodore Sorenson as the keynote speaker and was introduced by Judge John Tunheim, who had served as the head of the ARRB.

Those familiar with the history of the UK, however, might be less surprised than Americans, since Shakespeare would have had little to write about were it not for plots against the kings of England. But there were technical aspects to the cover up, where JFK’s X-rays were altered to conceal a massive blow-out to the back of his head, another brain was substituted for the original, and the home movies of the assassination were revised to conceal that the driver brought the limo to a halt to make sure that he was killed. See, for example, studies by David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., John P. Costella, Ph.D., and me archived at http://assassinationscience.com.

Others who would like some reassurance about the quality of our work should follow this link to reviews of MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA (2000) -- http://assassinationscience.com/booktwo.html -- and to access the Preface and the Prologue as well as endorsements by Michael Parenti, Ph.D., Cyril Wecht, M.D., J.D., Michael L. Kurtz, Ph.D., and PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, among others. Of special importance is the review by George Costello, J.D., THE FEDERAL LAWYER (May 2001), pp. 52-56. This journal (formerly: THE FEDERAL BAR NEWS AND JOURNAL) is a publication for attorneys who work for the federal government, who practice before federal agencies, or who appear before federal courts. Its author would receive a commendation from the journal for his review, which is archived at http://assassinationscience.com/george.html.


IMAGE OF BERNARD LIGHTMAN

Relying upon his correspondence with Bernard Lightman, the Editor-in-Chief of ISIS, Nicholas had formed the rather strong impression that he would be given the chance to respond to Swerdlow’s reply to my letter. He therefore drafted a response that ran exactly the same number of words as Swerdlow’s second bite of the apple, which was 470. It was therefore a bitter disappointment when Lightman declined him the opportunity to set the record straight, a nice example of his adding insult to injury.

On the basis of an article by Nicholas relating to the controversy over the now-obligatory visits to Auschwitz by UK schoolchildren -- archived at http://www.codoh.com/incon/incontrip.html -- Swerdlow claims that Kollerstrom asserts “that Auschwitz was a pleasant place for its guests”! But while he does report that there were various amenities for the inmates, including a swimming pool and orchestras, he restricts himself to features he has been able to establish rather than the atmosphere. This suggests ISIS should have refereed his review more vigorously. As Nick has remarked to me, the accounts we have from Auschwitz tend to be fairly dire.

Suppose that Kollerstrom were wrong about his conclusions based upon his research. Does an historian of science deserve to be ostracized for advancing opinions that are at variance with prevailing views? Nick’s article also cites significant differences on the question of how many may have died there. Is that question also ruled out as a subject for historical research? Shouldn’t we discover if popular views are more than political myths? Surely Lightman ought to have published the following letter, which Nick submitted to him, as the final word in this nasty and unprofessional exchange:

Letters to the Editor, Isis WORD COUNT: 470

Dear Editor,

There is something deeply ironic about a journal devoted to the history of science publishing an attack upon me for conducting scientific research on one of the greatest atrocities of the 20th C. As Professor Fetzer observed in his letter, what do we have to fear from research on the Holocaust? If it was real, then its reality will be confirmed; and if it was not, then surely we all deserve to know.

N. M. Swerdlow falsely asserts, ‘[Kollerstrom] defends Nazis and condemns their victims and supports his claims by links to strident Jew-hating websites’. If true, that would be a hate crime. For the sake of the integrity of ISIS, if he cannot substantiate this allegation, ISIS should demand an apology and retraction. Outrageous distortions not only discredit him as a source but also tarnish your reputation for accuracy and truth as a professional publication.

While I have authored TERROR ON THE TUBE about the July 7 London bombings, currently in its 3d edition, anyone who reads it will know that I make no such claim as that the event was “the work of ‘international Zionism’”. Swerdlow is advancing criticisms he cannot sustain, which should never have appeared here--defaming both my book and its publisher.

Swerdlow declares that, “a line has been crossed that should never be crossed”. But how can that apply to scientific research about an historical controversy without begging the question? I have an interest in the several investigations of residual iron-cyanide in the walls of Auschwitz labour-camp buildings, which carry residues of how and where zyklon (granular cyanide) was used sixty years ago. But this is a scientific question that can only be addressed by conducting scientific research.

In his second attack, Swerdlow also asserts I have “nothing original” to say. But I have actually established the ‘control’ values for the normal background levels of ferro-cyanide found in kitchens, dormitories and such, of the German labour-camps by synthesising the two sets of Leuchter and Rudolf cyanide values on the basis of objective measurements of insoluble iron cyanide.

Nothing could be less original than using the phrase, “Holocaust denier”, to bash the reputation and standing of those of us who believe controversial events are those we most need to address. He alleges I contend “Auschwitz was a pleasant place for its guests”! But who in the world could believe so insane an idea? Only someone willing to distort research could try to pin this on me.

Like Fetzer, I am an historical revisionist, who cares about the truth and getting it right, especially concerning monumental events, such as the death of JFK and reality of the Holocaust. But that is precisely what the study of history is all about, where efforts like ours to insure the record is factual rather than fictional deserve praise, not condemnation.

Nicholas Kollerstrom

Perhaps most importantly in relation to this decision, Nicholas had written to Bernie Lightman on May 27, 2011, “to request that you ask Swerdlow [quite specifically] which are the 'strident Jew-hating websites' which he reckons I link to: I believe this is hate-crime which your Journal has accused me of, as defined by 2010 European Union legislation.” And the Editor-in-Chief of ISIS, replied to his request as follows:

“I did not tell you that you would be able to reply to Swerdlow's
reply to Professor Fetzer. I told you that the journal's policy was
that there could be one reply to a review (you chose to have Fetzer
reply for you) and then that the reviewer was given the opportunity to
respond. The matter then comes to a close. That is the policy and I
will not deviate from it. Regards, Bernie Lightman”

Since ISIS has facilitated the publication of what appears to qualify as a hate-crime under European Union legislation, surely ISIS had an obligation that justified going beyond its normal policies. In my opinion, this decision by Bernard Lightman was an astounding affront to every member of the profession, whose ability to respond to allegations that should never have been allowed into print were thus circumvented. Given the new venom injected by Swerdlow in his reply to my letter, even if under ordinary conditions one reply would have been enough, a second was justified here.

For the sake of comparison, the Editors-in-Chief of SYNTHESE committed a blunder by adding a preface to a special issue of the journal, “Evolution and Its Rivals”, as a consequence of pressure imposed upon them by proponents of Intelligent Design, in which they expressed concerns for “the tone” of one of the contributions. Their act created an academic scandal that was discussed intensely across a broad spectrum of forums, where nearly 500 scholars endorsed a boycott of the journal or called for a formal apology and retraction of their preface, many calling for their resignations.

Those who may stand in disbelief that a matter so relatively trivial compared to the repeated abuse of an historian of science by a prominent journal that is devoted to the history of science should visit some of the blogs and other venues in which it has been discussed, which range from Brian Leiter’s influential philosophy blog to The New York Times. Since the offense that ISIS facilitated in the first instance was compounded by the second, I am at a loss as to how a professional society could accept these actions without a formal protest. Under these circumstances, I believe that Bernard Lightman ought to resign.


IMAGE OF ISIS

THE BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ASTRONOMERS, of course, is a collaborative academic publication from Springer, one of the world's leading publishers of technical and scientific journals and books, which has an enormous number of contributions from a very large number of contributors, where its Table of Contents is simply staggering http://www.springer.com/astronomy/astronomy,+observations+and+techniques/book/978-0-387-31022-0 Swerdlow faults the volume for having a few entries of which he does not approve. But that appears to be highly selective on his part and a very cheap shot.

These are not issues about which the authors are remotely likely to be unqualified. Swerdlow’s review—even apart from his attack on Nick—appears to be suspect on its face. And how could anyone in their right mind allow Swerdlow’s suggestions that libraries not purchase the volume and that it ought to be pulped to stand without vigorous protest, even if one of the contributors has an interest in research on subjects that some—perhaps even most!—may disapprove? What kind of standard is that? How is that being fair to the contributors, the editors, or the publisher? That is a disgrace.

There are some 1,550 entries in the encyclopdia, which were authored by 430 scholars, of whom Nick Kollerstrom is only one, under the supervision of an Editor-in-Chief and a team of six associate editors. I would be willing to conjecture that a significant proportion of them may well have vices of their own, such as addictions to alcohol, pornography, adultery, S&M, or who-knows-what other practices of which public disapproval may be widespread. Should those authors be ferreted out and have their entries abolished, too? No, let’s just pulp the whole book!

I am reminded here of the occasion on which I first became involved in serious research on the assassination of JFK. It was in mid-1993 and I was lying in bed, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the paper, when my wife came in and said, “You won’t believe this!”, while turning on the TV. The image appeared of a distinguished man in standing behind a lecture with the logo of the American Medical Association, who was denigrating every serious student of the assassination from Mark Lane and Robert Groden to David Lifton and Charles Crenshaw.

He was especially caustic in attacking Oliver Stone’s “JFK”, which offers the most comprehensive, accurate, and complete depiction of what actually happened in Dealey Plaza on 22 November 1963 ever presented to the American people through the mass media. The person turned out to be George Lundberg, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the AMA. I was stunned that someone of his stature would appear to be abusing the journal for political purposes and citing interviews with the autopsy pathologists as though they were science. That convinced me that perhaps some of us with special backgrounds and abilities should become involved.

Swerdlow’s abuse of his position has similarly convinced me that, once again, if those in positions of authority are abusing them for political purposes, some of us who might not otherwise have become involved in questions of this kind also have an obligation to pursue them. The issues involved are as important as they could be for the defense of academic freedom and freedom of inquiry, especially about controversial historical events. If the Holocaust is a reality, as I believe, then responsible research should confirm it; and if it is not, we are all entitled to know.

Perhaps the ultimate irony concerns the ethics of Swerdlow’s review. The essence of morality is treating other persons with respect. But by recommending that the other contributors, the editors, and the press should be punished for the perceived sins of one of the contributors, he is promoting the practice of collective punishment, contrary to the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions. It was even condemned by the Nuremberg Tribunal in the prosecution of Nazi war crimes. In his zeal to condemn Kollerstrom for pursuing research on the Holocaust, therefore, Swerdlow has gone off of the deep end and committed an intellectual offense that is arguably even worse, which thereby exposes the immoral core of his own position.

The Egyptian goddess, Isis, after whom the journal is named, was long worshiped as the matron of nature and of magic. She has been described as the friend of slaves and sinners, by some accounts, which makes her name all the more appropriate here. In my opinion, Nicholas Kollerstrom was savaged by N. M. Swerdlow, not for offenses against the history of science, but for transgressing boundaries that are intended to protect sacred myths from refutation. In Swerdlow’s view, Kollerstrom deserved to be pilloried, not for his entries in an encyclopedia about astronomers, but for doing something that is forbidden--conducting scientific research on the Holocaust. And not even the Editor-in-Chief of ISIS has been willing to grant him a fair shake.


James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.
McKnight Professor Emeritus
University of Minnesota Duluth
http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/
Founder, Scholars for 9/11 Truth
http://911scholars.orgSource URL: https://0832zy.blogspot.com/2011/06/
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