In Defense of Fetzer

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

I am unaware of any response by Josiah Thompson to clear proofs of

video fakery on 9/11, such as the following, which suggests that,

once again, he has no idea what he is talking about. None at all!

OpEdNews

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/New-Proof-of-Video-Fakery--by-Jim-Fetzer-080729-132.html

July 29, 2008

New Proof of Video Fakery on 9/11

By Jim Fetzer

Madison, WI (OpEdNews) July 30, 2008 – A recent dispute between the prominent 9/11 activist, Kevin Barrett, and me, the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, has led to the presentation of what I take to be five of the strongest, if not the strongest, arguments for video fakery on 9/11. Indeed, having spent 35 years teaching logic, critical thinking and scientific reasoning, I would describe them as "decisive" in establishing the complicity of the media in misleading the American people about the events of that day. It is a sad commentary on the state of freedom of the press that we now have overwhelming evidence that the mass media – television, in particular – was crucial to the deception.

Barrett, who is running for Congress in Wisconsin's 3rd District as an Independent Libertarian, challenged me to offer stronger and more formal support for my views on video fakery, which have evolved during the past year and a half from skepticism to acceptance. During that time, I conducted more than fifteen interviews with students of video fakery and became convinced by the evidence they produced that there is no reasonable alternative explanation. Ironically, Kevin and I jointly host a radio program, "The Dynamic Duo," on gcnlive.com, where Barrett hosts Mondays and Fridays and I host the rest of the week. The five arguments that I consider to be the most compelling were published in Barrett's Truth Jihad News (July 16, 2008) as follows:

(1) Multiple experts (including the FAA, the Royal Air Force, and so on) have calculated the speed of United 175 as reflected by the Michael Herzarkhani video at approximately 560 mph (averaging their estimates). While that corresponds to the cruise speed of a Boeing 767 at 35,000 feet altitude, it would be impossible at 700-1000 feet altitude, where the air is three times more dense, as Joe Keith, an aerospace engineer and designer of the Boeing "shaker system," has recently explained in the video entitled, "Flight 175 - Impossible Speed," which is archived here While Anthony Lawson has claimed such a plane could reach that speed in a dive, the plane is clearly not diving.

(2) The way in which the plane enters the building appears to be impossible as well. Go to killtown.blogspot.com and scroll to (what is now) the sixth image and you can view the plane interacting with the building. It is passing into the steel and concrete structure without displaying any signs of impact, where the wings, the engines, the fuselage and other component parts all remain intact. It should have been the case that massive debris was breaking off and the plane was being dismantled by the interaction between the moving plane and the stationary building, as early critics and late -- from the Web Fairy to Morgan Reynolds -- have been maintaining for years now. So this is yet another physical impossibility.

(3) As Joe Keith has observed, the interaction observed here also violates all three of Newton's laws of motion. According to the first law, objects in motion remain in uniform motion unless acted upon by a force. According to the second, an object accelerates in the direction of the force applied. According to the third, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. But the plane moves at uniform motion through both air and building, which would violate Newton's laws unless the building provides no more resistance (force) than air, which is absurd. By most counts, the plane moves its length through air in 8 frames and also moves its length into the building in the same number of frames, which cannot be the case if these are real objects and real interactions.

(4) Neither the impact of United 175 with the South Tower nor the impact of American 11 with the North show the damage done to the steel and concrete in the form of the "cut-outs" that subsequently appear at the time they were allegedly being "caused" by the planes' impacts there. A study of the Naudet brothers footage reveals a secondary explosion after the initial impact and fireballs that actually causes the cut-out in the North Tower. Indeed, an extension of the right wing's cut-out was even "penciled in." Take a look at the study of this phenomenon under "9/11 Amateur, Part 2." It is fair to infer that the same technique was employed to create the cut-out images in the South Tower.

(5) The same student of the videos has examined the Evan Fairbank's footage and found ample grounds to dispute it. Certainly, it shows the same smooth entry as the Herzarkani footage and the same lack of debris from the encounter. However, it goes further in considering the angle of the shot and how he came to take it, which suggests that he is lying through his teeth. He claims he saw a "white flash" and was able to determine it was a jet. But the time line is so brief that this explanation appears to be a complete fabrication. View this study at "9/11 Amateur, Part 3." Killtown has now extended the uniform motion argument to Evan Fairbank's video, as can be observed in the very first image currently archived on his site, killtown.blogspot.com.

The evidence is so visual and easier to assess in video format that I find it more than somewhat puzzling why Kevin insists that the arguments should be presented in scholarly, written papers. But the fact of the matter is that Morgan Reynolds has already done that in his exceptional study, "Plane Deceit at the World Trade Center," 54 pages with 71 footnotes, which is archived on his website.

Reynolds, the former Chief Economist for the Department of Labor in the Bush Administration, is an accomplished scholar with a half-dozen books to his credit and innumerable articles. I myself earned my Ph.D. in the history and the philosophy of science and am the author or editor of 28 books, including three on JFK and one on 9/11.

Scholars for 9/11 Truth has previously published a press release (July 28, 2007) about this subject, "Mounting Evidence of 9/11 Video Fakery," which is archived at 911scholars.org. What is most powerful about these new arguments, in my view, is that they display the occurrence of events that would require violations of laws of physics, which is not possible. Laws of physics cannot be violated and cannot be changed, which means if they are being shown in videos, they cannot be authentic. As Ace Baker, musician, composer and expert on digital processing, has recently observed, "9/11 seems to have been a media job as much as it was an inside job." His own study, "Chopper Five Composite," may be found here.

Video fakery and no planes are not the same thing, since, although the planes must have been present if the videos were authentic, they might or might not have been present if the videos are fake. They could have been faked for the purpose of concealing features of the planes or of their interaction with the buildings. Although the absence of planes is even more controversial than video fakery, I would observe, there is considerable circumstantial evidence suggesting that, in this case, video fakery may have been required to conceal the absence of planes. The alleged eyewitness reports, for example, are far fewer than we tend to suppose. The occurrence of false memory syndrome appears to be a simpler explanation than violations of Newton's laws.

The debris often cited in support of the existence of real planes has itself been repeatedly challenged. The engine found on the sidewalk in New York appears to have come from a Boeing 737, not a 767. A piece of debris from an American Airlines crash found at the Pentagon has been traced back to a crash in Cali, Columbia, in 1995. Col. George Nelson, USAF (ret.) has observed that each of these planes had thousands of uniquely identifiable component parts, not a single one of which has been recovered from any of the four "crash sites." And John Lear, an aviation expert, has pointed out that, before any commercial carrier can pull away from the terminal, the captain must submit an "envelope" certifying that the plane was ready for flight. Yet not one of these envelopes has been produced, either.

Perhaps even more important, Elias Davidsson has a masterful study of the lack of evidence the alleged Arab terrorists were aboard any of the planes, among the most important papers in 9/11 research. I know that Kevin is familiar with his work, because Kevin featured Davidsson as a guest on "The Dynamic Duo" (July 11, 2008). I don't know what he makes of all of this, but the available evidence could be explained with high probability if there were no planes and all this had to have been faked.

I submit that any rational mind considering the evidence presented here should similarly conclude that video fakery took place in New York and that there is a very strong possibility that the planes were an illusion. How else is this evidence to be explained? What would be a more reasonable alternative?

Author's Website: www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/

Author's Bio: McKnight Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota, Duluth; Founder, Scholars for 9/11 Truth; Editor, Assassination Research.

Back

Jim Fetzer is my friend. So, my support of him and his work could easily be characterized as "biased" and such a characterization is probably a legitimate "ghost argument" to be advanced by those who don't know me well. But, Jim himself, and others who know us both, would refute that conclusion (in legal terms) with prejudice!

Jim is of a dying breed...a pioneer of sorts. Like Captain Kirk he goes "where no man has gone before" and he goes there in defiance of the politically correct view, in defiance of the safe place, and in defiance of the status quo. For this and many other traits, I am proud to call him my friend.

I do NOT always agree with him. His "methods" of persuasion--many times--do NOT persuade. Many times his methods are rather coarse, bitter to the taste, even offensive.

But, he is true--true to himself--to the ONLY thing he knows--and he is willing to sacrifice all for the sake of "speaking the truth" even when to do so is possibly the most unpopular undertaking imaginable. However, he is not infallible.

He sometimes is in error. Many times...but not because he took the "easy way out" -- quite the contrary. He took the HARD ROAD--the path less followed. For this alone, I call him my friend.

There is no doubt that future Fetzer endeavors will result in conflict. There is no doubt that I will remain his friend and support him. There is no doubt that I will, from time to time, disagree vehemently with him...but, NEVER will there come a day when I doubt his sincerity.

Insincerity is simply beyond his ability.

Given the last few months it's quite clear that Fetzer needs a defense. The more he exhibits himself the more embarrasing it becomes.

I think Nietzsche once wrote: "The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments."

This seems to me to emphasize exactly why Fetzer has been such a disaster for research on the Kennedy assassination. His longstanding campaign to prove the Zapruder film was altered has come up short. Why? Because the arguments he has broadcast are faulty in the extreme. In addition, his cyclical rants with respect to the Bush Administration's downing Welstone's plane with a "directed energy weapon," his endorsement of the claim that the U.S never went to the moon, his endorsement of claims that planes never hit the Twin Towers or the Pentagon and that some "directed energy weapon from space" carried out the destruction on 9/11.

If Fetzer wanted to claim that Santa Claus and his reindeer brought down the Twin Towers, I'd have no objection as long as he didn't relate it to the Kennedy assassination. There will always be kooky theories around and a surplus of wingnuts ready to embrace them. But when Fetzer speaks up about the Kennedy assassination, it embarrasses all of us who are trying to do sober, responsible historical research. His continued antics have the capacity to associate research on the Kennedy assassination with moon shot scepticism and the silliest 9/11 conspiracy theories. In addition to being really unpleasant and ugly as a Forum member, Fetzer does real harm to genuine research.

Fetzer is a hazard to navigation in this our space.

JT

Edited August 4, 2010 by James H. Fetzer

[Craig Lamson]

Polly wanna cracker?

Lamson put up this silly post because I had posted links to information about the moon landings,

which is not already here and is responsive to one of Tink's pointless attempts to discredit me

by alluding to events that many may believe occurred but which actually did not, including the

moon landings.

(snip the unadulterated bullcrap)

[David Lifton]

All very well, Greg. . "Jim Fetzer is my friend," you write and you also state that "Insincerity is simply beyond his ability."

(So maybe we should rename him "Guileless.")

But let me ask you this: Do you, too, believe we did not go to the moon?

Are you one of those who believe (as Fetzer just wrote in post #18 on this thread) that the numerous round trips to the moon are "events that many may believe occurred but which actually did not?"

Its nice to know that Fetzer "sincerely" holds these bizarre beliefs, but where do YOU stand on the matter?

DSL

Edited August 4, 2010 by David Lifton

[Evan Burton]

Professor,

The Apollo claims have their own thread on the Political Conspiracies board.

Making the same claims on this thread without addressing my (or others) rebuttals to those claims, will be considered spamming.

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Lifton climbs on board with a fallacious appeal to what most people think, which is known as the "popular sentiments"

fallacy. Just because most people think something is true does not mean that it is therefore true. Lifton is no doubt

unaware of the quantity and quality of evidence that indicates we did not go to the moon. For example, as "Moon Movie"

observes, Wernher von Braun himself led an expedition to Antarctica to collect moon rocks that had been dislodged from

the surface of the moon and caught in Earth's gravitational field, which could be produced as "proof" that man really

did go to the moon! And of course the van Allen radiation belt poses a hazard that many experts have doubted could be

survived with the tin-foil suits that passed for protection. This is a feeble effort to salvage some semblance of face for

a man whose reputation has been (deservedly) tattered and torn. This is a very sad episode in the life of David S. Lifton.

NOTE: This is a response to what Lifton has posted on this thread, Evan. It belongs here. I think that you have a bona

fide conflict of interest and should not be monitoring any thread where I am posting. Please find someone to substitute.

All very well, Greg. . "Jim Fetzer is my friend," you write and you also state that "Insincerity is simply beyond his ability."

(So maybe we should rename him "Guileless.")

But let me ask you this: Do you, too, believe we did not go to the moon?

Are you one of those who believe (as Fetzer just wrote in post #18 on this thread) that the numerous round trips to the moon are "events that many may believe occurred but which actually did not?"

Its nice to know that Fetzer "sincerely" holds these bizarre beliefs, but where do YOU stand on the matter?

DSL

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

What have you done, Evan? You removed my links to proof that man did not go to the moon, which I

have posted here (twice or more now) for the edification of Josiah Thompson. This is an abuse of

your position as moderator, which could hardly be more blatant. I request the post be reinstated!

I realized beneath that calm exterior, you are a nasty piece of work. This is inexcusable conduct.

I have even explained that I was posting it here for the benefit of Josiah Thompson specifically!

Professor,

The Apollo claims have their own thread on the Political Conspiracies board.

Making the same claims on this thread without addressing my (or others) rebuttals to those claims, will be considered spamming.

Edited August 4, 2010 by James H. Fetzer

[Craig Lamson]

polly wanna cracker...

What have you done, Evan? You removed my links to proof that man did not go to the moon, which I

have posted here (twice or more now) for the edification of Josiah Thompson. This is an abuse of

your position as moderator, which could hardly be more blatant. I request the post be reinstated!

I realized beneath that calm exterior, you are a nasty piece of work. This is inexcusable conduct.

I have even explained that I was posting it here for the benefit of Josiah Thompson specifically!

Professor,

The Apollo claims have their own thread on the Political Conspiracies board.

Making the same claims on this thread without addressing my (or others) rebuttals to those claims, will be considered spamming.

[Greg Burnham]

All very well, Greg. . "Jim Fetzer is my friend," you write and you also state that "Insincerity is simply beyond his ability."

(So maybe we should rename him "Guileless.")

But let me ask you this: Do you, too, believe we did not go to the moon?

Are you one of those who believe (as Fetzer just wrote in post #18 on this thread) that the numerous round trips to the moon are "events that many may believe occurred but which actually did not?"

Its nice to know that Fetzer "sincerely" holds these bizarre beliefs, but where do YOU stand on the matter?

DSL

I'm not getting into that discussion, David. I haven't done sufficient research to render an intelligent, well informed, opinion. I certainly "want to believe" that we went, but my desire does not make it so. Besides, that's not the point of this thread.

But, as an example of something that is the point, for instance, I have personally interviewed Judyth Baker and found her to appear credible. However, beyond that initial "gut" feeling, I have seen no compelling evidence to convince me of her veracity. I haven't had the time nor the resources to pursue indepth investigtion of her claims either. Moreover, I lack the motivation, for even if what she has said is true, IMO, it has no value to my JFK research whatsoever! This is obviously in direct conflict with Jim's view. However, Jim has respected my position as one that is consistent with my priciples, i.e., "I'm not going to claim her case has been proven based only upon my own 'gut level' and your [Jim's] assurances." And he wouldn't want me to do that either.

Now, I have been critical of his "method of persuasion" in that matter, both publically and privately. But again, his lack of skill in the "Art of Rhetoric" is not evidence of insincerity, although it tends to make him a target of criticism; a scapegoat used to dismiss his claims, if you will, which is perhaps even more illogical than all the rest.

[Evan Burton]

What have you done, Evan? You removed my links to proof that man did not go to the moon, which I

have posted here (twice or more now) for the edification of Josiah Thompson. This is an abuse of

your position as moderator, which could hardly be more blatant. I request the post be reinstated!

I realized beneath that calm exterior, you are a nasty piece of work. This is inexcusable conduct.

I have even explained that I was posting it here for the benefit of Josiah Thompson specifically!

Professor,

The Apollo claims have their own thread on the Political Conspiracies board.

Making the same claims on this thread without addressing my (or others) rebuttals to those claims, will be considered spamming.

It was the same cut and paste as before. There has been a request that the Apollo discussion be moved to the appropriate board, and so the posts have been moved there. If you want to discuss the Apollo claims, discuss them there - not here. Josiah can read your replies on the same thread.

Your request that they be "reinstated" is denied.

I might also point out I have already pointed out why your claims are wrong but you have either not done me the courtesy of reading them or simply ignore what others say and parrot the claims again.

BTW, David - I suggest you read the same thread and you'll find why the Professor is completely wrong.