Is Spike Lee the Oliver Stone of 9/11 Truth?

[David Andrews]

10 hours ago, Joseph McBride said:

I spent a long time in the film and TV industry, and I am sure HBO

must have played a role in forcing Lee to cut this episode. But the

handwriting was on the wall when the fool interviewing him for

the New York Times raised alarm about the episode at the end

of their interview. You can bet he had some urgent messages

as soon as the paper came out.

I'd say they encouraged him to self-censor, based on media reaction.  But there's a whole shootin' match here, with a lot of targets.

HBO gives Spike a forum to present his take on New York.  They want more edgy personal observations such as the take he gave New Orleans-Katrina in When the Levees Broke.  Because he was addressing the injustices to the disadvantaged there (poor neighborhoods unprotected from flood; supplies and aid unevenly distributed; privatized police shooting looters), nobody minded if edgy ol' Spike slipped in rumors that the levees were dynamited to destroy the poorest wards.  After all, the weather did it.

But with 9/11, you've got a different kind of suffering, allegedly supplied by a foreign entity, some say even a state or two.  The dead were predominantly Caucasian, and their survivors have the wherewithal to rebuild their lives, if only someone wasn't always riling them up with these disrespectful, unfounded rumors of government complicity.  If only the dead would stay buried, and not come around to suggest they've been underserved.

So it's OK to push the envelope in presenting the extremities forced on the powerless, but not to exhume facts and rumors affecting people regarded as being of some substance, heroes of the terror war, even.  The type a patriotic press can get behind and outcry against slingers of besmirchment and slanders, because "that's what major media's for."  HBO should have known better here, and telling it so is also what major media's for. 

Spike keeps his forum despite losing his voice: it's not a message he could get financed as a feature film.  Don't think HBO will turn him loose on the Capitol riots after this, though.

It was cool that Spike presented Malcolm X as assassinated through conspiracy.  It would be uncool of him to suggest the same of JFK.  Some truths can be exhumed, because they affect no one of substance.  Barbara Bush said as much, about the Superdome emergency shelter thing.

Edited August 30, 2021 by David Andrews

[Anthony Thorne]

Since the segment was edited and completed, it'd be a real shame if we never get to see it.

Lee's documentary on Katrina had (from memory) extra material on the DVD release.

HBO should indulge Spike and let him put the full version on physical media, for either DVD or Blu-Ray. Or if not, someone should leak it.

[Joseph McBride]

Lee's book on the Malcolm X murder was more explicit as well as

stronger in some ways than the film's version. There is more

freedom writing books than making films. He had a hell of a time

raising money for that film.  Re the censored episode, I wonder

if some of the reviewers who had the link downloaded it. This

is similar to the controversy over THE GUILTY MEN, copies of which

circulate despite its banning.

Edited August 30, 2021 by Joseph McBride

[Anthony Thorne]

I wondered the same thing. And you have to wonder how many film reviewers out there (perhaps even for smaller publications) are alert and sensitive to what Lee was detailing in his overall story about NYC, versus those who are just trying to put their hands up for bigger paycheques from the national security state. I'm assuming we'll see the episode eventually, but I'd like to see it sooner rather than later.

[David Andrews]

I've tweaked what I wrote above, for clarity of purpose. 

If the media complain, I can re-edit the whole thing.

Edited August 30, 2021 by David Andrews

[W. Niederhut]

10 hours ago, David Andrews said:

I've tweaked what I wrote above, for clarity of purpose. 

If the media complain, I can re-edit the whole thing.

David,

     IMO, there's something far more nefarious going on this week with the truly historic M$M attacks on, and censorship of, Spike Lee's HBO interviews with the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

    What the perpetrators of the 9/11 op fear isn't the "besmirchment...of (heroic) people of substance," who were killed on 9/11, etc.

    What they fear is the public learning about the scientific evidence that the World Trade Center skyscrapers were, in fact, demolished by pre-planted explosives on 9/11.

     In other words, they fear the debunking of their 9/11 narrative/myth/psy op -- their New Pearl Harbor/Operation Northwoods type event that shocked and terrorized the American public into funding their multi-trillion dollar "War on Terror."

Edited August 31, 2021 by W. Niederhut

[W. Niederhut]

1 minute ago, W. Niederhut said:

duplicate

 

Edited August 31, 2021 by W. Niederhut

[Anthony Thorne]

Lee should have let the critics just have access to the first three episodes. And the final episode should have premiered for the critics and the public on the night of 9/11. 

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Anthony Thorne said:

Lee should have let the critics just have access to the first three episodes. And the final episode should have premiered for the critics and the public on the night of 9/11. 

That would have been a good strategy but, if we are to believe that it is a false flag operation that the state carried out (as opposed to a bunch of guys in caves directing novice pilots), then you’d expect all sorts of surveillance of Lee and the project would be taking place. Why would the people responsible leave anything to chance? They’d want to know exactly what was in the documentary, so they could stop it, or put together a strategy to deflect or discredit it.

The easiest way is to have someone at HBO threaten to pull the plug based on any number of reasons, including protecting their integrity and reputation (remember they’ll have more 9/11 believers as customers vs people who claim a conspiracy). To me, that my be the plausible excuse. Especially if news outlets everywhere are blasting Lee. 

[David Andrews]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

    What the perpetrators of the 9/11 op fear isn't the "besmirchment...of (heroic) people of substance," who were killed on 9/11, etc.

    What they fear is the public learning about the scientific evidence that the World Trade Center skyscrapers were, in fact, demolished by pre-planted explosives on 9/11.

 

"Besmirchment" is the veneer, the thing they act on; keeping the families quiet, and the rest of America untroubled, is the substance.  Sorry not to make clear.

It's "too soon" to be discussing the possibility of an alternate 9/11 narrative.  We're not seeing it yet in fictional movies or TV shows, and not really in novels.  I hope it goes without saying that we're not seeing it in the MSM, except to be dismissed.

How does 9/11 investigation over 20 years stack up against the first 20 years of JFKA investigation?  Against the first five years?  JFKA work seems more diverse, more willing to go deep in certain topics, more avid about collecting primary source documents.  9/11 work seems more distracted by the mechanics of the event.  In defense, there are a lot of mechanics, and logistics, to consider: four planes and sites is only the start.  Still, the field needs more analysis of primary documents for years before 9/11, and you can count the number of books that research these, and the number of useful video presentations.  A Spike Lee doc looking at the mechanics (for we don't know any other contents) might have provided some authoritative impetus for deeper study,  There doesn't appear to be any other impetus on the horizon. 

 

[Anthony Thorne]

I don’t think HBO cared either way, initially. From memory, they allowed or screened one or two of Dylan Avery’s Loose Change films, which are 100% truther content. But these are easily categorised away by debunkers, and were at the time.

Lee has won an Oscar, has a following, and is now a major filmmaker that demands attention. That’s a different kettle of fish. I follow alternative media reasonably closely and I don’t think anyone was aware Lee had gone down the 9/11 conspiracy rabbit hole until Lee mentioned it a couple of weeks ago. This required an immediate response from the foot soldiers of the mainstream media, which is what happened.

It takes many weeks, months, to put together a quality documentary. I’m guessing Lee would have spent quite a while immersed in the AE9/11 side of things to give them a major closing position in his documentary. As would his editors, sound mixers, color graders, camera people, crew. (Many of those people likely still have copies of the final extended cut btw, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the full version circulates privately). 
 

But we’re less than a fortnight away from probably a thousand anniversary articles commemorating the anniversary, and having Lee initiate a major conversation on what went down that day wasn’t at all welcome. So pressure came from somewhere, and he was stopped. 

Edited August 31, 2021 by Anthony Thorne

[Anthony Thorne]

I was curious to find out what the African American community thinks about the censorship of one of their most prominent filmmakers.

I've found it nearly impossible to encounter any commentary from that area discussing it. EBONY and VIBE magazine show nothing. Youtube either has mainstream news headlines announcing that Lee was criticised for covering the topic, or nothing. Twitter is the same.

Youtube used to feature lots of channels of people discussing current events. Possibly it still does. But individual commentary on the censorship of Lee seems to be absent, possibly because it has also been censored.

[Andrew Prutsok]

On 8/29/2021 at 4:14 PM, W. Niederhut said:

Incidentally, Ed Asner, who died today at age 91, was a dedicated supporter of the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

Here is Ed narrating a video about the demolition of WTC7 on 9/11.

 

Out of curiosity I have read several obits on Asner. Not a single mention of his role in JFK, which I consider his best work.

[David Andrews]

5 hours ago, Anthony Thorne said:

I was curious to find out what the African American community thinks about the censorship of one of their most prominent filmmakers.

I've found it nearly impossible to encounter any commentary from that area discussing it. EBONY and VIBE magazine show nothing. Youtube either has mainstream news headlines announcing that Lee was criticised for covering the topic, or nothing. Twitter is the same.

Youtube used to feature lots of channels of people discussing current events. Possibly it still does. But individual commentary on the censorship of Lee seems to be absent, possibly because it has also been censored.

The coverage tone might change - but inconsequentially - once the episode airs.

I hadn't known that HBO aired Loose Change and other "truther" content, having given up my cable box when Boardwalk Empire ended, and watched little else in those waning days.  Lee's accomplishments, and the attitude he brings to his New York doc series, may have been a deciding factor in the MSM response, as you cite in your other post.  Would there have been as much upset if HBO had produced a standalone 20th anniversary retrospective, instead of what appears to be Spike's extended Valentine to NYC, with that bit of sting in its tail?*  (Mixed metaphor, I know.)

I'm going to message you soon about the deep business.

_____

*Spike's series would seem to be a corrective to Ric Burns' New York: A Documentary Film for The American Experience on PBS (1999-2001, 2003), which delivered a belated final episode upholding the official story.  A terminal episode, on the post-9/11 city future, is forthcoming, so it can't have slipped off Spike's radar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York:_A_Documentary_Film

Is it that Spike apparently brought out his biggest guns for the finale, destroying the Ric Burns feel-good community  ethos more or less upheld in NYC EPICENTERS' previous episode, that riled the MSM?

Is it the incitement to conspiracists left and right that the MSM fear?  (See my following post)

Is it that Spike didn't take a more diffuse approach to 9/11, addressing, say, the state terrorism assumption or the 9/11 Commission's lapses, rather than the mechanics of the collapse, since the mechanics are largely a visual consideration that the public can flip or flop on, reactively?  It's not like a couple architects and engineers in a documentary are going to inspire a new investigation.

 

 

Edited August 31, 2021 by David Andrews

[David Andrews]

11 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

The easiest way is to have someone at HBO threaten to pull the plug based on any number of reasons, including protecting their integrity and reputation (remember they’ll have more 9/11 believers as customers vs people who claim a conspiracy). To me, that my be the plausible excuse. Especially if news outlets everywhere are blasting Lee. 

Consider that this is also (still) the year of the Capitol riots.  There may be fear of dissenting ideas slipping into the mainstream, where everyone with a MAGA hat gathering dust atop the TV can see them.

Salon.com, the online magazine developed by David Talbot, very kindly makes the connection for us in its review of Spike's series, an article that shouldn't be ignored:

"[E]xperts have concerningly linked the success of 9/11 theories through the years to the success of some of the most dangerous conspiracy theories that have poisoned our politics, today. 

"9/11 trutherism paved the way for the massive spread of QAnon's outlandish pedophilia cabal theories, which have culminated in death and an insurrection, as well as anti-vaccine conspiracy theories that have contributed to the spread of COVID variants across the country."

https://www.salon.com/2021/08/25/spike-lee-9-11-documentary-conspiracy-theory-reedit-hbo/

The designation "truther" for 9/11 skeptics ought to be abandoned and disowned by researchers, having been corrupted by the right into the Obama "birther" concept.

Wait five minutes, and MSM journalism will reach back to JFKA research of the 1960s as the cause of right-wing conspiracy theory.

On the other hand, Salon says we will just love-love-love NatGeo's new 9/11 doc series, which questions nothing:

https://www.salon.com/2021/08/29/911-one-day-in-america-review-nat-geo/

Edited August 31, 2021 by David Andrews