TresSugar

Some Firefighters & New Yorkers Believe 9/11 Conspiracies

CitizenSugar — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 08:00:02 -0700

An issue that doesn't get much mainstream attention made the front page of Slate this week: 9/11 conspiracy theories. Following an episode of Rescue Me, during which firefighter character Franco Rivera shares his beliefs that 9/11 was an inside job, writer Christopher Beam began to wonder: do actual firefighters subscribe to 9/11 conspiracy theories? The answer is yes.

The various alternative versions of the horrific day are not that easy to follow, but the one favored by many firefighters is that the Twin Towers and 7 World Trade Center fell thanks to controlled demolition, and not because of the plane crashes. In recorded interviews right after 9/11, firefighters said they heard explosions right before the buildings fell. But those tapes were not released until 2005.

A 2007 poll found that 26 percent of Americans think the government had something to do with the attack. A group of 9/11 families, first responders, and other citizens is working on getting a measure on the New York state ballot that would legally mandate the formation of a new investigation with subpoena power. Do you want to see more investigation or do these theories offend you?

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Jury: Prof. Who Compared 9/11 Victims to Nazi Wrongly Fired

CitizenSugar — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:01:42 -0700

A jury ruled yesterday that Ward Churchill, a formerly tenured professor at the University of Colorado, was wrongly fired after he compared victims of Sept. 11 to Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann. The jury granted him just $1 in damages, and a judge will rule soon whether he should get his job back.

Following Sept. 11, Churchill wrote of those in the World Trade Center:

Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire.

Once the essay came to light in 2005, Churchill came under fire. He eventually lost his job. The jury decided that the University of Colorado couldn't prove it would have fired him were it not for his political views. Officials had sited plagiarism and falsified research as reasons for the dismissal.

Do you think professors should be free to say such things and still keep their jobs?

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Front Page: 9/11 "Mastermind" to Plead Guilty Without Trial

CitizenSugar — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 08:00:00 -0800

The alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and his four codefendants have asked to plead guilty to the attacks, meaning the current trial would never go ahead. The defendants told a military judge at Guantanamo Bay that they want to confess. - BBC News
Pakistani security forces have arrested Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the suspected mastermind of the Mumbai massacre, after a raid on a militant camp. - AP

Tight government control of the auto industry, including a provision for a "car czar," will be part of legislation drafted by Congressional Democrats. With details still unclear, it's almost certain that the US car industry will have to submit to substantial government supervision if it wants taxpayer money. - NY Times
Riots continued in Greece today for the third day in a row. After police shot a teenage boy to death, protesters took to the streets throughout the major cities, clashing with police. - CNN

Submit Your Ideas For a New America at Change.org

LibertySugar — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:30:33 -0800

At change.org you can submit your ideas for the Obama Administration, as well as comment and vote on other submissions. On Inauguration Day, the top-10 ideas for change will be presented to President Obama. Right now citizens are discussing ideas such as a Do Not Mail Registry to Stop Junk Mail, Single-Payer Health Insurance for All Americans, Vegan School Lunch Options, and End the Phony War on Terror.

But some users think change.org is out to censor.org. Those who posted popular suggestions for a new investigation into 9/11 or those who suggested abolishing the Federal Reserve claim they got an email saying that their topic had been removed because it "lies outside the scope of the Ideas for Change in America project, which is focused on identifying solutions that we believe can, through a grassroots lobbying effort, receive serious consideration from the Obama administration and/or Congress." If the group censors controversial ideas and handpicks its own top 10, can the result really be called a citizen-generated agenda?

Of course, you can always tell Obama your idea directly through his official website (change.gov not change.org) - but no commenter feedback promised there!

Should Graphic 9/11 Footage Be Off-Limits in Partisan Context?

LibertySugar — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:45:00 -0700

While watching the Republican National Convention last night, disturbing images of September 11 put a pit in my stomach. Around 8:40 p.m. EDT, the RNC aired a video that included slow-motion footage of a plane striking the WTC, the towers' collapses, and images of a burning Pentagon, while a narrator conjured up memories of bodies falling from buildings. Even more, the 9/11 tribute video opened with a reference to Iran. The horrific images undoubtedly upset every American, but it left me wondering if the Republican National Convention was the proper time to evoke those painful memories.

The Boston Globe noted that running 9/11 graphic images in a partisan context "was one of the few surviving campaign-season taboos." Keith Olbermann actually apologized to viewers, saying that it was probably not appropriate for MSNBC to show the video.

Supporters of the video could argue that America needs to get real about threats and get real about which president will keep them safe from the threats. The narrator of the video furthers that point saying, "and for too long we've looked the other way. But the enemy is wrong. This is a war America will win. We'll have a president who knows how."

Ground Zero Reconstruction Planners Ditch Timetable

LibertySugar — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:00:16 -0700

The building schedule for skyscrapers and a memorial planned for New York City's Ground Zero have been tossed out by the World Trade Center owners, due to unrealistic goals and rising costs.

Planners will announce a new timetable this September, seven years after the Twin Towers fell, according to BBC. Officials previously promised that the Freedom Tower, set to replace the destroyed towers while taking the title of the nation's tallest building, would be complete in 2006, then 2011, and finally in 2013.

Planners promise that the next date will be realistic, rather than emotional. The original Twin Towers took about five years to build. After September 11, 2001, how long did you expect it to take to rebuild Ground Zero? Does the stalling delay the healing process?

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Here Comes a Book About a 9/11 Hijacker and His Stripper

LibertySugar — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:00:53 -0700

Novelist Andre Dubus III wanted to write a book about a stripper. Instead he ended up telling a story about sordid events leading up to September 11, 2001.

At the center of the 535-page novel - The Garden of Last Days - sits Bassam, one of the 9/11 hijackers, who spent time at a Florida strip club four days before the attack. The story follows a few other characters as well, including a stripper who takes her child to work while she dances for the would be terrorist, a drunk patron, and an elderly landlady.

In a note to book reviewers, the author explains his motivation for telling this story:

In the weeks after that brutal September morning, we began to learn something of the hijackers. We learned that many of them had trained in Florida, that they'd been seen visiting strip clubs. This was confusing. How could these young men be self-described holy warriors but also frequent strip clubs? But what lingered for me even more than this was the image of cash on a bedroom bureau in Florida, money earned by a woman who'd danced for one or more of them.

Are you intrigued by the internal struggles of a 9/11 hijacker and the stripper who danced for him? Will this appeal for even minimal empathy change the way readers think about terrorism?

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Navy Lawyer Wants Fair Trial for Alleged 9/11 Mastermind

LibertySugar — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:15:00 -0700

A small town-lawyer and Navy-reservist, who has never tried a death penalty case, just got his next assignment - to defend the alleged mastermind of September 11th in military court. Prescott Prince is determined to give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a fair trial.

The CIA admits that it employed waterboarding, which is widely considered torture, on the defendant. The government is claiming that during interrogation, Mohammed confessed to orchestrating the attacks of September 11th, 2001.

Prince, the lawyer, argues that such evidence would never be admissible in civilian court. Guilty or innocent, good or evil, does everyone, including a suspected terrorist, deserve a fair and impartial trial?

Do you think that the rule of law - the principle that citizens and leaders are bound by a set of clearly defined and universally accepted laws - will be ignored? If America discards a fundamental part of a democratic society in this case, is it effectively doing the terrorists' job for them?

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Would You Watch an Opera That Incorporates 9/11, Naked Cast?

LibertySugar — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 07:00:44 -0700

Here's a story that involves Germany, Italian opera, September 11^th, and Mickey Mouse masks . . . oh, and naked people. Mix it all together and what do you get? - a shocking new production of Giuseppe Verdi's un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball).

The Austrian director Johann Kresnik, plans on staging a populist critique of modern American society, aimed at showing up the disparities between rich and poor.

Telegraph quotes Kresnik:

"It will be a different, a provocative masked ball on the ruins of the World Trade Center. The naked stand for people without means, the victims of capitalism, the underclass, who don’t have anything anymore."

Would you see this anticapitalist opera of naked singers, even if you didn't agree with its message?

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The Road to Justice at Guantánamo Bay

CitizenSugar — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:00:02 -0700

Outside my window I can see a faded poster hung in my neighbor's window that reads: "The America I Believe in Would Close Guantánamo Bay." The US military prison houses detainees who have been identified by the government as "enemy combatants" and is certainly controversial. Today, the New York Times reports on the hurdles to justice at the detention center.

In an effort to start the wheels of justice two months ago, military officials announced war crimes charges against six detainees of the Guantánamo Bay detention center for roles in the Sept. 11 attacks. The charges were part of an effort to accelerate the carriage of justice in a sluggish system which has yet to hold a single trial.

Despite the charges, military defense lawyers are in short supply, and two months later, not one of the six detainees has met his military lawyer. Trying the cases is especially complicated because they involve potential death penalties and claims of torture by interrogators - issues that could take months or longer to sort out. Though at Guantánamo, even simple cases without capital penalty issues are proceeding slowly. To see what's causing the slow down, read more.

Guantánamo military defense lawyers maintain they are not given resources by the Pentagon to match the investigative capability of the military prosecution, who has access to the FBI, the CIA, and other agencies. One detainee under trial said, “History will record these trials as a scandal against you.”

A lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights said the charges (which seek the death penalty) against the six men charged with the 2001 attack are so unwieldy that defense teams for those cases will need months, if not years, to prepare, saying “there is no possibility that these cases are going to proceed to trial any time soon.”

Do you think it's reasonable to hold people classified as enemy combatants? Are the hurdles to quick trials another way to keep possibly dangerous individuals contained? Do you agree with the sign in the picture? Are you disgusted with the situation at Guantánamo Bay, or do you think it's an absolutely appropriate security measure?

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