Toronto journalist refers to those who believe as "anti" intellectuals

so today in the Toronto edition of the Globe & Mail, there was an article about the Zeitgeist movie that's been making rounds on the net. (deals with Christianity, 9/11 & The Federal Reserve)

full article here

The film is an interesting object lesson on how conspiracy theories get to be so popular. (In 2006, one poll suggested that a full third of Americans thought their government was complicit in the 9/11 attacks.) It's a driven, if uneven, piece of propaganda, a marvel of tight editing and fuzzy thinking. Its on-camera sources are mostly conspiracy theorists, co-mingled with selective eyewitness accounts, drawn from archival footage and often taken out of context.

It derides the media as a pawn of the International Bankers, but produces media reports for credibility when it suits it. It ignores expert opinion, except the handful of experts who agree with it. And yet, it's compelling. It shamelessly ploughs forward, connecting dots with an earnest certainty that makes you want to give it an A for effort.

The funny thing about this stuff is that it's all been thoroughly debunked for years. Everyone from Scientific American to Popular Mechanics have produced reports puncturing the central claims of the 9/11 theory, and when you look gullible next to Popular Mechanics, you know you're in trouble.

Ivor Tossell, the author of the article then goes on to say....

What troubles me the most is that, for all the talk of skepticism, conspiracy counterculture is really an anti-intellectual, populist movement — much like Intelligent Design. For all their absurdity, conspiracy theorists try to drag everything back to the level of common sense.

the comments to the article can be read here

a poll you can take can be found here (middle of page on the right side)


Very frustrating article.

[edit on 17-8-2007 by fattyp]

Rofl, why do people even read editorials? What is this person's relevance to either me, or this movie?

Remember when editorializing was considered bad form? Or was there such a time? That's all this trash is.

The Globe journalist slips in a sly dig at Popular Mechanics, but uses it to discredit "conspiracy theorists".

He's a peach, this guy Tossell. What he is doing is so so easy. I'll bet he's never said "No sir." in his life. This stuff is pseudo intellectual marmalade that the toffs in Toronto love to slather each other with. Posturing and posing is the leading art form among the elite in Toronto. Everyone has their schtick. They need binoculars when they look down their noses at people. I used to tease my friends by saying that I had a giant sized American flag in my closet that I was going to put on the roof when the first parachutes from the 101st Airbourne started to blossom in our skies. I don't read the Globe. The internet is going to finish off all these clowns, both north and south of the border. Fuggedaboutit.

[edit on 18-8-2007 by ipsedixit]

[edit on 18-8-2007 by ipsedixit]

Has there ever been a pro-conspiracy editorial from a large or established news company? This is more of the same. The camps are well entrenched at this point and nothing is going to change the minds of anybody now.

I love it! Finally the truth is told! Hehehehe!

Remember when editorializing was considered bad form? Or was there such a time? That's all this trash is.

Trash? i find it a good source. You should not be so quick to judge, just because someone is looking rationally.

The Globe journalist slips in a sly dig at Popular Mechanics, but uses it to discredit "conspiracy theorists".

Thats exactly the same thing conspiracy theorists do. You cant mock him for it.

He's a peach, this guy Tossell. What he is doing is so so easy. I'll bet he's never said "No sir." in his life.

What he is doing is so easy! I know! the best part is he is using the evidence he has to state his opinion, and what a wonderful opinion it is.

Wow, he seems to have hit a sore spot with all of you, is that because its true? hehehe.

This stuff is pseudo intellectual marmalade that the toffs in Toronto love to slather each other with. Posturing and posing is the leading art form among the elite in Toronto

Like the pseudo science i see in almost EVERY conspiracy theory? The ones citing other conspiracy theorists, psychics and thousand of years old prophecies as sources?

I used to tease my friends by saying that I had a giant sized American flag in my closet that I was going to put on the roof when the first parachutes from the 101st Airbourne started to blossom in our skies.

Woohoo! target!

This also lends weight to my theory. Its that Conspiracy Theorists dont want 'the truth' they want the world to recognise that they are right.

The difference is substantial. I glean this from you 'teasing your friends'. You will be joyous if the airborne drops on you because you were right? Will people clap you on the back and tell you 'job well done'?

I don't read the Globe. The internet is going to finish off all these clowns, both north and south of the border. Fuggedaboutit.

Which is unfortunate, the equality of the internet has allowed any average joe create a potential truth or untruth. This muddies the water for people like me researching topics to debunk the theories.

Has there ever been a pro-conspiracy editorial from a large or established news company?

Not as such, Media outlets require some modicum of truth in them (the Daily Telegraph withstanding). but when reading this forum and seeing topics such as "Is tiger woods an alien?" just makes you want to burn the sould from something.

*sorry replied to wrong thread* similar topic, wrong thread..

[edit on 8-18-2007 by Valhall]

I must say that it is refreshing to run into a rational debunker, Octavius.

I don't know if you are aware of this but often, when talking about the events of 9/11, those who think the buildings were brought down by explosives refer to the near free fall speed of the collapse. All the irrational debunkers out there usually stay well away from that awkward, abundantly documented fact.

How do the rational debunkers explain it?

The biggest and boldest lies are the ones that come first : " These all have been thoroughly debunked ". A blanket statement and a total lie. The main and most compelling features of the 9-11 events have never been, and can never be, thoroughly or accurately debunked because to do so requires the suspension of rational belief and the alteration of the laws of physics.

Tell David Ray Griffen that he is an ' anti -intellectual ' and see what laughs you get. Common sense is not the worst thing possible!! Imagine that! Now we are to believe that common sense, a rational determination of an event from all available evidence, is the wrong way to approach this subject, and no wonder!! If you approach it with no common sense then you just might be able to believe the official story!!

There are a core of FACTS, PROVEN facts, that the ' debunkers ' cannot handle. Oh, they come up with ludicrous and nonsensical syuff, but never anything serious or likley. These main facts CANNOT be explained away.
They cannot be hidden. They stand as an embarrassing beacon of proof that controlled demolition was a FACT, and that the entire 9-11 event was an inside job. Only the weakest and most silly excuses are given to try and counter these. I will list a few, there are hundreds more easliy available.

1. The vast majority of the concrete and steel in the Towers turned into dust; dust the consistency of flour. Buildings crumbling from weakened supports are pulled by gravity. Gravity CANNOT explain the massive energy used to turn all concrete, etc. into a fine powder. Where did this energy come from?

2. Both Towers fell prey to this new and unknown force on the same day within minutes of each other! For the first time in history! Since both Towers were being shredded from the top down ( see video), there was no substantial weight bearing down on the remaing massive support structures. 90% of the volume of the buildings was dispersed outside the footprint area because it had dustified!! What caused the massive steel beams in the center, 47 in total, to turn into dust? Gravity cannot be a cause. An example of the steel supports turning into dust is available online. How can localized fires far away and below the steel supports turn steel into dust all at once? thye ciore columns below the strike level were intact; what made them turn to dust?

3. Massive explosions were reported by many people on scene, including firemen, reporters, etc. Film shows explosions. Trained observers report many explosions and massive damage in areas that could not possible have been affected by the plane strikes above. Far underground, massive blasts were experienced with injuries. The elevators CANNOT conduct fuel down them as they terminated at levels for that exact reason, to stop fires from moving up or down. Many areas were destroyed due to explosions that CANNOT be explained by any cause othert than planted explosives. Explain all those explosions and damage far from the strike zones.

4. Five dancing Isreali's : The five men arrested and then quietly sent back to Isreal ( by Michael Chertoff) when they learned that they were Mossad agents , stated on an Isreali TV show that they were sent there to' film the event '. Since the Isreali's knew in advance that the Towers would fall that day and had their agents filming the event, and since the Isreali messenging service, Odigo, gave warnings to several customers about the collapses, and that Dominsk Sluter, the ' moving company ' boss who was deeply invol;ved in the whole scene fled to Isreal before the athorities could question him..this leads one to suspect that perhaps a foreign government had a hand in things that day. Any ideas on this one? All just COINCIDENCE?? Explain Isreali foreknowledge.

5. Pools of molten metals under all three buildings ( Towers and 7 ) show that extrememly high temperatures were generated at the lower levels at bedrock or support levels. These pools were reported by several reliable contractors and others, filmed and verified. The hot spots persisted for weeks, temps above that to melt steel. But kerosene ( jet fuel ) fires can NEVER reach those temps even under perfect conditions. How to explian the source of energy needed to maintain extreme temps without additional fuel and or air? Gravity cannot be a cause.

I could go on and on, all off the top of my head, but you get the point: there is NO way that anyone can refute the belief that the 9-11 attacks were an inside job and the Towers were brought down by controlled demolition. Therte is NO evidence to the contrary!! ALL of the evidence points to demolition!! NONE of the evidence points to gravity!!

The source of all that energy is a debatable subject, but the amount needed to do what we see is so massive that it cannot be accounted for in any of the ways that so far have been offered as likley, and the official story is an embarrassment to the scientific and engineering professions. Only a govt. stooge working for the bad guys could accept a paycheck for agreeing with the nonsense presented by the official account. They will not even face other scientists. Why? Why won't the NIST crowd sit down with fellow scientists? Because they would be shamed into silence at the first question, thats why. they could not look their colleagues in the eye and try and explin these collapses as being gravity driven. Shameful.

No real engineer on earth is satisfied with the official story; only the bought off and Federally controlled would dare to suppoprt such nonsense.

The deniers are unable to find a way to explain away the obvious, so they resort to the grand assertions: " It has all been debunked ", and expect the sheep to beat and agree and move along. Will you?

just wanted to clear up that not all of us from toronto think like that guy, he mustve either been paid to give the movie a bad review or is just really ignorant.

i live in the big smoke of t.o..

i know someone who works as an editor at a major t.o. paper, and she didn't even know wtc7 fell. she had the exact same attitude as this guy(until we riddled her lifeless corpse with facts, and resurrected her(at which point she literally walked away with her hands over her ears, saying, 'no more! i can't take it!')).

the media envornment is tightly controlled, like the CIA. certain subjects have only one allowable view, if you are on the inside of a media company. self-censorship is rampant, and blind obedience to the 'authority' of 'real journalists' and 'trusted sources' is robotic in it's inability to use COMMON SENSE on a given scenario.

When you go to the OP's citations there is one for comments which were included with Ivor Tossel's original article. There are numerous readers who don't buy Tossel's views and many of the comments are intelligent and informed. (Tossel also has his backers, of course.)

Sometimes lately I get the feeling that the whole 9/11 discussion has become a little like one of those old battles, like the ones between Hannibal and the Romans. But in the case of the 9/11 war it's as if the truthers have won on the intellectual field and are now running around cornering any squirrel or hedgehog that chatters at them and beating it to death.

Somebody said that if you don't think 9/11 was an inside job you are either an idiot or in on the cover-up. I'm not sure I would go that far but I do think that many adherents of the official story have withdrawn from the discussion for a variety of reasons, some of which deserve genuine compassion.

When you actually look at the events of 9/11, on their own individual events might seem insignificant, but put together, it tells a very different story.

The collapse of the WTC has to be the most obvious problem with the whole 9/11 story, and only those who lack the most basic understanding of physics would fail to see that the chance of two buildings - collapsing the way they did, when they did, and in the time they did - is so remote as to be near impossible. Sure - both were hit by aircraft, but not in the same places, and both were on fire, but again, not in the same way etc...

Further, to just dismiss the fact that they were the ONLY buildings to ever collapse due to fire (as the official story claims) is so ignorant, as to be scary! The argument that they were the only buildings to be attackked by terrorists is not a sound scientific reason for the collapses. Remember, they stood for 97 mins after the impacts before they fell, and it is clear that they were helped to collapse (just watch the endless hours of video of the collapses).

If it was structural failure, the bulding would have collapsed sideways, as one side of the building failed due to stress. That is how it works normally. Buildings don't just fall vertically and turn to dust. It doesn't happen.

Assuming each floor is made of 2 ft thick concrete, 100 floors = a stack of concrete 200 ft tall! Instead we end up with the entire building buried under ground level in the basement (7 levels). Only possible if you vaporized most of the structure (demolition).

If people can't see that this just isn't possible, I think they need to study physics again.

Assuming each floor is made of 2 ft thick concrete, 100 floors = a stack of concrete 200 ft tall! Instead we end up with the entire building buried under ground level in the basement (7 levels). Only possible if you vaporized most of the structure (demolition).

The floors at WTC were 4" of lightweight concrete not 2ft. The concrete
was pulverized by debris impacts as it fell - thousands of tons of steel
battering the floors. Also 90% of the building is empty space - look
around the room! Maybe should do some research yourself instead of
paranoid fantasies.

That movie gives an incredibly accurate history of the Federal Reserve. Brings to mind the New York Times report on Ron Paul when the reporter talks of the Nutjobs who believe in the Nafta super highway that he can find no evidence of, then a week later on Dateline or some such drivel they do a full report on the Texans whose farms are being taken to build a private "super highway" through the middle of Texas. All media is owned by "Them"

Wake up!! There was NO weight on the tops of the buildings, it was being shredded. Haven't you seen the video? This massive weight was being taken away by explosives and there was no great weight on the tops of any building. Look at the pics, for Petes sake.

To state that concrete, whether 4 " or 4 feet thick, would turn to FLOUR like dust from gravity is just silly. Gravity CANNOT cause the kind of force that causes dustification. Simply cannot be.Where was all the weight of the upper floors, the ones above the strike zone? Why, it was being pulverized and thrown out over the entire scene, NOT concentrated on the building.

There is NO WAY for concrete and steel to sublimate into dust without massive energy, energy that CANNOT be explained by gravity. That leaves the official story a fairy tale and a bad one at that. The core columns, all 47 of them, turned into dust just like the concrete; again, gravity CANNOT be used a a source for that energy, no way.

If you want to believe the official story, it can only be out of a desperate desire to believe that we are really not in such deep trouble as we are in this nation; the coup has been done and we are seeing the Bush/Cheney neocon fascist takeover of America unfold right in front of us. To deny it takes a leap of faith that only Job could muster.

No, when all of the facts are examined, it is clear that 9-11 was an inside job and there is NO way on earth that those buildings came down from fire or airplane damage. No way. Impossible . Thats why there has never been a real investigation and that is why the govt. scientists never will debate their counterparts in the disciplines involved.

Only the blind can fail to see the obvious, we are being ruled by traitors and murderers and liars and we are about to see America implode .