In the comment section, write about the evidence and logic used to argue for these theories as well as the methods used by the website and film to promote these theories. What are the uses of these 9/11 theories? What do these theories show about our society?
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Homework for 12/2
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Most articles use events and actions of the government as evidence for their conspiracy theory. One example of this can be the fact that no fighter jets where scrambled after the first attack on 9/11. Also, some claim that the training exercises performed by the military and ATC did not properly prepare them for a terrorist attack. As well as stories and articles, pictures and videos can also be used to show specific evidence, such as the lack of any large commercial jet crashing into the Pentagon. This theory exist because no video or photograph actually shows clear evidence that a plane hit the side of the Pentagon, and some believe that it could've been a bomb instead. Also no parts of the plane could be clearly seen, causing theorist to point out that "if the plane is so big, where is the plane."
ReplyDeleteThe conspirators are using theories like the way the towers fell. They say that the towers fell like they were in a free fall and using that as evidence that there were explosives throughout the towers to blow out the supports. They are also saying that the U.S. government knew about or planned the attacks and used them as a way to encourage the U.S. people to enter the "war on terror." They say that the "war on terror" and the attacks on 9/11 gave the U.S. the "right-away" to invade countries in the middle-east, like Iraq and Afghanistan, and gave them access to the countries natural resources, like crude oil. These theories show that society is very skeptical about the governments actions and motives. It shows that people are naturally curios and often question large problems, and can disagree with what they are told by authority. It also shows that some people feel the need to to prove what they think is the truth.
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ReplyDeleteThe 9/11 Truth website shows, using evidence, why some people believe that the attacks on September 11th were an inside job done by the government. The website shows a list of evidence and answers from the media that would cause a reader to pause and question why everything does not “add up”. The list makes it clear that the government in many ways does not feel the need to answer questions, leaving the public to question why their questions are unanswered and ultimately causing conspiracy theories about the attacks to arise. Some of the strongest evidence in my opinion that the disbelievers use to support their ideas is that on the day of the attacks many government officials did not fly their scheduled flights. These important men who had previously had plans to be in the air changed their plans because they had been warned no to fly. The website predominately uses red lettering to bring the readers attention to words or phrases that the website group feel are most important in getting their theories across to the reader. Under the tab “The Top 4o Reasons To Doubt The Official Story” the website outlines what they feel are some of the most convincing pieces of evidence. Each of the top 40 is given a short name describing what the reason is about which is one way to draw in a reader because they will then want to understand the names of each of the reasons. This is just another of many ways the website pushes the evidence on the reader. These theories show that in our society there is a deep mistrust that people have in their governing bodies. It also shows that the people want to have more power and strength of word when it comes to how a government should handle dealing with any problem. On the governmental side of the spectrum it shows that the government does keep things from its people because there are pieces of evidence that the government refuses to release that could clear them in a theory that 9/11 was an inside job. The website is a very well done and appropriate portrayal of the feeling of those who believe that what we know today about the attacks is not the real truth.
ReplyDeleteIn order to argue with what really happened during 9/11, the website talks about how security in airports ignored warnings sent to them about hijackers. They also prove that important figures such as Bush found more important things to do on 9/11 than being involved and that the air defense system, was not working that day. In order to promote these theories, the website uses a variety of different tools. They use videos such as "How to Destroy the 9/11 Truth Movement" or "C-SPAN Interviews Determined AE911Truth Founder." It also uses podcast, interviews and movies such as "The 2014 9/11 Truth Film Festival: Exposing The Greatest Fraud on Earth!” These theories are all put in place to try and help understand the people around the world what (these people think) really happened during 9/11 and why it happened. These theories show that our society is based on lies.
ReplyDeleteIn the film and on the website, there is a lot of evidence and logic used. Both mediums target on a person's pathos, logos, and ethos, which are all common persuasive techniques. The film targets a viewer's pathos when they describe how the families of victims are looking for answers, and appeal to the emotions of the viewer about the tragic event. They then use logos when they reinforce their argument with facts. They also use logic by describing how coincidences occur. While they don't have all the information, they focus on how many things happen that are too coincidental, leaving the person reading or viewing to put all the pieces together and ask questions. Lastly, they target a person's ethos. They use credible speakers, such as scientists, to back up their claims. This was used in the film when they had a scientist analyze the dust that was collected from the twin towers. They then promote their theories by creating something-- like the movie and website themselves. With the internet, it is much easier for these things to go viral. They make it easily accessible so that more people can view it.
ReplyDeleteThe creator of the website and the movie are probably looking for support for a certain cause. For example, if they want support against the government, they can use these mediums to gain it. They also cause people to question the authority and what they commonly believe as "true" or "factual". These theories show that people are now constantly questioning authority and looking for answers. Whereas before, people may just accept what they are told, the existence of these theories proves that this has changed. The more widely known these theories become, the more that people support them and are, therefore, questioning the government. This shows that our society is looking for answers and not as easily accepting of what authority tells the people.
In the movie we watched today, it showed a variety of ways to argue on the conspiracy that the US was responsible for the 9/11 attacks because it would help towards favoritism of war in the middle east. Loose Change used video footage from NYC on the day of the attacks, video from the other attacks on that day such as the attacks on the Pentagon and Flight 93 that was supposedly shot down, and interviews of 9/11 survivors. On the website it used facts to back up suspicions of the 9/11 attacks, such as; the quick knowledge of who was responsible for the attacks, the possible finances the hijackers were given by US intelligence, and the failure of the US air defense system of the morning of the attack. There are two possible uses of the 9/11 theories. The first is to cover up anything the government does not want us to know about the reality of the attacks, and the second is to just have an answer to an unthinkable event that may have just been a full day of coincidences. These theories show that our society can not handle the truth and that our government hides things from the public because it may cause more chaos than closer.
ReplyDeleteBoth the film and website use the truth to their advantage, however embellishing is what makes the truth so appealing to the viewer. The film mentions how Osama Bin Laden's statements in a video session was not translated correctly by the U.S. government. However, the film makers did not provide us with a correct translation, which could mean that the original translation wasn't far off than the actual one. The website does the same by stating facts that supports 9/11 significance. The facts they present talk about how plans to go into Iraq and Afghanistan were formed well before the attack on the 9/11. They do not go into detail on how we gained support to go into those areas. There is a lot of truth, but even more embellishing when it comes to these films and website.
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ReplyDeleteOne theory that is proposed in the film is that the American government set up the attacks in order to get support to take military action in the Middle East. One piece of evidence found or proposed as “not a coincidence” is that the military interceptor jets that usually patrol the area surrounding the nations capital were sent off to a training mission over 100 miles away right before the attacks. There is evidence that the jets were off on a training mission, however it is a stretch to say that it was because the government knew about the attacks prior to when they happened. Another theory about the 9/11 attacks was that there were explosives present to make the buildings collapse straight down or a controlled demolition. The evidence presented were fragments of so-called “super thermite” that were found in the dust in building #7. In the film they only focus on the Super thermite theory in terms of why the buildings fell, and don’t try to find other possible reasons for the fragments or what they are. The film uses an eyewitness to attempt to reinforce the controlled demolition. The eyewitness claims that he heard explosions, which according to the film automatically mean that the theory is correct. However, what they didn’t account for was the possibility of the airplanes exploding, or maybe the eyewitness was lying, so the theory cannot be securely proven correct. These theories about the 9/11 attacks and how the American Government set the whole thing in order to gather support for the Military to take action in the Middle East are thought up to possibly make people doubt their government and military. These theories show how us as a society are always looking for another reason to blame some powerful figure or organization by coming up with some complicated type of idea or elaborate plan to explain a story or event in their own words.
9/11 conspiracy theories rely on twisting facts related to the event. Discrepancies between eyewitness testimonies and the government report have prompted people to believe in a government coverup. Deaths of witnesses with different views are considered assassinations rather than unfortunate. The CIA's history of supporting Osama Bin Ladin and his fellow Muhajadeen against the Soviets has been turned into "proof" of government collusion with terrorists, ignoring the fact that this only took place in the 1970's and 80's. Evidence brought forth by discredited (though not mentioned as such) sources with information on government involvement are taken at face value, while all government information is looked at with cynicism.
ReplyDeleteConspiracies are real - Watergate, Iran-Contra, and others have occurred in the United States. That may be why when events like 9/11 happen, people are open to hearing conspiracy theories, and sometimes actually can accept them as fact.
The film Loose Change brings up a number of details that support why they think 9/11 was a conspiracy set up by the government. One piece of evidence that was brought to attention was that there was almost no debris found from the plane that had crashed in the field in Virginia. The crash site was also very suspect. The crater that was found was only 12 by 13 feet and that is very small for it to be a site where a commercial airline plane crashed. Another piece of evidence explored by the film was how the buildings collapsed so perfectly; falling in its imprint like it was set up by a demolition team. It was almost too good to be true that all three of the buildings could have collapsed perfectly in on themselves. This theory is promoted by the live footage that was caught on tape of the buildings collapsing. In the video you can see that at the bottom of the building there were explosions and this leads people to believe that this conspiracy could be true. Another way this conspiracy is promoted is how they have live interviews of the people that were actually involved in the event. These people talked about how they felt explosions in the building. There is an interview of a chemist who took dust samples from the site of the twin towers and there were traces of a very flammable material which is found in explosives. These interviews and live action videos convince the viewers that this theory may be accurate. This theory shows that our society thinks the war in Iraq was unnecessary. They want to blame the government for the attack that happened to show that there is no need for war if the attack was made by the US government. It also shows that our society can come to many different conclusions because of fear.
ReplyDeleteThe filmmakers liked to manipulate the viewers opinions through dramatic effects, assuming that coincidences don't exist, and using only testimonies that support their own. The film likes to use ominous music and cryptic, out-of-context quotes in order to make others appear to be part of some conspiracy and cast them in a negative light. The film likes to assume that nothing is just a coincidence, picking and choosing a few of many events that occur on 9/11 that crippled some part of the governments response. The film uses only the testimonies of people that support the beliefs of the filmmakers and none from skeptics or simply nonbelievers. The movie tries to argue that because the Boeing was flown in a reckless manner that would only be safe if done in a fighter jet is evidence that the alleged hijacker must be a government professional. The movie also points out that there was little of an actual plane found at the site of the crashes which doesn't reflect some other crashes with chassis left intact. The movie also tries to convince the viewer that there was thermite in the 9/11 crash sites. All this just shows that decent editing, quote mining, and confirmation bias contributes to forming a rather compelling case for even ridiculous ideas.
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ReplyDeleteIn their efforts to persuade their audiences of their theory the website and the film uses reasons and examples of evidence to why the theory is correct. In both the film and on the website they dedicated time to enumerating the different reasons why you should believe there theory. Their theory relies on evidence such as the lack of the governments response to trying to stop the attacks from happening, conflicting witness reports with the official government reports, and the idea that the way the Twin Towers and the third skyscraper collapsed suggest they collapsed as a result of explosives.
The movie started out and didn’t dive right into the conspiracy about 9/11. It began and mentioned the government doing suspicious things against the public. This made the viewer distrustful of government and makes the subsequent conspiracy seem more plausible. To promote these theories the film used eye witness accounts, segmented quotes from government documents, and information about the events. They asked us somewhat rhetorical questions and brought us into their idea by doing so. The website mostly uses information from a variety of gathered sources including government officials and uses them to attempt to explain what actually occurred on 9/11. The website states it’s information, but does not mention any implications or combine different theories. The website makes the reader think of their own ideas, in the way the website wants them to. The uses of these theories are to attempt to reveal to the public what some people believe to be the truth of 9/11. It is also used to scare people into their theory and give them support. These theories show that people want to believe what they want to believe. Most people don’t want to think that our own government would do this to us, but some do and they find lots of compelling evidence to support a claim that they want to make.
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