KPFA Story on 9-11 Film Festival

Full Story Here: (14:15 into broadcast)

Anchor’s Intro:

A FOUR-DAY FILM FESTIVAL DEVOTED TO ISSUES SURROUNDING THE EVENTS OF SEPTEMBER 11 2001 IS CURRENTLY UNDERWAY AT SEVERAL BAY AREA LOCATIONS. THE 6TH ANNUAL NORTHERN CALIFORNIA 9/11 FILM FESTIVAL,  WHICH BEGAN ON THURSDAY AT THE GRAND LAKE THEATER IN OAKLAND, HAS BEEN SPONSORED BY THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA 9-11 TRUTH ALLIANCE FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS, BUT THIS YEAR’S EVENT WAS ORGANIZED BY A COMMITTEE OF SEVERAL GROUPS. BESIDES THE GRAND LAKE THEATER, THE FESTIVAL WILL ALSO SCREEN FILMS AT THE VIZ THEATER IN SAN FRANCISCO AND AT SAN LEANDRO’S BAL THEATER. THE EVENT CONCLUDES ON SUNDAY. SHAWN HAMILTON ATTENDED THE OPENING OF THE FILM FESTIVAL AND FILES THIS REPORT:

“DESPITE THEIR DIVERSE POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES, WHAT THE FILMGOERS HAVE IN COMMON IS  THE CONVICTION THAT THE EVENTS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 ARE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING THE COUNTRY’S MILITARY OCCUPATIONS, ECONOMIC CRISIS, AND EROSION OF CIVIL LIBERTIES. THEY ALSO SHARE THE BELIEF THAT THE 9-11 COMMISSION’S OFFICIAL VERSION OF EVENTS IS LARGELY FALSE. CAROL BROUILLET (BROO-YAY) IS ONE OF THE ORIGINAL FOUNDERS OF THE 9-11 FILM FESTIVAL. SHE EXPLAINS THE VALUE OF THE EVENT:

BROUILLET: “AND IF A PERSON…THAT’S WONDERFUL.”

AMONG THE KEYNOTE SPEAKERS, REPRESENTATIVES OF PROJECT CENSORED ADDRESSED THE BLATANT CENSORING OF 9-11 ISSUES, NOT ONLY BY MAINSTREAM MEDIA BUT ALSO BY ALTERNATIVE MEDIA. THE GROUP HAS BEEN COVERING CENSORED STORIES FOR 35 YEARS BUT HAS RECEIVED AN UNUSUAL AMOUNT OF RESISTANCE—EVEN FROM PROGRESSIVES—FOR COVERING ISSUES RELATED TO 9-11. MICKEY HUFF, PROJECT CENSORED’S CURRENT DIRECTOR, POINTS OUT THAT THESE ISSUES CONSTITUTE ONLY ONE ASPECT OF THE GROUP’S FOCUS.

DURING A PRESENTATION BY HIGH SCHOOL PHYSICS TEACHER DAVID CHANDLER, DEMOCRACY NOW! HOST AMY GOODMAN IS PLAINLY VISIBLE IN A VIDEO SEGMENT THAT INCLUDES AN AUDIBLE EXPLOSION MOMENTS BEFORE BUILDING 7 FALLS. SOUND FROM THIS EXPLOSION, WHICH ADVOCATES SAY SUPPORTS THE IDEA THAT EXPLOSIVES HELPED DESTROY BUILDING 7, HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM MOST ONLINE VERSIONS OF THE SAME VIDEO. THE VIDEO MAKES IT APPARENT THAT GOODMAN HEARD THE EXPLOSION AND WITNESSED THE BUILDING’S SUBSEQUENT DROP, YET SHE IS KNOWN TO GENERALLY AVOID DISCUSSING 9-11. HUFF SAYS HE GREATLY RESPECTS AMY GOODMAN BUT WISHES SHE WOULD BE MORE CANDID ABOUT THE REASONS FOR HER APPARENT DISDAIN OF 9-11 ISSUES:

HUFF: “I’M NOT SAYING BOYCOTT…DIMISSING PEOPLE.” 

THE FORMER DIRECTOR OF PROJECT CENSORED, PETER PHILLIPS, TOLD THE CROWD THAT HE AND HUFF HAVE EXPERIENCED CENSORSHIP FROM PROGRESSIVE ORGANIZATIONS BECAUSE THEY ADDRESS 9-11 ISSUES. THEY HAD RUN OP-EDS FOR THE PROGRESSIVE “INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES” FOR THE PAST SIX YEARS BUT WERE TOLD LAST APRIL THEY WERE NO LONGER INVITED–SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE THEY HAD MENTIONED BUILDING 7 IN A FACTUAL, ACADEMIC REPORT ON STATE CRIMES AGAINST DEMOCRACY. PHILLIPS SAID THE EDITOR TOLD HIM THAT “TRUTHERS HURT THE PEACE MOVEMENT.”

PHILLIPS POINTED OUT THE CONTRADICTION OF BEING CENSORED BY THE PROGRESSIVE LEFT FOR WHOM, HE SAYS, THERE’S A WHOLE AREA OF INFORMATION WE’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT. HE SUGGESTED THAT INSTEAD OF MAKING 9-11 TRUTH THE KEY ISSUE, 9-11 ACTIVISTS SHOULD FIND COMMONALITY BY LINKING TO NUMEROUS RELATED ISSUES:

THE 9-11 FILM FESTIVAL IS CURRENLY UNDERWAY AT THE BAL THEATER IN SAN LEANDRO AND ALSO AT SAN FRANCISCO’S VIZ CINEMA, WHERE EVENTS WILL CONCLUDE ON SUNDAY. MORE INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE AT SF911TRUTH DOT O-R-G

FOR PACIFICA RADIO, KPFA, I’M SHAWN HAMILTON.”

Full Story Here:

(14 minutes, 15 seconds into broadcast)

David Ray Griffin on Media Resistance to 9-11 issues

I recorded this interview in San Francisco at the Marine’s Memorial Club and Hotel on February 19, 2010. The occasion was the Architects and Engineers for 9-11 Truth press conference announcing the group had surpassed 1000 signatures from licensed building professionals calling for a new investigation into the destruction of the three World Trade Center buildings. Griffin was a keynote speaker.

Richard Gage and David Ray Griffin

Shawn Hamilton (SH): “How do you account for the apparent psychological resistance even among members of the alternative media—who should know better—to even looking at the evidence?”

David Ray Griffin (DRG): “In one sense it’s obviously a big mystery because these are people who’ve been on the forefront of exposing American complicity—you know, if we talk about Howard Zinn, [Noam] Chomsky; we’re talking a long, long time here, so I never criticize these gentlemen because they’re heroes; they’ve done what they’ve done; we wouldn’t be here without them and so on. Some of the younger guys? I don’t know. Some of it is, I think, fear. I’m not talking about fear for their lives although I’ve heard of people who’ve said, ‘yeah, I’m afraid for my life,’ but I don’t think that’s the main thing. It’s more a fear of, well, job loss. That’s a big one for reporters. I talked to a reporter who had done one nine eleven story and so I said, ‘Well, are we going to get another one out of this lecture,” and he said, ‘I don’t think so. I don’t think my job would survive one more story.'”

“Then, more generally, loss of reputation. The effectiveness of this term ‘conspiracy theory,’ ‘conspiracy theorist’ and that no member of the press can be a conspiracy theorist because they’re supposed to be objective, even if objective means parroting everything the government says. In our day that’s what counts for objective. 

But if you parrot what somebody says who’s espousing what is defined as a conspiracy theory, which in the definition that I gave earlier means a theory that contradicts a theory the government has already spoken on, then that a conspiracy theory in the negative sense and very few reporters could survive in their jobs if they explicitly said that.”

SH: “I understand that for the mainstream media, but what about the alternative media? There’s a split even at KPFA. They don’t want to touch this. They don’t even want to look at it. I’m not saying believe it, just look at the evidence.”

DRG: “That’s the next step down. They’ve been so effective with this scare tactic that even to give an open microphone to a conspiracy theorist means give them credibility and that means there’s something wrong with you. So, Shawn, I’m not sure that you’re going to fit in here in our future plans. So, you know how it works; everybody in the media knows how it works: nobody has to be explicitly threatened; they just know the rules. Maybe they tried one story once and they said, ‘Whew,’ that story wouldn’t go, certainly no story about nine eleven is going to go, so they learn not to do it.”

“A third factor is, and some have explicitly said this, ‘we in the left-leaning press spent years building up our credibility, and now you crazy nine eleven conspiracy theorists are destroying our credibility. Well, first of all, a big majority of the 9-11 movement is not on the left; they’re on the right. They’re libertarians and Republicans. Both Steven Jones and Richard Gage were lifelong Republicans, but this is the answer they give. I don’t think that’s just an excuse; I think they really do believe that [we threaten] things they’ve worked for.”

“So from their point of view, it doesn’t matter whether what we’re saying is true or false; it’s not expedient. It’s not helpful to what they consider the larger cause of exposing other high crimes and misdemeanors. So they say, well, we lose our credibility here, then we can’t do all this other good work, overlooking the fact—I would say as a rabid member of the nine eleven truth movement, ‘Look, this is the big story. This outstrips anything you could possibly be exposing from the last ten years or in the next ten—probably unless we have another one, and if we do have another one it will be partly your fault because you didn’t help expose this one.”

“So I just think that’s a very poor answer, and for some people to say—and I regret that Howard Zinn, who showed great courage opposing [Noam] Chomsky on this who would not read my book even though they’re both good friends of Richard Falk. Richard Falk wrote to Chomsky and he said, ‘I think you should read this manuscript. My friend David Griffin has been a great admirer of yours; he’s built on your work. He would love to have a blurb from you. Chomsky wrote back and said Dick, ‘No, I will not read your friend Griffin’s book.’ Howard Zinn read it. He wrote a blurb, and many people said, ‘I never would have read your book except for the blurb by Howard Zinn despite the fact that he got flack from many friends on the left for writing that very innocuous blurb—he was not endorsing my ideas, he was just saying this is a serious book. Even though he got a lot of flack for that, he came back and endorsed a second book, so I praise Howard Zinn for the courage he showed even though—and I regret the fact that towards the end of his life he said,   ‘Well, nine eleven isn’t too important. It doesn’t matter too much what the truth is. I just think he made a terrible misjudgment in that.”

David Ray Griffin Interview (audio) Part 1 

David Ray Griffin Interview (audio) Part 2

“Over 1000 architects and engineers have signed petition to reinvestigate 9-11 destruction”   (Associated with story #14 in Project Censored’s currrent list/book, Censored 2011)