Sunday, December 23, 2007

9/11 Truth Manifesto

9/11 Truth Manifesto
Joel S. Hirschhorn

For evidence that America’s political system is a criminal conspiracy, open your mind to piles of new analyses that prove beyond doubt that the official 9/11 story is a lie. Years of a bipartisan cover-up of 9/11 lies make it much more than one horrendous past event. It endures in infamy as a symptom of a corrupt and dishonest government.

Every day we pay for what 9/11 and its cover-up have burdened us with, including the costly Iraq war and the erosion of the rule of law and constitutional rights. Power elites have suppressed the truth because they fear what will happen when the public understands that 9/11 was not accomplished solely by foreign terrorists.

Technically sound analyses of what happened at the World Trade Center have unequivocally shown that the official 9/11 story is not credible (http://www.ae911truth.org/). Truth seekers have met their burden of proof; the government has not met theirs. Simply put, controlled demolition brought down three buildings, not fires from the impact of planes on two of them. Not only was the US government involved, it has also conspired to hide the truth from the public. Why? Republican and Democratic politicians and power elites fear that 9/11 truth will remove what little public trust remains in government. The truth will produce political instability, perhaps breaking the two-party stranglehold on our political system. And it should. And it must, if we are to finally obtain the deep political reforms our nation desperately needs.

The decline started before George W. Bush and his criminal co-conspirators accelerated it with their blatant disregard for the rule of law and our Constitution. It will continue, even with a Democratic administration, unless we reform our political system. We must remind Americans that our nation was born in an insurrectionist, populist rebellion against political tyranny – and that 9/11 teaches us that we need a Second American Revolution. We must destroy the domestic Axis of Arrogance of our plutocracy more than fear a foreign Axis of Evil. How?

A vast nationwide grassroots 9/11 truth movement is ignored by the mainstream news media. Its success will be the catalyst for renewing American democracy. It will produce a shock wave that rattles the brains of all Americans: Shock therapy from a truth so powerful and unsettling that Americans finally see the decline of American democracy that allowed 9/11 and its cover-up.

Make no mistake, the 9/11 truth movement holds the future of the United States. We are not subversive “conspiracy theorists” or enablers of foreign terrorism. We are patriotic warriors working to nullify group delusion produced by government propaganda. Dozens of books and websites reveal countless technical contradictions and inconsistencies with the official government 9/11 story and the laws of physics. The weight of the evidence supports one painful verdict: Our federal government played a role, probably through a large “black op.” The “why” is obvious: To justify an unjust war to serve corporate interests and greed.

Here is our opportunity: To make 9/11 the tipping point for American democracy renewal. Our enemies fear that if this movement succeeds, their plutocratic, elitist cabal – the Axis of Arrogance – run by the two-party duopoly will collapse. Corruption keeps our political system stable – truth must clean it up. Instability is the necessary price for restoring democracy.

A Paradigm Shift

9/11 lies have sustained the ruling terrorism-threat paradigm. 9/11 truth must energize a new political-reform paradigm. Patriotism framed as defending the nation against terrorism must be replaced by patriotism focused on repairing American democracy.

Already, status quo protectionists lie about us to defeat our movement. Things will get worse as our movement draws closer to bringing down the corrupt political system. And we are getting closer. Only 16 percent of Americans believe that members of the Bush administration are telling the truth about what they knew about terrorist attacks on the US prior to 9/11, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. But what people say in polls is not the same as coming out publicly and vociferously for 9/11 truth, or seeing the roots of 9/11 in the decay of American democracy, not merely the actions of a few evil people.

The deceived public must be re-educated to see the arrogant power elites running our national plutocracy as worse than radical Islamic terrorists. Paul Craig Roberts captured the essence of the problem: “Americans think their danger is terrorists. They don't understand the terrorists cannot take away habeas corpus, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution. ... The terrorists are not anything like the threat that we face to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution from our own government in the name of fighting terrorism. Americans just aren't able to perceive that.”

9/11 is a history lesson to inform the nation about democracy decline. As John McMurtry asked, “So which goes - the faith in America’s greatness and goodness in the world, or the facts which disclose the opposite at the very top?” We must always remember that Americans are better than their government. They do not get the government they deserve. They get the government that the rich and powerful impose. That must end.

We confront more than power elites. There is psychological resistance of millions of Americans to painful 9/11 truth – a shameful, “unthinkable” truth about their elected government. Even if they have doubts about the official story, they instinctively recoil and erect mental barriers to block out the full truth. They want to keep believing that they live in a great democracy. They want to believe that when the Bush administration is replaced our democracy will be in good shape again. Hard to accept that 9/11 truth could not have been suppressed this long without the tacit or explicit approval of Democratic politicians and power brokers.

It is as if we are telling children that their parents are mass murderers. Distracted, time-poor, depressed, political disengaged, cynical and insecure Americans do not want to hear that their government had a hand in 9/11. That for years their two-party-controlled government has blatantly lied to them. That thousands of good Americans have died and been terribly injured in a war propped up by the false-flag 9/11 fiction. In sum, that despite elections a vast criminal conspiracy has been so successful for so long. Such thoughts hurt.

Also, political instability is scary to ordinary Americans. But stability based on corruption and lies is destructive. Only when Americans see 9/11 as a political attack (by Americans on Americans) – not solely a terrorist attack (by foreigners on Americans) – will they understand that revealing 9/11 truth must lead to major political reforms. Instability is the cost of democracy renewal.

Here are powerful messages: The collapse of the rule of law is more important than the collapse of buildings. Countless more have died because of 9/11 than on 9/11. The events of 9/11 ultimately are less important than the reasons for and consequences of 9/11.

As John McMurtry said, “[9/11] allowed an illegitimate administration to transmute into America’s patriotic champion at war - above accountability and the rule of law. ‘Defending America from another terrorist attack’ became a political blank check for corporate corruption of government expenditures with impunity, war criminal acts and threats across the Islamic and alternative third world, and attacks on civil rights and commons at home.” All this persists as 9/11 lies persist.

Despite record-low levels of public trust in Congress and the president, too many Americans still believe that elections are the path to major political reforms. Despite a solid history of campaign lies from politicians, and overwhelming belief that the nation is on the wrong track, Americans keep hoping that they can vote their way into a better future. Most Americans do not have a Boston Tea Party mentality. They are unready to revolt despite revolting conditions. Our truth movement must help Americans accept painful truth and its political fallout. We must put all the technical truth discovered by reputable scientists and engineers to work for systemic reforms.

We must do more than oust the official story and obtain a new 9/11 investigation that now has wide support by hundreds of respected Americans (http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/). We must guide Americans into a more patriotic and courageous mental state. We must help Americans become outraged and rebellious, yet also optimistic about major political reforms.

Political Strategy

Success against the power elites running and ruining our nation requires building an army of Americans openly revolting against the two-party corporatist state now in control. The 9/11 truth movement must use political strategies to defeat the status quo political establishment. Here are three actions.

First, with detailed technical analyses unequivocally proving that the official story is false, the movement can draft a bill that might be titled The 9/11 Truth Act of 2008. This proposed federal legislation should be delivered to every member of the House and Senate early next year. It would clarify the investigation: What its scope and objectives must be. What reliable entity, public or private or a combination, must be used. How the public must be given opportunities to present information. What resources must be provided and what time frame must be adhered to.

We must take the initiative and specify exactly what kind of new official 9/11 investigation is necessary, recognizing that professionals in the truth movement have limited resources and cannot address all questions. The 9/11 truth movement itself must define exactly what the first real credible and comprehensive government sponsored investigation must consist of. We can have no confidence in anything that the political establishment might devise to silence our movement. We must tell the public, the media and the political world what is required to reveal the total truth as to what caused, for example, the collapse of three World Trade Center buildings, especially building 7 not even hit by a plane.

Developing and submitting this legislation must then be followed up by all 9/11 groups urging their supporters to bombard Congress with demands for hearings and passage of the bill. This is the way to engage more Americans politically to obtain full 9/11 truth.

However, few politicians’ comments support the truth movement. A rare statement came from presidential candidate Ron Paul. In a radio interview in January, 2007 he said that the 9/11 investigations to date are “more or less cover-up and no real explanation of what went on.” However, later in the year when he became more visible he was asked about the possibility of the official story being orchestrated by the government. He said emphatically “absolutely not.” In another interview, when asked whether he thought 9/11 was an inside job that our government made happen, he responded forcefully “No.” So apparently Paul sees a cover-up but not about the involvement of our government. Would he support legislation for a new investigation?

Thus the second critical political action is this: Proclaim that only politicians that actively support passage of our legislation will earn support in the 2008 elections from the millions of Americans doubting the official 9/11 story. This threat is an absolute necessity. If the legislation is not passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush, then we must aggressively support a boycott on voting for all Democrats and Republicans in the 2008 federal elections.

Third, all those committed to 9/11 truth should honor what the Founders gave us in our Constitution in case some day Americans lost confidence in the federal government, especially in Congress. That day has arrived. 9/11 was that day. They gave us the option in Article V for a convention of state delegates to propose constitutional amendments. We must see SYSTEM reforms as only achievable through constitutional amendments that Congress will never propose nor achieve through normal legislation.

Congress and the entire elitist political establishment have intentionally denied us a convention for over 200 years. The one and only requirement in Article V has more than been satisfied by over 500 state applications from all 50 states. Enough is enough. Our truth movement should join the effort of Friends of the Article V Convention at http://www.foavc.org/ by urging truth group members to join FOAVC. The political establishment fears both 9/11 truth and an Article V convention. We must grasp that 9/11 truth can bring us to the brink of political reforms and the convention is the process to obtain them.

Conclusion

The 9/11 truth movement must also be a political movement – but not in any partisan sense. 9/11 truth can help Americans take back their country. 9/11 truth can end the criminal, corrupt and conniving plutocracy that stole our government and mutilated our democracy.

We must transform 9/11 from a catalyzing event for imperialistic war-mongering to one for democracy renewal. We must convert terrorist-transfixed fear into political reform enthusiasm.

The pursuit of truth is not always the pursuit of happiness – not when the truth hurts. The 9/11 truth movement is not about finding immediate happiness. It is about rebooting American democracy and, after accomplishing that, earning happiness.

[A former full professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and then senior official with the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association, Joel S. Hirschhorn is now an activist writer and can be reached through http://www.delusionaldemocracy.com/. This article is based on presentations given at a recent conference sponsored by Boston 9/11 Truth.]

1 comment:

Arthur Scheuerman said...

I wholehartedly agree with everything you say except that the WTC buildings were taken down by explosives. Having studied the collapses extensivly and written a book sbout how the fires brought down the buildings I have to object to the delusionary theories of controlled demolition which divert attention from the studies of necessary building code changes. Here is a section of my book "Fire in the Skyscraper".

Collapse from Fire Alone?

Professor Usmani reported that the towers seemed to have been “unusually vulnerable” to a major fire. His computer analysis assumed an intact building with no aircraft damage. Usmani said it was not the materials but the structure’s design that caused the problem. (Usmani, Reuters, June 4, 03)

NIST maintains that the buildings likely would not have collapsed from the aircraft impact and subsequent jet fuel-ignited multifloor fires had not the fireproofing been dislodged or had it been only minimally dislodged. I believe Dr. Quintiere developed a sound, case for the position that these floors would have collapsed even if the insulation had remained intact. (5, 103,104)

The extreme lengths of the 60-foot floor spans have been implicated in the collapse, since the 35-foot span sections did not affect the columns, even though they were subjected to more intense fires than the long-span floor sections. Since the long span bar-joist floors, which failed and pulled in the exterior columns and caused the two towers to collapse, were not furnace tested at their actual size even with intact fireproofing, I don’t see how NIST can say the buildings would have survived a multifloor fire if the fireproofing had remained intact.

Usmani’s and NIST’s computer studies showed that collapse can occur at low steel temperatures (400°C to 5000 C) when two or three or more floors are involved. (5, 13) Buckling and pull-in forces could have occurred in the long-span bar joists, even though the steel had not reached 500°C and still retained 90 percent of its strength and stiffness. To Usmani, this phenomenon suggests that failure temperatures could have been attained even if the steel trusses’ fire protection had survived the impact. (5, 29)

The bar joists’ failing at a low temperature indicates that the failure was caused, not by loss of strength, but by thermal bowing or restrained expansion against the columns’ and differential expansion of the steel chords as they were heated buckling the diagonal struts and the floor. This caused the pull-in forces which buckled the columns. The April ‘05 NIST report (case C) shows that very little fireproofing was knocked off most of the floors on the south side of the North Tower, yet these are the very floors implicated in the North Tower’s collapse.

Until an actual 60 ft. long span fire test proves otherwise, I maintain that thermal bowing and suspension forces induced in the buckling long-span floors were enough to buckle the exterior columns directly or by detaching floors. The detachments impacted the floors below, inducing even greater catenary forces, which caused perimeter wall failure and consequent global collapse. Because of the lack of lateral support in the core, the long-floor spans and the weak exterior column splices, global collapse could have occurred even though there was little or no heat weakening of perimeter or core columns. This was proved by Flint’s work; see the theory section 3 of this report.

Any large-area, multiple-floor, uncontrolled fire in the Twin Towers could have produced global collapse, in my estimation, because of the following:
• Use of lightweight, long-span, steel-bar joists;
• Inadequate spray-on fireproofing;
• Deficiencies in lateral support (because of the absence of full moment connected columns and the lack of diagonal bracing or masonry infill between the core columns);
• Weak column splices; with missing bolts;
• Large, open areas not separated by fire walls;
• Numerous poke-through and access stair openings in fire containment walls and floors;
• Inadequate shear knuckles in the floors; and possibly
• Weak, inadequately cured, concrete floor slabs with no apparent reinforcement.

NIST recently reported that there was concrete reinforcement, but it’s curious that this was not reported in any of the earlier reports.

Because of the Port Authority’s lack of accountability to any oversight agency or the building codes, significant deterioration in fire safety developed at the World Trade Center. In my estimation, four buildings at the WTC suffered global or progressive collapses because of fire—WTC 5, 7, and the Twin Towers.

New York City is currently revising and upgrading its codes, and NIST has worked to determine the causes of the WTC failures and to develop scientific data for the development of effective building codes for the protection of existing and future high-rise buildings. A few builder/developers are still resisting the idea that the situation should be more fully explored and understood and are working to prevent more stringent code provisions. Presently the code improvements are to be required only in buildings over 400 feet high, but these kinds of collapses could affect all high-rise buildings which have been codified as buildings over 75 feet or six stories high.

Tall buildings should be required to have increased active and passive protection, to limit the spread of fire and smoke and prevent collapse. Lawmakers should stop catering to builders’ myopic complaints about costs and refuse to allow any reductions in performance requirements. More stringent codes might stimulate some builders to invent new fire protection designs to reduce costs instead of reducing the safety requirements for buildings.




Reports of Controlled Demolition, Bombs, Thermite, Electromagnetic Rays, etc..

Many reports interpreted the loud sounds and debris being projected out sideways during the Tower collapses as an indication that explosives were used to demolish the buildings. Most of these ‘explosive’ sounds, heard during the collapses were heard after the collapses began. The exterior walls can be seen bending and buckling inward in the videos of both Towers long before any sounds or ground vibrations occurred. In Tower 2, the exterior columns in the east wall were photographed bowing inward up to 10 inches, 18 minutes after the plane’s impact. That’s 38 minutes before the global collapse began. To be technical, you could say that Tower 2’s collapse began slowly, with possibly some noise or impact sounds from falling floors, about 38 minutes earlier than the official collapse time. The explosive sounds and expanding dust clouds occurred just after the east wall buckled inward and started the collapse, and not before the buckling, as would have happened with controlled demolition.
When the south wall of Tower 1 was photographed it was bowing inward up to 55 inches on floors 95 to 101, about six minutes before these columns were seen buckling inward. In the North Tower “thunder” sounds were heard when floors collapsed on the south side 12 to 14 seconds before the top of the building was seen to tilt southward and begin falling as a unit starting the global collapse. Since each section of floor on the long-span side weighed about 500 tons, I would explore these sounds in Tower 1 as evidence of a floor or floors detaching and impacting the floors below on the south side which most probably accelerated south wall failure. I believe all the supposed ‘explosive’ sounds can be explained by the impacts made by the collapsing buildings after the columns were pulled in by the bowing and buckling floors and when the floors themselves began impacting the floors below. The boom, boom, boom, boom, boom repetitive ‘explosive’ sounds reported by firefighters running as Tower 2 was coming down were probably caused by the sequential collision of impacting floors. The great quantity of air on each floor being compressed in a fraction of a second by great weight and momentum would propel air, smoke, and any concrete dust and debris outward at great velocity.
It is also clear from the computer studies that the heat from the fires caused differential expansion of the steel parts in the long span, floor trusses with the resulting thermal bowing in some floors directly exerting pull-in forces on the exterior columns or this thermal bowing or could have detached a floor which would have impacted the floor below destroying composite action by separating the concrete slab from the trusses and inducing strong tensile (suspension) forces in the double weighted floor. In other floors thermal expansion of the floor against the columns compressed the trusses which along with shear forces within the trusses buckled the diagonal struts collapsing the trusses which went into suspension (catenary action) and helped pull-in and eventually buckle the exterior column walls. All these adverse truss effects were caused by steel expansion which begins immediately as the steel is heated. Bowing and buckling happen at low temperatures (400 C to 600 C) even before the steel would have weakened excessively from higher temperatures. Once the exterior column buckling spread along an entire wall on one face the towers began to tilt and the buckling spread around the towers exterior and into the core and with all the columns buckled the top sections of the tower began to fall straight down. Although the North tower antenna appeared from some angles to have fallen straight down it actually tilted to the south because the south wall buckled first and the cantilevered top south building section pulled the core over to the south.

The South Tower’s top tilted to the east because its east wall buckled first. Once the core columns got out of plumb, there would have been little resistance to their buckling at the weak splices. With the incredible weight of the top of the buildings gaining momentum, like a heavy wedge or sledge all it had to do was break the welded, and single bolted connections holding the floors to the columns. This coupled with the fact that the falling top sections momentum increases as the square of the number of floors impacted as the floors were detached and added to the weight of the descending top. There would have been little resistance to slow the top section’s acceleration to the ground. Because this acceleration due to gravity increased the speed and momentum of the collapsing floors and building top, the impacts would have been increasingly violent as shown on the seismic graphs increasing amplitude until maximum when the mass of accumulated floors hit bedrock seven stories into the cellar.

In order for the columns to support the weight they have to be plumb and in line with the columns above and below. If they get out of plumb or buckle they can no longer support the weight. The buildings collapsed because the floors buckled from restrained thermal expansion and thermal bowing affecting floor truss stability. The sagging trusses pulled in the 59 columns in one exterior wall and buckled them. Once the buildings started to tip over from loss of column support on one side the tremendous excess eccentric weight began buckling all the columns across the building. The South Tower tilted to the east and the North Tower tilted to the South. Once the tilted buildings tops began descending they hit the floors or columns at eccentric angles which easily detached the floors and buckled the columns. In order for the lower building section to offer any resistance to the falling building top the columns would have to hit each other exactly in line and in plumb and this was impossible with the eccentric angles of impact.

The fact is that columns have to be axially (in line and centered) aligned to support the weight of the building above. Once the top building section began tilting the columns on the side that originally buckled did not line up at all. These columns would have been hitting the floors and would have easily detached or buckled them. After the south wall buckled in Tower 2 the adjacent exterior wall columns buckled from overloads and the columns on the opposite west side of the building, which acted as a hinge would still be bearing on each other but at an eccentric angle which means they also would have eventually buckled as the top tilted. These columns along with some of the core columns as they buckled are probably what kicked the bottom of the top building section to the west as reported by NIST. With all the columns across the building buckled the top section began descending at an angle to the building section below. None of the columns would have been axially lined up. As the columns collided they would have hit each other at eccentric angles and easily dislodged, disconnected or buckled each other. Adding the accumulating collapsing floors and you have a release of incredible potential energy changing to kinetic energy and building momentum as the accumulating chaotic mass of debris accelerated to bedrock 7 stories into the cellars.
There have been some engineering analyses about the impacting floors slowing down the collapse so that the time to collapse should have been longer than ‘free fall’ times of an object dropped from the towers tops. I have an engineering theory that may explain this. Since the Tower’s outer wall columns, especially in Tower 1, pealed out like a banana, they may have been able to break the connections to the floors ahead of the floors being impacted? In other words, with the weight of the wall columns pealing outward from the vertical along with the added horizontal forces of impacting floors projecting debris outwards onto these columns; would these columns, while leaning out, be able to break the wall-to-floor connections ahead of the level of impacting floors? If this is possible than I believe that the connection failures could could have traveled down the sides of the buildings at a speed faster than free fall times. This might help explain the rapid collapses especially in Tower 1. The wall-to-floor connection failures could have traveled down the building sides faster than ‘free fall’ times and in effect started the floors falling before they were impacted by the accumulating mass of impacted floors above.
The heavy exterior wall columns in the 1500 foot high builddings while pealing off could project the column sections outwards a great distance. This distance was proposed as only being made possible by explosive forces. I disagree.
Much has been made of the fact that NIST only analyzed the events up to the point where the Towers were poised to collapse before runaway collapse began and failed to pursue the remaining collapse. This was largely because after collapse began the chaotic impacts of the floors, walls and columns colliding could not possibly be analyzed accurately with even the strongest computers.

In addition, the compression of air in the elevator and air-conditioning shafts by the collapsing upper building section and floors, would project air, smoke, and dust down these shafts and out of any air intake or discharge openings on the exterior walls on the lower mechanical equipment floors. This accounts for the plumes of smoke seen projecting outwards from the buildings well below the collapsing floors. There were quite extensive vertical HVAC shafts built into the building. These shafts are connected to air conditioning exhaust and intake ducts on the mechanical floors. Collapse of these shafts would force the dust and smoke out these HVAC exhaust and intake openings in the side of the building.

The lightweight aluminum cladding’s breaking free from the buckling columns also would have been propelled outward a great distance by this expanding cloud of air and dust. This would account for huge dust clouds and pieces of aluminum seen projected outwards from the upper sections of the collapsing buildings. The light reflected off these aluminum pieces at the north wall of Tower 2 would be interpreted as flashes from explosive ‘squibs’. The flashes below the buckling east wall may have been from the aluminum cladding breaking free from the lower columns as they expanded after being unloaded of axial weight by the buckling of the wall above and their expansion breaking the connections to the cladding. Also explosives leave characteristic tears and fractures in steel, and such indications were not found in the debris pile.

Much has been made of the presence of molten metal in the debris pile after the collapse. Presumably this molten metal was somehow connected to explosions or thermite charges, but there were Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) battery rooms on some floors of the Towers and Building 7. These battery rooms supplied continuous battery power to computers if the electricity failed for any reason. These batteries contained tons of lead which melts at 327 C (621 F). The heat form the fires in the debris pile could easily have melted this lead which was probably what was seen flowing through the pile. NIST reported UPS in the 13th floor of Building 7 and the 81st floor of Tower 2. Batteries also contain Sulfuric acid which could have attacked the steel accounting for the half consumed steel beams found in the debris pile. Additionally the EPA reported over 400 different chemicals in the dust and debris. These chemicals could easily be assembled conceptually to propose any type of chemical reaction imaginable including thermite reactions. In addition thermite reactions are rapid and wouldn’t last the hours or days at which times the molten metal was observed.

About the concrete destruction into dust; F.R. Greening did a paper called Energy Transfer in the WTC Collapse in which he says “the energy required to crush concrete to 100 μm particles is 1.9 × 1011 J, which is well within the crushing capacity of the available energy. Hence it is theoretically possible for the WTC collapse events to have crushed more than 90 % of the floor concrete to particles well within the observed particle size range.”
http://nistreview.org/WTC-REPORT-GREENING.pdf I would also investigate the possibility that the concrete was sub par due to freezing during curing or too much air or water having been added during construction.

In conclusion I think most of the reports of controlled demolition are examples of delusions experienced by “experts” who jumped to conclusions and didn’t spend enough time examining the actual evidence.

Arthur Scheuerman