‘Building What?’ lands on Fox TV’s Geraldo At Large

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‘Building What?’ lands on Fox TV’s Geraldo At Large
By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor
Nov 16, 2010

Miracle of miracles, memories of an even younger, crusading Rivera talking on his show, Geraldo at Large on Fox News about the “Building What?” TV ad campaign!

Geraldo began with the standard reference to all those edgy protestors who rallied in front of Larry Silverstein’s new Building 7, shouting “9/11 was an inside job.” He added “c’mon, get a life.” But then, lo, he turned the phrase to say perhaps these protestors weren’t so nutty after all.

Now, he said, there was evidence that Building 7 was taken down in a classic internal demolition. He then introduced his panel, Bob McIlvaine (who looked ready to jump out of his skin). Bob had lost a son in Tower 1 and still carried a deep grief that often, understandably turned to anger. Geraldo treated him with all due respect. He also introduced engineer Tony Szamboti to explain the technical aspect of the internal demolition. It was good to see Rivera willing to help explain the technical talk in TV speak to his audience.

The first was that “Building What?” had been the response of Justice Edward Lehner, who did not know about Tower 7 not being hit by airliner but being “pulled” instead at the request of its owner, Larry Silverstein, at 3 PM on 9/11/2001. See Silverstein’s YouTube film with his exact words, ending with we (the firemen and he) had decided to “pull it.” The truth is that the fires caused by any falling debris from Tower 1 were out. But the “pull it,” or internal demolition Silverstein was asking for occurred only two hours and 20 minutes later at 5:20 PM on 9/11. Experts claimed it was impossible to create an internal demolition like Tower 7’s in two hours and 20 minutes. You’d need more like two and a half months. So it clearly implies there was extended pre-planning before for the tragedy of 9/11.

The occasion for Justice Lehner making his “Tower What?” statement was his denial to a proposal from NYCCAN for a ballot initiative to ask NYC voters if they wanted a new investigation of 9/11’s events (beyond the 9/11 Commission of Omission Report, which did not even mention Tower 7). NYCCAN had delivered 81,000 signatures, more than originally required, which had been checked for accuracy, yet rejected by Justice Lehner because he felt the voting booth was not the venue for making the request. Either that or the authorities were frightened out of their wits that so many people had responded.

In fact, the affiliated organization, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, led by architect Richard Gage, had gathered some 1300 plus signatures of engineers and architects from around the US and the world, and sent it with a signed petition for a new investigation to the United States Congress.

Cynics of course will argue that 81,000 out of 8 million New Yorkers (even discounting infants, children, teens, the infirm and non-voters) was a small percentage of the electorate. But considering that a working New York justice did not know what Tower 7 stood for was indicative of the huge gap in 9/11 knowledge, a gap that crossed the spectrum of class, age, education, profession, ethnicity, race, religion, and political parties. This general gap of hard data on what happened on 9/11 has largely been due to the lack of mass media presentation. This makes Rivera’s coverage, short as it was, more laudable and courageous.

The 30-second “Building What?!”TV spot goes a long way to triggering the interest of all those who need to need to know more. Tower 7’s takedown is the smoking gun, the paradigm for the internal and external explosions that had taken down Towers 1 and 2. See the TV spot here.

Of course, with the help of Szamboti, Rivera explained to the Fox audience that this internal demolition couldn’t have been set up in such a short time but more likely in advance. And now there was a TV commercial that had been produced with quick cuts of four victim family members, including McIlvaine and Manny Badillo, then a woman who lost a nephew, another woman who lost her son, continuing the narrative. The commercial then cut to Tower 7’s top floors as they literally plummeted downward in two seconds, the entire 47-floor, steel-frame building going down into its footprint in 6.5 seconds. The visual was repeated several times.

Of Course, Silverstein received $500 million in insurance to rebuild a taller, wider Tower 7, the only completed WTC building in sight nine years later.

Rivera was helpful too in framing questions to MacIlvane and Szamboti that almost answered themselves, though the responses of his guests added to what he said. When he asked MacIlvane if he thought 9/11 was an inside job, Bob pushed the question aside and said, “I’m interested in finding out who murdered my son.” Both guests acknowledged that time constraints of TV sound-bite news did not allow for fuller explanations. But the visual that Building 7 went down as described was right there in the commercial for anyone to see. As a result, Geraldo admitted he believed there was more to 9/11 than had met his previous experience.

Now take a look at the full Geraldo At Large Segment, Note: the “Building What?” TV campaign is presently running and needs your support to keep running. It’s as worthwhile a contribution as you can possibly make to the well-being of New York City, America and the world, since 9/11 was the inciting incident for George Bush’s War on Terror. All the pain, death, and cost in blood and money, rest on understanding this keystone event and its true perpetrators.

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer and life-long resident of New York City. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net. An EBook version of his book of poems “State Of Shock” is now available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. He has also written hundreds of articles on American and world politics as an Associate Editor of Online Journal.