A WRITER’S EYE: INTERVIEW
Kevin Quirk interviewed me for a book he is doing on 911 activists. He is still seeking accounts, if you’d like to communicate with him at A Writer's Eye: www.awriterseye.com
1) How and when did you first got involved in seeking the truth about 9/11?
I was immediately suspicious when I saw the buildings fall, and suspected foul play. The event didn’t correspond with any other physical incident I had ever experienced. But my initial thoughts were focused on the potentially catastrophic aftermath – just what the Bush administration would do with the occurrence. Later in the day, when I saw Building 7 come down, I was convinced all three buildings were brought down by controlled demolition, but had no way to follow up on this. In the succeeding weeks and months, my activist attention was detoured into the ominous response of our government. It was only when I read The New Pearl Harbor that I was able to begin putting the pieces together. I responded especially to Griffin’s eight levels of possibility – from the administration simply taking advantage of the event to pursue a pre-existing agenda to the possibility of its active planning and execution. I’ve been able to use this scheme as a heuristic matrix to pursue my further investigations.
I reviewed the book for Counterpunch, and received a load of email which catapulted me into “the 9/11 truth movement”. For quite a while I didn’t like that term, feeling that “the 9/11 research community” would be more modest and realistic. But by now, I feel that we know enough to assert more than “unanswered questions”.
2) What one piece ofevidence or one specific resource (DVD, book, website, etc.) has been the most convincing to you in rejecting the "official" story of 9/11?
I’ve read so many books and seen so many films, I find it impossible to offer “one” as most crucial. Together, they all add up to an informational gestalt with a secure center and fuzzier edges. At a certain point investigation bleeds off into speculation – and that is valuable too, though it has to be understood for what it is. I do have to say that I am put off by the tone of Alex Jones’s presentations, and, though they have some solid content, I don’t feel that they are useful to show to beginners -- at least any with an allergy to used car salesmen.
3) How has your search for 9/11 truth impactedyour life?
It’s been quite a burden, not only considering the time it has taken to read, watch, listen to, and study the material, but because of the depression it leaves behind, depression concerning the irrationality of most people’s responses. Ignorance I can understand, when the MSM has so gotten behind the official story and obscured or pooh-poohed all else. But smart people, political people, lefties, people with an informed and developed criticism of the administration, and an understanding of the real history and politics of the United States, respected friends, co-workers and colleagues – most use the same gesture when I bring up the issues: the hands are thrown up, palms out, to face level, and the mouth says “I’m not going there.” They all say the same sentence: “I’m not going there.” They don’t believe anything else Bush says, but they believe this whole, preposterous 9/11 story. I don’t get it, I don’t get it, I don’t get it. One woman elaborated, “I don’t want to live in a world where such things could be true.” But they are, ma’am, they are.
And then there are the more stereotypical, but still confounding reactions of some folks-on-the-street. One would expect them to be as neutral about the 911 “issue” as they are about many other distant things in their lives. I say “some folks”, and my experience has been that most people will listen if they have time, sign a petition for “a new, independent investigation” after hearing about the shortcomings of the official story and official reports, and accept a free DVD to watch at home. But there are a few who treat the idea of looking into the contradictions as some kind of thought-crime. The epithets vary, but the body language is the same – that of disgust, of anger, of having been polluted by the encounter, as if they needed to go right home to shower. These sorts of interactions are few, but always upsetting, no matter how cavalierly we try to brush them off.
The other side of this, however, has been meeting and joining up with a few like-minded, like-tactic-ed individuals with whom it’s been a pleasure to share meetings, discussions and demonstrations, even if in the bubble of our own openmindedness and analyses.
The most basic downer, however is that the overall public response has undermined my faith, certainly in human rationality, but more deeply in the very possibilities of humanity. Sounds overblown, I know, but if ideological blinders are so thick, if folks are not capable of seeing what’s in front of their eyes, what makes a coherent, reasonable story and what doesn’t – then what hope is there for the survival of our species? And it’s too easy to go from there to feeling that it’s best if we acknowledge our civilization’s downfall and give it all up in the least destructive way possible. Bad thoughts. Boo. What keeps me going? “Pessimism of the intellect; optimism of the will.”
I persist with this subject matter because the stakes are so high. Even though the likelihood of mass consciousness change is so tiny, should it happen, should even 10% of it happen, it might very well be able – uniquely so -- to bring down not only our corrupt political and governance systems, and preempt the possibility of the next “9/11 terrorist attack” with its inevitable martial law follow-up, but it might also change forever the way Americans understand history and government, and decimate the pathological exceptionalism we have so deeply imbibed. Were that to happen, the world would breathe more easily.