"War, Fascism, concentration camps, rubber truncheons, atomic bombs, etc., are what we daily think about, and therefore to a great extent what we write about, even when we do not name them openly. We cannot help this. When you are on a sinking ship, your thoughts will be about sinking ships." --George Orwell (1903-1950)[Thanks to Alex Constantine @ http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/]
Wednesday, September 13
Fascism Alert: Academic Censorship in Utah via Desperate White House
Editorial Note: Below is a revision of a 12 September 2006 email I sent to my news list. It addresses Brigham Young University'ssanctioning of physics professor Steven Jones with ”paid leave” for off-campus remarks about his ongoing research demonstrating the World Trade Center collapsed on 11 September 2001 from “preset explosives.” Co-founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, Jones has reported his findings on national television (see vid clip below) and argues his hypothesis better fits the evidence than the unlikely coincidences claimed by the 9/11 Commission and White House the buildings “pancaked” into their own footprints from heat generated by two exploding commercial jetliners piloted into the buildings by unskilled Saudi terrorists.
The White House’s desperate fingerprints are all over this ham-fisted attempt to silence an American physicist speaking in public about a topic on which he has expertise. One of the last things George Bush and Dick Cheney want before ending their presidency is to share an 8x12 jail cell for the rest of their squalid, greedy lives. But that certainly is an option if Jones’s compelling findings--along with similar findings by other academics cited in the postscript--are afforded enough public play to force a real congressional inquiry into 9/11 should Democrats, as poll pundits are predicting, win a House majority in the November elections.
With subpoena power as new Democratic chair of the House Judiciary Committee, 12-term veteran John Conyers of Michigan, an outspoken critic of Bush White House post-9/11 abuses, can finally compel sworn testimony about 9/11 from the dyslexic commander-in-chief without Dick Cheney at his side offering scripted answers, which was the pathetic scenario at the pair’s unsown (and meaningless) joint testimony before the 9/11 Commission in 2004.
Moose
P.S. : I have a 9/11 pop quiz question for you. Who was the first professor from the Great American West who told a major newspaper the collapse of the WTC resembled those from controlled demolitions? Does the name Van Romero mean anything to you?
No? Then read my email below to see how Romero handled White House pressure to pretend he didn't know what he knows.
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Sieg Heil, ya'll:
Ah, yes; more academic censorship coming out of Utah, I see. Someday I'll have to tell you of my fatal brushes with academic "freedom" in that right-to-work state.
Nazi Germany's goose-stepping brown shirts were ronown for their suppression of professors, too.
All of which reminds me of a famous film quote: "I love the smell of fascism in the morning."
Well, that's actually a paraphrase of the infamous war-mongering lament of the US Army Colonel "Air Cav" character played by Robert Duval in the film Apocalypse Now.Duval said "napalm" instead of "fascism. We’re talking about the same thing, really.
The bright side of this sad affair is that the American Association of University Professors (www.aaup.org) is challenging Jones's sanction by Brigham Young University for out-of-the-classroom statements about9/11. If the disciplinary ruling stands, similar censure in higher education is inevitable.
Kudos to the brave AAUP souls in Washington, D.C. for backing the tenured physics professor.
Read details below about Jones's censure provided by Salt Lake City's CBS affiliate KUTV. Below that, I also provide a link to a related story from the Deseret News, the unofficial newspaper of choice of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints members. What's interesting about that article is its headline calling Jones a "'9/11 truth' professor."
Hmmm......What does D'News staff writer Tad Walch and his editor know the White House doesn't want you to know? Utah's Republican majority will have to run those commie-loving journalists out of the state for coddling a “liberal” who obscenely debates in public with logic, reason and the scientific method.
Also a devout LDS church-goer, Dr Jones has produced research--as have other members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth (www.st911.org)-- documenting the WorldTradeCenter collapsed from “preset explosives.” So he and other ST9/11 scholars are creating some serious credibility issues for the White House and 9/11 Commission's Official 9/11 Story.
An August 2 Scripps-Howard/Ohio University poll, for one, found 36% of Americans believe it was 'very likely" or "somewhat likely" that "the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop" them to justify a war in Iraq.
Ivy Tower Arm-Twisting
Of course, American news TV, the primary news source for two of every three Americans, did not devote much air time to that rather impressive figure. Nor did you hear Fox News network's Bill O'Reilly provide his unique blend of Peabody Award-winning commentary.
Jones’s sanction is the second time BYU, the conservative LDSChurch's flagship university based in the most solid Republican state in America, has yielded to White House pressure to force Jones to hold his tongue.
Having spent some time at federally-funded Level I research institutions and closely watched the Bush White House operate for over five years, I wager that significant funding is contingent on university administrators silencing the radical critic.
You don't think that would happen, 'eh? Well, it’s happened before. Here's where Van D. Romero enters the story.
Dr. Romero (left, 2001) is a professor and vice-president of research at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, which "assists in forensic investigations into terrorist attacks, often by setting off similar explosions and studying the effects." Romero himself "studies explosive materials and the effects of explosions on buildings, aircraft and other structures." An undisclosed amount of Pentagon funding keeps NMIMT faculty and administrators very happy.
On 11 September 2001, Romero just happened to be on a DC subway headed to a meeting at the Pentagon to discuss more funding for his school when a plane hit the World Trade Center.
According to the Albuquerque Journal's 9/11/01 interview with Romero after the attacks, the professor, "reported that he had studied the videos of the WTC collapse and concluded that the towers were most likely destroyed by carefully placed demolition charges. He told the 'Journal': 'It would be difficult for something from the plane to trigger an event like that'."
Ten days later, Romero remarkably recanted his original position, telling the paper "he now believes there were no explosives in the World Trade Center towers, contrary to comments he made the day of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack."
"Certainly the fire is what caused the building to fail," Romero said.
After embracing the official explanation for the World Trade Center's collapse, Romero's career and the funding and national reputation for his little New Mexico college took off. Check the bottom of this webpage for some propitious coincidences connected with Romero's abrupt change of opinion.
The subsequent phone exchange between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Romero discussing the professor's views about controlled demolitions bringing down the WTC had to go something like this:
Rumsfeld: Hey, Van; how's it hangin', ol' buddy? About that interview you gave to The Journal last Tuesday after the attacks. Are you sure you got that right? I have four million little reasons here that say you didn't. Romero: Well... ah...Secretary Rumsfeld.... Rumsfeld: Call me Rummy. Romero: Rummy? Right... Well, sir, you know.... My colleague and I indeed did paint DC bright red with Socorro tequila late into the night on 9/10. Listen, I could have been wrong about what I saw in those videos. As a matter of fact, Rummy, I know I was wrong. Rumsfeld: Good man. I knew I could count of you, VD.
Unlike Romero, Professor Jones is not recanting his expert opinion, so he's being assailed with the crueler end of the White House's censorship stick.
Watch the clip below of MSNBC resident pussy Tucker Carlson rudely handle Jones during an November 2005 interview in which Jones was asked to discuss his WTC research. (After the show, Carlson later wrote on the MSNBC website that his own loss of friends at the WTC and Jones' offense of the memory of others dying on 9/11 occasioned his rude questioning and ruffling of the BYU prof. Carlson neglected, however, to mention why he "forgot" to air a clip of WTC Building #7's collapse from controlled demolition Jones had provided Carlson to show during the interivew.)
After viewing the clip you be the judge of Jones' character and credentials. But from his self-effacing, mild manner and fluid ease before studio cameras, I readily see that this terrorist-loving, enemy-sympathizing bastard without question poses a imminent threat to the Amerika Bush and his crooked cronies have in mind.
Vid-clip Postscript: Rather than intimidate and censor its scholars, Europe seems more welcoming of expert opinion. Watch this 2.5-minute clip of Dr. Jowenko, a Dutch "control demolitions expert," tell an interviewer roughly 35 seconds into the clip that the collapse of WTC #7 was a controlled demolition. If you are a glutton for punishment and falling buildings collapsed by explosives, watch Jeff King--an MIT engineer and research scientist--discuss the WTC's signature markings of collapse from controlled demolitions.
19 September 2006 Update: 9/11 Blogger reported today Swiss structural engineering Professor Hugo Backmann now is on record claiming WTC #7, which was not struck by a plane, "likely" collapsed from controlled demoltion. The entry further provided contact information for both Backmann and Dr. Jowenko.
Another 19 September 9/11 Blogger entry also details the list of experts on record claiming controlled demolitions were used at the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001:
Several U.S. structural engineers, such as this one (second interview), have concluded that the collapse of the Trade Centers on 9/11 cannot be explained by the plane crashes and fires in the buildings
Many other experts have privately expressed skepticism of the official explanation for why the Trade Centers collapsed. Hopefully, they will also find the courage to come forward publicly.
And finally, though Van Romero never responded to any of my emails concerning his peculiar flip-flop on what brought down the WTC, perhaps your luck getting a response would be better. Use the contact info below to give the good ol' doc a phone call in New Mexico or shoot him an email and see what he has to say for himself.
Mailing Address: Dr. Van D. Romero R&ED Office - Brown Hall New Mexico Tech 801 Leroy Place Socorro, NM 87801
PROVO A national organization is coming out in support of a BYU professor placed on paid leave for his controversial theories about the September 11th attacks.
The American Association of University Professors says the school should not have placed the physics professor on leave for statements made outside of the classroom.
Steven Jones has published a paper suggesting the WorldTradeCenter towers fell because of pre-set demolition charges -- not just because they were struck by planes.
General secretary for the AAUP Roger Bowen says academic freedom also protects statements professors make outside the classroom.
Jones says he only discussed his theory in class after students asked him questions about it.
A spokeswoman for BrighamYoungUniversity says what Jones said in the classroom and how careful he was about disclaimers are subjects of the university review.
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Related story for my Utah posse: "BYU places '9/11 truth' professor on paid leave"
