INTRODUCTION
Richard Gage will speak in the UK on 5/7/16, and I introduce here my concerns about the 9/11 truth movement in the US. Richard and I met with my professor from college Noam Chomsky after which AE911Truth ignored Noam's suggestion that AE reach out to the civil engineering and physics professional associations if we wish to establish our credibility.
Richard Gage will speak in the UK on 5/7/16, and I introduce here my concerns about the 9/11 truth movement in the US. Richard and I met with my professor from college Noam Chomsky after which AE911Truth ignored Noam's suggestion that AE reach out to the civil engineering and physics professional associations if we wish to establish our credibility.
I
charge Richard with no longer being dedicated to the excellent
mission of AE911truth. He actually says often that Kelly David, the
COO of AE911Truth, runs things. She is dishonest and mean. AE treats
volunteers with contempt. Kelly has insisted AE not work with two
major volunteers not mentioned by name in this communication. AE's
purpose now is just to look good in order to raise money to pay the
staff that Kelly directs.
The
simple way to challenge this is to ask Richard to provide the AE
contact in the UK with regular referrals of contact information of
new UK petition signers of the AE petition, including architects,
engineers and others. He might refuse. He might agree to do it and
actually do it. He might agree to to it and not deliver, or not
deliver fully or regularly. There is a new rule AE has against
giving petition signer names and contact info to respected activists
no matter how trustworthy, as you will see below.
Please
also note that AE no longer processes petition signers in a timely
fashion. I urge you to test that system to see if they even try to
confirm AE's or others. Don't worry,they won't count them if they
can't confirm them.
Keep
in mind that Richard actually likes most people, understands the
issues correctly, and should be acknowledged as the leader he is. He
has sadly chosen to surround himself with people who give him bad
advice.
We
need brothers and sisters from across the pond to reach out to
Richard to help him turn back to the the real mission of AE. Building
a movement powerful enough achieve a real investigation should be its
focus.
Gage
Meets Chomsky
Noam
Chomsky was my professor at MIT in the early 70's and played a
significant role in radicalizing me during the Vietnam war. I still
call him Noam because he's not a stuffed shirt.
Most
of you realize he is hardly a supporter of 9/11 truth, insisting that
a real inside job would have used Iraqis rather than Saudis to hijack
the planes. Most truthers (an unfortunate term, but too prevalent to
ignore) do not accept that any Arabs were on those planes.
I've
met with Noam several times in recent years and happened to have an
appointment with him when Richard Gage expected to be in Boston for
an architecture conference. Richard asked if I could bring him to
the appointment, and I did so. I reminded Noam as we walked into the
room that Noam had publicly said he had spoken to Richard before.
In
2007 when I arranged for Richard to speak at MIT, Richard had called
directory assistance for Noam's number, not realizing that when you
take that action the phone company automatically tries to connect
you. That wouldn't have had to have been a problem, except it was
1:30AM.
Noam
answered the phone like it was 1:30PM. Richard introduced himself and
invited Noam to his talk the next night. Noam politely declined.
At
the meeting with Noam in November 2015 we presented Noam hard copies
of the nearly 100 peer reviewed papers, since Noam had publicly
called for the truth movement to produce such papers, not realizing
most of the papers we gave him had already been published at the time
of his remark.
Over
70 of these papers are available at the Journal for 911 Studies. The
other 22 are available at www.911CA.org
The
founder of that website, Rick Shaddock, has been working on Donald
Trump for years.Trump's openness to discussing 9/11 is unusual and
refreshing, though I doubt he will be open to any conclusion that
Muslims were not the culprits.
Richard
Gage kept that volume Rick had sent for Noam. Gage also still refuses
to talk to Rick, who was thrown out of AE911Truth because former AE
board chair Robert McCoy objected to where Rick had received his grad
degree, not that Rick ever pretended to speak for AE.
Controlling
what volunteers say should hardly be a priority since no one thinks
anyone but Richard speaks for AE.That's what the excellent AE videos
are for, to get the message straight.
Rick
also raised $5000 three years ago to fund the work of chemical
engineer Mark Basile, who intends to confirm the nanothermite
research of Harrit et al. Basile has stalled out and Gage refuses to
assist in pulling that problem together.
One
proposal from Noam to Richard and I was to arrange a Russell Tribunal
type investigation about 9/11. UK citizen Bertrand Russell is clearly
Noam's hero. When I would go to Noam's office as a student, he would
have a huge poster of Russell on the wall. Noam also did not think AE
could ever achieve a Congressional subpoena powered investigation of
9/11, the stated goal of AE911truth. He thought it was too huge an
issue.
He
DID, however suggest AE reach out to the American Society of Civil
Engineers (ASCE) and the American Physical Society (APS). Noam had
no idea that I had been urging Richard to support the formation of
outreach teams to civil engineers and to physicists. Before I was
thrown out as a result of my tremendous anger at the suicide of the
founder of the 911 truth legal team after she had been treated so
viciously by AE staff and board, I had found a retired civil engineer
petition signer willing to organize the over 340 civil engineer
petition signers for outreach purposes to their professional
community. That team is not currently authorized to exist within AE.
A
year after my departure from AE I found a PhD physicist petition
signer willing to be team leader of an AE physics outreach team.
Richard allowed it, and Dr Miller did receive a list of physics
petition signers. That list, suspiciously, was only eight people
long. If there are 340 civil engineers, do you believe there are only
8 physicists? Richard has shown zero concern that the people who
produced that list undermined that team, which never got off the
ground.
Currently
we established a physics and civil engineering outreach website with
comparable standards to AE. It is BazantMisconduct.com and receives no
assistance from AE, though we urge readers to respect AE's work. Soon
we will add the website PhysicsDenial.com for further outreach work
at colleges.
There
has not been an engineer on the AE board since Wayne Coste, the most
prolific speaker after Richard, was thrown out of AE WHILE HE WAS
STILL ON THE BOARD. I believe Wayne was expelled because of his
closeness to me. He had also founded 911truthoutreach.org. He felt
correctly that AE would turn away from building a movement, which it
has.
Wayne
eventually prepared a basic leaflet to the ASCE, which was
leafletted to the ASCE at conferences in NYC,Miami, and Phoenix. A
more advanced leaflet was made available for a conference in Orlando.
After
seeing Chomsky, we returned to the convention. Richard then noted
that he had tried to rent a booth at the ASCE convention, only to be
refused. I had proposed that ASCE booth idea the previous May.
After
the Chomsky meeting I suggested to Richard that he let me back into
AE especially to organize support from AE civil engineers and
physicists to get into their conventions. He was open to it. He just
needed me to apologize to COO Kelly David for the rumor she heard
that I had accused her of being a police agent. Since I HAD told that
to only a handful of people, embargoed, I was open to giving such an
apology, but I asked to have an in depth conversation with Richard
first.
Eventually
I did have that conversation with Richard. I raised a variety of
concerns about Kelly, the most important of which was her refusal to
respect Richard's continued insistence that she provide Wayne Coste,
WHILE HE WAS STILL ON THE AE BOARD, access to the petition signer
list. Wayne had organized the list to support outreach to Congress, a
team AE no longer allows to exist.
When
I raised this issue recently at a 9/11 call, Kelly asserted she
ignored Richard's mandate because AE board Chair Robert McCoy had
overruled Richard, ostensibly because Wayne was going to help me with
the list, and I had presented myself as an adversary on an AE Board
conference call. I HAD gone on a board call, but that was before
Susan Watkins had committed suicide, so it is dishonest of Kelly to
claim I had presented myself as an AE adversary on that call. I would
never have been allowed on a board call if I had taken an adversarial
position. I even had requested that McCoy and I meet in person with
the hope we could become friends. I had struggled diligently to
become friends with Gregg Roberts, my primary adversary for years at
AE.
Later,
Richard threw me out immediately after I presented myself to him as
an adversary. The terrible treatment of Susan Watkins had overwhelmed
me. For years I had been the first person anyone who contacted AE
would get to talk to, and I felt close to Susan.
All
could have been resolved to allow me back to help organize civil
engineers and physicists, but THERE WAS NO MENTION OF CHOMSKY'S
SUGGESTION OF REACHING OUT TO CIVIL ENGINEERS AND PHYSICISTS when AE
reported the meeting between Richard and Noam. All they did was
report the giving of the hard copy peer reviewed papers and include
the picture I took of Richard and Noam. They did not note that
Richard kept the 22 article gift from Rick to Noam.
My
criticism of AE is summed up in this Gage/Chomsky experience.
AE911Truth, whose insistence on only saying what they can prove I
have always fully supported, no longer takes seriously its goal of
building a movement to mandate a real investigation. They just want
to look good to raise money to pay their staff. The charge I make
is encrusted bureaucracy.
We
were so very close to repairing what was needed to reconstitute
working together so AE at least would TRY to do outreach to build a
movement. I was ready to apologize to Kelly, but when Richard
suggested I work with Andy Steele, who coordinates scientist
outreach, Andy refused to even talk to me. This is a too common
problem in the 911 truth movement, where people who fully agree that
the official story is a lie often refuse to talk to each other. I had
originally recruited Andy years earlier and later gave up my
$300/month pay for 2 months so Andy could have money to pay for the
first couple of months of hosting his radio show.
Mass
emailing AE's excellent Beyond Misinformation is Andy's way of doing
science outreach. His efforts don't hurt anything because the booklet
is so great. However, as a common sense issue, do you think
unsolicited emails get read? I'm sure some people read them. My
expectation is the percentage reading those emails is trivial. Same
for the original unsolicited hard copy snail mails to 20,000 people. AE never mentions
that these efforts fall largely on deaf ears.
They
also don't make a free downloadable leaflet of proper graphic quality
available on the website. They don't care if people who can't afford
their beautiful but expensive leaflets actually are able to leaflet.
It
doesn't matter if a leafleter is good at explaining the issue since
most people who take leaflets never interact with the leafleter.
Most people don't change their mind quickly. It usually takes months
and years.
I
prefer to get actual scientists and engineers to communicate by
conference call and email to take up projects. I prefer to have
increased volunteers personally contacting people they know to read
Beyond Misinformation.
I
actually proposed to Richard an idea he said he liked, that
architect Jan Utzon of Denmark, an AE petition signer, be supported
in sending snailmail copies of the booklet to all living recipients
of the Pritzger Prize. His father, Jorn Utzon, had designed the
Sydney Opera House and had won that most prestigious architecture
prize in the world. This simple project, which might turn around top
architects, will never occur because I proposed it, and the AE staff
hates me. Please consider inveighing upon Richard to follow through
with Utzon, whose last name on the return address of a snail mail
package would be recognized by all Pritzger Prize winners. AE has
Danish activists who can do the legwork.
- Allow me to return to the issue of Richard giving you lists.I urge your group to request of Richard that you regularly (weekly or monthly) be given the names and contact info, including date signed, of UK petition signers. They used to give out such lists without a date signed column so the person receiving it wouldn't know they no longer confirm petition signers in a timely fashion. In January AE made a rule against giving out such lists, even though there has never been an abuse of the list in 10 years. I actually would have sent this essay to all UK petition signers, but I don't have that list. The new rule holds that those who want to reach out must get an email approved by Kelly David and Bill Jacoby. Then that organizer may only call those who respond to the email. It is absurd to consider that recruiting volunteers by email is as effective as recruiting volunteers by phone.They DO NOT CARE ABOUT BUILDING A MOVEMENT. THEY ONLY CARE ABOUT LOOKING GOOD TO RAISE MONEY TO PAY STAFF. AE is run like a profit making business rather than the most important truth movement organization in the world.
Ask
Richard if the petition signer list has ever been abused. I'll be
shocked if you get an answer. He's pretty honest, so an answer would
be good to have.
I
once asked Gregg Roberts if the list had ever been abused. All he
thought of was two times people received a list and then disappeared.
There have never been reports from signers that they had been
inappropriately contacted by people we had given a list to.
Why
would they assume that calling petition signers who donate and can't
volunteer would offend those donors? My experience is those folks are
quite happy to hear that volunteers are being recruited. That in fact
is a GOOD REASON to donate more. Shouldn't we be suspicious of
whoever proposed this rule? Ask Richard who proposed the rule.
AE
does have a serious problem even processing the signatures. In May
2015 they had about 2350 A & E's. They went to the AIA convention
in Atlanta and announced they had signed up 150 architects. They just
admitted to having 2500 a couple of weeks ago. Nearly a full year
later. It seems hundreds of petition signers have not confirmed
their signature because it took too long to get back to them. I know
both a civil engineer and another signer who they won't respond to.
Most
American truthers could care less about building a movement. They
care about debating fine points with other truthers. We in the US may
be relative rubes, but rubes usually have good common sense. The US
movement does not have common sense. The problem is hardly all with
AE. At least they still only say what they can prove.
I''ll
bet the UK truth movement has good common sense.
Happy
to hear from anyone.
Skype>> davidslesinger (Baltimore)
email>> dslesinger@alum.mit.edu