Slide #7 - 911 Truth Statement
Argument ad Populum
This slide adds another layer to Gage's ongoing argument ad populum. Because all of these people have questions, you should too!
This is a common tactic in persuasive presentations. In order to persuade, you have to make your listener aware of a felt need. Having lots of important people ask questions makes an individual feel left out, especially if you respect the important people asking the question.
This is ironic when it comes to the Truth Movement. They are standing up against the crowd in their beliefs, but they still feel the need to have important people to hide behind.
The crowd can often be wrong. Very important people that you respect can be wrong. What determines the truth of any hypothesis? The facts rightly identified and interpreted.
The Statement
The 911 Truth Statement was a PR opportunity for one of the more recognized Truth Movement sites, 911Truth.org. It appears to have been quite successful in gaining support for this organization, although the stated goals of the Statement itself haven't been realized.
The questions asked by this Statement are good questions. Most questions are. They all deserve answers, and many of them do have real answers.
For example, one question wonders why the Secret Service allowed Bush to stay at the school for thirty minutes, "apparently unconcerned about his safety and that of the schoolchildren." The answer is that of course they were, but they had no actionable intelligence that the school was in imminent danger. As Bush prepared an initial speech in a private room, the White House did get such a warning, and Vice-President Cheney was forcibly removed from his office to a basement shelter.
If any such information had been given to the Secret Service guarding the President, Bush would have been evacuated in the same way. In all other circumstances, the Secret Service follows the discretion of the President.
I'm not going to go into every question listed on the Statement here. Not all of them have been answered publicly in a way that would satisfy many. But it's important when asking questions that people are able to recognize actual answers.
LIHOP or MIHOP?
Another important thing to note about this slide is its front-and-center presentation of the LIHOP side of the equation, the more socially acceptable one. The quote from the press release about the Statement's delivery emphasizes that these people have "unanswered questions that suggest that people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war."
Yet Gage is positing far more than this. He is seeking to use this Statement as a gateway to lead people into his darker suggestions about 9/11. The parable about the wolf in sheep's clothing comes to mind here.
Indeed, using the 911 Truth Statement as a indicator of the beliefs of 911truth.org itself would lead someone off the mark. Links throughout the site reveal that the questions asked in the Statement are not even the tip of the iceberg for this organization. The first item in their mission statement reads as follows:
TO EXPOSE the official lies and cover-up surrounding the events of September 11th, 2001 in a way that inspires the people to overcome denial and understand the truth; namely, that elements within the US government and covert policy apparatus must have orchestrated or participated in the execution of the attacks for these to have happened in the way that they did.
That's not LIHOP. This group is using this tame press release in the same way that Gage is - as a way to ease people into their ideology.
The reason why all 330 people in Gage's slide are endorsing this call for a new probe into 9/11 is because the questions behind the Statement are the most bland LIHOP questions imaginable. Little wonder why so many important well-known people could have signed such a statement in 2004. The question I have is whether or not these people support all the stated aims of 911truth.org today.
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