Becuase Everything Else Sucks

Bill Maher Interrupted by 9/11 Truthers

By Manila Ryce
Published Saturday, October 20th, 2007, 4:57 pm
Filed under: Videos: Political, Terrorism, Society/Culture, Videos, US Politics

WPvideo 1.10

There was an altercation on Real Time last night which was quite odd to say the least. A small group of 9/11 Truthers started yelling at Maher in the middle of his show and it took a rather long time to kick them out. The last time I critiqued Maher for his dismissal of the possibility that our government had something to do with September 11th I was branded by some as a conspiracy theorist. I’ve never had an actual theory on the events of 9/11, so such accusations are simply lazy and follow along the same lines as those who’ve called me anti-Semitic for critiquing Israel. What I have argued is that all possibilities should be investigated. There is obviously a reason that the administration has suppressed a congressional study, blocked investigations, destroyed evidence, and silenced 9/11 family members. What the actual reason is, I do not pretend to know.

I understand that 9/11 is an emotional topic, but both sides of this debate have been rather ridiculous in trying to outshout each other. On one side you have people like Maher who accept the 9/11 Commission Report as gospel truth. Herein lays the hypocrisy of Maher, who lambastes all religion, but takes such a hardline stance on Israel and 9/11 that his irrational attacks resemble those of fundamentalist Christians. Then you have some Truthers who often present junk science to fit a theory they’ve already decided is true. Surely, many Truthers do bring up good points, but the most irrational are often the loudest. This video is a case in point. You’re not dispelling the myth that Truthers are nutty conspiracy theorists by yelling incoherently at a live taping.

I do not post this to elicit a great debate on 9/11, but rather as evidence of what both sides ought not to do if they want to be taken seriously. Surely Maher was in the right for kicking these people out, but it’s his arrogant statements from previous shows which eventually led up to this confrontation.

h/t Tullycast

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9 Responses to “Bill Maher Interrupted by 9/11 Truthers”

  1. It is unfortunate that people who are sincerely interested in the truth about 9/11 are lumped into the same crazy catagory. It is even more unfortunate that someone like Maher, who has such a resounding stage to speak from, buys that 3 buildings fell from a few story fires. Either way, screaming from a crowd in a studio audience won’t have the reach originally intended. Hopefully Maher will address it in the next episode.

    tigertooth
    10/21/07 at 1:22 am

  2. @tigertooth
    I doubt Maher will do anything other than continue to repudiate any valid questions which go against the official report. Instead, he’ll ride the incident as a success, validating his authority in the matter by showing that his opponents are crazy. Surely this was not the way to bring the topic into public discussion, but bleedinglib recently made the argument that Truthers are almost forced to do things like this since no one will give them an official forum to voice their questions. I think there’s some truth to that. Internet documentaries and online message boards are a poor substitute for a congressional investigation. Again, Kucinich is one of the few actually pushing for an investigation into 9/11. History has shown that false flag attacks are not only effective operations employed by rulers, but that they are employed quite frequently. Our own government has been caught several times attacking its own people to carry out capitalist agendas. How anyone with a basic understanding of history can not only dismiss this possibility outright, but ridicule people who give it any thought is beyond me.

    Manila Ryce
    10/21/07 at 8:42 am

  3. The reason the “Truthers” are so widely ignored, other than their idiotic behavior at live show tapings, is their seemingly contradictory stance that George W Bush was behind the attacks of 9/11. It is contradictory because these are usually the same people who label Dubya as a blundering idiot.
    I happen to agree with this latter sentiment, which is why I find the notion that he was behind any conspiracy of this level of ingenuity, coordination, and organization completely nonsensical.

    Look, either the man is incompetent, or he isn’t. You can’t say he’s a moron and then blame him for actually perpetrating such a sophisticated covert operation. That’s not to say that their aren’t branches, and people within them, in our government that aren’t capable of this sort of thing, but if you want to bring any sort of logical, factual evidence to the table regarding this possibility, being a loud-mouthed, eccentric yahoo whose very stance is a contradiction of itself is not the way to do it.

    PapaFigue
    10/21/07 at 11:25 am

  4. The 9/11 truth debate is unique in that both sides of the debate are almost completely dogmatic. I was having lunch with a friend the other day who’s a truther and I asked him if he’d ever heard of Frank Spinney, the famous Pentagon whistle blower. He said no. I told him about a piece written by Andrew Cockburn, a friend of Spinney, which said that Spinney told Cockburn that two of his friends were on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. He said one of his friends on the flight was identified because they matched the remains found in the wreckage with the guy’s dental records. I went on to ask my truther friend if it made sense to him, given this evidence, that the conspirators behind 9/11, who truthers suggest shot all the passengers on the flight that ostensibly flew into the Pentagon, somehow attached Frank Spinney’s friend’s body to the missile that 9/11 truthers say actually struck the Pentagon. My friend replied by saying that that didn’t make any sense to him, but that it would take a boatload of evidence like that before he would even consider relinquishing the idea of the government being behind 9/11.

    This sort of dogmatism is only outdone by the guys on the other side of the debate who refuse to even entertain the idea that the bosses of the World’s Capitalist Mafia are capable of committing atrocities on their own people, despite a horrible history of just that. Bill Maher seems to fall in that category.

    Sam
    10/21/07 at 2:15 pm

  5. How exactly is Maher a hypocrite? Can you back up this assertion: “you have people like Maher who accept the 9/11 Commission Report as gospel truth”. Since when did say this?

    Chris
    10/22/07 at 9:15 am

  6. For a clear-headed and comprehensive look at the events of 9-11, I highly recommend the book “Crossing the Rubicon” by Michael C. Ruppert. As a former narcotics officer, Ruppert presents the case as a detective investigating a homicide, using means, motive, and opportunity to arrive at the most logical explanation for what really happened. Most intriguing are the wargame exercises that were taking place on the morning of 9-11, and the insider trading on wall street in the days leading up to 9-11.

    Ra Khan
    10/22/07 at 6:45 pm

  7. The Purdue University study debunks any 9/11 conspiracy. As if they had to. When they show buildings being demolished, I see the explosions from within. No one saw these explosions when the Twin Towers came down. No one. It’s that simple. Bill Maher did the right thing and just leave it at that. These nuts who think they are the new Templar Knights have to be confronted. It’s about friggin’ time.

    Jesse
    10/30/07 at 5:08 pm

  8. Manila Ryce:

    I appreciate your sentiments. Bill Mahr and anyone who won’t even look at evidence and ask pertinent questions are hypocrites. There is no one report that explains the questions raised about the events of 911. The lumping together of people who don’t buy that our government is telling us the whole story with the radical fringe is typical and completely unhelpful. If there is a cover-up,conspiracy, or just the almost certain incomprehensible incompetence of our government, Bill becomes more smoke to cover it over and THAT makes him a hypocrite as one who frequently purports to know the truth.

    A similar thing goes on regarding the discussion of evolution which Mahr also holds religiously. Evolution is a scientific theory and it should be required to support the body of evidence available or “evolve” like all scientific theories. There are plenty of real scientific findings that the theory does not support. Nonetheless, the necessary scientific debate is cut off by people like Mahr on one side that hold that anyone who questions it believes the world is flat and rides on the back of a turtle, and on the the other side by those who mistakenly believe the Bible mandates that you can’t believe in God and science. It’s absurd and makes the pursuit of the truth of such matters a hopeless endeavor.

    Tom
    11/3/07 at 9:18 pm

  9. @Tom:
    Actually, if Maher said that the 9/11 Truthers were full of it, but privately he really believes in what they say, THAT would make him a Hypocrit. Get your definitions straight.

    Secondly, there really is no significant debate in the scientific community about the validity of Evolution. Yes, it’s a theory, as all scientific notions are. It’s a theory like Atomic Theory is theory, or Gravity is Theory. His pigeon-holing of People who think that the reality of Evolution is ‘debatable’ comes from the fact that, generally, most of these people hold some kind of religious viewpoint or “theory” that opposes it. There is in fact, very little evidence to suggest that the natural process of Selection, Mutation, and Adaptation are not responsible for the biodiversity on this planet.

    But if you have any, I’d love to hear it. Just be prepared, if your evidence is anything other than scientific, to get it shot down. Philosophical and/or religious conjecture, while fun, do not count as Evidence.

    PapaFigue
    11/4/07 at 12:55 am

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