The Great Conspiracy reviewed

I few days ago I wrote a review on Fox TV’s “Conspiracy: Did We Land on the Moon?” I was also asked to review Barrie Zwicker’s “The Great Conspiracy: the 9/11 News Special You Never Saw.” In it, Zwicker attempts to show that the tragic events of 9/11 were, in fact, orchestrated by our very own government. This is my review.

In (mis)quoting Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “The greatest thing we have to fear is fear itself,” Zwicker opens with “Fear may be the greatest single motivator. It can serve us and it can save us, but ill-founded fear – that’s another story.”

And there, in the first 2 minutes of this “documentary” Zwicker has provided the irony of his own theories. In attempting to show that instead of fighting fear, “today’s leaders traffic in it, chiefly the fear of terrorism,” he simply creates another fear - the fear that our government is somehow duping us in order to gain further control over us.

First off, I have to really wonder about the validity of someone’s claims when they cannot even get one of the most well-known quotes of American history right in the first two minutes of their program. Roosevelt did not say “The greatest thing we have to fear is fear itself” but rather “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” A minor point you might say. But in saying the “greatest thing” it is implying there are other things to be feared, whereas Roosevelt gave only one thing to fear – fear itself. It makes me wonder that since Zwicker couldn’t even get this quote right, what other stuff has he completely missed or even made up? As the program continues, it seems this isn’t the only thing he’s embellished, misrepresented or fabricated.

There are a couple of things that Zwicker gets exactly correct right off the bat. It would seem that a person’s level of patriotism is directly correlated to that person’s level of support for our military endeavors or what our government deems best. I agree that this should not necessarily be the case. Someone can still be extremely patriotic and not agree with the reasons for our being in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Secondly, there has indeed been an overuse of sensationalizing headlines or, as Zwicker puts it, “the promiscuous issuing of terror alerts.” I daresay these are used by media outlets solely for the purpose of selling newspapers or garnering higher ratings simply because bad news sells. However, the connection between these two things and a government conspiracy is shaky at best. A brief look at American history will show that both of these tactics have been used since the nation was first founded and probably even before then. This is certainly nothing new

What is the great conspiracy? According to Zwicker, it is the “fact” of “bloody terrorist events carried out, not by foreign, but by our governments to trick the public into supporting war and police state agendas,” namely as evidenced in the 9/11 tragedy. Since in conspiracy theories such as this, you’ll hear the term “police state” quite frequently, let’s pause for a minute and define what exactly is meant by the term. The American Heritage Dictionary defines a police state as “a state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic, and political life of the people, especially by means of a secret police force.” This is important to keep in mind.

Zwicker attempts to show how the U.S. has practiced its own version of terrorism in foreign nations for at least the past 50 years. He then goes back even further to Columbus’ conquests in 1492 to show that this American version of terror isn’t new. But here again, attempting to paint these accounts with the conspiracy brush, he ignores human tendencies when it comes to national governments. Why didn’t he go back to the Inquisition? Or the Crusades? Or any number of wars throughout the world’s history? Each and every one of these displayed the exact same human tendencies of conquest and the desire for national power. Were these some sort of conspiracy to gain a police state? He also points out that “on one side – ours – the use of terror either is not admitted or is simply defined as ‘not terror’ and the other side’s terror is defined as ‘the only kind of terror.’” In doing this, he seems to overlook not only motivations behind varying acts of terror, but seems to be lumping any act of national defense (of any sort) as an “act of terror.”

Next comes an historical misrepresentation from just before our involvement in WWII. No conspiracy theory is complete without some correlation to Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler and in this point, Zwicker does not disappoint. He recounts the burning of the Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany in 1933 and how Hitler used the ensuing fear of communism to pass legislation in the German government “to counter the ‘ruthless confrontation of the Communist Party of Germany.” (Wikipedia) In showing how governments perform acts of terrorism on themselves Zwicker states that “The Nazis masterminded the torching of the Reichstag…one week before a national election. That they did so is historical fact.” This is where the misrepresentation comes in. A quick Google search will reveal that whether or not the Nazis themselves were involved is far from “historical fact” and is still a matter of some speculation. Yes, the Nazis certainly capitalized on the event, but to say that their involvement is “historical fact” is a gross misrepresentation of the truth. Yet Zwicker uses this to show the correlation between the Nazi government and the U.S. government, particularly in light of the 9/11 events. In the same manner as the Nazis, he alleges, “within hours of the planes crashing into the WTC, the Bush White House designates the alleged villains.”

Another claim made frequently by conspiracy theorists is that civil liberties have been reduced and dissent criminalized. But which civil liberties have been reduced has yet to be spelled out or detailed. Again, the ironic truth is that his dissenting “documentary” is still available for anyone to watch, conspiracy theory books are still available in bookstores, dissenting websites are still available, and authors of these works are not in jail. So much for a police state.

Zwicker makes what is perhaps the most ignorant statement when he says, “The designated scapegoats of 9/11 [the Muslim men] gained nothing positive from it.” Apparently, he is either completely ignorant of the teachings of radical Islam or is convinced that such a teaching is also a fabrication of the U.S. government. And here again, the non sequitur is made that whoever’s agenda benefits the most is obviously the cause of the event. But even this assumes all benefits are equal or at least of the same nature. These two issues alone – ignorance of Islamic teaching and non sequiturorial assumptions – are the basis for the entire “documentary.”

As another example of linking one thing with another when it doesn’t necessarily follow is the statistic he gives from a Canadian study. The poll says that 63% of Canadians think that “individuals within the U.S. government including the White House had prior knowledge of the plans for the events of September 11^th, and failed to take proper action to stop them.” Having prior knowledge of an event and being an instigator of that event are two different and entirely separate things. This is evidenced by a statistic from the same study that was not cited: that only 16% of those surveyed thought the U.S. government was in some way “involved in the planning and execution of the events of September 11th.”

The list and Zwicker’s droning goes on and includes such “facts” that the U.S. government had a “secretly contrived” hand in the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, the attack on Pearl Harbor, etc. Zwicker doesn’t provide any evidence whatsoever for these mentioned and the evidence that he does attempt to show does not provide proof or evidence of any kind other than that the government could have done such and such. And since it has been done before (argues Zwicker), then obviously “it wouldn’t be a first” for the Bush administration to do so either.

Zwicker finally gets to the main point of the “documentary” in discussing the government’s involvement in the 9/11 attacks. He quotes varying sources and documents, and includes an interview with Michael C. Ruppert, another conspiracy theorist, author and investigator. The ultimate motive behind the attacks is, of course, oil or the growing lack thereof. Once again, however, the problem with the so-called “evidence” and “facts” presented here is simply someone taking one thing said or done, reading into it their own preconceived notions of what actually happened, and presenting the results as “Here’s what actually happened!” However, this line of thinking takes a mistake and puts malice into the intents of those who made the mistake. It attempts to claim an inside scoop into what those who made the mistake were thinking, feeling, and wanting.

Zwicker questions what Bush knew and when he knew it. He begins with the classroom whisper in Bush’s ear that purportedly informed Bush of what was going on. Zwicker points out that this whisper came “20 minutes after the first aircraft smashed into the WTC, 18 minutes after CNN breaks into regular programming.” Later, in attempting to show that Bush knew about what was going on before he even got to the school, Zwicker quotes a report by ABC’s John Cochran in which Cochran claims to have asked Bush as he left his hotel, “Do you know what’s going on in New York?” to which Bush replies in the affirmative. Here’s the problem I have with that. Timelines put Bush leaving his hotel at approximately 8:30 a.m. The first plane did not hit the WTC until 8:46 a.m., a full 15 minutes later. How could the reporter know what had happened in New York before it had even happened? And once again, how could Zwicker possibly know Bush’s motives for continuing his visit with the school once Bush had been told? Is it possible that since at the time of Bush’s arrival at the school, only one plane had been crashed and the scope of the emergency was not yet known? And further, as the 9/11 Commission Report points out, when Bush was informed of the second plane, is it not feasible to think that Bush did indeed want to project a calm demeanor? The point is, we don’t know and thus cannot assign malicious intent, let alone some grand government scheme, from these and similar events. Zwicker also contends that Bush’s statement that he saw the first plane hit the WTC couldn’t have occurred (and he couldn’t have) unless government-operated cameras were set up so that he could watch. However, once again, this is attributed malice to a simple verbal mistake. It’s funny that even though the media loves to pick apart Bush’s statements that, quite honestly, are often filled with horrible verbiage, yet in this he is taken quite literally without any hint of the possibility that he misspoke.

In yet another misrepresentation, Zwicker quotes the 9/11 Commission Report saying, “The Commission imagines, page 39, that as late as 9:30, quote ‘no one in the (president’s) traveling party had any information…that other aircraft were hijacked or missing.’ Wrong! The Commission imagines that it can get away with such claims, even though millions of people saw T.V. news reports about the hijackings on CNN beginning at 8:48.” Zwicker would have us believe that the Commission is saying the President didn’t know about either of the first two plane crashes. But what does the report actually say and what timeframe were they talking about? In the report just a few paragraphs before the one Zwicker quotes, it clearly states that the president was told about the second plane. The “other aircraft” mentioned are NOT the first two planes as Zwicker would want us to believe as evidenced by his reference to CNN coverage of those two crashes, but rather the report’s focus is the remaining two aircraft, the first of which did not crash until 9:43. The report is clear on this and I have a hard time believing Zwicker did not read the few paragraphs that came before the quote. Yet he seemingly purposefully misleads by insisting the report is talking about the first two aircraft.

In the end, was there some incredible incompetence in how the events and subsequent investigations were handled? Absolutely. But does this incompetence necessarily require both a pre-existing knowledge and an active role in bringing the events about? Absolutely not! And here Zwicker fails miserably in trying to prove his theories.

Zwicker does end on a correct note and one worth repeating: “Upholding the U.S. Constitution obligates one to guard against enemies, foreign and domestic. The founders of the country included that for a good reason. They knew that for centuries, governments had turned toxic. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and not just from outside threats.”

Rick Warren, Websites, and Inaugurations, Oh my!

Much hoopla has been made already about the fact that Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church and author of the hugely popular “Purpose Driven” books, has accepted the invitation to give the invocation at President-Elect Obama’s inauguration. I’m not really interested in going into the why’s or why not’s of whether he should be offering the prayer. My opinion is that if someone is going to do it, why not a person with at least some evangelical leanings?

The latest development that has some evangelicals in an uproar is that the Saddleback website appears to have removed their page covering questions about creation, evolution, and homosexuality. This has been interpreted as Warren’s bowing to pressure in order to be more “politically correct” or perhaps “less offensive.” Those who already disagree with his accepting the invitation have latched onto this as further ammunition against the man.

Now, I’m not particularly a fan of Rick Warren and in all fairness I have yet to read any of his materials and so cannot offer an objective opinion on his beliefs. But, to borrow a Shakespearean phrase, methinks much ado is being made about nothing. Did Saddleback really remove any reference to their beliefs on these issues? A closer look will reveal the truth.

The page in question was the Small Group Information page, which previously had questions “taken from actual questions from Saddleback members and the resulting answers from Saddleback’s pastors.” While the contents of this page has been completely removed, a Google cache of the page can be found here. The questions/answers under scrutiny are #s 30 and 48. If you were to type in the same URL, you would see a page pretty much empty of content, except for side links of course. However, another page has appeared with a slightly different URL, but looking very similar.

At first glance, it would seem that the list is identical to the cached/removed page with the exception of the “offending” questions, but that is perhaps because we are specifically looking for these questions. Take another look at the two lists. You’ll notice that not only are they are vastly different in content, they are different in focus. Surprising to me is the fact that while the omission of the questions regarding homosexuality and creation are spotlighted, very little issue has been made about the omission of questions regarding communion, the Trinity, the deity of Christ, baptism, salvation, etc. Why are these far more important doctrinal issues ignored while the two hot topic items of creation and homosexuality focused on? As mentioned before, it also appears that the page in general has shifted the focus from general questions about Saddleback to more specific questions about Small Groups, which makes sense given that the page is about Small Groups.

But has the Saddleback website erased any reference to its stance on homosexuality and creation? No! A quick search of the website brings up this page answering the question “What does the Bible say about Homosexuality?” Another page from the Small Group Pastoral Care Resources addresses the issue in discussing sexual purity. Further, there are several pages dealing with the topic of creation and evolution in a manner that makes it evident what Saddleback’s position is. There are also pages dealing with questions on the Trinity, salvation, etc. on their Bible Q&A page.

While on the surface the changes might seem at the very least done in bad timing, we certainly don’t know the behind-the-scenes intentions of those responsible for the website. Perhaps this change was already in the works. We don’t know. As believers, let’s follow James’ advice: “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19) and avoid the Christian tin foil hat.

Fly me to the moon

I was asked to view a couple of programs and to write my thoughts on them. The first is Fox TV’s “Conspiracy: Did we Land on the Moon?” The other is “The Great Conspiracy” – a documentary focusing on the events surrounding the 9/11 tragedy. This review will focus on the first and at some time later I’ll try to review the second.

To begin with and to be fair, I am not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t own a tin foil hat. So I am already biased against any “factual” evidence or information that was presented in these documentaries. Also, there are many, many websites that have reviewed this program and conspiracy theory. One of which is of course, Snopes. Another site is Bad Astronomy (BA), which reviews the program in detail and which I have cited a couple of times.

The “Conspiracy: Did We Land on the Moon?” program examines whether or not NASA’s Apollo space program actually succeeded in putting a man on the moon. The program attempts to question the validity of the government’s claim that we did indeed land on the moon by presenting a number of “factual problems” that conspiracy theorists have with the evidence. The difficulty that I have with conspiracy theories such as these is that each claims to have an inside scoop on what really happened. They supposedly say that they simply want the viewer to decide for themselves, yet only show one side of the argument – theirs. There are so many factually incorrect statements or faulty assumptions made that to go over each of them would take too long and probably bore the reader. I’ll only touch on a few of them, but if you are interested further, I would highly recommend visiting the Bad Astronomy site above.

The main protagonist is a skeptical analyst and engineer named Bill Kaysing, who worked for Rocketdyne, the designing company of the Apollo rockets. His first comment arises from the many issues of the Apollo program “that led people to believe that we’re never going to make it to the moon.” Right off the bat, there are a couple of things worth noting. First, Kaysing is “regarded as the instigator of the moon hoax movement.” (Wikipedia) As such, the program cites him heavily. Second, although he is presented as an authority on the Apollo rockets, Kaysing was not actually employed by Rocketdyne during any of the Apollo space program’s manned flights. (He resigned in 1963 and the first manned flight was not until 1968.) Third, while he claims to have knowledge of this and other space programs by way of documents he was privy to, this was apparently not even sufficient concrete evidence for him because all he could lay claim to was “a hunch, an intuition, … a true conviction.” In my opinion, if someone has seen documented evidence that a hoax was being perpetrated, as Kaysing claims, that person shouldn’t have to rely on “a hunch.” Later in the program, Kaysing says (with dramatic music cueing in the background!) “What actually happened in my mind, during the 60’s, is they said if you can’t make it, fake it (emphasis added).” So Fox TV is here quoting a guy who relies heavily on hunches and his own interpretation (“What actually [?] happened in my mind [!]) of what may have happened.

Kaysing’s first real issues come when he’s watching video footage of the Apollo landing and realizes that there are no stars in any of the photographs, that the U.S. flag is waving in an atmosphere without air (i.e., a vacuum), and there is no blast crater underneath the Lunar Landing Module (LLM). I’ll only mention the bit about the stars by copying a quote from the BA site:

“So why aren't they in the Apollo pictures? Pretend for a moment you are an astronaut on the surface of the Moon. You want to take a picture of your fellow space traveler. The Sun is low off the horizon, since all the lunar landings were done at local morning. How do you set your camera? The lunar landscape is brightly lit by the Sun, of course, and your friend is wearing a white spacesuit also brilliantly lit by the Sun. To take a picture of a bright object with a bright background, you need to set the exposure time to be fast, and close down the aperture setting too; that's like the pupil in your eye constricting to let less light in when you walk outside on a sunny day.

"So the picture you take is set for bright objects. Stars are faint objects! In the fast exposure, they simply do not have time to register on the film. It has nothing to do with the sky being black or the lack of air, it's just a matter of exposure time. If you were to go outside here on Earth on the darkest night imaginable and take a picture with the exact same camera settings the astronauts used, you won't see any stars!"

Perhaps the silliest part of the program is where similarities are drawn between the movie Capricorn One and the Apollo landings. Capricorn One was a movie about how NASA had to fake a landing on Mars. Fox TV’s program says “The Apollo footage is strikingly similar to the scenes in Capricorn One” even down to some of the dialogue (“the surface is fine and powdery…”) Wow, so the Apollo hoaxers copied the movie to make their fake moon landings, right? Well, um, no. See, Capricorn One wasn’t made until 1978, almost 10 years after the Apollo 11 landings. So is it any surprise that a movie being made about a hoax landing be patterned after a real landing to offer authenticity? That this correlation between the movie and the Apollo landing was even mentioned in the program is incredibly sensationalizing at best. Once again, a Kaysing interview is shown where his reasoning for claiming that the whole thing was a hoax was that NASA had the budget to pull it off (since their budget is obviously so much greater than a film producer), but didn’t have the technology for the real thing. However, even then, no factual evidence is even presented.

Coming a close second in silliness is the association with, you guessed it, Area 51. Did you know that Area 51 has hangers that look like movie studios? Never mind the fact that movie studios look like hangers. Did you know that in the desert around Area 51, there is sand very similar in texture to moon dust/sand? And (and I know this is hard to imagine), the desert is barren just like the moon, complete with craters! Why, even astronauts see the similarities! Yes, this is the kind of ridiculous associations made by these conspiracy theorists.

Unfortunately, the program along with the conspiracy theory is chock full of these astounding assumptions, all of which are necessary to uphold the absurd claims made by those who believe them. As noted by a NASA spokesman in the program, every single piece of evidence showing a moon landing must be refuted in order to allow the conspiracy theorists their day in the spotlight. However, all the theorists have is conjecture, presupposition, and a whole rocket load full of faulty assumptions. They even go so far as to claim that NASA purposefully murdered astronauts in order to keep the hoax a secret. As pointed out earlier, they “have a hunch” or present what happened “in their mind” or what "could/may have happened"– all this without one shred of evidence to support these hunches. Overall, this program, like the theory it is about, can have holes poked in it as easy as, well, as tin foil.