On May 15, 2014, news media reported the opening of the National September 11 Memorial Museum, with every outlet across the supposed political spectrum, from Pacifica Radio and The Nation to Fox providing a description of 9/11 which was a verbatim recounting of the official story, a ridiculous conspiracy myth concocted on Madison Avenue by some of the industry’s worst charlatans. Such a museum makes as much sense as would a “National Creation Science Center.” Among the items in the museum are steel from the WTC towers (the debris actually provided ample evidence of just how false the official story is, provided one actually looked), and tapes of supposed last minute phone calls from passengers to relatives, calls which were initially reported as having been made on cell phones, but later (once it was pointed out that cell phone calls were impossible at that time from the heights they were allegedly made from) revised to having been made from air phones (never mind that at least one account included the caller’s cell phone number being displayed by the phone which received it).

Faced with such uniformity across the mass media, it’s no wonder that most of the American public still buy the official account of the events of that day. Even people who are skeptical of that account tend to go with the flow, for the most part unable to counter the official propaganda, and usually unable to find sources which contradict it. There are many websites with such information, but they are often hard to navigate, contain wheat mixed with chaff in various proportions, or hard science side-by-side with sheer fantasy. Often the useful analysis is not organized so that it can be easily found.

Fortunately, there is now a site which offers this information in a clear, concise way, with the material having gone through a thorough review process which ensures quality and adequate sourcing. This is the site of the 9/11 Consensus Panel, http://www.consensus911.org. As the site describes, "The 23-member panel is building a body of evidence-based research into the events of September 11, 2001. This evidence -- derived from a standard scientific reviewing process -- is available to any investigation that may be undertaken by the public, the media, academia, or any other investigative body or institution." The key part of the site is the list of Consensus Points. The 37 Consensus Points are divided into nine categories which in turn link to the individual 37 points. For example, Category B includes Consensus Points about the WTC Twin Towers, Category C includes Consensus Points about the collapse of World Trade Center 7 (several individual Points in both these categories discuss the matter of the steel from the WTC), and Category I contains Consensus Points about the "phone calls" on 9/11. A separate page lists the Panel’s members and their backgrounds. There are no appeals to anonymous “experts” here.

More points will be added with time, and existing points are always open to re-examination. The mass media’s Mighty Wurlitzer will keep on bombarding the public with disinformation no matter what. All that good people can do is provide those they know with good information. That’s all we ever had. But truth has a way of dealing with lies and the liars who tell them, the same way that turning on the lights can deal with cockroaches having a party in the dark.

Posted May 19, 2014