In the company of insanity

I visted San Francisco on Saturday with my brother and his friend. It was a beautiful day in the city, except for the mobs of tourists crowding Market Street. As we made our way through Union Square, a rally was taking place behind the cable car turntable...and it was organized by the 9/11 truth movement.

I have seen them before on TV...I have visited their crazy websites and seen them protest before Bill Clinton and Bill Maher. I have seen Bill O'Reilly shout it out with them on his program on several occasions. But until Saturday, I had never actually seen one of them in real life. But there they were, roughly a dozen of them, armed with megaphones, DVD's, and pamphlets to "educate" the Bay Area community about what they believe really happened on September 11th, 2001.

My amateur journalistic skills got the better of me and I just had to approach them. I talked to several representatives from the group, and I asked them the question I have always wanted to ask these nutjobs: What about the planes? They have plenty of theories about "controlled demolition" but despite devoting overwhelming thought into defying reality, the fact that four planes were hijacked on that terrible day cannot be pushed aside. Here are some theories they offered me...

• "Bin Laden is really a CIA Agent!"
• "The plane's were remote controlled...it would take a pilot several tries to hit the Pentagon"
• "Neocon agents willing to die for Cheney's imperialism hijacked the planes, not Arab terrorists"

But the craziest theory of all came from two girls decked out in their 9/11 truth gear. They suggested to me that the passengers aboard the hijacked plane were gassed unconscious and robots then took control of the plane. Really, I just can't make this stuff up...

One guy I talked to was obviously high on marijuana, I could tell by the look in his eyes and his repeated use of "who knows?" after offering up each conspiracy theory. So then I figured out how these people make sense of their delusional nonsense: they blaze up a joint before each rally. After all, how else would you actually believe that robots, not Al-Qaeda terrorists, were the hijackers on 9/11.

Truthers march in a 2007 rally in Los Angeles. The rally I observed wasn't quite this big, but nevertheless, it was equally disturbing to watch. I'll download some of my pics when I get them.

I would have burst out laughing at these theories if it weren't for the enormous disrespect it generates for the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. If any of this is accepted as reality, what does it say about the heroes on United Flight 93?

But the "truther" nutjobs have no respect for real heroes anyway. They explained to me that the attacks were carried out in order advance an imperialist agenda across the world, and then stated that the terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan who blow up innocent men, women, and children are "defending their country". I asked them if Salih Al-Ajmi could really have been a CIA agent, and they said "its certainly possible. For those of you who don't know, Al-Ajmi was a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who was released, traveled to northern Iraq, and promptly blew himself up outside of a military checkpoint (manned by Iraqi soldiers) when the opportunity presented itself. They believe that the overwhelming majority of detainees are innocent Bedouins and Nomads being rounded up by the U.S. Government.

Finally, me and my brother brought home a copy of one of their free DVD's and it featured an "architect" in a suit explaining how the buildings came down via demolition explosives, as if some moron with a tie actually adds more legitimacy than mangy, dirty, San Francisco protesters shouting into a crowd with a megaphone. I quickly threw the DVD where it belongs--in the trash.

What makes my blood boil more than any deluded theory these kooks conjure up is the notion that they are somehow patriotic. They ask how people like myself could "question their patriotism" when they suggest that the US government is responsible for mass murder on the streets of New York or defend the actions of the terrorist scumbags in Iraq who strap women and children with explosives.

At the end of the day, this is about dislike of Bush. The 9/11 truthers hate him so much that they need an excuse to justify their blinding hatred for the man.