Wasted Time - Citizen Investigation Team

I have fully reviewed the eyewitness testimony, videos, and other contents of the Citizens Investigation Team website. I've had a very extended online debate with Craig Ranke about his work. I have heard the opinions of many who support the efforts of the organization. And I have come to a conclusion.

CIT offers the movement no significant benefit and in fact does a great deal of damage.

Now it's not my intention here to retread all the reasons for my having reached that conclusion. That would be a waste of our time as most of those reasons are clarified elsewhere. Reasons that are recognized by a large number of the most thoughtful and committed of movement veterans.

Instead I want to convey my direct experience of having seen CIT create an unproductive distraction that wastes people's time and undermines our ability to recruit new participants and maintain our optimism.

Public distraction

Since the release of their online video "The Pentacon," CIT has continued to garner a fair amount of attention. That's particularly true when you compare how much more attention they have received than more factual resources such as "The Truth and Lies of 9/11." And with the support of various movement figures CIT has become a lot better known than the quality of their work would otherwise merit.

As a result, those newly investigating the problems with the official story are more easily lead away from the solid facts and distracted by speculation. And that speculation gives people who don't support our efforts even more reason to dismiss the solid facts we promote. That has been particularly evident to me during street action when the first thing out of people's mouths is, "So you are those people who think no plane hit the Pentagon." With such a bias in place those people are far less likely to explore the evidence.

The prominence of poorly founded speculation can also lead to new participants getting overloaded and confused. With all of the 9/11 truth media available it's very challenging for the uninitiated to get their head wrapped around what is and is not worth their attention. For that reason any prominent promotion of poorly founded speculation can really undermine our ability to recruit and retain new participants.

Movement distraction

While we might not expect the average person to get that far into analyzing or debating what CIT presents, those in the movement who hope to have a broad view of it's nature or who are invested as I am in upholding certain standards are more likely to research the matter, think about it's merits, and talk about it with others.

That is certainly productive to a point. As I said above, I took the time to examine the information presented by CIT. I wanted to determine it's merits and weaknesses so that I could share that with others. That in itself is no waste of time. You can't support what's good or counter what is bad without knowing about it first.

However, there is a threshold of time invested beyond which further discussion is very definitely unproductive. And I've passed it many times. As much as I enjoy discussion forums and e-mail, arguing in circles for hours is not a worthwhile endeavor. I feel fairly guilty when I consider how many hours I've wasted arguing with people unwilling to change their mind in any way. I could have been doing something more beneficial for the movement.

I've had my share of interaction with Craig Ranke, Aldo Marquis, and others, who have argued in a similarly inflexible manner. They are totally sold on the merits of CIT's work. Arguments with Ranke were circular, only superficially rational, filled with subtle manipulation, and ultimately totally without much benefit to either of us.

I feel the same is true for much of the discussion that goes on in the movement on this topic. As I don't believe that the eyewitness testimony is of any great importance when compared to better established facts, I am very concerned that the movement not be wasting time the way I have on this matter. We really do have more important things to be concerned with.

Personal distraction

Finally, and related to the concerns above, are we letting our ego get involved? Are we thinking about how to win an argument when we should be concerned with other things? Are we allowing ourselves to be baited into wasting our time? Or arguing because it's something to do? Are we having a debate because we are bored?

This movement requires a certain amount of personal discipline. I've certainly been guilty of all of the above. I understand that our feelings and ego and personality can't be totally disassociated from these concerns. Pursuit of 9/11 truth is a very personal experience in some ways. And yet the scope of the movement is international. The goals are based on fundamental principles of justice. And the stakes are really high.

We have to be able to see past ourselves as we involve ourselves in this concern. We have to be able to shelve our personal desires from time to time for the sake of what is best for others. There aren't nearly enough people truly committed to this movement. We need everyone who is to try their best to keep their wits about them and stay focused on the big picture. We need to keep asking ourselves if what we are doing is good for us or for the movement. Hopefully both. But that's not always the case.

Ultimately I'm suggesting that we should all simply take CIT for what it's worth. Even if you happen to support their research I hope you will agree that there are more important lines of inquiry in the movement and more important things for us to be promoting. Don't allow a speculative concerns to dominate your time, energy, or concern for this movement.

Wasted Time - Remote Controlled Planes

This will be a series of posts in which I address topics of interest within the movement that I believe do little to advance it's general goals. Whenever I bring up "general goals" I find that people want to debate what those are. That in itself is an issue worth it's own post.

The most widely accepted goals of the movement are to promote public skepticism about the official account, to formulate an accurate, fact based alternate history of the event, to secure a new independent investigation, and to expose those responsible and bring them to justice. There are other motivations for participation, but these are the most central.

Now, along with these goals comes a fairly diverse range of strategies for pursuing them. And my aim here is not to be critical of that diversity. Sometimes you need to try something to see if it will work, and the movement benefits greatly from diverse options being put on the table.

Within that variety some things just don't work for us.

The subject of remote control of the planes on 9/11 is one of those subjects that I believe do little more than distract us from more worthy pursuits. Here's why. We have no strong evidence that this happened. We most likely never will. And there really are more important things for us to be focusing on than questions with no answer.

There are certainly reasons to think it was possible. We know for instance that major U.S. airlines have deployed remote control systems. However, the possibility of its use is critically different from having any direct evidence that the technology was actually used. And that's a distinction that cuts right to the definition of the movement. Did it happen or not?

Nick Levis has pointed out to me (roughly) that this kind of speculation can help those with a great deal of information to determine weak points in the official story that we might benefit from exploring in more detail. Asking questions can lead to unexpected insight.

And I'm such an info nerd that I'd be as likely as anyone to talk about the latest tidbit. I might enjoy learning all sorts of details about the latest military technology and trying to fit it into how the whole operation all went down. But ... Is that really a good thing? Important?

I've tried more recently to maintain some perspective. 9/11 truth is not about me or you. It has nothing to do with what makes us feel good or fascinated or fulfilled. 9/11 truth is about our mutual dedication to the high principle of truth. People have sacrificed so much for that. We should be grateful and mindful of what they taught us. And we should express that gratitude in active ways.

For that reason, I'm suggesting that sitting around thinking about what might have happened is a potentially serious waste of our time. It might make us feel closer to some truth and yet does not in any way challenge those in power.

What can we DO?

We've had all the facts we need to promote 9/11 truth and push toward our goals since very soon after the event. And yet people continue to hope for some ultimate theory or smoking gun that will break the case wide open. We may yet see some new insight have a major impact on the mainstream consciousness. But too much time is spent not really appreciating the significance of what we already know, and know well.

And so we have to avoid the temptation to fill in the blanks on our own. Instead we should strive to be experts of the exact boundary between what is and is not known. The truth should be our goal and our method.