9/11 Truth Leader Teleconference + Oxysilver = Failure

Last year the NYC CAN ballot initiative was justifiably rejected by the city of New York for having been written without adequate legal preparation, a fact that came as no surprise to myself and others. Feeling quite certain that I could have determined the initiative's problems myself with a day at the library, I think we should be holding someone accountable for deciding to commit a lot of movement time and money to a lost cause.

Unfortunately, instead of accountability we got excuses. "The Turning Point" is a long winded denial of responsibility for the failure of the initiative followed by a big plan to essentially run the public face of the movement. The preliminary outlines of that plan can be found in the minutes of a recent "9/11 Truth Leaders Teleconference."

"NYC CAN will launch:

-a nationwide campaign to pass local resolutions calling for a new investigation, either through local advisory ballot initiatives, or by lobbying supportive city councils where advisory initiatives are not allowed. Other causes like troop withdrawal and impeachment gained and manifested strength through this kind of coordinated national campaign.

-a PR campaign employing former government, military and intelligence professionals and hiring a PR firm to ensure access to mainstream media and a perfectly crafted public image. Writing of grant proposals for this project, an for the nationwide ballot initiative campaign, is underway. We expect to raise significant sums of money to help make 2010 a watershed year for 9/11 accountability to fully enter the mainstream.

-sustained campaign lobbying new Manhattan DA to open an investigation into the destruction of the buildings.

-getting close to a civil suit brought by 9/11 families so that we will have court ordered subpoena power."

Now, such an initiative to put the movement's best foot forward sounds like a great idea. Then again, so did the ballot initiative. As with any group or action in this movement, we should consider the credibility of those involved. Good ideas are often easily undermined by one or more people who are either incompetent or intending to do damage.

"9/11 Truth Leader Teleconference: A coalition of 9/11 truth leaders and groups has been communicating on a monthly basis (via teleconference) about supporting critical campaigns to expose the U.S. government and media cover-up on what really happened."

Have you heard of this group? Do you know who is involved? Do you trust them to be the "reputable" face of the movement? I started digging and was very upset with what I found.

Jonathan Mark facilitates the teleconferences, published the minutes, and seems to be playing a prominent role in group. Mark runs FlybyNews and is an assistant organizer for Valley911Truth. He's also an affiliated vendor of Oxysilver. What is that and why is that a bad thing?

Oxysilver is a brand of 'colloidal silver', a snake-oil cure-all product marketed to the uneducated and more easily fooled. It claims to "eliminate the need for harmful vaccines and anti-biotics." The product is propped up by a rather typical pyramid scheme and has been widely discredited by the medical establishment. It has few established positive effects when utilized for specific purposes and a number of potential negative side effects. Those promoting it generally have little medical credibility.

Now, each of us is free to have internal contradictions. Jonathan Mark is free to make money lying to people while he promotes the truth in his spare time. However, I would hope that it's clear to most that we wouldn't want him to relate his questionable means of income and his 'truth' related political interests.

Well, unfortunately, he's done exactly that.

First of all, he posted an advertisement about Oxysilver to 911blogger (thankfully removed since I published this post). Alex Jones has advertisements for Oxysilver on his sites. But then AJ is not committed to fact based political promotion or the 9/11 truth movement. 911blogger is a site devoted to 9/11 truth and should not be used for personal gain or commercial promotion.

Second, and far more damning, Mark invited the head of the company, Len Horowitz (pictured above), to speak during a conference call!?! The first half of the minutes read like a commercial for the product.

"It was great hearing from Richard Gage, and we tried recapping a very detailed and broad ranging conversation-presentation by Len Horowitz. I wish I had this one recorded; his expertise and connecting the false flag operation of 9/11/01 to this current crisis of a created pandemic is important, but we also learned why his product, OxySilver, and other high quality silver hydrosols, work well in killing pathogens as H1N1.. and most any bacteria, virus, or fungus pathogen.

Dr. Len as clearly warning us of the nature of this "emergency" to pull off a vaccination campaign to spread the live virus and disease, (which could coincide with other crises in the economy and environment), all adding into incentives for the government to place us under martial law "to control the masses." Sounds crazy to me. How would it sound to members of our more skeptical target audience?"

Let's recap. A prominent member of a group that intends to represent the more reputable and credible aspects of the 9/11 truth movement has made it clear that he is comfortable taking advantage of that position for personal gain and also comfortable relating matters of fact with exploitive fallacy.

And what does that say about the "9/11 Truth Leaders" group? Nothing good.

Like the ballot initiative before it, we have people involved who can easily be used to paint a negative picture of the effort. Edgar Mitchell promoted alien encounters and Jonathan Mark wants you to drink silver. Both may genuinely care about 9/11 truth. Neither should play a prominent leadership role in the movement.

Bottom line: We can't let our desire to trust people and to assume the best of their intentions get in the way of a practical view of what is best for the public face of this movement.

Alex Jones - 'Birther' or 'Truther'?

This week we saw one of the most coordinated attacks on the movement yet from the mainstream media as those promoting the fallacy that Obama isn't a U.S. citizen were widely compared to those promoting 9/11 truth.

Is there any truth to the allegation that Obama is not a citizen? One might appeal to authority and argue that we should at least take the possibility seriously because seventeen members of congress support the notion in one way or another. Of course, that would be to ignore that they are all Republican and politically motivated. This became readily apparent when a resolution proclaiming Obama's birthplace to be Hawaii passed unanimously in the House. None of those involved were willing to stand behind the allegations.

In fact, it has been established beyond any reasonable doubt that Obama is a U.S. citizen. His birth certificate is readily available. Announcements of his birth in local Hawaiian newspapers have been recovered. And a birth certificate produced that appears to indicate that Obama was born in Kenya is a very clear forgery.

One might assume that media outlets are making a connection between these claims and 9/11 truth for no other reason than to characterize 'birthers' as also being "conspiracy theorists" and therefore having no credibility. It would also be possible that some are hoping to malign the movement due to recent progress.

However, there are now at least two justifiable reasons why this connection could be made. First, attorney and problematic 9/11 truth advocate Philip J. Berg filed a petition for review of Obama's citizenship with the U.S. Supreme Court. The court tossed out the complaint, but it is still pending review by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The Wikipedia entry on "Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories" states that Berg is a "9/11 conspiracy theorist." And MediaMatters recently emphasized his relationship to the movement.

Second, Alex Jones, viewed by many as a prominent 9/11 truth movement figure, has recently promoted the 'birther' position by featuring a story on the subject at his website Prison Planet and having Berg as a guest on his show to talk about the issue. While Jones is more widely known for the extreme libertarian views he espouses on his daily radio show, many of those involved in 9/11 truth consider him to be one of the movement's most important advocates.

One might argue that if Alex Jones promotes 9/11 truth that the benefit of the exposure he is able to achieve outweighs the potential negative effect his other interests might have on the movement. Many argue that 'all press is good press.' However, in the case of Alex Jones, not only does this appear to be a foolish assumption, but his promotion of the 'birther' issue stands in stark contrast to the founding principles of 9/11 truth movement.

We have clearly seen in the past that Alex Jones is used by the mainstream media to undermine the movement, most recently when he was identified as being a potential influence on the Pittsburgh police shooter. One might argue that the movement gets this kind of treatment all the time, and yet you don't see less ideological figures like Richard Gage, for instance, being tied to violence or extremism. It is certainly what Alex Jones advocates that makes him, and by association the 9/11 truth movement, a victim of such negative publicity.

In the case of his support for the 'birther' issue we should identify an even more obvious problem. As it is clear that the issue is based in fallacy, how are we to take seriously Alex Jones' commitment to truth. Central to the credibility of the 9/11 truth movement is a strict adherence to the promotion of well founded, factual information. We make room for speculation within the realm of research. But prominent movement news is factual news. In contrast, we see here Alex Jones promoting an outright fallacy.

The 9/11 truth movement is a non-partisan effort. There should be no intent to restrict participation based on valid and tolerant political viewpoints. The problem with Alex Jones is certainly not his advocacy of libertarian values. However, it is absolutely antithetical to the core principles and integrity of the 9/11 truth movement to consider anyone promoting fallacy to be a leader. Many have expressed very strong concerns about the impact of Alex Jones on the movement. We can now add the promotion of blatant fallacy to that list.

For that reason I strongly encourage anyone concerned about this, supports and detractors alike, to seriously consider the role Alex Jones is playing in the movement at present, the impact his actions are having, and how we might, at the very least, encourage him to stick to the facts. And if he refuses to do so, we should consider distancing ourselves and our 9/11 related projects from him and his media.

Alex Jones can not be both a 'birther' and a 'truther.'