September 9, 20049/11 Citizens' Commission,
"THE OMISSIONS HEARINGS"
Developed by 9/11 CitizensWatch & 911truth.org
TESTIMONY OF BARRIE ZWICKER
[...]
00:01:32:11 BARRIE ZWICKER: Well thank you very, very much Cynthia [McKinney]. May I use your first name?
00:01:38:08 CYNTHIA McKINNEY: You better.
00:01:40:17 BARRIE ZWICKER: I would not describe myself as a researcher actually. I don't want to, I don't want to correct your introduction, we were getting along so well, but truly I think that I am, I, I see myself as a popularizer. I have done research, I was an investigative journalist for Canada's national newspaper for a time and all journalism should be investigative. But it turns out I think I'm a, I'm a popularizer. And the voice I will use in my prepared remarks today is different from the voice I would use in the DVD that will premiere tonight, The Great Conspiracy: The 9/11 News Special You Never Saw.
00:02:23:24 Somebody's trying to get my attention.
00:02:25:18 WOMAN: Get sworn in.
00:02:26:27 BARRIE ZWICKER: Get sworn in?
00:02:27:23 CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Oh yes that's right. Thank you very much.
00:02:34:21 CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Do we swear in popularizers?
00:02:37:24 AUDIENCE: Yes.
00:02:39:21 CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Do you swear to tell the truth to us all here today?
00:02:45:04 BARRIE ZWICKER: I do swear to tell the truth to the best of my ability here today and every day.
[APPLAUSE]
00:02:55:24 BARRIE ZWICKER: That was an interesting diversion. Thank you audience person. Now in the interest of not taking other peoples' time I will stick pretty closely to my prepared remarks here which begin this way.
00:03:10:29 "History is bunk" said Henry Ford. Interestingly he was a supporter of Hitler sending the Fuhrer a birthday gift each year. Another quote: "Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it" wrote Santayana whose reputation for thoughtfulness was a little better than Ford's. Now my responsibility here today is actually not so much to tell background behind the making of Great Conspiracy although I'll digress for a moment with a little tad. Moments from now boxes are supposed to arrive at the back there that contain the first issues of and I was talked into this, Barrie Zwicker's "9/11 Resource Guide," 52 pages.
00:04:00:02 And in it there's a story about how The Great Conspiracy was made but mainly it's a transcript of the DVD. It's probably the best list of 9/11 websites assembled anywhere. It includes John McCurdy's 9/11 literature survey divided into nine sections, very sound and other resource materials like that. It will go on sale in, in moments.
00:04:27:00 But my responsibility is not to discuss the making of the that, I hope, popular, another popular DVD because The Great Deception did prove itself in the market if you will. My responsibility is to address 9/11 and history. And to be truly responsible I must add the media. And to say there's an intersection between history and the media, however, comes close to being a misstatement unless we mean relatively insignificant and/or officially approved history. Now an example of officially unapproved and significant history would be Howard Zinn's book A People's History of the United States.
00:05:10:06 The media and significant history barely intersect. And I say that as a person who has earned his living as a media critic for 33 years. Just as the media and 9/11 barely intersect, especially in respect to the claiming anomalies in the official story, some of which have been so compellingly defined here today by Janna and by John sitting in this very seat. I hope some of his erudition might rub off on me one way or another and the official story is the history of 9/11 as presented by the media to date. The New York Times ran a front page story in which the Times endorsed the Report of the 9/11 Commission as the final version of the history of 9/11.
00:06:03:24 And in the Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper in the book review section about two weeks ago, a gentleman named Wesley [LAST NAME (?)] who's an intelligence specialist, he wrote a review of the 9/11 Commission Report and another equally thick and equally unrevealing and distorted volume called the 9/11 Investigations, I think. And he praised these to the skies saying that this is history the way it's supposed to be. And somehow, even though he mentioned there was no index - now he seemed to overlook that, do not trust a book without an index. Someone doesn't want to check. And indexes are extremely revealing.
00:06:47:19 So someone coined the phrase, supposedly admiring journalism, that it is history on the run. And I say journalism is more like history on the lam. [LAUGHTER] The media to be more academic, to use more academic language, the media are ahistorical. If you're depending on USA Today or ABC for your historical perspective, you are on a blind date with history. It's not an accident that some of those that some of us respect the most for their questioning of the provenance of 9/11 are historians. I mentioned Howard Zinn. There's also the marvelously well informed and capable Webster G. Tarpley of Washington, D.C. [APPLAUSE]
00:07:34:08 Now allow me a few - yeah. [APPLAUSE] Allow me a few observations about trends in the media, especially in regard to the media's relationship to power and history. This is the time to do so and to become more specific in that regard and to look at both the deadly pivot point in history and to critique the media's role in cradling that pivot point. Now there are many examples of rulers - by what I mean by pivot point - many examples of rulers surreptitiously ordering self inflicted attacks to mobilize public opinion behind their usually war agenda.
00:08:21:05 You can go back as far as Sparta. But more recently, for instance, in 1605 there was the so-called gunpowder plot against the British parliament buildings. Now, now I'll allow myself a digression here because it shows just how conned we can be. It so happens that my birthday is November the 5th. So I grew up knowing about Guy Fawkes Day, which is November 5th. And I always knew the little rhyme "Remember, remember the fifth of November/ Gunpowder, treason and plot." And I always assumed that there was a guy names Guy Fawkes who took barrels of gunpowder under the bridge of parliament buildings in 1605 and, tried to light them to blow up the parliament buildings against, to, to the detriment of the king.
00:09:12:09 And it turns out, I just learned a few months ago, that that was a deception by King James. It was cooked up and Guy Fawkes was framed and his co-conspirators, alleged co-conspirators, were frame and they were hanged. And it was to aid the king in his wish for war with Spain and to generally, buttress his reign. And I've gone literally my whole life not knowing about a deception pulled off by a ruler of old . . . and I just didn't know. And my son - last night I phoned him and his did some checking on the internet - and the official story about Guy Fawkes Day is still the one most people believe.
00:10:02:10 So if we are able to uncover the truth of 9/11 is will be in a snap of time in terms of historical development. And I hope we can. So you go back to Sparta as I say, you go back to 1605, you go back to 1989, the Spanish-American War. Why did the battleship Maine blow up in Havana Harbor? Why did somebody store all the armaments inside the boiler room? This is not a complete list. You have 1941, Pearl Harbor, in 1950 the Korean War, in 1964 the Gulf of Tonkin non-incident, in Operations Northwoods Plan, the non-existent incubator babies of 1991, who paved the way for Dever-, Desert Storm. And, of course, the greatest deception of all, 9/11.
00:10:53:14 Now in my DVD premiering tonight I do include sections on the Reichstag Fire of 1933, Operation Northwoods, Gulf of Tonkin and Desert Storm. And so let's play a brief clip on the Gulf of Tonkin incident and then I'll tell you why I chose this clip, this example from such an embarrassment of tawdry riches.
00:11:28:17 Now fast forward just two years from Operations Northwoods to August 2nd, 1964. In the Gulf of Tonkin, North Vietnamese torpedo war-triggering deception, is partly because of one comment made to me personally two weeks ago today in Toronto by John Gibson of Fox News. Fox flew a crew from this city to my city to interview me, and I put interview in quotes, and I am losing my ability to read.
[LAUGHTER]
00:12:10:23 So, whoever's in charge of the lights.
[a short video is played]
00:12:12:05 CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Lights please.
00:12:13:26 BARRIE ZWICKER: Oh, thank you. So on September 11th, Fox News is to air a one hour documentary on anti-Americanism around the world. I hope someone will tape it. And on that program unless there is a miracle or a mistake I will appear playing the role of mincemeat. [LAUGHTER] Fox learned of my miserable existence through Professor Nancy Snow of the University of Southern California - I think it's where she is. She's a friend and colleague. She has co-edited a book to be published shortly titled War, Media and Terrorism: A Global Perspective.
00:12:58:02 And I contributed an academically sound chapter titled "America: The Fourth Reich," which Fox is almost certain to publicize in its own way. In any event during my be - excuse me - during my being grilled by John Gibson, he readily agreed to, to my surprise, that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a sham. Now I can only presume that this was because LBJ, a Democrat, was in the White House at the time and the only things Fox hates more than terrorist harboring Canadians is Democrats. [LAUGHTER]
00:13:38:16 At the time of the Tonkin Gulf deception no media questioned the events. And I will digress just one other little time here and I hope this is not going to sound self serving. It really isn't intended to be. I remember seeing that headline in the Globe and Mail. I remember seeing the headline that was shown in the Globe and Mail and, which I was working for at the time, and I remember myself thinking this is fishy. Now I don't say that to be self aggrandizing. I say it because there's a huge history. What is it that makes us in this room, so you have to explain, what is it that makes us question things? I haven't found the answer to that. I mean it isn't sexual orientation, it isn't culture, it isn't race, it isn't religion. I don't know what it is. What is it?
00:14:30:16 Well anyway we've go to Q&A. I would say that the media swallowed the Gulf of Tonkin trick hook, line and sinker. I have said generalizations about the media which could be heard any time, any day. [LAUGHTER] And I'll move rapidly through to my conclusion. History remains hidden. It is stillborn and it remains that only the people, we the people, it seems, can force history out into the open bit by bit. And this is what we're engaged in here today. We, the ruled, must do everything we can that is non-violent to reveal the tool of grand deceptions, wielded by the rulers, for the blight on humankind that it is.
00:15:27:17 The day is long passed that this murderous ploy should have been removed from the bag of dirty tricks that rulers use to keep populations in line and to line the pockets of the few. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
00:15:52:10 CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Okay, now we have a brief opportunity to ask questions of Mr. Zwicker. And we'll start again with Commissioner McIlvaine.
00:16:02:06 BOB McILVAINE: I just wanted to ask a couple of things. There's one thing that I can't get with. Do you think if Bush loses, or when he loses, the media will attack him? It seems like the, the fear factor is so great in the media that they're just . . . But I, I'm hoping that once he, once he loses that the gloves come off and we really might get the truth a lot quicker than like the Warren Commission.
00:16:30:19 BARRIE ZWICKER: Well that, Bob, that is really, really a, a deep and excellent question because it's true that the media, - look at Martha Stewart - the media will attack like a bunch of piranhas when somebody's down and out. So normally they serve power, they reflect and promote - they reflect power and thereby promote it and serve it through servitude rather than questioning power and thereby serving it to loyal opposition. So questioning Bush needless to say, and he, it's, if he goes down yes they might attack him.
00:17:08:25 There's such a thing as fad in journalism. The, or pack journalism and they may do that. But I don't know. You're looking at a dynasty there and I will leave it at that. I mean I could - all sorts of ideas pop into my mind, or whether it would be maybe better if Bush was re-elected and make things even worse being which might in historical times speed up the clean up that we need. I mean I know that sounds heretical but -
[APPLAUSE]
00:17:39:22 BARRIE ZWICKER: And, and, and I don't think I'm alone in thinking that Kerry is much, is much the same.
00:17:46:22 MAN: Right.
00:17:47:04 BARRIE ZWICKER: You know you [APPLAUSE OBSCURES] between their foreign policies. And mostly Kerry has just said he won't let Toronto ship its garbage to Detroit. [LAUGHS] Shame on him. Joking. [LAUGHTER]
00:18:03:08 BOB McILVAINE: I just wanted to make a statement. You know, I, I had the quotes in my notes from being down at the commission hearings. But then Denise once said - we were in the commission hearings or hearing the news, whatever - she says, "Don't forget this is an exposition, it is not an investigation." So I think that was a real clue of what the nine, 9/11 Commission was all about.
00:18:24:01 BOB McILVAINE: And my last question is, why is it the real of the world seem to be getting this idea of what's happening in the world and it, it's all going in the wrong direction, and yet the people in the United States - I mean it's that basic question. You asked why. What is it in the American public that they don't want to answer, ask these questions. Are the Europeans, Canadians or are they, they say I won't try. So . . .
00:18:46:02 BARRIE ZWICKER: Well there are distinct differences. Thirty percent of Germans, these are, these are -
00:18:52:13 MAN: Academics.
00:18:53:08 BARRIE ZWICKER: These are polls. Thirty percent of Germans, young Germans anyway believe that the U.S. government had a hand in 9/11, was complicit in it.
00:19:01:02 WOMAN: Yes.
[APPLAUSE]
00:19:01:16 BARRIE ZWICKER: A poll that we commissioned in Canada in May found that 16 percent of Canadians believed that. Sixty three percent of Canadians believed that - I believe this is almost a quote from our poll question - that persons within the U.S. government up to and including the White House has foreknowledge of the events, we don't use the word facts, of the events of 9/11 and, and deliberately failed to prevent them. Sixty three percent of Canadians believe that.
[APPLAUSE]
00:19:34:02 BARRIE ZWICKER: I used to live in in the United States and I love it. I love it when people call me anti-American. I love it because it just gives me an opening and I demolish them. But because I have so many friends here and, and I have so much respect for all sorts of American traditions. But at the same time you live in a cocoon here and it's all got mirrors inside it. And it's all kind of USA is the greatest. And it, and it, and it, it harms the, the judgment.
00:20:17:05 And so outsiders can see that. And then somebody once said that the 49th parallel, that's the border between USA and Canada, is the longest undefended one way mirror in the world. [LAUGHTER] And so we see every twitch of the American elephant and that American elephant rolls over and the Canadian mouse is squashed. So people have to pay attention to the United States because of the huge power that it has, economic, military, informational power especially. Although it's on a very shaky foundation.
00:20:51:12 So there, I think that is one large generalized answer to why Canadians, Germans, Brits, Spaniards and so on have a different view of this. We have different information sources in addition to CNN and also, they are, they tend to be more diverse. And so in my DVD, which will premier tonight at 8:00, I quote a Canadian columnist, Mark [MARTIN (?)], who, who writes things that you don't see here very often. Paul Krugman of The New York Times is very good, Bob Herbert and others. But there are more of, of that ilk, questioners, in Canadian journalism than in U.S. journalism by, by a small margin. We're far, far, far from perfect with the journalism in Canada. After all we're the land that spawned Conrad Black.
(END)