Insistence on phony ‘unity’ undercuts 9/11 evidence and shields infiltrators
Part 1 of a series
By Craig McKee
On the surface, it’s easy to make a case for unity in a political movement. When people with a common point of view come together to work towards a common goal, objectives can be reached.
After all, who would want disunity?
Who indeed. But we’ll get to that.
Yes, unity can be positive when activists are fighting for a cause – like saving a forest or stopping a war. We might think of 9/11 truth as such a cause, and it sort of is – but not exactly. The 9/11 Truth Movement is certainly unified in its position that the official story of the event is false.
We don’t think that Muslim extremists were behind the “attacks,” and we don’t think the Twin Towers came down because of plane impacts and fires. We don’t believe that falling debris from the North Tower caused the symmetrical collapse of Building 7. We agree that all three towers were instead brought down in some kind of explosive demolition. Most don’t think that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon or that Flight 93 crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and buried itself underground.
The vast majority of 9/11 truthers have unity on the above, and that is hugely important.
We may not all agree on every element of how this mass deception unfolded, but that’s okay; we don’t have to. The Truth Movement has never had complete unity, and yet it has exposed one of the greatest deceptions in history. All that has been achieved over 22 plus years has been done despite the absence of complete unity, not because of it.
We have exposed the lie.
This article is the first in a series (an open-ended one at this point) that will look at how truthers are allowing their movement to be led astray by harmful and superficial calls for phony “unity” and “civility.” The effect of all this is to cause us to abandon essential elements of our evidence to appease those who may actually be working covertly to defeat us.
Without realizing it, some of us are actually participating in the 9/11 cover-up.
By focusing so much on unity, we give infiltrators a kind of veto power over which evidence we champion. All that deep state agents have to do is create an artificial controversy about any given area of evidence and the unity police (or some of them) will call on the rest of us to set that “contentious” evidence aside. Veto power.
Some members of Team Unity will allow this “controversial” evidence (primarily we’re talking about the Pentagon) to be discussed but only if the honesty of those pushing most of the official story is never challenged. The unity gang is willing to bestow an undeserved level of trust on certain “researchers” who have gained respect in one area of 9/11 evidence only to mislead us in others.
This part of Team Unity doesn’t see, or is unwilling to see, that certain people claiming to be truthers can employ deceitful tactics, provably deceitful tactics, in the service of defending element after element of the official story. This can be proved in numerous ways, but the unity cops will raise holy hell to prevent these tactics from being called out.
The artificial “controversy” that has done such harm to the Truth Movement (focused mainly on the Pentagon) has been created by a group I have dubbed “the cabal.” Led by people like David Chandler, Ken Jenkins, Wayne Coste, and Jim Hoffman, this group appears to spend all its time telling us about the things they think the government is right about. They champion the authenticity of all the evidence the government has offered regarding the Pentagon, and they attack anyone who challenges that evidence.
Others involved in this disinformation effort include Fran Shure, Victoria Ashley, John Wyndham, Chris Sarns, Jonathan Cole, Chris Gruener, Dave Slesigner, Warren Stutt, Simon Falkner, Adam Fitzgerald, Nelson Martins, Ed Brotherton, Ryan Dawson, Adam Taylor, Justin Keogh, Gregg Roberts, Frank Legge, John Bursill, Kevin Ryan, Dwain Deets, and others. (Anyone who feels they’ve been unfairly left off this list, just let me know in the comments below. I want each and every one of you to get all the credit you deserve.)
These individuals are having their duplicitous efforts facilitated by the unity-at-all-cost crowd, which thinks that calling out bad behavior is “divisive.” They want criticism of the clique limited to “disagreeing” with them.
I think that if the movement wants to commit collective suicide, there are faster ways to do it.
It goes without saying that it’s ideal when people behave civilly and respect each other’s opinions. But this assumes that the people involved are authentic. It’s very destructive when that “respect” helps to facilitate the cover-up of a massive crime like 9/11. When something appears too good to be true, we are wise to wonder it if is true. We should employ the same degree of skepticism when it comes to something that is too harmful to be advocated sincerely.
I would argue that focusing one’s efforts on defending almost everything in the Pentagon official story, year after year after year, can’t be justified as “following the truth where it leads.” Also unjustifiable is the defense of propaganda by those who appear to think that unity is more important than truth.
Where did we go wrong?
In the first decade after 9/11, our movement did a great job of exposing how the official story can’t be true. We didn’t have to agree on every piece of evidence, but we did agree on the need to expose the gaping holes in the official story. The result was a movement that was gaining momentum.
But even as we made these gains, forces were organizing against us, poisoning our fight for truth from the inside. Using infiltration, disinformation, distraction, and psychological manipulation, they chipped away at some of our most indispensable evidence. They made it seem “controversial” when it wasn’t. They created discord where it hadn’t existed before. They did everything possible to insert doubt into the discourse. Where 9/11 truth activists try to create doubt about official pronouncements with the goal of exposing truth, operatives want to create doubt about what we’ve unearthed with the goal of suppressing truth.
The unity crowd has made it much easier for these people to do their damage. Under the guise of focusing on “what we all agree on,” crucial evidence of government complicity in the 9/11 false flag has been turned into something that is problematic to even speak of. The truth has been painted as divisive.
The most respected and impactful 9/11 researcher, David Ray Griffin, was taken in by this trick. For the first 10 years after 9/11, Griffin had no problem saying that the evidence overwhelmingly favored no 757 impact at the Pentagon. In fact, he maintained this view until his death. Unfortunately, he allowed himself to be pressured (and conned) into thinking that it’s best to put that crucial evidence on the back burner and focus instead on the fact that a plane piloted by al-Qaeda couldn’t have hit.
I said in 2011 that this was a disastrous mistake by Griffin, and time has proven me right.
In chapter 7 of Griffin’s 2011 book 9/11 Ten Years Later: When State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed, he tried to justify caving to the cabal, which I believe is a COINTELPRO operation. He called his new initiative a “consensus approach,” and he made a presentation on this at the Toronto Hearings that same year. All of this coincided with the creation of the 9/11 Consensus Panel, which Griffin formed with Elizabeth Woodworth. (I plan to write about the panel in a future article.)
In essence, Griffin was willing to set aside all the evidence that no 757 ever hit the Pentagon in the service of “unity,” or at least in a misguided attempt to combat “disunity.” In his book he called the question of whether a 757 hit the Pentagon “a relatively trivial point.” The cabal that pressured him to make this enormous concession must have been very happy with this.
Of course, it is anything but a trivial point. The overwhelming evidence that a plane crash was faked at the Pentagon is the one thing that proves government complicity in 9/11 beyond any doubt. That’s why the cabal has been so single-minded in trying to marginalize this evidence for 20 years. And the unity pushers are helping them do it, whether they mean to or not.
What Griffin inadvertently did was to weaken our case by pushing us to focus on the lowest common denominator. And he’s not the last to stumble into this pit.
And now, the talent competition…
This brings me to the perennial winner of the movement’s “Little Miss Unity” pageant, Sandra Jelmi, and her disingenuous attempts to con us into ditching crucial evidence in favor of “getting along.” You can throw unlimited amounts of evidence at Jelmi concerning dishonesty on the part of alleged truthers like Chandler and Coste, and she will never see it. Instead, she’ll shoot the messenger. That’s usually me.
When it comes to the “ever-controversial” Pentagon evidence, she keeps claiming that “both sides” are equally guilty of “cherry picking” the evidence. If you ask her for specifics to back this up you’d better find a comfortable chair first, because you’ll be waiting a long time. I used to see this as naïve, but I don’t anymore. Her refusal to see facts put in front of her can no longer be taken as innocent.
After griping about doing it for months, she finally read my two-part piece on the Lloyde England evidence on Truth and Shadows (part 1 here and part 2 here), and the best she could come up with was that the case I make concerning England’s role in the cover-up is “inconclusive.” That’s when I knew something was seriously wrong. (I must note that Jelmi and I at least agree that a 757 did not hit the Pentagon. But this only makes her sheltering of the cabal that much more troubling.)
Her position that we should respectfully focus on evidence rather than make personal attacks sounds reasonable on its face. But as with so many of the calls for civility in the Truth Movement, it’s only surface-level virtue signaling. The only time Sandra will ever even indirectly call out Chandler or Coste or any of their cabal teammates is when she is calling both sides “equally guilty.”
In her blog post on the Pentagon, she writes:
“Both sides get into the weeds and intricate details of the specific items of evidence they feel make their case. From complex calculations to flight data recordings to witness testimony, most will focus exclusively on the evidence that suits them while completely dismissing any solid arguments from the other side. And I do mean both sides.”
Bullshit, Sandra. You’re a broken record that never stops spinning.
I can point out all the terrible things the cabal members (and their troll hangers-on) have said – and I have – but she never “gets it.” Chandler calls Citizen Investigation Team “scum” and their Pentagon research “fraudulent,” and no comment from Sandra. No scolding about lack of civility. Just silence.
When confronted by me about these things, the worst she’ll say is that Chandler is very invested in his point of view. Honest and invested. Sometimes she’ll concede that he’s “emotional” about the subject. On the other hand, she’ll happily go after me (see copious examples in my article titled “Laratonda and the ‘Tokyo Rose’ campaign to destroy AE911Truth”). Her boyfriend, Gene Laratonda, is even worse. He combines unhinged personal attacks with moaning over how we mustn’t engage in … personal attacks.
Recently, Sandra posted a graphic on Facebook, made, I assume, by Laratonda (It has the URL for their podcast, 9/11 WarRoom on it – see below). In big letters the graphic says, “UNITY.” Below that it reads, “WE WERE LIED TO ABOUT 9/11” and “WE WANT A REAL INVESTIGATION.” (When do we want it? In a few years!!! – I added this part.)
Most truthers will happily “like” the graphic without grasping the implications of its message. We all agree we were lied to, and we all want a real investigation. But let’s take a peek at the actual meaning of what’s being said. This is revealed (or should I say confirmed) in Jelmi’s comments on the thread where she posted the graphic:
“If we can agree on this, then we are united. The rest is details. The who/why/how is what the legal pursuit is about.”
The rest is details? You mean the evidence?
As I read her comment, the alarm bells begin to clang loudly. How, exactly, do we get a new investigation without relying on the evidence?
I came back with: “So you think we can get a new investigation by making broad, unspecific claims about being lied to? Don't you realize that the movement is infiltrated? Don't you realize that they will never allow us to be unified? You think we should avoid evidence that we don't unanimously agree on? You are offering veto power over our evidence to the very people who committed this crime.”
And Sandra’s response (her last word on the subject): “Craig there's plenty that we, as a majority, agree on. That's where the focus needs to be. Not on what we don't.”
But who is “we”? Is she including those who want us to accept more and more of the official story? Do we have to agree with them on what evidence is valid? Jelmi wants us to abandon any evidence we don’t “agree on” no matter how strong that evidence is. If we aren’t unanimous about it, it has to go (the WTC evidence isn’t subject to this standard, apparently). She wants us to make a vague claim of being “lied to” and demand a new investigation based on that. So to get something taken off the table, all the agents and infiltrators have to do is introduce disagreement.
Does this make sense to anyone? Do even the most naïve unity supporters among us not see the problem with this? Jelmi calls the evidence “details” that we don’t need until we have our “real” investigation.
But how does “we’ve been lied to” get us a new investigation? Of course, many “nice” truthers out there who hate “in-fighting” will rush to support Sandra and the Chandler cabal, taking for granted that everyone is well-meaning.
I mean, I hate to sound like a “conspiracy theorist,” but don’t we need to be a bit more discerning than this?
Let’s try to put ourselves into the minds of the perpetrators of the Pentagon cover-up for a moment. How might they try to defeat the Truth Movement’s efforts? One way would be to insert into the discussion what Cass Sunstein calls “informational diversity.” In other words, muddying the waters by creating artificial division and controversy about key areas of evidence.
They might create a team of operatives who would gain credibility in one area of 9/11 research, like the WTC evidence, and then have those people turn to the Pentagon to push what is essentially the government’s cover story. These operatives would be sure to frequently mention their reliance on “the scientific method.” Finally, they’d accuse those who point out this pattern of being divisive.
The final piece of the puzzle would be provided by truthers – some well-intentioned, some not – who would push “unity” and “politeness” that would essentially shield the infiltrators from exposure.
All we’d be left with is “disagreeing” with those who are destroying everything we’ve worked for.
But at least we’d be polite about it.
Thank you - it's important to look at the ulterior purpose of insisting on "unity." Calling for "unity" is used to control what people communicate and who gets to communicate. For instance (like you said) it has been used to shut down attempts to address infiltration. I once witnessed someone who tried to bring up a discussion of infiltration in a 9/11 group. Others in the group literally shouted abuse at them until they shrugged and left in silence. Instead of addressing infiltration, they accused that person of being disruptive to the unity of the group. There was no reason to avoid a discussion of infiltration, unless of course there were infiltrators present. That is what I concluded at the time.
So Craig,
You make a number of important points in this article. I agree that the "unity at all costs" tactic is being used against us and it is sucking people in that are otherwise well meaning and sincere. Part of the problem is that many of these well meaning and sincere individuals just don't know the pentagon evidence very well and they don't understand how crucial it is for the perps to suppress that evidence. These well meaning individuals are woefully naïve about the cointelpro tactics that the government uses on a regular basis. They assume, quite mistakenly, that everyone who claims to be a truther really is one. That assumption can prove fatal for a movement like ours. Look for example how quickly trolls and discussion hijackers pounce on every article you write Craig. That is not an accident. I recommend others take a stroll through your other articles and pay attention to the people who come in and immediately attempt to hijack the discussion. Those are either witting or unwitting cointelpro agents operating there. I lean toward them being real operatives because of their characteristics. Allow me to quote from the 8 traits of a disinformationalist rule #8:
"8) BONUS TRAIT: Time Constant. Recently discovered, with respect to News Groups, is the response time factor. There are three ways this can be seen to work, especially when the government or other empowered player is involved in a cover up operation: 1) ANY NG posting by a targeted proponent for truth can result in an IMMEDIATE response. The government and other empowered players can afford to pay people to sit there and watch for an opportunity to do some damage. SINCE DISINFO IN A NG ONLY WORKS IF THE READER SEES IT - FAST RESPONSE IS CALLED FOR, or the visitor may be swayed towards truth. 2) When dealing in more direct ways with a disinformationalist, such as email, DELAY IS CALLED FOR - there will usually be a minimum of a 48-72 hour delay. This allows a sit-down team discussion on response strategy for best effect, and even enough time to 'get permission' or instruction from a formal chain of command. 3) In the NG example 1) above, it will often ALSO be seen that bigger guns are drawn and fired after the same 48-72 hours delay - the team approach in play. This is especially true when the targeted truth seeker or their comments are considered more important with respect to potential to reveal truth. Thus, a serious truth sayer will be attacked twice for the same sin."
Notice who is quickest to comment on your threads Craig and also pay attention to how quickly they reply to comments. For example today when I made a comment to 9/11 Revisionist he was able to reply almost immediately. Pay attention to what they say though and notice in particular their attempts to change the subject. Allow me to quote from the 25 rules of disinformation:
"17. Change the subject. Usually in connection with one of the other ploys listed here, find a way to side-track the discussion with abrasive or controversial comments in hopes of turning attention to a new, more manageable topic. This works especially well with companions who can 'argue' with you over the new topic and polarize the discussion arena in order to avoid discussing more key issues."