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People with unfair power and privilege generally try
to hold onto that unfair power and privilege. Sometimes
they make plans that are not publicly announced. Sometimes
they engage in illegal plots. Real conspiracies have
been exposed throughout history. History itself, however,
is not controlled by a vast timeless conspiracy. The
powerful people and groups in society are hardly a "secret
team" or a tiny club of "secret elites." The
tendency to explain all major world events as primarily
the product of a secret conspiracy is called conspiracism.
The antidote to conspiracism is Power Structure Research
based on some form of institutional, systemic or structural
analysis that examines race, ethnicity, gender, sexual
identity, class and other factors that are used to create
inequality and oppression. Political Research Associates
does not criticize conspiracism because we want to shield
those with unfair power and
privilege; but because we believe that conspiracism
impedes attempts to build a social movement for real
social justice,
economic fairness, equality, peace, and democracy.
There are many unanswered questions about the attacks
on 09/11/01, the obvious failures of existing
security systems, the decisions regarding
the assessment of terrorist threats; the wisdom, morality,
and legality under international law of the unilateral
attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq; the implementation of
repressive domestic measures such as the Patriot Act
and the confinement of immigrants and undocumented visitors
without due process; and the reluctance and refusal of
key government
officials to fully cooperate with congressional and media
investigations. Political Research Associates fully supports
the vigorous investigation of these matters. |
FAQ - Resulting from the Democracy Now Program of May 25, 2004 on Claims in the Griffin Book
Where can I find engineering studies
concerning the World Trade Center that refute the claims that it was
demolished by bombs or "controlled demolition?"
Where can I find engineering studies that offer
evidence that structural steel from the World Trade Center was collected
for analysis?
Where can I find evidence that refutes the claim
that World Trade Center Building 7 was "pulled" down intentionally
by some official order?
Where can I find engineering studies concerning the Pentagon
that refute the claims that it was hit by a guided missile?
Where
can I find out more about the concept of Conspiracism?
Who is Chip Berlet?
What is Political Research Associates?
Where can I find engineering studies concerning the World Trade Center
that refute the claims that it was demolished by bombs or "controlled
demolition?"
There are a number of different studies by experienced forensic engineers,
and some of the studies reach slightly different conclusions. The
websites listed here offer different perspectives on the exact chain
of events, but all reach the conclusion that it was jet aircraft alone
-- not along with bombs or "controlled demolition" -- that collapsed
both towers. There seems to be a contention among some 9/11 skeptics that if one fire chief or one structural engineer argues that there is a flaw in a report, that the report has been refuted. In the scientific method, this is not how things work.
Executive summary of the study by
Federal Emergency Management Agency
Structural Engineering Institute of America
American Society of Civil Engineers
http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_execsum.pdf
Articles on FEMA Study:
http://wtc.nist.gov/media/Structural_Fire_Response_and_Collapse_Analysis.pdf
http://www.firehouse.com/news/2002/4/30_APwtc.html
RESULTS OF WTC INVESTIGATION;
FUTURE PLANS FOR STUDIES AND LEGISLATION
TO BE UNVEILED AT SCIENCE COMMITTEE HEARING
At a House Science Committee hearing on May 1st, the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) will announce
the results and recommendations of their investigation into the collapse
of the World Trade Center. In addition, the National Institute of Standards
and Technology (NIST) will unveil its plans for a more extensive follow-up
investigation, and the Committee will release and get reaction to draft legislation
regarding future building collapse studies.
This is the second in a series of hearings held by the Science Committee on
the investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center. Background
information on the first hearing and recent information on the issue can
be found at http://www.house.gov/science at
the link, “Lessons Learned from Ground Zero.”
WHAT: Hearing on: "The Investigation of the World Trade Center Collapse:
Findings,
Recommendations and Next Steps"
WHEN: Wednesday, May 1, 2002 - 12:00 P.M.
WHERE: 2318 Rayburn House Office Building
Witnesses expected on the panel include:
Mr. Robert Shea, Acting Administrator, Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration,
Federal Emergency Management Agency
Dr. Arden Bement, Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Dr. W. Gene Corley, P.E., S.E., American Society of Civil Engineers, Chair
of the Building Performance Assessment Team currently reviewing the WTC disaster
Professor Glenn Corbett, Assistant Professor of Fire Science at John Jay College,
NYC
http://www.house.gov/science/press/107/107-203.htm
Testimony files linked at:
http://www.house.gov/science/hot/wtc/
Flash multimedia on collapse:
http://www.usatoday.com/graphics/news/gra/wtccollapse/flash.htm
Forensic Engineering study by Weidlinger
Associates
3/2004 - World Trade Center Forensic Study Wins ACEC National Engineering
Award
The engineering industry's top national award has been given to
Weidlinger Associates of New York City for its forensic study
of the World Trade
Center collapse. The study dispelled several theories about the
collapse, including those that questioned the structural integrity
of the buildings,
and found that the structure actually held up remarkably well to
the airplane impacts, saving thousands of lives, but eventually
succumbed
to subsequent structure-weakening fires.
http://www.ewire.com/display.cfm/Wire_ID/2051
Story based on Weidlinger study:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/COMMUNITY/09/13/rittenhouse.cnna/
More information:
http://architecture.about.com/library/weekly/aawtc-collapse.htm http://www.icivilengineer.com/News/wtc.php
http://www.icivilengineer.com/News/WTC/structure.php
http://enr.construction.com/news/buildings/archives/021104.asp
http://web.mit.edu/civenv/wtc/
http://www.icivilengineer.com/News/WTC/Fire.html
http://www.asce.org/pdf/3-6-02wtc_testimony.pdf
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Eagar-0112.html
http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/latest/wtc.php#why
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/resources.html
http://www.house.gov/science/hot/wtc/
============================================
Where can I find engineering studies that offer evidence that structural
steel from the World Trade Center was collected for analysis
An argument can be made that more structural steel from the World
Trade Center should have been saved for forensic analysis, but the
claim that there was no analysis of structural steel is simply false.
Steel being analyzed:
http://wtc.nist.gov/media/gallery.htm#recover
http://wtc.nist.gov/media/gallery2.htm
http://wtc.nist.gov/media/Structural_Fire_Response_and_Collapse_Analysis.pdf
http://members.fortunecity.com/911/wtc/WTC_apndxD.htm
Where can I find evidence that refutes the claim that
World Trade Center Building 7 was "pulled" down intentionally
by some official order?
Firefighters were "pulled" from the structure when it was
determined it was no longer safe to work in or near the building,
and the building
was allowed to continue burning until it collapsed. This is a common
procedure when the structural safety of burning buildings is in question,
and it is designed to prevent the death of firefighters in catastrophic
building collapses such as that which happened in Worcester, Massachusetts,
December 1999, where six firefighters died. Read
details of the Worcester tragedy here. Building 7 collapsed by
itself.
An Initial Microstructural Analysis of A36 Steel from WTC Building
7
J.R. Barnett, R.R. Biederman, and R.D. Sisson, Jr.
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Biederman/Biederman-0112.html
Where can I find engineering studies concerning the Pentagon that
refute the claims that it was hit by a guided missile?
Here are several of the many studies on the Pentagon. The Purdue
simulation is especially impressive:
http://www.icivilengineer.com/News/WTC/pentagon.php
http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/cmh/simulation/phase1/
http://www.asce.org/responds/
Where can I find out more about the concept of Conspiracism?
The Conspiracism Collection:
The Sucker Punch Collection
Who is Chip
Berlet?
What
is Political Research Associates?
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