Originally posted by billybob
reply to post by FurvusRexCaeli
it's more people than nist had.
I'm sure if NIST had a poll and they ran the kind of public relations campaign that AE911 does, they could find more signers than AE911, easily. But
that's not what NIST was doing; they were writing a series of reports. You are comparing report authorship to petition signers, which is not a useful
comparison. Perhaps if AE911 had 1500+ people working for 4-6 years on a report like NIST's, the comparison would be more appropriate.
Anyway, it's not the raw number that I found interesting; it's the fact that AE911 makes such a big deal out of such a small number. They put it
right there in their logo. Why would they do that? Because they are counting on their customers not to know how small that number really is.
and AE911 didn't get paid by the government
NIST gets funded by law. Collectively, they have no incentive to lie. Individual members could be pressured or bribed, but given the scale of the WTC
report, the conspirators would have to pressure or bribe a great many people--NIST
employees and consultants, including several retired FDNY, and numerous
contractors. The report relies on multiple lines of inquiry, so it isn't
enough to get to just one person; you have to get to almost everyone. Of course, there is no evidence of bribes or pressure; and if we assume the
existence of bribes or pressure, the fact that NIST is funded by the government becomes irrelevant. Following the money gets us nowhere with NIST; if
anything, it makes them more credible.
AE911 gets paid by conspiracy buffs who buy their DVDs and donate to their PayPal account. They don't have a reliable source of government funding
and must rely on the business and good will of their customers. Therefore, they have every incentive to create a product that their customers will
purchase, even at the expense of the truth. Following AE911's money trail, they are less credible.
Besides, if the 9/11 conspirators were so powerful that they manipulated multiple airlines, law enforcement and intelligence agencies, the military,
Congress, the international media, NIST and its contractors, WTC security and maintenance personnel, and even the perceptions and memories of
witnesses that day -- wouldn't they squash this tiny AE911 outfit like a bug? For the conspiracy theory to be correct, NIST must have been bribed or
pressured, and as I have demonstrated above, that couldn't have been easy. Surely anyone capable of poisoning a big, complex, public process like the
NIST reports could do the same to a little, relatively simple business like AE911?