Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

Loose Change 2nd Edition is a hard hitting, provocative 9/11 documentary that can be viewed at Google Video. The observations in the documentary are highly disturbing, which many Americans would prefer not to believe: that the 9/11 was a staged event by our own government to create a Pearl Harbor II as a pretext for Middle Eastern wars, political power grabs, gold, insider stock profits and insurance money.

The documentary covers these 9/11 mysteries:

• a missile-like hole in the Pentagon and lack of aircraft debris.
• black box flight recorders not retrieved.
• lack of aircraft debris or bodies found at Pennsylvania “crash” site.
• explosion evidence at base of twin towers, far from aircraft initial impact.
• evidence of controlled demolition explosions at WTC buildings 1, 2 and 7.
• inability of cell phones on aircraft to contact phones on ground.

The stomach turning implications, if proven out, would of course be the horror story of the century. The documentary suggests that there are clues that could be tracked down, such as accused hijackers may still be alive, aircraft victims may still be alive, because planes were switched, and the list of deep, dark secrets goes on and on. Could so many innocent people be sacrificed for such a ruse? Could so many Americans be fooled? Who knows?

Online resources such as Killtown.org have collected theories and evidence.

Update:  New York Magazine’s article, The Ground Zero Grassy Knoll.

Today on the KQED radio program Forum, documentary filmmakers D.A. Pennebaker (“Don’t Look Back”), Richard Leacock, Stephen Ujlaki, director of the Documentary Film Institute at SF State University, and Dan Krauss, Bay Area filmmaker whose film “The Death of Kevin Carter” is nominated for an Academy Award discussed their craft. Part of their debate was if the documentary filmmaker should be a “fly on the wall” or not.

My own experience shooting photographs of rock bands performing in small clubs is that the performers know you are there and they know how to act. As a photographer I’ve felt the need to be “cold blooded” in order to best capture a moment. The focus is on the technical aspects of the film, lighting, camera and lens fitting the subject into the frame. A good photographer calmly and cooly stalks the great image and can only indulge in emotional reactions after it has been successfully captured. I know people who have flown to war zones in order to find “great” photographs, and that is not for me.

Dan Krauss discussed the dilemma of whether or not to become in involved in the subject matter, explored in his Oscar nominated documentary short about photographer Kevin Carter who won a Pulitzer Prize for his picture (above) of a Sudan famine victim above. Mr. Carter was haunted by the photo and committed suicide, tormented by his conscience and other critics for exploiting the suffering of others.