By Rachel Trees
September 05, 2010
Indiana Daily Student
The 9/11 Working Group of Bloomington’s presentation Saturday at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater titled “Peace Through Truth; 9/11 and State Crimes Against Democracy” outlined speakers’ skepticisms toward the events that took place on 9/11.
Speakers included Graeme MacQueen, founding director for McMaster University’s Centre for Peace Studies in Ontario, and behavioral neuroscientist Laurie Manwell.
“The folks who are engaged in the movement are serious scholars who come to conclusions based on evidence that should be available to everyone in the room,” said Byron Bangert, member of the 9/11 Working Group of Bloomington.
After a brief moment of silence “for those who lost their lives on 9/11 and in the events that were set in motion on that day” initiated by Bangert, the speakers began their presentations.
MacQueen’s speech, titled “The Fictional Basis for the War on Terror,” explained two hypotheses — the structural failure hypothesis, or “governmental hypothesis,” and the explosion hypothesis, or “non-governmental hypothesis.”
By aid of video footage, images, eye-witness accounts and details of his findings of chemical and physical inaccuracies, MacQueen explained his evidence behind the theory that the World Trade Center was detonated.
“The towers came down because they were wired for detonation,” he said. “I’m not suggesting that planes didn’t fly into them and damage them. I am suggesting that they didn’t bring the towers down.”
Manwell’s speech, titled “The Psychological Implications of 9/11,” covered such topics as group mentality and social crimes against democracy and challenged people to not just accept the facts they have been given about 9/11.
“Just talking about 9/11 can arouse fear and anxiety in people, which affects cognitive judgement,” she said. “The death of democracy will come if we don’t do something, and it will come while we’re covering our ears to things we don’t want to hear.”
At the conclusion of his speech, MacQueen urged citizens to “never tolerate outrageous lies and war-mongering.”
“The theories we had might have made sense on 9/11 when we didn’t have access to this information,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense nine years later.”
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