As I wrote in Where Was I Exactly?, I received an e-mail inquiry from a crackpot who is involved in a nonsensical debate on whether the CNN video was fabricated or actually shot by a CNN newsman from a boat. I addressed this in my original posting in September 2007. In December of 2007, this crackpot and his anonymous on-line buddies had a little discussion on forum.911movement.org using my name as the title. I discovered this in August 2008 and am writing my response on Labor Day 2008.

The purpose of this page is not to re-present the facts I presented on the cited page, but to consider the techniques and tactics that the 9/11 "truth movement" uses to intimidate, obfuscate, and fabricate when faced with eyewitness testimony.

• Stay anonymous but post eyewitness contact info - Only registered users can post to the bulletin board at forum.911movement.org - but those users stay completely anonymous. The postings were from:
  • AmandaReconwith, member, 380 posts as of 9/1/2008, no contact information provided
  • rockwell, administrator, 691 posts as of 9/1/2008, no contact information provided
  • Killtown, administrator, 3276 posts as of 9/1/2008, no contact information provided
  • Seatnineb, member, 121 posts as of 9/1/2008, no contact information provided
  • zoomer, member, 721 posts as of 9/1/2008, no contact information provided
  • TruthSleuth, member, 670 posts as of 9/1/2008, no contact information provided
  • miranapriestly, member, 83 posts as of 9/1/2008, no contact information provided
  rockwell posted that I was added to a "list." As far as I can tell, there is no actual list (of what?), this is some cute conspiratorial shorthand for the idea of a blacklist of "truth movement" opponents (although you would think that conspiracy nuts would find the very idea of a blacklist to be anathema).
  This anonymous jibber jabber wouldn't be so big a deal if the idiots didn't then turn around and do everything they could to provide contact information for the eyewitness - they've posted my address, telephone number, e-mail addresses, names of my relatives, age, places I've lived, numerous photos of me, the whole shebang. (The photos are, of course, copyright infringement, but that means nothing to anonymous idiots.)
  P.S. Lindsay is my ex-wife's name - my name is NOT Barry Lindsay Drogin. So much for "facts" obtained using the Internet - even something as simple as my name!
  P.P.S. The front of my music page contains a link to my engineering business, and my engineering business resume refers explicitly to my music business - although I assume that visitors to one website will have little interest in the other, I in no way hide my dual careers.
  P.P.P.S. Seatnineb admits to being the nut who contacted me - so, Daniel Hassan, _dan101@excite.com, how does it feel to have your name and e-mail address outed? (There are other Daniel Hassans out there, the e-mail address I posted is that of Seatnineb - who, like Killtown, is apparently a major idiot within the "truth movement".)
• Use partial quotations - rockwell is perfectly willing to quote, "used a cellphone to take some pictures from various locations. Unfortunately, the pictures just didn't work out - the other buildings in the video didn't match the other buildings in my photographs." But only a truth avoider, not a truth seeker, would refuse to quote the next sentence, "I returned to Battery Park and took more pictures from other locations. From that investigation, I [discovered] the apparent position of the tourist who took the video that was supplied to CNN and broadcast by them after midnight, September 12."
• Omit mention of inconvenient truths - Of course, rockwell, and the others, don't proceed to the next sentence, or reproduce any of the maps, photographs, discussion of the sensitivity of the building positions to videographer's position - because, again, they are truth avoiders, not truth seekers.
• If one piece of an eyewitness's testimony is incorrect, dismiss all of the eyewitness's testimony - I question my own memory - I remember that the underside of the plane was white, when the video clearly shows it is not - so the idiots use this as an excuse to discount everything. One of the biggest problems is that I bring up this discrepancy, and give an explanation for it. Unlike the many, many other eyewitnesses (and live television feeds and other videos), I did not watch the plane approach over several seconds, but, instead, saw the plane enter the building in a fraction of a second (12 frames of video at 24 frames per second is half of a second). If it was a missile, I couldn't have remembered the angle of the plane and its wings. If anything, you'd think the nuts would use my false memory as proof that the plane I saw was not UA Flight 175, but they're too busy arguing with each other about whether the video is fake, there was no plane, etc., etc.
• When discussing physical phenomena, show an ignorance of basic high school physics - Dumb AmandaReconwith describes the airplane as "an aluminum tube 1/3 the density of steel." Leaving aside for the moment the construction of an aircraft frame vs. its skin, and the unique construction of the World Trade Center open floor plan frame vs. its skin, the kinetic energy of a moving body is 1/2 its mass times its velocity squared; its momentum is mass times velocity. The densest parts of the airplane passed through the building and were found later to have fallen blocks away; the less dense parts of the plane came to a stop within the building, were consumed by the fireball, and later burnt and crushed in the fire and collapse. But, Amanda, you go on believing that the glass-faced WTC would have acted like an impenetrable barrier, causing the plane to burst on impact and fall to the ground, providing no entry and no damage to the WTC building itself.
• Dig up dubious connections - Surely the idiots could have come up with better connections between me and their primary list of the usual suspects than the fact that that year I accepted a job at a firm that has provided exterior restoration services (before my time) to two out of some one thousand companies. Gosh, on 9/11, I worked for TBTA and served on a TRANSCOM committee alongside of PANY/NJ employees. Guess what - on September 17, 2008, I'll be giving a lecture to PANY/NJ employees. Of course, the entirety of my site does not jibe well with their portrayal of me as some stooge or lackey of a government agency and corporation - and I sure would like to see some compensation for my services in this regard, but, hey, simply finding some degree of separation is sufficient for these bozos.
• Prove you're insane by forming other associations - Yes, Jews have been masons, I had a friend who was a mason, and I once went on an architectural walking tour of the Manhattan masonic lodge, but the first aid emergency cross as a masonic teutonic cross?
  (This could be retitled, "Prove you're insane by believing the plot of National Treasure," but what do we expect?)
• In the end, use circular logic - AmandaReconwith ends by branding me as a "government shill." We all understand how circular logic works, right? 9/11 was orchestrated by the government, Barry Drogin has worked for government agencies, therefore, Barry Drogin is a government shill. But wait, you first have to accept the first statement, that 9/11 was orchestrated by the government, to accept the last, and that first statement, of course, is the primary article of faith of the conspiracy nuts. So everyone who disputes their idiocy is a "government shill," or, as the final poster puts it, "connected to military contractors, large controversial financial institutions, or major media." I don't know anything about the Carlyle Group (I did meet some Texans called Carlyle who were supporting new opera through something called the "Carlyle Fund," but never got any money from them), my connection to military contractors has been intermittent (and I do not have security clearance anymore), but the last is definitely a self-fulfilling joke - only those who come to the attention of these nuts through major media are then labeled as "connected" to major media! Quad erat demonstratum, circular logic at its finest!

When I wrote to www.debunking911.com, my e-mail said, "Unlike you, I have taken the risk of not being anonymous in my writings, and my e-mail address is not private. Two of my children's grandparents are Holocaust survivors (on my ex-wife's side), and many of my relatives on my father's side perished in the Holocaust, and I understand the importance of them to speak out as witnesses and debunk the horrible Holocaust denial "movement." The subjects of groupthink, propaganda, paranoia, and what you call "logical fallacy" have been life-long interests of mine, and are a primary subtext under one of my most famous pieces, "Alamo!" completed in 1998. My 1985 "Typhoid Mary" also relates to these subjects."

As a radical civil libertarian, I fervently believe that the answer to bad speech is more speech. How can we not answer, loudly, publicly, point by point, these idiots?

Link back to My Personal September 11 Page.

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Last Updated: September 1, 2008