-- The OLD 911oz Forum (Read Only) --

[Hereward]

Unfortunately I cannot personally endorse this declaration as i am pretty passionate about debunking Global Warming dogma.

I think it is a mistake to attempt to force truthers into a cookie-cutter set of preconceived notions about the world.

If, in order to be a "certified truther" you must refrain from speculating about UFOs, questioning Global Warming & questioning any aspect of Jewish history then that is beginning to sound like a cultish mentality.

I think the problem is conflating different topics. This can be avoided by making it clear that one's pesonal views are ONLY personal, avoiding non-scientific theorising and off-topic rambling in any published material.

By published I don't mean forums! Forums are places where we express ourselves freely as individuals. Arguments and discussions on forums should not be construed as an official PR statement of a particular group.

We do not need to have a "group mind".

I am disappointed with this declaration, because it is "almost" good. But it fails nonetheless and will definitely alienate people.

What a sad waste of effort!


Standards and Strategies for 9/11 Truth
http://www.truthmove.org/content/2008-declaration/

We aim to foster reason and responsibility within the global movement for truth. We base this in the following values:

1. Awareness of public perception and the need for strategic and responsible promotion and presentation.
2. A commitment to building credibility and encouraging constructive alliances with the anti-war movement and other natural allies.
3. Adherence to the scientific method and journalistic standards, with a focus on facts, substance, and sources.
4. A dedication to rational, respectful, and nonviolent debate and activism. Fundamental respect in discourse with all individuals, including those within the government and military, journalists, and supposed “opponents.”
5. A faith in the honest democratic process and our ability to come to meaningful and actionable conclusions (truths).
6. Motivations based in compassion, justice, and truth.

Conversely, we seek to counteract and minimize:

1. Promotion of speculative and unsubstantiated claims.
2. Disruptive, divisive, diversionary, and aggressive behavior.
3. Damaging and marginalizing associations.
4. Organized and intentional sabotage.
5. Highly partisan representations of the movement.
6. Motivations based on ego, hatred, and belittlement.

We will engage others in the movement who break these guidelines with constructive dialog, raising awareness of these issues. Those who are unresponsive to reason and have a clear history of disruption, combativeness, or excessively poor judgment will not be engaged.

We recognize an important distinction between private speculation and public promotion. Speculation, hypothesis, and experimentation are the basis of the scientific method. However, the promotion of highly speculative claims is irresponsible and damaging to our credibility. Instead, verifiable fact-based research must be primary in our search for and promotion of the truth.

Guidelines

1. Critique destructive behavior that can harm the movement (i.e. speculative theories without evidence, prominent activists who engage in disruptive behavior, divisive incidents, etc). Challenge leaders who unreasonably continue to support and tolerate damaging behavior.
2. Critique and ignore unnecessary and unproductive antagonism (i.e. infighting, personal attacks, gossip, etc.) that wastes time and causes divisiveness.
3. Avoid the divisive labeling of individuals and groups (i.e. MIHOP, LIHOP, Shill, planehugger, agent, etc.)
4. Refuse to debate debunked theories by simply referencing responsible websites, articles, and blogs which have already refuted such claims. Or cite this document itself.
5. Be aware and vigilant concerning the presence of agent provocateurs within the movement. But do not engage in witch hunts or unsubstantiated accusations. Treat those who continually, and despite consultation, act in word and deed in the manner of agent provocateurs, as such. While these people can rarely be proven to be agents, they should be treated as counterproductive and untrustworthy. Such groups and individuals should not be engaged in unproductive ways, such as aggression, name-calling, personal attacks, etc. Instead, the substance of their destructive behavior should be detailed, after which they should be ignored as much as possible. If appropriate, exclusionary action (banning from forums, venues, etc.) or, in extreme cases, legal action, should be taken.
6. Do not allow the proliferation of irresponsible information or damaging behavior simply because the individuals or groups in question maintain a certain reputation or notoriety within the movement. The fact that someone may “have done good work in the past” is never a valid excuse to tolerate damaging participation in the present. The movement must be about truth and justice rather than character and ego.

Unity is not achieved by ignoring divisiveness. It is achieved through civil critique and a constructive response to the disruptive behavior. Repeated and continuing behavior should result in comment moderation, temporary, long-term, and if necessary permanent bans from activist groups, removal of links from websites, cancellation of speaking engagements, etc.

Below is a list of theories and claims which do not have a convincing basis in verifiable facts. Such claims have served as a distraction for many honest activists and have ultimately damaged the credibility of the movement. This is a partial list, only meant to demonstrate some of the more prominent examples:

* Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) or nuclear devices were used to demolish the towers. http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/theories/energybeam.html
* A missile or something other than a 757 hit the Pentagon. http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/pentagon/index.html
* “Plane pods,” on the underside of the planes shot missiles into the towers before impact. http://www.oilempire.us/pod.html
* No planes hit the World Trade Center Towers http://www.questionsquestions.net/WTC/review.html

Below is a list of associations that are damaging and marginalizing to the movement. Some are offensive and baseless, others may simply be speculative or fringe. The common thread is that all of these topics/attitudes/assertions have extremely negative connotations for the general public and they should not be paired with concrete, fact-based research. This is only a partial list:

* UFO and alien theories
* Holocaust denial/revisionism and Jewish conspiracy theories
* All forms of racism
* Moon Landing “Hoax”
* Anti-environmentalism (i.e. “global warming is a hoax” or “the environment is fine; humans aren’t causing significant damage”)

Conclusion

Many activists came together to make this statement possible. We have all had direct experience with behavior and information that has impeded our cause, and we hope this document will help the community to achieve greater unity and focus. We encourage activists to cite and link to the statement as a standard response to diversionary and disruptive behavior. Hopefully, this will allow us to move beyond some of our major obstacles to spreading truth and securing justice.

[Hereward]

NOTE: My position on Global Warming & UFOs differs from that expressed above in the following:

1) Global Warming skepticism IS FACT BASED! - saying that dissent about GW is purely speculative is just so wrong it makes me think that these guys are being deliberately deceptive rather than merely ignorant.

2) In regard to UFO's I think it is fair to say that any overarching theory (eg. aliens are here and they have been selling technology to the US government) IS SPECULATION - this incidentally is the view expressed by Dr. Alfred Webre. Merely reporting an unexpained observation IS NOT SPECULATION!

My main reason for limiting UFO discussions here is because they seem to be unproductive and rambling with no particular objective in mind. As such they waste time and energy. On the other hand if a UFO lands on my lawn tonight i will be the first to report it here!

Can you see the point I'm making? I hope so.

[Lin Kuei]

[Hereward]

Lin, I accept your criticism .... I am not entirely happy with the way things are currently organised either but it is not possible to please everyone ... I have received private emails recently from one individual who insisted that allowing any discussion whatsoever of UFOs would defame and smear the truth movement, and she refuses to post here unless I remove all references to UFOs (I have not agreed to this btw).

I am currently working on a plan for a more wide spectrum news website, but I am going to keep this site focussed on 9/11 research.

thanks for your feedback.

If you are interested in being the admin for a dedicated australian chemtrail research forum I would be happy to host it for you (under a different domain name)

Let me know if you are up for it. I can set this up very quickly. First step is to get a domain name - try www.godaddy.com ... make sure you deselect the optional extras and just choose the domain only. this will cost about $10 for 1 year.

[John Bursill]

I think these guide lines are fine to support the productive values that they promote.

Unfortunately, I think this sort of understanding(not "group mind" as we are aware) is the only way we will be able to take 9/11 to the mainstream in a political way.

I endorse this document, as from my experience it is correct in every way.

We should not think always as individuals and hold that so dear that we risk all, for together we stand and divided we will fall!

In my opinion you may still be a sceptic of man made "Global Warming" or believe in speculative fringe theories without having to talk about them in the same breath as 9/11 Truth! This is of no real penalty to the individual compared to the suffering of millions?!

If you haven't seen the way people will turn from the msg when some of these topics are brought up, you have not been paying attention.

Regards John
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WE GOT TO TAKE THE POWER BACK!

[Lin Kuei]

[John Bursill]

We are considering this document to be used as a guide for our new association that is now forming, "Truth Action Australia" hopefully to be launched this weekend. The new site will be at www.truthaction.org.au as part of Truth Action International. We hope that many new 9/11 groups and associations continue to form and are only setting this association/site up with the hope of making the dissemination of information and the support activists more efficient.

We have a consensus now, that we need a platform to bring together the Australian 9/11 Truth Movement. What we need to do immediately is make sure our political allies and our members including our founding patrons, Bob Bowman and Yuki Fujita can feel that we are representative of the 9/11 Truth Movements fundamentals and have a structure and guidelines that are safe for reputations. Hopefully this organized approach can prevent people from bringing us as a group into disrepute.

We will make some minor amendments to points in this guide that are a little divisive themselves and add a few extra considerations.

Please make comment on this guide in its current form while considering that allot of time was put into this document with much input from a large group of long time activists.

Kind regards John
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WE GOT TO TAKE THE POWER BACK!

[Blackie]

I understand the need for such guidelines in order to take 9/11 truth forward but I have to take issue with one position taken within this guide:

[able]

i agree 100% with Blackie on that one!

if a plane hit the pentagon they would proudly release the 80 or so camera angles!
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what if i say i will never surrender?

[shiizaa]

I agree with Blackie.

The off topic is a perfect space to discuss whatever we like, so the guidelines can be what ever they want, it has nothing to do with the off topic forum. I have to say I love the off topic forum. I am interested in truth on a wide spread scale, not just concerning 9\11. I understand there needs to be an international set of guidelines, it is a form of collectivism and I am not into that at the best times. I guess a cause such as this needs a set of "rules".

[shiizaa]

I am also with Lin Kuei. I am very curious about chemtrails and can't see harm discussing it, but anyway.

[John Bursill]

We are taking great care with the Pentagon issue.

I as an aircraft engineer have seen photos of the inside of the Pentagon that do show wreckage consistent with a large jet aircraft.

Saying there was no Boeing 757 at the Pentagon unfortunately can not be backed up with evidence 100%, although a good case for that hypothesis does exist.

I feel as many others do it is best to simply ask for the release evidence from our governments rather than to argue about what we don't have. It is equally important to expose the many contradictions and lies about the Pentagon event. The work the Pilots for 9/11 Truth are doing is great because they have proven the official story false, this should be our aim!

Thank you for contributing as we are under an extensive review and re-write of the Truth Move Document.

Please keep commenting, please!!

Kind regards John
_________________
WE GOT TO TAKE THE POWER BACK!

[Hereward]

Personally I welcome the creation of a new truth action site.

Once this new site is launched I will possibly loosen some of the restrictions I have previously placed.

As you can read in this thread, limiting dissussions of certain topics has been done partly in response to requests from visitors to this site, who saw the site as holding the flame for the truth movement in OZ and therefore requiring extra care.

If we are going to talk about standards then the behaviour of the cyber-bullies on this thread should serve as an example of what we should at all costs discourage:

http://truthaction.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3195

Unfortunately, as you can see, this thread is dedicated to vilifying myself and shiizaa. What is the point of that? How does that assist 9/11 truth? What are the instigators trying to achieve?

People are casually talking about shutting my site down for heavens sake! This post in particular chilled me: