AE911Truth All-Out Effort to Wake Up NYC

Activists Take on 13 Years of Denial in 5 Major Actions

It has been 13 years since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, spawned the rebirth of what has become America's guiding mantra — "Never Forget." But to faithfully heed its message, mustn't we, in addition to remembering the fatal day called 9/11, also remember the spheres of molten iron, the melting of steel, the free-fall of a skyscraper not hit by an airplane, and a host of other physical laws that prove the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center skyscrapers? The answer to this question is where the mainstream media and the 9/11 Truth movement depart. It also explains why, on the 13th anniversary of 9/11, hundreds of supporters of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth descended upon the World Trade Center in New York.

AE911Truth is just as at-home and productive in the streets educating New Yorkers as it is educating students and faculty in universities and building and design experts in professional settings. The non-profit group's three-day outreach began on Thursday morning, September 11, with a milestone press conference held at the corner of Vesey and Church right in front of the Liberty Tower. AE911Truth founder Richard Gage, AIA, opened the press conference to a dozen cameras. "We are here to tell the truth to the American people about that day, because they have not received the truth, the evidence. There are very serious problems with the official story, which has become the official myth." Gage proceeded to announce the upcoming New York City premiere of The Anatomy of a Great Deception and the symposium "The 9/11 Awakening Goes Mainstream," as well as the concurrent giant video billboard in Times Square.

Gage highlighted the five key benefits of 9/11 Truth to the 100 or so intrigued onlookers who had gathered on the street, starting with his own personal favorite, "9/11 Truth is Good for America because it restores our country's moral foundation and our faith in government."

Part 10: Terror Management Theory

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Part 11: Systems Justification Theory

© by Frances T. Shure, 2014

Editor’s Note: Frances Shure, M.A., L.P.C., has performed an in-depth analysis addressing a key issue of our time: “Why Do Good People Become Silent—or Worse—About 9/11?” The resulting essay, being presented here as a series, is a synthesis of both academic research and clinical observations.

In answering the question in the title of this essay, the August segment, Part 9, reported on the interface between brain research and the study of moral psychology, and how this research demonstrates that some moral convictions are innate and thus hardwired in the human nervous system. Additionally, we learned that some of these innate brain structures make it difficult for 9/11 Truth activists to present their evidence, as well as for listeners to receive this evidence openly.

We continue Ms. Shure’s analysis in October with a dual offering — Part 10: Terror Management Theory, and Part 11: Systems Justification Theory. They examine, respectively, how the fear of our own death and the need to feel good about the cultural system in which we live create resistance to the evidence presented by 9/11 skeptics.

Part 10: Terror Management Theory

Terror Management Theory postulates that whenever we are introduced to information that reminds us of death — such as simply the mention of 9/11 — our anxiety increases, since we are reminded of our own inevitable death. This anxiety is called “mortality salience.” Studies show that our behavior immediately becomes more defensive when we are reminded of death. In turn, we become increasingly insecure. This normally causes us to show increased preference for members of our own group (the "in group") over out-group members; to show more “consensus bias,” or favoritism toward those who hold beliefs similar to our own; and to develop “compensatory conviction,” an inflated faith in our personal worldview, such as a bias toward our own country and religion.

Therefore, when we skeptics try to educate people about 9/11, we provoke anxiety in our listeners since, unconsciously, we are reminding them of their own death. More defensive behaviors then ensue.

In addition, if our listeners view us as members of a minority group, they usually resist what we are saying — at least initially. If, on the other hand, they view us as members of the majority group, they are more likely to accept our information. In other words, people like to be on the winning side, or in the middle of the bell curve, as we saw in Part 6: Conformity.

As of this writing, skeptics of the official account of 9/11 are generally viewed as holding a minority opinion, but this need not remain the case. The good news is that research shows that information coming from a perceived minority group, although initially resisted, often exerts a hidden or delayed impact. When listeners hear dissenting views repeated, those views become more familiar. Thus, resistant individuals, when interviewed later, often show shifts in favor of the new information.¹

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer intuitively understood this delayed impact when he wrote,