Film Review: 9/11 in the Academic Community

9/11 in the Academic Community is more watchable than most “9/11 truth” filmsThe exciting new documentary whose upcoming release we announced in a September 8 article is now here. 9/11 in the Academic Community was released for purchase on October 8, after having won an award for “Documentary Achievement” at the University of Toronto Film Festival earlier this year. At a manageable running time of 75 minutes, with a title designed to appeal to its target audience, and by avoiding hot-button phrases such as “9/11 Truth,” the film has an excellent chance of slipping out of the conspiracy theorist jacket and making inroads into the American and Canadian intellectual communities.

This is certainly a film that needed to be made. With few exceptions, there has been a deafening silence in the classrooms of North American campuses regarding many obvious and undeniable facts that undermine the official account of 9/11. If the faculty and students at institutions of higher learning cannot question and even contradict what we have been told by media and government about the “crime of the century” without being called “conspiracy theorists,” then what has become of the academic community? Those who wrote the U.S. Constitution and defeated the British Empire’s dominion over the American colonies well understood that the spirit of free inquiry and an understanding of history were key to a properly functioning democratic republic. Even with those freedoms and values, Benjamin Franklin famously predicted that it would be difficult for us to “keep it.” Nothing less is at stake with regard to the issues covered in this film.

9/11 in the Academic Community is more watchable than most “9/11 truth” films. One of its biggest strengths is that all of its speakers express criticisms of the way that the 9/11 account was advanced and how it’s been treated in the 12 years since then – mostly without sounding angry.

Representatives Express Willingness to Look at the Evidence

For several months supporters of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth have been dialing into C-SPAN's morning call-in show, Washington Journal, to confront members of Congress, the media, and others with the scientific evidence proving that pre-planted explosives brought down the Twin Towers and World Trade Center Building 7 on 9/11. Some callers have implored legislators to support a new investigation into the complete, rapid destruction of all three modern steel skyscrapers.

Rep. Diana Degette, (D-CO)On October 20, 2013, Diana Degette, (D-CO), appeared as a guest on the morning show. Questioning Congress's credibility, a caller asked:

"My question is concerning credibility of Congress in all of this. What credibility does Congress have left to govern with when basic physics have already proven that Building 7, World Trade Center 7, was brought down by explosives on 9/11, and the majority of Congressmen are willingly ignorant of this fact or can only offer rehearsed outrage in response to direct questions about this evidence?"

Degette replied:

To support the Rethink 9/11 campaign inexpensively, activists in Connecticut took a novel approach to doing outreach by creating homemade Rethink911 banners.  Local organizer Wayne Coste, PE, said that, “One of the issues when doing outreach is how many people will see the message and how much effort it will take.  Our group did not have the funds for paid advertising, so we decided to try a homemade traveling billboard.  Furthermore, it could be made to be fun, and that is a definite bonus.”

Co-organizer Carl Henry Seeger said, “One of our members was able to print off a series of 11x17 color segments that could be taped together into a double-sided banner.”
Put together using fourteen 11x17 color sheets. Edges were trimmed and then taped together to create a single sheetSeeger continued, “The first public showing of the homemade banner was in the 2013 Willimantic Boom Box Parade.  Now this is a parade where anyone can march or enter a float and the only requirement is to wear some red, white, and blue, and bring a radio tuned to WILI (1400-AM).  Because there is no "official" theme for the parade, we decided to put the banner on a trailer hauled by a bicycle.”