Volunteer Spotlight: Andy Steele |
Written by Dick Scar, BSAE | |||
Monday, 31 March 2014 17:35 | |||
Andy Steele’s work as a community organizer may not have taken the same path as President Obama’s, but it has provided him with some interesting experiences. After spending a summer as a guest English teacher at a Chinese university, Andy returned to the US and received a degree in Creative Writing. One week after his return, 9/11 happened. A friend in China forwarded him an email suggesting that people in our own government were involved and, at the time, he dismissed the idea. While teaching English in Uzbekistan as a Peace Corps volunteer in 2004-05, Andy organized his 1st-5th grade students to pick up trash in their neighborhood. This upset government officials because it made those in charge of picking up the trash look bad. This seemingly minor incident, plus the uprising that occurred in Uzbekistan while he was there, changed his world view (Massacre in Uzbekistan is a film that documents the killing of almost 1,000 people on the orders of dictator Islam Karimov, a friend of U.S. leaders at the time). Though the Peace Corps mission in Uzbekistan was closed in 2005 after the massacre, Andy produced textbooks for his Uzbek students after coming home, using his skills as a cartoonist for many of the illustrations. While visiting a cartoon video website, Andy came across a post about 9/11 Truth that was obviously mistakenly entered, but it did re-introduce him to the issue. Shortly thereafter, an appearance by Alex Jones on Coast-to-Coast AM late-night talk radio got him further interested and involved. Seeing how the "War On Terror" in response to 9/11 was killing many innocent civilians with drone attacks, he emailed every member of Congress to protest this policy. Andy then started his own Myspace page, which later evolved into America 20xy, an independent news service that he edits. He had been a regular contributor to Opednews and other alternative media, and hosts a weekly podcast program, 9/11 Free Fall, on No Lies Radio Thursdays at 7 pm PST. fax to all 12,000 police chiefs and sheriffs in the country, outlining the evidence of controlled demolition at the World Trade Center on 9/11. He also encourages citizens to talk to elected officials on C-SPAN’s morning call-in show, Washington Journal, and confront them with this evidence. Consequently, several members of Congress have expressed interest in investigating the collapse of WTC Building 7, including Rep. Marcy Kaptur from the 9th District of Ohio. Andy helped organize the January 2013Richard Gage, AIA, said: “Andy is that rare breed of a self-directed volunteer who is relentlessly in pursuit of educating the public and professionals. Whether it's organizing a team of callers to bring up the 9/11 issue on TV shows, sending a fax of 9/11 evidence to law enforcement officers, or fearlessly speaking out to the thousands of listeners on his AE911Truth-based 9/11 Free Fall radio show, he never, ever gives up. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next – whatever it is will undoubtedly remove mountains of denial.”
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