• THE DAILY BEAST

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SO FETCH

09.16.151:05 AM ET

Bullying Experts: Trump Is an Eighth-Grade Girl

Don’t let the comb-over fool you. Donald Trump’s rhetorical style is straight out of middle school.

“He’s like an eighth-grade girl,” Rosalind Wiseman told me. “As an educator who works with children, it’s an amazing thing to watch,” she said, “because you really wish the adults would be the adults and be able to check the person who’s abusing power and being so callous to other people.”

Wiseman knows a child bully when she sees one, having written a series of books on the topic, most famously Queen Bees and Wannabes, about middle-school girls’ viciousness and upon which the movie Mean Girls is based.

But Wiseman wasn’t talking to me about some unruly kid who threw rocks at a mathlete or called his frenemy names in a Burn Book. She was talking about a 69-year-old man from Queens who is seeking the Republican nomination for president of the United States.

She was talking, of course, about Donald Trump.

“He’s absolutely operating as an intelligent, manipulative bully who truly does not care about the consequences of his actions,” Wiseman said. “He delights in his own ability to manipulate and to show that nobody can stop him.”

From the moment Trump announced his candidacy, on June 16, no one has been safe from his wrath. His announcement speech itself felt like a roast of everyone in the world not named Donald Trump. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” he said. “They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Since then, Trump has pilloried, in no particular order, John McCain (“not a war hero”), Jeb Bush (“low energy”), Lindsey Graham (“a beggar”), Anderson Cooper (“waste of time”), Megyn Kelly (“blood coming out of her wherever”), Juan Williams (“like a child”), Forbes magazine (“failed magazine”), The Des Moines Register (“very dishonest”), Arianna Huffington (“liberal clown”), The Weekly Standard (“small and slightly failing magazine”), Rick Perry (“should be forced to take an IQ test”), the Republican National Committee (“very foolish”), Heidi Klum (“no longer a 10”), Univision (“they are doing really badly”), The Wall Street Journal (“ever dwindling”), Carly Fiorina (“Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?”), Bobby Jindal (“I only respond to people that register more than 1 percent in the polls”), Rand Paul (“didn’t get the right gene”). I could go on.

Trump has ridiculed so many people and places and things that enterprising content creators have made Trump insult generators in his honor. Regular English words are for the time being inextricably linked to Trump because he deploys them so frequently from his insult arsenal: loser, in particular, but also lightweight, stupid, weak, and clown.

But it’s not just that Trump is a prolific and vitriolic critic—it’s that the way Trump tends to make his disapproval known comically calls to mind the schoolyard bully.

Bullying, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, “involves repeated exposure of one person to physical and/or relational aggression where the victim is hurt with teasing, name calling, mockery, threats, harassment, taunting, social exclusion or rumors”—or, to put it more concisely, the entire Trump doctrine.

His behavior can be intimidating. Like when, in July, he stood at the lectern at a South Carolina rally and read aloud to the world Lindsey Graham’s personal cellphone number. It was difficult not to wonder, as Trump gleefully encouraged his audience to “give it a shot” and call Graham, whom he might doxx next.

He is relentless. Jeb Bush, the establishment favorite for the nomination, is known for being wonky and serious, and has had some difficulty exciting both the public and the press since launching his campaign. He is, you could say, the anti-Trump. And so, in true Trump fashion, Trump began a campaign to brand Bush as “low energy.” During an interview on Morning Joe recently, Trump said, “He’s a nice person. He is a low energyperson, there’s no question about it. And, you know, I think we need much more than alow energy person right now to put this country back in shape.”

“Usually people mature. They see what they’re doing, they see their part in it–but he’s like an eighth-grade girl that never sees his part in it. Never, ever sees it.”

Perhaps sensing that he was getting under Bush’s skin, Trump made sure to call Bush “low energy” everywhere he went. He even went as far as to release a video based on this insult. “Having trouble sleeping at night? Need some energy? Need some low energy?” the narrator says before introducing footage of Bush speaking.  

Taking cues from the boss, the behavior of Trump’s campaign operatives, too, can be bullying. When, also in July, The Daily Beast reported that during Trump’s divorce from his first wife, Ivana, she accused him of sexual assault (though she later recanted), Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer, threatened reporter Tim Mak on the record: “I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly,” he said, “because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?”

Naomi Drew, a conflict resolution specialist and the author of No Kidding About Bullying, told me she sees in Trump, as Wiseman does, signs of a classic bully.

“People bully to gain power over others, and Trump’s behavior is the epitome of this,” she said. By insulting Fiorina’s appearance, Drew said, Trump was “behaving like the high school bully who’s threatened by a girl who’s smarter than he is,” and by mocking candidates for not polling as well as he is, Trump is “acting like [a] high school football player swaggering into the cafeteria and overturning the lunch tray of a weaker kid.”

Bullies, like most people running for political office, have an unhealthy need for power. That need can be caused, according to Drew, by a number of things: revenge after being bullied themselves, general self-esteem and insecurity issues, or just a total lack of human compassion.

“They see people who are different from them as ‘less than’ and may dehumanize them in the process, which is what Trump does when it comes to illegal immigrants,” Drew said. “He’s positioning immigrants as ‘the other’ and feeding into the hatred and narrowness that seem to be growing. People who bully see their victims as ‘the other,’ as less than human. This allows them to justify cruel behavior. This is what happened in Nazi Germany, with the lynching of blacks, with the marginalization of minorities, gays, and women. Bullying results when this dynamic is present.”

Wiseman told me that usually, with the eighth-grade girls, there is a moment of reckoning that gets them to reform their behavior. But Trump, due to his wealth (“very rich,” he says) and privilege, has never had such a moment, because there have rarely been consequences for the things he says and does.

“For Trump, all of this is working too well,” Wiseman said. “He’s being rewarded in exactly the way he wants to be… Usually people mature. They see what they’re doing, they see their part in it—but he’s like an eighth-grade girl that never sees his part in it. Never, ever sees it.”

Trump is, as Wiseman puts it, “like the kid where no teachers are gonna stop him and no principal is gonna stop him. It’s the kid who knows, who’s figured out, that no one is going to stop him and no one knows how to stop him.”

So the question now, for the rest of the Republican primary field and in a larger sense for the country as a whole, is how do you put the brakes on that kid? How do you stand up to the bully? How do you stand up to the bully on Wednesday night, when he will again take center stage at a debate that seems divinely designed to showcase his mean girl act?

Drew has some advice for the candidates, at least. “Reacting to the bully only increases his power,” she told me. So that means Bush, Fiorina, Jindal, and Graham did themselves a disservice in the long run, even if their tussles with the tinsel-haired tycoon brought them some much-needed publicity in the moment. The way to beat him for good, Drew said, is to counter Trump’s insults “with substantive talk over trash talk.”

So maybe in another democracy.

HOWSTUFFWORKS

MONEY

How Con Artists Work

by Ed Grabianowski

Money Scam Image Gallery

Do you know how to steer clear of con artists? See more money scam pictures.

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Con artists make money through deception. They lie, cheat and fool people into thinking they've happened onto a great deal or some easy money, when ­they're the ones who'll be making money. If that doesn't work, they'll take advantage of our weaknesses -- loneliness, insecurity, poor health or simple ignorance. The only thing more important to a con artist than perfecting a con is perfecting a total lack of conscience.

What does the average con artist look like? Despite what you may think, he isn't always a shady-looking character. A con artist is an expert at looking however he needs to look. If the con involves banking or investments, the con artist will wear a snappy suit. If it involves home improvement scams, he'll show up wearing well-worn work clothes. Even the basic assumption that the con is a "he" is incorrect: there are plenty of con women too.

You might think you can spot a con artist because he's someone you instinctively "don't trust." But the term con artist is short for confidence artist -- they gain your confidence just long enough to get their hands on your money. They can be very charming and persuasive. A good con artist can even make you believe he is really an old friend you haven't seen in years.

Con artists do share certain characteristics, however. Even the best con can only go on for so long before people start getting suspicious. For that reason, con artists tend to move frequently. They may have a job that allows this, or they might claim to have such a job. Railroad worker, carnival worker and traveling salesman are all parts con artists play to cover up their constant relocations.

It would be impo­ssible to catalogue every con, because con artists are inventive. While many cons are simply variations on ones that are hundreds of years old, new technologies and laws give con artists the opportunity to create original scams. Many cons tend to fall into a few general categories, however: street cons, business cons, Internet cons, loan cons and home improvement cons.

A CON'S A CON

Different terms for con artists include: flim flam man, sham artist, shyster or sheister, bunco man (after the name of a popular "fixed" card game that has since become synonymous with scams), bamboozler, swindler, grifter and hustler.

Street Cons

These are cons that usually happen quickly in a public place. They generally involve the loss of small amounts of money -- a few hundred dollars is a good take for a street con. The victim is usually approached by a stranger who has an offer, makes a bet, or is reacting to something seemingly random and unrelated that has happened nearby. This "random" event is, of course, something the con artist set up well ahead of time.

Street cons include:

• The Pedigree Dog A stranger walks into a bar with a dog trailing him on a leash. He asks if the owner can watch his dog for a few minutes while he places a bet or attends to a business deal. While the stranger is gone, a second con artist arrives and notices the dog. He claims to be an expert on dog breeding, and says that this dog is worth hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. He asks the owner if the dog is for sale because he'll pay top dollar. The entire scam hinges on the bar owner's greed. The assumption is he'll see the chance to buy the dog from the unsuspecting owner for a low price, then sell the valuable dog to this "expert breeder." He tells the dog expert to come back later, then offers to buy the dog when its owner returns. The dog's owner sells it, but the "expert" never comes back to buy it. The two con artists walk away with a few hundred dollars, and the bar owner gets stuck with a "mutt." In Neil Gaiman's novel "American Gods," two characters discuss this con using a violin instead of a dog.
• The Pigeon Drop There are several variations of this con, but they all start with the victim and the con artist both spotting something of value lying around. It's usually an envelope or bag full of money, but it could be a diamond ring. The con artist tries to get the victim to notice the envelope first, making him less likely to suspect that the con artist planted it. A second con artist may get involved as the victim and the first con artist decide to split up the found money, demanding a fair share since he saw it too. At this point, the cons will suggest that everyone put some of their own money into the envelope as "good faith money," to show that they're financially responsible people. Once all of the money is in the envelope, it is divided into thirds and returned to the victim and the two con artists. However, through sleight of hand and a distraction, the victim gets an envelope full of paper scraps. In the ring variation, the con artist claims to have some expertise in jewelry assessment, and proclaims the ring to be worth several hundred dollars or more. However, not having time to sell or pawn the ring, the con artist offers to let the victim buy out his half. So the victim pays what he can to the con artist and keeps the "valuable" ring, which is actually a cheap fake. The victim, or "pigeon," is "dropped" and left with nothing.
• Three-card Monte In this famous street con, a con artist has a table with three cards in front of her. One card is flipped over to reveal that it is the Ace of Spades (or any other card). The victim places a bet that he can keep an eye on that card while the con artist quickly rearranges the cards on the table. If the correct card is picked, the victim wins. Friends of the con artist play the game, sometimes winning, sometimes losing, to give the victim the impression that it is a fair game he might win if he has a sharp eye. In reality, the con artist is a master of sleight of hand, able to switch cards without the victim noticing. No matter how carefully he watches, the victim will never pick the right card unless the con artist wants him to. Variations include the use of shells (a "shell game" is sometimes used to mean any kind of deceptive scam) or cups with the victim trying to spot a quarter, a pea or a ball held within one of the shells.

Business and Internet Cons

Stock market scams and marketing schemes make up the bulk of business cons. These cons often take advantage of the arcane rules of business accountingand stock trading, and people's overall ignorance of these rules. Other scams take advantage of greed and poor math skills.

Stock Market Scams

In the "pump and dump" con, con artists cold call people with offers to buy an impressive stock. They use hard sell tactics and claim they have information that the stock will be very successful (the "pump"). The con artists themselves own many shares of these stocks, but the stocks are worthless and represent an investment in a non-existent company. Once enough investors buy the stock, its value starts to increase. When it gets high enough, the con artists sell all their shares (the "dump") and disappear with the proceeds as well as all the money the investors gave them.

Pyramid Schemes

These common cons continue to fool people year after year, even though they are illegal and simply don't work. Although pyramid schemes predate the 1920 scam run by Charles Ponzi, his scheme reached so many people and bilked them out of so much money that his name became synonymous with this type of scam.

In any pyramid scheme, investors are recruited to pay the company owner, who is the con artist at the top of the pyramid. There may be an actual business, such as Ponzi's buying and reselling of postal reply coupons to take advantage of exchange rates, or it may be a pure pyramid. People pass money to those above them in the pyramid and wait to receive money from anyone who signs up below them. Even if there is a real business, it can never make enough money to repay all the investors. Chain letters instructing people to send $5 to 10 others on a list are also pyramid schemes.

Each person who joins the pyramid sends money to someone above them. Then they have to recruit people below them. The new recruits send their money up the pyramid. Since the number of people recruited increases at each level, the people in the higher levels will supposedly make huge amounts of money. A simple common sense question would stop anyone from entering such a scheme: if we're going to make all this money without actually selling anything, where is the money coming from? The answer: most of the people in the pyramid are going to lose their money. Only the top two or three levels will see any money (and the recruiter will tell you you're at the top even if you're nowhere near it). Eventually, it becomes impossible to recruit enough people to support the pyramid. If each member has to recruit five new victims for the level below, it doesn't take too many levels before the exponential increase in needed recruits exceeds the entire population of the Earth.

Today, companies that call themselves "multi-level marketing" firms are basically pyramid schemes with a fancy name. There are legitimate multi-level marketing companies. They usually involve people selling products such as cosmetics or kitchen items at parties. However, if a company bills itself as a multi-level marketer or franchiseopportunity, is vague about what it sells and/or specific profit margins, or if it focuses on charging franchise fees rather than actually selling anything, it's a pyramid scheme.

Nigerian money transfer scams are also known as 419 scams; 419 is section of Nigerian law related to fraud.

Paul Katz/Getty Images

Nigerian Money Transfer

Widespread use of the Internet has given con artists another way to scam people. Cons such as Internet auction fraud or phishing sites that try to steal credit card and bank account numbers are common, but there are more insidious Internet cons in which the con artists try to earn the personal trust of their victims.

Perhaps the most infamous of all Internet cons is the Nigerian money transfer, or advance fee fraud. Virtually everyone with an e-mail address has received a come-on for this con at some point. Someone from Nigeria (or another African country), perhaps a relative of a recently deposed ruler, informs you that he needs your assistance in a very important matter. It seems that this deposed ruler has millions of dollars stashed away in a secure bank account. However, he can't access any of this money without paying certain fees, bribes and fines to Nigerian authorities. That's where the victim comes in -- to provide money to pay these costs. The victim is assured that once the costs are paid, the government will release the money and a he will receive a huge return on his investment. Often the e-mail promises a large percentage of the total sum.

Anyone who has actually sent money to these con artists will soon find that other fees crop up. The money may get held up at the border, so more money is needed to bribe the customs officials. The con artists often request personal information such as Social Security numbers and copies of passports. This goes on and on, playing on one of the most nefarious aspects of long-term cons -- once the victim has spent a significant amount of money, he believes if he just spends a little more then he'll get it all back. With so much money already invested, most people find it very difficult to walk away. Some people have been lured to the country of origin, kidnapped and held for ransom. There is even a documented murder related to such a case. The country of Nigeria is notorious for a combination of poverty and lax law enforcement, especially with regards to financial scams. The section of Nigerian law relating to fraud is 419, so these scams are sometimes referred to as 419 scams. But the scams can originate from anywhere, as our example above shows.

Read on to learn about more cons, how to avoid being conned and what to do if it happens to you.

NOT THIS TIME...

The author received a "Nigerian Money Transfer" e-mail while writing this article. Here's an excerpt:

THE SAID AMOUNT WAS US $7.2m (SEVEN MILLION TWO HUNDRED UNITED STATES DOLLARS). AS IT MAY INTEREST YOU TO KNOW, I GOT YOUR IMPRESSIVE INFORMATION THROUGH THE BUKINAB CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ON FOREIGN BUSINESS RELATIONS HERE IN OUAGA. BURKINA-FASO. MEANWHILE ALL THE WHOLE ARRANGEMENT TO PUT CLAIM OVER THIS FUND AS THE BONAFIDE NEXT OF KIN TO THE DECEASED, GET THE REQUIRED APPROVAL AND TRANSFER THIS MONEY TO A FOREIGN ACCOUNT HAS BEEN PUT IN PLACE AND DIRECTIVES AND NEEDED INFORMATION WILL BE RELAYED TO YOU AS SOON AS YOU INDICATE YOUR INTEREST AND WILLINGNESS TO ASSIST US AND ALSO BENEFIT YOUR SELF TO THIS GREAT BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY.

Avoiding Cons

Online Sales Scams

Another Internet con preys on people who sell items online. Someone will respond to a classified ad offering to buy the item or win an item in an eBay auction, but they require the use of a special shipping company or claim that a banking regulation requires them to pay with a large cashier's check. The check will be in an amount that far exceeds the item's cost (a $5,000 check for a $100 item, for example). The con artist instructs the seller to cash the check, keep the amount owed for the item, then send the rest of the cash back to him. This supposedly satisfies the regulation or shipping company. If the seller doesn't bother waiting for the check to clear -- and many don't -- the con artist will get nearly $5,000 in cash in return for a check that eventually bounces, leaving the victim on the hook for the full amount.

Home Improvement Cons

Often, a con artist working a home improvement con will approach a homeowner with a story similar to this one:

We were doing some work down the street, and I noticed it looks like you could use a new roof. We have some supplies left over from the other job, and we'll have to return them to the supplier either way, so I can use the leftovers to give you a new roof for a really low price.

Once the phony roofer has the money in hand, he'll disappear. No new roof. Some con artists are actual contractors, but they run scams as part of their business. They might get halfway through the roofing job, then demand more money. When a person has half a roof on his house, he's not in much of a position to argue. The roofer might actually complete the work, but do a poor job or use sub-standard materials. Worse still, he might have a clause in the contract that allows him to put a lien on the house and foreclose if the owner misses a payment. If you refuse to pay for the shoddy work, you could end up losing the whole house.

Home improvement scams sometimes involve kickbacks to other con artists. A contractor approaches a homeowner with an offer to do work, and then directs the owner to a specific person who will help finance the money required for the job. This "friend" might give the owner a terrible rate on the loan, sending some of it back to the contractor. In other scams, a "home inspector" shows up, claiming to represent the city or county code enforcement office. She might even have an ID that appears valid. This inspector will invariably find several major problems that violate the code and could result in hefty fines. As an option, she directs the owner to a friend who can do the work for a good price. It usually isn't a good price, and it's never good work. Cheap materials, shoddy workmanship and unnecessary replacements are the hallmarks of these "home improvement specialists. "

Loan Cons and Con PreventionLoan Cons

Some scams may offer to invalidate your mortgage payment in exchange for a large sum of money.

Digital Vision/Getty Images

Mortgages, credit refinancing and other large loans are a major market for con artists. Some companies today offer "debt removal" services. They will provide you with a certificate that invalidates your mortgage or other debt, meaning you no longer have to pay for them, in return for a large fee. But the document they provide is worthless -- there are no legal loopholes that allow you to get out of debt without making the payments.

Con artist bankers may slip a page into a loan contract that says the bank now owns the home. The stack of paperwork the homeowner has to sign is mind-boggling, and he may overlook the fine print. Some people end up signing over their homes for nothing.

Mortgage refinance scams are rampant as well. These con artists prey on people who are already in financial trouble. The victim is typically having trouble making his mortgage payments. The con artist banker notices that the victim has some home equity, too much debt and not enough income. A loan is offered even though it is obvious the victim can never make the payments. That's OK with the con artist. He doesn't want the payments; he wants an easy foreclosure on a home.

How to Avoid a Con

Sometimes it seems like the world is full of people constantly trying to get their hands on your money. But there are a few things to remember that will help make you resistant to most cons:

• You never get something for nothing. There's an old saying: "You can't cheat an honest man." Most cons rely on the victim's own greed. Con artists know that people often throw caution to the wind when they start seeing dollar signs. Deals that sound too good to be true usually are.
• Guard your personal information. Especially guard your Social Security number, credit card numbers and bank account numbers. We have to use these numbers in many of our daily transactions, but if you are asked for any of this information, be absolutely sure that the person doing the asking is someone you can trust or works for a reputable company.
• Don't accept solicitations. Whether you get a cold call for an investment opportunity or someone comes to your door offering to do home repairs, hang up the phone and close the door. While there may be legitimate businesses that go door-to-door or make cold calls to find customers, they are few and far between.
• Watch for signs.Con artists often give themselves away if you ask enough questions. Ask for some kind of written documentation of their offer. Check for a real address, not a P.O. Box. Ask to see a driver's license, and write down the information on it. Write down license plate numbers, and make sure the con artist sees you doing it. If it's a legitimate offer, he won't mind. Tell him you need to think the deal over for at least a few days before making a decision. A con artist will often pressure you to make a decision on the spot -- often using hard sell tactics, such as saying that the deal won't last. They may get nervous when you ask for something in writing, and will usually refuse to provide it. When someone wants your money, if the offer is legitimate, it will still be around next week.

If You've Been Conned

The most street-wise person can get taken in by a con. If you've been victimized, what should you do?

Con artists count on their victims feeling foolish and afraid to report the scam. But if you remain silent about being conned, you're letting the con artist move on to steal from others. Write down every detail you can remember as soon as possible, while it's fresh in your memory. Collect any documented evidence you might have as well. This includes receipts, contracts or even your own phone records.

Now it's time to contact the authorities. You may have to do some legwork to find the right agency, or someone who is willing to help you. Your local police department may have a special division assigned to fraud cases. Also contact your local district attorney. Get in touch with the Better Business Bureau and see if there are any other reports of the same con artist -- this could help you and the police track him down. Many scams also fall under the jurisdiction of certain federal agencies, like the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. If you really reach a dead end, try your local TV news stations. Many have segments where a reporter tracks down a con artist and demands answers, and con artists hate the spotlight.

For lots more information on con artists and related topics, check out the links below.

CHARLES PONZI

Charles Ponzi didn't necessarily intend to create a pyramid scheme, but his scheme took on that form. He first convinced people to invest in his business idea. When the business didn't make enough money to repay the investors, he got new investors and used their money to repay the original investors. This process repeated itself several times until newspaper and police investigations hurt his ability to draw new investors. Fraudulent banks have used this scheme as well, offering high interest rates on savings accounts to draw a lot of customers. The deposits of newer customers are used to pay the interest to the first customers, and so on, until the bank collapses (or the con artists flee with everyone's money).

Lots More Information

Related Articles

• How E-mail Scams Work
• How Spam Works
• How Long-distance Phone Scams Work
• How Identity Theft Works

More Great Links

• Crimes of Persuasion: Schemes, Scams, Frauds
• How to Spot a Con Artist
• Securities and Exchange Commission
• Federal Trade Commission
• Better Business Bureau

Sources

• "Con Men: Fascinating Profiles of Swindlers and Rogues from the Files of the Most Successful Broadcast in Television History." Simon & Schuster, January 7, 2003. ISBN 0743224485.
• De Bruin, Philip. "SA cops, Interpol probe murder." News24.com, December 31, 2004. http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1641875,00.html
• Engel, Peter H. "Scam!" St. Martin's Griffin, 1996. ISBN 0312144091.
• Swierczynski, Duane. "The Complete Idiot's Guide To Frauds, Scams, and Cons." Alpha, 2002. ISBN 0028644158.
• Wilker, Josh. "Classic Cons and Swindles." Chelsea House Publications, April 1997. ISBN 0791042510.

9/11 Fourteen Years Later

9/11 Fourteen Years Later

by Paul Craig Roberts / September 10th, 2015

Millions of refugees from Washington’s wars are currently over-running Europe. Washington’s 14-year and ongoing slaughter of Muslims and destruction of their countries are war crimes for which the US government’s official 9/11 conspiracy theory was the catalyst. Factual evidence and science do not support Washington’s conspiracy theory. The 9/11 Commission did not conduct an investigation. It was not permitted to investigate. The Commission sat and listened to the government’s story and wrote it down. Afterwards, the chairman and co-chairman of the Commission said that the Commission “was set up to fail.” For a factual explanation of 9/11, watch this film.

Here is a presentation by Pilots For 9/11 Truth:

Here is an extensive examination of many of the aspects of 9/11.

Phil Restino of the Central Florida chapter of Veterans For Peace wants to know why national antiwar organizations buy into the official 9/11 story when the official story is the basis for the wars that antiwar organizations oppose. Some are beginning to wonder if ineffectual peace groups are really Homeland Security or CIA fronts?

The account below of the government’s 9/11 conspiracy theory reads like a parody, but in fact is an accurate summary of the official 9/11 conspiracy theory. It was posted as a comment in the online UK Telegraph on September 12, 2009, in response to Charlie Sheen’s request to President Obama to conduct a real investigation into what happened on September 11, 2001.

The Official Version of 9/11 goes something like this:



Directed by a beardy-guy from a cave in Afghanistan, nineteen hard-drinking, coke-snorting, devout Muslims enjoy lap dances before their mission to meet Allah. 

Using nothing more than craft knifes, they overpower cabin crew, passengers and pilots on four planes.



And hangover or not, they manage to give the world’s most sophisticated air defence system the slip. 



Unfazed by leaving their “How to Fly a Passenger Jet” guide in the car at the airport, they master the controls in no-time and score direct hits on two towers, causing THREE to collapse completely. 



The laws of physics fail, and the world watches in awe as asymmetrical damage and scattered low temperature fires cause steel-framed buildings to collapse symmetrically through their own mass at free-fall speed, for the first time in history.



Despite their dastardly cunning and superb planning, they give their identity away by using explosion-proof passports, which survive the destruction of steel and concrete and fall to the ground where they are quickly discovered lying on top of the mass of debris.

Meanwhile in Washington



Hani Hanjour, having previously flunked Cessna flying school, gets carried away with all the success of the day and suddenly finds incredible abilities behind the controls of a jet airliner. 

Instead of flying straight down into the large roof area of the Pentagon, he decides to show off a little. 

Executing an incredible 270 degree downward spiral, he levels off to hit the low facade of the Pentagon. 
Without ruining the nicely mowed lawn and at a speed just too fast to capture on video.



In the skies above Pennsylvania 



Desperate to talk to loved ones before their death, some passengers use sheer willpower to connect mobile calls that would not be possible until several years later.



And following a heroic attempt by some to retake control of Flight 93, the airliner crashes into a Pennsylvania field leaving no trace of engines, fuselage or occupants except for the standard issue Muslim terrorist bandana.



During these events



President Bush continues to read My Pet Goat to a class of primary school children.


In New York



World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein blesses his own foresight in insuring the buildings against terrorist attack only six weeks previously. 


In Washington

The Neoconservatives are overjoyed by the arrival of the “New Pearl Harbor,” the necessary catalyst for launching their pre-planned wars.

Paul Craig Roberts is an American economist, author, columnist, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and former editor and columnist for corporate media publications. He is the author of The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism. Read other articles by Paul, or visit Paul's website.

This article was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2015 at 7:49pm and is filed under 9-11, GWB.

Who’s Still Afraid of 9/11 “Conspiracy Theories”?

Who’s Still Afraid of 9/11 “Conspiracy Theories”?

by Maidhc Ó Cathail / September 10th, 2015

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

—Queen Gertrude, Hamlet

Whenever someone insists too strongly about something not being true, we tend to suspect that maybe it is. In their denials of involvement in 9/11, do Israel’s apologists “protest too much”?

While it would take a small book to adequately document the Israeli connection to 9/11—as Antiwar.com editor Justin Raimondo attempted to some extent in The Terror Enigma—let us briefly recall some of the more intriguing facts as reported in the mainstream media, involving dancing Israelis, Odigo warnings, and Zim’s timely move.

The story of the five Israelis who were seen celebrating and filming as the Twin Towers burned and collapsed was investigated by Neil Mackay in Scotland’s Sunday Herald. The so-called “dancing Israelis” worked for Urban Moving Systems, later deemed to be a Mossad front by the FBI. Despite failing numerous polygraph tests, the young men were deported to Israel two months later. Back home, several of the men appeared on a TV chat show, in which one of them amazingly said, “Our purpose was to document the event.”

Two employees of Odigo, an Israeli instant messaging service, received messages two hours before the World Trade Center attack on September 11 predicting the attack would happen, Ha’aretz reported.

Zim-American Israeli Shipping Co., part-owned by the Israeli government, movedtheir North American headquarters from the 16th floor of the WTC to Norfolk, Virginia one week before the 9/11 attacks, incurring a $50,000 fine for breaking its lease, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Despite being in the public domain, none of these relevant facts are mentioned in the 9/11 Commission’s 567-page report.

Moreover, Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, is concerned about the spread of such inconvenient facts to the wider public. “Our worry,” he says, “is when things become infectious…. [then] this stuff can be deeply corrosive to public understanding. You can get where the bacteria can sicken the larger body.”

But was Zelikow speaking here as an American government official or as a pro-Israeli insider?

In the same month that he authored the so-called Bush Doctrine of preemptive war, which provided the justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Zelikow made this candid admission: “Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990—it’s the threat against Israel.”

Yet, instead of investigating the Israeli connection, Zelikow used the 9/11 Commission to sell the Israeli-inspired Iraq war to the American people.

Zelikow’s “bacteria” quote is cited in a 2008 paper entitled “Conspiracy Theories.” Co-authored by Cass Sunstein, who currently heads President Obama’s White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the main focus of the paper “involves conspiracy theories relating to terrorism, especially theories that arise from and post-date the 9/11 attacks.”

Rather than attempting to debunk such theories, Sunstein and Vermeule claim that those who suspect Israeli involvement in 9/11 suffer from a “crippled epistemology.” This, the authors argue, is due to “a sharply limited number of (relevant) informational sources.” In other words, “they know very few things, and what they know is wrong.”

To counter these suspicions, Sunstein recommends “cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents, or their allies (acting either virtually or in real space, and either openly or anonymously) will undermine the crippled epistemology of those who subscribe to such theories. They do so by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity.”

It could, of course, be argued that Sunstein’s work also suffers from a crippled epistemology—his research relies heavily on pro-Israeli sources, most notably the notorious Islamophobe Daniel Pipes.

Pipes is a bit of an expert on conspiracy theories, having written two books on the subject. “Conspiracism provides a key to understanding the political culture of the Middle East,” Pipes opines in The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy. “It helps explain much of what would otherwise seem illogical or implausible, including the region’s record of political extremism and volatility, its culture of violence, and its poor record of modernization.”

Like Sunstein, Pipes is concerned that many in the region suspect Israeli involvement in 9/11. “The implications in the Middle East are quite profound,” Pipes told the LA-based Jewish Journal. “It’s one more brick in the edifice of fear and loathing of Israel and the Jews.”

In the absence of a proper 9/11 investigation, there remains a broad range of opinion about the precise nature of Israeli complicity. In The Terror Enigma, Justin Raimondo tentatively concludes that the Israeli connection to 9/11 amounts to “foreknowledge and passive collaboration with Bin Laden’s jihad.”

It’s hardly surprising then that some of the most obsessive critics of 9/11 “conspiracy theories” have ties to Israel. If Americans ever find out that their “staunchest ally” had anything to do with the mass murder of their fellow citizens on September 11, 2001, the would-be conspiracy debunkers have good reason to be afraid.

Maidhc Ó Cathail writes extensively on U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East.Read other articles by Maidhc, or visit Maidhc's website.

This article was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2015 at 8:54am and is filed under 9-11, Israel/Palestine.

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

ABOUT THE MOVEMENT

Q: What is the Voluntary Human ExtinctionMovement?

VHEMT (pronounced vehement) is a movement not an organization. It’s a movement advanced by people who care about life on planet Earth. We’re not just a bunch of misanthropes and anti-social, Malthusian misfits, taking morbid delight whenever disaster strikes humans. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Voluntary human extinction is the humanitarian alternative to human disasters.

We don’t carry on about how the human race has shown itself to be a greedy, amoral parasite on the once-healthy face of this planet. That type of negativity offers no solution to the inexorable horrors which human activity is causing.
Rather, The Movement presents an encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth’s ecology.

As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us.

Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom.

When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth’s biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve (if they believe in evolution), and will perhaps pass away, as so many of Nature’s “experiments” have done throughout the eons.

It’s going to take all of us going.

Graphic by Nina Paley
Colorized by Aaron Hackmann

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Q: Are you really serious?
We’re really vehement.

Many see humor in The Movement and think we can’t be serious about voluntary human extinction, but in spite of the seriousness of both situation and movement, there’s room for humor. In fact, without humor, Earth’s condition gets unbearably depressing—a little levity eases the gravity.
True, wildlife rapidly going extinct and tens of thousands of children dying each day are not laughing matters, but neither laughing nor bemoaning will change what’s happening. We may as well have some fun as we work and play toward a better world.

Besides, returning Earth to its natural splendor and ending needless suffering of humanity are happy thoughts—no sense moping around in gloom and doom.

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Q: Do Volunteers expect to be successful?
 
VHEMT Volunteers are realistic. We know we’ll never see the day there are no human beings on the planet. Ours is a long-range goal.

It has been suggested that there are only two chances of everyone volunteering to stop breeding: slim and none. The odds may be against preserving life on Earth, but the decision to stop reproducing is still the morally correct one. Indeed, the likelihood of our failure to avoid the massive die off which humanity is engineering is a very good reason to not sentence another of us to life. The future isn’t what it used to be.

Even if our chances of succeeding were only one in a hundred, we would have to try. Giving up and allowing humanity to take its course is unconscionable. There is far too much at stake.

The Movement may be considered a success each time one more of us volunteers to breed no more. We are being the change we want to see in the world.

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Q: Does VHEMT have any enemies?
 
After we’ve seen a few hundred TV dramas where the good guy kicks the bad guy’s butt, it’s tempting to look at the real world with this same knee jerk, zero-sum mentality. We might look for an enemy to attack when championing our righteous cause, but in reality our enemy doesn’t have a butt to kick.
In the end, the real “enemies” are human greed, ignorance, and oppression. We can achieve more by promoting generosity, awareness, and freedom than we can by vainly kicking at a buttless foe.

Great progress will be made toward improving the quality of life on Earth by countering greed with responsibility, ignorance with education, and oppression with freedom.

Instead of meeting the bad guys in the street at high noon and shooting it out, why not invite them into the saloon to work things out?

Examples of unity.

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Q: What is the official position of VHEMT?
 
Since the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement isn’t alive with a brain or a mouth, it can’t take positions or have opinions. It can’t get into arguments, tell people what to do and think, nor get punched for doing so.

Voluntary human extinction is simply a concept to be added to existing belief systems, not a complex code of behavior to live by. No committee of Movement shakers decides what position everyone else should take.

Most Volunteers subscribe to the philosophy embodied in the motto “May we live long and die out”, but if someone doesn’t want to live long that’s their business. Really, the only action required for becoming a VHEMT Volunteer or Supporter is not adding another human being to the population. A couple could conceivably be expecting and decide to become VHEMT. That new human would be the last one they produced. VHEMT Supporters are not necessarily in favor of human extinction, but agree that no more of us should be created at this time.

Volunteers are so diverse in religious, political, and philosophical views that it would be divisive to begin formulating official Movement positions. Beware of dogmas. We speak with our own voices.

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Q: When and how did VHEMT start?
 
Roots of VHEMT run as deep as human history. Potential for a voluntary human extinction movement has been around for as long as humans have.

When Ice Age humans hunted animals to extinction, at least one of the sapient neanderthals among them may have reasoned beyond bewilderment. As the Fertile Crescent became a barren desert, and the Cedars of Lebanon were sacrificed for temples, someone must have thought, “this bodes ill.” When Romans fueled their empire by extracting resources from near and far, surely someone remarked, “Humanus non gratis,” or words to that effect. Someone had to get the idea that the planet would be better off without this busy horde.
Someone, that is, besides the middle-eastern god, Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah. Tradition tells how, in prehistoric times, this creator-god realized his mistake in making humans and was going to flush us from the system, but in a weak moment he spared one breeding family. Oops! (Genesis 6: 1-22).

The Story of Atrahasis, an earlier Sumerian myth recorded in Babylonian text, tells of multiple gods conspiring to rid Earth of the bothersome creatures they had molded out of clay. One sneaky god warns a human to build a boat before the flood, and the rest is our history.

We call The Movement VHEMT, but it’s undoubtedly been given other names throughout history. None have been recorded, as far as we know.

There must be millions of people around the world who are independently arriving at the same conclusion. A large portion of today’s Volunteers were vehement extinctionists before they learned of the title “VHEMT”.

The true origins of The Movement can be found in the natural abundance of love and logic within each one of us. Our in-born sense of justice guides us to make the responsible choice.

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Q: Who is the founder?
 
No one person is the founder of VHEMT. Les U. Knight gave the name “Voluntary Human Extinction Movement” to a philosophy or worldview which has existed for as long as humans have been sapient. It’s an awareness which has been arrived at independently in many places throughout history, but had become lost amid societies’ pronatalism.

Like millions of other people, Les followed a simple train of logic, guided by love, and arrived at the conclusion that Gaia would be better off without humans. He could be considered the finder, having identified The Movement by giving it a name, though each of us finds the truth for ourselves.

Although Les has become known internationally as a spokesperson for The Movement, no one can speak for all VHEMT Volunteers. There is no official position on issues beyond what is implied in the name of The Movement.

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Q: We have children. Can we still join?
 
Today’s children are tomorrow’s destiny. Our children have the potential for achieving the awareness needed to reverse civilization’s direction and begin restoring Earth’s biosphere. Most could use our help in realizing their full potentials.

Naturally you’re welcome to join, and you won’t be alone. When people gain the VHEMT perspective, they decide to add no more to the existing human family. They don’t pressure their children to give them grandchildren and might encourage them to make a responsible choice with their fertility.
There is no reason to feel guilty about the past. Guilt doesn’t lead to positive solutions. Being VHEMT has little to do with the past. It’s the future of life on Earth that Volunteers want to preserve.

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Q: Are some people opposed to VHEMT?
 
At first glance, some people assume that VHEMT Volunteers and Supporters must hate people and that we want everyone to commit suicide or become victims of mass murder. It’s easy to forget that another way to bring about a reduction in our numbers is to simply stop making more of us. Making babies seems to be a blind spot in our outlooks on life.

The idea of all of us voluntarily refraining from procreation is often dismissed without much consideration. These examples are considered elsewhere at this site:

• “People are going to have sex, you can’t stop that.”
• “It’s a human instinct to breed.”
• “But I just love babies.”
• “Some of us should reproduce because we’re better than others.”
• “Humans are a part of Nature.”
• And so on.

However, if any of us thinks about the situation long enough, and makes the effort to work through those socially-instilled blocks to clear thinking, we will arrive at virtually the same conclusion: we should voluntarily phase ourselves out for the good of humanity and planet.

VHEMT is naturally in opposition to involuntary extinction of any species, as well as any efforts encouraging human extermination. There are presently concerted efforts supporting both of these horrors. For example:

• Production and use of weapons.
• Toxin production, such as petrochemical and nuclear.
• Exploitation of natural and human resources.
• Promotion of reproductive fascism.
• And so on.

The above could be called the Terrorist Human Extermination Movement (THEM), but that’s labeling and encourages a “Them or Us” attitude.
VHEMT is opposed to what these people are doing, but it’s doubtful any would bother to return the favor. Really, there isn’t much point in opposing a voluntary movement which harms none and benefits all.

I think voluntary human extinction is misguided or worse.
 

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Q: How do I join?

Being VHEMT is a state of mind. All you have to do to join is make the choice to refrain from further reproduction. For some, this is an easy decision to make. For others, it’s a moot issue. But for many, joining The Movement means making a monumental personal sacrifice.

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is not an organization, so no membership dues go to officials in offices. We are millions of individuals, each doing what we feel is best. Join with other VHEMT Volunteers and Supporters.
 

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Latest About The Movement

The VHEMT web site has been available to visitors since July 1996. People all over the globe are visiting these pages, with translations in several languages. They say “There’s nothing more powerful as an idea whose time has come.” The Movement certainly has momentum, if that counts as powerful.

More impetus was added to our momentum on September 5, 2009, when the Discovery Channel’s Focus Earth included the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement’s solution in their episode about over population. Bob Woodruff’s interview of Les Knight and Nina Paley may be viewed online: “No More Children.”
 

Bob Woodruff discusses human breeding with Les Knight in Portland, Oregon

For Earth Day 2009, Laura Ingraham hosted Les on her syndicated radio program in advance of Steven Milloy, author of Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them. No, it’s not intended to be a parody.

On July 3, 2008 in a half-hour radio broadcast, Stephanie Potter interviewed Les about VHEMT. Archived at: The Recovery Zone.

In Time magazine’s number one non-fiction book of 2007, The World Without Us, Alan Weisman generously presents the VHEMT perspective.

A November 16, 2005 article in SF Gate - the San Francisco Chronicle online - by Gregory Dicum: “GREEN Maybe None: Is having a child—even one—environmentally destructive?” was picked up by UPI, appearing in many newspapers.

From there, quite a few radio talk shows invited Les to be interviewed and sometimes take calls from listeners. Les was a guest on “FOX News Live With Alan Colmes” radio show on November 29th, 2005. Alan also hosted Les for two Earth Day shows, April 27, 2004, and April 22, 2005, receiving calls from across North America. Les was on Alan’s show again on February 2, 2009.

On December 2, 2005, an MSNBC TV program, The Situation with Tucker Carlson, featured Les in a segment entitled, “Taking on the [Voluntary] Human Extinction Movement”. Although Tucker wasn’t fully in agreement with VHEMT, his questions allowed the main points to be shared with the audience. A transcript and video may be seen at their site. Tucker’s final comment: “I will say, that is the sickest thing I think I’ve ever heard, but you are one of the cheeriest guests we’ve ever had. I don’t know how to—how the two fit together, but I appreciate you coming on. Thanks a lot.”

Selected articles, interviews of Les, mixed reviews, and so on may be seen at: Media Mentions

A major goal of our web site is to advance the population-awareness movement, which seems to have become stalled, and may have slipped back to where it was more than 35 years ago. Progressive population awareness groups advocate a one-child average and two maximum, but few, if any, dare to advocate zero procreation. Environmental groups, with the notable exception of The Center for Biological Diversity, avoid the controversial topic, preferring to work on consequences of our excessive breeding. Scientists acknowledge population’s effects, but also decline to include it in their suggested solutions.
Several online forums for sharing and discussing ideas related to voluntary human extinction are available in English, French, and Spanish.

On April 8, 2010, French TV, Global Arte, broadcast a 2:16 minute anti-natalist, pro-planet video which included VHEMT. (in French) “Les anti-natalité font leur buzz”

Giving a talk, “Thank you for not breeding”, on February 16th, 2010, Les presented the VHEMT concept at Oberlin College and Conservatory, sponsored by Oberlin Animal Rights.
Les participated in a panel titled,“Human Population Density: Patriarchy’s Influence, Positive Signs, and Reproductive Freedom.” at the 26th annual Public Interest Environmental Law Conference in Eugene, Oregon March 9th, 2008. The panel also included Kelpie Wilson, Environmental Editor for TruthOut and author of Primal Tears, and Richard York, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon and co-editor of the journal Organization and Environment.

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Q: How do I order bumper stickers (car stickers), buttons (badges), T-shirts, and back issues of These EXIT Times?
These items are readily available by postal mail from These EXIT Times, or online from CafePress.

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