UK Observer: Chaos and Cock-up Always Trump Conspiracy

[Taxloss]

I recently found myself on Radio 5 Live's Simon Mayo show with film-maker Spike Lee. Discussing his forthcoming hurricane Katrina documentary, When the Levees Broke, Lee revealed that it will include testimony from people who don't believe that what happened was entirely accidental. 'Speaking to the black citizens of New Orleans,' he said, 'many of them told me that they will swear on a stack of bibles that they heard explosions and they think that the levees were blown up.'
Although he stopped short of endorsing the suggestion that the poverty-stricken Ninth Ward was deliberately flooded to spare the French Quarter, Lee insisted: 'As a documentary film-maker, I think it is my duty to let these people voice their opinions. All these things are in the air and people do not put it past the government to do some crazy stuff.'

Coincidentally, around the same time, I received an anonymously mailed package containing a DVD which purported to tell 'what really happened on 11 September 2001'. The DVD, entitled Loose Change: 2nd Edition, began with a warning that I could be arrested 'under section 802 of the US Patriot Act' for 'possession of this information' and a plea that I 'distribute this to friends, family and complete strangers before it is too late to do so'.

The film argued that the World Trade Centre was blown up from inside, that the Pentagon was struck by a cruise missile and that United Airlines Flight 93, in which terrorists were officially reported to have been overpowered by passengers, did not crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, but landed safely in Ohio.

This all sounded like baloney to me. But just to be sure, I contacted respected British film-maker Paul Greengrass, who's putting the finishing touches on his thoroughly researched, fact-based docudrama, United 93. Greengrass's film made headlines last week when trailers were reportedly pulled from New York cinemas. But controversy surrounding the movie was first sparked by conspiracy theorists who insist that flight 93 was actually shot down by the US air force and who dismiss the 'official version' of events as a lie. '9/11 has replaced the Kennedy assassination as the epicentre of this great upsurge of conspiracy theories,' concedes Greengrass, 'and flight 93 is right at the heart of it. Do I believe those conspiracies? No. The stuff about the plane being shot down is simply not true. But you have to ask why a document as exhaustive and accountable as the 9/11 Commission report has failed to dispel these myths.'

more:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1749799,00.html

[salvorhardin]

1. Great article!

And from an arts reporter no less.

[salvorhardin]

2. Kick n/t

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

3. FWIW, Spike Lee on Simon Mayo audio link

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/fivelive_aod.shtml?fivelive/kermode_170306

From what I remember, there's a bit of chat about Inside Man, then they get onto Katrina by way of Clooney's Oscar speech. Lee also mentions that his wife belives Bush was behind 9-11.

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This article reminds me a little of that essay that was on here a week or so ago, where the author used the fact that Ludlum & Clancy novels have cabal style conspiracies as evidence that the same happens in the real world.