The Great Derangement - Matt Taibbi [74]
I finished my hot dog, walked across the street, and picked out a pair of middle-aged men handing out fliers. One was slightly pudgy with an untucked shirt and curlyish hair, and the other had a big bulbous nose and glasses and the body of Woody Allen. Introducing myself as the guy they were protesting, I told them that I understood they needed a couple of hours to give their protest maximum exposure, but that I would be very pleased to sit down and hear their concerns in a nearby diner when they were finished.
Weirdly, the two men seemed very happy to meet me, enthusiastically shaking my hand even after I identified myself. I repeated the address of the diner and started to walk away. Curly Hair asked me my name again.
“I’m Matt Taibbi,” I said. “You know, the guy you’re picketing.”
“Oh,” he said. “Okay. Well, thank you,” he said, shaking my hand again. He seemed very pleased to make my acquaintance.
A few hours later, I slipped into the Morning Star Café just down the block from my apartment. There were about five or six protesters there, including Curly Hair, whose real name was Les Jamieson. He was from the local chapter of 911Truth.org. They already had big plates of food in front of them and were munching happily. I sat at the end and ordered coffee.
It was awkward. I’m not sure exactly what was said at first, but I recall that after a stammering attempt on my part to start a discussion, all five or so protesters started speaking at once; I heard something about “heat levels” on my left and “video” on my right. Finally we settled down and Les started talking about some compelling 9/11 footage that some friend of his had, something about explosions, that the New York TV stations were “sitting on” and keeping from the public.
“Les,” I said, “how do you think that works? Do you think a news director for Channel 2 says to the people in the archive room, ‘Make sure this is locked away and no one sees it?’”
“Well, clearly, they’re hiding it,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. “Do you think the guys from the TV stations are in communication with people in government, discussing what should and should not be aired?”
“All I’m saying is, they’ve got the footage, and they’re not showing it,” he said. “So there must be something going on.”
Murmurs of assent all around the table. I changed the subject, asking them if they could just forget about the explosions and all the rest of it for now and name one piece of concrete evidence linking the government to the crimes of 9/11. From there a longish conversation started that seemed fruitful and pleasant—the tone of the discussion was respectful from both sides, and Les and his friends were making their case, even though neither side was convincing the other of much. I suppose on some level I was regretting the description of these nice people as clinically insane, but I also remembered that that’s the thing about the Internet—there’s an awful lot of white-hot insanity out there that is written by people who seem quite normal once they look up from their computer screens. Eventually Les concluded that the best evidence he could think of was the Project for the New American Century report that claimed that a “new Pearl Harbor” would be needed to get the public behind our expansionist policies in the Middle East.
“But that’s not evidence of anything,” I said. “It’s a self-evident statement. Anyone could have said that before 9/11. I could have said it.”
“But it’s right there out in the open,” said Les. “They said it. How come people in the press can’t take a lead like that and—”
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