Brief Analysis of 'Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup'

 

In 2015 I wrote an extensive analysis of the ‘9/11 Truth Documentary—Grave Implications.’ In November of 2021, knowing that ‘health measures’ like the wearing of masks, the lock-downs, and the Covid-19 vaccines were unnecessary, harmful, and rooted in the love of power and money, I heard a well-spoken man argue the old saw that ‘9/11 was an inside job.’ The response to Covid-19 being an ‘inside job,’ as it were, made me consider what this man was saying about 9/11 being an ‘inside job.’ This man articulated his view so well and so convincingly that I decided to watch the 9/11 documentary that he recommended, called ‘Loose Change 9/11: an American Coup.’ I did not subject ‘Loose Change’ to the scrutiny that I had subjected ‘Grave Implications’ to. But I took a few notes as I watched the film.  

I do not object to the allegation that the US government was at least negligent enough in its duties that 9/11 could have, and should have, been foiled. But this is far from agreeing that the 9/11 acts of terrorism were evil deeds concocted and brought to pass from the ‘inside.’ I am relieved to see, in light of what I have already written about 9/11, that few points are needed to cast doubt on the ‘Loose Change’ thesis that ‘9/11 was an inside job.’ 

Point number one: When President Bush ‘claimed, more than once,’ that ‘he saw the first strike live on television.’ I don’t get what this is supposed to prove—something about timing, maybe that he saw the strike as an eyewitness while everyone else saw it on television later, which would mean, I guess, that he somehow colluded to make 9/11 happen. What President Bush meant by this ‘claim’ was that he saw the first strike on the first tower ‘live’ in the sense in which we all saw it: in replays on television of it happening in real time.   

Point number two: On the presence of neo-thermite in or on the tiny piece of debris that was examined. The detection of neo-thermite is supposed to prove that explosives were used to take the towers down. I don’t know if neo-thermite has to have come from explosives. But suppose that this is the rule. And suppose that neo-thermite was found. What would this prove? If the apartment of a soldier that I visited in 1990 or so had been destroyed by a plane crashing into it, neo-thermite would probably have been found in the debris. How come? Because this soldier, which is common to do among soldiers, had collected used ordnance memorabilia. How many articles of used ordnance memorabilia must have been contained in twin towers that were among the largest buildings ever to have stood on the earth since the beginning of the world—twin towers that hundreds of military aficionados worked in? 

Point number three: On the puffs of smoke that may be observed, on slow motion video, just below the levels at which the buildings are collapsing. These puffs of smoke are supposed to prove that explosives were planted in the buildings and that the charges are going off as the buildings are coming down. What’s really happening? These puffs of smoke are natural explosions caused by pressure. This can be demonstrated by crushing a cardboard cup or an empty box of tissue with your foot. Air is forced outward as these items are crushed from the top. You can actually feel the air rush out as you do this. 

Point number four: About what happened at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. It is accepted by almost all of us that on 9/11, Flight 77 flew into the Pentagon and Flight 93 crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. In ‘Loose Change’ we are told that no airliners were involved in either of these events. What ‘truthers’ never address—and what is not addressed in ‘Loose Change’—are the locations of the airliners, the passengers, and the crews of these two flights. Where are they? Are these airliners parked somewhere? Have the people that were on them been abducted by aliens? We are not told. We are not told because every answer that could be proffered would sound insane. 

9/11 ‘truther’ videos are good for nothing except for use in teaching principles of critical thought. They are useful only in this negative sense. They take things out of context. They are scientific up to a point; that is, they break down analytically. And they have no good answers—sometimes no answers at all—to the hardest questions. 

The hardcore conspiracy theorist—the kind that refuses to receive reasonable answers to good questions—likes to leave the event that he theorizes about, unresolved in some aspects. He likes to leave some aspects of the event hanging because this makes his dull life at least sort of mysterious; and it gives him an excuse to revisit the event an indefinite number of times. It is his hobby to talk about it; and if he can make the hobby his bread and butter also, so much the better in his estimation, and so much the happier is he because of it. But 9/11 is more than just his hobby. It is as difficult to get a hardcore 9/11 conspiracy theorist to give up his hobby as it is to drag the heroin addict away from his drug; 9/11 ‘truthing’ is the radical conspiracy theorist’s favorite drug—a drug more addictive by far than speculating about other mysterious events, like the assassination of JFK, for example. JFK speculation is just a gateway drug to 9/11 ‘truthing.’ JFK speculating is just low grade marijuana; 9/11 ‘truthing’ is the nastiest heroin. It’s the dirtiest, most addictive gutter-drug that a conspiracy devotee can get into his mind. What do we have in the JFK assassination? We have a president, his first lady, a motorcade, a grassy knoll, a hidden shooter, and brains blown out: BORING. That’s boring compared to what has happened since. No event is more exciting to the hardcore conspiracy enthusiast than the event known as 9/11 because 9/11 has more bells and whistles than you can blow a party horn at: skyscrapers, airliners, hijackers, jet fuel, fire trucks, infernos, implosions, blood, smoke, fear, screams, begging, pleading, panic suicides, and utter pandemonium. You’d think this would be enough, but NO. Correction, maybe to the conspiracy zealot this many bells and whistles amounts to an overdose; this is why he takes a couple of airliners out. This omission, like Narcan, brings him back to life; and he is so glad to be back among the living. But now, because of the sobering effect of Narcan, he needs to be re-inebriated. So he watches a couple of 9/11 videos, being careful, this time, to come short of an overdose by pretending that Flight 77 and Flight 93 never crashed. Then he lies back on his easy chair once again, relieved to be back under the heady influence of his favorite drug; and with his inebriated conspiratorial pals, he begins, for the thousandth time, to carelessly discuss what pathetic mourners only cry about. Don’t disturb the 9/11 ‘truther’ by asking him hard questions that he needs to leave unanswered for the continued, ongoing, never-ending enjoyment of his preeminent drug. 

What should the 9/11 ‘truther’ be doing instead of getting high on 9/11 conspiracy theories? He should be doing what we all should be doing: “redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5.16.) Why treat time as precious? It should be treated as precious because it is a limited resource. After it is gone, there is no more time to turn to God and place faith in Christ for salvation. If faith is not obtained and repentance is not undertaken, sin, instead of being forgiven, will be judged. And being judged for sin will be worse than 9/11 because punishment for sin will be everlasting.

Christian Elitism

 

For two or three years I listened to a broadcast called, the Whitehorse Inn, a Reformed-minded discussion among four Christian men who occupied positions of leadership in God’s Church. The ‘usual cast of characters’ on this program were: Michael Horton, Rod Rosenbladt, Kim Riddlebarger, and Ken Jones. I enjoyed their work, and benefited from it. I especially liked the following three series that they collaborated on: Recovering Scripture, Christ-less Christianity, and Post-Christian Culture. Their views were solid; their delivery was proficient; their banter was tolerable; their elitism was under the current. 

One day their elitism broke the surface of the current, and its ugliness was exposed to view. It came into view by the mouth, I think, of Michael Horton. It happened during a question and answer period before a live audience. A young lady asked what manual the men turned to for their theological terms or etymological definitions, something like that. The Whitehorse Inn panelist—Michael Horton, I think—answered by giving a political non-answer. It was clear that he didn’t want her—or the rest of us—to know what manual he made such good use of. After he gave his non-answer, she put the question to him in a pointed way that left him no way out. She said something like: “But what is the actual manual that you use because I want one for my own studies.” He would either tell her, or be embarrassed in front of everyone and possibly off the stage. Grudgingly, then, he told her what the manual was. 

I tried to listen to the Whitehorse Inn after that shameful moment of elitism. But I could never get the elitism out of my mind as I listened; after trying a few episodes more, I quit listening completely. 

A leader in God’s Church is supposed to be a teacher, never an elitist, never a cabalist, never mason-like. He should not want to lord it over his listeners as if threatened that someone among them might, by listening or by turning to his own enlightened sources, become as knowledgeable as he is. He should be like Moses, who said, “Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the LORD’s people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!” (Numbers 11.29.) Not to argue for women holding positions of leadership in God’s Church by quoting this verse to support my protest, but to apply its principle. The sin that Moses reproves Joshua for tempting him with, this he calls ‘envy.’ It was Joshua who envied; but Moses was tempted by Joshua to envy too. The word ‘envy’ means to be zealous in a bad sense. It is bad to be zealous concerning a high station in life, which inevitably involves looking down on others who are not so highly occupied. It is one thing to envy someone for having what you want but do not have, as in Rachel envying her sister for having children (Genesis 30.1.) It surely must be worse to envy someone for his or her potential to have what you have. It must be worse because in this case you want, not merely to equal the status of another, but to deny someone the status that you have. Wanting to keep someone down must be worse than wanting to rise up to where someone is. And where knowledge is concerned, as in the issue between the lady and Michael Horton, the sin of envy is great indeed. The lady was not envious. She wanted the knowledge, understanding, and instruction that Solomon commands us to get. And this is what God commands the leaders in God’s Church to communicate to those who ask for it. These facts are so obvious to any persons who have read the Bible that they are unnecessary to prove by verses or even citations. 

Envy is an ugly thing; it is what love does not do. “Charity envieth not” (1 Corinthians 13.4.) One time I invited an old buddy from Ontario to Alberta and into my apartment so that he could find employment in my city. Once there, he gathered information on a line of work that I also was desirous of looking into. But he refused to share what information he had found. I, like he did, simply wanted a job; he was envious concerning knowledge. Withholding knowledge about work is almost not worth mentioning beside the suppression of a manual that knowledge about sacred things might be gleaned from. 

To support the Whitehorse Inn, listeners were solicited to sign up as Innkeepers, Architects, or Reformers. The Whitehorse Inn’s ‘usual cast of characters’ could not come up with a scheme by which all signers would be accorded a ‘Reformer’ title? The temptation in this pitch was that a listener would be called a ‘Reformer’ if only enough money were given. Anyone with only ‘two mites’ to give would have to be called something less, even though this kind of giver is the kind praised by the Lord (Mark 12.41-44.) And what does exclusive name-calling do but tempt persons to envy? 

It is interesting and revealing that only the term Innkeeper evokes the blue-collar worker, which is the one that is given the lowest station in the scheme. Sixteenth century Reformers did not look down on low stations in life, but wanted the plowboy to know as much as the man in Oxford or Cambridge knew. The best of them, at least, were not elitists. “I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness” (Psalm 84.10.) I do not say that the Whitehorse panelists dwell in the tents of wickedness; but the verse lacks sense if quoted in part. It is more than okay, says the Bible, to be an innkeeper, even though at the Whitehorse Inn it is the lowest place.     

The Whitehorse Inn is not necessary in the age of digital abundance. Puritan sermons and Puritan books may be accessed by anyone who desires the virtues that Solomon advises everyone to obtain. Given the meticulousness of Puritan material, it is evident that these holy giants did not begrudge anyone the acquisition of knowledge. They were not envious. They were not Christian elitists. The Whitehorse Inn table-talkers could confess their elitism, turn away from it, and what Christian would not believe in God blessing them for it? If it has not happened yet, I hope that it will. Their show, if they still do it, could do a lot more good than they realize because sound theology, which is what they broadcast, is not popular, but perennially necessary. Their show is not necessary; but sound theology is; and it might as well come through them as through anyone.

Grass Roots Quiz

 

Can You Sympathize with the Common Man?

Or,

Are You Disconnected from these Grass Roots Taxpayers?

Have you ever washed your clothes in a laundromat? 

Have you ever lived in a basement suite or a bachelor suite? 

Have you ever had a roommate for financial reasons? 

Have you ever picked berries for a pie to be made? 

Have you ever worked on a construction site or washed pots and pans for a living? 

Have you ever milked a cow?  

Have you ever had blisters on your palms or feet from working?

Do you have a close relative or good friend who’s in the military or who drives a tractor-trailer for a living? 

For men: have you ever changed a tire? For women, have you ever knitted socks or mittens?  

For men: have you ever killed an animal while hunting? For women: have you ever caught a fish while fishing? 

8-10: You get an A. You are a blade of grass. No matter how rich you get, remember what you are, where you come from, and act like it. 

5-7: You get a B. You may be a blade of grass. Do not lose the connections that you have. How about taking your clothes to the laundromat this weekend to kindle your green sensibilities? 

2-4: You get a C. If you are a blade of grass, you are barely one. It may be that you have lived, or are living, in ivory tower society. If you have some relatives or friends who are greener than you are, how about showing more interest in their lives? If you don’t have green relatives or friends, you are in danger of looking down on the grass roots. 

0-1: You get an F. I don’t see how you can possibly be a grass roots member of society. I hope you never call yourself one. It may be that like a certain billionaire, you connect and sympathize with grassy citizens. I hope so. In that case, you get an A for being a humble aristocrat. If, however, you are in an ivory tower looking down on the grass with contempt, climb down, get with some grass, and get some dirt under your skin. You will be encouraged by the connections that you make, and you will be on your way to achieving a greener grade.

 

We are not saved from guilt and hell by how low or high our station in life is. But how high in life is most consistent with acknowledging the LORD and obeying his commandments? “Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain” (Proverbs 30.8, 9.) Congruent with this, churches have been populated, more often than not, by persons of the middle class, persons who like both law and order and modest lifestyles. We are not reconciled to God through middle class living; but this is where we are most apt to find ourselves humble enough and civil enough to reach out to ‘the God of the whole earth’ (Isaiah 54.5.) And the middle class is the best and happiest place to be after we have got, by repentance and faith, Jesus Christ for our Redeemer.

Judging Prime Minister Trudeau

 

What is our judgment of Prime Minister Trudeau? We judge by fact-based opinion and voting. God judges based on the attribute of omniscience; his verdict hinges on his attribute of righteousness. Because he has made the national debt to double all on his own, because of his childish antics on the world stage, because of the dangerous ‘refugees’ that he has imported, because of the abortions that he is funding at home and abroad, because of the vandalism and violence that he is facilitating, because of the multitudes of Covid mandate deaths, Prime Minister Trudeau is making himself so ripe for judgment that it is a wonder that he hasn’t fallen from the tree yet. God’s patience is wonderful. It would be unchristian not to admit that God’s longsuffering is wonderful beyond words toward all of us. Not one of us deserves a drop of God’s wonderful patience. A Christian may, though, and must, as bashfully and boldly as he can, expose the works of darkness that sinners are guilty of; especially must this be done when the sins are great and are being committed by the man whose business it is, from the political standpoint, to work the hardest for the welfare, not the wreckage, of the nation.

Justin Trudeau is a nominal Roman Catholic. He has never renounced the religion. Therefore it may be that he thinks he is a Christian. Besides all the other fires, as it were, that this man is guilty of starting and fanning, he has been guilty of kindling literal fires and of keeping them going. He could stop the hysteria over unmarked gravesites. He could stop the arson attacks against churches. He could deport immigrants and illegal migrants who are calling for the death of Jews. He knows that it would be good for Canada and Canadians to do these things. “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (James 4.17.) The sense here, says Matthew Poole, is that to him it is sin ‘indeed’ and that consequently he will be punished with greater severity because of it. Mr. Trudeau has a lot of plans. He must have many plans to spend the money that kickback-schemers have deposited into his ‘Foundation.’ Why does the ‘Foundation’ exist except for these plans? What does the Bible say to such plans? “Go to now, ye that say, today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that” (James 4.13-15.) We ought to fear God in proportion to how large our plans are and how few years we have left on earth to put these plans into effect. Our fear would be great then; it would be so great that we would burn our bucket lists and then crush the bucket that they were contained in. Or, if we have a bucket for lists, the only list in it should be a list of what we plan to do for God, and even then only ‘if the Lord will.’ A PM who is doing to Canada what Trudeau is doing to it should take notice of how surprisingly God has taken wicked rulers out of the world. King Ahab had big plans. He would have liked to continue enjoying ‘the ivory house which he made’ (1 Kings 22.39) and the vineyard he stole from the man that he and his wife killed to get (1 Kings 21.) He had a clever plan to go on living, robbing, tyrannizing, and merry-making. But God out-clevered him by a ‘random’ incident (1 Kings 22.34), ending his days before Ahab could get back to his ivory house or vineyard even one more time. Wicked rulers do not often repent. Many of us hope they will. We hope to see it happen in our lifetime even in Canada. That it will occur is one of my favorite, frequent prayers. 

Trudeau’s biggest enemy is God; his next biggest enemy is himself. He seems like a pretty safe man with his secret service goons always nearby. And he is pretty safe from his most frustrated citizens because all they want is to be left alone by the government. But pride goes before a fall; few Canadians are more proud than Trudeau is; and God especially hates ‘a proud look’ (Proverbs 6.17.) Watch clips of Question Period and see for yourself if anyone in Ottawa can compete with Trudeau’s proud look. This passage in Proverbs includes a list of seven sins that are ‘abominations’ to the LORD. Trudeau may be easily shown to be guilty of them all, even of having ‘hands that shed innocent blood’ because he incites the hatred that leads to attempted murder, he mandated poisonous vaccines to be taken, and he winks at terrorism. Indeed, thirteen year old Marrisa Shen would not have been murdered by Ibrahim Ali in 2017 if Trudeau had not let the murderer into our country as a ‘refugee’ from Syria. Trudeau can be seen on video laughing or scoffing at questions about this murder. He believes that he’s unaccountable. He believes that he can open the way to arson, attempted murder, and even murder, and still not be held accountable. He will not be held to account in this life; the most corrupt politicians these days are above the law. But no one is fully held to account until Judgment Day anyway. That day is coming; it will come; nothing can stop its arrival. The way world leaders act and get away with what they do, we are tempted to doubt, in our weakest moments, if they can ever be made to listen to even one word of reproof. They sin; they refuse to answer questions; and off they strut to sin more at large. Year after year after year they do this. When they do take notice of a question, they talk around it or make fun of it. What can we do? They have the power; we are the peons. To wink and scoff at capital crimes is easy for a wicked person to do until he is restrained by God to answer for his wickedness. But those who are untouchable now will be as easy for God to judge as it is easy for a man to squash a beetle on the sidewalk. Their future is like this: “The sinner in his day, knew no moderation of sin, the Judge now in his day, will know no mitigation of judgment; there will be a sea of wrath, without a drop of mercy” (Thomas Case, Mount Pisgah, p. 117.) 

With some effort, I can imagine Justin Trudeau as a man convinced of his sins and converted to live for God. I can imagine it; but my faith in the prospect is not great. A good argument can be made that King Nebuchadnezzar—King of ancient Babylon—was finally converted. His evil deeds were great and many. In comparison with him, Justin Trudeau is a little man in every way, even in regard to sin. God can humiliate a king; he can humble a king; he can make a king meet for the kingdom of heaven. He can save a leader of a nation today. While it is true that Canadians—sinners that we are—deserve no better leadership than what we get from Trudeau, it is also true that Trudeau deserves no better than to be allowed, by the lengthening of his tenure, to make his hell as hot as Nebuchadnezzar made his furnace. We should pray for the better leadership that we don’t deserve. And we should pray for Trudeau as if we were him because any sinner, if given power, can have that power go to his head. If we do not realize this fact, how far from the kingdom are we? 

The only way to pay off the debt that Trudeau has plunged us into is to discover and mine diamonds from another planet or an accessible meteor. By giving billions upon billions of dollars away to his friends and our enemies, year after year after year, he has managed to make the debt exceed a trillion dollars. A playboy in charge of a country is how a nation’s massive debt load doubles in just five years. When I think of how world leaders throw billions of dollars around; that is, with as much discretion as members of a wedding party toss confetti in the air—I instinctively imagine these world leaders trying, through penal suffering, to pay every penny of their debt in hell, the interest on that debt increasing by degrees and adjusting for inflation for an infinity of time to make a full payment of that debt always out of reach. The only way that we can judge a leader like Prime Minister Trudeau is to criticize him and expose his wickedness in the hope and prayer that he will step off the stage in shame as soon as possible. That he will repent, either before or after his official role as PM, has got to be our wish and prayer, even if it is impossible for him to make restitution for all that he has cost us. His wrongs cannot be righted; they can only be regretted and repented of. What thanks do we owe God, whoever we are, for his mercy in not elevating us to such heights on earth that we could be tempted to run a whole nation down for the sake of covetousness or conceit! Our sins, no matter who we are, are already numerous enough to warrant unending wrath. If we truly desire mercy to triumph over judgment in our case, which can only happen through faith in Jesus Christ, we want the same for anyone at all, even the chief politicians among us. It is not easy to pray for a minister like Trudeau; it is not easy to wish him well; it is not easy to hope anything for him but that he’ll reap the worst. One man, concerning the healing that he desired for his son, said to Jesus, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9.24.) Concerning my wish to see Prime Minister Trudeau saved, the most that I can honestly say is, “Lord, I can voice the wish that I should have in abundance. Forgive me if this voiced wish is little more than a lie. Help both my wish and my unbelief. ”     

Because hell is everlasting, and since heaven will not be permitted to be defiled no matter who makes it in, would it not be refreshing to witness piety in the place where it is least likely to be seen: in the highest office of our land? Canada’s official designation is not Democracy, Democratic Socialism, or Communism, but Dominion. Canada is supposed to be a Dominion ‘under the crown of the United Kingdom and Ireland’ (British North America Act.) But what forbids it to be under the greater Dominion of God? Have we ever had a prime minister under the dominion of God in a saving sense? I doubt that we have. It is something to pray for. It may be more likely that this will happen than it won’t happen because we can imagine it happening at least once. Stranger things than this have happened in history. Instead of being overthrown for its wickedness, as prophesied, the great city of Nineveh ‘believed God’ and was spared. If God can cause an Old Testament king to exchange his robe for sackcloth, he can cause Trudeau to dress down instead of up. And then we might have reason at least to ask this concerning Canada: “Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?” (Jonah 3.9.)