Overcoming Denial to 9/11 Truth Radio Show with Carol Wolman, Ken Jenkins, Chuck Millar
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Carol Wolman, MD is a psychiatrist in Northern California. She wrote Why the Resistance to 9/11 Truth?. A lifelong peace activist, she has written extensively on the psychology of our times. She was a founder of Bay Area Impeach Bush-Cheney. She ran for Congress in '06, and is now a Green candidate for Congress in CA District 1. She is a coordinator of The New Broom Coalition, for a clean sweep of Congress. She has practiced psychiatry for many years, and penned many excellent articles including- Is the President Nuts?.
Pioneering 9/11 activist and video producer Ken Jenkins has a degree in electrical engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University, and has done extensive postgraduate study in psychology. He has worked as a video professional for over 30 years, including 7 years at Hewlett-Packard in their state-of-the-art broadcast video facility HPTV.
Ken awoke to 9/11 truth by November of 2001 and started presenting his PowerPoint and video productions on 9/11 truth in early 2002. He has since spoken at four international 9/11 conferences on the Psychological Aspects of 9/11 and participated in numerous other 9/11 events and radio programs. His first video release, “Perspective on 9/11” was originally made for the early live presentations. He has since produced dozens of 9/11 DVDs, including eight with leading 9/11 Truth author David Ray Griffin, including “9/11 – The Myth and the Reality”.
He is also a partner in 911tv.org, which has documented speakers from many 9/11 conferences and events. The resulting DVDs, as well as those produced by others, are distributed in part through cable access channels nationwide. Ken also designed the popular 11 Remarkable Facts About 9/11 card. By revealing the “false flag” nature of the 9/11 attacks, it is Ken’s intention to not only help end the current bogus “war on terror” but to also help open the way to ending war as a political option on this planet.
Chuck Millar received his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies and has been in private practice as a Marriage and Family Therapist since 1987. He has been a 9/11 Truth activist since 2003, attending numerous demonstrations and engaging in conversations with people in denial about what happened on 9/11. Chuck is also a free-lance technical editor and has edited many press releases and promotional documents for the Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance (and has helped mediate conflicts which have arisen within the group).
Each of the guests has a lot of direct experience dealing with the public, as well as the challenges of broaching the 9/11 Truth issue with family members, friends, colleagues. The last half hour of the show will be for discussion, dialogue, and questions/insights forom callers. This show was inspired by an e-mail from the wife of an engineer who wrote-
I spoke with a therapist about this: He responded that repetition is a key to breaking through that very difficult psychological wall.
I believe, based on experience and observation of others, that denial is a very understandable mechanism with the function of shielding us from emotional pain. The pain of awareness----the dawning of truth----can be too difficult for many people to bear. It's just too hard to believe/unfathomable that some rare people are capable of certain things, like mass murder as in the 9-11 event.
My response to that is to ask the question: If it is commonly-known fact that Bush/Cheney went to war based on a lie, and are planning more wars based on lies, how can we possibly put anything past them? How can we *not* believe that they could and would plan 9-11 as the prelude to such a war? How can we *not* believe that they are murderers on the loose? It's not even logical to ask the question.
Perhaps a little bit of understanding of criminal psychology might be helpful too. If people understand that the mental health profession recognizes that murderers lack empathy and remorse for their victims, that they "have a screw loose" in this department, it might help people to understand how/why such crimes can be committed. This is not normal psychology we are dealing with here. "Oh really? You think so, really?" people ask me. My response is: "Could you yourself take our nation to war based on a lie, if you were President of the USA?" The answer is an obvious "no". That question, whether or not they could do such a thing, may get people thinking.
And there surely must be many other ways to break that wall of denial. Please fill in the blanks...I'd love to see this topic discussed, and the solutions to it, perhaps even on an on-going basis!
(Part of the solution may also be to understand that the human psyche will not take in info it is not prepared to deal with. Therefore, we as activists also have to know when to back down and give people space, for our own credibility's sake).
b) I have a suggestion for reaching a wider audience. Those who are technically educated understand the significance of thermite and iron orbs being found in the WTC. Those lacking such an education won't know what thermite is (I wouldn't if I wasn't married to an engineer) or what it means to find iron particles in the WTC dust. They won't know to infer that x/y/z happened due to such findings. Also, these lay people may not understand what it means for a building to fall "following the path of greatest resistance" or "potential energy" or the like. Perhaps if you can use such terminology but also explain what it means, for your lay listeners, more people will "wake up" out of their denial and you can reach a greater circle of people. I would say the same for the entire 9-11 truth movement, not just for you... It really *is* a generic which I have come across in *almost all* 9-11 truth discussions. I believe the entire movement, and the terribly important cause, would greatly benefit from such lay-oriented explanations.
c) More about denial: When people are not ready to "hear" certain information, knowing subconsciously that it will overwhelm them, they will subconsciuosly find ways to blow the information off. Hence:
"Conspiracy theorist" "Paranoid"
and generally, they will make the truth-teller "The Problem" instead of giving credence to the obvious, logical facts spelled out in front of them. Psychology calls it "patient identification" when abusive parents label their victim kid as "The Problem". They blame their victims, instead of looking at the mirror. Once again, the pain of awareness---that we ourselves are capable of wrong-doing and not just the rest of the world----can be too much for some shame-based people to take in. Similarly, people may find very "convenient" ways to shame and blame 9-11 truth-tellers. How 9-11 activists deal with this phenomenon may be a very helpful discussion.
Sometimes logic and all the convincing facts don't work. The problem may not *always* be concerning the spreading of truth: Instead, it's centered around the question "how do we deal with this information? Can we bear it once it becomes known, from within?" How to deal delicately and compassionately with that psychology may be the key to the success of the 9-11 Truth Movement. (And some people may never be ready to receive the information, no matter how one stands on one's head to make just the right presentation).
(June 16th-Part Two- Overcoming Collective Denial to 9/11 Truth-will feature sociologist Peter Phillips, director of Project Censored,
film maker and author Neil Slade, and psychologist, author Ralph Metzner, founder of Green Earth Foundation.)
Questioning War-Organizing Resistance is hosted by Carol Brouillet, a longtime activist who organized three conferences on Strategies to Transform the Global Economy and (the first) marches on her Senators and Congresswoman in January 2002 to Demand a Congressional Investigation of 9-11. She publishes the Deception Dollars, and Co-Founded the 9-11 Truth Alliance, and the Northern California 9-11 Truth Alliance . She organized premieres of films, educational events, marches, rallies for 9-11 Truth, the San Francisco International Inquiry into 9-11, and produced the film Behind Every Terrorist- There is a Bush. She is also a mother of three boys and held a weekly Listening Project in downtown Palo Alto from October 2001 to October 2007, now she holds it once a month on the 11th, in solidarity with other 9/11 Truth activists worldwide. She ran for Congress in 2006 on the Green Party ticket on a 9-11 Truth, Peace, Impeachment platform and will be on the ballot again in 2008.
Past Shows are archived at- 2008 Shows and 2007 Shows.
The video at http://www.twf.org/News/News911.html captures the basic points of my lectures.
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