DEMOLISHED vs. COLLAPSED - The Language of Deception

By: Adam Ruff, OpEdNews

The language of deception is used against us every day and most of us don’t even realize it has been done to us or realize the devastating effect it has on us. My task here is to expose some of the subtle deceptions hidden within the terminology we in the 9/11 truth movement use every day. My goal is to shine a light on the subtle deceptions that pass under our radar every day and to counter those deceptions with the language of truth.

First we have to consider how we in the 9/11 truth movement describe what happened to the World Trade Center (WTC)? The question is, should we say that WTC 1, 2, and 7 “collapsed” or should we say they were “demolished” and does it really matter all that much? At first glance it may not seem to be a particularly important question as to which word we use. I will expose however that it is, in fact, very important which word we use. Furthermore I want to reveal how and why the debate has been framed from the beginning by our opponents with the endlessly repeated use of just one simple word, “collapsed”.

To illustrate the problem let’s take a brief look at the definition for each of the two words that are commonly used to describe what happened to the WTC on 9/11. Using the dictionary we can compare the definition for collapse to the definition of demolish. Take a close look at the two definitions and note the subtle but important differences between them.

col·lapse
1. To fall down or inward suddenly; cave in.

de-mol-ish
1. To tear down completely; raze.

Consider for a moment the difference between something that has “fallen down” (collapsed) and something that has been “torn down” (demolished). It is obvious, once we look closely, that the two words really mean two completely different things. We should take note that the word “collapsed” was not chosen by the US Propaganda Ministry by accident. When applied to what happened to the WTC buildings, collapsed means the WTC buildings fell down, while demolished means they were torn down.

One term implies the buildings “fell” or “caved in” as a result of weakening from fire and damage while the other term implies the towers were “torn down” or “razed” with pre-positioned explosives. Obviously the word you use to describe the demise of the WTC buildings will depend on your perspective of what happened right? Not necessarily if the debate has been framed in advance and we have been carefully conditioned through endless repetition in the corpstream media. If we have been “framed” we will see both ourselves and our adversaries using the term “collapsed” on a regular basis.

Take a moment to think about how marketing firms sell products to you. Do they ask you to buy their product? No they don’t. Do you even notice what they actually say in commercials and advertisements? Do they affect you subliminally? Advertisers tell you why you need their product, they tell you to buy it like a parent tells a child to brush his teeth. They don’t ask you anything. Watch a few commercials and see for yourself the technique in action, write down what they actually say so you can see it in print.

Test it yourself see if you can find one professional print ad or commercial where the customer is asked to buy the product rather then told to buy it or one where the customer is asked his opinion of the product rather then told what his opinion should be. Politicians and their allies at the Disinformation Ministry use these techniques all day, every day to distort the truth and “frame” the debate on all kinds of issues. You can bet your bottom dollar they use these techniques to their fullest when talking about 9/11.

Marketing firms regularly work on political campaigns and even take the lead in designing huge propaganda efforts such as the now infamous baby incubator story. In that instance Hill and Knowlton, a large US marketing firm, trained the Kuwaiti Ambassadors daughter to come before Congress and lie about how Iraqi soldiers had taken babies out of their incubators and left them on the cold floor to die.

How many people still don’t know that this story was a lie to this very day? How many don’t even realize they were tricked into supporting Desert Storm by a marketing firm and an aspiring young Kuwaiti actress? Wag the Dog anyone?

Propaganda tactics like these have a very powerful effect on people and we have to understand how they work if we are going to have any hope of winning the information war. As 9/11 truth advocates we need to think carefully about how “framing the debate” is accomplished, how effective it is, and how to combat it effectively.

Consider this excerpt from Commondreams:

Take the term “tax relief,” for example. The phrase started appearing in White House press releases on the day President Bush took office, and it has been repeated over and over ever since. But it’s what is behind the words ― the mental structure known as a “frame” ― that matters as much as the words themselves.

For there to be “relief” there must be an affliction, an afflicted party harmed by the affliction, and a reliever who takes the affliction away and is therefore a hero. And if anybody tries to stop the reliever, he’s a villain wanting the suffering to go on. Add “tax” to the mix and you have a metaphorical frame: Taxation as an affliction, the taxpayer as the afflicted party, the president as the hero, and the Democrats as the villains.

Every time you hear the term, those subliminal meanings resonate. Once the campaign repeats the words day after day, they end up in every newspaper and on every TV and radio station, and the term becomes the way TV commentators and journalists talk about taxes. And pretty soon the Democrats are forced to talk about their own brand of “tax relief,” for the middle class. But by adopting the Republicans’ language, they have adopted one of the GOP’s central ideas. Every time they use the words, they reinforce the idea.

That’s because once phrases become part of everyday language, their frames become physically fixed in people’s brains. When this happens, mere facts don’t matter. If the facts don’t fit the frames, the frames stay and the facts are ignored. Once the Republicans see their frames accepted, they have an overwhelming advantage in every debate. Their frames become the new common sense, because frames define what common sense is.

With this in mind it becomes obvious that 9/11 Truth advocates should not use the term “collapse” at all but should instead replace it with “demolished”, but do we as a group allow ourselves to be framed by using the term “collapsed” in our conversations? Yes unfortunately we do and it needs to stop so we can reclaim the initiative from the propaganda masters in Washington DC and the corpstream media. It needs to stop now.

This brings us to the question of how we as 9/11 investigators should speak about 9/11 and the words we use to make our points. I propose that we as a group immediately take the initiative and re-frame the debate. We need to start putting our detractors on the defensive from the moment we begin speaking. We need to force them to explain why the demolitions were not really demolitions, why the squibs aren’t really squibs, and why explosions are not really explosions. We must start training ourselves to re-frame the debate instead of putting ourselves on the defensive by using the deceptive language of our detractors, essentially framing ourselves into a situation where we are on the defensive, having to explain why what happened to the towers was not a “collapse”.

To accomplish this re-framing we need to consistently use the terms “demolitions” or “demolished” or “brought down with explosives” or “exploded” in all our conversations and eliminate the term “collapsed” from our vocabulary whenever we are discussing 9/11. It is vital that we as a group re-frame the debate and take the initiative away from the proponents of the official propaganda and take it back for 9/11 truth. In the final analysis the truth is that the WTC towers were demolished, exploded, blown up, proving conclusively that 9/11 was an inside job!

It is about time we re-claim the initiative and put the deniers on the defensive with the truth!

The towers were DEMOLISHED!

NEW AMERICAN 9/11 DICTIONARY:

Collapsed
1. Demolished
2. Exploded
3. Blown up
4. Brought down with explosives.

Conspiracy theorist
1. 9/11 Truther
2. 9/11 Investigator
3. 9/11 Researcher

Debunker
1. Denier
2. Deceiver

Mainstream media
1. Corpstream media
2. Propaganda Ministry
3. Disinformation Ministry

Spin
1. Distort
2. Falsify
3. Lie

January 10, 2008, Original content: OpEdNews