Internet Mind Fuck 101
WATCH THIS MOVIE or at least the first hour or so of it. It recounts the sordid history of Josh Harris, internet pioneer and megalomaniac, whose father was away from home during most of his childhood for "international trade" purposes (uh huh). Follow his rise on the billowing surface of the dot-com bubble, and his use of millions of the dollars he amassed to build a pseudo-concentration camp art project in some adjoining basements in lower Manhattan with the help of a "retired" CIA psychologist and some Andy Warhol leftovers. In the run up to Y2K, see a motley cast of characters, including one Nico Haupt (and who knows exactly who else) move in and voluntarily subject themselves to something like a re-enactment of the Stanford Prison Experiment but with lots more nudity and heterosexual sex. (You can even glimpse Nico in the trailer below.)
We Live In Public TRAILER from We Live in Public on Vimeo.
You can stream it if you have Netflix
http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/We_Live_in_Public/70112751?trkid=921403
Or watch it via Amazon's Video On Demand
http://www.amazon.com/We-Live-in-Public/dp/B0036RKOGO/ref=ed_oe_vdl
There's a dearth of material about the actual "Quiet: We Live in Public" experiment online -- no wikipedia entry, for example. Here's a bit of a first person account:
In December 1999, I was one of the pod people, living in a sub-basement warren of tiered sleeping capsules, like a Japanese tourist hotel or something out of William Gibson, sleeping pallets with room for just a mattress and alarm clock. Each was also equipped with its own camera and pivoting TV monitor. We could not only tune into various live feeds being recorded and broadcast within the compound. We were also constantly on camera, producing our own flow of images. Anyone at the central control booth could watch as we ate, shat, argued, made art, fucked, etc. Theoretically, anyone in the bunker, at any time, could tune into anyone else in the bunker.
http://post.thing.net/node/2800
- casseia's blog
- Login to post comments
for those who haven't/won't see it
an important aspect of this is that participants had to agree to be interrogated as part of the experience (on camera, of course, like EVERYTHING else, including bathroom use.) This was done very aggressively and probingly--one example the movie shows is a young woman being asked to describe a previous suicide attempt, down to the speed at which she moved the knife down her arm. One of the few other scenes in the interrogation room shows Nico naked and writhing on the floor--whatever was going on there was either extremely f***ed up for real or intended to appear extremely f***ed up to the (eventual) audience. Apparently being interrogated was required of all participants, and the information you gave the "producers" of course became their property to do with as they wished (blackmail, anyone?) as did all video footage of participants engaging in increasingly bizarre behavior.
Whether there is any link between this project which took place in late 99/early 2000 and 9/11 is debatable, but in my opinion quite possible. Was this, for example, a way that the 9/11 perps prepared--by recruiting a group of hip, tech savvy thrill seekers and tricking them into providing the perps with extremely compromising material (who knows what happened and wasn't shown in the docu...)?
didn't John Albanese admit at one point...
...that he and Nico worked for the same company at one time before 9/11?
Yes, Haupt and Albanese were coworkers
in the late 90s according to an admission by Albanese. I wonder if I can track that down.
I wonder if they both worked for Josh Harris...
...for his internet "tv network" Pseudo...?
DBLS quoting Haupt at TrueFaction
PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2008 8:44 am Post subject: Reply with quote
You know what on top of being nuts Nico even admits that he's bit of a pervert, check this out:
"The MIT 9/11 perps also think, they found my weakest link to turn it against me: Pornography and Voyeurism obsessions.
(Well on that matter i am pretty dissapointed of the MIT 9/11 Perps:
Hey Folks, i am in NYC!!!
I worked for Christoph Schlingensieff and Josh Harris.
It was all in WIRED Magazine already years ago!
Are u stupid, LOL?? Bring on the tapes!"
http://www.911blogger.com/node/4908#comment-96804
^ Posted by "ZagatRated" aka Nico on 911blogger, the post is hidden due to down votes.
And if you do a little digging on google here's what you find:
Steaming Video
"Jupiter Communications and pseudo.com founder Josh Harris is pretty sure you want to watch him having sex. He's outfitting a semi-X-rated SoHo warehouse with webcams to prove it."
By Charles Platt
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.11/luvvy_pr.html
from bare Sheetrock.
"In a back room that looks like an abandoned garbage-collection area, German artist Nico Haupt lurks in the dimness. A cheap electric fan wafts air from a defunct freight-elevator shaft to the desk where Haupt creates computer videos.
Haupt ran the first RealAudio server in Germany, and staged the kind of publicity-seeking art events that Harris finds irresistible: a stunt, for instance, that called for 6 million unemployed people to jump in the ocean simultaneously, causing it to flood the home of former chancellor Helmut Kohl. "Only 200 people came," Haupt says. "But there were thousands from the press!"
Hoping to work at Pseudo, Haupt flew to New York and met Harris at one of his many parties. "He talked to me only one sentence," says Haupt. "He said, 'Move in.'" To Haupt, this seemed normal enough. "My profession is always to work with eccentric people, because I myself am also eccentric."
http://truthaction.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3476&postdays=0&postorder=a...
more on Nico/Harris
http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewtopic.php?p=308466
DoYouEverWonder
Joined: 04 Nov 2007
Posts: 234
Location: Within you and without you
Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2009 7:09 pm Post subject:
If Nico was arrested, why wasn't he deported? I don't believe he's a US citizen? And he did come here under questionable circumstances. He claims he heard about a character named Josh Harris and he decided to come to America to work for him.
Harris was the guy that rented the helicopter to film the WTC art students stunt, where they popped out a window and built a platform to stand on, while Harris flew around the Towers and filmed them. How convenient that NH would end up with access to hi res videos of the WTC.
The above pic was taken by by CB Cooke at the WTC on 9/11.
http://www.cbcooke.com/cb_wtc_attack/
NH has posted in the past that he was at GZ on 9/11. He was living a few blocks away at the time, so it is very likely that this is a pic of him.
Nico's job was to do everything possible to make the 9/11 movement look crazy. He was very successful. Thanks to him, no one can talk about the planes or images on most message boards.
Wired magazine's article on the project
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.11/luvvy_pr.html
Back in 1986, Harris founded Jupiter Communications, a high tech consulting company that eventually netted him more than $10 million in stock from its 1999 IPO. Meanwhile, Harris quit the straight business world to explore his real fascination: the power of new media to mold society and change the way we interact.
Harris had sampled the possibilities on a limited scale when he was running chat rooms for Prodigy, from 1994 to 1996. In rooms like Big Beautiful Women and Vampire Pub, he used the seductive powers of anonymous online text to tempt users to be far more raunchy and reckless than in everyday life. He subsequently founded pseudo.com, the first Web "TV station," which broadcasts shows with a downtown-urban flavor and themes like deviant sex, rap music, videogaming, and modern art. Pseudo also enabled feedback from viewers, once again fostering a virtual society whose mores were very different from those of meatspace.
Business Week on the project
http://www.businessweek.com/ebiz/0001/em0126.htm
But scenes of people partying can grow old fast, so Harris arranged for a little tension. Participants were subjected to an extensive "interrogation" in a stark white tiled room, and their personal information was fed into a computer. That set the stage for random interrogations by a team of artists known as the Bureau. Head interrogator Ashkan Sahini, an artist in real life, would do things like pull people out of their sleep capsules and grill them about their preference for white wine over red. "I am the asshole of this event," Sahini said with considerable pleasure. "This is a society, and we will flip the rules around." Sahini was accompanied by someone who introduced himself as Zero Boy, his platinum-haired "bodyguard," who was dressed in a tight-fitting Soviet colonel's uniform and carried a megaphone. What was that all about? "I'm a mercenary," Zero Boy explained through his megaphone. "I have my own trip."
the interrogator
Iranian, clearly not a muslim based on his risque work... came to New York in 1987 but I'd bet not from Iran, I'd bet he left Iran to go somewhere after the revolution (was that 1979? he would have been 16). Wouldn't be terribly surprising if he ended up working with a Zionist/Mossad linked psy-op...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ashkan Sahihi is an Iranian photographer known for his unique photographic projects, including series of photographs of armpits, faces that have been ejaculated upon and the facial expressions of non-drug users trying various drugs. Born in 1963 in Tehran, Iran, Sahihi moved to New York in 1987. His work was presented at a solo exhibition at the Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York in 2000. He has also participated in a number of group exhibitions including the Basel Art Fair 31 in 2000, the Millennium Warm-up in New York in 1999, and "Quiet," a survelleid experimental art-living project at 353 Broadway in New York in 1999.
Out on a tangent, somewhat
But featuring an extensive quote from Real Truther:
http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/allposts/truthmove-orgs-connectio...
By now it should be abundantly clear to most people, and if not I’ll repeat it–that the Pakistan money angle is one half of the last ditch effort to stop 9/11 truth. That effort is two-fold. On the one hand, get some shills in on the ground floor with the really convincing stuff–CD, building 7, the Pentagon. That seems to have been Fetzer playing the impartial guy who then decides that Wood and Reynolds, not so much his buddy Steve Jones, deserve the attention. Bang–physical evidence discredited by association with career conspiracy theorist Fetzer and the road runner cartoon people (including the Charles Manson lookalike Nico Haupt.)
But wait–what if the movement then just splinters into serious physical evidence people and the obviously fake people?? No, they have that covered too. The debate will be framed as proponents of physical evidence (Judy Jetson, Reynolds Wrap, and Uncle Fetzer) against circumstancial evidence people (the “great” Paul Thompson, Nafeez Ahmed, Mike Ruppert) and whoever remains who actually wants to join the freakshow has two choices–the circus freaks and the “serious” researchers into werid sounding stuff that ultimately just supports the official version.
Holy crap...
http://911blogger.com/node/5870/print#comment-112278
John Albanasal on Nico Haupt:
he works for the CIA of course
pays really well - although it does not appear that he is taking advantage of their dental plan.
Nico is in the computer consulting business. i will not publicly release private information about his employment online.
but i will say that he worked previously for Pseudo.com, a big dot-com scam of the 90s that was rumored to be a front for drug distribution and money laundering and porn. it is interesting that the founder of Pseudo.com (Josh Harris) was caught with a heroin overdose fatality in his apartment - yet never was charged with a crime or an investigation.
anyhooo..... Pseudo went bankrupt, despite tens of millions of dollars of investor money that somehow amazingly disappeared into a network of shell corporations that did independent consulting for them. i was one of those consultants doing audio design and advertising. Nico was a consultant there as well. My wife was Josh Harris' personal assistant. (i might as well admit this since Nico will probably attempt to use it anyway) its small world.
you could say that, although my wife and i both worked in the same place as Nico we had very different jobs.
Josh Harris, btw, was the founder of Jupiter Communications - known as the private-sector CIA of Silicon Alley/Valley - and walked away with billions.
Harris later cried poverty when Pseudo went under. (wipes away tears of laughter)
Everyone, over the age of 30, involved with Pseudo knew something was deeply wrong with this company. They had no business model. They had no known sources of income. They just had parties. great parties - btw.
as you know, billions of dollars poured into the dot-com craze of the 1990s. it all collapsed with a very few key established mega-corporations absorbing what was left - and the idea of mom-and-pop internet success stories dying with it. its kinda like the history of Las Vegas. once Bugsy put it on the map it became a free-for-all of money and organized crime - and independent investors didn't stand a chance of competing.
Submitted by John Albanese on Wed, 01/31/2007 - 1:15pm.
That;s an incredible thread
Check out what happens on the following page...
Just wow...
Col. Crazy Sparks actually defending RT's reasoning for inquiry into the Holocaust...someone should post that on TrueFaction.
Incidently, anybody notice how different it was in the good ol' days when the dialogue was much less controlled on Blogger and many threads typically had dozens if not hundreds of comments? How times have changed. Blogger is a veritable ghost town now, and many of the most intelligent bloggers seem to have disappeared from that place ;=)
Crazed Fan Attacks Josh Harris
Crazed Fan Attacks Pseudo.com Founder Josh Harris
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJwT3heqDYE
Raw footage of crazed fan attacks pseudo.com Founder Josh Harris during the Q & A after screening of "We LIve in Public", movie screening
20-1 it was staged
This docu seems all about Harris returning "from obscurity" to hype himself with more bullshit. "crazed fan" indeed... "bad actor" more like it. the question is... did they have anything to do with 9/11, and what schemes are they up to now?
ZOMG... so fake
The attacker looks like Harris' evil twin (not that Harris himself looks like the good twin) -- fatter, more unkempt facial hair, etc. And his whole point is just how incredibly influential Harris was... thousands of people spent thousands of hours watching Harris and his gf and their litterbox cam... I'm sure. (I wasted a shit ton of time online in the early 00s and it never entered my awareness.)
(Actually, I find litterbox use kind of fascinating. My cat is so secretive about it.)
This guy is as bad as Sarah Palin's daughter
http://alaskawtf.com/2010/06/24/bristol-palin-worst-actor-in-the-history...
"The future is not inherited, it is achieved." JFK
Nico seems to have been very wrapped up with Josh Harris
Seems the discussion site Nico was running (see some of his *pre-9/11* discussion topics in the first two links, like HAARP and Echelon) didn't get much traffic, except when he started writing about We Live in Public...
http://web.archive.org/web/20010926031322/www.lebensaspekte.de/
ewing99
Registered User
Posts: 21
(10/7/00 10:00 pm)
Reply What is this about? Do you know what an entomopter is?
Do you believe in intelligent dust?
Is your best friend working at the Pentagon?
Do you know something about plasma physics?
What is your favourite theory about weather channels?
Do you think you can track every man?
Do you prefer guns, peace or helium isotops?
Did you ever think about peaceful weapons?
Do you think the military works with extra terrestrial technology?
Is Cyberwar the only important thing in the future?
What do you think of Haarp?
Are you familar with any alternative energy or do you think there only spiritistic bullsh*t around?
What is your favourite Tesla Story?
Do you think there is a chance to control or even destroy every weapons?
Or do you only have questions and like to discuss?
Then start a thread to discuss here!
Edited by: ewing2000 at: 5/8/01 8:34:28 pm
http://web.archive.org/web/20010926031322/www.lebensaspekte.de/
ewing99
Registered User
Posts: 14
(10/7/00 9:08:49 pm)
Reply What is this about? Did you ever "listen' to your computer?
Do you know what emissions are?
Do you have old russian radios?
Are you involved in the ideas of Echelon, Enfopol, Carnivore, GPS, NSA?
You know what the difference is between GUIDS, Webbugs, Cookies, TCP-IP Hijacking?
Do you hate net nanny or cyber patrol?
You will never click on (we have it, too!!) DoubleClick-Logo?
Are you familiar with trace routines?
Do you know something what noone believe you?
Then tell us the best technique contradictory theories!
Or do you only have questions and like to discuss?
Then start a thread to discuss here!
Edited by: ewing2000 at: 10/8/00 2:56:16 pm
http://web.archive.org/web/20010926031322/www.lebensaspekte.de/
Commuterworld
> WE LIVE IN PUBLIC Projects
> Day 81 (Saturday 02/10/01) "A new chat-and TANYA!" New Topic Add Reply
<< Prev Topic | Next Topic >>
Author Comment
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1224
(2/10/01 12:47:26 am)
Reply Day 81 (Saturday 02/10/01) "A new chat-and TANYA!" 0:00 AM NYC
Edited by: ewing2000 at: 2/11/01 3:49:46 am
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1227
(2/10/01 1:06:22 am)
Reply Re: Day 81 (Saturday 02/10/01) 0:03 AM
Josh is definetly alone at home.
He watches again TV or a VIDEO on screen.
he speaks now to the audience and mentions the chat and i think the name "nico".
He comments the movie with a fish for the audience and sits in a chair.
0:12 AM
Josh looks to screen and says hello to some chatters like edag and ENGER.
I'm not sure if chat is maybe projected again.
Now he gets a phone call by Matt
Josh: "..but not much longer.."
Now he is in CR and searching for something..
(i have to go to bed..please help out updating, calls, visit, special details, thx!)
Edited by: ewing2000 at: 2/10/01 12:15:14 am
Anon A Mouse
Unregistered User
(2/10/01 3:31:36 am)
Reply Late Night Guests Arrive 12:35
A group of 4 people come into the loft including one who I think might be Mark Enger. They all walk around the loft looking at the new art up on the walls, then sit at the couch and talk for a while.
1:00
Two people (Mark and his girlfriend??) are in the master bathroom getting undressed. Now they are in shower/steam room. After some time they come out of shower and get dressed. Say to the mirror camera "Hi nico". They must be short of cigarettes because they appear to be sharing one between them :smokin Josh and other guests are sitting at the couch and chairs in front of Gilligan's. TV is playing loudly, but can't see if anyone is watching it.
All guests are back in the main room talking, but the TV too loud to hear much of the conversation.
Josh takes a pee in front of the "dick-cam" in the guest bathroom.
1:50
Now all are hanging around the kitchen area talking. Josh is now playing speed-chess with a cute girl with short hair.
2:15
The guests leave the loft, and Josh sits in front of the wall TV watching an old movie.
(ADMIN: It was probably Mark Enger and Courtney, his girlfriend, who has short hair now.
The other two persons i will doublecheck with Mark Enger)
I heard this night in chat, one couple had sex in bath room, UNCONFIRMED..i will ask that,too)
ADMIN, SUNDAY: "Anon A mouse" watched carefully as always.
There was no sex in bath room. Mark told me now he was in bathroom with Courtney and later steam and they screamed a lot.
The other two persons had been John Alvarez (friend of Alfredo) and his friend Rebecca. They had no sex, too.
Edited by: ewing99 at: 2/11/01 2:28:04 pm
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1228
(2/10/01 10:58:59 am)
Reply Day 81 9:55 AM
Tanya at the loft. She is packing more stuff in bed room.
Josh sleeps or is ignoring her in bed.
10:16 AM
Tanya is in the CR.
Maybe she tried to enter the chat.
BUT CHAT IS DOWN!
10:20 AM
I see her now with a new bag and jacket at the elevator.
But she goes back to the living room.
10:43 AM
Josh still in bed and Tanya maybe gone already.
I missed that.
CHAT is still down.
Edited by: ewing2000 at: 2/10/01 10:47:54 am
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1230
(2/10/01 12:10:22 pm)
Reply Re: Day 81 11:02 AM
Buzzer.
Josh leaves the bed. Now twice cell phone.
Josh speaks with someone (a Dan or Debbie?)
11:07 AM
Now a couple, a guy and a girl enters the loft, which
buzzered 5 minutes ago already.
They don't tell their name. Josh says hello.
11:08 AM
Josh needs to go to toilet first and reading a magazine again. The couple waits in living room.
11:28 AM
After Josh did a tour with the couple in the whole loft and CR they all left the loft now.
(I'm not sure if these are "the reporters" from inside.com, who should move in , when josh is in LA for one week
-PLEASE READ "LOST IN LIVE FEED"
Edited by: ewing2000 at: 2/10/01 11:32:16 am
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1231
(2/10/01 2:25:50 pm)
Reply Re: Day 81 1:21 PM
Loft seems to be empty.
Now telephone rings 8 times.
Josh cell phone at the loft rings, too.
Noone at the loft.
I have no chance to reach CHAT, too.
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1233
(2/10/01 3:04:07 pm)
Reply Re: Day 81 1:54 PM
Josh back at loft. "Hi everybody"
Check in CR. (CHAT STILL DOWN!)
2:01 PM
Now on toilet with base ball cap, singing "doodah doodah".
Reading a magazine.
2:08 PM
Josh still on toilet. Calypso Music on radio.
Edited by: ewing2000 at: 2/10/01 2:10:05 pm
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1234
(2/10/01 3:21:44 pm)
Reply Re: Day 81 2:16 PM
Josh back to CR. He tries to recah someone twice. Wrong number.
(CHAT STILL DOWN-" i see 478 people try to enter 6 rooms, must be a line now")
2:20 PM
Josh still check something in CR.
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1235
(2/10/01 3:26:56 pm)
Reply Re: Day 81 2:21 PM
Josh calls Michael Auerbach.
The guy on the onther line:
"who is this?"
Josh: "who are you? wrong number?"
Guy: "oh im Michael Ross (??)"
Josh:" chat is down" Guy??: "Oh well, i'll take care of it. It's fine"
(Not sure if this was M.Auerbach or someone who helps him out.)
2:23 PM
Josh call his voicebox but doesn't check it.
"are you still there? To disconnect it, press 1!"
Josh finishes phone call.
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1236
(2/10/01 3:47:09 pm)
Reply Re: Day 81 2:45 PM
Josh watches a movie since 15 minutes.
Music sounds like Bernhard Hermann.
Edited by: ewing2000 at: 2/10/01 3:06:41 pm
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1237
(2/10/01 4:02:14 pm)
Reply Re: Day 81 "A new chat!" 2:53 PM
Michael Auerbach calls Josh.
He tells him that the old chat will down 1:30 minutes more and then the "new chat" will be up, which will be at
4:23 PM.
Josh was a disappointed that there was nothing about Senator Schumer at the loft in NY POST, but satisfied with all other articles and the NY1 report.
Josh mentions that he wanted to talk with some chatters.
Then i heard only samples of "chat...weekly show..one chatter..sponsoring" and changed immediately the issue.
Michael says, it could be cool.
At that point i'm really not sure why they talk so cryptic.
Josh talks then about Larry Lieberman, who "just showed up"
Michael says that it was not a problem, that Josh spoke with this otehr Michael some minutes ago, he wil take care about the chat situation and call him back, when new chat is up!
(ourDNA wrote yeterday that the new chat will be IRC-based; one of the chatters has almost finished a new chat client for Tanya, too and we tested that chat 2 days ago!)
Edited by: ewing2000 at: 2/10/01 3:05:31 pm
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1238
(2/10/01 4:08:15 pm)
Reply Re: Day 81 "A new chat!" 3:03 PM
Josh stopped watching TV. No music o TV anymore at loft.
I think he is in his bed room now.
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1239
(2/10/01 5:36:03 pm)
Reply Re: Day 81 "A new chat!" 4:33 PM
Josh still sleeping.
New Chat by WLIP still not up, but now scheduled as
"NEW & IMPROVED IRC CHAT TO LAUNCH TODAY!!!"
on main site.
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1242
(2/10/01 6:11:18 pm)
Reply Re: Day 81 "A new chat!" 5:09 PM
Josh still sleeping.
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1243
(2/10/01 6:14:06 pm)
Reply Re: Day 81 5:12 PM
Josh now in bath room.
5:18 PM
Josh on toilet, reading a magazine.
Listening to music again.
Edited by: ewing2000 at: 2/10/01 5:21:15 pm
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1244
(2/10/01 6:40:45 pm)
Reply Re: Day 81 5:39 PM
Josh still in CR.
5:43 PM
NEW CHAT UP
First guests: Rovendino, Mroyall, iieo,udokier69=testpod
and 3 more.
It's getting more..
Edited by: ewing2000 at: 2/10/01 5:46:17 pm
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1245
(2/10/01 7:10:40 pm)
Reply Re: Day 81 6:18 PM
M. Auerbach informs Josh that new chat is up.
Josh thinks its timefor Michael Royall and a new mailing.
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1246
(2/10/01 7:46:58 pm)
Reply Re: Day 81 6:39 PM
Tanya back at loft! Short talk with Josh.
This is now the third time since she moved out she came back, but she came twice only for packing stuff and talk with M.Auerbach and now a very short convo with Josh and i couldn't understand much. Something with "fine" .
Sounded like a typical short recap convo of a disappointed couple.
Edited by: ewing2000 at: 2/11/01 3:53:57 am
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1248
(2/10/01 10:13:38 pm)
Reply Re: Day 81 9:10 PM
I was concentrating too much on new chat client and my resources but not much happened.
Tanya didnt speak much with Josh and left soon again.
Josh was in chat as Tanya but didn't say much, too.
He is now hanging around between CR and sports on TV.
Now in a cell phone talk with unknown person.
Edited by: ewing2000 at: 2/11/01 4:04:44 am
ewing99
up3000
Posts: 35
(2/11/01 12:13:44 am)
Reply Day 81 "Reporter couple will move into loft!" 9:50 PM
Josh checks voicebox:
(couldn't write down every message, samples in brackets,
he rewinded twice):
Buck, andy (=Andrew Morris), Crystal (something with tanya),
Andrew Rosen (from Galllery, skipped), Debbie, Nancy ("..ability to support Ex. Sky, she complained got no t shirt)
Buck 2nd time ,Andy again, Nancy with this older message i knew (who gets money for shooting tapes),
Devin (?), Debbie, Adrianna (was photographer at senator event, skipped), Owen Bush (has records for josh),
Nancy ("..people calling me and asking me about u love live and u sexual...MUTED.. alfredo calling me
every 5 minutes..."), Crystal (who gives number), Alfredo (was a bit message), someone with Filters for josh
(maybe the plumber?), Nancy ("..please call me", nancy skipped), a bebsie or betsie who gives number: 431 xxxx
9:52 PM
I think Josh calls this Betsie/Bebsie now (I couldn't concentrate on message)
10:09 PM
Josh with someone on phone and laughs about the P**y pee and penis shots this guy mentions
10:24 PM
Rovendino confirmed in chat that the girl from inside.com, who wrote article, lindsay
and "greg i think" will move in soon.
I think that was the couple from this morning, cause i understood something with "Greg".
New chat still runs on IRC too. Soon with OP Status for Jill1968 and Kit. again, now both "unemployed".
No Bots at chat.
10:44 PM
Josh still watch sports.
11:02 PM
Josh comes back to loft from fast food store, now with a bag.
Edited by: ewing2000 at: 2/11/01 4:23:34 am
ewing2000
ezOP
Posts: 1250
(2/11/01 4:48:59 am)
Reply Re: Day 81 11:30 PM
Josh always between football and CR.
Nico calls Harris an "Isser"
I googled Isser... he either means Josh Harris is affiliated with a social research institute in Ghana OR he is an "Isser Harel", i.e. Mossad...
http://boingboing.net/2008/06/26/josh-harris-pseudo-w.html
#52 posted by ewing2001 aka testpod69 , July 26, 2008 7:39 AM
great article ;
i am proud to have been part of this art experience too, since i already expressed in some interview with WIRED, Charles Pratt, that i saw it as some art experiment too incl. we live in public and QUIET, a pre-9/11 experiment.
I still believe however, Josh is an Isser and the rest was MIT-AI with some 9/11 tv fakery perps like Kevin Centanni. I saw the 2nd -Nathaniel/Park Foreman hit on his big screen ;
nico haupt aka nicointelpro aka hauptcouture.com
aka testpod69 [during 1999-2000+]
u will loose, we will win this time! ;
youtube.com/911censored2
ps: u timing smacks shill toy alert ;
call me at warren, josh if u kewl ;
Harris GF Tanya Corrin... and 9/11...
Did a lot of firefighters get videotaped at wild sex parties? Could that explain anything about 9/11?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/september11.terrorism
Manhattan notebook
Forget Sex and the City. All the nice girls love a fireman
War on Terrorism: Observer special
Tanya Corrin in New York
The Observer, Sunday 14 October 2001 16.31 BST
On Friday evening in a low-lit downtown New York loft with a high ceiling, a couple of dozen streaky-haired women in Diesel jeans and heels greeted their guests of honour. The men arrived in groups of three and five, dressed in Levi's and clean shirts. They were shy at first, a little awkward without their black and yellow uniforms. The girls smiled, the men relaxed and soon it looked like any other party. There was lasagna, chips and not enough Bud beer.
Every couple of nights someone throws a Fireman Appreciation Party. Actresses find local pizza and drink sponsors, and pass out party invitations at the local firehouses. Then they round up their friends, mostly girlfriends - 'You know, for a good ratio,' said one host.
Nadia, an actress who lives in the West Village, has already hosted two parties. 'Everyone felt so terrible after the 11th,' she explained. 'My friend Marisa Tomei [the actress] said she wanted to do something to raise everyone's spirits. I have a decent size apartment so we decided to throw a party.'
The spirit in which these parties were conceived was to give thanks and pass out a little sympathy to a workforce who lost 370. But then a strange thing happened - New York women started thinking about firemen in a different way. 'I have a couple of friends I encouraged to come here to meet eligible firemen,' said Nadia.
A lot changed on 11 September. More than ever, firemen are heroes. While everyone was running away from the towering flames, firemen were racing towards them. And then they died. Maybe you lost someone that day, or else you know someone who lost someone. But if you're a fireman, you lost a chief, a chaplain, a brother, and not just one. So our hearts are going out to them. And maybe we've had a change of heart in other ways too. Since 11 September women say that the type of guy they want has changed. For some, money is suddenly less important. Among many New York women there is a search for something more meaningful, more compassionate and more giving than before. Jennifer, a 30-something entrepreneur, is not untypical. 'After the 11th, I needed someone to hold on to. Someone emotionally available, who I can talk to. My boyfriend seemed way too upset about the stock market. Didn't he get that thousands of people had died? That's when I decided to break up.'
In the past NY women might have dallied with a man in uniform, but wouldn't have pursued one. It would probably get old really quickly. He'd take you to some divey neighbourhood bar for happy hour. No apple saki martinis, just cheap draft beer. And what the heck would you talk about? There always seemed to be enough investment bankers to pursue.
But lately it seems like every single woman in New York is trying to date a fireman. Anne Brooks, a psychotherapist in Manhattan calls it 'The Cowboy Syndrome'. 'Firemen today are like the cowboys of yesterday. They're highly principled, and full of heroic machismo. In uncertain times like these, those qualities are extremely attractive.'
Maybe we hope that by consoling a fireman we'll console ourselves. But the first step is actually making a date with a fireman. For women who don't get invited to an appreciation party, the place to look are the neighbourhood firehouse bars. Five o'clock means happy hour at Spring Lounge, a bar just around the corner from the firehouse in Little Italy. 'Yes,' confirmed Patricia, the bartender, 'women come down here all the time hoping to meet firemen.' .
Other women are heading down to Ground Zero to volunteer. The volunteers stand behind long tables, serving salmon and quiche to New York's bravest. Carla, a talent agent, headed down last week and left with four phone numbers, a marriage proposal and one dust-covered fireman's hat. Some fared even better.
'The Red Cross lady told me to wear old clothes that I wouldn't mind getting dirty. But sev eral of the girls were dressed in low cut tops and mini skirts - they definitely left with more numbers than me.'
But phone numbers won't necessarily translate into dates. And not for the usual reasons. Nothing is usual right now. Kevin, a husky dust-covered fireman with radiant blue eyes, exchanged emails with a girl he met at Ground Zero almost a week ago, but he still hasn't had time to contact her. Like every other fireman in the city, he is working overtime - 24 hours on, 12 hours off. And during those 12 hours off he tries to attend at least two funerals. He'd like to see her, but he doesn't know when he'll have the time.
So she's the author of that piece...
I didn't get the connection at first.
Nico's earliest truther incarnation?
http://forums.delphiforums.com/ground_zero2001
Ground Zero
New strategies of 21st century
petition to investigate the oddities of 911
GZ Forum -911 Scepticism Panel (May 3-5th), NYC on Times Square.
Please visit our favourite site with mirror results from this page: www.democraticunderground.com
Please participate in any of the investigation topics listed on the left or your own new topic.
Please check Topic of the month: "911-Ask them! (Top 500 FAQs)
As you might know, this forum started as a very pragmatic info board for addresses of red cross etc..., later it was investigating the whole hijacker background of 911 and the anthrax cases to find the people who helped the hijackers and anthrax criminals to suceed.
When the war against the Taliban started, it was obvious that the most evidence would be classified, because of "national security" reasons. Now the war is still going on, we have a second one in Israel and two other nations who are having their finger on the button for nuclear bombs.
One single "mistake" in a journalistic mission and someone else could be dust. Thinking about this scenario, at the same time for big surprise a very complex business disaster occured: ENRON. With ties to the Pentagon, the White House, even to business connected to the Taliban (TSI Communications/ Enron Online) and surprisingly Indian plants. Is that only another coincidence?
It is in all our responsibilities, not only for the credibility of america but the democracy worldwide to continue the investigations and analysis about EVERY detail we know so far.
At least 11000 people (signed a petition to investigate the oddities of 911) are behind us. They can't be all crazy, freaks, psychos or just "anti-american". They are just glad to find a platform to share their doubts.
That's why GZ runs also a special strategy to reach different targets. One of them is promote the details, but another one is to put emphasis on investigation, analysis and less speculations.
Speculations are only helpful if you are able to find answers which are based on facts. For opinions we have at least one folder, the "media" section, which should be enough. Other opinions should be summed up in very short notes if they are not included in a big analysis of facts.
I respect the enthusiasm how many members try to examine the ENRON case. But keep in mind: It has already overshadowed the work of our beginning. ENRONGate has its own mysteries, but there are still other topics to examine too. ENRON might be the most important piece of the puzzle for George Bush was able to become president of the United States.
But you should not only focus on him. There are many people, who advise the Pentagon and CIA. The names are known: Richard Perle, James Woolsey etc...
We have not much time to waste, especially for discussions only. Every scepticism site, who did their own great job to analyse every piece thinks the same. They only put pieces together. There is no way we get a second Jim Garrisson (JFK examination) in the next few months. But in the meantime all the people who are combined in similar projects like GROUND ZERO should think about take care about their own credibility.
I hope GROUND ZERO and their brave members will continue in that direction. You all did a great job so far, but don't forget to see the whole picture again. Even if ENRON won't be a part of that, it has great political quality to put pressure on these other points, especially if you think of Dick Cheney.
I ask you therefore to read the "911-chronology 1962-2002" at "911-The other story" (Chronology 1962-2002) again and find out on what we should put emphasis again (even if its over and over again). GZ has now enough members who could help. Most of them are still only reading, which is ok for me, but i'm sure there are a lot of other smart potential here right now.
Try to keep to the facts, even if it's complex. If we can speak of a small or big conspiracy, then that's only the purpose- to keep confusing us and them and not think about the most important questions:
Who really profited from 911? Who is able to back it up? Which mistakes have been made but couldn't help to avoid 911? What did the main media exactly do to let us believe, who did it, how and what else they tried with which methods? Why was it so easy to find out the identities of the hijackers and all other suspects?
Go back to September 11th and think about the whole day. Recap what happened the last 3, 4 years.
Don't let turn speculations into rumours which later turn only into legends and lies. Right now i'm proud of what we reached. But we are still at step 1. I hope you all will help to go very carefully and smart the next few steps. Keep in mind that the sabotage and end of ENRON might have happened to cover up the other pieces.
We have to think in much bigger dimensions than you expect. But this has nothing to do with grey people, spiritistic propaganda or other obscure theories.
It is like it is, very pragmatic: Oil, War and Weapons. Period.
sounds pretty LIHOPpy...
oil, war, and weapons, period? Oilempire.us? GNN? Sander Hicks? Nico came right out of that milieu in New York, it seems, as did people like John Albanese. The farther back in time you go towards 9/11, the more clear the fake truth movement becomes--before real truthers began appearing on the scene, before the fake truth movement metastasized into a cloud of ostensibly diverse so-called "truthers" masking their actual uniformity as a ready to go out of the box controlled opposition.
Nico is one creepy son of a
Nico is one creepy son of a bitch(I agree with the comment above that the possible purpose of Nico was to make the 9/11 truth movement look crazy early on). The fact that Albanese is so closely linked with him, and before 9/11 is somehow even more creepy.
Does anybody know what Nico is up to now? We should do a "where are they know?" section or something. Would be interesting to know what possible ops like Nico,Reprehensor and others that have seemingly fallen off the map are doing now. Is Fetzer still spewing bs?
Nico is the "push"
http://syque.com/quality_tools/tools/Tools54.htm
Pushing and pulling
Strategies that cause people to move away from something are called ‘push’ strategies. They are typically useful in unfreezing, but after that can be counter-productive. If you push someone, they are actually trying to go in the opposite direction. This can be tiring and, like ‘herding cats’, as change is sometimes described, it is seldom a winning strategy for getting everyone past the post in time.
The alternative to push is pull. In ‘pull’ strategies, you stand in front of the person enticing them forward, for example with the motivating visions discussed above.
Push and pull can be two sides of the same coin, like the infamous carrot and stick. This can cause a problem where people see it in this way, for example where carrots are seen as bribes. With subtle use of psychological methods, however, they can be convinced to fully own their own futures and consequently change under their own steam.
also...
reflected in the talmudic aphorism: "Always push the student away with the left hand and draw him near with the right."
If Nico is the push and
If Nico is the push and Albanese the "pull" I would say Albanese failed miserably. I think hes still bitter about Loose Change(a faaaar from perfect movie but one that includes at least some physical evidence) completely outshining his crappy failure of a "documentary".
Nico did a damn fine job of pushing people away though. I'm reminded of his "poop poster" that he waved around in some church. Nico-geniune psychopath? Or brilliant actor knowingly hurting the 9/11 movement? Either way he and Albanese served the same purpose of trying to steer people in the wrong direction. And again, kind of creepy how they have connections going back before 9/11 considering the roles both have played in this movement. Maybe creepy isn't the right word. Maybe more like suspect.
it's really starting to look sordid
and my guess is Loose Change is just part of the ostensible diversity. thing is, to us it may seem pretty revealing because it acknowledges a few points like controlled demolition but at the same time, not knowing the whole truth we have no way of knowing how far off it is otherwise--could be VERY far off, at least from the POV of someone who knows the whole truth. imagine that 3 years from now the whole truth comes out--let's say we rewatched Loose Change--we would probably shudder at the thought that we once considered it one of our best weapons against the big lie. that's not to say it hasn't been useful, just that we can be anything but complacent when it comes to the standards and quality of our inquiry and investigation.
another Albanazism...
Nico vs. Albanese... here's a video apparently made by Nico that includes a clip of John Albanese on Fox News. A part of that clip has been posted before, but this vid includes a few seconds before, where Albanese says "Well, there's a whole panacea of information that's been widely researched..." I THINK he may have wanted to say "panoply", not "panacea". I wonder if this is deliberate, to make truthers look like idiots on national TV, or if he's really trying to sound erudite but suffers from some kind of mental disability that thwarts him...?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFWZGXTMGRE#t=1m11s
He's had a Word of the Day calendar
on his desk for many years. You can track his experimentation with new words... often slightly misused, frequently misspelled. 'Panacea' was the word of the day a couple of weeks before that interview, and it displaced 'plethora' which had been the word of the day several months prior to that. Neither one made it to his long-term lexical memory.
When he got the job (as a professional LIE-hopper) he decided he needed to bolster his intellectual cred (since he was supposed to fill the "Professor" niche -- much as Gold was assigned to the "Skipper" niche). That year is when his wife got him the first of the calendars.
BWAHAHAHA
I love it. Prof. Albanese and Skipper Gold. Would Nico be Gilligan? Or Willy Rodriguez? Or Dylan Avery? Why so many Gilligans, anyway?? Jimmy Walter as Thurston Howell? Victronix=MaryAnn and Abby Martin=Ginger? I thought we were the islanders though... or wait--has the truth movement officially developed a different center? Are the fake truth lie-hoppers official on the margins?
you're so right....
Loose Change certainly doesn't hold up very well. Its good for the uninitiated, or at least much better than the LIHOP crap Albanese put out or Press For Truth, but its still fairly weak overall. I'm still waiting for somebody to make a REAL 9/11 truth documentary that isn't afraid to follow the evidence wherever it leads. Missing Links was good in some ways but obviously the point of that film was to make anyone who follows the evidence to Israel seem like racists(like prothink is). I would love to make a documentary myself but I don't have the time or money(or expertise for that matter). Hint hint everyone! Get to work on a real 9/11 doc! It is sorely needed.
I hear you...
I don't have the time, money, or expertise to do it either. I still think 9/11 mysteries has been the best of that genre so far, however much it too is flawed. I think a mash up that drew from several docus could be effective--even Press for Truth has some decent material that would be powerful in the proper context...
more 9/11 archaeology... Gore Vidal invented LIHOP?
http://www.observer.com/node/46724
Protocols of Elder Named Gore Vidal: Wacko 9/11 Piece
By Ron Rosenbaum
November 10, 2002 | 7:00 p.m
Gore Vidal once tried to get me to print an alleged secret-a very big secret-about Richard Nixon's penis. About what has come to be called, in post-Clintonian euphemistic legalese, its "distinguishing characteristic."
I thought about this episode when I was reading what might be called "The Protocols of an Elder Called Gore," Mr. Vidal's attempt to prove-well, insinuate in a Nixonian way-that a secret cabal (the Bush/oil "junta") instigated the 9/11 mass murders in order to increase their profit margins.
The Vidal screed, a 7,000-word mega-ultra-totalizing post-9/11 conspiracy theory, appeared in the Oct. 27 issue of the London Observer under the headline "THE ENEMY WITHIN." The Observer précis is telling:
"Gore Vidal is America's most controversial writer and a ferocious, often isolated, critic of the Bush administration. Here, against a backdrop of spreading unease about America's response to the events of 11 September 2001 and their aftermath, we publish Vidal's remarkable personal polemic urging a shocking new interpretation of who was to blame."
One senses in the Observer 's précis an attempt to do a little sanitizing, a little distancing from this "remarkable personal polemic" with its "shocking" contents.
Well, in that they're correct: It is shocking, disillusioning, particularly to someone like myself who has been a longtime admirer of Mr. Vidal's essays, their intelligence, wit and precision, their erudition, elegance and fluidity. I can't take his novels as seriously as he does (which is very seriously), but even when I disagreed with the politics, his pieces in The New York Review of Books have been illuminating landmarks of the essay form.
Which is why Mr. Vidal's Observer piece is so shocking. What you hope for from Mr. Vidal is a serious political critique. What you have here is a disjointed conspiracy theory.
Which is why it reminded me of Ophelia's dismay at the derangement of Hamlet: "O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown." Which recalls the fact that Hamlet's madness is- he says-feigned. That he is "but mad north-northwest." Has Mr. Vidal's intellect gone south, so to speak, or is his 9/11 conspiracy theory some Vidalian north-by-northwest jest?
Which brings us back to the episode involving Richard Nixon's penis.
This was back when I was a young reporter for The Village Voice and Mr. Vidal had something to promote, and a press agent arranged an interview, and Mr. Vidal seemed fixated on getting into print a story he claimed to have heard "from a nurse," I think, about Richard Nixon's penis. This was around the time Watergate was developing, and I recall him saying, " The Voice will love this." And I felt a kind of a hint of condescension, as in: " The Voice will print anything as long as it's about the Great Satan Nixon." I had the feeling Mr. Vidal was trying to put one over on me, the paper and its readers-an elaborate jest I was supposed to play along with because he was the great Gore and the Left was inherently gullible.
But there's nothing very funny about the Vidal piece in the London Observer . And it's more than merely sad-about Vidal, about the gullibility of the Left. There's something genuinely ugly about it. Something that partakes of the slippery ugliness of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion . You're familiar, I assume, with The Protocols , a czarist secret-police forgery that purports to be the minutes of the meeting of the secret Jewish cabal which is ruling the world and manipulating history from behind the scenes. Henry Ford promoted a version called The International Jew . Hitler was deeply influenced by it. And now an Egyptian TV station is making a 41-part series based on it. This is not at all to say that Mr. Vidal's 9/11 thesis is anti-Semitic. He doesn't buy into the Mossad-did-it line; he believes we did it. What his thesis shares with The Protocols is the fantasy of an all-powerful secret cabal manipulating history: the Bush/oil "junta," which he calls "Hitlerian."
Mr. Vidal's secret cabal is more sinister than the F.D.R.–Pearl Harbor conspiracy theory (which he also buys into): the belief that F.D.R. knew about the coming Japanese attack but did nothing to stop it, because he wanted Americans killed to get us into the war.
In that theory, at least, F.D.R. was a passive-aggressive mastermind. He let something he knew was coming happen after, in effect, "asking for it" by provoking the Japanese.
But he didn't order it himself.
But that , in weasel words and passive-aggressive locutions, is what Mr. Vidal is implying George W. Bush and his "junta" did.
There are those (like Andrew Sullivan, for instance) who have taken note of the Vidal Observer piece and suggest that it's best to ignore it, and him. And maybe Mr. Sullivan's right. But I have a feeling that with something like this, if its ludicrous logical and evidentiary flaws are not exposed, there are those who will take it seriously. Worse things are flying around the Web, and this has the imprimatur of a famous American writer.
And the Left is always ready to swallow Richard Nixon penis stories, you might say.
It was a mistake not to take the malign potential of the original Protocols seriously. And if a famous American writer is entering a late-onset Ezra Pound period, so to speak, that too is worth noting-and lamenting.
So let's look more closely at his argument. Let's perform what the Web-bloggers have taken to calling a "fisking" or a "misting." Are you familiar with those terms? I'm particularly fond of "fisking" and "misting," because I believe they represent a revival on the Web of the kind of attentive close reading (albeit with plenty of attitude) that has disappeared from the jargon-clogged analysis of literature in the academy.
"Fisking" is derived from the devastating online critiques by "warbloggers" of the dispatches of Robert Fisk, the British foreign correspondent, who achieved a kind of perverse fame when he was beaten up by angry Afghans, blamed it on America (how were they to know he was one of the Good White Guys) and exclaimed that, in effect, if he were they, he'd beat himself up too.*
"Misting" is a term I favor because it has less of a built-in ideological agenda, and because it derives from that genius product of self-subverting American pop culture, Mystery Science Theater 3000 , whose fans are known as "Misties." MST3K , as it's known, made brilliant literate comedy out of the informal American practice of talking back to bad movies, to bad pop culture in general, showing and simultaneously ridiculing some of the schlockiest examples of world cinema. And insinuating into the Tapestry of Badness its own subtextual weave of pop referentiality-hypertexting hilariously on the run.
So let's try a combination of fisking and misting on Mr. Vidal's Protocols.
Let's begin with the key disingenuous yet self-subverting rhetorical trick Mr. Vidal employs: the attempt to ride two horses at once.
Horse No. 1, as he puts it in paragraph two of his screed: "One year after 9/11 we still don't know by whom we were struck that infamous Tuesday …. " (Italics mine.)
Horse No. 2: Oh, but we really do know-it was Osama bin Laden. But if you have the historical/political penetration of Mr. Vidal, you can see that Osama was acting at the instigation of the George Bush "junta."
Horse No. 1 breaks early from the starting gate (Osama may have nothing to do with it; "we still don't know"), but by paragraphs four and five, Horse No. 2 is catching up.
Because, in these paragraphs, we learn that despite the fact that "we still don't know" who did it, Mr. Bush knew ahead of time that Osama was going to do it: "From a briefing prepared for Bush at the beginning of July 2001: 'We believe that OBL [Osama bin Laden] will launch a significant terrorist attack against US and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks …. '"
So although we really don't know who did it, Mr. Bush is culpable for knowing who did it ahead of time. His failure to heed the warning about the man who did it is evidence that Mr. Bush was either hoping for it to happen, or behind it himself.
Now the fun begins, as Mr. Vidal again seeks to ride two different horses: prove both the former (Bush let it happen) and the latter (Bush, or the Bush "junta," ordered it to happen).
Having established that Mr. Bush knew, or he should have known, or he ordered it so he had to know, with flawless logical precision, our essayist then proceeds to develop his fearless prediction that Mr. Bush may eventually be impeached for knowing about or ordering the 9/11 attacks, an assertion he makes largely on the basis of a thesis by one Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed. Mr. Vidal tries to preclude any idea that Mr. Ahmed is anything less than an objective historian by making a smarmy forestalling remark, "Yes, yes, I know he is one of Them." A weak rhetorical ploy to brand any inquiry into Mr. Ahmed's objectivity as prejudiced in advance.
And certainly no one could accuse Mr. Ahmed of being anything less than objective, because he is on record as believing that "the U.S. and Western media most often systematically toe the Zionist line … motivated by economic interests … linked directly to the U.S. desire to consolidate its global hegemonic power …. " And that the Israeli government is guilty of "genocide against the Palestinian people."
And we know Mr. Vidal's source is incapable of conspiracy theory from the way he tells us that the Hamas suicide attacks have been "intentionally provoked by Israel to justify war plans." At least we know he's consistent, because in Mr. Vidal's Protocols, he is used to support the theory that the U.S. government also "intentionally" had its own citizens murdered for its "war plans."
The reason Mr. Bush will probably be impeached, our seer Mr. Vidal tells us, is that he "allowed the American people to go unwarned about an imminent attack upon two of our cities as preemption of a planned military strike by the US against the Taliban." (Italics mine.) So the 9/11 attacks were justified self-defense. (I think David Corn has already disposed of the factual basis of this pre-emption theory in the March 1, 2002, issue of The Nation .)
But for Mr. Vidal, even though "we still don't know" who did it, our seer can read their minds (whoever they are) and tell us that the 9/11 attacks were their "preemption" of our planned attack on them, whoever they were. Are you with me? I know it's hard to follow; illogic always is.
Or is it illogic north by northwest? Could this be Mr. Vidal's parody of dumb Left conspiracy theory? Certainly the topic is ripe for parody, now that (according to Page Six) Barbra Streisand has joined those who believe that Paul Wellstone's plane crash was "no accident" in what The Times ' Nicholas Kristof has called the Left's "cesspool of outraged incoherence."
In any case, much subsequent Vidal verbiage follows designed to prove the Sherlockian discovery that this is all "The Case of the Afghan Pipeline," that the "Bush junta" countenanced or caused the murder of thousands of Americans in the hopes of provoking a war to expedite an oil pipeline that might increase the profit margins of their oil companies. Standard boilerplate Left conspiracy theory.
But then our essayist assumes a disingenuous passive voice and takes one passive-aggressive step beyond all that, into Protocols territory. That step can be found in this sentence: "Osama was chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo for our long-contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan …. "
It's really the first three words that give the game away: "Osama was chosen …. " Poor Osama isn't even given any credit for "agency," as the postmodernists say. Couldn't think it up by himself . He "was chosen"-implicitly by his white masters in the West, the "Bush junta"-to commit the mass murder of Americans (although remember: "we still don't know" who did it).
Osama was chosen . Not a word about fundamentalist Islam's hatred of America, of Jews, of the West. No, it was the West- we did it to ourselves. Well, the Bush cabal did it in our name. Is comparing Mr. Vidal's screed to The Protocols extreme? Not as extreme as Vidal comparing George W. Bush to Hitler.
Don't you also like the echt Vidal touch: "Osama was chosen on aesthetic grounds …. " The wily conspirators can't escape from the even wilier Gore, who knows how their minds work. Osama had no ideological or theological motives of his own; he just had, you know, that Bad Guy Look (the "aesthetic grounds"). He was a hired actor, and whoever he was beneath the skin was irrelevant to that division of the American Cabal which was assigned to run the Bad Guy Star Search for a front man for their scheme to murder thousands of Americans.
At this point, the Vidal Protocols shift into a discussion of the mechanics of the plan. In the section labeled "Bush and the dog that did not bark," we begin to learn the magnitude of the plot to kill our own citizens by "the junta"-how many were directly involved, how many Americans knew but kept silent.
Here, speaking of business types, Mr. Vidal brings in rhetoric that could have come directly from The Protocols : "One fears that greater transparency will only reveal armies of maggots at work beneath the skin of [our] culture …. " Maggots are a favorite metaphor in this sort of literature. Guess whom the "maggots" usually turn out to be?
Again, Mr. Vidal is weaselly about what he seeks to assert and prove. "Complicity" is the one-word sentence that opens the second paragraph of this section, as if he will follow it with proof of George W. Bush's complicity in the plot to murder his fellow citizens to increase the profit margins of some oil companies. But then he hedges it by saying, "The behaviour of President George W. Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to all sorts of not unnatural suspicions."
So now we've edged back from promising proof of "complicity" to "all sorts of … suspicions." Nice rhetorical trick by the master. For proof of complicity, or the suspicion of complicity, he dips into an article called "The So-Called Evidence Is a Farce." The passages in which Mr. Vidal quotes the author, Stan Goff, who identifies himself as a former Special Forces operative in Latin America, include locutions like this:
"By around 8:15 AM [on the day of the attacks], it should be very apparent that something is terribly wrong." (Italics mine.) "Should" plays an important role in conspiracy-theory thinking. There follows more "should have" this, "would have" that, the implication being that higher-ups in the U.S. military knew the planes were heading for D.C. and the W.T.C. but issued "'stand down' orders" to interceptor jets to allow the attacks to succeed. Mr. Vidal gives us a terrific insight into the mind-set involved here, in this line from Mr. Goff: "Now, the real kicker: A pilot they want us to believe was trained at a Florida puddle-jumper school for Piper Cubs and Cessnas, conducts a well-controlled downward spiral, descending the last 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes, and flies it with pinpoint accuracy into the side of this building …. " (Italics mine.)
Here, what we're really seeing is Gore Vidal-once so clear-sighted a skeptic-executing a "well-controlled downward spiral" into Internet conspiracy theory's grassy knoll. It's the old J.F.K. conspiracy argument that Oswald wasn't a good enough marksman to hit J.F.K. (Except he did.) The hijacker wasn't a good enough pilot to hit the W.T.C. (Except he did.) Or is it meant to imply that the person identified as the pilot really wasn't the pilot, or that he was trained by the Bush cabal? Don't laugh: If you go on the Net, you can find pages and pages of "proof" that the plane was "remote controlled," that the plane was piloted by the Bush cabal but didn't crash into the W.T.C. at all , it just launched a missile into it (like another plane supposedly did at the Pentagon), or launched a missile at the W.T.C., which triggered explosives already planted by the cabal at the base of the W.T.C., or alternately that the W.T.C. was deliberately " re-engineered " by the cabal in the mid-90's so that it would collapse on command (the way the cabal "re-engineered" J.F.K.'s head wounds to pin the crime on the "patsy," Oswald, in some conspiracy theories).
Welcome to Mr. Vidal's world, where, let's see, dozens if not scores of personnel in the military would be cognizant-complicit-in the cabal's plot, because they allowed the attacks they knew were coming to proceed untroubled to their targets. "Finally, this one is the dog that did not bark," Mr. Vidal, in his Sherlockian mode, tells us. "I don't think Goff is being unduly picky when he wonders who and what kept the Air Force from following its normal procedures … until the damage was done." (Italics mine.)
I'm perfectly prepared to believe that the Air Force screwed up (although a number of the timeline details on which Mr. Vidal and his source base their conspiracy allegations are contradicted by The New York Times ' September 2002 book on the attacks, Out of the Blue ). And I believe that the Bush administration and the Clinton intelligence agencies who preceded them failed miserably, inexcusably, and that many more should be fired for their failure and incompetence. But to Mr. Vidal, "incompetence" is the cabal's red herring. What Mr. Vidal is implying, insinuating in a particularly repellent Nixonian way, is that someone " kept " the Air Force from preventing mass murder. Were there "'stand down' orders?" he asks, quoting from a "Canadian media analyst" who believes there were. On the other hand, maybe the Pakistanis were behind it all, Mr. Vidal says, throwing a last-minute late entry into the multi-horse race.
But all of this previous silliness doesn't rise to the stupendous heights Mr. Vidal reserves for his final few thousand words. A finale that begins when he invokes Hitler: "Many commentators of a certain age have noted how Hitlerian our junta sounds as it threatens first one country for harbouring terrorists and then another."
Our sage finds some merit in this wisdom: "It is true that Hitler liked to pretend to be the injured-or threatened-party before he struck." He seems to be saying that somehow the W.T.C. mass murder was an example of the U.S. "pretending" to be injured. This will be somewhat hard to sell to the survivors of the W.T.C. attacks, who, I guess, are "pretending" to have lost their children, fathers and mothers.
Clearly our sage has lost track, in his frenzy, of one slight difference between the U.S. and Hitler's Reich: Hitler did pretend injury; he dressed up prisoners in Polish uniforms to stage an attack on a German radio station in order to provide a fig leaf for his 1939 attack on Poland, for instance. But we didn't pretend to be attacked by others on 9/11, although implicitly, metaphorically, sleazily, that is what our sage implies with his Hitler analogy.
But it turns out we're actually a little worse than Hitler: " … something new has been added since the classic Roman Hitlerian mantra, 'they are threatening us, we must attack first.'" The new addition that makes us worse than Hitler: We are more open about it than Hitler-at least to the penetrating gaze of our seer-thus a little worse , in our shamelessness,
than Hitler.
What's fascinating is this patrician faux-populist's contempt for the American people. Those stupid Americans, not realizing they actually attacked themselves on 9/11, are now getting all cowardly and acting threatened. How foolish and fearful we must seem from the perspective of the sage, secure in his villa in Ravello.
Remind us again, oh sage, of the hard evidence that our "Hitlerian" junta was behind 9/11. But wait, more kitchen-sink allegations posing as having been proved: "The 342 pages of the USA Patriot Act were plainly prepared before 9/11." Note that "plainly" tucked in there. In other words, he has no evidence; it's supposed to be self-evident-all the people who drafted the act were in on the plot, too.
For his final flourish, our sage demonstrates that he still has an eye for detail. He notices that "[w]hen Mohamed Atta's plane struck the World Trade Centre's North Tower, George W. Bush and the child at the Florida elementary school were discussing her goat."
No, despite the childish reasoning that has led up to this finale, Mr. Vidal does not attempt to implicate the goat in the Hitlerian plot, nor the child. He gives us a little lesson in classics for those not as erudite as our sage:
"By coincidence, our word for 'tragedy' comes from the Greek: for 'goat' tragos plus oide for 'song'. 'Goat-song'. It is highly suitable that this lament, sung in ancient satyr plays, should have been heard again at the exact moment when we were struck by fire from heaven, and a tragedy whose end is nowhere in sight began for us."
Whoa, Gore, dude -lighten up on the kitsch: " … we were struck by fire from heaven … " And remember, we weren't really "struck": You've "proven" we struck ourselves . The real tragedy, the real goat-song here is, as Ophelia said, the spectacle of "a noble mind o'erthrown."
But there's an upside to it all: the Egyptian TV station that's making that 41-part version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion . Forty-one parts! A (lying) historical epic! They're going to keep plenty of screenwriters busy. I'm sure they'll need the script-doctoring services of an Old Pro, Gore. I think you've just passed your audition.
and back to the future....
http://www.observer.com/people/larry-silverstein
Larry Silverstein
Silverstein, Douglaston, Related Vying to Develop Willets Point
World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein, Queens developer Jeff Levine and Related Cos. chairman Stephen Ross are among those seeking to develop Willets Point, the polluted, 62-acre auto repair district next to Citi Field, according to city... MORE >
Subsidy City: The Real Public Costs of the World Trade Center Towers
For more than a year, an exhaustive battle raged over the future of developer Larry Silverstein's towers at the World Trade Center, with the Port Authority, Silverstein Properties, the city and the state fighting over just what to build, and how to fill a financing... MORE >
Judge Rules For Peter Fine, and Against Larry Silverstein, in Lawsuit
Larry Silverstein's fortunes may be rising at ground zero, but in Manhattan Supreme Court, affairs have taken a turn for the worse. A judge has issued a summary judgment against Mr. Silverstein in a lawsuit filed against him by affordable-housing developer Peter... MORE >
The Business of Ground Zero
A half-century ago, the imperious Port Authority director Austin Tobin unveiled a plan for the public agency to build two gigantic towers on the western edge of a struggling Lower Manhattan, creating a new office district, a city within a city, of 9 million square... MORE >
Port, Silverstein Move Closer with New Two-Tower WTC Offer
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey this week presented a new offer to private developer Larry Silverstein that seeks to assist in financing construction of two skyscrapers at the World Trade Center. The offer calls for Mr. Silverstein to raise $300 million in new private capital and for the city to put in a significant contribution toward the redevelopment before the Port Authority would put up money to back financing on two... MORE >
Bloomberg to Port Authority: Put Up WTC Money or ‘Just Get Out of the Way’
Following a new offer by developer Larry Silverstein to break the stalemate over the World Trade Center redevelopment, Mayor Bloomberg came down on the side of the private developer and lashed out at the Port Authority, insisting the agency put in more money itself. The comments came as Mr. Silverstein offered between $150 million and $250 million in new equity toward funding construction of two towers at the site, asking the Port Authority to back... MORE >
Silverstein to 60 Minutes: Ground Zero a ‘National Disgrace’
CBS' 60 Minutes is this Sunday set to launch a piece on the long-troubled redevelopment of the World Trade Center, one the show has been working on for months. In a brief teaser for the show, Larry Silverstein—the private developer who is signed up to build three of the four towers at the site—tells reporter Scott Pelley that the rebuilding is a "national disgrace," and, "I am the most frustrated person in the... MORE >
WTC Arbitrators Push Back on Silverstein, Give 45 Days to Make Peace
A panel of arbitrators has ruled against developer Larry Silverstein on a number of key points in arbitration over the future of the World Trade Center redevelopment. The panel, which issued the ruling Tuesday night, is giving Mr. Silverstein and the site's owner, the Port Authority, 45 days to agree on a new path forward at the World Trade Center, or else the panel itself will be able to dictate a new development... MORE >
The Next World Trade Center Delay
Since August, developer Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority have been clashing in an extensive, binding arbitration over the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site. And, throughout, key sections have been stalled, with giant holes for two towers on the site going unfilled as the two sides await a ruling from the arbitrators, expected soon, that could chart a path forward. But as the ruling nears, another option looms: more arbitration, and, with that,... MORE >
World Trade Center Construction: The December 2009 Photo Tour!
... MORE >
Flux Libertas
Lower Manhattan wants more... MORE >
Midtown, Schmidtown! Currency Trader FXDD Subleases 40K Feet in 7 WTC
The currency-trading dynamos at FXDD will take the entire 32nd floor, a space of 40,717 square feet, at 7 World Trade Center. Founded in 2004, FXDD provides software and trading platforms for the global currency-exchange market. In the world of trading, timing is everything, and FXDD’s chairman, Emil Assentato, said the firm had “seized upon this opportunity in the real estate cycle” to lock down highly economic... MORE >
Silverstein Wants $2.6 B. in WTC Bonds—But for What?
Anyone paging through the end of The Times' business section Wednesday might have noticed an unusual legal notice nestled in between the commercial real estate classifieds and a bank ad (a reader had to point it out to us): NEW YORK LIBERTY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION Notice of Public... MORE >
Larry Silverstein Is Not Going Anywhere
Larry Silverstein is talking about the World Trade Center site again. Mr. Silverstein and the Port Authority have been mum while they make their case to an arbitration panel, but he couldn't help himself at a recent real estate panel. "There's not a hell of a lot I can say, for obvious reasons," he said. And then he went on to talk about it for half an hour, Downtown Express... MORE >
The Reformed Accountant
When August DiRenzo reported to legendary Cushman & Wakefield honcho Jim Peters on his first day of work as a broker in the mid-1960s, the upstart asked a simple question. “O.K., what do I do?” “Look out the window,” said Mr. Peters, peering from his Cushman office tower, then located on Madison Avenue, 13 blocks south of its current headquarters. “What do you see?” “Buildings,” answered Mr. DiRenzo, surveying the soaring edifices on 40th Street, many of... MORE >
and all the way back again to the past... but where is *this* story? http://www.observer.com/people/larry-silverstein?page=13
here it is, cached....
Larry Silverstein Restates Resolve to Build W.T.C. Site By Andrew Rice October 21, 2001 | 8:00 p.m
Larry Silverstein never wanted this attention.
He woke up obscure on the morning of Sept. 11. Just a few weeks before, the diminutive, 70-year-old developer had completed the deal of his life, leading a group of investors in the $3.2 billion purchase of a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center. Respected within the insular world of New York real estate, he remained little known in the world at large.
That all changed the moment the Trade Center towers-the complex Mr. Silverstein called "my dream"-collapsed. Suddenly, the developer was thrust into an unaccustomed public role as New York's rebuilder. On television, he vowed to reconstruct the complex. In the newspapers, he proposed four 50-story towers. In a state of emergency, he was hailed as an example of New York's can-do spirit.
"Should we rebuild the World Trade Center, the symbol of New York? Absolutely. Without a hesitation," a choked-up Mr. Silverstein declared in a speech to business leaders at the Regency Hotel on Sept. 17, bringing the crowd to its feet. "Because to do anything less would be to simply give an incredible victory to those who sought to destroy our way of life."
Now that the cheers have faded, the enormity of the rebuilding job is becoming clear. In boardroom negotiations and back-channel conversations, the crucial first question-who calls the shots?-is coming closer to being resolved. And Mr. Silverstein's likely role is becoming ever more clouded.
"I think he will be very involved," said Lewis Eisenberg, chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's board of commissioners, which built the World Trade Center and still owns the land beneath the rubble. "I don't know in what particular role at this point."
Mr. Silverstein has talked to another prominent developer, John Zuccotti of Brookfield Financial Properties, about designing a master plan that integrates the World Trade Center site into Brookfield's World Financial Center and Battery Park City.
"We think we should begin by reconsidering the role of lower Manhattan in the region," said Mr. Zuccotti. But the reality is, a little more than a month after the terrorist attack, Mr. Silverstein is in trouble. He faces a cash crunch, a multibillion-dollar fight with his insurers and tentative signals from Port Authority officials at the precise moment he needs to move fast.
Real-estate executives who applauded Mr. Silverstein a month ago now wonder whether he can hold onto the 16-acre site. Yet in an interview at his Fifth Avenue office on Oct. 12, Mr. Silverstein portrayed all these concerns as mere challenges to overcome. "We paid for [the World Trade Center]," Mr. Silverstein said. "We're doing what we have to do because we have a huge investment in this thing. And as long as we have the cooperation and the wherewithal to rebuild, that's what we're intent on doing."
Neither element-cooperation or wherewithal-is a foregone conclusion. While Mr. Eisenberg praised Mr. Silverstein as "a man of great conscience and wisdom," he and other Port Authority officials made it abundantly clear that they expect to lead, and not simply follow Mr. Silverstein.
"I don't know the basis from which [Silverstein] is speaking," said Port Authority commissioner William Martini, a former New Jersey Congressman. "Last I heard, the [land] is still titled to the Port Authority."
"I can't do this alone," Mr. Silverstein acknowledged. "I can only do it with the government on the federal, state and city level, with the Port Authority being a total participant."
Mr. Eisenberg said that the Port Authority is making close study of the site-and Mr. Silverstein's legal rights to it.
"In some ways, it's analogous to 1965," when the World Trade Center was begun, said Mr. Martini. "Which entity is best positioned to lead [the redevelopment]? It's the Port Authority."
Money, too, is becoming a problem for Mr. Silverstein. He still has to pay rent to the Port Authority as if the World Trade Center still existed, full of tenants. For now, he says he is making the payments-about $2.5 million a week-out of his own pocket. If he defaults on the payments, he could lose control of the property.
Mr. Silverstein must soon collect at least some of the $7.2 billion in insurance claims he has filed. But his insurers are fighting him. A long legal battle could turn on a bit of legalism: Mr. Silverstein says that the assault constituted two distinct terrorist attacks, doubling his $3.6 billion in insurance policies; the insurers say it was one coordinated attack.
Experts call Mr. Silverstein's claim audacious. Why is he trying it? Perhaps because he thinks $3.6 billion won't be enough. Financial documents connected to a Trade Center bond issue earlier this year warned that Mr. Silverstein's casualty insurance policy amounted to "significantly less" than the cost of rebuilding.
"Is the industry happy about having to pay us $7.2 billion? The answer is no," Mr. Silverstein said. "[But] without a doubt, we'll get it resolved."
Appeals to Congress
According to Congressional staff, however, Mr. Silverstein recently told members of Congress that he needs federal loan guarantees to keep going while he waits on the insurance payoff. "He was greatly fearful that he would not be able get that kind of financing without a guarantee," said John Sheiner, an aide to Representative Charles Rangel, who was present at the meeting. But Mr. Silverstein dropped the idea when members of Congress voiced doubts.
Despite all these problems, Mr. Silverstein says he is working on a tight time frame. "The site is going to be cleared, present schedule, [in] 12 months," he said. "Six months for environmental remediation and securing the foundations. Eighteen months from today, structural steel can be coming up out of the ground. And five years from today, we can have-and should have-a finished World Trade Center."
But that schedule could be wildly optimistic in a New York barreling towards recession. Companies displaced from the World Trade Center have found ready space in buildings emptied by the financial downturn, and any new complex will have to vie for tenants with a dozen or so development sites at the ready around the city.
"My sense is that this is going to be a long haul," said real-estate attorney Lawrence Lipson of Proskauer, Rose. Among the three finalists in the bidding for the World Trade Center, Mr. Silverstein was considered an afterthought, a lone private investor among big public companies. He rounded up a formidable consortium of investors and used his patience, charm and wile to prevail. Now he faces a problem like none any developer has ever seen.
"The impact on lower Manhattan is devastating; [on] the city, huge; [on] the state, enormous," Mr. Silverstein said.
Mr. Silverstein added that he narrowly escaped death on Sept. 11. "The only reason I wasn't there that morning was because of a doctor's appointment," he said. His firm lost four employees in the disaster.
"It's painful. I'd rather not talk about it. Let's get it behind us," he said, ending discussion of the disaster with a wave of his hand.
Mr. Silverstein watched the buildings collapse on a television in his Fifth Avenue office. He emerged from seclusion soon afterwards, telling The Wall Street Journal that he planned to rebuild. Since then, he's been moving forward aggressively. "It costs $2.5 million a week," Mr. Silverstein said. "So when you're sitting and contemplating the eternal verities, you can do that for 10 minutes, 12 minutes, but then you gotta get on with it."
The plans tentatively call for four 50-story office towers and a monument honoring the dead. "That's their burial ground, so you need a memorial," Mr. Silverstein said.
He's already hired prominent architect David Childs, of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill; urban planner Alex Cooper, who designed Battery Park City; and a lot of lawyers.
Mr. Silverstein has also been making the rounds around Washington, accompanied by blue-chip Washington lobbyists Ed Gillespie and Jack Quinn. In addition to the loan guarantees, he's asking for legislation shielding him from lawsuits connected to the attack.
Bottom-Line Realities
Mr. Silverstein's alacrity caught many unprepared, including the Port Authority, which lost 74 employees in the disaster, in addition to its headquarters building. Yet Mr. Silverstein may have no choice but to move fast.
To keep paying rent to the Port Authority, he must collect at least some portion of his $1 billion "business interruption" insurance policy. But this insurance policy, Mr. Silverstein said, only kicks in if he can demonstrate that the complex will be rebuilt. Even if he collects it, that insurance runs out in three years.
So Mr. Silverstein needs the Port Authority's cooperation. "He's going to have to negotiate with the Port Authority," a New York state official said, adding that Mr. Silverstein shouldn't put the authority "in a box."
Not surprisingly, the Port Authority and Mr. Silverstein have differing interpretations of what Mr. Silverstein's rights are under the arcane provisions of his lease which cover damage to, or the destruction of, the building.
The problem, said Mr. Lipson-who engaged in lease negotiations with the Port Authority on behalf of an unsuccessful bidder, Vornado Realty Trust-is that no one spent much time contemplating the total destruction of the complex when the lease was written.
"I remember making the comment, '[Terrorists] tried to destroy the building once unsuccessfully; there's no way the entire building's going to come down,'" Mr. Lipson said. "You see how stupid I was."
The Port Authority has about $1.5 billion of its own insurance, which will go to cover damage to the PATH train terminal underneath the W.T.C. site and other infrastructure. But if Mr. Silverstein defaults on the lease, the Port Authority stands to collect all his insurance money, another New York state official claimed.
Real-estate lawyers and developers said there are reasons why the Port Authority might not want Mr. Silverstein to develop the site. "This could be, from start to finish, a 10-year project,"said one developer. "I think the Port Authority will question his organization, and question the experience of his partners."
Mr. Silverstein's is a family-run private company. He has built some buildings-most significantly 7 World Trade Center, which was also destroyed in the attack-but nothing like the four-building complex he is now proposing. His partners, which include members of the Goldman real-estate family and real-estate investor Joe Cayre, signed on to invest in buildings, and some speculate that they may not want to be involved in a development project.
Philip Rosen, who represented Mr. Goldman on the deal, said that the rest of the partners were fully behind Mr. Silverstein. "They're investors, but they're also developers," he said. No single developer has tried to complete a project of such scale in New York since the 1980's, when George Klein attempted to build four office towers in Times Square. That project went awry amid political squabbling and Mr. Klein's financial setbacks.
Many suggest that the formula that eventually worked in Times Square-parceling out buildings to several different developers-might be the model for the World Trade Center site. Mr. Silverstein indicated he would be resistant to such an idea. "As I recall, 42nd Street took I don't know how many years to get done," he said. "If we were to go for 10 or 12 or 14 years … or bring in different people, then I gotta tell you-we're going to be out of money before we start."
Some involved in the World Trade Center lease deal suggested that the Port Authority might try to buy out Mr. Silverstein's interest in the complex. "The most likely outcome, in my view,"said one real-estate attorney who has made a close study of the deal, "is that the Port Authority will say, 'Larry, we love you, you're a great guy, but we want to do something new.'"
But another attorney who is close to the ownership group said the partners would resist any buy-out. "I think that that would lead to years of fighting," he said. "I think that the best scenario is that everyone sits in a room, locks the door and figures out what to do with the site."
Mr. Silverstein said he's in it for the long haul. "I've simply decided the next five years of my life are going to be dedicated to getting this rebuilt," he said. "Because emotionally, I find it necessary to do it … [and] because, God only knows, the economy of this city-the economy of the state-is dependent upon our doing so."