911 Witness - "Harley Shirt Guy" - an actor?

[AlicetheKurious]

Looking at all those YouTube links brings to mind what a relatively new phenomenon that 'the YouTube' is. ...

My guess is that if Harley guy is/was a paid actor? That nobody at the time counted on this clip being dissected to the Nth degree that it has.

That's an excellent point. It's hard to overestimate how much Youtube has changed the environment and made it so much harder to control the public's perceptions. That probably wasn't fully taken into account back in 2001.

[Jeff]

It's hard to overestimate how much Youtube has changed the environment and made it so much harder to control the public's perceptions.

I think it's great for entertainment, but for investigative research it's been a curse, and a blessing to manipulators of perception. Faux populist channels posting truncated, decontextualized clips fostering diminished attention spans doesn't make me go Hurray for Truth!

[AlicetheKurious]

Faux populist channels posting truncated, decontextualized clips fostering diminished attention spans...

Wow, that's a great description of what passes for "news". At least with Youtube, it's not a monopoly controlled by a teeny-tiny number of billionaires with a hostile agenda. You get some wheat, you get some chaff, but at least filmed images that are locked out of the mainstream media have somewhere to go where people can see them.

Also, Youtube and others are good for preserving and disseminating some clips that would have otherwise been disappeared down the memory hole, making plausible deniability so much harder. Youtube is like The People's version of a tv-network's film archives, but practically cost-free; it would be a disaster to lose it.

[Jeff]

I agree, it's not all bad news. My point better expressed would be that viewing user-generated content requires just as much discernment and media literacy. It invites us to relax our guard because it's not Time Warner, but we often don't know what it is.

[elfismiles]

- But yes, it would be very interesting to see what came before and after that interview-segment. Since we live in a free, democratic society, though, there's little hoping of ever compelling Rupert Murdoch's private fiefdom to show it to us (presuming it still exists).

Au contraire ... I can't find it right now but there used to be a webpage (by a local 911 meetup organizer in austin - aboveground something dot com) that had video feeds for ALL msm embedded into one page running simultaneously that you could comb thru for just this sort of thing.

Then there is this ...

http://www.archive.org/details/sept_11_tv_archive

[AlicetheKurious]

That site is a treasure trove!

[Jeff]

Then there is this ...

http://www.archive.org/details/sept_11_tv_archive

Thanks. I was looking there yesterday but I couldn't get the Fox links to stream, looks like they're working now.

[OP ED]

Faux populist channels posting truncated, decontextualized clips fostering diminished attention spans...

Wow, that's a great description of what passes for "news". At least with Youtube, it's not a monopoly controlled by a teeny-tiny number of billionaires with a hostile agenda. You get some wheat, you get some chaff, but at least filmed images that are locked out of the mainstream media have somewhere to go where people can see them.

Also, Youtube and others are good for preserving and disseminating some clips that would have otherwise been disappeared down the memory hole, making plausible deniability so much harder. Youtube is like The People's version of a tv-network's film archives, but practically cost-free; it would be a disaster to lose it.

as someone who has had videos removed from youtube for "violations of the user agreement" or whatever, i'd beg to differ as to whether or not its being controlled. it is a good idea, yes, but as with wiki, a lot of the "freedom" is illusionary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_Capital

[the same Judge who gave my IP address to Viacom, via youtube/google was or is presiding over the Bernie Madoff v. SEC whitewash]

[AlicetheKurious]

it is a good idea, yes, but as with wiki, a lot of the "freedom" is illusionary.

Yes, absolutely. But on the one hand, it's overall a pretty good supplement to the mainstream media and on the other, there's always hope that diverse competitors will pop up, especially in other countries.

[OP ED]

it is a good idea, yes, but as with wiki, a lot of the "freedom" is illusionary.

Yes, absolutely. But on the one hand, it's overall a pretty good supplement to the mainstream media and on the other, there's always hope that diverse competitors will pop up, especially in other countries.

of course. the technology itself is usually neutral.

[AlicetheKurious]

OP ED said:

...as someone who has had videos removed from youtube for "violations of the user agreement" or whatever, i'd beg to differ as to whether or not its being controlled. it is a good idea, yes, but as with wiki, a lot of the "freedom" is illusionary....
[the same Judge who gave my IP address to Viacom, via youtube/google was or is presiding over the Bernie Madoff v. SEC whitewash]

Forgive my, um, kuriosity, but...what were your videos about?

[MinM]

Looking at all those YouTube links brings to mind what a relatively new phenomenon that 'the YouTube' is. ...

My guess is that if Harley guy is/was a paid actor? That nobody at the time counted on this clip being dissected to the Nth degree that it has.

That's an excellent point. It's hard to overestimate how much Youtube has changed the environment and made it so much harder to control the public's perceptions. That probably wasn't fully taken into account back in 2001.

Baltimore Police and apologists lamenting video bloggers highlights another paradigm shift since 2001 ..

@alexcook616 · Nobody had smart phones in 2001, bruh.

Baltimore City FOP @FOP3
Where were all these video bloggers when police officers & fire fighters remained inside the WTC working to save lives?

[Lord Balto]

...it definitely looks and sounds acted. You realise how artificial TV-acting is when you suddenly see it taking place in a real-life context...

Absolutely. I've turned on the teevee and watched what seemed to be a "real-life" interview and known immediately that it was not, just by the tone and facial expression of the actor, no matter how professionally done. Invariably, it turns out to be a "reenactment" using professional actors.

The "Harley guy" sequence is exactly like that. If so, what was the purpose of planting an actor?

"And then I witnessed both towers collapse, one first and then the second. Mostly due to structural failure because the fire was just too intense."

Bingo!

Dead nuts, as they say. Whether this guy was a professional actor, or some particular actor, or just a hired psychotic with an excess of self confidence, he was clearly placed there to flog the official story line. Sadly, and most disturbingly, the fact that this interview appeared in the mainstream media at just the right time suggests media complicity. What do you think the odds are that this guy would have received air time if he had said that the attack was clearly a CIA false flag operation? Are there probabilities less than zero?

[Lord Balto]

He sounds like a professional broadcast journalist and he's dressed like it's his day off. If so, that's why he's speaking on Fox with apparent authority, because he's accustomed to an audience believing he knows what he's talking about.

Is his appearance available in more than a 14 second clip? Because I'm curious about what might have been clipped out, maybe maliciously, to fabricate another bogus mystery.

No, I don't think he's a red herring, if that's what you are trying to imply.

And I am quite sure there are millions of people out there who are not professional talking heads but could do a decent imitation of one. And one of his conditions of employment would be that he never appeared in another video. He may even be a career employee of the very organization that pulled off the attack and would therefore be quite aware that if he spilled the beans he would be stricken with a sudden urge to commit "suicide."

I must admit this guy makes me nauseous. Having just watched him again, it seems quite possible, since he was being interviewed by Fox News, that he was scripted and rehearsed by Fox News to say and do just exactly what Rupert Murdoch wanted him to say. The real question, of course, is whether Fox Noise has ever been asked to produce this "freelancer" of theirs.

[Lord Balto]

Jeff's right. This guy sounds exactly like most of my male friends who work in broadcasting. The notion this guy is anything but a man on the street is on par with no-plane theories, IMHO.

Just how many guys wandering the streets of New York wearing Harley shirts at the time even knew who bin Laden was, and how many of them would just fortuitously have settled upon him as the perpetrator and also come up with the official explanation that the steel members had melted? And it really doesn't matter whether there is more video of this guy or not. What matters is whether there is an employment record actually identifying him as a Fox News stringer. Do you really think that if this guy was who he said he was that Fox would not have brought him back to elaborate on his statements rather than allow him to run back into the woodwork never to be heard from again?