[THS] Ventura: You`re not allowed to ask about 9/11

[Peter Webster]

Here's a piece on HuffPost's disappearance of Jesse Ventura's 9/11 article. It ran on
Russian Television (RT) yesterday (America's own mainstream press, as ever,
choosing not to note the controversy):

http://www.youtube.com/user/RTAmerica#p/search/9/m14t8mJnw_E

Anastasia Churkina's full interview with Gov. Ventura will air on Monday.

Here also is Raw Story's piece:

Ventura: 'You're not allowed to ask' about 9/11 | Raw Story
www.rawstory.com/08556945.jpg

http://rawstory.com/2010/03/ventura-youre-allowed-ask-911/
[embedded links and/or video at url above]

Former Minnesota governor and one-time professional wrestler Jesse Ventura has run
afoul of the Huffington Post's no-conspiracy-theory policy, and he's not happy about
it.

"I can't believe the Huffington Post today will practice censorship," Ventura says in
astonishment. "I've got news for them. ... I won't ever write for 'em again." Ventura had posted an item on Tuesday which took note of a recent conference at which "more than one thousand architects and engineers signed a petition demanding that Congress begin a new investigation into the destruction of the World Trade Center skyscrapers on 9/11." He also quoted a few paragraphs from his new book, American Conspiracies, to explain why some of those experts see signs of controlled demolition.

The item was featured on the front page of Huffington Post when it first went up, but
after a few hours it vanished. All that appears now at its original location is an editor's
note saying, "The Huffington Post's editorial policy, laid out in our blogger guidelines,
prohibits the promotion and promulgation of conspiracy theories -- including those
about 9/11. As such, we have removed this post."

The note is followed by three pages of comments, enthusiastically arguing the pros and cons of controlled demolition and other 9/11 theories, that were posted during the couple of hours before the entry was deleted and comments were closed.

Huffington Post's own guidelines for its bloggers state, "We must -- and do -- reserve
the right to remove objectionable, inaccurate, or inflammatory material and, if
necessary, suspend or revoke blogging privileges. This also includes propagating
conspiracy theories and blogging about behind-the-scenes housekeeping issues that
are not of interest to the general public."

Anastasia Churkina, a correspondent for RT, interviewed Ventura about the
controversy. "He's a man who doesn't mince his words too much," she reported on
Thursday. "He was pretty blunt."

"I can't believe the Huffington Post today will practice censorship," Ventura told her
angrily.

"They asked me to be a contributing editor and they said, 'Write about anything you
want.' So it was the second time I did something -- and they removed it?"

"Well, I've got news for them," he continued. "I won't ever write for 'em again. ... I
won't do a thing for the Huffington Post because I don't like it when people censor
what I have to say."

"All I do is ask questions!" he exploded. "That's what bugs me about 9/11. 9/11 is an
event you're not allowed to ask a question about. ... Clearly they don't want any
questions on it."

Ironically, Ventura had to go to RT, the English-language version of a Russian news
channel, to tell his story. Although polls show that large numbers of Americans
believe in a broad range of conspiracy theories, and a majority entertain doubts
about the official story of 9/11, few of those questions ever appear in the mainstream
media.

As Raw Story recently reported , "In November of 2007, an online article noted,
'Nearly two-thirds of Americans think it is possible that some federal officials had
specific warnings of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and
Washington, but chose to ignore those warnings, according to a Scripps Howard
News Service/Ohio University poll.' A national survey of 811 adult residents of the
United States conducted by Scripps and Ohio University found that more than a third
believe in a broad smorgasbord of conspiracy theories including the attacks,
international plots to rig oil prices, the plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy
in 1963 and the government's knowledge of intelligent life from other worlds. The
high percentage is a manifestation, some say, of an American public that increasingly
distrusts the federal government."

Even liberal websites, however, discourage questions about 9/11, to the point where
BooMan of the Booman Tribune had to preface a post at Daily Kos in 2005 by writing
"I know this touches on verboten conspiracy theories, but this is a front-page NYT
article."

"It's kind of hard to tell whether or not a new investigation will be launched,"
Churkina concluded. "Many people don't think this is going to be happening any time
soon, even with such public figures, like Jesse Venture and other, calling for it."