This is being widely reported everywhere so I’ll make it brief, but I just wanted to say a hearty ‘congratulations’ to everyone who emailed Virgin Airways to protest their decision to show Loose Change on their USA-UK flights. That decision has now been reversed, and I’m sure the thousands of angry emails they received, mine among them, helped them to see reason. The lesson here is that it’s always worth speaking up, even when it seems like big businesses have no reason to care.
I've managed to miss this one. What's Loose Change?
It's a 9/11 Conspiracy film
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loose_Change_(video)
writerdd,
Loose Change is a pseudo-documentary that collects most of the conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks and throws them all at you in a jumble. It's widely talked up by the celebrities like Charlie Sheen and Rosie O'Donnell who doubt the official story. If you aren't paying very close attention, or aren't well versed in the ways of conspiracy theorists, you might find yourself swept up by it.
Last summer, when a lot of this stuff was first being noticed by the 'mainstream media,' I can remember being fooled by a number of these videos/documentaries and feeling certain that there was some sort of coverup taking place. One of the curses of skepticism, sometimes, is that if you only apply it selectively you can come to invalid conclusions. This phase lasted only a week or two, during which time I read up on the science and realized how much bunk there was out there on the subject.
Loose Change was actually one of the breaking points, for me, as it seemed entirely TOO scattershot and manipulative for my taste and led me to seek more information. When I read up on how inaccurate many of its points are, I realized the error of my ways and returned to believing the more likely, 'official' story. While I still have my doubts about the ratio of administration's knowledge to its incompetance, it would now take some fairly convincing evidence to get me back on the other side of the fence.
It's a very good thing that Virgin has decided to pull this 'documentary' from its flights. Many people would not perceive the deception, nor follow up on it the way I did. It's also a bit insulting to those hurt by the actual events to have a flagrant piece of propaganda played on an AIRPLANE of all places. I'm glad people took a stand on it. A good victory for reason and critical thought, here.
Id have thought any doco on plane crashes and terrorism on a US-UK flight wouldnt be exactly the smartest move, factual or not? Maybe this is some kind of conspiracy by flight phobia psychologists to drum up some extra business.
Otara
Well, that's why I haven't heard of it! Or perhaps I have and just zoned it out…
You can watch the Screw Loose Change video, which is the LC doc, with reality inserted.
I too once thought that some of the conspiracy theorists had a point about 9-11. But as the sheer scope of that horrible event unfolded, I couldn't continue to believe in it being orchestrated the way they claimed it was. Not with so many tens of thousands of people investigating it from so many angles.
One basic test: Does it imply the government is competent? If so… FAKE!
Thad, that's hilarious and so true.. a useful rule of thumb.
Conspiracy theorists think they're way smarter than the rest of us, but show an abysmal lack of understanding of human nature.
Most of the bad outcomes in life occur thanks to people not doing their job.
Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity, negligence, complacency, incompetence, etc.
I got an email from Virgin today in response to the email I sent them. It was the same thing they'd put in their general statement, but it was from an actual person (well, it had a name on it but that doesn't mean it's a real person). Now, the fact that they've put a standard email together and taken this long to get back to me suggets that they've had to send out a LOT of these. I would love to know how many protests they received, I will guesstimate it was in the thousands at least.
Here's the email:
Many thanks for your email
We are really sorry that you felt you had to write to us about this movie.
We will not be showing Loose Change 2 on our aircraft. Virgin Atlantic is known for showing the latest movies and media trends, without censorship as we believe travellers have the right to choose from as wide a programme as possible. However as there is a danger with this movie that viewers may be offended, although they have the choice not to view it, we have decided to remove it from the in flight Entertainment menu
We appreciate you taking the time to get in touch with us
Yours sincerely
>
Customer Relations Manager
That e-mail response kind of pisses me off. It's one thing to show a fictional story that may offend some people; it's quite another to show wild, baseless speculation that claims to be a documentary.
Although now that I think about it, many of the e-mails were probably from people simply offended that it blamed the government, rather than us skeptic-types.
~Kelly~