WE#3 Annotated Bibliography

Jaclyn Stine

Professor Goffene

ENGL 121: 8am

23 February 2012

WE#3:  Annotated Bibliography

“9/11 Facts.” 301 Moved Permanently. Web. 23 Feb. 2012. <http://tvnewslies.org/html/9_11_facts.html&gt;.

This website is about what was happening with the air planes before 9/11. This website is basically a news article on the internet.  They were experiencing in Dick Cheney’s war games to prepare for such events as the 9/11 attack.  It explained how the defense mechanisms created for such event failed at the moment of crisis and how this should not have happened. This website will help me understand the points of the 9/11 truthers belief that Dick Cheney or the government had planned for the 9/11 attack to happen. I would use this information to bring evidence to the 9/11 truthers side of my research paper.

“9-11 Was An Inside Job – A Call To True Patriots.” 9-11 Was An Inside Job. Web. 23 Feb. 2012. <http://www.911sharethetruth.com/&gt;.

Basically this website is full of propaganda for the 9/11 Truthers.  Though this website does not give much information at the beginning, if you continue down the page it gives a small description of what the organization of 9/11 truthers is trying to do and uncover.  There is also a small description on why the Truthers believe it was a cover-up and examples to prove them right.  This website will help me understand the 9/11 truthers side a little more and understand their motives more than other websites and books.  I want to learn more about the 9/11 truthers motives through this website.  This would help me better clarify the motives of the 9/11 truthers in my future research paper.

Davis, Lanny J. Scandal: How “gotcha” Politics Is Destroying America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Print.

In this book the author, Lanny Davis, uses interviews, personal anecdotes, and historical examples to explain the scandals of the United States politics and media.  Davis goes into how and why the Watergate scandal came to be and how the next presidents add to the scandal of the United States government. I hope to learn of the governments past scandals and if they could possibly lead up to being as big as the 9/11 attack.  This will help me understand the governments side of their past and the story of the 9/11 attack even though this book will not enter into the idea of the event.

Kay, Jonathan. Among the Truthers: A Journey through America’s Growing Conspiracist Underground. New York: Harper, 2011. Print.

In this book the author, Jonathan Kay, goes into the 9/11 truthers mind and other conspiracy theorist.  Kay used some interviews within the book itself to explain his points.  Kay mostly focuses on the 9/11 truthers but goes into other conspiracies throughout the book.  He gives the reasons for why people who are in the conspiracy groups are so suspicious of the government and their kept secrets. This book will give me more information about the creations of these conspiracy theories and why they have come to be with in the world.  This will help me get a deeper meaning of the views in the 9/11 truthers organization.

Ridgeway, James. “Bush’s 9-11 Secrets.” The Village Voice [New York] 5 Aug. 2003. The Village Voice News. 2012. Web. 28 Feb. 2012. <http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-08-05/news/bush-s-9-11-secrets/&gt;.

This is a website article from The Villagers Voice in the New York Times newspaper.  This was from 2003, two years after the 9/11 attack.  I found this website through the website http://tvnewslies.org/html/9_11_facts.html. This article is about how Bush and his administration had not given all the information found in the 9/11 attack investigation.  It also stated how the government got threats by Osama Bin Laden about planes and that they were going to attack something in the United States but the government disregarded the threats.  This informational website will give me information on the governments side of the story of the 9/11 attacks and it will also support the view of the conspiracy theory of the 9/11 truthers.

Turkel, Daniel G. “The Significance of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories in Understanding the Sociopolitical Climate of the 21st Century.” The Significance of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories in Understanding the Sociopolitical Climate of the 21st Century (2010): 1-26. Web. 28 Feb. 2012. <http://danturkel.com/papers/911conspiracies.pdf&gt;.

This article is a scholarly journal/article about the 9/11 attack and the conspiracy theory behind it.  This article is in some way against the idea of the 9/11 truthers but gives a logical and descriptive story of the event and of what really happened.  The article also goes to describe the Truthers point of view and explains later in the article why their view is not correct. This article will give me some information that is actually against the 9/11 truthers and will allow me to compare each view of the issue for my research paper.  I would like to know more about how the government reacted towards this event and how they explain the 9/11 truthers are wrong through this article.

WE#2: Close Reading to A Modest Proposal

Jaclyn Stine

Professor Goffeney

ENGL 121: 11am

21 February 2012

WE#2: Close Reading

            For this paper I am to write about the essay “The Modest Proposal” by Swift through the close reading I learned about in class. Swift had stated to eat the babies that are no older than 12 or 14 years old and become cannibals.  If people didn’t know this essay was satirical, they would have thought and felt the same way I did.  This essay made me disgusted in the author, but then I realized that he does not truly feel this way and had a different meaning of this essay that I found out after reading it once again. With the overt thesis that Swift stated, he gives a sort of logical and rhetorical reason to justify his cannibalistic proposal that supports the overt thesis of “A Modest Proposal”.  In the 4^th paragraph or passage of the essay he gives a logical reason to justify his proposal by stating that instead of contributing to the poor population, food/clothing shortage, and beggars of the town, the babies will be helping the town through feeding them with themselves.  This would help Dublin to lower the amount of beggars in the town and the shortage of food since they would be giving food with their bodies and they would never have a chance of ever being a beggar since they wouldn’t be alive.   This would have people agree with his proposal because in truth it would help the city with these problems.   He also stated that it would take away the babies being charged upon the church and parents to take care of them when they are kids.  So the parents and parishes wouldn’t have to worry about taking care of them because the babies will be taken and feed to people as food.  The parents could focus their money and time on actually becoming actual workers and the church would have more money to give to the poor.  Even though Swift did write this essay about eating babies and small children, he did not really mean and feel this way.  As I stated above, this was an overt thesis and not an implied thesis.

The narrator is not really supporting the cannibalistic proposal of eating a child because of some ways of language and strategies he uses to clue on his satirical essay.   This is shown in the 31 paragraph of the essay.  The language he uses in the paragraph by saying “…although perhaps I could name a country which would be glad to eat up our whole nation without it (salt).” This sort of gives an implied meaning to show the readers that some “country” would “eat” our whole nation without “it”.  The words showing a hidden meaning by: country meaning England, eat meaning ruin or take over, and it meaning without any say by the people. This was the last part of the last sentence of the passage.  This sentence made everyone realize that something else is being said since this part had barely anything to do with the writing of “eating babies” which showed the overt thesis to not be true. In this passage of the essay, he hints that England is treating them like slaves that can be exported, but with this he is also stating how we cannot be exported at their own will even though the country thinks so.  He also states, “For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, the flesh being of too tender of consistence to admit a long continuance in salt…”  This sentence hints that humans cannot be continually treated cruelly by England and since our fragile human nature is being broken there soon will be a price to pay for the country of theirs.  The strategies Swift used were to write in a way that only the audience, Dublin’s citizens, would understand and created words that overshadowed the ways England was treating them.  He used irony in his essay that made you understand the true meaning. People would understand that the overt thesis was not true by the irony and understanding of the passage of 31.

Overall, the implied thesis is really saying that England is treating Dublin poorly and cannot just come in and take over while not caring at all about the people.  Also that England cannot just treat the people like slaves without even taking into account the actual citizen’s feelings and not realizing that if they treat them cruelly there will be a penalty for them to pay.  Since Swift is not really trying to convince the readers to eat their babies, the real reason is to explain to the people that we need to stand up to England for treating them this way and how England actually thinks they can treat the readers so poorly.

Reflective Cover Letter

Jaclyn Stine

ENGL 121

4 February 2012

Cover Letter

For my research proposal, I discussed the conspiracy theory of the 9/11 truthers.  The strategies and methods I used while working on my research proposal was answering all the questions with one paragraph for each section. Then I focused on answering the questions one by one and researching each view on the 9/11 attack.  I looked for main websites and articles for the answers to my research proposal paper. The articles had to have relevance to the 9/11 attack and the truthers.  I also looked at Wikipedia for some answers.  I looked through outsiders eyes and had no biases in my paper. The way I answered the questions and combined it into a paragraph worked with organizing my paper.   I had trouble with finding the exact answers for each question asked for the requirement. I had trouble finding nonbiased information, since some people thought the 9/11 truthers were crazy and stupid. I also had trouble finding the right information, meaning different statements of information from multiple sites, on the event and views.  Overall, the paper turned out great.  My paper came out like I planned my paper would look like.

The WE#1 gave me a sense of perspective in the learning process outcomes for this class.  The WE#1 helped show me other views of a subject that I may disagree with.   The WE#1 made me look at the different views of the 9/11 attack and learn about the different beliefs. For my future papers, this “sense of perspective” will help me look at others view on the subject and help me better prove or contradict my view and my papers theme.   The research proposal also gave me a sense of perspective in the learning process outcomes for this class.  The paper made me look up the two different views of the 9/11 attack and seeing the views that are different from my own.  I had to acknowledge the different viewpoints in this paper as well as in the WE#1 paper. Also, a lot of the free writes made me have a sense of perspective.  When we had to discuss and think about different views with the authors of a story in our book, I developed a sense of perspective.  We had to discuss the author’s views even if we did not agree with them.

The research proposal gave me reflection in the learning process outcomes for this class.   My research proposal gave me “reflection” by asking me what I wanted to do for my research paper and how I was going to come upon doing so.  It asked me to reflect on how I am going to research my 9/11 conspiracy theory and where am I going to look. This will help me in my future papers by making me plan my ideas out before I start a subject paper.  This also will help me figure out if this subject has enough information about it where I could write a lot about it with credible sources. This planning and reflecting on the future research paper will help me with figuring out how long it will take to do my paper because if I need to actually interview people, I would need time to do so.

Rough Draft Research Proposal

9/11 Truthers:  Terrorist Attack or Government Attack?

            Was the attack of 9/11 really a terrorist attack?  There are multiple versions of the 9/11 attack on the twin towers.   One includes the 9/11 Truthers, which are a group of people who believe the terrorist did not attack the twin towers and it was a cover-up.     The other one that is the official version claims that terrorists were the ones who planned the attack on the twin towers.  This subject has been talked about for a few years now and we still haven’t heard of the whole truth of the event.  By using this topic for my conspiracy theory paper, I will look at both views of the matter and look at the evidence for each belief.  This is a controversial topic that would be very interesting to pursue for my research paper.

The first claim to the 9/11 attack was the official and accepted version.  The official 9/11 attack story was that terrorist hijacked four planes at the airport.  Two of the planes headed towards New York City’s twin towers, while the third one headed for the Pentagon in Washington D.C. and the fourth plane went to Pennsylvania.  The third plane failed at the attempt to get to the pentagon and the fourth plane also failed, but the other planes crashed right into the twin towers.  The government claimed that the terrorist of Al-Qaeda were the ones who attacked the twin towers.  The website, http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks, stated that “Some of the terrorists had lived in the United States for more than a year and had taken flying lessons at American commercial flight schools. Others had slipped into the country in the months before September 11 and acted as the “muscle” in the operation. The 19 terrorists easily smuggled box-cutters and knives through security at three East Coast airports and boarded four flights bound for California, chosen because the planes were loaded with fuel for the long transcontinental journey.”  The twin towers collapsed and thousands of people were killed. Many believe that this accepted version of events is true and most do not dispute the statements of the government.

However …

The second claim would be that the 9/11 attacks was an inside job.  The terrorist didn’t do the attacks as the government claims to have Americans believe. Wikipedia states that, “Adherents of the 9/11 Truth Movement claim that the mainstream explanation of the 9/11 events contains significant inconsistencies which suggest, at the least, a cover-up, and at worst, complicity by insiders.”  The 9/11 Truthers believe that someone hiding inside the government planned the attack on 9/11 or at least allowed the attack to happen.  This is a conspiracy because this group believes the government is withholding information from the citizens of the United States.  The 9/11 Truthers believe that this attack was only an excuse and ploy to convince us to invade and start a war with terror/Afghanistan/Iraq.  There were multiple events that were not answered and told in front of the American public.  This group asks questions like why didn’t the air security system fail when there was a threat when it hasn’t for years and what is the evidence that the people were actually terrorists.  There was even a quote from Osama Bin Laden saying that he had no idea about the 9/11 attack and was not the one who initiated/planned it and had nothing to do with the attack.   The group of 9/11 truthers demanded the truth of the 9/11 attacks and wanted all their questions about the official story and the actual event answered truthfully.  They also asked for the evidence they found for coming up with the answers.  Even though the group asked for their questions to be answered, they do not believe they were answered truthfully and fully.

After learning both sides of the conspiracy theory there are a few curiosities I have on the issue that I would like to research more about what are the unanswered questions of 9/11 and were they really not answered.   Who would be suspects of this crime? Who would benefit of this event happening? And how would it benefit them? How did the government show evidence or claim that the terrorist group of Al-Qaeda formed this attack? What is all the evidence for both points of view? Is there any specific people who the 9/11 Truthers suspect as the ones who set it up?  Were there any bodies of the terrorist who crashed the planes found in order to prove the point of the official story?  Also, what does the WTC Building’s collapse have anything to do with the twin towers collapsing? Why did the government keep the money found in Al-Qaeda’s account from the financial unstable 9/11 victims? There are many questions and concerns I have about the event/conspiracy theory and the official story.  There are questions for both sides of the arguments and there are some holes appearing both the official story and the conspiracy theory.

My initial ideas about researching this topic would be look at both views through the internet and books involving the incident of 9/11.  Also, I would look at Al-Qaeda’s history of terrorist attacks on other people of any patterns are happening that confirm the official story’s point of view.  Also, I will look at the government history before 9/11 to see if there are any suspicious activities that confirm or help the 9/11 Truthers point of view.  I will also see if there are any journals from the airport in which the planes were taken from to see if there were any suspicious activities.  Also, other ways I can research this topic would be through newspapers of the event or interviews of the people 9/11 Truthers.  News casts and the New York TV news shows on the date through YouTube could help me on researching this topic.  Basic scholarly journals on the issue and history articles on Al-Qaeda and the government regarding past events before and after 9/11 would help and be taken into consideration in my future research paper.  Also, if there are any other conspiracy theories about 9/11, I could compare their views and evidence to 9/11 truthers and the official stories evidence.

In summary, this topic/conspiracy theory is a great research paper because this topic needs further discussion and would be interesting for all the students to read.  This topic has so many questions that I might be able to find answers through both these views evidence.  I would like to go into further depth in this event/views.  I will try to answer the questions that were asked and not answered and maybe come to a conclusion based on the evidence pertaining to each view/belief of this conspiracy theory.  Due to 9/11’s life changing event, there are many ways in finding information on both these topics.  As anyone who reads this can notice, this topic can be taken more in-depth and is worth researching about.  This topic is an international discussion and an even bigger discussion in the United States and would be worth getting more information on this event.