James Henry Fetzer (born December 6, 1940 in Pasadena, California) is an American philosopher, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota Duluth,[1] and a well-known conspiracy theorist.[2][3][4] He has written on the philosophy of science and on the theoretical foundations of computer science, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. Two of his most recent books were on the evolution of intelligence and philosophical aspects of "the Christian Right's crusade against science". He is also an advocate of the 9/11 conspiracy[5] and John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. He has published three collections of studies on the death of JFK, co-authored another on the plane crash that took the life of Senator Paul Wellstone, and edited the first book from Scholars for 9/11 Truth, an organization he founded. Fetzer makes frequent appearances on radio and television.
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James H. Fetzer was born in Pasadena, California, in 1940, and attended South Pasadena High School.[6] He went on to study philosophy at Princeton University and graduated magna cum laude in 1962.[6] After four years as a commissioned officer in the Marine Corps he resigned his commission as a Captain to begin graduate work at Indiana University. In 1970 he completed his Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science.[6]
Fetzer taught at various schools including the University of Kentucky, the University of Virginia (twice) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before he received tenure at the University of Minnesota Duluth, where he taught from 1987 until his retirement in June 2006.[1] At the University of Kentucky, he received the first Distinguished Teaching Award from the UK Student Government.
Fetzer has published more than 100 articles and 20 books on philosophy of science, computer science, artificial intelligence and cognitive science.[1] He also founded the international journal, Minds and Machines, which he edited for eleven years, the professional library, Studies in Cognitive Systems, which includes thirty volumes, and the professional organization, The Society for Machines & Mentality.[7] The Society for Machines & Mentality has been accepted as a special interest group (SIG) of the International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP).[8] His first article in the philosophy of computer science, "Program Verification: The Very Idea", Communications of the ACM (1988), ignited an international debate that has not subsided to this day.[9]
Fetzer has written about the John F. Kennedy assassination and has been interviewed on his theories about the September 11, 2001 attacks, by Richard and Kate Mucci, hosts of Out There TV, and radio hosts such as Laura Ingraham, Jerry Springer, Donny Deutch and several hosts on Air America, among others.[10][11] He has been interviewed on Hannity & Colmes (twice) and on The O'Reilly Factor as well as other television programs. Some have questioned his apparent endorsement of a military coup to overthrow the Bush administration,[12] members of which he believes have betrayed the country and violated their oaths of office. From the fall of 2006 to November 2008 he co-hosted an internet radio program "The Dynamic Duo" on the Genesis Communications Network with Kevin Barrett. He co-edits an on-line journal for advanced study of the death of JFK.[13]
Fetzer maintains that John F. Kennedy was assassinated as the result of a well-planned and precisely executed conspiracy, which included altering the autopsy X-rays, substituting another brain, and recreating the Zapruder film using sophisticated techniques of optical printing and special effects. He has edited three collections of studies on the assassination, run four conferences on the subject, and continues to make numerous talk show appearances on the topic.[14] Fetzer has lectured on this subject at Harvard, Yale, and Cambridge Universities.[15] In June 2007 he published a detailed review and rebuttal of Vincent Bugliosi's massive study of the assassination, Reclaiming History, for Assassination Research.[16]
In January 2009, in collaboration with Jack White, he published a new study of the Moorman photo and the Zapruder film of the assassination.[17] This was a recent development in a long-standing dispute with Josiah Thompson, which he has discussed in numerous articles, including New Proof of JFK Film Fakery[18] and Zapruder JFK Film impeached by Moorman JFK Polaroid.[19] A recent study, "Who's telling the truth: Clint Hill or the Zapruder film?"[20] demonstrates inconsistencies between Clint Hill's description of his actions that day and what the film records. Another, "Did Zapruder take 'the Zapruder film'? [21] argues that Zapruder cannot have taken the film that bears his name. Fetzer has observed that presuming its authenticity functions as the backbone of the cover-up, since it becomes impossible to reconstruct the actual sequence of events in Dealey Plaza on the basis of a fabricated film.
In response to the announcement that a Dartmouth computer scientist, Hany Farid, had shown that the "backyard photograph" of alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was authentic, after decades of controversy, he and Jim Marrs, the author of Crossfire (1989), one of the primary sources for Oliver Stone's "JFK", published an article arguing that Farid's research was inadequate on multiple grounds, including (a) that he only studied one feature (the nose shadow) of one photo, when there are four, (b) that he ignored other, more imposing proofs of fakery (including the block chin, the insert line between the chin and the lower lip, and the cut-off finger tips of his right hand), and (c) a demonstration by Jack White using the newspapers as an internal ruler that the person was too short to be Oswald or that the newspapers had been made too large.[22]
Fetzer supports the assertion that elements within the U.S. federal government orchestrated the September 11, 2001 attacks for political and economic gain and that World Trade Center One and Two were destroyed using a novel form of controlled demolition from the top down, while World Trade Center Seven was brought down by a conventional controlled demolition from the bottom.[23] Fetzer also believes the hijackings were staged and that calls from passengers to relatives and operators were faked.
During recent lectures, Fetzer encourages the study of the possibility that high-tech weapons, including ground or space-based directed-energy military weapons, may have been used to bring down the Twin Towers.[24] He has not endorsed any specific hypothesis about the destruction of the WTC, but he has expressed skepticism that conventional explosives, including thermite/thermate, could have brought about such devastating effects. On May 17, 2007, he presented a two-hour critique of Steven E. Jones' work, which has been archived under the title, "The Manipulation of the 9/11 Community".[25]
On June 22, 2006, Fetzer was a guest on Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes where he discussed his stance on several 9/11 conspiracy theories.[26] That weekend, he appeared at the 9/11 + The Neo-Con Agenda Symposium in Los Angeles, California.[27] On December 18, 2006, he was the featured guest on a three and 1/2 hour television program devoted to 9/11, which was broadcast live from Athens by satellite worldwide.[28][29] During June 2008, he was flown to Buenos Aires to present a series of lectures on 9/11 and JFK. His visit received considerable publicity, including a 20-minute television interview broadcast across South America and articles in the News Service of the Republic of Argentina.[30][31] He was flown back to Buenos Aires and presented the principal lecture during "The International Conference for 9/11 Truth and Justice" held at The National Library on September 11, 2009.[32] On 14 July 2010, he spoke along with Kevin Barrett and Gilad Atzmon at a symposium, "Debunking the 'War on Terror'", at Friends House in London, which was moderated by Ken O'Keefe.[33]
In July 2006, Fetzer discussed Bill O'Reilly's remark that, if Kevin Barrett had been at his alma mater, Boston University, "this guy'd be in the Charles River floating down, you know, toward the harbor", stating, "When public threats can be made to a citizen's life for expressing his opinions on a controversial topic and neither the government nor the media respond, that is a sure sign we are living in a fascist state." Fetzer agreed to appear on O'Reilly's show himself on October 12, 2006.[34] Fetzer has detailed his research and theories during the Midwest Social Forum held on the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in a joint presentation with Kevin Barrett, also a member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, which they recently reprised at the University of Wisconsin–Madison[35]
Fetzer is founder and co-chair of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, "a non-partisan association of faculty, students, and scholars dedicated to exposing falsehoods and to revealing truths behind 9/11".[36] Differences in attitude and approach toward the science and the politics of 9/11 research led to a split with Steven Jones, whom Fetzer had invited to be his co-chair, in December 2006, almost exactly one year after its creation. Many 9/11 activists support Jones over Fetzer. A recent interview in which Jones was Fetzer's guest, which revealed the depth and breadth of their differences, elicited dozens of negative comments[37] On August 3–5, 2007, he conducted the first conference sponsored by Scholars on "The Science and Politics of 9/11", and produced its first DVD.[38]
In his most recent work as a columnist for Veterans Today, "Seven Questions about 9/11" and "More Proof of 9/11 Duplicity", he has presented evidence that all four of the plane crashes on 9/11 were faked, where no planes crashed in Shanksville or at the Pentagon and one or another form of fakery was used in New York.[39][40] Even more strikingly, in collaboration with T. Mark Hightower, a chemical engineer, he has challenged "the myth of nanothermite" by explaining that it does not have the gas-expansion properties of explosives and, with a detonation rate of 895 m/s, cannot have destroyed the concrete or the steel in the Twin Towers, which would require rates in excess of 3,200 m/s for concrete and 6,100 m/s for steel, which has contradicted perhaps the most widely held belief within the community about how the towers were destroyed and accented his disagreements with Jones.[41]
Fetzer has spoken positively of Judy Wood and Morgan Reynolds, who left Scholars due in part to disagreement with the organization, objecting to the unwillingness of the society to consider 'no big boeing' theories (conspiracy theories arguing that no large aircraft hit the World Trade Center and that video evidence of the planes hitting the towers have serious inconsistencies showing them to be "doctored").[42] Fetzer has been impressed by their efforts to clarify the extent of devastation at the World Trade Center and mentions a wide range of theories, including that a "satellite-mounted military weapon" may have been used to destroy it, as among those that deserve investigation. He has written that "the range of alternative explanations that might possibly explain the explanandum must include non-classic controlled demolition from the top-down using mini-nukes, and . . . non-classic controlled demolition from the top-down using directed energy weapons. . . . The specific weapons used to destroy the WTC could have been ground based or space based." [43]
For Fetzer, "Judy [Wood] appears to have done far more to develop her "proof of concept" than has Steven [Jones]".[43] Steven Jones and others claim to have refuted the mini-nuke hypothesis[44][45] Jones has responded to Reynolds and Wood directly, but they have not viewed his remarks as refutations.[46] After featuring fifteen or more students of video fakery as guests on his radio program, Fetzer decided that claims of video fakery and claims that no planes hit the tower are logically distinct issue. He has become convinced that video fakery took place on 9/11 and has published several articles about it, including "Mounting Evidence of Video Fakery on 9/11" [47] and "New Proof of Video Fakery on 9/11".[48] Wood and Reynolds both contributed chapters to his first book for Scholars, The 9/11 Conspiracy (2007).
In Fetzer's use of the term "video fakery", however, he encompasses any use of videos to convey a false impression about the plane crashes, including what he now believes was probably a close formation of unmanned aerial vehicles that hit the North Tower[49] and where the plane shown in the Hezarkhani and Fairbanks videos is performing feats that no real plane could do, including traveling at 560 mph at 700-1,000' altitude and smoothly entering the South Tower in violation of Newton's laws.[50] He has therefore concluded that the weight of the evidence supports the use of a holographic projection, which could have appeared to have flow faster than a real plane and have entered the building in violation of Newton's laws. He has interviewed several students of about this possibility, including Stephen Brown, who had recently completed a course on holography at Cambridge and confirmed its feasibility.[51] "Video fakery", therefore, does not necessary require the faking of videos themselves but can include the faking of the images of planes to create a false impression of real planes hitting the Twin Towers.
Anthony Lawson, who produced "This is an orange" and "9/11: Towers of Dust", which Fetzer admires, has attacked him repeatedly on the internet, to which Fetzer has replied with "9/11: An Open Letter to Anthony Lawson about 'Absurdities'", in which he forcefully rebuts (and in his opinion successfully refutes) Lawson's attacks on Veterans Today.[52] He has also offered an extensive critique of the Toronto Hearings, "The Science and Politics of 9/11: The Toronto Hearings,"[53] which represents the culmination of his differences with those, including Steven Jones and Kevin Ryan, who split with him over the focus of research that should be pursued by Scholars for 9/11 Truth. His latest 9/11 lecture, "9/11: False Flag Terror and the Rise of the Global Police State", was presented in Portland on September 9, 2011, and is now archived on YouTube.[54]
Fetzer has co-authored a book in which the authors collect and analyze public information and witness statements, arguing that Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone's death in an airplane crash was not accidental but resulted from a small-scale conspiracy to ensure Republican control of the Senate.[55] He has co-authored a study of the documents on which the NTSB's report was based with John P. Costella, a Ph.D. in physics with a specialization in electromagnetism, which was published in Michael Ruppert's "From the Wilderness" newsletter.[56] He recently addressed this subject again in the context of an article inspired by the revelation of Seymour Hersh that Vice President Dick Cheney had been running an assassination operation from his office.[57] and in another article in Veterans Today, "Sen. Paul Wellstone: More Proof of Assassination"[58]. On October 25, 2011, the 9th observance of his death, he presented a public lecture at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, "What happened to Sen. Paul Wellstone?", which included new research[59].
In Fetzer's words, "in this day and age, we all have to become experts on disinformation."[60][61] According to Fetzer, "disinformation... should be viewed more or less on a par with acts of lying. Indeed, the parallel with lying appears to be fairly precise." [60] Misinformation Fetzer defines as "false, mistaken, or misleading information"; disinformation is misinformation propounded "in an intentional, deliberate, or purposeful effort to mislead, deceive, or confuse."[62] Fetzer describes five levels of disinformation.[63] He has been featured in the two BBC "Conspiracy Files" documentaries on 9/11, where he recently published a critique of the subtle ways in which his views were misrepresented in "The BBC's instrument of 9/11 misinformation" on Veterans Today[64].
From 2001-08, Fetzer made regular appearances on Black Op Radio,[65] an internet broadcast dedicated to conspiratorial subject matter, primarily the JFK assassination. He still appears on the show occasionally, but less often than before. For a time, Fetzer co-hosted "The Dynamic Duo", a show on the GCN network, along with fellow 9/11 Truther Kevin Barrett. Today, Fetzer solo hosts a show called "The Real Deal" on Revere Radio.[66] He has interviewed a wide range of experts on various subjects, including JFK, 9/11, election fraud, domestic politics and foreign affairs.[67] A recent series of four programs was devoted to suspicious non-combat military deaths, a subject he was drawn into by research on the death of Cpl. Pat Tillman for his OpEdNews article, "Has Cheney been Murdering Americans?".[57]
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