Q&A with Jim Fetzer

While the mainstream media continues to dismiss the “9/11-was-an-inside-job” conspiracy theory as being as half-baked as a bad 24 script, a recent poll by USA Today shows that only 15 percent of Americans actually believe they know the full story of that day. One of the emerging figures in the so-called 9/11 Truth movement (st911.org) is Jim Fetzer. For thirty-five years, the sixty-six-year-old taught logic and critical thinking—nineteen of them at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. He’s published twenty-seven books to date—getting the most attention for several on subject matter that stands outside of his scholastic field: the JFK assassination. Last December, Fetzer founded Scholars for 9/11 Truth. In a nutshell, he believes the senior leadership of the U.S. government hatched and carried out the “terrorist” plot to facilitate U.S. foreign policy goals in the Mideast. Fetzer, now retired (he swears he wasn’t forced out), lives with his wife in a ranch-style house outside of Madison. 

Are conspiracy theorists, academics or not, particularly credible on this topic?
Well, we’re nonpartisan, and we don’t have an axe to grind. There’s an awful lot of disinformation out there, and you have to be able to wade through it. I mean look, you’ll find our website objective, straightforward, and uncomplicated. This is high school physics for god’s sakes!

Is there any way that anybody could prove to you that it was nineteen Arab guys that hijacked planes and crashed them into the towers?

Well, if the evidence were very different than what it is. According to the government: nineteen Islamic fundamentalists, et cetera—it’s already a conspiracy theory. So it’s ridiculous to be trying to belittle us as being conspiracy theorists, when we are actually critics of the government’s own conspiracy theory, which we have  proven is false in every significant respect.

How have they been able to keep the lid on this story in Congress and the press?
I’ve described it many times as analogous to a woman discovering evidence that her husband has been molesting her daughter. It’s so traumatic that she suppresses the information rather than try to deal with it. Psychologists refer to this as cognitive dissonance. And the idea that the American government could be attacking the American people and committing mass murder on 3,000 innocent civilians for the sake of promoting an ambitious agenda defined by the Project for the New American Century, of course, is almost impossible for [the public] to accept.

In American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone, you allege Paul Wellstone was murdered.
Yeah, it was an assassination. I’m convinced of it.

How was it done?
The plane was disabled using a high-tech weapon of directed energy over part of the electric system. To flip these solenoid switches that control the pitch of the props. So basically, the plane was in the air on idle, which meant it had no forward thrust, which meant it was comin’ down. And it came down. There are many odd things about it. And there’s a lot of evidence to substantiate what I’m telling you about this.

So who’s ruling the world? The European bankers or the Vatican?
Well, I’ll only go as far as evidence carries me. 

You don’t believe in lizards and aliens, then. What’s the worst-case scenario?
The United States is gravitating into a fascist nation. The signs are all around us. It’s terrible. I can’t believe it. They’re going to make national sovereignty meaningless. There’s going to be a merger between Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. They’re going to run these ten-lane superhighways, one coming up parallel to I–35, all the way to Duluth for God’s sake, which is going to branch off to Canada! This is completely disgusting. We’re going to have the Ameriuro in lieu of the Euro. Have you looked at a ten-dollar bill lately? Look at that! That is dirty! I’m telling you, this is part and parcel, disaffecting you from American currency. It’s a psych-op. That’s what 9/11 was. A psych-op, man.