How I Got Involved with 9/11 Truth
by Jan Hoyer
Spurred on by frustration of the lack of protest photos in the Kansas City Star, on Bush's Inaguration Day 2000 I made the decision to start taking dissent photos and posting them on the Web. Soon thereafter, I concluded that other concerned citizens and activists were also starving for images of dissent. I became a founding editor and activist of kcindymedia.
From 2000 and throughout the slow build up to the Iraq invasion (January 2000-March 2003), I acted as independent media for nearly all of KC's weekly anti-war protests. On 10/8/02, I photographed a Kansas City civil disobedience action sit in to protest the upcoming Iraq invasion; on March 21, 2003 a young people's civil disobedience action held at the Liberty Memorial in KC Several of my photos were featured on the KC Iraq Task Force website, including a VFP poster. Until my 9/11 activism, I was a volunteer on the media committee of the KC Iraq Task Force for a brief time. While covering the protests, it seemed especially important to photograph the children and young people in attendance, so my archive is filled with hundreds of photographs of younger generation Kansas Citians at the huge protests.
At a protest of Bush's September 4, 2003 visit to Kansas City, I snapped a photo of activist Bill Douglas and his (then) radical 9/11 protest sign
"What is Bush Hiding About 9-11?
STOP THE 9-11 COVER-UP!"
As someone who always suspected 9/11 complicity, this message resonated. While carrying this same sign to a Laura Bush protest two weeks later, Bill Douglas was falsely arrested for disorderly conduct. Bill then wrote a powerful article "Behind the Iron Curtain" about his dramatic arrest experience and self published it on kcindymedia. His arrest story was soon linked to by The Nation magazine and the interest was enormous. When the validity of Bill's claims was questioned, I naturally added a photo for verification.
Because of this article, Dean Shrabner of abcnews contacted Bill and me for permission to use his story and my related photo for publishing a November 12, 2003 article about the select pattern of violations of civil liberties, Muffled Voices.
Bill had been communicating with Emanuel in Seattle, and in mid 2003 Bill made a 9/11 presentation at a local peace group activist meeting. The KC Iraq Task Force voted to support Bill's proposal. At this meeting, Janice Matthews and myself each formally agreed to help get the National 9/11 Visibility Project off the ground.
On a bitter cold November 29th 2003, the National 9/11 Visibility Project held the first nationwide 9/11 protest coordinated action at the prestigous Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. At the end of the protest, about 200 9/11 interested people gathered at Unity Temple to listen to Bill speak about 9/11. I created my first website, a 9/11 activism photo album, documenting the historic day in Kansas City. The decision to contribute my camera and graphic design experience towards raising public awareness about 9/11 was a natural one.
On February 22, 2004, the founding National 9/11 Visibility Project of KC brought Phil Berg and 9/11 widow Ellen Mariani to KC for a whirlwind one-day media tour. Three television interviews, two radio shows, a minority church service, a park event, and a speaking event were on the day's agenda. About 800-1000 attended the Unity Church event and thousands of area citizens heard new questions about 9/11 that day.
The National 9/11 Visibility Project made a small modest amount of money from the successful KC event. A very short time later, Bill called for an urgent vote on a proposal that the we invest most of the profit into an action solely designed to rapidly raise public awareness across America, by designing and distributing thousands of "STOP the 9-11 COVER-UP" signs for activists to carry at the upcoming anti-war protests on March 20, 2004 specifically in NY and SF. We all agreed. After sticking to my guns about the sign design, I sent the sign's final design file to Gabriel Day for printing.
Bill was adamant (2004 video) about the tactical methods of the protest's sign distribution. The National 9/11 Visibility Project's sign distribution at the protests was well-organized and amazingly successful. Committed, passionate NY and SF volunteers passed out and carried signs to the front of the protests and many national media took note. Photos of the 9/11 signs were published in Associated Press photos on the front pages of New York's Newsday and the LA Times with caption "Thousands march to "end the war" and "Stop the 9-11 Cover Up." [3/20/04]). The signs were featured or mentioned on CNN, Reuters, and many other national press outlets.
Victoria Ashley's excellent photo essay (03/21/04), Signs of the Times also increased our enthusiasm.
In late March, I attended the San Francisco 9-11 International Inquiry, mainly working closely with Mike Berger as a video production assistant. The National 9/11 Visibility Project's signs were an event backdrop and were featured throughout the event.
San Francisco Chronicle article, March 29th.
With 9/11 in the news, conspiracy buffs gather...
After the SF event, the National 9/11 Visibility Project initiated a number of national campaigns. With an email list of about 3000, it quickly became apparent that our Action Alerts always generated national response and usually achieved successful results.
This new national media exposure essentially kick-started the national activism arm of what slowly began to be known as the 9/11 truth movement.
My understanding is that 911Truth.org was originally founded (by Byron Belitsos) the day after the SF 9/11 Inquiry (Inquiry organized by Carol Brouillet) Details of 911Truth.org were finalized at the Toronto Inquiry (event organized by Barrie Zwicker and Ian Woods).
In late May, 2004 David Kubiak was formally hired as the first Executive Director of 911truth org. Each of the four National 9/11 Visibility Project team members were soon hired by 911truth.org. 911truth's new Regional Outreach Directors Emanuel and Bill recommended that Janice Matthews be immediately hired as 911truth.org staff. Shortly thereafter, 911truth hired myself as staff graphic designer. Many accomplishments happened in early 2004.
On April 20th, 2005 I attended A Day of Truth–-Ten Years Later event in Oklahoma City as independent media and a 911Truth.org speaker. Gabriel Day and myself spoke about the blossoming 9/11 truth movement to a curious, very conservative audience. Charles Key and Chris Emery were perfect hosts of the excellent speaker's event, which was a very political eye-opening experience. (Videos of Craig Roberts and Brigadier General Parton describes common understanding as to why the bombing occurred.)
I contributed to the July 22-24 2005 DC Emergency Truth Convergence as a co-organizer, the website and event graphic designer and multimedia.
Janice and I hit the ground running, and she, Chris Emery, Charles Key, Reed Simpson and myself started planning a Midwest Convergence to be held around Halloween 2005 in KC.
Scheduling was being finalized but due to a few specific reasons, including Katrina's effect on the econony, we very reluctantly agreed to cancel the event rather than risk losing our shirts.
Late 2004 and 2005 was a very difficult organizational period for 911truth.org and it was lucky to survive. In Fall of 2005 Janice Matthews was named the new Executive Director and myself named as Art Director. Gabriel Day, Les Jameison, and Nick Levis were soon brought onto the 911truth board. Bryan Sacks quickly followed.
After 15 months with 911truth.org, I resigned
on October 12, 2005. Since October 12, 2005, I have been honored to be a staff member of Jim Hoffman's website team, the highest-ranking and most factually correct 9/11-skeptical website on Google, 911research.wtc7.net.
*I have began to compile the first in a three part series of photojournalism books from my anti-war through 9/11 protest photos of January 2000 until 2006. These photos uniquely portray many key KC anti-war and national 9/11 truth leaders and researchers through critical periods. A sample first chapter will be offered.
Email jhoyer(at)digitalstyledesigns.com |
Experience and Affiliations:
• 911Research.wtc7.net (Outreach Coordinator,
10-05 to current)
• 911Truth.org (Former Board and
Graphic Designer • 06-04 to 10-05)
• DC ETC Co-Organizer, Website & Event Graphic Designer, Multimedia (May-August, 2005)
• newtopiamagazine (Cinema editor / illustrations)
• The National 9-11 Visibility Project
(Founding Board 2003, Graphic Designer)
• kcindymedia.org, Founding Board 2002
• Organizer of Science Applied to the WTC Collapses
Photographs published:
• abcnews.com "Muffled Voices?" Activist photograph
• Global Outlook magazine, Activism photos,
cover photo issue #11
• Modus Operandi 9/11, Back cover activism photograph
• 911Inquiry.org (on assignment for Barrie Zwicker)
• Newtopia Magazine, Activist photograph
• The Pitch (Kansas City), Activism photographs
• eKC (Kansas City), Photo contributions
• Dos Mundos (KC Bilingual newspaper) Activism photograph
• The Catholic Key
Activism photograph
• AFSC.org Activism photograph
• The Raw Story Activism photograph
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Over these last three and a half years within a segment of founders of the 911 truth movement, I have been fortunate to have worked with and met many incredibly good-hearted, brilliant, and very courageous people.
In the early days after 9-11, I well remember feeling very isolated in my suspicions of government complicity. Through the process of action which overcomes fear, becoming involved in the 911 truth movement is a transformation process. Call upon courage rather than being frozen in fear.
I share the following personal note in the hope that it will serve as an incentive to other nontraditional activists and graphic artists (and parents of a troubled teen).
As a single mother for four years, I was especially close to my son when he was a boy.
age 14
When he was 13, our family moved to the KC area. My son did not handle the move well and was soon involved in dangerous behaviors. After 10 years experience in service bureau prepress production, I had to leave the full-time corporate workplace.
Growing anxiety for his well-being became my constant companion. After a couple years of parenting-a-very-troubled-teenager hell, I instinctively knew that the only way to keep the stress manageable was to work furiously and intensely.
As fate would have it, the timing of this personal family crisis coincided with an opportunity to help nurture a growing national citizen's movement, the 9-11 truth movement. Rather than lie in bed, tossing and turning with fearful worry about my son, my coping habit became to get up and completely immerse myself into creating 9/11 graphics, websites, or media projects in Photoshop or Dreamweaver.
Tai chi lessons with Bill Douglas also helped to lower stress and increase my concentration during this difficult period.
(video)
Thankfully, my son has finally passed through that period and is doing much better. Though opting into this movement was a significant (short-term) sacrifice to my livelihood, my graphic skill levels have risen considerably since the early days and for that I am grateful.
Notes of November 2007:
Thank you for visiting DSD. I am a Des Moines, Iowa native with strong family, a suburbanite, work at a community college, play first base on an over 40 softball team (46), enjoy blues music, am newly a taoist and like to have fun. I also happen to do volunteer graphics and media work for very worthy causes.
brief graphic designer caveat: Since this has been a volunteer effort from the beginning and not a "real client's" website, I am happy to make no apologies for the less than perfect technical execution and finishing glitches. I am well aware that this website could use a skillfull overhaul but my time is of great value and redesigning this is simply not a high priority. I'd rather focus energy on real world responsibilities, study and blues music than a redesign here which is adequate for the time being. Ultimately king content and alternative information and resources are what matter anywho.
– Jan Hoyer
Become the media.
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