Fenger Pointing
Becky Fenger | September 9, 2009
Shanghaiing of 9/11
This Friday marks the eighth anniversary of 9/11 and time for my annual positing of the question: How long will Americans let misguided environmentalism and bureaucratic complacency endanger the lives of our citizens?
Allow me to repeat my words from years past. If we Americans are ever to learn from our mistakes, it is high time to face the very real possibility that environmental extremists had as much to do with the rapid collapse of the World Trade Towers as the suicide bombers did. That’s a strong statement that our government, abetted by the major media, is prepared to ignore. But we were warned decades ago, and I again put forth the case for investigation.
The late Herbert Levine invented spray fireproofing with wet asbestos, combining it with mineral wool, in the late 1940s. His formula, which replaced concrete insulation, led to the proliferation of huge steel-framed buildings. Then in 1971, due to exaggerated claims of danger to workers from asbestos fibers, New York City banned its use. Asbestos had been sprayed only up to the sixty-fourth floor of the World Trade Towers at that point. “If a fire breaks out above the 64th floor, that building will fall down,” Levine repeatedly warned.
Luck was with the Towers until the hijacked airliners crashed into floors 96 to 103 of One World Trade Center and floors 87 to 93 of Two World Trade Center.
Steve Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and the author of Junk Science Judo: Self-defense Against Health Scares and Scams. His latest book is titled, "Green Hell," a title I would apply to the Towers inferno. Three days after the Tower disaster, Milloy wrote in his weekly column on FOXNews.com about the lives that might have been saved. “The insulation was intended to delay the steel from melting in the case of fire by up to four hours,” Milloy writes. “The steel frames of One World Trade Center lasted only one hour and forty minutes, while the steel frames of Two World Trade Center lasted just fifty-six minutes before collapsing,” he documents.
Think of the number of occupants and response workers who needlessly died because the buildings prematurely melted to the ground.
Despite pleadings, some by yours truly, the press never would cover the story.
This year, thanks to President Obama and his minions, there is a new 9/11 outrage to endure. In April, Obama signed into law a measure that declares 9/11 a "National Day of Service."
Here's the deal. Liberals are chagrined that 9/11 memorials and activities focus Americans on the necessity for meaty and manly concerns like national security and the continuing fight against global terrorism (which has been ridiculously renamed "Overseas Contingency Operations").
I'll bet you didn't know there was a White House-sponsored teleconference call on Aug. 11 with a flock of far out lefties who plotted to co-opt 9/11 for their own purposes. Thanks to Matthew Vadum at Capital Research Center, we do now. Lennox Yearwood, president of the Hip Hop Caucus, took time out from his usual activity of getting arrested to help his pal Obama take 9/11 back from the right. Vadum writes: "A coalition including the unsavory left-wing pressure group Color of Change and about 60 far-left, environmentalist, labor, and corporate shakedown groups participated in the call." Of course, the law-breaking ACORN was in on the action. And any scheme involving Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition should be suspect on its face.
Not too big a splash was made about the effort to rebrand 9/11, although Obama's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, EPA administrator, and Department of Energy Under Secretary stood there at a podium as Yearwood announced that the National Day of Service will be the first step toward their big idea called "Green the Block."
Years ago, commentators claimed that radical environmentalism would be the new home for worn out communists. A perfect example is that of Van Jones, Obama's former Green Jobs Czar. What a piece of work he is, with his inflammatory comments splashed on TV screens of late. It's rather scary that President Obama should surround himself with so many advisors who are/were communists, Marxists, racists, and just plain America haters. I mean, one or two to flavor the pot like habaneras in a stew is one thing. But to be steeped in them is cause for indigestion – and vigilance.