Popular Mechanics Debunks 12/25 Santa Claus Truthers
by Joe Crubaugh
Friday, July 27th, 2007

In March 2005, Popular Mechanics published an article called Debunking The 9/11 Myths, that denigrated all unofficial 9/11 conspiracy theories while exalting the official 9/11 conspiracy fairy tale.

Since then, the Popular Mechanics article has been thoroughly exposed as hogwash, and Popular Mechanics has loosed its inferior and wanting investigative experts on another growing community of U.S. citizens who hunger for the truth about a different event: What Really Happened on 12/25?

Debunking 12/25 Myths

FROM THE MOMENT the first gifts were spotted beneath millions of U.S. Christmas trees on the morning of December 25, the world has asked one simple and compelling question: How could it happen?

Seven months later, not everyone is convinced we know the truth.

Go to Google.com, type in the search phrase “Santa Claus conspiracy” and you’ll get links to thousands of Web sites. It will baffle and surprise most Americans to discover how many of these sites reject the official consensus that nine reindeer flew Santa Claus and a sleigh onto U.S. rooftops in the early hours of 12/25.

Healthy skepticism, it seems, has curdled into paranoia. Wild conspiracy tales are peddled daily on the Internet, talk radio and in other media. Blurry photos, quotes taken out of context and sketchy eyewitness accounts have inspired a slew of elaborate theories:

• There was no “red-nosed” reindeer, or there were only eight reindeer. Some claim there were no reindeer at all.
• Some U.S. parents actually had advance knowledge that Santa and the elves were determined to break and enter on 12/25, but these parents let it happen on purpose anyway.
• The Santa gifts were only one facet of a vast marketing scheme perpetrated by parents with additional help from Toys “R” Us.(Not surprisingly, this theory’s proponents fail to address why parents would scheme to rid themselves of their own hard-earned cash. “Follow the money,” one PM expert suggested, “and it all goes to the children.” Simply put: there is no motive.)
• Perhaps most outlandish of all, some theorize Santa Claus doesn’t even exist. Instead, they say, the immortal magic elf was perpetuated by one or more actors who somehow managed to show up and be photographed at every shopping center in every city in every state almost every single day between Thanksgiving and Christmas!

As outlandish as these claims may sound, they are increasingly accepted abroad and among extremists here in the United States.

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This week, Visibility 9-11 welcomes author and activist Mike Palecek.  Mike’s new book, Iowa Terror is a great satirical read and comes highly recommended by Michael and Visibility 9-11.  From Mike’s website:

Mike Palecek was a peace prisoner, having served time in county jails and federal prisons for civil disobedience at Offutt Air Force Base during the 1980s.

During the 1990s he was a reporter for small-town newspapers in Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota. The small newspaper Ruth and Mike owned in southeast Minnesota was named the Newspaper of the Year for 1994 by the Minnesota Newspaper Association.

In 2000 he was the Iowa Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives, Fifth District, receiving 67,500 votes (29%). Mr. Palecek Lives in Sheldon, Iowa with wife, Ruth, and two children. Works at group home for disabled adults.

“Iowa Terror is a gripping and disturbing tale of small town America in the post September 11th world. Palecek skillfully weaves elements of the official lie of 9-11 into a dark story of murder, mystery, propaganda, and the American ‘homeland.’ Iowa Terror is both entertaining and thought provoking; a must read. You won’t be able to put it down!”

— Michael Wolsey, Host, Visibility 9-11

Music by the legendary Frank Zappa.

Get this episode here.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT:
Whitney Trettien
151A Erie Street
Cambridge, MA
240.422.9048
costoffreedombook@yahoo.com (preferred)
http://costoffreedombook.blogspot.com
www.mikepalecek.com

Author and anti-war activist Mike Palecek tours with new books

Sheldon, Iowa — From Tulsa to Denver, noted author and activist Mike Palecek hits the road this spring with two new books: Iowa Terror and Cost of Freedom: The Anthology of Peace and Activism.

Described by Howard Zinn as a writer with “passion, wit,” and “a profound social conscience,” Palecek has been writing antiwar, political novels for over 10 years.

“I write to throw stones,” Palecek says. “Abbie Hoffman said ‘steal this book.’ I hope one day my books will be bricks – toss this brick – through the windows of my comfortable neighbors, neighborhood churches, side windows of SUVs.”

Palecek’s latest work, Iowa Terror, takes on 9/11 through the story of Jesus Iowa, an immigrant who experiences Sept. 11, 2001 along with the rest of America – except that he understood what was really happening. “Jesus did not just go to school the next day and try to forget like the rest of us, carry on with his life, forget about the world,” Palecek says. “It bothered him, tore him up, and he acted, did something, in the great good tradition of an American patriot.”

“And he came to be reviled as The Terrorist,” Palecek adds, “pursued by all the traditional idiots of small-town America in the process.”

Iowa Terror is in large format, with color illustrations. Ruth and Mike Palecek published it with Seventh Street Press.

Palecek also recently co-edited Cost of Freedom: The Anthology of Peace and Activism, released by Howling Dog Press in Fall 2007. “I hear on our hometown radio that I owe my freedom to the soldiers,” says Palecek. “And that of course is b.s. I owe it to the protestors, who have fought Bush and his crew from day one, on the street corners of Duluth, Dalhart, Denver, for years. There are your heroes, America.”

A coffee-table style book crammed with photos, essays, poetry and art from everyday peace activists, Cost of Freedom has garnered praise from Ramsey Clark, Ralph Nader, Thom Hartmann, Harry Belafonte and Noam Chomsky, who writes that Cost of Freedom “should inspire many more to join in these efforts to create a powerful force of concerned citizens that cannot be ignored.”

Palecek is touring with both books this spring, hitting venues in Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona and Nevada before moving up California into Oregon and Washington. After a stop in Idaho and Salt Lake City, Utah, Palecek ends in Colorado, where Howling Dog Press is located.

For specific dates and venues, visit
http://www.mikepalecek.com or http://costoffreedombook.blogspot.com.

To set up an interview, please contact Whitney Trettien at costoffreedombook@yahoo.com.

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