What do you make of this? VICE Magazine, 1994, predicted 'Al Qaeda' attack on the Twin Towers, WTF?
VICE Magazine, 1994, Twin Towers, Beavis & Butthead dressed as terrorists, in aeroplanes, with the question, ‘what is al-qaeda?’
Keep in mind that this was 1994, before the words 'al-qaeda' were commonly uttered in the media or by political leaders. In fact, I'm pretty sure that virtually no one among the general public in 1994 had ever heard this name uttered anywhere. According to wikipedia, "...the name "al-Qaeda" was first brought to the attention of the public in the 2001 trial of bin Laden and the four men accused of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa". That was May 29, 2001.
So, how were the writers of this 1994 article in Vice Magazine, who strangely referred to themselves opaquely as, "vice staff", able to prognosticate such amazingly specific knowledge of an attack 7 years before it happened, with a level of detail about 2 planes hitting 2 towers that defies belief, and almost 7 years before anybody even heard of "al-Qaeda, and even before the meme of 'suicide hijackers'?
Complete text of article, republished in Vice Magazine, October, 2009
http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n10/htdocs/what-is-al-qaeda-183.php
____________________
WHAT IS AL-QAEDA?
by vice staff
illustration by johnny ryanRemember that Ryder truck that was crammed with canisters of compressed hydrogen and a few nice long fuses and driven into the World Trade Center’s underground parking structure and blown up last year? It blasted a hole through four levels of concrete sub-basement. Some experts say that if it were a few feet closer to an essential support column, it could have brought both towers down.
Can you imagine the carnage? Can you even begin to start to go down the trail of comprehending what it would be like if the Twin Towers were to collapse? We lost six unfortunate civilians in last year’s attack, and even that felt insane. If the towers were to actually fall we just might have to join the Marines ourselves. Not that they would have us.
“So,” you might be asking, ”who is the sick fuck who did this, and where do he and his buddies come from? Because I am about to go find them and break their terrorist necks like Van Damme in Timecop, which by the way is one of the best movies of this year!” Well, I hope your passport is up–to-date and you have all your shots, because you’re about to go to Afghanistan, my friend. Ramzi Yousef, the man who lit the fuses on the van bomb, is a Kuwaiti national who is a member of the latest terrorist organization you’ve never heard of (till now). They are called al-Qaeda, they seem to live in the rocky barrens of Afghanistan, and they are not going anywhere soon.
Al-Qaeda (Arabic for “The Base”) have their roots in the Afghani guerrilla war against the Soviet Union’s occupying forces throughout the 80s. Along with a bunch of other splinter fundamentalist Islamic groups, al-Qaeda fought—often using CIA-supplied weaponry—to drive out the various Vladimirs running around the land of the Pashtun. Al-Qaeda’s leader, however, has a slightly different lineage than your usual Muslim holy warlord. Osama bin Laden is the rich-kid scion of a powerful Saudi Arabian family. In fact, some members of his very large family are pals with some of the important white Christians who used to control the American government in Washington, DC. Luckily for us, they ain’t pals of William Jefferson Clinton.
Once the Soviets fled Afghanistan, totally defeated, the various fundamentalists who had been united in fighting them, rather than saying, “Hey, we won!” and having some nice date cakes and tea and relaxing awhile, began brutally infighting for control of the country. In the meantime, Osama and his crew extended their holy war to include battling all acts of Western dabbling and expansionism in Islamic countries. That’s where we stand right now—facing a hornets’ nest with a six-foot-something King Bee outside it (Osama is really tall), saying, “Do not disturb.” But considering that the US has been incapable of keeping its nose out of Middle Eastern business for the past half century, further brutal action from al-Qaeda is really a matter of “when,” not “if.” Soon enough, these fuckers are coming for us again. Subway bombings? Chemical attacks? Poisoned water supplies? It’s all fair game. The one thing that seems certain is that they won’t have the stones to attack the WTC again. That might be the one safe place in New York City at this point.
So while they are at this exact moment nowhere near as scary as the IRA, Hezbollah, or the Red Army Faction, this could be a breakout year for the eager young cell known as al-Qaeda. Think 1994 Rookie of the Year with future MVP potential. Here’s a little 101, primer, easy-reference-guide sort of a thing where you are asking us questions and we are answering them for you. Hold still while we shove our hand up your ass, you little puppet you.
You: So tell me again, who are these guys?
Vice: You can call them al-Qa’ida, el-Qaida, al-Qaeda, or al Qaida. In spoken Arabic, it has four syllables. Kind of like “Al-Kai-Eee-Da.” It really doesn’t matter because you can’t accurately put the Arabic name into the Western alphabet. Bin Laden says it’s what they used to call their camp back in the good old days; as their camp grew and became, like, a state of mind, so did the name. NATO and the UN consider them an Islamic terrorist group. Bin Laden, formerly of the Maktab al-Khidamat mujahideen, honed his terror talents against Russkies in Afghanistan. Now he and a bunch of underlings are on a recruitment drive to beef up the ranks and prepare to slaughter the West and its immoral ways.
You: Hang on a minute—doesn’t Islam teach the faithful to love Allah and one’s neighbor?
Vice: Al-Qaeda justify everything through the Koran and cite historical precedents for blowing shit up. Cofounder Mamdouh Mahmud Salim has pointed to the teachings of Ibn Taymiyyah, a 13th-century scholar, to justify the jihad his organization wages on the West. Taymiyyah asserted that Muslims were justified in killing the Mongols who invaded their lands and endangered the Muslim state. Salim simply switched out the word Mongols for imperialist infidels from the West—voilà, jihad justification. He also said it was fine to kill anyone who helped, sheltered, or tolerated infidels. And if an innocent Muslim bystander is killed in the process of taking on the Great Satan, that’s OK as well, because paradise awaits him or her.
This is what distinguishes al-Qaeda from your average radical Islamist group that focuses on more abstract religious theory. Al-Qaeda, since their inception, have focused solely on preventing the West from plundering Muslim land.
You: They almost sound kind of awesome, like that cool guy Che Guevara. What are they up to right now?
Vice: Slow down there, chief. Che was a fucking idiot. But that’s a story for another day. What’s important is for you to know that al-Qaeda, like skipping school, are not cool. The best bet right now is that they are in Sudan coordinating new terrorist activity and mixing with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group. See, bin Laden offered his native Saudi Arabia help in fighting Iraq during the Gulf War, but King Fahd refused him and opted instead for a few thousand US soldiers. This made Osama very angry, and he threw a beard-rattling tantrum where he bitched out loud about how Saudi foreign policy is shit. This got back to his really powerful, really rich family, who promptly disowned him and cut off his annual allowance of $7 million.
You: This Osama guy sounds like a fucking asshole.
Vice: Pretty much. The only good part is that since he’s a horse-riding rogue hiding out in the middle of nowhere, he can never sue us for slander. Here, watch this: “Osama bin Laden sucks his dad’s dick while his mom fucks him in the butt with a big black strap-on and a thousand virgins pee on his head from heaven and he drinks the virgin pee and then spits it in his stupid whore daughter’s face.” How about that? Total lawsuit-free libel and slander!
You: Um, OK. But tell me, what have al-Qaeda done so far?
Vice: Someone didn’t read the intro. Most notably, there was the 1993 truck bomb that killed six innocent people and destroyed the underground parking lot of the World Trade Center. Prior to that attack, al-Qaeda bombed a couple of hotels in Aden, Yemen, where they thought American soldiers were stationed on their way to Somalia. They chose the wrong hotel and two more innocent people were killed.
Compared with committed groups like the IRA, which shut down the whole of Heathrow Airport in March with a full-blown mortar attack although they are supposedly moving toward peace, it sometimes seems like these guys aren’t taking their holy war very seriously.
You: What is al-Qaeda’s favorite way to kill people?
Vice: Bombs, of course! Bombs in cars, mostly, but rumor has it that they are also interested in aviation. Who can really say? These guys keep more secrets than a lesbian nun. In any case, to date al-Qaeda have been using explosives as their primary means of exerting terror over their oppressors. They are also not too fussed about dying, which makes them a nightmare to deal with. While we in the West spend years and billions of dollars creating armored vehicles to protect our soldiers and citizens, your average al-Qaeda recruit is fearless, answers to a higher calling, and will happily walk into your office wearing a hand-grenade necklace.
You: What about the story that Uncle Sam trained and funded these guys?
Vice: Well, it’s true. The current crop of al-Qaeda operatives learned the ropes from the CIA, which pumped money into the mujahideen fighting forces in Afghanistan throughout the 1980s via a covert program called Operation Cyclone. Cyclone supplied the mujahideen with cash, arms, and training so they could keep the cold war nice and frosty. The whole thing was done hush-hush by filtering cash and weapons through the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, which is said to have trained 100,000 Arab mujahideen in the fine art of insurgency. Some of these were the troops of prominent Afghan resistance leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who just happens to be old killing buddies with Osama bin Laden.
You: So basically the CIA is reaping what it has sown.
Vice: Basically. Cyclone was no chump-change operation either. By 1987, the CIA—and by extension us taxpaying American mutts—was spending around $630 million a year on funding mujahideen operations in Afghanistan, as well as supplying handy death machines like Stinger missiles and F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan. It is one of most expensive and longest-running covert operations in Central Intelligence Agency history. So never forget that it was actually all of us who underwrote the truck-bomb attack on the World Trade Center last year.
You: Let’s say I’m retarded and I want to sign up. How do I join? How likely am I to ever actually meet an al-Qaeda operative?
Vice: Simply dressing up like a smelly hippie firebug and making a pilgrimage to the Middle East isn’t going to cut it. They go for the truly fanatical, so you’d best brush up on anti-everything rhetoric before making any moves.
But if you live in New York, it’s more likely you’ll run into a member than you might think. Al-Qaeda have a taste for the Big Apple and have been using New York as a recruiting ground from as far back as 1986, when bin Laden’s old outfit utilized the Al Kifah Refugee Center and al-Farouq Mosque in Brooklyn to tempt young Muslims down the road to jihad. Go hang around those places and look like you hate America and maybe something will happen. You’d better hop to it, though: Chances are, with their increased visibility, al-Qaeda are going to be sliding up the American government’s hate list fast.
- Keenan's blog
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sorry about the formatting glitch...
I was fooling around trying to delete two "phantom" instances of this blog post from the recent blogs list and ended up cutting and pasting the existing comments into the body of the blog...
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How did I determine it was published in 1994?
At least 2 references in the text indicate 1994, such as the first sentence of the article:
Remember that Ryder truck that was crammed with canisters of compressed hydrogen and a few nice long fuses and driven into the World Trade Center’s underground parking structure and blown up last year?
Then in the 5th paragraph, it makes a reference to the current year being 1994:
So while they are at this exact moment nowhere near as scary as the IRA, Hezbollah, or the Red Army Faction, this could be a breakout year for the eager young cell known as al-Qaeda. Think 1994 Rookie of the Year with future MVP potential.
And then, Vice itself (viceland.com) just published a blurb today on all the hubbub on the internets over Vice's prophetic predictions about 9/11, titled APPARENTLY VICE WAS IN ON 9/11, basically saying we're a bunch of loony conspiracy theorists and that there's nothing strange at all about what they said in 1994 and it was just a coincidence, blah, blah, blah:
In 2009, we celebrated our 15th birthday by “publishing” a “lost” magazine we “originally put together” “in 1994. Conspiracy theorists must believe that carrots are part of a global plot to turn the world’s pubes ginger or something, because apparently they’re completely blind to square quotes. Anyway, an article from our 1994 Issue entitled What Is Al-Qaeda? has been pounced upon by those who prefer their own, alternate histories of the 9/11 attacks to The Truth. To cut a long, strange story short: They believe that we knew al-Qaeda were going to fly planes into the World Trade Center seven years before they actually did.
They even link to and reference this blog at WTCD!
I wish James Knight and Andy Capper refused to tell me where they go at night because they’re actually on their way to eat steak with someone important enough to have been in on the conspiracy to bomb the World Trade Center and blame it on Osama Bin Laden, but in my heart of hearts I know it’s because they just don’t enjoy my company.
(NB: Paul [referring to Paul from the P4T forum who posted an article about this a couple of days ago], please don’t “chace” or “hound them with questions” as you promise to in your post, they’re very busy people who have no inside info [link to our site] of “the PsyOps plan” and definitely weren’t being “used as tools to get this information out there.”)
Sorry to burst your bubble, guys. Don’t stop (dis)believin’!
9INO GINE11I
My response to Vice:
Then how did you guys know about 'al qaeda' years before anybody else was writing about them? Sorry, but you guys are not getting off the hook that easy. Someone should be brought in for questioning regarding who handed the author this script 7 years before the event.
PS: To readers of Vice who just landed here, welcome to WTCDemolition.com! Please check out our home page http://www.wtcdemolition.com/ for an introduction to the most damning evidence of the 9/11 conspiracy - namely the WTC demolitions. Watch the video on the home page, and then honestly ask yourself if the official story holds up - that it was just a gravitation collapse, or if the collapse was assisted with explosives. If it was just gravity at work, then why do you see massive explosions all the way down, with the building debris being blasted upward and outward hundreds of feet away, and all in about 10 seconds for a 110 story building? Can gravity really do this?
Are you going to believe the government or your lying eyes?
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that's not what I meant Keenan
What I meant was not how you determined that the text was *supposed* to have been written in 1994--my question is how you know it *was actually* written in 1994? Whoever these people are say:
"In 2009, we celebrated our 15th birthday by “publishing” a “lost” magazine we “originally put together” “in 1994."
What I suspect is that they published no such thing in 1994, that's what I meant when I said how do you know this was actually published when they say it was? Your answer, that you could tell from the text itself, speaks to *when* it was allegedly published. My question on the other hand spoke to whether it was actually published at all before 2009 when it was "republished."
So let me reiterate--is there any evidence that they actually published this in 1994, at any time before 9/11, or even at any time before 2009? Unless you can show otherwise, I'd say you've been taken in by a hoax (and that would be my charitable guess). You quote something that allegedly links to our site but I found that text nowhere on the Viceland site. What I did find was that the likely psyop Pilots for Truth is where the original "hubbub" was manufactured (and yes, I use that word with intent.)
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I suppose it could be an elaborate hoax
Since I don't have the original print version in my hands from 1994, then I suppose I can't actually verified it.
Although there is an online version of the 1994 issue: 1994 - Vice Magazine, with other articles in the same issue making references to things happening around 1994 as if they was current events, it is certainly possible that they went to the trouble of publishing an entire fake issue as a hoax.
"You quote something that allegedly links to our site but I found that text nowhere on the Viceland site."
Strangely enough, they have revised today's article, and removed the link to our site. The text I copied above was copied and pasted right from their earlier version today. I did not make it up.
In fact, I would download their current version in case they revise it yet again.
"What I did find was that the likely psyop Pilots for Truth is where the original "hubbub" was manufactured (and yes, I use that word with intent.)"
Not sure why you consider P4T psyop, and why you think they manufactured the "hubbub". If you did a search you can see that other 9/11 forums picked up on the Vice article all about the same time. Why wouldn't it be of interest to people who discovered it? Your contention that P4T was "where the origiginal hubbub was manufactured" and that it was done for psyop purposes seems to be a bald assertion.
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i'm really very sorry...
...if I've misjudged you Keenan, but I really don't feel I can trust you enough to be a registered poster here anymore. In fact this is even making me question what the point of a 9/11 truth forum is. I almost think it would be best if I just blogged myself and maybe allowed moderated comments at this point--perhaps as a temporary measure given the craziness that the 10th anniversary seems to be creating among the fake truth movement and the likelihood that cognitive infiltration will be pushed to 11 for the time being...
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well, I don't know what to say...
If you feel that all of us undisciplined rabble are that much of a threat to your good name or whatever, then I guess that is what you should do. Good luck, Gretavo, being an army of one. It's been fun. I've been spending way too much time blogging when I should be getting other stuff done, so maybe this is a blessing in disguise. I'm also questing what is the point of arguing with people over 9/11 so much of my time when there is so much more going on in the world.
So, thanks Gretavo for giving me a reason to re-assess what I am spending my time on...I sincerely mean that. This is a great opportunity for me to re-assess what I've been spending my time on.
To all the witty, intelligent, and passionate folks here on WTCD, thanks for your efforts and thanks the memories and maybe we'll cross paths (or internet nodes) again somewhere, sometime...
Bye for now
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Oh shucks! Yo've busted me, Gretavo
Yes, I admit, I was waiting to go "Fetzer" all along since I joined this site almost 4 years ago, pretending to be a "real truther" and all. yes, it was all a sham. And you are exactly right - I'm part of this big 10th anniversary push. Just wait till you find out how many other Fetzers-in-waiting have infiltrated your site...
But, now that you've outed me, I guess I can confess everything now. I've been working secretly with all the fakes. I mean, why not? It's hella hard to find a good paying job in today's economy, so is it such a big deal to accept a little payola to infiltrate blog sites and do a little mischief here and there?
But you're right. People like me are the biggest threat to the movement. Don't worry, though, Gretavo. I'm sure your laser-sharp and hyper-sensitive BS detector with hair-trigger preemptive machine-gun-lik-shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later "YOU'RE A FAKE IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE EXACTLY AS I DO!" weaponry will not turn off too many people and is the best method for growing the movement...
Agent Keenan Roberts signing off...
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Yea, you go Gretavo!
Make enemies first, ask questions later! Always assume the worst in people's intentions and don't be afraid to throw accusations in all directions - our winning strategy as we run up to the 10th anniversary!
Don't worry, Gretavo, I'm sure not too many people will suspect that you are intentionally trying to create a hostile environment that will drive people away from 9/11 Truth...
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You're being too hard on Keenan
So Keenan was taken in by a hoax, so what? No harm done. What agenda could he possibly be pushing by doing this intentionally? None that I can think of.
Really I think you're being harsh Gretavo. Isn't Keenan a longtime user here? Surely he has posted/commented dozens or maybe even hundreds of times, and yet now he makes one mistake and he's booted off?
That shocks me, honestly.
I haven't gone to your link yet on P4T but I have no reason to suspect a psyop.
I believe you once stated that the only person in the truth movement that you trust is David Chandler. Have you seen his recent attack piece, co-authored with Jon Cole, on CIT? Chandler's either dumb as dirt or an op.
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Let me get this straight...
David Chandler is an "op" because he went after CIT? Is that what you are saying?
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. JFK
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no
Not because he went after CIT, but because of how he went after them: with lies, faulty logic and a lotta help from Ashley and Hoffman.
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ah. You didn't mention Ashley and Hoffman
those two are obvious. Such a tangled web, isn't it?
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. JFK
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and what's up with...
posting that Simpson's screenshot with the URLs on it? Did you not bother to check out the sites you were providing publicity to? Sites that seem not to have any problem with David Shayler or David Icke? That seem to think Webster Tarpley and William Rodriguez are true heroes? What's up with this BS, Keenan?
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Wow, you are seriously paranoid, Gretavo
I cannot log in so I guess you have suspended my account because you consider me a fake now?
The Simpson's screenshot I posted was the first image I found when searching on google images for the simpsons 1997 episode. I simply copied the image url from google and did not look at the web site that the image was originally from. I was not trying to provide publicity to any of the people mentioned above.
Whatever, dude. I really don't care if you re-activate my account if you are this irrational and paranoid, because it is probably just a matter of time until you will do the same thing to me in the future. My contributions on this site since 2007 should speak for themselves. You have some serious issues, Gretavo. I'm sorry you've had such a traumatic upbringing that you jump to conclusions about someone's trustworthiness based on such flimsy "evidence".
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whether it's sincerity or stupidity doesn't matter
and I'm not going to pretend I know which it is in your case. if you don't have the good sense to vet URLs that are in pictures you post when a million other copies of that picture are surely available without URLs that link to people who link to David Icke and David Shayler then you've really learned very little about how to be an effective advocate for 9/11 truth in all these years. Unlike may out there, I actually have a life and a full time job and have had the honor of having my identity outed and my name and image dragged through the mud by the worst of the worst in my effort to expose the truth about 9/11. Even if I had the time which I don't I do not feel inclined to be a babysitter for sloppy bloggers. Go ahead and call me paranoid--I call it having standards and a limited amount of patience.
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Sometimes I find it hard to
Sometimes I find it hard to tell what is satire and what is genuine here, but It seems that Keenan has been banned?
Gretavo could I ask a favour, In light of all the good articles and enlightening commentary Keenan has contributed here over years, could I ask you to review this banning in daylight, and if you are still decided on this action, is it possible to have an explanation/ summary of what concerns you have about Keenan's integrity ?
Is it mainly this article and associated links which sets your alrm bells off enough to ban him. Are you convinced the hoax/links mistake is not genuine and intentional?
I know of his long term acrimonious interactions with Wilyloman, and have found them to be very interesting arguments for both positions- Good faith made us want to support Jones to some extent against Willy's attacks, although It appears now that Willy may have been more prescient re Steven Jones etc.
I also know Keenan still seems to support CIT. I am not bothered either way- I think they have a good hypothesis but they have overstated their importance and must realise that the fallout from this has been a huge distraction from the effectiveness of 911 truth. Is his Cit support reason for your action?
But, from my very first post here my focus has been on what is effective and motivational for 911 truth( Not at the cost of truth, but as a benchmark for selecting what truths are most useful in achieving change)I have to say that on balance Keenan's contributions have been highly motivated in the right direction IMO, and his commitment to the fight has been impressive and encouraging for others (at least myself).
What is more, Although I know what your thoughts are about this site being not a mainstream 911 news site , but a space for examining intergrity elsewhere etc, but without Blogger , and the new 911news central being somewhat lightweight so far, there is nowhere really to go for updates/ news on the movement, and this site hibernates occasionally with no issues being discussed. Whilst that is not your problem, I think Keenan has always seen the void, and attempted to keep articles flowing though these pages so that there is always something new to read about.- Maybe that is why he posts articles here (Like this)that dont cut the mustard, not because they are intentional distraction, but because he believes he is helping to encourage regular readership of this site?
Could these issues not be discussed for a round or two and points made without shooting ourselves in the foot (again) and banning ( a probably genuine IMO ) committed activist from this interesting and valuable site?
lets not let snappy remarks and toy throwing get in the way of what is best practice here. Blogs are not written in stone, and people can retract their positions and admit mistakes surely?
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Uh, any chance we could have the 7th grade
type pseudo-porn graphic removed (references to dick sucking, etc.)? Was that just embedded in the regular text? I guess I'm just feeling extra femi-nazi/PC today, but it's sticking in my craw, so to speak. Kthnx.
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consistent with the illustrator
have you seen his "69/11" drawing where a duck sucks off one of the burning towers?
no joke.
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Who/What is Vice Magazine?
Another "coincidence"?:
Vice Magazine was born in 1994, the same year they published this amazing prophetic piece on the esoteric 'al-qaeda' before anybody else.
March 30, 2008 Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/30/pressandpublishing.tvandradi...
The Vice Squad
For a decade, Vice magazine has pioneered a no-holds-barred approach to the counterculture. But now, with a TV channel and hard-hitting reportage from the frontline of the world's trouble spots, it's aiming to shock in a different way. Carl Wilkinson hears how the streetwise teen-zine finally grew up
Carl Wilkinson
The Observer, Sunday 30 March 2008
The stars are in town. The Rolling Stones are staying over there, my driver says, pointing out of the window as we speed down Unter den Linden in central Berlin. And Penelope Cruz there. Each hotel is fronted by a gaggle of paparazzi sunning themselves on the pavement. It's the Berlinale, the annual film festival, and I'm here to meet the founders of a countercultural magazine with designs on the television and movie industry.
Back in 1994, three friends in Montreal - Shane Smith, Suroosh Alvi and Gavin McInnes - bought out Voice of Montreal, a magazine funded by the Canadian government as part of a welfare programme to provide work and promote community service. After a fallout with the original publisher, they wrested control, dropped the 'o' ('for legal reasons', Smith explains over a kebab) and Vice was born.
'We wanted to be the first international voice for the universality of youth sub-culture,' says Smith. At 38, he now looks more like a media mogul than a countercultural hipster. In just over a decade Vice has gone from little more than a fanzine to a magazine with 900,000 readers in 22 countries and an international brand which takes in clothing, TV, book publishing, music (Bloc Party has released an album in the US through Vice Records) and now film.
'Vice' is practically a definition of the magazine's content. All off-kilter life is here. Skaters feature alongside interviews with the likes of Abu Hamza. And its take-no-prisoners approach has captured the imagination of what marketing people call 'trendsetting metropolitans' aged 21 to 34. The Cassandra Report, the influential consumer guide, named the magazine the number-one tastemaker in this crucial demographic for the past five years.
The magazine's roster of photographers includes Terry Richardson, Ryan McGinley, Richard Kern, Dash Snow and Observer contributors Jamie-James Medina, Alex Sturrock and Danielle Levitt. Richardson is famed for his point-and-shoot style and has shot campaigns for Gucci, Levi's and American Apparel. McGinley, a former photo editor for the magazine who still contributes cover shots, was the youngest person ever to have a solo show at the Whitney in New York.
'I first saw Vice in my local video store,' McGinley tells me from his Manhattan studio. 'I hadn't seen anything like it before.' As one of a group of young, up-and-coming photographers and writers, McGinley recorded the fast life of the magazine and its friends in New York's Lower East Side. 'Things back then were crazy,' McGinley concedes, 'but these images were just a part of my life. When you group all the images together though, as they were in Vice, it creates a myth.'
These images are now included in a lavish coffee-table album, The Vice Photo Book, which reveals the magazine's strikingly broad range of photography, from serious photojournalism to party snapshots to nudes. 'Vice runs everything,' says McGinley. 'It happily runs full-frontal nudity, which is pretty ballsy.'
Jamie-James Medina, 25, who started working for the magazine when he was 19 and made his name photographing London's burgeoning grime scene, agrees. Now focusing more on photojournalism, Medina has travelled to Tokyo, Bangkok, Jamaica, Sudan, China and North Korea with Vice. 'I love the fact Terry Richardson can shoot girls, Ryan McGinley can shoot this beautiful art photography and I can sneak in there with a bit of photojournalism,' he says.
The magazine's range has broadened enormously in recent years. As Medina puts it: 'Hipsters grow up. It's just not cool to be dumb any more.' Later, at dinner in a Twenties-style Berlin bierhaus, Smith appears, sporting a Kim Jong-Il lapel badge he was given by a general he befriended in North Korea while making an undercover documentary. I ask him about the criticism Vice has faced over the years.
'There was a time in the Nineties when it was all about cocaine and asymmetrical zippers,' Smith admits. 'We did a lot of drugs and went to a lot of parties and had sex with a lot of supermodels. But you realise there's a whole world out there, and as we've expanded, the scope of the magazine has got broader.'
To that end, Smith has set up VBS.tv, an online television station which boasts Spike Jonze as its creative director. 'They're inventing new things every day,' says Tom Freston, a creator of MTV and former head of Viacom. 'It reminds me of MTV in the early days.'
'We became a magazine when the barriers to making a magazine effectively became nonexistent,' explains Smith. 'You could do desktop publishing on a Mac and print for cheap. Now you get a digicam and a Mac, and you can have something broadcast on the net within 15 minutes.'
It was VBS that premiered Heavy Metal in Baghdad, a documentary about four young metal fans in the war-torn city trying to rehearse and play gigs to a tiny group of like-minded fans before escaping to Syria. The film won critical acclaim at the Toronto International Film Festival. Its producer, Monica Hampton, and editor, Bernardo Loyola, worked with Michael Moore on Fahrenheit 9/11. So where do the magazine's political allegiances lie? 'We're not trying to say anything politically in a paradigmatic left/right way,' argues Smith. 'We don't do that because we don't believe in either side. Are my politics Democrat or Republican? I think both are horrific. And it doesn't matter anyway. Money runs America; money runs everywhere.'
The Vice brand - for all its dislike of celebrity - now has a growing band of celebrity followers. As well as Jonze, Hollywood stars Luke Wilson, Johnny Knoxville and the film director Michel Gondry are all friends of Vice. More unlikely still is the Bono connection. 'I have to admit we've also started working with Bono. I should hate him,' Smith laughs, 'but he's a good guy.' The 'good guy' has called VBS 'punk rock for the 21st century', so one wouldn't really expect Smith to describe him any other way.
After dinner, we move on to a party in an old warehouse in East Berlin. The walls are covered in peeling paint, and Berlin's hipsters are queuing to get in. Peaches, the New York DJ, is playing, and Smith and Alvi are circling the room. Among the party talk I hear snatches of conversation about international distribution deals and future projects. Earlier that evening, under the disco ball, Smith said of the early years: 'We definitely tried to put our flag in the sand against the status quo media.' Now the line attached to online TV station VBS reads: 'In 10 years, we'll be the mainstream.'
Direct evidence of foreknowledge?
"Can you imagine the carnage? Can you even begin to start to go down the trail of comprehending what it would be like if the Twin Towers were to collapse? We lost six unfortunate civilians in last year’s attack, and even that felt insane. If the towers were to actually fall we just might have to join the Marines ourselves. Not that they would have us."
So the author, who curiously decided to remain anonymous, asks us if we can imagine...the exact scenario of what actually played out 7 years later, particularly the "collapse" of the towers? Someone obviously yapped their big mouth to the author, it seems to me, about the big PsyOp plan.
So, that was 1994.
Then, on September 21, 1997, the Simpson's episode "City Of New York vs Homer Simpson" aired with with the obviously foretelling image:
How about the Lone Gunman, Episode 1 Mar 4 2001?
"The plot of the first episode, which aired March 4, 2001, involves a US government conspiracy to hijack an airliner, fly it into the World Trade Center and blame it on terrorists, thereby gaining support for a new profit-making war. Parallels to the events of 9/11 in this episode are noteworthy, if not uncanny, the episode being aired six months prior to 9/11."
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. JFK
the photo does
but the article itself says The one thing that seems certain is that they won’t have the stones to attack the WTC again. That might be the one safe place in New York City at this point.
Interesting, maybe they were being used as tools to get this information out there. Although I find the Lone Gun Episode to be much more prescient.
trust, but verify
Thanks Keenan. Any proof that this is was originally published in 1994? How did you determine that date?
my thoughts exactly
How do we know this is genuine?