Have they given up yet?

When President Obama's friend and legal scholar, Cass Sunstein, authored an essay about ways the government might deal with a steadily growing 9/11 Truth Movement, I read it eagerly to find out what we might expect from this "liberal" administration. It was already evident that the policy of "containment by ignoring" would continue to apply, and that no investigative efforts were forthcoming. When Prof. Sunstein seemed to be suggesting that blatantly unconstitional measures to counter the truth movement - a cointelpro for our time - would be appropriate, I discussed it with friends familiar with the '60's programs against the anti-war crowd, and we all pretty much agreed that it was highly likely that such programs were already in place and had been for some time. Most who have written in discussion groups on 9/11 Truth are accustomed to the one or two trolls that always seem to show up to drop little disinformation pellets among the offerings and are always there to keep the controversies alive. I don't offer that as proof, simply as an observation growing out of many years of participation in such discussions - Amazon reviews being one such place. Having been a long-time fan of Dr. Griffin, and having read Dr. Sunstein's piece, I ordered the book in order to close the loop, not expecting to learn a great deal.

I was pleasantly surprised. Dr. Griffin's careful analysis suggests a line of argument that makes it almost possible to believe that Sunstein's essay deliberately contained its own pre-planted explosives, requiring only a slight twist of the argument to turn it back on itself, blowing the entire structure of the official myth to smithereens. To those of us who have steeped for years in the strong brew of evidence that the official myth is unstable and is sustained only by a brittle structure of power and inertia propped up by a calcified and corrupt media establishment, it is like finding the cherry cordial in the center of an otherwise unremarkable piece of candy. Nicely done, Dr. Griffin!

To say that this book destroys the arguments of the sustainers of the 9/11 official myth is to put it mildly. It may be that the myth sustainers think they have won and don't even feel a need to respond to this book. I notice that apparently not a single reviewer is on hand (to date) to offer any of the usual ad homenim attacks or insults in defense of the official myth. The silence is somewhat spooky and a bit unsettling. I am aware that they have long since run out of ideas - can it be that they have finally realized it?

Professor Sunstein's name has been spotted on lists associated with possible Obama Supreme Court nominees. Those of us who consider such a possibility with the revulsion appropriate to the idea of a big fan of undermining popular opinion by government cointelpro-style actions ascending to the bench (yet again!) should breathe a bit easier knowing the original essay and this devastating treatment reside in Professor Sunstein's file.

Is Living a Lie Bad For the Country?

On the 9th anniversary of the 9/11 debacle, there are events taking place in many cities to point out the continuing absurdity of a 9-year war based on a collosal lie - that we were attacked on 9/11 by a raggedy bunch of Islamic fanatics.
The evidence says otherwise.

Did Muslim fanatics somehow plant enough nano-thermite in the World Trade Center to level the place? Where would they get it? It comes out of secret laboratories, like Lawrence Livermore. See http://journalof911studies.com/.

I spoke to a friend this week about 9/11 and asked him what he knew about Building 7, the Soloman Brothers building.
His answer was approximately “Building What???” Everyone knows about the towers. Building 7, a 47-story skyscraper adjacent to the World Trade complex, took the plunge at 5:20 on 9/11/2001, after most of its few mysterious fires were burning out. Never hit by a plane, It went down in the exact fashion of an old Las Vegas casino, complete with a count-down. It achieved free-fall for 2.3 seconds by the government’s own measurements (after a high school physics teacher pointed it out to them). Free-fall means that the steel offered NO resistance. That is only possible by use of explosives to get the building supports out of the way.

So, this weekend, think about what it means that we have never had a real investigation of 9/11/01.
Could it possibly be that believing and living by a collosal lie is bad for us?

Jesse Ventura on American Conspiracies

I was not always a big fan of Jesse Ventura. I am certainly no fan of wrestling - never have been, and big, loudmouthed superpatriots are not my cup of tea either. Jesse was formerly a big fan of the right wing, but the corruption and fantasies spun by and around the 2nd Bush dynasty found in Jesse a fundamentally honest man who, it turns out, has a brain. A good one. He reads - a lot - and when something doesn't make any sense, he looks further into it, which is a good practice for anyone, and you might say is a fundamental duty of American citizens who want to see our country live up to the ideals that were ingrained in us way back in grammar school. Those ideals are worth striving for, but that does not mean that you have to cling without question to the unadulterated crap that passes for the accounts of the landmark events of our history.

In the version of contemporary history being foisted on the American people, conspiracies have no basis in fact. They rarely happen, and they are never, ever, the product of the actions of our government. The word only gets exercised when its pejorative meaning is trotted out, coupled with "theories" or "theorist" to cast aspersions on alternative views of events. It is used as code to discredit alternative views of events and those who would consider them.

Jesse and his co-author Dick Russell have taken on several of the dominent myths surrounding events that arguably changed the course of the history that us seasoned veterans of that history either were taught in school or lived through. He does so in a blunt and forceful way that makes it readable and engaging. It appears to be well researched, and, in contrast with Jesse's companion television series of a similar title that aired on TruTV, is relatively free of the bombast and dramatic flourishes that, to my mind, somewhat marred that production. I questioned whether his tendency to fall back on testosterone-soaked bombast to punctuate his points would undermine the facts he was bringing out.

I have followed Jesse's public pronouncements since he returned from his NBC-financed "exile" in Mexico, where he was paid to breathe by the network which found the subject matter of his infant TV series, " Jesse Ventura's America" not cool. So not cool that they bought out his contract and said "do what you want just stay off TV". So he used the money to finance a two-year vacation and a villa in Mexico. He returned, and got a lot of attention with his questioning of 9/11. His celebrity meant he was sought by the talking head shows of mainstream media but he had the disturbing tendency to ask questions his hosts preferred remain unasked or unmentioned on their light entertainment shows.

If you have no clue what I am talking about, pick up American Conspiracies and read. If you can't handle Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States", this is a more digestible nugget.

If your mind can't handle alternative views of this country we all love but which some of us love enough to look at without rose-tinted lenses, then turn on the TV and forget I said anything.

American Conspiracies by Jesse Ventura A Review by Liam Scheff
www.lewrockwell.com
"People prefer to be lied to ably, than be told the truth, boldly. We prefer a colorful and clever story to a documentary filled with sharp and damning evidence; we prefer gossip to investigation. Human kind delights in metaphor when facts get in the way of our passions and pursuits. "

Report on the Insurgency

I have been away from this blog for almost a year. For this I apologize. I will try to be a more faithful writer in the future. Thanks for visiting. SFL


An insurgency has been taking shape in recent weeks, blooming several places in the world like the first flowers of Spring. There are signs of it in some outlets of the mainstream media; signs that take one of two forms: straight news stories and hit pieces. The hit pieces are exemplified by the recent editorial in the disgraceful and disgraced Washington Post, which leveled a charge that an influential and well-respected member of the ascendent Democratic Party of Japan has ideas about the 9/11 attacks that are "too bizarre, half-baked and intellectually bogus to merit serious discussion." They follow with the briefest of sketch of a few of the doubts expressed by Mr. Fujita, calling them "fantastic". Offering no refutations of the ample evidence that 1,114 (to date) architects and engineers have found persuasive, including the peer-reviewed paper by an international panel of scientists that establishes the prolific presence of military-grade explosives and its residue in well-documented Manhattan dust samples, they depend primarily on name-calling - a certain indicator that they are out of ideas. The editorial concludes with dark hints that Japan's relationship with the U. S. is at risk from "tolerating" elements like Mr. Fujita.

The other type of story is exemplified by an article in Germany's second most-read weekly business magazine, "Focus Money" entitled "We Do Not Believe You!" which surveys the 9/11 Truth Movement and concludes that there is substance to the charges of a cover-up and government complicity in the attacks. Similar stories and news interviews have appeared in Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Japan, and Russia.

In Japan, the doubts about the War on Terror, spurred in part by Mr. Fujita and public appearances by David Ray Griffin and Richard Gage, founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, have resulted in a policy shift by Tokyo away from active participation in their supporting role in which they refueled American warships transiting the Indian Ocean in support of operations in Afghanistan. Mr. Fujita raised the question why Japan had not done its own investigation of 9/11 in which 24 Japanese nationals died. We Americans might ask the exact same question. The "investigation" of 9/11 by the Commission began with the assumption that the plot line that appeared almost simultaneously on the lips of the remarkably perceptive pundits assembled at the various studios in Manhattan to make background chatter while the deadly charade was played out was, by golly, exactly the way it happened, and the 118 first responders who heard and felt explosions all over the Trade Center complex were mistaken and misguided. Besides, they were not assembled to "point fingers", unless it was away from the highly suspicious actions of the administration before, during, and after the event. And if they could hang it on Jamie Gorelick for erecting that darned wall that ensured that mum's the word when feeling the urge to share information with other parts of our national security apparatus, well, all the better! And our detractors say government can't keep a secret.

Well the secret is getting around, so much so that Obama's appointee to the cabinet post concerned with communications and regulatory affairs, Harvard's Cass Sunstein, in his recent scholarly head-scratcher, "Conspiracy Theories", waxes academic about such theories and theorists, and concludes that doubts about the candor of the Bush administration and its henchmen when talking about 9/11, automatically place the doubter in that category whether they have advanced a theory or not. He was moved to recommend that, in order to squelch the "Truther" movement, infiltrators and agents penetrate the movement, and provide some informational diversity (read "propaganda") rendering alternative interpretations of events "indefensible". Does this ring a bell with any of you veterans of the '60's anti-war movement? I don't suppose it would occur to Prof. Sunstein to recommend that Justice investigate the issue of several tons of military grade explosive residue in the pyroclastic powder of the World Trade Center. Some actual coming clean on the evidence surrounding 9/11 would make for very welcome "informational diversity", I expect.

Why collapse the buildings?

A 9/11 Denier, with whom I have been exchanging forum entries, says that collapsing the buildings was unnecessary to the purposes if the plotters wanted to do a Pearl Harbor type event. This is my response.

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 11:41 pm Post subject: Why collapse the buildings?
Islamists had been implicated in a previous attack on the WTC. Although the FBI had a double-agent inside and actually supplied the explosive used (they provided a real bomb instead of the fake bomb expected by their agent) the plotters actually detonated it and killed a lot of people. No war ensued. The planes hitting the buildings was a powerful symbol but if only a few hundred died, it probably would not have provided the "pearl harbor" effect - feelings of helpless rage and desire for revenge we all felt that day. Why were those evacuating from the South tower after the North tower was hit told to go back to their desks? Only by assuming that a high death toll was required to accomplish their aims does it make any sense. When the buildings fell it provided the powerful visual of a symbol of our world financial leadership crumbling - a threat felt by everyone. This was psychological warfare played on a grand scale

But the WTC was in private hands, and had been for 6 weeks.

How does $4.6 to 7 billion dollars sound to you as a motive? Actually, the motive is much more than that. Larry Silverstein, a dual citizen of the U. S. and Israel*, on the day he signed a 99 year lease on that property became liable for asbestoes cleanup costs of about $800 million. In addition to this, the estimate for the disassembly of the towers was $15 billion. On at least two occasions, the port authority's request for a permit for demolition of the towers had been denied due to risk to adjacent properties and the asbestos issue. They would have been required to unbuild the buildings from the top down.
The WTC was a big white elephant, uncompetitive in the real estate market and had never been in private hands until Mr. Silverstein purchased the lease from the Port Authority for a $124 million down payment, of which he only spent $15 million. He also had additional protection on the deal, in that if anything happened to the buildings, he would be released from any further obligations. He got his money back AND he held all the cards. He immediately insured the buildings against terrorist attacks specifically. He argued after the attacks that he should collect $7.1 billion because there were two separate attacks. The court agreed but the payout was set at $4.6 billion.

In short, the only way Silverstein would have ever expected to recoup his costs on the trade center was the way it actually happened. The liability hung over this deal like a dark cloud and it had to be known from the beginning. But when the 'terrorist attack' took place, Silverstein's worries were over. He made a huge financial killing on a very low 6 week investment, was released from any obligations under the original deal, was still free to rebuild on the spot, which immediately became the hottest real estate in town (he rebuilt bldg 7 almost immediately, although the tower site is still undeveloped)

Edit: This was added later, since I should have thought of it but didn't until discussing it with my wife later. She mentioned the motive of destruction of evidence. The aircraft wreckage was primarily inside the buildings. There is considerable controversy over those aircraft - were they under the control of pilots - hijackers - who had demonstrated very little skill in flying light aircraft. Since nothing was heard from the assigned pilots after the aircraft were seized the use of remote control to steer the planes into the WTC has to be considered. (See operation Northwoods for precedent). A seasoned airline pilot with thousands of hours in the same type aircraft attempted, along with some of his students, to repeat the flight profile into the WTC in a simulator. He was able to hit the tower one time out of ten. His students could not hit it at all. If the aircraft had been modified - or if drones were used from the beginning - destroying the buildings would have obliterated the evidence of the modified planes. If you are doing a false-flag operation pretending that it is a terrorist attack, then you can't afford to have investigators poring over the wreckage of the plane. As it turned out, the steel and other wreckage was disappeared quickly and the black boxes, initially reported as found, were reported as not recovered.
End of edit.

The winners:
Silverstein - $4.6 billion profit with no financial downside.

PNAC - A New Pearl Harbor - just what they wanted.

Administration - they got a convenient group to focus the desire for revenge upon - Islamists and a new kind of war - a perpetual campaign against a para-military tactic - terror.

Airlines - several billions in bailout funds from the taxpayers.

The Military Industrial Complex. - lots of war profits to come, new weapons systems and new contracts for a new kind of military. Teeth provided by the soldiers and airmen and tail provided by an endless parade of war profiteers like Halliburton

Republicans - a basis for a permanent republican majority - a War President for a couple of terms and probably two more after him.

Guiliani - the "hero" who was warned that the towers were about to collapse but didn't warn his police or fire officials.

Big Oil - they get to execute Cheney's plan to divvy up Iraq assets.

Al Qaeda - new prestige in the world among those who already hate the U. S.

The insurance companies - Although they may look like losers they win because their premiums go up across the board for terrorism insurance, they will recoup the losses and then some.

And finally, Israel - what could be better than to have the world's only remaining superpower super pissed off at all the countries that surround you and threaten you? You are best buds with the baddest cat on the block and you no longer have to worry about Iraq, Syria, Iran, Egypt, or any Islamic country, and the Palestinians have lost any leverage they ever had with the U. S.

The losers:
The WTC victims

The passengers on the airliners

The firefighters and policemen

The victim's families

The rescue workers who are slowly choking to death due to deadly air at ground zero.

The entire population of the U. S. goes into post-traumatic shock

The constitution and Bill of Rights - the patriot act was ready to go before the attacks, not in reaction to it. The Congress was stampeded.

Islam - framed for something they did not do.

Human rights in general. The US ceased to be a beacon and example of a democratic society and became a torture state, a violator of the Geneva Convention, an adversary of the United Nations, and a practitioner of aggressive warfare against countries who did not attack us.

* In addition to Lucky Larry, several prominent members of the new Bush government were dual citizens. Philip Zelikow, Douglas Feith, Michael Chertoff, Richard Pearle, Dov Zakheim (controller of the Pentagon where on 10 Sept. 2001 $2.3 trillion of Pentagon funds had been reported as unaccounted for. The attack took out the accounting offices, out of which the investigation was being run)

If you can't conceive of people evil enough to plan and execute something like this, think back to something that happened in my lifetime - the German 'final solution'. If you can study the rise of Adolph Hitler, the Reichstag fire, the paranoia encouraged among the Germans for defense against their neighbors, the Enabling Act, which bypassed legislative authority and hastened the slide into a dictatorship, and not think of 9/11 and the Patriot act, you have a tighter rein on your thoughts than I.

I am not saying they are just like the Nazis. (Prescott Bush was one of Hitler's bankers and was implicated in the attempted coup against Roosevelt in 1933) I am saying that the parallels are there and that in pre-war America, Nazi sympathizers included the grandfather of Bush 43. The Neocons are largely deciples of Leo Strauss, mostly outspoken Zionists, and are believers in rule by elites and the ends justifying the means.

When I use the term Zionist, I refer not to "the Jews" or even the state of Israel. I am talking about American or dual citizens who place the interests of Israel above those of the United States. AIPAC is their lobby and they own a good chunk of the U. S. Congress, Republican and Democrat. Dick Cheney is a big supporter of AIPAC, and vice versa.
_________________
"A nation of sheep must beget a government of wolves"- Bertrand De Juvenal
maturin42@blogspot.com