Thursday, November 22, 2007

The New Inquisition Against 9/11 Truth

On November 6, CSPAN aired a hearing of the Homeland Security Subcommittee's "Terrorism and the Internet" which stated purpose was to attempt to identify and focus on the use of the internet by "home grown terrorist recruiters." The hearing was chaired by California democrat Jane Harman, sponsor of the infamous HR 1955, "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007", and ranking Republican, Rep. Dave Reichert.

This event generated quite an uproar in the 9/11 Truth and civil liberties communities because of testimony by panelists conflating two very distinct and unconnected groups -- the 9/11 truth movement with jihadi terrorists. What generated the most buzz -- and condemnation -- was a powerpoint demonstration from Mark Weitzman of the Simon Weisenthal Center, whose powerpoint presentation titled "Internet: Incubator of 9/11 Conspiracies and Disinformation" showed a video of building 7 collapsing as well as a screenshot of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth's website in between websites which featured bomb-making techniques and a terrorist's training manual.

For anyone who has visited ae911truth.org you will see that Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth is as far from a terrorists' recruitment website as you can get. Just click on the "About Us" button and you will read this copy:
"We are a non-partisan association of Architects, Engineers, and affiliates, who are dedicated to exposing the falsehoods and to revealing truths about the 'collapses' of the WTC high-rises on 9/11/01.

We call upon Congress for a truly independent investigation with subpoena power. We believe that there may be sufficient evidence to conclude that the World Trade Center buildings #1 (North Tower), #2 (South Tower), and #7 (the 47 story high-rise across Vessey St.) were destroyed not by jet impact and fires but by controlled demolition with explosives.

We believe that this website, as well as the other referenced sites, contains the information necessary to demonstrate to all with an open mind that this is the case, and that such an investigation is warranted and overdue. We believe that the available relevant evidence casts grave doubt on the government's official story of these 'collapses'.

Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth are encouraged to take an active role by reporting the results of their research on 9/11 by means of lectures, articles, and methods of disseminating the truth about the 9/11 WTC building 'collapses'."

Then there is a picture of Richard Gage, AIA, founder of AE 9/11 Truth and his professional biography.

Scary, huh?

So, What were they thinking? Why would more than 200 architects and engineers who are calling on Congress to hold an independent investigation as to what really happened to the Twin Towers and WTC Building 7 get associated with islamic extremists?

It has become painfully obvious that when Glenn Beck (a CNN host who recently said that Truthers were of the same ilk as Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh) and a Homeland Security subcommittee do a smear job on Truthers they are doing so not because they are violent, or because their ideas are helping to recruit terrorists, but because they are threatening to the whole "War on Terror" agenda -- an agenda foisted on us by the military industrial complex and their corporate sponsors.

Like in the Middle Ages, Beck and Harman are fulfilling the role of the Church's Inquisitors by persecuting and prosecuting those who do not willingly submit to the "War on Terror" religion, which demands that we accept Osama bin Laden and "Islamofascists" as the Devil incarnate, and George W. Bush and the State as our personal Savior. According to Beck and Harman, If you lack the faith, and can't quietly hold your tongue in your disbelief, then the state has no room for you in polite society. Off to Gitmo you go to get tortured and be redeemed by the fascist rod of righteousness.

So, we need to think of Harman's committee as nothing more than a modern day witch hunt -- a panicky attempt to shore up support for a crumbling corporatists' consensus.

We have seen these kinds of repressive tactics countless times before in history -- from the Espionage and Sedition Acts during WWI, to the McCarthy's Red Scare in the 50s, to Cointelpro in the 60s and 70s. But this time the stakes are much higher as there is no end to the War on Terror as you can't have war on an abstract idea. As long as people are being repressed and are fighting back to preserve their freedoms and lives, this state will call them "terrorists," thus, the perpetual rational to keep repressing people, thus constantly creating new terrorists, thus keeping the cycle going; i.e., the war that will not end in our lifetimes.

We need to see that these attacks on Truthers, or anyone else who threatens the status quo (like Ron Paul and his supporters) as nothing more than a battle of ideas -- ideas that have the ultimate power to shape the world we want to live in. It is imperative that We The People build this world and not a criminal elite who are driven solely by power and profits.

This demands that we must make a choice: either that we live as free people or we live as slaves to a corporatist's state that will demand our riches and our blood in perpetual war. There is only one choice to be made. The other will be made for you.

Though Jane Harman's Homeland Security Inquisition and the cable news attacks by Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly on Truthers are scary to many, they are also a good sign as well. The mythmakers are seeing their flimsy house cards fall apart by the rigorous logic and analysis on sites like AE911truth.org. As a consequence, Truthers are winning the battle over hearts and minds and, as a result, going through the final stages that Gandhi said will happen when challenging the status quo:

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

We are very close to winning.

For an excellent write up on this issue, see:

State Terror: H.R. 1955 a Weapon of Mass Destruction of Civil Liberties

Monday, November 12, 2007

The (Updated) Declaration of Independence

By the People of the United States of America, Veteran's Day, 2007.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these States; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present illegitimate King George and his neocon advisors, with the complicity of Congress is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

• The Government has refused the most wholesome and necessary laws for the public good by decimating the public sector for the war sector, thus depriving children and the poor of healthcare and food for the benefit of corporate profiteering and empire.

• The Government has called together legislative, business and intelligence bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of usurping the right of the people to rightfully know of policies being implemented in their name, fatiguing them into compliance with their measures.

• The Government has ignored serious inquiry into the events of 9/11, and has supported a whitewash 9/11 commission, which has enormous consequences for the world as 9/11 is used as pretext for a fabricated "War on Terror," which promises to end "not in our lifetime."

• The Government has, through deceit and collusion, allowed the people's institutions to be taken over by foreign powers whose only goal is to use America as a tool until its ulitmate destruction through debt and warfare.

• The Government has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others not amenable to the neocon agenda to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, crippled by inertia and fear, have become nothing more than a insignificant body going through the motions of government; the People remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

• The Government with its corporate sponsors has taken over much of the media and forced propaganda on the people in order to promote an evil Neocon ideology and criminal war.

• The Government's legislative branch has sanctioned an illegal war on Iraq and Afghanistan by abrogating their constitutional duty to be the sole government body to decide on whether or not the government should go to war and have forfeited this power to the Executive branch.

• The Government has refuses to stop financing the war in Iraq even though it is against the direct wishes of the majority of the people and is causing untold suffering and death.

• The Government by Deceit and Acts of War has incurred an enormous national debt that will be used as an excuse to sell off the people's assets to transnational corporations and banks, as well as keep the people in perpetual slavery.

• The Government has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by allowing partisan political appointments to the courts in order to carry out the unitary executive doctrine.

• The Government, representing corporate interests, has made Judges dependent on their Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

• The Government has not seriously contested the last two stolen elections which effectively made the notion of our country as a "democracy" null and void and the voice of the people insignificant.

• The Government has passed countless un-Constitutional laws, including the "U.S. Patriot Act," "the Military Commission's Act," "The John Warner Defense Appropriations Act", and the more recent H.R. 1955, otherwise known as the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007."

• The Government is actively sanctioning torture and rendition practices, both crimes against domestic and international law.

• The Government has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

• The Government has taken no action to censor the president when he calls the Constitution "just a goddamned piece of paper” when It is mandatory that very federal official who takes an oath of office swears "to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

• The Government has kept among us, standing private Armies like Blackwater and Dyncorp who are above the law without the consent of the people.

• The Government has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

• The Government is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign and domestic Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

• The Government has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Private Military Contractors, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

• The Government has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation.

• The Government has protecting them by mock Trials and Commissions, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent

• For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury by calling a citizen an "enemy combatant" and effectively getting rid of Habeas Corpus

• For spying on citizens without a warrant

• For not upholding their oaths of office by defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC

• For transporting prisoners beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses and tortured by U.S. client states

• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments

• For allowed unfettered War Profiteering based on a war that should never have happened

• For abdicated their responsibility by declaring us out of their Protection and waging War against us.

• For plundering our seas, ravaging our Coasts, burning our towns, and destroying the lives of our people, specifically in New Orleans, and California

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Government whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our American brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our laws and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the People of the United States of America, in General, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of the World, solemnly publish and declare, That these States are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to a Fascist Corporate Cabal who have illegally taken over this Government and Pretends to do the will of the people, and that all political connection between them and the People, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy Change, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

(Disclaimer: Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or to our present government is entirely intentional, however, this article is intended purely as a creative writing exercise with no intent to imply the forced removal of the present occupants in our government except through democratic and/or peaceful means)



The Declaration of Independence as read by actors:

Monday, November 5, 2007

When Government Becomes Destructive of These Ends

"...Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

-- The Declaration of Independence
www.archives.gov

Recently Congressman Pete Stark made news with his fiery speech about Bush wanting to blow up innocent kids for Bush's personal amusement. Unfortunately, Stark caved in through pressure from Bush's appeasers on both sides of the aisle (and probably a barrage of phone calls stoked by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck). In his apology speech he said that he hoped his mea culpa would allow him to “become as insignificant as [he] should be.”

Now, I ask you, how does Congressman Stark being "insignificant" in congress serve his constituents and the nation? Do we want our representatives to just go through the motions of pretending to be working for the people and thus serving to help legitimize this illegal government? That is called enabling and reflects a similar time when in Nazi Germany the Reichstag passed a law called the Enabling Act, which gave Hitler dictatorial powers and made Germany's legislators obsolete. Is this what Stark and the Democrats are doing?

Many of us have already figured out that the democrats are acting as co-conspirators against the American people and the Constitution. As proof we just can look at the recently passed bill (HR 1955) titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, sponsored by Democrat Jane Harmon. The vote for passage in the House of Representatives was 404 ayes to 6 nays and 22 representatives not voting. Eleven of the fifteen sponsors of this bill are Democrats. There are three main components to defining who is a homegrown terrorist in this bill:

VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.

HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

IDEOLOGICALLY BASED VIOLENCE- the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual's political, religious, or social beliefs.
www.govtrack.us

Why is this so scary? Well, if I help to promote an anti-war or 9/11 Truth event in front of the White House and someone (a provocateur?) shoves and injures a police officer, I could be liable for prosecution under this new law.

And, who gets to define what is an "extremist belief system"? The President? Jane Harmon's new committee? What about Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly?

Already Glenn Beck has called 9/11 Truthers "Timothy McVeigh" types, and Bill O'Reilly has called anti-war activists "America Haters" and dangerous (see videos below), even though there is no evidence that either of the groups are violently inclined.

No doubt there will now be agent provocateurs who will align themselves with Truthers or anti-war activists to implicate them in some future violent incidences. Let us not forget that Donald Rumsfeld advocated (created?) for an elite "counter-terrorism" group called P2OG that would provoke terrorist attacks against U.S. citizens in order to save U.S. citizens from terrorist attacks. According to sourcewatch.org:
"The Los Angeles Times has revealed the creation of an organisation by US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld called the 'Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group.' Its purpose is to 'bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence, and cover and deception'. The PPOG's role is to manufacture the terrorism that is to be combatted.
www.sourcewatch.org
It doesn't get any more Orwellian --and more self-fullfilling -- then this.

So, let's thank the Democrats for helping to destroy the First Amendment and our rights to free speech. And, while we are at it, we can also thank them for refusing to investigate massive vote fraud in the last two presidential elections; refusing to consider impeachment of the President and Vice President, men who have committed gross international and domestic crimes; refusing to support a truly independent investigation into the crime of 9/11; refusing to stop financing the phony "War on Terror"; refusing to hold the President accountable for spying on the American people; refusing to insist that torture be stopped by this government; refusal to hold the President accountable for calling the Constitution "just a goddamn piece of paper; refusal to uphold their oaths of office to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

We are effectively at a time when we should all be reading the Declaration of Independence for inspiration as to where we are in history and what we need to do next.



And here is Bill O'Reilly who says "9/11 Truthers hate America"