What goes with the “split” between the anti-war movement and the 9/11Truth movement? Some light was shed on this regrettable reality in Boston the weekend of Jan. 30-31, 2010. On Saturday New England United (NEU), an umbrella group, held an anti-war strategy conference. The next day Northeast 9/11Truth held its strategy conference, in part an analysis of the previous day’s events.
As both a lifelong member of the peace movement, and a committed 9/11Truther, I attended all of the Saturday conference where I was a workshop leader, and the first half of the Sunday conference (having to leave early because of travel arrangements). My main points:
1) There is a split but it has not been initiated, nor is it maintained, by members of the 9/11Truth movement. Truthers stand just as proudly and tall in their opposition to war as anyone in the peace movement. Truthers also are just as fully dedicated to the goals of justice, equality and environmentalism as are anti-war activists.
2) The split is unilateral from the anti-war movement’s side, especially from leaders and organizers. Those at the grassroots level trust and take their cues from the leaders. The result is a widespread attitude toward 9/11Truth that ranges from scepticism to outright hostility. This is why I choose the heading “The Peace Movement versus the 9/11Truth Movement.”
3) A leading cause of the unilateral split is the work of planted agents of the state – spooks -- whose instructions are to do this splitting. The Chinese call such agents “splittists.” The peace movement has been around for decades, so there’s been loads of time for the national security state to install numerous agents within it. Added to their usual instructions to slyly foment divisiveness within peace groups and derail effective anti-war actions are new orders to combat the dynamic truth movement.
Point 3 is tough, I know. But it’s an issue that must be confronted and in no way should be taken as an across-the-board slam at all members of the peace movement. I am not alone in my assessment. At the Sunday Truthers conference the first topic was “How explain the resistance to 9/11Truth in the peace movement?” Paul Zarembka, Professor of Economics at the University of Buffalo and editor of The Hidden History of 9/11, offered four reasons. His first: “agents and gatekeepers among us.” Sander Hicks, author of The Big Wedding: 9/11, the Whistleblowers, and the Cover-Up, offered seven reasons. His first: “The state, COINTELPRO.”
Of course, activities by state infiltrators do not completely explain the split. Other reasons include fears of all kinds, ignorance of history, a powerful culture of militaristic nationalism in the USA and the largest reason everywhere, the treasonous complicity of corporate mainstream media and almost all so-called alternative media. They conspire in de facto censorship, deliberate avoidance of investigative reporting plus psychological warfare against the Truth movement.
These explanations for denial of or hostility to 9/11Truth also apply to the population at large and across issues. Peter Phillips is a professor of sociology at Sonoma State University in California, president of the Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored and serves on the 9/11Truth steering committee. Phillips and Mickey Huff in a recent article state: “An international truth emergency, now in evidence, is the result of a lack of fact based, transparent, and truthful reporting on fraudulent elections, compromised 9/11 investigations, illegal pre-emptive wars, compounded by top down corporate media propaganda across the spectrum on public issues.” They add: “Consumers of corporate news media—especially those whose understandings are framed primarily from that medium alone—are embedded in a state of excited delirium of knowinglessness.”
In my estimation the black operations of government moles are a key reason for the malfeasance of the media as well as the main explanation for the peace movement’s antagonism against 9/11Truth. The undoubted existence of undercover operatives and agents provocateurs has not been discussed nearly to the extent justified. A major elevation of this topic is ‘way overdue.
Followers in the anti-war movement “do not realize,” as Paul Craig Roberts wrote Sept. 15th, 2009, in Information Clearing House, “that by accepting the [government’s] 9/11 explanation they have undermined their own opposition to the war. Once you accept that Muslim terrorists did it, it is difficult to oppose punishing them for the event. [Anti-war activists] do not understand that if you grant the government its premise for war, it is impossible to oppose the war.”
It’s tough to prove agentry. Agents do not “out” themselves. Covert activity is their game. Deception and betrayal are their tools. Other approaches, however, are available to spot spooks. “By their fruits ye shall know them” is helpful. When ostensible peaceniks committed to peace and democracy engage in name-calling, we are entitled to ask whether they are simply individuals lacking civility and self-control, or are individuals deliberately causing tensions. When those who “study peace” have had eight years to invest just an hour or two looking into the overwhelming evidence that the official conspiracy theory of 9/11 cannot possibly be true, and have failed to do so, we are entitled to theorize beyond the explanation that we are simply “puzzled.” When members of the peace movement avow that they are committed to truth, justice and peace but fail in their commitment to truth in connection with 9/11 -- arguably the most pivotal war-triggering event of modern times – we’re entitled to question the authenticity of their commitment. It would be insulting to explain their shortcoming as due to stupidity. And if the explanation is ignorance, after eight years during which all persons interested in current affairs must have encountered evidence of 9/11Truth, it must be in most cases some variation of wilful ignorance.
Consider how easy it is for agents of the state to operate. First, the state has virtually unlimited resources for recruiting, training and deploying agents. Second, agents have no legal or moral restraints. They act with complete impunity. (It’s gratifying that there now is an International Coalition Against Impunity, www.icaihokok.org). Volunteer organizations are easy as pie to infiltrate. All it takes is a trained sneak with a believable “legend” to lie his or her way into the confidence of the group.
The world of “guerrilla marketing” provides examples of the ease with which groups can be manipulated. A vodka company identifies heavy vodka drinkers -- those who already drink their brand and others they entice to try it. The drinkers are all friends together. The heavy users are “opinion leaders.” By their drink orders at bars they are “role models” who trigger others to order the same brand they do. It’s called peer group pressure. Even more effective is a conscious agent following sophisticated instructions in swaying a peer group.
There was an illuminating lead-up to the conference of New England United. Only after months-long effective lobbying by an indefatigable member of Northeast 9/11Truth did NEU organizers agree that a person identified with the 9/11Truth movement could be one of four panelists in the afternoon. This was Peter Dale Scott, former Canadian diplomat, an English professor at the University of California in Berkeley and author of The Road to 9/11. Scott, whose work I much admire, in fact has drawn short of fully recognizing and endorsing the voluminous evidence that 9/11 was an inside job. Nevertheless, his acceptance at an anti-war gathering in 2010 was generally agreed to be a “breakthrough.”
It turned out that he had to cancel scant days before, as his wife took seriously ill. The Northeast Truthers proposed that, should an attempt to have Scott address the NEU conference by video-over-Skype fail, that I be the stand-in. The organizers rejected me (believe me, this account is not motivated by sour grapes) on the basis, after alleged “extensive research,” of my alleged “extreme rightwing” views and my alleged long and close association with historian and writer Webster Tarpley. He in turn was identified only as a LaRouchite. For anyone who knows me this description was bizarrely incorrect. If news of my “extreme rightwing views” reaches the Mounties it will puzzle the hell out of them.
As it turned out Scott’s addressing the audience in Boston from California via Skype worked. Relevant to this report, he made this comment: “This brings us to 9/11. […] before the last plane had crashed in Pennsylvania, the White House authorized the institution of so-called Continuity of Government [COG] changes. There is no doubt that COG was introduced – the 9/11 Report confirms it twice, on pages 38 and 326. And I have little doubt that the COG plans, still in force today under president Obama, are the justification for the surveillance agents who are with you in the room as I speak to you at this moment.”
The 300 or so attendees at the NEU conference studiously avoided the 9/11Truth literature table. Book sales are a key indicator of interest. I sold three of the 20 copies I had brought of my book Towers of Deception: The Media Cover-Up of 9/11 (fortunately the rest sold to Truthers the next day). Other Truther materials similarly were mainly passed by.
After the speakers of the Saturday morning panel had been heard, the floor was opened for questions. The first questioner was a young man in a green tee shirt. I’d say he was a plant. With reference to nothing any of the panelists had said, he claimed to be “disturbed” by “the logic” of the 9/11Truth movement, and asked the panelists what they thought. Glen Ford of the Glen Ford Black Agenda (radio) Report responded that “the inside job [theory] doesn’t fly” and that “we have all the dirt on what they [the oligarchy] [has] already done.” This garnered a great deal of enthusiastic applause, accompanied by a few boos. The next day Sander Hicks reported a conversation he had subsequently with Ford, who told him that he answered the question the way he did “out of deference to the organizers.”
Nevertheless, the workshop session entitled “Covert and False Flag Operations and 9/11: Pretext for the Continuing War on Terror” was standing room only with about 65 in attendance. My poll of those attending showed that only two believed the official 9/11 story. All the others raised their hands for “inside job.”
At the Sunday Northeast Truthers conference Hicks suggested that part of the reason for peace movement members’ antagonism to 9/11Truth is that they know they are the “fading sunset left” who have “lost the passion,” whereas the Truther movement is fresh and passionate. Along the same line of thought Frank Tolopko, producer of the bi-weekly radio program “The 9/11 Report” on WBCR in Great Barrington, Mass. suggested a fundamental reason that a left gatekeeper such as Amy Goodman would reject 9/11Truth is that she is promoting “a concept of bourgeois democracy that is over.” As I quoted Chris Hedges from his new book Empire of Illusion: the US form of governance has become “participatory fascism.” Goodman takes foundation money to promote democracy now on Democracy Now. Said Tolopko: “If the system can’t be reformed, if 9/11 is an inside job, then she’s out of a job. Goodman is terrified.”
Alphonse Olszewski of St. Louis, Missouri, founder of Veterans for 9/11Truth, knows the power of naming. One contribution he’s made to anti-splittism is renaming his group Veterans for 9/11 Truth, Peace and Justice. There cannot be peace without justice and there cannot be justice without truth. Anything that underscores the primacy of truth, in my view, is to the good. And anything that builds bridges of common understanding and respect between people of peace who understand the significance of the fraudulent nature of 9/11 and people of peace who have not yet connected that dot to the anti-war dot is to the good. I was gratified to see somewhere over the weekend that the admonition “speak truth to power” is outdated, because “power never listens.” The suggested update: “Challenge Power With Truth.”
For those members of the peace movement who are sincere, think for themselves, and are open, I can’t recommend too highly a videotape of a short talk given by Graeme MacQueen at the “We Demand Transparency” conference organized by Sander Hicks in New York City Sept. 12 and 13 of 2009. MacQueen is an associate professor in the Religious Studies Department and in Hamilton and former director of McMaster’s Centre for Peace Studies.
In concluding his talk, addressed to “not just people in the peace movement but everybody,” he said: “This is the worst time in history to inflame societies with the spirit of war; it is the worst time to be taken in by fraudulent trigger incidents, the most important time to reject the war system, and to co-operate with the rest of humanity to solve the grave ecological problems we face, which collectively threaten our civilization.” He went on to quote the testimony of a New York fireman, Kenneth Rogers. Rogers testified he looked directly at the collapsing towers on 9/11, hearing explosions and seeing evidence of them. “The reasons he saw things the others didn’t see,” MacQueen said, “is because he didn’t leave the scene and he didn’t turn his head away. He stood there and he looked at it and that’s all I’m asking members of the peace movement to do. Stop turning your head away; don’t flee the scene. Look at it, please.” The video can be found at http://www.boston911truth.org
Actor and 9/11 truth activist, Daniel Sunjata, gave a rousing speech from New York's Battery Park this Sunday in support of NYC CAN's New York City ballot initiative to create a new independent commission to re-investigate 9/11.
The actor who plays Franco Rivera on the critically-aclaimed television show 'Rescue Me' demanded that the city of New York respect the wishes of over 80,000 signatories who want to see a new investigation of 9/11.
Sunjata, one of many celebrities who have come out in support of 9/11 Truth over recent years, spoke of the trampling of civil liberties and the complicity of the political system in keeping the truth about what happened on 9/11 from being known.
“While the specter of 9/11 is raised repeatedly, ghoulishly, dangled before us to justify the dismemberment of our Constitution, the trampling of our civil liberties. Questioning 9/11 itself? Oh, that is strictly prohibited. Do you hear that, New York? Do you hear that, family members? Cops? Firefighters? First responders? Your government has just told you, again, again, that you are good enough to die for them, but that asking questions about the inciting event is un-American, unpatriotic and just quite simply out of bounds,” said an impassioned Sunjata.
According to a NYC CAN's media advisory, the group believes that the 9/11 Commission Report is a "disgrace" as it failed to address most of the victims family member's questions and significant details as to what happened that day and leading up to the event, and that is the reason for the ballot initiative calling for a new investigation.
So far the city is trying to kill this initiative by claiming that it doesn't have jurisdiction to investigated the greatest crime in its history. According the City Clerk, Michael McSweeney, these reasons were given:
First, the federal government has jurisdiction over an investigation into the attacks that took place on September 11 as well as the causes of those attacks. Establishing a local commission to conduct such an investigation far exceeds the proper scope and purpose of the petition process of the MHRL. Second, the petition fails to provide an adequate financing plan for the Commission as required by section 37 of the MHRL. Third, the petition's method of designating Commissioners conflicts with state laws relating to the election or appointment of public officers and the residency of public officers. Fourth, the petition overreaches in its attempt to confer a range of law enforcement and prosecutorial powers on the Commission. Fifth, the subject of this proposed amendment to the Charter does not relate to an existing Charter provision as is required by section 37.
It seems like the City of New York will try to kill the bill through bureaucratic fiat, which is done quite regularly to ballot initiatives unpopular to the status quo. Sunjata says this about the City's obstructionism:
“We have received, for our efforts, a slap in the face and a kick in the mouth. Although 80,000 New Yorkers have voice their desire, in writing, to include on November’s mayoral ballot the referendum for a new and actual investigation into 9/11, New York City has responded by taking the position that it has no jurisdiction in that matter.”
“No jurisdiction?!” he shouted. “No jurisdiction into the murder of 3,000 of its own citizens? No jurisdiction or the intent of seeking such jurisdiction. Bloomberg.”
On September 25, the legal staff of NYCCAN filed a motion to reject referee Louis Crespo's recommendation to rule in favor of the City decisions to kill the ballot initiative, and now Supreme Court Justice Edward Lehner is considering their arguments. Though October 2 was to be the deadline as to a decision on whether the petition's legality, we are still waiting to hear from the court. An appeal is planned by the NYC CAN's if the petition is rejected.
For more information on the case and NYC CAN's petition, visit NYCCAN.org
(Carol Brouillet is a mother, a 9/11 Truth and Peace activist who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. This courageous woman is running as the Green party candidate in the 14th congressional district in California. You can hear her platform and read her running statement here: www.carol4congress.org. In the article below Carol describes how we are now experiencing a truly transformable moment in history, one in which the veil of deception and myths that hold the facade of the global power structure together is beginning to unravel. With this unraveling a new consciousness based on truth, love and compassion can be the motivator for empowering people to reform the outmoded structures of oppression.)
Evolution of the Apocalypse Empire's Demise- Human Renaissance
Apocalypse (Greek for "lifting of the veil") is a term applied to the disclosure to certain privileged persons of something hidden from the majority of humankind. Today the term is often used to refer to the end of the world, which may be a shortening of the phrase apokalupsis eschaton, which literally means "revelation at the end of the aeon, or age.(1) "
The unraveling of the US and global financial system should not be a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention, doubted the news headlines over the past decade, or plunged into an odyssey of self- and world-discovery by reading books, studying history, or seeking the truth behind the cultural myths that cocoon Americans into the notion that they live in the world's beacon of democracy and freedom. The most surprising factor is that people who have created the crisis think that they can continue the scam by stealing another $850,000,000,000 overtly through the bailout, and even larger amounts covertly, to keep the game going for the world's wealthiest people at the expense of everyone else.
In the past, Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and Rome fell when a small percentage of the population controlled nearly all of the wealth.(2) Today, the rich have never been richer nor the poor poorer. The concentration of wealth has been achieved by conquest, as well as by one of the most powerful tools of empire--money.
Debt-based monetary systems are the building blocks of empires, and generally empires collapse or topple when they have destroyed their ecological base. The current global empire severely threatens the forests, the oceans, the climate, the fertility of the soil, the aquifers, the bees, and innumerable other species, including humanity.
There is a Cree prophecy that goes as follows(3):
"When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money."
Caught up in the empire game, many have forgotten the difference between money and real wealth. Money is a human invention. It is not neutral. Who creates it, how it flows in a society, a nation, and the world is important and subject to change. Money is an agreement that can be backed either by force or by a spirit of cooperation.(4)
Bankers, like magicians, do not want to reveal their secrets. Able to create money out of thin air, they have learned that belief in the value of money is the key to their success. When people begin to doubt the purchasing power of money, banks fail and currencies collapse.
The "modern" fractional reserve banking system has evolved over centuries.(5) "Mortgage" literally means "death-gamble." When mortgages were first introduced, those who risked their land to borrow money were literally risking the lives of their families, their liberty, and their hopes for the future. Only gradually, over eons of time, did the idea of a "mortgage" become more commonplace, acceptable, and even encouraged. Mortgages became attached to the "dream of home ownership" and provided the liquid currency to fuel "national economies."
The origins of paper money can be traced to receipts that goldsmiths provided to their customers, who would leave their gold with a goldsmith for safekeeping. Centuries ago goldsmiths began giving out receipts for the gold that they safeguarded, and people soon learned that the receipts were more useful for business transactions than heavy amounts of gold. Some enterprising goldsmith figured out that it was not necessary to maintain a supply of gold equal to all the receipts issued, because all the customers would never come to claim their gold at the same time. Because large amounts of gold weren't necessary to ensure the utility of receipts, the goldsmith was able to issue many times as many receipts as he had gold in his vault, and the fractional reserve system was born. Since goldsmiths began to loan gold and receipts at interest, the system of "debt money" was born in which customers had to pay back more money (receipts) than were in circulation--thus ensuring that the community as a whole would always be in debt to the goldsmith.
When money is created by the banks and loaned to governments or business at interest, it is mathematically impossible to pay back all the money with interest. Not all debts can be repaid, so foreclosures occur. In this way wealth is continually transferred from the poor to the rich.
Kings, queens, and nations have succumbed to the power of those who lend them money, finance their wars, pay their armed forces--and own the means of communication, which either provide rulers their aura of legitimacy or can just as easily demonize and dethrone them.
Over a hundred years ago, the populist movement in the United States rose up in the wake of the collapse of agricultural prices that threatened farmers and enriched bankers. The farmers pushed for monetary reform, including the demand that dollars be backed by silver rather than gold. The populists also argued that money should be created by the government for the benefit of the people, rather than by banks for the benefit of the bankers.
In 1890 the German economist Silvio Gesell formulated a theory of money that was as revolutionary as the notion that the earth circles the sun, rather than the other way around--despite appearances. Gesell suggested securing the money flow by making money a governmental service subject to a use fee. Instead of paying interest to those who have more money than they need, people would pay a small fee if they kept money out of circulation. The fee would serve as income to the government and would reduce the amount of taxes needed to carry out public tasks.
Gesell's ideas were tested by the mayor of Worgl, Austria, in 1932 when economic conditions were deplorable. The mayor proposed to substitute a local currency for the national currency--which he called "work certificates." On the first of every month the holder had to affix a 1 percent stamp of the face value of the certificate. The "taxes" went into the community chest, to provide a relief fund for the invalids or elderly who were unable to work. Because of the stamp tax, taxes were paid quickly, accounts were settled without the usual delays, and even the bank became eager to loan out money, as fast as it received it.
The mayor then embarked upon a public works program "to alleviate want, give work and bread," which exceeded his highest hopes. The conditions of the streets of Worgl had been a standing joke to the people in the surrounding countryside. In less than four months, sewers and improvements were completed. Later, other streets were paved, and even streets outside of Worgl were repaired. Prosperity blossomed throughout Worgl.
Inspired by Worgl's success, a meeting of 200 Austrian mayors decided unanimously to follow the Worgl example in their impoverished communities. At this point, fearful of losing its power, the private Austrian National Bank protested against the shattering of its money-making monopoly. After a legal fight, the Austrian Supreme Court sided with the bank, as might be expected. Although this experiment was abruptly terminated in Austria, the Worgl experience inspired three or four hundred scrips in circulation in the United States, Canada, and Mexico during the Great Depression.(6)
If the Federal Reserve were actually a part of the US government, would the US government need to borrow money? Wouldn't it be able to just print its own? In 1913 the Federal Reserve Act took away Congress's Constitutional power of regulating the value of money and bequeathed it to private banks.(7) Since then the financial plight of the US government has been dire and under pressure from the very rich, who choose which candidates and politicians will serve their interests and oust those who threaten them.
In recent times there have been numerous communications revolutions, including radio, television, and the Internet, and social movements have also arisen. At the same time there has also been the consolidation and expansion of corporate power served by new centers of supranational power, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. Alex Carey said:
"The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.''(8)
During this time money and resources have flowed from poor countries to rich industrialized nations. The Structural Adjustment Programs forced upon nations by the World Bank and the IMF have meant shifting food production from domestic needs to export crops, devaluing local currency to encourage exports, cutting social spending on health and education, reducing wages, privatizing national industries, selling off natural resources, and removing tariff protections for local industries. Hunger, unemployment, hardship and inequality are the direct and calculated results of these World Bank policies.
The vertical integration of entire industries has taken place with the rise of giant transnational corporations whose economies are larger than that of many countries.
At the end of World War II, when the Bretton Woods Agreements were signed, the dollar became the de facto "world currency" and was backed by American gold reserves. In 1972, in the midst of the Vietnam War, when President Nixon detached the dollar from the gold standard, he detached the dollar from anything of real tangible value and basically allowed the currency rates of every nation to fluctuate in relationship to one another's currencies. The dollar was then backed by oil and American military might.
In those days 98 percent of foreign exchange transactions had to do with the exchange of goods and services and only 2 percent were speculative. Today the vast majority of foreign exchange transactions have been speculative and less than 2 percent are for the exchange of real goods and services.
Measurements have inherent limitations and biases. The family existed before money did. Villages grew out of interdependent relationships between families. As societies have grown more complex, hierarchies have developed and the "public family" or the state has created institutions that have taken over many of the functions once met within the household, such as educating children and caring for the sick.(9)
In urban environments, basic living skills have been lost, people are more dependent than ever on the state or a monetized economy to meet their basic needs. In order to get slaves or labor to serve industries, people had to be forced away from the land where they once were able to sustain themselves.
In the film "Who's Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics," Marilyn unravels many of the problems in the global system. The IMF and the World Bank were created to maintain certain power relations and exercise control over the world's resources. The U.N. System of National Accounts was based upon a pamphlet entitled "How to Pay for the War." That system, imposed upon every country that joins the U.N., enables the global elite to finance their militaries, to engage in conflicts with other nations, and to build internal security forces to control populations who might not agree with the expropriation of their country's resources.
The system assumes that the unpaid work of women--who are bearing children, raising them, feeding them, carrying for the sick and aged, and maintaining a home or garden--is of little or no importance. Nor does the system recognize the value of forests or the natural world unless they can be chopped down and sold or monetized in some way. Monetary transactions are measured, no matter how devastating their effects are on the environment. The arms industry is the most lucrative of all industries. It is in the economic interest of the major powers that there always be a war going on somewhere. This pathological system does not recognize the inherent value of life, peace, or the earth itself. It does not even notice anything of unquantifiable value; it only sees that which it measures--money.(10)
Maximizing profits is the primary value in modern economics. The economic measure of monetary flow is directly related to the rape of the earth, the amount of exploitation occurring within a country, and how effectively the world's parasites are expropriating the labor of others and the natural world.
The global economy is a war economy. While the importance of oil for both energy and military purposes is enormous, dwarfing the oil industry in monetary terms is the illegal trafficking in drugs. Laundered drug money in enormous quantities has always found its way into the large financial centers and into key industries.
In criminal law, fraud is the crime or offense of deliberately deceiving another in order to damage them - usually, to obtain property or services unjustly ...
Fraud for profit is often perpetrated by industry professionals. There are generally multiple loan transactions with several financial institutions involved. These frauds include misrepresentations including the following: Income is overstated, assets are overstated, collateral is overstated, the length of employment is overstated (or fictitious employment is reported), and employment is backstopped by conspirators. The property value is inflated (faulty appraisal) to increase the sales value to make up for their being no down payment and to generate cash proceeds in fraud for profit.(11)
In the 80s, Congress paved the way for the savings and loan scandal by loosening regulations, which cost taxpayers $160.1 billion. John McCain was one of the "Keating Five" rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for exercising "poor judgment" for intervening with the federal regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, who was at the center of the scandal and convicted of fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy.
The history of the stock market reveals a transition from investments in real companies producing tangible, measurable products and services toward "financial instruments" of an increasingly speculative nature. Electronic money, borrowed and loaned into existence, flowing through cyberspace, can wreak havoc and collapse entire nations' economies. In the 90s the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) was devised to ensure the ability of speculators and multinational corporations to move capital in and out of countries without governmental involvement or public interest safeguards.(12) Recognizing the dangers of this agreement to the interests of people everywhere, civil society organized global resistance via the Internet to defeat the MAI.
The 90s also witnessed major consolidation of the mass media, the frenzy of speculation in the high-tech industry, and the development and expansion of Internet commerce. New technologies permitted local, national, and international communications and organizing to occur, which profoundly challenged the credibility and legitimacy of established governments, corporations, and the corporate press.
Global resistance to corporate globalization broke through the mainstream media barrier in the US in 1999 in Seattle, Washington, when tens of thousands of protestors tried to peacefully shut down a World Trade Organization meeting. The first Indymedia.org website was created specifically for that protest to share information from the point of view of activists. Since then the Indymedia network has grown to span the globe--particularly in those cities where international protests have been organized, the main website is accessible in eight languages.
Under President Clinton in 1999 and the leadership of Senator Phil Gramm (now co-chair of the McCain campaign), Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act which removed Depression-era laws separating banking, insurance, and brokerage activities and helped pave the way for the next wave of financial integration and fraud. In late 2000 when Gramm chaired the Senate Banking Committee, he pushed through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act--which prohibited federal agencies from regulating financial products called credit default swaps, which have been used to back up the mortgage-based securities. The credit default swaps are the major reason for the 54 trillion dollar liabilities that are threatening financial institutions worldwide. (After the legislation passed, the Swiss bank UBS purchased American institutions. UBS then hired Gramm as a lobbyist and paid him over $750,000. UBS alone issues over $18 billion in subprime mortgages.)(14)
Throughout history there has been a struggle in all societies between a ruling class and the many who are not so privileged. Toynbee noted that the world struggle takes place between a few vested interests and social justice. There has always been a struggle between tyrants and ordinary people, where the people have made some gains and have also had setbacks.
Social movements are born when public myths are shattered, societal secrets are revealed, and people realize that powerholders are acting in violation of deeply held values. In the current era, the Internet has allowed for the increasingly rapid transmission of information challenging powerholders, institutions, and cultural myths.
Social movements are collective actions that alert, educate, and mobilize the public to redress social problems or grievances. With all the problems confronting humanity there are innumerable social movements, which have evolved and learned from one another. At times they have come together in increasingly powerful coalitions. Professor and author Anthony Hall has called them "the fourth world,"(15) and others refer to them as the "anti-corporate globalization movement" or the "global justice movement."
In January of 2001 while the World Economic Forum was meeting in Switzerland, thousands of people from hundreds of countries met at the first World Social Forum in Porto Allegre, Brazil, a convergence of social movements. Their points of agreement included opposition to the policies of the IMF, World Bank, and WTO; opposition to militarism, corporate globalization, and environmental destruction; and support for public participation in decision-making processes, and for the respect for people and life over profits. Social movements are an evolutionary force that pushes people to live up to their ideals and values and enables people to exercise their collective power.
When people believe that power flows downward from those at the top of institutions towards the helpless at the bottom of the pyramid, tyranny rules. Most people believe in this model. Under this model, change can be achieved only by appealing to elites, using persuasion. However, when people discover their own power and belief in democracy--that government should be "of, by, and for the people"--power flows from them through institutions to powerholders and public servants. True democratic power comes from the bottom, results in social progress, and powerholders and policies are changed to meet popular social demands.(16)
The strategy of the powerholders is not to broadcast the truth about their beliefs, actions, policies, and programs. They know who benefits from the unfair distribution of benefits and costs within the existing system. They must keep their actual policies hidden from the public, because they rightly fear that the majority would rebel if they knew the truth. Powerholders habitually use myths, slogans, and rhetoric to sell their policies and programs to the public.
One of the great American myths that is promulgated by powerholders is the idea that we have a watchdog press. Over 3,000 people attended the last two National Conferences on Media Reform, primarily because of their deep concern about the failure of the traditional media. Lord Northcliffe said, "News is something that someone wants suppressed; all the rest is advertising."
Colossal crimes have been committed and then masked by the media for centuries. But the larger pattern in this era of information--including names, dates, evidence, and various kinds of documentation--is coming to light at a staggering rate, beyond the capacity of any one individual to absorb, read, process, and disseminate all the details. In turn the information is gradually reaching the most heavily propagandized target audience--the American public, who are increasingly losing faith in their government, the war, the Congress, and the financial system.
As Aung San Suu Kyi wrote, "It is not power that corrupts, but fear--fear of losing power and fear of the scourge of those who wield it."
Fear, war, and terror are routinely used to shut down rational thinking processes--a tactic that Naomi Klein outlines in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism(17) (as well as in the video(18) ). Klein fails to recognize, however, that 9/11 was designed to terrorize Americans and the world into going along with the bogus "War on Terror," to forget about the missing $2.3 trillion on the Department of Defense books(19), the stolen election(20) , the evidence destroyed in the Securities and Exchange Commission's offices in World Trade Center 7(21), to not even notice the massive insider trading(22), and then to permit a giant escalation in the military budget and the construction of the surveillance industry. The plunge in the stock market and the "apparent attack" on America's financial center also prompted the Fed to lower interest rates, which helped the housing market--and Bush encouraged folks to "go shopping."
The best historical parallel to 9/11 would be the Reichstag fire, which Hitler used to vilify and target "communists" and pass the Enabling Act (similar to the PATRIOT Act), before launching wars of aggression. The PATRIOT Act was mirrored by legislation passed in Canada, Australia, and the UK, severely eroding civil rights and granting more power to governments to chill dissent--to monitor and crack down on those they considered a threat.
With the bust of the dot com bubble, speculative money went into real estate, housing, and derivatives(23) . Congress and the Bush administration changed laws and regulations to lure people into borrowing money, purchasing homes, and investing their savings in the 21st century Ponzi schemes. Elliot Spitzer was vilified by the press the day before he wrote an article naming Bush as the "Predator Lenders' Partner in Crime," saying
"In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act pre-empting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. ...
"Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye."(24)
Close scrutiny of powerholders running the government, institutions, and corporations reveals conflicting loyalties and economic interests. Legislators in fact represent the millionaires and billionaires who fund them and who continually rewrite the rules in their own favor and have decided that the Constitution is obsolete.
The unfolding financial crisis has been arriving in wave after destructive wave. People have lost their homes, their jobs, their savings, their health, their marriages, their kids, and finally their hope.
The housing bubble began to burst when home prices in the US began to decline in March and April of 2007. The IMF warned of risks to global financial markets. Bear Stearns was in trouble in June 2007 because of its mortgage-backed securities. In the summer of 2007 German banks were in trouble and foreclosures in the US almost doubled. In September 2007 there was a run on Northern Rock, which the British government nationalized, and the Fed began to drop interest rates to help the housing market. In January 2008, UBS reported $18 billion in write-downs due to US real estate exposure. In February, Fannie Mae reported a $3.55 billion loss.(25)
In March, however, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department directed money towards the 85-year-old investment bank Bear Stearns, via JP Morgan(26) and $200 billion went to prop up Fannie Mae. By April the IMF projected $945 billion in losses. In June housing possessions doubled again, and the FBI announced the arrest of over 400 people charged with mortgage fraud, including two senior managers of the failed Bear Stearns Hedge Funds.(27) In July Congress passed the Foreclosures Prevention Act, which was a $33 billion hand-out to those who helped create the problem, according to a report by the Laborers' International Union of North America. Under the bill's little-publicized "carry-back" provision, builders would get billions in tax breaks and the 15 largest corporate homebuilders, who made $16 billion in profits on $100 billion in revenues, would receive a third of the benefits.(28)
In September 2008, the Fed, in an unprecedented move, lent $85 billion to the American International Group (AIG), the nation's largest insurance company, which also handled credit default swaps and suffered losses from its subprime mortgage-backed securities holdings.(29) Then Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and Bank of America devoured Merrill Lynch. Soon there was a run on money market funds, and short selling of financial stocks was suspended globally. Bush made a speech acknowledging that there was a serious crisis, and backed Paulson's bailout plea.
There were only a few voices in Congress that dared to challenge the current bailout of the speculators so intimately involved in created the current financial crisis. Anyone could look up Henry Paulson on the internet to discover his ties to Goldman Sachs, but these ties were not emphasized in the mainstream media. According to Wikipedia notes:
"Paulson was Staff Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon from 1970 to 1972... He joined Goldman Sachs in 1974... He became a partner in 1982. From 1983 until 1988, Paulson led the Investment Banking group for the Midwest Region, and became managing partner of the Chicago office in 1988. From 1990 to November 1994, he was co-head of Investment Banking, then, Chief Operating Officer from December 1994 to June 1998; eventually succeeding Jon Corzine (now Governor of New Jersey) as its chief executive. His compensation package, according to reports, was US$37 million in 2005, and US$16.4 million projected for 2006. His net worth has been estimated at over US$700 million. Paulson has personally built close relations with China during his career. In July 2008 it was reported by The Daily Telegraph that: "Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has intimate relations with the Chinese elite, dating from his days at Goldman Sachs when he visited the country more than 70 times. ...
"There is increasing evidence that Paulson was influential with two U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairmen, William H. Donaldson and Christopher Cox, in receiving restraint in the Commission's exercise of oversight requirements. In 2004...the Commission agreed unanimously to release the major investment houses from the net capital rule, the requirement that their brokerages hold reserve capital that limited their leverage and risk exposure. The complaint that was put forth by the investment banks was of increasingly onerous regulatory requirements--in this case, not U.S. regulator oversight, but European Union regulation of the foreign operations of US investment groups. In the immediate lead-up to the decision, EU regulators also acceded to US pressure, and agreed not to scrutinize foreign firms' reserve holdings if the SEC agreed to do so instead. The 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, however, put the parent holding company of each of the big American brokerages beyond SEC oversight. In order for the agreement to go ahead, the investment banks lobbied for a decision that would allow "voluntary" inspection of their parent and subsidiary holdings by the SEC.
"During this repeal of the net capital rule, SEC Chairman Donaldson agreed to the establishment of a risk management office that would monitor signs of future problems. This office was eventually dismantled by Chairman Cox, after discussions with Paulson. According to the New York Times, 'While other financial regulatory agencies criticized a blueprint by Mr. Paulson, the [new] Treasury secretary, that proposed to reduce their stature -- and that of the S.E.C. -- Mr. Cox did not challenge the plan, leaving it to three former Democratic and Republican commission chairmen to complain that the blueprint would neuter the agency.' Only in late September 2008, Chairman Cox and the other Commissioners agreed to end the 2004 program of voluntary regulation."
With the unregulated credit default swaps posing enormous liabilities to the financial institutions that dwarf the global economy, Paulson's allegiances to Goldman Sachs and AIG will help determine which institutions will fail--or escape, survive, and profit--in the current turmoil.(30)
Henry Paulson asked for and received over $700 billion in taxpayer money with little or no oversight as to who will actually get the money. It is clear that it won't be going to Main Street, and it is more than likely to go to Paulson's Wall Street and foreign friends.
Ohio Representative Marcy Kaptur spoke out bravely against the bill, explaining precisely how it was being rushed through Congress(31) , and Dennis Kucinich condemned it as well. Their token resistance was swept aside, even as Representative Brad Sherman pointed out the fear mongering and panic pressure placed on Congress to push it through.(32) The fear that was generated by insiders and the media, as well as some token pork, helped to get the bill passed on Friday, October 3, 2008. Democrats, Republicans, and both presidential hopefuls were behind the bailout.
Amongst Obama's advisers are Franklin Raines, who was a chairman and chief executive officer at Fannie Mae; and Tim Howard, who was the chief financial officer of Fannie Mae; and Jim Johnson, who was an executive at Lehman Brothers and later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. Howard was forced to retire when auditing discovered severe irregularities in Fannie Mae's accounting activities. The books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years, and Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion. The Government filed suit against Raines and Howard when the scandal became clear(33). The court ordered Raines to return $50 million he received in bonuses based on the misstated Fannie Mae profits. The government investigation determined that "Chief Financial Officer Tim Howard failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae." Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004. Howard's golden parachute was estimated at $20 million. Raines left with a "golden parachute valued at $240 million in benefits. A look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006 report on mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae reveals that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21 million." Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae. Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million.(34)
Any close scrutiny of the financial ties of major politicians--particularly those in office such as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Pelosi, and Feinstein--reveal major conflicts of interest between the politicians and the military, oil, and pharmaceutical industries. At the highest levels, however, there is no accountability. Laws are meaningless to these people. They have the power and influence to pass murderous legislation that enriches and empowers them and their cronies and threatens and impoverishes the rest of us, all of this veiled by a subservient corporate press that bestows upon them an aura of legitimacy. Within government agencies there is corruption, fraud, and the persecution--rather than protection--of whistle-blowers.
When Congress voted $87 billion to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, some of that money was earmarked to suppress dissent in the US. In 2003, thousands of protestors gathered in Miami to oppose the negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Pre-emptive arrests, violent violation of civil rights, brutal treatment of innocent medics, and criminalization of dissent became known as "the Miami model." The militarization of the police and Homeland Security's targeting of anti-war and peace activists have continued and expanded since then--as seen most recently in the protests at the Democratic and Republican Conventions where even the regular press was arrested, and organizers were arrested and charged with "terrorism."
There is a battle going on--a clash of worldviews over what is true, legal, and moral; over who is a terrorist, and who is serving humanity; over who has the right to live, and who has the right or duty to jail, kill, or torture anyone. Every individual will have to decide for themselves what is true and what is legitimate--what is best for themselves, their families, their country, and the whole planet.
The strategy of all social movements is to convince the public that a problem exists and that policies must be changed, and to exercise the people power that resides within themselves into a force that finds solutions to commonly recognized problems.
The perpetrators of 9/11 had a different strategy. Their strategy was to terrify the American people into silence and submission, then bully the Congress into nearly unlimited funding for war and a greatly expanded surveillance industry. The perpetrators of 9/11 used a BIG LIE to sell a "bogus protection racket" to their victims--to institutionalize under the guise of "National/Homeland Security" a greater concentration of wealth and power into fewer hands. Their tools were violence, fear, criminal fraud, manipulating the financial markets, and selling it all to the American people through the megaphone of the mainstream media.
Cheney, like Napoleon, believes that you don't have to suppress a truth--just delay it until it no longer matters. There are a growing number of people who are challenging the lies, especially through the Internet. It is apparent that those in power are very much afraid of the Internet, of people's ability to share information and communicate so that they can organize in unprecedented ways using emerging technologies, or simply gather together in a public space where free speech is still possible.
The deeply held values, symbols, beliefs, sensibilities and traditions that are important to the public are being violated today by the power elite. The majority of people are against the war, torture, and the bailout of Wall Street. Those in power depend on the public to be stupid, uninformed, disengaged, apathetic, cynical, powerless, and silent. Social movements are dependent on empowered, engaged, informed people at every level of society to uphold the values and principles that are being violated by powerholders and their policies. Will the American people continue to wake up and begin to exercise more control over the US government to force changes in policy?
A major cause of social problems is the concentration of political, economic, and military power in the hands of relatively few people. An informed, empowered, and politicized population is required to resolve today's problems and to establish a just, peaceful, sustainable world for all. Political and economic power ultimately rests with the majority population; rulers can only rule with the consent and acquiescence of the people. Where people put their time, energy, and money has a greater impact on society and the world than who they vote for. Elections have been stolen for decades; only an awakened citizenry can oversee and ensure honest elections.
The most important issue is the age-old struggle between the majority of people and the individual and institutional powerholders to determine whether society will be based on the authoritarian model--where power flows from the top down--or the "people power" model of genuine participatory democracy.
Kevin Barrett expressed the following in a talk entitled "A Folklorist Looks at 9/11 'Conspiracy Theories'" (folk meaning "the people," as opposed to the "rulers and the press" who in the past have authoritatively defined "event/reality"):
"Marshall McLuhan's famous line "the medium is the message" could describe the way the 9/11 Truth movement is an artifact of the Internet, and the radically-enhanced folk-communications it has brought. Thanks to digital audiovisuals, email and the world-wide web, the folk are now a leg up on their would-be manipulators, those well-paid professionals in corporate media, public relations, marketing, and psychological warfare or psy-ops, whose collective job is to reify and manipulate their fellow human beings.
"It is one thing for the content of informal, non-institutional, "folk" communication to subvert institutional authority. It is another and more significant thing for the very medium of folk communication to radically shift in a way that empowers the folk and disempowers the institutions. And that is what has happened. The world has been turned upside-down as the old oral-transmission grapevine has gone digital...
"Today's digitally-enhanced subversives and skeptics can spread large numbers of copies of audio, video and photographic evidence, along with an unlimited amount of writing, for pennies. This digital awakening may turn out to be our second post-Gutenberg revolution in half a century. Its importance may rival the emergence of writing, which created hierarchical societies of kings, priests and scribes; with the invention of the printing press, which created the kind of mass-literate societies we call "democratic"; and with the invention of television, which McLuhan suggests created a global village of creeping Orwellian fascism. 9/11, in this view, was the last gasp of television as a means of mind-control via mass hypnosis, while the 9/11 Truth controversies may represent the birth pangs of the new, digitally-enhanced democracy."
It is sobering to know that if the world's population was reduced to 100 representatives, only 1 would have a computer, or have attended college, and he would have more wealth than all the others and be from the United States. While 70 percent of American homes may have access to the Internet, they are not representative of the world. However, an enlightened American people would be a grave danger to the advancement of the American Empire. We are uniquely responsible and able to thwart or advance the aspirations of the US oligarchy. We are also directly under attack by that oligarchy, who view us as a threat and are trying to criminalize dissent.
The financial crisis that faces America and the world today was as orchestrated as the events of 9/11. Similar to what transpired after 9/11, it is likely that the financial crisis will be used to further concentrate wealth and power, crush dissent, criminalize larger and larger numbers of people, trash civil liberties, and generally replace the "rule of law" with the "rule of fear."
There is another possibility, however, which we the people can promote. We can join together to speak up, organize, and challenge the lies, crimes, and illegitimacy of the powerholders and corporations that threaten the well-being of the people of the world. We can create and nurture new organizations to fulfill real needs and aspirations. This is already taking place and can be seen in the rise of nonprofit organizations over the past decade. Ignored by the corporate media, Ron Paul, Cynthia McKinney, and Ralph Nader have raised key issues that the corporate-anointed candidates won't discuss. The public must search the Internet for the statements of these courageous challengers to the oligarchy, because their views are ignored, marginalized, or dismissed in the corporate press--but they nonetheless provide a rallying cry for people looking for true change. At a recent press conference, the third-party candidates clearly represented majority opinions and interests, far better than McCain or Obama.(35)
Repression, reform, revolution or renaissance?
When revolutions occur simultaneously in many different areas, the transformation of society can be called a renaissance. We are witnessing changes happening at a rapid pace in a multitude of areas, and few can begin to keep up with the new technologies and research. As traditional power structures are threatened, new possibilities and synergies are emerging. If the traditional banking system or the dollar collapses, money will be reinvented at the local, regional, national, and probably international levels.
Mike Nickerson, author of Life, Money, & Illusion: Living on Earth as If We Want to Stay, wrote:
"An alternative to panicking when GDP stops growing is to view it as a sign of maturity. Human activity cannot expand forever on our finite planet. Fuel prices, climate change and the sub-prime mortgage crisis are all symptoms of one cause. When we stopped growing as individuals, it was not the end of the world. Indeed, for most of us, life had scarcely begun before physical maturity. Even as physical growth ended, we became better informed, more comfortable in ourselves and we developed the skills and relationships that define our lives. The same can be true for civilization."
The convergence of various crises--including the financial system, peak oil, climate change, population growth, resource depletion, and mass extinctions--is forcing humanity to collectively recognize its limits and mature as a species, simply to survive.(37)
In order to behave maturely, wisely, and responsibly--and to make wise rational decisions--people need to know what is true, what is real.
Mike Nickerson has been championing the Genuine Progress Index to provide more accurate information about how people are affecting the planet and one another. If economic indicators were aligned with universal values such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, economists would ignore the marketplace and concern themselves with the health and well-being of the environment, the health and well-being of every person, and whether the basic human needs for food, water, shelter, clothing, and education were being met.
One of the heftiest charges against members of the Bush Administration is their attack upon science.(38) There is ample evidence that they have ordered agencies to be silent about their findings, or to fudge data to suit political purposes and shape public opinion. Only Bush science, as exemplified in the NIST report, could explain the collapse of all three World Trade Center buildings at free-fall speed as due to fire alone. Hundreds of independent scientists, architects, and engineers have rejected the conclusions of the NIST report. The scientific evidence indicates that two planes could not have shredded three steel-framed buildings, but that controlled demolition does explain their rapid disintegration.
It is increasingly challenging to evaluate scientific studies without knowing who has funded them, and for what particular purpose. Researchers whose findings challenge government or corporate objectives are vilified and lose their funding. Citizen-supported scientific research and data collection whose intention and purpose is clearly in the interests of the health and well-being of people and their environment--whose data can be shared, checked, verified, and corroborated by others in a transparent manner--will ultimately gain the widest acceptance.
Satyagraha, "soul force" or "the force of truth," pioneered by Gandhi, has inspired the social movements of today. According to Schopenhauer, "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
The individual and human journey also passes through stages. As proposed by Abraham Maslow in his classic study Toward a Psychology of Being, healthy people outgrow the self-centered need for material acquisition and find greater joy and purpose in more expansive activities--such as developing friendships, being of service to others, expressing creativity, and joining together with others to solve problems.
The deliberate infantilization of the public and the manipulation of the public mind has contributed to the current crisis in values, where people seem to be concerned only for themselves and are cynical about what is happening in the world.
The cure lies in the maturation of our species. The times that we live in are calling to us to grow up, individually and collectively. We need to develop a greater understanding of ourselves and our world, to develop our talents and skills to make this a better world. Despite the dangers and challenges of the time we live in, we can find meaning and joy through joining together in the search for truth, peace, justice, and, freedom.
As Gandhi and others have demonstrated, the truth, combined with love and compassion, will set us free. As we work together to pursue the truth and expand our awareness, we are lifting the veil and awakening from a media-induced trance so that we can more clearly see how we have allowed our power to be taken from us. This knowledge will empower us to reform the outmoded structures that are so oppressive and to create new systems that truly serve the needs of the people and the planet for current and future generations.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse [2] Debt Virus: A Compelling Solution to the World's Debt Problems, 1995 by Jacques S. Jaikaran [3] http://www.unahi.org/quotes/native-american-quotes.htm [4] Bernard Lietaer, ex-central banker, author of The Future of Money: Creating New Wealth, Work, and a Wiser World, 2001, http://www.transaction.net/money/bio/lietaer.html [5] Money as Debt, Paul Grignon's video production, available at http://www.moneyasdebt.net/ and viewable online at http://tiny.cc/z30uD [6] Interest and Inflation Free Money, 1995 by Margrit Kennedy, http://tiny.cc/FQtb3 [7] Secrets of the Federal Reserve, by Eustace Mullins, http://www.whale.to/b/mullins5.html [8] How Corporations Destroyed US Democracy by Propaganda, http://tiny.cc/UCT9Q [9] Hilkka Pietila, The triangle of the human economy: household - cultivation - industrial production, http://www.kasakobiet.ngo.org.pl/teksty/hilkka_pietila_eng.html [10] Whose Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics, http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/whoo.html [11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud [12] http://www.citizen.org/trade/issues/mai/ [13] http://www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org/energy-news/?p=608 [14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gramm [15] http://mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=1628 [16] Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organising Social Movements, by Bill Moyer, http://tiny.cc/KB6W9 [17] http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine [18] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc [19] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml [20] http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=248 [21] http://www.wtc7.net/articles/kimball/thirdskyscraper.html [22] http://911research.wtc7.net/sept11/stockputs.html [23] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8634 [24] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8376 [25] http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3689713,00.html [26] http://tiny.cc/dYeSJ [27] http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june08/malicious_mortgage061908.html [28] http://tiny.cc/1dQZI [29] http://tiny.cc/0WX1c [30] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/business/27charts.html, http://www.crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/60-minutes-wall-streets-shadow-market [31] http://tiny.cc/kRIcq [32] http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/h-r-1424-brad-sherman-one-minute-speech/11766853/ [33] http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/ [34] http://tiny.cc/E3K4h [35] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1LMoWqXrE4 [36] http://www.shanejolley.com/2008/09/05/silver-lining-economic-downturn [37] http://www.chrismartenson.com/peak-oil-b [38] http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/02/62339 [39] Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788 - 1860)
Recently I happened to see an amazing interview with Afshin Rattansi of Press TV and journalist Max Kieser. In this broadcast (see below) Kieser compares the Wall Street bailout with the "controlled demolition" of World Trade Center Building 7 and the twin towers on 9/11.
Although the commentary by Keiser was brilliant and provocative, what truly amazed me was not so much what he said, but the very fact that it was said at all on television.
This led me to read up on Press TV. I wanted to know who they are and why would they allow such incendiary commentary on their broadcast, and, where were the O'Reillys and Becks to beat Max to a pulp with verbal threats for even daring to mention the fraud of 9/11? What could explain this free, unfettered commentary when our Western media -- both mainstream and alternative -- are so controlled?
Here's what I found out about Press TV from Wikipedia:
"Press TV is an English language international television news channel which is funded by the Iranian government, based in Tehran and broadcasts in English on a round-the-clock schedule. With 26 international correspondents and more than 400 staff around the world, its stated mission is to offer a different view of the world events.
Press TV has stated its intention to cover world news differently from the Anglophone channels BBC World News, and CNN International. Press TV states that it is not beholden to any commercial or governmental entity, nor internally constrained to deviate from its editorial independence. Press TV seeks to compete, inter alia, with the past-launched Al Jazeera English and France 24 in 2006 and Russia Today in December 2005.
Press TV has three mission statements; to break the global media stranglehold of western outlets; to bridge cultural divisions pragmatically; and to highlight the versatility and vitality of political and cultural differences, making up the human condition."
Okay, Press TV is state sponsored by Iran, so undoubtedly we are going to get some pro-Iranian, anti-Western propaganda. That's a given. However, by allowing commentary by the likes of Max Keiser, George Galloway and Gore Vidal -- major Western critics of the "War on Terror" and the government conspiracy theory of 9/11, the channel is willing to portray a side of the debate most Americans will never get to see on Western media channel.
Sham 1. To trick; to cheat; to deceive or delude with false pretenses.
Chun·der –verb (used without object), verb (used with object) 1. to vomit.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has finally given the world the much sought-after explanation for why Building 7 collapsed into its own footprint in less than 7 seconds on September 11, 2001. According to NIST we now have a newly discovered phenomenon called "Thermal Expansion." Here's what they say about it on their website:
"Determining the probable collapse sequence for WTC 7, NIST found that the impact of debris from the collapse of WTC 1 ignited fires on at least 10 floors of WTC 7, and the fires burned out of control on six lower floors. The heat from these uncontrolled fires caused thermal expansion of the steel beams on the lower floors of the east side of WTC 7, damaging the floor framing on multiple floors. Eventually, a girder on Floor 13 lost its connection to a critical interior column that provided support for the long floor spans on the east side of the building. The displaced girder and other local fire-induced damage caused Floor 13 to collapse, beginning a cascade of floor failures down to the fifth floor. Many of these floors had already been at least partially weakened by the fires in the vicinity of the critical column. This collapse of floors left the critical column unsupported over nine stories.
“When this critical column buckled due to lack of floor supports, it was the first domino in the chain,” Sunder explained. “What followed in rapid succession was a progression of structural failures. Failure first occurred all the way to the roof line—involving all three interior columns on the most eastern side of the building. Then, progressing from east to west across WTC 7, all of the columns in the core of the building failed. Finally, the entire façade collapsed.”(See NIST WTC 7 Investigation Finds Building Fires Caused Collapse)
Well, now we skeptics can take off our aluminum-foil hats and get a good night's sleep because we now know that steel buildings can collapse on our heads due to "thermal expansion" and not because of our wild imaginings of shadowy men in elevator maintenance uniforms surreptitiously planting bombs. What a fucked up thought to have anyway. Thermal heat bubbles causing spontaneous building collapse is much, much more palatable.
And, while we are in the process of suspending our disbelief for federal flights of fancy (yes, NIST is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, which is under the aegis of the executive branch of government) let's not worry about all that physical evidence like the iron-aluminum-sulfur microspheres found all over in the World Trade Center dust, or the molten iron burning for weeks in the rubble, indicative of thermite/thermate explosions, or eyewitness testimony for that matter. We can now dismiss such bogus evidence because according to NIST this is just not plausible because it doesn't fit their hypothesis. From Syham Sunder, NIST's lead investigator into the collapse:
"In order for the thermate reaction to melt steel to take place, there has to be materials. If you look at the amount needed—at least 100 pounds for one column—you need someone to get that amount in the building, and place it, and for the reaction to take place. It is unlikely."
According to NIST's logic, it is unlikely that al Queda would have access to a building full of personnel from federal agencies like the CIA, the DoD and the Office of Emergency Management, so the physical evidence of thermite must be moot. Right?
Kevin Ryan doesn't think so. Ryan was an Underwriters Laboratory scientist who was fired from his management position when he questioned the fire-induced collapse explanation for WTC. He thinks thermite should be the central focus of study as this would explain the "substantial evidence that aluminothermic (thermite) materials were present at the WTC (Jones 2007), and the presense of such materials can explain the existence of intense fire where it would not otherwise have existed."
In an article titled, "The Top Ten Connections Between NIST and Nano-Thermites," Ryan writes:
"Regardless of how thermite materials were installed in the WTC, it is strange that NIST has been so blind to any such possibility. In fact, when reading NIST's reports on the WTC, and its periodic responses to FAQs from the public, one might get the idea that no one in the NIST organization had ever heard of nano-thermites before. But the truth is, many of the scientists and organizations involved in the NIST WTC investigation were not only well aware of nano-thermites they actually had considerable connection to, and some cases expertise in, this exact technology." (see The Top Ten Connections Between NIST and Nano-Thermites, by Kevin R. Ryan)
The article by Ryan goes into further depth of NIST's extensive ties to people and companies associated with this high explosive nano-technology, as well as the department's own research into the subject.
This reluctance by NIST to talk about thermite was highlighted last week during their press conference when Shane Geiger from infowars.com asks Dr. Sunder about the presence of these microspheres in all the samples of WTC dust. Dr. Sunder's response was to tell the reporter to go on NIST's website and read the thousands of pages of material and when the reporter has fully understood it to get back to NIST in writing "and we will look at what you have to say." Amazing.
Here's the video of this exchange:
Beside evidence of thermite being dismissed by NIST as evidence of controlled demolition, so is eyewitness testimony. Dr. Sunder states: "We asked ourselves what is the minimum amount of charge we could use to bring the building down, and we found that even the smallest charge would release an extremely loud sound heard half a mile away. There were no reports of such a sound; numerous observers and video recordings found the collapse to be relatively quiet."
Since Dr. Sunder has told us that explosives should be heard a half a mile away we can only speculate about what these people heard:
"Yeah I was just standing there, ya know... we were watching the building [WTC 7] actually 'cuz it was on fire... the bottom floors of the building were on fire and... we heard this sound that sounded like a clap of thunder... turned around - we were shocked to see that the building was, ah well it looked like there was a shockwave ripping through the building and the windows all busted out... it was horrifying... about a second later the bottom floor caved out and the building followed after that... we saw the building crash down all the way to the ground... we were in shock." - Darryl: 1010 WINS NYC News Radio (09/11/01)GZ Rescuer: ‘WTC 7 about to blow up’
... and this comment by NYPD officer Craig Bartmer who was in the immediate vicinity of Building 7 before and during its collapse at 5:30:
"I walked around it (Building 7). I saw a hole. I didn't see a hole bad enough to knock a building down, though. Yeah there was definitely fire in the building, but I didn't hear any... I didn't hear any creaking, or... I didn't hear any indication that it was going to come down. And all of a sudden the radios exploded and everyone started screaming 'get away, get away, get away from it!'... It was at that moment... I looked up, and it was nothing I would ever imagine seeing in my life. The thing started pealing in on itself... Somebody grabbed my shoulder and I started running, and the shit's hitting the ground behind me, and the whole time you're hearing "boom, boom, boom, boom, boom." I think I know an explosion when I hear it... Yeah it had some damage to it, but nothing like what they're saying... Nothing to account for what we saw... I m shocked at the story we've heard about it to be quite honest." NYPD Officer Heard Building 7 Bombs, Prison Planet
Obviously, there is a discrepancy in the historical record. So who are we to believe? The eyewitnesses on the ground? or a government spokesperson who was not there and doesn't even acknowledge these eyewitnesses' testimonies nor the physical evidence?
So, what conclusions can we come up with with this new report? I have to confess that I have not read the thousands of pages nor do I intend to. After a few assertions from Dr. Sunder like the ones above, I've concluded that it would be a huge exercise in futility to attempt to debunk the government's smoke screen any further because they are working under the principle of "If it doesn't fit (our hypothesis), than you must acquit."
"It's simple, it's straight forward, it's elegent" to quote Syham at the press conference.
(Suffice it to say, the 9/11 Truth community will once again shred up this report like so much falling paper flying from the twin towers.)
****
[A RP8 Comment regarding postings: I had to delete a few comments due to the racist remarks of certain anonymous individuals. It is one thing to criticize a country that may have been involved in a false flag event, it is another thing to condemn its people as a race, ethnicity or religion. I do not tolerate that on my blog, so please do not submit comments with such language or they will be deleted.]
Arizona state senator Karen Johnson (R-18) today delivered a letter to the office of U.S. Senator John McCain asking him to meet with a group of professionals to discuss the events of 9/11 when terrorists hijacked four airplanes and attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. One plane crashed in Pennsylvania.
Johnson recently announced her support for a new, independent investigation of 9/11. “Even the chairman of the commission has announced his dissatisfaction with the report,” said Johnson. “Anyone who reads the report can see that much was left out and that there are many discrepancies,” she said.
Johnson’s letter requests that McCain allow a meeting with Scottsdale professor, Blair Gadsby, who has been on a hunger strike outside McCain’s office on 16th Street for nine days. Gadsby has arranged for architect Richard Gage and physicist Steven Jones to meet with McCain at his convenience to present evidence of controlled demolition gathered from the ruins of Ground Zero. Gage is the founder of Archetects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth – a group consisting of hundreds of building professionals who want Congress to open up a new investigation of 9/11. Dr. Jones is a physicist who has done laboratory analysis of residue from the rubble of the World Trade Center and found evidence of explosives. Both Gage and Jones believe that the Twin Towers and Building 7 collapsed as a result of explosives that were planted in the buildings before September 11.
“Their evidence is very significant,” said Johnson, “because it wasn’t presented to the 9/11 Commission when they did their original investigation, and it completely changes the conclusions of the Commission. There’s nothing wrong with going back and having another look. If the Commission didn’t have all the facts, then so be it. But we need to know what happened on 9/11. Nearly 3,000 Americans died that day, and we deserve to know the truth about what happened. It’s time to get to the bottom of this.”
Johnson and Hunger-Striker Gadsby want McCain to allow Jones and Gage to present the evidence to him. “Senator McCain wants to be elected to the highest office in this country,” said Senator Johnson, “and he needs to know the truth about 9/11. Finding answers to 9/11 should be a significant part of this presidential campaign. The events of 9/11 led to this war with Iraq, to the creation of the Dept. of Homeland Security, to the loss of habeus corpus, the use of wiretaps, the push for a national ID, and other legislation that deprives us of freedom. This is a very significant issue, and no one is discussing it. Our presidential candidates need to talk about this.”
Dear readers: Phoenix activist Blair Gadsby began the first ever hunger strike for 9/11 Truth this Memorial Day "in an effort to focus national attention on the 9/11 truth issue by going directly to a power center of the 2008 Presidential Campaign."
Currently Gadsby is in front of the Phoenix office (5353 N. 16th St.) of Senator John McCain, and will fast until McCain agrees to give him and the Phoenix 9/11 Truth group two hours of time: one hour for presentation of evidence and facts followed by one hour of debate between leading investigators and scientists on both sides of the issue. Gadsby stated, "I believe Mr. McCain is a man of deep integrity. He has stood up to corporate influence in campaigns and to the very powerful Military Industrial Complex in the past, and he has a record of being a maverick. That's why I've chosen to offer him this opportunity to face the issues head-on publicly. He may be one of the very, very few who have the integrity and stature to keep the military loyal and find the broad-based political support to bring about a change in our great country."
Even though I think it is incredibly naive of Mr. Gadsby to think that McCain is unaware of what really happened on 9/11 and is a ...cough... man of "deep integrity", I think we should give our support for someone who is willing to put his life on the line for the truth. Other 9/11 Truth groups across the country are organizing events in solidarity with Gadsby's hunger strike, including groups in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and New Mexico. Phoenix activists are urged to come out and support Blair and demand press coverage (www.9-11.meetup.com/350).
Below is a message from AZ state senator Karen S. Johnson about this event. Please give this courageous senator a call and let her know how much you appreciate her support on this issue.
Hi Everyone –
I wanted to give everyone a quick update on Blair. A couple of the 9/11Truth activists spent many hours with Blair yesterday outside Senator McCain’s office.
Here’s what one of them reported:
“We had a good day today. I spent almost the entire day with Blair and he's doing OK. He is not drinking enough water and I hounded him all day long to drink up. He was also somewhat weak after the downtown rally. Tomorrow will be a key day for him. Keep him in your prayers.”
I imagine water might get pretty boring when that’s all you’re ingesting. Or maybe you lose your appetite for everything when you’re on an extended fast…? Everyone do please keep Blair in your prayers. He’s on Day 3 without food now, and needs all the support he can get.
When this was originally planned, Blair intended to stay at the site 24x7. But several of the activists raised concerns about his safety. Although Senator McCain’s office is in a relatively safe neighborhood, Central Phoenix is nevertheless not necessarily a place to be out on the streets at night. When it became apparent that there weren’t going to be enough people to do overnights with Blair, it was decided that he would leave the site at 10:30 p.m. and come back around 7 to 7:30 each morning. That way he can at least shower and sleep in a bed each night in a safe place.
The temperature today is expected to reach 97 degrees. 98 for tomorrow (Thursday) and 101 on Friday. As the heat climbs, water is going to be more and more important. If any of you who live in the Phoenix area canget over to see Blair, be sure to encourage him to keep drinking. Take bottled water with you to keep him well supplied (no fruit drinks – he won’t drink them – he’s very determined!). Sit with him for a few hours if you can work it into your schedule. He’ll appreciate the company. He has lots of books and reading material, but visitors will be a welcome break. If you can email us updates, we’ll pass them on to the entire list.
Thanks for your prayers and support.
***Senator Karen S. Johnson* email: kjohnson@azleg.gov
602-926-3160 Arizona Senate 1700 W. Washington St. Phoenix, Arizona 85007
Above: 50 people joined Blair on the street in front of John McCain's Phoenix office on day 1 of the hunger strike. The main stream media didn't bother to show up. www.911blogger.com is doing a day-by-day report on Gadsby's progress and provides links and phone numbers to the mainstream media. Please call and demand that they cover his hunger strike and ask them to address the issues that Gadsby is bringing up.
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."
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. "
– Noam Chomsky
''That's not the way the world really works anymore. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
– Sr. White House Advisor, as reported by Ron Suskind
