The Conspiracy Theory "Who benefited from 9/11?" chart

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9/11 -- Weren't we supposed to be somewhere by now?

We are now six years past the 9/11 attacks. We are still in Afghanistan and the political situation there is deteriorating at a worrisome rate. We are still in Iraq and the political situation there is beyond terrifying. We are on the cusp of an enormous economic meltdown. 32% of Americans approve of Bush’s policies and only 18% approve of the “work” being done by our anemic Congress.

We have been cast adrift by the psychotic and the evil who rule and control this nation. We float down a river of money that is quickly becoming a dry riverbed and the boats that store the money are bulging at the seams. The rest of us are walking in the mud-covered banks. Facts of what has been done, and is being done, in the name of America and all Americans are known to anyone who will take 30 minutes of their life to scour the web for information. Millions are slowly realizing this but millions more ape the slack-jawed intrigue of celebrities and their substance abuse problems as though it were more important.

On September 10th, 2001, stock in General Dynamics sat at $37.99 per share. Today their stock sits at $78.70. Like all members of the Military Industrial Complex, GD has made the proverbial killing off the literal killing. Why end the war when money is there to be made? The easiest way to trick Americans into forking over the cash to military contractors is to parrot the old lines of “support the troops” and “give the troops the best equipment available.” These lines of propaganda address neither the true welfare of the “troops” nor does it address the necessity of maintaining a well armed and well trained armed force. It only makes a great sound bite that gurantees the military contractors get fat and rich off our national treasure.

The CIA is no longer relegated to having one hand tied behind it’s back. It can torture and tarnish our good name as a nation with both hands and a little extra help from the powers that be. Stripping the CIA of many of it’s powers following the Church Committee in the early 70’s was a great first step. Daddy Bush kept the company afloat during the Carter administration and came within a hairs breadth of unleashing it to 60’s level of power when the attempt to assassinate Reagan almost succeded. The CIA may have been raked over the coals in the GAO report on the agency’s handling of the 9/11 attacks but it does not matter to them. They have carte blanche rule again and this time they will not let the power slip through their fingers like they did in the 70’s.

Life in America is worse than it was six years ago. Not because of the attacks, but because of the government that Lords over us like livestock and its actions. Nothing about this country or its path post-9/11 is promising or American. Brussell’s found fascists bred, multiplied and have taken over the asylum. They are our masters and if Mae were alive today she would be telling all of us what to expect in the coming years. We would be reading about what the year 2010 will bring us if her sharp mind were alive to look at our present state.

The America we were taught in school is long gone. Probable cause, civil rights and the Bill of Rights have been thrown away like so much garbage. No longer are we a free society but instead we are a fee society. The fees are the prices we pay to be avoided by the feds and their evil little eyes. The average American is afraid of everything, given no breathing room and pushed into submission every single day. We have no say over who represents us and no means of educating ourselves with facts that can be digested in an easily understood way. We are left to the cryptic legalese of our masters and the withholding of information we need to make informed and just decisions about the world we exist in.

We have no Teddy Roosevelt type politician to untangle the mess of our generation’s own, evil version of William McKinley. All we have are think tanks and special “Democracy Institutes” who’s sole purpose is to drive the public’s perception of what America means into their prefab concoction. These prefab ideals of America, freedom and democracy are guided by ultra-conservative industrialist ideals. They have no bearing or resemblance to the reality of American life.

The Powell Manifesto spreads its demon seed across this nation, like a weed that chokes the life from average Americans and hypnotizes us into believing we are being enslaved by our own freedoms and not big business. The Project for the New American Century gave us the playbook for the new chapter in the story of our downfall and its mad monks still drive this nation to the edge of the cliff while convincing us that the precipice ahead is simply the crest of a hill and there will smooth coasting down the other side. The Christian Coalition is an abomination of the teachings of Christ.

As Hunter S. Thompson once wrote about Richard Nixon, “he appeals to the werewolf in all of us.”; we should say that the new way appeals to the masochist in all of us. We apparently wish to be enslaved otherwise we would use the 14 oz. of soft tissue and chemicals that resides in our collected skulls and stand up to this disaster of life called America. The politicians who run for the upper echelons of office in this nation understand less about us than we do about them. They neither look, talk, dress or think like we do.

A favorite slogan of the rabid overlords and their monkeys is that “September 11th changed everything.” September 11th did change everything; it threw away the cloak of decency and humanity that the powers that be had to wear for so long. No longer restrained by the sake of appearances they run wild and free. We are frozen in thought and logic, paralyzed by the realization of what we allowed to happen. All because we were scared. Scared of what?

For less than pennies on the dollar we are bought and sold by faceless men and corporations on a daily basis. We have no say in the quality and safety of the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the food we consume or the trinkets of childhood that we give to our own beloved children. When we speak up we are shouted down, told we are hindering the progress of business, told that what our eyes see are lies and if that doesn’t work we can now be disappeared by our very own government at the discretion of some bureaucrat with whom the President has delegated this power to. Was it Bob Jones University or Liberty University that shaped this public servant drone’s worldview? Will Jesus forgive their sins?

The vague scent of political assassins are at our door. They have been absent from the national scene since the early 80’s and there are signs they will be returning over the next 14 months. We had the mind control subject named Cho at Virginia Tech, there has been an odd instance of threat to Democratic candidate Barak Obama and now the pop culture is being pre-conditioned with a recent video of Ted Nugent ranting against the liberals with weapons and sexual innuendo. The assassins are being primed and even Arthur Bremmer, the attempted assassin of George Wallace, will be released soon from prison.

Is this what has changed since 9/11; our mental state? We are being prepared for assassinations, more wars, more economic disparity, more sickness and more death. We have been conditioned by the TV, the newspapers, the magazines and in some cases we are being conditioned by websites and Astroturf movements to accept what is coming as inevitable. The glee of William Kristol when he speaks of nuclear armegeddon over Iran is unmistakable. The disconnect of our President when he speaks of matters of American life is sickening. The hate of those who claim to be washed by the blood of Christ is blasphemous. The lies of the falsely pious choke us.

The darkness of 2007 makes the confusion of 1967 seem quaint. The despair of 1937 seems simple when compared to the ponzi schemes and 3 card monte of international finance when your home is part of some convoluted bond/fund structure. As 2007 nears an end, 2008 seems less hopeful. Even the upcoming month of October seems ominous with over $50 billion dollars of ARM homes being prepared to reset rates. Even the shenanigans of Enron and the bogus California energy crisis of the summer of 2001 sounds more like a innocent scheme than a crime when compared to the pillaging that is going on unabated in 2007.

We will reach a snapping point in this country, when that point is met will we have any power to fight back? Will we even have the heart to stand up?

A little more than 2000 days later

In a world that seems to be spiraling out of control it is hard to nail down one solution or one area that could be addressed to stop the full bleed out. The Iraq war will not end and the President is opening small cracks in the door of the plans set out by the powers that be. Socially our nation is getting closer to the full split with everyone at each other’s throats because of race or religion or ethnicity. We have a daily dose of fear and we can’t find the energy to shrug it off and laugh at the people who force feed us with that tactic.

Just looking at the economic situation is enough to make the hair stand on end. Washington Mutual bank has now claimed that the housing market is in a “Near perfect storm” as one financial institution after another sounds warning sirens over the current state of the economy. The worst is yet to come and I am not certain if even the masters of this system are even in control of what will happen. When the brightest economists say they don’t know what will happen, it’s a sign we should hang on.

At this point the only optimism we can afford is the occasional “feel good story” on the evening news but even those are tainted by dark and disturbing circumstances that result in a feel good story. Finding our way through the lies and deceit of our leaders is becoming even more difficult as they no longer attempt to cover their tracks. They even swear up and down that the new bin Laden videotape is who they say he is even though the man seen in the video is obviously not bin Laden. They have pulled this trick on us before with fake OBLs who are right handed as well.

Our boogy man, our haint, our campfire story of men with hooks for hands are the creatures our leaders give to us. A generation ago it was the evil empire of communists. Two generations ago it was the Godless communists and civil rights “instigators”. Three generations ago it was, for Americans, the entire outside world, with Europe festering and Japan stomping across Asia like a machine. We are fed fear from all fronts, all the time and it’s no wonder we react the way we do.

The timing of these scares and events is always convenient for the real and puppet leaders of this country. Between the last week of August and this week, the 6th anniversary of the 911 attacks we have seen the resignation of the worst attorney general in US history. The sex scandal engulfing a senior US Senator, the release of a book that catches our President in full bald faced lies regarding the future of the Iraq war. A new OBL tape has been released and the General who is overseeing the Iraq debacle is in Washington this week to report on the status of Iraq, except he has no report.

You can rest assured that the teat suckling beasts of General Dynamics, Lockheed and every other defense contractor is out in full force too, with their lobbyists, to prod and poke Congress into seeing things their way over the so-called Global War on Terrorism. Same with the numerous private contractors like McNeil Technologies, who are making billions on their “work” in Iraq. There is still wealth and power to grab from the deserts of the Middle East for them to let it go now.

The mechanisms of war and the bottom feeders that grease the gears and supply fuel to the engines of war do not turn off so easily. The open door and blank check were laid out immediately after the 911 attacks. We are told to shut up when we dissent to the atrocities done in our name and we are targeted as un-American when we point out the reality of the situation. Words like love, understanding and compassion become the vulgar and mockable descriptions for supposed left-wing kooks who are just touchy feely freaks. You cannot even say enough is enough without being labeled, red flagged and spied upon.

Americans seem to be slowly waking from their sleep of fear but there is still a long way to go. The beast has grown to a size that is almost unimaginable and the mountain that needs to be climbed to bring this beast under control seems insurmountable. On this day before the 911 attacks, a day that we should be angry, life seems to be going on with less attention to the bigger picture than what we are giving to the smaller things. We fail to focus on the bigger forest because the trees we are looking at in the small corner of the woods are the only ones on fire.

Osama bin buying Just For Men, For Beards

“What are you going to do when your style gets old?” Those are the immortal words of the great Bootsy Collins. It appears that the sociopaths of Washington are hitting the same delimma as the American public is slowly waking up and asking what the fuck, dude?! Now, 4 days before the anniversary of the 911 attacks, our old boogy man and all around scary olive skinned guy with a big beard is popping his head in the door, saying hello. He’s back, ladies and germs…you know him, you love him, you can’t live without him…Osama Bin Laden has dropped his newest CD.

There is a catch to this new video. It appears Osama bin buying Just For Men and has apparently done the rounds at the cosmetic surgeon offices of Jalalabad. Folks, this new and improved OBL is a red herring. Look at that picture comparison and tell me those are the same two men. The photo on the right is the fancy pants new OBL, fresh from his vacation at the Tora Bora Club Med. The one on the left? Well, maybe it is the Binster and maybe it ‘aint. The boys at the CIA say it’s so and who am I to disagree?

The CIA did get one thing right when they scotch taped this video together on a drunken weekend visit to Pakistan and that’s the Obi-Wan Kenobi robes. How many times did the boys at Langley look at the updated double trilogy before they realized that old Obi-Wan wears the same threads as OBL? Go figure!

Other than the costume they must be having trouble finding OBL look alikes. I assume the Rangers have bagged dozens of men that sorta kinda maybe looked like “Ossammer” through a long range scope just before Pvt. PoBoy from Louisiana went all kill crazy on them, thus making the supply of OBL doubles more and more difficult for the CIA to get for their gigs.

What should we make of this new video? Honestly, we need to spit this one back in the face of the masters. The shoddy production values have slipped further than the 4th movie in a Hollywood franchise and now the gubbmint is doing the old, “No really, it’s him! It’s really him! Why don’t you believe me?” routine. Just how fucking stupid do they think we really are?

September -- Where sentimentalism and reality clash

On this day next week the world will mark the 6th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. For me, September was once a lovely time of year with it's own feel, look and sensation. School would start back in session, the summer heat has broken, the leaves on the trees all have that dry and old appearance. Baseball has its pennant chases, or at least it used to. Football is in the air with the lonesome far-off comfort of a high school PA system calling the plays and players on Friday nights in Georgia, Saturdays were for Tech and the Dawgs. When I think of September I miss what it used to mean and feel like. Now there is dread and sentimentalism for the lost America

Evil stares us in the face each night when we watch the news, it has an American face and the face changes shape before our eyes. Hope is just a town in Arkansas and our gullibility to believe politicians is heartbreaking. Our money slips away like autumn leaves swirling around on almost empty back roads as we drive, aimlessly. Even half baked poets like Jim Morrison can be eerily prophetic, the future's uncertain and the end is always near. September is a month of dead and dread; a celebration for the bloodthirsty and satanic.

I have a longish posting prepared for 9/11 which I will post next week. I have a feeling the web will be loaded with cynicism and anger next week, as it has been growing, as it always has been. How can we be optimistic and hopeful with our blood, wealth, talent and compassion being wasted and squandered as it has been? To paraphrase, rearrange and steal a line from a former President, our long national nightmare is not over and I fear the darkest hour is still ahead.

Richard Jewel and random memories of the 90's. It's 11 o'clock, do you know where your kooks are?

In many ways, for me at least, much of the 90’s seem to be a slow blur. Moments pop out at me when I look back, many good and many bad. An entire inner-connected series of memories have come back to me over the last two days with the passing of Richard Jewel. Jewel, you may remember, was the security guard at the Atlanta Olympic games whom the FBI attempted to scapegoat after the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.

In the summer of ’96 I was living out in the country but still a short drive into Atlanta. I watched those Olympic games and how they affected Atlanta, from afar. On the night of the bombing I was watching TV and followed the news reports closely, switching between the four local news stations and ESPN’s coverage. In the days after the bombing, when Jewel was rightly identified as a hero, I was happy to see what appeared to be a regular Georgia “country boy” making good in the city. That feel good moment was dashed only days later when the feds leaked the information to the news organizations that Jewel was the prime suspect.

One thing you develop as you get older is a prime eye for telling what is real and what is not real when it comes to people. In the case of Jewel, it was obvious the feds were lying. Their MO sounded credible until you looked at the man and how he was holding up to the insane media pressure. I wasn’t the only one who felt he was being railroaded. My co-workers, all of them “country smart” could see that something wasn’t right and that he was innocent. Jewel was eventually cleared and the investigation appeared to have reached a brick wall.

When I first moved to Atlanta we seemed to be the center of a lunatic bomber’s attention. The Olympic Park bombing, the Otherside Lounge bombing, the Sandy Springs abortion clinic bombing were making all of us more than a little uncomfortable with what was happening and where they would strike next. I remember several long lunchtime and water cooler conversations we had about who the killer could be. My pet theory was that we had a crazy redneck that was driving into town to kill Atlantans, but I was certain it was a Georgian.

When the Birmingham bombing killed a police officer and horribly injured a nurse in early ’98 all of the people I knew raised their eyebrows with attention. It was pretty obvious that the nut that was setting off bombs here in town was at work in Birmingham. The only question most of us had was whether or not the bomber lived in west Georgia or east Alabama.

When Eric Rudolph was announced as the prime suspect, all seemed to fall in place. Rudolph could be a poster child of the things that were wrong about us as a people in the 90’s and he was one of the precursor warnings of the type of lunatic fringe American that we would all see post-9/11. In a decade that gave us the Oklahoma City bombing and Eric Rudolph, we had more than enough signs of what we have become. The lunatics who weren’t satisfied with simply firebombing abortion clinics so they moved on to bombing them and killing abortion Doctors are the type of person who maintains the systems of control and power in America today.

I live in a large American city, with an international airport and high visibility facilities such as the CDC and the Federal Reserve. I am not at all worried about Islamic terrorists blowing my ass up. It’s possible but I think I am far more likely to be struck by lightning or win the lottery than to be killed by a terrorist in the city I live. I am, however, still worried about right wing extremists in America. I am, in effect, afraid of my own people. I admit this one day after posting an angrily worded entry regarding fear in America, so I do understand how this can be considered a hypocritical statement.

These extremists have always been here in this country. The south has always been the stereotypical home ground for such lunatics but don’t let that assumption steer you in the wrong direction. At the height of the popularity of the Ku Klux Klan, the largest population of members was not found in the south; Indiana was the state that boasted the highest concentration of Klansmen. Those extremists are not only down here; they are in your town too.

In the 90’s we had the rare opportunity to see these people up close and personal. We saw the militia movements and were able to hear the ideas of extreme nationalism that permeate throughout their communities. We saw the radical Christian identity movement followers who rationalize death and murder by killing abortion providers, homosexuals and non-Christians. We saw the far right anti-government radicals such as Randy Weaver and Eric Rudolph. But we also saw a more open and less afraid government who was willing to go to equally extreme ends with citizens who frightened it.

In the 90’s we had the chance to see our government up close and personal as well. The massacre at Waco, the Ruby Ridge calamity and strangeness surrounding the Oklahoma City bombing all added to a certain mistrust of the government. We instantly forgot all about those events, those radicals and those capabilities when the 9/11 attacks occurred. The faux-patriotism and “pride” in America swept through this nation in a way that was not purely spontaneous. The only genuine responses that we had to the attacks were gone within days of the attacks. Was anyone really acting “changed” when October 11 came around?

The death of Richard Jewel should be our reminder to us of what the government will do to an innocent person and Eric Rudolph should be a reminder that we have lunatics among us that compare unequivocally with the most extreme Middle East elements and are the product of America itself. Greed, hate, mistrust, fear, the lust for power and a narrow worldview are the food of American terrorists.

Commentary - The message or the messenger?

The 9/11 truth movement has had a a major public airing following a celebrity endorsement from Rosie O'Donnell. Gaining mainstream publicity is one thing, to gain publicity when a celebrity does a verbal data dump to approximately 3.1 million daytime TV viewers is another. The fallout, as should be expected, was swift. The 9/11 truth movement followers tell us that Rosie's statements are proof that the the idea of a massive conspiracy involving the 9/11 attacks is now a mainstream idea as evidenced by her statements. The 9/11 conspiracy skeptics tell us that science debunks all of the 9/11 truth movements theories, and that O'Donnell is just an unfunny, ignorant, overweight lesbian who should be ignored.

Personal attacks are nothing new in this arena. When you prescribe to an "out in left field" idea it should be expected that scorn will follow you. In the case of O'Donnell's comments we see more than an attack against her beliefs, we see an attack against her based on personal feelings. I'll admit that I am not a fan of Rosie O'Donnell and have never watched her TV shows, personally, I find her grating. But, I think that is part of her shtick as a performer. It's a part of her delivery method as an entertainer, much like a shock jock or a blue comedian.

It's interesting to me that the debunkers, who pride themselves on their logic and adherence to science and scientific methodology would include the personal insults that are being used in debunking her statements. It's not necessary and in the long run I don't think it helps their cause. It makes O'Donnell a sympathetic individual because the attacks are so personal and so specific. Does her sexuality, weight or physical attractiveness have anything to do with the belief that 9/11 was an inside job? No. Does her pushy vocal style have anything to do with the belief that the government planned and executed the 9/11 attacks? No. Does her profession have anything to do with the belief that the NIST report on the collapse of the buildings is wrong? Well, yes, there is a connection there but the rebuttal by referencing her profession is a straw man argument. Following the argument that a non-scientist's opinion is worthless in regards to the report findings is no different than dismissing the typical registered voter's opinion if they are not a political science major.

I'm not a believer in the 9/11 truth movement. There are aspects of the 9/11 attacks which raise red flags with me but many of the pillars that the followers of the movement stand on don't jibe with me. I don't believe explosives were in Towers 1 and 2. I don't believe that a directed energy beam was used. I don't believe that thermite was used to bring down Towers 1 and 2. But there is more than enough evidence that key government officials ignored warnings and many were guilty of dereliction of duty. NORAD's response on that morning was nothing short of criminal. Trade Center 7's collapse is too convenient and unexplainable based on the reasons given for it's destruction. But I won't join the movement because of those irregularities. The tone of the attacks against O'Donnell are not surprising and they are not a sign that the 9/11 truth movement is based on scientific fallacies. The tone of the attacks is a sign that even those who pride themselves on their adherence to scientific standards are not above confusing the messenger with the message.