[un]Common Sense: Ignorance is Strength

¡Hola! Everybody…
I wrote the following a year ago and I guess it’s still relevant.

As a side note: I lived a five-minute walk from the World Trade Center and was home the day the planes hit. My building shook when the towers “crumbled.” I breathed the poisonous dust, walked with the tens of thousands evacuated from the area, smelled the smell of rotted meat for months after 9/ 11. People I knew, or were connected to me, died in the Towers that day.

Fuck you if you think the following is unpatriotic or inappropriate. Patriotism is more than yelling “Hoo-rah” or “We’re No. 1!” while getting drunk.

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-=[ Ignorance is Strength ]=-
“… the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders… All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”
-- Herman Goering

I was going to stay quiet today as a way of honoring those many good people who perished on September 11^th, 2001. However, I have come to realize how misguided my notion of honoring would be. In keeping quiet, I would be dishonoring the memory of my fellow New Yorkers who perished in the towering inferno that crumbled on that lovely, crisp, sunny late-summer day.

All these years and we still have no real answers to what happened that day. All we have is a senseless war fought in the name of those that fell that day – a war that has nothing to do with the events that transpired that day seven years ago. What’s pathetic is that the most people can say is that we can’t pull out of a war that predicated on falsehoods, because it would make matters worse.

Huh?!

If we’re lucky, maybe our grandchildren will be able to ask us, “What the fuck were you thinking, grandpa/ grandma? Did you fall asleep? How did you allow yourself to be led to slaughter so easily?”

At least, I hope our descendants are smart enough to see through the bullshit, because we sure as shit aren’t.

Look! Al Qaeda! Over there! Bend over, it’s your patriotic duty! Hoo-rah!

Fuck you with that bullshit. Patriotism isn’t about wrapping yourself in a flag while you are being fleeced. Patriotism understands that democracy is a participatory endeavor.

I am sooo sick and tired of the clichés, of the willful ignorance.

I wonder if you all have lost your minds.

And yeah, you damn skippy, today, of all days, is not only a day to remember, but also a day to demand answers. People died. We dishonor all those people who died by sitting back on our collective fat asses and worry more about gas prices and misunderstanding why gas is taxed (if you don’t understand, ask the families of those who died on that bridge in Minnesota a year ago).

People? All these years and we have no answers, only more questions. I can’t abide conspiracy theories because the truth is usually not about conspiracies, but about apathy and contempt by the powerful for those less powerful. You are expendable because those in power don’t fear you. And why should they? All you do is get fat while watching so-called “reality” shows or looking at Paris’ skinny vagina.

You don’t give a shite, so stop it with the flag-waving and the melodrama. You have only your interest in mind, so stop that nonsense.

Like I said, I hate conspiracy theories, it usually takes away from the truth, and that’s what matters to me. However, in looking at all the unanswered questions surrounding the events of 9/ 11, I have to wonder. Google “9/ 11 conspiracy” and you’ll get millions of hits. It seems as if everybody-and-their-mother has a theory. Many are ridiculous, but some are beginning to strike a nerve with me because conservatives have actively fought against an open and independent investigation into 9/ 11. It is that resistance has made me look into the plausibility of some conspiracy theories.

I can’t get into all of them, but the ones that I feel have the most validity are the ones that submit that the attacks were used to pursue an unrelated war abroad and restrict civil liberties at home.

The basic underlying motivation for most 9/11 conspiracy theories is the belief in the Bush administration’s desire (fueled by conservative elites) to have the American people rally around the administration and thus have a better way to pursue its domestic and foreign agendas. If anything, 9/11 and the Patriot Act had the effect of suppressing domestic opposition to the Bush administration’s ultra conservative agenda for the better part of its administration. Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11 (as admitted now by even the most staunch conservatives), was invaded largely due to right-wing propaganda that it was partly responsible for the 9/11 attacks. There is still a percentage of the US population that believes this (mostly neocons who drink the FOXnews Kool-Aid). Even among those who don’t believe this, there are many who view the invasion of Iraq as of justified retribution for 9/11 because there are Muslims in Iraq. This is just plain insane, it makes no sense.

It isn’t necessary to believe in any of the conspiracy theories to believe the Bush administration used 9/11 as the Nazis used the Reichstag fire in 1933. The Nazis used the Reichstag fire to stoke German patriotism and silence their political opponents as unpatriotic and treasonous. Indeed, the parallels between the Patriot Act and the German Reichstag fire, as well as the wars that eventually followed both, are hard to ignore. These types of incidents are called False Flag attacks, described in Wikipedia (click here) and are common throughout history. Wikipedia provides examples of just seven false flag attacks/operations in the 20th century alone, including one by the US and the British to overthrow the government of Iran in 1953.

[Note: click here for an expose of the Patriot Act.]

False flag attacks are common because governments know that most people will support a war if they are led to believe their country is in danger of being attacked. As Nazi war criminal, Herman Goering, stated in a 1945 interview: “… the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

Now, this is why I submit that the Bush administration used the 9/11 attacks to purse an unconstitutional agenda. Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that the official story is true -- that a criminal organization attacked a few buildings with planes and killed many people.

Let’s stop here for a moment…

That is what it was: a group of thugs attacked a few buildings. Those who conspired with them should have been captured and brought to justice and that should be the extent of it.

This brings us full circle to the Patriot Act (an unprecedented dismantling of the constitution drafted in the dead of night). You do not restrict the rights of 300 million people to do that. You do not attack a country completely unrelated to the events of 9/11. I believe it is obvious that the Bush administration and its conservative puppet masters (with McCain an early cheerleader) exploited the 9/11 attacks to pursue their domestic and foreign agenda. Once you accept that, you have accepted the idea that Bush and his administration are criminal. Once you know that, it becomes easier to accept a deeper level of government involvement in the attacks. Because of this, I am also leaning toward the theories that submit that the Bush administration had prior warning regarding the 9/11 attacks.

Today, a former New York mayor who ran for the presidency and for whom 9/11 has been a career saver will most likely attend the 9/11 ceremonies. I seethe at the thought. This is the same man who demanded that the hub of emergency services be located in the World Trade Center though his own experts advised against that. Hence, the first screw up, Rudy Giuliani, became a hero – “America’s mayor” – even though he basically fawked up. We had no emergency center in the midst of the most severe American crisis. He also fucked up because he didn’t show leadership in making sure firefighters got radios that actually worked. Thanks Rudy, you’re a real hero.

I say all this because I feel silence is the most horrible disrespect to the many innocent men and women who died in those attacks. The saying goes that all that is needed for evil to conquer is that good men (and women) keep quiet.

Fawk that! Fawk you if you’re standing by idly.

Resources

Please watch this very short demonstration of McCain’s flip flops on the Iraq war and then decide if this is the person you want to lead our nation: