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Americans in Denial about 9/11

By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com. Posted September 14, 2006.


Five years after 9/11, the country still hasn't asked what motives the terrorists may have had in their attacks.

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So, why did they hate us after all?

We sure blew off that question nicely. As with everything else in this country, our response to 9/11 was a heroic compendium of idiocy, cowardice, callow flag-waving, weepy sentimentality (coupled with an apparently bottomless capacity for self-pity), sloth, laziness, and partisan ignorance.

We dealt with 9/11 in many ways. We instantly dubbed everyone who died in the accident a hero and commissioned many millions (billions?) in mawkish elegiac art. We created a whole therapy industry to deal with our 9/11 -- related grief, made a few claustrophobic two-star Hollywood movies about the bombings, read Lisa Beamer's book and bought that DVD narrated by Rudy, watched Law and Order entertainments about sensational murders committed that morning and left for Jerry Orbach to solve, made bushels of quasi-religious references to "hallowed ground." We made many careers out of assigning blame for the attacks, with the right blaming Bill Clinton, Michael Moore blaming George Bush, and the clinically insane blaming those mysterious demolition experts who allegedly wired the bottoms of the towers with the explosives that "really" caused the tragedy. And we talked about 9/11 -- to death. We blathered on so much about the attacks and whined so hard about our "lost innocence" that the rest of the world, initially sympathetic, ended up staring at us in suicidally impatient agony, a can of kerosene overturned above its head, like the old lady sitting next to Robert Hays in Airplane!

We did just about everything except honestly ask ourselves what the hell really happened, and why.

That process of self-examination was flawed from the start. We were screwed the moment Fareed Zakaria wrote his infamous "The Politics of Rage: Why Do They Hate Us?" essay for Newsweek a few weeks after the attacks. The question -- why do they hate us? -- was maybe the right question, but that was only if everyone could have agreed on what it meant. For what do we mean by they, and what do we mean by us? I for one am not entirely sure we're clear on these points, even now.

That we couldn't agree on who they were should be obvious by now. To the Bush administration the answers to the they/us questions were, respectively, "Foreigners" and "America." From the outset the Bush crew showed that they were both unwilling and unable to budge from the post-WWII political paradigm they'd all grown up under, and viewed the 9/11 events purely as an attack on the American nation-state by a belligerent foreign power. Their solution to the terrorism problem revolved entirely around a strategy for dealing with those foreign nation-states that were the "sponsors" of terrorism -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and North Korea. It was characteristic of the fourth-rate minds in this White House that they not only immediately got lost in the wrong political paradigm in response to the bombing, but picked the wrong country, Iraq, to punish for the crime. If we give them another ten years at it they'll probably end up introducing market reform to Antarctica as a backup plan.

Bush and his buddies grew up in the Cold War, an era where two countries dominated the world and even the scraggliest warlord in the central African jungle was usually a client of one or the other. It was a fun time for the overgrown Risk-playing nerds inhabiting America's think-tanks, who spent half a century describing all human life as an ongoing chess match between life-affirming American capitalism on the one hand and, on the other, the bloodsucking communist religion cruelly foisted upon the world by a conspiratorial bund of grubby German Jews (Hitler was eighty years too late!) and French homosexuals. That was what it came down to: world politics for half a century was a pissing match between two warring factions in the sociology department of the international University of Well-Fed White People. Things were so simple, even George Bush could understand them.

Well, things have changed since then. The operating conflict on earth now is no longer capitalism vs. communism, but one pitting organization vs. anarchy. All over the world, the borders of nation-states are blurring and becoming more and more meaningless. From the north Indian subcontinent, to the jungles of the Amazon basin, to the Middle East, and especially to west and central Africa, nations are fast losing their integrity while local warlords and gangs are taking over.

In some places in the world, authority changes more from block to block than nation to nation. In countries like Pakistan, which last week was forced to sign a humiliating peace accord with belligerents on its own territory of Waziristan, a tribal leader can twist the nipples of a nuclear power and not only keep his neck but come out ahead of the game afterward. In the late '80s and early '90s the Risk nerds squealed with delight over the supposedly unipolar world created by the fall of the Berlin Wall, but actually the change was from bipolar to apolar. There was anarchy and a crisis of international identity on the other side of that wall. Our pole, one might say, turned out to be a lot smaller than we thought it was.


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Matt Taibbi is a writer for Rolling Stone.

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Where's Teddy R when you need him.
Posted by: Conservasaurus on Sep 14, 2006 10:12 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
as for the question why - wow..self evaluation as a country?..pretty hard..how about because we can piss off alot of people -

but consider this, these are fanatics..they killed thousands and call for the death of millions that don't see their view and we're supposed to see how it's our fault.. maybe they should ask why they respond in such a harsh uncivilized way to political agenda's

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» RE: Where's Teddy R when you need him. Posted by: Conservasaurus
» Denial = 1984 Posted by: WhuThe?!?
» RE: Denial = 1984 Posted by: brunowe
» brunowe Posted by: WhuThe?!?
» WhuThe? Posted by: brunowe
» RE: WhuThe? Posted by: bullwhip7
» Right on!!!!!!! Posted by: WhuThe?!?
» *Makes you a tin foil hat* Posted by: brokenbendystraw
» Sure is an awful small hole! Posted by: WhuThe?!?
» RE: Where's Teddy R when you need him. Posted by: meetmeineleusis
» Teddy R?? Posted by: fifthworld
» Teddy R?? Posted by: fifthworld
» RE: Teddy R?? Posted by: Conservasaurus
» RE: Teddy R?? Posted by: fifthworld
Matt Taibbi = Consistently Brilliant
Posted by: wheresarah on Sep 14, 2006 10:16 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Can I get a witness?

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» Taibbi article was virtually useless Posted by: scott balogh
» Not this time--If he had done Posted by: WhuThe?!?
» Yes. I agree with you, Posted by: WhuThe?!?
» Don't put people on a pedestal Posted by: fifthworld
Matt Taibbi, Amen!
Posted by: rollo on Sep 14, 2006 11:10 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Reading Matt is like opening a window in a stuffy room for a blast of cold air. He is the true journalistic successor to Hunter S. Thompson.

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» True, no full understanding Posted by: fifthworld
Civility? Why Start Now
Posted by: Dreamtime on Sep 14, 2006 11:27 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Matt, I am a first time reader. A pal turned me on to AlterNet to broaden my perspective! Irreverent and a bit lacking in civility, but right now you are spot on when you question the intellectual capacity of our leaders to find any roadmap to the new realities we face. The coming election cycle will tell us more about who America really is than any election in my lifespan (60 years). Keep hammering away and maybe young guys like you will forge a new value system out of a worn out ideology.

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» Fraudulent election cycle!!! Posted by: alternetleslie
» RE: Civility? Why Start Now Posted by: Rochelle_Weber
The real path to 9/11
Posted by: yellow on Sep 14, 2006 12:31 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The real basis of the 9/11 attacks are rooted in the US cold war with the old Soviet Union. In an effort to "bleed the Soviet State through the Afghan wound", even as the Russians desparatly sought to extricate themselves from a conflict they only reluctanly entered, the US trained, armed, and provided logistical assistance to the most fanatical of the mujihadin forces. The US sought to engage only the most reactionary opposition forces in their effort to set up a government that would be "stable" and pro-western enough to (1) face down any secular nationalist opposition to US corporate interests, and (2) oppose the Russian supported National Alliance in the US effort to gain control of the Caspean Sea area and build oil and gas pipelines south and east toward the Indian Ocean to US controlled markets and terminal facilities and away from the Russian sphere. The US supported the Taliban until 9/11. Afterward, it switched to the northern alliance in order to defeat them. The NA human rights record even exceeded that of the Taliban in terms of savagery and violence. That 9/11 is cold war blow back is beyond dispute.

Obviously, US imperialism and its wretched policies led to the 9/11 attacks. Osama bin Laden and his $300 million fortune was turned against his former paymasters who he felt had, scourged Iraq with dire humanitarian consequences, used holy Saudi territory to do so, and supported Israel's ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine. This, not intelligance failures, are the real path to 9/11!

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» Only partly true Posted by: brunowe
» RE: Only partly true Posted by: yellow
» RE: Only partly true Posted by: brunowe
» RE: Only partly true Posted by: yellow
» RE: Only partly true Posted by: brunowe
» RE: Only partly true Posted by: yellow
» RE: The real path to 9/11 Posted by: judysedit
» RE: The real path to 9/11 Posted by: yellow
» RE: The real path to 9/11 Posted by: judysedit
They hate us for our freedoms
Posted by: fifthworld on Sep 14, 2006 2:30 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Apparently freedom had been getting in the way of "full spectrum dominance". There's the nutshell.

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» They DON'T hate us for our freedom Posted by: KevinSchmidtSterlingVA
The stated reason per Osama
Posted by: guitarman on Sep 14, 2006 2:41 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Osama said it himself. We were attacked because we insulted every muslim in Saudi Arabia except the royal family by putting a US military base on Saudi sands. That is an intolerable breach of respectful protocol in the muslim religion. It was to be our reward for "winning" the Desert Storm turkey shoot, "justified" by the false claim that Iraq had massed troops at the Saudi border. As soon as the old bin Laden family friend GW Bush was selected by the SCOTUS, the time was nigh for a return strike.
Yes, the whole Taliban set up from the Soviet incursion certainly provided the incubator, but the original insult came from GHW Bush after he fooled Saddam into attacking Kuwait.

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» RE: The stated reason per Osama Posted by: scribbler
» RE: The stated reason per Osama Posted by: guitarman
» RE: The stated reason per Osama Posted by: bullwhip7
MATT GOT IT RIGHT AGAIN
Posted by: Madnessfilm on Sep 15, 2006 12:57 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Matt gets it when so many others don't even come close. He asks the hard questions and answers them with a refreshing air of truth in a spin controlled era of double speak. The only thing Matt got wrong is the scene in airplane he mentions is with a Hindu holding a can of kerosene, the old lady hung herself.

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» No he didn't Posted by: WhuThe?!?
» RE: No he didn't Posted by: bullwhip7
» RE: Do your homework Posted by: bodo
Only partly correct
Posted by: sapatatanka on Sep 15, 2006 1:20 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"The operating conflict on earth now is no longer capitalism vs. communism, but one pitting organization vs. anarchy. All over the world, the borders of nation-states are blurring and becoming more and more meaningless."

Unfortunately, this statement is only partly correct: The devolution of nation-states into failed states ruled by warlords does NOT constitute anarchy. While destruction of the state is one goal of anarchists, it is not the only goal, nor is terrorism - how ever defined - a method approved by most anarchists.

An adequate form of the quoted sentence would have substituted anarchy by 'chaos'.

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» Thank you Posted by: Lizmv
» RE: Thank you Posted by: sapatatanka
» I'm Really Interested Posted by: Douglas
bunglers
Posted by: rsaxto on Sep 15, 2006 1:36 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Taibbi is basically correct: our "leaders" are a bunch of clueless agents punching at numerous invisible punching bags and, incredibly, making everything worse for all of us (except the super rich). The real bottom line is that a bunch of war crimes by both sides can only make everything incredibly worse. We need to impeach the clueless lying Bushies and elect a top leadership that will do some positive things instead of just flailing around at phantoms.

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» Temp Puppets Posted by: Hal
America SO in denial
Posted by: Bobsays on Sep 15, 2006 2:52 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I agree: I can't believe how little analysis has gone into connecting the dots. From an outside-looking-in perspective, it seems as clear as daylight why the US was attacked, and why they would do it again. As long as the US tries to be the world's puppet master, many will seeth with anger.

I would have to include Brits in the denial and back to life mode. In the UK post-7/7, most people put it behind them and went back to the usual stuff: gossiping about TV and celebs. I remember one guy saying that he called his father after seeing all the dead bodies on the bus, and his father saying he hadn't heard of the bombing but had his sone been following the cricket. At that point he knew the banality of modern life would win in the end, that Osama would lose because the rich west couldn't even care enough to wage a battle of civilisations.

On that point I am not so sure: I think it is our greatest strength to just move on, but it is also our greatest crime. We continue to accept the injustices that fuel all of this, we continue to walk into traps set for us. And that may just bring us down. My advice to Osama: hey, when you win, just make sure to have the Jihad Football League, Sharia Survivor on the TV, and work how to sell ramadan dinner kits in the supermarkets - the US will make the switch to fundamentalist Islam just nicely then.

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» RE: America SO in denial Posted by: ALANHESTER
DENIAL is GREED @ 911
Posted by: Hal on Sep 15, 2006 3:00 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
“For what do we mean by they, and what do we mean by us?”

“ It was characteristic of the fourth-rate minds … got lost…picked the wrong country, Iraq, to punish for the crime.”


Really?

I’d call this a sleep-drunk faux “progressive” take on the big bad 911 event and what it meant to the nation and the globe. Or am I being harsh here?

I’ll take the 1st point. “what do we mean by they”? and ”what do they mean by us?”

That’s easy.

It’s anyone that multinational corporate criminals believe should be taken out by a self-serve whorehouse DC-MSM pawn that steals what it wants as it sticks Americans for the bill. In case you missed it: the “us” isn’t ordinary people. It’s a super-privileged cartel class that wants more blood money than it can feast on in a generation.

Public war for private greed never had it so good. But that’s not unusual. All wars are fought over public blood money for private power. Violence is always based on a lie.

Proof? CIA (Corporate Intelligence Agency) has overthrown at least 20 democracies since WW2 as millions were butchered under death squad, torture and genocide for corporate cashbox greed. Saddam was one of “our guys” in this reign of horror solidly backed from 1959 to snuff a million of his own in trade for Iraq Petroleum Co. (Saddam was only cut when officially suckered to take Kuwait and betrayed for Gulf War I.) Ditto for the Shah of Iran and dozens of others. Let’s not get into Tonkin Gulf and the rest…

This is about BLOWBACK – as in unintended consequences of CIA and secret police devastation of other cultures. Devastation that has been kept out of the MSM by manipulation and psops command and control. Hence, good little sheep at home ask “why do they hate us” .

So “4th rate minds” went and “picked the wrong country, Iraq, to punish for the crime”?

How naïve can an MSM so-called journalist be? An attack on Iraq as a puppet garrison state and beachhead for Mid East domination has been a corporate cartel wet dream for decades and longer.

Oh, and for phony “conservatives” out there, this is no paean to Islamic radical culture that had plenty of issues before the west got to it. But conquering the Mid East to Eurasia under a string of false pretense that finally settled on spreading “democracy”? That’s pouring gas on a once manageable fire.

Still another boner: “The operating conflict on earth now is no longer capitalism vs. communism, but one pitting organization vs. anarchy.”

Free market “capitalism” doesn’t exist (thanks to cartel rigged economies) and neither did “communism” in a Bolshevik Revolution that was fully financed from New York, London to Germany by and for fascist robber barons (Kuhn Loeb & Co as a Rockefeller-Rothschild bloc front).

Then we come to a 911 cover-up “Commission”. Something old Matt forgot to hint at is that almost half of Americans don’t buy the official cum bloody old fairy tale. But we have an tradition of sweeping things under the rug in the U.S. Even sitting president Richard Nixon said the Warren Commission “was the greatest hoax ever perpetrated.” But old tricky Dick wasn’t around for 911. A tale so full of holes and spin cycles it could only be cooked and served up at a DC-MSM puppet show.

But the rest of the globe is not fooled by obvious criminal travesties, lies and mass carnage worthy of Murder Inc. Most know the naked truth of 911 and many despise America for it.

911 cover-up starring its “war on terror” (read war of terror) has turned Americans into fools or sellouts or both. All in the name of denial and greed.

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» RE: DENIAL is GREED @ 911 Posted by: John Rice
» RE: DENIAL is GREED @ 911 Posted by: WILDSTARCHILD
» RE: DENIAL is GREED @ 911 Posted by: WILDSTARCHILD
» RE: Debunking Popular Mechanics Posted by: bullwhip7
» RE: Debunking Popular Mechanics Posted by: Conservasaurus
» RE: Debunking Popular Mechanics Posted by: brokenbendystraw
» RE: Neo-Sucker & the Space Station Posted by: brokenbendystraw
Why DO they hate us?
Posted by: Lizmv on Sep 15, 2006 3:39 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Focus for a moment on the HIGHLY symbolic targets of the attack: The World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the two heads and hearts of the military-industrial complex.
We have chosen NOT to look too deeply into why 'they' hate us because we don't like the answers. If we acknowledge the fact that the US uses it's military power to FORCE the rest of the world into a US controlled global economy that really only benefits less than 1% of the Earth's population, then we will have to take responsibility for the misery our global economic policies have caused. As I heard Noam chomsky say just the other day: "They don't hate us for our freedoms, they hate us for our policies."

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» RE: Why DO they hate us? Posted by: WILDSTARCHILD
9/11 was an inside job.
Posted by: verite on Sep 15, 2006 4:10 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
US denial extends to the event itself, and so obscures its probable real causes.
Building 7 had several small fires, it was not hit by a plane.
It collapsed very neatly 5 or so hours after the planes hit the nearby towers.
This is the most glaring evidence that supports the alternative explanations which the above writer dismisses with a flippancy that betrays his or her own alienation and failure to research.
The new landlord of 2 months claimed 2 separate attacks and received 2 x $6 billion in insurance.
How come NORAD, which had 57 successful intercepts over the few months prior was sent off in the wrong direction?
The damage to the Pentagon is not consistant with an impact by a large passenger plane. The hole is too low and too small. There was no plane crash debris.
Evidence was illegally quickly removed from both the major crime scenes.
The half-trained failed "pilots" came from flying school run by a former Dutch criminal with CIA contacts.. and they would not have the skill to complete the expert flying moves ... ( why circle round the Pentagon 280° to hit the section vacant for renovation ? ) Trained professional pilots, experienced in these aircraft agree.
There are literally hundreds of sane questions and inconsistencies like these.

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» RE: 9/11 was an inside job. Posted by: symcokid
» good job Posted by: harris
» Or, just Posted by: fifthworld
» RE: 9/11 was an inside job. Posted by: brunowe
» RE: 9/11 was an inside job. Posted by: artists4peace
» RE: 9/11 was an inside job. Posted by: famouspipeliner
» RE: 9/11 was an inside job. Posted by: tiellis
» RE: 9/11 was an inside job. Posted by: WILDSTARCHILD
» RE: 911 apologist' mantra Posted by: channing
Matt is the embodiment of Hunter S. Thompson
Posted by: jimidee on Sep 15, 2006 6:05 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Proof:

"Living in Madison Avenue's irony age helps also -- when even Tony Sopranos pours his heart out to a shrink every week, it's not hard to convince Americans that they're still tough, even though Osama bin Laden is still doing bong hits on Al Jazeera five years after we boldly promised to kick his ass."

HST couldn't have said it better...

jimidee

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» Not LOL at all Posted by: fifthworld
» Matt is God Posted by: fifthworld
The importance of asking WHY
Posted by: ggmurray on Sep 15, 2006 6:06 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Very clearly, as I watched the twin towers fall, I thought: SOMEONE SURE WANTS TO GET OUR ATTENTION.
How I wish we could get curious, honest, unafraid enough to ask WHY, really why, 9/11 happened.

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Thank You
Posted by: janenj on Sep 15, 2006 6:08 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's rather like swimming upstream in this culture to posit ideas such as Matt T.'s, and some might call it treason. But I felt such a rush of resonant delight when I read his piece as it described perfectly my questions, my concerns and my insights regarding the September 11 tragedy and its aftermath. The culture hasn't changed, though because our culture hasn't changed many mothers have lost their grown soldier children in this immoral war in Iraq, and many more mothers have lost their small and grown children throughout Iraq and Afhghanistan. And we have missed an important opportunity to behave like grown ups in a serious world, we might've created the alternative to gas guzzling cars and heating systems in general. What if Bush had said, we're doing another "Apollo" type project to drastically reduce our dependence on oil and we're going to leave the Middle East. There are lots of smart and serious people in this country who could've done that in five years, easy, and we could've started employing people again in manufacturing jobs here in the good ole US of A. Kennedy said a man on the moon before the end of the decade---we did it. Bush could've said new alternative energy concepts by the end of the decade. No, he said "Go shopping". And this is America, the beautiful???

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» RE: Thank You Posted by: WILDSTARCHILD
» RE: Thank You Posted by: WILDSTARCHILD
I think THIS HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH IT!!
Posted by: solarjin on Sep 15, 2006 6:55 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
http://www.rwor.org/a/v23/1120-29/1125/timeline.htm

We've been up their ass with broken glass since we went bankrupt at the start of the 20th century.

"I don't know, I don't care, I just sit and stare now. I don't think, I just sit and listen to the drone of this machine." - TLA

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So how do we get regular people to ask these questions?
Posted by: antiapathy on Sep 15, 2006 6:56 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You know, the Ding-Dong eatin, NASCAR watchin, red-blooded, down-home, Bush-voting Americans? Or as I call them, apathetic consumer zombies. They're the ones who are sitting idly by as the neo-cons and corpos send their kids off to die and export their jobs and cut their health insurance. And yet they react by watching more reality shows and buying more plastic crap at walmart.

How do we get through to these people? Op-eds like these are clearly aimed at progressive citizens who already understand how deep the issues are. I agree that our "culture" is shallow and void of intellect, but insulting it isn't going to win any converts. The mainstream media has set up a paradigm that pits us snooty liberal commies against the common working man. And both sides seem to have bought into it.

I don't know the answers, but until we start getting through to regular people, things will continue to get worse.

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Did the Muslims do it?
Posted by: Free Truth on Sep 15, 2006 7:05 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Did the Muslims do it?

[begin excerpt]
We made many careers out of assigning blame for the attacks, with the right blaming Bill Clinton, Michael Moore blaming George Bush, and the clinically insane blaming those mysterious demolition experts who allegedly wired the bottoms of the towers with the explosives that "really" caused the tragedy.
[end excerpt]

The most insane conspiracy theory of all is to blame 9/11 on 19 Arab Muslims with box cutters led by a guy in a cave, outsmarting the the entire US Military, all of the US Spy Agencies and the US Government.

As to the explosives that were most likely planted in buildings 1, 2 and 3...

Power Downs in the week before 9/11: (sub-clip) opportunity to plant explosives? (0:38 minutes)
Video here-> http://www.youtube.com/?v=U-da8h41G_g

[begin excerpt] This sub-clip of the Jeff King presentation focuses on the unusual power down and evacuation drills in the week before 9/11. This addresses the question the people sometimes ask as to how it would have been possible to plant explosives in WTC buildings 1, 2 and 7.[end excerpt]

And

Molten metal in basements: how did this happen? (0:57 minutes)
Video here-> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB41i-rpvPw

[begin excerpt] Scientific evidence regarding the extraordinary temperatures that were recorded at the World Trade Center site after the attacks of 9/11. The indisputable laws of physics and chemistry make the case that there must have been an additional extremely large heat source, for example explosives.[end excerpt]

Watch all 36 videos here:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=freetruth101

Americans are waking up about 9/11.

Thanks for the opportunity to share my thoughts on this.

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» Correction buildings 1, 2 and 7 Posted by: Free Truth
» RE: Did the Muslims do it? Posted by: WILDSTARCHILD
» RE: Did the Muslims do it? Posted by: fifthworld
» RE: Did the Muslims do it? Posted by: Conservasaurus
Mainstream media is not the voice of the people
Posted by: Dianka on Sep 15, 2006 7:15 AM   
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I think it's a shame that so many mistake mainstream media as a reflection of "ordinary Americans". People ARE asking the questions. People ARE furious at the insane recklessness of our government, whether discussing the invasion of Iraq or the fact that the government stole all the money from our social safety net programs and gave it to the richest. People ARE outraged at the deterioration of life in the US. We are frightened not so much by the possibility of another 911, but by the fact that our government has created a prison system more massive than the old Soviet Gulag, stripped away the protections of those taken into state custody, and has turned this rapidly expanding prison system into a virtual slave labor camp. While America's elite are living on multi-million dollar incomes, American children are malnourished, millions of citizens are homeless, people can't get basic medical care, etc., etc. The fact that the voices of the people are blocked out of the mainstream media does not mean that they don't exist.

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In the words de' Gaulle...
Posted by: tashi on Sep 15, 2006 7:18 AM   
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The words of de Gaulle come to mind: “You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination”...

Its beyond the understanding of Americans dumbed down by incessant sports coverage on MSM, reality tv shows, and not to mention, right-wing talk radio and FOX news - to see 'Why do they hate us'

Here's a rather rough list of 'why do they hate us'?
1. Giving up 73% of historic Palestine to European settlers (calling themselves Jewish doesn't make it any more legitimate)
2. Continued material support of the colonial apartheid state of Israel by providing financial, diplomatic, and military aid
3. Decades of support for repressive regimes in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt
4. Supporting Suharto regime in Indonesia and helping it purge over 1/2 million educated, democratic socialists in the '60s and '70s
5. Supporting every military dictatorship in Pakistan. Helping General Zia develop the Afghan Jihad against the Soviets. Al-Qaeda, Talibans etc are merely blowbacks
6. Subverting a democratically elected secular government of Mussadeq in Iran and propping up of the repressive Shah regime instead.
7. Training and advising SAVAK, the SS like brutal secret police of Shah of Iran
8. Helping General Zia brutally repress the Movement for Restoration of Democracy(MRD) in the 80s in Pak. The result of which was to push educated moderate middle-calss citizens out of the political arena.

I could go on but I need to get back to work....

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» RE: In the words de' Gaulle... Posted by: deltadancer
» RE: In the words de' Gaulle... Posted by: Steve Adair
» It's deGaulle, btw, but great quote. Posted by: Bic Pentameter
What a brazenly head-in-the-sand premise
Posted by: fifthworld on Sep 15, 2006 7:29 AM   
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They, terrorists, why do they hate us.... PLEASE. Everyone seems to love this author but I don't know him. All I can say is he's completely missing the boat. What's up here???? No discussion of the inside job, the overwhelming evidence of it no matter how the actual implementation or despite the dangling questions - that's pathetic. The article is thereby rendered worthless.

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Imagine...
Posted by: tomkara on Sep 15, 2006 7:29 AM   
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Imagine a world without the US dominating the Middle East for it's oil supplies which includes eventually basing troops in Saudi Arabia, imagine a world where the US didn't automatically support Israel and instead demanded justice for the Palestinians, imagine a world where the US foreign policy proceeded from a platform of real democratic values, instead of attempting to pawn one group off against as we did during the "Cold War" period, like the world was a clumsily played chess game (whereby we initially support and arm the very guys we later attack, whereby we support dictators and princes because we think it's to our advantage, rather than democratic forces, where we spend billions attacking a country like Iraq and ignore genocide....)and you can imagine a world without 9/11. While it is true that Al Qaida is dominated by religious fanatics with a fundamentalist world view, their objectives would not have mass appeal in a world where social justice and democratic values weren't constantly suppressed, often with the aid of the United States government, which is dominated by equally fanatical fundamentalists. Why do they hate us, indeed? Most of the world looks down us now, not just these terrorists! Do you think it's just because of Bush? He is the tip of the iceberg. Amerikans still believe this fantasy that our government is promoting democracy, whereas the truth is that "we" are simply promoting corporate self interests under the guise of promoting democracy. The article about "WHY" totally fails to address these issues. I don't see most Amerikans grasping any of this since the media is dominated by corporations and government. If Alternet can't present a comprehensive article about "Why" then the prospects are even more grim.

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» RE: Imagine... Posted by: Steve Adair
the real poop
Posted by: karyse on Sep 15, 2006 7:40 AM   
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I got news for y'all. I live in a "red state" and most of my daily contact is with the (mostly) disenfranchised "ding-dong eating, down-home" folks. I have yet to meet a single individual who doesn't know we're all getting "f#*$&ed" by the wealthy, corporate owning, slime balls who couldn't give a rat's ass about anything but making money.

Trouble is, most of them are working either 2 or 3 minimum wage jobs just to survive (and I'm not stretching this), or the one job they have is for 14 or 15 hours a day. Now I ask you, since the media is owned 100 percent by the rich, what in the hell do you expect them to do?

Oh, and by the way, the media is the reason I live in a "red state" yet another "imaginary" construction -- the only meaning of which is that I live in a state where Bu$hco stole a few more votes than the other guys managed to do.

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» Red black and blue Posted by: fifthworld
» RE: the real poop Posted by: ALANHESTER
Some Americans HAVE asked and have found out
Posted by: wawa on Sep 15, 2006 7:57 AM   
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Before 9/11, I did not give too much thought for another beyond my rural community. I was apolitical, thought the world had already gone mad and there was nothing much anyone could do or say to change it.


But after 9/11 I got really restless and began asking a lot of politically incorrect questions. I have never been satisfied with easy answers. And so I began the research to discover why a small group of people hated Americans so much, that they would do something as evil as targeting and cold bloodedly murdering innocent people.

That research led me to write KEEP H