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Guest Post: 9/11 – A Fourth Turning Perspective
Submitted by Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform
9/11 – A Fourth Turning Perspective
The four turnings comprise a
quaternal social cycle of growth, maturation, entropy, and death (and
rebirth). In a spring like High, a society fortifies and builds and
converges in an era of promise. In a summer like Awakening, it dreams
and plays and exults in an era of euphoria. In an autumnal Unraveling,
it harvests and consumes and diverges in an era of anxiety. In a
hibernal Crisis, it focuses and struggles and sacrifices in an era of
survival. When the saeculum is in motion, therefore, no long human
lifetime can go by without a society confronting its deepest spiritual
and worldly needs. - The Fourth Turning
Nine years after the attack on the World Trade Center the mood of the
country has transformed dramatically. I watched the horror on a TV in a
conference room at work with my colleagues. I remember being in a daze
for a few days after the attack. When it became unambiguous that Osama
bin Laden masterminded the attacks and was being protected by the
Taliban in Afghanistan, I wanted justice. The entire world rallied
around the US. There was worldwide support for the United States’ right
to attack Afghanistan and kill the perpetrators.
In the days immediately following the attacks, there were many
memorials and vigils around the world. In addition, pictures were placed
all over Ground Zero. A witness described being unable to “get away
from faces of innocent victims who were killed. Their pictures are
everywhere, on phone booths, street lights, walls of subway stations.
Everything reminded me of a huge funeral, people quiet and sad, but also
very nice. Before, New York gave me a cold feeling; now people were
reaching out to help each other.”
There was a feeling of unity in the country for a brief shining
moment. If the year had been 2007, rather than 2001, that unity may have
been sustained. Anyone who had read Strauss & Howe’s 1997 book The Fourth Turning was likely
trying to figure out if the 9/11 attacks were the trigger for the
Fourth Turning. But it was too soon. As Strauss & Howe relate in the
book, a turning can be sudden or subtle:
“The gateway to a new turning can be
obvious and dramatic (like the 1929 Stock Crash) or subtle and gradual
(like 1984’s Morning in America). It usually occurs two to five years
after a new generation of children starts being born. The tight link
between turning gateways and generational boundaries enables each
archetype to fill an entire phase-of-life just as the mood of an old
turning grows stale and feels ripe for replacement with something new.”
Unraveling Culture
The Unraveling, which had begun in 1984, had not run its course by
September 11, 2001. Turnings generally last for 20 to 25 years. In 2001,
we were only 17 years into the Unraveling. The mood of the country had
not developed to the point where a consensus could be built to address a
national Crisis. We had been attacked, but our very existence as a
nation had not been threatened. The 9/11 attacks heightened the feeling
of anxiety in the country and put us on the path towards a great Crisis.
Strauss & Howe explained the phases of an Unraveling in the
book:
“An UNRAVELING begins as a
society-wide embrace of the liberating cultural forces set loose by the
Awakening. People have had their fill of spiritual rebirth, moral
protest, and lifestyle experimentation. Content with what they have
become individually, they vigorously assert an ethos of pragmatism,
self-reliance, laissez faire, and national (or sectional or ethnic)
chauvinism.
While personal satisfaction is high,
public trust ebbs amid a fragmenting culture, harsh debates over values,
and weakening civic habits. The sense of guilt (which rewards
principle and individuality) reaches its zenith. As moral debates brew,
the big public arguments are over ends, not means. Decisive public
action becomes very difficult, as community problems are deferred. Wars
are fought with moral fervor but without consensus or follow-through.
Eventually, cynical alienation
hardens into a brooding pessimism. During a High, obliging individuals
serve a purposeful society, and even bad people get harnessed to
socially constructive tasks; during an Unraveling, an obliging society
serves purposeful individuals, and even good people find it hard to
connect with their community. The approaching specter of public
disaster ultimately elicits a mix of paralysis and apathy that would
have been unthinkable half a saeculum earlier. People can now feel, but
collectively can no longer do.” - The Fourth Turning
The Clinton years were divisive and cynical. You knew the country was
adrift, but no one could harness the power of the realm to take on
the impending challenges. The nation divided into Blue states and Red
States. The Moral Majority raged against the Godlessness of the country.
The 2000 Presidential election was an example of a country deeply
divided, fragmented and unable to agree on anything. The election was
essentially a draw, and a partisan Supreme Court picked the winner. It
seemed like the country was divided as never before. But, a student of
history would have recognized the same issues, dilemmas and foul mood in
the 1760s, 1850s and 1920s. Strauss and Howe documented the prior
Unravelings in US history:
“The mood of the current Culture Wars
era seems new to nearly every living American but is not new to
history. Around World War I, America steeped in reform and
fundamentalism amidst a floodtide of crime, alcohol, immigration,
political corruption, and circus trials. The 1850s likewise simmered
with moral righteousness, shortening tempers, and multiplying
“mavericks.” It was a decade, says historian David Donald, in which
“the authority of all government in America was at a low point.”
Entering the 1760s, the colonies felt rejuvenated in spirit but reeled
from violence, mobs, insurrections, and paranoia over the corruption of
official authority.” - The Fourth Turning
The country went to war with a moral fervor, which quickly
dissipated. There was no follow through, as bin Laden was allowed to
escape. The appearance of unity in the country was wiped away with the
invasion of Iraq under false pretenses. Americans became more cynical
after 9/11. Instead of addressing the visible financial catastrophe set
in motion by political promises made decades ago, Americans deluded
themselves with visions of faux wealth created by the Federal Reserve
inflating the largest bubble in history. President Bush did not demand
shared sacrifice after 9/11. He instructed the American people to defeat
the terrorists by leasing a Mercedes SUV; buying a 6,000 sq ft
McMansion with 10 rooms, granite countertops, Jacuzzis, and a home
theater, financed with 0% down; and taking your ultimate dream vacation
in the Caribbean paid for with one of your 10 credit cards.
While Americans binged on credit and ignored the disastrous future
that awaited them with the approaching Fourth Turning, a brooding
pessimism began to blanket the country. A national paralysis overtook
the populace regarding vital issues. The popping of the housing bubble
from 2006 through 2008 revealed massive fraud on the part of Wall Street
bankers; corrupt politicians, bought off by corporations, in Washington
DC; inept bungling regulators; millions of morons wanting to be led
astray; and a Federal Reserve that provided the cheap credit to fuel the
mass delusion. The complete meltdown of the financial system in
September 2008 will be viewed as the catalyst for the current Fourth
Turning. The transition from Unraveling to Crisis has transpired.
Crisis Deepening
“A CRISIS arises in response to
sudden threats that previously would have been ignored or deferred, but
which are now perceived as dire. Great worldly perils boil off the
clutter and complexity of life, leaving behind one simple imperative:
The society must prevail. This requires a solid public consensus,
aggressive institutions, and personal sacrifice.” - The Fourth Turning
The current Crisis is deepening day by day. The ninth anniversary of
9/11 is revealing the dramatic mood change of the country. In the days
following 9/11 there was little anger against the religion of Islam.
President Bush went to a mosque and declared that Islam was a religion
of peace. He said forcefully that anyone who attacked Arab or Muslim
Americans in some kind of twisted attempt at revenge for 9/11 would be
met with the full force of American law. Most right minded Americans
agreed with President Bush. After 9 years of waging wars against
Muslims, in which victory is unachievable, Americans are weary, agitated
and ready to lash out.
Contrast the reaction of Americans after 9/11 with the recent issue
of converting a Burlington Coat factory store into a Muslim community
center two blocks from Ground Zero. The mainstream media has been full
of vitriol and anger regarding an issue that would have gotten no press
in 2002. There have been protests, counter-protests, accusations and
lies spread across the airwaves. The anti-Muslim feeling in the country
is palpable. A nut-job pastor with a flock of 50 people threatens to
burn the Koran and sets off a firestorm across the globe. The reaction
to this inconsequential knucklehead would have been non-existent in
2002. The mood of the country has clearly changed. The anger building
against the ruling elite on Wall Street and in Washington DC is real.
Average Americans feel betrayed by politicians, bankers and corporate
America. The Tea party movement is a reflection of that anger. The
country certainly hasn’t reached a consensus about which direction the
country needs to move, but we are still in the early stages of the
Fourth Turning. A threat to our very existence will reveal itself in the
near future and generate the consensus necessary to meet the threat.
What is beyond a doubt is that the country is facing extreme peril as
it tries to maneuver its way through an economic Depression, a looming
peak oil crisis, unresolved long-term fiscal obligations, and antagonism
from countries throughout the world. The cycles of history do not
reveal the exact nature of the Crisis ahead, but previous Crisis periods
give us a flavor of what to expect. Based on our previous Crises
periods and knowing which national issues have been ignored for decades,
the likely threats to confront the nation over the next decade include:
- Continued reduction in the national wealth of Americans as home
prices drop another 20% and the stock market loses another 30% of its
value. - A National Debt approaching $20 trillion within the next 5 years,
potentially resulting in massive interest expense payments and/or a
collapse of the USD. - When the Central Bank experiment in fiat currency fails within the next 5 years, a hyperinflationary depression is likely.
- The demographic headwinds of a rapidly aging population combined
with the gutting of industrial America by corporate chieftains insures
that the American economy will be stuck in low gear. The result will be a
steady decline in the American standard of living. - The diminishing supply of cheap, easily accessible oil will
fundamentally change American society. The entire suburban sprawl
existence of America, with 260 million automobiles and food trucked from
1,500 miles to grocery stores will disappear practically overnight. - The wrenching changes which will be required to localize, combined
with the loss of wealth, will likely lead to social chaos, possible
revolt, and the use of U.S. military forces against citizens of the
United States. Geographic fragmentation of the country is a distinct
possibility. - The desperate need for oil will provoke wars for precious resources.
The Middle East is likely to turn into a battlefield. The combatants
are unknown at this point, but China and Russia are likely to be
involved. With the proliferation of nuclear weapons, an escalation could
lead to a catastrophic worldwide conflagration.
Fourth Turnings always sweep away the old order and replace it with a
new order. There is no guarantee that the new order will be better. It
could be far worse. As we honor those who lost their lives on September
11, 2001 we need to brace ourselves for the storm ahead. The clouds are
gathering and the time of great sacrifice is approaching. There are no
guarantees from God that the United States will always prevail. We have
gone far off course this time. I trust we can rise to the challenge.
“History offers no guarantees.
Obviously, things could go horribly wrong – the possibilities ranging
from a nuclear exchange to incurable plagues, from terrorist anarchy to
high-tech dictatorship. We should not assume that Providence will always
exempt our nation from the irreversible tragedies that have overtaken
so many others: not just temporary hardship, but debasement and total
ruin. Losing in the next Fourth Turning could mean something
incomparably worse. It could mean a lasting defeat from which our
national innocence – perhaps even our nation – might never recover.” - The Fourth Turning
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OMG. Charlie Sheen a great thinker?? He's just acting! The only thing he thinks about is his booze and women. What have you been smoking??
i don't think, he thinks much about his woman especially when he is on booze.
OH forgiven, you didn't mean to hit her. sure, you won't call the cops on me, babey!
boom, play it again SAM.
Maybe the building of a Mosque on the periphery of Ground Zero would have gone down better with the American public if there were new buildings in place on the site. The fact that the only thing there nine years later is a hole several stories deep is telling of what has become of American resolve, and it turns off the public to see that the only crew with clear plans to build on the site may very well be people connected with the persons who knocked down all the old buildings, and all our blessed leadership can say is "They have a constitutional right to build here," while, as aptly pointed out, they find ways to continue to fleece the working and tax-paying public to "spread the wealth" to their supporters.
To be frank, it is a small wonder that there isn't already outright rebellion in the land beyond a few peaceful Tea Party protests. That is either a telling testimony to the forebearance of American Public, or a sign of the state of decline of the of a former great republic into a toothless Byzantine elitocracy, or both.
The fact that there is a hole in the ground several stories deep at the site of the attack on 9/11 says more about the decadence and decay of American Society thanthe anti-mosque crowd does.
.
HELP!! ZH IS BEING OVERRUN BY PAID SHILLS!!
Why don't you guys go make some real money and go fool the masses at HuffPo (you'll also get a cute badge or two while you're at it!).
As has happened multiple times in the last 150 years in Russia, Germany and now the US, the anoited minority have over played their hand once again. Once the US middle class have been stripped of their wealth they will be looking for vengence against those who have done them wrong. The corporate media scapegoating Mexicans, Muslims and Arabs for the loss of wealth will ultimately fail. The 2% of the US population who have stolen far beyond their numbers will reap what they have sowed.
Sure, they'll be living it up in Dubai.
Don't fool yourself, they'll be long gone. With the loot.
Ever hear of Nazi hunters? Well, that's what I wanna be when I grow up except now I'll be chasing wanted fascists.
Maybe it's the two martinis I had last night, or the backdrop of 911 or maybe even the Bat Mitzvah of Lady GaGa as witnessed by a Frank Zappa "Catholic girl”, Camille Paglia but America today is a victim. Yes a victim. The useless cotton candy held up to Obama by Chuck Todd @ Obama's 8th news conference was the last straw. Our elected President is a failure, not of his own making mind you, no, in his mind he is orating from a silk draped balcony offering nothingness to his sheeple. His choir sings his praises while the masses walk by not unlike the rubberneck's gawking at an accident. This man child, void of real world experience has no clue of America’s ultimate kryptonite armor waiting to be unleashed. Yes, November 2nd is equally about extending the middle digit to the so called news organizations who decided to market vs. investigate, and shade rather that expose. Debt laden and numb to Central Bank machinations, and Wash D.C.'s fiscal adventures voters instinctively recognize fraud, failure and danger. The current Chief Executive and his band of misfits blame, ridicule, twist and spin. "We knew Health care would be more expensive", or "John Boehner now wants the keys" or some other Non Sequitur to the truth is all that remain from a MSM fairy tale candidacy. It's not Obama's skin color, sorry Roland Martin, it’s not his middle name, Keith, rather his competency,or lack thereof.. Get it MSM. As for Muslims, Jews, Commies, and any other of the usual scapegoats, they are us. Jews and Muslims make up an intellecual and Scientific class in America second to none. Religion and ethnicity are mutally exclusive to phony Labor Dept numbers and Free money front running the top of a pyramid scheme. Stress tests with in Europe resemble phony urine samples of test taking truck drivers. America's largest banks are zombies and rely on the same teat as a a vapid Congress for sustenance. The fourth estate including but not limited to, the AP, NYT, & the GE excrement promulgation machine, etc. are now naked to the world. The "turning" is the knowledge offered by the world wide web and sites such as zero hedge. That folks, is what is feared by the entrenched.
you should drink more often amigo...nice rant. do you think that America as a victim was a self-fulfilling prophecy? the rush to identify ourselves as 'victims' over and over again (e.g. the jerry springer show, et al) made it vogue to abdicate any modicum of personal responsbility toward the body social/politic?
Why would an Italian girl have a Bar Mitzvah? She sure is a strange girl.
George W. Bush was void of real world experience too. I agree with most of your rant though, especially the last sentence. Right on.
I know it's coming, I just wish I'd known a long time ago. Unfortunately, for me, I played the game & believed all the shit I was told, all the propaganda out of t.v. ..... you remember this one, don't you ! "Always buy the best house you can afford & the cheapest car." !! Well, I did that. Bought that good home to raise the family in, bought all the stuff those kids needed, put my money 401K (government told us we should all have one !) ...........
NO MORE ! I buy NOTHING anymore, NOTHING @ big box stores, NOTHING EXCEPT FOODSTUFFS & HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS & SILVER & GOLD. I'm sick to death of the whole scene. & I'll probably be dead by the time this 4th turning stuff comes to an end.
And, as long as I'm on a rant, PLEASE, SOMEONE ANSWER: WHY AM I GIVING MONEY TO GENERAL MOTORS WHEN THEY ARE SELLING SO WELL IN CHINA ? SO, THE CHINESE POPULATION GETS TO BUY $5,000 GM AUTOS, ME & MY KIDS PAY HIGHER TAXES SO GM CAN SURVIVE & SELL TO THE CHINESE & WE CAN'T AFFORD A NEW CAR ! HOW DOES THAT WORK !
I rent an apt and lease a Beemer. Or is it a Bimmer? Doesn't matter, I own it.
Yay! A sun conure! I love conures! I had one for years and years. I taught him to ride on my shoulder all the time, and jump down when he had to poop.
He used to dance to the ice cream truck. LOL
... And to top it all off, they have the audacity to launch an IPO??!!
GM and the rest of the bailed out socialist entities can go fuck themselves!
Bears might be in trouble on Monday.
I hear ya, robo. Wouldn't be the first gap up I've stared down on a bear position. Some of my better payoffs resulted in taking quite a bit of heat, and I allow for that. I quantify 'a bit' in this case as 150 - 250 dow points. I usually get in early, so that is the road I must face.
Good trading, everyone...
They beat Detroit.
Interesting take on ground 0 mosque
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/pat-condell-on-ground-zero-mosque-is-it-possible-to-be-astonished-but-not-surprised.html
I've always assumed it was british zionists. Qui bono?
I have carefully studied the events of 911( what does carefully study mean?- minimally, I read David Griffin's book "The New Pearl Harbor", and considered all the details included); and I have spent some time learning the culture of ZeroHedge - the community- and, whereas I generally support not insulting people - I also recognize that there are certainly situations in life where someone has to take command. There sometimes isn't time enough to arrive at consensus - to avoid death or injury. A leader is needed to make a command decision, and act, and get others to act. If that leader is wrong, there can be bad consequences, but, in many cases, the players are thankful that someone made a decision and acted. I bring this up because it is obvious to many educated people that 911 was an inside job - to give cause for the War on Terror, which followed within days, and was a huge profit engine for the corporations involved. It is pointless to go into details of the argument - it has been nine years - if it isn't obvious to you by now, well, it is pretty unlikely that you have spent ANY time objectively thinking about the event- and what that indicates about you is that your thinking is so dull or wronged, that it is unsalvageable. I say this because- people who understand what happened - and have spent years trying to get others to see it- have begun to reach a point where, at this present moment- you people who can't see what is very possibly becoming a more and more imminent threat - your lack of critical thinking skills is dangerous to us - threatens our survival. At some point, a point may be reached where there is not going to be any time to reach consensus on issues like this - and folks who stand there dully looking at the light, will simply be hip-checked out of the way by folks who need everyone to be thinking clearly. Over past nine years, it has been merely a frustrating party trick to argue with people about what happened on 911. Unfortunately, what has transpired since then in increasingly threatening us as citizens - they killed us for their war plans, and they will do it anytime they feel it is neccesary. At a certain level of chaos in this countrym which is much closer than it was on 911 - at a point, the people who were too lazy or stupid to see what was in front of their faces, will be useless roadkill. People will be doing there arguing with bullets- a lot less will be spoken, subtle thoughts and consensus will be useless. I am telling you, wake the fuck up.
Nice.. You know.. Your post made me think of something.. All of these people that think we are nuts because we question the official story do not realize that we DO NOT want to see our government in this light. It was the hardest thing I ever did when I let go of the belief that this country was great and had great people making it so.. It was a sad day for me when I realized our government was either behind or covering up the truth of 9/11. I got no comfort from it whatsoever..
So will you convert back to the right side if you get enough evidence ?
Yes.. Actually I would.. If I saw a genuine effort to address the problems with the official story without insult and in a comprehensive manner, I would change my stance.
We both know that's not going to happen.. Will you take an unbiased and objective view?
"When the facts change, I change my mind, what do you do, sir?" We all know who said that..
So Max - let's pretend that you are the head of the company that is going to insure the Twin Towers. What requirements would you impose on the contractor before he starts building - before you would agree to insure the project? How would you hedge yourself against the horrific loss you would suffer from lawsuits if those towers were to ever fail, for whatever reason, and demolish the surrounding buildings? This is a serious question. It is a question I think everyone who wants to question the "official" story should think through completely before they move on to embrace the idea of a government conspiracy.
If you were to require the buildings to be constructed in a manner that they would collapse on themselves, straight down, if they ever failed - or if you were to require that explosives be built-in, in case the building ever failed and needed to be brought straight down - like in a demolition - would you be willing for this information to be publically and generally known? Do you think folks might have a problem going into the Twin Towers (or any other tall building) if they knew these were the building requirements you imposed before you would consent to insure the buildings? If this explains the peculiar way in which the Twin Towers and WTC 7 collapsed, would you be eager for the general public to know this? Do you think there could be a conspiracy between interested parties to keep such information from the public - simply and only because they don't want people to stop going into tall buildings?
As I said in the other topic/thread about 9/11 - I have no problem accepting that a scenario similar to what I described above explains the collapse of the Twin Towers and WTC 7. What I have trouble with is that the truthers frame the debate as being between two extremes without discussing the possibility of a more mundane explanation such as I have given above.
Hi . I am a contractor. I am expected to get things done and have to think for myself. I did not wish to recognize that 911 was an inside job. One day , looking hard at the facts and the videos i concluded that it was indeed a CONTROLLED demolition. I cried that night and concluded i cannot feel safe in my home or this country since i and you are expendebale. More so now that we are useless unemployed eaters.
Add to that the worldwide spraying of the air (chemtrails/barium and aluminum) and i truly feel the victim of government and live in fear of it.
I fear the american government. I live in Oregon.
best post on this thread so far
Point on! Excellent post. Spitzer--you really are a treat or a treatment-havn't figured out which yet. Milestones
Thank you mtk, I think smart people who do a little research will begin to realize the treasonous acts perpetrated by our own government over the past 100 years. Lots of false flag events to drag the U.S. into world wars. There are lots of FRNs to print dontcha know! I used to be very patriotic until I started realizing the truth (as much as it pains me). Wait a minute!! I AM PATRIOTIC DAMMIT! What did Jefferson say about dissent?
If anyone commentling on the Koran actually reads it they might be amazed to find that it is actually composed of three books - the Old Testament( yes, that one); the New Testament (yes, that one); and the Third Teaching given by Allah to Mohammed.
According to Da Lord, when speaking to Mohammed, the Jews screwed up the Word the first time, the Christians screwed it up the Second - and so his august graciousness Da Lord gave Mankind one last chance - the Third attempt to get people to hear the Word - which is the Koran.
Don't be forcing Da Lord have to make another trip down here you ignorant pricks. Ever heard of the Apocalypse?
TD-
I love your site but I have to say you've got some real nut jobs that post on it and comment on those posts. Inside job???? Deserved it??? Good grief.
Where in hell have these people been for the last 30 years? Islamic Jihadists didn't start with 9/11. And I have yet to hear anything rational from the loons who think 9/11 was in inside job exactly what the motive was and what "they" gained from it. Oh wait, stupid me...... of course, another war by those evil U.S. war-mongers.
Egad! Ignorance runs rampant.
"Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance."
—Albert Einstein
Condemnation with investigation....
The War On Waste
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 29, 2002
Vince Gonzales investigates the Pentagon's inability to account for trillions of taxpayer dollars.
(CBS) Sept. 10 - "Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared war. Not on foreign terrorists, "the adversary's closer to home. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy," he said.
He said money wasted by the military poses a serious threat.
"In fact, it could be said it's a matter of life and death," he said.
Rumsfeld promised change but the next day – Sept. 11-- the world changed and in the rush to fund the war on terrorism, the war on waste seems to have been forgotten.
Just last week President Bush announced, "my 2003 budget calls for more than $48 billion in new defense spending."
More money for the Pentagon, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzalesreports, while its own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends.
"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted. ”
http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/sept11/cbs_waronwaste.html
Numbers, you are an asshole.
The 9-11 revisionists are not loons. They come from all walks of life and all points on the political spectrum, including the apolitical. I don't like having to reduce myself to the name-calling that the government dupes have as their currency, but this time it's too egregious.
The people who question 9-11 are generally the ones who know the most about it. The people who swallow the gov. line tend to believe that only 2 buildings came down. Why don't they know that 3 came down? You'd think the media would have reported it...oh, wait.
You hear a ton of rational and responsible dissent from physicists, architects, engineers, academics, and PEOPLE WHO WERE ON THE 9-11 COMMISSION WHO NONETHELESS THINK IT's BULLSHIT. Yet you keep repeating this line of crap that there is no evidence of any involvment from any place in the government.
I talk to people about 9-11 all the time. The majority are receptive to what I have to say. In fact, I think I convince a majority of the rightness of my position the first or second time I speak to them. Assholes like you are rare. And I have to remember that before letting the likes of you trouble me any further. Jesus is reported to have advised his diciples to give the Message, let those who will hear hear, and then move on. Do not waste pearls on swine. Wiser words never spoken.
9/11 was not an inside job, get over it.
Nation states do not have a history of doing this kind of shit, it just doesn't happen because it is unnecessary.
The wars in the ME could have been started without the 9/11 attack. Hell, the second gulf war still had the biggest opposition demonstrations to it worldwide with human shields and all despite this "staged attack to justify it."
Was there a staged attack to justify when Clinton sent cruise missiles to Afghanistan ?
Why don't the conspirators talk about that ?
Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason. -Ovid
Spitzer, yes, there are many credible observers who clearly stated that Clinton's missile shot was done intentionally to distract from lewinsky testimony - in fact, it was eerie, because the movie Wag The Dog opened just a few weeks before that missile strike, and alot of people were simply amazed at how it appeared that this is exactly what Clinton was doing. Look, most people, conciously or not, will not consider an idea that is too radical, simply because they dont trust their own reasoning, or, more weakly, they don't have enough self-esteem to weather being called a conspiracy nut. There is a large group of people who have their doubts about what happened on 911- but are simply waiting for someone to come out with a 60 minutes expose- so they can then jump on and say "I knew it!" For me, I accept that it is not even very likely that we will ever get the real answer- as with the JFK murder. But, and this gets at whether or not you truly have any integrity - what you have to try to do is say to yourself- okay, I may never get the media saying what happened- but happen it did, and IF they really did it to us- our own Black Ops- if they did it - then I really need to think about what that means. I will never have all the evidence, but I need to look at what happened that day, and what followed from it- all the behavior of inside people since then, and I need to make a DECISION, because it means, possibly, that everything our government and media is supposed to be- is a lie, and this has obvious consequences. I weighed all I could find, and I watched the wars if Iraq and Afghanistan play out- and I decided that WE did this, and I see everything in light of that fact. If you are a person reading this thread, play a game with yourself - just a game- pretend that someone like God put a gun to your head(nice imagery, actually - specially if it was like Alanis Moristte when she played god in that movie): and God said to you, you tell me right now, did 19 Arabs with boxcutters do that on 911- or did Blackops US/Isreal do it? God says- that thing actually happened, and I saw it, and I know the correct answer- you tell me what happened that day - if you get it right, 72 virgins for you, right out of the pages of Barely Legal; but if you get it wrong, your brains will be raining over the landscape from Dayton to Hoboken. Your call. what is your answer?
It requires a leap of faith to believe that it was conspiracy. Just like it requires a leap of faith to believe the bible. There is piles of evidence that Jesus existed on earth, the problem is, there is just not enough. If there was, we would all be Christians.
I am not 100% convinced that it was not conspiracy but I don't want to argue with somebody that it 100% convinced that it is. You are too fanatic.
That's good. I'm not 100% convinced that it was a conspiracy either. Maybe it happened basically like the official version, but there are important and really embarrassing facts that were kept hidden. But I really don't know. What I do know is that the official version is clearly not both complete and accurate, and after 9 years we deserve to actually know what happened. If the government still doesn't know, they are too incompetent to remain in power. If the government does know and is hiding the truth, which seems likely, that is extremely ominous. Demands for truth are absolutely reasonable, in a way that specific claims of specific conspiracy theories are not.
If everyone knows, how is that "hidden"?
Demands for truth are absolutely reasonable ...
You can't handle the truth is a rational statement in certain instances. One of governments' first responsibilities is to keep the peace in the civilian population. Releasing information that would clearly cause unrest, if not destruction of property, goes against the mandate to keep the peace. You have had your attention misdirected by your government probably more times that you will ever know. It is part of the process of governing and keeping the peace. Your demands for truth will be ignored in such situations. I'm not making a value judgement here. I'm simply stating a fact.
Then there are the times the government misdirects your attention just so it can reach into your pocket. But that is a different story.
I don't know about all of this 1, 2, 3, 4th turning mumbo jumbo, but if there was a turning, it was when we put a man on the moon, not 1984 or 9-11.
You really believe we put a man on the moon?
;)
are you sure we put men on the moon?
http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/
Where the hell do these people come from?
Are you feeling a little freaked out by all this? I'll have to say that you and I may be the sanest ones here -- and that alone scares me.
johnny: it's always good to reflect on how "knowable" something is.
maybe a golf b a l l
The diminishing supply of cheap, easily accessible oil will fundamentally change American society. The entire suburban sprawl existence of America, with 260 million automobiles and food trucked from 1,500 miles to grocery stores will disappear practically overnight.
I'm in some agreement with your first 4 bullet points, however the last 3 are highly questionable.
I believe peak oil is absolute nonsense...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHD4U2q_p4c&feature=related
Just like CO2 is a pollutant, or that man made CO2 is causing global warming is absolute nonsense...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5576670191369613647#
'Just like CO2 is a pollutant, or that man made CO2 is causing global warming is absolute nonsense...'
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
Charles Darwin (English Naturalist and Author of the theory of evolution by natural selection. 1809-1882)
"It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”....So we adapt to the lie so that the Pied Piper can deceive the populace into the drink? Pardon me, I'm not of that tribe.
by G-R-U-N-T wrote:
on Sun, 09/12/2010 - 18:59"It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”....So we adapt to the lie so that the Pied Piper can deceive the populace into the drink? Pardon me, I'm not of that tribe."
No, you don't adapt to lies, you adapt to the fact that you are not on an even playing field.
"We adjust our responses for the gravity, currents, or uncertainty of the ground. Our relative size and strength--or lack of it--determines how we adjust our responses against specific competitors when their presences shapes the situation
Sun Tzu - The Art of War - 476–221 BC
http://scienceofstrategy.org/main/content/612-prioritizing-conditions
"All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved. "
The four turnings represent the fractal adaptive cycle of complex systems - growth, conservation, release and re-organization.
We have reached the limits of our complex global economy (in terms of finance and fossil fuels) and are now entering the release phase - http://peakcomplexity.blogspot.com/2010/09/limits-to-complexity.html
Limits in terms of finance maybe, however, if the ruling class is succesful in making people believe another lie then maybe fossil fuels will be part of the release phase otherwise it's a crock of shit.
This might fly over the heads of the local skinheads.
Might I suggest that the reason people are now questioning Islam itself (not always angrily) may have something to do with the fact that they're now doing their homework, and actually reading the Koran, the hadiths that describe the life of Mohammed, and key Muslim texts like "Reliance of the Traveller."
And once they scratch the surface, their eyes pop out of their skulls, and they quickly realize their Muslim friends have been lying to them about Islam being a "religion of peace," Mohammed being a peaceful prophet, and Sharia Law being somehow compatible with the Constitution.
"The mainstream media has been full of vitriol and anger regarding an issue that would have gotten no press in 2002."
Ron Paul says the Mosque was financed by Rockefeller. And if the MSM media is hyping it, it can't be good.
Wouldn't Faux News, the HIGHEST RATED "news" channel be considered "mainstream?"
I guess that since the most people watch it, it must be "underground" right?
And how is a guy crying and ranting, while trying to convert people to Mormonism considered news at all?
I think the $$ behind the organized protests as being more interesting than who is funding the building
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/09/09/the-meaning-of-911/
There’s also big money behind the mosque opposition, as highlighted by the relationship between [David] Horowitz’s Los Angeles-based nonprofit, Jihad Watch – the website run by Spencer "dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology play in the modern world" – and Joyce Chernick, the wife of a wealthy California tech company founder.
"Though it was not listed on the public tax reports filed by Horowitz’s Freedom Center, Politico has confirmed that the lion’s share of the $920,000 it provided over the past three years to Jihad Watch came from Chernick, whose husband, Aubrey Chernick, has a net worth of $750 million, as a result of his 2004 sale to IBM of a software company he created, and a security consulting firm he now owns.
"A onetime trustee of the …Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Aubrey Chernick led the effort to pull together $3.5 million in venture capital to start Pajamas Media, a conservative blog network …
"The David Horowitz Freedom Center had a budget of $4.5 million last year, according to its tax filings, of which $290,000 came from the conservative Bradley Foundation, which also gave $75,000 to the Center for Security Policy last year. Horowitz has received an average of $461,000 a year in salary and benefits over the past three years, while Spencer has pulled in an average of $140,000, according to the center’s IRS filings."
Laura Rozen follows up on her Politico blog, detailing the trail of donations from 2008 990 filings for Chernick’s charitable foundation, the Fairbrook Foundation, listing all the familiar suspects – CAMERA, Horowitz, MEMRI, Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy, the Israeli nationalist "Stand With Us" campus project – and a few less familiar, such as the American Friends of Ateret Cohanim, dedicated to thwarting our stated policy of no more settlements where it counts: in East Jerusalem.
ZH needs a thumbs up button
The truther mythology has become so big that no one is commenting on one of the author's egregious errors:
"...the gutting of industrial America by corporate chieftains"
This is one of those glib falsehoods (or maybe lies) that rolls off the tongue. But does it make any sense? That "corporate chieftains" would, of their own free will, "gut" industry?
Perhaps taxes, regulations, litigation, and the hazards of fiat currency had something to do with it?
If "chickenhawk" is the pejorative term for someone who has never been in the military and doesn't even want to think about going to war advocating war... what is the term for someone who has never been an entrepreneur, never been an investor in a real business (buying mutual funds in one's 401k doesn't count) accusing corporate "chieftains" of not doing whatever it is that this person wants them to do?
"Chickenpigs"?
+1000
Bearster, when you observe that "corporate chieftains" who ran corporations manufacturing cars, smelting iron, and growing wheat were replaced by "corporate chieftains" who run corporations shuffling ones and zeroes around on electronic balance sheets, the motivation to gut industrial America comes into much better focus.
agi prop is all about making another religion seem violent and dangerous. Big business for the past 300 years. Synarchy 101. There will always be 2% of any group which are nut bags. These are brought front and center from any group the Mini Me's wish to defame to help their "call to action" which usually amounts to (Looney Tunes Cartoon Martian Man Voice) "taking over planet earth" cause even all they have now now still aint enough. Greed: the blackhole of "never enough" which can never be quite filled spawns many a twisted dream. pin heads
Man - the govt. funded "go get the troofers" brigade are out in force. Your tax dollars hard at work.
There are plenty of troops on all sides of big issues to get the work done for free.
Reading this thread is a lot like having dogs barking on all sides of me. These pups are upset, and they're letting us know. Maybe they hear a burglar, or a jet, or a truck, or the kids, or perhaps they smell a fire or sense an impending earthquake.
But to me, it's a whole lot of barking.
Have to take offense at this part:
Why is it our fault that the rest of the Islamic World gets in a hissy fit every time some nutjob does something stupid??? We do not do that. Whe Islamic World needs to "get over itself" and quit throwing a temper tantrum. The United States does not throw a temper tantrum every time an American Flag gets burnt. I am tired of the argument that we "have to be sensitive" to Islam, yet Islam can be hypersensetive. It is ridiculous and unsustainable.
Tolerance is a two way street.
YES!
Maybe if we burn the Koran every week while parading cartoons of Mohammed eventually all the extremist islamic fanatics will work themselves into strokes and cardiac arrest - problem solved!
With all the real shit going on in the world, some of which we talk about regularly here on ZH, it's really annoying to see that dumb-ass attention seeking 'man of God' help divide us into yet smaller and smaller groups to control.
We have real families living without homes. Our economy is imploding. There's more honesty in a Viagra ad than a bank ad. Most of the people we've given responsibility to have shown themselves to be incapable of doing the job. And we have at least two wars going on.
But what's the most important thing happening in America? Some dick has named himself the arbiter of national righteous outrage, and has become the legend of the week.
Those who are watching crap news, instead of punching the screen right in the face, are buying right into the 'programming' of America. And there's a damned good reason they call it 'Television Programming.'
I used to be part of the news media, and it's the pressure to provide loathsome reportage of this 'quality' by my cohorts that made me find a real job. We no longer even have TV here at the compound. The wire to the world just sends us the Internet. It's a lot easier to wade through the half-truths and clean up afterward with a computer than with a TV.
"More honesty in a Viagra ad than a bank ad". Never thought about that--both involve F***** though. Milestones
Bullshit.
What this preacher would have done if not interfered with by our gvernment is made it crystal clear who we are dealing with. His burning of the Koran would most likely have provoked a terrible retribution by Islamic turds world wide and within the territorial US.
For burning a book in the USA.
For acting within his constitutional rights within the USA.
He could have burned a Playboy magazine to make a political point for all I care. Yet morons in the US see the problem with the preacher not with those that chop people's heads off for less than even burning a book.
I say burn the Koran, the more the better, let's add it to the weekend barbeque.
I would suggest burning the books in your house but I suspect there are none..
+451
ooooh, snap!
+1000 points for gettin' there first. . .
[edit: dejunks for you AND mr. max!]
Good one, Max! I feel dazed just reading down this far. There really is no hope. This country is NOT coming together in the coming adversity -- we're freakin' doomed! (Apologies to the Mogambo.)
And this is world news because??????
We love to burn books in this country. Never thought it should be a media event though.
Seems to me that the people who screech about their 'constitutional right' to burn books that are unpopular are generally not the people who write books that are unpopular. I wonder why that is.
Thanks, Doc. Fahrenheit 451 all over again.
>>And this is world news because??????<<
because there are people in the world who would chop his head off for doing so and US citizens who would rather he desist than crush the problem.
>>Seems to me that the people who screech about their 'constitutional right' to burn books that are unpopular are generally not the people who write books that are unpopular. I wonder why that is.<<
You wonder why that is because what you said doesn't even remotely make sense. The Koran is not an unpopular book even in the US so everything you follow from that is senseless.
Let's have Congress pass laws that disallow ANYTHING that may offend Muslims in ANYWAY. This is important.
Dumbshit sheep.
I normally don't play with trolls, Shitstick, but it's Sunday night and I have some time to waste.
Unpopular might also mean something not pleasing to a group of people. My comments might be unpopular with some people. Generally, those people are eventually discovered to be morons.
If you wish. Personally, I tend to stay away from urging Congress to do anything other than steal, which is what they do best. But sure, call your Congresscritter Monday and get the ball rolling.
Look, dickbreath, I didn't insult you until now. But it's easy enough to do. I can own the dumbshit label easily enough just by being lame enough to respond to your useless ass. However, I'm pretty sure the sheep label isn't accurate because it's a plural and I work solo.
Oh, and after you call your congressional member Monday to push for laws to prevent offending Muslims, you might get a medical once over for Attention Deficit Disorder. Reading comprehension is definitely not your biggest talent.
And thanks for checking in. Your post helped remind me why I am so unshakably certain that the best thing the human race can do for itself is self-immolation. You might try this yourself with a can of kerosene and a lighter.
You continue to prove what an idiot you are as in not recognizing sarcasm. But its Sunday and you have time to waste, in fact you have time to waste every night - its what losers like you do.
So while you're looking into ADD and sarcasm, you can bust out the dictionary and discover the meaning of words. You will find some simple things there such as unpopular means not popular and unpleasant means not pleasant.
But I especially like -
"However, I'm pretty sure the sheep label isn't accurate because it's a plural and I work solo."
Brilliant - it wasn't a joke? Continuing on in that big dictionary book, you will find sheep is both singular and plural like fish. Then flip quickly to M and search for Moron - you will see your photo there as a reference.
Thereafter you can move on to really big words.
So you're dumbshit solo - somehow that doesn't suprise me.
But there were burnings of the Koran on Saturday in the U.S. anyway. Not many people know. It wasn't reported on much. Which highlights the fact that it is not the burning, but the reporting, that causes the problem.
The burning is not the problem and the reporting is not the problem, its the people who saw the heads of book burners and reporters off because they burned and reported - thats the problem - one of the problems.
But they wouldn't saw heads off if they didn't know. And they wouldn't know if it wasn't reported.
In a little town like Gainesville. FL word would have gotten around about the event after it passed and eventually to the bad guys, it was no secret even without the media.
The preacher sure changed his tune 180, shut it down, and kept his head. Maybe the whole thing was a set up. I guess Theo van Gogh could have used a little more press....
I often return to the concept of fat tail risk when looking at almost anything. The russian general's comments talked about in the replys are a study that seems pretty normal distribution. Nothing is impossible. Bin Laden on the other hand seemed to not only consider fat tail risk, he became the king of it. The producer of it. The bringer of it.
He knew that as sure as if you stay in the markets you'll one day be involved in some sort of crash, he knew that if he sent enough off the wall plans at the United States, eventually one will stick. He had extra capital(human lives with boxcutters), and he was willing to risk this capital at the chance for the big ten bagger. Lose enough trades, you'll win big one day regardless of how much you lost before. With free virgins in heaven and man's love for religious fervor, his risk capital came cheap.
I'd also add that Russia was studying it from within their own perspectives and positions, not those of Bin Laden's.... "Your results may vary, dont try this at home."
Man continues on, bouncing off it's own Fibonacci retracements, following some strange and beautiful cosmic math that keeps throwing its fat tails at us. Oblivious, we ponder why and wonder who's to blame. "The killers judge the killers and the dead rise to offer their executioner's heads to other executioners." The way out is to recognize our own nature and consolidate to move on.
Great writing. I loved the insights regardless of how disturbing the realization of them may be.
(For Bose) I met Lisa Randall (Randall–Sundrum model) at the Perimeter Institute recently, smart (theoretical physicist and a leading expert on particle physics and cosmology ) and very good-looking. We talked briefly about entangled particles (photons). God I'm lucky. :-)
The excrement hits the fan on the fourth turning. What a crock. Jim Quinn's hemorrhoids must be burning after spewing this from his unfiltered tail pipe.
Kbron KoolArrow
Go fuck yourself!!
I disagreed with your analysis. It was a stretch. As for your comment, you must be a contortionist to pull it off. That is a bigger stretch. ;)
I disagreed with your detailed analysis of my article. Try it.
So... Here you are Moron.
Showing off for all the ZH people
Oh the wit!
What great intelligence!
DP
Did the sheep kick you out of the barn? Why don't you cut and paste some more of your truther BS.
It is sad that a person like you, who deserted the United States and despises my country, lurks on the internet spewing his hatred and conspiracy theories in an attempt to rid himself of the terrible guilt that haunts him day and night.
Do you realize that the smart people on this site scorn you, just as you are scorned on my site?
Do you realize that someone has put a "kick me" sign on your back?
You are a pathetic excuse for a human being.
Yup... as I expected ...more sheep.
You are "one sick puppy."
Why not come back under your aka. 'Smokey' and tell the folks how you really feel.
See #577815
Kathy is still waiting for you to debate her Quinn.
Think you're up to it?
Smokey:
Play nice!
Watch that foul mouth of your's.
See #577815
To find out who Quinn really is.
For those who want to know why I have hammered on Jim Quinn go up thread to #577815 .
What do you have to say for yourself now MORON?
Hey Quinn !
kathy.chamberli... is looking for you at the top of the thread.
You and her can pair off in a debate about 9/11.
My money is on kathy to win by a long shot.
Go To #577815
oh thanks pierre, a vote of confidence.
i really don't know a damn thing about a 9/11 or what there is to debate,
it is what it is.
i pass, so i don't fail.
Fucking Jews, fucking Muslims, fucking Niggers, fucking Caucasians, fucking Chinks and Japs, fuck everyone except the Nazi, Jew baiting gold hoarders on SA.
The 9/11 story is almost as insulting as the hollowCOST fable.
Qui bono? Lucky larry silverstein, for one.
The post above is a great representation of why some posters on this site have NO FUCKING CREDIBILITY AT ALL.
The holocaust happened. Believe it. I have proof.
Where are the 24 millions pounds of ashes?
This time period is analogous to the 1930s. Many economic, political, social, and geopolitical parallels. It's going to be a tough time, but it will lead to something better.
Better like . . . now?
There is no hope for the enemy of the Jews. God will smite thee dead.
Having lived in a muslin country I will first say not all muslims are radical bomb throwers who hate jews and christians.
I will say Islam is having a hard time adjusting to the modern world, a world it does not like or understand.
I go to school with many Muslims, and I've found that the majority of them are much nicer people than the douchebag American kids that make fun of them.
So that's your problem.
I become totally at a loss
when someone starts talking about "peak oil"
as if it were a religion,
which some people "choose" to believe in and others "don't believe",
as if this were a matter of personal choice.
One might as well suggest that you can drive a spaceship faster than the speed of light,
if you have enough money to pay the speeding ticket or buy off the judge.
Peak oil is a fact.
The two peaks, moreover, have already occurred, in 2005 and 2008,
and the world production has gone into an irrevocable decline.
(it was unnecessary for Obama to ban offshore drilling in the GOM to make things worse, they already were headed that way).
Granted, the numbers are not simple, there are hundreds, thousands,
of different reports to read through, and each one has its own slant.
Granted, not everyone has been reading such reports every day for decades.
there are a whole lot of people with a vested interest in keeping the fact secret.
But there's no debate, if you look at the information.
There have been no large finds of new oil for 30 years,
and the smaller ones being tapped today all require vastly more energy input
in order to extract what is still miniscule in comparison
with a Ghawar or Cantarell.
Production is delining, while use is still increasing.
Its game over, and no one has come up with a viable alternative.
Gasoline prices have been in a virtual collapse this summer in Los Angeles. I'm paying less than $3.00/gal. 3 years after the summer of 2007 when I had to pay over $4.75/gal, when Matt Simmons was pimping up his "gas shortages" hysteria.
Nothing to worry about in my neighborhood.
If you look at the longer view, the weekly multi-year charts for Light Crude continuous contracts ($WTIC), show a very narrow trading range since June of 2009. MACD is flat and crude apprears to be supported at a key Fibonacci level. Interpret what you will.
That's such bullshit. Maybe you didn't hear about the recent oil discoveries in North Dakota? Or Venezuela? Or Canada?
I guess you wouldn't since you obviously don't read much.
"There have been no large finds of new oil for 30 years"
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-oil-discovery-in-gulf-2-trillion.html
Here's another one.
"The biggest find in DECADES"
http://www.businessinsider.com/oil-discovery-under-shallow-gulf-waters-estimated-to-be-biggest-find-in-decades-2010-1
"Massive Oil Deposit Could increase reserves by TEN TIMES"
http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news2.13s.html
Should I keep going?
Probably not, since you won't read them anyway. You'll keep spouting the same tired tripe bullshit.
Nice try. But if you really investigate those stories by reading intelligent, objective discussions you will find that they do not pan out to be the panacea you hope for.
For example that column in just 20 feet of sea water off the coast of Louisiana is beneath 5 miles of sea floor.
The Bakken potential resource, while large by US onshore field standards, will have only a minor effect on US production or imports. Using 2006 US imports and consumption for comparison, the Bakken undiscovered resource of 3,649 million barrels of oil, if subsequently discovered and fully developed, would provide us with the equivalent of six months of oil consumption or 10 months of imports, spread over 20 or more years. In reality, the reserves developed are likely to be many times smaller than this value.
The October 2007 production rate of 75,000 BOPD amounts only 0.4% of US oil consumption, or 0.6% of imports.
Per-well Bakken production peaked in August 2005 at 116 barrels a day, and was down to 79 barrels a day in October 2007. If the Bakken production history in the 1990s can be used as a guide, the peaking of per-well production may portend a peak in total Bakken production.
They in fact are more indicative of peak oil than the opposite.
Should I keep going?
Probably not, since you won't read them anyway.......
are we still pretending oil comes from dead dinosaurs and pre historic plants?
Peak oil is a fact.
Another alarmist believing in tainted data. You know what taint is dont'cha Christletoe?
Mohammed was a warrior that fought in Mecca and Medina for about twenty years before finally gaining acceptance of his new religion.
Within a century of that the new religion had been carried by armies from Spain to India.
Ultimately Islam was driven from Spain in 1492. As late as the end of the 17th century the Turks were attacking Vienna.
Today moslem-instigated incipient Civil war smoulders in France, Nigeria and Thailand and a host of other countries. Slavery is prevalent in many moslem countries and Islam-sanctioned genocide in Darfur proceeds.
The imam seeking to establish a mosque near Ground Zero recently voiced his rationale for disregarding popular discontent with his plans by saying that not going forward with his plans would pose a 'national security threat,' an overt terroristic threat.
Religion of peace indeed.
Christianity took centuries to convert the Roman empire. It was an entirely peaceful conquest if you disregard the periodic persecutions it suffered. Its founder was a carpenter that was crucified for his professions.
It should be stated that Christianity has had plenty of dark chapters and under its sanction millions have perished. Christian nations have murdered each other in the millions.
But unlike Islam its foundational documents are rooted exclusively in self-abnegation and love of others. In the present day Christianity poses no threat to any nation or people whatsoever and the Catholic Church oversees the largest network of schools, hospitals and other charitable organizations in the world.
Silly. The Bible has been found to be even more violent than the Koran.
http://www.juancole.com/2010/03/jenkins-bible-far-more-violent-than.html
Christians seem to be running some nice wars in Muslim territories, BTW.
SwampFox you're not. -
As late as the end of the 17th century the Turks were attacking Vienna.
Before and for quite some time later, Western, Christian armies were subduing and converting the entire Western Hemisphere under-the-sword as they say. The same story played out in sub-Sahara Africa, Australia and various sections of Asia, like the Philipines and Vietnam.
Let's not leave out the Opium Wars with China in which England managed to skip the whole conversion routine and yet gain similar traction by creating a few million of addicts.
Re. Peaceful Christianity and the Roman Empire, you have a pretty naive interpretation. Christianity was selected by the state as a way to better control of the population. Justinian unambiguously tweaked the religion to this end and forcibly eliminated most rival modes of worship.
A Door had been opened and couldn't be shut. It was the END ... it ... you wouldn't understand
I do.
Give my regards to Alice.
"Since the 11th, many of America's policies have come under the influence of the Mujahideen, and that is by the grace of Allah, the Most High. And as a result, the people discovered the truth about it, its reputation worsened, its prestige was broken globally and it was bled dry economically, even if our interests overlap with the interests of the major corporations and also with those of the neoconservatives, despite the differing intentions."
"And for your information media, during the first years of the war, lost its credibility and manifested itself as a tool of the colonialist empires, and its condition has often been worse than the condition of the media of the dictatorial regimes which march in the caravan of the single leader."
.......2007 Al-Qaeda release, Osama has long been dead, so I won't say this is an actual Osama Quote. My guess from the research I have done is that Adam the American was the one writing "Osama" speeches during this time period.
Stand down orders were given, they could have stopped every single plane that was hijacked. They actually did shoot down flight 93.
I was watching the boob-tube that morning and there was a reporter at a Pennsylvania lake, a couple of miles down the flight path from the site of the impact. They were on a boat dock. Boaters were holding seat cushions, foam insulation and other buoyant debris.
Flight 93 blew up in the air.
Just Accept the fact that the STATE is bigger than you. They have control over the currency and the supply of it.
As long as the dollar exists, you will be a slave to the system!
The dollar is tied to the US power structure.
Unfortuanley for you, the dollar WILL NOT collapse. More freedoms will disappear. More jobs will be shipped overseas. Health Care will continue to increase in costs to do DEMAND PULL from aging baby boomers
THIS IS IT! There is no "Second Wave", "Double-Dip", "ECONOMIC APOCALYPSE" on the way.
The way the Soviet Union went away is there currency COLLAPSED and the UNION broke up.
That will never happen in America. YOU ARE STUCK! Got it, yet?
I left America because I knew better than to think a coup or "take back my country" event was coming. It is not. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can get back on with your life.
All this DOOM and GLOOM and IMPENDING DOOM talk just makes one unhealthy overtime. Nothing is coming.
THE MYTH OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
DS Easy reading
In some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far
less susceptible to Party propaganda. Once when he happened
in some connection to mention the war against Eurasia, she
startled him by saying casually that in her opinion the war was
not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London
were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, “just
to keep the people frightened.” Orwell, 1984, 127.
With the publication of the Report of the Commission to Investigate Terrorist Attacks
upon the United States (also known as the Kean-Hamilton Commission after its chairman
and vice-chairman), the pattern of coverup and incompetence on the part of the officially
constituted investigative agencies of the United States Government is complete. Since
September 11, 2001, no part of the United States Government has offered a convincing,
coherent, complete explanation of the events of that day, and of other events related to
them. Indeed, no US government agency has ever so much as proposed to prove the truth
of the official account, even in the way that the Warren Commission attempted to
demonstrate the veracity of its version of the Kennedy assassination.
The Kean-Hamilton Commission called no hostile witnesses, no skeptics, no devil’s
advocates. It ignored a growing number of book-length studies which have appeared in
English, French, German, and other languages around the world. It never invited to its
plenum FBI whistle-blowers like Colleen Rowley (who shared Time Magazine’s Person
of the Year honors at the end of 2002), nor did it call FBI agent Kenneth Williams, the
author of the famous Phoenix memo, to testify in its plenary meetings. The Commission
was, by contrast, happy to invite the obsessive anti-Iraq ideologue Laurie Mylroie, a
fanatic so notorious that she is dismissed with contempt as “totally discredited” even by
Richard Clarke in his book, Against All Enemies. (Clarke 232) As we will show at
various points in this study, the Kean-Hamilton Commission represents a cynical and
meticulously orchestrated exercise in coverup and obfuscation. The net overall result of
the Kean-Hamilton Commission has been to obscure even those few relevant facts which
had become well established in the mainstream media prior to its inception.
Before the Kean-Hamilton Commission, the chronology of events regarding the interplay
among the Federal Aeronautics Administration (FAA), the North American Aerospace
Defense Command (NORAD), and other government agencies had been fairly well
established by the 9/11 truth movement. The deliberately doctored chronologies offered
by the Kean-Hamilton staff have turned that clear picture into chaos. Before the Kean-
Hamilton operation went to work, there was an important debate about whether phone
calls received at the White House on the morning of September 11 had indicated that
unauthorized persons were in possession of top-secret US government code words. The
Kean-Hamilton Commission has now assured us that this crucial incident in effect never
happened. Before Kean-Hamilton, Congressional Committees and the National Institute
of Standards and Technology had been forced to grapple in public with the blatant
anomalies of three modern steel skyscrapers collapsing on the same day as the result of
fire – something that has happened on no other day of world history. For the Kean-
Hamilton Commission, this problem simply does not exist – it has disappeared from the
official narrative. No account has been taken of critical or skeptical commentaries, even
when these have been the centerpieces of books which have reached the top of the best-
seller charts in important countries like France, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere, or have
been telecast in prime time in these same places. The demands of the bereaved families of
9/11 have been ignored – even though it was because of the persistent lobbying of these
families that the Kean-Hamilton Commission ever came into being in the first place. A
cruel hoax has been practiced on these families, and those who thought that an attempt to
cooperate in good faith with the Kean-Hamilton Commission to guide it toward the truth
have received a bitter disappointment. The Kean-Hamilton Commission in short has
shown no decent respect for the opinions of mankind, and has submitted no important
facts to a candid world.
The Kean-Hamilton Commission has turned out to be nothing more than a colossal
exercise in begging the question. Everything that was controversial, everything that was
dubious in the eyes of billions around the world has been simply assumed to be true and
posited as the starting point for the entire inquiry. As a fallacy this has been around since
the medieval schoolmen, who called it petitio principii. In the hands of the Kean-
Hamilton Commission, begging the question is meant to work as an arrogant,
bureaucratic act of superior power. Believe this, said the Inquisition, or be damned.
Believe this, says the Kean-Hamilton Commission, or be vilified as a paranoid obsessed
with conspiracies. Thus, when the 9/11 commission was created, it formed nine
investigative teams. The first of these was entitled: “Al Qaeda and the Organization of
the 9/11 Attack.” That is a clear case of rush to judgment and jumping to conclusions,
since such a finding should be the end result of an inquiry, and not its starting point.
For the Kean-Hamilton Commission is not a contribution to scholarly debate. It is just as
much a part of the US government’s assault on the world as an F-16 bombing Fallujah.
For the Kean-Hamilton Commission is an act of ideological terrorism worthy of Senator
Joe McCarthy. Behind it stands the taboo proclaimed by the figurehead of the regime:
We must speak the truth about terror. Let us never tolerate outrageous
conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th,
malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists
themselves, away from the guilty. (UN General Assembly, November 10,
2001)
It is a point of view at variance with the best moments in American history, as we intend
to show. But no amount of bureaucratic arrogance has been able to paper over the
manifold absurdities, the contradictions, the impossibilities, the outrageous flaws that
infest the official version of the 9/11 events. The Kean-Hamilton Commission simply has
no answer for questions about how the alleged hijackers were identified, how they were
able to operate, why WTC Building 7 collapsed, why air defense was non-existent, what
hit the Pentagon, what happened over Shanksville, what happened to the insider trading,
and many more. For any serious, intelligent person – and there are many – the Kean-
Hamilton pastiche can only be rejected.
The failure of the Kean-Hamilton Commission leaves the world with the imbecilic myth:
the four airliners were hijacked by nineteen Arabs, from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and
Kuwait. Their squad leaders were Atta, Shehhi, Hanjour, and Jarrah. Their “mastermind”
was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Their rear echelon was Ramzi Binalshib. Their guru was
Osama Bin Laden, the terrorist pope who lives in a cave. From his distant grotto in the
mountains of Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden, the diabolical genius of the twenty-first
century, directed the worldwide network that attacked the United States.
Great stuff...Geo Pol!
Where is Cog Dis when ZH really needs him?
Off pretending to be intelligent by using Psych 1001 terms in his screen name?
Good question
BLAIR’S 9/11 DOSSIER: THE CLIFF’S NOTES VERSION
With the US regime struggling, into the breach rushed Tony Blair, a glib and slippery
apologist for war. On October 2, Blair’s office in Number 10 Downing Street released the
first of his celebrated dossiers. It was entitled “Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities
in the United States.” Unfortunately, Blair’s dossier was obliged to begin on an uncertain
note: “This document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama Bin
Laden in a court of law.” Why not, given what is at stake? Answer: “Intelligence often
cannot be used evidentially, due both to the strict rules of admissibility and to the need to
protect the safety of sources. But on the basis of all the information available HMG [Her
Majesty’s Government] is confident of its conclusions as expressed in this document.” Of
course, this means that since the proof may be insufficient, we are expected to believe
Blair & Co. on the basis of their general integrity and credibility. This is a controversial
point, to which we will soon return.
Blair’s main finding:
The clear conclusions reached by the government are: Osama Bin Laden
and al-Qaeda, the terrorist network which he heads, planned and carried
out the atrocities on 11 September 2001; Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda
retain the will and the resources to carry out further atrocities; The United
Kingdom, and United Kingdom nationals are potential targets; and Osama
Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were able to commit these atrocities because of
their close alliance with the Taliban regime, which allowed them to
operate with impunity in pursuing their terrorist activity.” (Blair at
www.counterpunch.org/dossier1.html, 1)
Blair’s dossier then went on for 16 of its 19 pages reciting the nefarious deeds of which
Bin Laden had been accused: Bin Laden has worked with the Taliban, attacked the USS
Cole, and bombed the US embassies in East Africa. He had doubtless issued bloodthirsty
calls for murder against the US and its citizens. As for his claims of responsibility, they
could simply be the ravings of a megalomaniac. But none of this adds up to 9/11 or
anything approaching it. If working in favor of the Taliban were a crime, it would have
been necessary to indict Henry Kissinger, who lobbied Congress in favor of Unocal’s
pipeline project there. And throughout the argument, Blair relied on unnamed intelligence
sources for most of his material.
When Blair finally got to 9/11, he proceeded through a chain of unproven assertions, as
signaled by a shift into the vagueness of the passive voice: “Nineteen men have been
identified as the hijackers from the passenger lists of the four planes hijacked on
September 11. At least three of them have already been positively identified as associates of al-Qaeda.” (Blair 21) But all this means is that the FBI is accusing them,
which is wholly inadequate. From intelligence sources, the following facts have been established
subsequent to 11 September; for intelligence reasons, the names of associates, though known, are not given. In the run-up to 11 September, bin Laden was mounting a concerted propaganda campaign amongst like-minded groups of people – including videos and documentation –
justifying attacks on Jewish and American targets; and claiming that those who died in the course of them were carrying out God’s work. We have learned, subsequent to 11 September, that Bin Laden himself asserted shortly before 11 September that he was preparing a major attack on America. In August and early September close associates of Bin Laden were warned to return to Afghanistan from other parts of the world by 10 September. Immediately prior to 11 September some known associates of
Bin Laden were naming the date for action as on or around 11 September. Since 11 September we have learned that one of Bin Laden’s closest and most senior associates was responsible for the detailed planning of the attacks. There is evidence of a very specific nature relating to Bin Laden and his associates that is too sensitive to release. (Blair 22-23, emphasis added)
All we have here is an exercise in check kiting. The CIA had forwarded a bouncing check
to MI-6, and MI-6 had sent it back to Washington by simply citing the claims of the CIA
as fact, and covering the whole in a mantle of the Official Secrets Act. It is perfectly
plausible that Bin Laden and his associates were planning a terror attack on the US which
seemed large to them. The issue, once again, is their physical and technical ability to
bring about destruction in the places and on the scale observed. Blair’s document brought
the central issue to a head when he asserted:
The modus operandi of 11 September was entirely consistent with
previous attacks….The attacks of 11 September are entirely consistent
with the scale and sophistication which went in to the attacks on the East
African Embassies and the USS Cole. (Blair 23)
The problem is that the 9/11 attacks were incomparably larger and more serious than
anything attempted by al Qaeda previously – they were in fact several orders of
magnitude larger. This is apart from the question, which we will address later, of the
degree to which al Qaeda has continued to receive technical assistance from certain rogue
elements of US intelligence and others. So Tony Blair’s dossier turned out to be a string
of unsubstantiated assertions, and thus a miserable excuse for proof.
In addition, later events taught us more about Tony Blair’s methods in compiling
dossiers.
NUMBER 10 DOWNING STREET – KITCHEN OF LIES
New light on the putative value of intelligence dossiers issued by Tony Blair’s office in
Number 10 Downing Street was not long in coming. In September 2002, Blair published
amid great fanfare his dossier purporting to demonstrate that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq
currently possessed weapons of mass destruction. This was entitled “Iraq: Its
Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception, and Intimidation,” and it was clearly crafted to
provide a pretext for waging unprovoked and aggressive war against Iraq. This dossier
was exposed as a fraud in two distinct waves of demystification. The first exposure took
place in February 2003, when it emerged that entire sections of this report, which had
been billed as the most up-to-date evaluation that could be offered by the very formidable
capabilities of MI-6 and the rest of the British intelligence machine, had simply been
lifted, plagiarized without attribution, from older documents in the public domain. The
Iraq dossier had been concocted by Blair and his media guru Alistair Campbell, a figure
who combined the worst of image-mongers like Michael Deaver and Karl Rove, using
materials provided by British intelligence. Parts of Blair’s dossier had been stolen from
articles written by Sean Boyne of Jane’s Intelligence Review, who was horrified by the
nefarious use to which his work had been put. “I don’t like to think that anything I wrote
has been used as an argument for war. I am concerned because I am against the war,”
complained Boyne. Another source from which Blair had lifted material verbatim was a
thesis entitled “Iraq’s Security and Intelligence Network,” published in September 2002
by a graduate student, Ibrahim al-Marashi, a California resident. Al-Marashi was equally
indignant, commenting that “this is wholesale deception. How can the British public trust
the government if it is up to this sort of tricks? People will treat any other information
they publish now with a lot of skepticism from now on.” And not just from now on; it is
our contention here that this disbelief in regard to Tony Blair’s work product should also
be applied retrospectively.
The British Parliament was appalled by Blair’s mendacity, which was so crude that the
coded titles of the Microsoft Word documents that made up the dossier had been allowed
to remain visible on the Number 10 Downing Street web site. Many pointed to Alistair
Hamilton as the dervish of spin behind the entire sordid operation. Former Labour Party
Defense Minister and current Member of Parliament Peter Kilfoyle observed that Blair’s
deception merely “adds to the general impression that what we have been treated to is a
farrago of half-truths. I am shocked that on such thin evidence that we should be trying to
convince the British people that this war is worth fighting. Labour MP Glenda Jackson
added “It is another example of how the Government is attempting to mislead the country
and Parliament. And of course to mislead is a Parliamentary euphemism for lying.”
And all he wanted was: One.... Million....Dollars.
Outstanding.
We now live in a "Post-Democratic" world, the true nature of which has yet to unfold.
UgoGEO
6 letters you could get a vanity plate in your state.
After all that---no jazz post? Milestones
Listen to this........War, after War, after War Deja Vu This war..war...war....war....war..over,,over
I NEED OIL.....Fuck the world...I NEED OIL...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiDOMuhpqUo&feature=related
Geopol - Great posts.
re. the clip, They really needed Neil.
"After 9 years of waging wars against Muslims, in which victory is unachievable, Americans are weary, agitated and ready to lash out..."
What I am getting weary of and am starting to lash out at is the PC crowd who after 9 years still cannot face the truth about Islam.
Screw Islam. What about the Baptists?
Am I right men? Let's get the Baptists right now.
Men!
Men?
Okay, what about the Methodists then?
The degree of delusion apparent in the eagerness and ardor with which the truther rant is professed and the willingness to believe in the notion that persistent cycles exist across centuries of history and must therefore ordain future events is evidence of the dissolution of the reason of modern man.
Someone mentioned earlier that the apogee of Western thought was crystallized in the American landings on the moon. I think he may have something there.
My own little theory says that collectively we have fed ourselves too many yummy goodies and indulged our self-love with too many toys and ignored too many responsibilities of adulthood and dabbled with too many religious/cultic/demonic states of mind; and are consequently a bunch of fat-ass narcissistic crybabies afraid of the dark.
That would dovetail pretty neatly with the popularity the of truther-fourth turning mishmash because subscribing to such beliefs allows us to rationalize our present economic and political discomfiture as the products of inevitable or unstoppable forces that we can't control and so are not responsible for correcting.
Aside from a few resident homicidal maniacs here eager for le deluge I don't see much credible soul-searching going on looking for a sword to cut the Gordian knot.
My solution is give it the gas and see what happens. Past performance is no guarantee of future results but I'd rather go out with a bang than a whimper. And who knows? We may scare the rest of the world so bad we make them like us. Or fear us. I can never remember which is the good one.
the degree of delusion apparent in your empty attacks on "truthers" is evidence of the amazing ability of a strong human mind to be pitifully weak when threatened with facts not consistent with what it wants to believe
if this frailty were uncommon, a lot of really bad shit throughout history would never have been allowed to happen
Interesting that the Unravelling is said to have begun in 1984. I've been arguing with anyone who will listen (not very many) that Peak Rock occured in 1983/84. In the U.K. it was The Police's "Synchronicity" a very dark and foreboding album influenced by Sting's study of Jungian pshychology. It was very much against the grain of what was going on in rock music at the time the best example of which was the Peak Rock album in the U.S.: Van Halen's "1984". In contrast to The Police's dark yet chart topping offer of 1983 Van Halen flipped the bird to Orwell's distopia and presented the world with what is likely the most perfect, balls to wall, rock party album.
The Police was expressing the fear and paranoia of an Empire coming to terms with irrelevance as a global power post-WW2 while Van Halen was an embodiment of an Empire getting comfortable with it's lead position in defending the free world.
In both countries the 83/84 period was the peak of innovation in rock..as the 80s boomed on fiat money (thanks to The Fed's new lead singer Greenspan) and the working class rock landscape gave way to the emptiness of consumer driven new wave, dance music and pop, "selling out" to commercial interests, once considered the ultimate nadir of any serious rock musician's moral mettle began to take purchase. The great hope of Rock's resurgence, Kurt Cobain, was mercilessly martyred by the pressure to sell out. Unfortunately he did not die for Rock's sins, but instead took his life for he could not stand to live for one more second amidst the abomination of the 90s and Naughties previewed to him by none other than the Devil himself: Rock's nemessis, selling out, was to become it's sole purpose. No questions asked.
Sting stopped writing acid-tongued lyrics that bordered on misogyny to become one of history's greatest cheese snacks while Van Halen, well, Van Halen became Van Hagar... Need I say more?
yep babe, kurt cobain, hunter s thompson.. these men had balls, courage of conviction. scary to the rest of this fucking scared shitless feared people of this country. we knew it didn't W E , babe
Sting, after atonement, next YOGA, the dude can keep a penis erection for HOW many hours.
F O C U S , pretty ribbons help.
Kurt's abandoned daughter is especially pleased that he had the courage of his convictions. Serious depression, I think. Not balls.
juan thompson, too. fightin, anita thompson.
for what, legacy or ?
hell, you may not be able to rule out accidental death as a cry instead of suicide.
Dude, you have completely missed a chance to comment upon the evil darkness that was brought upon our mother religion of Rock by the influence of Disco in the mid 70's.
It was a time when even Rod Stewart and ELO had succumbed to the vile forces that ate at the very soul of Rock. It took years for the injured body of Mother Rock to be rejuvenated by tough youth working in garages in England, Scotland and especially the Great Northwest.
Yeah - but lots of money was made.
Will someone please direct me to a place where I can get an objective handle on alternative WTC explanations and evidentiary gaps.
By objective, I mean "just the facts".
I know why the military industrial complex would want a disaster, I want to see the factual case.
Here is a very thorough documentary (unfortunately, it's in german) that covers all the anomalies and cover-ups.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuSAs0xb3L0
And here is a chart of the motive (the ripping up of the opium poppy fields by the Taliban that reduced Afghan opium/heroin production by 96% in 2001)! The oligarchs and military already had production back to normal levels in 2002, and to a new record level in 2004. (The source of the data is the UN Office on Drugs and Crime).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4022197.stm
[edit] Here is a more recent chart showing the further massive production increases in 2006 and 2007 under NATO supervision.
http://lookfromabove.com/news-politics/how-invasion-of-afghanistan-worked-for-opium-production
Opium/heroin production from Afghanistan is a $400 BILLION/year revenue stream for the oligarchs ... with the US taxpayer meekly footing the bill for protection and transportation costs!!!
If you are serious in your pursuit, go to Amazon and buy "The New Pearl Harbor", by David Griffin. It is a thick book, written by an academic with sterling logic. It is packed- packed- with facts about 911. The best way I can say it is this: how many times in your life have you read an excellent, in depth analysis of a difficult subject- written in excellent prose - in The New Yorker? You know that feeling of complete satisfaction - that The New Yorker fairly consistently offers? That is the exact feeling yiou get on every page of this book. Buy it- read it, you will see. It is so stacked with facts- very, very interesting facts- each one cited with a reference - a thick book. Just as a detective story, it is fascinating to read and consider. It is like peeling all the layers of an onion. One- one among thousands - of intersting details: NORAD, on 911, was having an "Exercise" status, where the "Mock" situation they were responding to, was hijaacked planes flying into WTC. Second one: The day prior to 911, the precise FEMA team that responded to Oklahama Bombing, had set up a training exercise, on the West Side Docks, only blocks away from WTC. Three: there were isolated sets of investors who had put huge "Put" bets on United Airlines, on that single day- and made millions. Fourth: Multiple seismologic labs in NY state and Pennsylvania, all clearly show a seismic reading that is occurring before each building was seen to be exploding - the experts say that this is a clear suggestion that detonations were occurring. (and, No, it wasn't the planes hitting the building, or "sounds of impending structural collapse"- these guys are experts in reading seismic data, and aren't just picking up doors slamming in The Bowery.) anyway, no matter what your thoughts are on what happened on 911- this book will be an excellent read - if you don't believe me, read all the comments on the Amazon page- start there - I have seen many websites, but none approach the quailty of this single book.