Writing in 2009, A.N. Wilson, author of Against Religion: Why we should live without it (1991), gave an account of his Damascus Road conversion from Christianity to atheism, followed many years later by his recovery of faith.
To Wilson, it became apparent that the capacity for religious faith is a natural faculty no less than the capacity to appreciate music or the feeling for language.
To say, he argues, that because the work of Bach or Beethoven makes no logical sense, does not mean we would be better off without a musical sense, any more than to say that because love makes no logical sense we would be better off without a capacity for love.
It is true that a feeling for language, the love of music or the love for some at least of our fellow creatures makes no sense if one confines one's search for meaning to the logical deconstruction of the phenomena themselves.
Yet these human faculties make obvious sense in the context of human life. Humanity has survived on this planet for the million years or so since we diverged from our anthropoid ape ancestors because we have these innate gifts and proclivities.
It is only a blithering fool like David Hume or Freddie Ayer, or Richard Dawkins, or Christopher Hitchens who fails to grasp that the universal human susceptibility to religious faith is necessary to the human condition.
It is what makes humans social creatures bound by the transcendent rules that are necessary to social life.
One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we`ve developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything.
For the "anything" is no less an "irrational" religious faith that what it replaces.
Existence itself makes no sense so far as humans can understand the world. Yet human life continues because humans, as a whole, have an irrational love of life.
For a community to prosper, however, it must have a motivating creed. Moreover, it must have a creed that serves the survival and welfare of society, not one that destroys society.
Human evolution has been driven for a million years by competition between groups. The cohesion and competitive success of those groups has depended almost entirely on their culture, and at the core of every culture is a set of logically irreducible beliefs that have the function, whatever their name, of a religious creed.
For almost 2000 years, Christendom grew and prospered. But with the enlightenment, the Western drive for knowledge began to eat away at the religious faith that underlay the culture. Only science and logic, it came to be thought, provided the basis for valid belief. As a result, today, the religious faith that underlay the success of Christendom has been largely destroyed.
And with the destruction of faith, the West itself is in disintegration. The religion of recreational sex has destroyed the capacity of the Western nations to reproduce themselves. Populations are aging, birthrates are plunging far below the replacement rate.
The Western nations will not disappear, just the people of the West. They will be replaced by adherents of religious faiths that make more biological "sense:" Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Confucianism.
If Christianity remains in the West, it will most likely be a fundamentalist variety, probably brought to the West by African migrants who have obeyed the biblical injunction to go forth and multiply..
The futility, not to say obscenity, of NATO's newly extended Libyan campaign of bombing and helicopter assault is clearly established in this Globe and Mail article by retired Canadian Major-General, Lewis MacKenzie:
We are now in the 84th day of the bombing campaign that the United Nations Security Council authorized to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya in a bid to protect civilians from Moammar Gadhafi’s forces. In a bizarre development, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has said it will extend the campaign for 90 days, surely a first in the history of war when one side “extends the contract” for a set period.
NATO’s obsession with its strategy of hope was tried once before in 1999, with the bombing of Serbia and the breakaway province of Kosovo. A myth that the 78-day bombing campaign persuaded Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw his forces from Kosovo continues to grow despite overwhelming facts to the contrary. ...
... In a new introduction to the paperback version of his memoirs published today, Mr Blair says: “We need to have an active policy, be players and not spectators sitting in the sands, applauding or condemning as we watch. Like it or not, we have to participate.”
He argues that a Libya-style operation should take place only when regimes have “excluded a path to evolutionary change”. But he does raise the prospect of intervention in some circumstances in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and Jordan. ...
In the extracts released last night, Mr Blair makes no comment on his 2004 “deal in the desert” with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, which helped turn the Libyan leader from an international pariah who exported terrorism to an ally of the West....
As the wages of labour fall, the profits of stock rise, and they be together always of the same value... David Ricardo
In 1993 Chinese wages were about 3% of those in America.
Thus the adoption of the revised General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade -- which gave rise to the World Trade Organization and the current regime of largely free global trade in goods and services -- inevitably resulted in a tremendous manufacturing boom in China and other low-wage economies, while it sent manufacturing in America and other high-wage economies into sharp decline.
And it was not only manufacturing that was affected by this fever of global wage arbitrage.
Miami Herald, June 7, 2011: Late last month, when U.S. air strikes caused civilian casualties in Afghanistan, an angry Hamid Karzai issued an ultimatum.
If future U.S. strikes are not restricted, we will take “unilateral action” and America may be treated like an “occupying power.”
That brought this blistering retort from one Republican hawk.
“If President Karzai continues with these public ultimatums, we must consider our options about the immediate future of U.S. troops in his country. If he actually follows through on his claim that Afghan forces will take ‘unilateral action’ against NATO forces which conduct such air raids to take out terrorists and terrorist positions, that should result in the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and the suspension of U.S. aid.”
Who was the GOP hawk shaking the fist at Karzai? Sarah Palin.
Insiders attribute Palin’s shift from the neocon party line to the departure from her staff of Randy Scheunemann and Michael Goldfarb, and their replacement by Libya war skeptic Peter Schweizer.
Perhaps. But there are other straws in the wind that the GOP is coming to see that, like his “big government conservatism” ballyhooed by The Weekly Standard, Bush II’s compulsive interventionism has proven as great a disaster for his country as it did for his party.
Last week, House Speaker John Boehner had to scramble to cobble up a substitute resolution to prevent half his GOP caucus from joining with Democrats to denounce President Obama’s war in Libya as unconstitutional and to demand a total U.S. pullout in 15 days.
Boehner’s resolution, which gives the president longer to comply with the act and involves no deadline for withdrawal, passed 268 to 145. But more than a third of House Republicans voted to pull out of the NATO coalition attacking Moammar Gadhafi’s forces, which would have forced a NATO withdrawal from that civil war.
Further to his account of a harrowing confrontation with security officials at the British Library (see my last post), Craig Murray, former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, today reviews the British Government's terrorism Prevent Strategy paper.
In so doing, he states:
with stunning intellectual dishonesty the government refuses to tackle in the report the fact that terrorism in the UK has been driven by disgust at British foreign policy, and especially the invasion of Iraq, and the continuing occupation and civilian deaths in Afghanistan. This is not speculation on my part; the 7/7 bombers not only referred to this specifically in suicide videos, they also indeed cited extraordinary rendition and torture as motives of their actions.
This is a remarkable claim, asserting a mere hypothesis as a fact and then stating that it is not a speculation.
And on what basis are we to accept Murray's claim as a fact? Why, on the authority of a suicide bomber's video* conveniently provided by Britain's ever trusty police. LOL.
And if Murray is incorrect in his hypothesis about the motivation of the 7/7 bombers and indeed in his assumption about the identities of the bombers -- something never proved in court -- an assumption claimed as a fact and not a speculation, then the actual motivation of the bombers remains a legitimate subject of inquiry.
In turn, this means that the Prevent Strategy report may not, as Murray claims, be in error in "its explicit assumption that terrorism is actuated by a hatred of democracy."
But the question then would be who is it that so hates democracy that they are ready to commit acts of terrorism to subvert it: some group within the general populace? Or could it be some group within the ruling elite?
Furthermore, if Murray's hypothesis about the motivation of the 7/7 bombers, claimed as a fact and not a speculation, is incorrect, it remains open to question whether the Prevent Strategy report is in error in stating that:
"There is evidence to indicate that support for terrorism is associated with rejection of a cohesive, integrated, multi-faith society and of parliamentary democracy"?
But if so, it is not necessarily correct in the sense that most would understand.
When states fail to apply the normal investigative and legal procedures in identifying terrorists (as in the case of 9/11 and 7/7) it is reasonable to question who exactly are the perpetrators of terrorism and what exactly are the intended effects of their violence.
The 7/7 Tube train bombings could surely have been expected to mobilize public opinion against fundamentalist Muslims who oppose multi-faith integration, i.e., the bombings must have created pressure for the reduction of Islam to a secularized vacuity equivalent to Anglican Christianity in which form Mullahs can join with Arch-Bishops in interfaith communion with an all-inclusive, bisexual, feminist Allah.
* According to the Guardian article linked above, the suicide video script appears to have been written by Adam Yahiye Gadahn. American-born Adam Gadahn is, so it has been alleged, a fake Al Qaeda operative whose real name is Adam Pearlman. Adam Pearlman, it is further alleged, is the grandson of the late Carl K. Pearlman, a prominent Jewish urologist in Orange County. Carl was also a member of the board of directors of the Anti-Defamation League.
Former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, had a blog post yesterday relating how he had been denied access by the British Library to some obscure documents concerning a dead, white, Scotch, male imperialist.
Difficulty arose when a "half-educated low paid staff [member] steeped in the insolence of office" refused to accept as proof of identity a crumpled laundry ticket, a hand-written letter allegedly in the Uzbek language, or a press clipping of a ridiculous article about men in skirts.
But then Murray rather spoiled his own case against officialdom by saying "Karl Marx famously wrote Das Kapital in the reading room of the British Library. He would never get in now," which naturally prompts the thought that it would have been just as well for humanity if that old terrorist had been put on the No-Read List.
Come to think of it, Murray himself is something of a revolutionary, a Scotch Nationalist who wants to break up the United Kingdom, which suggests that anti-terrorism measures at the British Library are working as one would wish.
British Cruise Ship Passengers Get the Full US Gestapo Treatment
Elderly British cruise ship passengers felt like arrivals to Guantanamo Bay when they were forced to endure seven hours of immigration checks at Los Angeles docks. ...
When passengers aboard the luxury P&O liner Arcadia arrived at Los Angeles on May 26 it was already their 10th stop at a U.S. port. ...
With 15 planned stops at the country's ports, they had all been thoroughly checked and completed forms for multiple-entry visas. So many were surprised when officials at LA forced them to go through stringent border controls all over again. ...
Officials insisted each passenger be subjected to detailed passport checks, extensive background interviews, and full biometric checks, including fingerprints and retina scans.
Then, to make matters worse, the immigration officials' computer broke down, forcing the weary travellers to wait even longer.
John Randall, 60, a retired dentist from Wigan, told the Telegraph: 'A couple of passengers got a bit stroppy about having to go through all the rigmarole again and these petulant officials decided to take revenge.' ...
With temperatures hitting as high as 80F and no food or water, the elderly passengers were 'herded like animals', the Telegraph reported, causing some to pass out and leaving others confused and bewildered.
According to the paper, when one lady asked whether she could go to the toilet, an immigration officer allegedly answered: 'Do it over the side, we won't mind.' ...
That'll teach 'em to go idly visiting the United States of Aggression.
And if those geriatric tourists have any self respect they'll tell the US Immigration Service to fuck off and tell the Captain of the Arcadia to said directly for home.
In the next five years China will invest US$1.5 trillion to construct 30,000 km of high speed rail, during which time America will stick with its 225 miles between Washington and New York (with a planned extension to Boston), with trains running at peak speeds of 150 miles per hour, although average speeds are much lower due to the poor track which was not designed for high speed rail.
So in terms of gross material and energy use, China is already way ahead of the US.
True, amount of stuff is not what economists measure when calculating GDP, they look at the monetary value of output. There the US is way ahead of China in many areas. In legal services, for example, Americans are so much better off than the Chinese.
Then there's healthcare. Americans don't live any longer than most other people, but they spend a heck of lot trying to -- about $2 trillion a year.
And they excel at spending on education, entertainment and advertising, with, surely, beneficial results.
But where American wealth is most evident is in the realm of organized violence. Who else could afford everlasting multi-trillion dollar wars?
So maybe the Chinese have more stuff. But when it comes to the things that really matter, America still leads the World.
What I have seen in long lines to get fuel is not "humanitarian intervention." Refusal to allow purchases of medicine for the hospitals is not "humanitarian intervention." What is most sad is that I cannot give a cogent explanation of why - to people now terrified by NATO's bombs, but it is transparently clear now that NATO has exceeded its mandate, lied about its intentions, is guilty of extra-judicial killings--all in the name of "humanitarian intervention." Where is the Congress as the President exceeds his war-making authority? Where is the "Conscience of the Congress?"
While serving on the House International Relations Committee from 1993 to 2003, it became clear to me that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was an anachronism. Founded in 1945 at the end of World War II, NATO was founded by the United States in response to the Soviet Union's survival as a Communist state. NATO was the U.S. insurance policy that capitalist ownership and domination of European, Asian, and African economies would continue. This also would ensure the survival of the then-extant global apartheid.
NATO is a collective security pact wherein member states pledge that an attack upon one is an attack against all. Therefore, should the Soviet Union have attacked any European Member State, the United States military shield would be activated. The Soviet Response was the Warsaw Pact that maintained a "cordon sanitaire" around the Russian Heartland should NATO ever attack. Thus, the world was broken into blocs which gave rise to the "Cold War."
Avowed "Cold Warriors" of today still view the world in these terms and, unfortunately, cannot move past Communist China and an amputated Soviet Empire as enemy states of the U.S. whose moves any where on the planet are to be contested. The collapse of the Soviet Union provided an accelerated opportunity to exert U.S. hegemony in an area of previous Russian influence. Africa and the Eurasian landmass containing former Soviet satellite states and Afghanistan and Pakistan along with the many other "stans" of the region, have always factored prominently in the theories of "containment" or "rollback" guiding U.S. policy up to today.
With that as background, last night's NATO rocket attack on Tripoli is inexplicable. A civilian metropolitan area of around 2 million people, Tripoli sustained 22 to 25 bombings last night, rattling and breaking windows and glass and shaking the foundation of my hotel.
I left my room at the Rexis Al Nasr Hotel and walked outside the hotel and I could smell the exploded bombs. There were local people everywhere milling with foreign journalists from around the world. As we stood there more bombs struck around the city. The sky flashed red with explosions and more rockets from NATO jets cut through low cloud before exploding.
I could taste the thick dust stirred up by the exploded bombs. I immediately thought about the depleted uranium munitions reportedly being used here--along with white phosphorus. If depleted uranium weapons were being used what affect on the local civilians?
Women carrying young children ran out of the hotel. Others ran to wash the dust from their eyes. With sirens blaring, emergency vehicles made their way to the scene of the attack. Car alarms, set off by the repeated blasts, could be heard underneath the defiant chants of the people.
Sporadic gunfire broke out and it seemed everywhere around me. Euronews showed video of nurses and doctors chanting even at the hospitals as they treated those injured from NATO's latest installation of shock and awe. Suddenly, the streets around my hotel became full of chanting people, car horns blowing, I could not tell how many were walking, how many were driving. Inside the hotel, one Libyan woman carrying a baby came to me and asked me why are they doing this to us?
Whatever the military objectives of the attack (and I and many others question the military value of these attacks) the fact remains the air attack was launched a major city packed with hundreds of thousands of civilians.
I did wonder too if any of the politicians who authorized this air attack had themselves ever been on the receiving end of laser guided depleted uranium munitions. Had they ever seen the awful damage that these weapons do a city and its population? Perhaps if they had actually been in the city of air attack and felt the concussion from these bombs and saw the mayhem caused they just might not be so inclined to authorize an attack on a civilian population.
I am confident that NATO would not have been so reckless with human life if they had called on to attack a major western city. Indeed, I am confident that would not be called upon ever to attack a western city. NATO only attacks (as does the US and its allies) the poor and underprivileged of the 3rd world.
This was in 2008. A bombing by Al Qaeda, our allies in Benghazi. It killed 18
and injured 50. That was before "humanitarian"bombing had been invented
Now, no one gets killed -- not that anyone mentions, anyhow.
Only the day before, at a women's event in Tripoli, one woman came up to me with tears in her eyes: her mother is in Benghazi and she can't get back to see if her mother is OK or not. People from the east and west of the country lived with each other, loved each other, intermarried, and now, because of NATO's "humanitarian intervention," artificial divisions are becoming hardened. NATO's recruitment of allies in eastern Libya smacks of the same strain of cold warriorism that sought to assassinate Fidel Castro and overthrow the Cuban Revolution with "homegrown" Cubans willing to commit acts of terror against their former home country. More recently, Democratic Republic of Congo has been amputated de facto after Laurent Kabila refused a request from the Clinton Administration to formally shave off the eastern part of his country. Laurent Kabila personally recounted the meeting at which this request and refusal were delivered. This plan to balkanize and amputate an African country (as has been done in Sudan) did not work because Kabila said "no" while Congolese around the world organized to protect the "territorial integrity" of their country.
I was horrified to learn that NATO allies (the Rebels) in Libya have reportedly lynched and then butchered their darker-skinned compatriots after U.S. press reports labeled Black Libyans as "Black mercenaries." Now, pray tell me this: How are you going to take Blacks out of Africa? Press reports have suggested that Americans were "surprised" to see dark-skinned people in Africa. Now, what does that tell us about them?
The sad fact, however, is that it is the Libyans themselves, who have been insulted, terrorized, lynched, and murdered as a result of the press reports that hyper-sensationalized this base ignorance. Who will be held accountable for the lives lost in the bloodletting frenzy unleashed as a result of these lies?
Which brings me back to the lady's question: why is this happening? Honestly, I could not give her the educated reasoned response that she was looking for. In my view the international public is struggling to answer "Why?".
What we do know, and what is quite clear, is this: what I experienced last night is no "humanitarian intervention."
Many suspect it is about all the oil under Libya. Call me skeptical but I have to wonder why the combined armed sea, land and air forces of NATO and the US costing billions of dollars are being arraigned against a relatively small North African country and we're expected to believe its in the defense of democracy.
What I have seen in long lines to get fuel is not "humanitarian intervention." Refusal to allow purchases of medicine for the hospitals is not "humanitarian intervention." What is most sad is that I cannot give a cogent explanation of why - to people now terrified by NATO's bombs, but it is transparently clear now that NATO has exceeded its mandate, lied about its intentions, is guilty of extra-judicial killings--all in the name of "humanitarian intervention." Where is the Congress as the President exceeds his war-making authority? Where is the "Conscience of the Congress?"
For those of who disagree with Dick Cheney's warning to us to prepare for war for the next generation, please support any one who will stop this madness. Please organize and then vote for peace. People around the world need us to stand up and speak out for ourselves and them because Iran and Venezuela are also in the cross-hairs. Libyans don't need NATO helicopter gunships, smart bombs, cruise missiles, and depleted uranium to settle their differences. NATO's "humanitarian intervention" needs to be exposed for what it is with the bright, shining light of the truth.
As dusk descends on Tripoli, let me prepare myself with the local civilian population for some more NATO humanitarianism.
Bipartisan Congress rebuffs Obama on Libya mission
The Washington Times, Friday, June 3, 2011: Crossing party lines to deliver a stunning rebuke to the commander in chief, the vast majority of the House voted Friday for resolutions telling President Obama he has broken the constitutional chain of authority by committing U.S. troops to the international military mission in Libya.
In two votes — on competing resolutions that amounted to legislative lectures of Mr. Obama — Congress escalated the brewing constitutional clash over whether he ignored the founding document’s grant of war powers by sending U.S. troops to aid in enforcing a no-fly zone and naval blockade of Libya.
The resolutions were non-binding, and only one of them passed ...
The Kucinich resolution failed 148-265. In a telling signal, 87 Republicans voted for Mr. Kucinich’s resolution — more than the 61 Democrats that did. ...
Although the financial press speculates about a downgrade of the US government's credit rating and default if political impasse prevents the debt ceiling from being raised in time, I doubt anyone really believes that the debt ceiling will not be raised. It is just all a part of the political theater of the next couple of months.
Republicans will blame the budget deficit and accumulated national debt on Medicare and Social Security. Wall Street sees billions of profits in privatizing either, and debt rating agencies will oblige their Wall Street paymasters by opining from time to time that US Treasury bonds might be downgraded unless "entitlements can be addressed and the deficit brought under control."
Democrats will say that the budget deficit cannot be addressed without an increase in tax revenues, especially from the rich whose incomes have exploded upward while their tax rates have declined.
All the while the pressure of an approaching deadline for default will be used to reshape the US social contract, most likely in the further interest of the rich.
However, regardless of whether the debt ceiling is raised, the US government is not going to go out of business. Why does anyone think that the President, who does not obey the War Powers Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, US and international laws against torture, or any of the laws and procedures that guard civil liberty, is going to feel compelled to obey the debt ceiling?
As long as the US is at war, the American President is a Caesar. He is above the law. The US Justice (sic) Department has ruled this, and Congress and the Courts have accepted it.
Moreover, the Federal Reserve is independent of the government. In its approach to regulatory matters and bailouts, the Fed has ceased to follow its own rules. Regardless of the debt ceiling, the Fed will continue to purchase the Treasury's bond issues, and the Treasury will continue to fund the federal deficit with the proceeds. If Goldman Sachs is too big to fail, certainly the US government is.
As Congress has abandoned its powers over war, how can Congress hold on to its powers over spending? It cannot. Indeed, an impasse between the political parties over the debt ceiling would be welcomed by the executive branch as more proof that Congress is incapable of doing its part in governing and, therefore, the task has of necessity passed to the executive branch, which already does most of it.
If the President can declare on his own authority, without statutory basis and in defiance of the US Constitution, that he can assassinate US citizens who he considers to be a threat to national security, he certainly can declare that default is a threat to national security and that it is within his powers as commander-in-chief to ignore the debt ceiling.
Indeed, the executive branch would jump at the chance. Then it could reshape the budget to its own pleasing without having to consult Congress on spending any more than the executive branch consults Congress on war.
The Bush/Cheney regime brought democracy and accountable government to an end. If Obama doesn't finish the process, the next in line will.
Ratko Mladic, the most wanted fugitive of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), was arrested last week after 16 years on the run. As former commander of the Republika Srpska Army from 1992–96, he was indicted by the ICTY following the capture of Srebrenica in July 1995, and charged by ICTY Judge Richard Goldstone with genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of laws and practices of warfare from 1992 to 1995 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The same indictment charged Radovan Karadzic, president of the Republika Srpska and Mladic’s supreme commander.
From May 1992, Bosnian Serb forces under the command of Mladic took control of the self-proclaimed Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (since renamed Republika Srpska). Thousands of Muslims fled to Bosnia and Herzegovina government-controlled territory including Srebrenica and Sarajevo, and by 1995, after attacks on these areas, 8,000 Bosniaks, primarily Muslim, had been killed.
The ICTY has tried other Serbs, including Mladic’s deputy Radislav Krstic (sentenced in 2001 to 46 years later reduced to 35), Biljana Plavsic (sentenced in 2002 to 11 years), Serbia’s ex-president Slobodan Milosevic (died during his trial in 2006), and Momcilo Krajisnik (sentenced in 2008 to 20 years). Karadzic was finally arrested in Belgrade in 2008. His trial began in 2009, but he refuses to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court or enter a plea, claiming there is a conspiracy against him.
Crimes were committed in the break-up of Yugoslavia, as is always the case in a civil war. But the Mladices were pawns in a geopolitical game in the Balkans, with the main actors in European capitals and in Washington. Milosevic’s self-defence is the stuff of legend, and Karadzic called the tribunal a “court of NATO” disguised as a court of the international community.
Even ignoring the criticism that these trials are in effect show trials by the victors, if the ICTY is truly impartial, the fact remains that charges similar to the ones against Mladic and Karadzic can be levelled word-for-word at US president George W Bush for “violations of laws and practices of warfare” in undertaking an illegal war against Iraq. Egypt’s Mohamed ElBaradei has done precisely that, both in his memoirs The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times and on US television, where he bravely charged that Bush administration officials should face international criminal investigation for the “shame of a needless war” in Iraq.
And just as Mladic will be prosecuted for ethnic cleansing and killing “on political, racial and religious grounds”, so should be the entire political elite of Israel during the past six decades, for blatant ethnic cleansing “on political, racial and religious grounds”. Many Europeans and even a few Americans have tried to do just that by launching civil suits against various Israeli and American politicians and military officers in recent years. Bush, for one, has been notably absent from Europe in drumming up sales for his own memoirs Decision Points.
There is no International Tribunal for the United States and/or Israel, and little likelihood of this happening. On whether former British prime minister Tony Blair could be tried for war crimes, Hans Blix, who headed the UN inspection team to investigate Iraq’s supposed WMDs, said, “Well, yes, may be so. It’s not very likely to happen.” He testified to the illegality of the war at the British Iraq War Inquiry board last year but to no avail. Attempts to impeach Bush were similarly brushed aside by Congress.
However, citizens’ arrests and legal measures by Palestinians, Iraqis and Westerners in European courts will continue — at least until Zionist forces in Europe succeed in pushing through legislation protecting the criminals, as is presently in the works in Britain.
Mladic’s forces “seized and held over 200 UN staff members as hostages … to deter further air strikes in those areas where the hostages were being held,” the indictment states. But what about the dozens of UN peacekeepers that Israel has targetted and killed since the first UN force rushed in to put out the serial fires lit by Israel from 1948 on? As it invaded Egypt in 1967, Israeli bombers killed 14 UN peacekeepers stranded there, without any fallout. “Some of the hostages were assaulted and otherwise maltreated during their captivity,” the indictment of Mladic states. I’m sure the ghosts of those UN peacekeepers would much prefer to have been merely maltreated.
What would a comparable indictment of the US and Israel sound like? ElBaradei estimated that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have needlessly died due to the invasion. Israel has ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, killed tens of thousands, jailed and tortured more tens of thousands as political prisoners. Mladic’s crimes pale in comparison.
The ICTY was an ad hoc tribunal set up by the UN Security Council in 1993, reminiscent of the Nuremberg tribunal following WWII to try Nazi war criminals. It functions in tandem with the ICC, the world court proposed in 1919 but only ratified in 2002 following the end of the Cold War. Since then, the ICC is the body that investigates crimes against humanity or illegal wars where local courts are found wanting.
Given the inability of US and Israel to face up to their crimes, the ICC would therefore be the appropriate body to prosecute Americans and Israelis, but they are conveniently not members, unlike all of South America, half of Africa, all of Europe, even the Palestinian National Authority.
The US has blackmailed and bullied any country it could to sign so-called “Article 98 agreements”, supposedly providing immunity to US citizens in those countries from any indicts by the world court. In 2003, the US stopped military aid to 35 offending countries (among them nine European countries). In 2005, Angola became the 100th country to cave in to US pressure. Amnesty International and the European Commission Legal Service argue that these agreements are not valid, though no one has yet dared to test that claim.
So far the International Cricket Council (excuse me, the International Criminal Court) has undertaken six investigations — all in Africa, the latest being in Libya, or what’s left of it after more than two months of NATO bombing. While NATO countries led by France and Britain pursue a clearly illegal war against Libya, the ICC bizarrely charges not them but Libya leader Muammar Gaddafi and his son Saif Al-Islam — the victims of the Europeans’ criminal invasion — with crimes against humanity. This, despite the cozy relationship enjoyed by Britain, France and the hapless Gaddafis until a few months ago. The ICC is the empire’s watchdog rather than its conscience, let alone the world’s conscience.
Referring to Iraq, though he could just as easily been referring to the destruction of Yugoslavia or Palestine, ElBaradei asks, “Do we, as a community of nations, have the wisdom and courage to take the corrective measures needed, to ensure that such a tragedy will never happen again?” Sadly, the answer is no. Again under UN auspices, Judge Goldstone attempted to bring Israel to justice after its invasion of Gaza in 2009, but ended up running for cover after yet another illegal US-Israeli war — this time of words — against a supposedly “self-hating Jew”.
British, French, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Qatari and United Arab Emirate warplanes have flown over 8,000 sorties and more than 3,000 combat missions against Libya since NATO took control of the war on March 31, before which the U.S. and Britain fired at least 160 cruise missiles into the nation. Hours before Cameron and Obama enjoyed their barbecue, NATO warplanes launched a one-hour bombardment of the Libyan capital of Tripoli, the most ferocious attack in more than two months, killing 19 people and injuring over 130 others.
Now Reuters report: NATO said on Wednesday it had extended its Libyan mission for a further 90 days, after Gaddafi made it clear he would not step down, dashing hopes of a negotiated end to the fighting.
The rational for this proposal is that lithium in very small amounts appears to have many public health and social benefits including better mental health and less crime.
Studies in Texas, central Japan and throughout Austria have shown a negative relationship between suicide rate and the amount of lithium naturally present in public water supplies.
A study conducted in North Carolina suggested a negative relationship between community drinking water lithium content and mental hospital admission rates.
If all these benefits were attributable to an element such as calcium, which as a carbonate mainly accounts for the hardness of water, most people would likely support its addition to public water supplies.
However, lithium is widely known as an anti-mania drug capable of reducing the demented to a condition of docility. Naturally, therefore, calls for lithium supplementation of drinking water are interpreted by many as evidence of a plot to reduce the population to a condition of docile servility.
What is not generally recognized is that the potential benefits of lithium to the population at large are attributed to amounts of the element in the range of 50 to 100 millionths of a gram per day, whereas a therapeutic dose of lithium for the treatment of mania is several thousand times as much, and close to the threshold for toxicity.
But if trace amounts of lithium represent no hazard to the public, their addition to the water supply is nevertheless questionable in the present state of knowledge, despite the potential benefits.
Research in this field will not be undertaken by the pharmaceutical industry because lithium cannot be patented. What is needed, therefore, is a broad-ranging program of publicly funded research to evaluate claims that have been made concerning the role of lithium in human nutrition and health.
In the meantime, those interested in experimenting with lithium as a nutritional supplement can drink lithium-rich mineral waters such as Catalan Vichy (1.3 mg of lithium per liter), enjoyed by the Romans more than two thousand years ago or San Pellegrino water (0.2 mg of lithium per liter), likely available at a grocery store near you.
Noam Chomsky's 2006 "analysis" of US government 9/11 complicity is being promoted by Alternet.org as if it was news. That's because Chomsky basically sides with the editors there and their dismissive attitudes toward looking at the evidence.
In this battle of ideas, it warms my heart that Alternet's boards are swamped with controversy the minute they try to push this garbage onto the unsuspecting.
I remain a bit dazed though that hard core "leftists" accept Chomsky's thin dismissal, and ignore the most important admission Chomsky has made:
"I mean even if it [US GOVERNMENT COMPLICITY IN THE 9/11 ATTACKS] were true, which is extremely unlikely, who cares? I mean it doesn't have any significance." -Noam Chomsky
If you aren't familiar with this quote, read it again. Play the linked video. Come to terms with what he is saying. Chomsky gives the same dismissal to the JFK assassination (at the end of the clip). It just doesn't matter. To whom? Noam? To whom?
I suppose one could argue that JFK is dead 44 years now, and so America has moved on.* Not so for 9/11. Not on your life.
Chomsky has admitted that HE doesn't care if elements of the government were criminally complicit and treasonous in the 9/11 attacks, and that his school of followers shouldn't (doesn't) concern themselves either.
That's quite powerful stuff, given that many "lefty" pinhead types have internalized the marching orders and come up with elaborate mental gymnastics to convince themselves that 9/11 is "irrelevant." You see the "irrelevant" dismissal repeated in the threads over at that video post.
Example, "fireballs" says:
"9/11 truthers, you might be right in some form. There might be enough logical inconsistencies in the media's narrative of that day to produce some amount of scepticism. All of that is irrelevant. It does not matter if the towers fell due to controlled demolition. It does not matter what caused the collapse of WTC 7. It does not matter because you cannot prove what did happen, and the government is not going to help you, no matter how loud you shout outside of its doors."
You really have to wonder the mindset that admits the government could have participated in the mass murder of our fellow civilians, and yet works overtime trying to dismiss it as "irrelevant."
Well obviously it's not "irrelevant" to us, nor to the family members affected by it, nor to a hell of a lot of people around the world. That it is apparently "irrelevant" to Noam Chomsky and his dwindling band of followers speaks volumes about their priorities, as well as their morality, or apparent lack thereof. Perhaps it is they who are "irrelevant?"
Treason does not matter to these people.
So many derelictions of duty before 9/11 point to high treason (in the Clinton and Bush regimes), deliberate, calculated, with historical precedents and whistleblowers exposing the reality. None of that can sway the Chomskyites, because their leader seems to have some charismatic cult of personality hold on their ability to reason these things through. ...
Noam Chomsky: Controlled Asset of the New World Order
The Pied Piper of the Left
Noam Chomsky is often hailed as America's premier dissident intellectual, a fearless purveyor of truth fighting against media propaganda, murderous U.S. foreign policy, and the crimes of profit-hungry transnational corporations.
He enjoys a slavish cult-like following from millions leftist students, journalists, and activists worldwide who fawn over his dense books as if they were scripture. To them, Chomsky is the supreme deity, a priestly master whose logic cannot be questioned.
However, as one begins to examine the interviews and writings of Chomsky, a different picture emerges. His books, so vociferously lauded in leftist circles, appear to be calculated disinformation designed to distract and confuse honest activists. Since the 1960's, Chomsky has acted as the premier Left gatekeeper, using his elevated status to cover up the major crimes of the global elite.
His formula over the years has stayed consistent: blame "America" and "corporations" while failing to examine the hidden Globalist overclass which pulls the strings, using the U.S. as an engine of creation and destruction. Then after pinning all the worlds ills on American imperialism, Chomsky offers the solution of world government under the United Nations.
In his book "The Conspirator's Hierarchy," Dr. John Coleman named Chomsky as a deep cover CIA agent working to undermine social protest groups. Certainly Dr. Coleman's claims appear validated by an honest review of Chomsky's role as a Left gatekeeper.
Since 9-11 [the attacks of 2001-09-11], he has steadfastly refused to discuss the evidence of government complicity and prior knowledge. Furthermore, he claims that the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Bilderberg Committee, and Trilateral Commission are "nothing organizations." When critiquing poverty, he never mentions the Federal Reserve and their role in manipulating the cycle of debt.
Similarly, he claims that the CIA was never a rogue organization and is an innocent scapegoat; that JFK was killed by the lone assassin Lee Harvey Oswald; that the obvious vote fraud in 2004 did not occur; and that "peak oil" is real and good for humanity.
What he does advocate is population control, gun control, support for UNESCO, and the end of national sovereignty in favor of a one-world government under the U.N. In other words, the major goals of the New World Order. Chomsky's role in propaganda paradigm is much like that of Karl Marx: to present a false liberation ideology which actually supports the desired solutions of the elite. Marx pointed out the inequalities and brutality of capitalism and then advocated a one world bank, army, and government with the abolition of private property and religion; in other words, the major goals of the New World Order.
Tens of millions of activists worldwide still remain trapped by this scam, failing to recognize the inherent autocratic and elitist structures of Marxism-Leninism or the newer incarnation under Chomsky.
The Globalist elites and their army of social scientists at the Tavistock Institute understand that people are going to question the inequities of the current economic system. For example, why is wealth distributed so unequally between classes and countries? Why are those living in third world nations allowed to die from preventable diseases and starvation? Why does the U.S. government sponsor and direct such murderous foreign policy? Why was America attacked on 9-11?
In other words, why is the world embroiled in such violence? Who is behind all this suffering? And most importantly, what solutions would relieve the poverty and destruction plaguing the worldwide population?
Enter Chomsky, the controlled opposition, to play the role of re-direct agent. He discusses a mere fraction of the real elite manipulation and then quickly pushes his followers into dead-end solutions and alienating rhetoric. Chomsky's hero status is further amplified by Left gatekeeper publications like Z Magazine, DemocracyNow!, The Progressive, and The Nation.
Is it a coincidence that all of those magazines receive major funding from Globalist front-groups like the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Carnegie Endowment, and MacArthur Foundation? Chomsky may be the head gatekeeper, but he works alongside a network of fellow Globalist assets like Amy Goodman who do their best to appear radical while avoiding all the hardcore issues and deliberately leading the Left into oblivion.
The following analysis will show that Chomsky, a deep cover agent for the New World Order, a master of black propaganda whose true motives become clear with a sober and honest examination.
September 11, 2001
Noam Chomsky has acted as the premier Left gatekeeper in the aftermath of the 9-11 crimes, lashing out at the 9-11 truth movement and claiming [that] any suggestions of government complicity are fabrications. The "radical" Chomsky takes a position so deeply rooted in denial that it makes the staged 9-11 whitewash commission look like an honest study. He belligerently refuses to discuss any of the massive evidence proving government foreknowledge and participation in the crimes, claiming it would destroy the activist movements worldwide:
"If the left spends its time on this, that's the end of the left, in my opinion: the mainstream would be utterly delighted. It is highly likely that nothing significant will be found. And if -- which I very greatly doubt -- something is found that would quickly send everyone in Washington to the death chamber, the left is unlikely to emerge triumphant."
In other words, Chomsky is telling his followers to ignore the evidence because according to him, none exists. However even if there is massive evidence, responsible activists should ignore it because it would be "the end of the Left." Chomsky's role as a 9-11 gatekeeper goes even further as he denies each piece of evidence individually. The following examples should suffice:
[First], as most honest 9-11 researchers know, 7 of the accused 19 hijackers are alive, proving the official story is a fabrication. Many of the remaining 12 were trained as U.S. Air Force bases and CIA-connected Huffman Aviation [in Venice, FL]. Many of the accused "religious fanatics" acted more like degenerate contract agents, as they flashed wads of cash, visited strip clubs, drank profusely, blew cocaine, smoked weed, cavorted with strippers and had strange meetings in the drug-rich Florida keys.
Men like Mohammed Atta fit the M.O. of an undercover CIA drug runner: a man trained at U.S. Air Force bases, fluent in many languages, able to evade INS regulations, working with drug dealers, and receiving wired bank funds from CIA-linked Pakistani intelligence. There remains no photographic evidence of these supposed hijackers ever getting on the planes (walking through airport security does not count). Furthermore, the autopsy list of Flight 77 which supposedly hit the Pentagon listed none of the accused hijackers.
Regarding the evidence of government complicity in training the hijackers, Chomsky wrote the following:
"Nothing empirical is impossible. Thus, it is conceivable that everyone in the White House is totally insane. And in my opinion, that's what they would have had to be to try something that would have been very likely to turn into an utter fiasco, and if by some miracle had succeeded, would almost certainly have leaked, so that they would all be facing the death sentence. Possible, but not likely."
[Second], what about the unprecedented NORAD [North American Air Defense] stand down on 9-11 which broke standard operation procedure? Over 67 times in 2001, NORAD had dispatched [interceptors for] jets when they deviated from their flight path. In 1999, when golfer Payne Stewart's single engine Lear [jet] depressurized, NORAD planes were flying around the vessel in 20 minutes.
But on 9-11, Ben Sliney, in his first day on the job as hijacking coordinator for the FAA, delayed calls to NORAD. Meanwhile NORAD ran at least 7 hijacking drills that morning like Operation Vigilant Guardian, where commercial jets crashed into government buildings in Manhattan, Washington DC, and Virginia. These "mock" drills, designed to [go] live on 9-11, helped to distract the honest people within NORAD and the FAA, and to evade suspicion from patriotic investigators within the CIA, FBI, and NSA's Echelon network.
Of the subject of the NORAD stand down, Chomsky wrote the following:
"Whether NORAD followed SOP, I have no idea, not having investigated the matter. I think the case is very weak, and diverts people from the really serious issues."
[Third], how about the document called "Operation Northwoods" signed off in 1962 by the Joint Chiefs of Staff like Generals Lemnitzer and Landsdale? These men, sworn to protect the Constitution, devised a plan to create false-flag terrorism in order to engineer a war with Cuba. Their treasonous plans included the following:
"Hijacking attempts against civil air and surface craft could appear to continue as harassing measures condoned by the Government of Cuba."
"Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government."
"We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba . . . casualty lists in U.S. newspapers cause a helpful wave of indignation."
This document was discovered in the National Archives and has been the subject of mainstream articles by ABC News and others. It stands as clear evidence that the U.S. government has designed plans to engineer terrorist attacks and blame them on foreign enemies. Yet Noam Chomsky does not think the Northwoods document matters:
"Operation Northwoods example is only one of many reasons for being skeptical about this: it doesn't even come close, and it was not carried out. Furthermore, there is nothing in history that even remotely resembles what is being proposed. Of course, that does not show that the thesis is impossible: nothing could show that, by definition. And if someone can put together some evidence and refute the arguments as to why it is extraordinarily unlikely, then the matter will be worth pursuing."
Chomsky's role as the chief 9-11 gatekeeper proves he is distracting his leftist followers from the truth. Instead of facing the clear facts, he claims that 19 hijackers did it and that al-Qaeda is a real terrorist enemy. When presented with documented evidence, from living hijacker patsies to the NORAD stand down, he simply claims it doesn't exist. He resorts to emotional "they would never do it" appeals in order to deny the obvious.
Chomsky is exhibiting far more than logical skepticism, but instead is actively engaging in disinformation.
9-11 Prior Knowledge
Chomsky's denial of government complicity in the crimes of September 11 [2001] is one thing, but he goes further, claiming the government had no prior knowledge of the attacks. Mind you, this is a position even weaker than Michael Moore's tepid [documentary film] "Fahrenheit 9-11", which at least tacitly suggested a degree of prior knowledge. Chomsky's position is untenable. For a man who prides himself on science and logic, his steadfast refusal to acknowledge mainstream media reports finds him using arguments similar to Holocaust deniers: one can show them photographs, videos, testimony, and physical evidence but the burden of proof is impossible. Such is the case with Chomsky who ignores the many government admissions of prior knowledge widely available even in the 9-11 whitewash commission report. Here is Noam Chomsky writing on government prior knowledge:
"That tells us even less. Every intelligence agency is flooded, daily, with information of very low credibility. In retrospect, one can sometimes pick out pieces that mean something. At the time, that's a virtual impossibility. By arguments like this we can prove that someone blew up the White House yesterday."
If they did not have prior knowledge, why were [vice president] Cheney and NORAD running drills that morning where hijacked jets flew into buildings in New York, Washington DC and Virginia? ...
On 27 May 2011, the New York Times has an article entitled: Egypt’s Next Crisis
In this article we read about a political meeting, in the town of Kafr Shukr, where a chicken farmer named Ayman Dahroug declares:
"The truth is, there are no leaders in Kafr Shukr anymore.
"It’s only the Muslim Brotherhood that works here now.
"They are in Kafr Shukr every day."
The Muslim Brotherhood buy imported meat at a discount and sell it to the poor in the town.
Cairo 1880
According to the New York Times article:
"Egypt is in the agony of self-discovery...
"Other Arab revolutions founder or lapse into civil wars...
"(In Egypt) workers are striking throughout the country...
"Many ... warn of a possible takeover by Islamists, who could assume power through the ballot box only to impose an Iran-style theocracy.
"These fears are not groundless; there are certainly people, in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world, who do not want to see a popular revolution succeed...
The Guardian reported today that British PM, David Cameron, has stepped down as a patron of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in a “move pro-Palestinian campaigners claim is a result of pressure.”
The JNF was originally a Zionist fund set up to buy land in Palestine to establish Jewish settlements before the creation of the state of Israel. Since 1948 it has been operating as a global charity specialising in planting trees over Palestinian stolen land and eradicated villages.
Sofiah Macleod of the UK-based Stop the JNF Campaign told the Guardian that it was the organisation's lobbying that had led Cameron to withdraw. "There has been a change in public opinion and awareness about Israel's behaviour and there was specific pressure on [Cameron] to step down from the JNF," she said." ...
Bangkok, Thailand May 28, 2011 - Russia's President Medvedev, according to the Australian, has "endorsed calls for Colonel Gaddafi to leave office and offered to help to negotiate his exit. " It is a move that has "surprised and delighted" both London and Washington after Russia's initial protest against the extralegal military action that was executed upon an Iraq War-style pack of lies.
This apparent backpedaling by Russia coincides with increased bombardments of Libya's capital of Tripoli and calls by France and Britain to send in helicopter gunships in an effort to increase the level of murder and mayhem in order to force the Libyan government to meet "concessions." The contrived globalist International Criminal Court (ICC), has also attempted to place pressure upon Libya through an "arrest warrant" targeting Qaddafi.
An Entirely Fake Court
The "arrest warrant" issued by the ICC is based on evidence acquired from "30 missions to 11 States, and through interviews with a large number of persons, including key insiders and eyewitnesses." The ICC itself notes that the "unprecedented cooperation" it has received has come from "States and organizations, none of which are currently working in Libya." Undeterred by their admittedly tenuous investigation, they go on to provide an enumerated list of their "evidence."
Beginning with a quotation from the Introduction her ladyship's report:
To argue or find to the contrary [i.e. that Khan, Tanweer, Hussein and Lindsay were not the bombers] would be irrational. It would be to ignore a huge body of evidence from a vast array of sources. Had there been a conspiracy falsely to implicate any of the four in the murder plot, as some have suggested, it would have been of such massive proportions as to be simply unthinkable in a democratic country. It would have involved hundreds of ordinary people, members of the bombers’ families, their friends, their fellow terrorists, independent experts, scientists, as well as various police forces and the Security Service. It would have cost millions of pounds to fabricate the forensic evidence. Independent barristers and solicitors who have had access to the source material (for example the CCTV footage) during the criminal trials and these proceedings would have had to be involved. Just to state the proposition is to reveal its absurdity.
The Antagonist comments:
We will gloss over, for the moment, the fact that there was no need to fabricate CCTV evidence for the simple reason that there was no CCTV evidence at all of three of the accused on the London Underground on the morning of 7 July 2005, however the fact that the police lied about when they viewed some footage from Luton is certainly noteworthy.
And
Conspiracies to "falsely implicate" individuals and groups of individuals that are "Simply unthinkable in a democratic country" are in fact quite routine and commonplace in democratic countries. The British State has a particularly exemplary history of "conspiracy to falsely implicate" through "independent experts, scientists, as well as various police forces and the Security Service." We need not look terribly far back in history to find the cases of the Birmingham 6, the Guildford 4, the Maguire 7, Danny MacNamee, Judith Ward, and many others of Irish descent against whom the State conspired for its own politically expedient gains. Countless similar examples exist. Just to state the proposition (that the aforementioned were falsely implicated) was also dismissed as absurd at the time.
That the inquests did not uncover any such conspiracy comes as no surprise, for the function of an inquest is to determine how an individual died, where they died and when they died. The function is most certainly not that of a criminal investigation, in much the same way as the function of an inquest -- as re-stated both by Hallett and her Counsel to the Inquests, Hugo Keith QC -- is most certainly not "to attribute blame or apportion guilt to individuals". Yet, in both instances of improper function of an inquest, this is what has occurred and the inquests have masqueraded as a legitimate form of investigation, trial and prosecution of four unrepresented men accused of a heinous crime.
Instead of "a conspiracy falsely to implicate any of the four in the murder plot... of such massive proportions as to be simply unthinkable in a democratic country" that "would have involved hundreds of ordinary people, members of the bombers’ families, their friends, their fellow terrorists, independent experts, scientists, as well as various police forces and the Security Service" and "cost millions of pounds to fabricate the forensic evidence", what the public are left with is the same tidy, if inconsistent, unsubstantiated and unproven, 'narrative' that we started with and a proxy investigation, trial, prosecution, and judgement "that cost millions of pounds" that "involved hundreds of ordinary people... families, their friends...independent experts, scientists, as well as various police forces and the Security Service."
The very same process succinctly described by Lady Justice Hallett outlining why "a conspiracy falsely to implicate any of the four in a murder plot" could not have occurred, is exactly the process by which the four accused have indeed been implicated, accused, tried and found guilty.
There is more, and the commentary deserves reading in its entirety. There are also some interesting readers' comments, including this by Bridget:
J7 [Truth] have always maintained it is the State that must prove its narrative not ours to construct alternatives. As there must be a mass of evidence not adduced to the Inquests nor released to the public it remains impossible to offer an alternative hypothesis that we can credibly construct. Therefore we call on our supporters and the wider public to continue to campaign for the release of the evidence. If the State has the evidence to support it's narrative then that shouldn't be a problem. ...
As soon as an alternative is put forward, the focus shifts from examining the official account to examining the alternative account.
This remains true. A people who question the State are far more empowered and dangerous imo than those who shift attention away from it.
In relation to the J7 inquest, Stef Zucconi has a good post about disinformation, distraction and defamation in the manipulation of public perception such as is required in the concealment of state crimes against democracy.
Such manipulation is undertaken via both the mainstream media and the alternative media. In this context, it is of interest to remember that during WW1, President Wilson set the Committee for Public Information, headed by former newspaper man George Creel.
The purpose of the CPI was to influence American public opinion toward supporting U.S. participation in World War I via a prolonged propaganda campaign. ...
The committee used newsprint, posters, radio, telegraph, cable and movies to broadcast its message. It recruited about 75,000 "Four Minute Men," volunteers who spoke about the war at social events for an ideal length of four minutes..."
Which leads one to ask whether Cass Sunstein's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is anything other than an Internet-age incarnation of George Creel's Committee of Public Information? If so, 75,000 operatives working an eight hour day could surely transform the Internet consensus on anything of government concern. And remember the government shills use software that enables them to operate under multiple personalities. So 75,000 shills might look like 37.5 million.
In understanding the manipulation of public perception it is also necessary to take account of the difficulty most people have in entertaining a hypothesis as opposed to a definite assertion. This has important practical implications for those who seek publicly to question an official narrative.
Without a thorough forensic investigation, which only the state can undertake, the public will always have to deal with uncertainty about many political events including possible state crimes. This in turn means that most people will either reject conspiracy theories out of hand in preference for the definitive official storys or they will adopt the conspiracy theory without noting the uncertainties relating to it, thereby entering the realm of irrational certainty where they can be singled out and ridiculed by advocates of the official view. Moreover, the defenders of the official story can create their own conspiracy nuts, the easier to dismiss all conspiracy theorists as lunatics.
Thus to expect either truth or rationality in Internet discussion of critical events such as 9/11, 7/7 forums would be a triumph of hope not only over experience, but also of logic.
