October 24, 2004

• BushCo is withholding the CIA report. That's evidence enough that they knew something because they think they will burn if it gets released. I hope this guy succeeds in getting some media coverage before the black helicopters swoop in for the kill. There's no way he'll get to trial but good luck to him.
• Wacky conspiracy theory.
• There's always some element of truth to an accusation, especially when directed at people who can make you disappear. Bush is hiding something.
• I dunno, lets ask Senator Paul Wellstone what he thinks...Oh wait...
• Sounds wacky, but of all the idiocy of the Clinton impeachment, perhaps the most idiotic thing was the idea that a sitting president can be sued. Suprised it hasn't happened more...
• I meant the "precedent" not the "idea."
• There's always some element of truth to an accusation I just actually looked at it and no, not this one.
• I just actually looked at it and no, not this one. Maybe there's nothing to it. But why is the Bush administration witholding the CIA's 9/11 report? The public (American and elsewhere) is clearly not getting full disclosure on an issue used to justify an awful lot of changes in US domestic and global policies. Something's not quite right about that.
• Do you REALLY want to risk it? I turn mine off because I won't die if I go a few minutes without music (and when traveling I'm always paranoid about my ipod battery dying so I turn it off often anyway)
• Well...if there is any merit to the 9/11 cover-up/conspiracy thing, this is the right guy to bring a suit like this. And I think there is something nasty going on, but haven't had the heart to wade into the conspiracy sites. The whole don't touch the Saudis thing has been hinky from day one.
• There's always some element of truth to an accusation, especially when directed at people who can make you disappear. I have no idea whether there's anything to this lawsuit, and believe me I'm one who is prepared to believe the worst about the Bush administration, but this is an incredibly irresponsible statement.
• People who shout "conspiracy theory!" as if this alone undermines the standpoint of whatever allegations are at hand are just trying to use knee-jerk techniques to debunk them, without offering real evidence. The history of the world, particularly the modern world, is replete with real conspiracies. Not Masonic madmen, Illuminati agents or aliens from Zeta Reticuli, but crooks & corrupt leaders, organised crime & law officials greedy for gain. That's all you need. Indeed, the US government actually made *plans* for exactly the kind of fake attack that some allege the 9-11 atrocities were, in the 60s. The plan was called Operation Northwoods, and they were nothing less than a secret, violent war of terrorism waged against the US government's own country, to create a pretext whereby the American public would be gulled into supporting an ideologically-founded war against Cuba, and other Communist states. Killing hundreds, or even thousands of US citizens was no ideological barrier, if the ultimate gain were to be to the USA's long-term benefit. Those human beings would be expendable. Fantasy? Sadly, no. FOIA-obtained documents outline just how insane & desperate the (several) administrations were, under the auspices of crazy extremists in the Pentagon. One of the ideas was to kill John Glenn in '62, blowing up the rocket he was launched in, blaming Cuban saboteurs. Among increasingly insane ideas was one to create a fake hijacking of an American civilian aircraft, then blow it up, or induce the Cubans to attack it over their airspace. These plans were real, & they went right to the desk of the then-President. To believe that the rabidly extremist NeoCons would not take advantage of a foreign terrorist plot for political ends is not in the least extreme, given suspicious elements of the 9-11 events. To suggest that they were actually behind it is much less acceptable, but it is still not in the realms of impossibility, given the history of these corrupt bastards.
• very good post, Nostril. Something is being covered up about 9-11. It could be totally innocuous, but something is there. There's too many unanswered avoided questions about 9-11. These answers could even explain the administration adamant insistance that Saddam and Iraq was involved with 9-11 and had WMDs. I want to know WTF went on, and I'm just a bystander. I'd be a whole lot more curious if I had been as directly impacted as much as Rodriguez has been. I didn't have all my co-workers get crushed and burnt. I didn't have to lead firemen into a burning building. I didn't carry injuried victims to safety. Heck, just having to run up and down the the stairs of a really big building like that would draw a big "WTF mate?" from me.
• I have no idea whether there's anything to this lawsuit, and believe me I'm one who is prepared to believe the worst about the Bush administration, but this is an incredibly irresponsible statement. Irresponsible? Really?
• Alex Reynolds: I think the part he was calling irresponible was when you said every accusation is at least a little bit true. For example: I accuse Alex Reynolds of being a three-eyed magic loofa from Mars. Now that an accusation has been made, there has to be some element of truth to it, right?
• Now that an accusation has been made, there has to be some element of truth to it, right? I haven't disappeared, yet.
• This is the second RICO suit filed against Bush et.al., the [url=http://nancho.net/911/mariani.html]first[/url] being the filed by Ellen Mariani, a 9/11 widow from New Hampshire, last November. That suit appears to have made a further [url=http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/09/298412.shtml]mess[/url] of Mariani's life. We'll see where this one goes (or not), but as far as I'm concerned, any attempt to dig a little deeper into the pre- and post-history of 9/11, after all the attempts by the Bush administration to block the discovery of information is a good thing.
• Oh, Jesus. I'm sorry. *skulks off to find a tutorial, or something, smacks lazy head*
• Little Durian, it's html here in MoFi. LD's first link LD's second Is that really bush throwing a goathead? and not a photoshop? As a very strong Bush-haters, if he addresses the nation and throws a goathead on live national TV, I'll change my vote for him. But he has to do it over his head and yell something, like "Iraq!!!" or "Oil!!!"
• *descends, silently hands Mr. Knickerbocker a banana, reclimbs tree, hides for remainder of afternoon*
• ever notice that when something that's really hard to believe happens, conspiracy theories spring up around it? princess diana's death, elvis' death, kennedy's death, 9/11. i think when the human mind can't grasp the immensity of an event, it strives to find more "rational" explanations than, "shit happens," just to comfort itself that life isn't a string of events over which we have no control. IMHO.
• i think when the human mind can't grasp the immensity of an event, it strives to find more "rational" explanations than, "shit happens," just to comfort itself that life isn't a string of events over which we have no control. I'd like the opportunity to grasp the immensity of the event. It was pretty shocking. I imagine others would like that same opportunity. This and other related lawsuits are symptoms of that same curiousity about the reluctance of the Bush administration to discuss what happened. It has been established as fact, not opinion, that the Right will not allow access to important, relevant information until it is politically safe for them to release it. What is interesting is how this gets "spun" into a conspiracy theory. Some things beggar disbelief, but I don't think this qualifies as tinfoil material, given the nature of what has been withheld from public record so far. If Bush and friends have nothing to hide, they can release the report into public domain and let us make up our own minds.
• Well, gosh, if the Bush administration is witholding something, it must be evidence that they are the Antichrist. I read it on the internet. Yes, Nostril, there are real conspiracies in the world--the 9/11 attack is an example of a spectacularly successful sonspiracy by a group of Muslim militants--but these are few and far between. Of all the examples in your post Nostril, which ones actually happened? Machiavelli explains the extreme difficulty bordering on impossibility of organzing a successful, secret conspiracy in chapter 19 of the Prince. It reads in part: "the difficulties that confront a conspirator are infinite. And as experience shows, many have been the conspiracies, but few have been successful; because he who conspires cannot act alone, nor can he take a companion except from those whom he believes to be malcontents, and as soon as you have opened your mind to a malcontent you have given him the material with which to content himself, for by denouncing you he can look for every advantage; so that, seeing the gain from this course to be assured, and seeing the other to be doubtful and full of dangers, he must be a very rare friend, or a thoroughly obstinate enemy of the prince, to keep faith with you." What really bothers me about this wacky stuff is that it undermines the opposition to Bush and makes us look silly. How about opposing Bush because he has wrecked the economy, ballooned the deficit, and lied the country into a war without having a plan for securing the peace?
• There's always some element of truth to an accusation, especially when directed at people who can make you disappear. Alex Reynolds: Reading comprehension, man. It works wonders. Mr. Knickerbocker: Thanks for stepping in and clarifying the blindingly obvious.
• " Machiavelli explains the extreme difficulty bordering on impossibility of organzing a successful, secret conspiracy in chapter 19 of the Prince." Machiavelli.. Machiavelli.. now let me think, didn't he die in 1527? Like, hundreds of years ago? And you suggest his thoughts are relevant.. how? Machiavelli may be the poster-boy of armchair political wonks everywhere, but he is not relevant to modern politics, & nobody who wants to survive in the post-industrial political arena seriously uses anything he says as basis for their thinking. There are far more valuable theorists within our own era that frame these events in context. My point is this: the US government made plans for the very sort of Reichstag-like false flag event to create support for extreme military intervention with political ends a mere 3 decades before the 9-11 events took place, which makes the claims that those events were engineered far more plausible. And that is all I am saying. The issue is to defuse the knee-jerk dismissal of such a line of inquiry, not to validate the probability itself. If you want me to illustrate actual corrupt actions by modern governments along the lines illustrated, that is easily done, but irrelevant to the discussion. There are multiple examples. This is a straw-man argument on your part. Could the 9-11 atrocities have been planned & executed by the government of the United States itself? Yes. Is this feasible? Certainly, albeit almost totally unacceptable for emotional reasons. Whether they did or not is a different matter. Machiavelli was wrong. It *is* possible to maintain absolute secrecy with a high-technological, massive resource-based activity involving thousands of technical & support staff. This has been going on for 60 years & is called Military Intelligence. Examples: The Manhattan Project (heard of it?) requiring thousands of staff & the production of Uranium 235 in a specially built reactor, & resulting in the creation of the atomic bomb in total secrecy. Another example: The SR-71 Blackbird spyplane, kept secret for over a decade of development in the rarified field of advanced aerospace research involving thousands of highly paid individuals, secret even from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Your argument boils down to strawman & argument to ignorance.
• Best of luck to Mr. Rodriguez. Anything that will help bring down the Bush regime is positive.
• Alex Reynolds: Reading comprehension, man. It works wonders. "Some of the things I called Nixon obviously were not accurate. Nixon does not, as far as I know, fuck pigs and sell used cars with cracked blocks. Nor is he corrupt beyond the ability of modern man to describe it. Those are exaggerations to make a point. My concern with accuracy is on a higher level than nickels and dimes, in a word, line by line." -- Songs of the Doomed, Hunter S. Thompson
• I like the Thompson quotation. Tangentially related: Recently, after a girlfriend and I had broken up and after she'd moved out of her place, I learned that when we were dating she lived in an apartment HST had lived in in the late 60s. How cool is that?
• How cool is that? I can dig it.