9/11 and the Left: Is there any way forward?

[gnosticheresy_2]

After all these years I still think the biggest mindfuck psyops part of 911 is its date.

[MacCruiskeen]

After all these years I still think the biggest mindfuck psyops part of 911 is its date.

Yup. Any time anyone in the states has to call the cops, the fire-brigade or the ambulance, they are reminded of that event.

[gnosticheresy_2]

After all these years I still think the biggest mindfuck psyops part of 911 is its date.

Yup. Any time anyone in the states has to call the cops, the fire-brigade or the ambulance, they are reminded of that event.

Or watches police/fire/medic dramas on TV, or reads about them in print or online, or sees a cop car drive past....

Emergency! Emergency! Fire! Panic! WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!

Also something else just struck me, is this the first disaster/catastrophe/attack referred to mainly by its date? Pearl Harbour, JFK, MLK etc are referred to by name, why not this?

Or why was 911 picked as the US emergency number in the first place? It was AT&T in 1967 who came up with it but I can't find a definitive answer as to why, there seems to be a number (!) of competing explanations.

[MacCruiskeen]

Gnostic, I know I've had a discussion on this very board about that very point, but that was a couple of years ago now and I can't find it. But I do remember saying much the same thing as you: Why "9/11"? Why not, say, "Black Tuesday"? Or even just "WTC"?

The hacks' desire for brevity & snappiness doesn't necessarily explain it fully.

Or watches police/fire/medic dramas on TV, or reads about them in print or online, or sees a cop car drive past....

Emergency! Emergency! Fire! Panic! WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!

Yes. "In case of emergency, dial 911." Dial MASS MURDER. Dial HORRIFYING MEMORY. This constant low-level tickling of the trauma (yeuch!) has a horribly useful effect, and it's probably not just a side-effect. Because that is, demonstrably, the way these [mind-]fuckers think and the way these [mind-]fuckers work.

It's like having to type in "my mother's sudden death" or "my child's serious illness" or "the time i nearly drowned" or "AUSCHWITZ" every time you want to use an ATM or purchase a plane ticket.

[Bruce Dazzling]

This is fantastic, again from Molly (in reply to W. Kasper), earlier in the same thread:

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9:13 PM
Blogger W. Kasper said...

"there is a transition underway to something like Plato's Republic."

It's the cheesiest of sci-fi scenarios, and conspriatorial, but it's telling how only the poorest people I know are prepared to accept that's what's happening. Many in the middle class deluded by notions of luck, merit and justice. There's a huge, rapid, re-definition of 'citizenship' (if not 'human') going on right now. Even basic policing is vanishing where I live (UK) - their energies appear more directed at dissenting organisations etc. Street crime, rape etc: no longer a priority. Intersting how our government wants to reduce jail numbers. In the past year alone, worker/employer imbalance has adjusted sharply. 'Small businessman' rhetoric isn't part of the package - they're just proles like everyone else now. And no, there won't be as much violence required. Media etc. can just create mutual suspicion, fear and rebooted ideas of 'normal' to keep most of us quiet.


1:32 AM
Blogger Molly said...

cheesy sci fi and conspiratorial why? I think the feeling, the position of spectatorship, is so powerful,that people who are used to watching characters on television, and knowing more than those characters, feel they watch the ruling class on television and know more than the ruling class. So as characters don't live in the world where they can watch later episodes of their show to know their fate, the ruling class is presumed not to live in the same universee as we do where all the books available to us exist. They can't know, as we know, the the global financial system is unstable; they can't know as we know that there is climate change; they can't know as we know that we are trying to organise resistance to them; they're in a bubble, they react impulsively to everything, the news, which takes them by surprise every day. This is how many clerk class people think of the ruling class - as being fictional characters incapable of interpreting their dramas as we the spectators interpret them with all our theory the ruling class has no access to. They are the people who know only what is printed in the NYTimes and who believe it childishly.

In the US there is more awareness, quicker recognition, because of the history of slavery which is not a faded-to-nothing memory to african-americans. people recognise the effort to return the population to slavery. it was recognised in the Katrina operation - which did put into action the plan for mass detention that was revealed at the Iran Contra hearings. People flown all over the country, treated as prisoners, parents seperated from children...If you speak plainly about this you are denounced as a conspiracy theorist but that is just the usual propagandistic intimidation. The city was ethnically cleansed, it was a rehearsal. Even the once sacred rights of private property were denied. Then Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram...these are genuine developments. The volunteer thought police on the academic pseudo-left of course will leap all over anyone doing more than mildly criticising these as bad policy. Right wing talk radio, Fox News and Zizney of course are out front with a) the tortures not directly ordered b) they are not really tortures but the equivalent of frat hazing c) anyone who criticises this is acting like the US didn't torture before and is therefore naive and uncool and an apologist for prior torture d) anyone who criticises this is a thirdworldist left relvativist and an apologist for the "much worse" tortures we know happen "in China and the Arab World".

So these significant developments are not to be noticed, not to be understood. It's uncool to oppose them. So one gets bogged down even trying to fend off the abuse one gets just for mentioning these things and this kind of prevents really the sinking in of what it means, and the assassination sqauds, the warrantless wiretaps, how significant the developments are. Similarly, the pseudo-left astroturfers focus on young people sneering and attacking them as naive if they attempt to force international and domestic law to remain in effect...they are uncool because as we know the law isn't God's divine justice but the instrument of power etc etc.. and to try to force the rule of law is to be a naif who thinks earthly courts are God's own bench, Jesus' way of protecting the weak, and doesn't get that "the system is the problem". But soon all this propaganda won't be needed, because we are terrorised. One didn't quite get how terrorised we all were until Obamamania and the fears of martial law. But the ferocity of the volunteer thought police regarding the government tortures and detentions - bradley manning now - speaks of repression and painful denial. We are terrorised - wde are afraid of our goivernment, afraid to disobey, afraid to be tortured. Thus the patently disgusting performance of the left about Assange, like its a big joke, he's a schmuck, maybe a rapist, maybe a cia agent, therefore it's funny he could end upo in the custody of the US torture gulag! hahaha! let's make jokes about his arrogance and take bold stands as defenders of feminism when we demand his extradition, demand complaince with the US torturers. He's a probable rapist after all.. not a boy scout. Like people said about the Jews next door when taken away well he never said good morning on the stairs, well he left his garbage on the stoop, well he was nconsiderate, an embezzler, beat his kids, played his violin at all hours when people were sick and needed sleep...

the US petty bourgeoisie has gone along with a great deal already, not only passively accepting but helping out, volunteering to police criticism, denouncing the alarmists, insisting nothing has really changed, being quite clear tyhat they trust the US gov enough to wish to see assange extradicted to a regime which sees him as a terrorist, and tortures terrorists, because he has been accused of a crime.

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID ... 8022297811

The point Molly makes about "cool" as a mechanism of social control really resonates with me. I've said this a bunch of times here and on my blog, but I live in NYC and I've (reluctantly) been a part of the Brooklyn indiepop/hipster artist scene for over ten years. I'm a musician, so I've needed to have a foot in that world even though there are a lot of aspects of it that drive me to freaking drink, first and foremost is this concept of "cool" as a mechanism of social control.

Even though the vast majority of this scene is well educated in the traditional sense, and even though they will all tell you that they're super well-read and totally liberal!!!, there's still no willingness to have an honest, open discussion about 9/11, torture, Wikileaks, drones, black ops, etc. In fact, any attempt to bring up such topics is immediately poo-poo'd with eye rolls, nervous laughter, and slowly backing away, at minimum, and flat-out ostracision if the offending party doesn't straighten up and get with the program. Back in the old days (2000-2008), it was mostly just considered kooky and a drag to worry about 9/11 and all of that other wacky stuff, even though it was all easily blamed on the "bad guys" (Republicans). But these days, on top of just generally being a "bummer," one is also considered a traitor to the Peace Laureate if one wants to talk about such things, and you really don't want to be a traitor to the Peace Laureate, now do you?????

It's a very subtle thing, but also very real and very powerful. My friend and I have learned over the years to keep our "crazy" ideas to ourselves, or risk being totally shut out from the reindeer games.

And again, this is amongst a group of well-educated, NYC LIBERALS! If I try to bring up "crazy conspiracy theories" about 9/11 in my home town (Pennsylvania), I'm liable to get my ass kicked.

Literally.

So, they seem to have the social pressure covered from multiple angles. It's quite the mind-fuck, actually.

[JackRiddler]

.

Honestly? I see little point in trying to engage people who are "left" as though they're going to be reasonable. If they're using the "conspiracy theory" memes and engaging in intellectual affectations and backing away at the first imagined sign of uncool, then they're probably a lot less willing to be open minded than many a folk in rural Pennsylvania.

I think a random collection of 100 New Yorkers (a glorious one-third of whom will be foreign-born!) may be less knowledgeable but given the right circumstances for a calm conversation more open-minded generally than some Williamsburg hipsters or bloggers well-trained in the rules and mores of The Daily Kos. I don't even think of the latter as "left," and if I'm going to take them more seriously than the proverbial man onna street, then only if they earn it by using sound logic and scholarship as well as showing a humane, empathic, intellectually humble ("I know that many things I don't know") approach to the world and its politics. Degrees aren't enough, and coolness is a lot less than that. If they're denying in general factors such as the deep state, the $80 billion black budget, the parapolitical world, the influence of covert operations and the permanent power of the national security complex, then they are engaging in a willed ignorance and you're not going to persuade them to be more circumspect.

The way forward is to lead. "We" (the real-existing 9/11 truth movement, which I quit) needed a much more solid presentation and PR offensive than we ever put together. We needed to respect the best research and learn it, forefront it, honor it, build on it, hierarchize the good over the dubious, repeat a few findings over and over in a collegiate way, present it in a context of logic and historical knowledge. We needed a laser focus on 1) deconstructing the official story, especially during the investigations and 2) describing what a real investigation would do as a story that spoke to the majority of Americans. But most of us didn't, and sought the shortcuts and spectacular hits. I was not without my sins.

The leaders the last five years have led the wrong way, and reinforced the kooks-and-angries image, but they will be superceded in their own turn.

With so many loose ends in the official story, there will be more unexpected revelations that create opportunities, and they are as likely to come from outside the US as from within. There will be FOIA finds and whistleblowers, and a cumulative effect as the public mind gradually comes around to the idea of government orchestration as a kind of dark but not quite knowable given, as is the case with the JFK assassination. The next crime doesn't always cause people to forget all the prior ones, sometimes it causes key moments like 9/11 to come back. It's a kind of tribute to the shakiness of the official story that the KSM trial was moved back to the underground military theater stage (it's wrong to even call it a tribunal). Because one thing I can tell you is, they absolutely had no doubts that KSM would be convicted in a civilian trial. The emotional case guarantees it, regardless of facts. The problem was what might come out in discovery for everyone outside the courtroom to see -- and the direct decision-makers behind the move back to Gitmo no doubt aren't sure themselves.

Some recent stuff we might have missed:

http://shoestring911.blogspot.com/2010/07/norad-exercise-year-before-911.html

Tuesday, 27 July 2010
NORAD Exercise a Year Before 9/11 Simulated a Pilot Trying to Crash a Plane into a New York Skyscraper--The United Nation Headquarters

This was Vigilant Guardian 2000! It was one in a series of hijacking and crash-bombing scenarios targeting landmark buildings and rehearsed in the 1999-2001 period.

VG 2001 was originally scheduled for Oct. 2001 and rescheduled (at some point after May 2001) along with the other Global Guardian exercises to September 11, 2001. VG 2001 involved hijackings in the NEADS sector.

Wargames research up to 2005 summarized here
http://911truth.org/wargames

Timeline of exercises on 9/11/01:
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline. ... _exercises

And now!

http://911blogger.com/news/2011-03-26/a ... itting-wtc

Army Command Center at the Pentagon Planned to Hold Exercise in Week After 9/11 Based on a Plane Hitting the WTC

Submitted by Shoestring on Sat, 03/26/2011 - 7:30am

This was a MASCAL, assuming an attack had happened and rehearsing ground response, while VG and other exercises were looking at the progress and defensive measures to an aerial crash-bombing attack. What put the idea in the air, that various rehearsals of all the different elements were being conducted in the months before and finally just on the day or days around 9/11?

Remember, everyone: No one could have imagined!

Testing the various defense and response elements over time creates a great store of knowledge for a Red Team to exploit. The Red Team obviously need not (will not) tell the blue teams performing increasingly routinized tasks that today will be different, that today there will be real planes in the air. I'd call it "Vigilant Warrior," and so did Richard Clarke.

.

[8bitagent]

The point Molly makes about "cool" as a mechanism of social control really resonates with me. I've said this a bunch of times here and on my blog, but I live in NYC and I've (reluctantly) been a part of the Brooklyn indiepop/hipster artist scene for over ten years. I'm a musician, so I've needed to have a foot in that world even though there are a lot of aspects of it that drive me to freaking drink, first and foremost is this concept of "cool" as a mechanism of social control.

Even though the vast majority of this scene is well educated in the traditional sense, and even though they will all tell you that they're super well-read and totally liberal!!!, there's still no willingness to have an honest, open discussion about 9/11, torture, Wikileaks, drones, black ops, etc. In fact, any attempt to bring up such topics is immediately poo-poo'd with eye rolls, nervous laughter, and slowly backing away, at minimum, and flat-out ostracision if the offending party doesn't straighten up and get with the program. Back in the old days (2000-2008), it was mostly just considered kooky and a drag to worry about 9/11 and all of that other wacky stuff, even though it was all easily blamed on the "bad guys" (Republicans). But these days, on top of just generally being a "bummer," one is also considered a traitor to the Peace Laureate if one wants to talk about such things, and you really don't want to be a traitor to the Peace Laureate, now do you?????

It's a very subtle thing, but also very real and very powerful. My friend and I have learned over the years to keep our "crazy" ideas to ourselves, or risk being totally shut out from the reindeer games.

And again, this is amongst a group of well-educated, NYC LIBERALS! If I try to bring up "crazy conspiracy theories" about 9/11 in my home town (Pennsylvania), I'm liable to get my ass kicked.

Literally.

So, they seem to have the social pressure covered from multiple angles. It's quite the mind-fuck, actually.

San Francisco/California Bay area for me, been in and out of that indie hipster/art/whatever scene since the mid 1990's. Thank goodness I never slept with anyone there, disease city.
See, what you relay about the so called "open minded educated college youth" of leftist alternative or underground circles is not only true from my experience...but EVEN MORE shocking, is this is some of the same attitude WITHIN the so called "activist" or peace activist circles. Forget "9/11 Truth" being acceptable, there was a time speaking out against Afghanistan war or Israeli war crimes through signs or voice got you some stern looks. And they wonder why I kind of turned to the more Alex Jones/Libertarian/patriot camp during that period for a brief time, the left is so controlled and even worse they get as upset as a Bush loving right winger when you say something they don't agree with. I remember talking to cartoonist Ted Rall at a little political cartoonist/publication thing, and some Urban Outfitter type with some dumb comic about Dick Cheney comes all the way over to where I was to interject about how Im crazy, and "dont be peddling that crazy anti Semetic conspiracy stuff here" simply because he over heard me bringing up 9/11 questions to Ted Rall(specifically re: Pakistan)

The average reaction I get from conservative, pro Bush or least pro government people is a kind of laughter, or an "oohh, boy...sheesh" reaction regarding questioning 9/11. But with the left, they get angry.
I've often said the liberals need 9/11 almost more than the right, so they can foist their blowback bullshit ideas. Just look at the unified liberal reaction to the Path to 9/11...which is funny, because the film in its original form exposed how Clinton and Sandy Berger aborted every attempt to kill bin Laden. Ive often said the Clinton regime has just as much more more complicity than the neocons.

But I have often brought up or stepped into conversations at parties, bars, etc with so called "fellow leftists" regarding this stuff and people just get kind of quiet.
Actually, in recent memory the only person who didnt dismiss me was this kid on Haight Street trying to get me to agree to pay $29 a month to the ACLU. He was trying to sell me on the idea my money would be going to defend gay rights...but then I said "yeah, but you guys are also vigorously defending the Westboro Church, who are militantly against gay rights", and then he said "to protect all speech blah blah".
I also pointed out the ACLU is defending the globalist puppet Khalid Shekih Mohamed, already programmed to accept "martyrdom".

But bottom line, I truly believe the so called left today is not even a shell of what it was in the late 60's and early 70's. I guarantee our views would have been embraced and we would see a true spirit of real love and acceptance amongst the counter culture of then.Every time I see documentaries about the late 60's hippy movement, San Francisco/Berekeley back then, civil rights films, stuff about John Lennon or anti Vietnam movement, I think about that

Look how much the liberals defend Afghanistan! How far from the late 60's have we fallen? There's just no more youth like that, and for better or worse now days it seems the only true anti war protesters are people way into their golden years

[8bitagent]

.


Testing the various defense and response elements over time creates a great store of knowledge for a Red Team to exploit. The Red Team obviously need not (will not) tell the blue teams performing increasingly routinized tasks that today will be different, that today there will be real planes in the air. I'd call it "Vigilant Warrior," and so did Richard Clarke.

.

Ptech, US Gov't, Saudi Arabia and war games
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... _pt1.shtml
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... _pt2.shtml

Its interesting how the 9/11 commission mentions "Phantom Flight 11"(And the 2006 Vanity Fair NORAD article goes into detail about more phantom planes that exist as blips on FAA and NORAD screens only) yet they have no idea of the implications.

I've seen this as more or less part of an intentional confusion more than a direct stand down order. If you have operators wondering if it's "real work or exercise", and then having the few planes available chasing fake blips in the wrong direction...well...

[8bitagent]

Thus the patently disgusting performance of the left about Assange, like its a big joke, he's a schmuck, maybe a rapist, maybe a cia agent, therefore it's funny he could end upo in the custody of the US torture gulag! hahaha! let's make jokes about his arrogance and take bold stands as defenders of feminism when we demand his extradition, demand complaince with the US torturers. He's a probable rapist after all.. not a boy scout. Like people said about the Jews next door when taken away well he never said good morning on the stairs, well he left his garbage on the stoop, well he was nconsiderate, an embezzler, beat his kids, played his violin at all hours when people were sick and needed sleep...

the US petty bourgeoisie has gone along with a great deal already, not only passively accepting but helping out, volunteering to police criticism, denouncing the alarmists, insisting nothing has really changed, being quite clear tyhat they trust the US gov enough to wish to see assange extradicted to a regime which sees him as a terrorist, and tortures terrorists, because he has been accused of a crime.

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID ... 8022297811

I too had questioned Assange and Wikileaks...but a scene in Pilger's new The War You Dont See, Assange chokes up and can barely talk about the first time he saw the 2007 Iraq war crime footage from US gunships. Yeah, he has a big personality which can sometimes come off as pompous, but I don't doubt he is moved by the horror he's uncovered

Finally: "qlipoth" is a term from the Kabbalah (though the blog is anything but religious, mystical or esoteric

Darn, as I find esoteric interpretations of 9/11 to be the most interesting and fascinating(as much as I greatly admire the Peter Dale Scott interpretation)

[MacCruiskeen]

The Left is eventually going to have to face up to 9/11.

QED (yet again): NSA-Recommended Soundbites, June 24th 2013 (original document, FOIA):

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/8 ... points.pdf

Revealed: NSA pushed 9/11 as key 'sound bite' to justify surveillance

by Jason Leopold|@JasonLeopold|October 30, 2013 |12:09PM ET

An internal document recommended that officials use fear of attack when pressed to explain agency's programs


Gen. Keith Alexander, National Security Agency chief, testifies earlier this year.Mark Wilson/Getty

The National Security Agency advised its officials to cite the 9/11 attacks as justification for its mass surveillance activities, according to a master list of NSA talking points.

The document, obtained by Al Jazeera through a Freedom of Information Act request, contains talking points and suggested statements for NSA officials (PDF) responding to the fallout from media revelations that originated with former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Invoking the events of 9/11 to justify the controversial NSA programs, which have caused major diplomatic fallout around the world, was the top item on the talking points that agency officials were encouraged to use.

Under the subheading “Sound Bites That Resonate,” the document suggests the statement “I much prefer to be here today explaining these programs, than explaining another 9/11 event that we were not able to prevent.”

NSA head Gen. Keith Alexander used a slightly different version of that statement when he testified before Congress on June 18 in defense of the agency’s surveillance programs.

Asked to comment on the document, NSA media representative Vanee M. Vines pointed Al Jazeera to Alexander’s congressional testimony on Tuesday, and said the agency had no further comment. In keeping with the themes listed in the talking points, the NSA head told legislators that “it is much more important for this country that we defend this nation and take the beatings than it is to give up a program that would result in this nation being attacked.”

Critics have long noted the tendency of senior U.S. politicians and security officials to use the fear of attacks like the one that killed almost 3,000 Americans to justify policies ranging from increased defense spending to the invasion of Iraq.

Related NSA stories
•US protesters call for end to spying
•On Internet, Brazil is beating US at its own game
•Timeline: Edward Snowden's revelations

Al Jazeera obtained the 27 pages of talking points from the NSA this week in response to a FOIA request filed June 13. The statements had been prepared for agency officials facing questions from Congress or the media over the revelations contained in classified documents that Snowden leaked to journalists Glenn Greenwald, Barton Gellman and others.

A letter accompanying the documents notes that the talking points “are prepared and approved for a speaker to use and do not necessarily represent what the speaker actually said at the event.”

The NSA has not yet turned over to Al Jazeera the documents the agency used to prepare the talking points, saying those materials require additional review before they can be released.

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon also appear at the top of another talking-points document titled “Media Leaks One Card,” which contains 13 bullet points to explain the rationale behind the surveillance programs. Those points include “First responsibility is to defend the nation” and “NSA and its partners must make sure we connect the dots so that the nation is never attacked again like it was on 9/11.”

The master talking points list goes on to explain, under a subheading titled “We Needed to Connect the Dots,” that “post-9/11 we made several changes and added a number of capabilities to enable us to connect the dots.”

Continuing revelations from the Snowden documents reveal surveillance on a scale that appears to go far beyond the scope of monitoring potential attackers, however. The agency’s “head of state collection” program, for example, reportedly included the monitoring of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.

The talking points document advises officials to emphasize the word “lawful” when discussing NSA surveillance programs, and to state that “our allies have benefited … just as we have.”

“We believe that over 100 nations are capable of collecting signals intelligence or operating a lawful intercept capability that enable them to monitor communications,” the document continued.

Critics have called into question the veracity of the claim that NSA surveillance has thwarted more than 50 “potential” attacks. They claim evidence to support such assertions is lacking.

NSA officials are advised to respond to questions about any potential civil liberties violations by citing talking points that say there have not been any “willful violations” and that the NSA is committed to “upholding the privacy and civil liberties of the American people.”


http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2 ... lance.html

[bluenoseclaret]

I'm not holding my breath.

I remember asking someone I knew, who was a member of the Socialist Workers Party, could I put up a 9/11 poster on his cafe notice/message board. His reaction confused me. No interest. Just pure hostility.

Why?

Is it simply because 9/11 is perceived to have Israeli/Zionist/Jewish connotations.

In Britain, I think the "right" are more receptive to questioning the events of 9/11 than the "left".

I digress

Initial amusement....followed by despair...

American Socialists on 9/11?.. http://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comme ... ts_on_911/

How do you feel about remembering the attacks on the World Trade Center today?

".but I do feel the need to ask what precisely the United States expected. 9/11 was a direct product of American imperialism. I think it was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the coup in Chile in 1973 to drive home that point...."

Gosh.