Left Gatekeepers: the stand down of the foundation funded alternative media

the politics, the psychology, the practice, the personnel

Progressive Censorship about the reasons for the "War on Terror"
non-profits usually depend on someone else's profits

see also www.oilempire.us/denial.html - Not See's and Nazis

"When an organization accepts funding from governments, or from establishment organizations like the Ford Foundation or the Rockefeller Foundation, who are its real interlocutors?"
-- Julian Assange, Wikileaks
http://internationalboulevard.com/europe/116-united-kingdom/249-assange-on-securitization-politics-and-the-survival-of-wikileaks

Woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who doe not conform with nonconformity
-- Eric Hoffer

"More than fifty years ago the [J.P.] Morgan firm decided to infiltrate the Left-wing political movements in the United States. This was relatively easy to do, since these groups were starved for funds and eager for a voice to reach the people. Wall Street supplied both. The purpose was not to destroy ... or take over but was really threefold: (1) to keep informed about the thinking of Left-wing or liberal groups; (2) to provide them with a mouthpiece so that they could "blow off steam," and (3) to have a final veto on their publicity and possibly on their actions, if they ever went "radical".
-- Carroll Quigley in his book "Tragedy and Hope"

 

www.joebageant.com/joe/2006/01/goodbye_terry_g.html

Joe Bageant | January 19, 2006 | Category: Essays
Goodbye Terry Gross, We Niver Knew Ye
On liberal media denial

Having come to understand that mainstream media are in the business of selling fried chicken and cars, giving Wall Street head, and stealing bandwidth from the public's airwaves, none of us expect them to question anything afoot in the empire. We quite understand they cannot be wasting profitable air time on a nation whose collective memory is 30 seconds long. So we watch them pull their punches and wait for the commercials, which are their whole point anyway. If, god forbid, you are the pointy headed type interested in details, turn on NPR. And if you consider yourself hipper than the couch taters out here in Budland, go onto the net and visit Salon. Or if you are so worldly and hip you are a downright commie, then subscribe to Mother Jones. That's the way it used to be.

But now we are seeing what were once considered the more intelligent and in some cases more principled media such as NPR, Salon and Mother Jones distance themselves from meaningful controversy -- pulling the few wimpy punches they have. (Bullshit controversy, however, is still in fashion.) We are talking about Mark Crispin Miller's new book, Fooled Again -- How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They'll Steal the Next One, Too (Unless We Stop Them). Miller has become a known and respected progressive figure, one of the few in-your-face bespectacled lefty author types with any credibility. But when it comes to promoting Fooled Again, the guy can't even get arrested. No interviews, nothing. ....

At some deep national level we all know, George W. Bush has no right to be farting into the Oval Office desk chair. Even the few genuinely moderate Republicans not driven into hiding by the Brownshirts look sheepish when you bring up Florida and Ohio. Yet Americans go on pretending that everything is OK. The people pretend along with the media that George W. Bush belongs in that chair. Pretend that his is the face of a man capable of deep and serious thought, that the smirk is not really a smirk and that he really gives a rat's ass about those coffins at Dover or those black people in New Orleans. They pretend that it was not farcical when he told the nation this week that despite the city being soaked in petro-toxins and defined mainly by bulldozed piles of rotting timbers, clothing and sewerage, overturned cars and botulism filled refrigerators, "New Orleans is still a great place to bring the family and have fun." They pretend that strange nationwide spider web of bitter GOP operatives could not possibly have worked together in Ohio and Florida and heaven only knows where else. Everything is OK.

As Helen Caldicott recently put it: "What's to become of us? Ask any experienced mental health practitioner what happens to a person who constructs and tries to maintain a life based on denial of fundamental reality. It can be done for a while, in spite of occasional outbursts of behavioral oddities (remember Dr. Strangelove's disobedient arm that was always popping up in an embarrassing Nazi salute). But how long can such a pretense be maintained, even when the pretender is surrounded by the best handlers money can buy?"

Apparently, Helen, a damned long time. At least eight years.

 

How "the Left" helped Bush cover-up 9/11

It is not a surprise that the corporate, mainstream media have sought to restrict investigative journalism and dissident opinions about the so-called "War on Terror." However, it is more difficult to understand the fact that the "left alternative" media -- including The Nation, Z magazine, The Progressive, Mother Jones, Alternative Radio and Democracy Now -- have shied away from examining the pretext for endless war. They ignored the national "Deception Dollar" campaign, which has distributed six million Deception Dollars listing websites of the independent investigations of 9/11. Do these alternative publications expect the readers to believe that they did not attend the many peace rallies around the time of the US seizure of Iraq, where many of the DDs were distributed?

Most "alternative" media institutions have chosen not to help the independent investigations sift through the evidence for official foreknowledge and complicity, and have spent three years pretending that the evidence does not exist. While some of the evidence is questionable or erroneous, there is an enormous amount of material that has been tripled checked from mainstream sources and is extremely credible -- but you would not be aware of this from the liberal / left / progressive media. Worse, several of these publications have attacked independent media and journalists who have done excellent work exposing the lies behind the official stories of 9/11. In the spring of 2002, when some of the material documenting official foreknowledge of 9/11 began to surface in the corporate media, The Nation, Z, Political Research Associates and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting attacked independent investigators who pieced together the documentation that proves 9/11 was not a surprise attack.

Within a few weeks of 9/11, independent journalists using mainstream news sources had pieced together a mountain of evidence that proved beyond reasonable doubt that Team Bush had full foreknowledge of 9/11 and allowed the "attacks" to happen to create the pretext to seize the Middle East oil fields. In early 2002, Norman Solomon and David Corn of The Nation waged a smear campaign against these efforts. This gave the Bush regime critical assistance at its most vulnerable pointby scaring away much of the peace movement from Bush's Achilles heel. Their attacks ignored the documented, specific warnings from US allies that 9/11 was imminent, the "put option" stock trades on United and American airlines just before 9/11, and the suppression of FBI agents who had figured out what was coming. Solomon campaigned for censorship at Pacifica Radio (KPFA in Berkeley) on these themes, and a few months later got to go on a US government sponsored trip to Iraq. Meanwhile, non-embedded peace activists were threatened with felony prosecutions for visiting Iraq.

 

 

Norman Solomon published an essay on Common Dreams that avoided the word OIL while supposedly explaining Bush's Iraq war motivations. Is this omission related to the role of elite foundations (Rockefeller, Ford, Soros) funding certain "peace" groups?

The foundation-funded alternative media -- The Nation, Mother Jones, Democracy Now, and The Progressive -- refuse to mention the 9/11 Deception Dollar campaign. Over six million Deception Dollars have been distributed, including at the big peace rallies of the past few years.

It is revealing that you can read more about Peak Oil in The New York Times and National Geographic than in the “alternative” press. Few mainstream or "alternative" media emphasize permaculture solutions to Peak Oil.

The “alternative” media mostly ignore the Peak Oil motivation for the Iraq war, and they refuse to mention that there were multiple war games on 9/11 that paralyzed the air defenses over New York and Washington.

On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was removed in a military coup d’etat after he decided to turn off the Cold War and pull troops from Vietnam. This coup led to three million dead in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, Watergate, October Surprise, Iran-Contra, 9/11 and the Iraq wars. If the media had dealt honestly with 9/11 truth, Bush would not have been able to invade Iraq, steal the 2004 election, and the Katrina disaster would not have been deliberately mishandled. Now, we live in a "failed state."

 

Why do foundation funded "liberal alternative" media support the official story that 9/11 was a surprise attack despite the overwhelming evidence that the Bush regime knew it was coming? Why do most "alternative" media avoid the issues of "Peak Oil" (the primary motivation for the US invasion of Iraq) and systematic election fraud?

The biggest danger in the US now are the "Not See's" -- to paraphrase journalist Michael Ruppert (fromthewilderness.com), conspiracies against democracy don't need lots of people to participate in them, they need millions, however, to stay silent to ensure their success.

 

It is fascinating that Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, the Institute for Public Accuracy, The Nation, Z Magazine, et al, chose to defend the official position of the Bush regime in early 2002 (at a point when the "Bush Knew" material was starting to percolate into the corporate press) instead of deciding to pool their collective talents to sift through the 9/11 material and support those who have done the most credible work. There are certainly careless people putting out 9/11 conspiracy material (and careless people supporting the government under the guise of liberal/left alternative media) -- but Ruppert is extremely cautious and careful in his documentation. The fact that the foundation funded left has attacked, and now ignores, the growing movement for independent investigation of what happened with 9/11 makes THEM the controversy.

If Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter was urging "leftists" to shun people investigating 9/11, it is likely that their opposition would inspire us to look closer at this work. But for alleged "leftists" to make this suggestion makes it much easier for it to be taken seriously by liberals.

Pacifica radio journalist Kelia Ramares radio says that Norman Solomon got a "National Interest" exemptions to the sanctions/siege for this trip with a right-wing conservative Democrat, Nick Rahall of West Virginia. (Most peace advocates who traveled to Iraq during the siege got harassed by the State Department!) If true, it would be interesting to understand why this was the case. Solomon had a hassle free trip to Iraq a few months after his attacks on Pacifica / KPFA radio for daring to air web journalist Michael Ruppert and his articles attacking Ruppert for daring to document federal foreknowledge of 9/11.

Even worse, Solomon's compatriot in the "Get Ruppert" campaign of the foundation-funded liberal "alternative" media, David Corn, has a long history in trying to scuttle investigations of this nature.

In David Corn's articles attacking Mike Ruppert, he ignored virtually all of the evidence and then had the nerve to say there wasn't any evidence that supported the conclusion (of US government foreknowledge of 9/11), which is intellectually dishonest.

 

Neither Corn nor Solomon have written about the independent 9/11 investigations since making their attack on Ruppert in early 2002 (just at the point that Bush was starting to be vulnerable on the issue, thus doing the unelected President a huge favor). If Ruppert's work is so terrible that it needs a liberal group think coordinated campaign to ensure that none of us listen to it, then why wasn't there any follow-up, especially in the wake of the Deception Dollar campaign?

The REAL scandal is why these "leftists" came to the defense of the Bush administration after Ruppert and other journalists exposed blatant holes in the official story of 9/11. THAT is the true controversy.

There has not been ANY coverage of the grassroots "Deception Dollar" campaign in the left "alternative" media.

 

The "stand down" of the peace movement and the liberal alternative media since 9/11 is one of the reasons why the well-intentioned efforts to prevent the Iraq war were a failure. Lots of people everywhere worked very hard to stop it, but most chose not to focus on areas that could have been more effective. Few leaders of the peace movement talked about Peak Oil (the reason for the invasion of Iraq) and even fewer dared to talk about Bush's complicity in 9/11. Predictably, the protests were fun, energizing, and not effective at stopping the invasion. In a more rational system a failure of this magnitude from the peace movement would be the opportunity to rethink strategy. It is surreal that the major media have finally decided to look at the crucial issue of the global peak of petroleum production (which is, of course, the primary reason behind the US war on the Middle East -- and 9/11 is the pretext for this invasion) -- but to date, the "left alternative" media has chosen to completely ignore this. Why is it easier to get Peak Oil into the New York Times and the National Geographic than The Nation, Democracy Now! and allied institutions? Is it cowardice? A lack of understanding of ecological limits upon industrial civilization? Directives from the foundations that fund these "alternative" media, since many of these foundations are heavily invested in petroleum?

 

Political correctness is a poor substitute for investigative journalism.

Democracy Now and the rest of the foundation funded "left alternative" media are not doing the job they claim they are doing. On some issues, they are excellent, but on Bush's biggest scandal they are silent.

The Nation magazine, which has been one of the ringleaders in the "don't look at 9/11 complicity" campaign on the alleged "left," publishes some good articles, but they also support the "Warren Commission" (which covered up the coup against President Kennedy) and are funded by some right-wing establishment foundations. Why does elite money fund ostensible dissident publications? Do they support a stronger opposition -- or merely a controlled opposition, which can safely "blow off steam" as long as it doesn't question core assumptions of empire? It is similar to the opposition group in "1984," which was secretly run by the Party to snare the dissidents and the gullible.

There are many stories from the Holocaust about Jews who found out about the killing fields and death camps and tried to warn others -- in nearly all cases, most people did not want to know the truth, and often attacked the messengers for upsetting them. Perhaps it is merely part of human nature not to be able to comprehend such venality. It is fascinating psychologically to see many of the liberal voices who have no problems talking about US empire war crimes with millions of victims in other countries, but will not look at a war crime with three thousand victims in New York. I hope future historians, if our society holds together, can better analyze this phenomenon.

 

Phony opposition?

In George Orwell's "1984," Winston Smith (the protagonist who spends his days rewriting the news at the Ministry of Truth) becomes disillusioned and wants to join the underground resistance to the Party. He eventually learns that the opposition is really an illusion maintained by the Party itself to snare discontented people such as himself.

It is not really a surprise that many of the "alternative dissident" publications that have chosen to ignore 9/11 and the war on terror, except for bland pronouncements in favor of world peace instead of world war, are funded by right-wing, oil money connected foundations.

Why do oil company money funded foundations give money liberal alternative "left" media groups that are the core of the "get Ruppert" campaign? Do these foundations want a strong left media that can expose wealth and power? Is it because many of these groups have become so bland that they aren't a threat to power and priviledge? Or is there another agenda going on?

Perhaps it is not a coincidence that some fairly conservative, establishment foundations contribute to these gatekeepers. Why would establishment wealth give to publications that want to make social change that challenges the power and priviledge of the establishment? Is the establishment really interested in funding efforts that reduce their powers (a fraction of the establishment is, perhaps)? Or do they give to groups like The Nation, knowing that they will absorb lots of dissenting energy and swallow it up in endless debates, tertiary issues and disinformation ("9/11 really was a surprise attack by evil terrorists. Honest.")

 

David Corn, Norman Solomon, Chip Berlet and other participants in the "Get Ruppert" liberal cabal do not dare talk about the 9/11 war games, foreknowledge evidence, the politics of Peak Oil or solutions to the crises of empire and overshoot. Instead, they have resorted to tangential issues, insinuations, character assassination, etc, and then have the nerve to grand stand against "the War on Iraq" when it is probable that Bush would not have had the political ability to invade Iraq if the "left gatekeepers" had bothered to help the independent journalists investigating what happened on 9/11.

The money flow from the foundations to the "left gatekeepers" isn't necessarily the sole reason for their avoidance of these core issues -- but it does raise questions. It is likely also fear, cowardice, denial and other psychological issues going on that are more critical than the financial ties of these organizations to right wing funding sources.


The Left and the Death of Kennedy
By Jim DiEugenio, Probe Magazine, January 1997 www.ctka.net/pr197-left.html

excerpt:

Chomsky and his good friend and soulmate on the JFK case, Alexander Cockburn went on an (orchestrated?) campaign at the time of Stone's JFK to convince whatever passes for the left in this country that the murder of Kennedy was 1) not the result of a conspiracy, and 2) didn't matter even if it was. They were given unlimited space in magazines like The Nation and Z Magazine. But, as Howard Zinn implied in a recent letter to Schotz defending Chomsky, these stances are not based on facts or evidence, but on a political choice. They choose not to fight this battle. They would rather spend their time and effort on other matters. When cornered themselves, Chomsky and Cockburn resort to rhetorical devices like exaggeration, sarcasm, and ridicule. In other words, they resort to propaganda and evasion.

CTKA believes that this is perhaps the most obvious and destructive example of Schotz's "denial." For if we take Chomsky and Cockburn as being genuine in their crusades—no matter how unattractive their tactics—their myopia about politics is breathtaking. For if the assassinations of the '60's did not matter—and Morrisey notes that these are Chomsky's sentiments—then why has the crowd the left plays to shrunk and why has the field of play tilted so far to the right? Anyone today who was around in the '60's will tell you that the Kennedys, King, and Malcolm X electrified the political debate, not so much because of their (considerable) oratorical powers, but because they were winning. On the issues of economic justice, withdrawal from Southeast Asia, civil rights, a more reasonable approach to the Third World, and a tougher approach to the power elite within the U.S., they and the left were making considerable headway. The very grounds of the debate had shifted to the center and leftward on these and other issues. As one commentator has written, today the bright young Harvard lawyers go to work on Wall Street, in the sixties they went to work for Ralph Nader.

The promise of the Kennedys or King speaking on these issues could galvanize huge crowds in the streets. But even more importantly, these men had convinced a large part of both the white middle class, and the younger generation that their shared interests were not with the wealthy and powerful elites, but with the oppressed and minorities. Today, that tendency has been pretty much reversed. Most of the general public and the media have retreated into a reactionary pose. And some of the most reactionary people are now esteemed public figures e.g. Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Howard Stern, people who would have been mocked or ridiculed in the '60's. And the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, under no pressure to disguise their real sympathies, can call Limbaugh a mainstream conservative (12/2/96).

What remains of the left in this country today can be roughly epitomized by the nexus of The Nation, the Pacifica Radio network (in six major cities), and the media group FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting). We won't include The New Republic in this equation since Peretz has now moved so far to the right he can't be called a liberal anymore. The Nation has a circulation of about 98,000. Except for its New York outlet, WBAI, Pacifica is nowhere near the force it was in the sixties and seventies. The FAIR publication EXTRA has a circulation of about 17,000. To use just one comparison, the rightwingAmerican Spectator reaches over 500,000. To use another point of comparison, the truly liberal Ramparts, which had no compunctions taking on the assassinations, reached over 300,000. As recently declassified CIA documents reveal, Ramparts became so dangerous that it was targeted by James Angleton.

One of this besieged enclave's main support groups is the New York/Hollywood theater and film crowd, which was recently instrumental in bailing out The Nation. As more than one humorous commentator has pointed out, for them a big cause is something like animal rights. Speaking less satirically, they did recently pull in $680,000 in one night for the Dalai Lama and Tibet. Whatever the merits of that cause, and it has some, we don't think it will galvanize youth or the middle class or provoke much of a revolution in political consciousness. On the other hand, knowing, that our last progressive president was killed in a blatant conspiracy; that a presidentially appointed inquest then consciously covered it up; that the mainstream media like the Post and the Times acquiesced in that effort; that this assassination led to the death of 58,000 Americans and two million Vietnamese; to us that's quite a consciousness raiser. Chomsky, Cockburn and most of their acolytes don't seem to think so.

In the '80's, Bill Moyers questioned Chomsky on this point, that the political activism of the '60's had receded and that Martin Luther King had been an integral part of that scene. Chomsky refused to acknowledge this obvious fact. He said it really wasn't so. His evidence: he gets more speaking invitations today ( A World of Ideas, p. 48). The man who disingenuously avoids a conspiracy in the JFK case now tells us to ignore Reagan, Bush, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Stern and the rest. It doesn't matter. He just spoke to 300 people at NYU. Schotz and Marcus have given us a textbook case of denial.

With the help of Marty and Ray, what Probe is trying to do here is not so much explain the reaction, or non-reaction, of the Left to the death of John Kennedy. What we are really saying is that, in the face of that non-reaction, the murder of Kennedy was the first step that led to the death of the Left. That's the terrible truth that most of these men and organizations can't bring themselves to state. If they did, they would have to admit their complicity in that result.

 

www.onlinejournal.com/Media/Conover060402/conover060402.html

Has the Establishment Left become a handmaiden of the Republican Right?
By Bev Conover
Online Journal Editor and Publisher

June 4, 2002—Gangway for the self-appointed gatekeepers of the left who are on a crusade to spin, smear, attack, and label as loony anyone who won't accept the official line that the events leading up to and surrounding September 11 are nothing more than a series of coincidences and intelligence failures.
This cabal of lily-livered leftists, ensconced in their ivory towers, have decreed we are bad kiddies for even suggesting that the Bush administration was complicit in or took advantage of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the baddest of all is Michael C. Ruppert, who publishes From the Wilderness.
Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive, in his May 29 article, Crude Politics of Scandal, wrote, "The claim that Bush knew the U.S. would be attacked and intentionally let it happen for his own nefarious purposes is well beyond my significant skeptical powers. It assumes callousness at the loss of innocent American lives that I wouldn't want to impute to any President. And it greatly underestimates the likelihood of bureaucratic incompetence. (A hedge fund against such incompetence would be a sure profit-maker.)"
Someone should clue Rothschild that his "significant skeptical powers" have failed him, because we have a Supreme Court selectee in the White House, not a president. So it is not a president we are imputing such "callousness" or possible criminality to. Or has he joined the "get over it" crowd?
Among the others lobbing missiles at us from the battlements are Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy; David Corn, The Nation's Washington editor; Michael Albert, co-founder of Z Magazine and system operator of the magazine's Znet.org; Steve Rendall, FAIR's senior analyst; Chip Berlet, senior research analyst for Political Research Associates; Larry Bensky of Pacifica Radio's flagship station, KPFA; and Noam Chomsky, writer, philosopher, and professor of linguistics at MIT.
Quite a lineup, eh? And there are others.
Ask yourselves why, if we are so loony--and Mike Ruppert is the looniest of all--why these gentlemen are expending so much energy in writing reams of copy denouncing us, with what has become the new epithet, "conspiracy theorists?" Why not simply ignore us? Pretend we don't exist?
What worse punishment can they mete out for our ignominious behavior than ignoring us? Or is there more to their motives?
Might this be a tip-off that the Ivory Tower crowd prefers not to soil its hands, but is using those of us in the trenches to do their work? This could explain Rothschild calling for an independent commission to get to the bottom of September 11, followed by, "But what we don't need is crazy conspiracy theorists coming from the left," then destroying his own argument with the following:
"Almost every time I've spoken in public since September 11, I've heard variations of the following theme: Bush not only knew about the attacks, but wanted the United States to be attacked so that he could (and here you can take your pick):
"a) Increase his popularity by waging war
"b) Justify an increase in Pentagon spending
"c) Boost the profits of the Carlyle Group, a private military investment group that includes Bush's father, among other heavyweights."
So the "crazy conspiracy theorists" are confronting him wherever he goes. That says something about people not buying in to the official spin. And some would even say that they would answer "all the above" to what George W. Bush & Co. knew or took advantage of.
Let us not forget the "dastardly" Rep. Cynthia McKinney, one of the few Democrats in Congress with some spine, who had the gall to call for an investigation into what warnings the Bush administration received before the attacks. Rothschild included her among the "arch conspiracists," leaving the others unnamed.
Corn, blowing a gasket for the second time over Ruppert's September 11 investigation--this time in a diatribe called The September 11 X-Files--stooped to the old Soviet trick, since picked up by the right wing, of questioning Ruppert's sanity.
The most malicious part of this smear is to stigmatize everyone who seeks psychiatric treatment, as Ruppert did while he was on the Los Angeles police force.
"Ruppert is not a reporter," Corn wrote, as if to imply journalism is some sort of elite club and one must possess special credentials to gain admittance. We don't license journalists in this country--yet. . Furthermore, Corn is also dismissing the fact that Ruppert does have credentials as an investigator. He was, after all, a cop.
He goes on, "He mostly assembles facts--or purported facts--from various news sources and then makes connections. The proof is not in any one piece--say, a White House memo detailing an arms-for-hostages trade. The proof is in the line drawn between the dots. His masterwork is a timeline of fifty-one events (at last count) that, he believes, demonstrate that the CIA knew of the attacks in advance and that the US government probably had a hand in them. Ruppert titled his timeline "Oh Lucy!--You Gotta Lotta 'Splaining To Do."
While ripping Ruppert's timeline, contending he has no hard proof, Corn, like the others, offers no hard proof that events surrounding September 11 were merely a series of intelligence blunders and coincidences with tragic results. He completely omits the fact that Ruppert's timeline is but one small part of a nine-month long and multi-faceted investigation, which includes pre- and post-September 11 geopolitics, and evidence of US government and corporate crime that no one else has touched.
Not content with trashing Ruppert and also bashing on McKinney, Corn dismisses Delmart "Mike" Vreeland, whom he calls Ruppert's "one truly original find," as a con man with a long criminal history. With no proof to counter Vreeland's claim of being a US Navy intelligence officer, Corn dismisses the memo Vreeland said he wrote last August, while being held in a Canadian jail on charges that were subsequently dropped, and gave to his jailers for safekeeping. This is the memo in which Vreeland claimed he had foreknowledge of the horror that was to transpire in the US.
Michael Albert and Stephen R. Shalom ramble on for 18 pages in an attempt to cast conspiracy theorists as nutcases, but "institutional theorists" as good guys, all in another attempt to debunk the very idea that there was anything conspiratorial in nature about September 11.
Norman Solomon, of all people, who for years has taken the corporate media to task in his weekly column Media Beat, has been at the forefront of the effort to discredit Ruppert, again without offering any hard evidence that refutes what Ruppert has been writing.
In his April 25 column, Solomon wrote, "A former Los Angeles cop named Michael Ruppert has been proclaiming that Vreeland 'was able to write a detailed warning of the attacks before they occurred' on Sept. 11. Ruppert has attracted a loyal following, but he's likely to lose all but the most faithful adherents if they look at the actual 'warning note' or find out a lot more about Vreeland's background."
He accuses Ruppert of being an "expert at combining facts with unreliable reports and wild leaps of illogic," when, like a good prosecutor, all Ruppert has been doing is laying out bits and pieces of information that seem to point to either the Bush administration's foreknowledge of September 11 or its callously taking advantage of the horror to strip the people of many of their constitutional rights under the guise of "homeland security"--a term that should be sending chills through every thinking person, not to mention an nonelected occupant of the White House who has taken it upon himself to declare war without end on some enemy defined only as "terrorists," when the Constitution says only Congress can issue a declaration of war.
Where Solomon has erroneously called those who have been helping and support Ruppert in his research "a loyal following," Steve Rendall has ratcheted that up to "Ruppertites," implying that they are nothing more than a bunch of mindless groupies. Shame!
Noam Chomsky, to some the father of the Establishment Left, who has been persona non grata on corporate-controlled US airwaves recently turned up on CNN with the "virtuous" Heritage Foundation fellow and Washington retread William Bennett, who on a previous CNN appearance with Paula Zahn dismissed Chomsky's bestseller "911" as appealing to "the kooks in our midst." That insult apparently didn't bother Chomsky one iota as he essentially agreed with Bennett that the September 11 attacks were carried out by "terrorists" because "they hate us."
Chip Berlet on Larry Bensky's Sunday Salon provided convoluted and erroneous responses as to why military planes weren't scrambled the moment it was known that a hijacking was in progress.
Said Berlet, "Why weren't there plans in place to scramble jets…why wasn't there an assumption that hijackers would seize planes and fly them into buildings?" And if you research every one of those questions, what you find is information that goes back, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 years about discussions about the cost effectiveness of changing the way that hijackings are responded to. Remember that the air traffic controllers were out of New Hampshire, and they were sitting with a book in front of them, telling them what to do in what order, okay? And if you look…and this is all stuff that you can find, not on the web, but if you go to government repositories, you'll look at documents, and they'll say things like, 'You don't scramble planes until you've made contact with the hijackers.' Now why? Because the assumption, which turns out to be false, is the hijackers are either going to make a demand or want to land. And that if you hijack [sic] planes before you're talking to them, they could freak out and shoot the pilot. So you don't want planes flying next to hijacked airliners until you're talking to the hijackers. Now is that a bad idea, in retrospect? Sure it is, but it goes back 7 or 8 years."
Talk about pulling stuff from thin air. The FAA's and Joint Chiefs of Staff's instructions pertaining to hijackings say nothing about communicating with hijackers before taking action. To the contrary, it is the absence of communication with a plane that makes the situation an emergency. Has Berlet forgotten that in October 1999, when a twin-engine Lear jet carrying golf champion Payne Stewart and four others lost contact with ground controllers, shortly after taking off from Orlando International Airport in Florida for what was supposed to be a routine flight to Dallas, the FAA requested help from the military? Two Air Force F-16s were dispatched and followed the runaway plane as it raced across a half-dozen states, then ran out of fuel and crashed in central South Dakota, killing all aboard.
It gets better: "'Why weren't the planes flown out of New Jersey instead of the Cape?' Well, because the citizens of New Jersey who live around the air force base, which is being dismantled little by little, McGuire Air Force Base and several other air force bases which have been being deconditioned and lowered in status for the last 30 years because suburbs grew up around them, and they don't want jet fighters scrambling from those bases all the time."
All the time? How many planes have been hijacked or lost contact with ground controllers in the last 10 years? Is there something else we don't know about? And a New Jersey community's sensitivity to noise would hardly be a factor in such circumstances.
Yes, it is possible we could be wrong about the way the dots seem to connect. But September 11 did not occur in a vacuum and more and more keeps coming out each day. Moreover, the nonelected occupant of the Oval Office and his cronies by manipulating energy costs—oil, gas, electricity—started the economy on a downward spiral even before they were handed the White House. Now we not only have an economy in tatters, an empty treasury, the Social Security trust fund and the federal workers' pension fund tapped out to hide the fact Washington has defaulted on its loans, an illegal war that has been decreed to go on into perpetuity, but an administration that in a little more than 16 months has broken the record for scandals.
So how do we explain this behavior of the lily-livered left? If the Ivory Tower gentlemen are leaving it to us in the trenches to get to the truth, because they won't dirty their hands to help us collect the bits and pieces to connect the dots, why then are they so ferociously attacking our efforts? Are they currying favor with someone? Is it time for us to start following the money?


Conspiracy theories and real reporters (Carla Binion, Online Journal) www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/Binion061702/binion061702.html
Under close examination, the "structuralism vs. conspiracy theory" dialectic used by the Left media gatekeepers to give an air of intellectual legitimacy to their stubborn thought-policing quickly reveals itself to be laden with logical contradictions and blind spots.

 

An Incorrect Political Memoir (Daniel Brandt, 1992)

www.namebase.org/news03.html

Written in the immediate aftermath of the furor over Oliver Stone's JFK, this fascinating essay examines the ideological crusades of "Leftists" such as Chip Berlet against conspiracy research, and connects this agenda with the ascendance of politically correct identity politics and multiculturalism which neutered the Left as a viable opponent of the ruling elite, which surely must delight the powers that be. The conclusions of this essay have been confirmed many times over during the past decade (especially by Bob Feldman's research which shows a pattern of CIA-linked establishment foundations favoring and encouraging the monopoly of identity politics on the Left).

America's Extremist Center (Sam Smith, Progressive Review. 1995) http://emporium.turnpike.net/P/ProRev/center.htm
This 1995 article makes a strong case that anticonspiratorial dogmatism has little to do with enlightened, progressive thinking, and instead bears its lineage from centrist liberal elitism and McCarthyism. Also, there is interesting historical background on the scapegoating of the grassroots right in the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (in which Left anti-conspiracist John Foster "Chip" Berlet played a leading role). Although the issues and events being dealt with currently are different, this is still a timely and relevant analysis of media hype and the myths of extremist "paranoia."

 

How the establishment corrupted Dissent

These international conferences and teach-ins are often financed by government grants and donations from the large private foundations (Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, etc.).
This "funding of dissent" plays a key role. It essentially circumscribes the boundaries of dissent. In other words, one cannot meaningfully question the legitimacy of the goverments and business corporations while, at the same time, expecting them to foot the bill. The "funding of dissent ensures that these organizations will criticize the system without going against their government and corporate sponsors. In other words, they will not take a lead in the development of a meaningful mass movement.
Many of the organizations involved have, in the process, become "lobbyists," often funded by the governments or intergovernmental organizations. Demands, petitions and declarations are foumulated to little avail, largely with respect to issues of debt cancellation, environmental standards and macro-economic reform, etc.

Michel Chossudovsky's superb 9/11 book. pg. 138
BUILDING MEANINGFUL MASS MOVEMENT


www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/9c.htm

John Taylor Gatto, Underground History of American Education, Chapter 9: The Cult of Scientific Management

The Ford System And The Kronstadt Commune
"An anti-intellectual, a hater of individuals," is the way Richard Stites characterizes Taylor in Revolutionary Dreams, his book on the utopian beginning of the Soviet Era. Says Stites, "His system is the basis for virtually every twisted dystopia in our century, from death under the Gas Bell in Zamiatin’s We for the unspeakable crime of deviance, to the maintenance of a fictitious state-operated underground in Orwell’s 1984 in order to draw deviants into disclosing who they are."
Oddly enough, an actual scheme of dissident entrapment was the brainchild of J.P. Morgan, his unique contribution to the Cecil Rhodes–inspired "Round Table" group. Morgan contended that revolution could be subverted permanently by infiltrating the underground and subsidizing it. In this way the thinking of the opposition could be known as it developed and fatally compromised. Corporate, government, and foundation cash grants to subversives might be one way to derail the train of insurrection that Hegelian theory predicted would arise against every ruling class.


It is interesting that there is virtually no discussion of foundation funding on the "left." Some right-wing critics of the peace and environmental movements have reported on this, but their ideological bias (and often some severe mistakes stemming from that bias) serve to turn off many peace advocates and environmentalists from considering the real problems here.

One example is

www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12423

"Charitable" Foundations: ATMs for the Left
By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 2, 2004

Front Page is a neo-conservative publication that has little, if any credibility in liberal circles, yet part of this article is very accurate (and part is nonsense). If you ignore the snide red-baiting and other forms of hate speech in the article, there is a kernel of truth worth looking at (the role of wealthy elites in funding opposition movements). The Front Page article is correct in noting how this money flow can easily create instant organizations (American Coming Together was a notorious example of this during the 2004 election campaign - instantly created to support Kerry, and instantly dissolved after the election - ACT as an organization refused to prepare for the obvious electoral fraud even though many working for the group understood the threat.)

Front Page magazine delights in exposing the funding scam of certain elite liberal groups, but is noticeably silent about discussing their own paymasters and the much larger flood of money flowing into neo-conservative think tanks.

It is sad - and predictable - that the largest sums of foundation funds flow toward the blandest parts of the liberal pantheon of discourse. Investigative journalists who dig the most into deep politics (how the system really works) rarely get foundation grants from anyone.

 

 

Molly Ivins

In August 2003, Molly Ivins wrote a column that concluded that there wasn't much to investigate about 911, since it was obviously the fault of Saudi Arabia. www.oilempire.us/saudi.html Perhaps if the liberal consensus was to examine the evidence that 9/11 was not a surprise and the failure of the Air Force to follow standard operating procedures her column would have focused on these issues. Her comments about 9/11 were the liberal equivalent of "pack journalism."

In September 2003, she wrote "There is a general consensus on both the left and right that we need to get more people over there [to Iraq], take control, and fix the lights and water ... If it takes more American troops, I suggest we send more American troops." However, the United Arab Emirates managed to rebuild a hospital in Iraq in a week (as a gift to their neighbors), something the US occupation forces do not seem interested in doing. More US troops in Iraq will not ease the humanitarian crises there, and would only prolong the civilian suffering.

 

Commentary from "Questions Questions"

Those who have fully studied the issues and facts concerning 9/11 and the Bush administration's inexplicable coverup and lies understand rationally that this is not a topic of "conspiracy theory" but instead a true scandal of serious proportions. This can no longer be denied. It is a scandal which, if aggressively pursued by the media, should have helped hamstring and sideline the Bush administration months ago, which would have made it politically impossible for them to push ahead with their war plans in the first place.
www.questionsquestions.net/docs0209/0920_response.html

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/05/265330.shtml
The hour is late, and it's time to get down to brass tacks: there is no legitimate critique of the "War on Terror", no legitimate anti-war position, which does not place discussion of the 9/11 cover-up and the impressive evidence for US government complicity in the spotlight — front and center. To claim a dissident or anti-war position while accepting the official story of how and why 9/11 happened (including establishment-crafted "limited hangout" spin) is a self-contradiction — hypocrisy, to be blunt — and this has in fact been the case since around the end of 2001, by which time a formidable body of evidence and unanswered questions exposing official lies had already been amassed by diligent independent researchers.

 

www.questionsquestions.net/topics/left_gatekeepers.html
investigative report: journalist Bob Feldman follows the money trail to "Left" media organizations that have sought out funding from the big establishment foundations. Are the interests of the people being served by "dissidents" who are being subsidized by the agencies of the ruling class whom they should be exposing? What does this say about the motivations behind the Left establishment's ideological warfare against conspiracy researchers, and their adoption of an increasingly watered-down analytical view which fails to look closely at the inner power structures and conspiracies of the ruling elite?

www.questionsquestions.net/topics/left_911.html
The Left establishment's attack on 9/11 skeptics
Soon after revelations concerning Bush administration prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks ("Memogate"), a number of well-known media "liberals" and "progressives" launched a heavy-handed series of broadsides against independent 9/11 researchers who had been developing alternative theories in response to the deeply flawed and fraudulent official story. Why would they do this, at precisely the point that the Bush administration was clearly sweating bullets and in deep trouble? This question is particularly important in light of the fact that the anti-conspiracy critics have not been able (nor apparently willing) to articulate their own theory of what happened on 9/11 (and why) which can explain the devastating evidence and contradictions that have been exposed by independent researchers. Instead of offering a credible explanation, the gatekeepers merely saw fit to pathologize 9/11 skeptics as "paranoid conspiracy nuts" and "a danger to our movement."
Not surprisingly, the rank and file didn't buy into the hype—nor were many convinced by the gatekeepers' offhand, passionless calls for an official investigation. Interest in alternative 9/11 reporting continued to grow, and by the time that members of 9/11 victim's families began publicly demanding an end to the government cover-up and even mainstream media outlets such as the NY Times were admitting that the lack of an independent investigatory commission was "extraordinary," the Left media gatekeepers backed down and adopted a new tactic of silent stonewalling and tacit support for the official story.

www.questionsquestions.net/documents2/corn2.html
Corn is pursuing a debunking approach of "divide and conquer" towards the evidence. This type of tactic reminds me of a slick mob lawyer who gets his client off the hook by knocking down each piece of evidence one by one on legal technicalities, dazzling and overwhelming the jury and distracting from the fact that the "big picture" with all the pieces put together carefully is quite consistent and shows an identifiable pattern of wrongdoing. Another problem is that dilligent and honest research into some "conspiracy theories" quickly reveals how some "leftist" media pundits like Corn have for years chronically downplayed how corrupt and blood-soaked the system really is, all the way up to the top. This in itself does far more damage to the truth than all the efforts of the world's Karl Roves and Ari Fleischers.
Really, the tautological insistence by Corn and others that "conspiracy theory" is the ultimate nemesis of activism against the "real" problems of government is a divisive fear tactic which exploits the genuine concerns of those who may be vulnerable to worries about whether they are being a "good activist" or a "good progressive" who is making a practical difference. As usual, it is brought up here as an ex-cathedra dictum without justification or explanation (sometimes, when an explanation is offered, it is based on no more than an assertion that "conspiracy theory" does not conform with orthodox "structuralist" or "institutional" old-left ideology). Normon Solomon has been even more heavy-handed in this regard, with arm-waving Chicken Little announcements about people like Ruppert being "very dangerous to the movement."

 

www.questionsquestions.net/documents/kpfa_ruppert.html
KPFA censors 9/11 investigator Mike Ruppert
In a couple previous essays I have written in utter frustration about the dysfunctional, petulantly closed-minded rejection by some on the Left of any information or ideas concerning 9/11 and the "War on Terror" which can be seen from certain hard-wired ideological viewpoints as "conspiracy theory." For a long time I have sensed, at gut level, the presence of a smug and defensive reaction formation on the part of many old-school Leftists and political activists which leads them to disparage any controversial allegations or theories about government corruption which are either outside their safe comfort zone or do not fit neatly within their favored ideological narrative. In addition, I am both amused and appalled to see those types often borrow a tactic which was originally invented by establishment pundits and the corporate media: arbitrarily labeling outspoken whistleblowers against deep, systemic government criminality and conspiracy as "right wing extremists."
I probably could not fairly describe myself as leftist (I used to, but after having exposed myself to a much broader spectrum of viewpoints, I have moved on to a more heretical and agnostic view of things); however, as I have written previously, I feel that the Left has a very critical role to play in broaching an open discussion of the current conflict and presenting viable alternatives to the terrifying far-right juggernaut that has taken control. I join many others in feeling a great disappointment in how the Left has handled 9/11 so far (please see my previous editorial, Now... Will the Real Skeptic Please Stand Up? ).
The disappointment has turned to outright anger with news of what seems to be a concerted campaign by a few of the crusty old guard of the leftist pantheon to keep the research and ideas of independent investigator Mike Ruppert off the air at KPFA. Whose side are they on? What follows is a public comment from Ruppert, released 2 April, with an appended commentary from UC Berkeley professor Peter Dale Scott (a respected political writer who also serves as a contributing editor to Ruppert's newsletter, From the Wilderness ). For years, Ruppert has been a consistent and vocal supporter of KPFA and Pacifica Radio, which makes the situation even more absurd.

 

from Mike Ruppert, From the Wilderness
www.questionsquestions.net/documents/kpfa_ruppert.html
A second and more insidious attack has been launched by Norman Solomon of FAIR. In a secretive internal memo Solomon has implied that I am a right-wing racist, accused me of being sloppy, and again failed to discuss a single one of the documented facts I have reported on since September 11th.
Solomon's arguments included the fact the one of the web sites I recommend is that of Matt Drudge. Dishonestly, Solomon did not mention that I do not recommend or endorse Drudge for his editorial position. The reason that I recommend the site is because, from the home page, Drudge maintains links to about 100 of the world's largest press web sites, including that of The Nation. As one continually immersed in research I find it a convenient place to go and read stories from all over the world and just use the "Back" button to go to another site. I have been emailed that Drudge even maintains a link to Solomon's site. I just looked but couldn't find it — there are so many links on the page.
Solomon's second aspersion on my integrity as a journalist is the fact that I quoted Oliver North in one of my stories. Anyone who knows me and my story is aware that there are few people in the world that I like less than Oliver North. But an effective writer often quotes his enemies when their words serve to make his point. Such is the essence of debate. Solomon apparently knows little on this subject.
Solomon concludes his internal character assassination by implying that I am a right-wing racist. He neglects to mention that after my televised confrontation with CIA Director John Deutch in 1996, I was endorsed by the Black American Political Action Committee (BAPAC) and the Los Angeles (Black) Baptist Ministerial Conference. He forgets to mention that I have spoken to the IWW International and for the All African People's Revolutionary Party. Nor does he mention that I have shared a podium with former Black Panther Dhoruba bin-Wahad or been publicly addressed as "My white son," by Pacifica Board member Dick Gregory. There is nothing anywhere in my history or any of my writings to support a charge of right-wing or racist. I made Chip Berlet retract libelous statements to that effect last year and I have the records to prove that also.
But the mindless and the unqualified leaders within Pacifica will take a slight, offhand comment in shameful co-dependency and thus disserve their greatest responsibility — to fearlessly serve the truth. Unless they are willing to shoulder that responsibility they have no place protecting public airwaves.
It is my research, and the fact that the facts cannot be disputed, that is really what this oppressive censorship is all about.
Neither Solomon nor Corn nor Martin Lee nor any of those who I am told are working feverishly to ban me from Pacifica's airwaves will comment upon the documented facts of my research — except by innuendo
. None of them will address my documentation of insider trading before 9-11. Not one of them will address the undisputed court evidence that Delmart Vreeland wrote a warning of the 9-11 attacks a month before they happened. None of them will address the fact that fighters were deliberately not scrambled after the simultaneous hijackings of four commercial airliners when it has been standard procedure for more than 25 years to do so. Not one of them will address the fact that Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in 1997 that the next war would be where we are fighting today and that the American people would never support such a venture absent an attack on America of the magnitude of Pearl Harbor. None of them will dare come near me and my research in the healthy spirit of intellectual honesty that is required for a democracy to flourish because they cannot win that fight.

 

www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/0518_ruppert911.html
Mike Ruppert on Amy Goodman and the 9/11 Latecomers
Brian Salter, questionsquestion.net
18 May 03

It has been a full year since the left establishment gatekeepers' war of personal attacks and debunkery against 9/11 skeptics kicked into high gear, in a notorious phase which followed the "Bush knew" scandal. Foremost among their targets was Mike Ruppert and his news service, From the Wilderness.
In his latest article on the development of US geopolitical strategy in the Middle East, Ruppert has penned an introductory statement laying out a clear truth that is now unavoidable: he has been fully vindicated. Ruppert and many others who have struggled against the arrogant indifference of this well-connected clique of gatekeepers to bring a full discussion of the 9/11 coverup to the progressive / left media and the antiwar movement now hold the high ground. Those who have now found themselves on the trailing edge owe their audiences much more than mere catching up and "me too" in order to restore their legitimacy... to say the least.
The hour is late, and it's time to get down to brass tacks: there is no legitimate critique of the "War on Terror", no legitimate anti-war position, which does not place discussion of the 9/11 cover-up and the impresive evidence for US government complicity in the spotlight — front and center. To claim a dissident or anti-war position while accepting the official story of how and why 9/11 happened (including establishment-crafted "limited hangout" spin) is a self-contradiction — hypocrisy, to be blunt — and this has in fact been the case since around the end of 2001, by which time a formidable body of evidence and unanswered questions exposing offical lies had already been amassed by dilligent independent researchers. Those of us who have been engaged in getting the truth out on 9/11 have had to make these arguments over and over — to the point of mental fatigue. It is satisfying to be able to see leading researchers like Ruppert vindicated, and to know that it is now the stubborn gatekeepers who have the explaining to do. Their atrocious mishandling of the 9/11 issue is no water-under-the-bridge error in judgement, but instead reflects a deep-seated pathology which must continue to be exposed and understood, lest a Johnny-come-lately epiphany, such as appears to be occuring with Amy Goodman, wind up being followed later by yet more episodes of ridicule and censorship towards other key issues that may emerge in the future.

Ruppert's statement follows:

Sometimes pointing out that one was right is not about ego. Sometimes it's about saying that if others had listened, a lot of lives might have been saved because things would have been handled differently. It is about saying that there are things that can be changed now to prevent that kind of damage from being carried forward... one more time.
On May 14 I watched Amy Goodman, producer and anchor of Pacifica Radio's "Democracy Now," appear on CNN discussing the bombings in Saudi Arabia and recently well-publicized statements by Senator Bob Graham -- former chair of the Senate intelligence committee -- suggesting that the Bush administration was engaging in a cover-up of 9-11. It was a pyrrhic vindication for me. Make no mistake, Graham is nothing more than damage control as he describes what happened as "intelligence failures." He should not be trusted under any circumstances. But Goodman's repeated focus on the inconsistencies, deceptions and lies of 9/11 -- on CNN no less -- was a bittersweet and ironic validation of positions I took on three Pacifica stations (WBAI, KPFA and KPFK) more than 18 months ago. I was labeled as: a money grubbing, conspiracy theorist; libelously as a fired ex-cop; and as an unstable mental case who did sloppy research by the likes of David Corn of The Nation, Norman Solomon, Larry Bensky, Sonali Kolhatkar and Marc Cooper.
Goodman has merely ignored my work. Yet, according to someone who gave it to her, she has had my tape "The Truth and Lies of 9-11" for many months. And she knows that what I was saying eighteen months ago is exactly what Graham is trying to spin now. I know this because many people who emailed her asking her to have me as a guest sent me copies. Gore Vidal has had the tape for quite a while too. Vidal used every one of the quotes from Zbigniew Brzezinski's book "The Grand Chessboard" which I brought to public light in the fall of 2001 in his own lengthy 9/11 article and conveniently forgot to mention the person who did the work or what he was trying to say. Now, a day late and a dollar short, the Lilly Livered Left has arrived on the scene with the brilliant observation, "Wait, we have to look at 9/11! We have to look at 9/11!"
This is so much more than "I told you so." The danger and power of a fascist empire in warp drive to control global oil reserves and crush opposition grows every day. This is all about the fact that the consequences arising from the peak and inevitable decline of world oil production are going to be the most cataclysmic events in human history. That realization is all too slowly dawning upon people who might be in a position to change the way this bloody game is being played. Richard Heinberg's new book "The Party's Over" and the diligent work of world-class oil experts like Colin Campbell of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil- www.peakoil.net - are finally making inroads into the collective consciousness of governments, business and activists.
But the herd always seems to be ten paces behind the Empire.
Having been vindicated so many times I point again to Saudi Arabia and also now to West Africa. Nine months ago FTW wrote that Saudi Arabia would likely be the next stop on the Empire's world tour after Iraq. Little noticed details of the recent bombings in Riyadh confirm it. And recent developments in Africa, especially Nigeria - the world's sixth largest oil producer - are sounding alarms that al Qaeda may be about to reveal an African face, including that of Osama bin Laden.
Every time my analysis is vindicated, every time an FTW prediction comes true, it is more affirmation that Peak Oil is real. And if Peak Oil is real, the consequences of it are going to devastate human civilization within our lifetimes. They are doing exactly that right now, today. It started on 9/11. It doesn't take a genius to read a map, just someone who is willing to look at it and choose the right road - the road less traveled. September 11th is the place where the empire remains vulnerable; there and with the criminal handling of taxpayer money and the continued looting of the Treasury. - MCR

The rest of the article can be found at FTW:
Saudi Arabia, West Africa -- Next Stops in the Infinite War for Oil
www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/051503_saudi_africa.html

 

 

www.questionsquestions.net/docs0209/denial.html
"Left" establishment denial validates Iraq war

An ongoing political debate since 9/11 has concerned the emergence of a "pro-war" Left, in particular among centrists, who have lined up wholeheartedly with the military policies of the "War on Terror", including the looming war on Iraq. According to the conventional wisdom, a great rift has emerged in the Left between pro-war and anti-war factions. I don't necessarily see it this way, however. While there appears to be a rift judging by rhetoric and ideology, I nonetheless consider almost the entirety of what one could call the "establishment Left" to be pro-war, whether they say so or not. It all comes down to a state of denial about the underlying facts of this so-called "War on Terror."

Let's be frank. At the heart of the Left establishment's pro-war stance is their continuing refusal to recognize the fundamental legitimacy of alternative 9/11 research and the imperative to question the US government's lies about what happened, how, and why. The Left establishment have bought the government story hook line and sinker from day one, and have refused to make even the weakest challenges to an ever-growing mountain of contradictions, lies, and coverups, even in areas which are factually unambiguous and require no speculation or deduction at all, such as the still-unexplained suspicious insider stock trades from just before 9/11. Now, there is just a little cowardly lip service being paid here and there, but so little effort or passion behind it that it's more of an insult to the truth than saying nothing at all.

The Left media figures who are now strutting around with their "anti-war" poses vis a vis Iraq and picking apart every word from the Bush administration are being flagrantly hypocritical if they do not also halt their own war of silence and join in the urgent grassroots effort to investigate and expose the still obscured truth about 9/11. The lies from the Bush administration about 9/11 prior warnings and the impossible inconsistencies in the official narrative about the 9/11 "terrorist" plot are every bit as serious and deserving of attention as the farrago of B.S. and disinfo being served up in attempts to justify the new Iraq war. There is a HUGE double-standard being applied here.

By having ridiculed alternative 9/11 researchers as "conspiracy theorists," creating a reprehensibly childish atmosphere of stifling peer pressure to keep the subject a taboo, the Left establishment have taken up a position inherently defending the very pretext for the "War on Terror." Folks, read the goddamn establishment analysis these days; read the latest issue of Foreign Affairs from cover to cover. The now severly dubious idea that al Qaeda terrorists were able to evade the giant US intel establishment and bypass all defenses, taking us by "surprise," is EXACTLY the singular pretext for the "Bush Doctrine" of pre-emptive military action against other nations in the name of "defence." It is EXACTLY the singular pretext that has ultimately brought us to the brink of Armageddon in the Persian Gulf, and on top of this, even the factions of the US establishment that don't want to rush into war on Iraq are merely arguing that handling the Iraq situation poorly will endanger continuing the "War on Terror" in the future. And much of the "Left" establishment is currently playing into this good-cop / bad-cop game. The whole situation stinks to high heaven.

The core pretext of US war policy is well summed up in an article from Italy's La Stampa last month: "Deterrence is bound to end up in history books, like all the relics of the Cold War: from now on, the new US defense doctrine will be called pre-emptive strike.... This is a doctrine that was born from September 11, and that seems to have been written exactly to justify the war in Iraq, but it may apply to any country or terrorist organization that threatens US national security, and, therefore, it is likely to have a historical impact that will go well beyond the current crisis."

Could it be any more clear? Failure to question the 9/11 pretext is a failure to question this war, and those which will follow. A position which tacitly and gullibly takes for granted the official narrative of the 9/11 attack (more appropriately known as the "officially approved US government conspiracy theory") is inherently a pro-war position, rhetoric notwithstanding.

It's time for everyone to deal with reality and look the lies of 9/11 straight in the eye. I'm sick of the egoistical blindness and foot dragging of the "Left" on this. Even from the most cautious interpretation of the known facts, the Bush administration and certain high US military officials are guilty of -- at the very least -- TREASONOUS NEGLIGENCE.... The fact that the Bush administration has gotten this far in their aggressive war plans the first place is a F-ing travesty. I'm furious, and none of the current robotic, cookie-cutter, single-issue "anti-war" bluster from the "Left" establishment impresses me much at all.

A question: how likely is it that the Bush administration would have survived the summer's corporate scandals if they had already been under pressure from a massive surge of hard-hitting public allegations and protest for a 9/11 investigation following the "Memogate" scandal last spring?

This was not to be. Instead, the Solomons, Alberts, Benskys, Berlets, Coopers, Corns, and their crusading followers on the Left helped at a crucial juncture to nip it in the bud with their pompous, utterly inappropriate, and ill-timed "conspiracy" bashing.

Now, we may be utterly screwed. The Fourth Reich's burning of the Reichstag is shaping up to have been a smashing success.

Brian Salter
questionsquestions.net
3 October 2002
(modified slightly, 15 February 2003)

www.leftgatekeepers.com - an investigation into the liberal / left "gatekeepers" who seek to limit the discussions of how the government actually operates

This page was an excellent resource in 2003 for examining the 9/11 coverup - in 2004, the site shifted to posting less accurate - and in some cases grossly inaccurate - articles, and is no longer as useful. Some of these articles appear written to discredit serious investigations of these issues.

Nevertheless, the basic critique remains unchallenged -- why did the liberal "left" alternative media ignore even the most basic evidence of Bush / Cheney foreknowledge of 9/11?

Foundation funding does not necessarily determine political points of view. There are groups that get foundation grants that do great work, and there are groups that get no foundation money that limit their analysis and actions. Psychological denial and groupthink are probably bigger issues than who pays the bills.

This chart from "leftgatekeepers" is good but misses the deeper psychological issues - and misses the fact that Global Exchange doesn't deserve to be lumped in with The Nation and Chip Berlet (Global Exchange's Kevin Danaher publicly talks about 9/11 complicity, for example).