The Origin of America’s Intellectual Vacuum
Monday 15 November 2010
by: Chris Hedges | Truthdig | Op-Ed
Chandler Davis. (Photo: fortinbras)
The blacklisted mathematics instructor Chandler Davis, after serving six months in the Danbury federal penitentiary for refusing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), warned the universities that ousted him and thousands of other professors that the purges would decimate the country’s intellectual life.
“You must welcome dissent; you must welcome serious, systematic, proselytizing dissent—not only the playful, the fitful, or the eclectic; you must value it enough, not merely to refrain from expelling it yourselves, but to refuse to have it torn from you by outsiders,” he wrote in his 1959 essay “...From an Exile.” “You must welcome dissent not in a whisper when alone, but publicly so potential dissenters can hear you. What potential dissenters see now is that you accept an academic world from which we are excluded for our thoughts. This is a manifest signpost over all your arches, telling them: Think at your peril. You must not let it stand. You must (defying outside power; gritting your teeth as we grit ours) take us back.”
But they did not take Davis back. Davis, whom I met a few days ago in Toronto, could not find a job after his prison sentence and left for Canada. He has spent his career teaching mathematics at the University of Toronto. He was one of the lucky ones. Most of the professors ousted from universities never taught again. Radical and left-wing ideas were effectively stamped out. The purges, most carried out internally and away from public view, announced to everyone inside the universities that dissent was not protected. The confrontation of ideas was killed.
“Political discourse has been impoverished since then,” Davis said. “In the 1930s it was understood by anyone who thought about it that sales taxes were regressive. They collected more proportionately from the poor than from the rich. Regressive taxation was bad for the economy. If only the rich had money, that decreased economic activity. The poor had to spend what they had and the rich could sit on it. Justice demands that we take more from the rich so as to reduce inequality. This philosophy was not refuted in the 1950s and it was not the target of the purge of the 1950s. But this idea, along with most ideas concerning economic justice and people’s control over the economy, was cleansed from the debate. Certain ideas have since become unthinkable, which is in the interest of corporations such as Goldman Sachs. The power to exclude certain ideas serves the power of corporations. It is unfortunate that there is no political party in the United States to run against Goldman Sachs. I am in favor of elections, but there is no way I can vote against Goldman Sachs.”
The silencing of radicals such as Davis, who had been a member of the Communist Party, although he had left it by the time he was investigated by HUAC, has left academics and intellectuals without the language, vocabulary of class war and analysis to critique the ideology of globalism, the savagery of unfettered capitalism and the ascendancy of the corporate state. And while the turmoil of the 1960s saw discontent sweep through student bodies with some occasional support from faculty, the focus was largely limited to issues of identity politics—feminism, anti-racism—and the anti-war movements. The broader calls for socialism, the detailed Marxist critique of capitalism, the open rejection of the sanctity of markets, remained muted or unheard. Davis argues that not only did socialism and communism become outlaw terms, but once these were tagged as heresies, the right wing tried to make liberal, secular and pluralist outlaw terms as well. The result is an impoverishment of ideas and analysis at a moment when we desperately need radical voices to make sense of the corporate destruction of the global economy and the ecosystem. The “centrist” liberals manage to retain a voice in mainstream society because they pay homage to the marvels of corporate capitalism even as it disembowels the nation and the planet.
“Repression does not target original thought,” Davis noted. “It targets already established heretical movements, which are not experimental but codified. If it succeeds very well in punishing heresies, it may in the next stage punish originality. And in the population, fear of uttering such a taboo word as communism may in the next stage become general paralysis of social thought.”
It is this paralysis he watches from Toronto. It is a paralysis he predicted. Opinions and questions regarded as possible in the 1930s are, he mourns, now forgotten and no longer part of intellectual and political debate. And perhaps even more egregiously the fight and struggle of radical communists, socialists and anarchists in the 1930s against lynching, discrimination, segregation and sexism were largely purged from the history books. It was as if the civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had no antecedents in the battles of the Wobblies as well as the socialist and communist movements.
“Even the protests that were organized entirely by Trotskyists were written out of history,” Davis noted acidly.
Those who remained in charge of American intellectual thought went on to establish the wider “heresy of leftism” in the name of academic objectivity. And they have succeeded. Universities stand as cowardly, mute and silent accomplices of the corporate state, taking corporate money and doing corporate bidding. And those with a conscience inside the walls of the university understand that tenure and promotion require them to remain silent.
“Not only were a number of us driven out of the American academic scene, our questions were driven out,” said Davis, who at 84 continues to work as emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Toronto. “Ideas which were on the agenda a hundred years ago and sixty years ago have dropped out of memory because they are too far from the new center of discourse.”
Davis has published science fiction stories, is the editor of The Mathematical Intelligencer and is an innovator in the theory of operators and matrices. He is a director of Science for Peace. He also writes poetry. His nimble mind ranges swiftly in our conversation over numerous disciplines and he speaks with the enthusiasm and passion of a new undergraduate. His commitment to radical politics remains fierce and undiminished. And he believes that the loss of his voice and the voices of thousands like him, many of whom were never members of the Communist Party but had the courage to challenge the orthodoxy of the Cold War and corporate capitalism, deadened intellectual and political discourse in the United States.
During World War II Davis joined the Navy and worked on the minesweeping research program. But by the end of the war, with the saturation bombings of Dresden and Tokyo, as well as the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he came to regret his service in the military. He has spent most of his life working in a variety of anti-war and anti-nuclear movements.
“In retrospect I am sorry I didn’t declare myself as a conscientious objector,” he said. “Not at the beginning of the war, because if you are ever going to use military force for anything, that was a situation in which I would be happy to do it. I was wholehearted about that. But once I knew about the destruction of Dresden and the other massacres of civilian populations by the Allies, I think the ethical thing to do would have been to declare myself a CO.”
He was a “Red diaper baby.” His father was a professor, union agitator and member of the old Communist Party who was hauled in front of HUAC shortly before his son. Davis grew up reading New Masses and moved from one city to the next because of his father’s frequent firings.
“I was raised in the movement,” he said. “It wasn’t a cinch I would be in the Communist Party, but in fact I was, starting in 1943 and then resigning soon after on instructions from the party because I was in the military service. This was part of the coexistence of the Communist Party with Roosevelt and the military. It would not disrupt things during the war. When I got out of the Navy I rejoined the Communist Party, but that lapsed in June of 1953. I never got back in touch with them. At the time I was subpoenaed I was technically an ex-Communist, but I did not feel I had left the movement and in some sense I never did.”
Davis got his doctorate from Harvard in mathematics and seemed in the 1950s destined for a life as a professor. But the witch hunts directed against “Reds” swiftly ended his career on the University of Michigan faculty. He mounted a challenge to the Committee on Un-American Activities that went to the Supreme Court. The court, ruling in 1960, three years after Joseph McCarthy was dead, denied Davis’ assertion that the committee had violated the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech. He was sent to prison. Davis, while incarcerated, authored a research paper that had an acknowledgement reading: “Research supported in part by the Federal Prison System. Opinions expressed in this paper are the author’s and are not necessarily those of the Bureau of Prisons.”
Davis, who has lived in Canada longer than he lived in the United States, said that his experience of marginalization was “good for the soul and better for the intellect.”
“Though you see the remnants of the former academic left still, though some of us were never fired, though I return to the United States from my exile frequently, we are gone,” he said. “We did not survive as we were. Some of us saved our skins without betraying others or ourselves. But almost all of the targets either did crumble or were fired and blacklisted. David Bohm and Moses Finley and Jules Dassin and many less celebrated people were forced into exile. Most of the rest had to leave the academic world. A few suffered suicide or other premature death. There weren’t the sort of wholesale casualties you saw in Argentina or El Salvador, but the Red-hunt did succeed in axing a lot of those it went after, and cowing most of the rest. We were out, and we were kept out.”
“I was a scientist four years past my Ph.D. and the regents’ decision was to extinguish, it seemed, my professional career,” he said. “What could they do now to restore to me 35 years of that life? If it could be done, I would refuse. The life I had is my life. It’s not that I’m all that pleased with what I’ve made of my life, yet I sincerely rejoice that I lived it, that I don’t have to be Professor X who rode out the 1950s and 1960s in his academic tenure and his virtuously anti-Communist centrism.”
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“You must welcome dissent;
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 16:14 — Anonymous (not verified)“You must welcome dissent; you must welcome serious, systematic, proselytizing dissent—not only the playful, the fitful, or the eclectic; you must value it enough, not merely to refrain from expelling it yourselves, but to refuse to have it torn from you by outsiders.”
The author should have asked him how he feels about the blacklisted scientists who say that AGW is nothing more than a hoax.
What we now know of the
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 16:24 — mysterioso (not verified)What we now know of the "cold war" is still almost a secret. It never happened. The US anti communist propaganda machine was born at the end of WW2 and has been and still is funded and whipped by the corporate right. Communism is the death knell of the market system and of corporations having a strangle hold on government and profit. The drum beat of McCarthy et all was instigated by the corporate masters, fearing for their lives. WW2 funded and nurtured corporations vastly powerful and with tentacles that reached across the seas. Central banking was their heartbeat and still is. Communism had them shaking in their beds at night. All that power, all that money - at risk. The communist witch hunts still go on, pounded in to us daily by the right. "Obama is a communist, a socialist". If he was, who would have the most to loose, not the citizens but the corporation elite and the central bankers. Follow the money.
I've yet to see an article
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 16:50 — Anonymous (not verified)I've yet to see an article on Truthout written by one of the hundreds of scientists, pilots, structural engineers, demolition experts, military radar operators, and physicists who say 911 was an inside job. That it was physically impossible for the two towers to fall how and as fast as they did. And has TO ever printed an article dealing with the collapse of WTC7. No. A 47 story building that was not hit by an airplane and only suffered a couple of small fires on separate floors. Yet collapsed like a dropped wedding cake. This kind of decent from the popular the government conspiricay theory is taboo, even here. Has anyone written about the gaffe made by Rumsfeld at a press conference stating that the plane that crashed in Penn. was "shot down". Google it. No "Lets Roll" for you, 1 year.
Obama, Reid and Pelosi in a
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 16:52 — Liced-christs (not verified)Obama, Reid and Pelosi in a nutshell:
'The “centrist” liberals manage to retain a voice in mainstream society because they pay homage to the marvels of corporate capitalism even as it disembowels the nation and the planet.'
I've yet to see an article
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 17:06 — Anonymous (not verified)I've yet to see an article on Truthout written by one of the hundreds of scientists, pilots, structural engineers, demolition experts, military radar operators, and physicists who say 911 was an inside job. That it was physically impossible for the two towers to fall how and as fast as they did. And has TO ever printed an article dealing with the collapse of WTC7. No. A 47 story building that was not hit by an airplane and only suffered a couple of small mysterious fires on separate floors. Yet collapsed like a dropped wedding cake. This kind of decent from the popular government conspiracy theory is taboo, even here. Has anyone written about the gaffe made by Rumsfeld at a press conference stating that the plane that crashed in Penn. was "shot down". Google it. No "Lets Roll" for you, 1 year.
Bourgeois chatterers s like
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 17:23 — Anonymous (not verified)Bourgeois chatterers s like Hedges are united in their unspoken assumption that there is no hope for leadership from the working class, but only from new ideas and approaches originating with paid intellectuals.
And yet, it is the workers above all who are being sentenced more and more to a life of bare subsistence followed by disease and starvation in old age.
Even relatively prosperous "professionals" are under ultimate sentence of death and disease from the Republican/Democrat New Order.
All who labor under this sentence must unite as workers and forcibly demand a solution AS BY RIGHT!!
Chris Hedges has nothing to contribute here.
Remember, "Mysterioso",
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 17:28 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Remember, "Mysterioso", there are socialists who are for totalitarianism, not the utopian form(s) of socialism that Marx originally stood for before his words were twisted and used to support totalitarianism, and to support the witchhunt(s) against "socialists" without any regard to whether they were "for" totalitarianism or "against" it, when most of them were against it and still are. So Obama can be, and I maintain is, "for" the former form of socialism. He is a corporate-fascist globalist; and, therefore, he is for totalitarianism. But, of course, globalism is falsely and fraudulently painted as going to be the world's "savior", when what in reality it is going to bring about is worldwide subjugation, control and enslavement, and the extermination of all True Liberty(ies) and Freedom(s) and those who uphold them. It is really and completely true that they don't want any of us Truly Free whatsoever, all in the name of so-called "freedom"...
...Thus, the
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 17:28 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...Thus, the corporate-fascists absolutely love it that most people are claiming Obama and the other globalists supposedly aren't socialists, when they most-definitely are, but of the totalitarian socialist kind. Even if you claim that they're "simply" and/or "only" for authoritarianism, which it is true that they are ALSO for, and supposedly "not" for totalitarianism, the latter is what authoritarianism invariably leads to. The elitist globalists want the masses under their complete subjugation and control without any exception(s), and without any mercy, whatsoever. They are scared to death of, and hate, True Freedom(s) and Liberty(ies); because they know, if the masses had their way, the multi-national capitalists and rapers of the planet, as well as destroyers of free countries, would be reigned in and prevented from further ruling over us, from eradicating our precious Liberty(ies) and Freedom(s), and from raping our planet, anymore.
My God there are a lot of
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 18:40 — Peetawonkus (not verified)My God there are a lot of drooling glue sniffers here, people whose muddled brains are unable to form a coherent thought. Yappers about Obama, fools who have no idea what terms like "socialism" or "totalitarianism" actually mean, having, apparently, never bothered to read definitions--isn't it enough we have to suffer through Dixie fried stupidity on a daily basis everywhere else?
I celebrate Chandler Davis. As for you trolls and Republicans: may your children grow up to be Communists and your fortunes feed the poor.
I was interested to read
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 18:50 — goobagooba (not verified)I was interested to read this article, as it turned out to be more the portrayal of one experienced in the costs of resistance than a rehashing of Hedges' anger. I applaud Mr. Hedges for his restraint.
There is something to be said about those who object to a professor as example, and who quibble that he is not of the putative proletariat. I would submit that the difference between a construction worker and a teacher is in the materials they mold, and not in the dedication to craft or sensitivity to the right and wrong of reimbursement or regard.
Anonymous 22:28 objects to a member of the intellectual community as not representative of those who suffer the most, as if there is a way to gauge such a thing. Read Studs Terkel's "Working" or "The Good (Great?) War" and reconsider.
Someone (we all) should make
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 19:34 — pabelmont (not verified)Someone (we all) should make a list of topics that have been excluded from general public discourse by "political correctness", "fear of black-list", "taboos", etc.
My own list would start (because of my narrow concerns) with exclusion of talking about ENFORCING INTERNATIONAL LAW w.r.t. Israel's occupation (that is, requiring Israel to remove all 550,000 settlers, dismantle all settlements and the apartheid wall, end the siege of Gaza and provide adequate POTABLE WATER to Gaza).
But everyone will have a different list, and it would be important to review them.
A nice article. A reminder:
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 19:36 — Anonymous (not verified)A nice article. A reminder: the tenure system was built to protect professors from just such things. I recall a prof at my state university. Accused of being some sort of leftist misfit and summoned before a House Committee, he refused to testify. His university suspended him. He quit, took a job overseas, and then wrote that he had never been a member of any group but deplored the mistrust by his own university.
Chandler Davis is right on.
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 19:58 — Dick Burkhart (not verified)Chandler Davis is right on. Going to college in the 60s I thought of universities as places where professors could speak "truth to power" and help lead the movement. Now it is rare to have leadership, or even participation, by faculty for any of our activist gatherings or events.
As a mathematician, Chandler is one of my activist heroes, but mostly by reputation. This is the first time I've heard him really speak out and heard his story.
There are a handful of us mathematicians who are now challenging the economic orthodoxy used an intellectual defense of "free market capitalism" or, less charitably, "market fundamentalism". Turns out that mainstream economics has deep roots in anti-Marxism and the class war.
Of course Marxism has many failings too, but I regard neo-classical economics as intellectual quackery for two reasons: (1) it puts certain concepts on pedestals, as if everything else is an aberration, even though they have limited applicability in real-world economics, and (2) it treats as “externalities” some concepts which are essential to well-functioning real-world economies. The latter include natural resources, the environment, future generations, government as investor, and economic justice. The former include “rational consumers”, “competitive markets”, “free trade”, and a host of more technical concepts.
My dream is for a true science of economics – one that encompasses all relevant factors in its core theory with the long term goal of sustaining a human civilization on planet earth that we could be proud of, not the ideology and simplistic concepts and analyses that pass for economics today.
America needs to have its
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 20:02 — Anonymous (not verified)America needs to have its own kind of "Glasnost." There's another kind of chill on free thought and expression in this country that's gone *unheeded* for decades now, since the '50's. I think some people have no idea what happened to others, even through generations. They not only followed and traced people, they went after them through generations of their family, keeping files. It's very true what he is saying about lots of people who had to leave the country, and they weren't even known about. They destroyed people's lives. I think this is an excellent article, and I am very glad to read about this mathematician. To the person whining about "blacklisted" scientists who lie for the corporations -- yes, and what about the brain drain from the '50's, in addition to mathematics, from the sciences -- while we shipped in and covered up scientists who worked for the Nazis in Germany? I detect that the article makes some here more than a little nervous. Might start to shake up America's chilly silence, as deep, if not as deep as, anything that ever existed in the U.S.S.R.
"'Peetawonkus'(-the-Self-Righ
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 20:42 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)"'Peetawonkus'(-the-Self-Righteous)", and typical person that acts like people who's viewpoints differ from their's supposedly don't have just as much right to speak and/or write their viewpoints, and to differ from them without being castigated for doing nothing but speaking the truth; first of all, I am NOT a Republican and wouldnt' be caught alive or dead being one (NOR a Democrat for that matter either); I am a Constitutionalist, and not even a member of the Constitution Party (because I don't agree with everything they or the Libertarian Party believe in). Secondly, I definitely know the difference between the true definition(s) of the words in question---in question at least as far as you're concerned---and the mis-defining that they have undergone over the decades in the process of brainwashing all Americans, and many others, into completely dismissing everyone as "evil" who even utters those words in any other way(s) but to label them, usually falsely, as such, let alone believes in any version(s) of what they truly stand for and/or mean. Thirdly, lest you jump to further false conclusions and label me thus, NEITHER am I a socialist OR a communist. Lastly, I have as equal a right to express my viewpoint(s) as you do.
Correction (in capital
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 20:57 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Correction (in capital letters): ...Secondly, I definitely know the difference between the true definition(s) of the words in question---in question at least as far as you're concerned---and the mis-defining that they have undergone over the decades in the process of brainwashing all Americans, and many others, into completely dismissing everyone as "evil" who even utters those words in any other way(s) but to label OTHERS', usually falsely, as such, let alone believes in any version(s) of what they truly stand for and/or mean...
Thank you to 22:06 for
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 21:12 — Liced-christs (not verified)Thank you to 22:06 for jolting our memory. It seems like The Project for A New American Century fucked this nation royally for it was that group of thugs who were behind Nine Eleven. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that Nine Eleven was done by the U.S. government, precisely to justify the sorts of wars both Bush and Obama have indulged in.
its good to have a forum to
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 21:55 — jeronimo (not verified)its good to have a forum to relate to others with.
We meet here day after day in friendship, as comrades in service to mankind. No doubt about it we're all in this together and nobody gets out alive.
There's Chandler having experienced the thot police
firsthand so many years ago, even went to gaol for it,
imagine that. Had to flee his country, all due the forced suppression of his thots, which they couldn't do and will NEVER be able to do , because we will NOT be controlled!! Never mind what political persuasion/ background we come from, what our colour or our educational accomplishments. We are humans and we will NEVER be controlled by the thot
police because control over our thots is ludicrous.
We stand on the edge of the abyss. The world as we
remember it is a thing of the distant past. We're moving towards a world where money will mean
nothing and the corporatists are trying their best to keep their sinking ship afloat on our backs, and we're
NOT going to take it anymore. The Nation State is dead, we are citizens of the world. We ALL belong
to the only race there is, the Human Race.
Let's work together and bring this about in a peaceful and efficient manner even-though the oligarchs
don't want us to, somehow we'll get through this and
the thot police will become a part of history, not
forgotten.
We ALL have equal rights regardless of what this gov't thinks... its time for gov't as we know it to be
replaced by something that works for ALL of us.
perhaps a close look at the
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 22:32 — tedbohne (not verified)perhaps a close look at the "REECE COMMISSION" REPORT OF 1954, and a listen to a nine part series by the Late Norman Dodd on You Tube might shed some light on this issue
Hedges will one day stop
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 22:33 — Anonymous (not verified)Hedges will one day stop beating around the symptoms and finally declare the diagnosis: MILITARY DICTATORSHIP...staring the CIA, Pentagon, and FBI.
CIA infiltrated all the social institutions that mattered during the Cold War and eviscerated any opposition to corrupt and abusive reich-wing authorities. The Nazis took off their armbands and put on suits to hijack American culture at every level. Say it, Mr. Hedges, "military occupation of the USA for three generations."
BTW-The recent article about the US harboring Nazis is forestalling intended to be timed with the anniversary of the reich-wing coup against JFK. The CIA-media is trying to prolong the cover story myth of a 'liberal watchdog press.'
There are no truths in a
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 22:46 — Anonymous (not verified)There are no truths in a Kleptocracy. Only mandates from the powers that be. To end their power we must kick over the tables of the money changers and realize the only wealth we have are our laborers and resources working toward a common goal for the good of humanity. Ending poverty, hunger, ignorance, etc. This is our last chance.
frankly, with 1 in 7
Tue, 11/16/2010 - 04:06 — Anonymous (not verified)frankly, with 1 in 7 citizens needing food aid, the rich getting richer, the prisons overflowing, etc., etc., does anyone really believe america will survive as a 'democracy'?
most, if not all government is in the hands of corporations, their lawyers and / or lobbyists, the legal system a right-wing tea party, and any semblance of freedom fast disappearing under the guise of homeland security.
i live on another continent (thank goodness), but can only marvel at the american citizens lack of awareness of his / her disappearing democracy....
Al Sharpton has determined
Tue, 11/16/2010 - 08:55 — Anonymous (not verified)Al Sharpton has determined we have no right to personal right of dignity ,the gov acquiescing to his demands is using the TSA as a teaching modality
Times change. Davis was
Tue, 11/16/2010 - 09:47 — Anonymous (not verified)Times change. Davis was blacklisted for allegedly being pro-Communist. I have been blacklisted as a scientist for fighting against Communism in the Vietnam War. I think that Americans are silenced just for displeasing the oligarchs who run the country. Bill Clinton and George Bush dodged the draft during the Vietnam War, so only those who did like they did are acceptable. Veterans remind our political leaders of their own lack of integrity. Blacklisting people for going against the main stream is a practice of all lawless, totalitarian societies but considered a human rights violation by free and democratic ones. So what kind of a society are we?
Indeed universities are
Tue, 11/16/2010 - 10:38 — MR (not verified)Indeed universities are nothing more than wards of Corporate America. Have been for decades. The fact that many university presidents also sit on a company's board of directors is proof of the widespread collusion and assimilation.
@ 23:50 I'm sure Davis sees
Tue, 11/16/2010 - 10:46 — Anonymous (not verified)@ 23:50
I'm sure Davis sees himself, or saw himself, as a worker and would have (or in his younger days, would have had) no objection to being identified as one.
My point is against Hedges, not Davis. Hedges, in spite of his self-dramatizing nostalgia for special communists, never mentions the workers as a valid political or economic category. He is interested in Davis because Davis is an exceptional man, not because Davis chose to fight with the workers.
Hedges seeks salvation in exceptions and is an exceptionalist.
In other words, like you he has no use for the masses.
That is Hedges' fallacy. Your smug and stupid failure to grasp that point does you no credit.
Thanks, Anon@03:33, for
Tue, 11/16/2010 - 12:13 — Austin Loomis (not verified)Thanks, Anon@03:33, for telling it like it was and is: "CIA infiltrated all the social institutions that mattered during the Cold War and eviscerated any opposition to corrupt and abusive reich-wing authorities. The Nazis took off their armbands and put on suits to hijack American culture at every level. Say it, Mr. Hedges, 'military occupation of the USA for three generations.'"
Project Paperclip. Mockingbird. Everyone of consequence in the major media. Did you really think God died of natural causes?
By reading these comments, i
Tue, 11/16/2010 - 12:35 — Anonymous (not verified)By reading these comments, i see that the disinformation campaign is working well. For the 9-11 people, if that's where you are at then you have alot of catching up to do. For the people who think the CIA and other alphabet agencies rule everything, you have catching up to do. Today's issues are Complex and require critical thinking. @ 23:40, well stated. Oh and trolls, it takes one to kno one and your late too. You can be seen. Good day.
Tue, 11/16/2010 - 03:33 —
Tue, 11/16/2010 - 14:38 — Anonymous (not verified)Tue, 11/16/2010 - 03:33 — Anonymous (not verified)
"CIA infiltrated all the social institutions that mattered during the Cold War and eviscerated any opposition to corrupt and abusive reich-wing authorities."
There are no wings. Left and right are fictions used to create the theater that divides the people. The Progressives ran the non-Progressives out of politics a long time before the CIA was established.
dear truthout thank you for
Tue, 11/16/2010 - 14:50 — Anonymous (not verified)dear truthout
thank you for creating this empty space to hold heated debate. I definitely will make a monthly contribution on my credit card.
why do we cling to dualism?
there is enough work to go around for everyone to get a piece of the action - workers, intellectuals, prisoners, parents, activists.
The problem, as I see it, is this: people who are homeless and hungry may be so overwhelmed by the experience that they may not be able to effectively organize or advocate. I could be wrong - I often am - but Chris Hedges and others like him use their trainning and good fortune to articulate, galvinise, and unappoligeticallyspeak truth to power. There is only one chris hedges but millions of disenfranchised, millions about to fall into the ass crack of the world, and at least he uses his position in the world to dare and hold up the mirror for us to peer in.
"Anonymous @ Tue, 11/16/2010
Tue, 11/16/2010 - 14:50 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)"Anonymous @ Tue, 11/16/2010 - 17:35", it is you and "Peetawonkus" who are the trolls and the ones' who don't exercise critical thinking. You, "Anonymous", cannot even "critically write" correctly, let alone carry out critical thinking. Yep, today's issues ARE complex, but you folks sure don't get the complexity of them...
Yah, that's right, true trolls, we see (right through) you.
Examples of non-ability to
Tue, 11/16/2010 - 15:01 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Examples of non-ability to write critically (or at least grammatically correct):
1.) "(A)lot" is correctly written, "a lot", not "alot" ("alot" is not a word).
2.) Obviously, with "kno", you meant, "know".
3.) Instead of the use of the incorrect word, "your", you should have used the conjunction, "you're", as in "you are (or you're) late too", not "your late too".
15:46 I don't really get
Tue, 11/16/2010 - 20:35 — Anonymous (not verified)15:46
I don't really get your criticism of Hedges as "having no use for the masses."
He writes for a wide audience, with the hope of influencing others. That is, I see him as hoping to influence others in a way that inspires people to build a better society for ALL together.
He supports health care, education, peace, jobs, and justice .. for the masses.
I suspect you are running after your own tail in a rhetorical, ideological circle.
Jeronimo, Great comment.
Tue, 11/16/2010 - 20:44 — Anonymous (not verified)Jeronimo,
Great comment. You summed up for me a lot of what it's all about, in a nutshell.
Lots of other good comments here too.
Though I don't know what 9/11 conspiracy has to do with all of this. Believe it or not, but I think they actually ARE that stupid. And the buildings are structurally not made to withstand that type of impact. Which was planned for many years by people who were actually educated in American universities in engineering, and what have you. One would deduce. In conjunction with plain arrogance and grotesque negligence on the part of the Bush administration. They were planning a war, but they didn't need 9/11 in order to do it. 9/11, in some respects, was fortuitous ITO their malevolent interests -- because now there was a really evil enemy *out there* to mobilize nationalistic, jingoistic sentiments -- but they could have done it anyway.
But this is a whole other issue.
The article is about why America has become such an intellectually vacuous place.
And conspiracy theories are a symptom, IMO, of exactly that. It fills a need in America's ever more deeply growing neurosis. Because of the nature of our system, and the way in which we are unable to substantially effect change upon it.
S. Wolf Britain, Yes people
Wed, 11/17/2010 - 10:15 — Civility and discourse (not verified)S. Wolf Britain,
Yes people may be lazy when writing comments. However, your grammar and punctuation lessons are a waste of space. To you and everyone, please use these forums for a productive discourse regarding the content of the essays and reader comments, not petty nastiness and arrogance.
Hedges seems to be on to something in that many of us have lost sight of the importance of intellectual discussion and devolved into name-calling and superficial rhetoric.
PS. the Reece report is one scary example of the fear some folks have of higher education and social sciences. How frightening is the idea that studying and teaching about the collective "we" is somehow a threat to the "American way of life," as though there is only one way.....
So-called "Civility and
Wed, 11/17/2010 - 14:53 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)So-called "Civility and (Civil) Discourse", I am very civil most of the time in threads, but my getting tired, as you and everyone who can write at least somewhat correctly should be tired, of reading very poor grammar, especially from those who set themselves up as critics of others and who can't even write correctly themselves, got the best of me. I usually keep it to myself; but, after a while, one feels like they just can't keep silent about it any longer, particularly when, as I said, criticism is coming from someone who needs to criticize "their own self" and educate themselves on how to write at least somewhat more correctly.
Btw, I make writing mistakes too, so I certainly don't claim to be perfect; and, to be completely honest, with my short-term memory problems due to my serious physical disabilities, I have trouble remembering many of the English grammar rules, if I ever truly learned them (correctly?) in the first place; but at least I TRY to write sensibly and correctly.
Too many people are allowing themselves, because of the very poor public education in the last several decades (intentionally and by design), and because of the "parroting" of the "new internet 'slang'", abbreviations and almost complete disregard for writing correctly, to develop very bad writing habits that they don't even try to correct, nor even try to educate themselves about how to do correctly. Thus, the English language is going down the proverbial tube. And, again, it is getting very tiring to try and decipher the comments of people who can't write correctly worth a damn, who might otherwise have some very worthwhile things to say; and often do if one can, with a lot of frustration, decipher them. Also, if they would write correctly, or at least a semblance of correctly, a lot more people who otherwise don't read some, many and/or any their comments at all, will read them.
Now to "Anonymous @ Wed,
Wed, 11/17/2010 - 15:03 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Now to "Anonymous @ Wed, 11/17/2010 - 01:44", where do you so-called "anti-conspiracy", "rose-colored-glasses-wearers", "blinder-wearers", and "deep-in-avoidance-and-denial-of-the-true-evidence-and-the-true-facts" get this stuff such as the World Trade Center Towers supposedly weren't designed to withstand the sort of impacts that they did?! Probably from "Popular Mechanics" magazine and/or NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), etc.; so-called "9/11 conspiracy debunking" that has been completely debunked itself.
First of all, EACH of the Twin Towers WERE designed for two simultaneous airliner impacts without collapse. The architects who designed the towers have said so. But, of course, there are many liars out there who claim the opposite of that fact related to 9/11, as well as many other such 9/11-related facts. Granted, the passenger jets that the towers were designed to be impacted by, were smaller jet airliners in the early 70s when the towers were built, than the ones which impacted the towers on 9/11; but, if you'd look into the myriad evidence for "inside job", stop automatically believing the "OFFICIAL" (real) conspiracy theory", stop blindly trusting the government (because it sounds like you do blindly trust the government), stop refusing to completely look at the evidence for the other side of the story with a totally open mind, and/or stop parroting the words of other people who have swallowed the lies---hook, line and sinker---and who parrot other people's words, and so and so on, you'd find out that there's no way the jet planes which impacted the Twin Towers, their jet fuel, or the fires initiated by them, could have caused the symmetrical, straight-down-into-their-own-footprint collapses of those towers that we often see in controlled demolition of old skyscrapers and other buildings. And MANY controlled-demolition experts, structural engineers, architects, physicists, other scientists, and other experts (over 1,360 verified professionals, and over 10,286 supporters, including former intelligence agency personnel, presently serving and/or retired military officers, currently serving and/or former politicians, doctors and other medical personnel, still-living first responders, firefighters, police personnel, airline and other pilots, lawyers, etc.---see the links at the bottom of this comment) have stated categorically that the Twin Towers, as well as Building 7 which most people don't know anything about, were brought down by planted explosives and controlled demolition. (There is PLENTY of definitive evidence for it---go look at it with a completely open mind, instead of a closed one; you'll be amazed at what you find; and the real truth will set you free!)
Then there's the matter of the testimony of countless first-responders and many others of explosions in the towers, as well as Building 7, on that day; from the basement up many floors, but below the impact zones. Also, you can well imagine, if the nearly three thousand people who died in the buildings were alive today, they'd undoubtedly have testimony to give about successive explosions which occurred both above and below the planes' impacts, and that had to have occurred in order for those buildings to have fallen straight down symmetrically as they did. If any version of the "pancake theory" were correct, it would have slowed down the collapse of the buildings, but they fell at or very nearly at "free-fall speed"; which, along with their symmetrical collapse, is impossible unless there were secondary explosive devices to take out the supporting beams below the collapses, and as they collapsed, particularly in the basement of the towers. If you dig into the evidence for the other side of the story, you will find at least one photograph (which, of course, the government-controlled mainstream media and the "debunkers" won't show) that shows the near perfect forty-five-degree-angle severing of one of the supporting beams, that had to have been cut by explosive cutting charges used in controlled demolition, incorporating either nano-thermite or nano-thermate, or using both, residue of which has been found by experts from samples taken from ground zero after 9/11.
All of the foregoing is just the tip of the iceberg; but there's just too much to go into in this forum, so I won't. But don't fall for that other lie, either, that digging for the complete truth, and/or expressing the well-justified doubts, about what happened on 9/11 is supposedly disrespectful of those who died on 9/11, and their survivors; when the exact opposite is the case. Getting to the true "bottom" of what really happened on that day is the most respectful thing we can do for all of them, as well as for all Americans and the entire world. Over half of the 9/11 victims' families, for very good reasons and due to tons of evidence in support of it, doubt the official fairy tale(s) about what happened on that day, believe that the 9/11 Commission and its report were a complete cover-up, and are seeking a new, totally independent investigation of 9/11. And, if you'd listen to them in the videos and/or documentaries that have been made interviewing them to that effect, as well as presenting many true facts which have been discovered since that fateful day, you'd find that they overwhelmingly feel that their relatives who died on 9/11 deserve the unadulterated truth of what truly happened on that day, and who is really responsible; that those surviving family members don't feel that seeking the truth is disrespectful of their dead relatives AT ALL (in fact, that they feel the exact opposite); and that they overwhelmingly feel that the deaths of their loved ones' should not have been used to "justify" illegal wars of aggression against defenseless countries, who's millions of innocent citizens had nothing to do with 9/11.
Btw, in response to the very end of your comment, "Anonymous", it is the avoidance and denial of the real truth, particularly about 9/11, that is part of the "ever more deeply growing neurosis" of society, NOT the "conspiracy FACTS". OF COURSE conspiracies are going on! Particularly with how corrupt and "nefariously-'COMPETENT'" (stop believing the lies, too, about the so-called "incompetence" of these extremely evil people) the U.S. government, the "intelligence" agencies, and their allies are. It only takes two or more people for a conspiracy to take place; and, yes, for 9/11 to have been a government "inside job", it would have taken many people conspiring together to accomplish it; but many people could, and did, conspire together to execute it, and keep it quiet; because they believe wholeheartedly in the Machiavellian aims and/or ends which they sought to accomplish by it, and which they have seen come to overwhelmingly-successful fruition as a result of it; or, any of those conspirators who might have some doubts and/or feel some remorse over their involvement in it, know without ANY doubt(s) whatsoever that they are "under pain of death", and the death of their family members, if they divulge ANY information about who is truly behind it and what really occurred on that day. Rhetorically-speaking, if you were involved in such a conspiracy, would you divulge the truth of the conspiracy unless you were willing to die, and were willing for your family members to die? Most likely not, right? Obviously, the people who were involved in this mass-conspiracy and its ensuing cover-up are the ultimate in cowards, and they don't have any true heroism in them; but, who knows, someone, or some group of conspirators, might come forward yet. Of course, though, deep in avoidance and denial people like yourself probably won't listen to or believe them anyway.
And please don't tell me that crud about "al Q'aeda [which equals "al-CIA-duh(!)"] and/or Osama bin Laden supposedly already "did" come forward and "take credit for it"; for, if you would look into the true evidence for that as well, you would see that the person purported to be "Osama bin Laden" in the video in which he supposedly "takes credit for 9/11", is clearly NOT HIM, but someone who amazingly doesn't look a whole lot like him if you look closely and compare the comparison pictures of the man in the video with pictures of the real Osama bin Laden. Also, bin Laden has denied responsibility for 9/11. Etc. Etc. I could go into the fake audio "confessions" and other fake video tapes as well, but I will instead bring this comment to a close. [I know I'm forgetting something important to add; but, if I recall it, I will post a comment about it later.]
See the following if you dare to educate yourself about the truth and the "conspiracy FACTS":
Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth
www.ae911truth.org/ ;
Patriots Question 9/11
www.patriotsquestion911.com/ ; and/or,
My blog (for links to the many other 9/11 Truth websites, as well as the many other organizations which they have founded; etc.)
www.wolfbritain.com/
McCarthyism never left us.
Wed, 11/17/2010 - 19:29 — Anonymous (not verified)McCarthyism never left us. It is still alive, recycled and reinforced with the Patriotic Act. To have an idea how all dissenter movements since 1812, yes 1812, have been intimidated and disappeared see the Richard Rubenstein’s book “Why Americans Chose War”
Wolf, First of all, I do not
Wed, 11/17/2010 - 21:22 — Anonymous (not verified)Wolf,
First of all, I do not think that the 9-11 conspiracy theorists are being disrespectful to the victims of that day. To the contrary, I think they care very much, though my immediate sense is that they are misled.
I am, however, taking a look at some of the material related to what you share. O.K.?
I do have knowledge of people who were in Building 7 before it went down - through someone else who knew them and would have been there that day but for other circumstances that stepped in.
All I know is that they were traumatized by this day more than a year later. The big thing, being that they observed other human beings, at close range, jumping out of the windows of the Trade Centers. Before they themselves exited the building, the building that later came down.
I am not personally aware of reports that there were seperate explosions that occured as something that brought buildings down -- though the fact that separate explosions occurred, doesn't seem unusual to me given what happened in a building that size, with gas lines, electricity, automobiles parked, etc.
continued
continued I was in the big
Wed, 11/17/2010 - 21:24 — Anonymous (not verified)continued
I was in the big earthquake years ago in San Francisco. You should hear what it was like being in buildings made to withstand that kind of natural phenomenon. The buildings were going crazy in the air; from there, one can easily deduce what could happen to a building in that situation that was not constructed to "go with the flow" - which took an unusual "thinking outside the box" type of approach to architecture in order to make it.
I'm certainly no expert in what makes buildings. And I'll accept your word that the buildings were actually constructed to take a plane hit. (I wasn't aware of that.)
However, are you aware of the incompetance and corruption in the building industry? The things that inspectors turn their backs on ? Or just the general arrogance and creative incompetance ?
It is therefore not surprising to me that someone from the *rebelling* factions of the "Middle Eastern conflict" could have expertise and thinking "outside the box" beyond that of American engineers and builders.
I'm really looking at this from more of a psychological point of view.
I do not accept that the world they have built around us, expecting us to accept it is safe and predictable, really is.
Incompetence and ignorance abounds.
I am not *opposed* to the idea that it could have been an inside job. I just don't think it was. The people who were insiders, like O.B.L. at one point, who worked for the C.I.A., have pretty much gone their way. Announcing their alliance with fanatic Islamism, which is, BTW, connected to oil interests, as well, just like the nuts on the American side.
I suppose they could have people working secretly on the American side, who could have participated in espionage of sorts on these buildings, but then, we wouldn't be talking about the same kind of conspiracy that you are inferring.
The real espionage in America is very open. They don't need to explode buildings here. They can just kill off Americans slowly and surreptitiously.
Well, I will split up this post, because I am sure TO's spam filter will bite, otherwise.
Wolf, P.S. The intellectual
Wed, 11/17/2010 - 21:56 — Anonymous (not verified)Wolf,
P.S. The intellectual vacuum that has come to even represent "America" is evident in exactly the fact that engineers on "an enemy side" could so swiftly outwit our nation's security and government.
Which is exactly why people are calling upon our government to deeply rethink our foreign policy. You cannot fight traditional wars against non-traditional warfare.
It's a bit like the French approach to cinema or cooking, compared to our own.
Now I know a number of bohunk thinkers will accuse me of "unpatriotism" for saying thus, but I am not judging it in the sense of what is ethically better. No, by far, the opposite.
There is, however, again, I will say, a "thinking outside the box" that is no longer produced by American education, except in terms of ways it is used by people coming in to use in, with a radically different orientation about how to use it and see it, from the very beginning.
We're really in the Dark Ages. Still. Whether we make it "beyond" into the vision envisioned by people like Gene Rodenberry, for example, is another question altogether.
Who knows.
Wolf, a lastly P.S. In
Wed, 11/17/2010 - 22:15 — Anonymous (not verified)Wolf,
a lastly P.S.
In short -- by way of metaphor -- we are living in "the Titanic."
And, the "other side" knows it -- exactly what we are in denial of.
youtube.com/watch?v=H_1JBAv0zTQ
Sorry, but I think your thinking is, at root, actually, about the same thing!
When everything in a culture
Wed, 11/17/2010 - 22:44 — So It Is (not verified)When everything in a culture is about making money, and everything is valued against that standard, you can easily have engineers and many others, in many important ways, who are not up to the *competitive* "cutting edge" stuff !
It's really a no-brainer, but it looks like America is going to have to learn the hard way, IF there is even an America by the time this story finishes.
The irony is, "who's going
Wed, 11/17/2010 - 22:46 — whaler (not verified)The irony is, "who's going to listen to us?" We're just a bunch of ordinary people on the internet! What do we know? While they listen away ...
Can't say we didn't warn ya.
Wolfbritain. You're always
Wed, 11/17/2010 - 23:11 — 666 (not verified)Wolfbritain. You're always so quick to declare that you're not a socialist or a dirty commie communist. WHILE you declare your allegiance to the fanatic Islamists or wild schools of conspiracy thought, hoping that your condemnation of these Americans endears others to your side.
Like a real weasel.
Take NOTE, everyone, of Apple's front webpage as they rehash the Beatles for Sale. John Lennon, bigger than life, a man who described himself as "an instinctive socialist" and loved so much throughout America that Apple is making millions off of it.
Do you hate John Lennon Wolfbritain? Why aren't YOU an instinctive socialist? What's so bad about that?
Was he too much of a sinner, calling for a world without RELIGION?
Who is Spartacus?
Wed, 11/17/2010 - 23:12 — 666 (not verified)Who is Spartacus?
Oh, thank you, "Anonymous",
Thu, 11/18/2010 - 00:12 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Oh, thank you, "Anonymous", you just reminded me about what the other thing was that I knew was important enough that I should have written and posted it earlier; but, because I'm burned out and need to lay down and decompress in preparation for my night's sleep, I'll only touch on it now:
That point is the one about the 19 so-called "Arab" hijackers who allegedly overcame the most sophisticated, most well-manned, and largest national defense apparatus in the entire world, and in the history of the entire world, with little more than box cutters for God's sake! (Well, now, as you can see by the following, I'm being tempted to go into more detail now, rather than waiting until the 'morrow.)
1.) Seven to ten of these so-called dead guys, having supposedly died in the planes, have been found to still be alive and their identities in some cases were stolen.
2.) There is evidence that some if not all of these guys had contact with FBI controllers and connections with U.S. military bases.
3.) Flight instructors for the alleged "hijackers", particularly the ones who were allegedly to be the principle hijackers and the pilots of the passenger jets, have said again and again that those principles could not even adequately fly small planes like Cessnas, so how could they have been able to fly extremely sophisticated large-capacity passenger planes?
4.) You'll find that when these "false-flag", so-called "terrorist" attacks take place, they are ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS, accompanied by simultaneous (taking place at THE SAME TIME) "war game" scenarios and simulated attacks virtually identical to what is really happening, in order to supposedly confuse national defenses, and as a smokescreen for why the national defenses allegedly "failed", not to mention existent in order to use as a supposedly plausible excuse and/or justification for why we allegedly "could not fend off the attacks", in this case supposedly "could not defend against the attacking, 'hijacked' passenger jets".
5.) It is standard operating procedure when passenger planes veer off course, cannot be communicated with, are known to be hijacked, and/or fly into or are flying towards restricted airspace, to immediately scramble fighter jets to rendezvous with the offending plane(s) within a very few minutes, order them to land with hand signals if they have to, OR SHOOT THEM OUT OF THE SKY; yet NO fighter jets were scrambled against the "hijacked" planes on 9/11, at least the ones which impacted with buildings, until it was far too late [and keep in mind that one of the planes was flying towards, and ended up flying into, restricted airspace in Washington, D.C., not far from the White House and the Capital Building (Congress), and crashed into the Pentagon, the most protected airspace and government and/or military building(s) in the entire world---the Pentagon in particular has it own missile defenses, so why didn't they shoot the plain out of the sky?]...
And the list goes on and on. I'm only giving a fraction of the implausibilities here. There are so many improbabilities like this that it boggles the mind that the largest national defense apparatus in the entire world supposedly failed so grossly, so miserably, and so tragically on that day; therefore, the entire scenario is completely implausible, and the fact that most "Americans" buy into it is totally dumbfounding. Expert military officers and former intelligence personnel don't even buy into it for God's sake [but, naturally the MSM will not give them airtime to perform their patriotic duty(ies) to inform the American people of these things, so they're getting the word out in other ways; e.g./i.e., the sites I referred you to, especially the Patriots Question 9/11 website---see link above in previous comment(s)].
That all of this happened at the very same time as it supposedly did is absurd, especially when you consider that 19 relatively unsophisticated "Arabs" with box cutters, who couldn't even fly small planes, allegedly "did" pull it off, and with the only "hitch" being Flight 93 (three out of four planes, supposedly piloted by Arab "pilots" who weren't properly trained to fly passenger jets, and who couldn't possibly have pulled off the sophisticated, nearly impossible maneuvers they "made" with planes that big and heavy, and flying at the speed(s) they were flying at, according to expert pilots (most if not all of whom don't even believe they themselves could have successfully pulled off those maneuvers), allegedly did pull it all off against the most advanced, most powerful national defense system in the entire world---and without getting shot out of the sky---yah, right)!
Anyway, please don't seek to respond to these points right away, but truly go and research these matters on the sites you said you're looking into, and you will find those many other implausibilities and/or improbabilities, and the "conspiracy FACTS", not theories, which all put together add up to a collection of quite strong evidence showing that 9/11 had to have been a government inside job.
So I'm done for tonight, and I'm truly fried now. Catch you on the flipside.
Listen, you idiot troll,
Thu, 11/18/2010 - 00:21 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Listen, you idiot troll, shill "666", I'm not going to bite off into your bait anymore than to say that you've attacked me before under a different alias, in a different thread, on this John Lennon issue; but all I'll say "new" at this point is that I do NOT "declare (ANY)... allegiance to... fanatic Islamists or wild schools of conspiracy thought", so stop your ad hominem, libelous, slanderous and illegal attacks of me!
Btw, moron, I'm pretty sure I know who you are.
Wolf, This is why I posted
Thu, 11/18/2010 - 22:50 — Anonymous (not verified)Wolf,
This is why I posted the song about the Titanic, though. You keep saying stuff about this is the greatest defense system in the world. It's NOT !
Geez, look at all the people who stroll into the U.S. and all the unprotected water systems, for example.
It's a miracle we're all still alive? Maybe, (1) the defense system isn't so great, and (2) people generally aren't that evil.
Which is why this security issue at the airports, which was in the news a lot today, is a lot of baloney. What they are doing in the service of "defense" is very ineffective. Like an elephant trying to dance through a field of flowers without stepping on them.
Archaic. Our approach to "national defense" is clumsy and inefficient. 9-11 is a grave symptom of our failures in that, meaning as well, foreign policy.
"Anonymous", how do you
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 00:19 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)"Anonymous", how do you know? It's certainly the largest national defense apparatus of any country in the world. And what about why the Pentagon didn't shoot at least one missile at Flight 77? Once again, please go do some reading about the what the experts say, some of whom used to work for national defense, before you ignore almost every point I've made. You just back up that it's a waste of time to talk to most people, and to spend a great deal of time writing in-depth messages to them, because they're just going to ignore most of it.
Besides, I'm not talking
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 01:29 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Besides, I'm not talking about the kind(s) of "national defense" that you give examples of. I'm talking about preventing hijacked planes and/or some similar level of attack on the most protected airspace in the world, as well as prime targets like the WTC Towers. That national defense system is extremely powerful, with all kinds of redundant protections, and it NEVER would have allowed the Pentagon of all U.S. military structures to be hit, especially by a "hijacked" plane, unless it was at minimum allowed to happen.
Cheney was constantly warned, right in front of Norman Mineta, that Flight 77 was so much distance "out", again and again, and asked what he wanted to do; but he kept delaying the response. Mineta testified about this to the 9/11 Commission but it was ignored; and the Commission also altered the time Mineta said Cheney was in "the bunker" [the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) under the East Wing of the White House], claiming he was supposedly there later.
There's so many incongruencies in the 9/11 Commission Report that it's not funny. They ignored a great deal of testimony by simply not even addressing it in the final report; e.g., the testimony of witnesses to the secondary explosions in the Towers, or not interviewing some of those witnesses at all. The Commission itself was an "inside job", and was run by a friend of Bush and White House. At least one high profile member of the Commission resigned in disgust at the lack of neutrality, etc.
Like I said, it goes on and on. But most people won't look into it; and/or, like I said, just ignore almost everything when it's brought to their attention. They just blinding trust that the U.S. government would supposedly "never" carry out that degree of a cover-up, or lie to us to that extent. But they've done it many times for years, and they do it all the time. And I'm just so tired of people who live in avoidance and denial of facts...
...So, please, if you're
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 01:29 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...So, please, if you're going to ignore virtually everything I spend a great deal of time and energy sharing with you, then don't go "back and forth" with me about it, because you don't know what you're talking about, especially about the events of 9/11. And if you're going to want to keep going back and forth about what you know little or nothing about, then I'm done and will not debate with you about it anymore; nor will I waste my extremely limited energy trying to show you the facts that you simply ignore.
If you're going to stop ignoring said facts, check out these great articles (and these are just two of the many great articles on the subject):
www dot infowars dot com/articles/sept11/pentagon_did_cheney_allow_or_order_911_plane_strike_pentagon.htm
www dot globalresearch dot ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8788
Did, Man, dig. Do keyword Google searches for things like, "Witness testimony about what Cheney did on 9/11", etc., and then read the articles that it takes you to, particularly articles by David Ray Griffin, other articles on InfoWars.com, those on PrisonPlanet.com, etc, those on other 9/11 Truth websites, other articles on GlobalResearch.ca, and so on. There's so much truth and excellent "arguments" online that it would blow your mind if you'd give it half a chance. But, very sadly and unfortunately, most people like yourself won't do it, and probably never will.
Establishment intellectuals
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 07:56 — Anonymous (not verified)Establishment intellectuals are the origin of our intellectual vacuum.
A large government establishment is essential to maintain this large and largely overpriced class in its standard of living and undue political influence. This bald self-interest has skewed their search for truth into a gathering of rationalizations for tyranny.
Wow, I so appreciate the
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 11:51 — Carla (not verified)Wow, I so appreciate the comments. I have had a long love/hate relationship with Hedges, even though I've never met him. The man is quite brilliant, but I sense a severe personality disorder as well. Still, I found this to be one of his better pieces.
For those complaining about the lack of any real information or investigative articles posted here (my all time favorite sight) on the improbable and unbelievable events of 9/11 - I hear ya. Thing is, 9 years ago, or even 5 years ago, this wouldn't even be allowed on the truthout forum. (does that mean progress?) That 9/11 was an inside job is obvious to so many of us, and yet we remain "required" to act as if we believe the "official" conspiracy.
Thanks S. Wolf Britain, for your contributions. I'm definitely paying attention, and there are many of us out here reading and writing that ARE paying attention.
Carla, thank God! (No, I'm
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 16:07 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Carla, thank God! (No, I'm serious, THANK GOD!) I was beginning to feel like few if any people understand what I'm talking about and agree with me, and/or whether I'm all alone here speaking truth to the thin air between the ears.
Please, you people who more less automatically believe everything, or almost everything, the lying government and their lying propaganda arm, the mainstream media, tell you, or who won't go and do some Google or other search engine searches for yourself and investigate these matters, get off your butts and go do it, and stop believing the fairy tale lies of the mainstream media and the government!
PLEASE, for God's sake, for your sake, for all of our sakes, for human right's sake, for civil liberty's sake, for the country's sake, for the Constitution's sake, and for the entire world's sake!
www dot infowars dot com/hell-is-for-children/
Thank you again, Carla! And I thank God for you and all those like you!
...And I don't mean people
Sat, 11/20/2010 - 19:44 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...And I don't mean people who appreciate me. I mean people who have woken up to, completely faced, and are vocal about 9/11 definitely having had to have been an inside job, as well as who stand up for a new, independent investigation of 9/11.
continued I hope readers
Mon, 11/22/2010 - 01:11 — Observer (not verified)continued
I hope readers here will take time to view the video and read the guardian article. Try suggesting this [what's in the youtube] in the U.S. regarding, for example, health care -- everyone cancel your health insurance policy -- it's simple! We would have them on their knees in a very short period of time. And everyone goes silent, except for an arrogant here or there who "accuses" you for suggesting such a terrible thing to them.
This man - IMO - Cantona - is thinking. (Though in our case it wouldn't make much of a difference to the banks because everything is gone instantly out of the bank anyway, every month. We are already doing this. The only thing keeping us off the street these days are credit cards.)
He is a good example of why the French have the best health care system in the world, excellent family leave and vacation time, social security, etc. Why they are not a society living in an intellectual vacuum as we are.
Lord have mercy, people . .
Tue, 11/23/2010 - 19:41 — Frances in California (not verified)Lord have mercy, people . . . Why is every Hedges article an excuse for someone to set S. Wolf Britain off without his meds? The string started out addressing the article and devolved - as usual. I'm still mad at Hedges myself (he might yet get back on my good list), but even I, irritated as I am, believe this Comments section should be populated by people who can STAY ON POINT. It's purely incidental that while I don't think 911 was in inside job, I believe it was a "backdoor guy" job involving the Pakistani ISI, but that's NOT the topic of the article. Guys, get a grip!
Dear God, Frances, you are
Wed, 11/24/2010 - 18:29 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Dear God, Frances, you are a(n) unmitigated, braindead idiot! The article is about the intellectual vacuum of the U.S. and so-called "Americans"; therefore, the real facts about 9/11 DIRECTLY RELATE(S) TO THAT! But you are such a "tool" and a "fool" that, of course, you can't see that! My God, what do we have to do, literally shake you and people like you by the shoulders before the complete Truth gets through to you?!
You realize the ISI involvement in 9/11, which is a branch of "al-CIA-duh(!)", so why don't you dig deeper and look at the "tons" of other very strong, even if much of it IS circumstantial, evidence that "al(l)-CIA-duh(!), the U.S. government and related parties had to have been directly involved in carrying out 9/11, instead of continuing to exercise your personal intellectual vacuum and show your continued, willful, general ignorance, particularly about 9/11...
...And, in addition, why
Wed, 11/24/2010 - 18:33 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...And, in addition, why don't you write some true response to the article yourself, that is concrete and with some detail, and which proves and/or shows that your so-called "intellect" and/or "intelligence"---which, according to your inference, is supposedly much better than everyone else's except those who agree with you---is at work, instead of writing NOTHING "on-point" but your typical criticisms, libel, slander, character assassinations, fraud, deceit, and other unlawful comments, etc., like your comments which illegally practice medicine, psychiatry and/or psychology without a license and diagnose so-called "mental illness" in other people such as myself...
...If you yourself take
Wed, 11/24/2010 - 18:34 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...If you yourself take psych meds, government mind-control drugs like antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication(s), anti-psychotics and/or something similar (all of which I take NONE of)---which I'm pretty sure that YOU do---please take YOUR meds and get off your high-horse. Obviously, it is YOU who need(s) to "get a grip" on completely facing reality, the total truth about 9/11, and the intellectual vacuum of the U.S. and so-called "Americans" such as yourself, and then write comments which are truly on-point and address the article(s), and stop your completely unfounded and/or illegal accusations and criticisms, etc., of other people which barely if at all address the article(s)...
...In short, Gal, get a
Wed, 11/24/2010 - 18:35 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...In short, Gal, get a (real) life (instead of continuing to inflict us with your mindless-drone, unrighteously-judgmental, almost-nothing-but-criticism---and completely illegal criticism at that---ostensible, so-called "life" which is just about as braindead and non-intellectual as they come, and can come)! Really Frances, in other words, please stop being an apparently unconscionable and irredeemable idiot!
Tue, 11/16/2010 - 00:34 —
Wed, 12/01/2010 - 09:26 — Anony Mouse (not verified)Tue, 11/16/2010 - 00:34 — pabelmont (not verified)
"Someone (we all) should make a list of topics that have been excluded from general public discourse by "political correctness", "fear of black-list", "taboos", etc."
1) The global warming scam.