Take 2. The reaction of one our managers when I told him that he cannot buy and ship a high end US-made server to Iran, because of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Who do the Americans think they are? They have no right dictating terms to us! Korea should become a powerful nation, more powerful than the US. Then, we can dictate terms to the Americans!
Whatever, dude.
72 Comments
I wonder if the manager will be voting Kwon Yeong-gil of DLP for president, who said the following in the third last paragraph of his candidacy acceptance speech:
I’ll become a president that makes USA shiver like Chaves of Venezuela does.
They really are like teenagers in so many ways, aren’t they?
Koreans are quite the comedians.
Korea will become a power nation once China decides to add them to the “One China Policy”
Freedom of speech far outweighs freedom of thought. At least you know where he stands… corrected by truth. I wonder what he said, after realizing the cost of overseas long distance rates… that is, unless he has a single button “RED PHONE”.
I bumped into Kwon Young-ghil on the street once, during the 2002 candlelight vigils. Gotta say, in person he looks even more deserving of a punch in the mouth than he does in the papers. But with his mob of 20,000 assembled I thought better of it lest I be stomped to death after making my rhetorical point.
I hope he wins the election.
Korea should become more powerful than the US? What kind of logic is that? I think the guy is just putting on a show. “Look at me, I love Korea.”
Sounds like the nationalist’s equivalent of penis-envy.
Best laugh I’ve had today!
I assume said sanctions are actually UN and not US. Or is some server module (drive encryption for example) considered illegal to export from the US?
Well, nobody likes a bully. I like that chap’s attitude. It won’t ever happen, but I certainly would enjoy watching Washington kiss Korean ass.
However, he’s wrong to assume America’s that powerful anyways. Americans lost control of their government decades ago. The last two elections were frauds (as the BBC exposed). Washington’s been co-opted by international banks, TNC’s, and the energy sector.
Um…ok mins, but can you post something more relevant or interesting than the chit chat you have with Mr. Nobody? Just asking because for all I know, this buddy of yours could be some madman who sells soju watered down with Budweiser (cheaper than piss I’m told) in his spare time.
If not, here is another invisible man post you can make; I have a “co-worker” who told me that Kim Jong-Il is way hotter than Bill Clinton and should/can romance up Hillary, just to show Americans how North Korean men are studs. I was just, you know, all like, whatever dude.
I also hope my post doesn’t *mysteriously* get deleted like the other one I made in your other post.
Why doesn’t the company you work for just ship the server to Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkmenistan, etc and just drive/fly it across the border like every other company skirting sanctions? Get with the program dude!
That was funny. Korea becoming more powerful than the US? Take another hit off the crack pipe buddy! Korea someday becoming more powerful than Iran is maybe possible.
“…he’s wrong to assume America’s that powerful anyways. Americans lost control of their government decades ago. The last two elections were frauds (as the BBC exposed). Washington’s been co-opted by international banks, TNC’s, and the energy sector…”.
TNC = ?
transnational corporation
Television Nishinippon, a television company in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan
terminal node controller
The Nature Conservancy
The New Criterion
As a co-opted brainless Yank, you’ve got to spell it out for me.
I do know what the BBC is, though — I try to catch their 1/2 hour show on PBS (for co-opted Americans) every weekday night, here in the USA. You’d think that by now that would have inoculated me against “co-option”, but no … I still think guys like you are full of it.
I do kind of agree with 12 on the matter of relevance. A man in the pub back in my own native land told me all Aboriginals should be gassed one time. That is hardly news.
#12.
I don’t recall your comment to my previous post being “mysteriously” deleted. It looks like you’re confusing someone else’s post to mine.
To tell you the truth, I had doubts about putting up this post. But I decided what the heck, let’s have some laughs and posted it. And it seems some people had a good laugh about it. If you don’t like it fine. There is no law that says you have to read and comment every post I put up. All you have to do is move on. What’s so hard about that?
#13.
chiamattt, you’re not doing your homework, because Dubai is a more reliable transfer point for a “company skirting sanctions” than the countries you’ve mentioned. It’s common knowledge that a lot of the “trading companies” there are shell companies that the Iranian government uses for the purpose of “skirting sanctions”.
To tell you the truth, I don’t know why the guy asked me the stupid question in the first place. Because the answer is obvious and if he hadn’t asked that question then arthjourneyman wouldn’t be complaining about my post and we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Of course considering the guy’s response to my response, one can conclude that his mental capacity is a bit limited.
Mins: I enjoyed a hearty morning chuckle. Keep up the good work.
TNC = ?
transnational corporation
“I still think guys like you are full of it.”
Guys like me:
“The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise their power from behind the scenes.”– Justice Felix Frankfurter, U.S. Supreme Court
“We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the world - no longer a Government of free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men.” — Woodrow Wilson
“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
Ha! A very good citation of selective quotes from “scripture”, you little devil.
From your earlier #11 “….Americans lost control of their government decades ago….”
Your Woodrow Wilson quote is evidently from a campaign speech of his, during his first campaign for President — in, uh, 1912.
http://www.woodrowwilson.org/l....._id=472697
That’s certainly “decades” alright — about 95 years ago. Current US Constitutional government under the Constitution began March 4 1789 — approx 218 years ago.
95/218 = approx 44%. So I guess it’s your contention that for at least that percentage of the US govt’s existence, it’s been under the control of a sinister cabal (?)
Tell us — in your expert opinion — at just exactly what point in history did good average non-corporate Americans lose control of their government?
BTW — fill us in on your own citizenship and current country of residence too, will you? Full disclosure and all that — I’m sure you understand. With all the sinister machinations going on behind the curtain these days, an innocent blog commenter can’t be too careful.
The rich and/or powerful have always controlled societies. This isn’t new news you are spewing forth cinemagauche. It has always been that way.
Yes, at the 1787 US Constitutional Convention, they were all socially prominent white males (many rich landowners and merchants) weren’t they? Thomas Paine was conspicuous by his absence.
Maybe that’s when the “TNC’s” first took control; perhaps we should instead be looking to the sans-cullottes of 1792, and the dictatorship of the proletariat of 1917-22 (Russia) and 1945-49 (China) as our preferred models.
“It won’t ever happen, but I certainly would enjoy watching Washington kiss Korean ass.”
Where have you been? They’ve been doing it for years, providing security on the cheap while Korean politicians and leftists continually gripe about how they are getting screwed by the Americans.
Backtrack, I made no claim it was ‘new’ news, as the historical quotes would seem to indicate. I’m more interested in the extent of that control. You might want to direct your remarks to Paul H. who seems genuinely taken aback by the notion of elites having the run of things.
As to Paul H’s concerns, control by the people was lost by degrees, but certainly the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was a major blow to democracy. Putting control of the money supply into the hands of private interests was a major disaster. Indeed, as Milton Friedman has argued, the new Fed was the cause of the Depression. And today with the dollar at historical lows and plunging, you can see their signature handywork.
Something’s going to have to be done before all the cheap labor sources up-class.We may not see it in our lives,but the middle class will go away.
Actually, what always takes me genuinely aback is mindless recitation of various disparate events in the cause of reflexive anti-Americanism. But –I suppose cynical “realism” about America is the intellectual fashion of the times.
Do you feel any sort of obligation to be at least somewhat intellectually consistent in your sweeping assertions? The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by your hero Woodrow Wilson, and was in contrast to a previous Republican proposal, the “Aldrich plan”.
“…In the election of 1912, the populist leaning Democratic Party won control of the White House and both chambers of Congress and that year’s party platform stated strong opposition ‘to the so called Aldrich bill for the establishment of a central bank.’ However, the platform also called for a systematic revision of banking laws in ways that would provide relief from financial panics, unemployment, and business depression and protect the public from the ‘domination by what is known as the Money Trust.’”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Act
I guess your three quotes (Wilson, Frankfurter, and FDR) are cited because all three are seen as liberal internationalists, ones who were so in a manner that was at least somewhat ahead of the normal context of their times. However, one finds it difficult to imagine that any of them would have countenanced your own blatant anti-America views in their own time (”I would certainly enjoy seeing Washington kiss… ass…”).
You think maybe they used to sit around with a drink after hours and recite that sort of thing with their boon companions? Or something similar to the quotes of these Koreans, the ones who are work colleagues of mins?
Any more than I’m guessing that you would countenance some of their views, if you were transported back to their times. Wilson was a profoundly strict segregationist; FDR signed the poltically expedient executive order confining the Japanese-Americans; and Frankfurter was more often than not a strict constructionist as to interpreting the Constitution.
(”….Frankfurter became the court’s most outspoken advocate of judicial restraint, the view that courts should not interpret the fundamental law, the constitution, in such a way as to impose sharp limits upon the authority of the legislative and executive branches. In this philosophy, Frankfurter was heavily influenced by his close friend and mentor Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who had taken a firm stand during his tenure on the bench against the doctrine of ‘economic due process’….. Later in his[Frankfurter's] career, this philosophy frequently put him on the dissenting side of ground-breaking decisions of the Warren court….”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Frankfurter)
I see you’re not interested in relating your own citizenship; can’t say I’m surprised by that either.
Surely we can get beyond childish name-calling. in less fascist societies, terms like “anti-american” wouldn’t get much air time. If someone critical of the Italian government were called anti-Italian, the whole country would break out laughing.
Yes, Wilson signed the Reserve Act and this is what he said of it afterwards:
“”I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial Nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the Nation and all our activities are in the hands of a few men.” (W. Wilson, near the end of his term)
Just because I quoted them doesn’t mean I support them and they are certainly not my heroes. I am simply in agreement with them in certain respects.
“We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks, hereinafter called the FED. They are not government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers.” –Louis McFadden (Chairman of the United States House Committee on Banking and Currency 1921-32)
I see no apparent reason in relating my nationality or present location. It would only feed generalizations based on discriminatory notions, something I’m sure we both abhor.
“…Surely we can get beyond childish name-calling. in less fascist societies, terms like “anti-american” wouldn’t get much air time…”
A most elegant, if obvious, way to express your contempt — I guess you don’t really abhor “name-calling” quite as much as you pretend.
Well, I can draw my own conclusions as to your nationality (as well as your willingness to be forthright — after all I didn’t ask for your name and address, just citizenship and current country of residence).
I think that eventually Americans are going to get tired of this sort of thing. In the meantime, I guess it really doesn’t matter what you think of us, as long as you aren’t willing to do anything substantial about it (other than some petty sneering at our institutions). Believe me, your contempt is reciprocated — some of us take the trouble to note the expressed disdain of our “allies”, and aren’t quite as willing to “let it slide” as President Bush is.
You shouldn’t mistake his complacent reaction to insults for that of many of the rest of us. But what the hell, enjoy your moment.
Stop pretending that you represent Americans or the American view. Your effort to make this an “us” versus “them” issue is vain and immature. Plenty of Americans share my view.
Take this for example. A Scripps Howard News Service/Ohio University poll taken from July 6 to 24, 2006 concluded that “more than a third [36 percent] of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them, so that the United States could go to war in the Middle East.”
By your way of thinking, over a third of Americans are ‘anti-American.’ Give me a break.
Calling America fascist is tiresome. Give us a break. And if a third actually believes that the US government had a hand in it, then God help America. The propagandists are gaining ground in feeding their crap and people are believing it. Anyone who believes that conspiracy theory is a fool.
cinemgauche - I can agree that Bush certainly took advantage of 911 to push an aggressive agenda in the Middle East. And, yes, countries in the past have used fake attacks as an excuse to invade others - like the Japanese Mukden incident before invading China, and the US may have had a hand in blowing up the Maine in Havana harbor prior to the Spanish-American War. But, where’s the evidence? And, we know Bush was after Iraq, not Afghanistan. Why then would he manufacture an attack by El Quada? There should have been Iraqis on the plane, not Saudis. The plot involved over 20 attackers, several airplanes, it would have been quite a difficult conspiracy to keep quiet — I don’t buy it.
The conspiracy theories that claim that Bush or other people in government had a hand in it are beyond rationality. The immense risks involved in being discovered far outweigh any supposed gains from such an action. No sane person would take such risks.
Just imagine if Bush engineered or had a hand in the attack and he was found out. Not only would he be removed from the presidency, by his name and that of the Bush family would be mud in American history. They would be completely ruined and his family would be despised and reviled. He would also likely be killed long before he could even come to trial or even possibly strung up by irate mobs. Not to mention that America itself would be completely devastated by such a scenario. Who would rationally take such risks? No matter how much one may be blined by hatred for Bush, it is beyond belief that he would take such risks.
If one applies basic logic and rationality to most conspiracy theories, then it is easy to see that most of them are truly irrational, even nonsensical. In this case, it makes no rational sense for anyone in the US government to be involved, because the risks are so huge in failure that only a complete nut would take on such risks.
“Stop pretending that you represent Americans or the American view. Your effort to make this an “us” versus “them” issue is vain and immature. Plenty of Americans share my view….”
Yes, you’re right — there are quite a few of my fellow Americans who (like you) enjoy indulging in this same type of preening moral posturing.
Foreigners watch and listen to our internal political debates incredibly closely. But — my observation is that it seldom occurs to them to profit from the example — by turning a similarly self-critical eye upon themselves. Instead, they watch amazed, and then feel free to jump right in and help tell us what they think is wrong with ourselves.
Well, if y’all really thought we are “fascists”, I reckon you would get busy and do something substantial about it (order us out of your countries, close our bases, build up your own militaries). You don’t, which is why it’s nothing more than weak maliciousness on your part.
The announced posture of such as you does give heart and renewed strength to our enemies, though. Which is why I hope for a President McCain, or Giuliani — we need somebody who (like in Lieberman’s speech the other day) is articulate and is also willing to play “hardball” with our weak allies.
That’s why I check in at this website — the ROK is the perfect candidate location to start, and this website has a “cosmopolitan” clientele. But it shouldn’t stop there.
As for you — you’d better hope for a President Hillary Clinton and her proposed post-inaugural “apology” tour; maybe she (or her husband) will make your country one of many stops. When it comes time to count the electoral votes next year, though, I can’t really believe that 271 electoral votes worth of my fellow Americans will go along with such proposed obsequiousness. But — we’ll see.
“Anyone who believes that conspiracy theory is a fool.” (snow)
Name-calling seems to be the preferred form of debate here. The official conspiracy theory — that 19 mainly Saudi hijackers brought about the events of 9/11 — is itself untenable, unproven, and at bottom simply impossible. What actual proof is there apart from the administration’s word for it? 6 or 7 of the supposed hijackers were still alive after 9/11 as reported in the BBC and elsewhere.
Anyways, here is a brief sample of the “fools” who dismiss the official version, “fools” who, by the way, are far more credible, experienced, and positioned to understand the State and its deeper operations than, I assume, you would be:
Paul Craig Roberts - aka “Father of Reaganomics”, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan, former Editor of Wall St Journal.
“I will begin by stating what we know to be a solid incontrovertible scientific fact. We know that it is strictly impossible for any building, much less steel columned buildings, to “pancake” at free fall speed. Therefore, it is a non-controversial fact that the official explanation of the collapse of the WTC buildings is false…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Craig_Roberts
Lt. Col. Robert Bowman - Director of the US ‘Star Wars’ Space Defense Program
“If our government had merely [done] nothing, and I say that as an old interceptor pilot — I know the drill, I know what it takes, I know how long it takes, I know what the procedures are, I know what they were, and I know what they’ve changed them to — if our government had merely done nothing, and allowed normal procedures to happen on that morning of 9/11, the Twin Towers would still be standing and thousands of dead Americans would still be alive. That is treason!”
http://www.prisonplanet.com/ar.....uspect.htm
20+ year CIA veterans: William Bill Christison and Robert Baer.
“All three [buildings that were destroyed in the World Trade Center] were most probably destroyed by controlled demolition charges placed in the buildings before 9/11.”
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/.....ison14.htm
Dr. Lynn Margulis — World-renowned scientist, recipient of the National Medal of Science, America’s highest honor for scientific achievement. She is Professor at U of Massachusetts.
“I suggest that those of us aware and concerned demand that the glaringly erroneous official account of 9/11 be dismissed as a fraud and a new, thorough, and impartial investigation be undertaken.”
http://www.opednews.com/articl.....my_of_.htm
I could go on…
(snow): “If one applies basic logic and rationality to most conspiracy theories, then it is easy to see that most of them are truly irrational, even nonsensical.”
Apply that to the official theory and you’d be right. The reason Bush, Cheney and other conspirators were insane enough to take such a risk is that they have a monopoly on the consensus view. The State and Corporate media are one. As Karl Rove said, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” And as former CIA Director William Colby put it: “The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.”
How did the Marmot’s Hole get linked to the teenage tin-foil hat network?
Cinema lefty, what would you consider to be a non-fascist country? And I still stand by my statement that it is irrational for Bush to have had a hand in 9/11. These tin hat types are peddling bullshit. Face it, it would be irrational for Bush to have done such a thing. If he got caught, he and his family would be finished and no rational person would take such a risk.
“The State and Corporate media are one.”
Blah, blah, blah, whatever. Again, more crap. Who have you been reading, Chomsky it sounds like? Give us a break, please. The media in the US has never been more diverse with the internet providing a huge open market of viewpoints (I get almost all my news from the net). And as far as your quotes by Rove and the CIA? You don’t believe a word they say normally, but you believe them when they make such idiotic claims? Rove’s statement is a mere rhetorical claim that many would dispute and Colby’s are ridiculous. Is he claiming that Rupert Murdoch is in the pocket of the CIA, the NYT, all the internet media? Murdoch is his own man, definitely and the others pawns of the CIA? Laughable. You would rather believe the ravings of nuts like Chomsky than what is obvious. Sometimes the rational explanation of events, whatever they may be, make the most sense over the convoluted, twisted and bizarre. I prefer to see things as they are (and of course, government often spins things for their own ends-not the same as a conspiracy), not try to find some evil dangerous secrets hidden in any and every act of the US government (and my libertarian side does not much like governments).
Snow, you are displaying symptoms of lunacy.
“These tin hat types are peddling bullshit. ”
Your stream of meaningless drivel fails to show how these esteemed, patriotic US citizens are ‘peddling bullshit’. Their background posits an opinion more informed than your own will ever be. Address the points they make if you wish to negate them.
Your argument that they wouldn’t dare do it, so ipso facto they couldn’t, is unscientific, based entirely on your own speculations of human nature and insists that power elites are confined to think only in rational ways. The opposite, historically speaking, has been the case. Furthermore, your remarks have no bearing on the actual events of the day which we know for a fact could not have been achieved by Arab hijackers with box-cutters.
Box-cutters as far as I know do not suspend basic physical laws like the Law of Conservation of Momentum. The towers fell at the same speed as a bowling ball dropped from the roof of the tower into free space would have fallen. This is a physical impossibility. Therefore, we know for a fact that timed explosives were used to bring down the towers.
As of October 2007 NIST concludes, “We are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse.”
Your view dismisses the hundreds of eyewitness who heard and witnessed bombs going off at the WTC on 9/11. Not to mention mainstream coverage — live on the day — of the explosions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n-nT-luFIw
Seriously, what drew this guy to the Marmot’s Hole?
slim and Carr, I’m not sure exactly what you mean. while this thread has certainly gone off topic, it was not I that turned this into a 9/11 debate.
however, if you don’t agree with what I said, rebutt it intelligently as I’m sure you are capable of doing. why make these ad hominem insinuations? they’re rather lame and self-degrading.
As far as lame and self-degrading is concerned, you’re doing fine on your own.
I shouldn’t bother discussing conspiracy theories with a conspiracy theory true believer. I will say it again, it is not rational for Bush to do this. Get over your blind hatred of Bush and realize that he is not nuts. You say that governments don’t always act rationally. When was the last time you heard of a democratic government implementing an incredibly (impossibly?)complex conspiracy to kill many of its own citizens, and for what gain? Such a conspiracy would be pretty much impossible to carry out without someone spilling the beans and with plenty of risk in terms of the rewards, it just does not make sense!! The risks to those doing it would be so incredibly high that only a nut would try and he would be discovered easily in a democracy with a wide open internet.
Why is it so hard to believe that Islamic terrorists pulled this off? After all, they have long stated their hatred of the US and their intentions to strike at the Great Satan. Why do you types hate Bush, the US government, big corporations, capitalism, etc., etc., so much that you can’t accept that rational explanations may make far more sense than the irrational, twisted, convoluted, illogical that most conspiracy theories in fact are? Similary, a JFK conspiracy theorist became a staunch supporter of the lone gun theory after examining the evidence in minute detail. He said that not a shred of evidence of a conspiracy has appeared in over 40 years and he found that most of the evidence dredged up by the theorists was dubious or misinterpreted to suit the ends of the conspiracy theorists. I believe the same will be true for the 9/11 conspiracy theories. And I again ask, what countries would you call non-fascist?
All countries are to a certain degree fascist. It is not a question of whether governments are fascist or not, but to what degree.
I don’t have a blind hatred of Bush. I have an informed dislike of his actions.
“Such a conspiracy would be pretty much impossible to carry out without someone spilling the beans.”
Instead of speculating on whether someone would spill the beans or not, look at the overwhelming evidence. In any case, if you work for a company and witness criminal activity, you can blow the whistle and contact the authorities. This is not so easily achieved when the company you work for is the authorities.
“Why is it so hard to believe that Islamic terrorists pulled this off?”
If you are asking for my faith, sorry, I prefer to convict on evidence. I do not think Islamic terrorists had, for one, the ability or access to wire three skyscrapers with demolition charges. But it is quite obvious, snow, that you are going on faith, and have little understanding of what it takes to bring down 3 steel skyscrapers and put a hole in the Pentagon.
Regarding JFK you say, “not a shred of evidence of a conspiracy has appeared in over 40 years”
Uh… ever heard of the House Assassinations Committee findings 28 years ago that there was a shot from the grassy knoll, meaning the assassination was a conspiracy. Or the Assassination Records Review Board of 1998 which concluded that investigators faked autopsy photos and that there was a cover-up? Back and to the left, dude. Its in plain sight on the Zapruder film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11Fl9ZVJ7B8
“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” (JFK)
Cinemagauche - Answer this one then. If the Bush team contrived the plot, why didn’t they choose to make up an Iraqi terrorist team? They could put anyone on the team they liked after all. Bush doesn’t care about Afghanistan, he was after Iraq. So then, why not a plan targeting Iraq? He could have at least put half a dozen Iraqis on the team.
According to you, the Bush plan would be to manufacture an attack by Saudi terrorists to get a US counterattack — against Iraq?
cinemagauche,
Don’t waste your time trying to convince neo-cons. They’re so heavily indoctrinated they’ve become incapable of critical thinking. The Patriot Acts, the Military Commissions Act, Downing Street Memo, legalization of torture, Halliburton and Blackwater corruption and psychopathy, declassified evidence of terror (in Iran, Guatemala, Italy, etc)can all be rationalized, if not ignored.
Criticism of the U.S. government is equated with “anti-Americanism”. The same guys slamming you regularily criticize Noh and and Korean government policies, but they’re certainly not “anti-Korean”, are they?
Anyone who reads the policy papers of the CFR or books by their members (Kissinger, Brzezinski, Carroll Quigley’s ‘Tragedy and Hope’)will know that there is an admitted oligarchy that tries (and to a great extent, does) run the show, and they are neither left or right wing. They are as comfortable working through communist systems as they are fascist, just so long as it’s authoritarian and they have the authority.
As far as conspiracy theories go, a reasonable person looking into the Kennedy assassinations and 9-11 would have to at least admit the official stories have numerous, serious factual errors, but neo-cons aren’t reasonable, they are radical statist fanatics. And don’t think Chomsky has the answers either, he’s an ideological gatekeeper too.
So say what you want to say, and leave the neo-cons to their frothing. As things get worse and worse, some will wake up. The others will find gainful employment as FEMA camp guards.
“Don’t waste your time trying to convince neo-cons. They’re so heavily indoctrinated they’ve become incapable of critical thinking.”
Wow, another leftist jumps in with the usual tirade against us evil neo-cons. Of course, leftists are never heavily indoctrinated. As one of those evil neo-cons (and libertarian), I look at government, corporations, capitalism, etc., with an open and reasoned perspective. I don’t much like government, yet I don’t believe it’s the evil institution that so many make it out to be. It is merely a bureaucratic, usually bloated, inefficient operation. Some people in government may be crooks, but for the most part, government is a large and lumbering institution, not some instrument of evil (except perhaps in truly fascist countries). Also, I don’t instinctively hate big corporations or capitalism as you nuts on the left do. I know how capitalism and business works and for the most part, they are merely looking to make a profit. Aiming to control the world is a little out of the scope of most corporate mandates. Same with Bush. I don’t believe everything he says, but am at least willing to believe that he does what he does from a rational standpoint. He may be mistaken, but he is not part of some evil, nasty conspiracy that will kill thousands of Americans to further some horrible, twisted neo-con agenda. Anybody who believes otherwise is beholden to their own bizarre ideology.
As far as conspiracy theories are concerned, I just use common sense and logic. It is not logical nor rational to assume that Bush had a hand in 9/11. I’m not saying don’t be sceptical or don’t look for alternatives to the official line (government is never fully trustworthy), but to blow minor discrepancies up into full-blown conspiracy theories is ludicrous. But then again, it’s par for the course for the left, which is expert at lies, exaggerations and distortions because of their irrational hatred of Bush and capitalism, big corporations, etc.
I certainly don’t believe everything a government tells me, but nuts who expand a few negatives into a complete indictment of America and its government are way off the deep end.I prefer to believe that there are rational explanations for occurences in the world rather than bizarre, freaky, UNBELIEVABLY RISKY, irrational versions. How difficult is it to realize how unbelievably risky such a conspiracy would be? Use some common sense.
“If the Bush team contrived the plot, why didn’t they choose to make up an Iraqi terrorist team? They could put anyone on the team they liked after all. Bush doesn’t care about Afghanistan, he was after Iraq. So then, why not a plan targeting Iraq? ”
thanks dokdoforever, for your polite and quite reasonable response. The reason the Bush team prefer an Al Qaida (actually Al CIA-da) enemy to any specific threat from one country (such as Iraqi terrorists) is that they can carry on the War on Terror indefinitely. It can be used as a pretext for all kinds of interventions, and in manufacturing such an ambiguous enemy, you can never really defeat them nor would you want to.
They took Afghanistan first because, for one, war - any war -is always profitable to the defence industry and financial creditors who work Washington. And Afghanistan would be an easy war, a stepping stone to a bigger one. They also wanted to monopolize construction and use of the trans-Afghanistan pipeline that was in the planning, accessing the wealth of oil and natural gas in central Asia. And as the BBC reported, they had drawn up plans to attack Afghanistan even before the 9/11 attacks. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1550366.stm)
elvislovechild, you may be right, but I still had hope some remnant of reason was left in their reactionary brains.
While I’m not a fan of Chomsky, I think some of his analyses have merit, though, yes, he is a gatekeeper (for what I can only surmise are tactical reasons).
“How difficult is it to realize how unbelievably risky such a conspiracy would be? Use some common sense.”
I doubt they worried too much over getting caught. In fact it might have been somewhat desirable, causing chaos in the country, polarization and civil unrest, which could then be quashed by martial law and the institution of totalitarian rule. In fact, as the BBC revealed this year, George Bush’s grandfather Prescott Bush had been part of a conspiracy to do exactly that - overthrow FDR and install a fascist dictatorship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
The History Channel did a special on it:
http://video.google.com/videop.....&hl=en
“I doubt they worried too much over getting caught. In fact it might have been somewhat desirable, causing chaos in the country, polarization and civil unrest, which could then be quashed by martial law and the institution of totalitarian rule.”
Sorry, cinemagauche, I’m afraid I will not be joining the tin hat brigade. I’ll admit it is an interesting, though totally nutty theory (believe it or don’t, I have checked out some of the supposed evidence for a conspiracy and found it dubious at best-especially when theorists claim that it means a conspiracy, a total leap in logic). I just hope not too many people are taken in by such ludicrous claims. And since you think most countries are fascist, I suspect you must be somewhat of a utopian. I don’t know how much of this you are getting from Chomsky, but utopians such as Chomsky running a country? Now that is a really scary thought.
cineamagauche, you are indeed an admirable researcher (there are not enough around here), and you have obvious skill with developing your arguments.
But, man, you come up with some really weird conclusions. I mean, like, weeee-eird. IMO.
Anyway, if my opinion as a dispassionate audience member counts for anything, briefer is better.
“How difficult is it to realize how unbelievably risky such a conspiracy would be? Use some common sense.”
You should read some history, Jack. They HAVE gotten away with it, without exception. The sinking of the Maine, the multiple assassinations, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Gladio, Tuskeegee and various other biological/radiological tests, MK ULTRA and on and on on. The U.S.is hardly is the only government in history to pull this kind of crap and get away with it, but for the last 100 years or so, they’ve been the major player. Who exactly has been punished for these various documented and admitted atrocities?
The thing about 9-11 that makes me extremely suspicious of there being an element of “inside job” (and nobody says the entire government is complicit) is the NORAD stand down. My uncle is a retired air force officer who served with NORAD, and he says there’s no way 4 planes could have evaded the multi-layered U.S. surveillance and air defenses, concurrent drills or not.
I love how you keep catagorizing me as a leftist, snow. I’ve been a Ron Paul supporter since before it was cool.
You can choose to believe that the Bush administration couldn’t possibly be complicit in a scheme to kill Americans, but there’s two unjustified wars with body counts into the hundreds of thousands, including many Americans, that indicate you may be completely wrong.
“You can choose to believe that the Bush administration couldn’t possibly be complicit in a scheme to kill Americans, but there’s two unjustified wars with body counts into the hundreds of thousands, including many Americans, that indicate you may be completely wrong.”
How does involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan prove there was a conspiracy on 9/11? And explain to me what would happen to Bush if it were ever discovered that he was involved in 9/11. This isn’t 1900, it’s the age of the internet. Such a conspiracy couldn’t remain hidden for long, after all, this administration can’t seem to stop leaks all over the place. It just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever that Bush had a hand in 9/11. Why would he need to kill thousands of Americans to invade Iraq? There are much easier ways of doing it than concocting some wild and impossible conspiracy. And I know plenty of history and none of those incidents you mention would compare to 9/11 in terms of devastation to the American psyche, not to mention Bush’s presidency, family and legacy. It would be insane for Bush to go along with or concoct such a conspiracy.
Why can’t you anti-Bush types just criticize Bush on real events? It seems there is plenty of fodder there for that. Why concoct some nutty stories that merely serve to deflect from legitimate criticism?
” I don’t know how much of this you are getting from Chomsky, but utopians such as Chomsky running a country? Now that is a really scary thought.”
I’m not getting any of this from Chomsky nor do I adhere to Chomsky’s Marxist-structuralist view of politics. In fact, like elvislovechild I support republican candidate Ron Paul.
“Why would he need to kill thousands of Americans to invade Iraq?”
You need look no further than Rebuilding America’s Defenses the 2000 PNAC document (Project for a New American Century) developed by Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Libby, in which they say quite openly that what is needed to cow Americans into an expansive military policy is a “catalyzing event — a new Pearl Harbor”.
” It would be insane for Bush to go along with or concoct such a conspiracy.”
Bush is insane. He has been recently threatening WWIII. But snow, your ‘logic’ is based on the false premise that people do not commit murder if they know the risks and punishment are too great. Talk to any homocide detective and they’ll tell you different.
If their was no government and intelligence involvement, how do you account for the following?:
1.) the stand-down of NORAD and the Pentagon’s automated air-defence.
2.) The collapse of 3 steel skyscrapers by explosions as witnessed by hundreds on the day. In fact, WTC7 was not even hit by a plane, yet collapsed after 5pm that day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n-nT-luFIw
3.) The Pentagon was not hit by a 757. No wreckage indicative of such a collision. An impact hole the size of a missile, but nowhere near the size of a 757. No wing impact.
No lawn damage. No photos or video of the attack, the Pentagon being the most secure and camera’d building on the planet.
http://www.pentagonstrike.co.uk/flash.htm
4.) The evaporation of flight 93, which apparently crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. No fussilage, nothing bigger than scraps the size of phone books over a staggering distance.
see video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZekosYOmXc
5.) the whistle-blowers:
http://video.google.com/videop.....&hl=en
Seriously, is anyone here aware of the id “cinemagauche” posting on the Marmot’s Hole before today? How did we get this guy? Nigel, go home!
Brendon, what’s your beef? I was having a conversation with snow. If you’ve nothing meaningful to contribute, take a hike, dumb ass.
“First thing we do is kill all the lawyers.” (Shakespeare)
See? Briefer IS better.
My beef is this is tedious, insane bullshit. Seriously.
What is bullshit, Brendon? And why make claims about what I know and don’t know, since you’ve never even met me? Are you then an expert on these matters ? - because you obviously have convictions of your own.
Are you selectively illiterate? The ‘kooks’ I have cited are experts in their fields, know what they are talking about, and don’t hide behind pseudonyms. They publish in peer-reviewed journals, such as http://www.journalof911studies.com/ If that’s not credible enough, I suggest you read a University of California published book, The Road to 9/11 by professor emeritus Peter Dale Scott.
Frankly I find your knee-jerk, conditioned responses tedious and insane - a wall goes up - and you resort to name-calling. Since you can’t address the points I’ve made with your gaping ignorance, you regurgitate terms like ‘kook’.
Why is Dr. Lynn Margulis, recipient of the National Medal of Science, America’s highest honor for scientific achievement, a kook? Why is Paul Craig Roberts, father of Reaganomics and former editor of the Wall St. Journal, a kook?
Why don’t you just admit your out of your depths and leave this thread alone if you’ve nothing intelligent to say.
We have a Truther in the house! Cinema, you might want to check this site for a complete debunking of the tinfoil hat brigade’s fantasies:
http://www.popularmechanics.co.....27842.html
Cinemagauche is not alone. 36%`of Americans believe that people in the US government either aided or allowed the attacks to happen. One reason why so many people believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories is that there remain unexplained discrepancies between the government’s accounting of events and available evidence. I do not believe that any high ranking officials in the US government purposefully aided or abetted the hijackers although they may have had some inside help. I do believe the government has not been honest about how its actions before and during the events on that day.
I’ve read (the Hearst owned) Popular Mechanics article - it’s not very academic. A hefty chunk of its advertising revenue relies on military and defense contractors. The article promotes fairytale ‘pancaking’ theories for the towers which even NIST later dismissed as invalid. A full laying waste of the PM hit-piece can be read in David Ray Griffin’s Debunking 9/11 Debunking, available at: http://www.amazon.com/Debunkin.....156656686X
Sonagi, discrepancies in the official story do not logically lead to a conclusion of conspiracy. There may be perfectly sound reasons for any discrepancies (as in the Leonard Peltier case), but it is a major leap of logic to then claim a conspiracy without a shred of evidence of one. As with JFK, there is not one shred of evidence of a conspiracy after more than 40 years (there may be some seeming loose ends, but no evidence of an actual conspiracy). Seeming discrepancies and supposedly contrary evidence do not logically lead one to conclude a conspiracy. To conclude a conspiracy, one has to have evidence of one and I have not seen anything at all convincing of that.
Why should the government be forthcoming in debunking all of the discrepancies? It would be nice if they would do it, but politically it may make more sense to say nothing, because addressing discrepancies could give legitimacy to extremist nuts. There may be very legitimate (rational) reasons why a government does anything (in almost all cases in a democracy this is true, as much as I may hate such actions), but why do some jump to the most extreme conclusions at the drop of a hat?
“Bush is insane. He has been recently threatening WWIII. But snow, your ‘logic’ is based on the false premise that people do not commit murder if they know the risks and punishment are too great. Talk to any homocide detective and they’ll tell you different.”
Ouch, you guys are too much. Bush is not insane, a Hitler, a moron or whatever adjective you want to pull out of your butt to describe him. Geez, I feel sorry for Ron Paul if his supporters include lots of conspiracy theorists. What Americans don’t want are extremists in office. It doesn’t help Paul’s campaign to be surrounded by extremists. I like alot about Ron Paul (and admired and was inspired by Harry Browne), though I suspect that Paul’s foreign policy ideas are naive and totally unsuited to the realities of world geopolitics.
Here’s an interesting website that neatly debunks the conspiracy theories, and the writer of the site is certainly no Bush lover.
http://www.debunking911.com/
Sorry for not doing the link right, I don’t know how to do it properly.
snow, if you think 19 muslims did it, you are a “conspiracy theorist”. Do you understand what the term means? When you have more than one person involved in a planned criminal activity, it is called a “conspiracy.” Your conspiracy theory is lacking in evidence.
Ron Paul has said he sees the need for setting up a new independent investigative body to look into 9/11. I applaud him.
“America is a quarter of a billion people totally misinformed and disinformed by their government. This is tragic but our media is — I wouldn’t even say corrupt — it’s just beyond telling us anything that the government doesn’t want us to know.” Gore Vidal
“Your conspiracy theory is lacking in evidence.”
Who do the conspiracy theorists claim were on those planes? Oh, I forgot, some theorists claim there were no real planes, only missiles and fake airliners. Please, cinemagauche, give it a rest. The conspiracy theories on 9/11 are hopelessly ridiculous. You are not helping Ron Paul by subscribing to this kind of nuttiness. Please take a look at the website I gave a link to. The writer describes most conspiracy theorists as not really being qualified to make the claims they do and that none have submitted their work for peer review in publications recognized in relevant fields.
Agreed. Discrepancies in the official government account are far less incredulous than absurd theories that the government deliberately let 9/11 happen, or still worse, actually carried it out.
Cinemagauche - to convince me that you’re right, you’d have to show that there are fewer weaknesses in your version than the government’s.
You are positing, though, that Bush would go through all the trouble of manufacturing 911 merely to create an atmosphere, or set the groundwork for future interventions against yet undetermined nations. That is a real stretch. Clearly Bush would rather control the source of oil (Iraq), than a nation with designs to build a pipeline (Afghanistan). If he could have faked an attack by someone, it would have been by Iraq. Look at Gulf of Tonkin and the Sinking of the Maine - carried out against states targeted for attack, only after hostilities had begun to mount.
Imagine the US wanted use a fake attack to build support to invade North Korea. Blaming North Korean agents for blowing up the Golden Gate Bridge, or planting a dirty bomb in LA would be alot more effective than blaming the Tamil Tigers.
And, I disagree with you about Bush needing 911 to intervene in Afghanistan. The US primarily relied on airpower in Afghanistan, just as it did against Serbia/ Yugoslavia. The Taleban were not popular in the West and Bush could have stepped up support to Tajik rebels without too much trouble. 911 sealed the deal, but was totally out of proportion to US goals in Afghanistan.
So, there may be weaknesses in the government’s case, but like any exercise in assessing the validity of different theories, your explanation has to be stronger for us to discard the official version. The key problem, though is the weak causal link between the plan (fake 911 attack) and Bush’s objective (invading Iraq). Anyone as bent on invading Iraq as Bush would have implicated Iraq somehow in 911.
I did check the website, snow, and for one thing, the writer (or writers) remain anonymous. Who is running this site and writing these distortions? If you are going to take this person’s word for it, you should at least know who he is. In any case whoever the coward is, he does a poor job of ‘debunking’ the work of real scholars, engineers, and scientists who have proven the official explanation to be false. If you are unwilling to think for yourself, and must take an authority’s word, I’d go with leading scientists like Dr. Lynn Margulis or top economists like Paul Craig Roberts and not some anonymous nut.
“You are positing, though, that Bush would go through all the trouble of manufacturing 911 merely to create an atmosphere, or set the groundwork for future interventions against yet undetermined nations. That is a real stretch… Anyone as bent on invading Iraq as Bush would have implicated Iraq somehow in 911.”
dokdoforever, its not a stretch, its a reality. The War on Terror was summoned up in order to invade Iraq. So yes Iraq was implicated in 9/11. Weren’t you around when Bush started linking the two in speeches? In fact, da New York Times/CBS poll at the time showed that 45 percent of Americans believed Mr. Hussein was “personally involved” in Sept. 11.
9/11 was also used to implement new restrictions on the domestic population. The Patriot Act and Anti-Terrorism Act materialized miraculously out of nowhere just a few weeks after the attacks. An anthrax mail attack was used to further frighten Congress into passing these bills. (when the anthrax turned out to be US military grade - it was hushed up in the media.)
When you ask the question every investigator must ask in a homocide case: ‘cui bono’ - who benefits? - it was clearly the Bush team - and certainly not muslims or Al Qaida.
“If you are unwilling to think for yourself, and must take an authority’s word, I’d go with leading scientists like Dr. Lynn Margulis or top economists like Paul Craig Roberts and not some anonymous nut.”
The irony of this statement. Sorry, cinema stage left, it’s a waste of time arguing with a fanatical true believer.
“when the anthrax turned out to be US military grade - it was hushed up in the media”
Hmm, the NYT, Slate, KOS, and many other anti-Bush newspapers and websites kowtowing to the Bush conspiracy masters? Now, I really do think you’ve lost it.
Of all the US politicians running for president this time, only Dennis Kucinich has seen a UFO. That HAS to count for something.
Cinemagauche #69 “…If you are going to take this person’s word for it, you should at least know who he is. In any case whoever the coward is, he does a poor job of ‘debunking’ the work of real scholars, engineers, and scientists who have proven the official explanation to be false. If you are unwilling to think for yourself, and must take an authority’s word, I’d go with leading scientists like Dr. Lynn Margulis or top economists like Paul Craig Roberts and not some anonymous nut….”
As opposed to the anonymous cinemagauche. But CG doesn’t care anymore about his own inconsistency; he’s having too good a time as a brave guerrilla fighter on the internet.
OK you’ve settled our hash CG. Take a break, enjoy a good drink, tell your admiring friends how you poked through the bars and made the Americans roar.
“I pray you, speak not; he grows
worse and worse;
Question enrages him. At once, good-night:
Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.”