> So there's another aspect that needs to be included in this discussion: the
> discrediting of the 9/11 truth movement, 9/11 skeptics and researchers (who
> question the official state cover story) by progressives and journalists, like
> Lilley and Norman Solomon, who enjoy wearing the mantle of free speech and free
> intellectual inquiry while trashing radicals and anyone who questions the Big
> Lie or exposes false flag and other undercover, gangster operations of the
> national security state (1) - see notes below. Do I need to note that they join
> with the Bush Administration and right wing in dismissing the 9/11 inquiries –
> as well as challenges to the origins, nature and manipulations of the “war on
> terror” - as “conspiracy theory?” If people on the left know that the state
> operates, for instance, to not only execute, but also cover up the nature and
> extent of the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as we’ve heard
> recently on "Democracy Now!", why can’t they grok that the state is very capable
> of perpetrating (or being complicit in) the 9/11 events as a false flag
> operation to pave the way and provide the political climate and justification
> for the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions/occupations (2) and the developing
> "Homeland" police state?
This paragraph is Exhibit A in showing why I don't take the 9-11 "truth movement" seriously and why I see them as kooks in the vein of UFO wingnuts. The first, verrrry long, sentence goes on about how progressives are discrediting their movement. I don't think they need our help discrediting them when theire movement is chock full of crazy theories and leftist paranoia. The next sentence echoes an argument I've been subjected to by these kooks--that by rejecting their movement, I'm in league with the Bush adminstration. These people refuse to see that other progressives have different takes on 9-11. My take on 9-11 is that it was an instance of blowback perpetrated by angry people of color from the colonies. My take on 9-11 also includes the conclusion that the attacks illuminated the weakness of the American state. Leftists (and many anarchists) want to believe that the American state is omniscient and all powerful, when there are obvious structural limitations to the state's power. Shit, the all powerful U.S. empire can't even win a war in Iraq right now.
Yes, the U.S. has perpetrated conspiracies in the past. That doesn't mean that 9-11 was a conspiracy by the government or some kind of "false flag" operation. Nor does the Patriot Act and subsequent government repression and war imply that 9-11 was orchestrated by the U.S. government. The seeds of the Patriot Act and the growth in the military and surveillance state were firmly being planted during the Clinton administration. Getting rid of Bush and his cronies won't eliminate crap like the Patriot Act, but this obvious fact of American politics escapes the brains of the paranoid liberals involved with the 9-11 "truth" movement. They are incapable of seeing that the two parties are the same and it shows.
Chuck0