Joe W.
>From: amadeus amadeus <amadeus482000 at yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: RE: [lbo-talk] Mr. Churchill / 9-11 scenarios
>Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 10:04:06 -0800 (PST)
>
>I don't see that there's enough information out there
>(though there is some) to support either the official
>or alternate versions of the 9/11 attacks. Whether
>orchestrated by terrorists, the US government, both,
>or someone else, it suffices to provide the necessary
>justifications for the imperialist acts we see today.
>
>I also don't see how a partial endorsement of the
>official version makes one a "racist," any more an
>endorsement of the alternate version makes one an
>"anti-American", "conspiracy theorist" or any other
>such label. At a certain point a rational assessment
>of the facts seems to get supplanted by axiological
>codes of conduct. It was heretical when Galileo said
>the earth revolved around the sun; that didn't make
>him wrong.
>
>I also object to the association of the terms "hokey"
>and "atavistic" with "left wing." Imperialism is
>certainly a real and applicable term in the 21st
>century, perhaps more so than it was. Obviously the
>term imperialism wouldn't fly today if we were to take
>an atavistic, mechanical view of leftist thought.
>
>-adx
>--- Joseph Wanzala <jwanzala at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > >From : Chuck0 <chuck at mutualaid.org>
> >
> > Joseph Wanzala wrote:
> >
> > Joe W: I totally reject the right wing efforts to
> > shoot down Churchill, to
> > censor him over *anything*. But his position is
> > really bad on two accounts.
> > First, He supports the official story, ie that 9/11
> > was an attack from the
> > outside on America, only he celebrates it, much as
> > the article by the Retort
> > Group (my friend Iain Boal & Co.) in the New Left
> > Review from last Summer
> > did. Such people WANT to believe 9/11 was an attack
> > on America, because such
> > a view corresponds to their ideological needs. Two,
> > his branding of the
> >
> >
> > ChuckO: No, it reflects the facts and the evidence.
> > I'm willing to be
> > skeptical of the official story, but I've found
> > little if anything to be
> > credible in the arguments of the 9-11 conspiracy
> > critics. Truth be told, our
> > friends on the Left have a tendency to believe
> > elaborate theories that fit
> > what they want to believe.
> >
> > JoeW: It is one thing to look at a set of facts and
> > come away with different
> > conclusions. It is another thing to denigrate
> > conclusions different from
> > yours as 'conspiracy theory'. Any view of 9-11 is
> > necessarily a conspiracy,
> > since the events were secretly planned by more than
> > one person. Any attempt
> > to come up with an explanation of how the attacks
> > were carried out is
> > necessarily a conspiracy theory. It is really a
> > matter of which conspiracy
> > theory you buy into, not whether or not you 'believe
> > conspiracy theories'.
> > One thing I don't understand is how people, mainly
> > on the left have put
> > little to no intellectual labor into interrogating
> > the official story. At
> > the very least, in order to carry out the planning,
> > the alleged hijackers
> > *had* to have had some level of infiltration into or
> > complicity from, even
> > if just a matter to bribing or paying people off, to
> > do what they are
> > alleged to have done. Just as drug traffickers rely
> > on corrupt law
> > enforcement and banking officials to smuggle drugs
> > and launder money. These
> > people's actions are jut as criminal as the the
> > actions of the drug cartels.
> > So the question becomes, why has there been no
> > formal investigation and even
> > some symbolic head rolling. Instead, we are led to
> > believe that the entire
> > operation within the United States (i.e. 'the
> > conspiracy') pretty much began
> > and ended with the alledged 19 hijackers and a
> > couple of stragglers like
> > Moussawi, coordinated by Osama in a cave in
> > Afghanistan. The left buying
> > into such a simplistic scenario is racist to the
> > extent it ascribes almost
> > supernatural powers to 'Arab terrorists', a major
> > compoent of racism has to
> > do with ascribing superhuman powers to people of a
> > particular race and
> > creating myths around them, and anti-Arab racism
> > already ran deep in the
> > American psyche long before 9-11.
> >
> > ChuckO: It's also no surprise that the people who
> > were involved in the 9-11
> > truth movement instantly flipped over into yelling
> > about the "stolen
> > election" last year. This is all pseudo-intellectual
> > nonsense that is not
> > much diferent than right wing theories we laugh at,
> > like "intelligent
> > design."
> >
> > JoeW: In fact, the people making the loudest noises
> > about the stolen
> > election in 2000 and 2001 were not the 9-11 Truth
> > Movement but MoveOn,
> > Howard Dean Fan Club types. To be sure, there was
> > overlap between these
> > groups, but in the main, MoveOn Democrats are as
> > hostile to the 9-11 truth
> > movement as you, Doug, and Co. are. Thus, the
> > Cockburn declaration, which
> > you echo, that "the 9-11 truth movement instantly
> > flipped over into yelling
> > about the "stolen election"" is a careless and
> > inaccurate reading of what
> > happened. In fact, 9-11 researchers, like myself,
> > are much more likely to
> > agree with Cockburn's (and presumably your) view
> > that the elections have
> > been stolen for a long time and that as Gore Vidal
> > is fond of pointing out,
> > the United States is a Republic, not a democracy,
> > and voting does not make
> > any real difference.
> >
> > ChuckO: I believe that these conspiracy theorists
> > are engaged in a racist
> > reframing of the 9-11 events which aren't much
> > different than what the
> > UFO-Art Bell crowd think about the origin of the
> > pyramids in Egypt. In case
> > you don't follow these theories, they can't accept
> > the fact that a bunch of
> > brown people living in Egypt several thousand years
> > ago were smart enough to
> > build these great mountains of rock. They argue that
> > these structures are so
> > complex that aliens from outer space must have built
> > them.
> >
> > The conspiracy theory that the U.S. government
> > organized the 9-11 attacks
> > isn't much different. They refuse to accept Occam's
> > Razor when it comes to
> > what happen. A well-organized conspiracy to attack
> > America was executed by a
> > global network of people who took advantage of
> > America's arrogance. The U.S.
> > government didn't organize the attacks nor did they
> > let them happen. The
> > attacks were successful because the American ruling
> > class was arrogant and
> > complacent about their superpowers. Sure, they were
> > aware that the attacks
> > were a possibility, but being the racist, arrogant
> > pricks that many
> > Americans are, they thought that nothing on the
> > level of 9-11 could ever
> > happen to the U.S. In many ways, the American
> > arrogance about it's power and
> > impregnability are similar to other follies in world
> > history such as the
> > Maginot Line.
> >
> > JoeW: As I have argued, it is people who buy into
> > the 9-11 official story
> > who are buying into racism by ascribing supernatural
> > powers to a global
> > network of Arabs to penetrate the US formidable
> > security defenses - without
> > complicity from within. i.e.: letting the white
> > establishment off the hook
> > by allowing them to say 'we were too arrogant' while
> > avoiding raising
> > questions of accoutability. In fact I *am* saying
> > that a global network of
> > people managed to outwit US security apparatus (see
> > my post re Ptech, the
> > Saudis, Cheney etc.), but they could only have done
> > it with inside access
> > and collaboration. It is not a matter of saying that
> > 'brown people could not
> > have done it' it is a matter of wondering precisely
> > *how* they were able to
> > do it, beyond vague references to Al Qaeda and
> > Osama. You have offered no
> > information as to how this global network carried
> > out the attacks that is
> > different from the official fairy tale version. Your
> > theory about
> > 'arrogance' being the reason why the attacks were
> > succesful is an assumption
> > not backed up by any evidence. Evidence shows that
> > they KNEW OPERATIONS TO
> > ATTACK THE US WERE UNDERWAY not that they did not
> > believe any attacks to be
> > possible. The only question is why did they not
> > intervene to stop them?
> >
> > ChuckO: These are some of the reasons why I find
> > Churchill's arguments so
> > compelling. He is also articulating what many of the
> > Left believe, but won't
> > admit in public. 9-11 was the chickens coming home
> > to roost after two
> > centuries of American empire and imperialism.
> >
> > JoeW: This view is hokey, atavistic, left wing
> > romanticism about a 'strike
> > against imperialism' and it is a very flawed view.
> >
> > Chuck
> >
> >
> > ___________________________________
> >
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>
>
>=====
>"Mary Poppins is alive and well in Argentina, she sends her regards."
>- Rod McKuen, The Mud Kids
>
>
>
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