This is a most revealing conversation from two days ago at 4&20:
Commenter: Count me among the many who can’t process the thought that elites were behind 9/11.
Me: Totally understandable thought. I do hope, however, that it represents the beginning, rather than the end, of your search for truth.
Commenter: Actually, I’m not much of a seeker. Most of the time I’m willing to settle for appearances. They’re damning enough.
Me: Until scrutinized.
Imagine laying in bed at night and hearing noises in the house. Perhaps the hardest thing we all have to do in growing up is to summon the courage to go find out what is going on. It requires every ounce of steel we have accumulated to that point. (We could just grab a gun, a substitute for courage.)
Here’s another exchange, from this blog:
Commenter: I’m looking for a cause to which I can become a lackey and sycophant. I’m considering the conspiracy theory world. The problems I have with it are:
)there are multiple threads to follow. It would seem things would begin to converge after a while.
)there are as many holes in the proposed alternatives than in the official line.
)the personnel in the genre often have quirks that overshadow the scholarship
Me: As to your first point, it is true, you do have to use your brain.
As to your second point, utterly false. You’ve obviously never looked at any evidence.
As to your third point, such observations are generally made by people who have not used their brains or looked at the evidence.
You can solve this crime … millions of other have. It was essentially solved back in the 60’s. What scares you?
Commenter: Comes the hour, comes the man. Why don’t the millions rise up, empower some leaders, and prosecute the wrongdoers? Probably because there is less there than you think.
Me: Darting, dodging, weaving, ducking, refusing to look at the evidence. You’re scared of what you might find, I suppose. That’s why they got away with it. People are just like you. People don’t want to believe our country is just like every other country, run by thugs. America is exceptional, we are told. Look into this crime … and your eyes will be opened. That’s rare. Few have the balls to do that. Few transcend the barrier of fear.
That’s really all that is going on. People are afraid of facing their darkest fears. I am like everyone else except that, by chance, perhaps being blind and naive, I got up and stumbled around the house and came face to face with reality.
It made a difference. It changed me.
The intruder is American exceptionalism … that is, we need to come to grips with what is not there. We are just like every other country on earth, not different or better. Just suffering deeper delusion.
Piece of Mindful 
Alexis de Tocqueville is credited with turning the phrase first. His aristocratic backgroud, however, may have clouded his romantic view of how mid-19th Century America actually functioned. His idea that hard work/labor forged a nation of democratic people from their bootstraps, each individual with equal opportunity, and with no class barriers perpetuated by generational wealth, was never true.
More ironic, I think, is that American communists in the 1920’s and 30’s popularized the myth, which now seems to be part of the genetic makeup of Reagan worshipers and Tea Party Republicans. Ideology seems to travel like the jet stream, never staying in one place too long.
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Funny that comment about the elites. Even if people believe that Bin Laden was the mastermind behind 9/11, the image of him as a cave dweller is hilarious. His family wealth places them #7 in the world of richest arab families.
So yeah, Bin Laden was an elite. Even if he liked to have his (or his doppelgänger’s) picture taken in caves for effect.
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You talk like those who embrace conspiracy theories are braver than those who are skeptical of the genre.
I don’t find it particularly brave to attribute events to hidden, largely unknown/unknowable entities.
Looks more like a defense mechanism to shift responsibility away from the man in the mirror.
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We are braver because we have to endure insults and ridicule and stick to our guns.
Believing official government truth is not being “skeptical.” It is being credulous.
Your last sentence makes no sense.
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Beat around the bush, much? You could just say what offends you. Offer an alternative opinion if you like. “Conspiracy theory” has become almost meaningless when used as a pejoritave as you have. Not getting your gist.
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“Official government truth” contains no end of hogwash: everybody’s equal; women are equal to men; there are no racial differences; transgendered people are mainstream; all immigrants are a positive economic contribution; etc. You have no problem abiding this crap.
Dabbling in conspiracy theories is rather safe compared to challenging other dogmas of the state.
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Gibberish. The only thing government can do with all of your complaints in that first paragraph is insist on equal treatment before the law. That’s a far cry from demanding belief in the impossible as a rite of passage into respectable thought.
Want to know how safe it is to “dabble” in conspiracy? Charlie Sheen merely mentions in public that he doesn’t believe the official truth of 9/11, and shortly thereafter loses his job on his TV show, wakes up in a hotel covered with cocaine and with a hooker in the closet, and is now blacklisted. That’s one silly actor who dared speak up. And I know he’s a silly man, but he is an excellent example of the control of public figures.
When is the last time you saw any of this discussed on mainstream TV? All who go there know to shut up even if they are smart enough to doubt. That is totalitarianism, cradle-to-grave control of minds, yours included.
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Charlie Sheen is doing alright, and apparently has lived a large part of his life covered in cocaine with a hooker in the closet.
I hear people freely doubt the official explanation of 9/11 in all contexts. But no one can discuss racial differences in any public context. There are websites, such as gettingracistsfired, that comb social media racial utterances and use them against people, while there is nonesuch for 9/11 truthers. And the gov’t doesn’t demand equality before the law; it demands special privileges for racial/ethnic/sexual groups. Haven’t you looked around lately?
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Point to one mainstream or cable channel where there has been a discussion of 9/11 where dissenting voices are allowed. One.
As I said, Charlie is a silly man, but found out there is a line that cannot be crossed. He’s lucky to be alive, probably knows it. He doesn’t speak out anymore.
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Coast to Coast AM. The most popular late night radio show.
Ground Zero with Clyde Lewis.
I don’t know any 9/11 sites that have been harassed out of existence. It is acceptable to discuss 9/11 skepticism around the water cooler in the corporate world. You can’t touch race issues with a ten foot cattle prod.
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When was the last time you discussed 9/11 around the water cooler at work?
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You’re too funny, Fred. I said mainstream, you know, the places where our normal incurious citizens go to have information dropped in their laps. You gave me marginal places where people discuss flying saucers and Illuminati.
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George Noory is mainstream enough. Your side gets enough exposure. Not as much as you want, but that is because it probably doesn’t have enough traction.
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Again since you’ve never looked at the evidence, you’ve no basis for making a statement like that.
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if I ever went back to school I would study conspiracy culture because it’s absolutely fascinating. belief in conspiratorial forces shaping world events is quite prevalent. the paid racket of monetizing conspiracy culture makes discerning relevancy within the rat’s nest nearly impossible. those who wade into the depths should be commended, despite how insufferable many of us can be 😉 but ridicule more often is the response.
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Some of the crimes that have been committed out in the open are so obviously lies, and it is an insult to the intelligence even to be expected to believe the nutty explanations – magic bullets, a shot behind the ear from a guy five feet in front, planes meeting no resistance from steel buildings, bombs that sever limbs but don’t harm patio furniture. Two things are troubling then, that people so easily believe obvious fantasy, and that all of our institutions form a circle around the criminals. That’s when it gets very hard to comprehend, and when it takes real diligence and brains to make sense of things. And it is troubling at first to understand the true nature of things, very troubling, which is why people stop short of honest inquiry.
But to step up from there to grand conspiracies spanning the ages, Jewish bankers, Knights Templar … That kind of thing to me appears unknowable, highly unlikely. It’s just people alive now filling institutional roles and the stupidity of the average human – each feeding the other.
As I’ve said many times, the only value in studying JFK is that it is a portal into reality. By itself it is not a big deal. People get murdered all the time and murderers get away with it.
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Shakespeare wrote Julius Cesar and Macbeth making him one of the first known conspiracy playwrights. Was he the first “crazy” person to dream up the “entirely ridicules idea” that humans in positions of power might work together to commit a crime?
Or did the stories write themselves? I think it’s the latter. myself.
That spanning-the-ages crap makes no logical organic sense. How many fathers wanted the kid to be a banker, like them, but the kid becomes a DJ instead? How do you enforce doctrine across generations? You don’t.
Right now, I’m thinking about the fact that the alleged cop killer in NY allegedly posted to instagram amazingly accurate and detailed info on what his plan was and why he was doing it.
I’ve been reading and listening to Mae Brussell lately and she mentions the fact that almost every lone gunman assassin in this country keeps a diary.
Mae: “There are necessary connecting links in every assassination conspiracy. If any link of that chain falls apart and becomes exposed, the parts of the larger plot are more visible. When every element of that chain holds together and is present in the evidence and testimony regarding any particular murder, there has to be a larger conspiracy. (See accompanying diagram)
The most important link in that chain is the selected decoy or patsy. Whoever is arrested at the scene of the crime, to the exclusion of other suspicious persons, becomes the “assassin.” This single person must serve a purpose, namely, to divert all attention away from those people who have armed him and located him at the scene of the crime.
Letters and diaries are always present and easily located to support the predetermined cover story. They provide a “motive”, and are the glue that cements (we are told) the “loner” to his single purpose.
In preparation for his “act”, the decoy or patsy is moved across countries or overseas, traveling and staying at safe houses. He has no friends, no jobs, no means of support while at the same time staying at fancy hotels, spending lots of money, getting phone messages, and meeting lots of people. Very few people have the money to spend years in transit like these patsies, whose chances of being in selected locations at the precise moment their victim is murdered are minute and impossible without assistance.”
I find it strange the shooter didn’t say he was going to shoot a cop or kill as many cops as he could, but instead named a number. 2
Also the political aspects of this assassination can’t be ignored. A whole movement was geared up and mobilized to demand police accountability and this totally pulls the plug. It’s awfully convenient.
I wonder if the murdered police had enemies on the force?
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Good thoughts all.
Mae got my attention talking about Manson, released from prison, penniless, suddenly owns a bus and has weapons and followers. He never murdered a soul – Tex Watson did all of the actual killing. But they are called the Manson murders. This makes Manson a patsy too, like James Earl Ray, released from prison and then entering into a well-financed life, later to serve a specific role, Ray to take the fall for MLK, Manson to discredit what were then called “hippies,” but counter cultural war protesters.
Operation Phoenix was not confined to Vietnam, probably not shut down either.
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PS: Do you have transcripts of Mae’s stuff?
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http://www.maebrussell.com/index.html
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PS
I like reading or listening to Mae I think for a couple of reasons. One is I grew up listening to her, her show was broadcast from radio station KLRB which could be picked up all around the Montery Bay. So it’s like hearing an old friend.
Then I also like her insights into the work she does. It reminds me of you sometimes Mark, like this statement here, part of a transcript from her 8th show Nov 24th, 1971
“Jules Feiffer had a cartoon in Sunday’s paper: two gentlemen are talking to each other, and one man is standing with his hands behind his back with ropes, and he says, “My hands are tied, right?” And he then says, “My feet are shackled, right? And my eyes are blindfolded, right? And my movements are urrr….” and he starts to mumble. And the other man looks at him and says, “When do you break free?” And the man who’s tied and shackled says, “What do you mean break free? I like it.”
That’s about where people are today in the community and in the nation at large; they don’t mind the position they’re in. It’s difficult to shake them to the fact of what happened in Dallas in 1963.
I will read part of the new issue of Computers and Automation which came this week to my home — the November 1971 issue. The article is on the assassination of President Kennedy, and the statement above is “The Pattern of Coup d’etat and Public Deception.” And it begins with this quotation of the author, Edmund Berkeley:
“We must begin to recognize history as it is happening to us. We can no longer toy with illusions. Our war adventures in Asia are not related to national security in any rational sense. A Coup d’etat took place in the United States on November 22nd, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.”
That came eight years after I began my research, Gloria. People talk about never having fascism in this country, or never being overthrown, but they have already been overthrown and they’re not aware of it. And this can be documented: how the laws come down. They’re not aware of it.
I was invited to the high school this week to speak to one of the classes — a group of seniors — on revolutionary change. I went to the class and we had a one hour discussion which barely gets into the subject of how the government was overthrown and what way you get it back again. You have to have a revolution to get it back; Either an intellectual, spiritual, practical, or a bloody revolution to get the country and the economy and the beauty of this nation back to some national course of sanity.
When I was through, the teacher was somewhat in a state of shock. His mouth was open and he just couldn’t believe what I was saying. And he’s teaching these children revolutionary change. And I said, “The reason why people are dropping out of school and finding what they’re learning in the classes is not meaningful, is that the teachers can’t tell what has happened to them. Therefore, they can’t instruct them on how to survive, or explain the news of the day. The teachers themselves will not face the fact that the country was overthrown. So how can they teach a class on American History that is meaningful to the people that are going out in today’s society?”
GLORIA: When the whole basis of this country is freedom, how could they explain to the kids that there was a coup d’etat?
MAE: That’s right. The whole basis of free speech, of free choice, of candidates, and places to meet and congregate, and express your opinion. But you’re photographed at every meeting you go to. There’s recordings of your voice. You’re put into a data system. The threat of losing a job or getting a security clearance hangs over you — your economic independence. You’re intimidated down the line, and you feel it. And then what do you do with that kind of intimidation?
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PPS
Big video stash of many of Mae’s shows. Maybe all of them.
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I spent a few hours listening to Mae in the highway today. I’ve heard Tarpley mention that Mark Lane is not to be trusted, but here’s Mae in the early 70’s already knowing that. I listened to Penn Jones, would like to read his books. Amazing though – Lane attacked her on radio in NYC. She had to be given equal time to respond. The fairness doctrine. What a crazy concept!
I spend a lot of time in my garage workshop these days, and am always looking for background noise. I think she is a treasure trove. I see a broadcast dated April of ’81, right after the Reagan shooting. At that point, she has not learned anything about HW Bush. I am curious what she’ll figure out without. I have benefit of hindsight.
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Her discussion of how people refuse to look at the documentation is amazing. Same as it always was.
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