911+2

[StuartStark]

Conspiracy nuts. Fringe dwellers. Card-carrying members of the Grassy Knoll Society. The tinfoil hat brigade.

They tried to warn us.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. In the sphere of politics, he who indulges a reactionary dismissal of the possibility of conspiracy is as dangerously foolish as he who instantly embraces whatever scatterbrain theories happens to cross his transom.

A house is a conspiracy of wood.

It is a fallacy to think that everybody who is involved in the final conspiratorial construct is necessarily "in on it" from the beginning. The Nazi Party was founded by Thule, a Bavarian "secret society." Its every policy was shaped by a core of absolutely committed co-conspirators, and enforced by a relatively small cadre of trusted and unquestioning true believers. From this viral nucleus, the conspiracy's ends worked their way outwards to virtually the entirety of German civilization. It acheived almost total infection.

Now, can it be said that there was a "conspiracy" - as that term is understood in its most esoteric sense - at the core of Nazism? I believe the historical record proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Was every German who participated in and/or supported Nazism "in on" this conspiracy?

Obviously not.

Did their not being in on the conspiracy mean they weren't a PART of the conspiracy?

I don't think so. The part many of them played may well have been unwitting, but they were still very much "a part." They were the wood that made up the house. The conspiracy of the few manifested itself through them, literally... through their flesh and brains. Through their souls.

Before you ask, let me tell you… I don't know what it is I'm writing, here, exactly. Whatever it is, it isn't a manifesto. Nor is it journalism. And it isn't really an op-ed piece, in the traditional sense.

I don't quite know what it is, to be honest with you. All I know is I started writing it in November of last year, and I've been planning on writing it since shortly after the 2002 State of the Union address. I keep going over the notes I've collected for this piece, and the only thing that becomes clearer to me is the fact that I have no idea what I'm trying to say.

It's probably futile… the gropings of a man alone in his doubts, hands splashing through a hissing electric blizzard of disinfotainment, blindly fingering textures and surfaces in the hopes of touching some modicum of the horrible truth he suspects lies just beyond his ability to comprehend. But I feel like I have to go through with it. So please, indulge me…

The philosopher Thomas Hobbes had a word to describe society. Alone, man is a tiny speck… so fragile and easy to kill. When men come together to form a social compact, moving as one, working as one, they become Leviathan.

Nowadays, Leviathan is so huge, most of us don't even think about it anymore. We're parasites, skimming across the surface of our corner of flesh, oblivious to what goes on "inside." Like Doctor Jekyll's crotch lice, we go on doing what we do, scuttling through the pubic forest, feasting on dead skin and dried sweat salts, blissfully oblivious to the good Doctor's transformation into a murderous, psychotic thug.

What concern is it of ours if our host should occasionally choose to bash in some unlucky wench's skull with his walking stick, then rape her while she dies? And if he chooses to sneak into a bakery in the middle of the night to mix rat poison in with the flour, so be it! Just so long as he doesn't scratch us off, we crabs won't raise a fuss. Leave us to our own devices - fat, drugged and distracted - and there's practically no limit to how much corruption we're willing to tolerate.

Systems everywhere are in disarray. The most foundational of institutions are starting to crumble. Take the Roman Catholic Church as an example, dissolving in a puddle of scum and denial. Extreme fringe figures have attained positions of great power, bringing their extreme fringe ideas with them. Their positions are being presented as the new status quo. Distraction has fed our apathy, which has fueled their impressive successes.

Starting on this day two years ago, the Bush administration has done everything in its power to inculcate fear in the populace. They have brandished that fear as their most powerful weapon in a war against freedom, against centuries-old constitutional guarantees, against everything that stands in the way of their meticulously plotted New World Order.

Folks, the truth is that the Powers That Be had nothing to fear from Saddam Hussein. Iran and North Korea could never mount a serious challenge to their supremacy.

The only power in the world that is capable of challenging their New World Order… is the American voting public. That this authoritarian cabal of war profiteers and ideologues came to power in the world's oldest and most robust democracy must surely be their downfall. I believe this to be a truth they all sense, deep down. With every freedom they repeal, every dissenting voice they silence, and every constitutional guarantee they trample under foot, they are confessing their fear for - and declaring war upon - the only enemy on this planet that is capable of taking back the awesome power they have stolen.

That enemy is you. You would do well to prepare yourself for battle.

[Catherine Vincent]

1. Are you the author of this?

[StuartStark]

2. Yes.

.

[Beetwasher]

3. Good job!

Welcome to DU!

[mistertrickster]

4. You're right--the fear of terrorism has certainly been co-opted by

the right to their benefit. If it weren't for war and the rumor of war, this administration would have nothing.

But even Chomsky doesn't believe that Bushistas had any direct influence in making the 9-11 attack happen. I think their typical incompetence explains it just fine.

They were worrying about "Star Wars" (i.e., how to get gov't money into their friends' and backers' pockets) when they should have been worrying about terrorism.

The way they have "pimped" 9-11 (to use Paul Krugman's word) for their own agenda is truly evil however and plenty bad enough even without a "conspiracy".

[StuartStark]

5. That's actually kind of what I mean. The conspiracy I write about...

...is not a conspiracy to fly planes full of people into buildings. It's the conspiracy to USE that horrific event in what I personally think is immoral, undemocratic, antithetical to the freedoms we charish, and illegal as hell.

[Az]

6. Conspiracy theories vs Conspiracies

There is a common notion within the human mindset that there is someone somewhere that has control of what transpires in the world around us. There is a desire that someone somewhere knows what's what. This can be god in some eyes while others look to see the influence in a closer context.

The truth is conspiracies happen all the time. People get together to try to influence the world around them. The difference is that the Conspiracies theorised by adherants of such things are not so limited. They believe that someone is able to exert a control over society to such an extent that others fall into place willingly.

This is where skeptics and conspiracy theorists diverge. Skeptics admit that there are conspiracies. They do not see evidence though for an overreaching conspiracy on the grand scale some claim. There is a mathematical flaw in the grand conspiracy theories that fail to take into account the increasing number of individuals required to keep such a plan afloat. With the increasing number of individuals involved the likelihood of it failing increases exponentially. Long lasting conspiracies are even more problematic.

Thus it is not a rejection of conspiracies on the part of skeptics. Rather it is a rejection of a conspiracy in absolute control of matters that is rejected.

In the case of 9/11 this is seen in the various arguments presented by the various sides. The grand conspiracy adherants attempt to have their villains in control of every single aspect of the event imaginable. This even goes to the point of postulating that not only did they crash jets into the towers but also set charges to create a controlled demolition of the two largest towers in the world. It is the control aspect that defines a grand conspiracy. They cannot imagine any aspect of the conspiracy not being orchestrated by the masters at the center.

There may very well be a conspiracy surrounding 9/11. It need not be a grand conspiracy however. All that was needed for the event to occurr was to pull back some observation of Osama and to push a few of his buttons to illicate a reaction. It was the assault that was desired not a specific effect. Any attack would have done. The conspiracists did not need to control every aspect in order to obtain their desired reaction. In fact it may have been more effective than they expected.

[StuartStark]

7. Exactly.

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