Saturday, December 26, 2009

Who Owns America and Why!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Always severely divided in one way or another, the U.S. has become two nations --one of the very,very rich elite on the one end and the rest of us on the other. The rich have literally waged war upon the poor since the nation's founding. The so-called 'Robber Baron Era' was notable for preceding and causing the Great Depression.

Income and wealth disparities are even worse now! As a direct result of Reagan/Bush tax cuts benefiting only the upper classes just ONE PERCENT of the U.S. population owns more than 95 percent of everyone else combined. Poverty is higher among every minority group. A 'ruling elite' of just one percent is primarily White Anglo Saxon Protestant.
...two Americas...one privileged, the other burdened...one America that does the work, another that reaps the reward. One America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks.

--Sen. John Edwards
Edwards was absolutely correct and, if anything, understated the problem. It is not surprising that the ruling elites, the establishment, and the fossilized leadership of the GOP would respond with yet another label: class warfare! If 'class warfare' it be, then 'bring it on'!

The current numbers should be compared with figures from 1998 when information provided to the IRS indicated that the richest 1 percent of U.S. households owned 38 percent of all U.S. wealth. Clearly --the Bush years were disastrous for the economy and must certainly be among the factors responsible for the current 'financial crisis'.
Up until the early 1970s, the U.S. actually had lower wealth inequality than Great Britain, and even than a country like Sweden. But things have really turned around over the last 25 or 30 years. In fact, a lot of countries have experienced lessening wealth inequality over time. The U.S. is atypical in that inequality has risen so sharply over the last 25 or 30 years.

--An Interview with Edward Wolff, The Wealth Divide: The Growing Gap in the United States Between the Rich and the Rest
Please note that the figures cited for wealth distribution are accurate as of the date of the 'interview' excerpted. More current figures are stated earlier in this article.

The transfer of wealth upward is a contraction of the supply of money among those who are most likely to spend or invest monies in ways that drive the economy. Supply-side economics has never stimulated the economy. In every instance, 'supply side' economic policies have precipitated recessions/depressions. Tax windfalls --clearly --were not invested in new jobs or expansion; rather, they were 'exported' to offshore accounts. Until the current crisis, the most notable examples were the Great Depression of '29 and the two year long depression triggered by Ronald Reagan's infamous tax cut for his rich backers in 1982. It is not surprising that Reagan's supporters would opine: 'He made us feel good about ourselves'. Well, if not 'good', then 'richer'!

Appalling poverty and the declining value of currency defined ancient Rome. When the Praetorian Guard auctioned off the empire to Didius Julianus, a nobleman, the sale was transacted in greek Drachmas --not worthless Roman sesterces. The U.S. dollar, today, is propped up by China so that U.S. citizens can buy Chinese stuff at Wal-Mart. That's because the US is at the very bottom of the CIA's World Fact Book with the world's largest NEGATIVE current account balance, formerly called the balance of trade deficit.

The U.S. is already a Vassal State of China and the impending fall of 'America' will simply 'formalize' a collapse that seems already concluded. When only the ruling elite have a place to live, the more overt symptoms will become increasingly apparent.

Friday, December 25, 2009

U.S. Patriot Act: 'Tea Baggers' are Domestic Terrorists !

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Tea Baggers and on-air personalities who have threatened President Barack Obama with death are 'Domestic Terrorists' as defined by the U.S. Patriot Act. Threats against Obama are up 400% over those against Bush and according to many sources, the Secret Service is not able to keep up.

A recent exchange on YouTube convinces me that it is time to to deal with lawless tea baggers while making a point about the rule of law. Those threatening the life of the President have, in fact, sought to '(i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion'. That means that threatening the life of the President is an act of terrorism.
Section 802 (Pub. L. No. 107-52) which expands the definition to cover "domestic". terrorism " ...if the act appears to be intended to: (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion ..."

--U. S. Patriot Act

The Southern Poverty Law Center says that the U.S. has seen a 35 percent rise in hate groups in recent years, and few doubt that the discontent stirred up over the election of an African-American president is fueling the rise in threats. But, could the influx of modern technology also be to blame?
As the cost of computer technology has fallen (and accessibility to high-speed Internet service has spread), more and more people are spending more and more time online. Accordingly, these people are doing what people often do on the Internet: sending emails, communicating in chat rooms and on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, watching YouTube videos, etc. According to results of a recent study by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, these activities seem to be enhancing the scope of extremist groups' reach:

--Report: Secret Service strained to protect Obama
America is as divided now as was England between Protestants and Catholics during the reign of Elizabeth I and, later, James I. James had promised a crackdown after Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament, an act of terrorism. Overt threats to Obama are, in fact, acts of terrorism as defined in the U.S. Patriot Act.
True to form, just like I called it, even before the New Year could began in earnest three more Black men were lynched in America. Somehow, just saying I told you so doesn’t really do it for me. On New Year’s Eve, Johannes Mehserle a White police officer shot Oscar Grant Jr. a 22 year old Black man in his back, killing him instantly as he lay prone and unarmed on a train platform in Oakland California. The incident was caught on tape. It became just the latest public lynching of a Black man in the United States, and it sparked several days of angry rebellion.1

On that very same day, in Bellaire Texas a police officer shot the 23 year old son of Bobby Tolan, a once famous professional baseball player. Robbie Tolan ended up with a bullet lodged in his liver, only because as he stood in the driveway of his own home, a White police officer simply assumed that the car he actually owned was a stolen vehicle.2 Then, hours later on New Year’s Day, nine police officers in New Orleans discharged their weapons 48 times and put 12 bullets into the back of yet another young unarmed African American man; 22-year-old Adolph Grimes was shot dead in a hail of gunfire just a few feet away from his grandmother’s home. A total of 14 bullets pierced violently through his body. ...

All that it requires is the will and the means to take someone’s life. Now, with the election of the first Black man to the highest office in the land, it appears as if some White people across the country have simply lost their minds.

--Death Threats Against Obama - Racist Atrocities Soar As America Regurgitates Its Soul
Everyone threatening the life of President Barack Obama is a terrorist as defined clearly and unambiguously in the U.S. Patriot Act!

Anyone making threats against Obama, be they Beck, Billo or Limbaugh should be prosecuted under the provisions of the U.S. Patriot Act!


Monday, December 21, 2009

How Americans Are Enslaved by a Corrupt Right Wing Machine!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The name of a 'god' and a sacrifice associated with fire, the term 'Moloch' is found in Hebrew and Arabic and other Middle Eastern cultures --Ammonite, Canaanite and Phoenician as well as related cultures in North Africa and the Levant.

In American or modern English usage, the term or 'character' "Moloch" refers to any leader or person requiring costly sacrifices and/or utter enslavement. The term is thus especially applicable to a corrupt, right wing system requiring of its citizenry a virtual enslavement by virtue of diminishing or increasingly prescribed economic roles.

In the US, this is often referred to as being a "wage slave". Most recently, "Moloch" describes not just an extreme right wing establishment but the enslavement of every American who is left behind by GOP tax cuts benefiting just one percent of the population of the nation, the the ruling one percent. Moloch is all-pervasive, effectively denying to all the choice to live otherwise but for and 'in' the omni-present machine.

'Liberal' Means Free but GOP Means Slavery to Moloch

The definition of the term "liberal", muddled of late, has an honorable tradition. "Liberal" is derived from the latin "liber" which means "free". Up to the end of the eighteenth century "liberal" signified "worthy of a free man". Thus we still speak of the "liberal arts", a "liberal occupation". Despite subtle shades of meaning or various connotations, "liberalism" in general remains a "free" way of thinking and acting in private and public life. Its opposite --conservatism --connotes a top-down authoritarian mentality, a doctrinaire, restrained (retarded?) manner of thinking. Conservatism is forever to be associated with fascism, monarchy and dictatorship, i.e -- 'Moloch'!

We are enslaved in three ways:
  1. economically by an inequitable system in which 95 percent of the population works to support and enrich a ruling one percent;
  2. sociologically by dividing society by wealth, segregating society into walled-off communities, carving up cities into slum dwellers vs the privileged elites who live in gated, walled communities;
  3. ideologically with the Orwellian word games designed to facilitate (catapult?) the propaganda which maintains 'Moloch' in his/her roles as both master and devourer!
Modern debasement of the term 'liberal' may be traced to "McCarthy" types who clearly succeeded in associating "liberal" with "Stalinism", "fellow travelers" or communism. Buying into the paradigm implies a tacit agreement to the terminology. It means that we are forced to play by their rules, their definitions.

Moloch is found in various societies throughout history whenever a small number enslaves by force or economics or both a much, much larger general population. That outcome was achieved with the rise of the GOP, most recently with Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr and, later, George W. Bush.

Never perfectly egalitarian, the US was, nevertheless, more equitable under the Democratic regimes of LBJ, Jimmy Carter, and, more recently, Bill Clinton. Clinton had begun a tentative reversal of entrenched trends that had begun with Reaganomics often called supply side' or trickle down' theory.

The Shrub regime assumed the role of Moloch, enforcing and re-energizing economic and ideological oppression by citing a mythical external enemy: Arab terrorists! There is, in fact, no admissible evidence whatsoever that any Arab ever boarded any flight nor hijacked any airliner associated with 911. There is, in fact, no admissible evidence to support any aspect of the Bush 'official' theory of 911. There is no Pentagon wreckage traceable to Fl 77, indeed, any airliner. There was, in fact, no wreckage traceable to Ft 93 recovered at Pennsylvania. Ted Olson told several versions of his 'alleged' phone call from Barbara Olson, at least two of which were mutually exclusive. Simply, Ted lied! 911 was the biggest, the most outrageous, the most venal fraud ever perpetrated upon mankind.

The Bush administration codified its dictatorship with oppressive measures --a 'Patriot' Act --which violates every article of the US Bill of Rights! It was, quite possibly, the most UN-patriotic Act passed since the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Patriot Act violates every LIBERAL, every Anti-Moloch principle that had, until Bush, defined the American republic: the presumption of innocence, due process of law, probable cause, and the separation of powers!
I am, therefore, opposed with every fiber of my being to the party of Bush, Reagan, and Bush! I am opposed to every "anti-free", "anti-liberal" measure that has been forced upon the American people by the embodiment of 'Moloch' --the tyrannical regimes of Reagan, Bush and Bush.
The idea that "people" are sovereign is "liberal". The idea that people are --in fact --born free is "liberal". "Liberalism" is the anti-thesis not only of the "divine right of kings", it is the anti-thesis of dictatorship as envisaged by either Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot or, in the US, Bush and the GOP.
The abuse of the term "liberal" is just one more Neo-Nazi lie, typical of the Orwellian political agenda behind it! Liberal is a perfectly good word, an honorable word, a word that I reclaim from a crooked right that deliberately sought to debase it.

I am liberal and, therefore, free!

Minions of the GOP are, conversely, enslaved to Moloch and the lies upon which that shaky foundation rests. No one wins who bargains with Satan.

Among the more pernicious and harmful right wing lies remains 'trickle down theory', sometimes called 'Supply Side Economics'. Clearly --wealth has never, ever trickled down. Labor is the source of value in any economic system. Every major economist from the 'conservative' Ricardo to Karl Marx recognized that fact! This is not a left v. right issue; rather truth vs lies! The exploitation of labor by capital is slavery i.e, 'Moloch'!
Census Bureau: Poverty Rate Rises, Household Income Declines
Although there was a huge increase in real income for average Americans between World War II and the 1970s the income of the average American male has gone essentially unchanged since 1970 as the figure below indicates. Income for females though has continued to rise. What is significant about this graph is that between 1980 and present (2003) the incomes of the top 2% of American wage earners has gone up dramatically despite the stagnation of the income of average Americans.
--Trickle Down” economics was a “Trojan Horse, David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's Budget Director. Also see: Atlantic Online, The Education of David Stockman
Economists quantify income inequalities with what is called the GINI Index. Take a look at Stockman's chart of GINI indices at the link. The GINIS actually moved down between 1967 and 1970, indicating that the economy was moving toward relative equality. Things remained essentially unchanged until 1982, the year of Reagan's tax cut for the wealthy. GINI indices increase, i.e. wealth trickles up steadily from that point. According to Dr. Daniel Weinberg of the Census Bureau, the trend abated briefly in Clinton's second term, but the overall trend toward greater inequality resumed with a vengeance under George W. Bush.

A Free Person's Rapid Response to Ideology and Propaganda:
  • Every Democratic President has presided over greater economic and job growth than ANY Republican President since WWII.
  • Job growth under Carter exceeded that of Ronald Reagan.
  • Reagan presided over the worst recession since Hoover's great depression of the 1930's.
  • The Reagan Recession following Reagan's improvident tax cut of 1982 was the longest and most severe since Herbert Hoover's "Great" Depression!
  • Wealth trickled up during the Reagan administration primarily as a result of his tax cuts for the rich even as the bite out of middle income checks increased! ONLY the upper quintile prospered. Every other segment of the population suffered in various ways: job losses, loss of income, loss of net worth, loss of homes. Homelessness hit new highs during Reagan's Recession.
  • Under Reagan, the incomes of the richest 20% increased 18% while the incomes of the poorest 20% declined a similar amount. Wealth "trickled-up" --NOT down as had been promised by "trickle down" and other fringe theorists!
  • Unemployment, high throughout the Reagan debacle, would have been higher had Reagan not doubled the size of the Federal Bureaucracy. Interestingly, he had promised to reduce the size of government. Reagan had to break a campaign promise in order to achieve any success at all.
  • Reagan added some two million jobs to the Federal Bureaucracy; otherwise, his numbers would have been even worse than they are. Nevertheless, his performance in this area still pales compared to Clinton who presided over a 2.4% per year increase in jobs during his administration.
  • The administration of George Bush cannot be said to have created a single net new job! Unlike Reagan, most of the jobs created during the Clinton presidency were in the private sector. Bush --following policies made famous by Ronald Reagan --was in the hole throughout his incompetent reign of idiocy.
  • Best job growth since World War II occurred under four Democratic Presidents: Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Kennedy.
  • The worst job growth growth occurred under Reagan, Nixon, and the worst: Bush Sr at a mere 0.6% per year. See: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics Survey. 


Saturday, December 19, 2009

One Million Strong Against the GOP

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The GOP has been infiltrated by a kooky kult of korporatists! It is not the party of Eisenhower-like fiscal conservatives or of Progressives like Teddy Roosevelt anymore. It has become the party of the MIC and the big lobbyists on K-street. It has become the official party of the big corporations, the ruling one percent of the population which alone has benfefited from GOP fiscal policy.

Ronald Reagan doubled the national debt and tripled the deficit. While revenues declined as a result, Reagan compounded the problem by ramming through Congresss a TAX CUT from which ONLY the upper quintile benefited. It was a recipe for historic deficits, in fact, national bankruptcy. Concurrently, a trend, in which the rich get richer and everyone else poorer, did not abate until Clinton's second term. Under Bush the Shrub, the trend resumed with a vengence.

Today --as a result --just one percent of the nation owns more than about 95 percent of the rest of us combined. The inevitable result of transferring this wealth to the wealthy is that the net gain to the wealthy is, in fact, exported out of the economy and into offshore bank accounts.

That being the case --why were we surprised that the inevitable collapse occurred under Bush and carried over into the Obama regime. In effect, monies were removed from the economy --a contraction. Economists call this recession.

I have enough material on Reagan's irresponsible profligacy to fill several volumes, more data than I have time to 'twitterize'. Sometimes, you just have to read the long, dull story.

Bottom line: the GOP is just not credible when it claims to be fiscally conservative. The GOP is just not credible when it tries to trick you into believing that there is no difference between the GOP and Obama. The GOP has no legs when it claims to be fiscally conservative. Listening to goppers cry about Democratic 'deficits' is like hearing a million or more crocodiles singing the Hebrew Slave Chorus.

Because the big corporations dominate K-street, Americans inevitably get a ONE SIDED view, the GOP spin. The actual facts available from the Labor Dept, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis and EVEN the conservative Brookings Institution paint a different picture.

It's hard to set the record straight on a TWITTERIZED net. Even so some key facts utterly disprove the GOP/Reagan myth. To wit:

Job Growth Per Year Under Most Recent Presidents

Johnson 3.8%
Carter 3.1
Clinton 2.4
Kennedy 2.3
Nixon 2.3
Reagan 2.1
Bush 0.6

--Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Current Employment Statistics Survey

The Reagan ERA was a period in which corporate PACs literally compelled Congress to pass pro-business legislation. According to supply-side theory, these actions should have nudged the economy in the right direction, not plunge it into the worst recession in 40 years. But that is PRECISELY WHAT HAPPENED.

The resulting 'depression' of some two years was the longest, deepest since Hoover's GREAT DEPRESSION triggered by the crash of '29, an event not seen again until Shrub's second term.

Given the economic 'crimes' committed by Reagan, Sr, and Shrub, the lame ass charges against Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi pale.

How the GOP --which ran up the highest debts and deficits in US history --can lay that rap on Democrats which had control of Congress just eight of almost 20 years is just plain ludicrous.

ANY Dem Prez beats ANY GOP Prez since LBJ. Now --I would say that JOB GROWTH --essential for a healthy economy --is reason enough to fire the GOP until it repents and gets down on its knees to beg forgiveness of the American People, until it pleads, on its knees, for political salvation. Say Hallelujah!!!

Addendum:
This article would not have been possible had not Steve Kangas braved the wrath of a crooked GOP! Given that background, I have a message for Richard Mellon Scaife: FUCK YOU!

The Who: Won't Get Fooled Again!

Additional Resource: One Million Strong Against the Republican Party
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Thursday, December 17, 2009

What Must Obama do about the Lie of the Century?

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Obama should get off his butt and insist upon war crimes trials of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condo Rice. That Iraq had WMD was a bald faced lie to justify the seizure of Middle East oil fields! Ergo --every Iraqi death following is one count in a WAR CRIMES INDICTMENT on the scale of those charged to Adolph Hitler and high mucky mucks in the murderous Third Reich.
TITLE 18 >(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.

-- PART I > CHAPTER 118 > § 2441, War crimes
I say let the trials begin with George W. Bush who believed himself above the law and that the US Constitution was just a 'goddamned piece of paper'!
The government official who wrote the first draft of the "dodgy dossier" that helped propel Britain into war in Iraq today admits, "We were wrong."

John Williams, a former Foreign Office aide, said last night that publication of his document would expose how members of Tony Blair's team were locked in a mindset that made military action inevitable.

On Wednesday, ministers will hit a deadline for publishing the 2002 document, after years of resistance.

The Williams draft was written in September 2002, only days after Mr Blair, then Prime Minister, announced that the Government would publish a dossier of intelligence showing that Saddam Hussein threatened the world with his weapons.

The draft was not disclosed at the Hutton inquiry into the death in 2003 of the former Iraq arms inspector David Kelly. The scientist had suggested the dossier was exaggerated to justify the UK joining the 2003 invasion.

--'Dodgy dossier' was 'wrong', its author says, The Independant
According to the Times of London, Ministers had been warned in July 2002 that it "had no choice but to find a way" of making the American-led invasion of Iraq legal. In other words, the government in Britain KNEW that what Bush was doing in and to Iraq was a prosecutable war crime but, instead of doing the right thing, Britain sought to 'make it legal'. The very phrase --'to make it legal' --speaks to guilt and pre-meditation of both the US government of George W. Bush and the British government of Tony Blair in whom so many hopes had been invested, later dashed by the corrupting influences of the worst and most criminal White House in US history.


Damn Liars and War Criminals!

If the nation had wanted another eight years of war, a total of some twenty years of quagmire, war crimes and other atrocities. it might have put two idiots in the White House --John McCain and the even stupider Sarah Palin.

Rather, the nation wanted change and expressed that hope by electing an articulate man of substance. Committing the nation to an quaqmire well underway is NOT what the nation voted for. Another eight years of Bush's war crime is NOT the path the US should be on if it wishes to restore its blackened image throughout the world.


Nope! No WMD under the podium!
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Friday, December 11, 2009

Official Lies about 911 Exposed

Guest Columnist, Dr. David Ray Griffin
Although John Farmer's "The Ground Truth" has attracted a lot of favorable attention, it is a deeply flawed book, containing misleading claims and providing an extremely one-sided account of 9/11.

Much of the attention received by the book has been prompted by misleading claims made by Farmer and his publisher. The book's dust-jacket calls it the "definitive account" of 9/11, but it actually deals almost entirely with only one question about that day: why the airliners were not intercepted.

Also, the book's subtitle calls it "the untold story" of 9/11 and its dust-jacket says that it "breathtakingly revises" our understanding of that day. In reality, however, it simply provides new support for the story told about the planes in "The 9/11 Commission Report," which appeared in 2004, and in two publications that appeared in 2006: Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton's book "Without Precedent," and Michael Bronner's essay in "Vanity Fair."

Most provocatively, Farmer presents his book as a rejection of the "official" account of 9/11, which was given by "the government," by which he means primarily the FAA and the Pentagon. But this rhetoric is misleading for three reasons.

First, Farmer's book is a defense of the 9/11 Commission's report, which he calls "accurate, and true" (2), and the Commission was itself a governmental body: its chairman, Thomas Kean, was appointed by Bush; the other members were appointed by Congress; and the executive director, Philip Zelikow, was essentially a member of the Bush White House.

Second, the "official account of 9/11," as generally understood, is the Bush-Cheney administration's conspiracy theory, according to which the 9/11 attacks resulted from a conspiracy between Osama bin Laden and some members of al-Qaeda, and Farmer supports this theory.

Third, in rejecting the "official version," Farmer is referring only to the first version of the official account. It was replaced in 2004 by the 9/11 Commission's version, which since then has been the official version of the official account. In spite of his rhetoric, therefore, Farmer is defending the official account of 9/11 produced by the government in 2004, so the book is far less radical than it has been promoted as being.

Even more serious than the book's misleading rhetoric is its one-sidedness. Rather than containing an impartial examination of various types of relevant evidence, this book by Farmer - a former prosecuting attorney - reads like a lawyer's brief: Besides citing a large number of facts that appear to support the Bush-Cheney conspiracy theory and trying to undermine some of the contrary evidence (which supports the alternative theory, according to which 9/11 was an inside job), it seeks to suppress, by simply ignoring, the enormous bulk of this contrary evidence.

This one-sided approach is acceptable within an adversarial law court, given the presence of an opposing lawyer, but it does not result in a book that is acceptable by scholarly standards.

The one-sidedness of Farmer's book is manifest in his endnotes, which include no reference to any writings aimed at exposing serious problems with the 9/11 Commission: Besides not referring to any of my own books, one of which is entitled "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions," Farmer does not even mention "The Commission" by former New York Times writer Philip Shenon - who pointed out, among other things, that Zelikow had secretly written a detailed outline of the Commission's report before his research staff had even begun its work.

This bibliographic one-sidedness is important because it is reflected in substantive one-sidedness, one form of which is the ignoring of a great number of relevant facts. I will mention 15.

1. Claiming that the military did not have information about AA 77 in time to prevent it from striking the Pentagon, Farmer strongly attacks the claim (in the first version of the official account) that the FAA had notified the military about this flight at 9:24 AM. In doing so, he ignores a memo - even though it was discussed and read into the Commission's record in May 2003 - that was sent by the FAA's Laura Brown, explaining that 9:24 was only the time of the "formal notification" - that the FAA had set up phone bridges with the Pentagon and that "real-time information . . . about . . . Flight 77 . . . was conveyed continuously during the phone bridges before the formal notification" (Griffin, "The New Pearl Harbor Revisited" [NPHR] Chs. 1 & 2).

2. Simply assuming that Osama bin Laden authorized the 9/11 attacks, Farmer fails to mention that the FBI has admitted that "no hard evidence" supports this assumption (Griffin, "9/11 Contradictions" [9/11Contra] Ch. 18).

3. While mentioning that some of the alleged hijackers spent time in Las Vegas (62), Farmer fails to point out that, while there and in other places, they drank, went to strip clubs, and did other things that contradicted the Commission's portrayal of them as devout Muslims ready to die for their faith (9/11Contra Ch. 15).

4. Farmer calls Hani Hanjour, who allegedly flew AA 77 (a Boeing 757) through an extremely difficult trajectory to crash into the Pentagon, a "trained pilot" (45), failing to mention the much-documented fact that Hanjour could not even safely fly a single-engine plane (9/11Contra Ch. 19).

5. While claiming that "American 77 crashed into the Pentagon at a speed of 530 miles per hour" (186), Farmer does not point out that, according to the official seismic report, no station, including one only 63 km away, recorded the impact. He also fails to mention that many witnesses at the scene, both inside and outside, reported seeing no crashed airliner (NPHR Ch. 2).

6. Claiming that the alleged hijackers purchased tickets and boarded planes (62, 106), Farmer fails to mention that none of their names - indeed, no Arab names whatsoever - were on the passenger manifests of the flights released by the airlines or on the Pentagon autopsy report (NPHR Ch. 6).

7. Repeating the Commission's claim that Mohamed Atta and Abdul Aziz al Omari took an early morning flight from Portland (Maine) to Boston to catch American Flight 11 (103-05), Farmer does not point out that this story was a late invention, created after authorities learned that Adnan and Ameer Bukhari, originally said to have taken that flight, had not died on 9/11 (9/11Contra Ch. 16).

8. Writing as if the alleged phone calls from the airliners actually happened, Farmer does not point out that, after originally supporting the view that many of the reported calls were made on cell phones, the FBI in 2004 - after members of the 9/11 Truth Movement showed that cell phone calls from high-altitude airliners would have been impossible - quietly withdrew its support for such calls. The FBI thereby contradicted, among others, Deena Burnett, who was positive that she had been called by her husband, Tom Burnett (whom Farmer mentions), because she recognized his cell phone number on her Caller ID (9/11Contra Ch. 17).

9. Farmer repeats the claim, supported in 2004 by "The 9/11 Commission Report," that CNN commentator Barbara Olson had twice called from AA 77 to talk to her husband, Solicitor General Ted Olson (163, 166). But Farmer fails to point out that in 2006, after members of the 9/11 Truth Movement had reported that American's 757s did not have onboard phones, the FBI - in its report for the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui (the so-called 20th hijacker) - said that Barbara Olson's (one) attempted call did not go through and therefore lasted "0 seconds" (9/11Contra Ch. 8).

10. Farmer endorses the claim that the hijackers had box-cutters (161, 163), not mentioning the fact that this claim had been made only in the reported calls from Barbara Olson, which the FBI now says never happened (9/11Contra Ch 8).

11. While repeating the Commission's claim that al-Qaeda hijackers finally succeeded in breaking into UA 93's cockpit 30 seconds after they started trying (189), Farmer fails to ask why, in all that time, the pilots did not use the transponder to squawk the hijack code - a procedure that takes about 2 seconds (NPHR Ch. 6).

12. While claiming, like the Commission, that "Vice President Cheney learned that the Pentagon had been hit while he was in the tunnel under the White House leading to the shelter" (207), Farmer does not point out that Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta told the Commission that Cheney had been in the shelter (the Presidential Emergency Operations Center) at least since 9:20 AM, hence about 20 minutes before the reported time of the Pentagon attack - an observation that was supported by other witnesses, including counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke (9/11Contra Ch. 2).

13. While acknowledging that Richard Clarke's account of his White House videoconference contradicts the 9/11 Commission's claims about the whereabouts of not only Cheney but also Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, Farmer simply asserts that Clarke's account "does not square in any significant respect with what occurred that morning" (184), failing to point out that the question of who told the truth could be cleared up simply by looking at the videotape.

14. Suggesting that the Twin Towers came down because each one was "fragile at its core" (28), Farmer implicitly denies the fact that each tower was supported by 47 massive core columns and ignores the question of why several scientific studies, including one by the US Geological Survey, showed that the dust at Ground Zero contained various elements that, unless explosives had been used to bring down the buildings, should not have been there (Griffin, "The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7," Ch. 4).

15. Although Farmer's entire case for the 9/11 Commission's version of the official account, which involves his accusing a remarkable number of people of lying, rests entirely on logs and audiotapes not examined by the Commission until several years after 9/11, he fails to consider reasons that have been provided for believing that these tapes and logs had been doctored (NPHR Chs 1-3, 10).

There would be much more to say in a complete review, but the above points suffice to suggest that Farmer's book is deeply flawed, providing an account that is far from the "ground truth" about 9/11.

--David Ray Griffin, PhD

If 911 had not been an inside job, it would have been investigated! The cover up that followed has only one purpose: the protection of the guilty! It is not only the absurd, alleged conspiracy of 19 Arab hijackers, a cover story for which there is absolutely no convincing or admissible evidence, it is the fact that the events that day were deliberately covered up and access to evidence denied investigators.
It was odd to me that I was dispatched to go to New York even before the second plane hit the South Tower, while the media was still reporting only that a “small plane” had collided with the North Tower — far too small of a catastrophe at that point to involve FEMA . FEMA was mobilized within minutes, whereas it took ten days for it to deploy to New Orleans to respond to Hurricane Katrina, even with abundant advance warning! It was odd to me that all cameras were so fiercely prohibited within the secured perimeter of Ground Zero, that the entire area was declared a crime scene and yet the “evidence” within that crime scene was so rapidly removed and destroyed. And then it was very odd to me when I learned that FEMA and several other federal agencies had already moved into position at their command center at Pier 92 on September 10th, one day before the attacks! ...

We are asked to believe that all four of the “indestructible” black boxes of the two jets that struck the twin towers were never found because they were completely vaporized, yet I have footage of the rubber wheels of the landing gear nearly undamaged, as well as the seats, parts of the fuselage and a jet turbine that were absolutely not vaporized. This being said, I do find it rather odd that such objects could have survived fairly intact the type of destruction that turned most of the Twin Towers into thin dust. And I definitely harbor some doubts about the authenticity of the “jet” turbine, far too small to have come from one of the Boeings!

--Kurt Sonnenfeld, 9/11 FEMA videographer at Ground Zero goes public
Among the many lies about 911, the most egregious are the 'official ones' put forward by the Bush administration and Bush personally. Make no mistake about it: the story of 19 Arab hijackers co-ordinated from a cave in Afghanistan by a man who was most certainly already dead of kidney failure, is the most absurd lie among them. If Bush had taken his 'case' to court, a 'burden of proof' would have been imposed. It would have been interesting to see the government prosecutor attempt to 'prove' a case against a man that that could not have been proven to have been alive let alone co-ordinate multiple hijackings with cell phones from inside a remote cave in Afghanistan!

The many lies about 911 are evidence of guilt. The guilty are most always most motivated to cover up their crimes and only an idiot would suppress evidence if it would exonerate him!

Bush ordered the destruction of evidence, in fact, the cover up of 911. He and his administration shut down every investigation. Bush hid the truth. At the very least, the Bush administration obstructed justice because it is fully culpable for the inside job we call 911. And the lot of them should be indicted and put on trial for the crimes of high treason and mass murder.


911: An Inside Job
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