dajafi wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:I believe the neo cons are really unreconstructed Trotskyists, and so-called neo-con policies are actually designed to foment a global communist revolution. They're also deeply influenced by the work of Gramsci.

Speaking of conspiracy theories

But yeah, neo-cons are Trotskyites without the idealism. And, of course, their daddies were Trotskyites with the idealism, or at least a lot of them started that way.

Hitchens is kind of up front about it. And given the Straussian preference for lies over truth, what can you believe anyway?

Any, I think anyone who was ever a Red, even if they now disavow their commie past, should not be allowed near the centers of US power. This is because people as thoughtful as Orwell, Arendt and Hayek teach, the real enemy is not communism, but totalitarianism.

The behaviors of the Bush administration point to this conclusion. The purpose of the torture in the so-called war against terrorism is torture. Trotsky would be smiling.

TenuredVulture wrote:The behaviors of the Bush administration point to this conclusion. The purpose of the torture in the so-called war against terrorism is torture. Trotsky would be smiling.

I'm not as convinced of Trotsky's totalitarian impulses as you seem to be, though admittedly he never got the chance to really show them off.

Trotsky was a weird mixture of idealism and opportunism. He broke with Lenin in the 1900s because he was much more moderate as to means (ironically enough, given the Theory of Permanent Revolution he later came up with), then got back on board literally a few months before the revolution when he concluded that the Bolsheviks were going to win. Even within their coalition, until Stalin smashed him flat, he was the liberal voice--for "intra-party democracy" and such.

Orwell obviously had a soft spot for, or at least a fascination with, Trotsky as well--Snowball in Animal Farm, Goldberg in 1984.

dajafi wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:The behaviors of the Bush administration point to this conclusion. The purpose of the torture in the so-called war against terrorism is torture. Trotsky would be smiling.

I'm not as convinced of Trotsky's totalitarian impulses as you seem to be, though admittedly he never got the chance to really show them off.

Trotsky was a weird mixture of idealism and opportunism. He broke with Lenin in the 1900s because he was much more moderate as to means (ironically enough, given the Theory of Permanent Revolution he later came up with), then got back on board literally a few months before the revolution when he concluded that the Bolsheviks were going to win. Even within their coalition, until Stalin smashed him flat, he was the liberal voice--for "intra-party democracy" and such.

Orwell obviously had a soft spot for, or at least a fascination with, Trotsky as well--Snowball in Animal Farm, Goldberg in 1984.

I think much of the romanticism around Trotsky was a denial of the fact that Marxism is a totalitarian ideology. Indeed, at the heart of all totalitarianism is idealism--the belief that if we could just change this one fact about human beings, the world would be a better place.

OK, now I'm getting weirdly wistful for Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Except that Kirkpatrick was too often blinded to totalitarianism deemed useful.

TenuredVulture wrote:I think much of the romanticism around Trotsky was a denial of the fact that Marxism is a totalitarian ideology. Indeed, at the heart of all totalitarianism is idealism--the belief that if we could just change this one fact about human beings, the world would be a better place.

I'd say rather that what starts off as idealism often ends in totalitarianism (and this is more to your point about the Bush administration). Trotsky might have been every bit as ruthless and evil as Stalin, had he won the power struggle, but that's no more provable than my belief that Jon Lieber and Brett Myers would have been a devastating 1-2 in the 2005 playoffs, had the Phils made it.

(Though part of me can't get past the fact that Trotsky's formative adult experiences were as a student and a writer, while Stalin--after declining the priesthood--basically robbed banks and blew stuff up.)

Laexile wrote:I know people who "know" that the Iraq War was conducted to benefit Dick Cheney's Halliburton and oil buddies. I know a lawyer who "knows" that Cheney has a secret bank account in the Caribbean where Halliburton has been funneling money. I know a few who "know" we went simply as revenge for Saddam to kill Bush's father. I know people who "know" that both the 2000 and 2004 elections were fixed by Bush and the Democrats had no chance to win. One guy told me in spring 2004 that he "knew" that Bush had a secret plan to declare martial law and cancel the election. If you try to discuss this with them, you're shut down. They believed I was naive or just being contrary to argue facts. These are educated people in California.

I'm not looking to dismiss any of the above as true. But are they all less outlandish than believing Bush knew about 9/11 before it happened?

I'm no whacko, and I "suspect" many of the things you site. Suspect and beleive are possibly semantic but possibly there is a subtle distinction. I am also not closed to other opinions but wary of people who don't discuss or debate at all, but simply roll their eyes and dismiss. As I'm not a researcher, academic, investigative reporter etc... I rely on information from others, thesis, exposes, facts, assertions and interpretations, etc... and I have to use my judgment to decide what is or may be true. I don't rely on one person, one report and one opinion.

Am I more "prone" or do I "wish" to believe in conspiracy? I don't think so. In fact, I think I'm fairly cynical and cautious like many here, but I think I've been exposed to information sources and credible discussion that most of you have not.

I would never say "100% I'm sure...." about any thing above or most things. I'm not that cocky. But I suspect a lot of things. And I've put things together in a way that seems 'reasonable', not whacko, to me. That does not fulfill my need to believe in conspiracy, but that also does not try to blow off views that many find extreme because its so uncomfortable and overwhelming to face the consequences. That while some of the propoganda like some of this stuff on YouTube that I've sited is clearly specious in its so-called facts and wild in ite assertions and interpretations, those are more for 'color', than the hard data and analysis that have lead me where I am.

I do believe that the wealthy and powerful, and ideologs -- HAVE agendas, and wield power and would do any of the things -- so called conspiracy nuts -- think them capable of. I find people who patently dismiss those possibilities as people unwilling to face that the reality they believe in, could be an illusion and will do anything -- anything to deny that possibility because its too disturbing for them to accept. I accept that it is likely we live in a very messy very distorted very evil-at-time world. Doesn't stop me from going on in my reality that is not always distorted, evil etc... but I can see a big picture.

To Swish and Hoya --

You cannot call a figure of 35% of Democrats a fringe anything. 35% of the other major party is not a fringe. And is a large enough number that you need consider why these and hwo these people ahve come to their views?

I would add as well...

That history teaches us.

There are many people who may still beleive that the Japanse boming Pearl Harbor was totally unexpected and a shock and there was no other context.

There are many who may still believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone-gunman whacko who killled a sitting president without any other context or association.

There are many who know nothing about the CIA overthrowing the duly elected presidents of Iran and Chile in 54 and 73, or the US behavior and who was behind them in the Phillipines, Cuba, Puerto Rico -- in the 1890's and early 1900's.

But history has taught us a lot. British Petroleum in Nigeria, the murder of author Ken Sowaweta (sp?).

Placing and supprting the Zionists in Palestine.

Vagaries of United Fruit Co., Standard Oil ... on and on and on. The manipulation of elections around the world, the installation of puppet regimes. Heck, just in the last few years the CIA/US Military went in an removed Aristide from Haiti and installed the butcher whacko Junta puppet regime (minority).

This is history -- the facts are out there and come out in time, at least in some part. And I'm certain that some day, many things that are so called "whacko" "extremist" "conspiracy theories" about Bush-Cheney will come out as estalbished facts. Some of them I think are already out there, just not publicized or generally accepted. They will be.

I will tell you 1 thing. There are a LOT of people, structural engineers, scientists and other experts who ALL do not believe those towers could collapse in the manner their did, including Building 7, in the way the mainstream media has explained it to us. These are a large and disparate group of experts and in total, it's beyond a counter theory, but a prevailing expert theory -- that those Towers fell like a planned demolition.

And those who deny that well documented and explained scientific view, are like those in the 60's who deined 'smoking was bad for your lungs', and as the decades went on, that shifted adn eventually ubiquity was achieved and there is virtually no one credible left who tries to explain that smoking isn't bad for your health, and or tries to mitigate it with 'proper use' or 'limited use' etc...

Things will come in the future about the last 8 years that will bring many of the assertions of extremist whackos back in to credibility. History has taught us that.

There a LOT of people, structural engineers, scientists and other experts

Name them and post links, please

These are a large and disparate group of experts and in total, it's beyond a counter theory, but a prevailing expert theory -- that those Towers fell like a planned demolition.

No, it's not

The towers' collapse has been explained and modeled by engineers numerous times over the past seven years. You just want to believe that THEY WIRED ONE OF THE BIGGEST OFFICE COMPLEXES IN THE WORLD FOR DEMOLITION, AND NO ONE NOTICED. See any logistical issues with that?

Woody wrote:

There a LOT of people, structural engineers, scientists and other experts

Name them and post links, please

These are a large and disparate group of experts and in total, it's beyond a counter theory, but a prevailing expert theory -- that those Towers fell like a planned demolition.

No, it's not

The towers' collapse has been explained and modeled by engineers numerous times over the past seven years. You just want to believe that THEY WIRED ONE OF THE BIGGEST OFFICE COMPLEXES IN THE WORLD FOR DEMOLITION, AND NO ONE NOTICED. See any logistical issues with that?

It's not on me to explain how it was done. I do know, that fairly shortly before the event, the long time firm that provided security for the Towers was dismissed and a new agency was hired, the head of said agency well connected to the Bush-Cheney regime. Let's see what history reveals in the decades to come. Your still a young enough fellow to possibly live long enough to find yourself sitting one day going "holy #@$% batman, that kook P-t-K was on to this all alon..., wow..."

When I have time, I'll try to find links but you will try to dismiss anything I bring to you, because you already dismiss the possibility. You already believe a contrary view. It's like me saying, Judaism is the only valid religion to a devout Catholic, there's nothing one can do to convert. But if 30 years later, all the Catholics of the world, found that the Popes were running a deep conspiracy for generations -- it could shake their faith.

I think he's saying, if there are a lot of engineers that say it looked like a demolition, where are they

The Dude wrote:I think he's saying, if there are a lot of engineers that say it looked like a demolition, where are they

I've heard many of them speak. I know there are papers and possibly books and documentaries. I'll try to find some of them when I have more time.

PTK one thing you need to know about me is that I'm a skeptic and generally open-minded about stuff. And with all honesty, I LOVE conspiracy theories. But what you've purported you have yet to provide credible evidence of. This is the most widely covered event in the history of the world, and there have been numerous science-based explanations about the collapse of the towers. Just because it resembled a demolition doesn't mean it was a demolition.

What exactly are the private motivations that would incentivize and drive a few wealthy elites to rig the WTC to collapse and kill thousands of people?

Philly the Kid wrote:

The Dude wrote:I think he's saying, if there are a lot of engineers that say it looked like a demolition, where are they

I've heard many of them speak. I know there are papers and possibly books and documentaries. I'll try to find some of them when I have more time.

try the google!

These are a large and disparate group of experts and in total, it's beyond a counter theory, but a prevailing expert theory -- that those Towers fell like a planned demolition.

No they didn't. The collapse originated near the top of the towers. The intense heat weakened the steel, causing the steel columns to buckle and fail, then physics took over (floors pancaked downwards due to shock stress and weight). With a planned demolition, the origin would have been the bottom (knock out the "legs") with the pancaking being in a reverse order of how it happened.

I wonder if there might be some anti-semitism behind the origins of such WTC conspiracy theories, as the WTC leaseholder was a Jew (real-estate billionaire Larry Silverstein).

Philly the Kid wrote:

The Dude wrote:I think he's saying, if there are a lot of engineers that say it looked like a demolition, where are they

I've heard many of them speak. I know there are papers and possibly books and documentaries. I'll try to find some of them when I have more time.

zeitgeist.com

i dont believe it though

my theory is simply


we left the door open waiting for something to happen so we could prevent it and the government claims we are heroes and we must invade now before its to late, well it backfired, and many died, but the government got its way.... started with invading afghanistan, and quickly moved to IRAQ... unfinished business you know...

i also believe all planes hit their marks, perfectly, and the one in pittsburgh was going to as well.... until we shot it down...

the only odd thing i find with the whole situation is the wreck of the pittsburgh plane.... there is none just a hole, that looks to have been there for awhile...

the pentagon airplane can be seen from surveilance videos, it wasnt a missle as many say....

Werthless wrote:What exactly are the private motivations that would incentivize and drive a few wealthy elites to rig the WTC to collapse and kill thousands of people?

You can't be serious?

Do you know about the white papers that all the think-tankers associated with Cheney wrote just a few years earlier about calling for a "pearl harbor like event that would shock and awe the american public in a way so as to allow any mannter of suspending civil liberties etc..." (my quote)

They telegraphed that they wanted an event like this. it's widely known that many so-called terrorist events have links back to secret govt agencies adn operatives. not to say that there weren't "terrorist" puppets pulling triggers but not pulling strings.

They are not just wealthy elites, they are idealogs. They are like religious fanatics, not right in the mind.

There were enough clues to keep some of the people out of there -- in the big scheme of things, not to diminish the impact of even one lost life -- but a few thousand people in the big scheme compared to 1million East Timorese or 100K's of Iraqi's dead -- is still small. But the image and impact of that footage will still be reverberating 100 years from now.

I don't 100% know what happened. But I strongly suspect there is far more known, there were too many coverups and abnormalities to think that there were zero ties back to Cheney and other secret elemtns in govt. And I'm 90% convinced from the science I've heard from engineers and others -- that the fire were not hot enough to melt all the steel, that the impacts, dramatic as they were - were not enough to bring them all down, and that "pop pop pop" sound that many cops and others heard inside the towers -- are consistent with explosives and that the pancake collapse with no jagged steel pieces are an indication of something much more like a demolition than a random act. Building 7 wasn't hit and also collpased in the same fashion. AND ALL of the metal was shipped off to China for melting before any engineers could look and see if there had been random crumbling versus clean edges from explosives.

I don't want to get sucked in to this debate. The info is out there. Those who think I'm nuts will continue to think I'm nuts no matter what links I present. And the info I've studied isn't something you will be able to go through in 20minutes. I've spent hours reading, listening to talks, watching documentaries, reading bits and pieces, hearing interviews with people in military media on the ground, science, policy on and on... how do I transfer all that to someone on a sport forum in 10minutes of via 1-2 links?

But if you are serious -- I can lead you to sources. When i've done it in the past, i get random responses trying to discredit every source I present.

This began with what is whacko or fringe. 35% of Dems according to that poll feel there is something connecting to Bush-Cheyney. That's not a fringe and too large a percentage for everyone to be 'wacko'. I guess that many people could be wrong. but so could the other 66%?!

LINKS
SUPPORT
EVIDENCE
ARTICLES
TRANSCRIPTS
VIDEO
CARTOONS
VENN DIAGRAMS
GANTT CHARTS
POLITICAL CARTOONS
?????????????????????????

"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor"

That sounds like one hell of an intellectual leap between this one sentence (of which you got the tone and context completely wrong) in a think tank white paper to OMGTHEBUSHIESBLEWUPTHETOWERITWASANINSIDEJOB!.

Philly the Kid wrote:The info is out there. Those who think I'm nuts will continue to think I'm nuts no matter what links I present. And the info I've studied isn't something you will be able to go through in 20minutes. I've spent hours reading, listening to talks, watching documentaries, reading bits and pieces, hearing interviews with people in military media on the ground, science, policy on and on... how do I transfer all that to someone on a sport forum in 10minutes of via 1-2 links?

You can't keep saying things like "It's out there", "It's well know that", "Experts agree" without posting any credible evidence (you still haven't, yet somehow found the time for a long post) and then say "it doesn't matter what I post you'll all still think I'm nuts". If there is SOOO much out there (that you've obviously seen, read, etc...), post some of it. Point us in the direction to enlighten ourselves. I think the problem here is you know you have nothing credible to bolster your arguments or beliefs other than documents and videos based mostly on wild and often factually incorrect speculation, incredibly preposterous dot-connecting and sheer anti-establishment fanaticism.

Woody wrote:LINKS
SUPPORT
EVIDENCE
ARTICLES
TRANSCRIPTS
VIDEO
CARTOONS
VENN DIAGRAMS
GANTT CHARTS
POLITICAL CARTOONS
?????????????????????????

"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor"

That sounds like one hell of an intellectual leap between this one sentence (of which you got the tone and context completely wrong) in a think tank white paper to OMGTHEBUSHIESBLEWUPTHETOWERITWASANINSIDEJOB!.

Since shortly after it happened, I have been following trails of info. Many of them in isolation could be nothing or coincidence but after a while, there are just "too many" things.

I actually agree with the Dajafi's of the world at first glance, "of course these guys are too incompetent to pull something of this magnitude off -- too many chances to be exposed -- too many variables..." I'm cynical in a variety of ways. But then, facts and bits and notions, and quotes and interviews and suddenly I'm like "huh... hmm.... this is really kind of a lot of weird stuff..." Too many wierd stuff.

I feel a lot stronger about the engineering and science evidence indicating that the planes and jet fuel could NOT have brought th eTowers down nor in the fashion they fell, than exactly what Cheney knew or did. But I remain suspicious.

I know JFK was not merely killed by Lee Harvey. I don't know maybe no one will every fully know the full extent. There are many theories and perhaps some are totally wrong or coincidence or rumor or mis-directions and mis-information... but I think most people generally now agree that it wasn't just some random nut-job. E Howard Hunt is implicated, there's talk of mafia, CIA -- who knows... but something is there.

And I contend, with "911" "there is something there..." it is not as it meets the naked eye. And if it really was as is, then tehre would have to be so many places where the 911 Commission was impotent or blocked certain processes and info.

I'm done for today. I have to earn some duckets to pay the rising costs of life in the USA after 8 years of Republican rule.

Woody wrote:

Philly the Kid wrote:The info is out there. Those who think I'm nuts will continue to think I'm nuts no matter what links I present. And the info I've studied isn't something you will be able to go through in 20minutes. I've spent hours reading, listening to talks, watching documentaries, reading bits and pieces, hearing interviews with people in military media on the ground, science, policy on and on... how do I transfer all that to someone on a sport forum in 10minutes of via 1-2 links?

You can't keep saying things like "It's out there", "It's well know that", "Experts agree" without posting any credible evidence (you still haven't, yet somehow found the time for a long post) and then say "it doesn't matter what I post you'll all still think I'm nuts". If there is SOOO much out there (that you've obviously seen, read, etc...), post some of it. Point us in the direction to enlighten ourselves. I think the problem here is you know you have nothing credible to bolster your arguments or beliefs other than documents and videos based mostly on wild and often factually incorrect speculation, incredibly preposterous dot-connecting and sheer anti-establishment fanaticism.

not to be mean, but PTK illustrates what most of the conspiracy theorists do

the "ITS OUT THERE, SEE FOR YOURSELF..... ALL THE EXPERTS SAY IT COULDNT HAVE HAPPENED LIKE THAT" line...

ive heard it not just from you but EVERYONE who believes the missle/inside job thing


dont get me wrong, there is more stuff there meets the eye... i stated what I think happened, rebuttle if you may...

but you cant bring the boom with blanket statements that we have all heard