rkm ruminations…

2002-05-25

Richard Moore

Bcc: X & others...

Friends,

I need some inputs about what we should be doing on this
list.  We could talk about Israel, or the war between India
and Pakistan, or Fuhrer Bush, or neo-imperialism
in Columbia, Venezuela, and the Philippines, or whatever. 
One thing I'd like to hear about is "What it's like in the
States?".  Do people still hang out flags?  Would it be safe
for me to visit there?

Seriously now, my time has been taken up by a business
venture and I want to focus the time I spend with political
pursuits.  What is worth doing?  What can I say to you folks
that I haven't already said, for better or for worse.  I can
certainly forward interesting things people send in, but
that's a no-brainer.  Let's do something more creative. 
Suggestions welcome.

---

I read an article on the net, by someone who generally makes
sense. He was talking about the WTC, and 'what Bush knew',
and was all apologetic about how impossible it would be for
Bush to have prevented the WTC incident.  For what it's
worth, let me bring you in on the conversation...

    X wrote> The authorities could also have shut down the
    airports or massed police, soldiers and FBI agents to check
    every airline passenger.

  rkm> And they could have followed standard procedures, which is
  to scramble fighters when airliners are hijacked - not
  necessarily to shoot them down, but to reconnoiter and be
  available for any action required.  Why were standard
  procedures not followed?  Especially after warnings had been
  received, and when four planes were hijacked instead of just
  one.
  
  Furthermore, there were many more advance warnings than
  those recently admitted to in the mainstream media.


    X> These are certainly subjects for investigation. I agree;
    though what scrambling planes could have done is beyond me.
    We always argue that big centralized institutions are
    inherently inefficient and unwieldy. Here, it seems to me,
    you and other critics, are arguing that there's something
    suspicious in the federal government's lousy response to
    this; I'm saying it's inherent and it should be of no
    surprise. What passes for intelligence is the promiscuous
    collection of raw data that they do not know to interpret
    and, when they do, they usually get it wrong.

  rkm> Many thanks for your response.  Scrambling planes,
  whether we know why or not, is standard procedure.  As it
  happens, the interceptors can fly along the wing-tips,
  signal to the pilot, make threatening gestures, etc.  If the
  path goes near strategic targets, they can shoot down. 
  These kind of procedures, one would expect, would be
  heightened in the weeks following a finding that terrorist
  attacks were anticipated.
  
  I'm glad that you brought up this business of government
  incompetence. That goes to the heart of liberal mythology. 
  Consider how laws are made.  An agenda is set, somewhere
  outside the scope of public discussion.  In the 1850s it was
  about subsidizing the railroads.  In the 1950s it was about
  destroying the railroads and promoting the internal
  combustion engine.  Whatever.  The agenda is set for
  economic and geopolitical reasons.  Finally, the politicians
  and pundits come up with reason why the people should
  like the legislation.  That's when we first hear about it. 
  It's all a conspiracy from the get go.
  
  Here's why that's relevant to your comment, "they usually
  get it wrong".  If you believe the politicians' lies about
  ~why~ a law is being passed, then of course you will see
  incompetence in the fact that the alleged objectives are
  never accomplished.  But if you realize that the alleged
  objectives were PR lies to begin with, then incompetence is
  no longer the accurate explanation of the turn of events.
  
  Take for example NAFTA, which lover-boy Clinton told us was
  going to help the economies of both the U.S. and Mexico.  It
  didn't, and any common-sense appraisal of the treaty knew
  that from the beginning.  It was a treaty whose sole
  objective was the removal of barriers from corporations
  doing whatever they wanted to do.  A way to keep capitalist
  growth going a bit longer.  And then came the PR. 
  Incompetence?  No.  Conspiracy?  Yes.  And the bottom-line
  benefit to the corporate sector was concrete and measurable.
  As is the human suffering.

---

[Another thread...]

  rkm> Why do you avoid any discussion in your article of
  the most likely explanation: the incident was planned by
  U.S. Intelligence in order to justify the many and radical
  actions that have been subsequently taken?  Are you not
  aware that every war the U.S. has ever been involved in for
  the past two centuries has been enabled by an outrage
  incident which has later proven to be either faked or
  arranged? 

    X> I've read all the conspiracy theories and they do not
    strike me as credible. An easy question: Why four plans, and
    not just one. Would not the WTO [stet] made their point. Did they
    hit the Pentagon to improve credibility?  Do you really
    believe the U.S. the source of ALL evil in the world? That
    everything bad that happens is hatched in Washington?  Do
    you think Bush wanted to destroy the travel industry and
    crash the stock market? There are less destructive ways to
    create fear and opportunity for repression and militarism.

  rkm> Jesus, I could write a whole book in answer to the many
  assumptions and twists of logic in that one paragraph.  To
  begin with, you didn't address any of the issues I raised.
  You immediately jumped to, "If what you say is true, then
  how do you explain this...".  Is this a high-school debate
  or are we trying to find truth?  I'm serious: why were
  standard procedures not followed?  Why did an air-force
  source say that orders were given out to 'stand down'?  Why
  do you seek a way to dismiss such questions?  Why not deal
  with them, and then move on to your more general
  observations?
  
  Let's look at some of your assumptions.  Did "Bush [want]
  to destroy the travel industry and crash the stock market?".
  Those are very ephemeral things.  To begin with, the airline
  industry, almost instantly, as if part of a previous plan,
  was granted $30 billion in subsidy.  That kept them in meat
  and potatoes for a comfy interval, with the best cream going
  to the top.   The stock market?  Who gives a fuck?  It's the
  little guys who lose out.  The big guys either got out
  first, or they have the staying power to wait out the panic.
  The ~big~ economic factor is the slowdown in the global
  economy.  They don't talk about it, but it's big time.  Too
  many new cars and too few new-car buyers.  That's it in a
  nutshell.  The same kind of over-production and hyper
  investment that characterized the 1920's and led to the
  Great Depression.  The Industrial Revolution makes more
  things than anyone needs: that's the long and the short of it.
  
  If only it _had been the ~WTO~ instead of the WTC... much
  more beneficial!   (:>)   Seriously now, who can understand
  the diabolic logic of anyone who plans to blow up the WTC? 
  Certainly Bin Laden is the least possible to explain -- it
  was clear that the U.S. would end up punishing any
  perpetrator ten times over.  No gain there.  No logic there.

  So we can debate whether the Pentagon was a wise part of a
  CIA scenario.  Perhaps you're right, perhaps the Pentagon
  was a faus pas.  But the core logic of Bush (as figurehead
  for those who know their times table) is inarguable.  In a
  world of diminishing resources, uprising populations, and a
  crisis of capitalism, survival of the system demands that
  the gloves be taken off, that hardball be played.  Those who
  say "It's all about oil" don't have a clue.  That's just the
  current project-in-pipeline (pardon the pun).
  
  The big payoff, the all-important payoff, is two-fold. (1)
  Control the domestic population. (2) Take off the limits re/
  geopolitical intervention.  Both have been accomplished in
  spades.  And not once have we seen even a shred of evidence
  to implicate Bin Laden or anyone else.  Jesus, their
  arrogance is so gross that they don't even care if they
  cover their tracks.  CNN=Truth, and why bother with the
  details?
  
  "Conspiracy theories not credible".  I'd be interested in
  which conspiracy theories you have in mind.  Our whole
  system is conspiracy-based from the top to the bottom.  No
  company tells the truth about its products; few politicians
  tell the truth about anything - that would be counter-
  productive in their careers.  I've seen the microcosm in
  various companies I've worked at.  A plant was to be closed
  down, I was on the management team in the parent company,
  and we were told not to inform any of the workers so they
  wouldn't flee to other jobs.  That's just business as usual,
  and the closer to the top you get the more sophisticated the
  games.
  
  I detest the term 'conspiracy theory'.  What we have are
  incidents, elite PR, and evidence.  I take the
  evidence, and lay out the plausible scenarios.  Just like on
  "Murder She Wrote".  What makes the most sense?  Who had a
  motive, opportunity, and modus operandi?  The answer is
  often different that what is being sold on TV.  Why does
  that make it a conspiracy theory?  The answer to that
  question, I believe, has to do with sociology and mass
  delusion, not with logic.
 
---

    X> It's like Pearl Harbor, which we've argued about in
    the past. Once the Japanese set sail the die was cast. FDR
    had no reason to lose the fleet. Had we understood the
    intelligence and been ready to respond and protected Pearl
    we still would have had reason to enter the war. The crucial
    issue was their attack; not our response. Same here. Unless
    you believe that bin Ladin didn't do anything, that he's
    really a third world revolutionary who seeks a better life
    for the struggling masses, even women.

  rkm> You're getting desperate here.  No, I don't put Bin
  Laden forward as a people's hero.  What does that have to do
  with anything?  Are you saying everyone is either a total
  good guy or a total bad guy?  Have you been watching too
  many Hollywood movies?  Let's get back to the topic at
  hand...
  
  Do you know how deeply isolationist the US was in 1941?
  Isolationism had been sold as policy for many years, while
  U.S. corporations were investing and profiting in Germany
  and Japan.  And there was a native sympathy for isolationism
  in the American heartland.  And there were many in the
  business elite who liked Hitler and would rather support the
  Nazis against the Russians than any other option.  Turning
  all that around, and generating the incredible popular
  energy that went in to the War Effort was a truly amazing
  feat.  A failed attack would not have turned the trick.
  There had to be blood of innocent Americans.  It worked to a T.
 
  We didn't lose a fleet.  We lost a few antiquated
  battleships and the like.  The strategically important
  ships, the carriers, were all safely out at sea on
  maneuvers.  A convenient coincidence, as was the fact that
  observation posts on the critical island of Kauai were told
  to stand down just before the event.  I'll stop, because the
  evidence for FDR's agency goes on and on and is irrefutable.

---
    
    X> The left needs to be credible; since we have no money and
    little access to the mass media credibility is all we've
    got.

  rkm> This may be your most interesting point.  The left
  (aka. liberal intellectuals) has an impoverished view of
  public opinion.  People at the bottom are radical.  They
  might be born-again right-wingers, or the opposite, but they
  aren't moderate.  Not in general.  People want to hear the
  truth. And they have a hard time finding it anywhere. 
  "Being credible" means 'sounding like the mass media', the
  Turner defined reality.  There's no win down that path. They
  define the agenda, you pick at it and point out its
  inconsistencies.  By definition you are marginalized.  You
  evoke the illusion of debate.  You serve the system.  Wake
  up and tell the whole truth, as you know it.  

best regards to all, 
rkm
http://cyberjournal.org

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