"So...it turns out"

If you believe the US government that is --- and who doesn't?

The other thing that is amazing about this is, by even positing this question in his journal, it shows that Bin Laden had a complete misunderstanding of how the American Government works. He seems to think the US cares enough about it's citizens to eventually come around to protecting them. You could have 100 9-11s a year and America would only burrow deeper and deeper into the Arab world.

RTT You are wise.

Dude.

You make it sound as though intervening in the Middle East is optional. That's how everybody knows you aren't serious.

In one passage, Bin Laden wondered how many Americans would have to die in U.S. cities to force the U.S. government to withdraw from the Arab world

Did the offficial intentionally not include in this, something OBL may have written e.g. and end America's support of Israel in its "Ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians?

here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/11/israel-palestinians-residency-rights

In a structurally similar question, how many more major nuclear disasters will have to take place for technological civilization to withdraw from using nuclear fission to generate electricity?

For details about how things are going in Fukushima these days, see

Welcome to tne Atomic Village

http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/05/may-10-2011-welcome-to-atomic-village.html

Yet this isn't presented as being particularly important in this article. No politicians are asked whether this makes them consider whether it's worth running the risk of massive terrorist attacks in order to continue intervening in the mideast. It's just brought up, and...dropped.

If the MSM is remiss in questioning the politicians, one hopse that the elected officials DO READ the newspapers and use their heads and change their foreign policies in toto.
Is it too much to hope for? For the foreseeable future, that is how it looks! Yes Mr Schwarz, you can take your nap....

Mistah Charley, I normally love your links, but the garbage in that one about the Japanese "collectivist" mentality, their slavish devotion to the group, etc., is responsible for the way they're responding to this disaster is opprobrious and unreadable. Is it really necessary to preface a description of the events with some half-baked Orientalist analysis of how the Japanese are fucking themselves because that's just how they are? Because, surely, nothing like that could happen in the West, where our strong culture of individualism prevents government toadies from lying about the extent of a huge energy infrastructure disaster even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary - oh, wait.

saurabh, for you I suggest skipping the initial sociology and going down to the heading "Dying for Tepco" - while the post does begin with the famous saying -

出る杭は打たれる。("Deru kui wa utareru"), or in English, "The stake that sticks up gets hammered down."

- that is not the main point of the article.

I don't think bin Laden was in any position to do much of anything if you can believe anything you read in the news. And even if he was you likely had a better chance of dying from a bee sting than you would a terrorist attack from bin Laden.

I think Americans have more to worry about with the demise of jobs than they do anything else. But yeah, after the government has destroyed habeas corpus, overseen the transfer of what little money you might have saved after they took your job and gave those savings to the banksters while groping your privates it certainly is an epiphany to realize that the real enemy has been our government all along.

And why doesn't it matter? Because Obama knows that his supporters have nowhere else to go come election day. In the end the gerbils will vote for Obama because we know how bad those republicans are. The republicans will certainly end the world if elected, I know this for a fact because I have seen the republicans end the world several times in my lifetime.

Arguing about bin laden and his journals--no thanks.

For some real smarts on all this, from bin laden to qaddafi, read pepe escobar "Bin Laden out, Gaddafi next," http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ME12Ak01.html, which includes:

"In the whirlwind of lies and hypocrisy engulfing the Osama bin Laden hit job, the key justice-related fact is how an unarmed man, codename "Geronimo", was captured live then summarily executed in front of one of his daughters - after a lightning-quick invasion of a theoretically "sovereign" country.

As for the quagmire war waged by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) against Libya, the fact is that Western public opinion was fed a military attack against a sovereign country that has committed no violation of the United Nations charter. Talk about a wolf - neo-colonialism - in sheep's clothing - "humanitarian war."

It gets smarter from there.

Ya hired the mob, ya got the hit, good bad or indiferent. Either way, proof positive that Chitown Crowd is for real, unlike Deadeye and his pet goat, Codpiece. Those 2 would have let him die of old age. Just be thankful WE didn't take out a wedding party or a neighborhood elementary school along with Bin Laden.
Ten years and a mob hit to see a facsimile of JUSTICE, what's that tell ya???

RE: NE

Intelligence whistleblowers from William Blum to Susan Lindauer, knew Lockerbie was a false flag operation. If the Power Elite could get away with that, they can get away with anything.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nGBByD6bJo

Be careful Nikolay, you'll lose your shoe contract! Not a bad video for 2,881 hits, though I never especially like arguments in rap because i'm just too damn uncool.

I also don't even know who Susan Lindenauer is, so I guess I'll need to look her up. I did study up on Lockerbie once upon a time, and as I recall Alan Francovich's documentary The Maltese Double Cross was really good if anyone wants to know about that. Weirdly, Francovich later died of a heart attack while being detained by US security/immigration officials when entering the US at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental airport. There is of course no evidence they killed him, and I bet they didn't--except by scaring him to death. But as you point out, it's possible to get away with anything, so who knows.

As for Lockerbie, Francovich's take was that the bombing was a hit on some CIA personnel, most likely because they had learned too much about some other illegal US activity involving arms to Iran (somethign that remains taboo in respectable circles to mention), and my own guess was that Francovich was right and some US covert terrorist proxies had blown up the jet to nix that. Then, I tend to think/guess, it was blamed on Libya and that nuisance Gaddafi who our black ops wingnut terrorist-employing terrorist haters have always hated because he supports the wrong terrorists.

The one thing I agree unequivovcally with you about is your point that they can get away with anything thing, though I don't much like Millsian terms like "Power Elite" (my preference only). That problem of no accountability on any level in this world was my original interest, arising out of my original pyscyhological crisis, because it means the world is fundamentally deeply corrupt and most of our public discourse hypocrisy and idiocy so profoundly meaningless that we might as well be living in a bad dream. That conconclusion was too much for my heartland upbringing to accept, and I suppose I still can't accept it. So I'm pissed instead of spiritual (sorry mistah charley). But I'm trying to put that to good use, lawfully of course, since law is my thing.

So yes, from my rather obsessive compulsive reading of history in response to that deep crisis of naivete, I can say that I wholeheartedly agree it has always been possible for "them" to get away with anything. And I think that won't change. So read your Aeschylus and make your moral choices, because there is no escape from them. Courage.

P.S. Nikolay

I see from digging up an old article, and am not surprised to discover, that Lindenauer blamed the Syrians for the terrorist bombing at Lockerbie. Rarely does anybody with any official connection of any kind suggest that any American faction would ever use terrorist proxies, and what's amusing is that people have to actually go to considerable lengths to ignore that american factions had used terrorist proxies regularly for decades. Hell, that's indisputably what osama and his gang were back in the 80s and 90s, and that was part of the norm, not the exception. Blum is very clear eyed about that, so he perhaps suggested that maybe it wasn't the Syrians--I'd have to go look it up though.

By teh way, good to see you goofing off around here, Nikolay. Ciao.

Yep. I'd say you got most of it. It was a coincidence that the primary CIA team responsible for investigating the Iran-Contra scandal was on that plane. They were no doubt getting close to finding about the major drug-running operations underpinning Iran-Contra, so they had to go. Lots of the shifting power struggles among the factions of the Elite end up this way. I suppose the acceptable way to resolve these for all factions involved is to kill two birds with one stone (i.e. the USS Liberty incident, perhaps pushed by the Zionist faction among others). Its no coincidence (should be no coincidence) that when the Twin Towers fell, the only other high rise tower in the World Trade Center Complex to fall, and the only other tower to fall that was not hit by a plane, is Building 7, the building containing most records on the dirt of major corporations, including Enron, who were involved in the construction of the TARP oil pipeline that was supposed to run through Afghanistan all the way to India which the Taliban turned down before 9/11.

But you knew that.

I'm puzzled how Jon could fall for something like this bin Laden fiasco. Didn't Benzhir Butto say that Osama bin Laden has been dead for years? Wasn't she then assassinated, a charge the Pakistani Taliban, known for taking credit for killing dancing girls, denied? How about the Egyptian and Saudi obituaries of his death?

Wasn't Osama's goal to bankrupt the United States by its wars abroad rather than attacks at home?

I suppose many here will be unmoved by this. I'm certainly tired of providing credible links of this stuff. But I'm reminded of a quote by a Swedish author and historian Sven Lindqvist. "You already know enough. So do I. It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and to draw conclusions."

So it is.

thanks, NE.

NL/NE: Has it even occurred to you that the reason people refuse to show "the courage to understand what they know" is that perhaps, hello, they ARE IN ON THE CONSPIRACY !!!!!! Come on, guys. Everybody knows Jon is the CIA operative who trained bin Laden (where do you think Osama learned to make his funny videos?) Now the question you should ponder is: Why were YOU kept in the dark?

They defrosted him, then they shot him.

bobs

Nikolay and agree on much but not all, including the significance of the Enron records and the pipeline and, going back farther, some of the aspects of what happened to the USS Liberty. And I actually disagree with Lindqvist's view about people's courage too, but those are all just details--Nikolay thinks. That's a good thing, to be distinguished from making fun of people for thinking, which any idiot can do. I'm actually myself better at it mockery than most idiots, and I must confess, certainly better at it than you are. Out of respect for Jon, I'll not say more, except that making yourself sound like a frat boy isn't necessarily a good thing.

Nikolay

I didn't/don't "know" all that stuff, though I have read David Ray Griffin's book arguing that OBL died back in 2001, and he marshalled a whole bunch of evidence. Frankly, the evidence to the contrary is mostly just those stupid easily faked videos that appeared from time to time, and yet suggesting that anyone would or could ever do that is impermissible by anyone who wants to keep a reputation. Public credulity is at all times mandatory.

There is no realistic possibility that people are going to quit believing ridiculous fabricated crap, or that political discourse is ever going to rise much about the general ranting and preaching that it has always been, so "mobs" are going to keep getting manipulated, and the methods of manipulation just keep getting more and more sophisticated. We've already reached the point where most people believe damn near anything they're told to believe and even hate on cue for reasons they don't understand. So as a nation, and possibly species, I think we're screwed.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

I don't think it's a question of lacking the courage to act. I think it's figuring out what to do next. Even if one could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that OBL died in 2001, that's just an event; you need a worldview to go around it. What happened is only one part; why it happened and what to do about it are just as important, and maybe more so if "taking action" is your standard.

I'm not doing a very good job explaining this, because I've been writing all day and my brain is fogged, but the staying power of conventional history isn't based on its being true, but how it reduces uncertainty, and removes the necessity to act. This is why people reflexively mock "conspiracy theory"; when you question the official story, everybody who hasn't questioned it feels that they are being called stupid or corrupt or hypocritical. That's not the case, but it gives the government's version a million defenders, whether it deserves them or not.

Hi Mike! I'm very glad to hear that you're using your writing talent.

You're certainly right that people don't decide what they believe about history, or the rest of reality, based on what is historically or empirically true. But don't feel bad about having a hard time answering that question you struggled with, because that's a huge question.

One thing that's interesting to me is that the disdain for 'conspiracy theory' is a fairly new social development that really started mostly in the 70s, and it has been developed, or at least cultivated. That strikes me as telling.

Just joshing, NE. I know it's hard for a conspiracy theorist to relax, but you should give it a try.

Oh, and why did I know it was only a matter of time before MoA showed up at the conspiracists' class reunion?

At any rate, NL wins the thread with this gem: "I'm certainly tired of providing credible links of this stuff." There's nothing to add.

Mike of Angle: "the staying power of conventional history isn't based on its being true, but how it reduces uncertainty, and removes the necessity to act."

beautifully expressed. what he said.

And N E's point about how disdain for conspiracy is a new social development is pretty apt too.

I guess when a society makes such a shift it's a little like graduating from sales school at the car dealership; now you wear a necktie to work every day, you represent a company with a long and distinguished history, blah blah blah, believe in your product, etc.

How can you behave like one of those long-haired freaks who rails against "the man" and his questionable dealing when "the man" has finally invited you to join? It would be the height of ingratitude, after he showered you with all that prosperity. You're respectable now.

I know N E, you said 70s, not 60s- but I like my cheesy signifiers.

"...[He] sat back and thought about the conversation. He shaped it into a story, which he never got around to writing until he was an old, old man. It was about a planet where the language kept turning into pure music, because the creatures there were so enchanted by sounds. Words became musical notes. Sentences became melodies. They were useless as conveyors of information, because nobody knew or care what the meanings of words were anymore.
So leaders in government and commerce, in order to function, had to invent new and much uglier vocabularies and sentence structures all the time, which would resist being transmuted to music."

*Sigh*

I could mention that the anti-spam software on Jon's site is not conducive to post links anyway.

Perhaps the DDoS attacks of various websites endured after the announcement of bin Laden's "death" was just a fluke... Or maybe Al-Qaeda decided to retaliate against those who were disrespecting their leaders passing?

http://whatreallyhappened.com/content/al-qaeda-terrorists-threatened-unleash-%E2%80%9Cnuclear-hellstorm%E2%80%9D-west-if-osama-bin-laden-assassina

Maybe military officers from Col. Ronald D. Ray to Raymond McGovern just put their reputations on the line because they feel like it.

http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/

Hell, maybe if bin Laden is the guy behind 9/11 they should of let the FBI have a case first.

http://www.twf.org/News/Y2006/0608-BinLaden.html

But you didn't even attempt to question any of my claims and your best arguments are ad-hominem attacks. You're probably a troll. There's nothing to add.

*Sigh*

The fact that Jon's anti-spam software discourages links might have something to do with that.

Now, am I supposed to believe that DDoS attacks on websites who mention such uncomfortable facts on the day of bin Laden's "death" are the work of some pranksters? When activists from Anonymous are easily tracked down and arrested for such things as barely disrupting service Mastercard.com? It's no doubt Al-Qaeda punishing naive Americans for demeaning his death?

Perhaps military officers from Colonel David D. Ray to Raymond McGovern are putting their reputations on the line because they have nothing to lose?

Or maybe the American Power Elite thought that since they can start wars without evidence they can make-up enemies without a case against them with no problems?

Or hell, maybe since you haven't addressed any of my claims or made any argument beside ad-hominem attacks you're probably just a troll.

There's nothing to add.

*Sigh*

The fact that Jon's anti-spam software discourages links might have something to do with that.

Now, am I supposed to believe that DDoS attacks on websites who mention such uncomfortable facts on the day of bin Laden's "death" are the work of some pranksters? When activists from Anonymous are easily tracked down and arrested for such things as barely disrupting service Mastercard.com? It's no doubt Al-Qaeda punishing naive Americans for demeaning his death?

Perhaps military officers from Colonel David D. Ray to Raymond McGovern are putting their reputations on the line because they have nothing to lose?

Or maybe the American Power Elite thought that since they can start wars without evidence they can make-up enemies without a case against them with no problems?

Or hell, maybe since you haven't addressed any of my claims or made any argument beside ad-hominem attacks you're probably just a troll.

There's nothing to add.

"Now, am I supposed to believe that DDoS attacks on websites who mention such uncomfortable facts on the day of bin Laden's "death" are the work of some pranksters? "

That guy Mike Rivero (owner of that "What Really Happened" website) is extremely inaccurate. And his claim that his site was under a "DDoS attack" is highly suspect. On the day of bin Laden's death, traffic for my videos dealing with bin Laden shot through the roof. I think what happened was an increase in traffic to his site due to all the bin Laden stuff on it and his site couldn't handle it. It really is a shame that Rivero has had such a big negative impact on public discourse and that he refuses to engage in dialog about his irrational theories. I'll be uploading a video about him, two videos at least, VERY SOON. Please subscribe and look for it. It is his site I talk about, but don't happen to name, in this other video: Why Do They Do This? Debunking 9/11 & Controlled Demolition

bobs, I'm a great relaxer; I will relax my way all the way to paradise. (I even have a picture of a lazy boy that I envy on my bulletin board.) But a person doesn't have to be a snide dolt to relax, and the problem is that ALL you were doing is just joshing. I have a friend who sometime interrupts people assigned the thankless task of making aggravating telephonic requests of him by suddenly asking in a tone that almost demands a response: "Is this the person to whom I'm speaking?"

So bobs, is it?

You tell 'em Nikolay!

jonathan versen

i like your cheesy signifiers too, and mr. mike does indeed have a silky smooth pen

Hi bobs! Thanks for illustrating my point, tentative as it was. To read Jon's original post, and then come down on ATR's Konspiracy Klub in the comments--perfect.

I've come to believe that how one feels about "conspiracy theory" is simply one's sensitivity to a certain taboo. Some people can pee right there on the street, others can't even pee in a bathroom if someone might hear them. The "conspiracy" taboo is certainly cultivated by the mainstream media and government, but I think posts like this one suggest that it isn't some great desire for The Truth that makes them do it. What might? Well, that would be a conspiracy theory. It's a neat arrangement.

I'm interested in some conspiracy theories from an historical standpoint--as mysteries--but I'm most interested in the emotion around all of them, and what that says about who we are. People who don't bat an eyelash at something like fisting react badly when somebody brings up WTC7. That's super-fascinating to me.

I keep coming back to the same questions: does the modern American taboo against conspiracies help us, or hurt us? Which conspiracies can fit inside the MSM (birthers, for example) and which cannot (truthers), and what does that say?

Mike of Angle: A conspiracy is acceptable depending on TO WHOM the finger points. If its the wrong person or persons then the theory is wrong. WTC7 points to Deadeye and his pet goat, Codpiece, therefore an obvious lie. If WTC7 even mentioned Bill Clinton then it would be repeated as often as necessary for a conviction. The wrong person is determined by who owns the sound machine. Its a fact free country, after all.

What Pakistanis think of OBL killing......??!!

"Conspiracy of the masses"

here

http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/05/what_pakistanis_think

When the govt does not give all the information, keeps changing the story or tells outright lies regarding something of national importance and that happens not once but repeatedly, I tend not to believe what is told to me, just a doubter or a skeptic! And at times, believer of conspiracies depending on who is involved and who is telling the story.

Here is another interesting theory or rather theories!!!

here

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/pakistan-ablaze-with-osama-bin-laden-conspiracy-theories/story-e6frg6so-1226055613429

"Now, am I supposed to believe that DDoS attacks on websites who mention such uncomfortable facts on the day of bin Laden's "death" are the work of some pranksters? "

That guy Mike Rivero (owner of that "What Really Happened" website) is extremely inaccurate. And his claim that his site was under a "DDoS attack" is highly suspect. On the day of bin Laden's death, traffic for my videos dealing with bin Laden shot through the roof. I think what happened was an increase in traffic to his site due to all the bin Laden stuff on it and his site couldn't handle it. It really is a shame that Rivero has had such a big negative impact on public discourse and that he refuses to engage in dialog about his irrational theories. I'll be uploading a video about him, two videos at least, VERY SOON. Please subscribe and look for it. It is his site I talk about, but don't happen to name, in this other video: Why Do They Do This? Debunking 9/11 & Controlled Demolition

I am interested in something close to what Mike is interested in--how do people choose what to believe? Tom Murphy's point above isn't that bad. But then off to "irrational" he goes, with debunking right after. Typically when that happens, a whole lot of conclusions are soon lept to, and to my eye the debunking almost always has a whole lot of debunkable irrationality in it, too. Just different irrationality. (In fairness, there are not many perfect arguments around in this sinful world.)

The fact that all this debunking is confusing and hard to sort out and frankly sort of boring is why for most people there is more appeal to just having a beer and chuckling about conspiracy theories. Hell, for a long time I did that--beer is way more nutritious than conspiracy theories, not to mention how it helps a fella's figure.

Basically, the world is about what Machiavelli described, and this crap is going to keep happening--that seems to me pretty much assured--so I don't think David Ray Griffin or Stephen Jones have done anything particularly effective--they just made a moral decision to study and write on the topic. I respect that, but almost everyone will ignore them, and be helped to ignore them, because they are aren't preaching a sermon that has a lot of psychological appeal. (One of the least persuasive things I hear from "pundits" is how people prefer to believe in conspiracies--well, putting aside right-wingers, that's just obviously not so.)

Anyway, here's to diversity of opinion!

JUST listened to an old 45 cut from the Nixon 72 campaign over at This Modern World. I suddenly realized its the catchy tunes that WILL help US to decide the RIGHT thing to do, whom to believe, theories be damned.

Michael Moore's SEAL fanboyism makes me fwow up.

Jon, Why does a sentient quasi-intelligent person watch Andrea Fucking Mitchell in the first place?

I want to fwow up too, and I need an excuse, so where is this SEAL fanboyism?

Sorry for the delay; I'm not checking in daily. MM essay on OBL hit: Some Final Thoughts on...