9/11 - The Elephant in the Country

Obligatory Where Were You

I was working, the same place in which I still toil.  A coworker came into our office and said a plane had crashed into one of the towers.  Odd, I thought...

Shortly thereafter, the same fellow came in and said it happened again, this time to the other tower.

I wanted this to be explicable.  I wanted this to make sense.

Back at that time, online video wasn't what it is today.  I looked for some streaming network coverage.

After the towers fell, I was physically ill.  There was simply no precedent for this.

When the planes were ordered grounded, I thought to call my brother, the pilot.  I was overjoyed when he answered immediately.  He was one of the thousands of pilots on the ground with very few options for parking, but perfectly fine.

As I tried to fill up on news, a little voice kept telling me something wasn't right.  It was a tiny voice, which I mostly ignored.  Work dismissed early and I took full advantage, listening to the news on the car ride home.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

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• FACT:  There were numerous reports of another plane in the air.
• FACT: The newspapers following the Kennedy assassination had a full biography of Lee Harvey Oswald, as if it were prepared in advance.  Osama bin Laden was named the instigator of 9/11 within minutes of the buildings falling.
• FACT:  Bush claimed Weapons of Mass Destruction, yet there were none.  When questioned, he said, "So what?"
• FACT:  Enlistment in the armed forces went through the roof.
• FACT:  Not one single enlistee was `fighting for our freedoms'.  This doesn't mean they weren't brave or shouldn't be honored.  It is simply disingenuous.
• FACT:  The Pentagon is one of the most highly surveilled buildings and areas in the nation.  The FBI went around impounding all surveillance footage.  Where is it?
• FACT:  Regardless of what you believe hit the Pentagon, the five or so frames of video released certainly don't help anyone to reach a conclusion.
• FACT:  In spite of a national grounding, a Saudi aircraft was allowed to fly.
• FACT:  The `dancing Israelis' with the moving company van were allowed to leave the country after it was discovered they were Mossad.
• FACT:  A twin towers janitor heard and felt large explosions before the plane hit
• FACT:  Larry Silverstein, owner of the towers, gave the order to `pull' Building Seven
• FACT:  Building Seven fell just like the twin towers, yet was never hit by a plane and had no serious fires inside.
• FACT:  The BBC reported Building Seven's collapse twenty minutes before it fell. 
• FACT:  jet fuel does not burn at a temperature sufficient to melt or slice through steel.
• FACT:  There was molten steel for weeks in the place where the towers used to be. 
• FACT:  Traces of the explosive thermite were found all over the place. 
• FACT:  Building Seven was completely ignored by the 9/11 Commission.
• FACT:  Bush would only testify for the 9/11 Commission off-the-record.
• FACT:  Over 1500 architects and engineers dispute the government's account of how the buildings came down.
• FACT:  the 9/11 Commission admits they never got all the facts.
• FACT:  Bush grew the federal government more than any of his predecessors.
• FACT:  Obama outdid Bush in the first few months in office.
• FACT:  Cheney was repeatedly advised on the approach of the Pentagon plane.  When the plane was fifty miles out, the lieutenant asked if the orders still stood.  Cheney barked `Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?'
• FACT:  Before and after 9/11, Air Force response to stray planes was rapid.  Why was it nonexistent on that day? 
• FACT:  Bush and Obama used the event to great advantage, starting numerous wars.  Congress sat mute, then did what they were told. 
• FACT:  the Patriot Act was ready suspiciously quickly, signed immediately, and not read by many.
• FACT:  There is a special room in AT&T's San Francisco headquarters where all of the voice and data is mirrored to the NSA.  While this is the only one we know of, rest assured all large carriers have these rooms.
• FACT:  The government has used 9/11 as an excuse to spy on its own people and ramp up a surveillance state.  Those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither.
• FACT:  Flying has been made ridiculously difficult by the TSA (of the DHS), which forces us to not lock luggage, not carry liquid, not carry scissors, take our shoes off, and submit to a form of legalized rape.  
• TSA goes by a No Fly List, which we cannot access or correct when it is wrong, including congresscritters.
• FACT:  The TSA introduced full body scanners, which they claimed were safe (and not privacy-invasive).  They lied on both counts.
• FACT:  The TSA is expanding to trains.
• FACT:  the TSA is denying entry to Canadians with mental health issues.
• FACT:  the CIA is in newsrooms, the NYPD is working with the CIA, the SFPD is working for Apple, and the NYPD now has its own army and navy.
• FACT:  the official story of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory!
• WIDELY HELD OPINION:  We are no more safe today than before 9/11.

Whenever you need to find the genesis of a project, follow the money.

Ask yourself who benefits:

• The government has expanded exponentially, mostly in the Department of Homeland Security and related areas.
• The military/indistrial complex certainly seems to be the recipient of frightening sums of our dollars.

Ask yourself who loses:

• our brave, dead soldiers and families
• our wallets
• our Constitution