I am spending this week leading up to the ninth anniversary of September 11th, 2001 offering some of my thoughts about 9/11. I thought I would do it by offering introductions to people who on our behalf are asking questions that the media has not.
On the sidebar is a link to the film, 9/11: Press For Truth. This film tells the story of the Jersey Girls. These are four women whose husbands were killed on September 11th when airplanes hit the World Trade Center towers. Here is the trailer to the film.
These four women (pictured in the right from the cover of Ms. Magazine) had questions. How could the military have allowed this to happen? How could it be prevented in the future?
They expected the justice department to answer these kinds of questions. They didn't get answers. Finally they pressured Congress to form a special committee to investigate. They succeeded in urging Congress to form the 911 Commission.
However, it didn't take long before they realized that the 911 Commission was less interested in investigating the issues as it was providing cover for the government. This was not a surprise considering that the executive director of the commission was Philip Zelikow who had close ties with the administration and was a personal friend of Condoleeza Rice. Zelikow was the gate keeper for who would be interviewed and what topics would be addressed.
The resulting 911 Commission Report did not answer The Jersey Girls' questions.
The Jersey Girls are not "crazy conspiracy theorists" or left wing radicals. Two of them had voted in 2000 for Bush/Cheney. They are four women who sought justice and answers from our government and were stonewalled. Thankfully, they are still seeking answers and they are not being silenced by ridicule, snark, or pressure. In my book, they are true American patriots.
The film, 9/11 Press For Truth also tells the story of Paul Thompson. Thompson is an independent researcher who created a The 9/11 Timeline.
The timeline is a catalog of mainstream news accounts about people, events and places related to the events of 9/11 and the ensuing response. He found that buried in mainstream news accounts are many important pieces of information that are not noticed. His timeline brings them to light.
In 2004, Thompson put his timeline in book form, The Terror Timeline: Year By Year, Day By Day, Minute By Minute.
This has been a key resource for those who do have questions about 9/11. It was Thompson's timeline that convinced David Griffin to begin his research.
Here is an interview with Paul Thompson by Peter Coyote of Link TV.
Pretty insightful. Watch all three parts:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
John, I appreciate your prophetic and courageous effort to dig for the truth and to work for change. I offer some thoughts on COFFEE BREAK 197.
ReplyDeleteThanks John! I appreciate you and I appreciate what you wrote over there. It doesn't matter that much what I think. I could be wrong. I do find it interesting that this question could put me over the edge into kookdum when saying that I don't believe Jesus rose from the dead apparently doesn't.
ReplyDeleteWhich sin is worse?
In my 20 or so years of ministry, I could pretty much say whatever I wanted about Jesus and would ruffle a feather here and there.
But when I make claims about the U.S.'s imperial activities (and 9/11 is pretty much Empire acting normally) it is blasphemy.
Yes. Questioning Empire is blasphemy. That is part of the defense mechanism it creates fro itself.
ReplyDeleteJosh Smith, anchor of the morning news at Channel 11 asked on facebook today if people think patriotism is "alive and well, or dying on the vine". Every commenter so far says "Alive and WELL!"
I have to agree, but I have to compare it to the poison ivy that grows throughout my yard and our area. It grows more quickly than ever and has more potency, thanks to changes in the environment. And it is toxic. Will I add that comment to facebook and open myself up to the equally toxic responses I can expect?
Hell no. This is just another way in which I feel like a member of a very small minority.
Another defense mechanism of empire is to shunt people off into asking bizarre questions and getting them caught up in useless conspiracy theories.
ReplyDelete@Rulon Great point. That happens a great deal with 911 stuff. Disinformation is best when it is 90% accurate. As is the case with the film people have been telling me to watch, Loose Change. I did see it. It contains bad information along with accurate things which damages the whole search.
ReplyDeleteoil empire
I didn't give a hoot about your politics...except in so far as they spurred you to abandon the Jesus revealed in the Scriptures, confessed in the creeds, and lovingly set forth in the confessional standards.
ReplyDeleteAt least one person made such a stink about your heretical theological views that he got booted out of the ordination process.
But I didn't give a hinkly jizz about your politics.
One of these days, when you stand before the Almighty, you'll understand that orthodoxy isn't some power game in the Church but rather submission to the power of God and His Christ as revealed to the church through the Holy Spirit. I can assure you that the Holy One of Israel is more concerned with what you thought of Jesus and His Kingdom than of Bush or American Empire.
Blah, blah, blah, Chris.
ReplyDeleteHeh. Here's a guy so "orthodox", he leaves the entire Presbyterian enterprise for the Anglicans because, obviously enough, theology means nothing to him. (Or perhaps they're the only ones who would have him?)
You do not know anything about orthodoxy, Chris. You abandoned Presbyterian churches for a job and some cute frocks. Chris, it's obvious to the rest of us that 1) you're a whiner, and 2) you're only in it for the pension and you don't give a tinker's damn about orthodoxy. You're the last one who should be lecturing anyone about orthodox anything.
And while you're at it, grow up for crying out loud. How long are you going to carry around this chip on your shoulder? Get over it.
Alan, You know nothing about the situation. I've been self-supporting this entire time because I've worked with small start-up congregations.
ReplyDeleteAnd unless you're willing to say that only confessional Presbyterianism is biblical Christianity (which would pretty much bind you to the Westminster Standards), then you need retract your statement on my being indifferent to doctrine. Rather, I wanted to cling tenaciously only to the catholic faith of the unbroken church - the Apostles, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds and the Christological definitions of the 7 universally recognized ecumenical councils. The rest (including the issues surrounding polity, sacraments, etc.) I leave open to pious disputation without the need to condemn. It is the opposite of the indifference to doctrine in the PCUSA.
At least one person made such a stink about your heretical theological views that he got booted out of the ordination process.
ReplyDeleteAre you talking about yourself or someone else? If you are talking about yourself that is simply a lie. I think that is a bad thing to do according to those lovingly set forth confessions.
You made your own choice to leave because you couldn't be in a denomination that would allow me in it as you have admitted elsewhere. It was your choice to check out.
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ReplyDelete"Rather, I wanted to cling tenaciously only to the catholic faith of the unbroken church "
ReplyDeleteYeah. Right. LOL. Tenaciously. To quote Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." Clinging tenaciously to the terrible wrong you perceive was done against you. That, I'll buy.
But as for theological orthodoxy, yes, apparently you cling tenaciously until you can't get a job somewhere, then you cling tenaciously to whatever creeds of whatever church will give you a job.
A little free advice: 1) Get over it. 2) Stop feeling so guilty that you feel you have to justify your job switch in every comment and just enjoy your pension. And 3) knock out the phony pious Orthodoxier-Than-Thou schtick. No one's buying it.
It seems that Viola is obsessed with me as well as Chris.
ReplyDeleteOh, what do we do?
What will we ever do?
Oh, oh, oh, oh that John Shuck!
Here is a curious paradox. One which I pointed out to Viola but she is too afraid to leave on her blog.
ReplyDeleteJohn in his "disbelief" turns more people on to Christ in one hour on Sunday morning than Viola does in a life time of "belief".
It's an instructive paradox. John's struggle with God is honest and authentic. It reflects and represents the true human condition. His name is Israel.
He does not hide behind a mask of false spirituality. He does not try to sell bigotry as Christian orthodoxy. He does not worship man made idols, even those in writing.
That anybody would worry about John's views on 911 speaks to the power of his witness.
If Christian Fundamentalists were endorsing 911 conspiracy tales, everyone would shrug. We already know they are kooks.
But if John is a kook, that would be a matter of some concern. So it deserves mention. That simple.
Jodie, that is humbling. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAs far as 9/11, I may be wrong. But I don't think so (at least as far as the basics--that the official story is filled with lies, falsehoods and cover-ups).
I will say this, though.
Regardless of where I am willing to go publicly with this, I have not changed on the other things important to me: theological exploration, lgbt rights, ecology, peace, resistance to Empire, and walking my dogs.
Well, John, at least you know one thing...
ReplyDeleteRegardless of your views on Peak Oil, 9/11, or the resurrection, Ol' Viola will never give up her Fatal Attraction-like obsession and Pavlovian responses to anything you post.
Nice to know that in this world of uncertainty, that there are some things you can count on, eh?
That is a comforting way to put it. I can definitely count on the lovely Viola to be there for me always.
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteI am sure that "the official story is filled with lies, falsehoods and cover-ups"
but I don't believe or agree that it is where you are poking.
The truth I think is much scarier. That is that the world we live in really is much more fragile than we want to believe. That a small group of people with no resources on the other side of the world can turn the world we live in upside down.
If that is true, how many more small groups of people like that can the world create? Thousands? Millions? And any one of them can bring death and destruction to our civilization?
Its a conundrum the Greeks used to ponder. That hordes of Barbarians and chaos lie just outside the city gates, waiting to tear us down.
With that as the option, it is preferable to believe that it took a conspiracy of highly organized hidden forces pulling the strings behind the curtain to pull that off. I mean, that is hard to do. It takes money. It takes cunning. It takes cooperation across agencies that normally hate each other.
The implicit comfort is that it is not something that can happen easily or often.
Now on to the conspiracies. The optimum strategy to deal with such a threat is decentralization. Reduce the value and increase the number of targets and take away the asymmetric advantage held by these large number of small groups. But that strategy goes against the doctrine of centralized government power, centralized industry, and centralized wealth held by the undemocratic military industrial complex, and the Plutocracy it serves.
The cover up is not in the origins of the events of 911, but in the response to them. In the deaths of all the pat Tillmans. In the faking of evidence of WMDs in Iraq. In the tens of Billions of dollars that just disappear in Afghanistan.
And in the things that happen right under our noses, slowly and methodically, without a splash. In the destruction of the middle class. In the destruction of the labor movement. In the ever widening compensation gap between the executive class and the professional working class. In the absurd lies about Obama that get repeated over and over again by Fox network until people start believing them. In the rise of the ultra right. In the wholesale replacement of government servants with right wing puppets. I mean, who is paying to replace right wing Republicans with uber right wing tea party thugs? What the hell is THAT all about? Who are these 'Americans for Prosperity"?
What is past is past. If there is a conspiracy, it is in what is happening today, right now.
Jodie,
ReplyDeleteYes, the world is scary and fragile, more so than anyone wants to believe. But it isn't because of "terrorists."
This is the underlying reality of everything:
We are at the end of the age of oil. It is game over for Petroleum Man and the Industrial Civilization has created. We have begun the collapse which will be our reality for the next several decades, perhaps to the end of the century should we survive at all.
9/11 and "terrorism" are symptoms. Nothing more.
There are ways to respond to the end of oil. Two basic ways:
1) Empire
2) Realm of God (to put it theologically)
Empire's way is to control the remaining reserves by any means necessary to keep hegemony over resources. Of course the U.S. isn't the only Empire. China is coming on. Our leaders--PNAC stated it clearly--and they were in the administration that was in the White House on 9/11. They knew what needed to be done for the sake of Empire. They were very much aware of Peak Oil.
The "war on terrorism" is the way Empire (and this most certainly includes Obama) convinces Americans blindly to bless Empire's endless war for the remaining petroleum reserves.
There is another way of responding to Peak Oil and the demise of Petroleum Man. That is the way of what I call the "realm of God." This has to do with global cooperation, awareness, sharing of information, trust, changing the way money works (toward a steady state economy rather than one based on infinite growth), and ecological sustainability.
Empire is winning now. It will result in a long and painful crash.
All the stuff you mention is a symptom, just as 9/11 was a symptom.
Point taken.
ReplyDeleteThere is, if nothing else, a conspiracy of silence as to the true causes of 911.
Just as there were reasons Japan had for attacking Pearl Harbor.
We intentionally forget "they" have reasons and a desired objective, even if they eventually fail to achieve their desired result.
We just go to DefCon 1 and start killing, and we kill until there is nobody left to kill.
But even before oil and the industrial revolution, why did our European forefathers first set foot on the other continents of the world?
Is the great American Experiment a hypocritical cover story?
Or is it perhaps a silver lining, the redemption of an otherwise evil and sordid tale of the rape and pillage of our own "promised land"?
Psalm 51:5