Bush Lies About 911: A Primer

A Lie Called 911: Why A Federal Grand Jury Must Indict Bush and Cheney

It’s time to drive a stake through the heart of an evil beast –Bush’s official conspiracy theory of 911. We are expected to believe that 19 Arab hijackers brought down the twin towers and damaged the Pentagon by flying hijacked airliners into them. Proof that the story is a lie is, at the same time, probable cause to indict Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and others in this criminal administration for the crimes of mass murder and treason.

Moreover, there is now evidence that ‘flight manifests’ were ‘revised’ –after the fact –to shore up the holes in Bush’s official conspiracy theory. What is found on pro-government websites may be called “official’ but they are not! They are, however, easily proven to be lies.

FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted that the FBI had no evidence to link the 19 ‘Muslim men’ who have apparently disappeared –neither on the autopsy list or the original ‘official flight manifests’. In speech to the Common Wealth Club in San Francisco on April 19, 2003, Mueller stated that the purported hijackers ‘left no paper trial’. “In our investigation”, he said: “we have not uncovered a single piece of paper – either here in the United States or in the treasure trove of information that has turned up in Afghanistan and elsewhere – that mentioned any aspect of the Sept. 11 plot.”

As many as nine ‘hijackers’ survived 911. Nevertheless, a pro-‘official conspiracy’ web site has posted what it calls “official manifest images” in which all alledged hijackers are listed in place on the flights in question. The very name of the page is misleading: ‘official manifest images”. The list provided in fancy graphics is represented as ‘official’ but it is most certainly not official.

Astute observers noticed right away that there were no Arabic sounding names on any of the flight manifests of the planes that “crashed” Sept 11. A list of names on a piece of paper is not evidence, but an autopsy by a pathologist is.

I undertook by FOIA request, to obtain that autopsy list of the people on Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon. You are invited to view it below. Guess what? Still no Arabs on the list. In my opinion, the monsters who planned this crime made a mistake by not including Arabic names on the original list to make the ruse seem more believable.

When airline disasters occur, airlines will routinely provide a manifest list for anxious families. You may have noticed that even before Sep 11th, airlines were pretty meticulous about getting an accurate head count before takeoff. It seems very unlikely to me that FIVE Arabs sneaked onto a flight with weapons.

No Arabs On Flight 77, Thomas R. Olmsted, MD, 6-23-3

An ‘official flight manifest’ differs from what pro-government sites are now calling “official manifest images” in that there were not then nor now Arab names on the list. Rather, Olmsted’s passenger list matches precisely what had been originally reported and is still reported by CNN. There is not a single Arab name on the list. The list had obviously not yet been revised by pro-Bush revisionists.

That bears repeating: the original flight manifests did not and do not include the name of a single Arab hijacker.

Here is the ‘official list’ of Hijacking suspects from the FBI website:

Flight 175: Marwan Al-Shehhi, Fayez Ahmed, Mohald Alshehri, Hamza Alghamdi and Ahmed Alghamdi
Flight 11: Waleed M Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz Alomari and Satam Al Suqami
Flight 77: Khalid Al-Midhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaq Alhamzi, Salem Alhamzi and Hani Hanjour
Flight 93: Ahmed Alhaznawi, Ahmed Alnami, Ziad Jarrahi and Saeed Alghamdi

Now he is protesting his innocence from Casablanca, Morocco.
Flight 77: Khalid Al-Midhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaq Alhamzi, Salem Alhamzi and Hani Hanjour
Flight 93: Ahmed Alhaznawi, Ahmed Alnami, Ziad Jarrahi and Saeed Alghamdi
[Now he is protesting his innocence from Casablanca, Morocco.]

Alleged hijackers on Flight 77 – Nawaf Al-Hazmi , Khalid Al-Midhar

As an aside, I think it interesting that a hijacking ‘suspect’ should ‘protest his innocence’. If he were guilty, he would be dead, incapable of protest! Being alive, however, is compelling evidence that he is not only innocent, but that Bush’s official conspiracy theory is a pack of lies just as were his allegations of WMD in Iraq.

Several mainstream media have reported ‘living hijackers’. Pro-government conspiracy theorists cannot explain the fact that numerous ‘hijackers’, found on the FBI’s list of suspects, are still alive and giving interviews. [See: BBC: Hijack ‘suspects’ alive and well] The BBC story includes quotes from ‘dead’ hijackers. That would be impossible if you subscribe to the propaganda and mis-information that has been put forward by a marginal, pro-government site called: 911 Myths…reading between the lies. This is the site responsible for a ‘fancy graphic’ listing ‘Arab Suspects’ that never showed up on ‘official flight manifests’ released in response to a formal FOIA request, delivered to Dr. Olmsted [previously cited]. The list, an ‘official flight manifest’ provided Dr. Olmsted, conforms to the list that was posted and represented as official by CNN. There is not a single Arab name on the list.

CNN has likewise posted a list of suspects based upon an ‘official list’ of ‘hijackers’ provided by the FBI. The name Hani Hanjour shows up on the FBI list of suspects, but, inconsistently, he is missing from the ‘official flight manifests’ that were released to Dr. Olmsted, the same list that is still reported by CNN.

Now official conspiracy theorists have faith that Hani Hanjour piloted Flight 77 into the Pentagon where the lives of all on board were lost! Significantly, Hani Hanjour is not listed on the ‘official passenger manifest’ of Flight 77. The Washington Post reported that he didn’t make the flight because he may not have had a ticket. [ See: Washington Post, 9/16/01]

Not only is Hanjour, critical to the government’s official conspiracy theory, not on the list of passengers on Flight 77, he is not on the ‘official autopsy’ list. If he did not get ‘autopsied’ there is an excellent chance that he still lives.

“A list of names on a piece of paper is not evidence, but an autopsy by a pathologist, is. I undertook by FOIA request, to obtain that autopsy list and you are invited to view it below. Guess what? Still no Arabs on the list. In my opinion the monsters who planned this crime made a mistake by not including Arabic names on the original list to make the ruse seem more believable.”

–Thomas R. Olmsted, M.D, Autopsy: No Arabs on Flight 77

The best explanation: Hani Hanjour is still alive. If Hanjour is alive, he could not have piloted Flight 77 into the Pentagon, unless government theorists would like to posit that he bailed out seconds before ‘his’ 757 crashed into the Pentagon. That’s ludicrous, of course, but in every instance the Bush theories are ludicrous, transparent lies.

It is not only Hanjour who throws a monkey wrench into the government’s theory. It is every other ‘Arab’ who is said to have helped the hijack plot but whose names do not show up on the official list of passengers. [False identities mislead FBI]; CNN: Original Flight Manifest, Flight 77; [BBC: Hijack ‘suspects’ alive and well]

A list of names on a piece of paper is not evidence, but an autopsy by a pathologist is! It’s also a nail in the coffin that contains Bush’s official 911 lie. An official Autopsy List of Flight 77, obtained in Dr. Olmsted’s FOIA request, is admissible in court. It should come as no surprise that none of names listed by the FBI as hijacking suspects appears on the list.

Autopsy List Flight 77 (below)

ambrose, paul
betruyen, eneh
booth, mary jane
brown, bernard
burlingame,charles
calley, suzanne
caswell, william
charlebois, david
clark, sarah
cotto, masia
debeuneure, james
dickens, rodney
dillar, deddie
droz, chuck
edwards, barbara

falkenberg,charles
falkenberg, zoe
ferguson, james
flagg, darlene
flagg,wilson
gabriel, richard

grayian, hallstanley
heidenberger, michelle
jack, bryan
jacoby, steven
judge, ann
keller, chandler

kennedy, yvonne
khan, norma
kincaid, karen
lee, dong
lewis, jennifer
lewis, kenneth
may, renee

mencha, cadora
newton, christopher
olson, barbara
ornedo, ruben
penninger, robert
ploger, robert

ploger, zandra
raines, lisa
reuben, todd
sammartino, john
simmons, diane
simmons, george
sopper, mari-rae
speisman, robert
steuerle, norma
taylor, hilda
taylor, leonard
teagues, andra
whittington, leslie
yamnicky, john
yancey, vicki
yangs, huyin
zheng, yuguag

If there were no Arabs on the pathologists list, then there is absolutely no reason to believe that there were ‘Arabs’ on the flight. Additionally, there is no evidence to indicate that any ‘Arab’ remains were among those interred. “If it does not fit, you must acquit!” If there are no Arabs on the flight, it is Bush/Cheney whom you must indict!

Certainly, we would not expect to see the names of living hijackers –Hani Hanjour, for example –among those autopsied. Hani Hanjour in particular is crucial to Bush’s official conspiracy theory. He is said to have piloted Flight 77. He could not have done so without getting on board, without dying, without showing up on an ‘official autopsy list’, without being interred somewhere. There is no evidence that he did any of those things.

If, however, Bush’s story were true, everyone ‘said’ to have been on the flight –including Hanjour and the other ‘Arabs” –would have died. They most certainly would not have escaped the pathologists list; they most certainly would not be giving interviews, they most certainly would not be ‘protesting their innocence’.

Clearly, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al conspired to pull off what the Project for the New American Century had called ‘some catastrophic and catalyzing event’.

“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” (51)

—Project for the New American Century

It requires astounding gullibility, perhaps stupidity, to believe that wars against Afghanistan and Iraq did not follow from the PNAC policy subscribed to by both Bush and Cheney. Both wars have, in fact, benefited primarily Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, the oil industry in general, and the panoply of military/industrial complex contractors –black shirted goons, professional murderers, Blackwater! This complex constitutes America’s Praetorian Guard, the industrialization of war for the benefit of the very, very few. Mussolini would have called this ‘fascism’. And so it is!

On the very day, the very moment that Dick Cheney was supervising an exercise in which terrorists would attack the Pentagon and WTC, a rag tag gang of ‘terrorists’, we are expected to believe, would do precisely that!

Several different war game exercises were in play on the day of the attack. The limited public information on these exercises shows that they simulated the following events:

• Hijackings
• Attacks on buildings using aircraft as missiles
• Attacks using toxic or infectious substances

These events are all elements of the actual attack, which involved four alleged hijackings, three jetliner crashes into buildings, and the toxic calamity at Ground Zero
in the wake of the World Trade Center’s destruction.

—Multiple War Games Were Being Conducted on 9/11/01

In the absence of any ‘official’ document or ‘official flight manifest’ or ‘autopsy list’, there is simply NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that any hijacker was on board Flight 77. If, indeed, they had gotten on board and all was just a mistake, is it really likely that only Arab names would fail to make the lists? Are we also to believe that there no Arabs were autopsied because the pathologist could somehow tell just by looking at the charred remains which were ‘turrsts’ and which were not? Absurd!

Dick Cheney had the opportunity and the means by which such a crime could be pulled off. He was in command of the US armed forces that day. A small band of some 19 Arabs, by contrast, challenged to fly Cessnas, had no means by which they would or could coordinate the strikes, and, most certainly could not have gotten on board any flight without showing up on ‘real’ or ‘official flight manifests’. The names show up now on lists prepared after the fact for the purpose of shoring up Bush’s fatally flawed cover story. Anyone can make a list of any set of names at any time and label them in any way. But that does not make it so!

Dick Cheney was, in fact, supervising exercises that ‘gamed’ the very crime that should now be investigated by a Federal Grand jury. The logical and commonsense conclusion is that Dick Cheney was making real the NEOCON dream –a catalyzing event comparable to Pearl Harbor. Cheney would benefit personally from such an event. His partners at Halliburton and elsewhere in the Military/Industrial complex would enrich themselves with a war agenda to include wars against Afghanistan and later –upon the pretext that Saddam had WMD and ties to ‘al Qaeda’ –the war against Iraq.

Even the co-chairs of the 911 Commission have disowned their report. It is time now that Dick Cheney be compelled to testify before a Federal Grand Jury convened to consider charges of mass murder and treason.

And because many bona fide bloggers have experienced what may be called ‘script pushers’, the following story may be of interest.

Military Report: Secretly ‘Recruit or Hire Bloggers’

By Noah Shachtman EmailMarch 31, 2008 | 1:11:05 PMCategories: Info War

Ff_118_milblogs2_f

A study, written for U.S. Special Operations Command, suggested “clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers.”

Since the start of the Iraq war, there’s been a raucous debate in military circles over how to handle blogs — and the service members who want to keep them. One faction sees blogs as security risks, and a collective waste of troops’ time. The other (which includes top officers, like Gen. David Petraeus and Lt. Gen. William Caldwell) considers blogs to be a valuable source of information, and a way for ordinary troops to shape opinions, both at home and abroad.

This 2006 report for the Joint Special Operations University, “Blogs and Military Information Strategy,” offers a third approach — co-opting bloggers, or even putting them on the payroll. “Hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering,” write the report’s co-authors, James Kinniburgh and Dororthy Denning.

Lt. Commander Marc Boyd, a U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman, says the report was merely an academic exercise. “The comments are not ‘actionable’, merely thought provoking,” he tells Danger Room. “The views expressed in the article publication are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy or position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, USSOCOM [Special Operations Command], or the Joint Special Operations University.”

—Military Report: Secretly ‘Recruit or Hire Bloggers’ | Danger Room from Wired.com

Certainly, script pushing is characterized by GOP/right wing/’Rovian’ adhering to a ‘script’. Their Achilles heel is, interestingly, obstinacy in the face of facts and reason, especially when the position taken is an ‘official one’. It’s a dead give away that someone is shiling for a politician or for the Bush administration. I am flattered that they think me a threat! It will only re-double my efforts to get Bush indicted and behind bars awaiting a sentence that he will have richly deserved.

Additional resources

• 25 Intolerable Contradictions: The Final Undoing of the Official 9/11 Story
• WTC Collapse Cover-Up Justifies Call For New Inquiry
• Zelikow Interfered with 911 Commission
• Final Cut
• Barbara Olson’s call from Flight 77 Never Happened
• Profits of Death
• The 9/11 Commission Report: A 571-Page Lie
• FBI List of Hijacker on Flight 77
• The US government was “…sitting on the FBI”
• The FBI

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The Probable Cause to Charge Dick Cheney With Mass Murder, Terrorism, and High Treason

George McGovern: George W. Bush is Guilty of "numerous impeachable offences" and Dick Cheney is a Chicken Hawk

This is not the first time that McGovern, who lost to Nixon his own bid for the White House, has slammed the Bush administration. In the Washington Post, McGovern charges that the case against Bush is ‘far stronger’ than the case against Nixon. [See: BBC: McGovern urges Bush’s impeachment]

The former US senator from South Dakota had already excoriated Dick Cheney for lying about Bush/GOP tax and budget policies as well as Cheney’s “chicken-hawk”, arm-chair imperialism.

George McGovern: Cheney is wrong about me, wrong about war

By George S. McGovern, GEORGE S. MCGOVERN, a former US senator from South Dakota, was the Democratic nominee for president in 1972.

April 24, 2007

VICE PRESIDENT Dick Cheney recently attacked my 1972 presidential platform and contended that today’s Democratic Party has reverted to the views I advocated in 1972. In a sense, this is a compliment, both to me and the Democratic Party. Cheney intended no such compliment. Instead, he twisted my views and those of my party beyond recognition. The city where the vice president spoke, Chicago, is sometimes dubbed “the Windy City.” Cheney converted the chilly wind of Chicago into hot air.

Cheney said that today’s Democrats have adopted my platform from the 1972 presidential race and that, in doing so, they will raise taxes. But my platform offered a balanced budget. I proposed nothing new without a carefully defined way of paying for it. By contrast, Cheney and his team have run the national debt to an all-time high.

He also said that the McGovern way is to surrender in Iraq and leave the US exposed to new dangers. The truth is that I oppose the Iraq war, just as I opposed the Vietnam War, because these two conflicts have weakened the US and diminished our standing in the world and our national security.

In the war of my youth, World War II, I volunteered for military service at the age of 19 and flew 35 combat missions, winning the Distinguished Flying Cross as the pilot of a B-24 bomber. By contrast, in the war of his youth, the Vietnam War, Cheney got five deferments and has never seen a day of combat � a record matched by President Bush.

Cheney charged that today’s Democrats don’t appreciate the terrorist danger when they move to end US involvement in the Iraq war. The fact is that Bush and Cheney misled the public when they implied that Iraq was involved in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks. That was the work of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda team. Cheney and Bush blew the effort to trap Bin Laden in Afghanistan by their sluggish and inept response after the 9/11 attacks.

They then foolishly sent US forces into Iraq against the advice and experience of such knowledgeable men as former President George H.W. Bush, his secretary of State, James A. Baker III, and his national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft.

Just as the Bush administration mistakenly asserted Iraq’s involvement in the 9/11 attacks, it also falsely contended that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. When former Ambassador Joseph Wilson exploded the myth that Iraq attempted to obtain nuclear materials from Niger, Cheney’s top aide and other Bush officials leaked to the media that Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent (knowingly revealing the identity of a covert agent is illegal).

In attacking my positions in 1972 as representative of “that old party of the early 1970s,” Cheney seems oblivious to the realities of that time. Does he remember that the Democratic Party, with me in the lead, reformed the presidential nomination process to ensure that women, young people and minorities would be represented fairly? The so-called McGovern reform rules are still in effect and, indeed, have been largely copied by the Republicans.

The Democrats’ 1972 platform was also in the forefront in pushing for affordable healthcare, full employment with better wages, a stronger environmental and energy effort, support for education at every level and a foreign policy with less confrontation and belligerence and more cooperation and conciliation.

Cheney also still has his eyes closed to the folly of the Vietnam War, in which 58,000 young Americans and more than 2 million Vietnamese died. Vietnam was no threat to the United States.

On one point I do agree with Cheney: Today’s Democrats are taking positions on the Iraq war similar to the views I held toward the Vietnam War. But that is all to the good.

The war in Iraq has greatly increased the terrorist danger. There was little or no terrorism, insurgency or civil war in Iraq before Bush and Cheney took us into war there five years ago. Now Iraq has become a breeding ground of terrorism, a bloody insurgency against our troops and a civil war.

Beyond the deaths of more than 3,100 young Americans and an estimated 600,000 Iraqis, we have spent nearly $500 billion on the war, which has dragged on longer than World War II.

The Democrats are right. Let’s bring our troops home from this hopeless war.

There is one more point about 1972 for Cheney’s consideration. After winning 11 state primaries in a field of 16 contenders, I won the Democratic presidential nomination. I then lost the general election to President Nixon. Indeed, the entrenched incumbent president, with a campaign budget 10 times the size of mine, the power of the White House behind him and a highly negative and unethical campaign, defeated me overwhelmingly. But lest Cheney has forgotten, a few months after the election, investigations by the Senate and an impeachment proceeding in the House forced Nixon to become the only president in American history to resign the presidency in disgrace.

Who was the real loser of ’72?

…

We, of course, already know that when Cheney endorses a war, he exempts himself from participation. On second thought, maybe it’s wise to keep Cheney off the battlefield � he might end up shooting his comrades rather than the enemy.

On a more serious note, instead of listening to the foolishness of the neoconservative ideologues, the Cheney-Bush team might better heed the words of a real conservative, Edmund Burke: “A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood.”

McGovern, of course, was the anti war movement’s last hope. His choice of Tom Eagleton sank his bid for the White House. The GOP had therefore wasted a lot of effort sharpening daggers. But –I suppose they considered it good policy to stay practiced.

Nixon soon ran into problems. In the summer of 1973, under Nixon’s orders, the Air Force bombed so-called communist positions in Cambodia. Congress tacked onto an appropriations bill a section cutting off funds for Nixon’s illegal operation which clearly violated Cambodian sovereignty. Meanwhile, a federal district judge in Brooklyn issued an injunction to halt the bombing immediately. These events and the emerging revelations that the opposition had broken into the Watergate Buildling to bug Democratic phones touched off major constitutional struggles of lasting political and military implications.

Certainly, Daniel Ellsburg played his role in Nixon’s eventual demise. But, regrettably, Nixon resigned before a definitive court opinion or his impeachment and trial could have established inarguable precedent. Even the articles of impeachment deal primarily with the concept of “obstruction” and less with the very substance of Nixon’s imperial and imperious regime.

We all know the US was wrong to have been in SE Asia. But we have not established case law to keep us out of similar acts of vainglorious imperialism in the future. Thus –we are stuck with the GOPs half-baked, sophomoric dreams of US empire.

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Lippmann: ‘Brains are suspect in the Republican Party’

In these uncertain times, the enduring intellectual challenges of the GOP are, I suppose, comforting. If you can’t depend on anything else, you can always depend on the GOP to come up with something assinine. Walter Lippmann came to that conclusion as an entire generation tried to make sense of an era of violence, uncertainty and violent uncertainty. Little has changed in almost 100 years.

Brains, you know, are suspect in the Republican Party.

—Walter Lippmann

A conclusion so obvious does not make one a genius. How you deal with it might make of one a radical, a revolutionary, an existentialist, or, worse –a liberal!!

Walter Lippmann, the son of second-generation German-Jewish parents, was born in New York City on 23rd September, 1889. While studying at Harvard University he became a socialist and was co-founder of the Harvard Socialist Club and edited the Harvard Monthly.

In 1911 Lincoln Steffens, the campaigning journalist, took Lippmann on as his secretary. Like Steffens, Lippmann supported Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party in the 1912 presidential elections. …

In 1920 Lippmann left the New Republic to work for the New York World. His controversial books, Public Opinion (1922) and The Phantom Public (1925), raised doubts about the possibility of developing a true democracy in a modern, complex society.

Spartacus, Walter Lippmann

Critics and historians describe Lippmann’s A Preface to Politics of 1913 as a “penetrating critique of popular prejudices” found in abundance in America. It so influenced President Woodrow Wilson that he chose Lippmann to help formulate and draft the famous Fourteen Points and the concept of the League of Nations. Wilson sent Lipmann to the post-World War I peace negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles.

When men and women begin to feel that elections and legislatures do not matter very much, that politics is a rather distant and unimportant exercise, the reformer might as well put to himself a few searching doubts. Indifference is a criticism that cuts beneath oppositions and wranglings by calling the political method itself into question. Leaders in public affairs recognize this.

–Walter Lippmann, A Preface to Politics

These feelings resonate as well today, another age that will be characterized by profound disillusionment in almost every institution, primarily those institutions which presume to govern.
No writer writes in a vacuum. Shakespeare may have been by Johnson’s reckoning “of all time”. But every other writer is of his/her age. Vera Britain’s autobiographical Testament of Youth, covering the year’s 1913-1925, come to mind.

It was in that “no man’s land” that Lippmann sought to balance the interests of the state against those of the individual. Lippmann’s most productive years spanned a period which witnessed:

• the slaughter at Verdun, the Somme, the Marne
• the Bolshevik terror in Russia
• black-shirted, brown-shirted hysteria in Italy and Germany
• the Great Depression of 1929-1935
• Stalin’s purges
• the Spanish Civil War
• Nazi concentration camp and the Holocaust
• the destruction of whole cities — Coventry, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki

Lippmann is a product of that world just as surely as were Kafka, Sartre, and Brecht. Kafka likened his times unto awakening as a cockroach. Sartre declared that “man is nothing else but what he makes of himself”. As my generation was scarred by Viet Nam, Lippmann is shaped by America’s WWI experience.

What most distinguishes the generation who have approached maturity since the debacle of idealism at the end of the War is not their rebellion against the religion and moral code of their parents, but their disillusionment with their own rebellion. It is common for young men and women to rebel, but that they should rebel sadly and with out faith in their own rebellion, that they should distrust the new freedom no less than the old certainties�that is something of a novelty.

-Walter Lippmann, Preface to Morals

That explains to a limited degree my own generation’s disillusionment with the “establishment” we inherited. When revolution was required, the pre-war generation settled for half-measures.

There is no doubt, I think, that President Wilson and his party represent primarily small business in a war against the great interests. Socialists speak of his administration as a revolution within the bounds of capitalism. Wilson doesn’t really fight the oppressions of property. [emphasis mine, LH] He fights the evil done by large property-holders to small ones.

–Walter Lipmann, Drift and Mastery (1914)

In retrospect, in light of Bush’s corporatocracy, Lippmann seems to describe at best a program of half-measures. At worst, a problem left future generations to solve or make peace with.

When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law, peace is considered already broken.

—Che Guevara, Guerilla Warfare, Chapter I: General Principles of Guerrilla Warfare

The concept was not original with Che. Thomas Jefferson said the same thing in the Declaration of Independence. Given the contempt with which our current regime treats the established peace, revolution is overdue.

It was not only the Post World War I generation who were disillusioned “with their own rebellion”, it was the Viet Nam generation as well. Of our times, I can only add that we confronted Viet Nam as Kafka’s Gregor Samsa confronted the fact the had awakened as a bug.

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying on his hard, as if it were armour-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his dome-like brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes.

Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis (1916)

None of us, nor the whole of the US, ever made sense of Viet Nam. [See: The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University ; Also: BBC: ‘Bottom Line, 911 is an inside job’ ]

The spirit of the “Viet Nam” generation was more akin to Dylan Thomas. We would “rage against the dying of the light.” The target had been fixed and described by President Eisenhower himself: the Military/Industrial complex. It is still with us, awaiting the Beowulf who will kill the beast.

I still find it troubling and absurd that in three articles of impeachment drawn up against Richard Nixon, there is nary a word about his illegal orders to bomb and invade Cambodia, a neutral country. There is nary a word about US support for the “string of faceless” generals in South Viet Nam, most of whom were installed and propped up by the CIA. That Bush is “President” is evidence that we failed despite Nixon’s ignominious resignation in the face of impeachment. Had we won, Ronald Reagan could never have destroyed the labor movement, corporatized society, erased the middle class, crushed dissent, and, in countless other ways, pruned the nation of its soul. Lippmann would have been appalled.

Yet there was the fact, just as indisputable as ever, that public affairs do have an enormous and intimate effect upon our lives. They make or unmake us. They are the foundation of that national vigor through which civilizations mature. City and countryside, factories and play, schools and the family are powerful influences in every life, and politics is directly concerned with them. If politics is irrelevant, it is certainly not because its subject matter is unimportant. Public affairs govern our thinking and doing with subtlety and persistence.

–Walter Lippmann

Pascal wrote, “When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, and the little space I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of space of which I am ignorant, and which knows me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there, why now rather than then.” Given the “finiteness” our our existence, it is easy enough to rage against those interlopers into “our” lives.

To be fair, Bush is not the only vainglorious idiot to have have considered the rest of us fodder. The war against Iraq is not the first folly to trespass against the sovereignty of our very selves. We have awakened cockroaches and if there is to be any peace at all, it is the peace we must make with our unwelcome circumstance. As Voltaire said: “I have no name but the name that I have made for myself”. Likewise, Sartre: “A man is nothing else but what he makes of himself”. We must make of ourselves a “resistance”. As St. Thomas More said: “our business lies in escaping” but not, I may add, at the expense of losing. Voltaire said “Ecrasez l’Infame” as to William Wallace is attributed the existential question: what will you do without freedom?

Addendum:

Drift and Mastery

Walter Lippmann

Drift and Mastery, originally published in 1914, is one of the most important and influential documents of the Progressive Movement, a valuable text for understanding the political thought of early twentieth-century America. This paperback edition of Walter Lippmann’s classic work includes a revised introduction by William E. Leuchtenburg that places the book in its historical and political contexts.

Additional Resources

Engineering of Consent: A Post War Story

• Project Gutenberg

Walter Lippmann Quotes

President Wilson and his party represent primarily small business in a war against the great interests. Socialists speak of his administration as a revolution within the bounds of capitalism. Wilson doesn’t really fight the oppressions of property. He fights the evil done by large property-holders to small ones.

–Force and Ideas, Walter Lippmann

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Bush Crimes That Will Get Him Impeached, Tried, Removed and Tried Again as a Common Criminal

The Dictator is a Dick

As Bush moved quickly to put the White House beyond Constitutional checks and balances, Congressional scrutiny, and judicial oversight, Dictator Dick comes off the bench to steal the gold cup.

The Dick reveals that he is not only NOT a part of the Executive Branch, he is above the supervision of the legislative branches, the judiciary and even George W. Bush himself. Can a showdown be long now?

Has Cheney just pulled off a coup d’etat? Will George W. Bush order his arrest? We will soon learn if Bush is a nice guy. Hitler would have ordered Dick Cheney summarily shot.

Specifically Cheney refuses to comply with Bush’s order of some four years ago requiring all executive branch offices to submit to reviews of security measure related to the handling of documents. When the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) pressed the issue, Cheney tried to abolish the office itself. Cheney’s outlaws tried to gag archive officials, barring them from taking their case to the Justice Department.

Typically, Cheney puts forward a novel interpretation of the Constitution in his defense. According to our new, self-appointed dictator, his office is not a part of the executive branch. Cheney argues that that is so simply because he is allowed to sit in the Senate and cast a tie-breaking vote. This is sophistry comparable to Nixon’s cynical pronouncement that “if the President does it it is not illegal”. The pattern with Dick Cheney is, at least, consistent: he believes his office to be immune to congressional investigations and that he is above all provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. Cheney claims that he is above the law.

Hitlerian antics asides, Americans have meanwhile lost all rights of privacy. Bush gets to listen to your phone calls, read your emails and sift through databases for personal information that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism or 911! It’s all one-way. Bush insists upon operating in complete secrecy.

Whomever is boss now –Dick or George –neither are within the law and the administration loses all legitimacy. The American people must wake up to the fact that this administration is a rogue administration, making up and revising laws as they go along, ruling by decree, lying to the American people at will, daring the pusillanimous Congress to stop them! It’s High Noon in America.

How long will this intolerable situation be allowed to continue? Bush gambled that the American people, made soft by a neutered media and the crassest pop culture on the planet, would do nothing so long as they had beer, American Idol, and a Super Bowl once a year. I put it to Americans: was Bush right?

Back to the Constitution itself. There is absolutely nothing, anywhere –either Constitution, US Codes, or case law –that gives Dick Cheney the right to set up a shadow government. There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution, US Codes or case law, that allows Bush to rule by decree by whatever goofy name he chooses. Just has Gen. Hayden lied to the American people about the Fourth Amendment and was shown to be dead wrong, this venal administration will lie about everything else –Iraq, terrorism, al Qaeda. Its own powers, it has simply made up full cloth.

So brazen are Bush/Cheney now that they must think they have consolidated absolute power. And Congress, rolling over, proves them right. Is America lost forever? Bush has not merely violated the Constitution, he has subverted it, a violation of his oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

But that’s not the end of it –as Bush was subverting the Constitution, he was breaking US Codes and International Laws in Iraq and Afghanistan. A substantive case is easily made that he subverted the Constitution so that he could wage aggressive war and commit other crimes against humanity on behalf of his corporate sponsors.

If he is not a “traitor”, then who the hell is? Bush’s loyalties are to his oil sponsors –not the very source of our nationhood!

We are not in a crisis. Rather, the Bush administration IS a crisis. A recent editorial by Buzzflash is a must read. It makes an apt analogy to High Noon, a pop media fable that is burned into the American consciousness.

Some interpret “High Noon” (nominated for seven Academy Awards) as a 1952 allegory of principled defiance against the era of McCarthyism, which foreshadowed the courage of Edward R. Murrow in being a lone man with the bravery to challenge and bring down the thuggish, immoral senator from Wisconsin. Murrow, in his historical March 9, 1954, broadcast that began the unraveling of the reign of rule by uncorroborated witchhunting anti-Communist fear (and a watershed moment for broadcast journalism in America) said: “Our working thesis tonight is this question: If this fight against Communism is made a fight against America�s two great political parties, the American people know that one of those parties will be destroyed and the Republic cannot endure very long as a one party system.We applaud that statement and we think Senator McCarthy ought to. He said it, seventeen months ago in Milwaukee.”

It was a brilliant maneuver to hoist the drunken master of intimidation by his own petard. Murrow, like Marshal Will Kane in “High Noon,” was taking someone who had subdued a nation (as the Miller gang did in “High Noon’s” Hadleyville) with the assertion of raw power not subject to the restraint of truth, due process, justice or the law.

Murrow closed his opening salvo against McCarthy with this statement: “The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

–Buzzflash

You can find my own take on Murrow at this category: Ed Murrow.

In the 18th Century traitors were hanged. In our own century, the Rosenbergs were executed for much, much less. The Rosenberg’s guilt is debatable but the issue, the point is, at worst the Rosenbergs only broke a statute. They did not deliberately subvert the very rule of law itself. Yet, they were executed.

Bush has done much, much worse. And, if the sad and tragic history of this nation is any guide, he will walk!

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How George W. Bush and his Neocon Gang Screwed the World

How the People May Bring Criminal Charges Against Bush

The people themselves may petition a court to convene a grand jury to investigate Bush’s corrupt administration. Such a panel will have the power of the subpoena and the indictment.

It’s not just 911 that such a panel might investigate. An overwhelming number of those favoring Bush’s impeachment say that there is “plenty” to warrant Bush’s removal from the office he seized.

But, given the recalcitrance of Congress, how are “the people” to proceed? I recommend the following handbook for the would-be activist: Facts About Grand Juries

In the year 2005, a growing majority of Americans were not only opposing the disastrous war against Iraq, they were opposing Bush on almost every issue from illegal government wiretapping to this government’s planned theft of Social Security. It was in that year that a majority of Americans said that they supported the impeachment of George W. Bush. Even fewer support Dick Cheney. Others oppose impeachment and removing Bush simply because it would leave something even worse in his stead: Dick Cheney.

As I write this, Newsweek asks How Low Can He Go?

President Bush registers the lowest approval rating of his presidency�making him the least popular president since Nixon�in the new NEWSWEEK Poll.

June 21, 2007 – In 19 months, George W. Bush will leave the White House for the last time. The latest NEWSWEEK Poll suggests that he faces a steep climb if he hopes to coax the country back to his side before he goes. In the new poll, conducted Monday and Tuesday nights, President Bush�s approval rating has reached a record low. Only 26 percent of Americans, just over one in four, approve of the job the 43rd president is doing; while, a record 65 percent disapprove, including nearly a third of Republicans.

It’s been some two years and nothing has been done.
The situation is increasingly dangerous and demands a real investigation followed by impeachment, trial, and removal from office. Depending upon the specific charges, a criminal trial of Bush/Cheney’s should begin immediately. Following that trial, Bush should be turned over to the International Tribunal at the Hague to stand trial for war crimes, crimes against the peace and crimes against humanity.

How frustrating it must be for thousands of bloggers, activists, journalists and writers to raise the issue of war crimes and high treason knowing that the odds of anything being done by officialdom are slim to none. Too often I am asked: you may be right but what the hell can we do about it? Too often I am left advising people to educate and agitate. At a time when not only the White House but Congress itself seems complicit in the ongoing war crime in Iraq, my answers are inadequate. Indeed, what can be done when the House of Representatives will not adequately investigate 911 let alone begin impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush.

On the other hand, a grand jury investigating the Bush White House would have sweeping powers to define the scope of its own investigation and the power of the subpoena to back it up. For example, Michael Moore wants the images made by hundreds of cameras trained on the Pentagon released. It would clear up the question: what did strike the Pentagon. Only a guilty government would not want you to know. It occurs to me that a Grand Jury could simply demand those items. Failure to comply is a crime.

Of course, Bushies will cite “national security” as did Nixon in Watergate. Bush prefers brinkmanship and, thus far, the Democrats have always backed down. But a Grand Jury is not the Congress. It does not have to stand for re-election. Would Bush really prefer to stonewall knowing that the issue would go straight to the Supreme Court? Would Bush risk a purely legal decision on the merits of the case?

In most instances, grand juries investigate issues brought to them by a prosecutor. In those cases, charges are returned in an indictment. Some states allow grand juries to act on their own. In those cases, charges are returned in what is called a “presentment”. A presentment has the same legal effect and weight as an indictment, that is, both initiate a criminal case.

I want to know why a Federal Grand Jury was not convened to investigate 911 in the first place. Never mind! I know why! Bushco had a cover story to peddle. A real investigation would have only muddied the water. It would have delayed the onset of a war that Bush was hellbent and desperate to wage on behalf of his sponsors. Getting Bush out of the Oval Office is a matter of very real urgency.

There are remedies. The people waited patiently for a Democratic majority. Having got one, we are constantly disappointed. There must be millions, like me, who are sick to death of waiting for justice, millions like me who feel disenfranchised and abandoned by this “government of the people”. The people simply must not wait for Congress to begin a real investigation.

Unless every judge in every state, in every county, in every town or city is crooked or, in other ways, bought and paid for by Bush’s crooked gang, there may be a way to convene a Grand Jury that will fully investigate the events of 911 and bring charges against administration officials who may have facilitated or helped plan it. Simply, the people may petition a judge to convene a grand jury.

The time has come to brush up on some basics, in this case, the Grand Jury system. Here is a great link: Using a Grand Jury to Investigate the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks. What is often called a “runaway” Grand Jury could be useful right now. As pointed out in the article, Federal grand juries have already played central roles in the investigations of the Oklahoma City bombing, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and the bombing of two US embassies in Africa.

Grand juries are typically summoned by a court when an attorney general or a district attorney�s motion is granted by the chief judge to empanel the body. But a court may also summons a grand jury upon its own motion and grand jurors are summoned from the same pool as trial jurors.

Abortion-Rights Opponents File Petition For Grand Jury To Investigate Death Of Woman Who Received Abortion At Kansas Clinic

Abortion-rights opponents on Friday submitted a petition with 7,754 local signatures to a Sedgwick County, Kan., court to convene a grand jury to investigate the death of a woman who died three days after undergoing an abortion at the Women’s Health Care Services clinic in Wichita, Kan., the AP/Wichita Eagle reports (Hegeman, AP/Wichita Eagle, 4/7). Kansas law allows a grand jury to be formed within 60 days of a petition filed with a state district court if the petition has at least 100 more signatures than 2% of the number of people in the county who voted in the most recent gubernatorial election.

The point being –the people may petition a court to convene a grand jury. Here’s an excerpt from just such a petition:

"We, the undersigned qualified electors of Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, petition the Court to immediately call a Grand Jury to convene in Oklahoma County for the purpose of conducting a thorough investigation into all aspects of the operations of the Police Department of Midwest City, Oklahoma; and, in addition to investigate into the offices, affairs, and conduct of the City Manager, Mayor, and City Council of Midwest City, Oklahoma; and, in addition, to investigate into any and all other matters called to the attention of the Grand Jury."

-STATE OF OKLAHOMA EX REL. BOB HARRIS, PETITIONER, v. HONORABLE CARMON C. HARRIS, CHIEF JUDGE OF THE DISTRICT COURT OF OKLAHOMA COUNTY, STATE OF OKLAHOMA, RESPONDENT.

From the same case:

14 We cannot determine as a matter of law that the petition for grand jury is a witch hunt based upon speculation or conjecture by the circulators and signers of the petition, nor can we carte blanche impugn their motive. This is the function of the grand jury. While the grand jury may, after investigation, return indictments, ouster proceedings, or otherwise make critical written reports as to the condition and operation of these offices, they may on the other hand submit a complimentary report on those officials and their offices. In any event, the discretion and authority lies with the grand jury as an inquisitorial body.

Grand Juries typically meet in secret and there have been instances in which “runaway grand juries” abused their power and authority. But it was a runaway grand jury in the 1930s that investigated widespread mob corruption in New York and returned a number of bona fide indictments against mafia bosses. Recently, a grand jury in California almost closed down a county when it indicted almost every member of the government.

UPI/Zogby Poll: Majority give Bush Negative Ratings on Keeping U.S. Safe from Terrorism

But half of Americans believe Bush Administration has allowed security measures to trump personal freedoms

More than half of Americans give President Bush 55% negative ratings on his performance in keeping the United States safe from terrorism and give the Department of Homeland Security a similar negative rating (56%) on its efforts. Nearly half of Americans (49%) believe the Bush administration has tipped the balance between personal security and personal freedom too far towards security, depriving the American people of too many freedoms, a new UPI/Zogby Interactive poll shows.

Slightly more than half (53%) said they are against the government having the ability to temporarily suspend federal privacy laws to enable agencies to better share counter-terrorism information, including the personal data of American citizens. Americans are divided over the Terrorism Surveillance Program. Half said they have a favorable view of the TSP under which the National Security Agency can monitor the international telephone and email communications of American citizens without a warrant if the communication includes and individual suspected of having ties to a terrorist organization like al-Qaeda. But nearly as many (45%) said they have a unfavorable view of the program. More than half (55%) said the TSP is a necessary and legal tool to protect Americans against terrorist activity, while 42% disagree.

The interactive survey of 5,932 adults nationwide was conducted from April 13-16, 2007 and carries a margin of error of +/- 1.3 percentage points.

Additional resources:

• The Atlantic Free Press: 13 State Democratic Parties Demand Impeachment
• A Widening Chasm Between House Democrats and the Voters on Impeachment
• Peace Network More Vocal
• Holtzman: The Impeachment of George W. Bush
• Impeach Bush TV
• Veterans for Peace

Vets for Peacecalled for the impeachment of George Bush

• FAQ’s About Grand Juries
• A question of complicity
• 9/11: The BCCI Connection
• Financial Scams and the Bush Family
• Bin Laden’s Brother-in-law Had Close Ties to Bush
• Movement to Impeach Bush
• Impeach Bush AND Congress

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