9/11: Cockburn's Latest Rant (and a response)

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9/11: Cockburn's Latest Rant (and a response)

Postby Bismillah » Tue Sep 26, 2006 12:56 pm

Alexander Cockburn has issued a new rant:<br><br>September 25, 2006<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>"A Regression in Consciousness<br>Flying Saucers and the Decline of the Left"</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/">www.counterpunch.org/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>I've written a very quick first response at the collective blog I contribute to:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>"Suffering Cockburn: 9/11 and the Left's Collective Unconsciousness"</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.qlipoth.blogspot.com/">www.qlipoth.blogspot.com/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>I'll update it with links later when I have time. Comments, criticisms and suggestions welcome, here or there. (But please no anti-Cockburn rants in return; as that quoted email from "ann archy" demonstrates, it's all just grist to his mill.)<br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=bismillah@rigorousintuition>Bismillah</A> at: 9/26/06 10:58 am<br></i>
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Re: 9/11: Cockburn's Latest Rant (and a response)

Postby darkbeforedawn » Tue Sep 26, 2006 1:33 pm

Thanks so much for this Bismillah. You did a GREAT job of this. He's a fraud and phony and he hates us for it! I took the liberty of posting this excerpt: (but highly recommend y'all read the whole thing...it's great!)<br><br>"It depends only on attention to the obvious: that the burden of proof lies with the Bush Gang, who alone have full access to the evidence they couldn't destroy, who have refused to testify under oath or on record, and who have singularly failed to substantiate their own remarkably convenient and truly world-shaking coincidence theory. The Bush Gang had the means, the motive and the opportunity to commit or permit that crime of mass murder, as well as a record of lying and conspiracy as long as Cockburn’s face. Five years on, the evidence is thick on the ground that Cheney, Rumsfeld and others were at least complicit in a crime that claimed only dispensable victims and that served only those who exploited them. Their threadbare, reluctant and belated account of 9/11, compiled by a committee of hand-picked toadies after Kissinger had turned down the job, is indeed a scam, a whitewash and a fraud. <br>On all this, Alexander Cockburn has not a word to say. Instead, he prefers to lambast the perceived defects of a few carefully selected cynics who disbelieve their government." <p></p><i></i>
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Re: 9/11: Cockburn's Latest Rant (and a response)

Postby Rigorous Intuition » Tue Sep 26, 2006 1:35 pm

Thanks Bismillah, that's great, highly quotable stuff. ("Five years on, we are all still paying for the neurotic indifference to reality manifested in that evidence-proof response.") Passionate yet substantial.<br><br>I can't imagine how Cockburn could adequately respond. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: 9/11: Cockburn's Latest Rant (and a response)

Postby OpLan » Tue Sep 26, 2006 2:17 pm

The 9/11-ers, who've insulted me and other radical critics for years as "gatekeepers for the neocons", "CIA agents," and "fearful for their jobs", are wounded when I call them nuts.* I've had many e-mails repeating their delirious litanies about NORAD, the collapse of the WTC buildings or <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>the "missile" that really struck the Pentagon.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->On this last matter, Chuck Spinney , now retired after years of brilliant public service exposing the Pentagon's budgetary outrages, wrote to me that "there ARE pictures taken of plane hitting Pentagon -- they were taken by the surveillance cameras at Pentagon's heliport, which was right next to impact point. I have seen themÖboth stills and moving pictures. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>I just missed seeing it personally, but the driver of the van I just got out of in South Parking saw it so closely that he could see the terrified faces of passengers in windows</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->. I knew two people who were on the plane. One was ID'd by dental remains found in the Pentagon."<br><br>fux sake..<br>'No plane' tarbrush again..and that hoary old chestnut,'Terrified passengers visible at 500mph'..<br><br>give us clear unadulterated photos/video of the impact,a reconstruction of the wreck,and a list of aircraft part numbers or just shut the hell up.<br><br>He sums up the whole pentagon quagmire in the next paragraph.<br>Richard Aldrich's book on British intelligence, The Hidden Hand (2002), describes how a report for the Pentagon on declassification recommended that <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>"interesting declassified material</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->" such as information about the JFK assassination "<!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>could be released and even posted on the Internet, as a 'diversion,'" and used to "reduce the unrestrained public appetite for 'secrets' by providing good faith distraction material</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->". Aldrich adds, "<!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>If investigative journalists and contemporary historians were absorbed with the vexatious, but rather tired, debates over the grassy knoll</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->,(read smoking hole) <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>they would not be busy probing into areas where they were unwelcome</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->."<br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: 9/11: Cockburn's Latest Rant (and a response)

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Tue Sep 26, 2006 2:43 pm

Funny that Cockburn spend his energy 'debunking' what hit the Pentagon but doesn't touch for a second the collapse of WTC 1, 2, and 7.<br><br>And this is despite this being at the top of Counterpunch's home page:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>What You're Missing in Our Subscriber-only CounterPunch Newsletter<br><br>Special Investigation: Why Did the World Trade Towers Fall?<br><br>A scientific explanation at last, from a physicist and mechanical engineer.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Funny that Cockburn doesn't accept how central is the 9/11 phenomenon to all of the other ways we are being methodically ripped off, poisoned, tortured, and murdered.<br><br>And that's why 9/11 is the master key for the peace and justice movements. Because it shows The Scam System. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: 9/11: Cockburn's Latest Rant (and a response)

Postby AlanStrangis » Tue Sep 26, 2006 2:44 pm

Awesome response, Bishmallah!<br><br>Over the past few months, a friend and I have been in a heated, but friendly, debate over the validity of 9/11 to political activism. He just sent me the Cockburn piece.<br><br>He's in agreement with Cockburn on this...<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Actually, it seems to demobilize people from useful political activity. <hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br>Of course, I'm still waiting to see evidence of this "useful political activity" from the entrenched Left since, well, around the time of September 11, 2001.<br> <p></p><i></i>
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Good work

Postby Avalon » Tue Sep 26, 2006 3:22 pm

That's splendid, Bismillah. <p></p><i></i>
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Cockburn is right

Postby Dreams End » Tue Sep 26, 2006 3:23 pm

Cockburn is right...<br><br>but for all the wrong reasons. <br><br>I thought Bismillah's piece was very good but there are indeed large segments of 9/11 truth that are disempowering...positing an all-powerful enemy and an impending collapse of civilization always just around the corner. There is no hope and this is merely the first step on an inevitable road to self-destruction.<br><br>That's not what Cockburn was focusing on, of course, he just thinks conspiracy theorists are stupid.<br><br>I have never found a copy online but the day after JFK was assassinated, Fidel Castro gave a long and detailed speech explaining who was behind it and why. It wasn't concerned so much with the grassy knoll as it was with the deep politics. It suggested that JFK was no socialist in solidarity with Cuba and the third world but that nevertheless he could still be considered unsatisfactory for the military/industrial complex. In short, it was a fine example of how the left should do conspiracy theory. (It can be found in Schotz's "History will not Absolve Us" which in itself is another example of how conspiracy theory and left analysis are not at all incompatible. It is conspiracy theory without the need to reduce the world to black hats and white hats. Maybe I should send Cockburn a copy.<br><br><br>Cockburn's analyis is nothing new, of course. But I wish people within 9/11 truth would take one message from it: there are lots of agendas out there, utilizing 9/11 for their own purposes. I worry a lot about who many of them are pointing toward as the culprits, but I get even more worried about who they are pointing away from.<br><br><br><br><br> <br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: 9/11: Cockburn's Latest Rant (and a response)

Postby Infernal Optimist » Tue Sep 26, 2006 3:34 pm

<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Of course, I'm still waiting to see evidence of this "useful political activity" from the entrenched Left since, well, around the time of September 11, 2001.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Hey, I've been waiting since 1981. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Cockburn is right

Postby stickdog99 » Tue Sep 26, 2006 5:32 pm

Perhaps Cockburn needs to actually read what "ann archy" wrote and respond to its <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>substance</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> rather than simply mock it for its rhetorical "infantilism" and excess.<br><br>This exchange is interesting and certainly worthy of further discussion, both here and elsewhere:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>It's as dismal a political landscape as I can remember in thirty years. Yet some discover a silver lining. They find it in the 9/11 conspiracy cult, which I have discussed here in recent weeks. A politically sophisticated leftist in Washington, DC, wrote to thank me for my attack, but added, "To me the most interesting thing (in the US) is how many people are willing to believe that Bush either masterminded it [the 9/11 attacks] or knew in advance and let it happen. If that number or anything close to that is true, that's a huge base of people that are more than deeply cynical about their elected officials. That would be the real news story that the media is missing, and it's a big one."<br><br>"I'm not sure I see the silver lining about cynicism re government," I answered. "People used to say the same thing about the JFK conspiracy buffs and disbelief in the Warren Commission. Actually, it seems to demobilize people from useful political activity. I think the nuttishness stems from despair and political infantilism. There's no worthwhile energy to transfer from such kookery. It's like saying some lunatic shouting to himself on a street corner has the capacity to be a great orator. The nearest thing to it all is the Flying Saucer craze. 'Open up the USAF archives!' It's a Jungian thing."</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>The rest of the article consists of a woe-are-we analysis of the left's political situation (somehow caused or exacerbated by people who suspect that 9/11 was self-inflicted?), a "debunking" of a claim that is in no way central to 9/11 truth based on an email that asserts both impossible eyewitness testimony and secret knowledge of unreleased evidence (how convincing!), an alternative conspiracy theory (that the 9/11 truth movement is itself a mil/intel conspiracy to keep us all off the trail of "more important" topics), another in a long line of unsolicited psychological diagnoses of conspiracy theorists in general (the introductory woe-are-we analysis and the "9/11 truth is a mil/intel conspiracy" are mysteriously exempt from this diagnosis, of course), and a reproduction of an angry, informal email rant selected to paint all who suspect that 9/11 wasn't all-Osama as unbalanced, hyper-rhetorical cranks.<br><br>Once again, these continual attacks make me smile. Me thinks the Cockburns of the world doth protest far too much with far too little. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=stickdog99>stickdog99</A> at: 9/26/06 3:32 pm<br></i>
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Re: Cockburn is right

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Tue Sep 26, 2006 5:51 pm

Cockburn is right only in that 9/11 isn't the only thing for the peace and justice movement to talk about.<br><br>Connecting it to all the fascist crimes it is used to justify is obviously the reason for looking at it in the first place. Cockburn should know that.<br><br>The JFK hit wasn't just the murder of one man but a fatal blow to pre-Cold War civic government in America.<br><br>The RFK hit prevented a wounded America from getting up again.<br><br>9/11 wasn't just the murder of 3000 people. It was meant to atomize the scraps of constitutionality still harbored Ann Frank-like in a few Congressional offices since 1963 while providing moral cover for the fascist coup spreading ever since Smedley Butler repelled it in 1934 and FDR died in 1945. <p></p><i></i>
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Thanks!

Postby Bismillah » Wed Sep 27, 2006 10:45 am

Thanks very much for all your comments and support. I have tidied up the text a bit and added some links, including one to the "Coincidence Theorist's Guide". I might send it to Counterpunch in a day or two - not that they'll print it, but I do want Cockburn at least to see it. So if anyone has any suggestions or criticisms, or links they feel should be in there, or if you spot any serious errors or omissions, please let me know. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Thanks!

Postby Gouda » Wed Sep 27, 2006 11:05 am

Woe, the Sorrows of Left Priestcraft. Cockburn & Co. are sowing the seeds for Blowback against the progressive and/or "radical" Left. <br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Thanks!

Postby sunny » Wed Sep 27, 2006 11:45 am

If find the recent rash of debunkings quite fascinating. Only a few more dicibles, and we will reach the screeching levels obtained by "JFK" (the movie) and the actual trial of Clay Shaw. Shrill and utterly lacking a comprehensive and truthful review of the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>evidence</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, these pieces will have the same result: more people questioning the official version.<br><br>As to political "infanitilism," a less derogatory term might be "naivete:" you know, that long forgotten state of mind wherein one expects evil-doers to be brought to justice. For that to happen, one must have the capacity to face the truth, which happens to be the height of maturity. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: sunny's comment

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Wed Sep 27, 2006 12:58 pm

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>the capacity to face the truth, which happens to be the height of maturity.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>!! Saving that one, thanks. <p></p><i></i>
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