William Blum on the 9/11 Truth Movement

[erosoplier]

Bloom probably gets approached (he might say 'pestered') a lot by truthers, because he'd be a good credible person to have on board the truth bus. But it's a big step to take, to be a well known credible person, somewhere past the half-way point of your career, to climb aboard the truth bus. And once you climb on board, everything changes.

His defence of his reasoning behind not being convinced that 911 was an inside job is shabby enough to conclude that he's decided not to throw his hat in the ring. His choice. Can't condemn him for it.

[American Dream]

Paul Krassner speaking about Bill Blum and Osama Bin Laden:

Excerpted from:
http://www.researchpubs.com/books/prank2exc10.php

...Just recently Osama bin Laden plugged a book by Bill Blum, Rogue State, and suddenly its sales shot way up. Bill Blum is an old lefty, really a truth seeker and sharer, and kind of an uncompromising radical, so instead of his usual small audience--a circle of friends who knew his work and respected him for it--his book is suddenly selling thousands of copies, and the publisher wasn't prepared for this.

Bill has been invited on a lot of TV shows, and he's exhausted, but he knows he's reaching millions of people that would otherwise never have been reached, just because of this freak plug that Osama gave him. So I'm not sending my next book to Oprah Winfrey, I'm sending it to Osama Bin Laden--it gets much better results, and he doesn't put anyone on his video excursions just to insult you and call you a liar!...

From: Pranks 2 (RE/Search Publications, 2006)




Coincidence?

Or Conspiracy?...


You Be The Judge!!!

[8bitagent]

Bloom probably gets approached (he might say 'pestered') a lot by truthers, because he'd be a good credible person to have on board the truth bus. But it's a big step to take, to be a well known credible person, somewhere past the half-way point of your career, to climb aboard the truth bus. And once you climb on board, everything changes.

His defence of his reasoning behind not being convinced that 911 was an inside job is shabby enough to conclude that he's decided not to throw his hat in the ring. His choice. Can't condemn him for it.

Why is it always this polarizing "accept bush did 9/11, or that osama did it"

Thats why I really like Jeff's Blog, Cooperative Research and Paul Thompson, Sander Hicks, Peter Dale Scott and Cannonfire.

The meme should be was "9/11 more than al Qaeda"?

[8bitagent]

Paul Krassner speaking about Bill Blum and Osama Bin Laden:

Excerpted from:
http://www.researchpubs.com/books/prank2exc10.php

...Just recently Osama bin Laden plugged a book by Bill Blum, Rogue State, and suddenly its sales shot way up. Bill Blum is an old lefty, really a truth seeker and sharer, and kind of an uncompromising radical, so instead of his usual small audience--a circle of friends who knew his work and respected him for it--his book is suddenly selling thousands of copies, and the publisher wasn't prepared for this.

Bill has been invited on a lot of TV shows, and he's exhausted, but he knows he's reaching millions of people that would otherwise never have been reached, just because of this freak plug that Osama gave him. So I'm not sending my next book to Oprah Winfrey, I'm sending it to Osama Bin Laden--it gets much better results, and he doesn't put anyone on his video excursions just to insult you and call you a liar!...

From: Pranks 2 (RE/Search Publications, 2006)




Coincidence?

Or Conspiracy?...


You Be The Judge!!!

Notice how AIWAZZ bin Goldstein, I mean USAma bin Laden
has been giving high praise and reccomendations to Bill Blum, Bill Shuer and Noam Chomsky in his latest "videos"

WTF?

Osama lovvves promoting liberal hero writers who promote "blowback".

Honestly, I wouldnt be surprised if Osama in his next youtube video
makes references to conspiracy theorists "who doubt al Qaeda could be behind such an attack alone". And he'll trough out more jihadist will videos
over bad Final Cut Pro After Effects.

NO WONDER so many liberals think Osama alone did 9/11, all their leftgatekeeping heroes tell them so.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

.....

WTF?

Osama lovvves promoting liberal hero writers who promote "blowback".
.....

Yup. Animatronic bin Laden promoted William Blum's book as a two-pronged effort to sustain the cover story:
1) Make the 25% brainwashed authoritarian GOP base never ever read anything by William Blum and thereby protect their nationalist myths.

2) Make a large group of better-informed readers see the long US history of attacking other countries so they think "OMG - no wonder they hate us and wielded Occam's Boxcutter against New York. Katie bar the door!"

[8bitagent]

.....

WTF?

Osama lovvves promoting liberal hero writers who promote "blowback".
.....

Yup. Animatronic bin Laden promoted William Blum's book as a two-pronged effort to sustain the cover story:
1) Make the 25% brainwashed authoritarian GOP base never ever read anything by William Blum and thereby protect their nationalist myths.

2) Make a large group of better-informed readers see the long US history of attacking other countries so they think "OMG - no wonder they hate us and wielded Occam's Boxcutter against New York. Katie bar the door!"

LOL! Yep, kind of a "man, all these years the US and Western corporate powers have staged false flags, terror attacks, bombs, coups, assassinations, etc...no wonder "they" got us back"

of course according to this new Fox News clip:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/ja ... lqaeda.htm

the new front of al Qaeda will be "blonde haired, blue eyed white recruits"

And LOL at "animatronic" Osama...

MSNBC News: Was latest Osama video faked?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21530470/

[Nordic]

Hey Nomo -

Who the fuck says I"m supposed to provide "proof?"

The gododamn Zelikow-led commission that whitewashed the case, it was sorta up to THEM to provide the "proof".

Idiot.

If you buy their bullshit, then there is really no hope for you.

[stickdog99]

So it's not the moral question that makes me doubt the inside-job scenario. It's the logistics of it all -- the incredible complexity of arranging it all so that it would work and not be wholly and transparently unbelievable.

Too logistically difficult for US black ops to pull off, but a piece of cake for 19 ragtag guys with box cutters?

That and the gross overkill -- they didn't need to destroy or smash up ALL those buildings and planes and people. One of the twin towers killing more than a thousand would certainly have been enough to sell the War on Terror, the Patriot Act, and Homeland Security.

If you knocked down just one tower, what would it cost to demolish the other in a manner that didn't poison everyone in Manhattan while blaming it all on a convenient bogeyman who can't be sued?

To win over people like me, the 9/11 truth people need to present a scenario that makes the logistics reasonably plausible. They might start by trying to answer questions like these: Did planes actually hit the towers and the Pentagon and crash in Pennsylvania? Were these the same four United Airline and American Airline planes that took off from Boston and Newark? At the time of collision, were they being piloted by people or by remote control? If people, who were these people?

Disinfo and misinfo makes answering most of these questions definitely very difficult. All we can do is guess.

Also, why did building 7 collapse? If it was purposely demolished -- why? All the reasons I've read so far I find not very credible.

All the first responders were cleared out from Ground Zero for over two hours waiting for WTC-7's imminent "inevitable" predicted collapse, although why the building actually collapsed remains a mystery to both FEMA and NIST to this day. Why were emergency responders evacuated from the site and who was allowed on the site during this time period?

We are told by the 9/11 truth people that no building constructed like the towers has ever collapsed due to fire. But how about fire plus a full-size, loaded airplane smashing into it? How many examples of that do we have?

And this has what to do with WTC-7?

[Pele'sDaughter]

Even though Silverstein is on video saying they were going to "pull it", this is considered ambiguous or out of context. I, however, am satisfied with the WRH explanation:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/silve ... ullit.html

[MASONIC PLOT]

Both the 9-11 truth movement and the government have adopted a "with us or against us" mentality, which turns a lot of honest truth seekers away. I think both sides are being led by people with very ugly agendas.

The real truth is probably somewhere inbetween, in the middle, but those who refuse to join either side are often shouted down, insulted and their character and integrity called in to question.

On another note, a few minutes after OBL plugged Blum's book "Rogue State" I went to Amazon and ordered a copy, it was selling at the time for $1.25, a day later the seller contacted me and said, no can do, price just went up to 50 bucks a copy and some where selling close to a 100. I am sure its went back down now, but that was interesting.

I ended up buying his other book that day for 2 dollars, its called "Killing Hope: CIA and US Military Interventions Since WW2" and I must say that is probably the better book of the two. A real eye-opener, that.

[cptmarginal]

So it's not the moral question that makes me doubt the inside-job scenario. It's the logistics of it all -- the incredible complexity of arranging it all so that it would work and not be wholly and transparently unbelievable.

They didn't do a very good job...

[American Dream]

MASONIC PLOT wrote:

Both the 9-11 truth movement and the government have adopted a "with us or against us mentality" which turns a lot of honest truth seekers away. I think both sides are being led by people with very ugly agendas.

The real truth is probably somewhere inbetween, in the middle, but those who refuse to join either side are often shouted down, insulted and their character and integrity called in to question.

This is an extremely significant point. While we will never know for sure who the real provocateurs and disinfo agents are, as opposed to sincere but misguided people, we can certainly see that the "9/11 Truth Movement" is identified in many people's minds with fanatical and narrow-minded raving. This does not help the cause.

I think the big trick in any organizing is in drawing distinctions between those who disagree but are unlikely to change, versus those who are potential allies but haven't been persuaded yet. While I certainly don't agree with "Left" figures like Amy Goodman and Noam Chomsky on all things conspiratorial, I also don't agree with making broadly negative statements about "the Left" as if everyone described by that label is somehow the same, very negative, thing. This is a recurrent problem in "the Movement"...

[ninakat]

stickdog, excellent comments

[nomo]

Hey Nomo -

Who the fuck says I"m supposed to provide "proof?"

The gododamn Zelikow-led commission that whitewashed the case, it was sorta up to THEM to provide the "proof".

Idiot.

If you buy their bullshit, then there is really no hope for you.

So eloquently put, my dear. The louder you shout, the more they'll listen to you! Nothing like a well-placed obscenity to win over your imaginary opponents, right?

But, what exactly makes you think I buy anyone's bullshit? Wouldn't you agree that just because you can point out some unexplained anomaly, you haven't exactly proven anything yet? I'm all for getting a new, truly independent inquiry. Don't blame me for not having already drawn any premature conclusions.

[iridescent cuttlefish]

I could go on, but there's no need. The above is enough to show me he's an idiot.

Well, just for the sake of livening the discussion (and just possibly casting our net a little wider, you know, challenging the either/or thinking that is the dominant mode here, there & everywhere...) who gives a fuck about 9/11?

Did it cost more lives than Pearl Harbor or do more to promote Perpetual War? Or is comparing those two events not kosher because WWII was "different," a clear struggle between Good & Evil? (See Fighting Private Power http://web.mit.edu/hemisphere/pubs/mz-spp.shtml, The Shadow Of The Swastika http://www.nazis.net/ and The Nazi Hydra in America http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/noon.html if you still harbor any such illusions.)

Sure, you could try to lump Bill Blum with the other "old lefties" and further limit the scope of his work to some sort of collaboration--yet another attempt to prop up the "blowback meme"--but if we can, just for the sake of perspective fer chrissakes, forget about 9/11 (I know, blasphemy!) just for a moment, what is it that makes the truthers so nervous about the notion of blowback?

Lots of irony here. President Gas spouts, "They hate our freedoms!" while Bill Blum explains, not in catchy, meaningless sound-bytes but in meticulous documentation the reasons why "they" have every reason to hate us. Echoing MLK's self-authored death sentence, the brilliant Beyond Vietnam speech http://www.therationalradical.com/dsep02/01/martin-king.htm in which he warned of America's spiritual death through supporting the wrong side in every conflict since WWII, Blum tells us that it doesn't matter whether a Democrat or a Rublican is sitting in the White House: the real foreign & domestic policy of the US (you know, protecting "American Interests") has been smashing every indigenous movement, crushing, through the same "secret" parade of assassination, kidnapping, & general state terror http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=nicaragua_1619#nicaragua_1619, every single attempt by people to better their lives through establishing representative, autonomous governments to equitably distribute wealth & power.

Sovereignty is the exclusive right of those with the manifest destiny to deny it to everyone else.

So, who's really afraid of "pre 9/11 thinking"? President Gas tells us we can't go back; Alex Jones tells us we must (assuring us that he was no radical in those days--he even voted for The Leader...back when we still had a democracy...right?)

The question is, turn back to what? Lots of hype about the New World Order...very little inquiry into what might separate or distinguish it from the Existing World Order. Sure, the technology of surveillance has improved (you can see how here http://www.i-cams.org/), but we've been marching down the same road from the very beginninghttp://www.ahealedplanet.net/america.htm#fathers

Now, it could well be that Blum and the truthers are both right, but stranger yet, The Leader is right, too: there is no going back to democracy in America because it was never there in the first place. Freedom and justice for; all men are equal under the law...name your fairy tale--it doesn't exist.

Instead, we live in a Simulcran Republic http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2005/12/the_simulacran_.html in some sort of PhilDickian universe where the Empire never died http://deoxy.org/pkd_tcs.htm.

Another Blum, Norbert Blüm, former conservative cabinet minister under Helmut Kohl, has come out of the closet and documented another truth which no one really wants to hear: that all this talk about freedom & democracy doesn't mean shit. The real deal is what it always has been. The rich and powerful--a tiny, statistically immeasurable group--are raping the world for fun & profit:

The 358 richest families own one half of the world’s assets. The world’s 500 largest private companies control 52% of the world’s national product. These 500 groups are richer than the 133 poorest countries in the world. Between 1980 and 1995, the total assets of the 100 largest multinationals rose by 700%. These figures if anything go easy on the rich to the detriment of the poor, since the average income of the poor countries includes the income of the superrich who live there and increase the average figure. Averages tell us little about the bandwidth of the figures for which they constitute the arithmetic mean. If poverty and wealth increase at the same rate, the average remains the same. Averages thus tell us little about the extent of the difference between rich and poor. If one person eats two sausages and one person eats none, they have together eaten an average of one sausage, the only difference being that the one has eaten his fill and the other is hungry. The difference between the poor and the rich is growing. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The assets of the dollar billionaires rose by 57% between 2003 and 2005. The income gap between the richest and poorest countries is increasing, from a ratio of 3:1 in 1820, to 35:1 in 1950 and 72:1 in 1992. In 98 countries incomes are lower than they were 10 years ago, while in Africa they are down 20% on 25 years ago.

1 billion people have no access to clean water, 600 million do not live where they want to live, and instead have been displaced or have fled. 30,000 people die every day for lack of food or drink. Children die, 8,000 of them every day of diseases that inoculations would have protected them against. For many there are no doctors, no schools, for their parents no work. They lack everything that is necessary to live.

250 million children are forced to work in the same regions where 900 million adults are out of work. The children toil, their parents hang around at home, with no job to go to. One half of the world starves, the other half grows fat. Global schizophrenia? The world has gone mad. What is spent in the USA (8 billion dollars) and in Europe (11 billion Euros) on ice-cream and cosmetics alone would cover the costs of providing 2 billion people with a basic schooling and clean water. A drop more fairness, not more, and misery would be banished from this earth. Mankind, “creation’s crowning glory”, “the child of god”, homo sapiens – l’animal rational. What magnificent words we use to describe our species, and how appalling is the misery in which the larger part of mankind is sunk. We are able to put a man on the moon, but incapable of allowing justice to prevail on earth.--Justice: A Criticism of the Idea of Homo Economicushttp://www.currentconcerns.ch/index.php?id=300

This is the real state of the world and it has nothing to do with what image the rich & powerful hide behind--a tsar, a president, it's all the same thing.

In his recent fiery rant http://www.metaphoria.org/ac4t0605d.html, Jason Miller comments on a quote from Stephen Kinzer's blazing, Blumish new book, Overthrow http://www.radicalmiddle.com/x_kinzer.htm:

"There is no stronger or more persistent strain in the American character than the belief that the United States is a nation uniquely endowed with virtue.....This view is driven by a profound conviction that the American form of government, based on capitalism and individual political choice, is, as President Bush asserted, 'right and true for every person in every society.'"

Time and again the United States has acted on this pathological belief, almost always spreading suffering and misery rather than democracy and freedom.

The most cruel irony of this state of affairs is that it's all absolutely unnecessary. Our entire recorded history is nothing more than one regime after another manipulating scarcity for the benefit of the few, when we could all live in a world based on abundance.

(Yeah, sounds impossible--just as we're supposed to think. Better by far to argue over which of the lesser truths is more truthy. Here are a few resources in case you're interested in a different flavor altogether:)

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/000529.html
http://www.ahealedplanet.net/abund.htm#economics
http://www.williambowles.info/ini/ini-0331.html
http://www.altruists.org/ideas/society/abundance_or_scarcity/
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=418

Still, you gotta wonder it really fookin' matters whether 9/11 was an "inside job" (when the normal state of things is an inside job)...or how much difference that particular truth might make to one of those 1 billion souls who don't have clean drinking water.

At least we know that Bill Blum is an idiot.