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The United States of Fear
Since September 11, 2001, fear has been the main engine of change in the United
States. Who would have thought that across the US, where people boast that it
is the home of the free and the land of the brave, people would gladly surrender
their freedom and liberty because they so fear terrorism?
Who would have thought that the US would allow, much less pay for, the National Security Agency to intercept and store 1.7 billion emails, phone calls and other communications – every single day – and pay for 30,000 people to listen in on phone conversations in the name of fighting the fear of terrorism?
Who would have thought that people across New York City, where people are proud of their diversity, would fear construction of a mosque and community center downtown?
Who would have thought that people across the US, where people argue that they helped bring down the wall that separated East and West Germany, would so fear their neighbors to the South that they support construction of a wall of separation with Mexico?
Who would have thought that some of the highest lawyers in the land would write memos illegally authorizing the torture of people in the name of making the US safe?
Who would have thought that Democrats would compete with Republicans to try to keep the globally shameful Guantanamo prison open so that people inside the US would not have to fear having living near prisons with alleged terrorists in them?
Who would have thought that people in New York City, a place where people admire their own toughness, would fear having criminal trials of alleged terrorists in their city?
Who would have thought that in the US, where people take pride in the constitutional independence of the judiciary, those judges would turn down the case of Maher Arar, who was captured in the US and flown out to a Syrian prison to be tortured, because they fear that even looking at the case would interfere with national security?
Who would have thought that the people of the US would fear to have Uighurs, members of persecuted ethnic minority who struggled for their freedoms against China, allowed to live even temporarily in the US?
Who would have thought that the people of the US would so fear the possibility of the Taliban ruling Afghanistan and the false possibility of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that we would send our sons and daughters to die by the thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Who would have thought that there once was a US president who said “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance…”?
You tell me what happened to the land of the free and the home of the brave since September 11, 2001.
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101 Comments so far
Show AllPlay to Americans' fear and greed and you easily control them.
Fear is profitable.
The Bush Legacy (his Trifecta, if you will):
Fear, Hate, Division
Ahh yes......if it wasn't for that nasty GW Bush.....and that awful 9/11...America would still be the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
What an absolute load of buffalo chips.
Fear has been the engine that has propelled the US for generations.
I'm quite ceratin that the US has been at "war" with someone for my entire life. If not overtly, then certainly covertly.
Scared of cannabis...scared of Mexicans and Blacks...scared of Communists and Terrorists. It just...never....ends.
Gen Mac said it best.
"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear -
kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervour -
with the cry of grave national emergency.
Always, there has been some terrible evil at home,
or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it."
General Douglas MacArthur
Excellent comment, well put!!
They just keep coming at us with some new fear.
Yes. It... Never... Ends...
Fear has been a primary motivation for a long time, as you say. For example, republicans (and fewer democrats) exploited fear of communism for many decades as a means of supporting the military-industrial complex and related warfare. This was immoral, but the manufactured fear was at least fairly rational fear in that nuclear war would have annihilated everyone and it could have actually happened.
Nevertheless, fear was exploited much more effectively and extensively by the Bush administration since 2001. Again, the aim was to support the military-industrial complex and the wars in the middle east. But the various types of fear used by Bush went much further - in justifying a war against "terrorism" that essentially declared war against the entire world and in justifying a fear-based excuse for establishing a surveillance state in this country), and even in justifying silly social reactions such as "gay marriage will destroy the institution of marriage", "the government will take away your guns", and so on. These fears are very irrational.
So it may be true that we've always used fear, but to downplay the huge increase in fear-related manipulation during Bush (and other republican administrations) is a huge mistake. This is the type of thing you always see in the mainstream media, a false equivalence, usually designed to render democrats as bad as republicans. Not discriminating between the level, extent, and rationality of the fear only obscures how bad things have gotten.
"Who would have thought that Democrats would compete with Republicans to try to keep the globally shameful Guantanamo prison open..." –(Bill Quigley)
Please desist!
The ongoing tedium of classic rhetorical questions descends into abject obscenity.
"Who would have thought?" Anyone with half a brain, that's who would have thought! This article insults the intelligence of anyone who has one.
Nothing is so fundamental as knowing what Bill Quigley insists, is still, at this late date, somehow open to doubt?
The failure to understand even the most rudimentary facts about America remains an enduring astonishment which shows no signs of abating. The pool of blood widens as we speak...
Thank you, VashkarKim.
The banality of evil. The evil of banality.
rita
Who would have thought that Amerika would be too intellectually paralyzed and emotionally traumatized to address the mystery of what happened to the land of the free and the home of the brave ON September 11, 2001?
[nervously raises hand]
you summed up my thoughts in a nutshell. kurtz's dying words....
"The horror! The horror!"
...peace...
Exactly. The one pertinent question Mr. Quigley did not ask in an otherwise well-written essay.
Yes, OS, yes, alas, alas, yes.
O.S.......You!
Very well put OS.
.....then throws beer bottle and .....
The Fascist Federalists PREDATORY CAPITALIST WELFARE KINGS started using fear earnestly in the mid 1930's when they attempted to organize a coup to overthrow FDR, including Prescott Bush,which was thwarted by Gen.Smedley Butler who rejected their overtures and blew the whistle on the conspirators which included the American Legion and its 500,000 members. Just as Ed Rollins admitted in an impromptu TV interview in the mid 90's when he was posed a question "why to the Repubicans use the same tactics the NAZI'S used" and Rollins replied "if they worked for the NAZI's they[NAZI tactics]they will work for us[Repubican Party]why wouldn't we[REpubican Party] use them[NAZI tactics]". Fascism is the logical progression of Predatory Capitalism and we are witness, the evidence is overwhelming. Predatory Capitalism is a failed model as evidence that the government must subsidize it and the individual American taxpayers pay for it. The so called bailouts, achieved with deficit spending, is proof that the Predatory Capitalist model is a malfunctional system, in its final throes that won't be graceful in its demise. In fact the Predatory Capitalist WELFARE KINGS will blow up the planet and fear is one of their tools and it works.Americans are forged into mindlessness, the inability to discern propaganda thoughts from facts and truth's.Mindlessness is institutionalized, thereby giving it legitimacy by the government, businesses and churches and is easily observable on TV daily, by the hour, minute, second by second sound bites.
Its not that hard is it? Our citizens have been consistently lied to since September 11. The NeoCons on the right and then the radicals on the left have taken advantage of the conflicted situation to advance their own little agendas and sick plans.
Luckily it seems as if Americans have gotten a handle on the problem and are rejecting the un-American poltroons in politics and are seeing the ruling elite for what they truly are.
It looks as if liberals are going to have to work around the republicans for a couple of years, but it won't matter since its unlikely the republicans will remain what they have been.
Its going to grieve the "America is all bad" bunch, really give a migraine to the "West is guilty" whatever the case and truly reform our government and our policies.
Mightymite, what do you mean by, "The NeoCons on the right and then the radicals on the left have taken advantage of the conflicted situation to advance their own little agendas and sick plans"?
I get the part about the NeoCons, but haven't seen "radicals on the left" advancing their "own little agendas and sick plans."
Please explain what you are talking about!
Local 12:00 news (Atlanta) announced the "homecoming", from Afghanistan, of two different area 20-yr-olds. One grandpa shared narrative about an impish, young boy who shot out home security light w/ BB gun. Pops further relayed that his family felt "the sacrifice for our country" was justified!!
I've never understood why the possibility of a terror strike in America should demand the assured destruction of our greatest human legacy - our own children. Why don't we just tag 'em, hook 'em, and run them through a slaughterhouse??
MY GOD, IS OUR OWN DEATH ALL WE ARE AFRAID OF?? Is this just about saving our own precious skin? Are we all just sociopaths then?
Death has no power over the Soul. Regardless of the human experience, we undoubtedly will be relocated to a place far superior to our current environs. But with no personal conscience, or concern, for the senseless daily murders all over the globe - well, we might have slightly less glorious prospects.
"Death has no power over the Soul. Regardless of the human experience, we undoubtedly will be relocated to a place far superior to our current environs."
So, you've been to the "other side", or what? You have no doubt at all of this unfounded assertion? You're coming from some kind of fundamentalist mindset, the very same that got us into the mess you are right to decry. There is no certainty anywhere, by anyone alive, that your conviction is beyond dispute, because it can neither be proved nor disproved.
It's only one's own direct experience with "the other side," Ephraim, that can be the proof. It is pointless to try to convince anyone of what one personally has experienced and experiences. A person only will know that they know what they know when they have such experiences.
And those experiences have nothing whatsoever to do with fundamentalism or fundamentalist views based on some written words and others' interpretations of such written words.
And does this mean that I know how it all works in this limitless cosmos of infinite time and likely infinite universes and dimensions at both the micro and macro levels? Absolutely not.
But there certainly is more than just the "reality" we perceive coming at us or that we unconsciously or relatively consciously live within.
The only way out is in, friend, and allowing one's self to be open, relaxed, and to let go. The space of no thought whatsoever is a trip all by itself.
Have fun.
/cm
Cee Miracles: What are these "experiences" to which you mysteriously refer? Esoteric initiation rites into gnostic or mystical sects? Personal spiritual instances of ecstatic release and blissful awareness? "Miracles"? OK, such experiences are seldom fundamentalist in a traditional religious sense, but they are deeply subjective and purely psychological. I've had some of these experiences, but I didn't come away from them with certainties about an after-life, which the poster we're responding to clearly implied was beyond all doubt.
All I was saying was, no one knows any such thing, one way or the other. Your subjective conviction about it isn't a compelling testimonial, except in your own mind. And whether I allow myself "to be open, relaxed and let go" is immaterial to what I'm saying. That might help me invite some sort of religious experience, but it would remain purely personal.
Glenn Beck has lately gone all religious in his determination to bring fascism to ALL Americans, whether or not they can relax into the warm embrace of his Christ-centered love. He knows there's an afterlife too, just as he knows he's doing God's work here in America and that Jesus was the first real fascist. He knows Jesus hates socialists and was just as much a warmonger and Muslim-hater as he is. One gets the feeling that Beck has lately opened up, relaxed and let go, having seen the light of his inner demonic truth, that no rational challenge can touch.
You keep using the word "religion," Ephraim. Religions have all kinds of rules to follow, attributed to "God." Who really made up those rules and why?
And yes, I've had experiences of heightened awareness. Your terms are "ecstatic release and blissful awareness."
But I'm not talking about that, although those states, when one transcends the little self and the body itself, are very lovely phenomena. I would call them spiritual experiences, but not religious.
You ask: "What are these 'experiences' to which you mysteriously refer"?
They are my experiences, direct and clear, and which left no questions in my mind or my heart that there is/are "the other side[s]," and communication is part of those experiences.
I have observed that children brought up in religious environments that stress the sinfulness of humans as a given and hell as the terrible place sinners are likely to end up in, have a very difficult time when they are adults with the idea of death itself, and they frequently fight against the notion of religion and the chief muckeemucks who run things or to whom unusual status and powers are ascribed. What terrible conditionings, but those conditionings sure allow for controlling masses of people by those who like to control.
For me, the description, "The body is like a pillowcase; it just slips off," is about it.
I can convince you of nothing, Ephraim. Your trip is your trip this time around, but of course, it's not over and you are still walking around. So who knows?
The greatest teachings I have had come from living in a wildish place for nearly forty years with life and death cycling every second.
Native peoples, whether deep within the Amazon jungles or who live traditionally in the U.S. or Canada, and elsewhere certainly, retain abilities that "civilized" peoples have lost with all their words and all the intellectual interpretations and all the various edifices that are considered the "houses of God" where one goes to, to experience "holiness" and hope it rubs off.
The fear of death is learned, and as a result we compulsively keep inventing new ways to kill others before they kill us. FEAR. Just about all the horribles committed come from it.
+++++++++++++++++
Relax and be open. Anything is possible.
There is no heartbeat on earth that is not somehow our own.
peace, cm
Did I appear to you to be soliciting spiritual advice or instruction? Was I seeking for someone to "convince" me that there really is an "other side" to which I've obviously closed my mind and heart? Is this something you're reading into my posts? Look, I'm not a spring chicken, and I've had some of the same experiences you relate, and never once did I call them "religious" either. Calling them either religious or spiritual wouldn't alter their nature. But you seem to think I'm stuck in some moldy traditional rut where I deny the spiritual. Well, I'm not and I don't.
But if you've had spiritual experiences that have imparted serene certainty of an "other side", an afterlife, and I haven't, then I'll concede your spiritual superiority. But I still say that subjective certitude remains purely subjective. You simply cannot infer from that an objective truth, whether you communicate it to others or not. And if I haven't had such inner experiences, does that mean I'm closed, tensed up, negative and consequently afraid of death, probably because I was taught to fear it as a child with sermons on heaven and hell, sin, and ever since I've been "fighting" against the notion of religion (which you yourself seem to have discarded) and thus authoritarianism, etc, etc. and isn't it all too sad?
All this you derive from my skepticism over a comment made earlier, about the indubitable phenomenon of the hereafter. A few days ago there was a poster on one of the threads, Stephen Riley, who said something very perceptive, and which I've long noted as well, about New Age types who never seem to finally care one way or the other about things of THIS world. You know, politics and such. They get so carried away with New Age nostrums and bromides that they simply MUST impose their spirituality superiority on others who waste time fighting against authoritarianism in all its many guises--political, social and religious. Just go with the flow, they counsel, be open, know that all's well in heaven or whatever we want to call it. Just so we don't use the word "religion." Being skeptical about feel-good spirituality only proves how frightened and unspiritual we really are. All that early Christian conditioning. (BTW, I fully agree with you about that part.) Stop fearing death!
The tacit message seems to be, we can't change any of those things that so enrage us about the way this world is governed, the endless and wasteful and criminal wars, the economic disparities that get worse every year, the mass killings and starvation that could be prevented--except they can't, because we never manage to do it. Just go with the flow. Well, as Jim Hightower has said, even a dead fish can go with the flow.
Ephraim and RandyIndy -
First, Ephraim, I'm no spring chicken either if you go by numbers. I'll be 74 in a month and a few days from now. Sooooo?
I'm amused at the word "objective," like our generals who spend much time making "objective" plans.
Whatever experiences I've had, I've had 'em.
Stephen Hawkings recently used the word and concept of "universes." Of course. Humans spend so much time trying to reduce "God" to someone or something which/who thinks and acts like a human being. I suppose that's a comfort of sorts.
At this moment I'm not terribly impressed with my fellow beings. Humanity seems to be in a state of devolvement. We're one little species among trillions in a cosmic sea of which we know so little actually. Objectively, we may not be around very much longer because of our limitations. Soooo? I imagine LIFE will go on without us.
Stephen Hawkings also stated that he has concluded that life can rise spontaneously. Okay, but still all the elements and conditions have to be there and just right in order to make that happen. And then of course that brings up the question of how and when did all those elements get there with just the right conditions to create the phenomenon we term LIFE, wherever it happens to arise? That's always been the question of the ages.
It's all an illusion perhaps, and all there is, is LIGHT and nothingness afterall.
Still, for me it was not the flashy stuff. The flashy stuff can be awesome and really feel good, and I'm sure my own brain was "chemicalizing" like mad to produce these effects, but just as LSD affected so many in terms of catapulting them into other ways of seeing, being, feeling and changed their lives to an entirely other direction, if they continued to follow this new path, gradually everything became simpler rather than more complex and true lovingness and not judging and being kind, helpful and peaceful became the measure.
As I've said before, I am at peace with what I have personally experienced, which does not mean I sit in a corner with my thumb up my arse. I enjoy the workings of my brain and the various intelligences and talents I have. Genetics? Scheduled to evolve? Who knows. I've got lots of flaws; not all of the same ones I started with necessarily, but enough left to keep me paying attention, but also I've got lots of good stuff that I appreciate and draw on to hone who and what I am to something more so I can contribute more in a positive direction, although that may mean shaking up the marbles with truth or actions that evoke discomfort in others. Sometimes, increasing awareness leads one to walk on a high wire, and then one has to find one's courage which wants to hide out in a cave because it's easier that way.
Claiming "Spiritual Superiority" is the sign of a novice. It goes along with a lot of Old Age and New Age stuff. For the latter, it frequently comes down to spending a few thousand dollars to attend a conference, that will help transform you to an ENLIGHTENED BEING! Oh, yeah. The competition to become enlightened by particular methods or teachings is fierce. But it's a start to waking up some. And this is not to suggest that all methods and teachings are bogus or fluff.
The Great Ones say such things as: Feed people. Serve people. Love people. Remember "God," The Great Spirit ... whatever ... "Love one another." Gee, how quaint.
To what I've said here, likely you will write back objecting to one thing or another, but that's your "problem", not mine.
peace, cm
"And then of course that brings up the question of how and when did all those elements get there with just the right conditions to create the phenomenon we term LIFE, wherever it happens to arise? That's always been the question of the ages."
I predict that within the next 50 years, if we don't destroy the planet first, genetic engineers will build strands of DNA from raw chemicals. What then? Were animals and plants on this planet ultimately engineered in the same fashion? Pretty far out there, I know, but no more so than the existence (or not) of a god, or a "singularity" leading to a "big bang" and yada yada yada.
I'm not lecturing to you or anyone else, just my little imperfect brain wandering around aimlessly... :)
I'm with you, dkshaw. Being open to information, new, old, experienced or not, is the way to go.
Anything is possible. What seemed impossible when I was a kid, now is routine.
A friend of mine believes that humans were engineered by a higher species and all kinds of genetic tamperings went on, and etcetera, and then humans were brought here to earth.
Maybe so. Maybe it's a fairytale.
What fun, however, to record all kinds of information in our brains and then use it when we meet up with something that seems a little way out, but maybe not so way out, and then from combinations of information interacting our rapidly firing neurons yield new ideas and questions and sometimes ... EUREKA! ... conclusions.
So enjoy letting your brain wander around. You never know.
/cm
I don't see how any of this relates to what we were originally discussing. BTW, it's Stephen Hawking, not Hawkings. He has also said recently that there's no reason at all to posit a Creator of the universe(s), or a God, if you like. Physics doesn't require an Unmoved Mover. And I'm not at all sure anything is entirely objective, either, even if I'm not quite sure enough of myself to be "amused" at the idea. I do wonder at the ease with which so many New Age folks proclaim the universality of their own subjective experiences, that whatever sort of mental/spiritual state they've experienced, it's given them some absolute knowledge about the nature of reality, such as what I thought we were originally discussing, the undeniability of an afterlife, "the other side," and so on. But it appears we've wandered out in the woodlands. I don't object to your comments. They're not my "problem."
Just to throw this in, Hawking also 'came out' with the warning that earthlings should stay far away from E.Ts as they are up to no good and are likely seeking to conquer us for our 'natural' resources.
Personally, i think that BP, Monsanto, Dow and on and on are just doing their part to poison the planet so as to keep the evil aliens away.
This is true about Hawkings. The rest is just a bit of humour. If anything, they are working in league with?????????
peace.
Geesuz, you're a pain in the ass, Ephraim, because you come across so abrasively and nit-picky ready for a fight. Maybe looser underwear would help, dahlin'.
Perhaps we could just conclude that NOBODY KNOWS how it all works. Occasionally and individually we get glimpses. One's inner life, I think, is so much more complex than what the outer appearance and expressed verbiage suggest. And maybe, truly, everything is an illusion, afterall; just a long Cecil B. DeMille extravaganza made up in our own minds and imaginings as we go along.
My favorite, most intriguing space is just a soft, all embracing Golden Light with Everything there and Nothing there. The "Divine" dichotomy. Coming back from there, even the most beautiful day and gorgeous setting seem absolutely plain. I'm always astounded by that.
It's all ONE entity afterall, made up of various individuated particles of energy, light or whatever.
Where is the beginning and where is the end? There really is no space free of various levels of vibrational energies between anything, and we're all dancing to a different flute melody or perhaps a steady distant drumming. [Hey, did you know that that Walden Pond sojourner was only a short distance from his family home and went there for dinner frequently and brought his laundry to his mother to do once a week? He especially liked clean, pressed shirts. ... Still, those little facts, amusing as they are regarding the free and liberated man, don't take away from Thoreau's inner and outer observations and hence some of the great things he wrote "in the wilderness." ... However, I wonder what his Mommy might have written if she didn't have to make dinner and do his laundry?]
Ah, sweet Mystery of Life ...
/cm
The "heightened awareness" you experienced is no more than a neurological function in your brain. It can be triggered electromagnetically.
Shadow Dancer: "There are other dimensions than this just one."
You bet.
We, who consider ourselves "civilized," are so crazy and off the mark. But you cover that area quite well, Shadow Dancer.
peace, cm
Its a "funny" thing, but we kill 50,000 people on our roads every year and another 50,000 with handguns every year in this country and its a big "ho hum". One has a much better chance of dying one of those ways than in a "terrorist attack" but we are propagandized into an enormously fearful state regarding some poor bastard "talib" in Afghanistan. WTF !!!!
It is the constant deceptive propaganda that is pedaled by the MSM. How else are you going to keep the sheeple in line. We are told who and what we are to fear, real or imaginary. BTW, I read yesterday, "Before we befriended Israel we had NO enemies in the Mid. East. Now what does that tell you? Be sure and get your dose of fear and watch the MSM noose. LOL< WTF!
The current story being super-hyped, wall to wall, 24/7, on all the propaganda channels (CNN, MSNBC, FAUX) is about some backwoods "minister" with a congregation of around a dozen people calling for a national, or international, burning of the Koran on 9/11. Various generals have seen fit to chime in threatening danger to "the troops" if this happens, with one of the arrogant bastards saying something about "us here in Afghanistan protecting your freedoms at home". Hype, hype, hype designed to spread fear in the US and anger in the Muslim world. What a freaking cluster***k. This would have been a non-story if the "news media" had taken it for what it is, some ignorant backwoods hateful "pastor", and simply ignored it as they should have. But no, here is a BIG STORY that simply must be hyped WORLD WIDE, stirring up fear and hate.
dkshaw- If only there were a few million more who realised this. I hate to think we are the minority.
The Koran burning will provoke retaliation worldwide against Americans, which includes the troops. This qualifies as an act of terror against American by our pretend christian churchianity religionists preachers and they should be renditioned for inciting the creation of terrorism against the USA. Torture and incarceration, even assassination should be kept "on the table" against the phony christian terrorists provoking and inciting terrorism against our "hero warriors".
I agree.
My point is that it should have been a non-story, but the major media chose to blow it up worldwide. It is not as if the "pope" had called for a worldwide koran burning. It was some backwoods hateful hick calling himself a pastor. He is obviously a lunatic. They should have known better but chose instead to whip up fear and hate. How could that not have been intentional? The question is, at whose direction?
I'm burning a stack of bibles on 9/11. Should this become a worldwide news story? I'm just another backwoods hick, myself.
You're a Sicari?
Death has the unfortunate power to separate body and soul. Not a good idea if you still have stuff to do.
purrsun. "Death has no power over the Soul". Right you are and well put. Religion and human greed give the Creator a bad name and so humans are responsible for whatever shit they are in and fear is a symptom of that doodoo. Tony
Only reminding those who have made a spiritual connection and acknowledge an eternal existence. All experience/ understanding is individualized, and I should have clarified the position as MY OWN.
I feel there is a "certainty" that if we don't support truth and love for humanity, we will be engulfed by the darkness.
Land of the unfree, home of the slave.
---------------------------------
I would rather vote for what I want and not get it, than vote for what I don't want and get that. -- Eugene V. Debs
Answer to B.Q. Anyone who was actually awake for the twenty years prior to 9/11/2001 - at least.
You must have been residing in a parallel U.S. reality.
The white ruling class has used fear to control en amerika since 1492, only some of the details have changed !
Land of the Free, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. All play in brain-dead TV-Land.
I've lived in a free country; this ain't one of them.
Freedom of Religion is not freedom at all.
'Religion' was invented for people who do not have faith in God.
God, an idea which is necessarily beyond human comprehension, is explained by those who have answers, because inquiring minds want to KNOW.
Thus ‘faith’ becomes defined by various God-Wannabees who assure their group-dupes a generous slice of pie in the sky when they die, if . . .
All they have to do is BELIEVE what they are told to 'believe' (FOLLOW).
Some are even promised virgins, although it escapes me why anyone over 15 would desire a virgin . . . but I digress. Actually that idea is too funny, even for fiction.
I suggest we replace this phony bullshit with a religion of Freedom.
"God, an idea which is necessarily beyond human comprehension,"
Precisely... assuming that a 'god' even exists...
Who would have thought 19 men with box cutters would expose – to its own people no less – what the United States of America really is? A launching pad, a platform, a base, a path for the richest of the planet to seize and control the entire planet.
You just have to admire the evil beauty of both.
Now comes the question: what now?
What evidence do you think you have that 19 men with box cutters did that? There is not one shred of evidence that can survive serious scrutiny. The same liers who told you this horses--t are the same people who lied to you about WMD in Iraq.
Read:
Was America Attacked by Muslims on 9/11?
David Ray Griffin
http://davidraygriffin.com/articles/was-america-attacked-by-muslims-on-911/
Much of America’s foreign policy since 9/11 has been based on the assumption that it was attacked by Muslims on that day. This assumption was used, most prominently, to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is now widely agreed that the use of 9/11 as a basis for attacking Iraq was illegitimate: none of the hijackers were Iraqis, there was no working relation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, and Iraq was not behind the anthrax attacks. But it is still widely believed that the US attack on Afghanistan was justified. For example, the New York Times, while referring to the US attack on Iraq as a “war of choice,” calls the battle in Afghanistan a “war of necessity.” Time magazine has dubbed it “the right war.” And Barack Obama says that one reason to wind down our involvement in Iraq is to have the troops and resources to “go after the people in Afghanistan who actually attacked us on 9/11.”
The assumption that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11 also lies behind the widespread perception of Islam as an inherently violent religion and therefore of Muslims as guilty until proven innocent. This perception surely contributed to attempts to portray Obama as a Muslim, which was lampooned by a controversial cartoon on the July 21, 2008, cover of The New Yorker.
As could be illustrated by reference to many other post-9/11 developments, including as spying, torture, extraordinary rendition, military tribunals, America’s new doctrine of preemptive war, and its enormous increase in military spending, the assumption that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked by Muslim hijackers has had enormous negative consequences for both international and domestic issues.1
Is it conceivable that this assumption might be false? Insofar as Americans and Canadians would say “No,” they would express their belief that this assumption is not merely an “assumption” but is instead based on strong evidence. When actually examined, however, the proffered evidence turns out to be remarkably weak. I will illustrate this point by means of 16 questions.
Continue reading at http://davidraygriffin.com/articles/was-america-attacked-by-muslims-on-911/
"What evidence do you think you have that 19 men with box cutters did that? "
I have none. I wasn't there. Were you?
Or were you of scratching your ass somewhere besides NYC, like our defense department obviously was.
Continue reading at www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner