"...dealing with the behavior of a superpower could possibly get away with--is not indicative of a mind thinking critically."

But they did get away with it so I don't understand what your argument is.

PNAC did indeed get the "Pearl Harbor type event" they stated they needed to put their agenda into motion.

"We all filter the world through the confirmation biases of our existing beliefs."

And your belief system is telling you that no one could be that evil, that no one would/could pull off a crime so large and with so many moving parts.

From the documentation of Operation Northwoods and other such unclassified plans we have ample evidence that false flag attacks were indeed planned involving the deaths of American citizens, major events that would be used to catalyze foreign policy objectives.

If you sincerely believe that the Official Story we were told concerning the events of that day are a more likely explanation than my musings I feel that you exemplify EXACTLY why the perpetrators knew they would get away with it.

By creating an event so large and seemingly multifaceted the first cognitive response held by observers of said event would be yours, "There's no way anyone could have conspired to do this."

This is the same cognitive knee-jerk response that inhibit commentators and thinkers to delve into this topic.

Their minds have been captured by a conclusion before they've even really thought hard on the subject.

"But to accept, with such certainty, a hypothesis that surpasses in its fantastical premises what any fictional entertainment dealing with the behavior of a superpower could possibly get away with..."

To counter this claim I direct you the pilot episode of The Lone Gunmen which aired on April 2011 in which rogue elements of the MIC hijack a passenger airliner and attempt to crash it into the WTC all to create a terrorist "enemy" that wold help fuel increased defense spending in the wake of the Cold War's close.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3WW6eoLcLI

"I'm saying that your thinking is religious in nature"

Here's a thought experiment:

Picture a spectrum.

On one end of the spectrum is a world where each individual is a singular self-empowered entity free to do whatever he/she wants to do.

On the other end of the spectrum is a world that is controlled by evil totalitarian cabal of villaiins who diabolically determine the fate of everyone's life.

Where do you think the United States today lies on that spectrum? Closer to the individual freedom end or closer to the evil cabal side?

Well, it certainly is pretty easy to see that a relatively few very powerful interests control much of our government, our media, our lives.

So if this is the case, why is my thinking religious?

If my hypothesis more closely hews to the world we live in - a world that is increasingly dictated to us by fewer and fewer entities - why would you dismiss my cogitations as religious?

This all goes back to my earlier answer to Bill.

Take Chomsky and other thinkers in his vein, for example.

Here's a man more than anyone who has delineated the true power structures in the US and how those power structures have only consolidated their hold on our lives.

Now, why is it so hard for even critical thinkers and theorists on the subject of power consolidation and its nefarious effects to even hypothesize that maybe manifestations of said power might someday go beyond what has previously existed before?

Sure, Chomsky and others describe present reality well.

But I would love to here them detail what they predict for the future.

Would it not involve a "full-spectrum" dominance by TPTB concerning not just our careers and choices, but our thoughts, emotions and perceptions of reality as well?

What in what Chomsky and other's writings DON'T point to these conclusions.

Finally, even if you may doubt aspects of it, why try and shut down my hypothesizing?

If I want to be labeled a "loon", is it not my choice?

Are you just looking out for me? Why so friendly?

I know I don't have any answers just thoughts as to where answers may be.

And because the country we live in is controlled by a handful of very powerful groups, to look there for answers shouldn't be considered crazy by anyone.

To believe that as this unprecedented consolidation of power only increases that said power will strictly manifest itself along lines which we are already familiar with and which we can use history as a reliable guide is naive at best and more akin to negligence.

"I'm saying that your thinking is religious in nature."

Actually, it is your thinking that is religious in nature. It's one of those facts that seems to be ignored by those who don't have an education in the history of state sponsored terrorism, and the use of false flag events to justify military and terrorist aggression.

You should start by reading Danielle Ganser's book "NATO's Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe", which ironically, has a blurb on the back from Chomsky. It was a program designed to terrorize Europe to prevent leftists from obtaining state power. Dozens of attacks were organized by CIA/NATO and blamed on the communists.

Further, for some reason, the fact that nearly 2000+ accredited engineers and scientists publicly ridicule and prove, scientifically, that the official explanation is impossible, it seems that science-ignorant journalists purposefully ignore their analysis.

You should recognize that explosives were found in the dust from 911 that proves, without any contention otherwise in a peer reviewed process, using the most advanced analytical tools available, that highly engineered devices were planted in the buildings and were responsible for their collapse.

Please don't attack people from a position of ignorance and "religious" belief in state propaganda. Do your own homework. Start by reading this ground breaking paper headed by the prestigious Dr. Harrit, an expert chemist that specializes in nano-scale research, from the University of Copenhagen:

http://bit.ly/aYR340

Wrong, malatesta!

I am definitely not so naive as to believe that there are not government conspiracies like Gladio, false flag events, agent provocateurs, and so on.

But there are Gladios and then there are Roswells, and the 9/11 conspiracy theory is decidedly in Roswell territory.

So I assume you will withdraw your charge of liberalism. But this bit of labeling does raise a question. Do I (and those press-whores like Chomsky) have to agree with Poly in order to meet some purity standard? What label should I be aiming for? Progressive, socialist, communist, anarchist, ideologue, nut?

So, instead of setting up and knocking down the liberal straw man, let's see if we can address some pertinent questions:
1. Do you believe, like Poly, that once the people learn this particular "Truth" that that will transform the world, that, for example, the people will then rise up and overthrow the evildoers? My answer -- not likely. It seems to me that the people have had plenty of reason to rise up for a long time. I sincerely doubt that this extra bit of information will be that bit of magic that finally gets them onto the street, or whatever.
2. Do you believe that in fact "the Truth" can be established? My answer -- this I seriously, deeply, earnestly doubt. If the evildoers were so diabolically clever as to carry out this incredibly complicated plot, do you think they were dumb enough to leave any evidence behind?
3. Given the improbability of 1 and 2, do you think it is right to demand of anyone criticizing any aspect of the "WOT" that they focus their attention first and foremost on the conspiracy hypothesis? Are those who don't, no matter how otherwise estimable, whores and sinners, as Poly would have it, or worse, liberals?
4. So, given all the above, do you think the obsessive demands of the conspiracists advance the cause of liberation or discredit it and obstruct it with their petulant demands?

You enjoy reading Poly's posts? Really? You enjoy deciphering sentences like this -- “I believe that 9/11 was staged and carried out so that not only could all of the previously more covert applications of fascist policy be brought to the forefront and made overt but more importantly it would be the harbinger of a new era - an era where reality itself could no longer be counted upon by the American populace - and the populace of the world for that matter - as being ‘real’.” -- or the next one, “Instead of manipulating events through assasinations or coup d'etats, this time the conspirators - whoever they may be - would go whole hog and destroy a targeted human population's ability to discern reality by creating an event so horrendous/scarring and a propagandosphere so quickly mutating and pervasive that the very ability to discern what really happened in BROAD DAYLIGHT and witnessed by billions of people wouldn't be successfully questioned.”

Maybe you just enjoy the fantasy.

I prefer writing like Richard Hofstadter’s in his famous essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”: “The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms—he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point....As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader.”

Here’s some more good writing from Popular Mechanics's treatment of the 9/11 conspiracy theory:

Critics of these conspiracy theories say they are a form of conspiracism common throughout history after a traumatic event in which conspiracy theories emerge as a mythic form of explanation. A related criticism addresses the form of research on which the theories are based. Thomas W. Eagar, an engineering professor at MIT, suggested they "use the 'reverse scientific method'. They determine what happened, throw out all the data that doesn't fit their conclusion, and then hail their findings as the only possible conclusion." Michael Shermer, writing in Scientific American, said: "The mistaken belief that a handful of unexplained anomalies can undermine a well-established theory lies at the heart of all conspiratorial thinking. All the evidence for a 9/11 conspiracy falls under the rubric of this fallacy. Such notions are easily refuted by noting that scientific theories are not built on single facts alone but on a convergence of evidence assembled from multiple lines of inquiry."

My point is that conspiracism impedes the cause.