MEDIA ROOTS – Yesterday, five hundred fellow veterans and I marched in Washington, D.C. in support of Congressman Ron Paul’s bid for Presidency.  The Veterans for Ron Paul President's Day event began with two hours of speakers and musical performances at the Washington Monument, and was followed by a well organized march and military procession down 15^th Street.

Upon reaching the White House, we promptly did an about-face to symbolically turn our back on the Commander-in-Chief and held a salute while organizer Adam Kokesh, of Adam vs. The Man, presented a folded American flag to represent the death of a soldier.  We held the salute for over eight minutes–one second for every soldier that has committed suicide while President Obama has been in office.  For an additional ten minutes, our diverse company of men and women then stood at parade-rest to pray for each soldier who has died while serving Obama’s 'War on Terror'.

The successful event pulled over a thousand supporters along with many in town tourists who were able to witness the historic spectacle.  After the rally and march, there was a sold out after-party and concert with performances by Golden State and Aimee Allen.

Russia Today was one of the few outlets to report on the Veterans for Ron Paul Event

Although the monumental event was a great success for all those in attendance, one glaring failure did occur yesterday; a failure of coverage from the mainstream media.

Most news outlets simply didn't cover the event, and the outlets that did cover it marginalized its significance or omitted important information.  For example, ABC initially downplayed the number of attendees from “hundreds” who were actually in attendance to only “dozens.”  There was also no mention of event organizer Adam Kokesh in ABC's report.  Kokesh is a former Marine, Russia Today anchor and New Mexico Congressional candidate yet he was simply referred to as one “organizer”.  Kokesh hosts the online news show “Adam vs. The Man,” which garners thousands of viewers.

Fortunately, Ben Swann of WXIX is expecting to cover the event in his weekly “Reality Check” segment, in which Kokesh is scheduled to appear.  Swann has previously produced segments critical of the mainstream media’s failure to cover Dr. Paul’s consistently strong anti-war campaign.

Oskar Mosco participated in yesterday’s event, is a veteran of the U.S. Army, and a prouder at truth-march.

Photo provided by Danny Panzella.

MEDIA ROOTS – Residents in the Carroll Boone Water District (CBWD) of Arkansas might soon have fluoride removed from their water supply.  According to Rene Fonseca, a licensed operator with CBWD, the corrosive additive has been proven to leach lead from aging distribution pipes which is likely causing increased lead contamination in the region’s water supply.

Several other areas in the state of Arkansas have also opposed adding fluoride to their water.  Lobbyists from the fluoridation industry claim that CBWB taxpayers would not be strapped with the $1.23 million cost to install fluoridation equipment. But the Mockingbird Hill Water Association in Boone County unanimously opposed adding fluoride to its water supply, stating that they don’t want to take any chances amidst the current economic hardship.

Last year, in the Southern District Court of California, a lawsuit was filed claiming Americans have the right to neither ingest nor be exposed to a drug that has never been tested or approved by the Food and Drug Administration. While the Surgeon General claims that the additive helps reduce tooth decay, only the FDA is chartered by Congress with the authority to approve claims of safety for products intended to treat and prevent disease.

MR

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Carroll County News – Eureka Springs has twice voted against fluoridation. Opponents of fluoridation say many other cities across the country have stopped fluoridating waters after studies have linked it to hypothyroidism, heart disease, learning problems in children and possibly cancer.

There are also concerns the fluoride products added to the water could be contaminated with toxic chemicals. The CBWD, which serves a population of about 25,000, contacted 49 suppliers of fluoride asking for proper American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and NFS60 certification that would list all contaminants by weight, and include information about toxicological studies pertaining to those contaminants.

"These are extremely dangerous substances," Fonseca said. "The acute lethal toxicity of sodium fluorosilicate for an adult man is 6.2 grams, which is about the weight of an average driver's license. At a water plant the size of CBWD, you would be dumping 150 pounds a day into the water -- enough oral doses to poison 9,600 men a day or 297,000 men a month. This is not pharmaceutical grade fluoride, as you would receive in the dental office.

Read more about the fight for fluoride-free water in Arkansas.

© 2012 Carroll County News

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Photo provided by Flickr user Dottie Mae.

MEDIA ROOTS — A cabal of banksters, traitorous shysters, thieving technocrats and debt hustlers, continue plying America with more financial soma: more credit cards, more debt, more loans, and more deficits.  The snake oil salesmen of our era engineer the financial impotence of everyone not included in their exclusive, nano clique of psychopathic predators.  They plunder U.S. wealth, like a con man scams a stumbling drunk into a game of three card monte.  To complete the nightmare, the "drunk" American is arrested for gambling, as the fearless con man walks free, having paid to rig the scales of justice long ago.

The U.S. healthcare system is more accurately called "sickcare" and has more in common with a lucrative racket, than with an altruistic sense of universal compassion.  Charlatans try to reanimate the housing market, only to see it fail, while playing off the cadaveric spasm as success.  Meanwhile, the mass media's black magic practitioners continue to indoctrinate the masses with soft fascism, paving the road to tyranny with dog and pony shows for elections. 

The U.S. pulse of hope still gently pumps.  Young people's passion and enthusiasm for Republican Ron Paul shows a renewed vigor for democratic ideals.  The emphatic rejection of SOPA and PIPA clearly told the status quo not to infringe upon the only remaining, reliable source of news and information.  Americans sense that our leaders have broken the pact, and threaten them with "or else" as reflected by increased gun sales over recent years.  America has badly veered off course.  Do we have what it takes to avoid running aground? 

Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform provides sound insight regarding the socioeconomic ailments of today's America.

MR

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The Burning Platform — It is mind boggling the degree to which central planners like Bernanke, Geithner, Obama and Congress will inflict their vision of how the economy and world in general should operate upon the trusting masses. The American people want to believe their leaders are doing what is best for them. They like dwelling in a land of delusion, security and luxury, where government guarantees to protect them from: terrorists; Iranian invasion; saving for retirement; looking out for their own health; educating themselves; and accepting the consequences of living above their means. Their ability to distinguish between truth and propaganda has been thoroughly degraded by years of government proscribed education. We have chosen to become a knowingly ignorant nation of true believers. There is no time for critical thinking while we anticipate our next tweet about the death of drug addicted pop singer. We have been taught to love our servitude.

The fallacy of government protecting you, taking care of you and providing you “free” benefits is so ingrained in the American psyche that it is virtually impossible to voluntarily reverse the trend. The truth that Americans refuse to acknowledge is that nothing is free in this life. We are not entitled to own a home, a free education, free healthcare, or a comfy privileged existence. Everything government provides is taken by force from someone else. Everything government does has a cost. Americans have traded freedom and liberty for the appearance of safety and security.The cost is constant war, getting groped by TSA perverts, surveillance by government agencies, threat of imprisonment without charges and a $1 trillion price tag per year. The cost of “free” healthcare is mind numbingly ludicrous rules and regulations for doctors and patients, massive fraud, outrageously expensive procedures and medications, and a $100 trillion unfunded liability left for future generations. The ultimate cost of an overbearing, all controlling government will be economic collapse and revolution.

The concluding act during this bad week for freedom occurred on Saturday in the great state of Maine. When it became clear that Ron Paul was going to win the Maine caucuses, the GOP establishment, that has already anointed Mitt Romney the Republican nominee, decided the people of Maine would be told who won. Using the excuse of an impending snowstorm (less than 1 inch), the powers that be cancelled the caucuses in Washington County where a large contingent of youthful Ron Paul supporters dominated. The Girl Scouts didn’t cancel their event in the same county that day. The men who cancelled the caucus are strong Romney supporters. This was a blatant Stalinist act of voter disenfranchisement. The GOP leaders declared those votes would not count in the totals. Despite this despicable act of rigging an election, Ron Paul doubled his vote percentage from 2008. His message of freedom, liberty, non-interventionism, sound money and self-reliance is reverberating across the land among young people who have not been programmed by the governing elite and the corporate mass media. The establishment will do everything in their power, including vote fraud, to prevent Ron Paul’s anti-establishment message from being heard.

Read more about freedom's low tide in America.

© 2012 The Burning Platform

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Photo by flickr user AZRainman

MEDIA ROOTS – Several hundred psychologists, as well as numerous psychological associations around the country, are united in calling for the annulment of the American Psychological Association’s report on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS).  The 2005 report is an APA endorsement of the highly suspect intelligence-gathering procedures used in US military detention sites such as Guantánamo Bay and Bagram, Afghanistan.  The demand for its immediate suspension and public review is called not by the APA Board or Ethics Committee, but by its general membership as well as several scholar-activists such as Daniel Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky.

Flaws in the PENS process have been apparent from its inception.  The creation of a presidential task force consisting of nine psychologists was specifically assigned to adopt the official psychological guidelines for interrogation by US intelligence agents.  Unfortunately, the task force was composed primarily of psychologists already working within the military and intelligence communities, and many have been involved in instances of suspected prisoner abuse.  Additionally, PENS was never offered for discussion among the APA membership, the press, or the general public, and it was approved in a highly suspect emergency vote that deviated from standard APA procedures.

The closing of Guantánamo Bay is on hold, and Bagram is expanding in size to incarcerate up to 5,500 suspected 'terrorists' by the end of 2012.  Both detention sites do not offer detainees due process as outlined in the Constitution and violate international laws, such as those outlined in the Geneva Conventions.  As these criminal gulags continue to operate unabated, psychologists worldwide are becoming increasingly aware that the APA was simply used as a promotional propaganda tool by the White House in order to justify its rendition and torture program.

MR

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COALITION FOR AN ETHICAL PSYCHOLOGY – Over the decade since the horrendous attacks of 9/11, the world has been shocked by the specter of abusive interrogations and the torture of national security prisoners by agents of the United States government. While psychologists in the U.S. have made significant contributions to societal welfare on many fronts during this period, the profession tragically has also witnessed psychologists acting as planners, consultants, researchers, and overseers to these abusive interrogations at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, Bagram Air Base, CIA “black sites,” and elsewhere. Moreover, in the guise of keeping interrogations “safe, legal, ethical and effective,” psychologists were used to provide legal protection for otherwise illegal treatment of prisoners.

The American Psychological Association’s (APA) 2005 Report of the Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (the PENS Report) is the defining document endorsing psychologists’ engagement in detainee interrogations. Despite evidence that psychologists were involved in abusive interrogations, the PENS Task Force concluded that psychologists play a critical role in keeping interrogations “safe, legal, ethical and effective.” With this stance, the APA, the largest association of psychologists worldwide, became the sole major professional healthcare organization to support practices contrary to the international human rights standards that ought to be the benchmark against which professional codes of ethics are judged.

Read more about the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology’s call for annulling the APA’s PENS Report.

© 2011 Coalition for an Ethical Psychology

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Photo provided by Flickr user The National Guard.

MEDIA ROOTS — Project Censored has become a centrepiece at KPFA, free speech radio, the flagship motherstation of the national Pacifica Radio network.  During this season's fund drive, on Friday, February 17, 2012, Project Censored broadcast a two-point-five-hour special programme entitled 'Brought to Justice? The Indefinite Detention and Targeted Killing of the Rule of Law' with music by David Rovics.  Abby Martin and Mickey Huff speak with Center for Constitutional Rights attorney, Pardiss Kabriaei.  Also, author and investigative journalist Andy Worthington and organiser Stephanie Tang of World Can't Wait join the dialogue, raise public class-consciousness, and encourage support for KPFA free speech radio.

MR

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PROJECT CENSORED — “Welcome to a KPFA Fund Drive Special with Project Censored.  I’m Mickey Huff, in studio with Dr. Peter Phillips and, Associate Director of Project Censored, Andy Roth.  We’ll also be joined for the next two and a half hours by Abby Martin of Media Roots. 

“Today’s special programme is:  ‘Brought to Justice? The Indefinite Detention and Targeted Killing of the Rule of Law.’  Again, welcome.  This is a special broadcast by Project Censored on Pacifica Radio.  Joining us, each half-hour segment, we’ll have a special guest. 

“We’ll begin with investigative journalist Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files and Co-Director of the film, ‘Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.’

“At 1:30pm, we’ll be joined by Pardiss Kabriaei, an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, who has represented a number of the men detained at Guantánamo and is also counsel in al-Awlaki vs. Obama.  That will be a pre-recorded interview that we did with Pardes last week.  [See transcript below.] 

“We will also have music and commentary from one of the most notable and political folk musicians of our time, that would be the one and only David Rovics.  You just heard David Rovics’ music; that was [his song] “Guantánamo Bay” [you heard opening this broadcast].  We’ll be playing David Rovics’ music today; and it will be available for a premium.  We’ll also be interviewing him later on this afternoon. 

“We’ll also hear from Dr. Almerindo Ojeda, professor of linguistics and Director of the Guantánamo Testimonials Project [of the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas] at the University of California, Davis. 

“And we will round out today’s special with Stephanie Tang, of World Can’t Wait, talking about indefinite detention and targeted killings.  And when we wrap up today, we’re going to be focusing on who is working on trying to stop these types of things.  What can be done about it?

“So, today’s programme is not simply to bemoan the evisceration of the rule of law.  It’s also to be looking at positive ways that we can be confronting these types of measures.”

PARDISS KABRIAEI, ATTORNEY, CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS

Mickey Huff (c. 32:46):  “That’s the music of David Rovics.  You can get his new CD, ‘Red Sessions’ with a $50 pledge [to KPFA].  You can get [the] Andy Worthington [film] ‘Outside the Law’ on Guantánamo; you just heard from Andy Worthington in the first segment of today’s special fundraiser here at KPFA.  We’re talking about, essentially, the evisceration of the rule of law and the rise of targeted killings stemming from the rise of torture.  You can call and pledge your support to free speech radio anytime this afternoon; but we have a lot of content.

“This show originally sprang from a programme we did about a month ago with many of the guests you’re hearing today.  But there was so much to cover that we expanded this into a two and a half hour fundraising special because you’re not gonna hear this information on any other media outlet.  You’re gonna hear it here on KPFA. 

“Again, I’m Mickey Huff, joined by Peter Phillips of Project Censored, Andy Roth and Abby Martin, again, of Media Roots.  Please call in 510.848-5732, 800.439-5732.  You can pledge online at KPFA.org.  And here’s Abby Martin to tell you about the interview we did with Pardiss Kabriaei, of the Center for Constitutional Rights.”

Abby Martin (c. 33:55):  “This is Abby Martin with Project Censored.  Pardiss Kabriaei is an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, specialising in the Center’s Global Justice Initiative.  She’s represented men from Yemen, Syria, Algeria, and Afghanistan who have been detained at Guantánamo Bay working on their habeas corpus challenges.  Her work includes seeking accountability for torture and arbitrary detention at Guantánamo, including representing the families of two men who died there in June 2006.  We spoke with her last week about the targeted killings in light of Obama’s expansive global drone killing apparatus.  And here’s the interview with Pardiss Kabriaei.”

Mickey Huff (c. 34:30):  “Welcome to the show Pardiss Kabriaei, attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights.  We’re very happy that you could join us again today on our two and a half hour special covering issues from torture to the evisceration of the rule of law in the United States.  Could you please remind our audience a little bit about our discussion we had a few weeks ago, stemming from the Guantánamo programme we did?”

Pardiss Kabriaei (c. 35:00):  “Sure.  And thank you for having me back.  We were talking before, around the time right before the tenth, unfortunate, anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, the day in January of 2002 when the first men were flown to the prison camp, and the fact that 171 people still remain, despite President Obama’s promises to close the prison.  It is alive and well and will remain open for the foreseeable future.  So, we were discussing the issues around Guantánamo and the unjust detentions of the people still there and some of the challenges to closure that the [Obama] Administration has put out that we actually feel are not difficult.  That’s the problem of closure; it’s actually a simple one, but it’s become a political issue.  That’s why it remains open.”

“I’ve worked on Guantánamo at CCR since I’ve been here, since 2007, and have represented a number of men there and have gone to the base and met with them.  Some of them, thankfully, have been released.  And, as an extension of that work, challenging unjust detention policy by the United States, in this context of terrorism, have, from that work, started looking at other manifestations of abusive Executive [or Presidential] policy in this context.  And, specifically, have been looking at the policy of targeted killing by the [Obama] Administration.”

Mickey Huff (c. 36:26):  “And the website, by the way, for listeners, is CCRjustice.org.  And if you go to that site, the Center for Constitutional Rights, there is a  fact sheet, Government Kill Lists Target U.S. Citizens Far From Any Armed Conflict.  And we actually covered this at Project Censored in the 2012 book when we talked about the Executive Branch claiming the right to assassinate U.S. citizens abroad and the complete evisceration of the rule of law, again, and due process.

“Could you talk a little bit about what are the government kill lists?  And why would you say this is illegal.  I mean, it seems obvious; but you could explain that for us.”

Pardiss Kabriaei (c. 37:07):  “Sure.  The basic policy we’re talking about in our concerns within it are, you know, if we were all worried about a policy of global detention, indefinitely, without review, of hundreds of people held at Guantánamo and elsewhere that the [U.S.] government said were all the worst of the worst and that we know now, after judicial review, we’re not, in fact, terrorists or whose detentions were not founded, we’re talking now about a, effectively, a global assassination policy of killing people who are only suspected of being involved in terrorism.  Our concern is that many of them were actually not involved in any fighting, even if it were lawful to kill individuals wherever they may be found who are engaged in terrorism.  Our concern, in part, is that many of them are actually not even involved in terrorism. 

“We have questioned the standards the government is using to determine who is and who is not targetable.  But the policy we are now talking about, and this is a policy that existed under Bush, but that has very much escalated and expanded under President Obama.  And it is, effectively, killing individuals wherever they may be found who are unilaterally deemed to be dangerous to the United States, unilaterally deemed without any outside meaningful check on what criteria are being used, what evidence supports those targeting decisions.  And these are targeting decisions and targeting practices that are happening outside of recognised war zones.  So, we’re not talking about the use of drones or airstrikes against individuals fighting in Afghanistan or, previously, in Iraq.  We’re talking about people who are being killed far from those battlefields in places like Yemen; Somalia, there was a reported strike in the Philippines, reportedly, that was assisted or led by the United States.  There are many concerns we have about the policy.

“Our particular focus, and the focus of the al-Awlaki case, was targeted killings that are occurring outside of ‘war’ zones and questions and concerns we have about what criteria are being used, where these targeted killings are being carried out.  What was not at issue in the al-Awlaki case, but we’re very much worried about is the issue of civilian casualties resulting from these strikes.  So, there are many issues we could talk about.”

Abby Martin (c. 39:34):  “Pardiss, this is Abby Martin.  You were talking about the unfounded claims behind the global assassination campaign and the indefinite detention; a recent poll that just came out in a Washington Post/ABC News talks about how 70% of respondents approve of Obama’s decision to keep Gitmo open and 83% approve of the U.S. drone policy that he’s expanded.  I wonder if you could speak to those [statistics] and the rebranding effort and the danger of the conditioning.”

Pardiss Kabriaei (c. 40:00):  “M-hm.  I guess I have to believe that those poll numbers are what they are because people still don’t know.  I have to hope that that’s the reason why we’re not authorising or sanctioning the [U.S.] government to go after people who are innocent and should not be killed.  Despite what I think is fair, and in fact there is plenty of evidence to show, at least in Guantánamo, that of the almost 800 people that were held there most of them have been released by the Bush Administration or the Obama Administration, the government themselves.  And others, one there was an opportunity to have their detentions reviewed by courts, courts have found most of their cases, the majority of those cases found that the detentions were unjustified.  But I have to hope that people still believe, as the government has, as the Obama Administration has, either been perpetuating this myth of ‘dangerous’ people still being held at Guantánamo or just failing to educate the public about the truth and reality of who’s still there.  But that they believe the 171 people still there must actually have been involved in fighting and need to be there.  And that Guantánamo is necessary for the national security of the United States. 

“But, again, in fact, if you break down the number of the 171 people only about 30 of them were, according to the [U.S.] government itself, only about 30 of them, according to the government itself will ever actually be charged with anything.  89 of them have been cleared by the Administration, by every government agency with a stake in the matter has been cleared.  So, I have to believe that people don’t know that and we just have to continue educating.”

Mickey Huff (c. 4134):  “This is a Kafkaesque black hole to be sure.  And you’re really on to something.  There’s been a relentless and endless propaganda campaign under the Orwellian guise of the nebulous war on ‘terror.’  And people really, sort of, throw their own projected beliefs and ideas, sort of a motivated reasoning:  ‘There must be a reason that they’re there.’  And, again, that’s among the people that are aware of it, as you pointed out.  There’s many people that really don’t know what goes on and what’s going on here.

“And, going back to the Bush years, George W. Bush, in a rare joint press conference with then-Prime Minister, at the time, Tony Blair of Great Britain, when asked by a seemingly intrepid reporter about how they knew these were the most dangerous people, right?  Because as you said, there’s this endless rhetoric about how:  ‘These are the most dangerous people. These people are gonna get us. We have to lock ‘em up. And they’re so especially dangerous that they absolutely need to be put in Guantánamo. Never mind about what we did after World War II in Nuremberg and put the Nazis on trial. These people are in a special class all of their own, outside of any real judicial system or oversight.’

“And Bush was asked, well, how do you know they’re dangerous?  And this is after he just got done saying that the most dangerous people in the world are in Guantánamo.  And the answer to that question was:  ‘Well because they are at Guantánamo Bay.’  It’s that circular kind of reasoning that comes from the top down and reverberates throughout our culture. 

“Just to be more specific with our listeners—again, we’re talking to Pardiss Kabriaei, of the Center for Constitutional Rights, CCRjustice.org—what laws are the [U.S.] government actually violating in these procedures, in these policies?”

Pardiss Kabriaei (c. 43:17):  “For talking about the issue of targeting, our legal position is that when you are in recognised war zones, we are talking about Afghanistan.  A situation of war triggers a different set of rules, it triggers the laws of war within that context. 

“Factually, and within that legal framework, there is greater leeway in terms of detaining people and even killing them.  It doesn’t mean that every detention is lawful, every killing is lawful, but the rules are different.  And that’s because in situations of immediate fighting the exigencies of war time ordinary Constitutional provisions just don’t apply the same way.  They can’t apply the same way. 

“But what we’re talking about is, for example in the al-Awlaki case, a targeting that occurred in Yemen and, despite conflict in Yemen and a certain level of violence, certainly, there’s a high bar to call something a war and an armed conflict.  And the United States is not ‘at war’ in Yemen.  It is not ‘at war’ with Yemen or within it.  There may be a presence of Al Qaeda, but, again, there are legally defined criteria that need to be satisfied to call something an armed conflict to trigger those different set of rules.

“So our position in the case, and the position that we continue to take is that outside of immediate battlefields and zones of active hostilities, the law that should apply is the Constitution and international human rights law.  And under that framework you can only kill someone, and what we were talking about in the al-Awlaki case is a U.S. citizen with respect to whom, clearly, the Constitution applies.  And on that point the majority of the people who are bearing the brunt of these policies are not actually U.S. citizens.  They are non-citizens, foreign citizens. 

“So, the government could make arguments; and they would try to in court about the fact that the Constitution does not apply, maybe, to non-citizens.  But it is, at least, clear that vis a vis U.S. targeting and killing by the U.S. government of its own citizens, that due process and the Constitution applies.  According to that standard, the government can only kill someone if they’ve been afforded process, there’s been a conviction for a capital crime, and there’s been a sentence of death.  Outside of that process, you can only kill in self-defence.  And that means that there has to be an imminent threat, an immediate threat, of deadly harm.  And lethal force has to be a last resort. 

“And what happened in the al-Awlaki case was that this person, despite what the government was saying about him, was on a kill list of some kind, maintained by the CIA and secret military forces.  But, reportedly, these lists maintain these people’s names for months at a time; they are reviewed periodically every few months, reportedly.  And this is what ‘credible’ news sources, like the New York Times, the L.A. Times, the Washington Post, have reported.  Just that very fact of keeping people on lists that are reviewed months at a time undermines this idea of immediacy.

“And what we know in the actual killing that took place against al-Awlaki in September of last year, September 30, 2011, was when the U.S. actually carried out the strike, is that they had been surveilling him for weeks, potentially before he was actually killed.  That also undermines this idea of an imminent, immediate, threat.  And that the killing was, based on facts that have been reported, in cooperation and in coordination with Yemeni officials, which undermines the idea that there couldn’t have been, potentially, other measures taken, non-lethal measures taken.

“I think what’s important for people to remember is even if you think, and if you believe the government’s story about who this person was and that he presented a threat, killing, again, really has to be a last resort.  And when we don’t accept that, and that’s another standard we’re putting forward.  It’s a Constitutional standard.  When we don’t accept that it leads to a very slippery, very scary slope of what is possible.  And that’s our concern looking forward; and when there are reports of the CIA’s drone programme expanding, what they are doing in Pakistan expanding to places like Yemen, and hearing reports of potential U.S. involvement in strikes in the Philippines and definitely in Somalia and who know where else, there’s a real concern about the escalation and the expansion of war and violence led by the United States in the name of national security.”

Abby Martin (c. 47:51):  “Pardiss, exactly.  And I wanted to touch upon Pakistan.  I just read, you know, it seems like every time I read about the drone strikes under Obama it’s just getting more expansive more far-reaching.  I was wondering if you could speak upon these signature strikes and the indiscriminate group targeted assassinations that are happening in Pakistan.”

Pardiss Kabriaei (c. 48:14):  “Yeah, the signature strikes, I think part of the problem with this programme is the secrecy and the lack of transparency.  And just to be clear about some factual things, the strikes, the drone strikes and strikes carried out in other ways that we’re talking about outside of situations of wars—so, outside of Afghanistan, for example—are mostly carried out by the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command, which is a secret unit of the military. 

“In Afghanistan, because our military forces carry out these strikes, the rules by which we operate are known.  There can be, and there often is after the fact of a killing, an investigation and some kind of accounting and, in some cases, compensation, even. 

“What we are talking about in Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia and wherever else is an entirely, well, bizarre situation where we know the drone strikes are occurring—we see the deaths; we see drone pieces—we certainly have independent researchers documenting, or trying their best to document what’s happening, we still have an [Obama] Administration that officially refuses to acknowledge that this programme even exists, let alone disclose any meaningful information about the criteria they use, or the rules that govern the procedures, or where it operates, who’s being killed, how many are being killed.

“So, just going back to the signature strikes, there’s very little known exactly about the criteria that are used or how the strikes are governed and what procedures are used.  My understanding of the signature strikes is that they are strikes carried out based on observing patterns of behaviour and patterns of life.  And they are not necessarily people who are on kill lists.  They are just individuals who, based on unknown criteria, are deemed to be engaging in threatening behaviour or conduct and that are killed.”

Mickey Huff (c. 50:08):  “Well, you mentioned, Pardiss Kabriaei, you mentioned that ‘scary slippery slope.’  And here we are sliding further into it.  And this was reported in Wired magazine.  There was a piece in the Wall Street Journal, even.  Again, these are pretty mainstream, even corporate, media sources here.  One article, ‘CIA Drones Kill Large Groups Without Knowing Who They Are.’  This is a quote from the Wall Street Journal:  ‘Men believed to be militants associated with terrorist groups, but whose identities aren’t always known.’ 

“So, the CIA is killing people without even knowing who they are on suspicion, suspicion of association ‘with terrorist groups.’  I mean how many degrees away from certainty are we here?”  

Pardiss Kabriaei (c. 51:00):  “Right.  Many degrees.  And just in terms of context, too, on these signature strikes, when you consider just family relationships and the context in Pakistan where sometimes you’ve got 30, 40 people in one home, family members living together, or entire communities living under one roof, if you’ve got one individual the government has been tracking and deems to be a threat, when they are in that home and a missile strikes everyone dies.  And that is how we’ve got, then, the numbers that have been reported.  And according to, sort of, moderate estimates, for example the New America Foundation that is, I think, even by the [Obama] Administration, perceived to be a non-partisan, non-biased, group that has been documenting these strikes there have been hundreds of civilian deaths in Pakistan alone just over a period of years that were strikes that have actually been documented.  If you talk to the government, though, amazingly, a U.S. official said there were zero civilian casualties in Pakistan for the year of 2011.

“I mean there is something wrong between how the United States is defining civilian or militant and how the rest of the world and people who actually are on the ground documenting this stuff, what they are seeing.”

Mickey Huff (c. 52:19):  “It’s simply propaganda and deception.”

Pardiss Kabriaei (c. 52:22):  “I agree with you.  But I think wherever you stand I think there is growing consensus, at least on the need for some transparency.  And the [U.S.] government says, well, we’ve given transparency.  Well, how can there be transparency when you still have an [Obama] Administration that still doesn’t officially acknowledge that this programme exists?”

Abby Martin (c. 52:37):  “Right.  It seems like whatever the [U.S.] government says, this is an insurgent—that must be true; anyone we just killed with a drone must be an insurgent without any sort of due process or evidence against him.  Can you expand upon now the Congressional approval of the domestic use of drones in the United States and the surveillance that we are going to be seeing in a couple of years?  What do you think about that?”

Pardiss Kabriaei (c. 53:03):  “Well, I know that the drone technology is another piece of this.  The legal issues with drones to the extent that there may not be legal issues—the [U.S.] government’s talking about how ‘they are more precise’ and ‘actually as a method of killing they are not problematic, legally’—there are certainly ethical issues, at least.

“These Drone operators sit in rooms thousands of miles away, for example in Nevada, watching targets and people on video screens and with the press of a button kill, make decisions to kill people.  And then drive home to their families, pick up their kids from soccer practice and have dinner.  There is something very scary and concerning about how the use of drones is further dehumanising the act of killing and war.  I think that’s something people should be thinking about, separate from the legal issues, just the ethical and moral issues with that and how much easier it makes killing and warfare.”

Abby Martin (c. 53:58):  “Yeah.  Just the chilling effect, just curbing political activism, knowing that there are these drones surveilling the country.”

Pardiss Kabriaei (c. 54:06):  “Absolutely.”

Abby Martin (c. 53:58):  “And there’s certainly a privacy issue.”

Pardiss Kabriaei (c. 54:08):  “Yeah.  And then there are billions of dollars being poured into research and drone technology and advancements for drones.  And the way we’re seeing them being used in the United States so far is, as far as what’s been reported, they’ve been used and are being used for surveillance along borders.  There’s talk of them being used by law enforcement, by police departments for surveillance purposes.  I mean the capacity for drones is really limitless.  And we know that there’s a lot of money that’s being poured into research and technology to further advance the technologies.  So, what’s possible and what may come in the United States is unknown.  So far they are being used for surveillance by law enforcement, for border patrol.

I know that there are some groups in the United States that have filed Freedom of Information Act requests to get more information on exactly how these things are being used and the basis for authorising them in the United States.  But, certainly, they are present here.  They are in the skies in the United States.  And it’s really a question and a concern about what may come here to the extent that people are not concerned about what the United States is doing abroad.”

Mickey Huff (c. 55:20):  “That’s right.  Pardiss Kabriaei, you were also talking about priorities.  And when we hear these cries of austerity coming from on high, they ring pretty hollow when one sees so much is being sunk into these incredibly dubious and problematic policies of targeted killing, of surveillance, not just abroad, but here at home [in the U.S.], potentially. 

“We have one minute left, Pardiss.  Could you tell us, what are you trying to accomplish, then, through the courts?  Why is this important?  Why should people get active?  And where can they get more information?”

Pardiss Kabriaei (c. 54:06):  “M-hm.  What we were trying to do with the courts in our last case was just to impose a process of review over these decisions and to force some level of transparency.  And we will continue those efforts in the courts and take them as far as we can.

“What I would say is, with Guantánamo and the poll numbers, what they are in the United States, there are still a lot of people, I think, who are outraged by Guantánamo because it was so known.  And I think we still talk very much about the detentions there.  I think what people need to do is educate themselves about this killing policy as well.   And we need the same level of outcry and the same demand for transparency and information.  People should know, at a minimum, what the United States government is doing in their name and with their money.

“I think that, for more information, please go to our website CCRjustice.org.  We have information about the prior case we fought on behalf of al-Awlaki.  And we’ll be putting out more information.  And I think, at this point, just the basic minimum is educate yourself about what the United States is doing in your name.”

Mickey Huff (c. 56:56):  “That’s the voice of Pardiss Kabriaei from the Center for Constitutional Rights.  And that’s certainly what we’re trying to do here at [KPFA] free speech radio.  We are trying to get the word out and get people to really understand what’s going on and understand what’s at stake.

Pardiss, thanks so much for your time and for taking time out of your very busy schedule and your important work.  Thank you, again.”

Abby Martin (c. 57:15):  “Thanks, Pardiss.”

Pardiss Kabriaei (c. 57:16):  “Thank you so much.  Bye-bye.”

Transcript by Felipe Messina

Photo by Flickr user Art Makes Me Smile 

***

MEDIA ROOTS — Organic farmers, seed growers, and seed businesses took another step at reclaiming their land last month, as 83 plaintiffs representing over 300,000 farmers described Big Agribusiness Monsanto's harrassment in court.  Monsanto threatens lawsuits against organic farmers for “patent infringement” if farmlands have any trace amounts of Monsanto's genetically-modified seeds.  Additionally, many organic seeds have not even been planted for fear of any unwanted frankenplants which Monsanto might sue them over.

Willie Nelson successfully rallied many in the Occupy Movement to 'Occupy the Food System,' as hundreds supporting the organic industry assembled outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan for a motion hearing on January 31, 2012.

MR

***

NATION OF CHANGE – Judge Naomi Buckwald heard the oral arguments on Monsanto’s Motion to Dismiss, and the legal team from Public Patent Foundation represented the rights of American organic farmers against Monsanto, maker of GM seeds, [and additionally, Agent Orange, dioxin, etc.]

After hearing the arguments, Judge Buckwald stated that on March 31^st she will hand down her decision on whether the lawsuit will move forward to trial.

Jim Gerritsen, President of the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, has pointed out that there are 5th and 6th generation family farmers being pushed off their farms today, and because of a "climate of fear" (from possible lawsuits from Monsanto), they can't grow some of the food they want to grow.

Even organic dairy farmers have had to suffer lawsuits (from Monsanto) when they labeled their organic milk "non-BGH" referring to Monsanto's bovine growth hormone used by conventional dairies.

Read more about the 300,000 organic farmers suing Monsanto in federal court.

© 2012 Nation of Change

***

Photo by Flickr user Martin Pettitt

MEDIA ROOTS — Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University Law School, discussed on C-SPAN his Washington Post article, “Are You Being Watched? It’s Your Fault,” “looking at the issues of surveillance and privacy and U.S. citizens' loss of privacy protections,” as well as their own complicity in this crisis and related implications, such as the intergenerational erosion of privacy expectations. 

One may be reminded of the U.S. public's similar enculturation to a two-party system, for which they perpetually vote, but doesn't represent their interests; instead, Democrats and Republicans collude to further corporate consolidation of power.  But because of the intergenerational downward spiral of eroding public expectations, as in the loss of privacy protections, the public perpetually give up their rights.

Messina

***

Jonathan Turley on C-SPAN

Photo by flickr user monkey man forever

MEDIA ROOTS — With governments, citizens, and activists worldwide increasingly relying on the internet, the environment the internet fosters is a hotly contested issue.  Last summer, the United Nations declared that disconnecting people from the internet was a human rights violation and against international law.  Considering internet access as a human right and witnessing the vital contribution it has played in the Arab Spring and Occupy Movements, the sanctity of preserving a free and open internet, or net neutrality, can’t be understated.  Even the U.S. military recently acknowledged the critical role of cyberspace by including the digital domain in its latest concept of “full spectrum dominance.” 

As humanity’s relationship with the burgeoning information age matures, threats to a free and open internet continue to proliferate.  Indeed, when the printed press, radio, TV, and every other technological innovation, which have promised to revolutionize public access to a diversity of information, were developed, they've faced consolidation, monopolization, and the resultant transferences of power and control into few hands.  Now, potential predators stalk the digital realm; and they have been revealed as SOPA, PIPA and ACTA.

SOPA, PIPA and ACTA all generally share the same goals which are to ostensibly protect trademarks and intellectual property, while fending off counterfeiting and pirating.  SOPA and PIPA are U.S. pieces of legislation, while ACTA is a transnational agreement.  After recent public outcries, internet users defeated an attempt to pass SOPA and PIPA on Capitol Hill.  However, SOPA will be resurrected soon.  Meanwhile, countries around the world vigorously protest the enactment of ACTA.  What’s the significance of these acronyms on our digital routines?  Let’s break each one down individually and have a closer look.

PIPA: Protect IP Act - Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property

PIPA’s stated goal would have given the U.S. government and copyright holders additional capabilities to restrict access to websites involved in copyright infringement and the distribution of counterfeit goods.  Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) originally introduced Senate Bill 968 on May 12, 2011, but the motion to proceed with the legislation was withdrawn January 23, 2011. 

The most controversial aspect of the bill would have enabled Domain Name System (DNS) blocking and redirection.  DNS serves as the virtual yellow pages of the internet.  By blocking and redirecting DNS, this essentially tears entire pages out of the phone book, creating an incomplete version, no longer compatible with the rest of the world.  In this scenario, a simple search for a site would yield a message stating the site no longer exists. 

SOPA: Stop Online Piracy Act

SOPA (H.R. 3261) is the sister bill to PIPA in the House of Representatives.  SOPA was introduced by U.S. Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX).  Its legal aim was to provide law enforcement agencies greater online jurisdiction to prevent violation of copyrighted intellectual property and the creation of counterfeit goods. 

According to OpenCongress.org,

“This bill would establish a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department [DoJ] determines to be dedicated to copyright infringement. The DoJ or the copyright owner would be able to commence a legal action against any site they deem to have ‘only limited purpose or use other than infringement,’ and the DoJ would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site. It would also make unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a possible penalty up to five years in prison.”

The bill’s inherent dangers would have allowed the U.S. government and private companies to arbitrarily incapacitate websites, thus threatening freedom of speech.  Furthermore, thousands of websites would have been jeopardized based on their user-generated content, which in turn, frequently relies on copyrighted material.  Following the SOPA Blackout Day on January 18^th, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) rescinded H.R. 3261’s vote on January 24, 2012. 

This brief video offers a concise explanation of SOPA.

The battle for online freedom plows ahead, in light of a new bill originating in the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.  Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who chairs the Committee, is engineering the latest attempt to widely expand authority by Executive Branch departments over the internet.  The debut of this new cybersecurity bill is expected today, February 16, 2012.  Details of the cybersecurity bill have not been revealed, a result of the legislation’s crafters meeting behind closed doors.  Theories abound that the bill, which has benefited from bipartisan support, would grant the Department of Homeland Security expansive new powers to regulate and stake out the internet under the pretext of cybersecurity.  However, the persistent attempts to pass such legislation adversely impacting free speech and the flow of information must be questioned.  Large amounts of financial contributions to politicians, as well as dubious connections, may indicate that a broader agenda is at work.

Supporters of SOPA and PIPA will likely vigorously lobby for the new cybersecurity bill to be passed.  Backers of this type of legislation read like a who’s who list of Hollywood industry bosses.  From the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), major Hollywood power brokers angle to protect their interests.  A total of 161 entities have stumped for the passage of SOPA and PIPA.  Besides the MPAA and RIAA, they include the AFL-CIO, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Comcast, Disney, and Sony.  Based on some of the groups in favor, the entire matter appears to be a pet project of the Democrat Party.  This comes as no surprise when considering who the vanguard of Hollywood intellectual property has historically been.

Chris Dodd has made it his mission to crusade in Washington D.C. on behalf of Hollywood under the pretext of copyright protection legislation.  Dodd is the perfect bridge between Hollywood and the Beltway.  On March 1, 2011, Dodd was chosen as chairman of the MPAA.  On the side, he also lobbies for an organization called Creative America. 

According to Creative America’s website:

“…everyone in the community recognizes what a grave threat content theft poses to our livelihood and creativity - that thieves are making millions of dollars trafficking in stolen film and television while our jobs, pensions and residuals continue to decline.”

Some of the groups involved with Creative America include the CBS Corporation, NBC Universal, the Screen Actors Guild, Twentieth Century Fox, Viacom, and Warner Bros. Entertainment.  A simple search into Dodd’s previous career uncovers much cozier ties to D.C.

Dodd has enjoyed over three decades as a senator and has the distinction of being Connecticut’s longest serving senate member.  He’s one of the most recognizable Democratic senators of years past, with posts on the Committee on Foreign Relations, the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, and the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.  However, his post-political career has proven quite lucrative.  According to sources, Dodd rakes in a $1.5 million salary as chairman of the MPAA.  The appointment of Dodd to head the MPAA might be the biggest coup Hollywood has had in years. 

Further evidence from Dodd himself reinforces this as he threatened to cut off financial contributions from Hollywood to politicians who did not support SOPA and PIPA.  The pipeline of sizeable contributions from Hollywood going to politicians is a healthy one most on Capitol Hill would prefer to preserve.

Democrat Senator Harry Reid has also asserted himself a champion of SOPA and PIPA legislation.  He has brought various versions of the bill to the Senate floor and may be bound to three and half million vested interests to pass the legislation; Reid was the beneficiary of $3.5 million from SOPA and PIPA advocates during the last campaign cycle.  Although donations to Reid stand out by far, other elected officials supporting the legislation have received contributions, too:  Democrat Chuck Schumer ($2.6 million), Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand ($2 million), Democrat Barbara Boxer ($1.4 million), and Republican Michael Bennet ($1 million).  Clearly, millions of reasons jeopardize maintaining a free and open internet.  One of those reasons is another piece of little known legislation, called ACTA.

ACTA: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

ACTA protests have flashed across Europe over recent weeks.  Anti-ACTAvists have sprung up from the Netherlands to Germany to Poland and many other countries throughout Europe.  The contentious nature of ACTA attempts to normalize an international legal framework that enforces intellectual property rights, but also endeavors to target counterfeit goods and even generic medications.  On October 1^st, 2011, Australia, Japan, Canada, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States signed the agreement.  At the start of 2012, the European Union and 22 of its member states ratified ACTA, bringing the total signatories to 31. 

Battle lines have been drawn and two organizations are standing toe to toe—the MPAA and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).  According to the EFF, "[...] copyright industry rightsholder groups have sought stronger powers to enforce their intellectual property rights [...] to preserve their business models."  This sentiment essentially drives to the heart of the debate, one which also includes SOPA and PIPA.  Those opposed to restricting the internet view these efforts as a veiled and desperate attempt at trying to preserve an atrophying business model, being rendered obsolete by the age of digital file sharing.  This sentiment has galvanized many who sense that the true reason the public digital domain is under siege is in attempts to undermine free speech and democracy.  Due to what’s at stake, emotions have run high.  U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has called it “more dangerous than SOPA.”  Popular opinion likely agrees with Issa, but is the truth harder to discern?

A lot of misinformation swirls around ACTA.  The hacktivist group Anonymous shares some of the blame.  A popular video produced by the amorphous, hacktivist collective shines light on ACTA’s pitfalls.  But is the hit piece video accurate?  According to ArsTechnica.com, there are four dubious claims that Anonymous makes:  ISPs will monitor all your data packets, ACTA obliges its member countries to assent to the worst features of SOPA and PIPA, generic drugs will be banned and seeds will be controlled via patents, and ISPs will be constantly required to scour their servers for even the smallest bits of copyrighted material.  The Anonymous video, which includes a qualifying disclaimer at the outset, has been widely embedded in articles online and reached nearly one million views.  Anonymous noted, “This video may not reflect the recent changes within the ACTA text.  However, it will give you an idea of what ACTA is about and why the internet should fight it.”  And, of course, after sorting any conflicting claims, ACTA still deserves a thumbs-down verdict.  We also bear in mind internet censorship, freedom of speech restrictions, loss of net neutrality, domestic surveillance, and civil rights erosions and police state repression have already been ongoing issues plaguing the U.S.  ACTA would simply codify existing repressive policies for people in the U.S. under the pretext of opposing counterfeiting.

ACTA is a poorly crafted agreement and simply bad.  ACTA’s basic criticisms are threefold:  the agreement’s designers are not democratically elected nor accountable, the ACTA negotiations were held in secret, and there was no discussion held in a public forum.  ReadWrite Enterprise does a fine job laying out ten reasons why ACTA fails.  Furthermore, even though ACTA probably won’t change U.S. law, it would lock us into a constrictive legal space in an area of law that changes rapidly.  Much like activists around the world can now respond more quickly to police brutality and government tactics of repression thanks to the internet, file sharing enthusiasts are finding new ways to circumvent internet censorship just as quickly.

The Internet Can’t Be Bound and Gagged

Already the hive mind of the internet has developed a solution to undercut potential censorship attempts.  Many people are unaware the internet exists similarly to an iceberg; only a small portion of it is visible to the average user.  A significant amount of the internet lies hidden in an area called the deep web.  The deep web lies obfuscated to the armchair web surfer due to an inability to access it by simply typing it into a search engine and accessing it.  For example, the deep web does not employ the use of meta tags or DNS and blocks search engines, among other characteristics, making navigation there challenging.  In this secretive environment, hackers have been diligently working on a new protocol called Tribler.

Tribler works in a similar fashion to other BitTorrent clients except that when search results are produced, they aren’t procured from a central index, rather they are directly produced from other peers.  According to TorrentFreak,

“Downloading a torrent is also totally decentralized. When a user clicks on one of the search results, the meta-data is pulled in from another peer and the download starts immediately. Tribler is based on the standard BitTorrent protocol and uses regular BitTorrent trackers to communicate with other peers. But, it can also continue downloading when a central tracker goes down.”

This type of decentralized structure would allow users to create ‘channels’ amongst themselves and make Tribler an indomitable force, making neutralization by censors extremely difficult.  Tribler will make it “impossible to shut down unless the whole Internet goes down with it.”  This will come as excellent news to millions of people witnessing attempts to stifle internet freedom with ACTA, SOPA, PIPA, and ongoing attacks on net neutrality. 

The race to control the internet rages on, but developments like this beg the question:  Does the internet adapt and evolve too quickly for elected officials to harness it?  This brings to mind Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner.  Some things can just never be caught.  However, U.S. voters continue to support the two-party system, which continually abandons them whilst representing corporate interests.  Time will tell.

Written by Adam Miezio for Media Roots

Photo by Flickr user DonkeyHotey

MEDIA ROOTS — Freddie Mac, aka the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, is one of America’s largest mortgage-insurance companies, chartered in 1970 by the federal government “to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the U.S. housing market.”  However, the mortgage giant recently invested $5 billion in complex securities that pay when mortgage holders are unable to refinance and take advantage of the current record-low interest rates, effectively betting against U.S. homeowners. 

If Freddie Mac’s declared corporate mission is to make it “easier for consumers to afford a decent house or apartment,” then why is the company profiting from U.S. homeowners’ inability to refinance and reduce interest rates on their mortgages?  These investments constitute a clear conflict of interest, particularly since Freddie Mac also determines which homeowners are eligible to refinance.  Freddie Mac is essentially betting that homeowners will not be approved to refinance at lower interest rates, and meanwhile, creating new regulations, restrictions, and fees to limit eligibility, which a Federal Reserve paper qualified as “difficult to justify.”

Following the subprime mortgage crisis and a taxpayer-funded government bailout of over $200 billion, Freddie Mac, along with fellow GSE Fannie Mae (aka the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation), were taken over by the U.S. Government and placed into conservatorship under the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) in September 2008, an agency created under Bush.  The FHFA is, therefore, responsible for overseeing and regulating the lenders’ business practices.  However, recent reports of these unsavory transactions by NPR and nonprofit newsroom ProPublica raised the question of whether the FHFA’s interest is to help U.S. homeowners, or simply to ensure the companies’ financial success. 

Indeed, Catherine Austin-Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner, has described collateral fraud in the housing market contributing to the 2007 housing bubble collapse and economic meltdown of 2008:

“It’s funny how few people need to be involved [to enable this level of fraud], particularly when you’re hiding behind the Federal credit.  So, if you’ve got control in the right places at Fannie, Freddie, and FHA, particularly, through the systems.  It’s a surprisingly few people.  What you do need is for everybody in 3,100 [U.S.] Counties involved in real estate to just shut up.  So, for example, you saw appraisers who knew that the appraisals were just, you know, going out of control and made no sense.  And if you had an appraiser who wouldn’t play ball, he’d kind of be dealt with.  So, you had this sort of five to ten percent who objected to the corruption and would try and do something and would be dealt with in a variety of ways.  But what you needed was for everybody to just play along and not ask questions.”

Today, some in Congress are asking a few questions about Fannie and Freddie, but will that be enough to protect the public interest?  Republican Senator, Johnny Isakson, of Georgia said, “We have a situation that’s obviously, at best, unsavory and, at worst, immoral.”  Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer argued, “They’re actually, in my view, turning against their mission.  And I truly blame the regulator here, Mr. DeMarco, because he had to approve this instrument.”  Notably, both stop short of questioning legality.

In response to allegations of conflict of interest, FHFA Director Edward DeMarco responded that the investments, known as inverse floaters, were “in the class of normal business transactions” and he is “completely puzzled at the notion that something immoral went on here.”  FHFA regulators maintain that a “firewall” separates the investment portion of Freddie Mac from the regulatory branch, which creates rules that make it difficult for homeowners to refinance.  The Inspector General of the FHFA is conducting an “open evaluation on capital markets, which encompasses this issue.”  The investments have drawn some scrutiny from members of Congress.  And the Senate is holding a hearing today on Capitol Hill to question Freddie Mac’s investment practices.

The current situation with Freddie Mac’s dubious investments in inverse floaters brings to mind the housing crisis caused by the breakdown of credit default swaps and the mortgage-backed securities they insured, which caused millions in the U.S. to lose their homes through foreclosure, often with rushed robo-signing, through threats and intimidation, particularly in immigrant communities, and without being able to provide appropriate documentation.  For example, Wells Fargo, which profits from private prisons housing entire immigrant families, has been linked with also targeting immigrant families to force them out of their homes and expedite foreclosures.

Ultimately, mortgage companies like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae essentially granted bad loans, often predatory loans, and bet that borrowers would default.  Now that mortgage interest rates have dropped, Freddie Mac, a government-controlled, taxpayer-owned company, has chosen to deny homeowners lower interest rates, once again putting profits before people, and betting against U.S. homeowners.  If the American Dream is in fact dead, then it’s corporate greed enabled by political corruption that killed it.

Written by Noelle Giambalvo Bortolai for Media Roots

Photo by Flickr user Mike Licht

MEDIA ROOTS – This set is dedicated to all the hard work bedroom musicians put into their craft. Much love to each and every one of you for your dedication and discipline in making such rhythmic and melodic sonic beauty.  IDM for life!

Love,

ATOP Akkad the Orphic Priest

All the featured music on the mix can be found through searching discogs.com or by emailing me: codymcphail@gmail.com.

Artist List:

Nommo Ogo - Chromomiasma
Asobi Seksu - Trails (Holy Other rmx)
Dr Strangeloop - World of Your Dreams
Ranvir Bass - You Are My Moon and My Moonlight Too
Brian English - Scatting Loons
Mr76ix - 2nd Thought
Kcinsu - Retraction
Exillon - Percussor
No UFO's - Freeze ï Drift
Identity Theft - Silent Calliope's Curse
Ryan Hemsworth - VLMNT
White Ring - Feather (Story of Isaac rmx)
Fluorescent Grey - Leaf-Laden Amber Hued GUI
Kossak - Mrs Crabcake
William Cody Watson - I Won't Let Them Through That Door

Listen to all other editions of Media Roots Music.

MEDIA ROOTS – Upon returning home from his second tour in Afghanistan, Lt. Colonel Daniel L. Davis unloaded several truths that exposed continued deception by multiple senior military officials.  The 17-year Army veteran describes, in an 84-page “open-source” report, an increasingly bleak reality for soldiers while chronicling specific episodes of personal gain from top military leaders.

“No one expects our leaders to always have a successful plan,” he explains in a recent summary of the report in Armed Forces Journal.  “But we do expect – and the men who do the living, fighting, and dying deserve – to have our leaders tell the truth about what’s going on.”

Prior to informing his chain of command, Davis met with six members of Congress and a New York Times reporter, to submit two documents – one classified and one not – to the Pentagon for internal review.  However, upon learning that there would be a delay in the release of the unclassified report, Davis decided to go public last week in the nation’s premier independent military periodical.  “How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding?”

The next day, the Times covered the story, but only to appear backpaged on A13.  Then, last Friday, Rolling Stone released it in an article written by Michael Hastings, the journalist that wrote the bombshell article that lead to General McChrystal’s premature retirement in 2010.

With specific evidence of industry actually impeding military development, hundreds of billions of dollars being wasted, and virtually no accountability of top decision-makers, some generals continue to deceive Congress and the U.S. people.  But with the ongoing expenditure of “blood, limbs, and lives of tens of thousands” of service members and only small gains for the country, “deception reach[ed] an intolerable low,” Davis writes. “If the public had access to these classified reports they would see the dramatic gulf between what is often said in public by our senior leaders and what is actually true behind the scenes.”

While assigned to the Future Combat Systems (FCS) organization in Fort Bliss, Texas, Davis discovered that deception was not isolated to one base or division but had become Army-wide.  Starting in 1999 and lasting nearly a decade, the FCS organization cost nearly $20 billion dollars of taxpayer monies.  Despite the Government Accountability Office documenting consistently significant problems with the agency, senior leaders routinely downplayed failures and often gave the impression of success to Congress.  To date, none of these officials involved in these deceptions have been held accountable.  Instead, one proponent, Major General Charles Cartwright, was promoted Vice President of Advanced Programs at Raytheon upon retirement.  Raytheon was a primary supplier of the FCS blunder that was eventually canceled by the Defense Secretary.

The report also offers an extensive review of the 2007 Iraqi troop surge and the misplaced credit given to CIA Director General Patreaus.  Several perspectives of the surge are featured that mention how, prior to the surge, the Iraqi Sunni community had already decided to revolt against their Al-Qaeda allies.  This shifted momentum and left some Iraqi officials perplexed at why the U.S. was sending additional battalions after they had specifically requested that U.S. troops stay on the bases outside of conflict areas.

The allegations make a clear distinction between criticism for military officials and the presumed naivety of the President and Congress.  According to Obama’s Wars by Bob Woodward, the Commander-in-Chief asked many difficult questions prior to ordering the 30,000-troop surge in Afghanistan that ultimately failed.  Obama was still in his first year of the presidency, had no personal military history, and was outnumbered in opinion by senior security advisors.  Additionally, several misleading testimonies from top brass are provided, with context and factual disparity, that exemplify the rampant deceit offered to Congress and major media outlets.

The report goes on to suggest several areas where the U.S. has lost credibility.  Davis cites how many mid-grade officers are now retiring early within the Army, due to increased disenfranchisement, and warns of a future military with dwindling respect for the chains of command.  Also, as Congress continues to remain unaware of some classified intelligence, several defense contractors are able to study such material at their convenience.  Davis recommends a bipartisan Congressional investigation of all the leaders involved to respond to these allegations, under oath.

When questioned why he felt compelled to come out with these accusations despite the fact he was going to be flamed by Army brass, Davis replied, “I believe that with knowledge comes responsibility; I knew too much to remain silent.”

Oskar Mosquito is a veteran of the U.S. Army and a producer at truth-march.

Picture provided by Flickr user hectorir

MEDIA ROOTS — Various official claims of military victory and success have been pronounced as the continuing occupation of Iraq by U.S. mercenaries festers and causes misery for Iraqis.

Even after having allegedly withdrawn all U.S. troops from the country, the Pentagon wants another $3 billion of taxpayer money for its imperialistic adventures, despite the astronomical costs already incurred. 

MR

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RT — The American public has been told that the Iraq War is a thing of the past. Even still, the US Department of Defense is asking the federal government for almost $3 billion for “activities” in a country that they shouldn’t be in.

The last US troops were supposedly withdrawn from Iraq just before 2012 began, but after years of a war that abruptly ended this past December, the Pentagon still wants billions to continue doing…something in Iraq. According to the latest budget request, the DoD think around $2.9 billion should cover the cost of “Post-Operation NEW DAWN (OND)/Iraq Activities.”

In a report published Monday by Wired.com, they acknowledge that the funding that the Pentagon wants now is almost as bizarre as the war itself. For nearly $3 billion, the DoD says that will be able to afford “Finalizing transition” from Iraq. Only two months earlier, however, President Obama celebrated the end of the Iraqi mission. At the time, some critics called the ending of the war as more of a catapult for Obama re-election campaign than anything else. Now with the revelation that the US Defense Department still wants billions for a war America is told it isn’t fighting, the alleged ending of Operation New Dawn seems just as questionable as its mysterious beginning.

On the bright side, it might be easier to foot the cost of this make-believe war than you would think. Suspiciously, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction announced in January that upwards of $2 billion that the US was holding onto for Iraq had mysteriously disappeared.

Read more about Pentagon wants $3 billion for the War in Iraq that we thought was over.

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Photo by Flickr user US Army

MEDIA ROOTS — Capitalism Is The Crisis: Radical Politics in the Age of Austerity is a film featuring a diverse array of thinkers offering common sense analysis of the trappings of modern life and critical perspectives on basic assumptions of capitalism and democracy.  The film presents original interviews, including Chris Hedges, David Graeber, Derrick Jensen, Michael Hardt, Leo Panitch, David McNally.

The movie is about waking up our neighbours to the glaring ills plaguing our society. It argues that capitalism is the crisis and dares us to imagine saner alternatives.

“The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets.”  —John D. Rockefeller, American oil magnate, robber baron

“The engines of corporatists cannot be halted.  They are impervious to the will of those who they exploit, they are more powerful than the governments they control, and they have built within them an inevitable, kind of, mechanism for self-annihilation because corporations have this strange pathology where they turn everything into a commodity.  Human beings become commodities.  The natural world becomes a commodity.  And you exploit these commodities until exhaustion or collapse.  And that’s precisely what’s happening.” —Chris Hedges

Messina

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Capitalism is the Crisis

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CAPITALISM IS THE CRISIS — The 2008 “financial crisis” in the United States was a systemic fraud in which the wealthy finance capitalists stole trillions of public dollars. No one was jailed for this crime, the largest theft of public money in history.

Instead, the rich forced working people across the globe to pay for their “crisis” through punitive “austerity” programs that gutted public services and repealed workers’ rights.

Austerity was named “Word of the Year” for 2010.

This documentary explains the nature of capitalist crisis, visits the protests against austerity measures, and recommends revolutionary paths for the future.

Special attention is devoted to the crisis in Greece, the 2010 G20 Summit protest in Toronto, Canada, and the remarkable surge of solidarity in Madison, Wisconsin.

It may be their crisis, but it's our problem.

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Photo by flickr user JHS

MEDIA ROOTS – This is a special 2 hour 20 minute episode of Media Roots Radio about 9/11. In this edition, Abby and Robbie Martin introduce how their political awakenings were prompted by 9/11, and break apart the official government and corporate media narrative of the 9/11 attacks by discussing the foreknowledge, government complicity, and gross inconsistencies regarding every aspect of the events. The show then delves into the aftermath: the psychological manipulation of the American psyche and the significance that this event continues to have in our nation and world. The episode is fully transcribed and sourced below.

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Abby Martin (c. 1:12):  “Welcome to Media Roots Radio.  This is your host, Abby Martin, creator of MediaRoots.org.

Robbie Martin (c. 1:17):  “And this is Robbie Martin.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:19):  “We wanted to start off the show by just saying that this is an independently-funded website and radio show.  And we always encourage donations if you want to see Media Roots keep going and continue broadcasting.  So, thanks so much for considering that.  And thanks so much for listening to our show.

“We’re really excited about this show today because 9/11 is the thing that woke my brother and I up, really, in the political arena and it’s really what prompted me into activism and investigative journalism.  So, I’m really excited to spend some time going through 9/11 Truth and talking about what damages the movement, what helps the movement, what we find to be the most credible evidence.  And we’re gonna always discern between speculation and fact.  And we’re gonna sort through all the bullshit.  And just, really, get to the solid evidence.  And, really, just discuss it.  I’m just excited about it.

“So, I think one really important thing to point out before we even begin is to say that my brother [Robbie] and I believed the official story of 9/11 for years.  We didn’t have a reason to question it, really.”

Robbie Martin (c. 2:28):  “Parts of it.”

Abby Martin (c. 2:29):  “Parts of it.  I completely believed the official story for years and years.  So, we didn’t immediately think that 9/11 was an inside job.  We’re not naturally conspiracy theorists.

“So, we just wanted to talk a little bit about the day of 9/11 and what our thought process was.” 

Robbie Martin (c. 2:58):  “So, how did you hear about 9/11?  What was your first memory of it?”

Abby Martin (c. 3:04):  “My memory of 9/11:  I was a senior in high school and it was the beginning of the school year.   I remember waking up; mom showed me the TV.  And I was just watching the plane in the Tower.  And we all thought that, we didn’t know if it was an attack or not yet.  But while I was at home, before school, the other attack happened.  And I just remember thinking that the world was over.   I remember calling my friend, Tiffany, and saying, ‘the world’s over, Tiffany. We’re in World War III.’  And Howard Stern was on the radio at the time and he was talking about it.  I remember it was really, really surreal.  All day at school, everyone was just glued to the television set.  And then when the buildings collapsed it was just really horrifying.  We were all just sitting in the class watching it.  It was very, very scary.  And then that night, I mean, for the next month after that I was just glued to the television set.  And I remember thinking, just being so, so upset thinking about the people who had to make the decision to jump out of the buildings.  That was like the most upsetting part to me, envisioning what they had to go through at the last moments of their lives.”

Robbie Martin (c. 4:10):  “Were you seeing the soldier at the time?”

Abby Martin (c. 4:13):  “Yeah, I was dating Matt, who was my high school sweetheart.  And he was ultra-conservative, neocon.  So, I was coming from a really weird perspective where I was totally, like, ‘America’s been hurt. We’ve gotten attacked,’ like super patriotic.  I even drew a little picture of an eagle and an American flag and wrote a little poem about it at school.”

Robbie Martin (c. 4:40):  “What were your boyfriend’s thoughts on it?  I think you told me that he eventually wanted to enlist because of 9/11, right?  Or was he already in the Military before that?”

Abby Martin (c. 4:51):  “Yeah, he enlisted because of 9/11.”

Robbie Martin (c. 4:54):  “So, kind of, Pat Tillman style.”

Abby Martin (c. 4:56):  “Yeah, totally.  Yeah.  I mean, a lot of people did that, you know.  Yossarian did that, too.  It was like this heroic thing that they wanted to get involved with.”

Robbie Martin (c. 5:06):  “I think Korey Rowe did that as well.  So, what led you from believing the official story, having a really patriotic boyfriend who enlisted in the military because of 9/11, what led you from that to believing that the official story was a lie?”

Abby Martin (c. 5:21):  “You know, we talked about this a little bit in the first episode, but I’ll briefly talk about it again.  Well, when I went to college in San Diego, I was totally blown away by the information that I learned in sociology and political science classes contextualising how we operate as a country and what our foreign policy does and how it affects the rest of the world.  So, I began to have a more critical mind of everything.  And when the Iraq war was, I mean, I really was a supporter of the Afghanistan war at the time ‘cos I just thought, you know, ‘Let’s go after and find bin Laden. It’s a justified war. Let’s go to war in Afghanistan.’  But then when we started talking about Iraq, I remember being really concerned.  I remember talking to mom on the phone, almost daily, ‘Why are we talking about Iraq? What the hell is going on?’”

Robbie Martin (c. 6:15):  “So, that was your first inkling that something was being lied about.”

Abby Martin:  “That the media was manipulating our emotions and trying to force us to support this ridiculous notion that we should go after Iraq for no reason.  So, that’s like, I immediately was just like, ‘This doesn’t make sense.’  And then, from my anti-war activism, I started getting information from different activists.  And I remember someone sent me this little video on the Pentagon.  It was only like a seven-minute video clip that just showed—”

Robbie Martin (c. 6:43):  “It was that flash video.”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah.”

Robbie Martin :  “It wasn’t even a video.  It was that one that had the soundtrack from Fight Club in the background.”

Abby Martin (c. 6:49):  “Yeah, exactly.  You have a really good memory.  And I just remember watching it in my dorm room and thinking, ‘This is really weird. This doesn’t make sense.’  It just piqued my curiosity.  I was just like, huh, that’s really weird.”

Robbie Martin (c. 7:02):  “So, in a way, that video, for a lot of people, was kind of like the proto-Loose Change.  It was like the catalyst to get a lot of young people like ourselves interested in finding out more about 9/11.”

Abby Martin (c. 7:12):  “Yeah.  And then I think I didn’t even really think about it for like the next year until you showed me some Alex Jones footage.  And I was just like, ‘Oh, my god, I cannot deal with this right now. This is way too much for me to even, like, deal with.’  It was really overwhelming and really, just, scary.  And I remember his approach was just, kind of, really turned me off when I first saw, I think it was, ‘Road to Tyranny’ or ‘Martial Law.’  I’m not sure which one it was, but then slowly over time I became more open to the information. 

“I saw the GNN documentary, ‘911 – Aftermath: Unanswered Questions,’ and then saw ‘Loose Change.’  And I was just like, ‘Oh, my god.’  And I just threw myself into research.  After watching ‘Loose Change’ and the GNN, then I sat down and watched [‘Martial Law The Road to Tyranny’].  I was just completely obsessed with finding out if everything in there was true or false. 

“My friend Alicia and I threw ourselves into research.  We printed out all the oral testimonies from 9/11 that Dr. Griffin talks about.  We went through every bit of testimony.  We went and printed out every single news article that talked about these inconsistencies and we catalogued them in a giant database, mostly just to try to prove it wrong.  I mean, who the hell wants to believe that this is true?  You know? 

“So, slowly, of course, we realised that it was true.  And we wanted to become bullet-proof in our knowledge.  And we wanted to make sure that this was accurate information.  You know?  It was.”

Robbie Martin (c. 8:45):  “So, how did you get from that point to having your mind blown by all these facts you were learning about 9/11 to actually deciding to go into some kind of activism locally, in San Diego, and on the internet as well?”

Abby Martin (c. 9:01):  “Sure.  Let me back up a couple of minutes.  When I first found out about 9/11 and I was really blown away by the information, I still was really nervous to talk to people about it.  I didn’t really feel inclined to share the information with anyone.  I thought it was really out there; it was really insane-sounding.  I didn’t wanna go there with anyone.  I didn’t really know that many people who were political.  I remember I was working at a coffee shop and this girl, Alicia, and this guy, Jake, who I was working with, I overhead Jake, my manager, talking about 9/11.  And I just kind of went over and just was eavesdropping and he said something about the buildings being blown up.  And I was like, ‘Oh, my god. You’ve heard this information?’  I was like, ‘Have you seen that movie?’  And we just started talking about it.  And then Alicia was like, ‘Wait. What?’ She’s like, ‘What are you guys talking about?’  And that was the first time I’d ever heard anyone discussing it.  And I became extremely confident in knowing that other people knew this and that other people were talking about it. 

“So, that’s when Alicia and I, my other employee there, we just completely threw ourselves into research and became semi-obsessed with finding out the facts.  But it really gave me the confidence knowing that other people knew and other people cared about it.  It really gave me the confidence to go out there and spread the information.  I mean, the more that I learned and the more that I knew how true it was, the more I was inclined to go out there, tell everyone I knew.  I just thought this is the most important thing we need to expose, obviously.  It’s the premise of everything the [G.W.] Bush Administration was doing at the time.  And it could be the catalyst to dissolve the entire government and our entire country.”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah, you could unspin the whole ball of yarn by going back to 9/11.”

Abby Martin (c. 10:47):  “Yeah.  I initially just started going out and doing individual activism.  I remember talking to people in the anti-war movement and they were just really turned off by 9/11 Truth stuff.  This was around 2004.”

Robbie Martin (c. 11:00):  “So, this was, kind of, the first time you encountered the gatekeeper phenomenon.”

Abby Martin:  “Oh, yeah, big time.  So, then I would just start going to different speakers.  I remember I went to Greg Palast.  I made a little home-made shirt off Café Press that said ‘Question 9/11.  And I’d just go to a bunch of anti-war activism events and I’d just wear the shirt and try to pass out information to people.  I printed out a little fact-sheet and I was trying to spread it around.  And I would go into different audiences at different speaking engagements and try to ask questions about 9/11.  I remember Greg Palast totally was just like, blew me off.  And a lot of people were really turned off by what I was doing, but I felt like it was the right thing to do. 

“And one time, this was like the best day ever, one time I showed up at an event and I saw a little tiny booth that said San Diegans For 9/11 Truth.  And it was like this older couple, Elise and Ted, sitting behind the booth.  And I was like, ‘Oh, my god, there’s other people out here who know that this is like the real thing that you should be, like, pushing for.’  And, so, after that, I became involved with San Diegans for 9/11 Truth.  And then I started the meet-up group.  And then I met Peter [Holmes] and we just put everything into getting out there on the streets and spread information.  And then Truther.org was, kind of, a failed attempt to try to make it cool, try to do something different where we were, like, ‘Dude, the truth is cool.’ 

Robbie Martin:  “Well, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Abby Martin (c. 12:17):  “Live and learn.”

Robbie Martin (c. 12:19):  “It’s in the same way, kind of, the Jesse Ventura news show embraces the term conspiracy theory.  It’s just trying to redefine the language that these enemies of the [Truth] Movement have tried to turn against us.”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah, exactly.  And, so, what about you?  What do you remember about the day of 9/11?  And how did you become awakened politically from 9/11 Truth?”

Robbie Martin (c. 12:37):  “Well, before I go into my little story I think we should let the audience know that if they want to go straight to our discussion about 9/11 skip forward about ten minutes in the broadcast, if you’re feeling bored by our little autobiographical histories here about 9/11. 

“But on the day of 9/11, for me, I was also pretty much convinced by the official story like you were.  On the morning of 9/11, my girlfriend was with me.  I was with my roommate, Ben.  And my girlfriend at the time was a Japanese citizen.  She had kind of broken me a little bit of my paradigm, of having that natural born, you  know, you’re born with this American jingoism that’s instilled in you from cradle to grave, basically, in the United States.  So, she helped me break free of that.  She took me to the Hiroshima Museum in Japan.  She would tell me histories and alternate things that Japanese people would believe about World War II and things like the fire bombings, things like that, things that were very hard for me to actually believe and wanna put myself in the shoes of someone we went to war with. 

“So, anyways, that morning mom called me, probably after she woke you up and she said, ‘Robbie, the World Trade Center’s under attack.’  So, I turn on the TV and it was already when the second plane had just hit the World Trade Center.  So, both towers had a fire on them and within, I think, 40 minutes of watching the television, the second tower collapsed before our very eyes.  And when it collapsed, Ben and I were just, we were horrified, but we were also—”

Abby Martin (c. 14:26):  “Ben was your roommate, right?”

Robbie Martin (c. 14:28):  “—yeah, Ben was my roommate.  And Ben is also, kind of, a guy who’s helped me see things from different perspectives.  He has an interesting background.  He was an altar boy until he was 17.  And he’s just really politically knowledgeable.  He’s got a lot of interesting beliefs.  But we were watching the tower collapse and we just both exclaimed and looked at each other, ‘That looks so much like a movie pyrotechnic effect. How did that look so good?’  I hate to use the term good looking in that sense, but it really did look like a Hollywood-quality pyrotechnic special effects crew practical effect, like the most elaborate one that I’d ever seen, like something out of a ‘Transformers’ Michael Bay movie or something.  So, we were just like, ‘Wow! That looked perfect. How did that happen? That’s amazing that it looked so much like a movie explosion.’

“So, we didn’t really connect that or we weren’t too suspicious about it to the point of thinking, ‘Well, this had to have been blown up.’  We just, kind of, thought it was crazy coincidental.  The building looked so perfect falling down.  But then later that day I remember the media started to pick up that emotional, visceral, rage against, ‘Who are we gonna get? Who do we go after? Who did this?’  You know?  ‘We gotta,’ just like Bush stood on the mound and said, ‘They’re gonna hear from us soon.’  It was all this blood-thirsty—”

Abby Martin (c. 15:50):  “That stupid photo of him with the three fire-fighters with the flag.”

Robbie Martin :  “—yeah, and he basically was saying that we’re gonna get revenge and kill whoever did this.”

Abby Martin (c. 15:56):  “Right.  The evildoers.”

Robbie Martin (c. 16:00):  “Yeah, which is what all Americans wanted to do at the time, including most people that I knew.  I mean, I remember the days after that happened within a week after 9/11 I was getting into arguments every day with people that I knew about why we shouldn’t go into Afghanistan to go after one person.  That was the argument that I was using at the time because I thought bin Laden probably did do 9/11.  I didn’t have any reason to doubt it.  I believed the official story.  But I knew.  I was like, ‘We gotta do somethin’. We have to do something. We can’t let this stand.’  You know?” 

Abby Martin (c. 16:30):  “This will not stand, man.”

Robbie Martin (c. 16:31):  “And it’s like, ‘Well, okay.’  I can understand wanting to do something, wanting to capture and kill the people who did 9/11, but going to attack an entire country and invade an entire country full of innocent people, it didn’t make any sense to me.  And it still doesn’t.  And I think it shouldn’t make sense to most Americans today.”

Abby Martin (c. 16:48):  “One really funny thing, just a side-note about Afghanistan, there was just a poll done in the most war-torn areas of Afghanistan and it was noted that over 90% of Afghanis do not know what 9/11 is.”

Robbie Martin (c. 17:01):  “I’m not surprised.”

Abby Martin (c. 17:01):  “They’re just, like, poor goat-herders that are like, ‘Why the hell have we been getting killed for the past nine years.’  Like, ‘What?’  So, that is interesting, just the detachment that we have from quote-unquote, ‘Winning the hearts and minds of these people.’  I mean, come on, they don’t even know why we’re there.”

Robbie Martin (c. 17:17):  “It really is.”

Abby Martin (c. 17:18):  “So, first you thought this is really coincidental that these buildings just fell in this way.  So, how many years after did you believe the official story?  Or when did you start questioning the official story?”

Robbie Martin (c. 17:33):  “Well, I started questioning the propaganda pretty early on.  I started to become very incensed and very upset at the fact that the media was clearly trying to manipulate us into going to war with Afghanistan and then, later, Iraq.  I mean, that was, just off the bat, that was completely bullshit, totally baseless, the whole speech to the U.N. that Colin Powell did while holding up the little vial of anthrax and showing the mobile weapon labs.  As I watched it on TV I knew that it was a lie.  It was just an elaborate ruse.”

Abby Martin (c. 18:07):  “But you just thought that they were manipulating 9/11 to just pursue—”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah.  I thought that, and that’s the most cynical belief that most people on the Left have is that they used 9/11 as the perfect opportunity, the perfect storm, to get all this agenda done that they’ve always wanted to get done, which is, kind of, like the Oliver Stone perspective on 9/11.”

Abby Martin (c. 18:25):  “Which is just so funny.  If you believe that, then how come you’re not willing to look at the event itself that they do use?  You know?  It’s just funny.  It’s like, if you’re willing to go far enough to think they used 9/11 to kill millions of people in other countries, why are you unwilling to look at the event that was the catalyst for that?  It’s just interesting.”

Robbie Martin (c. 18:44):  “I think it’s just too hard for people to wrap their head around.  So, I went from believing that our government and our media was totally lying to us, more than I’d ever seen before.  In my whole lifetime I don’t remember another time where the media was so clearly manipulating our emotions by calling everybody that attacked us in Iraq a terrorist, by throwing the word terrorism around every day—”

Abby Martin:  “The chart.”

Robbie Martin:  “—like they did, by telling, yeah, the colour-coded chart, by telling us to get duct tape on our windows.  I was horrified by all that.  I thought it was disgusting.  And it was actually working on me, too.  I was afraid of things, but then after that I think I saw that same video about the Pentagon.  You showed me that video.”

Abby Martin:  “M-hm.”

Robbie Martin (c. 19:30):  “And it really got my curiosity piqued because I remember on the day of 9/11 I was wondering, where was the video of the Pentagon being hit by a plane?  I never saw it and it, kind of, just went off my radar.  I never thought about it anymore.  But that video brought it back for me and it took me head first into the rabbit hole.  I remember after I watched that video I went online and the only 9/11 truth movie I was able to find right away, or I’m sorry, let me back-track. 

“After you showed me that Pentagon video I went to New York City for the first time.  I just happened to be going there.  And I didn’t really know; I thought that the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act was dangerous and I thought that Homeland Security was bad, but I didn’t really know the real life effects of having all this extra security and the chilling effect that it would have until I actually went to New York City in 2003.  And in New York City they had armed guards in the subways with AK-47s, army fatigues, soldiers, like, young soldiers, they looked like Israeli soldiers, like, 19-, 20-year old soldiers carrying machine guns.  And as I walked to the subway, I remember thinking this makes me feel a lot less safe.  This is not making me feel safe.  And it’s actually making me think about what would happen if there was some sort of attempted terrorist attack in the subway with five armed guards—”

Abby Martin (c. 20:55):  “All hell would break loose.”

Robbie Martin:  “They would mow down a bunch of innocent civilians.  It doesn’t even make sense for protection to have something like that.  And I remember, just kind of, for fun, I went up to one of the soldiers and asked them to take a picture.  And they were really pissed off.  Like, they were mad that I even, like, bothered to talk to them.  Like, these were the people that were supposed to be protecting us.  You know?”

Abby Martin:  “Right.”

Robbie Martin (c. 21:13):  “And then I remember, you know, I’m in New York City.  I’m in Manhattan.  I wanna go to the New York Stock Exchange.  I wanna go to the Statue of Liberty.  I wanna go to the Empire State Building, all the generic, touristy stuff that you always wanna do.  I remember that scene from ‘Ferris Bueller’ where they’re sitting up there in the New York, or it’s like the Chicago Stock Exchange or something, but it looks just like what you see from the New York Stock Exchange.  So, I always wanted to go see that floor, you know, see those people doing the symbols and doing all the fast trades.”

Abby Martin (c. 21:39):  “The papers, holding up those coloured things.”

Robbie Martin (c. 21:41):  “Yeah!  And we went to Wall Street and, as we were walking down to Wall Street there was a S.W.A.T. team tank just sitting on the street.”

Abby Martin:  “What year was this?”

Robbie Martin (c. 21:50):  “This was 2003.”

Abby Martin:  “Wow.”

Robbie Martin (c. 21:51):  “And there was like five, like, S.W.A.T., like, special ops, like, military guys, walking around, like, ambulating with machine guns.  And I’m thinking this is not right.  Like, this shouldn’t be happening.  And then when we went up to the New York Stock Exchange.  They were like, ‘Oh, yeah, after 9/11, no civilians are allowed inside.’  And I was like, ‘Okay, well, that’s kind of sad.’”

Abby Martin (c. 22:16):  “Yeah, which is so funny.  They say, ‘Don’t let it affect your lifestyle. Let’s not let the terrorists win.’”

Robbie Martin (c. 22:21):  “Yeah, talk about chilling effect.”

Abby Martin:  “Really?  ‘Cos you guys are, like, totally preventing us from actually living how we want to.”

Robbie Martin (c. 22:27):  “Yeah, and then Statue of Liberty, same thing, I called to try to figure out when their hours were—closed indefinitely, nobody allowed inside.  Okay, so whatever.  Next up, Empire State Building, I wanted to go up to the top of the Empire State Building, generic thing, the end of ‘Sleepless in Seattle,’ they’re going up the Empire State Building, you know, whatever.  I call the Empire State Building.  You can pay to go up in the elevator, but you can’t go to the top floor, the lookout point because of 9/11, again.  Every building that I called that I wanted to go to a lookout point on in New York, closed because of 9/11, every clock tower, everything.  I mean I was scraping the bottom of the barrel for buildings to go up and just see the skyline from high up in New York City, not able to happen at all.”

Abby Martin:  “Unbelievable.”

Robbie Martin (c. 23:12):  “And that made me realise that the chilling effect of 9/11 is directly affecting New Yorkers, but they’re not complaining about it openly because they’re, they seem like they feel safer as a result and Americans don’t even know about this in other parts of the country.  And then I remember while I was in New York City, I found a video in a video store, ‘9/11: In Plane Site.’  And it talked about how 9/11 was an inside job on the back of the movie cover.  So, we rented it and went back to my friend’s apartment in SoHo.  We watched it.  And I remember it was filled with a lot of disinformation.  It was, I mean, I’m sure people who’ve seen ‘911: In Plane Site’ know what I’m talking about by this.  But there were several things in it that were irrefutable—“

Abby Martin:  “That were just jarring.”

Robbie Martin :  “—and that I could never forget.  I saw for the first time ever Building 7 collapsing.  And that shook me to the core because you are watching a building clearly being imploded by controlled demolition on the day of 9/11 during a national emergency.”

Abby Martin:  “Right.”

Robbie Martin (c. 24:14):  “And you know that someone had to have wired that building for controlled demolition months in advance.  So, that completely undermines the idea that this was some kind of surprise attack.  ‘We didn’t know it was coming.’  Somebody knew it was coming.  And somebody decided to blow up a building that day.  So, this blew my mind.  From there I just went head first into the rabbit hole and went online to try to get any documentaries I could find.  The only ones I could find readily available at the time were ‘Painful Deceptions’ by Eric Hutching-fiend.”

Abby Martin (c. 24:44):  “Hufschmid.”

Robbie Martin :  “Hufschmid, something like that.  And that one really didn’t help me at all.  It was just really technical.  And it was a little bit weird.  The narration was too jarringly distracting.  And then I think the 9/11 movies that really woke me up was the ‘9/11 Unanswered Questions’ from GNN, which I still think is one of the best 9/11 movies.  It’s only 20 minutes long.  And George Humphrey’s—”

Abby Martin:  “Illusion.”

Robbie Martin (c. 25:14):  “Yeah, ‘9/11: The Great Illusion.’  This movie had more facts and more comprehensive than anything else I’d ever seen.  It had everything, basically, in it that the 9/11 Truth Movement talks about today.  It laid a lot of the groundwork for me to research things. 

“And then, from there, I remember I saw ‘Loose Change’ for the first time.  I didn’t really like ‘Loose Change’ when I first saw it ‘cos I felt like it was taking a lot of the disinformation from ‘9/11: In Plane Site.’  But I still kind of appreciated that it was trying to, kind of, market itself towards young people.  It had a hip hop soundtrack.  So, that’s pretty much how I got to where I am now.  I mean, even watching movies with disinformation helped me get to a point of more knowledge and a better ability to be a critical thinker because I think people have this problem where, if they see something with disinformation in it, they can’t separate it.  Or if they see something with bad information in it, they can’t separate it from the good information.  And that’s a shame.”

Abby Martin (c. 26:12):  “Right.  And it’s easier to just say, ‘Well, it’s disinformation.’”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah.  I mean there’s disinformation in a lot of stuff.  You know, it’s hard to escape sometimes.”

SOUNDCLOUD Musical Instrumental (c. 27:56) – “At The Heart Of It All” (Aphex Twin remix) from the album “Further Down the Spiral” by Nine Inch Nails, 1995. 

Abby Martin (c. 28:04):  “9/11 is so important, still.  And people have told me, I’m not really like a 9/11 freak activist anymore; I’m more into media and investigative journalism about a lot of stuff.  But it’s still so important.  And when I talk to people about it, they’re just like, ‘Oh, ‘Well, a lot of people will just be like, ‘It’s nine years ago, get over it, like, it’s not relevant anymore.’  It will always be relevant.”

Robbie Martin:  “Absolutely.”

Abby Martin (c. 28:25):  “It is the turning point into this soft fascism that we are seeing.  It was the crux of everything.  It was the premise of the entire Administration’s aggressive agenda against us and against the rest of the world.”

Robbie Martin (c. 28:40):  “Yeah, I mean, people who say that it’s, you know, ‘Get over it, it’s been nine years,’ I mean, those are the type of people who willingly put their head in the sand.  They don’t wanna, they want to just continue on with their lives unhindered by the media, the depressing events they hear in the media.  It’s the same kind of people who are just like, ‘Why do you read the news? It’s so depressing.’  You know?  ‘Why do you even care?’  It’s like, ‘Well—”

Abby Martin (c. 29:02):  “Because it’s enlightening.”

Robbie Martin:  “That’s reality.”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah.”

Robbie Martin (c. 29:06):  “If you don’t wanna face reality, that’s one thing.  But, I mean, admit it.”

Abby Martin:  “The worst is the positive thinkers who are just like, ‘Dude, just positively think.’ Like, ‘Don’t read the news; it’s depressing.’  All future generations are growing up now in this post-9/11 world where we’re, essentially, living—”

Robbie Martin :  “Where torture is okay.”

Abby Martin (c. 29:23):  “M-hm.  Surveillance is, just, rampant.”

Robbie Martin :  “Where if you’re an activist, you’re asking for trouble.  That’s the new thing.  It’s like—”

Abby Martin:  “You’re asking to get raided, surveilled, tracked.”

Robbie Martin:  “I mean, there’s people all the time.  I remember arguing with a whole message board full of people once where they were just like, ‘Well, these flotilla people, they knew what they were getting into. So, how could you feel sorry for them?’  It’s like, ‘What!?’  It’s like, ‘So, Civil,’ so like, if Rosa Parks was shot by the National Guard—”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah, she knew what she was getting into.”

Robbie Martin :  “—she knew she was breaking the law and staying on the front of the bus.  It’s like, ‘Are you kidding me?”

Abby Martin (c. 29:57):  “Yeah.”

Robbie Martin :  “Has civil disobedience been that devalued in our country to the point where now everybody’s an apologist for the system and the people who defeat civil disobedience?”

Abby Martin (c. 30:01):  “Homegrown terrorism, Robbie.  Homegrown terrorism.”

Robbie Martin (c. 30:05):  “It’s pretty amazing to me.”

Abby Martin (c. 30:06):  “And, if you look at 9/11, it’s been, it’s like the ultimate historical revisionism.  If you’re just looking at the event and you said this yesterday, but it’s like, historical revisionism on two levels.  One level is the official story that’s been propped up by the government apparatus and the media.”

Robbie Martin :  “That time period from 9/11 happening and then the time it was set into stone by the government’s official narrative.  It had been completely rewritten.”

Abby Martin (c. 30:30):  “Right.  And the 9/11 Commission Report was kind of like the icing on the cake.  Like he was here it is, all wrapped up in a tiny package.  It was on the New York Times bestseller list.  It read like a Tom Clancy novel.  It was just like an absurd fictional narrative.”

Robbie Martin :  “Well, it basically holds as much factual weight as a Tom Clancy novel.  None of it’s sourced or none of it’s referenced back to actual criminal evidence, investigative evidence.  It’s just completely a, it’s like a run-on narrative detective story, if you’ve ever read it.  It’s pretty astonishing that people accept that as evidence—”

Abby Martin:  “Right.”

Robbie Martin :  “—that 9/11 was performed by 19 members of Al-Qaeda, directed by bin Laden.  There’s absolutely no proof or evidence of any kind in the book to show that.”

Abby Martin (c. 31:09):  “Absolutely.  And that’s why it’s so crucial for us.  I mean, if we know anything about American history, it’s the fact that we, you know, it’s all revised.”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah.” 

Abby Martin:  “We learn real histories.  So, why the hell would you take a book that the government wrote and say this is absolute fact.  Of course, it’s not.”

Robbie Martin (c. 31:24):  “And what’s interesting to me is a lot of other people I argue about 9/11, you know, I’ll try to explain to them how the official 9/11 Report is completely debunked.  It’s false.  And I’ll be like, ‘Well, so what,’ like ‘just ‘cos the official story’s been debunked doesn’t mean you know what happened on 9/11.’  It’s like, I’m not saying that I know what happened on 9/11.  I’m just trying to tell you that what we’ve been told happened on 9/11 is a complete lie and used to manipulate us into all these endless wars, perpetual war, and this erosion of our civil liberties.  I want people to find out who did it.  But I’m not a criminal investigator.  I’m not a forensics investigator.  I don’t have the means to do that.”

Abby Martin (c. 32:02):  “Yeah, we don’t have subpoena power.  We can’t actually access the evidence that’s needed to find out what we wanna find out.”

Robbie Martin:  “So, that takes us back to another thing that a lot of lackadaisical people, or even debunkers, like to say is, they say, like, I remember hearing Jesse Ventura on the Dennis Miller show a couple weeks back and, of course, Dennis Miller is such a neocon little twerp, that he’s gonna get into it with Jesse Ventura about 9/11.  So, he asked him, ‘Jesse, now I heard you talk about 9/11, but gimme some names.  Who was in on it?’   

Abby Martin:  “‘Name some names who did it.’”

Robbie Martin (c. 32:39):  “So, basically, you’re putting someone in a position, who has no criminal subpoena power, who’s not an investigator, to publicly commit defamation on the radio and label someone as a mass murderer.”

Abby Martin:  “Right.”

Robbie Martin :  “That’s putting someone in a position that’s not really fair.  That’s not how you start an argument or a debate about how 9/11 was orchestrated.  You don’t ask someone to divulge names.  That’s the end of the investigation.”

Abby Martin:  “Right.”

Robbie Martin :  “I mean, come on.  It’s just completely illogical.  And Dennis Miller knows he’s being a child when he does that.”

Abby Martin:  “You saw his logic when he followed up by just saying, ‘You know, I just can’t go there.  I just can’t go there.’  It’s like, okay, well, there you go.”

Robbie Martin (c. 33:13):  “Well, you can’t go there because you’re a freaking child.”

Abby Martin (c. 33:15):  “Well, then why are you even talking about it?”

Robbie Martin (c. 33:16):  “I mean, I’m sorry that it’s too traumatic for you to go there.  I’m sorry.”

Abby Martin:  “It’s like, ‘Don’t talk about 9/11. If you can’t go there, then why are you even bringing it up?  If you are unwilling to look at any evidence then please don’t talk about it.” 

Robbie Martin:  “And, yeah, going along with, that’s a perfect example of just how much the 9/11 Truth Movement has been demonised and not only by the media, by a ton of people.  I mean, the whole anti-war movement demonised 9/11 Truth.  And the way that they demonised, their best way of demonising, 9/11 Truth is through lies of omission and straw man arguments.  I mean, they’ve never—”

Abby Martin:  “Ad hominem.”

Robbie Martin:  “They’ve, oh, and absolutely ad hominem.  There hasn’t been one actual debunking special that I’ve ever seen that doesn’t resort to those three forms of logical fallacies.”

Abby Martin:  “Absolutely.”

Robbie Martin (c. 33:58):  “So, I could see someone doing a pretty good job of trying to debunk some of the more junk theories.  But not resort to that, but they always do.  So, that’s questionable.  It’s like, ‘Why do they have to resort to ad hominems?  It’s because their arguments are not very strong.  And if you actually look into all these debunkers’ histories, Michael Shermer, for example, the Editor of Skeptic Magazine, he claims he’s some big skeptic and has a magazine called Skeptic Magazine, so you’d think he would be a critical thinker.  However, if you listen to a lot of his statements regarding terrorism, he is terrified of Arabs.”

Abby Martin (c. 34:32):  “Yeah, we confronted him.  And he just said he couldn’t look at it either.  Like, ‘Really?’  Then why are you making special magazines based on—”

Robbie Martin :  “He’s terrified of Arab Muslims.  He thinks that terrorism is a very severe threat that we should take very seriously.  So, this is someone who is trapped in, sort of, a child fantasyland of being scared of bogeymen.  And he’s writing a magazine called Skeptic Magazine.  It doesn’t gel.”

Abby Martin:  “Right.”

Robbie Martin :  “You can’t be a skeptic and think that.  I’m sorry.”

Abby Martin:  “And a lot of people say, ‘Oh, you’re one of those conspiracy theorists. You’re a conspiracy theorist. You just believe in, what, do you think the moon landing wasn’t real?’  It’s like, well, first of all, let’s look at the word conspiracy theory.  It’s a very pejorative term.”

Robbie Martin :  “It means now, basically, it’s like calling someone an idiot.”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah.  But if you look at it, let’s get this out of the way, 9/11 was a conspiracy.  I think everyone can agree with the fact that 9/11 was conspired by someone.”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah.  Of course.”

Abby Martin:  “So, the term conspiracy theory is so erroneous.  It doesn’t hold water.”

Robbie Martin :  “It’s become just as meaningless of a phrase as the term terrorism.  It’s used to describe theories or propositions that people don’t like, that are controversial.  So, if you’re offended by a theory that’s not mainstream and you don’t like it, it’s become a conspiracy theory in your mind because that’s your way of writing it off.  It’s your way of not having to actually engage in the information.  You just push it out because it’s, I think it has to do with fear.”

Abby Martin (c. 35:58):  “Absolutely.”

Robbie Martin (c. 35:59):  “But these people try to act like they can handle it, but they clearly can’t.

Abby Martin (c. 36:04):  “And we, both, pretty much agree that, there’s a lot of theories about 9/11 of people who think that it might have been somewhat an inside job.  A lot of people think our government let it happen, that there were all these warnings.  And we’ll get into that in a second.”

Robbie Martin (c. 36:21):  “I think it’s good to mention a lot of the people we know who entertain the notion of 9/11 being an inside job, at least most of the people I know, only go as far as LIHOP.”

Abby Martin (c. 36:30):  “Right.  Which is ‘let it happen.’”

Robbie Martin :  “MIHOP is too far for them.

Abby Martin (c. 36:33):  “People either think they let it happen or they made it happen, which, in my mind, letting it happen is making it happen.”

Robbie Martin :  “Absolutely.”

Abby Martin:  “There’s no difference.  I mean, there is a difference when get into the, actually, the facilitation of certain things to help carry it out.  But if you’re just looking at, if you do believe that our government let it happen, that they had all these warnings, that they knew exactly when it was gonna happen, and that they used it to—”

Robbie Martin :  “And that they removed obstacles to let it happen.”

Abby Martin:  “—right; that is still, should be, just as bad.

Robbie Martin (c. 37:00):  “Absolutely.  I mean, I think it was Alex Jones who came up with this little imagination exercise where, imagine if you run a bank.  You’re the bank manager.  And you have a friend, or you know someone who wants to rob the bank, and you wanted to let them rob the bank.  You could do things like unlock the doors, give them the code to the safe, make sure the surveillance camera is ‘accidentally’ turned off, things like that.  So, is that letting it happen?  ‘Cos you’re not the one who actually committed the robbery, but you created a situation where the robbery could go off without a hitch. 

“So, in my mind you’re just as criminally involved if you were the robber themselves.  So, it’s interesting that people make this distinction where, ‘Well, I could see why they would’ve let it happen and just, kind of, stood back.  But I can’t; that doesn’t work.”

Abby Martin:  “Right.”

Robbie Martin (c. 37:53):  “You can’t.  It just doesn’t make sense.  That is making it happen.”

Abby Martin:  “Absolutely.”

Robbie Martin :  “It’s a silly distinction in my opinion.”

Abby Martin:  “And before we get into all the facts and evidence about why we think 9/11 was definitely an inside job, another really common response that we get when we talk to people about this is just like what you said about Jesse Ventura.  They want names.  They need you to speculate.  They can’t accept evidence that we tell people.  They’re like, ‘Well, who did it? What was their motive?’  We don’t need to know an alternative narrative that fits the pieces.  All we need to know is that the official story is a lie.”

Robbie Martin (c. 38:33):  “Yeah.  And that there’s clearly some things in it that, not only is the official story a lie, but there’s so many coincidences that lined up that day where there had to be some kind of inside involvement inside the government apparatus to some level.  And I think back to what you were saying is people, it’s like they need you to close the circle for them.  They don’t have the mental, the critical thinking abilities to be able to take these individual facts and come up with their own thoughts.  They need you to, like, hand them the whole thing from beginning to end.  Like a story book.”

Abby Martin:  “Exactly.  And a perfect example, I’d just got involved in a Facebook thread where someone was arguing with each other about 9/11 and I just, kind of, went in there and I said, ‘Look, this isn’t even up for debate anymore.’  I was like, ‘thermite, thermitic materials have been found. It’s in a peer-reviewed study, blah, blah, blah.’  And she wrote me back and she was like, ‘But who?’ like kept demanding; she refused to even comment. 

Robbie Martin :  “I’m sorry I’m not psychic.”

Abby Martin:  “She refused to comment on the evidence until I would tell her my theory and then when I finally did say, ‘This is all speculation, but this is what I think may have happened,’ she was just like, ‘Oh, I don’t believe that.’  And I was like, ‘How easy for you to just, like, totally discredit me. But you put me into a corner where you wanted that.’”

Robbie Martin (c. 39:45):  “Yeah.  It’s just an unfair way of arguing.  It’s actually called changing the goal post.  It’s a logical fallacy where once you’ve lost one component of the argument, you change the argument to something else, so you could appear that you keep winning.”

Abby Martin:  “Absolutely.”

Robbie Martin:  “People do that with me all the time in arguments because it’s, once you learn, it’s really hard for someone to admit they’re wrong and be like, ‘You know what, you’ve gotten me curious; I’m gonna look into it.’  Just like a lot of my friends, who are more technically apt people.  I sent one of ‘em the thermite paper.  And his immediate response was, oh, well, here’s a debunking website that says that those red grade chips are actually something else.  And it’s like for him that convinced him that there was no validity whatsoever to the thermite paper.  And to me, it’s like, each one of those documents should be looked at thoroughly and should be looked at with a critical mind.  But instead, he immediately looked at the debunking one and let it completely cancel out the other one without even really being a critical thinker about it, just kind of like a knee-jerk reaction.”

Abby Martin (c. 40:48):  “Absolutely.  And, yeah, I love the coincidence theory because that’s really what people adhere to, the ‘let-it-happen’ thing.  It’s just like, ‘Well, a hundred coincidences must have happened in one day for everything to have gone off without a hitch.  You know, I mean, that’s what you have to believe.  You have to believe that there was so many coincidences; that everything lined up perfectly for these 19 Arabs.”

Robbie Martin :  “And I think that you can really completely omit any controlled demolition theories from that and you still have hundreds of coincidences to line up perfectly for that to happen.  You don’t even have to go into controlled demolition to absolutely prove that there was some sort of inside involvement in 9/11.  I mean, just the airline stock trading alone shows that somebody knew it was coming and somebody made money off of it.”

Abby Martin (c. 41:32):  “Yeah, just to give our audience a clearer picture of what we’re talking about.  There were put options betting that the stocks would fail in the airliners that were involved in 9/11.  And when it was investigated further, when the investigation was prompted into who put these put options and who bet that these stocks would fail, what was it?  The FBI said—”

Robbie Martin (c. 41:53):  “That the investigation was dropped because it showed that there was no connection to Al-Qaeda.”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah, it’s like, ‘What?’”

Robbie Martin :  “Actually, that’s far more interesting that there’s no connection to Al-Qaeda, that some Wall Street banker knew that the attack was coming.  I mean, I’m sorry.”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah, that to me is much more like expository, that it was done by old, White, bankers instead of Arab Al-Qaeda operatives.”

Robbie Martin:  “That fact alone, singularly, is extremely powerful.”

Abby Martin:  “Right.”

Robbie Martin:  “And the fact that someone can look at that and be able to just write it off as a coincidence is pretty amazing to me.”

Abby Martin (c. 42:33):  “And just to make this clear, there are put options done everyday randomly.  But the most glaring inconsistency about this particular day is that it was like ten times, fifteen times, higher than average.  It was, like, overwhelmingly, people were betting for this to fail.  It wasn’t just like a normal thing.  Once again, coincidence, that on this day everyone just somehow bet way more on these particular stocks.”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah, let’s talk about a few other coincidences that it was the biggest suicide attack in history, if you wanna pretend like there really were the 19 hijackers that committed the attacks on their own.  It was the largest suicide attack ever performed that killed the most people in history.  That, in and of itself, was a coincidence.  It’s a coincidence that four hijackers were able to take over the plane, storm the cockpit, and take over the controls of a commercial airliner with box-cutters.  That’s a coincidence.  That’s very hard for me to believe even that, alone.”

Abby Martin (c. 43:33):  “Another coincidence is that none of the four pilots set off the hijacking signal, which is standard protocol in training.”

Robbie Martin :  “And it’s set up in such a way where it’s like a bank teller being robbed where it’s like underneath the counter, so they could flip the switch without anybody noticing them.  That’s the whole point of it.”

Abby Martin:  “Another coincidence is that NORAD had drills going on that day that coincided inserting false blips on their radar screens.  That confused the hell out of everyone and made them think that they were dealing with an exercise instead of a real-life scenario.”

Robbie Martin :  “Another coincidence that day is that [G.W.] Bush’s security detail was extremely lacking and didn’t perform the protocol that they’re supposed to perform, similar to how NORAD didn’t perform standard protocol.  Bush had three assassination attempts against him that were deemed credible within the month before 9/11.  While he was in some conference in Europe, he slept on an aircraft carrier.  So, I think that was in August.  The night before 9/11 there was a credible threat against his life that the Secret Service delivered to him.”

Abby Martin (c. 44:42):  “So, you’re saying it’s just a really big coincidence that his security personnel didn’t whisk him away immediately from the school.”

Robbie Martin :  “Well, not just that, but that, first of all, that he went to the school in the first place, that he went to Booker Elementary School when it was a completely publicly known about event after he heard about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center, which he would’ve known instantly was part of that warning he got about the ‘bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.’”

Abby Martin:  “But he said later that he thought it was just a bad pilot.”

Robbie Martin:  “Which is a lie—”

Abby Martin:  “Total lie.”

Robbie Martin :  “—because he was told of the plane hitting the building before he left the school.  Which his staff admitted, but he claims he saw the video at the school.  That’s a lie.  The coincidence goes farther.  Not only was he still going to the school after several assassination attempts had been made against his life, credible ones, but that he stayed there for 25 minutes after he knew.”

Abby Martin (c. 45:34):  “Another coincidence is the fact that not only that all four planes were able to be hijacked, but that they were able to hit the most iconic, heavily-secured buildings in the world.  The Pentagon?  I mean, come on.”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah, the Pentagon is absurd.  The coincidence that the cameras did not capture the plane flying into the Pentagon, that’s a huge coincidence.”

Abby Martin:  “I do not accept that the only thing we have is four frames of an object hitting the Pentagon.  I do not accept that.”

Robbie Martin:  “I mean, come on, even gas station surveillance cameras have 15-frame-a-second video cameras recording all the time.  It’s not believable.  It’s not acceptable.”

Abby Martin:  “Another coincidence is that Building 7, the first building to ever fall due to fire alone, is just such a coincidence that that building contained some of the most secure, you know, Securities and Exchange Commission, the FBI, Secret Service, Guiliani’s secret mayoral bunker.”

Robbie Martin :  “It was the,  I think it, I don’t know if it was FEMA, Emergency Command Center—”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah.”

Robbie Martin:  “—bunker.”

Abby Martin:   “Yeah.  With like its own like electrical and water thing.  It’s just interesting.  It’s like, really?  So, this building was taken down.  It’s just strange.  It’s such a coincidence that this building just imploded.”

Robbie Martin (c. 47:47):  “When we’re using the term coincidence here we’re kind of using it sarcastically.  Another coincidence that really blows my mind is that the hijacker attended the Defense Language Institute, a school that specialises in intelligence language training, for being a spy, basically.  I mean, that is absurd that two hijackers lived on the roof of an FBI informant on the payroll.  Two other hijackers listed their address as the Pensacola Naval Airbase in Florida.”

Abby Martin:  “Robbie, that’s just a coincidence.  So, these are just a few of the many.  And we’ll go over everything in detail.  But we wanted to go over the absurdity to believe that all of these things just happened to fall into place like this.”

Robbie Martin (c. 47:56):  “Barbara Bush mentioned in her autobiography about six years ago that her son, [Marvin] Bush, was the head of Securacom on the, I think he had just left his job the day before 9/11.  And she was expressing relief in the book that he wasn’t part of the attack.  It’s another coincidence.”

Abby Martin (c. 48:19):  “Oh, I just remembered another giant coincidence, also, Rebuilding America’s Defenses, that document that was signed by all the PNAC crew, a lot of the Bush Administration signed this document called Rebuilding America’s Defenses.  And this was, what, a couple of months before 9/11.  And what they said was that they needed a catalysing, catastrophic event, like a new Pearl Harbor, in order to instil this new wave of imperialism that they wanted to go after these natural resources.  So, that’s a pretty big coincidence that they ended up getting exactly what they wanted.”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah.  And the death toll was pretty much almost exactly 3,000 or so.”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah, exactly.  Our generation’s Pearl Harbor, so interesting.  So, starting at the very beginning, we’ve talked about this numerous times before on our show, but just the myth of Al-Qaeda as a terrorist external organisation that has a chain of command, that’s a threat, and that this linked-together network actually instigated the attack.  Let’s talk a little bit about Al-Qaeda.”

Robbie Martin (c. 49:20):  “I think it was actually on Fox News that I heard someone talking about Al-Qaeda and they were asked by the reporter, ‘Do you think Al-Qaeda did this?’  And they were a terrorism expert from the early ‘90s and the guy basically spelled it out like it is, you’ll never hear someone on the media say this.  Rarely, you will hear it actually spoken out loud.  But he said, ‘You know what, actually, Al-Qaeda is not an organisation. It’s a tactic.’  And that’s pretty much all he had to say because it’s true.  Al-Qaeda is a name that the American government came up with to describe the tactics coming out of Osama bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan.  It’s not an organisation like Hezbollah or Hamas or FARC.  They don’t have an organised structure.  They don’t have an army.  In fact, I would be willing to bet and a lot of other experts agree with this that there were only maybe a hundred total members that would self-identify as this group.  But they didn’t even use the word Al-Qaeda to describe themselves.  That’s what a lot of people don’t know.  That that’s the term American—”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah, we gave that to them.”

Robbie Martin (c. 50:33):  “It means the base.  And it was to describe the base of Osama bin Laden from the American intelligence perspective.  The first time we ever devised this notion that Al-Qaeda is some sort of organised group or that they even call themselves Al-Qaeda was to prosecute Osama bin Laden in a U.S. court of law, using kind of a loop-hole in the law that was used to prosecute mafia organisations, to prosecute the head of an organisation where the organisation, itself, commits crimes.  So, they use that same application of the law to try to go after bin Laden, by claiming, making the case that he was the head of this mafia-like organisation and that’s how it started.”

Abby Martin (c. 51:18):  “Yeah, exactly.  And there’s a really, really amazing documentary that everyone should check out.  It’s by the BBC.  And it’s called “The Power of Nightmares.”

Robbie Martin :  “It’s narrated and created by Adam Curtis who is an awesome guy.  It’s still available on YouTube and Google Video.  Definitely check it out because it just spells out our role in the mujahideen, how the Taliban got strengthened by us in the region in the ‘80s when we were fighting Russia, and also this whole Al-Qaeda thing and how we basically made it up.  So, we’re gonna play this clip from ‘Power of Nightmares’ right now.”

Audio from “Power of Nightmares” (c. 51:55):  “[Adam Curtis narrating, c. 7:07] Even bin Laden’s displays of strength for the western media were faked.  The fighters in this video had been hired for the day and told to bring their own weapons.  For beyond his own small group, bin Laden had no formal organisation until the Americans invented one for him.

“In January 2001, a trial began in a Manhattan court room of four men accused of the Embassy bombings in East Africa, but the Americans had also decided to prosecute bin Laden in his absence.  But to do this, under American Law, the prosecutors needed evidence of a criminal organisation because, as with the mafia, that would allow them to prosecute the head of the organisation even if he could not be linked directly to the crime.  And the evidence for that organisation was provided for them by an ex-associate of bin Laden’s called Jamal al-Fadl.

“[Jason Burke, author of Al Qaeda] During the investigations of the 1998 bombings, there was a walk-in source, Jamal al-Fadl, who was a Sudanese militant who was with bin Laden in the early ‘90s, who has been passed around a whole series of Middle Eastern secret services, none of whom want much to do with him, who ends up in America and is taken on by the American Government, effectively, as a key prosecution witness and given a huge amount of the American taxpayers’ money at the same time.  His account is used as raw material to build up a picture of Al-Qaeda.  The picture the FBI want to build up is one that will fit the existing laws, so that they will have to use to prosecute those responsible for those bombings.  Now, those laws were drawn up to counteract organised crime, the mafia, drugs crime, crimes where people being a member of an organisation is extremely important.  You have to have an organisation to get a prosecution.  And you have al-Fadl, and a number of other witnesses, a number of other sources, who are happy to feed into this.  You’ve got material that, looked at in a certain way, can be seen to show this organisation’s existence.  You put the two together and you get what is the first bin Laden myth, the first Al-Qaeda myth.  And because it’s one of the first, it’s extremely influential.

“[Adam Curtis, narrating] The picture al-Fadl drew for the Americans of bin Laden was of an all powerful figure at the head of a large terrorist network that had an organised hierarchy of control.  He also said that bin Laden had given this network a name, Al-Qaeda.  It was a dramatic and powerful picture of bin Laden, but it bore little relationship to the truth.  The reality was that bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri had become the focus of a loose association of disillusioned Islamist militants who were attracted by the new strategy.  But there was no organisation.  These were militants who mostly planned their own operations and looked to bin Laden for funding and assistance.  He was not their commander.  There was also no evidence that bin Laden used the term Al-Qaeda to refer to the name of a group until after September the 11^th when he realised that this was the term the Americans had given him.

“In December, the Northern Alliance told the Americans that bin Laden was hiding in the mountains of Tora Bora.  They were convinced they had found the heart of his organisation.  For days, the Americans bombed the mountains of Tora Bora with the most powerful weapons they had.  The Northern Alliance had been paid more than a million dollars for their help and information.  And now, their fighters set off up the mountains to storm bin Laden’s fortress and bring back the Al-Qaeda terrorist and their leader.  But all they found were a few small caves, which were either empty or had been used to store ammunition.  There was no underground bunker system, no secret tunnels.  The fortress didn’t exist.  The Northern Alliance did produce some prisoners they claimed were Al-Qaeda fighters, but there was no proof of this.  And one rumour was that the Northern Alliance was simply kidnapping anyone who looked remotely like an Arab and selling them to the Americans for, yet, more money.  The Americans now began to search all the caves in all the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan for the hidden Al-Qaeda network. 

“But then, the British arrived to help.  They were convinced they could hunt down Al-Qaeda because of what they said was their unique experience in fighting terrorism in Northern Ireland.  They could succeed where others had failed.

“[Brigadier Roger Lane, Commander, British Forces] The hunt for Al-Qaeda and Taliban goes on.  And we stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States and our other Coalition Allies in the global war of terrorism.

“[Brigadier Roger Lane, Commander, British Forces, being interviewed] ‘But how many Al-Qaeda have you captured?’  We haven’t captured any Al-Qaeda, but.  ‘And how many have you actually managed to kill here in Southeast Afghanistan?’  We haven’t killed any.

“[Adam Curtis narrating] The terrible truth was that there was nothing there because Al-Qaeda as an organisation did not exist.  In looking for an organisation, the Americans and the British were chasing a phantom enemy and missing the real threat. 

“[Jason Burke, author Al Qaeda] I was with the Royal Marines, as they trooped around Eastern Afghanistan.  And every time they got a location for a supposed Al-Qaeda or Taliban element or base, they’d turn up and there was no one there.  Or there’d be a few startled shepherds.  And that struck me then as being a wonderful image for the war on terror because people are looking for something that isn’t there.” 

Robbie Martin (c. 57:41):  “I think the only criticism I have of this movie is that they buy into the idea that 9/11 was not an inside job.  But it goes almost as far as saying that the whole thing was staged.  I mean, they go over the fact that Osama bin Laden hired extras to hold guns while he was walking around and make it seem like he had some kind of organisation.  They talk about how Osama bin Laden, after the 9/11 attacks, that it was the best recruitment tool ever for Osama bin Laden to get followers, that he was actually losing a lot of popularity before 9/11 happened in the Muslim or Arab world. 

“Actually, I just found out about this interesting study that we did where we took a survey.  I think this might have been in the newest WikiLeaks cable leaks that there was some sort of talk about a survey among the Arab world before 9/11 on how much they liked bin Laden.  And the U.S. government was actually expressing disappointment that they didn’t like bin Laden as much as we wanted them to—like, we were upset that they weren’t loyal to this bin Laden perspective.  So, I think the memo was talking about ‘how do we get them to be more into Osama bin Laden.’”

Abby Martin (c. 58:58):  “That’s hilarious.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah.”

Abby Martin:  “And going back to bin Laden, the fact that bin Laden, we claim that that bin Laden tape that came out, what was it, like a couple of weeks after 9/11?”

Robbie Martin :  “No, it was like three months after 9/11.”

Abby Martin:  “Oh, three months after 9/11.  Okay.  Where bin Laden supposedly claimed responsibility for the attacks, but a lot of people in the movement say that it’s not bin Laden in the video.  I think it is because a lot of people just show one frame of him and say that he’s too fat and it’s an actor.  But you made a great point the other day when you said that we actually set up, we actually paid, it was a PR thing.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah.  It was proven.  This kind of went under the radar in the media that things the Pentagon did an operation where they had a person, an agent, working for them to pretend like they were some sort of Osama bin Laden follower and went to go interview him.  And in the video the guy basically gets bin Laden to say some that could be interpreted that he had something to do with the Al-Qaeda attacks where he says it was a miracle that the buildings fell.  That was actually probably his natural reaction ‘cos it is like a miracle that the buildings fell after they only got hit by a plane.”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah, absolutely.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:00:16):  “But my thoughts on that whole tape is that, yes, it’s a real tape.  Yes, it really is Osama bin Laden.  But that doesn’t add any credibility to the official story’s claim that he was behind the 9/11 attacks because of two reasons.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:00:30):  “And, also, he was denying responsibility for weeks and weeks.  This was like the first time that we actually had like something to go on.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:00:34):  “And he really doesn’t admit it that he did it.  There’s multiple translations of it, but we’ll add some links to let people figure that out for themselves.  But what’s most interesting to me about that video is that about a year ago it was proven, the media barely picked up on this, that the Pentagon set that video up.  They had bin Laden go on camera to try to coerce a confession out of him.  And they obviously didn’t pull it off that well because he doesn’t say it, really, in the video that he did the attacks.”

Abby Martin:  “What’s hilarious is that if we knew where he was, we could’ve just arrested him and not have invaded a country.”

Robbie Martin :  “But the funny part about that is is that like a day after the video was filmed we acted like the Afghanistan soldiers randomly found it in some shack in Afghanistan, a video tape was just sitting there about Osama bin Laden.”

Abby Martin:  “Oh, my god.”

Robbie Martin :  “So, it was set up from beginning to end and we’ll add some links to this broadcast to prove to you and to show you absolute proof that the video was a set up.  So, what I’m saying is it doesn’t matter that the video is real.  It was a set-up by the American Government. 

“And even if he is admitting, let’s say that he is admitting that he did the attacks in the video, which he isn’t, that’s not proof that he did it.  Police, when they have a crazy guy come in off the street saying that he killed ten people, they don’t arrest him and throw him into jail.  They do an investigation to see if his confession is true.  A confession is not evidence.  It’s only the caveat to a bunch of other evidence.  It’s the icing on the cake for a criminal investigation ‘cos then it closes the circle for them.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:02:11):  “And, you know, Chomsky just came out and said that there was absolutely no evidence linking bin Laden or Al-Qaeda to 9/11.  And what’s really interesting, also, Rex Tomb, the Chief Publicity Officer for the FBI was asked, ‘Why isn’t 9/11 listed when you look at Osama bin Laden on the most wanted FBI list?’  The crime of 9/11 is not listed by the side of his name.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:02:33):  “No.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:02:33):  “And Rex Tomb said because there’s no hard evidence.  He said there’s no hard evidence linking bin Laden to 9/11.  So, uh, what?  Why are we engaged in two wars and why is it still propped up like it’s the truth?”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:02:47):  “We should play that clip right now of Colin Powell being asked in a press conference by the reporter, ‘So, do you just expect us to trust you?’  ‘Cos he asked Colin Powell about, ‘Where’s the evidence?’  Colin Powell was all, like, ‘We’ll get you.’ 

Abby Martin (c. 1:02:58):  “We’ll get you a white paper.  He promises that.  We’re gonna play that clip from ‘Press For Truth’ where Colin Powell is promising to deliver a white paper linking bin Laden to the attacks.” 

Robbie Martin (c. 1:03:07):  “And, right before we play this clip, it also goes in line with the British version of the 9/11 official story.  Their printed official document basically starts off with a foreword saying none of the information presented in this document can be used in a court of law or for criminal prosecutions.”

Abby Martin:  “In what document?”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:03:34):  “It’s the British version of the 9/11 official story, commission.”

Abby Martin:  “Wait, the British have, like, a printed publication?”

Robbie Martin :  “It’s like their version of the 9/11 Report, yeah.  But it’s a lot smaller.”

Abby Martin:  “That’s odd.”

Robbie Martin :  “It’s more of like an internal document, but it was released to the public also.  But, yeah, let’s play this clip.”

Abby Martin:  “Okay.  Cool.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:03:50):  “I love this clip because it just shows Colin Powell in a blatant lie.  He’s just totally lying.  They never planned to produce a white paper; they just hoped that people would forget about it.”

Robbie Martin :  “It’s like the last bastion of someone in the press corps actually asking a real question.”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah.”

Robbie Martin :  “Like he’s asking a question that everyone in the press should have been asking every day for the rest of the year.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:04:16):  “Yeah, every day until they got it.”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah.  I mean, that guy’s probably long gone now.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he was fired like the day after.”

Audio Segment of Colin Powell (c. 1:04:25):  “[journalist] The Secretary of State said the Administration would soon be able to document its case in public against the Al-Qaeda network and Osama bin Laden.

“[Colin Powell] And I think it’ll be persuasive.”

“[Press Corps journalist] But is there any plan to present public evidence, so that the average citizen, not just Americans, but people all over the world can understand the case against him?”

“[Bush Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer] Well, I think it’s like Secretary Powell said.  You know, there’s hope to do that and to do so in a timely fashion over some course of time.  But I think the American people also understand that there are going to be times when that information cannot immediately be forthcoming.  And the American people seem to be accepting of that.”

“[Press Corps journalist] It seems as though you’re asking everyone to trust you.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:05:08):  “Yeah.  I love that.  And ‘Press for Truth’ is such a great movie, too.  We really, really recommend everyone to watch ‘9/11: Press for Truth.’  It’s just a movie that tells the story of four 9/11 widows and how they really pioneered the whole investigation because the investigation was stonewalled for like over a year by the [G.W.] Bush Administration, which was unheard of.”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah, at first they wanted to appoint Henry Kissinger to the head of it.  The 9/11 widows were furious, so they took him off.”

Abby Martin:  “Henry Kissinger’s a known war criminal.  What a disgrace.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah.  And then they let Cheney and Bush testify together, not under oath, in a private room.  So—”

Abby Martin (c. 1:05:44):  “And, so, should we play the clip of Bush after he testifies and a reporter is asking him, ‘Why did you guys refuse to testify separately?’  It was almost like he needed Cheney to guide him ‘cos he didn’t know, like, he wasn’t competent enough to lie.  So, I think a lot of people who have been following basic things about 9/11 know about the Presidential Daily Briefing delivered to Bush that said ‘Bin Laden Is Determined to Strike Within the US.’

“There were also 50, more than 50, warnings.  And, still, after that first tower was hit, Bush claims that he thought it was a pilot error.  And even though they knew an attack was imminent.  People were warned not to fly, etcetera.  So, it is just curious that we still did not evacuate the second Tower, even though it was clear that they knew that it was an attack at that point.  They still wanted to almost maximise the death and destruction.  That’s what I think.  They wanted those people to die.  And it’s really, really sickening.  It makes me really, really sad to think that.  But there’s no other explanation that I can think of.  They knew that there was an attack.  And they still did not evacuate that second Tower or the Pentagon.”

Robbie Martin :  “If you’re the kind of debunker or lackadaisical mindset where you’re like, ‘Oh, there were so many warnings. This is ‘hindsight is 20/20 kind of thing.’  Like, ‘If we would’ve known what we knew now we then we would’ve, looking back on it we can say, oh, yeah there were all these warnings.’  But back then they got so many warnings they didn’t know which ones to take seriously.  I’m sorry, but that’s absolute bullshit because here’s complete proof that contradicts that.  Willie Brown, Salman Rushdie, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff all cancelled their flights because they got warnings not to fly.  I’m sorry, but that’s not disprovable.”  

Abby Martin:  “Yeah, but that wouldn’t just happen on—”

Robbie Martin :  “No.  And what does that tell you?  That we as the public were not important enough to them to be warned about this.  So, they didn’t care about civilians.  It just shows the sociopathic nature.”

Abby Martin:  “That’s what people don’t understand.  They don’t care about human life.  People somehow are holding on so much to the allegiance of this nationalistic jingoism that Americans mean more to these people.  They don’t give a fuck.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:08:00):  “ No.  No.”

Abby Martin:  “They’ll fuckin’ kill you so quickly.  I’m serious.”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah.  And they must have found a way where they didn’t have to kill Cynthia McKinney and Bob Barr.  They were able to just push them out of the House.”

Abby Martin:  “To discredit them, that’s what they seem to do.  They seem to try to discredit you and demonise you.  And if that doesn’t work, then they’ll just take you out.  I mean, that‘s what they do around the world.  Look at what the CIA has been doing around the world.  They do this all the time.  Why the hell wouldn’t they do it in our own country?  It doesn’t make sense.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:08:25):  “Well, ‘cos people seem to think that the CIA does not operate domestically in that same way.  They think that these, the CIA, a lot of people just default on this position, ‘Oh, yeah, the CIA is really crazy. They’re corrupt. They do illegal things. But they do it in other countries. They kill people in other countries.’  But we know that they do things here.  Just look at, blow up on the JFK conspiracy and you’ll find that there was CIA operatives all over the place and Cuban CIA operatives all over the place ready to strike.”

Abby Martin:  “The CIA was crawling.”

Robbie Martin :  “Domestically.  Ready to strike.  Like, people who were hired to be hit squads and then to get instructions of when to kill certain people, when to plant a bomb somewhere.”

Abby Martin:  Here’s a perfect example: the CIA, 1967.  When Kennedy was President, Robert McNamara, the Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff presented a document called Operation Northwoods to Kennedy.  We really wanted to go after Cuba at the time.  And in this document, this classified CIA document called Operation Northwoods, I encourage everyone to look it up.  Sounds really crazy, but it’s true.  They had plans to remote-control airliners, pretending that they were kids on board that were on their spring break.  They wanted to pretend like these planes were gonna be hijacked.  And they also, in the document, talked about shooting American civilians on U.S. soil.”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah.  Oh, yeah, I love it when I try and show ‘Operation Northwoods’ to people and they somehow do the mental gymnastics.  It’s pretty impressive mental gymnastics to read Operation Northwoods and then come out on the other side claiming that there’s nothing in there that says that they want to kill Americans.  I’m sorry, but it says that they wanna plant bombs in the civilian areas, kill Americans.  Shoot Americans in the head.”

Abby Martin:  “And, most importantly, this was to be blamed on Cuba.  This was to be an instant, you know—”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:10:10):  “You really have to have the cognitive dissonance level of like a child who believes in Santa Clause to think that it doesn’t talk about killing Americans in Operation Northwoods.  It’s right there.  I’m sorry.”

Abby Martin:  “And this thing that we’re talking about is called false flag terrorism when states sponsor some sort of terrorist activity and blame it on someone else.  That’s exactly what Operation Northwoods was projecting.  It was projecting that we commit false flag terrorism, blame it on Cuba.  Thankfully, Kennedy rejected it.  And, which, who knows if that had anything to do with why he was assassinated or what?  But point being, they had these plans 50 years ago.”                                          

Robbie Martin (c. 1:10:52):  “I think that it would be good right now to play those two clips of Bush and Conde squirming when being asked about 9/11 foreknowledge.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:11:02):  “Yeah, yeah.  Bush and Conde saying, ‘We could never imagine planes being struck into buildings.’  Really?  Because that shit was written up decades ago.  Where the hell have you guys been?”

Audio of Condoleezza Rice at 9/11 Commission (c. 1:11:11): 

Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste:  “You acknowledged that Richard Clark told you that Al-Qaeda cells were in the United States.  Did you tell the President at any time prior to August 6 of the existence of Al-Qaeda cells in the United States?”

Condoleezza Rice:  “First, let me just make certain—”

RB:  “If you could just answer that question—”

CR:  “Oh, first—”

RB:  “—because I only have a very limited—”

CR:  “I understand, Commissioner.”

RB:  “Did you tell the President?”

CR:  “But it’s important that I also address—[audience applause].  It’s also important, Commissioner, that I address the, uh, the other issues that you have raised.  So, I will do it quickly, but if you’ll just give me a minute—”

RB:  “Well, my only question to you is whether you told the President—”

CR:  “I understand, Commissioner, but, well, if you’ll just give me a moment, I will address fully the questions that you’ve asked.  First of all, yes, the August 6^th PDB was in response to questions of the President.  There was no recommendation that we do something about this.  The FBI was pursuing it.  I really don’t remember, Commissioner, whether I discussed this with the President.”

RB:  “Thank you.”

CR:  “I remember very well that the President was aware that there were issues inside the United States.  He talked to people about this.  But I don’t remember the Al-Qaeda cells as being something that we were told we needed to do something about.”

RB:  “Isn’t it a fact, Dr. Rice that the August 6^th PDB warned against possible attacks in this country?  And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?”

CR:  “I believe the title was ‘bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.’  Now, the PDB—”

RB:  “Thank you.”

CR:  “No, Mr. Ben-Veniste, if you’ll—”

RB:  “I will get into the—”

CR:  “I would like to finish my point here.”

RB:  “I didn’t know there was a point.”

CR:  “Given that, you asked me whether or not it warned of attacks, I—”

RB:  “I asked you what the title was.”

CR:  “You said did it not warn of attacks.  It did not warn of attacks inside the United States.”

Audio of Bush Prior to 9/11 Commission Meeting (c. 1:13:12): 

“‘Why are you and the Vice President insisting on appearing together before the 9/11 Commission?’

G.W. Bush:  “Because the 9/11 Commission wants to ask us questions.  That’s why we’re meeting and I look forward to meeting with them and answering their questions.”

“I was asking, why are you appearing together, rather than separately?—which was their request.”

GWB:  “Because it’s a good chance for both of us to answer questions that the 9/11 Commission is, uh, looking forward to asking us.  And I’m looking forward to answering them.  Let’s see.” 

Audio of Bush 9/11 Commission Post-Mortem:

GWB:  “The Vice President and I just finished a, a, um, a good conversation with the 9-1-1 Commission.  It was wide-ranging.  It was, uh, important.  Uh.  It was, uh, i-i-i-it was just a good discussion.  And I really appreciate the Members.  Um, I-I-I really, it’s probably best if I not go into the details of the conversation.”

“Mr. President, as you know, a lot of critics suggested that you wanted to appear jointly with the Vice President so that you two could keep your story straight or something.”

GWB:  “Yeah.”

“Could you tell us what you think about the value of appearing together and how you would answer those critics?”

GWB:  “Yeah.  First of all, look.  I mean, if we had something to hide, we wouldn’t have met with them in the first place.  We answered all their questions and, uh, as I say, I think, I, it, I came away good about this session, uh, because I wanted them to know, eh, you know, how I set strategy, how we run the White House, how we deal with threats.  Uh, the Vice President answered a lot of there questions, answered all their questions.” 

Robbie Martin :  “So that was, those clips are ridiculous.  The first time I saw those clips—”

Abby Martin:  “They’re insulting.”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah.  The first time I ever saw those clips was, they were kind of dropped inconspicuously in the bonus features of ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ with nothing explaining what they were.  They were just kind of like Conde and Bush, 9/11 Commission.  And Michael Moore, I do think the guy believes 9/11 was an inside job.  He just doesn’t have the balls to come out and say it.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:15:17):  “Yeah.  He has too much of a base he doesn’t wanna lose.”

Robbie Martin :  “I mean, the fact that he put both of these clips on the video, the clip where Bush was asked why he had to testify together instead of separate, the Conde clip, basically, and then we can’t find this clip, but there’s this great quote by Bush that it was kind of similar to those clips where he’s asked, ‘So, what about that PDB memo, why didn’t you do anything about that?’  And his response was, ‘Well, there was nobody in our government, at least, and I don’t think in the prior government, they could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale.’ 

“Now, notice the careful wording of that.  He says, ‘at least’ at the beginning, so there’s an open-ended argument, ‘at least,’ and ‘I don’t think the prior government,’ meaning that there could be.  Like, he doesn’t, you know.  And he also says on such a massive scale.  So, he doesn’t just say plane attacks, period.  He says plane attacks into buildings on such a massive scale.  That almost gets him off the hook because it’s very open to interpretation because it’s clear and obvious that, in the public consciousness, we already knew about these plans for terrorists or whatever to use planes as weapons, to do attacks on this massive a scale. 

“The Bojinka Plot, which was apparently foiled, in the Bojinka Plot they were going to crash eight planes in mid-air, and with explosives and run one of them into the CIA building in Virginia and also kill the Pope simultaneously.  Have a guy with a suicide bomb attached to him go up to the Pope and then blow himself up.  That would have been on a much more massive scale than 9/11.  Could you imagine how the world would react to that the Pope was assassinated by Muslim terrorists?”

Abby Martin (c. 1:17:08):  “It’s insulting to my intelligence for Conde and Bush to have said that.  It really just disgusted me.”

Robbie Martin :  “Well, it’s insulting to anybody with intelligence.”

Abby Martin:  “It’s insulting to anyone who knows that, come on.  I mean, are you seriously saying that you can’t envision people hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings, really?  Because the front cover of the FBI’s counter-terrorism manual years before 9/11 was the World Trade Center in cross-hairs.  They knew that was a very high target.”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah, ‘The Lone Gunmen’ pilot, the X Files spin-off show, was about someone framing Arab Muslim terrorists to crash a plane into the World Trade Center and blame it on them and be able to go to war in the Middle East.  Tom Clancy wrote a book about terrorists using planes crashing into government buildings years before 9/11.”

Abby Martin:  “But no one in our government could imagine it.”

Robbie Martin :  “Oh, yeah, with our billion dollar government apparatus.  Yeah, you’re right.  You’re right.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:17:55):  “And it’s so funny, too, because even though it’s so blatantly untrue, people tell me that all the time, I’ve had so many people tell me, ‘Well, how could our government ever foresee that? Come on, like, you’re telling me that NORAD could ever envision that?’  Yeah.  That’s precisely what I’m telling you.  That’s precisely what I’m telling you because that’s what NORAD is for.” 

Robbie Martin (c. 1:18:18):  “Yeah.  And then the slightly more intelligent person will say, ‘Well, NORAD’s only for external threats coming from outside from other countries.”

Abby Martin:  “That is complete bullshit.  You don’t think that they never accounted for domestic—”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:18:32):  “Well, the problem is there’s already direct proof that they did because they were performing drills that day about fake hijackings.  So, the NORAD is directly involved in hijacking protocols, so it’s a lie to say that they don’t respond to that.  It’s a complete lie.”

Abby Martin:  “And they also had like, what, 67 interceptions the year before of wayward planes, domestically.  You’re telling me four planes were off course for, seriously, some more than an hour and we just didn’t do anything.  I mean, it’s outrageous.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah, in some of the most protected airspace in the country.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:19:06):  “It’s outrageous.  Really quickly, before I move on, I just wanted to talk about the wire transfer to the head hijacker, Mohammed Atta.  The Pakistani General was in Washington, D.C. the morning of 9/11.”

Robbie Martin :  “The morning of 9/11, having breakfast with Joe Biden.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:19:17):  “And this Pakistani General also wire-transferred $100,000 dollars to Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker.  So, why are we having breakfast with him?”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:19:27):  “Yeah.  And why—”

Abby Martin:  “It’s Mahmud Ahmed, right?”

Robbie Martin:  “—yeah, and, you know, you could say, ‘Oh, well, that’s just kind of a coincidence, again, right?  But the funny thing is Condoleezza Rice during her press conference was asked by a reporter, I think it was, from India Times—”

Abby Martin:  “Yep.”

Robbie Martin :  “He asked her, ‘Have you followed up on the hundred thousand dollars?’  He basically brought up the fact that he was having breakfast on the morning of 9/11 and why did he give a hundred thousand dollars to Mohammed Atta.  Condoleezza Rice just like brushed it off and says, ‘Oh, well—”

Abby Martin:  “‘He wasn’t meeting with me.’”

Robbie Martin :  “—yeah.  ‘He wasn’t meeting with me.’”

Abby Martin (c. 1:20:04):  “He said, ‘Was he meeting with you or who was he meeting with?’  And she was like, ‘Well, he wasn’t meeting with me.’  And then she just moves on.  Like, wait, what?”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:20:06):  “Yeah.  But the best part of that is not the actual press conference itself, but it’s the transcript.  If you read it later, it’s redacted.  It’s redacted from the transcript that he mentions Mohammed Atta’s name, Mahmud Ahmed, or the ISI.  It’s redacted in such a way where the transcript makes it seems like it was unintelligible what he was saying.”

Abby Martin:  “I just remember something.”

Robbie Martin :  “But it’s clear what he’s saying if you watch it.”

Abby Martin:  “Right.  What’s—”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:20:30):  “They’re trying to cover it up.”

Abby Martin:  “—also interesting about the wire transfer is that the Official Report, I remember Kean and Hamilton, the Chair and Co-Chair of the Report, were asked at some press conference about the transfer, something about the money.  And they said, ‘It’s of little significance, the funding of 9/11 because it was such a little amount.  They said it took such a little amount and it was just these small incremental things that it’s just of little significance how it was funded.  It’s like, what?”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah.”

Abby Martin:  “Actually, what about the hundred-thousand-dollar wire transfer from the Pakistani General?  That’s actually pretty significant.  It’s just funny how they glossed over it and said that the way that it was financed doesn’t matter, that it’s not important.  Why, ‘cos it would unravel the whole thing?”

MUSICAL INTERLUDE

Robbie Martin (c. 1:22:07):  “It’s really hard for people to wrap their heads around the relationship we have in Pakistan, especially after all this WikiLeaks stuff comes out because it’s like, well, wait a second; why are we in bed with Pakistan and still giving them so much money when they are directly funnelling money into these so-called insurgents and terrorists that are fighting us in Afghanistan?  But that’s how things work.  People don’t understand that it’s not like a black and white, like, you know, we need to win this war.  It’s just a money vacuum.  You know?”

Abby Martin:  “Absolutely.”

Robbie Martin :  “Not only is there a market for warfare and selling weapons and buying weapons.  There’s also a market for paying off people.  I was just listening to some war reporter who spent like five years in Afghanistan, covering Afghanistan, and he basically says that the economy over there right now is run by money from the CIA given to warlords.  It makes sense to me because the CIA, the U.S. Government, they don’t care if they create terrorists and people to fight us because then it’ll just give us more of an excuse to continue this.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:23:09):  “Absolutely.  It’s just the Al-Qaeda thing.  I mean, we wanted there to be, we wanted people to join Al-Qaeda.  We wanted to be able to use the lie to be like, ‘No, no, no, there’s an organisation.’”

Robbie Martin :  “M-hm.”

Abby Martin:  “And without getting too mired down in the weird inconsistencies with the actual hijacking phone calls and all that stuff on board, we just wanted to mention really quickly Barbara Olson.  She supposedly called her husband, Ted Olsen, who worked at the Pentagon.  And that’s really the only—”

Robbie Martin:  “He was Attorney General.”

Abby Martin:  “—he was the Attorney General, yeah—and that was really the only instance where we heard that there were hijackings was her phone call.”

Robbie Martin :  “Or that there were, how the hijackings took place.  Most of the official narrative about how the hijackings occurred comes from her account, which is a second-hand account, which in court would be hearsay evidence.  It wouldn’t be admissible.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:24:01):  “And what’s also funny is that the first account is that she called from an AirFone.”

Robbie Martin :  “An AirFone and she called from it collect.”

Abby Martin:  “That she called her husband collect from the AirFone telling him these things—”

Robbie Martin :  “Which is technically impossible because you need to scan a credit card down the side of an AirFone to even get it to activate.”

Abby Martin:  “And later it came out that there were no AirFones on any of the planes.”

Robbie Martin :  “M-hm.  Somebody did a Freedom of Information Request on the exact plane number, the flight number, and found blueprints and found the most up-to-date information on the plane—and 100% proven that there were no AirFones on the plane.  Ted Olson changed his story after that saying that they were from a cell phone.”

Abby Martin:  “You know, people have gotten too mired in the whole cell phone thing.  And I don’t really know what to think.  But all I do know, I’ve flown a lot and, cell phones have never worked.  I will always check my cell phone.  I’ve had numerous different cell phone carriers.  Every time you are above 20,000 feet in the air, cell phones don’t work.  Sorry, they don’t.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:25:04):  “And what’s funny to me is a lot of people will say, ‘Well, they were flying really low.  No, they weren’t.”

Abby Martin:  “No, they weren’t.”

Robbie Martin:  “They weren’t flying that low.”  

Abby Martin:  “And even if you were flying low, if you were flying at, let’s say you were flying at 15,000 feet, the cell phone towers would be picking in and out.  It would be like, ‘Boom, boom, boom.’  You would get service and then you wouldn’t.”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah.  And let’s just say maybe one phone call for a split second would make sense, but there was like—”

Abby Martin:  “But they would drop immediately.”

Robbie Martin :  “—supposedly, like 15 cell phone calls.”

Abby Martin:  “That’s the weirdest part to me.  And we’re not even really gonna get into this ‘cos we don’t know.  And that’s the most important thing.  It’s not our job to explain how these calls were made or if they were made.  All we know is that what they are telling us about them isn’t true.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:25:39):  “And what I find interesting is that that evidence is so heavily relied upon to form this official narrative, when in a court of law or to a scientific mind, they don’t hold up to scrutiny very well because it’s the kind of evidence, which is delivered from people who are experiencing trauma, supposedly, over the phone, second-hand information.  We’re hearing about what they said through the relatives who spoke to these people.  That’s not that credible of evidence.  There are a lot of problems with that.  People could have false memories.” 

Abby Martin (c. 1:26:10):  “Absolutely.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:26:10):  “Our friend Steven is an expert on false memories or distorted memories of the event.  The official story was shaped very quickly in the public narrative.  That could have influenced the way they described these phone calls that they heard.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:26:23):  “One more coincidence really quickly is that Rumsfeld changed the shoot-down order into his own name.  He changed the chain of command.  So, he could only, he was like the top of the chain of command to say whether or not planes could be shot down.  This was like months before 9/11.  So, that’s just another coincidence.  I wonder how any of that happened.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:26:42):  “Yeah.  And then in Bush's new book , he let something slip that for almost a whole day, for almost a 12-hour period, he thought that Flight 93 had been shot down because in his mind that was the protocol.  So, he just assumed when he heard it crashed, that it had been shot down ‘cos he authorised it.” 

Abby Martin:  “And let’s briefly talk about Flight 93.  Flight 93 is such a bizarre case because if you’re looking at the Pat Tillman, Jessica Lynch, the fact that we staged the whole covering-Saddam’s-face-in-Iraq thing, I mean, all these PR stunts that we propagate and prop up, if you are looking at Flight 93, it’s the most disgusting one.  The ‘let’s roll,’ it says that that guy Mark Bingham took over the hijackers and crashed the plane heroically and the last thing he said was, ‘Let’s roll.’  And they made that whole movie out of it.  That was like the pinnacle of American, he was like the hero of 9/11.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:27:43):  “So, we were getting the evidence from a traumatised mother who copyrighted the phrase let’s roll within a week after 9/11.  So, I’m not really questioning her moral character, but I am questioning her credibility because that is absurd.  To copyright the catch-phrase that you’re dying son made, that’s—”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah, who is thinking about copyrighting that?

Robbie Martin :  “So, she’s trying to financially capitalise on her sons death—”

Abby Martin:  “Immediately.”

Robbie Martin :  “—immediately—that’s very suspicious and very, I think, that’s very disgusting.  But also Cheney was one of the first people to plant these seeds in the media of this being some sort of passenger take-over and rebellion.  He said something like, ‘Well, we can only assume that the passengers were very heroic that day and didn’t want the—”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah.  And if people don’t really know about Flight 93, it crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.  It was supposedly going to the Capital Building or the White House.  We don’t really know where it was going.”

Robbie Martin:  “Originally, on the day of 9/11, it said it was going to Camp David or something, which is weird.” 

Abby Martin:  “Yeah, there was a lot of weird accounts, but anyways, so, it crashes in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, supposedly.  But what’s really odd, if you look at any picture of a plane crash ever in the history of the world you won’t just see a black hole.  You’ll see a fucking plane.”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah.”

Abby Martin:  “Planes crash and it leaves debris.”

Robbie Martin :  “I mean, you’ll see at least, you’ll see a giant fuselage or a wing or the nose.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:29:04):  “Even when planes crash in the ocean, they recover almost every part of it. This plane crash, however, was basically the debris field was like miles.  It just seems really odd.  If the plane really crashed, how did debris get like three miles away?  Which just, to me, it shows more evidence that it was, in fact, blown up mid-air.  I mean it would make sense to me that NORAD in the midst of the confusion that day would accidentally, just, do what they were supposed to do and actually shoot one of the planes down.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:29:36):  “And what’s also interesting to me is when I was a kid growing up and when forensic investigations were starting to kind of catch on with the public consciousness, that people found them entertaining with things like ‘The X-Files.’  And now we have ‘C.S.I.’  But way before that I remember when a plane would crash or when it would crash mysteriously, they would rebuild the plane from the broken pieces in a hangar. 

“They did this with TWA 800, the flight that mysteriously blew up.  I think it was over the Atlantic Ocean.  And they rebuilt almost the entire plane.  I remember there was an ‘X-Files’ episode that was kind of about TWA 800 and it showed them rebuilding the plane.  This is a common thing that they do in forensic investigations where they don’t know what happened and they wanna find out how the plane crashed.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:30:24):  “It’s so funny to hear the news reports from that day, too.  People are like, ‘There’s nothing here, but a whole in the ground.’  Everyone’s walking around aimlessly in hazmat suits.  They’re just, like, trying to find debris.  It’s just like a really bizarre scene if you look at the footage.”

Robbie Martin :  “And this is another thing that irritates me that people do is another form of them wanting you to close the circle for them and hand to them, from beginning to end, the complete narrative that makes sense to them, is they will ask you, ‘Well, where did all the people go? If you think it was shot down, where did all the people go? What happened to them?’  It’s like, ‘I don’t know.’  They’re probably dead, but they’re not hiding out somewhere in some South American, you know, Nazi hideout.  They’re dead.  I don’t know exactly what happened to them.  I don’t know if the plane was shot down with them in it.  I just know that they’re dead.” 

Abby Martin (c. 1:31:11):  “All I know is that it doesn’t make sense.  That’s all I know is that nothing makes sense.  I’m sorry.  But I’m not satisfied with an explanation that just doesn’t add up.  I’m not satisfied with that.”

Robbie Martin :  “No.  As we’ve been going through this, every single aspect of 9/11, Flight 93, the Pentagon, the Towers falling, the lead up to it, the investigation, how the hijackers got on the planes, all these things have problems, they don’t make sense.  Individually, they don’t make sense.  So, we add them together.  It really does seem like some crazy, completely unbelievable, fairy tale.”

Abby Martin:  “It does.  And it is.”

Robbie Martin :  “It absolutely is.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:31:54):  “So, we talked about Flight 93.  We talked about a bunch of stuff leading up, warnings, etcetera.  We just wanted to talk really briefly about the Pentagon.  That’s what we talked about earlier in the show about what piqued our interest.  And for a long time I thought, ‘Oh, my god, it couldn’t have been a plane that hit the Pentagon. It looks like a missile. There’s no wing penetration to the building.’ 

“There were so many different reports.  Some people saw a plane.  Some people didn’t see a plane.  And to me it doesn’t even matter.  I mean, I don’t know.  And I’m not gonna claim to know.  All I know is the Pentagon thing doesn’t make sense.  If it was a plane that hit the Pentagon, it must not have been the passenger plane that they told us because they would show us the video of it.  It doesn’t make sense that they wouldn’t show us it.”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah, the most secure military building in the world, you’re telling me they don’t even half video frame-rate cameras going, like15-frame-a-second at least?”

Abby Martin (c. 1:32:43):  “Yeah, what are we spending trillions of dollars a year on, if we can’t even set up proper security system at the Pentagon?”

Robbie Martin:  “I mean, the footage they released is, literally, one frame a second, like webcam technology.” 

Abby Martin:  “Yeah, it’s worse than a webcam.”

Robbie Martin :  “It’s from like 1995.  The fact that they expect us to be that gullible and to think that that’s the only footage that exists is absurd.  And then, secondly, to me the most convincing thing about the Pentagon being peculiar is that there was no evacuation order issued when Cheney and several other people knew of the impending plane coming towards the Pentagon.

“‘Sir, the plane is 15 miles out.’

“Someone who worked, I think, it was for the Transportation Security Administration, Norman Mineta witnessed this conversation between Cheney—”

Abby Martin:  “They were in like a little bunker.”

Robbie Martin :  “—yeah, and the guy was telling Cheney, ‘The plane is 10 miles out.  Do the orders still stand?’  And Cheney whipped his neck around furiously and said, ‘Of course the orders still stand!  Have you heard anything to the contrary?!’  Now, the fact that the plane actually ended up hitting the Pentagon can only mean one thing.  What orders is he talking about?”

Abby Martin:  “The order to not shoot it down.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:33:43):  “He’s talking about the order to prevent from shooting the plane down or to do anything to stop it.  This was a military building where, I think, 70 people died in the attack on the Pentagon.  Why wasn’t an evacuation order issued by Cheney?  Why didn’t he throw that down the chain of command and say, ‘Get everybody out of the Pentagon immediately.  There’s a plane coming towards it right now.’’

Abby Martin:  “Yeah.  April Gallop, one of the women who worked in the Pentagon, her and her kid were there and they almost died.  They’re really lucky to be alive.  But she said that there was absolutely no warning at all.  It was just sitting there in her desk and then the next second it was an explosion and they were all lying under piles of debris.”

Robbie Martin :  “Now, I’m curious, were they even told about the World Trade Center attacks?  Were the employees even given an announcement?  ‘World Trade Centers have been hit. Everybody go to your TV.’  Or were they just left completely in the dark.’” 

Abby Martin:  “No, they were totally in the dark.

Robbie Martin :  “Were the Pentagon employees just sitting in the offices and all of a sudden a plane just flies in and takes ‘em out?”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah.  It goes to show you, once again, they do not give a shit about human life.  Even their own Pentagon employees.  They wanted to kill people.  They wanted to maximise the death rate that day, really bad.”

Robbie Martin:  “And I think that that goes along with Webster Tarpley’s theory that they wanted to also scare the intelligence and military and government establishment as well.  It wasn’t just to scare the public because there were many innocent people that died in the Pentagon.” 

Abby Martin:  “Absolutely.”

Robbie Martin :  “The people who worked at the Pentagon were probably terrified to go back to work.”   

Abby Martin (c. 1:35:05):  “You know, there’s a whole organisation called Pilots for 9/11 Truth.  And a lot of people say that the simple manoeuvre of flying into the Pentagon, the lawn totally unscathed.  And it flew in like, what, five feet above the lawn.  And you’re telling me a giant jumbo jet didn’t scathe the lawn or do any damage like that?  And it just had like this perfect hole in the building.  But a whole flight school, actually, tried to simulate the flight path.  And like only one person could was able to do it out of like very trained pilots.”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah.  They were using their very highly expensive flight simulator systems with a virtual cockpit.  And they let the students kind of take turns trying to hit the plane into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon.  And I think after a like hundred tries, one person hit one of the Towers.  Some of ‘em were instructors.”

Abby Martin:  “It just what’s interesting about this simulation and the fact that a lot of experienced pilots weren’t able to hit the Pentagon in precisely the way that it was hit because just knowing that we had the technology to fly planes remote control over 50 years ago.  If we had this technology and were actually drafting documents proposing false flag terrorism, then it’s really not too much of a stretch to imagine that we used some sort of remote control technology.  I mean, this is complete speculation on my part, I’m just saying that’s—”

Robbie Martin :  “Yeah, I don’t think it’s far-fetched at all.”

Abby Martin:  “It’s not far-fetched.”

Robbie Martin:  “I really don’t think it is.  I mean, sure, people can say that’s crazy to believe that commercial airliners were remote-controlled on 9/11.  But, yeah, again, in the ‘60s they had it on paper that they had this technology and they were, potentially, planning on using it back then.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:36:44):  “And just something that people say all the time is just like, ‘Oh, well, our government wouldn’t do this to us.’  Like, ‘they would’ve messed up or like they couldn’t have executed it so perfectly.’  It’s like, actually, they fucked up like a hundred times, everything that we’re talking about.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:36:59):  “Yeah.  They did such a sloppy job that it could only mean one thing that their egos are so huge it’s going to be—” 

Abby Martin:  “A lie so big, it’s easier to believe it, just like Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist.  I mean, this event was so catastrophic and it was like these iconic buildings falling into dust, our most heavily secured building being able to be hit.  It was like such a vulnerable state.  And everyone was glued to their televisions for a month just totally being brainwashed.  It was the perfect psychological operation on the American people and the world.  And it’s so funny when people say, ‘Oh, they would’ve messed up. They couldn’t have executed this.’  Like, first of all they did fuck up a lot.  And that’s exactly what we’re going over. 

“On the other hand, what they did well was what we are good at.  We have the strongest military might in the world.  And this was a highly professional military operation that was executed pretty well.  We’re really good at blowing shit up.”

Robbie Martin:  “M-hm.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:37:54):  “We’re really good at using military weapons.  That’s what we do.  That’s our main export.  That’s what we produce here.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah.  Also our media is really good at making the most flashy emotional news coverage ever.”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah.”

Robbie Martin:  “I mean, it really was a perfect hand-in-glove operation.

“I think one of the other interesting things about the Pentagon attack for me is that the ‘plane’ ended up hitting the section that was being refortified.  Of all the sections of the Pentagon, it hit the one that was under construction.  Freedom of Information requests, I think it was somebody from Pilots for 9/11 Truth wanted to get the flight data path recorder from the FAA or something to actually show where the flight went when it hit the Pentagon.  So they sent them a rendered movie file of the flight path and the actual flight on the recorded flight path, it doesn’t even go towards the Pentagon.  It’s going around the Pentagon and then just flies past it.

“So, that’s the official computer record of the plane.  So, something’s weird there.  It doesn’t add up.  You know?  Anytime you get a new piece of evidence to try to, like they said, ‘We’re gonna release a new Pentagon video and you are like all excited and when you see it you’re like what?  It’s like from four feet, like slightly different angle than the previous one we saw.  And it’s completely indiscernable.  It looks like a little piece of smoke.  Like flying towards the—”

Abby Martin:  “And people have said this before and I’ll say it again, if that plane did hit the Pentagon, show us it.  I mean, just show it to us.  And then it could be over.  We won’t talk about the Pentagon anymore.”

Robbie Martin:  “Or what about that, I mean, why didn’t they rebuild that plane?  Why didn’t they reconstruct that?  I mean, they, probably ‘cos it wasn’t a plane.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:39:31):  “Yeah, it’s just like.”

Robbie Martin:  “Or I don’t know what it was, but it’s suspicious.”

Abby Martin:  “Show us whatever hit the Pentagon.  Just show us.  If there’s nothing to hide, then why are you hiding everything?

“And we talked briefly about the 9/11 Commission before about how Kissinger was the original head of it.  But we wanted to talk about how the Bush Administration completely stonewalled the investigation, which is totally unheard of.  Days, you know, after every national disaster, Pearl Harbour, JFK, an investigation was immediately ensued.  I mean, that’s just like protocol. 

“The fact that the 9/11 Commission was stonewalled for over a year, and it was actually like forced into effect by the widows of people who died there, even when the Commission was being formed the key players that they wanted to put in it is just insulting—Kissinger.  And then Kissinger was later replaced by Zelikow, co-author of a book by Condoleezza Rice and also the person who penned the controversial Bush Doctrine.  I mean, this guy is disgusting.  He is a warmonger.”

Robbie Martin:  “Even the supposed liberals and the people who are like on our side of 9/11, ‘cos like Ben Batista, he represented Boeing and all these other airline companies.”

Abby Martin:  “Right.

Robbie Martin:  “So, there’s a huge conflict of interest, just even on that level that someone who was working as a PR representative for an airline industry gets to be on the 9/11 Commission where it’s all about ways to review how the airlines need to improve their security.”

Abby Martin:  “Right.”

Robbie Martin:  “I mean, that’s ridiculous.  And then, also, Max Cleland, a remnant of the kind of post-Vietnam War era of the U.S. Government, when people like John Kerry and him were very well-respected.  They were veterans that spoke heavily against the wars.  He left the 9/11 Commisison before it even started because he realised and he openly said that it was a cover up, that he left in protest.”  

Abby Martin (c. 1:41:11):  “And now we see Colonel Anthony Schaffer coming out, saying, agreeing with that statement, saying that he talked to every Commission Member and they all said that they were covering up for someone and something.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah.”

Abby Martin:  “Like at every level of the Commission, it was all covered up.  And Zelikow was totally in control what information was even going to the Commissioners.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah.  What’s his name?  Lee Hamilton and what’s the other guy?”

Abby Martin (c. 1:41:32):  “Kean.”

Robbie Martin:  “Kean.  Both of them have admitted on several occasions that the 9/11 Commission was a cover-up, that NORAD lied to them, that the Bush Administration lied to them.”

Abby Martin:  “That ‘they were set up to fail,’ that’s a quote.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah, they even said that, yeah, they were set up to fail.  There’s just so much you can cover on the 9/11 Commission alone.”

Abby Martin:  “And I love one of my favourite books from Dr. Griffin is The 9/11 Omission.  It’s just like the biggest case of just a complete lie of omission.  I mean, everything that is damaging about 9/11 was just simply omitted.”

Robbie Martin:  “What’s very interesting is people, conspiracy theorists, the two main commission names you always hear about are 9/11 Commission and Warren Commission.  They kind of compare the two together, that they were both huge cover-ups.  You know?  Even one of the guys who was on the 9/11 Commission was on the Warren Commission, Lee Hamilton.  Both of these commissions were equally designed to be cover-ups.  However, the Warren Commission, a commission that investigated death of one person, is ten times more comprehensive than the 9/11 Commission Report.  It actually seems they were trying to make people feel like they were doing a real investigation.

“Whereas, the 9/11 Investigation Report, the 9/11 Commission’s Report, it seriously is the most lightweight, filled with no information, no facts.  It is incredibly under-whelming.  Even just to find out about what happened on 9/11.  I mean it’s ridiculous.  The Warren Commission, it’s like a hardcore book you would dread reading in high school, if you were given it for some class ‘cos it is so in-depth.” 

Abby Martin:  “The biggest lie of omission from the 9/11 Commission was just the fact that they did not include any testimony of explosives going off, which, I mean, hundreds of people testified before the 9/11 Commission saying that there were explosives—emergency responders, fire-fighters, civilians, workers, most notably, William Rodriguez.  He was a janitor in the World Trade Center for 20 years.  He had a little key that he would go up in the stairwells.  He had been working there for a long time.  He was in the subbasement level and heard explosions, felt explosions.  And they shook him, literally.  They shook the ground he was standing on.  This was before the planes hit.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:43:44):  “Yeah.”

Abby Martin:  “Before the planes hit he felt explosions.”

Robbie Martin:  “To me, one of the most suspicious things about him, you know, you could argue semi-convincingly that maybe he was hearing some kind of other, like the building giving way or something that sounded like an explosion.  I could see someone maybe saying he heard things wrong or whatever.  But to me one of the most interesting thing about William Rodriguez is he was considered like a 9/11 hero.”

Abby Martin:  “Oh, yeah.”

Robbie Martin:  “And months after 9/11 he had the key, the master key, the janitor key that unlocked—”

Abby Martin:  “He was the last survivor pulled out.”

Robbie Martin:  “—last survivor; and there’s pictures of him with George W. Bush.”

Abby Martin:  “And he didn’t even question, really, he didn’t question anything at all until he realised that his testimony was being omitted.”

Robbie Martin:  “But it wasn’t that his testimony was being omitted, that was kind of the final straw for him.”

Abby Martin:  “The media changed the story.”

Robbie Martin:  “It was that when he watched his interviews on TV after he would record them, he realised that they had carefully edited out everything he mentioned about explosions, bombs going off.”

Abby Martin:  “Right.”

Robbie Martin:  “That would send red flags, I mean, if I was the person who got out of there, I’d be like, ‘What in the hell are they doing?!”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah.  Why are you covering up a giant aspect of this story?”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:44:46):  “Yeah, it’s very curious.”

Abby Martin:  “And, now, just to give you a quick update on what William Rodriguez is doing, he’s just touring the world trying to spread this information.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah.”

Abby Martin:  “He’s trying to tell people the truth about 9/11.  He’s like, he’s such an awesome person.  I had the pleasure of meeting him.  And he’s just like the most genuine person.  I mean, he just has such a good heart.  Now, he’s just totally harassed by the CIA, the government.  He went to Venezuela, I remember, and he said there were like spies there.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah, ‘cos he went to deliver the information to Hugo Chavez.”

Abby Martin:  “It’s really crazy.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah, it’s very interesting.”

Abby Martin:  “He, actually, like, saved numerous lives that day.  He kept going back into the buildings and pulling out bodies and the building ended up collapsing on top of him.  He’s very lucky to be alive.  He was the last survivor pulled out.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah, it’s a pretty incredible story.”

Abby Martin:  “And let’s talk, now that we’ve just mentioned the explosives and this is pretty much the most controversial aspect of the 9/11 Truth Movement.  It turns a lot of people off.  It shuts a lot of people off to the other aspects of 9/11 that were glaringly facilitated by elements within our own government is the controlled demolition hypothesis that the World Trade Centers were blown up by explosives.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah.  Or that they were aided by some kind of incendiary or device to collapse in the way that they did.

Abby Martin:  “Should we start with Building 7?

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah.  I think we should start by talking about Building 7 because that one is off the bat.  You show that to anyone who has a skeptical mind and they will watch it and say, ‘Wow, this really looks like controlled demolition.’” 

Abby Martin:  “Building 7 was the third tower that eventually fell on 9/11.  It was more than a football field away from the first two towers.  It was called the Salomon Brothers Building.  It was 47 stories high.  Like we said before it contained highly secure offices and government agencies, including Giuliani’s secret bunker.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah.  It was hit by some debris from the World Trade Center, but not a significant amount, not enough to weaken the structure.  And it also had, I’d say, moderate fires, not on every floor.  I think the 9/11 Truth Movement sometimes—”

Abby Martin:  “Cherry-picks the photos?”

Robbie Martin:  “Not cherry-picks it, but sometimes they downplay things to make their case.  And they don’t have to.  I mean, just to say there was literally no fire in the building is a lie.  Because there was.  There was a pretty big fire in it.  But it doesn’t make the case that it fell from fire any stronger because it’s not possible.  It’s not physically possible for a building to fall, a steel structure building to fall from fire alone.”

Abby Martin:  “There’s been raging infernos on numerous instances all around the world and never once has a high-rise steel-framed structure fallen due to an, and these buildings were like engulfed in infernos for hours and hours.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah, giant skyscrapers.  They were, like, much bigger than the World Trade Center.”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah.  Building 7 fell; I don’t even want to say it fell, it was blown up at 5:20pm on the day of 9/11.  Really, really bizarre and I didn’t know about this until years and years and years later.  And a lot of people have no idea that there was a third building that fell.  And for a long time I would show people.  ‘Did you know that this building fell?’ 

“It’s just so weird how it’s just totally unmentioned.  The 9/11 Commission Report didn’t even mention Building 7.  It was like this gigantic structural failure that should be like, we should all be really evaluating the way buildings are built.  That this building could fall like this, then we should all be seriously stopping and, ‘Hold on. Do not build anymore buildings. We need to really re-evaluate what we’re doing.”

Robbie Martin:  “That, to me, was one of the most peculiar things.  Before I really got myself mentally to the position where I was open to believing that they put bombs in the buildings, I would think things like wait a second if these buildings all fell from fire, shouldn’t we be re-writing architectural designs worldwide in architectural conferences saying, well, here we’ll need to redesign skyscrapers from now on?  They all have this dangerous flaw built in them.  It’s very, very odd to me.” 

Abby Martin:  “I encourage everyone to go online; go to WTC7.net.  And just check out some videos of the building collapsing ‘cos it’s extremely obvious that it’s demolished.  Everyone agrees with this.  International experts in demolition will look at it.  You can see their first reaction.  They’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s perfect controlled demolition.  It’s a beautiful job.’  Then you’re like ‘Oh, that was on 9/11.’  And they’re like, ‘What?!’  You could just see like people’s reactions.  I mean, it’s so glaringly obvious that this Building was blown up.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:49:28):  “And a lot of these people who have done reports on why Building 7 fell and why it fell on its own, they’re on the payroll for certain companies.  I mean they’re not writing these independently.  They’re not just independent debunkers who are coming out of the woodwork who are flexing their structural engineering muscles.  These are like paid-for papers.  And I think that a lot of people argue, ‘Well, why aren’t there more structural engineers who are saying that the buildings fell from controlled demolition.  Well, there are a lot of structural engineers saying that.”

Abby Martin:  “There’s over 1,200.  Not 1,200 strictly structural engineers, but building professionals.”

Robbie Martin:  “But people can cherry-pick on the other side, too.  They’ll just be able to discredit all those people by saying, ‘Well, they wanna get like popular or the 9/11—”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah, it’s really nice to put your whole career and life on the line and say that they have totally demonised in your industry in the public eye.  That makes a lot of sense.”

Robbie Martin:  “I have a lot of arguments with some of my friends.  One of them, in particular, whenever we talk about 9/11 he always gravitates toward controlled demolition because he hates any theories revolving around controlled demolition.  And like he’ll send me like a video made by some debunker called like Tricky Dick.  And it’ll be like a video of like Richard Gage you know maybe not one of his best speeches ever, making some mistakes and stuff, as if that’s designed to—”

Abby Martin:  “Poisoning the—”

Robbie Martin:  “As if that’s gonna have any effect on my belief, or most people’s belief, that Building 7 was imploded by controlled demolition.  That’s the logical fallacy of going after the messenger instead of the actual content or the message.”

Abby Martin:  “And we’re not even talking about the two towers.  We’re just talking about Building 7.”

Robbie Martin:  “I could talk about the two towers, but I’d rather talk about Building 7 because it’s way more obvious that it was blown up by controlled demolition.”

Abby Martin:  “People will always say, ‘Well, I saw a plane hit it. Like, didn’t you? What do you mean it was blown up?’  You’re like, ‘First of all, I’m not talking about the Two Towers.  I’m talking about another building that was one of the highest buildings, let’s say, in Oakland; it would be one of the highest buildings in Downtown Oakland.  And if it just imploded one day, I think I would be really shocked.  This is all speculation, but it was done in such a visible way.  It was done in broad daylight, 5:20pm.  The dust was settling a little bit from the collapses.  I honestly think that it was meant to be blown up while the dust cloud from the two buildings fell.  And that’s another reason why they effed up.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah.”

Abby Martin:  “They messed up big time with Building 7.  That’s like the smoking gun.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:52:15):  “Yeah, I agree.  And I don’t know why.  I can’t speculate why they blew up Building 7.  I don’t think it had anything to do with the fact that there was like paperwork in there or anything because let’s look at it realistically.  Blowing up a building to destroy paperwork is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard of.  Have you seen footage from the ground at World Trade Center after the plane had hit it?  It looks like it’s snowing paperwork.  I mean, there’s just papers flying all over the street.  It’s absurd to think that they blew up the buildings to take care of those papers.  They could have just used a shredder truck.  They didn’t have to do that. 

“I think it’s more likely that there was the emergency command bunker doing the terrorism drill tripod from Building 7 and it was far too suspicious to keep that available afterwards.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:53:00):  “Yeah, I agree.  I mean, we already know that there was a command centre there.  That’s already on record.  So, it would make sense to me that there was some sort of chain of command about 9/11 happening, whether or not it was with the buildings or not or NORAD or something.  It’s definitely really suspicious.  If you look at the footprint of Building 7 after it quote-unquote falls, it’s very shocking to see that there’s absolutely nothing there.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:53:26):  “I know it looks like a bunch of paper, just, like cardboard house just fell.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:53:30):  “It’s like where the hell did this building go.  The building falls.  It doesn’t disappear.  And one really interesting thing is that the BBC and CNN actually reported Building 7, the Solomon Brothers Building, falling 20 minutes and also hours before it actually fell.  So, you have to ask yourself.  Why on Earth did we ever think that this building would just randomly fall when never before in the history the world has a steel-framed building fallen in that way?  Why the hell would they report that it had already fallen?  That’s really suspicious.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:54:03):  “I mean, yeah, you could argue, debunker, I’m gonna play devil’s advocate for a second that they would, you know, that they, the two towers already fell.  And then the next one that was already in flames.  They just assumed that one was gonna fall, too.  However, that doesn’t explain why the media wire service reported that it did fall because that’s pretty, I mean, that, I don’t know.  That’s very interesting.  She’s talking about how it’s already fallen while she’s standing in front of it.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:54:32):  “And then you see fire-fighters outside of Building 7.  They had evacuated Building 7 because it was on fire.  But these fire-fighters are outside of the building.  The building’s perfectly intact, structurally.  And you hear them going, ‘this building is about to blow up. Everyone get back. The building’s about to blow up. This building will be coming down soon.’  So, I don’t know.  You know, it’s hard to speculate what exactly the motive was or why this happened.  All we know is that it happened.  We know that Building 7 was blown up.  We don’t know why.  And it’s very obvious.  I mean someone knew that day.  These fire-fighters knew that it was gonna be demolished.

“Another really interesting thing, Larry Silverstein, the leaseholder for Building 7 and the two Towers raked in billions of dollars, raked it in.  And now he’s wanting more money.  Did you know that?  He’s like requiring more taxpayer money to rebuild Building 7—scumbag.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:55:33):  “It’s pretty ridiculous.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:55:35):  “We really don’t wanna focus too much on our personal theories.  But we definitely subscribe to the theory that we do think the Twin Towers were demolished as well.  It’s only so much of a stretch to comprehend the fact that there was a 47-story building blown up in broad daylight because that would mean that there would have to be some sort of pre-planted explosives and foreknowledge of the fact that this was gonna happen and the planting of these explosives the planning of bringing this building down.  If you can wrap your mind around that, then it’s really not too far of a stretch of the imagination to at least question the possibility that the World Trade Center Towers were brought down as well.  And this is all speculation.  I have no idea who brought down the Towers.  I have no idea how they brought down the Towers.  We have some sort of idea.  They have found thermitic material.  Four different people on the day of 9/11 collected the dust after the buildings were brought down.  And they sent it to a physicist from BYU and he tested it and found active thermitic material, highly energetic.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:56:51):  “Yeah.  That’s still incendiary, even in the dust.  They’ve lit pieces of these little, tiny—”

Abby Martin (c. 1:56:55):  “And it explodes.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:56:57):  “Yeah and they incinerate.  So, you can’t discount that they found that in the dust.  If you want to try to debunk that, you have to actually question other things.  Like, well who, what’s the chain of custody with the dust.  Where’d they get the dust from?  But the fact that it was found in the dust that Steven Jones has, you would basically have to say that he put it there.  You can’t debunk it by saying that it’s something else he’s finding.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:57:27):  “And it’s been peer-reviewed.  It’s been published in a scientific journal.  So, now it’s not even up for debate.  Everyone should be demanding that we work backwards just like a crime scene.  We now have evidence, hard evidence, that’s been peer-reviewed in a scientific journal that there was active thermitic material, found, that is incendiary.”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:57:44):  “Yeah, that there was incendiary chemical that shouldn’t be found in building debris.  That alone, I don’t even think it’s necessary to try to, I mean, I just think that alone is enough to—”

Abby Martin (c. 1:57:57):  “Re-open investigation about the buildings collapsing?” 

Robbie Martin (c. 1:57:59):  “Yeah.”

Abby Martin (c. 1:58:01):  “And we’re just gonna go through extremely basic facts why we question the official story about the building collapses.  One is the fact that they fell at near freefall speeds.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah, and I think saying that they fell, literally, at freefall speed is a slight exaggeration.  They did not.  They fell slightly slower than freefall speed.  But they still fell way faster than they should have.  And also debunkers will say, ‘Well, the ‘pile driver,’ the weight of the quote ‘pile driver,’ of the upper floors pushing down on the lower floors caused it to cascade and collapse at an extremely high rate, except there’s a flaw with that theory.  You actually have to imagine and speculate.  You have to speculate that there is a ‘pile driver’ there because you don’t see one.  A cloud of dust is enveloping the bottom floor of the building.  It’s not a solid block that you can actually see with your eyes.  If anything, to me, it looks like a cloud of debris falling down.  I don’t see anything that resembles a solid pile driver-like effect happening whatsoever.  But there will be debunkers who will use their own speculation and go out on a limb and say, ‘Well, there’s clearly a pile driver there.’”

Abby Martin (c. 1:59:12):  “‘There has to be.’”

Robbie Martin (c. 1:59:13):  “They use kind of their speculative abilities, speculative leap and say, ‘Well, there had to be a pile driver to cause it to crush the lower floors,’ where you can’t actually visibly see one.  So, it’s interesting the way the debunkers have to resort to speculation to hold up their own theories.”

Abby Martin:  “Well, what’s interesting is let’s say there was a pile driver.”

Robbie Martin:  “Okay.”

Abby Martin:  “Let’s just speculate that there was and agree with the debunkers.  So, these buildings, two tallest buildings at the time the architect of the buildings, a Japanese guy, said that they were built to withstand numerous jet blows.  And then Frank DeMartini, the construction manager, said that the buildings were built like the mesh grid, like the mesh screen on you front door.  That’s how intense the steel grid was.  He said a plane hitting it would simply be like sticking a pencil through one of the tiny holes on a screen door.  So, let’s say that there was a pile driver.  These buildings were built specifically to hold up the weight of the buildings.”

Robbie Martin (c. 2:00:14):  “Well, they were the tallest buildings at the time.”

Abby Martin (c. 2:00:17):  “Right.  The bottom third of these two structures were meant to hold up twice their weight.  That’s what they’d always done.  So, you’re telling me that even if there were a pile driver, how on Earth did it crush something, like, that was designed to hold up twice its weight and obliterate it into fine powder?”

Robbie Martin (c. 2:00:36):  “I could maybe see something like a few floors collapsing in on themselves.

“Another thing I’ve noticed debunkers do when referring to the Twin Towers is in the same way a little bit over-zealous 9/11 Truthers say that the Towers absolutely fell at exactly freefall speed, one of my friends, who kind of debunks the controlled demolition stuff, he kind of falls almost on the complete other speculative end by saying that the buildings took like 15 seconds to fall because what he’s doing is he’s watching the dust cloud settle.  And he’s kind of using his own imagination to imagine that the buildings are still standing behind there and they haven’t fallen yet until you literally see nothing there.  My problem with that is you can see the rate of speed, at which they’re falling.  So, I just mentally assume, and visually by watching, that they keep continually falling at that same rate.”

Abby Martin:  “That’s called grasping at straws.”

Robbie Martin (c. 2:01:31):  “Well, it is.  It is.  I do think it’s a little bit of going out on a limb.  He claims he’s very skeptically-minded, though, but I do think he tends to resort to speculation himself to prove his own theories.”   

Abby Martin:  “Absolutely.  The official story is that the floors pancaked onto each other.  Okay, let’s think about that—a pancake collapse.  That means that the floors, first of all, the floors would have to, the steel columns, the intricate steel columns in the middle of each acre-floor surrounded by a mesh steel grid.  Let’s say that they all failed simultaneously, all at once.  Okay?  That the fire had just weakened all of them at once and they all just collapsed.  Okay.  So, a floor hitting another floor, let’s say that takes one second.  How tall were the buildings, 110 stories?  You’re telling me that the floors fell onto each other, one floor at a time, crushing the ones below and it took ten seconds?”

Robbie Martin (c. 2:02:27):  “Yeah, I mean, that’s what they want you to believe.  That’s what most people seem to accept.”

Abby Martin:  “To believe the rate at which these buildings fell and the fact that they fell into the path of most resistance, the resistance that’s been designed to hold up that weight shows to me that matter would have to be removed before the falling debris, in order for that rate or the velocity of the buildings falling.  The floors would seriously, there would have to be matter removed before the falling debris in order for that velocity to have occurred.  That’s just like basic logic.  I mean just remove any emotion that you have toward this event and just seriously watch video footage of the buildings falling and tell me, first of all, if it looks like they’re exploding, second of all, how fast they fall and if they fall in a way that just doesn’t make sense.”

Robbie Martin (c. 2:03:22):  “Yeah, that goes back to my initial reaction on the day of 9/11 is I thought it looked so good that it looked better than any Hollywood movie special effect I’d ever seen as far as how perfect it fell.  I mean, it was unnatural to how it fell.  This, to me, is part of the problem with controlled demolition theories is that for every claim, it’s like for every action there’s a reaction.  People can argue about this all day.  And that’s why I think it’s not even necessary to focus in on this when you wanna show someone why the 9/11 official story is completely made up.”

Abby Martin (c. 2:04:02):  “‘Cos it’s so technical and we’ve done so much research on it that I feel really comfortable talking to people about it.  But a lot of people are so, just like, ‘I’m not an expert. I’m not an architect. I’m not an engineer. I have no, like, professional perspective.’”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah.  And I’m not even emotional about this when I talk about this anymore.  I probably should be because it’s so awful.”

Abby Martin:  “You can’t argue with people who are coming with emotion because it’s never gonna be on the same level.  And if you look at pictures of Ground Zero, the steel looks like confetti.  All the steel’s, like, perfectly cut into, like, blocks ready to just be shipped to China.  It was like Ground Zero was cleaned up immediately.  The steel was just cut perfectly, just put on trucks, shipped to China.  And Ground Zero just looks like nothing.  There’s nothing there.  Where the hell did 110 stories of furniture, people, equipment, concrete, steel, where did it go?  It is completely gone.  If a building is pancaking down it would contain the contents.  They would be contained within the floors.  There’s nothing there.  You look at Ground Zero.  It’s just powder and paper.”

Robbie Martin (c. 2:05:15):  “And there’s a lot of other interesting things that aren’t directly related to the controlled demolitions, but just about the buildings themselves.  For instance, Controlled Demolition, Incorporated and I think maybe it was either FEMA or Controlled Demolition, Incorporated on television the night of 9/11 they were asked by the reporter, ‘How long have you been here during the cleanup?’  And the guy admitted, ‘Oh, we’ve been here since last night because we were performing a drill.’  So, the clean-up crew already happened to be there the night before.”

Abby Martin:  “What a coincidence theory.”

Robbie Martin:  “Okay, another thing is that Giuliani was supposed to use the City budget to get fire-fighters new radios that could communicate through, penetrate more thick substances, and communicate over farther distances.  He should be criminally charged with negligence for not allocating that City money to those radios because if the fire-fighters from on the ground saw one of the towers collapsing, they would have been able to radio into the other tower and say, ‘Get out of the tower immediately. The other tower has collapsed. You gotta get out of there.’  They weren’t able to do that.  They couldn’t radio the people in the tower because the radios weren’t good enough.”

Abby Martin (c. 2:06:21):  “Not to mention Christine Whitman, the head of the EPA told everyone that it was safe to breathe, even though they knew that the buildings were full of asbestos.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah.  They wanted to open up Wall Street and get that gold under the World Trade Center.”

Abby Martin:  “They wanted to get us shopping and spending money.  ‘Get the gold, baby!’  Yeah, think about what it was.  It was a pulverised building full of asbestos and, like, poisonous material.”

Robbie Martin:  “And even if you believe the official story, Cheney should be charged with criminal negligence, negligent homicide, because he knew there was an attack imminent after the first Tower got hit.  He knew there was an attack on the Pentagon coming because they had gotten these warnings.  Especially, it is absolutely proven that he knew an attack on the Pentagon was coming because Norman Mineta was witness to him being told about it and he didn’t issue an evacuation order.  That’s really amoral.  All he had to do was just call and say, ‘Get out of the Pentagon. Evacuate it.’”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah.  It shows you that they just wanted people to die, really.  They didn’t evacuate the towers.  They didn’t evacuate the Pentagon.

“Before we move on from the Twin Towers, though, I just wanted to say really quickly, the National Institute of Standards and Technology was an official government agency that was assigned to write their report about the World Trade Center collapses.  But what’s really interesting is that they only explain up to the collapse initiation.  They do not explain the total collapse and they do not explain the speed of the collapse.  They just plug the information.  And they got their black box model explaining why the collapse was initiated and that’s it.  That’s the end of the report.”

Robbie Martin (c. 2:07:54):  “And there were also other really funny things that they did.  You can find video of them shooting off with his shotgun the fire-proofing from the columns because they wanted to try to emulate the theory that the foregone conclusion that they needed to prove in their minds, which was the plane hitting the building knocked all the fireproofing off of the columns.  So, they had to, in turn, knock off all the fireproofing on the columns themselves to get the results to even remotely resemble the end conclusion.”

Abby Martin:  “And with the shotgun they would shoot each section and be like, ‘See?  The fireproofing is coming out—”

Robbie Martin:  “But what’s funny is that the building, even the floor model that they constructed, the miniature model, didn’t even act how it was supposed to.  It did not buckle or react in the way that they wanted to at all, even after they knocked all the fireproofing off of the column.  So, there’s so many glaring flaws in that report.  And, yeah, they even came up with a new form of physics to explain how World Trade Center Building 7 collapsed after like five different variations they released. 

“Now, they say that it collapsed from some sort of new phenomenon called thermal expansion, which basically creates a virtual explosion inside of a building.  They tried to describe it as almost like the building’s a bubble and it’s been filled up with energy and it has no choice but to collapse.

“I think, when it comes to the buildings, all people should really do is watch Building 7 falling.  And if they don’t find it curious or peculiar, then move on.  I mean you’re not going to be, it such an extreme thing to try to get someone to believe that if you can’t convince someone by what we’ve just talked about, then you’re probably not going to be able to convince them.”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah.  People have a lot of emotions still about this event and you cannot argue with someone who’s arguing with emotion.”

Robbie Martin:  “It’s very hard to believe for a lot of people that the Government would have been willing to kill 3,000 of their own citizens.”

Abby Martin:  “Even though we have no problems or qualms about killing millions around the world.”

Robbie Martin:  “Yeah.  And I think that that shows that people are still kind of stuck under that idea that the American Government establishment is out to protect the American citizenry, which is not true at all.  I mean we’ve seen with Hurricane Katrina.  We’ve seen with so many things that have happened.  Just from the Bush and Obama Administrations that they are absolutely not.  The Obama Administration is trying to figure out ways to execute Julian Assange under the Espionage Act.  It’s pretty disturbing.”

Abby Martin (c. 2:10:04):  “And I know that we’ve been speculating a little bit, as we go over all this evidence.  But a lot of people have, we’ve talked about a lot of people who try to debunk you or demand that you offer some sort of alternative or alternate hypothesis or alternate narrative that fits all the information you’re contradicting the official story with.  But what’s interesting is that immediately when you do start to speculate ‘cos it’s almost, like, demanded of you, and they pigeonhole you.  And they’re just like, ‘Well who did it? Why? What were their motives?’  It’s almost like when you start to, they’ll just be like, ‘Well, you’re speculating.’”

Robbie Martin:  “Well, they always demand that you speculate and then get mad at people who speculate.”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah.”

Robbie Martin:  “So, you can’t have it both ways, man.  It’s like if you’re gonna try to argue with me about 9/11, when you ask me questions that are ridiculously unknowable like that then that is speculation.  You’re asking me to speculate.”

Abby Martin:  “Exactly.  And so, yeah, it just goes back to the point that we don’t have to speculate.  All we need to do is point out the glaring inconsistencies and holes.  Yeah, we need to ask questions and demand answers.  A lot of people say, ‘Occam’s razor, the simplest explanation is usually the right one.’  You’re like, ‘Well, okay, the simplest explanation to me would be that our Government executed a military operation to pursue goals.  That’s what they do every day.”

Robbie Martin (c. 2:11:32):  “Yeah.  And to claim that the 9/11 official story fits into the Occam’s razor paradigm is laughable because it basically you have to believe in a hundred coincidences all fired like a Rube Goldberg device like all one right after another for it all to take place perfectly.  And I’m not even talking about the buildings right now.  I’m talking about just the attacks themselves, how they were carried out.  Occam’s razor does not include a ridiculous coincidence theory in it.”

Abby Martin:  “Yeah.  I mean, the simplest explanation is definitely not the official story.  How was the simplest explanation the fact that a hundred coincidences all happen simultaneously?  That’s not simple at all.  That’s actually really difficult for me to wrap my mind around.  That is way more unbelievable to me.

“And, you know, after 9/11, there’s a gigantic chilling effect we saw in the media—Bill Maher, Dan Rather talking about, you know, everyone just had to go along with things.”

Robbie Martin (c. 2:12:31):  “He talks about how it was like the climate after 9/11 was like in Africa when they put like a burning tire around the neck of like a political dissenter to try to show the rest of society don’t do what he did.  And that’s what happened to several reporters and people after 9/11.  Phil Donahue was one of the most outspoken critics against our Military plans.  He was on MSNBC, the now quote-unquote ‘Liberal’ MSNBC network.  He had his own show.  And he was quickly removed from his own show because he was too controversial.  He was speaking too much truth.  

“Bill Maher said on ‘Politically Incorrect,’ he was, kind of, rejecting that mantra that you heard that this was the most cowardly attack ever on our country.  In his mind, he didn’t think 19 people, all willing to commit suicide was very cowardly.  It was actually pretty intense.  He was just like, ‘These people weren’t cowards. They were just really crazy.’  I think he was saying something like that, trying to make that point.  But that was too offensive for the people at ABC, so they fired him.”

Abby Martin (c. 2:13:38):  “Yeah.  I mean, just think about the propaganda and like the mindfuck that was going on after 9/11.  All people need to do is look at the RNC, that montage showing the hyping up, the fear-mongering three years after the attack, still; I mean, it’s just disgusting how many times they used 9/11 and terrorism over and over again.  People don’t remember that, but I really encourage people to go back and look at some of this footage because it’s really shocking.”

MONTAGE

Audio of G.W. Bush:  “In the heart of this great city we saw tragedy arrive on a quiet morning.

“September the 11^th. 

“September the 11^th.

“September the 11^th. 

Audio of unidentified male:  “September 11^th.” 

Audio of unidentified male Y:  “September 11^th.”

Audio of unidentified male Z:  “September 11^th.”

Audio of unidentified male A:  “September 11^th.”

Audio of unidentified male B:  “ “

Audio of unidentified male C: “ “

Audio of unidentified male D: “ “

Audio of unidentified male E: “ “

Audio of unidentified female:  “September 11^th.”

“September the 11^th. 

Audio of unidentified male F: “ “

Audio of unidentified male G: “ “

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Audio of unidentified male N: “ “

Audio of unidentified male O: “ “

Audio of unidentified male P: “ “

Audio of unidentified male Q:  “September 11^th, 2001.” 

“Poison gas.”

“Torture chambers.”

“Mass graves.”

“Deadly technologies.”

Audio of G.W. Bush:  “The radical ideology of hate.”

Female:  “Terror of threats.”

“Terror.”

Bush:  “Terror.”

“Terror.”

“War on terrorism.”

“War against terrorism.”

"Global war on terror.”

“Global terrorism.”

“Global terrorism.”

“Global terrorism.”

“Global terrorism.”

“Global terrorism.”

“Global terrorism.”

“Global terrorism.”

“Global terrorism.”

“Terrorism.”

“Terrorism.”

“Terrorism.”

“Terrorism.”

“Terrorism.”

“Terrorism.”

“Terrorism.”

“Terrorism.”

“Terrorism.”

“Terrorism.”

“The evil terrorists.”

“Terrorists.”

[Etcetera]

Robbie Martin:  “I mean they tried to bury and discredit everyone who was questioning the 9/11 official story at the time.  I think even Michael Moore, on the day of 9/11, he was saying things like, ‘there is no terrorist threat. This is not valid.’  And he quickly back-pedaled on that as time went on ‘cos I think he realised that he saw that climate happening and he realised that if he went more down that road, he was gonna be totally ruined.  So, he had to kind of walk that line.”

Abby Martin (c. 2:15:59):  “And, you know, we wanted to wrap up the show by just talking about the chilling effect how it really got penetrated into the American people and our politicians in Government was with the Anthrax attacks.  And we’re gonna actually do a second part of this show where we just go over the Anthrax Attacks and what the implications are of that and what it did to the psyche of the American people.”

Robbie Martin:  “We don’t think that 9/11 on its own was responsible for all of these after effects that have happened to America since 9/11.  It required the Anthrax Attacks to really push it over the edge because the 9/11 attacks themselves were localised.  They happened in certain areas.  It did scare pretty much everybody into wanting to fly.  That had that effect on the populace.  But what anthrax is it made everybody scared to go get their mail, which is something everybody had to do on a daily basis.  So, now any little housewife, old lady, guy who lives in the middle of nowhere in the Sierra Nevadas can be killed by a terrorist.  It was really trying to drive it home to the American people.  And that’s why we think that this is so important that we need to spend at least a whole ‘nother episode talking about anthrax.”

Abby Martin:  “Absolutely.  And I hope that you guys learned a little bit.  And I really encourage everyone to check out Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, if you wanna find out any more hard facts or look at any expert testimony about the building collapses and really get to the bare bones of that—AE911Truth.org, also, Pilots for 9/11 Truth.”

Robbie Martin:  “HistoryCommons.org, which holds the 9/11 Timeline by Paul Thompson.”

Abby Martin:  “WantToKnow.info, it’s a really good site as well.  And MediaRoots.org.  Check out MediaRoots.org.  And check out the Soundcloud timeline to go over all the resources and music played and talked about during the show.”

Robbie Martin:  “And if you want some documentation about 9/11 that you can’t find on the net, I recommend the books:  Crossing the Rubicon by Mike Ruppert.  9/11 Synthetic Terror by Webster Tarpley, that’s a little bit more on the speculative end, but it’s still filled with great information.  Also, Debunking 9/11 Debunking by David Griffin is great.” 

Abby Martin:  “All of David Griffin’s books are excellent.  I haven’t read his new one.  But, yeah, Debunking 9/11 Debunking was definitely the most thorough, just clear cut case where he just debunks all the official reports.  And it’s just mind-blowing.

“And 9/11 is so important.  It’s so, so important because if it weren’t for 9/11, we would not be openly torturing.  We would not be openly assassinating American citizens abroad.  We would not be engaged fully in this fake, manufactured, ‘War on Terrorism.’  We wouldn’t be engaged immorally and illegally in two countries and going after other countries in the Middle East.  We would not be eradicating civil liberties.  We wouldn’t have the Homeland Security.  We wouldn’t have these agencies.   We wouldn’t be propping up our Military apparatus by the trillions.”

Robbie Martin:  “We wouldn’t have naked body scanners at airports.”

Abby Martin:  “This all goes back to 9/11.  And people just need to contextualise 9/11 and realise the impact that it had, and that it continues to have, in our country and in our world.  And that’s why we wanted to do this episode to try to shed some light and sift through this information and really go over the hard evidence.  So, thank you so much for listening, you guys. 

“Definitely tune in to the episode where we go over the Anthrax case.  And don’t forget to donate to MediaRoots.org, if you wanna continue to see these broadcasts be produced.  Thank you very much.  Check out our Soundcloud timeline to go over all the facts and music.  And visit MediaRoots.org.  And thanks so much for your support, bye.”

Robbie Martin:  “Thanks for listening everybody.  Have a good one.”

***

Transcript by Felipe Messina

Photo by flickr user Animation Concept

***

Check out our follow up episode about the Anthrax Attacks, From the Memory hole.

MEDIA ROOTS — Americans currently suffer from one of history's most successful propaganda campaigns. We are often distracted, numbed and herded into behaviors, thought patterns and policies that don't serve our own interests, much less the interests of an endangered democracy.

Too often we are unconsciously manipulated by advertising ploys.  As a result, Americans succumb to the mundane: to mindlessly consume while paying attention to reality television.  Little do we realize how we are being controlled and steered away from actively participating in our democracy.   

Occupy Wall Street fights for the freedom that many of us are too apathetic to protect as we occupy our couches in front of our TV sets.  However, there are cracks appearing in the foundation beneath The Powers That Be, and if we are to seize this as an opportunity to better humanity, it will require adapting to an entirely new mindset. First, however, we must seek to fully understand how we got here.

Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform gives an excellent analysis to some of the complex issues plaguing American society, culture, and politics.

MR

***

The Burning Platform — The erroneous notion that Americans have a choice between two political parties that offer distinct and clear opposing policies addressing the major issues facing our country is still perpetuated by politicians and the corporate media. It is untrue, as we have seen the Obama administration employ the same repressive methods instituted by the Bush administration. Military spending rises. Wars of choice proliferate and grow. Obamacare is virtually identical to a plan created by the leading GOP presidential nominee. Further restrictions, regulations and laws are put forth to keep the masses controlled, sedated and fearful. The governing elite and their propagators of misinformation are again formulating a false storyline to convince the easily fooled ignorant public that a sovereign country 7,500 miles from our shores is actually a threat to their lives. While our government has already committed acts of war against Iran (sanctions, assassinations, cyber warfare, and using drones to spy), the public is being worked into a bloodthirsty frenzy of nationalism. Bipartisanship worked so well with Iraq. How could it possibly go wrong with Iran?                      

In the last six months cracks have begun appearing in the fascist façade masquerading as a democratic republic. The rise of the Occupy Movement, increasing pain and discontent among the middle class, a small but vocal irate minority utilizing the internet to organize, inform and spread knowledge, and the growing support among the liberty minded for Ron Paul’s candidacy are the opening salvos in a coming revolution. The volleys being traded between the forces of the American aristocratic elite and the leading forces of this revolution are only the opening shots on par with Bunker Hill. The oligarchs have won the initial skirmishes with the Occupy Movement through their control of superior mercenary fire power and ability to falsify the message and nature of the protestors. The corporate mass media propaganda machine convinced an apathetic, non critical thinking public the protestors were nothing but dirty, lazy, college students looking for government handouts organized and led by George Soros. Journalist Robert Fisk reveals the true nature of the protests and rage:

“And that is the true parallel in the West. The protest movements are indeed against Big Business – a perfectly justified cause – and against “governments”. What they have really divined, however, albeit a bit late in the day, is that they have for decades bought into a fraudulent democracy: they dutifully vote for political parties – which then hand their democratic mandate and people’s power to the banks and the derivative traders and the rating agencies, all three backed up by the slovenly and dishonest coterie of “experts” from America’s top universities and “think tanks”, who maintain the fiction that this is a crisis of globalization rather than a massive financial con trick foisted on the voters.

The banks and the rating agencies have become the dictators of the West. Like the Mubaraks and Ben Alis, the banks believed – and still believe – they are owners of their countries. The elections which give them power have – through the gutlessness and collusion of governments – become as false as the polls to which the Arabs were forced to troop decade after decade to anoint their own national property owners. Goldman Sachs and the Royal Bank of Scotland became the Mubaraks and Ben Alis of the US and the UK, each gobbling up the people’s wealth in bogus rewards and bonuses for their vicious bosses on a scale infinitely more rapacious than their greedy Arab dictator-brothers could imagine.” – Robert Fisk, Bankers are the Dictators of the West

The mounting desperation of the oligarchs is palpable. They have circled the wagons as one of their leaders – Jon Corzine – was caught stealing $1.2 billion directly from the accounts of his customers after making reckless bets that went wrong and bankrupted his firm. The Department of Homeland Security coordinated brutality unleashed upon peaceful protestors in cities across America opened the eyes of more people to the approach of an increasingly oppressive state. The media lapdogs have come out in force with an organized smear campaign designed to derail the presidential campaign of Ron Paul, the only candidate talking about real change and a real downsizing of the American empire. Ron Paul’s platform of liberty, freedom, non-interventionism, sound money, and a government not controlled by bankers and corporate interests is anathema to the ruling elite of both parties. A vote for one of the hand selected candidates offered by the moneyed interests is simply a vote for the special interest status quo. As our economic system becomes more saturated with debt by the day a tipping point approaches.

Read more about the great American deception.

© 2012 The Burning Platform

***

Photo by flickr user AZRainman

“The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

Article II, Section 4, U.S. Constitution

MEDIA ROOTS – Those who feel there is something terribly wrong with the influence of the federal government today must not revert to placing blame on a single party.  Attention must be shifted instead to the bigger picture: the actual offices that are now predominantly owned by the corporate elite.  While some individuals are occasionally elected to legitimately serve their constituents, most are obedient to only those with access to money and power.  The most powerful political office on Earth is of no exception.

Twenty-Five Years of Impeachment Attempts Stop with Obama

There have consistently been attempts made by members of Congress to initiate impeachment hearings for each of the previous four presidential administrations.  President Reagan’s involvement in the Iran Contra affair led to a congressional inquiry in the summer of 1987, while both Presidents George H. W. and George W. Bush unlawfully declared war with Iraq, among other charges, which resulted in separate calls for impeachment.  Even President Clinton was accused of having illegally accepted campaign funds from foreign sources months before anyone heard of Monica Lewinsky.

However, today’s Commander-in-Chief does not face investigation from any legislative representative and there are no real calls to impeach from the mainstream press.  To the utterly disillusioned, this could signify that America has finally elected an honest leader.  But to those who are more attentive, it is apparent that something else must be protecting President Obama from public scrutiny.

It is a constitutional paradox to believe that President Obama remains fit to preside as President of the United States.  After enslaving future taxpayers by endorsing corporate bailouts, continuing unlawful occupations and covert warfare in sovereign nations, and signing the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 into law which may suspend Americans’ most basic constitutional privileges, this president continues to operate unchecked in an unbalanced system.  Only those who are ignorant of the Constitution, and the oath taken to defend it, continue to approve of Obama’s job performance.  The impeachment of President Barack Obama is now supported by over a million petition signers online.

Why No Calls for Obama’s Impeachment?

Phillip II, King of Macedon and father of Alexander the Great, is credited with coining the phrase “divide et impera.”  Literally defined as “divide and rule,” modern society has adapted the colloquialism to “divide and conquer.”  All masters since Alexander the Great have understood that to maintain superiority, divisions must be fostered among the masses; increased divisions lead to increased dominion.

Race has always been a natural divider of peoples along with age and gender.  Contemporary divisions also include specific political priorities to further separate individuals which might otherwise unite.  In America, items such as abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research have been used by corporate media to protect a corporate government and maintain corporate control.  It has become increasingly clear during the recent GOP debates that the media establishment continues to avoid discussing real issues such as those concerning the military-industrial complex.

Political partisanship might be the primary contributor for the lack of impeachment proceedings in this presidency.  A recent poll revealed that the majority of Democrats continue to support the President despite his continual disregard for the Constitution.  But with nine out of ten Republicans disapproving of who has been called the most polarizing president in American history, the question remains: why have there not been any attempts made to push for his removal?

An Intellectually Removed American Populace

The mainstream press, historically referred to as America’s fourth branch of government for their duty to hold the other three accountable, seems to increasingly ignore its moral compass.  While individual reporters and editors may attempt to seek justice, the fact remains that nearly all major outlets are controlled by executives whom possess virtually no interest in the advancement of democracy.  Profits supersede duty, resulting in an establishment that is seemingly no longer held accountable.  This leaves a citizenry that is either naïve or desensitized to the criminalities of the federal government.

The conglomeration of mass media outlets by the same corporate interests that fund political campaigns might be why there have not been many journalistic investigations into the largest atrocities of this generation.  Particularly during times of war, the Commander-in-Chief must be held under the microscope.  Because of the revolving door between the corporate media and the federal government, American society remains splintered, uninformed, and disenfranchised.

While the impeachment of President Obama will most likely not occur before the end of this year, his re-election is of popular debate.  His flagrant criminal acts are not only on par with those of President George W. Bush, his continuations and escalations of Bush-era policies are reasons why President Obama must not be re-elected.

Oskar Mosquito is a contributing writer for Media Roots and a producer for truth-march.

Photo by Flickr user Allesio85.

MEDIA ROOTS — Film director Michael Winterbottom has adapted best-selling author Naomi Klein’s book Shock Doctrine in an excellent feature documentary.  Winterbottom, who has directed such films as Welcome to Sarajevo, The Road to Guantanamo and Code 46, produces a compelling treatment of Klein’s book.

The shock doctrine thesis maintains elites have taken draconian shock therapy ‘treatments’ (inflicted upon individual psychiatric patients during the 20^th century) and applied them economically, politically, and psychologically to nations where leaders have exploited crises in order to push through elite policies against the interests of the people.  

The film also takes a look at U.S. imperialism and its consequences for humanity.  If you haven’t heard of it, it’d be no surprise.  This is not the kind of film corporate America loves to promote.

Messina

***

The Shock Doctrine directed by Michael Winterbottom

“The thesis of the shock doctrine is that we’ve been sold a fairy tale about how these radical policies have swept the globe, that they haven’t swept the globe on the backs of freedom and democracy, that they have needed shock.  They have needed crises.  They have needed states of emergencies. 

“Milton Friedman understood the utility of crisis.  ‘Only a crisis, actual or perceived, produces real change.  When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.’” —Naomi Klein

***

Photo by Flickr user david_shankbone

MEDIA ROOTS — The enduring U.S. quest for security, or police state repression, truly knows no bounds.  If your community hasn’t been surveilled by Obama’s drones yet, it'll be coming soon to a protest near you.  In addition to Obama's expansive global drone killing apparatus, Congress passed a bill earlier this week opening the US skies to unmanned drone surveillance for domestic military and police operations.

Already, police are using facial recognition technology to target and banish individuals from community political activities, as reported by Occupy Oakland.  Now, with the use of unmanned drones conducting constant aerial surveillance, the chilling effect against political dissent will continue to grow, as privacy becomes even more obsolete.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) describes what this means for the privacy of American citizens:

“Unfortunately, nothing in the bill would address the very serious privacy issues raised by drone aircraft. This bill would push the nation willy-nilly toward an era of aerial surveillance without any steps to protect the traditional privacy that Americans have always enjoyed and expected... We don’t want to wonder, every time we step out our front door, whether some eye in the sky is watching our every move.” 

Democracy Now! reports further:

“The Senate has approved a $63 billion spending bill to fund the Federal Aviation Administration for the next four years. Part of the bill will make it easier for domestic law enforcement agencies to obtain and use pilot-less surveillance drones inside the United States. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the bill would require the FAA to allow police agencies to operate any drone weighing 4.4 pounds or less under certain conditions.”

MR

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Alex Jones on RT discusses domestic surveillance drones

Updated 10 Feb 2012 -FM

***

Photo by Flickr user JimNTexas

MEDIA ROOTS — The 2012 GOP primary debates have given people many things to make fun of—and worry about.  Bill Maher, along with other comics, has poked fun at GOP candidates’ risky remarks regarding foreign policy.  Abby Martin, of Media Roots, joins RT in their DC studio to discuss what this means for the U.S. people.

MR

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Abby Martin is interviewed live in DC on RT TV

MEDIA ROOTS — Among the lot of what is being starved under Obama’s junk economics austerity, schools are being underfunded and then attacked for struggling to perform academically.  Economic hitmen then move in to push the privatizations and the underlying attacks on labour, particularly since teachers are among the last segments of the workforce that are still organized.

MR

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The War Against the OEA and Oakland Public Education 

A report by retired OEA leader Jack Gerson

***

Photo by flickr user Abdulrahman.stock

The above timeline is interactive. Scroll through it to find out more about the show's music and to resources mentioned during the broadcast. To see a larger version of the timeline with clickable resources go to the soundcloud link below the player.

If you would like to directly download the podcast click the down arrow icon on the right of the soundcloud display. To hide the comments to enable easier rewind and fast forward, click on the icon on the very bottom right.

This Media Roots podcast is the product of many long hours of hard work and love. If you want to encourage our voice, please consider supporting us as we continue to speak from outside party lines. If you donate, we want to thank you with your choice of art from AbbyMartin.org as well as music from RecordLabelRecords.org. Much of the music you hear on our podcasts comes from Robbie's imprint Record Label Records, and Abby's art reflects the passion and perspective that lead her to create Media Roots.org.

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Even the smallest donations are appreciated and help us with our operating costs.

Thanks so much for your support!

Listen to a live broadcast from the Historical Occupy Oakland General Strike from November 2, 2011, another broadcast about Democrats' Wars, Hypocrisy & Spin, Fake Terror, or an Interview with Former Senator, Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel.

MEDIA ROOTS — Graffiti Philosophy is a video collage illustrating sociopolitical commentary in the renegade art form of graffiti.  It traverses class warfare, suffering, consumerism and mass media indoctrination, industrial civilization's oil addiction, exploitation by Empire, environmental consequences of fossil fuels, and the fate of humanity.

"An artist's duty is to reflect the times." - Singer, poet and civil rights activist Nina Simone

MR

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Graffiti Philosophy

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I love how much art can illustrate about society and the world around us. Graffiti art is especially interesting to me because of the clarity it conveys in such a succinct fashion.  Also, political graffiti holds a lot of power to move people to action.  It was reported that graffiti helped spark and encourage the revolution in Syria, as well as Egypt and countries in South Asia.

"Graffiti Philosophy" is my attempt at illustrating the state of the world in which we currently live: one where an oligarchic-corporate empire has corrupted and usurped governments, destroyed worker's rights and wages, subverted the Fourth Estate, indoctrinated the population into a mindless and superficial consumer culture, built and instituted a police/surveillance state side-by-side with the military industrial complex, and hastened the environmental destruction of the planet. 

People across the world are suffering immensely, with their livelihoods in constant jeopardy.  The well-being of communities and families is in perpetual danger and under constant threat, and the officials we continue to elect from the same corrupt two-party system, beholden to Wall Street interests, only pay lip service to their campaign promises.

From the moment in which we wake until we fall asleep, we are inundated with corporate media spin and propaganda.  It's near impossible for the average citizen on the street to discern the truth without taking a proactive approach in searching for independent, impartial news sources.  

However, the facade seems to be breaking as more people come to the realization that their so-called democracy is only an illusion, especially in North America. They call it virtual politics in Eastern Europe.  The truth has become a fungible commodity – replaceable and changeable for whatever purpose suits the moneyed elite.  

How can civilization survive when the truth is buried and the decisions for society are based upon the delusional, self-serving beliefs of the American ruling-class?  With the continued advancement of modern technology and man's ability to destroy humanity multiple times over, this question becomes ever more pressing. 

Written by Mike Longenecker for Media Roots

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MEDIA ROOTS — You’ve likely heard of Scott Olsen, the Iraq War veteran shot in the head by a police tear gas canister at point blank range during the nationwide crackdown on the Occupy Movement.  The tragic event transformed him into an international symbol of police brutality, and it continues to be an important story signifying state repression. 

Yet, you probably haven’t heard of Kenneth Harding.  His story wasn’t featured on Democracy Now! and was scarcely covered in the progressive press.  However, the story of Kenneth Harding is as tragic and damning as that of Scott Olsen, Oscar Grant, Rodney King, or any number of people who have experienced the raw fist and boot of the US police state.

Kenneth Harding is another U.S. citizen dishonoured by his nation who was gunned down in cold blood by S.F. police this past summer.  S.F. police then blocked anyone from offering the gasping and dying Harding first aid as he bled to death before a crowd of hundreds left in aghast. 

Harding's mother spoke with "The Morning Mix with JR" on KPFA last week to talk about an event she was organising to raise awareness around the murder of her son and push for an investigation to bring the killer cops to justice.  (See transcript below.) 

In another related story of unwarranted police killing, another man was recently brutally gunned down in Monterey Park, CA outside of a restaurant by one of a swarm of cops apprehending the man who had broken some windows with a metal bar.  Instead of collectively overpowering the man with their bare hands or waiting for back-up, one murderous cop lunges forward and shoots him, point blank, almost ten times, completely unprovoked, leaving Steven Rodriguez dead. 

In story after story, cops seems to be malfunctioning, losing their cool with their weapons, degenerating into wanton murder.  Unwarranted police aggression and their use of deadly force over the decades, poorly covered by corporate media, has conditioned many in the U.S. to seemingly accept and condone such lawlessness from police forces.

As the corporate media parroted police disinformation surrounding the Kenneth Harding story, the San Francisco Bayview National Black Newspaper documented the events from a grassroots perspective:

“When police stopped a teenager stepping off the T-train yesterday [16 Jul 2011] to show his transfer as proof he’d paid his fare – $2 at most – he ran from them. They shot him as many as 10 times in the back and neck, according to witnesses. For many long minutes, as a crowd watched in horror, the boy, who had fallen to the sidewalk a block away, lay in a quickly growing pool of blood writhing in pain and trying to lift himself up as the cops trained their guns on him and threatened bystanders.”

One M.D.s Letter to the SF Examiner Editor wrote: 

“I take exception to reports describing Kenneth Harding lying dead on the Bayview sidewalk. I have reviewed at least five videos which document him laying face down in a pool of blood and arching his neck in an attempt to breathe.

San Francisco police officers are trained in CPR, emergency airway management and first aid. A simple and humane maneuver might have been to simply roll him over on his back and apply a compression dressing to the wound in his neck.”

—Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, M.D. San Francisco

Kenneth Harding "laying face down in a pool of blood and arching his neck in an attempt to breathe."

Attorney for Harding’s family, Adante Pointer, discussed the glaring contradictions between “police department’s shifting stories” about the murder of Kenneth Harding by police and the accounts of hundreds of witnesses, many of which tried to administer first aid or get help, but were kept at bay by silent, cocked-and-loaded, cops brandishing firepower.  No one wanted to be next in some of the most dramatic minutes of U.S. history since Oscar Grant was gunned down in cold blood by BART police. 

As expected, the murderer cop in that case, Johannes Mehserle, was not administered a punishment commensurate with the crime of murder.  Instead, he was given a slap on the wrist and a mere one year jail sentence.  In the case of Kenneth Harding's murder, we haven't even seen the names of the guilty cops.  But Kenneth Harding's mother continues to seek justice with the help of the SF Bayview community and independent, grassroots media to illuminate the struggle for justice around police terorrism.

***

THE MORNING MIX WITH JR — “You are listening to The Morning Mix.  Good morning ladies and gentleman.  I am your host, The Minister of Information, JR.  Today, we will be talking about the unjustified murder of unarmed young Black man, Kenneth Harding in San Francisco and the upcoming protest to shut down 3^rd Street in San Francisco this Sunday [22 Jan 2012].

“We’ll talk about the plight of the Black Farmers in California as well as the Black International Film Festival and the upcoming Carter G. Woodson Bowl, a.k.a. Black Jeopardy.  All of this after the news.”

JR (c. 7:05):  “We are back.  I am your host, the Minister of Information JR, for The Morning Mix.  Today, we will talk about the Carter G. Woodson Black History Bowl, a.k.a. Black Jeopardy.  We will talk about the Oakland International Film Festival.  We will also talk about the plight of the Black farmers in California.

“But, first, we need to address these unjustified police murders of unarmed people in the Black community all over the United States.

“Our next guest is the mother of Kenneth Harding, 19-year old unarmed Black man who was shot in mid-July [2011] over a $2 dollar bus transfer by the San Francisco Police Department.  We have his mother live in the studio today.  Her name is Denika Chatman.

“How are you Miss Denika?”

Denika Chatman (c. 7:58):  “I’m good.  Thank you for asking.”

JR (c. 8:00):  “Can you tell the people a little bit about your son, Kenneth Harding?  Who was Kenneth Harding before he was murdered by the San Francisco Police Department in such an atrocious way?”  

Denika Chatman (c. 8:12):  “My son was very filled with life.  He was the life of the party.  He could go anywhere and fit in.  He loved life.  And he was a college student, set to start college last fall.  He was an entertainer.  He was out here [in the S.F. Bay Area] trying to get his music out.  And he was very family oriented.  He loved his mother.  He loved his brother.  He loved his sister.  And he loved the Lord.”

JR (c. 8:45):  “Can you tell the people a little bit about what happened in the middle of July [2011].”

Denika Chatman (c. 8:51):  “Yes.  My son, Kenny, he was on a T-train in San Francisco, Muni Transit.  And the police, pretty much, racially profiled him, approached him, asked him to supply proof of purchase of transfer for being on the train.  And when he didn’t supply it, they removed him from the train where at that time he, just, had sat for a moment and then he took off running.  And while he was running, he was running with his hands up. 

“And they still shot him down and allowed him to lay in the streets for over 28 minutes while he bled out and died.  They wouldn’t allow the paramedics through to try to help him. 

“And, basically, I feel like he was ambushed because they came at him from two different directions over a $2 transit fare.

JR (c. 9:47):  “I just want to put it out there that this is on YouTube.  They can put Kenneth Harding into YouTube and this will come up.”

Denika Chatman (c. 9:56):  “That is correct.  There was over 150 people out there that day.  So, everybody pulled out their phones and started recording.  And that’s why there are so many videos of my son’s death on there.

“And I’ve never seen it.  I don’t want to see it.  But I do get the sympathy calls and support from everyone else who has seen them.”

JR (c. 10:19):  “What’s been going on since in the community of Hunter’s Point where this occurred?  What’s been going on since with people, such as Fly Benzo and Kilo and different people who support you?”

Denika Chatman (c. 10:33):  “That’s where the majority of my support comes from.  As far as Fly, him and his brother Pladee have been assaulted, hospitalised, incarcerated for speaking openly about what they witnessed on that day and for still speaking out in regards to it, which I don’t understand because there’s also a YouTube of what happened to Fly Benzo.  And I don’t understand why the courts won’t just use that as evidence and see what actually occurred on that day and that the police provoked all of this and just drop the charges. 

“And that’s why I endorse his campaign.  Free Fly Benzo.  His brother Pladee, he was assaulted as well. 

“Kilo Perry, the police have harassed him on several occasions; he has been incarcerated for speaking out for the murder of my son, for what he saw the police do.”     

JR (c. 11:29):  “Isn’t the San Francisco Police Department pushing charges that could result in Fly Benzo, otherwise known as Debray Carpenter, where he could be facing years in prison?”

Denika Chatman (c. 11:43):  “That is correct.  And I carry a lot of the guilt behind that because the battle he’s fighting is because he stood up for what he felt wasn’t right, the injustice done to my son.  And because of that he is looking at a lot of prison time.  And that’s why I’m fighting so hard for him on his side in solidarity because something has to be done.  And he shouldn’t have to go through this behind speaking out against injustice.

JR (c. 12:20):  “Can you talk a little bit about what you guys have going on January 22^nd?”

Denika Chatman (c. 12:24):  “Yeah.  On January 22^nd, we are having a peaceful protest march and rally starting at 3^rd Street and Oakdale, my son’s murder spot.  That is San Francisco. 

“And we are marching over to Candlestick Stadium to surround it.  It’s the NFC Playoff Championship Game and we know that the 49ers are gonna make it there.  So, we’re just trying to bring awareness to the game-goers that, ‘We don’t have no problem with you enjoying your game. We’re not even trying to disrupt the game. We just want to bring awareness that right outside of this stadium, the police are killing our children.’

JR (c. 13:08):  “Right.  Can you also talk a little bit about this concert that you have comin’ up?”

Denika Chatman (c. 13:13):  “Yes.  I can touch on it.  We’re having a big benefit concert for my son on February 10^th.  And I’ll just list a couple of the artists who will be there:  The Jacka, J-Diggs, Mac Mall, Turf Talk, Beeda Weeda.”

JR (c. 13:33):  “And this is at 330 Ritch in San Francisco.”

Denika Chatman (c. 13:36):  “Yes.  Everything is still being collaborated, put together, so we’re just waiting on finalisation right now.  But everything is approved to go.”

JR (c. 13:49):  “How has the police been responding to you and your family since this murder occurred?”

Denika Chatman (c. 13:54):  “Well, I went down to the Office of Citizen Complaints in San Francisco to turn in my complaint.  At that time, I had only been in my new home for not even ten days.  And at that time they were the only ones who had my address, my physical address, because I had to put it on the paperwork.  And within three to five days my home address was listed under Google with step-by-step directions on how to get to my home. 

“And I haven’t had any interactions with the police.  However, they still haven’t been forthcoming with any of the evidence, or the videotapes, or anything to prove that they did a righteous kill.”

JR (c. 14:40):  “If people would like to help you and your supporters and would like to help fight police terrorism in aiding the people who are supporting Kenneth Harding, where can they do that and how can they do that?”

Denika Chatman (c. 14:55):  “Well, we just established the Kenneth Harding, Jr. Foundation.  If you would like to support, you can come to our meetings, you can also follow me on Facebook at Justice 4 Kenneth Harding Jr.  And you can actually see everything that we’ve done up until this point as well as find out all the upcoming events and also posted on the page, anything that’s needed or anything that has to do with the Foundation we post it up there, so that if people want to participate or become part of his Committee.  They are welcome to do so.”

JR (c. 15:40):  “Well, Denika, I just want to salute you for standing on the front line when you’ve faced such an atrocity to your own family, the atrocious murder of your own son by somebody who was a so-called public servant.

“Do we know the name of the police officer that killed your son?”

Denika Chatman (c. 15:59):  “There were actually four of them.  And all their names are listed on the Justice 4 Kenneth Harding, Jr. site as well.”

JR (c. 16:06):  “Well, thank you for standing on that front line.  We appreciate your strength and your commitment and dedication.  And you know the Block Report is behind you.”

Denika Chatman (c. 16:16):  “Bless you, JR.  I also want to thank you for being a part of my son’s Board, being part of our Foundation. 

“And one thing that a lot of people don’t know, they can go get the new issue of the Bayview Newspaper, read my story.  It’s called ‘Picking Up the Pieces.’  And on there, I’m actually giving shouts out to you for coming to Seattle to see about me and my family after all of this occurred, for you for being on the front line with me in supporting me throughout all of this, to all my front-runners who are still standing on the front line, who didn’t allow the police to get to them and silence them.  Kilo Perry, Fly Benzo, Pladee Clayton, all o’ ya’ll.  I just wanna thank my true soldiers.”

JR (c. 17:05):  “Well, right on.  Salute.  Thank you for coming in.”

Denika Chatman (c. 17:08):  “Thank you for having me.”

***

Writing, transcript by Felipe Messina for Media Roots

Photo by ElvertBarnes

MEDIA ROOTS — On a recent KPFA radio broadcast, Project Censored discussed the ten-year mark of the U.S. Guantánamo Bay gulag and its implications for the Rule of Law.  One of Project Censored's featured guests, Dr. Almerindo Ojeda, delivered an Occupy UC Davis - Dissent Lecture on December 1, 2011 at the University of California at Davis.  We present that address here, entitled Guantánamospeak and the Manufacture of Consent.  Dr. Ojeda is a professor of Linguistics and the Principal Investigator in the Guantánamo Testimonials Project of the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas at UC Davis, for which Dr. Ojeda serves as Director.   

If prisoners at Guantánamo were the canaries-in-the-goldmine, then the U.S. people have not heeded the warning of the decade, a testament to the efficacy of U.S. state propaganda and social control.  The Bush era policies of imperialism and domestic repression have only escalated during the Obama Administration–with Obama's recent signing of the NDAA (S.1867), any one of us may arbitrarily face the same fate as those languishing at Guantánamo.

MR

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GUANTÁNAMOSPEAK AND THE MANUFACTURE OF CONSENT

For those who stubbornly seek freedom around the world, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctri­nation […] Propaganda is to democracy what vio­lence is to totalitarianism.

Noam Chomsky

Much has been made about prisoner abuse at Guantánamo.  And rightly so: Guantánamo is an ongoing crime against humanity.  If you don't believe me, take a look at the Guantánamo Testimonials Project we have been carrying out at this campus.  But even though a lot has been said, there and elsewhere, about prisoner abuse at Guantánamo, relatively little has been said about language abuse at the Cuban airbase.  Yet, there has been a lot of it.  And we need to talk about it, if only because prisoner abuse is enabled by language abuse.

Abusing a human being is not easy to do; consenting to do it is not something that comes naturally.  As a matter of fact, the consent to abuse a fellow human being is something that needs to be manufactured.  It needs to be built.  Like a house.  Brick by brick and room by room.

How was this consent to abuse manufactured at Guantánamo?  First, you instill fear.  You say that Guantánamo holds vicious criminals that would not hesitate to chew on hydraulic tubes to bring an airplane down.  Then you cultivate hatred.  You say that each and every one of the individuals detained at the base was personally responsible for 9/11.  Then you abuse language; you engage in what Orwell would call Guantánamospeak.  It is this third step that I want to focus on today.

The abuse of language at Guantánamo began by coining the term war on terror.  A war is something that threatens the very survival of a nation.  Consequently, no citizen of that nation can be against it.  Except for the 'traitors' who seek the destruction of their own nation.  But is terrorism something that threatens the survival of our nation?  It can lead to massive loss of life (as 9/11 did).  And it can be a crime against humanity (as 9/11 was).  But threaten the survival of a nation?  Wars are events that have only two natural outcomes: victory or defeat.  Consequently, if you do not root for victory, you are rooting for defeat.  Only a traitor can root for defeat.

But casting our response to 9/11 in terms of a war creates a linguistic problem.  How would you call someone you capture in that war?  Prisoner of war?  This would be extremely problematic, as prisoners of war have rights under the Geneva Conventions, one of them being the right to be free from coercive interrogation.  But interrogate coercively is something our government very much wanted to do with these captives.  So we called them detainees instead of prisoners.  This has an added rhetorical advantage: it makes imprisonment at Guantánamo sound like a minor inconvenience (like being detained by traffic).  So we should consent to that.

By the way, the verb capture is already loaded. Being captured is what happens to fugitives, possibly of justice, and hence to criminals.  Never mind that some of the individuals held at Guantánamo were captured in their homes with their families.  Or fleeing carpet bombing.  Or coming out of a courthouse that had just cleared them from charges of terrorism.  Or were handed to us by local militias in exchange for bounties (a practice that might be called human trafficking in legal circles).

Alternatively, Guantánamo prisoners may be called enemy combatants.  This reinforces the context of war, and hence the survival of the nation.  But mention of war again brings about the term of prisoner of war.  So we should clarify the term enemy combatant and speak of unprivileged enemy combatants.  Adding the adjective unprivileged manages to turn the rights of the Geneva Conventions into privileges.  Privileges are things which are granted by the grace of a legitimate authority.  Rights are something you have regardless of the generosity of the powers that be.  Rights are something powers can no more grant than they can withhold.

And just for the record: Guantánamo prisoners have rights under the Geneva Conventions.  Everyone held in an armed conflict is protected by these conventions.  The fact that some captives did not wear uniforms only means that they do not have the rights Geneva grants to combatants.  They would still have the rights granted to civilians.  For civilians are protected by the Geneva Conven­tions as well as combatants.  I should add that thinking that the Guantá­namo prisoners are in fact protected by the Geneva Conventions is not my inter­preta­tion; it is the interpretation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is the accepted arbiter for the implementa­tion of the Geneva Conventions.  It is the organization the signatories of the Convention, the US included, have agreed to abide by.

But we digress. Let's return to Guantánamospeak.

Guantánamo prisoners are being coercively interrogated.  This, of course, is not called this way. That may enable dissent.  In Guantánamo, when you are taken from your cell in order to be interrogated, you are said to be making good on a reservation.  Or to be going for an interview.  So, being interrogated is like going to a restaurant.  Or applying for a job.  Nothing to dissent about there.

Interestingly, language does not always take the abuse lying down; sometimes, it fights back.  Guantánamo personnel may say, for example, that so-and-so is going to reservation, a phrase which we would never use for making good on a reserva­tion made at a restaurant (and betrays the attempt to veil the reference to interro­gations, which are something one would 'go to').

As has been thoroughly reported, interrogations at Guantánamo can be brutal.  They may involve beatings, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, exposure to temperature extremes, blaring noise, painful binding, and threats of death or harm to self or to others.  Such practices are what independent observers call torture.  But they cannot be called that in Guantánamo.  That would sow the seeds of dissent.  There, these practices are collectively referred to as procedures of enhanced interrogation instead.  Interrogation is acceptable in a criminal setting (given legal protections).  So, what is wrong with enhancing an acceptable procedure?  We should consent to it.

Each one of the aforementioned forms of torture has its own special entry in the dictionary of Guantánamospeak.  Food deprivation is called dietary manipulation—a lapse, perhaps, as manipulation often refers to less-than-legitimate doings (language fights back again).  Sleep deprivation is called sleep management (nothing wrong with managing sleep, is there?  After all, you do not want to be a slouch).  Under one of the modalities of sleep management, a prisoner can be moved, almost continuously from one cell to another for weeks.  This involves full bodily searches, gatherings of belongings, three-chain shackling, marching from one cell to another, and unshackling.  This is done around the clock for weeks, as a consequence of which the prisoner is unable to sleep for more than one hour at a time.  This form of sleep deprivation is referred to as the frequent flyer program (so the movement from cell to cell is to be thought of as the benefits program one gets from an airline by traveling a lot with it).  This is supposed to be funny.  The program is also called Operation Sandman, thus making a perverse reference to the nursery rhyme used to put children to sleep (and acknowledging, via sar­casm, the real purpose of the exercise).

The most common form of beating in Guantánamo comes in the context of forced cell removals.  Suppose a non-compliant prisoner refuses to go to interrogation (or to make good on a reservation he never made).  An Immediate Reaction Force is called in.  An Immediate Reaction Force is a team of six guards in full riot gear that march into a cell, pepper-spray the prisoner (some of you may know about this first-hand)…  In any event, they pepper-spray the prisoner, charge on him, slam him onto the ground, beat him up badly, hog-tie him, and take him wherever he needs to be—which, at that point, is usually the infirmary.  Interestingly, these events are called irfs (based on the acronym for Immediate Reaction Force), and the action itself is called an irfing.  Irf is a new word of American English.  But we didn't need it.  We already had a term for that.  It would be aggravated battery.  But this term, of course, would sow dissent, and cannot be used.

Beyond aggravated battery, bearing three-chain shackling (on wrists, ankles, and waist) is referred to as wearing a three-piece suit (thus making light of excessive binding by reference to an elegant suit of clothes).  To soften up a hardened terrorist in reservation, the prisoner is made to squat on the floor about a metal eye-ring where he is painfully chained from his wrists and ankles.  This is called a stress position (stress being an unavoidable feature of modern life).  Independent observers might call that binding torture instead.  Then, if all else fails, a prisoner is threatened with being taken to a country where he can be physically abused (beaten, electroshocked, cut, suffocated, or burned).  A practice of torture by proxy from which we can remove ourselves linguistically by appealing to the aseptic term extraordinary rendition.  Language is used here to conceal reality rather than to reveal it.  But the most common form of torture associated with the war on terror is, by far, water­boarding.  Being a widespread form of torture, waterboarding goes under myriad names the world over.  It is not certain that waterboarding actually happened at Guantánamo.  But other forms of controlled suffocation (dryboarding) have been proposed as explanations for the first three deaths in custody at the base.  The one pertinent testimony we have about actual waterboarding has reached us anonymously, allegedly from a guard, who said the practice hap­pened all the time at Guantánamo, where it was not called waterboarding but drown-proofing.  As if prisoners were being protected from drowning—which I guess is true.  Except that it is us that are causing the drowning.  And the protection is only from the natural outcome of drowning (death).  And only to prolong the agony of the victim.

Incidentally, waterboarding is sometimes described as simulated drowning.  Or as a procedure that induces the misperception of drowning.  This is inaccurate and misleading.  It is inaccurate because waterboarding is not simulated drowning; it is actual drowning.  Only that it is controlled so as to prevent death and thus prolong the agony.  Controlled drowning would therefore be closer to the mark.  Describing waterboarding as simulated drowning is also misleading, as it suggests that the problem with waterboarding is deception—which would be no problem at all; deception is a perfectly legal interrogation tactic.

In 2004, the Supreme Court dealt the first of three blows to Guantánamo.  It ruled that prisoners had to be given a semblance of their day in court.  What they got was significantly less than a semblance.  They got a farce.  They were subjected to so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs).  They were called tribunals in order to say that the ruling of the Supreme Court was followed.  But they were nothing like a real American tribunal.  First, the prisoners were not allowed a lawyer; only a personal representative.  And that representative was a member of the military.  Consequently, he had the same employer as the prosecution.  The tribunal took place before a panel of three judges.  They too were members of the military.  As was the "court of appeals" that could overturn the decisions of these tribunals.  As if this were not enough, the prisoner could be tried on secret evidence.  So, there was no way he could defend himself properly.  Hearsay was admitted into the record as well.  And the evidence brought about by the prosecution could not be questioned.  It had to be taken as fact.  This asymmetry between the claims of the prosecution and those of the defense can be traced linguistically in the transcripts of the CSRTs.  The allegations of the prisoner are described as such by appealing to verbs of saying (what are known in the trade as verba dicendi).  Verba dicendi are verbs like says, alleges, claims.  Crucially, however, the charges of the prosecution are mentioned straight up without such verbs.  The impression you therefore get is not one of a conflict between charges and refutations, but one of a clash between facts and counterclaims.  The former breeds dissent; the latter, consent.

The outcomes of the CSRTs were also interesting specimens of Guantánamospeak.  The verdicts of these tribunals were not, as one may expect, innocence or guilt.  No; they were still an enemy combatant or no longer an enemy combatant.  For, finding that a prisoner was not an enemy combatant would question the original evidence supporting his capture.  It would also raise the possibility that he was imprisoned without cause in the first place.  But that would detract from the consent being manufactured.

Amazingly, in remarkably few cases, and in spite of having the cards stacked squarely against him, a prisoner could be ruled to be no longer an enemy combatant.  At which point, the "court of appeals" which, as we said, was also employed by the military, convened a new tribunal to review the results.  Such revised tribunals invariably reversed the ruling of the first tribunals, and found the prisoners to be correctly designated as enemy combatants after all.  Interestingly, these new tribunals were called reconvened tribunals.  As if the original tribunal had just taken a break for lunch and "reconvened" afterwards.  Never mind that the new tribunal had an entirely different panel of judges, was allegedly handed new evidence, and reached the opposite verdict than the old one.

One of the constant fears in Guantánamo is that the prisoners would commit suicide (prison suicides reflect poorly on prisoner treatment).  So, suicides are linguistically impossible in Guantánamo.  According to the prison manuals that have been made public, what we have there can only be described as self-harm gestures—like slapping your forehead or biting your fingernails, I suppose.

Hunger strikes are linguistically impossible in Guantánamo as well.  Like prison suicides, prison hunger strikes are signs of poor conditions at the prison.  Thus, what the Guantánamo manuals prescribe is the use, not of hunger strikes, but only of total voluntary fasts.  This contorted Orwellian idiom removes hunger strikes from the realm of protest and transfers them into the realm of religious beliefs (the prisoners are religious fanatics anyway).  And into the realm of free, volun­tary activity, the existence of which would actually reflect well on the prison.

Incidentally, I mentioned that some Guantánamo manuals have been made public (thanks to the transparency organization WikiLeaks).  This is no small matter, given the amount of censorship that clouds the base.  Once again, censorship (which is unbecoming of a democracy) is called secrecy (an admissible practice in wartime).  It is also called redaction when it is applied to a document.  But to redact a document means to write it (or used to mean as much before the War on Terror).  By coopting the term redaction, censorship vanishes into the very creation of the document; it becomes inevitable (and hence acceptable).

More than 600 of the 779 individuals that have been imprisoned at Guantánamo at one time or another have been released.  A few of them went on to engage in hostilities against the United States or their interests (exactly how few is in dispute).  This has been described as recidivism.  Or as returning to the battlefield.  Even if their captors never claimed that the so-called battlefield returnees had ever been in a battlefield in the first place.  The possibility that these individuals were actually retaliating for the torture they endured at Guantánamo is seldom raised.  For that would suggest that some of the violence we endure is the result of the violence we inflict.  

Consenting to abuse a fellow human being is not something that happens naturally; it is something that needs to be manufactured.

Almerindo Ojeda, Principal Investigator

The Guantánamo Testimonials Project

Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas

University of California at Davis

Author's Note:  The term manufacture of consent was coined in 1921 by Walter Lippman in his book Public Opinion (see Chapter XV).  According to Lippman, the manufacture of consent was a form of propaganda that the élite had to unleash on the unenlightened masses of a modern democracy.  The term was subsequently used by Chomsky and Herman in the title to a book they published in 1988.  In that book they revealed the way in which profit motive corrupts the mainstream media into manufacturing consent.  The term Guantánamospeak is based on the term Newspeak Orwell coined in his book 1984.  The epigraph to this paper was taken from "Propaganda, American style," an article which is available online at zpub.com/un/chomsky.

***

Photo by flickr user Art Makes Me Smile

MEDIA ROOTS – This set is dedicated to being aware in the present moment. May right now be enough for you to be pleased with your life and grateful for what you have. Hopefully this playlist helps light up your life!

Love,

ATOP Akkad the Orphic Priest

All the featured music on the mix can be found through searching discogs.com or by emailing me: codymcphail@gmail.com.

Artist List:

James Ferraro - Adventures In Green Foot Printing
Silky Johnson - Foco
Octo Octa - High Reflection
Peaking Lights - Birds of Paradise (Xander Harris rmx)
Blondes - Synthesist
LAKE RADIO - Chant II
GuMMyÜBeAR! - Cognitive Ascension
Salem - I'm Still in the Night
BEBETUNE$ - #C I T Y LIGHT$$$
The Weeknd - What You Need
Ford & Lopatin - Emergency Room
Clark - Rainbow Voodoo
Desto & Jimi Tenor - Eightfold Path
Consequence - Untitled Dream
Joker - Back in the Day Instrumental
MIMOSA - Night Terrors
Martyn - Distortions
J¸rgen M¸ller - Sea Green
Lohan - Mosquito Coast
Gravious - Monolith feat Charles Bukowski

Listen to all other editions of Media Roots Music.

MEDIA ROOTS —

Also, the Fed; militarism bait-and-switch question; opposition to Davis-Bacon Act and its impact on trade union movements; Taft-Hartley; union-busting right-to-work agenda; states' rights contradictions; the gold standard reality; deflation; and tax policy.

Economic historian Webster Griffin Tarpley warns progressives may be misreading Ron Paul as a progressive with compatible ideals, such as the Occupy Movement.  Recently, Tarpley offered a "Critique of Ron Paul's Austerity Plan" on Guns & Butter.  Tarpley also elaborated upon his critique of Ron Paul's austerity plan during a visit on The Jeff Rense Program.

Messina

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GUNS & BUTTER — "Critique of Ron Paul's Austerity Plan with Webster Griffin Tarpley."  December 28, 2011.  Ron Paul's "Plan to Restore America" includes $1 trillion in cuts to the federal budget in one year.  We take a look at what this would mean for the American people.  Ron Paul is the Republican front-runner to win the Iowa Caucus on January 3rd, 2012.

“I think it’s fair to say Ron Paul’s economic policy is an immediate deflationary crash and the more severe the better.  Everything should crash down.  And then after this orgy of creative destruction, then there’ll be a recovery.  And, of course, the problem with that is, what if you starve to death in the meantime?  What if you don’t survive the creative destruction?  What if you die?  

To fight a depression, for the Austrian School, is a contradiction in terms.  You can’t do that.  You’ve gotta let the depression wash over you, play itself out.  And then there’ll be a recovery.  And, of course, if you ask where are the empirical examples, historically, of letting a depression burn itself out.  They can’t give you any.” –Webster Tarpley

“I’m Bonnie Faulkner.  Today on Guns & Butter:  Webster Tarpley.  Today’s show:  Critique of Ron Paul’s austerity plan.  Webster Tarpley is an economic historian, author, lecturer.  He is author of Against Oligarchy, Surviving the Cataclysm, a study of the world financial crisis, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made In the USA, and co-author of George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography.  His latest books are Obama - The Postmodern Coup: Making of a Manchurian Candidate and Obama: the Unauthorized Biography.  

“On today’s programme, we discuss the Restore America budget proposal of current Republican front-runner Congressman Ron Paul, leading up to the Iowa Caucus, on January 3rd, 2012.

Bonnie Faulkner:  “Webster Tarpley, welcome.”

Webster Tarpley (c. 2:37):  “Thank you so much.  It’s good to be with you.”

Bonnie Faulkner (c. 2:40):  “The next U.S. Presidential Election is November 2012.  Obama doesn’t appear to have any serious challenge in the Democratic Primaries, but there are quite a few Republican Primary contenders.  The Iowa Caucus is January 3rd.  What exactly is the Iowa Caucus?  And how important is it or isn’t it?”

Webster Tarpley (c. 3:05):  “Well, the Iowa Caucus, for Republicans, as distinct from Democrats, are that you show up at a caucus location, which really amounts for the Republicans to a polling place.  And you indicate your preference on, I think, a paper ballot and then you walk out.  It does not seem to imply for the Republicans the caucus building, like the horse-trading or negotiation or short speeches or other things that a caucus would suggest.  So, that’s going to be the first Tuesday of the New Year.  And it’s all very much front-loaded.

“And according to the polls, as we are recording this programme, Ron Paul seems to be the leading candidate for the Ohio Republican caucus.  And, of course, he had run there before in 2008 when, I believe, he came in third.  And now he has shown as likely to come in first.  I would just like to caveat that in two senses.  A caucus, even a Republican caucus, is not quite the same thing as an election.  If you wanna go vote, you can usually get in and out within five or ten minutes, depending on where you vote and what time.  The caucus takes a little bit longer.  So, it may not be possible for the polling to predict what’s gonna happen in that way.

“The other thing is that the recent winners in a place like Iowa have included Pat Robertson, the televangelist, in 1998.  And it included, preacher, Huckabee in 2008.  So, there’s a very strong voting block of Christian fundamentalists and they may not like Ron Paul for some reason.  But maybe we can go through at the end Ron Paul’s social policies.

“But I would suggest the following:  People who consider themselves left of centre, or progressive or anti-war or civil libertarian, may have gotten a positive impression of Ron Paul over the years because he’s been certainly a gadfly in the Republican Party opposing the prevalent Bush/Cheney/neocon warmonger line, which is certainly a merit.  And it remains, right?  Those are things that he’s done that cannot be denied.  He’s also pretty reliable, as a vote, against things like the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and so forth.  Although, I must say, he did vote for the 9/11 Resolution, which led to the war in Afghanistan.  So, he’s not exactly a man for all seasons in opposing aggressive war.  He went along with the post-9/11 hysteria to that extent.  

“But I would suggest, now, that we take a look at the most detailed policy paper that he has put out for this Election Cycle, which is his Restore America programme, which is a fairly detailed economic programme, not as detailed as some, but certainly something to go on.  It’s called Plan to Restore America.  It was issued around the middle of October.  And I noticed that, in the run-up to the Iowa Caucus, scant attention is paid to this.  The news media, especially those that wanna oppose Ron Paul, are interested in his old newsletters from the 1990s and the various racist, anti-Black or other, remarks that are contained in there.  I would simply say, Ron Paul really ought to say who wrote those.  If he didn’t write them, then he should really be in a position to say who did.  

“But I would say, ‘Put that aside. Let’s go on the basis of what he says he wants to do if elected President this time around.”

Bonnie Faulkner (c. 6:57):  “Now, Ron Paul is the front-runner at this point.”

Webster Tarpley:  “22%”

Bonnie Faulkner (c. 7:01):  “Yeah.  And this caucus is gonna happen quite soon on January 3rd.  Now, what is his Restore America budget proposal that he’s actually now saying what he would do.”

Webster Tarpley (c. 7:11):  “Right.  Well, let’s take a look at this.  I think this is, by now, eminently fair game.  And fairer to him than his newsletters, as disturbing that those certainly are.  He starts off with a plan to cut $1 Trillion dollars out of the U.S. Federal Budget in one year.  And I stress the idea of one year.  You have perhaps heard during the course of the Super Committee, otherwise known as the 12 tyrants, that group of six Republicans and six Democrats I guess it was.  This came down to cutting $1.2 Trillion.  But that $1.2 Trillion was spread out over ten years.  And at a certain point they talked about a grand bargain of cutting $4 Trillion or more.  That was also spread out over 10 years.”

Bonnie Faulkner (c. 8:05):  “That whole committee never came to any agreement, right?”

Webster Tarpley (c. 8:08):  “Thank god.  They struck out.  Now, obviously, we have the automatic guillotine, the sequestering.  And it’s not clear when that will happen or if it will ever happen ‘cos the Congress may head it off.  

“But, again, let’s focus on Ron Paul because this is gonna be the big news item, I think.  He’s either gonna win the Iowa Caucus or he’s gonna come in second or third, I would think is a fair prognostication.  

“Think of $1 Trillion dollars.  That’s one thousand Billion U.S. dollars in one year.  This is, again, it’s ten times more concentrated than what the Super Committee was talking about—right?—those twelve tyrants, bad as they were.  We’re talking about something much more gradual.  For Ron Paul, it’s cut $1 Trillion of spending during the first year of the presidency and balance the budget, bring the Federal Budget into balance by the end of the four-year term.  

“Now, that’s already the most radical austerity plan of any candidate.  And it’s also the most radical austerity that any modern industrial, or even post-industrial, society has ever experienced.  If you want a comparison, I compared it to, sort of, the landmark austerity of the 20th Century—Chancellor Heinrich Brüning in Germany between 1930 and 1932.  My estimate, just comparing these things in a kind of rough proportionality is that Ron Paul’s cut of $1 Trillion dollars of the U.S. Federal budget, which amounts to 27%, something like that, a little bit more than one-quarter in one year, that this is, on the whole, four times more severe than what Brüning did between 1930 and 1932.  And Brüning did it over two years.  And that’s included in my calculations.

“So, with Ron Paul, you’re getting something four times more severe than Brüning.  And  I think that ought to give us pause because I think it’s generally understood that, whether Brüning had alternatives or not, the net effect of his austerity programme was to destroy the German economy, with rising unemployment and falling tax revenue; and to destroy the political system, such that within about six months after Brüning left office, Hitler became Chancellor.  So, this is basically what prepared the ground for the worst kind of fascism seen so far.  So, I think that ought to get us to pause.

“27% austerity in one year, the Government in Britain—Cameron and Osbourne and Clegg—they had talked about cutting spending by 25% when they came in May of 2010.  But they haven’t come anywhere near that.  So, here we have Ron Paul saying that he’s actually gonna do it.

“Now, I think what people may be interested in is, ‘where did these spending cuts occur?’  So, 27% would be the norm across the board.  Given the fact that Ron Paul has made his name as an opponent of militarism and foreign adventurism and foreign bases and so forth, we would certainly expect, I think, that if everybody’s gonna get cut 27% across the entire Federal budget, as a general rule, that the Pentagon would get cut at least as much or maybe more.  But I’m afraid we find that’s not the case.  The 27% across the board cut goes together with a 15% cut in the Pentagon.  So, the Pentagon is asked to give up about half of what the Federal Budget is as a whole is being asked to give up—a 15% Pentagon cut, not very radical.  That is not even radical compared to other proposals that are now going around.  

“But I think you can also, then, look at certain social programmes that I think raise the relevant doubt concerning what Ron Paul is up to.  Suppose we look at an area like child nutrition.  This is largely the WIC programme, women, infants, and children.  And it comes down to things like high-protein meals for pregnant women, nursing mothers, young mothers, and infants.  And it’s a very, very effective programme.  And the United States is spending all of $21 Billion dollars on that.  Right?  A few days of the Afghan War.  $21 Billion dollars is spent on WIC.  Ron Paul would cut one-third of that programme.  That is a $7 Billion dollar cut—33%.  So, again, Pentagon gets cut 15%.  Women, infants, and children get cut 33%.  And this comes down to things like cheese and dairy foods and things like this that are high-protein.  The costs incurred with such a programme, I think, allow us to ask whether this is not a false economy because you’re talking about things like cognitive impairments due to insufficient protein consumption in infancy and early childhood.  And I think that’s a very, very short-sighted cut to put it mildly.

(13:51) “And then let’s go on.  S-CHIP, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, one of the things that Senator Kennedy had championed, well, right now, the budget for that is $9 Billion dollars.  Ron Paul wants to cut $4 Billion.  That brings it down to $5 Billion.  So, Ron Paul would cut 44% of the S-CHIP programme.  And, again, Federal Budget as a whole, 27%, Pentagon gets cut 15%.  But, for some reason, child health insurance gets cut 44%.  Now, these are small amounts, but the effect of this, I think, is quite remarkable because with S-CHIP you are dealing with parents who are so poor that they can’t afford any healthcare for themselves.  But they can get it for their children just about automatically if they meet the poverty tests for this, the means test for S-CHIP.”

Bonnie Faulkner (c. 14:48):  “I’m speaking with economic historian and author Webster Tarpley.  Today’s show: Critique of Ron Paul’s Austerity Plan.  I’m Bonnie Faulkner.  This is Guns & Butter.

“What other important programmes is he suggesting be cut?”

Webster Tarpley (c. 15:07):  “The two big things that Ron Paul would cut are also very disturbing.  One is Medicaid.  This is not Medicare; this is not people over 65.  This is Medicaid.  And this is the health programme that is run through the states for poor people, basically.  The current budget: $276 Billion.  Ron Paul would cut $95 Billion out of that.  So, that’s a 35% cut.  

“Again, Pentagon cut 15%; Medicaid cut 35%, by comparison.  And I think that is a very destructive cut because, what it goes to is, people who are on Medicaid are already at their last resort.

“The only thing that’s left after Medicaid is private charity, which may be there or may not be there, depending on where you are, and who are you are, and so forth.

“The other thing that Medicaid does is that it protects the resources, the property—and Ron Paul likes to talk a lot about property—the property of the U.S. middle-class in the age of Alzheimer’s and increasing cost for nursing home care.  This actually protects.  And I was at a party, just before Christmas, where a guy brought this up that his mother had passed away after a long illness.  And part of the care for her was covered by Medicaid, although he was firmly in the middle-class, living in a home in Bethesda, Maryland.  This protected him from going destitute with his wife and his son.  So, it’s a very, very big cut for the health of poor people where, obviously, we still have 40 or 50 million uninsured unless, and until, something else kicks in, which we’re not sure of.  And this protection for families who have an elderly parent, say, in a nursing home, so that doesn’t eat your entire asset pool that you’ve got.

“And then, probably the most extreme and maybe the most characteristic, food stamps:  Now, food stamps have been used by, I’m afraid, Republican demagogues to characterise Obama.  I think, Gingrich says, Obama is the food stamp president and Gingrich wants to be the jobs president.  Well, I think the scandal is not that the programme exists, but that it’s actually needed.  Right now about 50 million Americans live on food stamps.  And this is not a generous benefit.  If you’re one person, the maximum food stamp benefit is $180.  And that’s the maximum.  If you have a little bit of property or a little bit of savings, then it becomes less than that.

“So, Ron Paul wants to cut $50 Billion out of an $80 Billion dollar programme, in other words, a cut of 63%, almost two-thirds.  

“So, again, Pentagon 15%, food stamps cut 63%.  And if you just do the arithmetic, it means that the maximum benefit would not be in the area of $180 per person.  It would go down to something like $60 a month or $15 a week.  Now, try living, eating, anything that can keep body and soul together for $15 a week.  I think if we look at, in particular, the inherent problems of the child nutrition and child health on one side.  And then, if we look at the broad-based impact on the poor because the people who get Medicaid and the people who get food stamps are likely to be, quite a few of them, the same people.  And they’re getting cut between one-third and two-thirds.  

“I think you can see a tendency.  And what I mean by that is this.  We’ve been burned by Obama.  Obama said vote for me, I’m not Bush.  I’ll put an end to the wars and the abuses of the Bush Administration.  And, instead, he basically starts a war with Pakistan, certainly starts a war with Libya, claims the right to assassinate U.S. citizens, carries that out in one case.  He claims he can incarcerate you in Guantanamo Bay and, indeed, torture you if you have opinions that he considers dangerous.  So, instead of what we were promised, we got something quite different.

“Now, if we look at the Republicans, Boehner, and the House Tea Party majority, they ran talking about jobs, jobs, jobs.  But instead when they got in, it was tax cuts for the rich and their strange ideas about social policy.  So, I think we have to ask:  Is a bait-and-switch in progress here?  Where Ron Paul talks about peace and opposition to dictatorship and totalitarianism on the home front, but instead seems to be getting a draconian, brutal series of budget cuts.

“And one or two other things about this:  There is the Davis-Bacon Act, landmark legislation.  And what it proscribes is if you have a Federal construction project, then that has to pay union wages.  It’s called the Prevailing Wage Standard.  Prevailing wage is interpreted to mean union wages, union pay scales.  So, you’re not gonna get a Federal construction job and then be expected to work for the Federal minimum wage.  It’s significantly higher.

“If you wipe out the Davis-Bacon Act, then this, essentially, destroys a whole series of trade unions.  And the savings on this:  $6 Billion dollars.  But, at the same time, look at the social impact.  The trade unions would cease to exist.  

“The combination of Ron Paul, the father, and Senator Rand Paul, the son, Senator from Kentucky, what they both want to do is to change the Taft-Hartley law, which currently governs union policies, at least at the Federal level.  They want to change that, so that instead of having a state’s right to choose to be a union state or, to put it the other way, instead of having some states that have chosen to be right-to-work states where organising unions is almost impossible, this is the Southern belt, in general.  Rand Paul and Ron Paul, too, they want to, essentially, have a compulsion at the Federal level that everybody has to be a right-to-work state.  

“So, between the abolition of the Davis-Bacon Act and the universal right-to-work status there would be no trade union movement left.  So, I wonder about this.

“First of all, Ron Paul talks about state’s rights all the time.  But right now we have a state’s right to choose not to be a right-to-work state.  And my interpretation of Ron Paul’s policy, and his son, is that they want to change that, so that you’re no longer allowed to be anything but a right-to-work state.  So, a state’s rights in their interpretation goes out the window.  Interesting contradiction, wouldn’t you say?

“The other thing is if you wanna have resistance to totalitarianism, and we saw this, for example, in the Occupy Wall Street Movement.  Right?  The point at which that took off was the moment when the Communication Workers of America, the Transport Workers Union, the American Federation of Teachers, and others, when they showed up to swell the ranks of the protesters there at Zuccotti Park, you could see the idea that if you had a some kind of a fascist coup or if some president went over the line, bonkers in terms of crushing civil liberties, the only hope for organising a general strike and other forms of resistance against that would be a union, would be a trade union movement, even such as it is, would be the starting point.

“But, somehow, between Ron Paul and Rand Paul, they wanna wipe out the only institutions that could mount a resistance against totalitarian measures of that sort.  So, on the whole, rather strange, wouldn’t you say?

“The other thing here is if we look at Ron Paul’s tax policy that goes with this, and I’m now basically making the transition into the tax side of the ledger.”

Bonnie Faulkner (c. 23:59):  “Well, he wants to keep the Bush Tax Cuts, right?  Permanently.”

Webster Tarpley (c. 24:04):  “Absolutely, he wants to keep the Bush Tax Cuts.  And he wants to add, well, he wants to keep these Bush Tax Cuts, which everybody knows inordinately favour the rich.  He wants to keep the Bush Tax Cuts.  And he wants to abolish the Capital Gains Tax.  

“Now, if you look at the U.S. economy, you would have to say that the principal, one of the principal problems of the U.S. economy is this over-financialisation.  The extreme emphasis on financial services, non-productive financial services, speculation, moving paper around, the $1.5 quadrillion or so of derivatives, much of it focused here in the United States.  Ron Paul would, essentially, subsidise further parasitical speculation and related activities by simply abolishing the Capital Gains tax.  But if you were a full-time speculator you would pay no taxes at that level, in terms of the capital gains.  That money would be for you; you wouldn’t pay income tax on it.  But if you were a worker, you would pay a tax.  

“So, no Capital Gains Tax and no Estate Tax, he would call it ‘no Death Tax.’  So, it means that if you were a speculator that made out like a bandit in the Reagan bubbles of the ‘80s and the irrational exuberance of Greenspan in the ‘90s and into the current bubble economy of the wealth effect and so forth, that the last chance to have you contribute to the public treasury would be gone because Ron Paul wants to give you an absolute free ride.

“The interesting thing is he wants to cut the corporate income tax down to 15%.  The Corporate Income Tax is, really, not paid by a whole lot of very large entities.  Right?  General Electric, notoriously on their…paid zero corporate income tax in the most recent year that I’m aware of.  But Ron Paul says, even, bring that down.  I think the current level is 35%.  ‘Bring that down to 15%.’  

“So, this is tax relief for speculators, tax relief for those who are already rich and who wanna inherit and tax relief for corporations, including banks.  So, is there any tax relief for the average person?  The answer is no.  There is no proposal to cut anybody’s taxes beyond that.  You could imagine somebody saying, ‘Well, I’d like to increase the size of the personal deduction. The standard reduction could go up. The personal exemption could go up.  That would be the rising tide that would lift all boats from below.  But with Ron Paul, there’s absolutely nothing like that.  There’s no tax relief for anybody, except the speculator, if you are already rich, or a corporation.”    

Bonnie Faulkner (c. 27:05):  “Well, isn’t he also proposing to eliminate taxes on foreign profits?”

Webster Tarpley (c. 27:10):  “Yes!  Yes.  Of course, in other words, he wants to, essentially, reward corporations that have horded money abroad, essentially, evading U.S. Taxes.  He wants to, basically, have an amnesty allowing them to bring this home with no mechanism to be sure that this got invested in plant and equipment, as distinct from derivatives or speculation and no taxation of it.  So, this would be in addition to all these other cuts.  

“So, you’d have to look at this and say ‘If you’re the Koch Brothers, the richest man in New York City—Koch.  Or Coke, as he likes to call himself, putting on airs.  The Coke brothers, or the Koch Brothers, as I think it says in the spelling that I could see.  They would be delighted.

“Soros would be delighted.  Soros was also delighted with Ron Paul’s drug policy.  We’ll maybe get to that later on.  

“But, generally speaking, this is precisely what Wall Street demands.  And there are, indeed, reports that in the 1990s, if not more recently, Ron Paul was financed by the Koch Brothers.  Right?  The Koch Brothers, the people who founded the Cato Institute, or who made important contributions at the beginning to make the CATO Institute.  It’s possible that’s the leading Libertarian think-tank here in Washington, D.C., quite plausible that they would have given some money to a leading Libertarian candidate going back there—Ron Paul.”

Bonnie Faulkner (c. 28:47):  “I’m speaking with economic historian and author Webster Tarpley.  Today’s show:  Critique of Ron Paul’s Austerity Plan.  I’m Bonnie Faulkner.  This is Guns & Butter.

“What five cabinet departments is Ron Paul proposing to eliminate?”

Webster Tarpley (c. 29:07):  “Right.  This is his fight with Rick Perry.  Rick Perry wanted to eliminate three of them, but couldn’t remember the third.  And Ron Paul said, no, that’s not enough.  So, they had a bidding war.  Who was going to destroy more departments of the Federal Executive?

“Well, it’s basically these.  It’s the Department of Energy, goes to  zero.  The Department of Housing and Urban Development goes to zero.  The Department of Commerce goes to zero.  The Department of the Interior goes to zero.  The Department of Education goes to zero.

“Now, I should also mention this is within the framework of what he wants, a 10% cut in the total number of Federal workers.  I think the employees of the Federal Government are about four and a half million.   So, if it’s 10%, we’re talking about half a million new unemployed, which would create severe depressed areas.  Well, Washington, D.C. would certainly go.  And Maryland, Virginia would all become a depressed area.  And not just those, some other ones would, too.

“If you look at The Department of Energy, this has to do with, well, it has to do with maintaining all kinds of standards on, say, nuclear reactors, things like this.  It has national laboratories in there.  Housing and Urban Development, right?  There’s not a lot of public housing being built.  But what there is relies to some extent on subsidies coming from HUD, Housing and Urban Development.  

“The Department of Commerce:  That’s, among other things, the U.S. Weather Service and its intent to maintain U.S. exports abroad, in other words, to create jobs that way.

“The Department of the Interior:  The National Parks.  But also important things that have to do with Resource Management and part of that.

“The Department of Education:  Now, here we’re talking about things like Pell Grants, the various student loans that are offered, which, unfortunately, people have to rely on too much.  And then the Pell Grant side of it, in other words, if you’re a low-income student and you wanna go to college, virtually, you’re only hope is to get a Pell Grant, which is not generous.  I forget what it is right now.  It’s a couple of thousand dollars a year; you could check the amount.  But it’s hardly enough to get by at a community college or a public institution.  But that’s what there is.

“So, for all of that, for public housing, for Pell Grants, for poor kids to go to college, for various things to do with energy, the promotion of exports, weather forecasting, there’s nothing left.  It all goes to zero.  That would be a colossal impact on the Federal Government.  He thinks that all of these, of course, are unconstitutional and so forth.  And we’ll talk about his constitutional theories, too.

“The other thing that I would stress is all foreign aid in the State Department, the State Department takes a big hit because all foreign aid is terminated.  Now, that’s about $50 or $60 Billion dollars.  And, certainly, there are things in there.  For example, we are told that the U.S. claims that they paid $10 Million dollars to try to hijack the latest Russian elections to get people to vote against Putin, to get them to vote for candidates, in some cases, who are national Bolsheviks, anybody but Putin seems to be the idea.  Now, in reality, it’s more than $9 or $10 Million.  It might be $100 Million.

“There are things in the foreign defence budget that are reprehensible and should be cut.  But then let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.  If you look at emergency food in the world, emergency food aid, available on Planet Earth, the United States, in spite of everything, still provides 57%, well over half, of all the food aid in this world.  And it comes down to, in particular, about two and a half metric tonnes of food aid, costing $2.6 Billion dollars a year.

“Now, in 44 countries, and you could think of some dramatic examples, in Somalia, in South Sudan, in Northern Kenya, across the Sahel Belt, go to some place like Mali where the Libyan food operations have now been destroyed by the attack on Libya where famine is presumably spreading.  Places like Bangladesh, places like Pakistan in the recent flood, Haiti, to be sure, make a catalogue of all the disaster and famine areas across the world, and you will see that the U.S. is there.  This is food for peace, as Kennedy called it.  The Kennedy Food for Peace programme would simply cease to exist.  Now, I don’t have statistics to back this up.  But I would invite somebody to consider, to score this, not in terms of deficits, but in terms of human lives, as indeed all of these, everything we’ve talked about so far has implications for morbidity, mortality, longevity, all kinds of effects on human life, all of them generally negative.

“That if you simply take two and a half metric tonnes of food aid out of a world where there’s about 5 million metric tonnes of food aid.  Or I should say a little bit less.  People will die because of that.  And maybe it’s not generally difficult to guess that more people can die through the economics of famine and epidemic that were related, than say through military operations.  That’s generally a truism.  Robert McNamara killed more people at the World Bank than he ever killed at Vietnam simply because that’s the power of economics.

“Well, in Ron Paul’s case it’s not just the five Departments, but it’s also the entire USAID and it’s also the United States Department of Agriculture Food for Peace that would simply cease to exist.  And I think this would shock the world.”  

Bonnie Faulkner (c. 38:42):  “Now, I read that Ron Paul wants to repeal Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley.  What are these?”

Webster Tarpley (c. 35:49):  “Right.  He wants to deregulate everything.  This has to do with his ideology, the so-called Austrian School, which is that government intervention in any form in economic life is inadmissible.  It’s wrong.  He tries to argue that this is unconstitutional.  I don’t think that he has any case at all for that, given U.S. history as well as just the U.S. Constitution as a document.  But he wants to get rid of these things.

“Now, these are not good laws, in general.  On the other hand, the wholesale deregulation is what got us where we are.  Right?  Just take two examples:   deregulation and privatisation.  

“Well, privatisation of what?  The Republican debates, in general, say, ‘Oh, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and subprime lending to minority groups in rundown neighbourhoods, those people buying homes, that’s what caused the depression.  Well, even if you want to take that seriously, which I don’t, you’d have to say, ‘How did Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that were founded as Government organisations, agencies, back in the New Deal, or more recently, how did they become private entities?  Well, they were privatised.

“So, you had the worst of all possible worlds.  You had a private management, for-profit, but with an implicit guarantee from the Federal Government for the agency bonds that they put up, the Fannies and the Freddies.  So, if you wanna know, even in terms of the reactionaries in an argument where the depression comes from, you’d have to say, number one, from privatisation.  

“Now, of course, Fannie and Freddie are a tiny, tiny part of the real story.  The real story is derivatives, in other words, that colossal edifice of credit-default swaps, collateralised debt obligations, structured investment vehicles, repos, and so forth, that immense castle of $1.5 quadrillion of derivatives built on top, in many cases of subprime loans, that’s what caused the actual depression.

“And where did that come from?  Well, from 1936 through 1982 derivatives were strictly illegal in the United States under the Commodity Exchange Act of Franklin D. Roosevelt.  And it was the deregulation of derivatives from 1982 to the Bush, the elder, Administration to Rubin and Greenspan and Summers, and these people in the late ‘90s.  That’s what opened the door to the derivatives bubbles.  

“So, we’re in a depression caused by deregulation and privatisation.  And Ron Paul says we need more deregulation and privatisation, which I don’t think makes any sense.

“The other thing that’s worth pointing out is, in terms of economic policy, Ron Paul was against the bailout.  And, certainly, it was a fine thing to be against the bailout proposed by Bush and Paulson back in October of 2008.  But at the same time, Ron Paul is very much against doing anything to maintain economic growth or development or, really, any kind of government intervention into economics.  And this is, once again, because of the Austrian School.

“I think it’s fair to say Ron Paul’s economic policy is an immediate deflationary crash and the more severe the better.  This people probably recognise.  This is Schumpeter’s Creative Destruction.  It’s associated in American History with Andrew Mellon, the arch-reactionary Secretary of the Treasury under whom as we say Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover served.  Andrew Mellon who’s litany was liquidate stocks, liquidate bonds, liquidate labour, liquidate the farmer, liquidate real estate, liquidate everything, in other words, everything should crash down.  And then after this orgy of creative destruction, then there’ll be a recovery.  And, of course, the problem with that is, what if you starve to death in the meantime?  What if you don’t survive the creative destruction?  What if you die?  

“This is an argument that appeals to people who have money.  And who believe that they will continue to have money because it allows them to say, ‘I’ll be sitting here with my stash of cash. And when everything else goes down, I can buy up everybody and everything at a small fraction of the current rates after the panic.’  And I think that this thinking is characteristic of Ron Paul’s inner circle.

“I think we could argue, based on some things that Peter Schiff talked about recently.  Peter Schiff was the economics advisor for Ron Paul in the 2008 campaign.  He then went to Connecticut or he went back to Connecticut where his hedge fund is located.  And then he ran for Senate and he was defeated in 2010.  And Schiff was on CNBC in the last six months or so seriously arguing that unemployment in the United States needed to go much higher, that the levels of unemployment reached in the U.S. are not enough.  Again, this is the idea that the crisis has to play itself out, burn itself out.  It has to bottom out and there’s nothing you can do about it.  

“This is one of the features of the Austrian School is that it’s practically sacrilegious to try to fight a depression.  To fight a depression, for the Austrian School, is a contradiction in terms.  You can’t do that.  You’ve gotta let the depression wash over you, play itself out.  And then there’ll be a recovery.  And, of course, if you ask where are the empirical examples, historically, of letting a depression burn itself out.  They can’t give you any.  The one that comes closest, I guess, is the Brüning one, once again, 1930 to 1932 in Germany.  

“But you’ll see that under concrete social conditions, in the presence of some kind of a state, i.e., a government, that there’ll be some form of political development that will overtake this crisis before it reaches absolute bottom.  It simply has to be that way.  It’s hard to imagine it any other way.

“So, that’s what you’re dealing with.  It’s nice to be against the bailout.  But then to say I’m against the bailout and I’m against anything that might be done.  I think this, for many people, this is maybe not so evident, but I think it is implicit in what Ron Paul is arguing.

“Austrianism basically says that it’s impossible to have a jobs programme.  And I would point to this as maybe an element of pessimism in the entire thing.  Scientific, technological, industrial progress cannot be fostered by any government activity, according to these Austrians.  Right?  It cannot be done.  And, therefore, they would say, ‘You can’t have a jobs programme; all you can do is let the market go, in other words, let the market find its own way.  So, that there’s really nothing you can do.

“And, indeed, when you ask these Republicans, in general, what’s your jobs programme?  They’ll say, ‘tax cuts, deregulation, and cut government employment, and so forth, in other words, deflation and austerity.  And you’d say, ‘Well, where’s the jobs programme in that?’  And they’d say, ‘Well, there can’t be a jobs programme because jobs created by government, in any form, are simply not allowable.

“So, it’s a very strange universe this Austrian School.”

Bonnie Faulkner (c. 43:44):  “I’m speaking with economic historian and author Webster Tarpley.  Today’s show:  Critique of Ron Paul’s Austerity Plan.  I’m Bonnie Faulkner. This is Guns & Butter.

“Now, is there anything else in Ron Paul’s Restore America budget that we should mention?”

Webster Tarpley (c. 44:08):  “Well, maybe deflation.  This is another one of his, I guess that is fair to say, he wants a strong dollar.  Sounds good, but if you think about that concretely, if you look at American history, the big social issue from about 1870 to about 1910 was deflation.  Right?  The cost of gold.  Right?  A gold-backed currency that turned out to be the worst possible thing for the farmers, for the South, for the Midwest, for the Far West, large parts of the U.S. were sacrificed on this cost of gold, as a result of the Specie Resumption Act and The Coin Act of the 1870s.  So, that when farmers looked at the world, the prices they got were going down, down, down and the dollars they had to pay back were going up, up, up ‘cos the dollar was getting very strong.  Is that really what you want?  

“If you look at the United States today, what’s the first thing you see?  The student loan debt of the current generation is about $1 Trillion dollars and its rising fast.  And you have consumer credit card and related charge plate debt, another trillion.  So, we got $2 Trillion dollars of debt plus mortgage debt plus all kinds of other things.  You got a lot of American families underwater.  So, that their net worth is actually negative and the main problem they have is debt.  

“So, Ron Paul wants a strong dollar.  He wants to have an international credit policy that would strengthen the dollar.  Then I think that’s gonna be very bad for a lot of people because you will be paying back, ultimately, he doesn’t say he wants to make the transition to a gold standard in this programme.  He’s talked about that, though.  And, presumably, he’d like to strengthen the dollar to the point that a high dollar would have an easier transition into a gold standard.

“I think a gold standard for most people in the United States would be an unmitigated disaster.  If you have a lot of debt or if you had really any debt, any significant debt at all, that would be very bad for you.

“The examples of returning back to a gold standard, just to get historical, too.  After the Napoleonic Wars, the British went back on the gold standard.  And that gives you the world of Dickensian cruelty that you’ve heard about during the holidays.  The British then went back, again, on the gold standard in the 1920s and they had three to four million unemployed.  It was the largest unemployment in any advanced, industrial country in all of history.

“The United States went back on the gold standard in the 1870s with the bad results that I’ve just said.

“So, the three examples of going back on a gold standard that we’ve had so far are bad, that deflation is bad, especially, if you do it that way.  So, the other thing is you look and see, ‘what does Ron Paul say about things like corporate welfare?  And he promises in the introduction that he will end corporate subsidies.  So, then you’d say, ‘Alright, I’m gonna look and see where we change the tax laws to change these things like the oil depletion allowance to various subsidies given to Exxon mobile and things like that.  You don’t find any details.  So, I really wonder whether there’s anything serious in there about getting rid of corporate welfare, in particular some of the more egregious examples, like the oil company.”

Bonnie Faulkner (c 47:39):  “So, then who’s interests are served by the Ron Paul Restore America budget?”

Webster Tarpley (c. 47:45):  “Well, I think you have to distinguish.  There’s a certain ideological appeal.  If you think that debt is the equivalent of original sin, and that what you’ve got do is somehow cleanse yourself of all debt as a matter of ideological purity.  If you wanna define interest in those ways, I would say it’s about a 15% slice of the U.S. population who are in favour of these programmes.  But I’m afraid that for most of them this would be destructive.  They’re buying something where the implications go far beyond what they think and would actually be harmful to them.

“I guess the easiest way, in the current ideological climate, is to say this is a programme for the 1%, for sure.  This is the interest of the 1%.  

“Again, no Capital Gains Tax, no Estate Tax, Corporate Income Tax of 15%, keep the Bush Tax Cuts, but NO tax relief for working people, for the lower middle-class, the middle-middle.

“Taking away these important—what can we call them—subsidies, sure, subsidium.  Right?  Help.  That’s all that means—help.  For example, that poor kids can go to college with Pell Grants or that there might be some public housing going on.  Right?  All of that removed.  So, you could say that this would hit the middle-class quite hard.  And the beneficiaries would, really, be the 1%.

Bonnie Faulkner (c. 49:22):  “How do you account for Ron Paul’s appeal?  What is making him so popular among his supporters?”

Webster Tarpley (c. 49:30):  “Well, it has to do with his track record, again, of being a gadfly and being very heretical concerning the orthodoxy of the Republican Party during 2007-2008 being anti-war during the era of Bush, Cheney, and the neocons.  Ron Paul was anti-war.  

“The problem with this is that we have to raise the question of election promises and then the delivery on those promises.  I don’t see how you can talk about any politician without doing this.  So, I would suggest looking into this.

“Concerning September 11, 2001, there’s a significant amount of Ron Paul’s base that somehow still have this idea that Ron Paul is the guy who’s gonna bring truth and clarity into the inside job of 9/11 Truth.  Now, I’ve written a book about this myself.  So, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, the Fifth Edition is pretty much my view of the subject.  

“But when Ron Paul was running in 2007/2008, speaking off the record to small groups of supporters, he made, I think it’s fair to say, some significant promises about what he was gonna do to speak up about 9/11 truth or at least to speak up for a new investigation of some sort.  And this carried on all through the 2007 season of the Republican Presidential Debates.  Right?  They had quite a few with all those candidates.  And there was always this constant subtext that Ron Paul was the 9/11 Truth Candidate.  

“Finally, in the South Carolina Debate, January 10, 2008, Fox News and I think this was Carl Cameron asked Ron Paul:  ‘Many of your supporters call themselves 9/11 Truthers. They believe that the U.S. Government was in some way complicit with the 9/11 attacks or covered it up. Are you tonight prepared to either embrace that rhetoric or ask those supporters to abandon it or to divorce themselves from your candidacy?’

“And Ron Paul’s answer is:  ‘I can’t tell people what to do.  But I’ve abandoned those viewpoints. I don’t believe that and that’s all. That’s the only thing that’s important. So, I don’t endorse anything they say.’

“And then he goes on saying:  ‘This kind of talk doesn’t do me any good.  If they care about it they should stop,’ basically, implicit in the question.  ‘I can only control what I say. I don’t endorse what they say. I don’t believe that. Can I please get back to the current debate now, rather than talking about this anymore.’  

“So, that’s I think a pretty clear repudiation of any idea of 9/11 truth.  And the thing that makes it significant is that he had made these promises, somewhat off the record, but some of them you can find in old YouTube clips made by individuals and smaller groups.

“And that goes together with some other things.  He says that he’s against earmarks.  Well, it turns out in 2009, you remember, after we had the Stimulus, we had the Supplemental.  It was about $450 Billion dollars.  Ron Paul, in the dead of night, inserted about $250 Million dollars for the renovation of the Port of Galveston, Texas.  That’s the District he represents.  So, he managed to insert that into the Supplemental, and then when the Supplemental came up, he voted against it.  And the Supplemental passed with a Democratic vote.  So, he inserted it.  And then he voted against it.

“Now, I would certainly say, ‘Don’t go through all of that strange dance. Stand up and say, ‘the Port of Galveston is an American national interest. We need it. We need Mobile. We need New Orleans. And we need Galveston, Houston ‘cos that’s part of the economic viability of a huge hinterland.  It’s a national interest to have that infrastructure up to date.’  Now, Ron Paul can’t say that because he doesn’t believe it.  But, nevertheless, he goes ahead and does this thing with inserting the entitlements in the dead of night and then voting against them in the light of noon day.   

“Another one is the Fed.  He talks about ending the Fed.  He’s written a book called End the Fed.  Well, we look in the economic programme the Plan to Restore America programme and all we have in there about the Fed is to audit the Fed.  Well, I think that’s pretty tame.  I mean, is there some confusion that what the Fed is doing is wrong?  I think that’s pretty clear.  Right?  The Trillions and Trillions of dollars that have been lent at very low rates to foreign banks, we don’t need to go through the whole list.  This stuff has come out.  It’s also, of course, outrageous that the Fed is not regularly audited.  It should really be audited every evening by some competent authority.

“But you see that Ron Paul talks a good game about doing something about the Fed.  But he’s not proposing any institutional change for the Fed.  So, that’s, I think, one of the three points—and I guess we could add more points—that allow you to ask, ‘Is Ron Paul campaigning on an anti-war and anti-dictatorship programme?  And is he gonna give you something that’s very different in the way that Obama did and Boehner did?”

Bonnie Faulkner (c. 55:22):  “And then why do you think it’s so important to go over all of the things that Ron Paul stands for?”

Webster Tarpley (c. 55:30):  “Again, because I think people need to know what they’re actually gonna get.  He has said it.  This is his programme.  I think you have to be aware of what’s coming.  

“We had those important polls that I think they were the NBC polls back in the springtime, which showed that despite everything, despite Obama, and despite Clinton, all the propaganda coming from the Koch Brothers and the Republicans, that the level of the support of the American population for the main New Deal, New Frontier, and Great Society programmes, in particular, Social Security and Medicare, that just about everybody sees themselves needing.  The support for this is somewhere in the area of 65 to 70%.  When you get down to specifics, do you support a surtax for millionaires?  Which Ron Paul would, of course, oppose.  That’s about 81% of the American people were in favour of that.  So, you’d have to say this is New Deal America, in spite of everything.  So, that Ron Paul’s ceiling, if we go by his economic programme, is really about 15 or, perhaps, 20% at the very, very most.  

“But that, of course, doesn’t rule out bait-and-switch.  That somebody would run for office saying:  ‘I will end the wars. I will liberate you from being harassed in airports by these crazy transportation people.’  You might have a situation where, under conditions of breakdown, something very surprising might happen.  A lot of people might vote for Ron Paul who really don’t favour the kinds of economic programmes that we were talking about.  So, I think it’s important to make sure that people realise what they are getting because these things are never completely secret.  They can hardly be.  And in the case of Ron Paul, he has put out now The Plan to Restore America that tells us about these things.”

Bonnie Faulkner (c. 57:42):  “Webster Tarpley, thank you very much.”

Webster Tarpley (c. 57:43):  “Thank you.”

Bonnie Faulkner (c. 57:44):  “I’ve been speaking with Webster Tarpley.  Today’s show has been:  Critique of Ron Paul’s Austerity Plan.  Webster Tarpley is an economic historian, author, and lecturer.  He is author of Against Oligarchy, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in the USA, and co-author of George Bush: the Unauthorized Biography.  His prescient economic work Surviving the Cataclysm: A Study of the World Financial Crisis is now out in paperback.  Visit his website at www.tarpley.net  Email him at Tarpley@tarpley.net

“Guns & Butter is produced and edited by Bonnie Faulkner and Yara Mako.  To make comments or order copies of shows, email us at blfaulkner@yahoo.com  Visit our website at www.gunsandbutter.org ”

Transcript by Felipe Messina

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TARPLEY.NET — "Ron Paul's $1 Trillion of Austerity Cuts Would Ravage US, Bust Unions, but Cannot Balance Federal Budget"  January 4, 2012.  Webster G. Tarpley on The Jeff Rense Program.

Listen to this interview with Webster Griffin Tarpley.

© 2012 Tarpley.net

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MR

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PROJECT CENSORED — On Friday's Project Censored Show on Pacifica Radio, Mickey Huff with co-host Dr. Peter Phillips were joined by Abby Martin of Media Roots as she covered the actions of Occupy Wall Street in San Francisco.  Guests on the show include Carl Patrick of Occupy Santa Rosa and real estate investor Ken Sutherland about Wall Street firms’ tax evasion. 

The second part of this show features an interview with attorney and whistleblower Kathleen Carroll about the upcoming conference at Laney College in Oakland California on the attacks on public education and privatisation and their connection to the Occupy Movement.

MEDIA ROOTS —

This may be an unsurprising revelation, but these documents further expose the increasingly oppressive nature of the state and DHS to stifle free speech and target dissent under the umbrella of “‘national security.”

MR

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WASHINGTON POST — Civil liberties advocates are raising concerns that the Department of Homeland Security’s three-year-old practice of monitoring social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter could extend to tracking public reaction to news events and reports that “reflect adversely” on the U.S. government.

The activists, who obtained DHS documents through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, say one document in particular, a February 2010 analyst handbook, touts as a good example of “capturing public reaction” the monitoring of Facebook and other sites for public sentiment about the possible transfer of Guantanamo detainees to a Michigan prison.

With the explosion of digital media, DHS has joined other intelligence and law enforcement agencies in monitoring blogs and social media, which is seen as a valuable tool in anticipating trends and threats that affect homeland security, such as flu pandemics or a bomb plot.

But monitoring for “positive and negative reports” on U.S. agencies falls outside the department’s mission to “secure the nation,” said the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which obtained a copy of a contract and related material describing DHS’s social media monitoring through its FOIA suit.

Read more about DHS monitoring of social media concerns civil liberties advocates.

© 1996- The Washington Post

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Photo by Flickr user Adam Selwood

MEDIA ROOTS — For those born with melanin or a mind critical of the establishment, throughout the education system and beyond, ethnic studies have offered crucial perspectives from which to contextualise ethnic tensions within the U.S. and its caucasian dominant monoculture. 

Yet, Arizona continues to build its legacy of intolerance against immigrants and people of colour.  In 2010, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer caused a national uproar when she signed SB 1070, the nation's most stringent immigration bill to date, which requires citizens to always carry proof of documentation and grants the detention of any suspected illegal immigrants.  Additionally, State Superintendent Tom Horne opposed academic freedom in invoking the HB 2281 ban of ethnic studies that same year, bemoaning the Tucson Unified School District's progressive material. 

More recently, his successor, State Superintendent John Huppenthal, "who campaigned in 2010 on the promise to 'stop la raza,'" has taken up the torch against ethnic studies in Arizona.  Last week, the Tucson school district voted to "suspend the district’s acclaimed Mexican American Studies program due to a state ban on the teaching of ethnic studies."  Along with the course being suspended, all the affiliated books are now officially "banned" from the school system.

Similarly, Texas has engaged in thought policing books in schools and prisons in recent years.  As we assess the state of the nation, neoliberal and neoconservative factions within Government further tighten the grip on society's flow of information and academic freedom, stifling the evolutionary progress of its citizenry. 

MR

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According to The San Fernando Sun, the school district is denying the allegations. "Nothing we ever sent (to the district) said they ever had to ban books," said Arizona Department of Education spokesman Andrew LeFevre. "The superintendent (Huppenthal) is a huge believer against censorship."

However, last week students said the books were seized from their classrooms and out of their hands, including a book of photos of Mexico. Crying, students said it was like Nazi Germany, and they were unable to sleep since it happened...

Some teachers were told to turn in the books that have not been banned. Based on the reading list of the MAS courses, that comes to over 80 books removed or confiscated from every classroom.

Sean Arce, former head of the now dismantled Mexican American Studies program, thought the district's statement was a distinction without a difference saying, "The district administrators went in and boxed up those books and are housing it in a depository. So to me, it's definitely a ban." 

© 2012 San Fernando Sun

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DEMOCRACY NOW! — In news from Arizona, Tucson school district officials have released an initial list of books to be banned from the school system following last week’s vote to suspend the district’s acclaimed Mexican American Studies program due to a state ban on the teaching of ethnic studies. The banned books include Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years, edited by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson; Shakespeare’s play The Tempest; Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire; Occupied America: A History of Chicanos by Rodolfo Acuña; and Chicano!: The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement by F. Arturo Rosales.  Salon.com reported teachers have also been informed to stay away from any books where "race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes."

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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SALON — As part of the state-mandated termination of its ethnic studies  program, the Tucson Unified School District released an initial list of books to be banned from its schools today.  According to district spokeperson Cara Rene, the books “will be cleared from all classrooms, boxed up and sent to the Textbook Depository for storage.”

Facing a multimillion-dollar penalty in state funds, the governing board of Tucson’s largest school district officially ended the 13-year-old program on Tuesday in an attempt to come into compliance with the controversial state ban on the teaching of ethnic studies.

The list of removed books includes the 20-year-old textbook “Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years,” which features an essay by Tucson author Leslie Silko.  Recipient of a Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award and a MacArthur Foundation genius grant, Silko has been an outspoken supporter of the ethnic studies program.

Other banned books include “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by famed Brazilian educator Paolo Freire and “Occupied America: A History of Chicanos” by Rodolfo Acuña, two books often singled out by Arizona state superintendent of public instruction John Huppenthal, who campaigned in 2010 on the promise to “stop la raza.”  Huppenthal, who once lectured state educators that he based his own school principles for children on corporate management schemes of the Fortune 500, compared Mexican-American studies to Hitler Jugend indoctrination last fall.

An independent audit of Tucson’s ethnic studies program commissioned by Huppenthal last summer actually praised “Occupied America: A History of Chicanos,” a 40-year-old textbook now in its seventh edition.  According to the audit: “Occupied America: A History of Chicanos is an unbiased, factual textbook designed to accommodate the growing number of Mexican-American or Chicano History Courses. The auditing team refuted a number of allegations about the book, saying, ‘quotes have been taken out of context.’”

Read more about Who’s afraid of ‘The Tempest’?.

© 2012 Salon Media Group, Inc.

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Photo by Flickr user Shutterhacks

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has said the "major problem is that they are written to be overly broad and they are written to favour the rights-holders.  And, so, they allow a thing called a private right of action, which means that someone who believes that a [web]site is intended for, or allows, the distribution of their copyrighted material can go directly to that website's ad networks or payment processors and have them cut off from those sources of revenue." 

Clearly, SOPA and PIPA amount to a power grab by the legislation's corporate supporters—Viacom, Netflix, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Motion Picture Association of America, Recording Industry Association of America, and the AFL-CIO—to alter the structure of the internet in their pro-1% favour.  Today, Democracy Now! spoke with Corynne McSherry, who is the intellectual property director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation about the website strikes planned for tomorrow by Wikipedia and Reddit, protesting SOPA and PIPA, and Rebecca MacKinnon, author of Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom about online freedom and its role in cultivating a healthy democracy.

Media Roots is a prime example of the kind of website that could be targeted for aggregating material that may be deemed copyright  under the overarching SOPA and PIPA legislation.  Learn more about the bills and what you can do here.
 

MR

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DEMOCRACY NOW! — Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia and sixth most visited site in the world, will join websites like the content aggregator Reddit to "go dark" on Wednesday [18 Jan 2012] in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its companion bill, the Protect IP Act (PIPA), which are currently being debated in Congress. "What these bills propose are new powers for the government and also for private actors to create, effectively, blacklists of sites that allegedly are engaging in some form of online infringement and then force service providers to block access to those sites," says Corynne McSherry, intellectual property director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "What we would have is a situation where the government and private actors could censor the net." Chief technology officials in the Obama administration have expressed concern about any "legislation that...undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet." But the bills’ main backers—Hollywood movie studios and music publishers—want to stop the theft of their creative content, and the bills have widespread bipartisan support. A vote on SOPA is on hold in the House now, as the Senate is still scheduled vote on PIPA next Tuesday [1/24/12]. [rush transcript included]

DN!:  "If you want to know more about two controversial internet anti-piracy bills moving through Congress, you won’t be able to consult Wikipedia on Wednesday. The online encyclopedia and sixth most visited site in the world will join websites like the content aggregator Reddit to 'go dark' for 12 to 24 hours in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy, or SOPA, Act and its companion bill, the Protect IP Act. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales announced the decision to bring down his website last night on Twitter, writing, quote, 'Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday!'

The White House responded over the weekend to two petitions opposing the bills. The administration’s chief technology officials wrote on White House blog Saturday, quote, 'We will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.'

While the White House did not take a definite position on SOPA and the Protect IP Act, it has called for legislation to combat online piracy that has hurt the legislation’s main backers: Hollywood movie studios and music publishers who want to stop the theft of their creative content. Now a vote on SOPA is on hold in the House. The Senate is still scheduled to vote on the piracy issue next Tuesday, a week from today.

Well, to talk more about the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, and the Protect IP Act, we go to San Francisco to talk Corynne McSherry, who is the intellectual property director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

We welcome you to Democracy Now! Please explain both of these bills. It’s very tough, I think, for most people to understand the technical aspects of this legislation."

CORYNNE McSHERRY:  "Sure. In a nutshell, what these bills propose are new powers for the government and also for private actors to create, effectively, blacklists of sites that allegedly are engaging in some form of online infringement and then force service providers to block access to those sites. And that’s why we call these the censorship bills, because effectively what we would have is a situation where the government and private actors could censor the net. So, U.S. citizens would basically get a different version of the internet, different from what you might get in, say, Italy or even China."

DN!:  "So, explain the difference between SOPA and the Protect IP Act."

CORYNNE McSHERRY:  "Well, currently they’re quite—they’re quite similar. As drafted, SOPA was much broader than the Protect IP Act, and the folks behind the bill realized that maybe it was a little bit too broad, so they tailored it down. So now they’re quite similar. One of the differences is that SOPA is, finally, after a great deal of activism, more or less on hold for now. But Senator Reid is saying that he’s going to push forward the Protect IP Act, despite all of the opposition."

DN!:  "And explain who is behind these two acts."

CORYNNE McSHERRY:  "Well, that’s not a great mystery. Both of these acts are clearly being pushed hard by the big media industries, who seem to think that online piracy is why they’re having trouble, and actually, who insist that they’re having all kinds of trouble and they’re failing immediately if something doesn’t—if legislation isn’t passed immediately, they’re going to all go under, which is not true. In fact, the motion picture industry has been posting record profits for five years straight."

DN!:  "In a December hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, Congress Member Jason Chaffetz, a Republican from Utah, talked about the lack of expert consultation in drafting SOPA."

Rep. Jason Chaffetz:  "I was trying to think of a way to try to describe my concerns with this bill, but basically, we’re going to create—we’re going to do surgery on the internet, and we haven’t had a doctor in the room tell us how we’re going to change these organs. We’re basically going to reconfigure the internet and how it’s going to work, without bringing in the nerds, without bringing in the doctors. And again, I worry that we did not take the time to have a hearing to truly understand what it is we’re doing. And to my colleagues, I would say, if you don’t know what DNSSEC is, you don’t know what you’re doing. And so, my concern is that there is a problem, but this is not necessarily the right remedy.

DN!:  "That was Utah Congress Member Chaffetz. Corynne McSherry, your response?"

Corynne McSherry:  "I think he’s absolutely right. SOPA, in particular, was negotiated without any consultation with the technology sector. They were specifically excluded. And one of the things I think is really exciting, though, is that—you know, no one asked the internet—well, the internet is speaking now. And so, we’re seeing all kinds of opposition all over the web. And there’s going to be a day of action tomorrow. People are really rising up and saying, 'Don’t interfere with basic internet infrastructure. We won’t stand for it.'"

DN!: What do you make of President Obama’s position on the bill, Corynne?

Corynne McSherry:  "Well, it was heartening to see the White House statement and see the White House sort of stand with the internet and stand with its own commitments against censorship and against online censorship, in particular. Up until recently, we have been very concerned that there seemed to be a contradiction. On the one hand, you had Hillary Clinton criticizing foreign governments for online censorship and for censoring web results and so on. But at the same time, you had these bills rocketing through Congress that would propose very similar things. So, it was good to see the White House stand against that and criticize these bills. On the other hand, I am concerned that the White House seems to think that some kind of legislation needs to be passed this year. And I actually don’t think the case has been made for that."

DN!:  "Talk about the whole issue of the protection of artists, for example, the music industry and their concerns."

Corynne McSherry:  "Well, look, there’s no question that there’s plenty of infringement online. That’s been true for a long time now. The question is how you’re going to answer it. And the best way to respond—it’s very clear at this point. The best way to respond to online infringement is to give people a better alternative. And when that happens, people go to that. So that’s the best way to do it. It’s not to pretend that the Pirate Bay doesn’t exist; it’s to give people an alternative to the Pirate Bay. And one of the things that we’ve seen is that, actually, independent artists are taking advantage of new technologies to reach the—reach new audiences. Music fans have more access to more music than they ever had before, and different kinds of music. And that’s what happens when you take advantage of new technologies, as opposed to running away from it."

DN!:  "Let me read you a tweet that Murdoch sent out this weekend: 'So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery.'"

Corynne McSherry:  "Well, you know, I think it’s ironic to talk about paymasters, given the amount of money that Hollywood has been spending in Congress to try to ram these bills through. I think it is true that the Obama administration has somewhat stood with Silicon Valley here, but I think Silicon Valley knows how to protect itself against so-called software piracy better than Rupert Murdoch will."

DN!:  "Finally, the votes, where they stand this week?"
 

Corynne McSherry:  "Well, what we’re seeing now is Harry Reid, Senator Reid, is insisting that he’s going to go forward with a vote next Tuesday on the Protect IP Act. We’ll see what happens over the course of the week. Things have changed a lot. And after the day of action tomorrow, a lot of us are hopeful that Senator Reid will think better of trying to push this bill through, given the level of opposition. It’s really just a bad idea, particularly when you think about what they’re doing here. This is basic internet infrastructure that they’re messing with. And I think that Representative Chaffetz had it exactly right. It’s foolish to go in and interfere with internet infrastructure when you don’t know what you’re doing."

DN!:  "And overall, SOPA and PIPA, how they’ve been separated?"

Corynne McSherry:  "Well, SOPA seems to be on hold for now. If PIPA is rammed through, it may be that in the House of Representatives they will try to revive SOPA and sort of bring the two bills in line. I certainly hope not, because that would be very, very dangerous for human rights, for internet security, and send an extremely negative signal around the world that the United States government does in fact support censorship, as long as you say that you’re doing it in the name of intellectual property enforcement."

DN!:  "Corynne McSherry, I want to thank you for being with us, intellectual property director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. When we come back, we’ll be joined by author Rebecca MacKinnon. She has just written the book, Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute."

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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DEMOCRACY NOW! — As protests mount against two controversial internet anti-piracy bills moving through Congress, we speak with Rebecca MacKinnon, author of the forthcoming book, "Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom." "If we want democracy to survive in the internet age, we really need to work to make sure that the internet evolves in a manner that is compatible with democracy," MacKinnon says. "And that means exercising our power not only as consumers and internet users and investors, but also as voters, to make sure that our digital lives contain the same kind of protections of our rights that we expect in physical space." She argues that for every empowering story of the internet’s role, there are many more about the quiet corrosion of civil liberties by companies and governments. [rush transcript included]

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Photo (above) by Flickr user Adam Selwood

Photo (feature) by Flickr user Monkey Man Forever