9/11/01, ten years later.

[SR4]

the entire world gets to see how 3,000 human beings die on live TV by terrorist action on US

 

100,000 to 600,000 human beings die with no media coverage as casualties of the resulting state sponsored war on Iraq

 

 

the sad thing is there is coverage of it online, and elsewhere, we have all seen it. But the controlled media knows what happens when they broadcast the carnage from both sides (Vietnam War was a gigantic change in the way Americans perceived war).

 

We need to stop giving into apathy, and the irrational hatred of the "other party" and of ourselves.

 

 

But... if it wasn't them, then it was someone else... I can't be wrong, I'm an American :sup:

 

Too much American exceptionalism exists imo. Idk how it is everywhere else, but does every nation think it's the best nation/place to live/be from? That's just the general consensus in America "even if it sucks, it's still the best place to live" You have no idea how many people believe this. We can't do wrong, our nation was created under God dagnabbit, and ain't no foreigners gonna be tellin' be how to run ma country. We should just nuke'em all to the stone age if you ask me. AMERIKUH! #1 USA!!!!

 

I used to sympathize with this position, but I can't do it any longer in good conscience. To put it in terms like "OMG almost everyone is an idiot in America" is grossly oversimplifying it, the same way Bush pushed the wars on us, and Obama continues to justify them.

 

It's easier to take potshots and remain sarcastic, throwing jibes at the uneducated wistfully ignorant lessers, than to actively confront injustice on a massive level.

 

To sit comfortably and jest at the population's expense while doing nothing yourself, how can I take you seriously any more than I could people of those opinions?

 

I'm not condoning these people's actions/thoughts, but there is a very large base of people here in middle america that truly feel this way. My issue is that I honestly don't know how to confront these people, because there is no reasoning with them. They feel the way they feel because that's how they feel damnit... America is #1, we do all the good around the world. We stop dictators, we're the land of the free and the home of the brave ffs. How can you deal with people that are so gladly living blindly? Spouting truth and facts won't change their minds. You can't fix stupid, and that is sadly the problem here... We can't take them seriously, but at the same time they are deadly serious. They bask in their idiocy, they take pride in it... So, I ask you; WAT DO?

 

 

You confront them with the same evidence day in day out, every single time you talk to them and refuse to give ground. But you do it in the interest of helping your common man, of being concerned for them, the US could get back on track and start taking advantage of its resources and industry and entrepreneurial spirit again.

 

Lately when I debate someone, I tell them that im not a liberal, or independent, or anything like that, but I am an American, and I want them to join the fold again. I want them to stop hurting themselves unknowingly in the name of easy promises. The dream and myth of old America is dead, but that doesn't mean a new one cant take its place, more streamlined, more equitable, more rational, more knowledgeable.

 

Psychological refusal to let go of the American myth is not their fault. They have been hit over the head with hit every single day of their lives, day in, day out. It takes the same amount of time and effort to heal those psychological wounds. Introduce them to friends who have served in the wars and tell horror stories. Introduce them to piles of hard, written statistics from multiple sources, rather than from the accused "liberal media." Show them that FOX is in the same basket as the other news channels, and show them all the information that America has neglected to give them. Organize discussions with large groups of people, in the open, an open dialogue, and be patient with their responses, but firm in that you know what they say is undoubtedly incorrect, but show them you are not in it to prove them wrong or stupid, but that you miss their friendship, compassion, understanding, and the fact that if in our united determination is possible, we can do things far more powerful than end Vietnam or march around the WTO.

 

To sit and make jibes pretending our righteousness against the perceived "other", and then saying "well, theres fuck all I can do about it" is nonsense, and I think you are far more intelligent than that. You are undergoing psychological trauma and manipulation of your own, we all have. It is time to stop sitting down resigned to the fact that we have no power.

[Guest KY]

well i kind of just want to delete this thread now

[SR4]

ask a mod?

[Guest KY]

ask a mod?

Haha nah I wouldn't really do that. But I do feel that trying to figure out how involved or complacent the U.S. was in the attack is completely and utterly futile, and as a result, wasn't t my goal for the thread, but whatever.

[zazen]

i could go on all night

but if the wool is over your eyes-enjoy the view

i wish i could bury my head in the sand too

 

anyone with a semblance of intellectual curiosity regardless of political alignment can't help but smell a fucking rotted rat

please dont talk down at us like we are all idiots

conspiracy enthusiasts have had 10 years to go mainstream and they have failed

your are mistaking opportunism for god-like ultimate-cabal-control of everything

you have to look at all the evidence, not just the bits you agree with

read some chomsky, see what he says about it.

[luke viia]

i was in a "modern problems" class in highschool when the planes hit. we watched that modern problem unfold and didn't do shit else for the class. then i went to spanish and my teacher wouldn't even let us turn the tv on ... we just did vocab sheets. that teacher was a real shrew. i remember kids in the halls shouting "NUKE THEM!!!" and i was somewhat unsettled by that, but to be honest, my initial reaction was revenge as well (i was just quiet about it, as you'd expect an autechre fan to be)

 

 

 

[Guest the anonymous forumite]

my initial reaction was revenge as well (i was just quiet about it, as you'd expect an autechre fan to be)

 

CONFIELD THEM ALL !!!

 

As for me, I was going to do some laundry when my mum called me to let me know. I then turned the tv on, and went posting about it on the WARP forum.

[Cazador Mod Unit]

It's hard to change the mind of others, but if this is your intention the absolute worst you can do is assume they are stupid. I guess you need to work really really hard on your empathy to unlock the common suffering that is right here with us*, oh and you need to speak their language, not yours.

 

The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science - How our brains fool us

http://m.motherjones...ce-chris-mooney

 

* just stole this from a DJ Sprinkle song : D

[Hautlle]

This is the kind of shit that the people I called stupid people say (from a facebook post today): "To say that this war is "unnecessary" is absurd to me, and furthermore, a huge insult to our military! Freedom comes with a price. Defending and protecting our country is necessary. Go thank a Veteran for your current freedom and right to say silly things!"

 

Seriously, brainwashed... It doesn't matter what I say to them. No evidence I can give/show impacts their thought process. They have their minds made up, they "know" they're right. I generally stay away from talking politics to people because I find it to be rather futile. Why waste my time trying to change other people? All I can control is myself, so I jbc and enjoy my life.

 

Also, this whole "you don't empathize w/ these other people" reply is unfounded. I understand where they're coming from, I just don't agree with it. Empathy != sympathy

[Cazador Mod Unit]

Block their feed. I mostly refuse to talk politics in the real world and retread to my private tower but I imagine we could reach a point when you can no longer have such privilege / place to hide from these people. Then you will feel like a coward and lament you didn't do anything to change the situation when you could. It's your choice.

 

So... The upcoming watmm darkroom forum, Hulk Hogan pics and conspiracy theories mean that we have successfully reached farce territory in this thread so let me push just a little more in our project of mutual liberation with Karlheinz Stockhausen thoughts on 9/11

 

 

In a press conference in Hamburg on 16 September 2001, Stockhausen was asked by a journalist whether the characters in Licht were for him "merely some figures out of a common cultural history" or rather "material appearances". The composer replied, "I pray daily to Michael, but not to Lucifer. I have renounced him. But he is very much present, like in New York recently" (Stockhausen 2002, 76). The same journalist then asked how the events of 11 September had affected him, and how he viewed reports of the attack in connection with the harmony of humanity represented in Hymnen. He answered:

 

Well, what happened there is, of course—now all of you must adjust your brains—the biggest work of art there has ever been. The fact that spirits achieve with one act something which we in music could never dream of, that people practise ten years madly, fanatically for a concert. And then die. [Hesitantly.] And that is the greatest work of art that exists for the whole Cosmos. Just imagine what happened there. There are people who are so concentrated on this single performance, and then five thousand people are driven to Resurrection. In one moment. I couldn't do that. Compared to that, we are nothing, as composers. [...] It is a crime, you know of course, because the people did not agree to it. They did not come to the "concert". That is obvious. And nobody had told them: "You could be killed in the process."

 

http://en.wikipedia....ptember_attacks

[SR4]

This is the kind of shit that the people I called stupid people say (from a facebook post today): "To say that this war is "unnecessary" is absurd to me, and furthermore, a huge insult to our military! Freedom comes with a price. Defending and protecting our country is necessary. Go thank a Veteran for your current freedom and right to say silly things!"

 

Seriously, brainwashed... It doesn't matter what I say to them. No evidence I can give/show impacts their thought process. They have their minds made up, they "know" they're right. I generally stay away from talking politics to people because I find it to be rather futile. Why waste my time trying to change other people? All I can control is myself, so I jbc and enjoy my life.

 

Also, this whole "you don't empathize w/ these other people" reply is unfounded. I understand where they're coming from, I just don't agree with it. Empathy != sympathy

 

 

You empathize with them whether you personally believe it or not. All American citizens, and to an extent the rest of the Westernized world, are in some form subjected to this propaganda. The reactions vary: Some attach themselves to the official line out of fear, and others strongly reject it. But very rarely, not really since Vietnam have a majority in either of these groups engaged themselves in open protest and conflict against it, in debate, in activism. Voting does not change anything. Voting is conceding to the system you mock and hate, and once again giving the mandate for people to act against your interest for another 4 years. The Tea Party can radicalize based upon psychological falsehoods, why the fuck isn't the reaction more powerful on the other side?

 

I would claim it is because of both intellectual apathy/laziness/fear in their own right, and also refusal to convey the argument properly to people that "just won't listen."

 

Here's an example, not the greatest example, but an example of what I mean nonetheless:

 

[youtubehd]SCNs7Zpqo98[/youtubehd]

 

 

There needs to be more of this. Much more of this. And it needs to be direct, and consistent. Stop veiling your want for unification in sarcasm and apathy.

 

 

btw, I am not advocating that Congress needs to be full of people like Al Franken.

 

The very fact that I am posting stuff like this and expect to get smacked around by everyone with witty retorts and blanket references to Teabaggers should be indicative of my refusal to let that tone dictate the policy and the attitude on both sides of our country.

 

 

Tea Partiers originally had decent, rational grievances, that even the most communist/anarchist could empathize with:

 

[youtubehd]mWs6g3L3fkU[/youtubehd]

[Terpentintollwut]

i got the dirtiest looks in this anthro class i am taking when the prof asked what makes an american an american and i said "an undeserved feeling of exceptionalism."

 

for me that's the definition of a patriot regardless of where they're from. but the evil looks you got kinda prove your point that many Americans are very attached to their silly patriotism.

 

 

The 90's, good times!

[sneaksta303]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIIF6P8zBG8&feature=player_embedded

[J3FF3R00]

i got the dirtiest looks in this anthro class i am taking when the prof asked what makes an american an american and i said "an undeserved feeling of exceptionalism."

 

for me that's the definition of a patriot regardless of where they're from. but the evil looks you got kinda prove your point that many Americans are very attached to their silly patriotism.

 

 

The 90's, good times!

 

Indeed. You can't really see, but I'm wearing fat, raver pants and the longest sweater I ever owned

 

 

I do remember feeling like a complete dick as it happened in class...some other kid stood up obviously shocked and said in the gayest voice imaginable,

 

 

" A 747? Oh my gawd that's like a freaking busplane."

 

At which point me and my friend fell out of our seats laughing.

 

Maybe I was eager to stop worrying about people I knew in that area. I dunno. Its so strange the emotions you can go through without your direct input/will ...hard to explain

 

 

This is something I can totally relate to.

 

I left it out of my long story because it embarrasses me to remember a moment I had when I was in the group of students watching the TV in the common room, blocks away from ground zero. I got worked up and started trying to convince my friends that we needed to quickly go out and find a news camera so that we could get in front of it and urge our leaders not to go to war over this event. I convinced one friend and the next friend I went up to was staring blankly at the tv screen with his mouth hanging open. I said something like "we need to find a camera and tell them not to go to war over this". My friend didn't respond and I think I kept talking (I've partially blocked this memory) and he turned to me and basically shut me down. I don't remember exactly what he said, but it was something to the effect of how I should stop because thousands of people just died and he couldn't do anything at all." I remember feeling like I lost control of myself. He definitely snapped me out of a bit of a frenzy I was in.

Looking back though, I think it's interesting that one of my first reactions was to try and stop our country from using it as an excuse to go to war. I was kinda right, but I feel like I was insensitive in that moment. I think about that moment a lot and the look on my friends face.

[Guest futuregirlfriend]

R.I.P. Tourist Guy.

[Guest KY]

i could go on all night

but if the wool is over your eyes-enjoy the view

i wish i could bury my head in the sand too

 

anyone with a semblance of intellectual curiosity regardless of political alignment can't help but smell a fucking rotted rat

please dont talk down at us like we are all idiots

conspiracy enthusiasts have had 10 years to go mainstream and they have failed

your are mistaking opportunism for god-like ultimate-cabal-control of everything

you have to look at all the evidence, not just the bits you agree with

read some chomsky, see what he says about it.

 

thank you for this response, far more concise than i could have done.

[Npoess]

 

[zazen]

I was a lurker at watmm or joyrex.com or whatever it was called back in 2001. I remember visiting the forum sometime soon after.

Drukqs had recently been released.

There was a thread entitled "Gwely Mernans - perfect soundtrack for these times", or something.

[Hautlle]

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

[awepittance]

conspiracy enthusiasts have had 10 years to go mainstream and they have failed

 

absolutely man, the same conspiracy theorists who called the Gulf of Tonkin a false flag, those dudes were totally not validated. There was only a 10 year clock on that and as soon as the 10 years was up it became totally irrelvent.

 

Same with that dude JFK remember him? Absolutely no one today talks about how it's a conspiracy and 20 years later a huge successful hollywood film by Oliver Stone never came out

 

so anybody still in here who has suspicions about what happened on 9/11, your time is up guys, 10 years has passed time to close up shop. nothing to see here, move along

[Meadows and Labyrinths]

can we forget about this please?

 

didn't read thread, lol

[awepittance]

read some chomsky, see what he says about it.

 

right, you mean this Chomsky... (November 6, 2010)

Renowned scholar Noam Chomsky says US invasion of Afghanistan was illegal since to date there is no evidence that al-Qaeda has carried out the 9/11 attacks.

“The explicit and declared motive of the [Afghanistan] war was to compel the Taliban to turn over to the United States, the people who they accused of having been involved in World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist acts. The Taliban…they requested evidence…and the Bush administration refused to provide any,” the 81-year-old senior academic made the remarks on Press TV’s program

A Simple Question

.

“We later discovered one of the reasons why they did not bring evidence: they did not have any.”

The political analyst also said that nonexistence of such evidence was confirmed by FBI eight months later.

“The head of FBI, after the most intense international investigation in history, informed the press that the FBI believed that the plot may have been hatched in Afghanistan, but was probably implemented in the United Arab Emirates and Germany.”

 

Chomsky originally said that 9/11 alternate theories were 'taking vast energies from the left' maybe he was right, but he has come a long way since then. An academic like him can't ignore the overwhelming fact that there was no proof, and i commend him for that.

[kaini]

i didn't find out til september 14th

 

i was living in a tiny caravan in the forest south of amsterdam with no tv and no internet, and i was off sick from work.

i turned on AM talk radio the night of the 14th (one of the few english-language radio stations i could get). very much a wtf moment.

[kaini]

i didn't find out til september 14th

 

i was living in a tiny caravan in the forest south of amsterdam with no tv and no internet, and i was off sick from work.

i turned on AM talk radio the night of the 14th (one of the few english-language radio stations i could get). very much a wtf moment.

Shit, I wish I could go to that same forest right now...but not before a hash run in the city

 

10km mostly through the forest on a bike. all flat, naturally.

i used love living there.

[zazen]

read some chomsky, see what he says about it.

 

right, you mean this Chomsky... (November 6, 2010)

Renowned scholar Noam Chomsky says US invasion of Afghanistan was illegal since to date there is no evidence that al-Qaeda has carried out the 9/11 attacks.

“The explicit and declared motive of the [Afghanistan] war was to compel the Taliban to turn over to the United States, the people who they accused of having been involved in World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist acts. The Taliban…they requested evidence…and the Bush administration refused to provide any,” the 81-year-old senior academic made the remarks on Press TV’s program

A Simple Question

.

“We later discovered one of the reasons why they did not bring evidence: they did not have any.”

The political analyst also said that nonexistence of such evidence was confirmed by FBI eight months later.

“The head of FBI, after the most intense international investigation in history, informed the press that the FBI believed that the plot may have been hatched in Afghanistan, but was probably implemented in the United Arab Emirates and Germany.”

 

 

Yes, I absolutely mean that Chomsky (and what does pointing out that the Afghanistan invasion was illegal have to do with claims of 9-11 being an inside job?)

I'm down with what he has to say about JFK too

 

http://books.zcommun...rc-c02-s14.html

 

A methodological point is perhaps worth mention. Suppose that we were to concoct a theory about historical events at random, while permitting ourselves to assume arbitrary forms of deceit and falsification. Then in the vast documentary record, we are sure to find scattered hints and other debris that could be made to conform to the theory, while counter-evidence is nullified. By that method, one can "prove" virtually anything. For example, we can prove that JFK never intended to withdraw any troops, citing the elusiveness of NSAM 263 and his unwillingness to commit himself to the withdrawal recommended by his war managers. Or we can prove that the attempt to assassinate Reagan was carried out by dark forces (Alexander Haig, the CIA, etc.). After all, Reagan had backed away from using US forces directly in Central America (unlike JFK in Vietnam); he was cozying up to the Chicoms; he had already given intimations of the anti-nuclear passion that led him to offer to give away the store at Rejkjavik and to join forces with the arch-fiend Gorbachev, whose perestroika was a transparent plot to entrap us; his associates were planning off-the-shelf international operations, bypassing intelligence and the Pentagon. Obviously, he has to go. Or suppose there had been an attempt to assassinate LBJ in late 1964, when he was refusing the call of the military to stand up to the Commies in Vietnam, pursuing Great Society and civil rights programs with a zeal well beyond Kennedy, and about to defeat a real alternative, Barry Goldwater. Nothing is easier than to construct a high-level conspiracy to get rid of this "radical reformer." The task is only facilitated by a search for nuances and variations of phrasing in the mountains of documents, usually committee jobs put together hastily with many compromises.

This is not the way to learn about the world.