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Ref. : Civic Events
Ref. : Arts & Education Events
Ref. : Public Service Notices
06.18 NYU Administrators Create Student Debt Slaves to Subsidize Summer Homes, Ginormous Pensions
06.17 Philadelphia Closes 23 Schools, Lays Off Thousands, Builds Huge Prison
06.17 How The American University was Killed, in Five Easy Steps
06.15 Treat Students Like Banks
06.15 Elizabeth Warren’s QE for Students: Populist Demagoguery or Economic Breakthrough?
06.13 Documentary: Dirty Wars (2013)
Ref. : Letters to the editor
06.19 Mapping the Renewable Energy Revolution [map graphic]
06.19 Cutting Food Stamps Will Cost Everyone
06.19 ObamaCare Icebergs: Burgeoning Medical Debt and the Wobbly Start-Up of the Federally-Run Exchanges
06.19 NOAA, partners predict possible record-setting dead zone for Gulf of Mexico
06.19 AMA declares obesity a disease
06.19 Heavy pollution linked to risk of autism, study shows
06.18 Texas Republican Says He Wants to Ban Abortion Because ... Fetuses Masturbate?
06.18 Summer Heat: The Movement Against Ripping the Face off the Earth for a Brief Fossil-Fueled “Party”
06.17 Choice of Health Plans to Vary Sharply From State to State
06.17 ObamaCare’s Relentless Creation of Second-Class Citizens, Part 1, Part 2
06.16 What Sweden Can Tell Us About Obamacare
06.16 Is BPA Making Girls Obese?
06.15 Ancient Roman Concrete Is About to Revolutionize Modern Architecture
06.15 Who is Polluting in Your Community? [interactive map]
06.14 FEMA Report: Climate Change Could Increase Areas at Risk of Flood by 45 Percent
06.14 Secret Trade Agreements Threaten to Undo Our Last Shreds of Food Safety
06.13 Exclusive - Wal-Mart's everyday hiring strategy: Add more temps
06.13 Pigs fed GM grain suffer health problems, study says
Video Health Care Systems in Less Corrupt Countries
Daily FAIR Blog
The Daily Howler
06.19 Banking Commission: Bankers should face threat of jail and loss of bonuses
06.18 Bank of America Whistle-blower Bombshell: “We Were Told to Lie” to Rip Off Borrowers
06.17 Sen. Warren Blasts Pro-Corporate Trend of Federal Courts
06.14 Why ‘I Have Nothing to Hide’ Is the Wrong Way to Think About Surveillance
06.13 Carl Levin is a Truly Horrible Person
06.13 More Americans see man who leaked NSA secrets as 'patriot' than traitor: Poll
06.13 Edward Snowden: US-China relations tested as extradition battle looms
06.19 Let’s raise Social Security taxes now
06.17 3 NSA veterans speak out on whistle-blower: We told you so [9:11 video]
06.16 Suddenly, Retiree Nest Eggs Look More Fragile
06.16 Racially Biased Arrests for Pot
06.15 Full Show: Big Brother’s Prying Eyes [video]
06.14 Daniel Ellsberg on the High Costs of Executive Branch Secrecy
06.14 What About the Fact That Terrorists Want to Murder Us All?
06.13 Why I Don't Care About Edward Snowden
06.13 A Federal Top-Secret Club That’s Not Very Secret or Federal
06.19 Who really runs this place?
06.18 Robert Wade: Elite Denial of Corruption and Inequality – World Bank Case Study [map graphic]
06.17 Priced out of Paris
06.15 National Security Should Never Be a For-Profit Industry
06.14 U.S. Agencies Said to Swap Data With Thousands of Firms
06.13 An Update on America's Antique Credit Card Industry
Ref. : Susan Crawford on Why U.S. Internet Access is Slow, Costly and Unfair [25:35 video]
Ref. : Nurses vs. High-Speed Traders
Ref. : We’re More Unequal Than You Think – Graphic: Unequal rise in income
06.19 Protests Spread Across Brazil [32 photos]
06.19 Trade Deal Could Stick U.S. With EU’s Bank Bomb
06.18 Edward Snowden's live Q&A: eight things we learned
06.18 Biggest protests in 20 years sweep Brazil [Vine]
06.17 The Snowden Principle
06.17 Morris the cat runs for mayor of Mexican city
06.17 Some Datapoints on Global Political Risk
06.16 Obama Isolated at G8 on Arms for Syrian Rebels
06.16 An Outbreak of Reasonableness in Tehran: Top Ten Conclusions from Iran’s Early Election Returns
06.15 What makes good people do bad things? The mere smell of money can make people behave unethically
06.14 Edward Snowden: Classified US data shows Hong Kong hacking targets
06.13 Why you should worry about the NSA
06.13 THE SECRET WAR
You can also mail a check to:
P.O. Box 42581
Baltimore, MD 21284-2581
WARNING:
My wake-up call: Watch for another 9/11-WMD experience
The wake-up call is unlikely to be effective, because the American attitude toward government changed fundamentally 70-odd years ago. Prior to the 1930s, Americans were suspicious of government, but with the arrival of the Great Depression, Tojo, and Hitler, President Franklin D. Roosevelt convinced Americans that government existed to protect them from rapacious private interests and foreign threats. Today, Americans are more likely to give the benefit of the doubt to government than they are to family members, friends, and those who would warn them about the government’s protection.
In the July 18 Los Angeles Times (“Bush the Albatross”), Ronald Brownstein reminds us that Bush’s behavior is disastrous for his political party. Unpopular presidents “have consistently undercut their party in the next election.” Brownstein reports that “88 percent of voters who disapproved of the retiring president’s job performance voted against his party’s nominee in past elections. . . . On average, 80 percent of voters who disapproved of a president’s performance have voted against his party’s candidates even in House races since 1986.”
Brownstein notes that with Bush’s dismal approval rating, this implies a total wipeout of the Republicans in 2008.
A number of pundits have concluded that the reason the Democrats have not brought a halt to Bush’s follies is that they expect Bush’s unpopular policies to provide them with a landslide victory next year.
There is a problem with this reasoning. It assumes that Cheney, Rove, and the Republicans are ignorant of these facts or are content for the Republican Party to be destroyed after Bush has his warmonger-police state fling. “After me, the deluge.”
Isn’t it more likely that Cheney and Rove have in mind events that will, once again, rally the people behind President Bush and the Republican Party, that is fighting the “war on terror” that the Democrats “want to lose”?
Such events could take a number of forms. As even diehard Republican Patrick J. Buchanan observed on July 17, with three US aircraft carrier battle groups in congested waters off Iran, another Tonkin Gulf incident could easily be engineered to set us at war with Iran.
If Bush’s intentions were merely to bomb a nuclear reactor, he would not need three carrier strike forces.
Lately, the administration has switched to blaming Iran for the war in Iraq. The US Senate has already lined up behind the latest lie with a 97-0 vote to condemn Iran.
Alternatively, false flag “terrorist” strikes could be orchestrated in the US. The Bush administration has already infiltrated some dissident groups and encouraged them to participate in terrorist talk, for which they were arrested. It is possible that the administration could provoke some groups to actual acts of violence.
Many Americans dismiss suspicion of their government as treasonous, and most believe conspiracy to be impossible “because someone would talk.” There is no basis in any known fact for this opinion.
According to polls, 36 percent of the American people disbelieve the 9/11 Commission Report. Despite this lack of confidence, and despite the numerous omissions and errors in the report, it has proven impossible to have an independent investigation of 9/11 or to examine the official explanation in public debate. Even experts and people with a lifetime of distinguished public service are dismissed as “conspiracy theorists,” “kooks,” and “traitors” if they question the official explanation of 9/11. This despite the fact that war in the Middle East, a long-planned goal of Bush’s neoconservative administration, could not have been initiated without a “new Pearl Harbor.”
That powerfully constructed steel buildings could suddenly turn to dust because they were struck by two flimsy aluminum airliners and experienced small fires on a few floors that burned for a short time appears unexceptionable to a majority of Americans.
Moreover, people have talked. Hundreds of them. Firefighters, police, janitors, and others report hearing and experiencing a series of explosions in upper floors and massive explosions in the underground basements. This eyewitness testimony was kept under wraps for three or more years until the official explanation had taken root. The oral histories were finally forced loose by Freedom Of Information Act suits. The eyewitness reports of explosion after explosion had no effect.
Larry Silverstein, who received billions of dollars in insurance payments for the destroyed buildings, talked. He said on public television that the order was given “to pull” building 7. His stunning admission had no effect.
The Bush administration is preparing us for more terrorist attacks. The latest intelligence report says that Al Qaeda has regrouped, rebuilt, and has the ability to come after us again. "Al Qaeda will intensify its efforts to put operatives here," says the report.
Security operatives, such as Michael Chertoff, and various instruments of administration propaganda have warned that we will be attacked before next year’s election. Chertoff is not a person who wants to be known as Chicken Little for telling us that the sky is falling.
Bush has the Republican Party in such a mess that it cannot survive without another 9/11. Whether authentic or orchestrated, an attack will activate Bush’s new executive orders, which create a dictatorial police state in event of “national emergency.” [See here.]
The UK government is hand-in-glove with the Bush administration and will provide cover or verification for whatever claim the Bush administration advances. So will the right-wing governments in Canada and Australia. That takes care of the English-speaking world from which contrary explanations might reach the American people.
It is possible that Bush is now too weak, that suspicion is too great, and that there is too much internal resistance in the federal bureaucracy and military for any such scenario. If so, then my prediction prior to the invasion that the US invasion of Iraq will destroy Bush, the Republican Party, and the conservative movement will be proven true. The Democrats’ strategy of doing nothing except making sure Bush gets his way will produce the landslide that they expect.
However, this assumes that Cheney, Rove, and their neoconservative allies have lost their cunning and their manipulative skills. It is difficult to imagine a more dangerous assumption for Democrats and the American people to make.
Once the US experiences new attacks, Bush will be vindicated. His voice will be confident as he speaks to the nation:
“My administration knew that there would be more attacks from these terrorists who hate us and our way of life and are determined to destroy every one of us. If only more of you had believed me and supported my war on terror these new attacks would not have happened. Our security efforts were impaired by the Democrats’ determined attempts to surrender to the terrorists by forcing our withdrawal from Iraq and by civil libertarian assaults on our necessary security measures. If only more Americans had trusted their government, this would not have happened.”And so on. Anyone should be able to write the script.
This commentary is republished in the Baltimore Chronicle with the permission of the author.
Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent.
This story was published on July 20, 2007.
