9/11 Truth splits its impact

I don’t know whose bright idea it was to take some of the best minds of the 9/11 Truth Movement and go to Toronto to conduct International Hearings on the Events of September 11, 2001. Its linked position paper reads like a statement restating the now obvious findings of the last decade. Or was this just a reason to get out of the country to say the unsayable or to visit that same Canada now trying to shove the poisonous Keystone XL pipeline down our gullets?

This leaves us with WeAreChange, lovingly acronymed WACS, who have certainly changed, hopefully for the better, significantly cleaning up their acts, ready to tough it out on the street. But I thought 9/11 happened in New York City and deserved the whole of 9/11 Truth’s presence. In fact, I know it happened here. I watched the Towers burn from Riverside Park, standing at the far edge of the Trump Pier, looking south at that huge cloud of smoke, smelling that awful smell, trying to hold back tears, as if I’d just had two molars pulled from my mouth without a shot of Novocain and the pain was stunning.

But I suppose it broadens one to travel. That is, to at least stay in a country with a universal healthcare system and a police force that doesn’t look like a SWAT team. But you 9/11 Truthers will miss the mayhem while you inquire about what it all means when you know already what it means: 9/11 was the inciting incident of the War on Terror that lead to the illegal attack on Afghanistan first, then the agreed-upon invasion of Iraq, beginning with a blast of shock and awe, ending supposedly in 2003, after everyone looked in Iraq for Weapons of Mass Destruction and didn’t find them but nevertheless hanged Saddam Hussein—a prelude perhaps to the fate of Muammar Gaddafi.

A decade later, no one has found WMD in Iraq. But we now claim to have also killed Osama bin Laden, whom we originally blamed for the 9/11 attack. We invaded Afghanistan “to smoke” him out and did not find or kill him for nearly 10 years, if indeed we did kill him. We are now ingloriously drone-bombing Pakistan looking for Al-Qaeda while separately killing Libyans with 30,000 bombs from 8,000 airstrikes in a “no-fly-zone” that NATO, the U.N., and the U.S. created (i.e. the president without congressional approval) for just a week or so. We left no boots on the ground but some C.I.A. as rebels, and now an Al-Qaeda battalion or two fighting Gaddafi forces for a piece of the action. That’s right Al-Qaeda “protecting citizens” and “fighting for Democracy.” Flashing back . . .

The “Arab Spring” started, as you may remember, in Tunisia with a college-student vendor setting himself on fire because a policeman would not grant him the right to sell his fruit to earn the money he needed to help support his family and go to school. If he couldn’t work, as a police officer said he couldn’t, mocking him, slapping him in the face, on December 17, 2010, Muhammad Al Bouazizi set himself on fire and died from the burns. This was the flashpoint of Tunisia’s revolution, which spread to Egypt.

More and more, here and there, there is conflict in Europe as well, among the worsening finances of the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain), with ongoing riots over national debt and austerity programs caused by corrupt leaders and central banksters. At this point, too, from Somalia to Syria, enough hasn’t been enough. Fighting and death continue to rule the day.

But in Toronto they are mulling all this over, hoping to come to the conclusion that “something was rotten in Denmark.” Or at least in Norway, where a neo-Nazi, neocon, Anders Behring Breivik, and cohorts murdered some 80 young people, all kids of the members of the liberal Labor Party. This occurred while Breivik or a cohort simultaneously set off a huge car bomb that leveled blocks of Oslo, reminiscent of Oklahoma City. The shooting seems reminiscent of Jared Lee Loughner, the would-be assassin of Arizona Republican Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and others. The violence now seems to have no boundaries.

The economy, under the strain of this endless war and the financial terrorists of Wall Street, has gone to pot, cocaine, crack, you name it, to help keep itself solvent, liquid, first by laundering Mexican drug-money to stall its bankruptcy, moral, ethical, and dollar-wise. Gold and other precious metals, oil and food have spiked with unregulated speculation. And the easements of the Fed no longer make an impact on job-creation because the banks that get the money sit on it, gathering interest they get for keeping it, paying it out in bonuses and profits. Nobody gives a hoot about the unemployed, the 99-weekers. Congress is stalled in first gear with offbeat strange-oids like the Tea-Baggers, Michelle Bachmann, Eric Cantor, Rick Perry, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin grabbing at the wheel.

We can’t even raise out national debt ceiling without having months of dumb, mind-numbing arguments, which all end with we won’t raise taxes on the rich, even if they want it, and this is all the fault of Social Security and Medicare. What Congress wants is to get its hands on the nearly $2 trillion in Social Security assets, earned by America’s working people and kept in its violable Trust Fund. Then, too, we’ll means-test the old farts and if they’ve got a dime, they won’t qualify for Social Security. And we’ll raise the age for Social Security to 69 so incipient recipients will be half-dead when they finally get it. This is the state of the State today.

Medicare will not be intelligently widened into a national health care system because that’s “socialism,” unlike when we bail out banks and multi-national insurance companies because they took stupid risks and were too large to fail, even though they failed miserably. No, the taxpayers who will be paying the “socialized” losses will be asked to smile while the Wall Street gamblers privatize the profits. The masses will be advised to use private insurance, which will keep health care prices as high as possible. And Congress will even try to privatize Social Security if it can get away with it, unlike Bush who got frosted for it and his trillions of tax cuts to the rich, which no one wants to touch still. Amazing!

What else has this grand nation done since 9/11 but destroy millions of lives in countries in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa in its hegemonic march? Well, we’re about to permit Israel to shoot Palestinians protesting the denial of their right to become an independent state instead of targets for Netanyahu rage, another piece of Israel’s sordid past and present. So how’s the weather in Toronto, guys? Plenty of fresh air, no tar sand oil burning off near you. No radiation blown over from Fukishima, about a thousand times the power of WW II’s atomic bombs? How’s the food? Anything GMO cooked up for breakfast, lunch or dinner? No? Better come home. We’ve got plenty of everything, mostly trouble.

For a special treat, we have both ex-President Bush and slippery President Obama set to speak at the 9/11 ceremonies, marking the 10^th anniversary of that dreadful day when the buildings fell up and down and turned to pyroplastic dust by whatever means you wish to name: nano-thermite, fourth generation nuclear (hydrogen bomb explosion with no radiation), directed energy, dematerialization or good old internal demolition explosives—along with drones delivering a knock-out punch to Flight 93 or the Pentagon, that is, after the internal bomb went off in D.C. Shuffle the cards. Spread them out. Spin the wheel and see where the ball lands. Have a good time trying to get a reinvestigation of the circumstances that caused and/or surrounded 9/11/2001. I’m sure that after 10 years and the trillions made by the defense industry and Department of Defense they’ll be ready to roll over and heal. Not.

Meanwhile, the lies to be slung at the 9/11 families at the ceremonies for their dead will continue, aided and abetted by the tongue-tied Bush and ever-eloquent Barack Obama, man of many hats. Add to that more canned TV tributes to the lost by incompetent, non-questioning media. Yes, sir, nothing like a few days away from the fray, the SWAT teams, the burp guns, the submachine guns, the black battle gear, endless police cars, barricades, mosque-haters, mosque-defenders, barred first responders (still trying to collect for cancer treatments) and barred clergy. But then even information wars are hell.

What I had wished for on this 10^th anniversary of 9/11 were not scattered meetings, but rather one focused program as in past days, attended by the very top to bottom members of all groups, the best and brightest, to defend against the onslaught of the Larry Silversteins (already pushing his new real estate), the Ray Kellys (still longing for more camera surveillance), etc. I would have liked a maximum buffer of knowledgeable Truthers to shield the suffering families—not knowing what really happened here—to help defend against the lies with an intelligent narrative. I would have liked a full court press by the whole team, not half of it nearly 500 miles away. But, perhaps distance brings a fresh perspective. I sincerely hope so.

I’m sure it will be a lot “nicer” at Toronto’s Ryerson University’s campus, the site of the actual hearings. The reader can find out all about it in the linked piece in the first paragraph, including the sponsors, et al. I do hope, unlike the first 9/11 Commission of Omission’s Report, that 9/11 Truth will be issuing some results of their hearings in a reasonable timeframe, so that we here in New York City can benefit from their collective wisdom. I should mention it’s not too late to make a contribution to the Toronto Hearings/ The International Hearings on the Events of September 11, 2011.

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer, life-long resident of New York City. An EBook version of his book of poems “State Of Shock,” on 9/11 and its after effects is now available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. He has also written hundreds of articles on politics and government as Associate Editor of Intrepid Report (formerly Online Journal). Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.