And if the American empire should last for 1,000 years, then they will look back, not knowing exactly when it transitioned from republic to empire, and remember one senator who spoke out. Rand Paul is the main senator sticking to his constitutional principles and demanding that the Obama administration undo the imperial presidency.
I've been in situations where I've had to speak for 13 continuous hours, and can confirm personally how difficult it is. Rand Paul is, besides Senator Cruz, the only man earning his money during this time of austerity sequester. Paul is fighting not just to prevent the nomination of Brennan to CIA chief, but also to prevent Obama and any future president from killing in America. The highest lawyer in the land, attorney general Eric Holder, has just made it clear: Obama believes he can use drones on Americans inside of the US.
The Guardian has just recently revealed how involved Petraeus was in that whole Iraq torture scene a few years back. Should we forget that Obama promoted Petraeus to be his CIA chief? Brennan, our next CIA chief, is essentially in the same loop as the rest of the imperial gang. An agency that hasn't been held accountable for its mistakes and history of torture also wants the power to kill without judge, jury, or trial; and we are supposed to just accept it? We're not just supposed to accept it, we're supposed to be outraged instead at extramarital fornication.
The whole Petraeus scandal a few months back only proves that in America, you get a pat on the back or you get promoted for torturing, but if you have a little unchristian sex, you get shamed and fired. The country has its priorities right. Of course, if I were Obama and knew that the Guardian was investigating the Iraq war logs released by Bradley Manning -- and how they led to his CIA chief Petraeus -- I would most certainly get rid of him. But undoubtedly, the sex scandal was the real reason Petraeus was forced to resign. To be believe otherwise would be a ridiculous conspiracy theory. If you believe that Petraeus resigned for anything but an extramarital affair, you are a crazy conspiracy theorist!
What a powerful word, the word conspiracy. It was Tony's lawyer in the Sopranos that said, "you put three guys in a room and that's a conspiracy." And true to his words, Americans everyday are prosecuted for conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to defraud, and so on.. Hell, if you find yourself in the same vicinity as someone affiliated with Al-Qaeda -- let alone the same room -- you are likely to get taken out by a Hellfire missile; even if you are a government negotiator. So, for an American prosecutor, the ability to allege a conspiracy is very straightforward and simple.
However, something interesting happens when it is not a prosecutor, an agent of the state, that is alleging a conspiracy against a civilian, but rather a civilian alleging a conspiracy against government agents; it become a "conspiracy theory." For some reason, this carries a largely negative connotation in the English language. Like the phrase "alien abduction," the phrase ''conspiracy theory'' carries those elements that make us nervous and roll our eyes. But this is not the case everywhere outside of America.
If I were, for example, sitting around a table full of Dominicans and alleged that the Dominican military was working with the Haitian military to bring drugs into the country, the people around would most likely inquire further. Even if someone were to say that my allegation was a "teoria conspirativa," it would have little meaning to the Dominicans around the table.
If I were sitting around a table full of Americans and said, "the CIA is bringing crack into the inner city," most would choose not to further inquire, and if someone at the table said, "that's a conspiracy theory!" then it would be an instant indication that it's best to change the subject.
So, I asked a random Dutch woman with whom I have no romantic involvement, "when you hear the word complottheorie, what is the first thing that comes to mind?"
She answered: "I'm always suspicious of people who believe complottheories, but I guess it depends on the topic."
I asked her: "if I tell you that the government carried out 9/11 and offered you evidence to back up that assertion, would that be a complottheorie?"
She answered, ''yes.''
I continued: "what if I allege that the government killed JFK and offered evidence to back that assertion, would that be the same as the assertion about 9/11?"
She answered: "yes."
I continued: "What if I allege that the government came into contact with aliens and offered evidence to back up that assertion, would that be the same as the assertion about 9/11 and JFK?"
She answered: "no."
I asked: "why?"
She replied: ''because to me aliens are less believable."
I asked: "so, it basically comes to how believable the assertion is?''
She answered: "yes."
Now, this randomly selected Dutch woman has what I would describe as "mainstream" theories -- as they are propagated in the media. In the mainstream world, "conspiracy theories" are all lumped together and then sorted based on how believable it is to the listener. But to me this seems not only unscientific, but also problematic. In fact, I believe that there should be a new phrase: "prosecutorial theory."
Does an assertion about aliens involved a known crime for which there should be a prosecutor and an accused?
No!
Does the assertion that Bin Laden did not fully carry out 9/11 involve a known crime for which there should be a prosecutor and an accused?
Of course!
Now, it doesn't take learning many different languages to notice that culture and language greatly trains us to react emotionally to certain phrases and words. The emotions we associate with certain words and phrases affects our ability to ask questions and demand answers.
While at Yale, I was the only person I knew willing to publicly ask questions and demand answers. In private, engineering and architecture students agreed with me regarding 9/11. In public, the possibility that they could be branded as modern day blasphemers, as conspiracy theorists, was too risky for their careers and they didn't speak publicly or ask questions. The fear of a label is not going to stop me from forcing the government speak the truth about 9/11.
Many people are skeptical and want another investigation. They want someone to be prosecuted and accused. To summarize my argument, 9/11 was a crime and there has been no proper prosecutor accusing someone in a manner that is consistent with democratic transparency.
Thomas Kean, the head of the 9/11 commission, the man who himself said he was stonewalled by the CIA, is in my opinion nothing resembling an investigator or prosecutor. In fact, my entire reason for leaving and fearing returning to the land of the free can be encapsulated in this short video.
Yes, we don't know if anyone died there, so there's no reason to investigate. It's like finding two buses and a minibus at the bottom of a ravine and neglecting to mention the minibus because no one died in the vehicle. I wouldn't hire this guy to be the prosecutor in a traffic case, much less the biggest crime in American history. No one died in that building -- to the best of our knowledge -- because the steel was shipped off to China before getting properly analyzed. Yet, people don't want to talk about 9/11 because to do so would be something that in America scares and is referred to as a "conspiracy theory."
New ideas and beliefs are dangerous because they can undo the order of things and unseat the current establishment. As an outside observer, I have seen a rise in the number of Americans who believe anti-government theories, and who see the US government as an adversary. One of the reasons why many Americans are absolutely convinced of the evil of the United States is because of 9/11. Whether you or I believe that the government itself carried out 9/11 is irrelevant. What is scary is the number of armed Americans who believe just that and increasingly call for blood and revolution.
From an outside point of view, there is a large segment of the American population unsure not just about their financial situation, but also the possibility of an armed confrontation against the government in the event of a worsening economic scenario, which is itself increasingly likely. Anyone who has taken basic military strategy knows that defeating an enemy is as much a physical act as a psychological act. To defeat your enemy, you must make him lose trust in the very institutions that are supposed to support him.
America's enemies are using conspiracy theories against her. Press TV, the official Iranian news agency, recently reported on the murder-suicide of Phillip Marshall, the author of The Big Bamboozle, a book that accuses the US government and the Saudis of complicity in 9/11. A large number of Iranians believe that 9/11 was a false flag attack, and when an individual with a white face and a credible title appears on TV telling them that the US government killed a man and his family for writing a book alleging something that many of them suspect, it only reinforces what they already believe.
The individuals in control of the Iranian regime are pretty smart, and they recognize the power of the mystery surrounding 9/11, and they know that they have to exploit it. Should the Iranian regime begin to assassinate within Israel and the US, it might be in their best interest to assassinate 9/11 truth activists, as this would promote uncertainty and fear.
I'm not exactly sure what happened to Phillip Marshall, but it seems that the Iranians are benefiting. We live in a time of conspiracy, of uncertainty. We can only hope that the Iranians don't retaliate for the assassination of their scientists with politically-motivated assassinations in the US and Israel.
According to one of my sources within ICE, the Department of Homeland Security has evidence to indicate that there is a large Mexican cartel directly under the control of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. For now, it hasn't been revealed which cartel, but DHS fears that this cartel will carry out hits in the US once Iran goes nuclear and feels more secure in its own borders.
My source revealed little, but he mentioned that the top three guys in the cartel are Mexican-Iranian double-agents; their followers are completely unaware that they are anything but pure Mexican ex-military. The average cartel foot soldier would never even dream that he works for anyone but Mexican elements.
These three Iranian double-agents have succeeded in developing a nation-wide trafficking and assassination network without having ever even set foot within the United States. The trafficking allegedly provides money for the Revolutionary Guard, and the assassination network serves obvious enforcement efforts as well as future political efforts. A war with Iran will not be easy; beyond Hezbollah and Syria, Iran has Latin American proxies.
To be fully honest, however, I can't say whether my source is feeding me the truth, or the DHS version of how Marshall was killed. There is a real possibility that Iran could control a cartel near the border; after all it would be a strategically powerful weapon to have a destabilizing capability near your enemy. I can say with certainty that there is an attempt to hide the truth regarding Marshall's death.
My girlfriend and I were sitting around like one of those old French bohemian couples; she read one of my articles all the while I tried to procure another round of sex. By now, I already know that a personal article -- as opposed to a terrifying narrative involving the US government -- is the way to get her "mentally" stimulated. Sadly, she was reading one my terrifying US government narratives when, instead of chastising the criminals in Washington, she chastised me for my liberal use of the word "war."
"You Americans always use the word 'war,' everything is a war. A war on drugs this, a war on waste that, a war on poverty this, a civil war soon," she mocked.
I grew a bit frustrated, but began to think about the importance we give to words. Words like rape, murder, and slaying illicit certain emotions, certain dark thoughts when we hear them. It is true that the government can casually declare that it is going to start a war on poverty, a war on hunger, a war on waste, a war on drugs, and we all see it as very good. When the government casually declares a war against some far off enemy, to us it just seems like another routine government initiative designed to take care of us.
It is very 1984, but there are entire Pentagon and government groups dedicated to naming certain operations and activities. What in WWI was clearly visualized in words as shell shock, has now become post-traumatic stress disorder; a hard to visualize and pinpoint set of words, further obscured when shortened to just PTSD. What in WWII was called water torture was reborn as waterboarding. Waterboarding itself is often just referred to as an enhanced interrogation technique, or an EIT. I've found myself reading declassified documents and wondering what EITs were, only to learn that in our glorious Newspeak, EITs are just a sanitized activity too complicated to fully detail to the public.
Every cruel act is reduced to a mere technical term or abbreviation. Life was cruel during our grandparents' generation; people had to deal with aerial bombardments, extrajudicial assassinations, kidnapping, civilian casualties, and water torture. Fortunately, now we only have to deal with surgical strikes, targeted killings, extraordinary rendition, collateral damage, and EITs. Times have greatly improved since the fall of Hirohito; we don't even need a Ministry of War anymore, just a Ministry of Defense.
The American dream as it was sold to us involved a big cubic structure largely composed of wood with a white picket fence for a perimeter indicator. Inside of these cubic habitation modules, reaffirmation in success required a large metal vehicle reliant on fossil fuels for propulsion. If you had those things and perhaps a few more, then you had reached the American dream and you could be happy. And indeed, it seems that such a lifestyle was in the past not only normal, but also seemingly moral.
However, if the 21st century has shown us anything, it is that a fossil fuel-reliant, resource-gobbling economic model is ultimately unsustainable. To survive in the 21st century, America needs to move to a new economic model, one where the country's mass appetite for fossil fuels is tempered with self-sustaining homes, renewable energy, and electric-hybrid vehicles that will allow the global economy to disassociate from tyrannical regimes currently in control of dwindling energy resources. Those resources will continue to dwindle, as the world imitates the Western model.
The world wants to emulate Americans, but we are only 5% of the population yet 25% of the energy consumers. The problem with everyone wanting a white picket fence in the suburbs is that the Chinese and Indians also want the same. The Chinese middle-class alone is larger than the population of the United States. It is only natural for people to want what makes them and their families comfortable, even if to the detriment of the common good.
Detriment to the common good is the result of blindness, and it is leading the world to an ecological apocalypse at the hands of a massive resource war. The answer to our current economic problems is not a patching of the current economy, but rather a rebooting of our entire economic model. There are more slaves alive today than were alive during the American civil war, and they make many of the products that are produced in the blind corners of the world. There will eventually be a war over slavery; it is inevitable. It will not be between countrymen, however, but rather the developing signatories of free trade agreements. The world cannot survive half slave, half consumer.
It remains to be seen whether the developed economies of the world will eventually become energy independent and largely import independent due to 3-D printing technology, but these are the two technological developments that can most prevent massive resource wars in the 21st century. Even vast, renewable energy levels and on-demand printing of objects will not be enough to temper the appetite for precious metals and the invisible elements that drive our high-tech consumer goods. The war for precious metals promises to wreak havoc in Africa as China and America tear it apart in their quest to establish spheres of influence. I can't foresee a replacement for metals, so swords and bullets will be made for many more decades to come.
