911: A Final Summation

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

American Airlines itself is the source for information that AA Flights 11 (North Tower) and 77 (Pentagon) did not fly on 911. These flights are critical to the the government's crumbling cover up! Without those flights, Bush and his murderous co-conspirators will have to revise the big lie. They will have to concoct yet another cover story from the ground up! 

A cover up is on the brink of collapse when those guilty of capital crimes and high treason either turn on one another or are forced to revise the lie!If neither flight was in the air as American Airlines itself has so stated, then numerous 'official versions' of the 'official conspiracy theory' are all a pack of malicious lies. That includes almost every statement made by Bush. It is, in my opinion, probable cause to indict Bush and his co-conspirators for the crimes of mass murder and high treason.

WikiScanner discovered that American Airlines changed their Wikipedia entry to state that Flights 11 and 77 never flew on 9/11. Original entry was:

Two American Airlines aircraft were hijacked and crashed during the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack: American Airlines Flight 77 (a Boeing 757) and American Airlines Flight 11 (a Boeing 767).

          New entry is as follows and it includes the bolded text below:

Two American Airlines aircraft were hijacked and crashed during the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack: Flight 77 (a Boeing 757) and Flight 11 (a Boeing 767). 

Although these flights were daily departure before and a month after September 11, 2001, neither flight 11 nor 77 were scheduled on September 11, 2001. The records kept by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (www.bts.gov/gis/) do not list either flight that  day.  

--Wikipedia

To make the point: the source for these change is American Airlines by making corrections to Wikipedia. The 'story' is not about Wiki. The story is about how AA 'corrected' a wiki entry to coincide with their own. The story is about the fact that the evidence that Flights 11 and 77 were not flying on 911 comes from American Airlines itself.

According to a Freedom of Information Act reply from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), the last known pre-9/11 flights for three of the four aircraft involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 took place in December, 2000, nine months before the attacks, while no pre-9/11 final flight information was provided for American Airlines flight 77 (N644AA).

However, a discovered searchable online BTS database produces the following search results for three of the four 9/11 aircraft on September 10, 2001:

AA 11 departs San Francisco (SFO): AA 09/10/2001 0198 (flight number) N334AA (tail number) BOS (destination) 22:04 (wheels-off time)

UA 175 departs San Francisco (SFO): UA 09/10/2001 0170 (flight number) N612UA (tail number) BOS (destination) 13:44 (wheels-off time)

UA 93 departs San Francisco (SFO): UA 09/10/2001 0078 (flight number) N591UA (tail number) EWR (destination) 23:15 (wheels-off time)--911 Blogger, UPDATE: U.S. BTS FOIA Records For 9/11 Planes Differ From BTS Online Database [The records were obtained by Adrian Monaghan]

Anyone trying to prove that Flights 77 and 11 were not flying on 911 would have to verify that proposition through authoritative sources that could confirm it. The question is raised: how do we know who made the changes to Wiki? Everyone logged on to the internet does so from an IP address. In this case, the IP is that of American Airlines. It's traceable.

My own WHOIS lookup as well as a Google search of the IP address proves conclusively that it was --indeed --American Airlines itself that made the change. It is American Airlines --by way of Wiki --that has said that neither Flight 11 nor Flight 77 were in the air that day.

Therefore, the Bush theory of 911 is a deliberate lie.

My look up returned the following:

WHOIS - 144.9.8.21

Location: United States [City: Ft. Worth, Texas]

OrgName: American Airlines Incorporated
OrgID: AMERIC-112
Address: P.O.Box 619616
Address: MD 5308
City: DFW Airport
StateProv: TX
PostalCode: 75261
Country: US
NetRange: 144.9.0.0 - 144.9.255.255
CIDR: 144.9.0.0/16
NetName: AANET
NetHandle: NET-144-9-0-0-1
Parent: NET-144-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: DNS-P1.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P2.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P3.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P4.SABRE.COM
Comment:
RegDate: 1990-10-31
Updated: 2002-06-27

RTechHandle: OG60-ARIN
RTechName: Gelbrich, Orf
RTechPhone: +1-817-931-3145
RTechEmail: ************@aa.com
OrgTechHandle: ZW72-ARIN
OrgTechName: WARIS, ZISHAN
OrgTechPhone: +1-817-967-1242
OrgTechEmail: ************@aa.com

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2008-06-29 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

This is not the first major hole to be discovered. The many lies (many referenced in previous EC articles; see links below) are probable cause to begin a Federal Grand Jury investigation of George W. Bush's role in 911. Bush should be compelled by subpoena and Federal Marshals to testify under oath before an independent Federal Grand Jury. The AA revelations demand it!

Bush lies have the effect of covering up the truth, protecting the guilty and obstructing justice. The lies are an insult to the families of 911 victims, victims who are dishonored by the continuing cover-up! Bush's lies aggravate the crimes of mass murder, terrorism and high treason for which the penalty must surely be death. 911 did not happen as we have been told. 

We were lied to 

Bushco's 'official conspiracy theory' of 911 is full of holes. Flights 11 and 77 are essential ingredients in the 'official conspiracy theory' of 911. 

That AA claims that neither 11 or 77 were in the air that day sinks Bush's theory. 

More importantly, however, it should get him an 'invitation' to appear before a Federal Grand Jury to answers charges that he betrayed his nation and waged war upon the people. Clearly --the official theory is a lie, an intentional cover-up. Cover-ups imply guilt! Otherwise --what is there to cover up? The official 'lie' goes like this:

At 8:20, Flight 11 stopped transmitting its transponder signal, and veered northward and departed dramatically from the westward heading of its planned route. The controllers concluded that the plane had probably been hijacked. 4 5 At 8:24, the following transmission was reportedly received from Flight 11: We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be okay .. we are returning to the airport...Nobody move. Everything will be okay. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet. Nobody move please we are going back to the airport .. don't try to make any stupid moves. 6 Neither of the pilots pressed the distress call button. At 8:28 controllers reportedly watched the plane make a 100-degree turn toward the south. 7 Presumably, Flight 11 continued south along the Hudson River until it reached the World Trade Center, though documentation of this is sparse given the lack of public information.According to NORAD's September 18 timeline, the FAA did not notify NORAD of the signs that Flight 11 was hijacked until 8:40, 25 minutes after the first signs of trouble.

--Flight 11, The First Jet Commandeered on September 11th, 911 Research

Elsewhre, 911 Research stats: "...there is no evidence for the assertions by some people... that the North Tower was hit by something other than Flight 11." I can do better: those who assert must prove. Ergo: those who believe the Bush version of events must prove the Bush version or, at the very least introduce some evidence in support of the official conspiracy theory. 

Rather, the Bush admin and its supporters have not proved or supported! They have, in fact, threatened and intimidated. It is, rather, the assertions that Flight 11 struck the North Tower that are utterly baseless. 

The burden of proof is on those who assert. Those who assert that Flight 11 did not fly that day must prove their assertion. If the case had even been taken to court, a judge would have required evidence meeting legal requirements of the bench, the court, and eventually a jury. 

If neither Flight 11 or 77 was in the air that day, then nothing in the 'official statements' with regard to the Twin Towers is true. The house of cards collapses.

While it is not good news for Bush, it is consistent with the fact that no wreckage traceable to a 757 was ever found at the Pentagon. The rotor seen photographed beside one of the workers in the wake of the "attack" is what some have called a turbine jet. Had a Flt 77 crashed into the Pentagon, two of these would have been found. Alas --only one was photographed (above). 

There are several problems with that: 1) there are two of these in a 757; only one was recovered. Had a complete investigation been made, more inconsistencies may have made the Bush version of events so outrageous that a full and competent investigation could not have been dodged or covered-up. 

.

Where is the Airliner? 

Moreover, photos of an engine rotor appear to depict an engine used in the Global Hawk, a payload carrying missile that was, according to Britain's International Television News, flown from the US to Australia completely by remote control. "A robot plane has made aviation history by becoming the first unmanned aircraft to fly across the Pacific Ocean." 

Britain's ITN continued: "The Global Hawk, a jet-powered aircraft with a wingspan equivalent to a Boeing 737, flew from Edwards Air Force Base in California and landed late on Monday at the Royal Australian Air Force base at Edinburgh, in South Australia state... It flies along a pre-programmed flight path, but a pilot monitors the aircraft during its flight via a sensor suite which provides infra-red and visual images."

ITN quoted Australian Global Hawk manager Rod Smith: '"The aircraft essentially flies itself, right from takeoff, right through to landing, and even taxiing off the runway."'

The Global Hawk is a much better candidate for what Rumsfeld called "...the missile that struck this building" than a 757. Here's what you need to know about the Pentagon.

• Only minutes after the strike, [see pic above] there is no sign of an airliner at all!

• No wreckage traceable to a 757 was ever recovered.

• Only ONE engine rotor (seen in photos) was recovered! This rotor is about one third the diameter of a 757 rotor.

• A 757 has two rotors, each of which are nearly three times the size of the SINGLE rotor located at the Pentagon

• Engine rotors are made of a Steel/Titanium alloy to withstand high temps inside jet engines.

• Flight 77 could not have crashed into the Pentagon

The time has come to consign Bush's official conspiracy theory to the dust bin of history. The theory is not even a good cover story, surviving for as long as it did only because millions of good Americans wanted to believe it. Millions of otherwise good Americans did not wish to believe the very, very worst about an administration that had claimed to represent and defend our interests. Millions of Americans chose to believe that the government was still responsible to us, that the government was still the defender of Democracy as we are always taught in school. 

Below: a US Global Hawk painted to look like an AA airliner.


America, it is time to grow up! Recognizing lies for what they are is a part of the process of growing up! It is time to confront this heinous pack of lies and to insist that the Obama administration begin a REAL investigation. 

It is time to insist that a Federal Grand Jury investigate every count of high treason, mass murder and domestic terrorism that was perpetrated upon the people of the US by the Bush administration, collaborators in the Pentagon, K-Street, the Congress and the leadership of the Republican party, Marvin Bush's 'Securacom', Larry Silverstein, General Myers, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and, of course, George W. Bush who was, at the time, the 'Commander-in-Chief' and ultimately responsible for the orders given the US military to 'stand down'.

By Donald Rumsfeld's own admission, he was unaware of any threats to the Pentagon -- the building where he was located during the September 11th attacks -- until an aircraft crashed into the side of it, and he ran out "into the smoke" to see if it might be a "A bomb? I had no idea." (ABC News This Week, Interview 9/16/01).Well, that's a pretty tall tale by any standard.

The New York Times reported that by 8:13am, the FAA was aware of the first hijacking out of Boston. The Pentagon explosion, which Donald Rumsfeld claimed he had "no idea," did not occur until approximately 9:37am, nearly an hour and a half later, this after two of the tallest buildings in the world were devastated. Note that a plane hijacked out of Boston can reach Washington D.C. as easily as it can reach New York City. It was widely reported that Pentagon personnel were indeed aware of the threats to their security, and they took security measures on that morning. But not the "Secretary of Defense."

Why should the man charged with defending the United States of America concern himself with hijacked aircraft?There is a set of procedures for responding to hijackings. In particular, these procedures were changed on June 1, 2001 while Rumsfeld was in power as our Secretary of Defense, in a document called:

"CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF INSTRUCTION, J-3 CJCSI 3610.01A"

The Global Hawk

The video asks: "Was 911 a Conspiracy?" That is NOT the question. Even Bushco claims that it was a conspiracy, a conspiracy of 19 Arab Hijackers who could not possibly have pulled it off. It is, frankly, a stupid scenario! Without the shock and awe campaign, no one would have believed it. The questions, rather, are which conspiracy and who were the conspirators? It was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes who said that when you have eliminated the impossible what remains however improbable MUST be the truth! Following is a reader's playlist. I recommend it.

Additional resources:

• http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.ch/search?q=21+reasons+
• BBC Censored Benazir Bhutto's Reports that Bin Laden Had Been Murdered
• The 'Conspiracy of Rich Men' Who Pulled Off 911 and Other GOP Atrocities
• 911 Commissioner Slips Up: Pentagon Struck by Missile
• How 'Suspicious' Plane Crashes and Assassinations Benefit the Right Wing
• Last Chance to Indict Bush and Cheney for the Mass Murders of 911?
• Scientists Explain Why People Vote For Republicans
• George W Bush Authorized 911 Attacks Says Government Insider
• The United States and the International Court
• Forum Re: The Prosecution of George W. Bush, Robert H. Jackson Foundation
• BBC Censored Benazir Bhutto's Reports that Bin Laden Had Been Murdered
• Terrorism is Worse Under GOP Regimes
• BBC: Hijack 'suspects' alive and well
• They Lied About 911
• 'Lucky Larry' Silverstein Makes a Killing With 9/11 Terrorism!
• Explosives Found in 9/11 Dust
• Dutch TV show exonerates Osama bin Laden
• French professor sacked over 9/11 'conspiracy' theory
• 911 Security Courtesy Marvin Bush
• Marvin Bush: connections to 9/11
• 9/11 Commission Memo: 'Executive Branch Minders' Intimidation of Witnesses'
• Security, Secrecy and a Bush Brother
• Thermite
• Pentacon
• KS" I make up stories

Labels: 911, 911 lies, Bush, Bush's Reichstag Fire, cover-up, flight 11, high treason, mass murder, Pentagon, terrorism 

AA: "Flight 11 Did Not Fly on 911!"

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

AA Flights 11 (North Tower) and 77 (Pentagon) did not fly on 9/11. The source for this information is AA itself. WikiScanner discovered that American Airlines had changed the Wikipedia entry to state that Flights 11 and 77 did not fly on 9/11. If they did not fly, they could not have been hijacked by Arab "terrorists".

WikiScanner offers users a searchable database that ties millions of anonymous Wikipedia edits to the organizations making the edits originated. It does this by cross-referencing the edits with data on who owns the associated block of internet IP addresses.

Although these flights were daily departures before and a month after September 11, 2001. Neither flight 11 nor 77 were scheduled on September 11, 2001. The records kept by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (www.bts.gov/gis/) do not list either flight that day.

–Wikipedia

To make the point: the source for these revisions to the WikiScanner entry is American Airlines. The story is not about Wikipedia. The story is how American Airlines corrected a Wikipedia entry. It is about the evidence that Flights 11 and 77 did not fly on 9/11 – and that this information comes from American Airlines.

Everyone logged on to the internet does so from an IP address. In this case, the IP was from American Airlines. It’s traceable. I confirmed the American Airlines IP address with a WHOIS lookup and Google search. Therefore, American Airlines itself is the source for the revisions to Wiki revealing, officially, that neither Flight 11 nor Flight 77 were in the air on 9/11.

My look up returned the following:

WHOIS -144.9.8.21
Location: United States [City: Ft. Worth, Texas]
OrgName: American Airlines Incorporated
OrgID: AMERIC-112
Address: P.O.Box 619616
Address: MD 5308
City: DFW Airport
StateProv: TX
PostalCode: 75261
Country: US
NetRange: 144.9.0.0 - 144.9.255.255
CIDR: 144.9.0.0/16
NetName: AANET
NetHandle: NET-144-9-0-0-1
Parent: NET-144-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: DNS-P1.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P2.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P3.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P4.SABRE.COM
Comment:

RegDate: 1990-10-31
Updated: 2002-06-27
RTechHandle: OG60-ARIN
RTechName: Gelbrich, Orf
RTechPhone: +1-817-931-3145
RTechEmail: ************@aa.com
OrgTechHandle: ZW72-ARIN
OrgTechName: WARIS, ZISHAN
OrgTechPhone: +1-817-967-1242
OrgTechEmail: ************@aa.com
# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2008-06-29 19:10

# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN’s WHOIS database.

The Four Planes on 10 September 2001

According to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reply from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), the last known pre-9/11 flights for three of the four aircraft involved in 9/11 took place in December 2000 -- nine months before 9/11. No pre-9/11 flight information was provided for American Airlines flight 77 (N644AA) by BTS.

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My Letter to My Congressman

by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy

Bush's criminal and murderous adventures in Iraq should never be forgotten. It was this combination of crookedness and incompetence that very nearly destroyed our nation. And we are not yet out of the woods! One wonders, where is Bush Jr these days? Where does he hide?

At the height of the Iraq debacle, I wrote a letter to my congressman. He replied --such as it was! I replied to his letter and refuted him point-by-point:

          John Culberson
          Member of Congress
          7th District

          Honorable Member of Congress:
         Thank you for your reply to my concerns about the Bush administration's case for War in Iraq. I           have considered your points –in blockquotes –followed by my reply:

I believe that the Bush administration made the correct decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power and liberate Iraq after Saddam continue to disobey numerous United Nations resolutions and refuse diplomatic offers.

No one disagrees that Saddam was a "bad man". With all due respect, that is not the issue. The world is full of "bad men" and, in most cases, the United States does not invade and occupy their countries. One wonders: what is the compelling difference in Iraq? That it has oil?

Secondly, it is unclear and most certainly not proven by anything available in the public record that Saddam was not in compliance with United Nations resolutions when he was attacked and invaded. U.N. inspectors had, in fact, asked for a reasonable amount of time in which to complete their tasks.
Only if they had been allowed to complete their responsibilities could it have been known conclusively whether or not Saddam was or was not in compliance with specific U.N. Resolutions. Moreover, U.N. resolution 1441 orders Iraq to comply with said resolutions but does not sanction the use of force by the United States –specifically invasion of a sovereign nation and occupation of same by U.S. Forces.

Lacking the "cover" of International law or sanction, the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq is a violation of the Nuremberg Principles. [Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal,]

Saddam used chemical weapons on his own people many times, and since the end of hostilities dozens of mass graves and torture rooms have been discovered.

Saddam's use of chemical weapons "...on his own people" is a reference to a well-publicized gassing of Kurds in 1988 –some 15 years ago. Persian Gulf I was fought since that time and the U.N.'s Hans Blix has raised the credible possibility that Hussein's weapons were destroyed either by the Persian Gulf War itself or voluntarily by Saddam in its wake –or both! In any case, no weapons have been found since U.S. troops have occupied Iraq.

Moreover, former CIA analyst Stephen Pelletiere has argued persuasively that Saddam's alleged gassing of Kurds in the waning months of the Iran-Iraq war may have been perpetrated by Iran, not Iraq! If that is the case, then none of the argument with regard to Saddam's alleged gassing of the Kurds is relevant.

Let us assume for the sake of argument that Saddam indeed used gas some 15 years ago! At that time, the Saddam regime was nothing more than a U.S. puppet regime. What was the source of his weapons if not the United States? That question has not been answered by either our elected officials or the mass media.

References to the "gassing" incident in the Bush case for war is really this subtle argument: because Saddam used gas on his own people, if he should obtain nuclear weapons, he will use them. However, Saddam had many opportunities to use poison gas and biological agents on the Coalition forces and Israel during the Persian Gulf I” but not even Bush partisans have alleged that he did so.
UN arms inspectors later found warheads capable of delivering these weapons that could have been used by Iraq but were not!

More recently, it was widely reported and speculated in the Bush administration's run up to war that in the event, Saddam Hussein was most likely to use biochemical weapons if he felt under mortal threat. He was most certainly under mortal threat –yet there is no evidence that he used such weapons –either on his own people who were expected to rise in up revolt against Saddam and in support of the invading U.S. army or against U.S. troops. Most speculation about why he did not involves complex violations of Occam's Razor and other logical legerdemain. The simplest explanation for Hussein's failure to use such weapons is that he, in fact, did not have any.

He never offered any evidence that he had ceased his chemical, biological, and nuclear programs.

But Bush never offered proof or evidence that Saddam every had chemical, biological or nuclear programs. By that time, the burden of proof was on Bush to prove his assertions. Those who assert must prove. This is true in any legitimate courtroom; it is true in 'debate'; it should be true of propaganda but that it is not is a defining characteristic of propaganda! Negatives cannot be proven. It's an old but dirty trick.

Nevertheless U.N. inspectors had been and were doing their jobs in Iraq, even as Colin Powell made his presentation to the United Nations. The mechanism by which Saddam's claims could have been proven or disproved was in place. Clearly – the Bush administration had nothing to gain by allowing the truth to be discovered and heard!

But the search for WMD continues as it had before the invasion but now the American people are picking up a huge tab. The cost of the war and the occupation must be added to the cost of a weapons search. The U.N. inspectors could have been allowed to complete their jobs at much less cost. It is increasingly difficult to see what has been gained.

We have learnt from September 11 that we cannot afford to ignore those who hate us and are willing to use weapons of mass destruction.

Our current policies –if continued –are guaranteed to multiply the number of people who hate us.

The search team led by Dr. David Kay has already discovered troubling evidence about Saddam's intentions.

Here is the thesis sentence from Dr. David Kay's report which I have read in its entirety: “We have discovered dozens of WMD-related programme activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations.” David Kay also cautioned: “It is far too early to reach any definitive conclusions and, in some areas, we may never reach that goal.”
Nevertheless, George Bush and Colin Powell most certainly reached definite and firm conclusions however baseless. Nevertheless, these “conclusions” made up their case for war and Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations of ten year old, black and white satellite photos.

Again –with all due respect: the American people were not "sold" war with Iraq on the basis of Saddam's intentions; we were told repeatedly that Saddam –in fact –HAD weapons of mass destruction not that he was merely intending to develop them or that he had merely a "programme". This focus on "intent" is new to administration rhetoric and nothing less than an ex post facto case for war! But it was not the case that Bush and Colin Powell made in the run up to war or the case that Colin Powell had made to the United Nations.

It has uncovered papers showing Saddam recently attempted to purchase missile parts from North Korea.

That's hardly surprising but it does point up the hypocritical differences in the way Bush treats North Korea –a nation which openly pursues the development of Nuclear Weaponry –and Iraq. It also raises the question of whether or not U.S. rhetoric has impelled other nations to seek not only missile parts but also "yellow cake". Besides –Iraq was cheated. According to the Washington Post, North Korea never made good on the deal and refused to refund some $10 million to Iraq.

Investigators have also discovered new research on biological agents and unmanned aerial vehicles that could disperse chemical or biological weapons. The team has repeatedly found evidence of deception, from burned computers to recently scrubbed missile trailers.

Intentions! If Bush and Powell had made only this case, how deep would have been the support for war?

Two Iraqi weapons scientists cooperating with Dr. Kay were shot to prevent them from telling what they know.

Every media report that I have read concerning this incident has attributed it to solely to Dr. Kay. There is, so far, no independent corroboration of motive. Secondly, the fact that two scientists who were most probably involved in a weapons program of some sort does not prove that Saddam had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction at the time of the U.S. invasion and occupation. Nor does it change the fact that there is no authorization under International Law for the U.S. attack. There is always the real possibility that the two scientists were, rather, shot to prevent their revealing the lack of WMD in Iraq.

Iraq is roughly the size of California, and Dr. Kay noted that the yet unaccounted for weapons of mass destruction could be stored in a space the size of a two car garage.

We are paying a high price in lives and dollars if the U.S. case for war has been reduced to a search for a two-car garage –a search that might have been conducted less expensively and more efficiently under the cover of International Law by U.N. inspectors.

Additionally, it is ludicrous to assert that because WMD were “unaccounted” for that they, in fact, existed. The term “unaccounted for” implies that there is a mysterious inventory somewhere against which existing reports are measured. Where is that inventory, who compiled it and how?

Until those questions are answered, any statement about “unaccounted” weapons is meaningless. Furthermore –Kay's report made no claim that Hussein had actual weapons of mass destruction although, selectively, Bush read a passage from the report that indicated that Saddam was determined to get them. That was to be expected but it hardly justifies a war of aggression. Significantly, a different tact is taken in the case of North Korea, and perhaps in the cases of other nations that have escaped the glare of administration assisted publicity. I am not sure what this proves other than an uneven, inconsistent, and impractical policy of pre-emption, a program that cannot possibly form the cornerstone of a viable foreign policy in a civilized and rational nation.

At last, there is no compelling reason to believe that Dr. Kay, however professional he may be, will find weapons when in fact there is dubious probable cause that they ever existed.
There is nothing in the Kay report that supports Bush's original case for war. The Kay report, however, was expertly used to divert attention from Bush's original case best summed up by Sen. Robert Byrd: "We were told that we were threatened by weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but they have not been seen."

We were told that the throngs of Iraqi's would welcome our troops with flowers, but no throngs or flowers appeared.

We were led to believe that Saddam Hussein was connected to the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, but no evidence has ever been produced.

We were told in 16 words that Saddam Hussein tried to buy "yellow cake" from Africa for production of nuclear weapons, but the story has turned into empty air.

We were frightened with visions of mushroom clouds, but they turned out to be only vapors of the mind.

We were told that major combat was over but 101 [as of October 17] Americans have died in combat since that proclamation from the deck of an aircraft carrier by our very own Emperor in his new clothes.Most notably, Bush himself had stated that Saddam had tried to buy “yellow cake” in Niger. That this statement may have lead to “leaks” which imperiled the CIA's search for WMD world wide is reason enough in and of itself for Congress to investigate the entire case for war, how the case was presented, how intelligence and evidence contrary to the Bush case were handled.

Still, in your letter to me, Congressman Culberson, you repeat the same discredited lies and line:

America is safer now that Saddam does not have weapons of mass destruction, and I support building a stable and prosperous Iraqi democracy that can lead by example in the Middle East.

 Congressman Culberson, letter to me

Everyone supports a stable and prosperous Iraq. The question is this: is invading and occupying a sovereign nation in violation of the Nuremberg principles a prudent way to accomplish that aim? I don't think it is and, I daresay, intelligent people agree with me. It is easy enough to assert that America is safer –but unless and until WMD are found in Iraq, it is simply fallacious to credit the Bush administration with having created or nurturing that “safety”. My neighbor may sprinkle salt on his lawn to keep elephants out of his front yard; but the fact that there are no elephants within 5,000 miles of his house hardly proves that it works. A more compelling case can be made that the world is much less safe because of the Bush doctrine of preemptive strikes.

Clearly, Bush has made no "aggressive" attempts to disarm nuclear powers Pakistan and India. North Korea, meanwhile, clearly seems to have accelerated its nuclear program as a direct result of the perceived "Bush" threat.

Furthermore, there is documentary evidence from the FBI (published by the Brookings Institution) that as Ronald Reagan waged a similar “war on terrorism” with similar rhetoric (“...you can run but you can't hide”) terrorist attacks on the United States increased. There were, in fact, three times as many attacks during the Reagan years as during the Clinton years. I doubt seriously that America, indeed, the world, is safer under the Bush regime.
I sincerely hope that you would give my views serious consideration. At a time when most Americans have become convinced that politicians of both parties are merely pawns of big money, big lobbies, and/or the Military/Industrial complex, it would signal a triumph for Democracy itself if a political issues might be won – just once – upon the verifiable facts and the merits of the argument itself as opposed to the various transparent and/or stupid labels and slogans that are attached to it.

Sincerely
Len Hart

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Road Trip to Ground Zero: Get on Board

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, perhaps the most famous fictional detective of all time, himself expert in the science of criminology, wrote:

"When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however implausible must be the truth!"

With respect to the crime of 911, it is past time to eliminate the impossible, i.e, the Bush 'theory' of 911, often called the 'official conspiracy theory of 911'.

Following is my short list --not of mere improbabilities --but fatal impossibilities any one of which destroys the Bush 'official conspiracy theory of 911'! All impossibilities listed may be verified against the laws of physics, logic and empirical observation. If the official conspiracy theory of 911 is impossible, then it is a lie and a deliberate one!

Some are obvious but somehow ignored by the media. For example, Hani Hanjour is said to have boarded and then high jacked Flight 77. But the Washington Post reported that Hani Hanjour could not have gotten on board because he did not have a ticket. Nor is his name on the only official, admissible shred of evidence to have survived Bush's orders to destroy evidence and that is the official autopsy report released to Dr. Olmsted in response to his FOIA request.

More recently, NTSB records revealed that the cockpit door on Flight 77 was never opened during the fight. Ergo: the Bush official conspiracy theory of 911 cannot even explain how it was possible to have hijacked a flight of which there is no record, no evidence, no autopsy report to prove that any alleged hijacker ever got on board to begin with.

Bushco cannot place the 'suspects' at the scene of the crime.

Bush's official conspiracy theory of 911 is utterly impossible; there is not a shred evidence of any sort to support it.

1. There are no arabs on the only admissible scrap of evidence related to the crash at the Pentagon, that is, the official autopsy report released to Dr. Olmsted in response to his FOIA request. No arabs. A mere list of passengers which anyone can type up is NOT evidence admissible in court. And there is no evidence that anyone but Pentagon employees are buried at Arlington National Cemetary.
2. Official NTSB data indicates that on Flight 77, the cockpit door was never opened during the flight! So --not ony is there no evidence that Hani Hanjour was ever on board, he could not have hijacked the airliner had he been on board. Unless --of course --he could walk through a closed door! Perhaps he was inspired by David Copperfield who 'walked' through the Great Wall of China!
3. 3) No wreckage traceable to a 757 was ever recovered from the Pentagon. A single engine rotor that was photographed on the Pentagon lawn is about 1/3 the size of each of two much, much larger rotors (of Titanium/Steel alloy) that would have been found had a 757 crashed into the Pentagon. No --the wreckage did not vaporize. And, unless the laws of physics are repealed, the total weight of wreckage will equal the weight of the un-crashed aircraft.
   There is a photo (and video, as I recall) of some four to six white-shirtered, presumably Pentagon employees, hauling off 'debris' on a cart that they carried on their shoulder. This was NOT 757 debris. Unless The Bush administration repealed the laws of physics, specifcially the laws of the conservation of matter and energy, the total weight of the debris would have been equal to the weight of the uncrashed 757 minus the weight of spent fuel.
4. None of the crashes in New York were the flights that were alleged to have struck the towers. AA records indicate the the alleged flights had been mothballed for several months. In fact, the 757 has often found itself in service to the U.S. government. The United States Air Force fitted four 757-200s for VIP transport duties (C-32A). The USAF also operates two 757-200 aircraft (C-32B) for use by the U.S. State Department Foreign Emergency Support Team. These aircraft are painted solid white with only a small American flag and the USAF serial number on the fuselage.
911 is a crime like any other!

Anyone who would solve 911 must place the suspect at the scene of the crime. Candidates not having method, motive, and opportunity must be eliminated. That applies to Bushco's scapegoats --some 14 Arab hijackers who cannot be placed the scene of the crime, specifically NONE of them can be placed on any hijacked flight at any time! Until the BBC tracked down some of the alleged hijackers and interviewed them AFTER they were said to have died on 911, I might have been inclined to believe that they had not even existed. But --in any case --a living hijacker in a post-911 world disproves the Bush theory.

5) 127,520 --that's the weight in pounds of a typically outfitted 757. The wreckage on the Pentagon lawn was carried off atop a crate carried aloft by four or five skinny office dudes in white shirts and ties. There is NO WAY that over 50 TONS of wreckage was carried off on the shoulders of wimps! There is NO WAY that some 50 tons of airliner wreckage was ever recovered at any time at the Pentagon. The laws of the conservation of matter and energy were NOT repealed though Bushco might have wanted to.

Bottom line: the Bush administration --primarily Bush Jr himself, Dick Cheney who supervised, Don Rumsfeld (who almost gave the game away when he referred to the 'MISSILE that struck this building (the Pentagon), Condo Rice et al are the most obvious suspects. They had 1) method 2) motive, and 3) a golden opportunity, much like the opportunity A. Hitler had as a result of the Reichstag Fire. [See: William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich]

Conan Doyle was right. 911 is simple when you eliminate the impossible. Next: eliminate the smokescreen, the irrelevant BS, the flack that was thrown up, the distractions, the rabbit trails, the diversions, the misdirection.

At its heart:

• the Bush Administration committed acts of mass murder and high treason'
• the Bush administration lied about it, ordered the destruction of evidence that might have PROVEN them guilty beyond any reasonable doubt'
• the Bush administration dared to question the patriotism of good and loyal Americans;
• the Bush administration tried to blackmale and, in other ways, intimidate good, loyal, patriotic Americans who have a DUTY to question elected leaders, public servants and anyone taking an oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution.

It is significant that Bush lied about 911, in fact, never told anything resembling the truth with respect to 911. All were lies except the fact that 'something' terrible', something everlastingly evil happened that day. I covered numerous high profile murder trials in both Odessa, TX and Houston, TX, trials that featured legendary attorneys like Percy Foreman, Dick DeGuerin and Warren Burnett, whom the media called the 'heir apparent' to Clarence Darrow. As a result of my observations inside high profile murder trials, I concluded that 1) those who are innnocent of a crime DO NOT lie about them and, in fact, it is against their interests, counter-productive to do so; 2) only the GUILTY lie about crimes and only the guilty are motivated to do so!

It is therefore relevant and highly revealing that Bush and Bushco lied consistently and repeatedly about 911! It was an elaborate and well-coordinated 'full-court press' to commit numerous crimes and cover them up! It was --in fact and by law --a conspiracy! As a result, nothing said by Bush or Bushco is verifiable in any way --scientifically, causually, legally! And that is only so because they are guilty! Bush lied, thousands of Americans died! The act of mass murder called 911 was and remains an act of murderous high treason!

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How the U.S. Invented 'al Qaeda'!

by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy

Al Qaeda was a U.S. creation, specifically a product of inverted right wing psuedo logic. If 'al Qaeda' did not exist, never mind --the shills would invent it and cite it to justify wars abroad, crackdowns on freedom at home! They would bestow upon it a virtual existence via press releases, propaganda and outright lies --deliberate attempts to mislead the American people!

Bin Laden should pay royalties to the U.S. right wing if, indeed, he ever benefited from his new found celebrity, his holographic 'creation' by the mass media, his elevation to arch-enemy status! His is falsely characterized as the 'mega-terrorist' brain behind a sinister world terrorist organization resembling an octopus with tentacles in every real or fictitious terrorist attack. There had not been anything like it since Bond fought SPECTRE --an evil terrorist organization specializing in terrorism and extortion. In the Bushco rewrite the part of Blofeld is played by Bin Laden.

It was a crock!

It was the CIA which bestowed upon Bin Laden himself his near mythical image of sinister master terrorist who commanded a vast world wide network from deep inside a cave in Tora Bora. This was all really, really bad fiction. Many Hollywood producers would have laughed out of their offices anyone daring to pitch it! It was, it seems, a very, very bad rewrite of Ala Baba and his 40 thieves. Ali, like Binny, lived in a cave but --alas --did not have cell phones. But neither did Bin Laden.

The immediate acceptance of the Bush official conspiracy theory proves the diminishing IQs of those who insist upon believing it. The consolation is this: the CIA has no future in Hollywood!

A bad b-movie!

According to the official version of the lie (charitably: the 'myth') goes something like this: the CIA and the Saudis are said to have funded and armed Bin Laden throughout the 80s. His mission impossible: wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. In fact, Bin Laden was working for the CIA.

Simply --Al-Qaeda means 'the base'; in this case --the computer data base of thousands of mujahideen trained and recruited by the CIA. The mission: defeat the Russians. This is cold war James Bond stuff and, in some cases, a just a bad rewrite. Life imitates spy movies.

The problem has become apparent over time: Washington did not know what to do with this 'database', this network that had become obsolete with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It obviously never occurred to DC spooks and/or analysts that with the withdrawal of the Soviet Union, Ala Baba, uh, Bin Laden would focus upon U.S. imperialism throughout the Middle East! But did he? More likely --he was just the convenient scapegoat for an inside job that would become the pre-text, the boogie-man to be cited as justifying a war for the oil resources of Iraq, the poppy (opium) resources of Afghanistan.

The source for how 'al Qaeda' got its name is Sir Robin Cook, the former British Foreign Secretary. In order to protest the British connection to this sorry story, Cook resigned his job.

Benazir Bhutto: Bin Laden was Murdered

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Why 80 Percent of Americans Don't Believe the Official Theory of 911

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

These days, Bush's only defenders with respect to 911 are 1) paid liars and hard cases left over from his utterly criminal and illegitimate administration; and 2) idiots whose only source of "news" is Fox. Fox news, however, is an oxymoron, appropriate I suppose for a network of morons in service to morons.

Bush, it is said, could not have pulled off 911 alone. Of course not! A total tool, it could not have been his idea. He was the 'titular' head of a loosely organized gang of power brokers and the motley crew of wing nuts who support them. God knows why!

Bush was and probably still is a puppet but not a good one. When the real history is known, we may find ourselves eternally grateful to Bush whose utter incompetence, his palpable stupidity, his painful, hardly bearable inarticulateness revealed however inadvertently the truth about how our nation was usurped by an ever smaller ruling elite.

Last time I checked this elite amounted to just 1 percent of the total population, diminishing in size as its members grow richer. One day, they will have put themselves out of business. In theory, at least! [The L-Curve; also see:Temporal evolution of the “thermal” and “superthermal” income classes in the USA during 1983–200 income classes in the USA during 1983–2001]

Nevertheless, it was under Bush that several wars --some phony, some real --were fought on their behalf. The most obvious war was the one with the phony name: 'War on Terrorism', a classic misnomer. It is more accurately described as the "War of Oil and Resource Theft". I suppose that we were expected to believe that God himself intervened with 911 and gave Bushco the pretext required to attack and invade those nations having precisely the resources most coveted by the Dick, otherwise called "Cheney".

Those having knowledge and/or participating with Dick Cheney in any way most probably have guilty knowledge of the method by which a pretext to attack and invade the Middle East was obtained.

Some of those having this guilty knowledge include Marvin Bush in charge of WTC security. In a position to help plan it Had there been a real investigation of the crime of 911, he would have been a prime suspect. He was. As head of WTC security, Marvin would have been in a position to know about, perhaps direct, the placement of explosives. It would have made possible a series of obvious controlled demolitions that provided the pre-text Bushco required to seize resources for sponsors like Halliburton et al.

The weakest link is Larry Silverstein who let the cat out of the bag. WTC 7 was "pulled" he said on video tape. It was Luck Larry that gave the order! Within 15 minutes, his order was carried out. A controlled demolition! Two facts put Lucky in a bad light: 1) it takes considerably more than 15 minutes to prep a 47 story building for demolition; 2) Lucky was financially upside down with the acquisition of the WTC white elephants. An insurance pay-off conveniently bailed him out. Lucky, indeed!

The Dancing Israelis

I believe that the 'Dancing Israelis' were Mossad Agents. On broadcast TV, they boasted that they had gone to New York for the purpose of documenting the event now called 911. That's guilty foreknowledge, probable cause to investigate 911 and everyone connected with it it starting with the prescient Israelis. It is clear that the "Dancing Israelis" knew that the towers would come down and positioned themselves to see it when it happened.

Dick Cheney's 'Energy Task Force', in fact, met prior to 911 for the purpose of carving up the oil fields of Iraq. They would need a pre-text! Were they 'prescient'? If not, that event speaks to 'motive'. Dick Cheney's Halliburton got almost all the contracts from the Bush admin just as did I.G. Farben, Thyssen et al from Hitler prior to his invasion of Poland. It's the fascist/Nazi way.
Essential 911 boils down to this:

• The Bush Official Conspiracy Theory of 911 is utterly impossible by science and circumstance. It did not happen!
• Even members of the 911 Commission, prominently John Farmer now DISOWN the 911 Commission Report and that of the NIST. Both are works of pure fiction, ignore established peer-reviewed physics and ignore the glaring holes in the official cover. [See: Rutger's Media Relation: New Book by John Farmer]

When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however implausible, must be the truth!

At last --who benefits? Apologies to Sherlock Holmes! The truth is this: 911 was an inside job, a Mossad-CIA operation on behalf of a crooked coalition to include big oil, Halliburton, of course. All of them benefited!

If the MSM had been doing its job, good folk like my friends Dr. David Griffin and Kevin Barrett would have an easier time of it. Initially, the Bush administration utilized its leverage throughout the corporate media to shut up the opposition. The most egregious tactic impugned the patriotism of anyone daring to point out facts that prove the "official theory" is impossible. That's true for many reasons not the least of which is that it defies the basic laws of physics.

Physics, of course, is no longer taught in schools,. As the GOP has risen in power and influence, educational standards declined. That is the verifiable record of GOP failure in Texas which --as a result of the back to back Bush/Perry debacles now trails the nation in high school graduations.

It is hard to make the case that the official theory defies the laws of physics to millions who have never darkened the door of a high school, let alone a university physics lab. The GOP is 'anti-intellectual' for a reason. Mass ignorance as a result of their domination of the media and their overt subversion of education are the most effective covers for their many crimes. The GOP has a stake in keeping the U.S. population uninformed and/or stupid!

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Why People Believe the Official Conspiracy Theory of 911 and Other Weird Crap!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Author Michael Shermer wrote a book that Amazon.com now says is out of print. The title is intriguing: Why People Believe Weird Things. Though Shermer deals with UFO's, allegations that NASA faked the moon landing, and the flat earth, reviewers have said his best chapter was about Holocaust Denial.

More recently and sadly, though, Shermer has ceased to be a skeptic. Last time I checked, Shermer was still touting the weirdest of many 'weird things' --the official conspiracy of 911! It is as if when the numbers nine, one and one are mentioned switches are turned 'off' inside the brains of millions: skeptics become devout followers of officialdom; scientists subscribe to voodoo; hard-nose lawyers forget the meaning of 'probable cause'! These people, and Shermer the one-time skeptic, have this much in common: they are victims of trauma and official blackmail! In a phrase: millions 'believe' the official conspiracy for the same reason Christians believe the scriptures: there is hell to pay if they don't!

The Official Conspiracy Theory is Weird

It is weird and completely unbelievable on its face, unsupported by physics and happenstance. The only explanation is that Shermer fell for it because it was official. Perhaps Shermer succumbed to the blackmail that was put on all of us! Perhaps the official conspiracy theory just made him 'feel good about himself' just as Ronald Reagan's 'economic policies' made Republicans feel good about being greedy, untruthful and self-absorbed. Indeed, it was at the GOP national convention in Houston in the earlly 90s that a Republican was recorded swooning of Reagan: "He made us feel good about ourselves!" But republicans ought never to feel good about themselves. And we have a responsibility to make sure they never do!

A mixed bag, Shermer managed to explore dark psychological reasons that people adhere to claptrap: prejudice. Holocaust Deniers are comparatively easy to spot. David Irving, a British Holocaust denier, sued American professor Deborah Lipstadt and her British publisher, Penguin Books, for libel in a 2000 London trial that made headlines around the world. A reading of the transcript of the court proceedings is clear enough it would seem: Irving was completely discredited.

Irving's long running campaign to exonerate Hitler and the Nazi regime consisted of fabrications, misrepresentations of fact, convenient omissions of evidence, and a consistent and convenient pattern of discounting as liars any eyewitness to any atrocity associated with the Holocaust. I predict that apologists for George W. Bush and the GOP as a whole will continue to wage a similar campaign of lies and propaganda on behalf of the utterly failed and wrong GOP!

Allow me to add a personal note. I have spoken in depth with a survivor of Auschwitz. There is no room to doubt this moving, personal history confirmed as it is by reams of documentary evidence, available independently of my source and in no way influenced by it.

What is conveniently forgotten is that Hitler's theory about Jews was, likewise, 'official'. The conclusion is inescapable: like Hitler's 'theory' re: the Jews of Europe, the official version of 911 is still widely believed because it makes people feel good about being prejudiced against Muslims. It makes people 'feel good' about being ignorant and/or stupid. Like Hitler's racial claptrap and GOP economic crap, the official theory of 911 makes people feel good about being rich and self-absorbed.

'Terrorists' just hate us, it is believed, because we are 'free'. Are we? Are we free when we are lied to? Are we free when we are so easily manipulated into 'believing' a load of clap trap for which there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever? Are we free when we are clearly trained not to question authority? Are we free when lies become the basis for foreign and domestic policies? Are we free when as a result of right wing policy just one percent of the U.S. populations owns more than the rest of us combined? No!

We are not free until we accept responsibility for our own beliefs!

There is, for example, absolutely no credible or verifiable evidence to support any part of the official conspiracy theory of 911. It is not my purpose here to repeat the numerous refutations of every part of the official theory. It has been thoroughly refuted and debunked and ridiculed and only idiots have not gotten the message: no part of it is true, no part of it is supported by either fact, logic, or admissible evidence. It is thoroughly refuted.

Most recently the very existence of the alleged flights had been debunked with the government's own data! There is no wreckage traceable to Flights 93 or 77; the government's own data --BTS --indicates that Flights 11 and 77 had been mothballed! There was no wreckage traceable to any airliner found at the Pentagon. No hijackers appeared on the official autopsy report of Pentagon victims --the only official shred of evidence relative to the Pentagon. There were no airline passengers or 'hijackers' buried at Arlington National Cemetery. There is absolutely nothing to support anything said by Bush, the 911 Report or the many media minions who parroted this outrageous and absurd conspiracy theory.

Yet --it is believed but only because it was 'official' and espoused by a sitting 'President'. But it was a 'president' who stole his office. We believed it because we were blackmailed not because it was either true or support by facts. Bush's 'warning' was an overt threat! We were told that 'outrageous conspiracy theories' would not be tolerated! We were told that anyone daring to question the official conspiracy theory was a traitor, was un-American, or, less belligerently, they were just stupid!

It was the common 'argument from authority' fallacy turned into a decree. Anyone daring to question the Bush version of events was called a 'traitor'. Bush himself said: “If you are not with us you are for the terrorists” --a fallacy and a threat! Skepticism was made a crime by decree. This is --in fact --a defining characteristic of the police state.

As the trial of David Irving makes abundantly clear: people are prepared to believe anything that makes them "feel good about themselves," and the illogic that this leads to is not confined to the poorly educated. Consider the following from a distinguished economist, Milton Friedman, who became the "conservative's" intellectual when that movement was desperately in need of one:

The 1980s have been no kinder to the earlier Keynesian models. In the U.S., inflation was brought down drastically, accompanied by a temporary increase in unemployment to a peak of nearly 11 percent—-a short-term reaction to unanticipated disinflation along Phillips curve lines.

--Milton Friedman

Has Friedman forgotten that Reagan's policies were not premised on Keynesian principles? Moreover, Keynesian economics worked just fine for Kennedy and Carter when job and economic growth is clearly documented to have exceeded the same figures under Reagan, Bush and Bush. The truth is that any Democratic president since World War II has presided over greater growth of both GDP and jobs than has any Republican president! There must be a psychological explanation for the fact that millions will look at the documented statistics and refuse to believe them.

The rising unemployment rate throughout the 1980's is a good example. It is similarly documented at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is puzzling to me that an esteemed economist would cite this as evidence refuting the Keynesian model. That job creation fell and unemployment rose during the Reagan years does not indict Keynes--but Friedman.

Reagan's policies were not based upon the Keynesian model; they were based rather on Friedman himself and Arthur Laffer of "trickle down" fame. It was Laffer who, legend has it, drew a curve on a napkin and called it 'economics'. It was, rather, a convenient but plausible rationalization for the GOPs desire to enrich its base with tax cuts, a payoff for their support. It was not only the nation's tax revenues which paid them --it was the jobs and futures of everyone else not benefiting.

In fact, unemployment began to rise almost immediately upon Reagan's tax cut--not a "Keynesian" expenditure aimed at stimulating the economy but, rather, a "Laffer-curve tax-cut" premised upon the discredited notion that by cutting taxes for the upper classes, the wealth would "trickle down." It never has but GOP-types would feel good about it! It was intended to make GOP-types feel good about being greedy and dishonest with themselves. Friedman's passage glosses over the realities of that period:

• First, Laffer's supply-side ideas are premised upon the idea that tax revenues at various tax rates may be graphed as a "curve." At some point on that curve, a lower tax rate may actually increase tax revenues. The problem with that is simply this: no one knows what that point is. The curve--on paper--is theoretical and depends on how you draw the curve. What, in fact, happened is that Reagan ran up huge deficits and tripled the national debt by budgeting monies that the theoretical curve had predicted but which never materialized. I hardly call this "conservative." The Bush budget has done the same thing.
• Secondly, Laffer's tax curve was cited to justify supply-side economics--a goose that never laid the golden egg. It laid an 'egg' but only in the 'Vaudeville/Show biz' sense of the temr. It was Reagan and the supply-siders who laid an egg and it was not golden. As with the projected increased tax revenues, the new jobs that were to be the mechanism by which wealth would trickle down just did not happen. Rather --the reverse! Jobs declined and Reagan's administration is forever associated with a depression of some two years.
• Finally, even if the tax base had increased, it does not follow from that wealth would in any way be redistributed downward; the public record clearly shows that it did not. One does not need an MBA or a PhD in economics in order to understand Census Bureau Statistics which clearly indicate that throughout the Reagan years, the upper 20 percent of income earners grew richer by a yearly average of some 20% while the lower 20 percent lost wealth at a similar rate. Friedman makes absolutely no mention of any of those facts in his paper on John Maynard Keynes. Several issues not addressed by Laffer's curve include how much wealth trickled, to whom, how, and when? The questions are moot, however. Nothing trickled down.

It is not merely that Friedman cites the 80's as an indictment of the wrong economists; it is his off-hand characterization as "temporary" the unemployment rate of some 11 percent that he calls a peak. Unemployment was high throughout the Reagan administration as was homelessness. In fact, half of the total number of jobs created under Reagan were in the public sector. Otherwise, his record--poor compared to any Democratic president and especially those who practiced Keynesian economics--would have been even worse. Finally, I submit to Mr. Friedman that a diminishing inflation rate is of similarly diminishing interest to someone who doesn't have a job.

How are we to account for the fact that Republicans still adhere to a policy that even a cursory reading of real world stats thoroughly discredits? Shermer posits that false beliefs are based on prejudice, but that just puts a label on it; it does not explain prejudice itself. More to the point, I think, is a common refrain heard among preppies throughout the Reagan years: He (Reagan) made us feel good about ourselves. The same could have been said of Hitler who is indicted by his own words: "Against the Jews I fought open-eyed and in view of the whole world...I made it plain that they, this parasitic vermin in Europe, will be finally exterminated."

Thanks to Herr Hitler, millions began to 'feel better' about being bigots, psychopaths, i.e. Nazis and/or right wingers! Thanks to Ronald Reagan millions began to 'feel better' about being bigots, self-absorbed elites, and psychopaths! Under Hitler, millions felt felt better about themselves because they could blame Jews for their miserable, desperate lives in pre-war Germany. Under Reagan, millions felt better about living in suburbs that destroy the spirit of urban life, deplete the inner cities of revenues and consign all but the very, very rich to poor and declining schools and educational opportunities. Reagan made them feel good! He jerked off the right wing and screwed everyone else!

Bush and Perry have more recently jerked-off Texas. Millions of Texans clearly feel good enough about their state that they re-elected Bush Jr's successor --Rick Perry. Millions of Texans got hooked on the jerks who jerked them. As a result, Texas now trails the nation in high school graduations even as corporate owned prisons swell to over-flowing! But millions in Texas feel good about it! The corporate prisons are located where their presence is not obvious. The rich can pretend they don't exist. Likewise, the ultra-posh neighborhoods where the increasingly rich elite are housed are hidden away among pines, behind the moats, behind the security guards' little houses, behind the walls, the trees, and, symbolically, the 'bushes'. Under Bush/Perry, they could escape responsibility for the hell-hole Texas has become. They could escape a real world. They need never see it and Texas need never see them!

Hitler told the German people, in effect, you no longer have to be responsible for your own idiocy, your own prejudices! That message was repeated by Herrs Reagan, Bush and Bush and the entire GOP. In fact, there are no excuses for believing a lie and no reason to believe that good will come of it. It was Jacob Bronowski, a logical positivist, a scientist, a philosopher, who said: 'Behave in such a way that what is true may be verified to be so!” It was Jean-Paul Sartre, an existentialist, who said: "A man is nothing else but what he makes of himself!" It was Bertolt Brecht who said: "A man who does not know the truth is just an idiot but a man who knows the truth and calls it a lie is a crook!" And it was a fashion photographer, Richard Avedon, who said: "you cannot expect another man to carry your shit!" He was right and in my opinion all of us have carried the GOP/right wing shit for too long now! Enough is enough!

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