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Friday, October 28, 2016

The 9/11 Truth Movement: Where Does It Lead?

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Voltaire
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Dear Fred,

R is in good health and passionate about his interests.

He is a caring person and I admire his commitment.

His undying affection for me is one of my life's great blessings. 

Although I understand R's fondness for "the conspiratorial logic" of the "9/11 Truth Movement," I do not think it "goes anywhere." (This is not to say it doesn't serve R as a crystalization point for "life energy.")

Even if Bush-Cheney were directly responsible for killing 2600 Americans on 9/11, I cannot imagine where "false flag attack logic" can possibly "lead" when we know -- for fact -- that Uncle Sam snuffed 3 million Vietnamese and as many as a million Iraqis... and NOBODY gives a shit.

So many of our species are determined to be deluded (mostly, I think, to protect our "identity") that I consider "conspiracy thinking" -- even if true -- a less effective use of political energy than aligning one's energies with politicians who actually have a knack for advancing the plodding incrementalism of our legislative bodies.

Retired Air Force General friend, AWC, once cautioned me (in a fit of hotheadedness) that "the political changes you and I would like to see may take a hundred thousand years."

Consider the following revelation by General Wesley Clark and ask yourself why the federal government's plan to destroy 7 countries in 5 years got NO traction. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Niente.

Wesley Clark: The U.S. Military Plans To Destroy 7 Countries In 5 Years 

Our time and energy is limited so that choosing battles wisely is crucial.

I have no argument with quixotic idealism. 

But "the end game" of any political viewpoint must have some plausible way of actually manifesting palpable benefit.

My inability to limn such benefit in the 9/11 Truth movement may be a shortcoming of my moral imagination.

But there it is.

Plus... 

Even in countries where the populace comes to realize that "officialdom" participated in the promotion of genocidal horror (and all manner of attendant torture and degradation), the most common outcome is a "reconciliation process" that lets diabolical bygones be bygones.

It's complicated.

It's also unusually easy to overlook the obvious

Consider.

In the current election cycle, American conservatives, considering themselves impeccably pure and perfectly aligned with lofty principles, chose a candidate who is a vile, utterly dishonest scam-artist-sociopath who will prove to be the undoing of American conservatism as we've known it. 

Yet it will never occur to the conservative rank-and-file how they brought this catastrophe upon themselves by the inexorable logic of "too pure principles." 

If American conservatives were not so insanely hotheaded, they would have handily beaten Hillary with ANY OTHER CANDIDATE.

Compendium Of Best Pax Posts On "Too Pure Principles" And The Collapse Of Conservatism


Life is muck and muddle and, as political creatures, we are well-advised to muddle through, making frequent compromise along the way.

The alternative is a unique (and utterly seductive) form of spiritual pride -- born of "The Best!" -- that comes before every shattering fall.

"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice.  The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization.  We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal.  Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good.  The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”  
"Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” by Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton

"Santorum, Savonarola And The Pending Apocalypse Of The Republican Party"

Pax 

Alan


On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 10:26 AM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:

RF? .. I last saw him in 2004 ..... How is he doing? 


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