[pp.int.general] 9/11 is a lie (was: Re: Pirate Manifesto: Start of voting window)

[Ray Jenson]

Okay, before I get into this, please allow me to say one thing: I am
neither authority nor expert. However, I am a thinking adult
individual, a citizen of the United States, and I suffered the loss of
a good friend on 9/11 (from which I suffer post-traumatic stress
disorder, or PTSD). At least, that's what they tell me, in spite of
the fact that I was some 2,500 km away from any part of 9/11 actually
happening. The following is not an authoritative answer, but my own
opinions on 9/11 and the other topics presented. My responses follow
the quoted text.

And yes, this is LONG.


On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 8:09 AM, Gagis <wildfinn at gmail.com> wrote:
> If we start taking official stances on every issue from knitting
> patterns to nuclear warfare we will never succeed.
>
> Keep it simple.

Keep a complex issue simple... got it.

No, I refuse to keep such a complex issue simple (since the reason
it's so complex to begin with is people not wanting to take the entire
picture into account). I understand the need, but if you simplify too
much, you end up overcomplicating the situation.


> Also, campaigning based on conspiracy theories is a political suicide.

I disagree. It can be done. Just look at G. W. Bush. Fear is a
powerful motivator. As are love, nationalism, compassion, guilt, etc.,
through the entire range of emotions. Emotions can be used in many
ways to control the populace, and they are in use (on a regular
basis). Our chief adversaries use fear and guilt on a regular basis to
drive their campaigns.


> On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 4:49 PM, Max Moritz Sievers
> <m.sievers at piratenpartei-hessen.de> wrote:
>> Isabel Natsu wrote:
>>> Problem is, if we're serious in our political projects, if we really mean
>>> to go to the European Parliament, we better get used to meet deadlines.

This is the crux of the issue in ANY political activity: time is
always against us. Anything we do, we must do quickly. However, we
must also take care in planning in order to weigh what the best
options are. Each contingency must be considered, but if we take too
much time in this consideration, we fail to act or we act in a way
which causes us to act too late to accomplish much. The real secret is
in determining the courses of action which will be best, explaining
why they are the best, and agreeing upon what factors have been
considered. If we fail to consider something, someone should speak up.
If we give something too much importance, we lower importance to
something else.

This is not a simple concept to grasp, and takes a great deal of
personal change in order to apply for most people. In addition, other
parties tend to use private backchannel communications such as the
telephone and personal meetings in order to keep their adversaries
away from the information they are considering. The reason for this is
that our adversaries don't have a concept of our ethic, and their
unethical (which would be largely criminal, if they hadn't lobbied to
change laws to allow themselves to act) activities are essentially the
wind of stagnation, eroding the ability and right to change. However,
change cannot be denied for long, and it will occur one way or
another--our goal is to avoid the negative kinds of change like revolt
or anything like that.

<snip>

>> My demands to a MP are firstly that they don't commit treason on the people.
>> Some incompetency is less harmfull than having the enemy ruling the country.
>> I'm not thinking of Valentin here but of 9/11. See
>> http://911research.wtc7.net/ and
>> http://www.journalof911studies.com/ for more information. I want you to draw
>> your attention especially to
>>
>> Werther: A Half-Dozen Questions About 9/11 They Don't Want You to Ask
>> http://www.counterpunch.org/werther02182006.html
>>
>> and
>>
>> John Doraemi: My Letter to Obama
>> http://crimesofthestate.blogspot.com/2008/10/my-letter-to-obama.html

These are all written by what we call here in the USA "conspiracy
nuts". While I enjoy thinking about conspiracies and how to discover
them, I have also found my share of real conspiracies that have solid
evidence and even proof--not merely a lack of evidence, which is what
these sites seem to convey. You can spot a cover-up (which there most
certainly was surrounding 9/11), but you also must understand the
nature of what is being covered up. Bush tended to want to cover his
own tracks (and those of his friends) while leaving everyone else to
the wolves. We can't possibly operate like that--it's against our
ethic. We believe it to be wrong. If we spend all of our time looking
at what someone else is doing, we miss the entire point of what our
conspiracy is about.

In the case of 9/11, the real conspiracy is what the government did
during the attacks--not before, and (for the most part) not after,
either. Most of what the government was doing before and after is
public knowledge or unrelated. The real questions were successfully
covered by Michael Moore, rather than uncovered. The conspiracy
theorists who raise questions don't often have all of the facts, or
the facts that they have are twisted or even contrived (if not by
them, by someone else).

Take for example a friend of mine who is a reporter. He was
interviewed as an eyewitness to the crash of the plane into the
Pentagon. Yet his is never one of the people that the conspiracy
people quote. Why is that? He is a reporter, and he knows a place when
he sees one. He watched from Crystal City (across the highway from the
Pentagon) as the plane slammed into a building. It was going at
subsonic speeds. It was not a missile. There was no sonic boom, just
the hollow thud of a plane hitting the side of a building and sending
a powerful shockwave through it as it disintegrated. Math supports the
idea that it was a plane as well. But this is never cited. But even
today, there are conspiracy theorists who claim it was a missile that
exceeded the speed of sound and exploded and that there was no
evidence of a plane there (in spite of the Time Magazine and CNN
photos to the contrary, both of which were shot by photographers who
witnessed the plane).

Conspiracies exist. However, one must think critically and rationally,
and not jump to conclusions just because someone says something that
might sound plausible.

Funny how nobody talks about the assassination attempt against Bush on
9/11... yet it was reported. Even back then, I guess nobody really
cared.


>> PPUS recommended Obama for president. But 9/11 is an important topic for every
>> nation and every Pirate Party. As we discuss how to save oil there is done
>> exercise of power in a whole other level. If we accept the official
>> conspiracy theory, we can't achieve the change we want.

The topic of 9/11 should be laid to rest. It was a long time ago, and
while important, it should be history, and not present. We shouldn't
live there.


>> The picture in the attachment is made at the "Freedom not Fear" protests in
>> Berlin 2008. More information at
>> http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/242/144/lang,en/
>> You can see some PP flags and a sign to the Reichstag.

Advocating privacy is a worthwhile goal. It is not, however, the only
goal we have as a party. It is merely one of the goals that we all
have. The flip side of this is the idea that surveillance decreases
crime by increasing the chances that someone gets caught. Criminal
statistics should bear this out, if true, though it will take
statistics for a minimum of 10 years from the instigation of
surveillance in order to warrant the result. There is likely a brief
lull in criminal activity that picked up again 5-7 years later (the
length of the human psyche's cycles, which are dependent upon the
person and so this number is a generalization).

Until we actually have such statistics, surveillance will be a
difficult battle to win. However, we can force concessions by making
stronger laws to protect the privacy of individuals, especially those
who are found to be targets of hatred within society. We must protect
the rights of the people in the RIAA/IFPI to be private, if we expect
to keep our own privacy. We must also be willing to relinquish our own
comforts in order to achieve it.

Therefore, I agree that deadlines must be kept. If it's uncomfortable
to be in a political party like ours, imagine the discomfort of never
being able to achieve anything because there's too much to consider.
We must therefore limit the number of activities we are aiming for,
and focus on the core issues that we really must have in order to be
reasonably free. Freedom to communicate, freedom to think, freedom to
have our own private spaces, and freedom to believe as we do are all
essential to the other freedoms we have--and EVERYONE deserves such
freedoms: we do, IFPI/RIAA does, MP's do, and even criminals do.
Topics such as 9/11 should remain outside our current scope, because
all they really do is hinder rational thinking about what's happening
in the here and now.

We all know that there are covered truths. We don't know what they
are, and may never know. Holding on to such a legacy only gives power
to those who wish to use fear or other emotions against us.

Just my half-euro's worth. ;-)

Thanks,

Ray Jenson