Unthinkable

Unthinkable
Larken Rose

What happened ten years ago today was unthinkable. Literally. At the time it happened, most people were unable to think about it, to really accept that it was happening. Many still are. The devastation and death, the pain and suffering, were too much of a shock for most people to even mentally process. Thousands of people murdered, out of the blue; images of mayhem and tales of suffering thrown at people over and over again. Overwhelming emotions--sadness, anger, frustration, helplessness--seared into people's minds forever.

That's what propagandists love. The best way to bypass rational thought is through extreme emotion. Politicians know it. Used car salesmen know it. Moviemakers know it. Dragging people around by their emotions is relatively easy, compared to dragging them around by their intellects. If you want to manipulate and control someone, using emotion is your best bet. Showing people heart-breaking images of starving children, and then asking for donations. Scaring people with some horrible threat, and then asking them to support your method of prevention. Showing people a grave injustice, and then asking them to lash out at the perpetrators. If you want to influence someone's thoughts and actions, appealing to their feelings will work a lot more often than appealing to their ability to think. Likewise, if someone wants to deceive and manipulate you, you can bet it will be through emotion.

This is not to say that emotions shouldn't exist, and that we should all be unflinching Vulcans. But our rational minds are what distinguish us from other animals. Anyone who owns a dog knows that dogs can get sad, or angry, or scared. And trying to reason with a dog, to get it to disregard an unnecessary and unhelpful emotion--such as being terrified by thunder--does not work. The question is, are we humans any different? How often do our emotions get the better of us, and how often do our feelings override or even disable our ability to think rationally?

Ten years ago today, some truly horrible things happened, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Americans. That much, no one doubts. But what exactly happened, and who was responsible, has been debated ever since. Well, perhaps "debate" is not the right word, because the discussion has been more often emotional than rational. Understandably, even years after it happened, many people are still unable to think about the events of 9/11/01 in any sort of detached, neutral, objective way.

My goal here is not to provide piles of evidence about the events of 9/11, or to give any sort of comprehensive theory about what all really happened. Instead, my goal here is to address what has to come first: open-minded, rational thought--something most Americans are unable or unwilling to engage in. Before evidence matters, people have to dare to look at evidence. Before a hypothesis can be worth anything, people must be willing to consider different possibilities. And most Americans are not.

To wit, most Americans self-righteously scoff at so-called "conspiracy theories" concerning 9/11. However, only an absolute moron would think the events of 9/11 were not the result of a conspiracy. It wasn't a spur-of-the-moment idea. Some number of people obviously spent a lot of time and effort conspiring to commit mass murder. Ergo, it obviously was a conspiracy. That is indisputable. The question is, who were the conspirators? Were they Middle Eastern terrorists? Were they agents of the U.S. government? Trouble is, the latter possibility is unthinkable--most people literally are unwilling or unable to think about it. "That's ridiculous," is the most common response. What those people really mean is, "I don't want to consider that possibility."

Any good homicide investigator looking into a murder would begin with some basic questions: Who could have been motivated to do this? Who had the means to pull it off? Who had something to gain? Who could have pulled it off? Considering such questions objectively, foreign terrorists come in a distant second behind agents of the United States "government." Who would be in a better position to have pulled off such an attack, an official inside the U.S. national security system, or an Arab in a cave in Afghanistan? And which of those would expect to be killed, and which would expect to gain power, as a result of such an event? Which of those did gain power, and which of those did get killed? (As an aside, if you were a homicide investigator, and of your two leading suspects, one insisted that the other had done it, would you take his word for it?)

To most Americans these questions are "unthinkable." A moment of rational consideration says that people inside the U.S. "government" would have the means to do it, and something to gain from it, far more so than a ragtag band of terrorists somewhere in the Middle East. But most Americans are simply unable to consider the possibility that Americans could have done such a thing. Because of the pack-mentality and nationalism they were trained to feel, they want the perpetrators to be from another country, another religion--they want them to be the "other guys," so they can be despised, hated, and then destroyed. To even consider the possibility that it was a "false flag" operation, such as people in power have been committing throughout all of history, would leave most Americans feeling scared and confused.

Consider an analogy. More often than you may realize, firefighters get caught starting fires, in order to get more work (and more money), and so they can look like heroes. When that happens, people feel a deep betrayal, bewilderment, confusion and anger. We want protectors and good guys to be ... well ... protectors and good guys. How about cops getting caught running extortion rackets? How about the CIA getting caught running drugs? How about the ATF getting caught recently, supplying guns to Mexican drug cartels? What part of this hints that we shouldn't even consider the possibility that Americans could ever commit evil to serve their own wealth and power?

Most Americans imagine that people in "our" "government" could never have done anything as heinous as what happened on 9/11. Yes, everyone knows that politicians are liars and crooks, but they want to imagine that "our" politicians aren't monsters. They wouldn't commit mass murder for political ends!  Except that we all know they have. The two worst individual acts of terrorism--mass murdering of civilians used to coerce those in power to change their ways--were the nuclear bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, with combined death tolls nearly a hundred times those of 9/11. Everyone knows it was top U.S. officials who made that happen. Maybe that doesn't count, because those were foreign civilians being murdered. The American politicians would never kill Americans in order to serve their own power and political ends! Except that the Pentagon Papers show exactly that: U.S. politicians sending thousands of American soldiers off to suffer and die, based on lies and a political agenda. 

Okay, but those were soldiers. The U.S. politicians would never kill American civilians! Except in Waco, where almost a hundred men, women and children were systematically tortured, mentally and physically, and then murdered. (If you haven't seen the FLIR tapes from that event, don't claim to know that it was mass suicide.) Ruby Ridge? Kent State? Okay, sometimes agents of "government" go too far, but those in power would never intentionally plan to fake terrorist attacks, and then blame it on someone else, in order to justify their military agenda! Really? Go read the declassified documents relating to " Operation Northwoods" if you think U.S. officials would never do such a thing.

(Notice that I'm using links to mainstrean, statist sites admitting these things, rather than sources anyone could pretend are run by "anti-government conspiracy kooks.")

It is quite understandable that after all the pain and suffering that has happened because of the events of 9/11, people want some sort of resolution and closure. They want everything to be okay again. They don't want uncertainty about what happened. They want to know the enemy, and feel like he is being dealt with. They want to feel secure again. These are understandable emotions, but they all get in the way of knowing the truth. Some people even have emotional tantrums whenever others question the official story, as if that somehow desecrates the memory of those who died on that day. But if we truly want to "honor the dead," we should make sure we actually know what happened, and who did it. And right now, the most ridiculous, impossibly implausible conspiracy theory out there, is the one most Americans have accepted on faith. It is a lie they are comfortable with, a lie they can cheer for, a lie they can live with. The truth, well, that may prove to be a lot more difficult to stomach.

After all, if some people inside your own government were responsible for intentionally killing thousands of innocents ... would you even want to know? (See "V for Vendetta.") If you are unwilling to even think about such a scenario, then you are exactly the type of person a false flag operation would work well on, and therefore the type of person a false flag operation is likely to be used against.
 
"The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a  conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists." [J. Edgar Hoover]
 
The more the American people remain blindly loyal to those who claim to be "authority," the more those in power have to gain by exploiting that blind loyalty. That is how people in power have always operated. If, by committing evil, they can persuade you to give them more power, they will do it.

Yes, there are evil people in the world, and they tend to gravitate toward positions of power. Yes, they are evil enough to commit fraud, theft, assault, even murder, to serve their own ends. And very few of them are stupid enough to be honest and open about who they are and what they want. Instead, they cloak their malice under a veil of good will; they cloak their hatred for humanity under a guise of compassion. And yes, they connive and conspire to use your virtue against you, to use your compassion and goodness to enslave and destroy you. They will do the unthinkable, simply because they know that you won't think of it, and you won't believe it when it happens. Then they will wring their hands, shed a fake tear, and offer their phony heart-felt condolences. After that, what you may mistake for a caring embrace will be them tightening their grip around your throat.

(P.S. If you want to stop being duped by political liars, crooks and murderers, read "How To Be a Successful Tyrant." Know their playbook, and their tricks will stop working on you.)

http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Opinion/096246-2011-09-11-unthinkable.htm