Today’s Downsizer Dispatch . . .
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Quotes of the Day:
With great power comes great responsibility.
— Spider-man (Stan Lee)
Big claims require big evidence.
— a fundamental principle of critical thinking
Subject: Our Position on 9-11 Truth
Given the subject of our latest campaign it seems incumbent upon us to state where we stand on the subject of 9-11 Truth.
We feel there is sufficient evidence to assert that the federal government had all the powers and resources it needed to prevent the 9-11 attacks.
- It knew that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack the United States.
- It knew that Al Queda agents were operating in the country.
- It knew that suicide attacks with airplanes were a real possibility.
- It knew that suspicious persons were learning how to fly airplanes, with, in at least one case, an alarming disinterest in learning how to land them.
The federal government had the power, without the PATRIOT Act, or torture, or REAL ID, or illegal wiretaps, to learn everything it needed to know to stop the 9-11 attacks.
If the federal government had simply used the powers and resources it already had the 9-11 attacks would have failed, and many thousands of people who are now dead would still be alive and in the arms of their families.
9-11 is a textbook case of the government’s congenital institutional inability to focus and perform competently.
If the federal government had simply done its job, using what it already had, then there would have been no . . .
- Disastrous war in Iraq,
- Bloated Department of Homeland Security,
- Overbearing TSA,
- Invasive PATRIOT Act,
- Dangerous REAL ID Act,
- Unconscionable Torture-Tribunal law,
- Illegal spying on American citizens,
- Or a whole host of other government transgressions.
Here is the truth, with a little “t,” about 9-11: It was a day of massive government failure.
Here is another truth about 9-11: No one in government, and no institution of the government, was held accountable, or paid any price, for this failure.
Here is another truth about 9-11: The federal government, and the people who run it, were actually rewarded for their failure on 9-11, instead of being held accountable.
The federal government failed on 9-11, but the President and the Congress did NOT hold themselves accountable for this failure. Instead, they exploited their own incompetence to grant themselves massive new powers and recources, at your expense.
Worse still, Congress and the President have used these massive new powers and resources to commit even larger failures, such as the war in Iraq. These new failures have made YOU LESS SECURE, rather than more secure.
Government fails consistently, because the institution of government, and the people in government, NEVER PAY ANY PRICE for failure. Government fails consistently, because the people in government are CONSISTENTLY REWARDED FOR FAILURE by gaining greater power and greater access to your wallet.
The incentives by which our government operates are completely backward: Government is always rewarded for its failures, so its incentive is to constantly fail.
This is the fundamental truth about 9-11.
Are there others truths that also matter and that have been neglected? Perhaps. But the idea that the Bush administration somehow conspired with Al Queda to bring about the attacks, is almost certainly not among them.
It makes zero sense that the Bush administration would have been capable of such a massive crime, but incapable, a few months later, of planting WMD’s in Iraq. On this basis alone, most of the 9-11 conspiracy theories are non-starters.
This does not mean that the Bush administration did not exploit 9-11 to do things it wanted to do anyway. Of course it did.
Neither does it rule out that some members of the administration may have been intentionally incompetent in order to permit the inciting “Pearl Harbor incident” they were on record as hoping for in advance.
But both of these things are a far cry from most of the conspiracy theories that parade under the banner of “9-11 Truth.”
Sadly, the focus on wild theories has tarnished the words “9-11 Truth,” and made it harder to actually get at the truth.
We have been inundated with films and books and articles about 9-11. We have heard all the claims and studied all the supposed evidence.
Big claims require big evidence and many “9-11 Truth” claims fail this test. This is why we recommend a documentary film called “9/11 Press for Truth.”
“9/11 Press for Truth” is different. It makes few claims, but presents a lot of big evidence. Seeing this movie has prompted us to take action to compel the federal government to re-investigate its own performance on 9-11, and to assume a responsibility equal to its great powers.
The proper federal response to 9-11 should have been to downsize, streamline, and focus. Instead, it used its own failures to upsize, complicate, and thrash about in all directions.
We want Congress to take another look at 9-11, and this time attribute blame, impose penalties, and adopt policies that will enable government to better overcome its innate incompetence.
If you share these goals, then please send a message to Congress calling on them to take another look at 9-11. You can make your contribution here.
Thank you for being a DC Downsizer.
Jim Babka & Perry Willis, President & Communications Director, DownsizeDC.org, Inc.