“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
-- Proverbs, 29:18 I want to start this by absolutely thanking much of the 9/11 leadership in research and activism, not only for all they’ve done and do for 9/11 truth . . . but also, for having the vision, to see that we’ve recently had a golden egg dropped in our laps. Because of 9/11 movers and shakers seeing with the upcoming 9/11 truth telling novel “The Shell Game”, by a N.Y. times best selling author . . . a “grand opportunity,” and thru telling their email lists, radio listeners, event attendees, and website/blog readers about “The Shell Game” . . . it has spiked up with each announcement on amazon, which is critical to all our work for truth. This campaign to help “The Shell Game,” (see TheShellGame.net) help us, has helped illuminate the “danger” of what I see as “9/11 truth fundamentalism,” and also the “opportunity” to move beyond that into the mainstream mind of America in a way that we can only achieve by overcoming “fundamentalist” tendencies in the movement. Let me explain: I first got interested in political/social issues in a real way in my mid-twenties after my first son was born. His precarious future, due to the escalating nuclear arms race, drove me to want to get involved in the bi-lateral nuclear freeze movement in California where we lived at the time. I went to a couple of meetings, and never really got involved because the organizers were granola-crunchy-vegan-spiritualists-who were holier than I was, and made it clear they were aware of how much more evolved than I was. Over the years, I began to refer to these folks as “movement fundamentalists.” It’s not enough that you agree on an issue and work together on it, no, you must agree with EVERYTHING they believe about the world, or you are not fit to work with them. However, my son’s mortality was at stake as Reagan and the Soviets kept their nuclear p*ssing match escalating so I tried again. I and my wife went to a meeting at a church, where a young charismatic man, named Tim Carpenter, was speaking about the nuclear freeze movement and what we could do about it. Some of you may be aware that Tim Carpenter is now, 20 years later, the head of Progressive Democrats for America. Anyway that young Tim was funny, and very intelligent, but he was a “regular guy.” I got to know him as a human being, and he followed baseball and knew where the Angels were in the major league rankings. He made me feel at ease, and that even though he was a vegetarian at the time, it was okay that and not a big deal what I was. It was only important that we shared the desire to stop the madness of the nuclear arms race together. Because of Tim’s approach, the bi-lateral nuclear freeze movement of the 1980s in Southern California grew immensely. Tim organized massive protests across from South Coast Plaza on Bristol involving thousands of people, with candles, outside the hotels where the military industrial complex held their weapons bizarres for the Pentagon in Orange County. With Tim, all were welcome, all were worthy, who wanted to join in stopping the insanity of the arms race. We were a wildly diverse group, long haired hippies, corporate yuppies, Catholic nuns, and everything in between all having the time of our lives, changing the world together. We all had different talents and skills, and were encouraged and applauded for bringing our individual skills to the fore to help capture the public’s attention for a nuclear weapons freeze. NOW, FAST FORWARD TO 2008. I teach stress management for corporations when I’m not a 9/11 truth activist full time, and am familiar with the dynamics of stress. Stress makes us have a narrower tunnel vision, tightening not only our muscles but our minds as well. The stress those of us who’ve been at 9/11 truth for a long time have been through is . . . enormous. A result of that stress I’m seeing is a tightening of our hearts and minds that may be constipating the growth of our movement.
HOWEVER, THERE IS MUCH MORE TO DO. Please read on to see a “crisis” within the movement. The Chinese character for crisis is made up of two other characters, one is “danger” and the other is “opportunity.”
