Today the American left wants to shut down those who do raise questions about such very strange events in which a few Saudis who could not fly airplanes prevailed over the American National Security State and in which 185 people are allegedly hit by a large truck but the photos show no such results and the Paris officials order the destruction of the recorded evidence and the falsification of the report.
The official story of 9/11 is the justification for the wars. It is difficult to oppose wars when you accept the reason for them. By accepting the government's 9/11 conspiracy theory, the left-wing killed the antiwar movement.
Why does the left trust the government precisely on those matters that the government uses to justify war and a police state? The answer is that those who challenge the official story deprive the left of the emotional satisfaction that comes from the belief that oppressed peoples are capable of striking back and do strike back. Alexander Cockburn once explained this to me himself. He said that when I report the challenges of experts to the official 9/11 story, I am taking away the dignity of oppressed peoples by assuming that they do not strike back against their oppressors. Alex could not accept the truth, because it meant that the oppressed acquiesced in their oppression.
I understand how Alex saw it. I understand the importance to any movement of hope, and I regret that the left has positioned itself such that facts undermine hope, causing the left to come out against facts.
I offer the left, or the simulacrum that remains, a different hope: trust the power of truth. Don't defend the oppressor, attack him, and as you attack him your might will grow. People are not forever fools. A time comes when their personal situation contradicts the story fed to them. But if there is no leadership, awareness cannot graduate into revolt.
The West needs a strong left-wing movement with the strength to challenge the lies that are leading the world to a war of extinction of life. I would prefer a reformist left to a revolutionary one, but this is not to say that a revolutionary left is not preferable to what exists today, which is revolutionary neoconservatism without opposition from a countervailing force.
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