An anesthesiologist friend of mine, C, plopped down in a chair next to mine to an informal circle of discussion about the usual stammtisch, when he mentioned his son attending college in, "the People's Republic of Austin."
I have a little more fun playing both sides of the "to Austin" or "not to Austin" debate in Texas circles because I was born and raised in not-too-conservative California: I can see both sides of the argument fairly clearly and can appreciate them both.
Well, as luck would have it, C's son was reading from Howard Zinn's, A People's History of the United States, and C was concerned that his hard-earned wages were going to fund the radical notion that the Twin Towers were not felled by jet aircraft but by pre-positioned explosives.
Oh, boy-oh-boy-ob-boy. C this is your lucky day. I could hardly contain my glee. Certainly a man as well educated as an anesthesiologist would consign himself to reason, no? It is just a matter of the construction of the argument, yes?
"So, C, do you believe that it is possible to collapse 110 stories of concrete and steel in less than 20 seconds?"
"Yes, I do. It was a lucky shot. They hit those buildings in just the right places and weakened the floors with just the right about of heat -- not too much, just enough to make them sag --and they pancaked straight down to the ground."
"A lucky shot? Into their own footprint," I asked, incredulous.
"Yes, sir. You don't believe --- you're too reasonable a guy to believe that garbage about Bushes' involvement, aren't you?!"
"It doesn't really matter what I believe, C...."
And it really doesn't. I've been beating my head against a brick wall with these types of people for years and I can't make any headway whatsoever. Not only do I have a sense of what it must have been like prior to the Civil War in this country with respect to slavery, but I also have some gigantic insights into how it was possible for Hitler's thugs to move an entire nation away from sanity and capable of enormous atrocity.
But, again, it doesn't really matter what I believe, what I think, or what I value. What matters is what I do about all of the above that has any hope of changing our downward trajectory into a bottomless pit of self-congratulatory soothsayers who can only say, "I told you so, I told you so," as we, and everyone we've ever loved, fall inexorably towards our doom.
This whole 9/11 Truth issue has the moral and factual force to split the country as slavery once did, and for many of the same reasons. We have an entrenched minority who insist that democracy can not save us from the harshness of a cruel world, and a slumbering, lumbering majority who are, on the whole, satisfied with not having to take any direct responsibility for the actions of their government.
As usual it will be the sleeping masses who will suffer the most as a result of their unwillingness to become educated on the issues and allow the FACTS, not their feelings about those facts, guide and change the flightpath of their lives.
The planes that flew into the WTC on 9/11 were not "lucky shots," nor iwas, or is, it possible to drop a 110 story skyscraper into its own footprint without the use of controlled demolition technologies. I understand that it hurts to contemplate who would, or could, possibly plan and execute such a heinous atrocity.
I imagine it still hurts the hearts of the German people to reflect on just how easy it was for Hitler's bureaucrats to convert a fruitful, productive and positive element of their society into outcasts and piriahs who required a "Final Solution" to eliminate them from history.
