This has been obvious in any Internet forum for many years. Whether the subject is Mac vs PC, Windows vs Linux, Jesus vs Darwin, Universal Health Care vs Free Choice ... you name it, you'll find exactly two teams, and each team has a standard playbook of permitted opinions. As long as you stick to the playbook, you'll get cheers from your side and jeers from the other. But if you ask a deeper question, or (worst of all) favor side A for the wrong reasons, you'll be thrown out with remarkable alacrity and consonance.But in 2005 I definitely DIDN'T SEE THE TRICK in the political realm. Just one illustration of hundreds:
The Red Cross is putting out some strange PSA ads. A dry-voiced feminist recites "I don't talk like you, I don't dress like you, I don't go to your church, .... but I will help you." Who is this appeal aimed at? Other feminists? Academic multiculturalists? It ertainly isn't aimed at traditional-minded Americans, or males of any stripe. I lost all faith in the Red Cross two days after 9/11 anyway. On 9/12 I gave a substantial contribution, then the next day the local chapter REFUSED a contribution from a local rifle range (gun club), because the club had put a picture of Osama on its paper targets. It was too late to stop my check, but I'll never give another penny to this pro-terrorist organization.When did I start to see the "terrorism" fraud as just another two-sided stageplay? Hard to spot by keywords, but the first doubts showed in 2007. The 'Dubai port' thing helped me to see that Bush wasn't really fighting Saudi, but I still didn't see that fighting Saudi was a fraud. Using terrorist as a keyword, this 2009 item shows similar incipient doubts.
The strange 'buzzing' of New York by the substitute Air Force One may have been a really, really dumb mistake, but I don't buy it. In the first place, as everyone has noted, you don't need real planes to "update your photos". Anyone familiar with graphics could create this picture digitally in a few minutes, if you wanted this picture.I wasn't able to stand back and see both teams on this question until I threw away the TV in 2010.
And that's the first question: Why in the hell would the gov't want this picture? How in the hell would a 9/11-style picture be part of your media publicity packet? What would the caption be? "Lookie here! We're still vulnerable! You can get away with another 9/11 easily!"
The second question: If it was just a photo-op, why was the fighter jet apparently trying to intercept the airliner? From what I've seen, the fighter looked fairly serious. I can't imagine the Air Force risking its aircraft and pilots on a just-for-fun gag shot.
This was either a real practice run (war game) or a real incident. Perhaps a pilot gone insane, rather than a real terrorist?
Isn't it odd?In those questions I finally stood back and saw the fraud.
The whole point of the Enlightenment in religion and science was to trust your own logic and senses, and distrust the flat statements of the priesthood.
And who's Enlightened?
The Muslim world and the Soviet world are Enlightened. They understand from long experience that government lies 100% of the time. They want to see evidence that they can trust.
America's experience with 100% transparently false government is shorter, basically beginning in 1964 with the Warren Report. So the population of Enlightenment thinkers here is large but far from universal.
The American media, and the blind followers of the Parties, are pre-Enlightenment thinkers. Party members implicitly trust whatever My Party says and distrust what The Other Party says. Since the two Goldman Sachs "parties" create "fair and balanced debate" on only a few trivial and numerical points, the Party people end up trusting government on nearly all important questions, no matter how obviously absurd.
To the priesthood of media and government, Enlightenment thinkers are "conspiracists" or "paranoids" or "deniers" or "skeptics" or "truthers" or "birthers", who can be safely tossed overboard without a proper religious burial ceremony.
The current icon shows Polistra using a Personal Equation Machine.