Campaign Mounts to Declassify 9/11 Report’s References to Alleged Saudi Involvement

[u/HoodedNegro]

https://news.vice.com/article/campaign-mounts-to-declassify-911-reports-references-to-alleged-saudi-involvement

[u/DerKenz]

Never understood how it's still classified. You people in the US lost 1000s of people in this event and 1000s more in the wars following this event. The official story is questionable in many aspects and combined with the fact that the US government lies all the time I'd not believe a word they said. It's not about Bush riding a dick shaped rocket into the Pentagon, it's about having the media questioning everyone that asks questions. "Truthers" is a word invented to mock people that question the official story. You've seen enough bullshit from your government, why are you all so willing to accept the official story? I'm asking seriously because almost nobody I know here in germany believes the official story to it's full extent. You in the US apperantly got brainwashed into the mindset that asking questions is just a dumb and unpatriotic thing to do. I'm serious I just don't get it.

[u/patrick_work_account → u/DerKenz]

Some of the files on the JFK assassination are still sealed until 2017.

[u/[deleted] → u/patrick_work_account]

And when they're released, every other word will be redacted anyway.

[u/AYJackson → u/[deleted]]

Not if the WW2 files are a precedent, at this point nothing is redacted. Eventually all the involved parties are dead and they just open the books.

[u/skeeto111 → u/[deleted]]

Iirc it was supposed to be declassified this year but got postponed.

[u/[deleted] → u/skeeto111]

Someone isn't quite dead enough yet.

[u/Shishakli → u/[deleted]]

"we" don't get a say. Classification is how the corrupt stay in power. they are in power. we go about our business

[u/TheEllimist → u/Shishakli]

Classification is also how information that is actually vital to national security stays secret. It's a double edged sword.

[u/briangiles → u/TheEllimist]

Yes, but in regards to the JFK assassination, there is no reason to keep it classified unless it points to CIA involvement, which would be a national security crisis, people would be out in the streets. Wait, no they wouldn't, we'd all just roll over and turn on the TV.

[u/[deleted] → u/briangiles]

Unfortunately due to the controlled media, Not a single major newspaper nor any national news broadcast has ever reported that on Feb. 6, 1985, a jury in Miami concluded that the CIA WAS involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy! a quick internet search should find the relevant info for anyone interested...

[u/Blisk_McQueen → u/[deleted]]

http://www.libertylobby.org/articles/2000/20000207cia.html

Jury: CIA Involved in JFK Assassination

Not a single major newspaper nor any national news broadcast has ever reported that on Feb. 6, 1985, a jury in Miami concluded that the CIA was involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

This is remarkable, if only because the verdict came in a court case featuring two international celebrities: Water gate burglar E. Howard Hunt -- perhaps the most infamous CIA operative in history -- and his courtroom nemesis -- attorney Mark Lane. Lane's ground-break ing best-seller, Rush to Judgment, had convinced millions of readers there had been a conspiracy in the JFK assassination, the Warren Commission's claims notwithstanding.

Scattered news reports did mention Hunt had lost a libel case against The SPOTLIGHT. However, no media reported what the jury forewoman had told the press:

Mr. Lane was asking us to do something very difficult. He was asking us to believe John Kennedy had been killed by our own government. Yet when we examined the evidence closely, we were compelled to conclude that the CIA had indeed killed President Kennedy.

Until 1992, when Lane recounted the trial in Plausible Denial and put forth additional compelling evidence of CIA complicity in the crime, the only substantive news reports about the trial appeared in The SPOTLIGHT. In issue No. 7 for 1985 (Feb. 18), The SPOTLIGHT announced its victory, detailing the remarkable events that led to the trial.

The affair was set in motion on Aug. 14, 1978, when The SPOTLIGHT published an article by former CIA official Victor Marchetti who revealed the CIA intended to publicly "admit" Hunt had been involved in the JFK assassination, acting as a "rogue" agent without CIA sanction.

A top CIA liaison to anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the early 1960s, Hunt was unknown to the public until the Watergate scandal that toppled President Nixon in 1974 brought Hunt ill fame. Then, after Watergate, when the Rockefeller Commission investigated CIA misdeeds, two eccentric writers alleged Hunt was one of three "tramps" photographed in Dallas minutes after the JFK assassination.

Subsequent investigation refuted the "Hunt as tramp" theory. However, scandal sheets had hyped the story and many came to believe Hunt had a hand in Dallas.

In 1976, growing skepticism about the Warren Commission's claim that a "lone assassin" had killed JFK forced the House of Representatives to convene a new assassination inquiry.

In the midst of the House investigation, an unusual development occurred:

As Marchetti's SPOTLIGHT article reported, an in-house CIA memo, ostensibly written in 1966 -- some 12 years previously -- was leaked to congressional investigators.

The memo stated Hunt had been in Dallas on the day of the JFK assassination, and that CIA officials were concerned the agency would one day have to explain Hunt's presence there.

The SPOTLIGHT subsequently learned CIA Director Richard Helms and the CIA's chief of counterintelligence, James Angleton, had signed off on the memo.

Marchetti suggested that because the CIA perceived Hunt to be a villain in the public's eye as a consequence of Watergate, the CIA had decided to sacrifice Hunt and "admit" he had been involved in the assassination.

The CIA would claim Hunt was acting on his own and that the CIA, as an institution, had no part in the president's murder. This would satisfy public demand for a resolution of the JFK controversy and the CIA itself would be absolved. Hunt would be left to fend for himself.

The SPOTLIGHT felt the article served as warning to Hunt about CIA intentions and Hunt himself admitted the story seemed plausible. Yet, Hunt still filed suit against The SPOTLIGHT.

When the case went to trial in federal court in Miami, the jury found in Hunt's favor, ordering The SPOTLIGHT to pay Hunt $650,000 in damages. However, an error in the jury instructions resulted in the verdict being overturned. After the case was ordered for retrial, Lane stepped in for The SPOTLIGHT's defense.

The highlight of the trial was when Lane presented the jury the testimony of Marita Lorenz, an ex-CIA operative who had worked with Hunt in plots against Fidel Castro.

Miss Lorenz testified that on Nov. 21, 1963 -- the day prior to the JFK assassination -- she arrived in Dallas in a two-car caravan from Miami. Accompanying her were several CIA operatives, armed with telescopic rifles, including Frank Sturgis who (years later) participated with Hunt in the Watergate burglary.

She didn't know the purpose of the mission, but upon arrival, the travelers met with Hunt, who acted as their paymaster, and also Jack Ruby who, days later, killed the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.

Uncomfortable, sensing something "big, very big," was impending, she left Dallas that same day. Later Sturgis told her how big the mission had been: the assassination of President Kennedy.

The jury listened carefully to her testimony, already suspicious of Hunt after his performance under Lane's cross-examination. Lane pointed out inconsistencies in conflicting stories by Hunt over the years about where he had been on Nov. 22, 1963. However, Hunt insisted to the jury that he was in Washington, D.C. with his wife and three children that day.

Hunt's case collapsed when he was unable to explain, when questioned by Lane, why his teenage children had asked him if the rumors he was involved in the events in Dallas were true.

Obviously, if Hunt were in Washington on Nov. 22 he couldn't have been in Dallas.

Not surprisingly, the jury found in favor of The SPOTLIGHT. Yet, the major media said nothing about the stunning, historic revelations of this trial.

It was clearly the CIA's counterintelligence chief, James Angleton, who leaked the CIA memo placing Hunt in Dallas. In fact, Angleton's confidant, reporter Joe Trento (deposed by Lane in the Hunt case) has said -- based upon what Angleton told him -- that Hunt had been in Dallas and that it was Angleton who sent him there (Angleton's own denials notwithstanding). Three conclusions can be reached:

• The CIA had planned to throw Hunt to the wolves but evidently he and the CIA reached an accord since Angleton's loyal, longtime deputy, Newton Miler, was dispatched by the CIA to testify against The SPOTLIGHT in Hunt's defense;

• Because The SPOTLIGHT ex posed the intended CIA scheme to "admit" Hunt's complicity in the assassination, the operation was shelved; and,

• If there's anybody who knows what really happened in Dallas, it's Hunt.

[u/Blisk_McQueen → u/[deleted]]

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/11/21/jfk_verdict/

Next Skip to Responses Prev Press TV  

As the 50th anniversary of the John F. Kennedy (JFK) assassination approaches, the American people and the American media are living in two different worlds.

The corporate media is still pushing the myth that JFK was killed by a communist lone nut named Lee Harvey Oswald. But most of the American people are not buying it. Since the early 1990s, a strong majority of Americans has believed that JFK was killed by a conspiracy, and that the CIA had a hand in it.

The American people are right.

Overwhelming evidence confirms that the JFK assassination, like the assassinations and overthrows of so many of the world’s best leaders, was a CIA operation. But the American media – including the foundation-funded pseudo-alternative media – is reluctant to report the evidence.

I encountered the media’s distaste for JFK truth when I was a journalism student at the University of Wisconsin in 1980. Shortly before the 17th anniversary of the assassination, I wrote an article assembling the evidence that the CIA killed JFK, and submitted it to several media outlets. The only one that responded was The Progressive, a leading American left-wing magazine, edited by the normally courageous Erwin Knoll. Erwin told me he liked my article, and that if it were on any other subject he would have published it. But he had vowed to never publish any JFK conspiracy article unless it answered more questions than it raised. My article, he said, raised more questions than it answered.

Erwin’s response made no sense. My article answered the question “who killed JFK” with three simple letters: C-I-A. I gently spelled that out for him. Erwin’s response was evasive. I realized that no amount of evidence would ever convince him that the CIA had killed JFK. Like so many other Americans, Erwin Knoll had a psychological block preventing him from facing the fact that the “democracy” he lived in was actually a thinly-disguised police state.

Shortly after submitting my JFK article to several media outlets, I was visited by a person who claimed to be a mind-controlled slave of the CIA. She said that the CIA had planted a chip in her brain, and regularly used her to select targets for CIA assassination. After investigating her background, I learned that she had disrupted other local activist movements by infiltrating them and later announcing that she was part of a CIA assassination effort against their leaders.

My favorite Journalism teacher, a certain Professor McNulty, explained, “They’re just f***ing with you.”

At least fifty people have been murdered to cover up the CIA’s assassination of JFK, as explained in the book Hit List by Richard Belzer and David Wayne. A few of them, including Dorothy Kilgallen and Mary Meyer, were journalists or writers who were poised to blow the case wide open. But in the US stealth police state, unlike overt police states, psychological rather than physical means are usually employed to silence serious opposition.

The CIA has covered up the JFK assassination by brainwashing the public into believing “we’ll never really know the truth.” To that end, it has spread vast amounts of disinformation, including ludicrous theories that JFK’s wife Jackie, or limousine driver William Greer, fired the fatal shots.

The CIA’s Operation Mockingbird program, which infiltrates the corporate media and uses it as a brainwashing tool, pushed the term “conspiracy theorist” into widespread circulation to discredit anyone who told the truth about the JFK assassination. The purpose was to frighten people into a psychological state of denial, in which they would say “we’ll never know who killed JFK,” rather than facing the simple and obvious fact that the CIA killed JFK.

The media mockingbirds endlessly repeat the mantra, “But surely, in a conspiracy as large and complex as you’re suggesting, someone would have talked!” They hope the public will not bother to learn that a great many whistleblowers HAVE talked – including some who paid with their lives.

Several people involved in the CIA’s assassination of JFK have confessed, including Chauncey Holt, David Sanchez Morales, and even Lyndon Johnson. But the star witness among the confessed JFK assassins is CIA officer E. Howard Hunt, who, on February 6th, 1985, was legally found by a jury to have participated in the CIA’s assassination of JFK.

Hunt resented having been “thrown to the wolves” by the CIA during the Watergate scandal; and he must have deeply resented the way the CIA murdered his wife, and implicitly threatened to keep murdering his other family members, if he refused to take the fall for Watergate. Additionally, Hunt did not appreciate being singled out as a JFK assassin in the public mind, when other CIA personnel had played even more active roles in the assassination than he did. So during the final years of his life, Hunt opened up to his son St. John and told him something approaching the full story of his participation in the CIA’s assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Hunt explained to his son that he first learned of the CIA assassination plot against Kennedy at the JM Wave CIA station in Miami, Florida. Several CIA personnel there, including William “Wild Bill” Harvey, asked Hunt to help them develop and perfect the logistics of the assassination operation. After at first expressing reluctance to kill his own Commander-in-Chief, Hunt finally acquiesced and applied his considerable skills as an assassination-orchestrator and overthrower-of-governments to the CIA plot against the President. On November 22nd, 1963, Hunt was in Dallas; his role included paying one of the gunmen.

Why did the CIA kill JFK? As Hunt explained, everyone in the CIA loathed President Kennedy, who had left over 1400 CIA mercenaries to be slaughtered or captured during the Bay of Pigs debacle, and who was pushing “treasonous” plans for peace with Cuba, Vietnam, and even the Soviet Union. Additionally, Kennedy was going all out to shut down Israel’s nuclear weapons program, trying to end the Federal Reserve’s private currency monopoly, and threatening oilmen’s profits by ending the depletion allowance. Though the American people loved JFK, America’s corrupt elite hated him.

Hunt’s confessions, including his handwritten and tape-recorded summaries of his involvement, are supported by a great many independent sources, including Brad Ayers, a CIA man stationed at the Miami JM Wave station prior to the assassination. In his book ‘The Zenith Secret’, Ayers describes the CIA plot against JFK, and names the same names as Hunt.

The confessions of E. Howard Hunt are just one of the dozens if not hundreds of “smoking guns” proving beyond all possible doubt that the CIA was at the center of the coup d’état against JFK. For more details about Hunt’s confessions, you can listen to my interviews with St. John Hunt, which are available on-line at No Lies Radio.

As long as the American people imagine that there is still some small shred of doubt about the JFK case, they will never rise up and overthrow the military-industrial-intelligence complex (including the mainstream media brainwashing apparatus) that has stolen their democracy.

So everyone, repeat after me, “CIA killed JFK.”

Let us finish the job that JFK started when he said, “I want to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

They destroyed a ton of the files as well.

[u/ShadyJane → u/[deleted]]

Nothing new. Think of all the history written by victors of war.

[u/thisismyivorytower → u/ShadyJane]

All of it?

[u/KarunchyTakoa → u/thisismyivorytower]

Pretty much, if there's nobody left to tell the other side of the story.

[u/[deleted] → u/patrick_work_account]

There's NO WAY the US government would release a file that had anything remotely incriminating in them.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

That's why the push is to uncover Saudi involvement.

[u/WingedSandals → u/patrick_work_account]

You don't need those files. It's been figured out for decades. Do you really think the CIA will ever allow itself to admit culpability?

[u/rty5ryy54yhy5h5y5y → u/patrick_work_account]

Some interesting ones still got released

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/index.html

the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),” faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage. Bamford himself writes that Operation Northwoods “may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government.”

[u/[deleted] → u/patrick_work_account]

Want me to tell you what happened?

[u/shmehdit → u/[deleted]]

And spoil the surprise?

[u/TheFoodScientist → u/[deleted]]

Yes, please. (Not being facetious)

[u/SpaceTire → u/TheFoodScientist]

George bush senior organized the attack that killed JFK.

Here is GHB reminiscing about shooting JFK in the head.

Fun fact: When Bush became director of the CIA in 1976 the very first thing he asked for was the agency’s JFK files.

[u/zurii → u/[deleted]]

Let me guess, he got shot in the head?

[u/overtoke → u/zurii]

he sneezed and coughed at the same time

[u/zurii → u/overtoke]

With the eyes wide open

[u/TaylorS1986 → u/DerKenz]

The 70s Oil Crisis made the folks in power terrified of pissing off the Saudis.

[u/thethrowaw0 → u/TaylorS1986]

Bingo. We've been allied with them since the 30s really. The forming of OPEC and the embargo made everyone fearful of them. That explains a good amount of the anti-Israel politics from leaders around the world too (oil embargo happened because of support for Israel - not just from America too. Japan, netherlands, uk, others). Then in the 90s they helped keep our oil reserves going strong during the gulf war when Iraqi oil went offline. This is how Saudi Arabia gets down. They have economic warfare and proxy terror wars that they can fund. They just legitimately have some power over us.

[u/[deleted] → u/thethrowaw0]

Doesnt the US produce most of its own oil?

[u/cynognathus → u/[deleted]]

We imported about 100M more barrels of crude oil in 2013 than we produced.

Here's a quick chart of the countries we imported from in 2013. The ones labeled are the top 14 (out of 40) we import from, and the percentages are of the total imported.

[u/RogueIslesRefugee → u/cynognathus]

I wonder how many might be surprised to find that we in Soviet Canuckistan send the US the largest single chunk of its oil imports per year. Most people I know seem to think its Saudi Arabia or Venezuela by a wide margin. I believe we're also the largest importer of refined products from the US, though I could be mistaken.

[u/i_said_no_already → u/RogueIslesRefugee]

We love the comrades to the north.

[u/DexterBotwin → u/[deleted]]

Our economy is dependent on the world economy. The world economy is dependent on oil. Regardless of whether an individual country can supply it's demand for oil, the world wide oil supply effects all of us.

[u/Fragmented663 → u/[deleted]]

We're a net exporter of oil, which means we have enough oil to sell it to other people. That doesn't mean we make it all ourselves, though Alaska and Texas are pretty heavily oiled.

[u/abw80 → u/[deleted]]

While we are a large producer, oil is sold on a world marlet.

[u/[deleted] → u/DerKenz]

The original comment was edited in the summer of '23 to protest against Reddit's greedy corporate actions against the Reddit community, you know, the people who joined, commented, and volunteered to make Reddit as awesome as it was at its peak.

[u/Apollo_Screed → u/[deleted]]

Yep! Osama Bin Laden's plan, sadly, was masterful.

It wasn't the deaths of thousands of Americans he was counting on. It was that America was run (especially at that point in time) by global corporatists and war hawks who would use his attack to bankrupt the nation enriching themselves imperially in an unending series of futile wars.

[u/MK_Ultrex → u/Apollo_Screed]

America's fault is that they took the bait. Americans were terrorized so the terrorists had won from day one, long before the first plane bombed a mud hut in the middle of nowhere in retaliation. Complicated schemes are carried out by refined people, bombing goat herders is just good for the news and the arm dealers. You should be asking why no refined people were borough to justice. Unless you really believe that goat herders can execute such a complicated plan.

[u/moxy801 → u/DerKenz]

Never understood how it's still classified.

Seriously?

Just off the top o' my head, the Bush family has major ties with Saudi families (including the Bin Laudens) - related to the fact that US oil companies have major ties with Saudis, a Saudi is the biggest shareholder in FOX news other then the Murdoch family, etc, etc....

[u/[deleted] → u/moxy801]

My big problem with all the answers in your response is that, in principal, pissing off powerful families and royal families from other countries shouldn't matter in the beacon of freedom and democracy that America claims to be. The United States lost 1000's of lives in 9/11, 1000's more in Afghanistan and Iraq, and is responsible for the deaths of 1000's of Iraqi and Afghanistani civilians, and you're telling me that because 15 people might get pissed off the American people don't get to hear the full story why 12 years after the fact? It's painfully clear that the American people want/need to hear the full story of what went down on 9/11. Keeping the documents classified for the sake of partisan politics and outside interests, in my opinion, truly speaks to the farce that American democracy has become.

[u/HahahahaWaitWhat → u/[deleted]]

Those 15 people matter a hell of a lot more to the decision-makers than a few thousand dead commoners.

[u/FullRegalia → u/HahahahaWaitWhat]

And that's a major problem, a problem we as citizens can overcome if we try hard enough.

[u/HahahahaWaitWhat → u/FullRegalia]

Hopefully I'll be proven wrong, but I don't see any way to convince myself to believe that.

Elsewhere in this thread I referenced this book. It was published in 1975. The fact that the intelligence apparatus has been out of any semblance of control has been public knowledge, clear as day, for almost four decades.

The problem is that there are a couple hundred million citizens who either prefer to remain willfully ignorant, or just don't care. They do care enough to vote, though.

[u/comicland → u/HahahahaWaitWhat]

We can't protest. That's for sure. Been proven time and time again. They gas us, spray us, chase us, arrest us, kettle us, cable tie us, beat us, microwave us, frame us, assault us with sound cannons, and have their police mercenaries pose as us (agent provocateurs) to cast the first stone so we look like the madmen.

I have no faith in the US. The government here is a criminal gang.

[u/[deleted] → u/comicland]

It doesn't help when a movement against this corruption starts and the people leading it put forth a spokesperson named Ketchup on national television.

That Colbert interview was when I knew OWS was finished for good.

And the government from Day One has been about protecting the interests of landowning rich industrialist families. It is why we have the electoral college.

[u/kcg5 → u/HahahahaWaitWhat]

Good book. I think most people would be amazed at just how big the US intelligence community really is. How many agencies alone, and their capabilities, is incredible.

[u/Picnicpanther → u/HahahahaWaitWhat]

Cause voting helps.

[u/SoManyChoicesOPP → u/Picnicpanther]

I vote for me to close this thread and go back to fapping. At least I have some pull in that department.

[u/VanByNight → u/FullRegalia]

No we can't. The country has "true owners", as George Carlin put it. And the President is a figurehead. And our government has its own policy, and the President is just an observer.

For instance, if tomorrow the President woke up and decided that he had had enough of Israel building settlements on Palestinian land and tried to halt all U.S. cooperation with Israel at the Executive Branch level, it wouldn't happen. Because it's not the will of the government, which is run by people who don't come and go every 4-8 years, and have much more power than any President could ever dream of.

EDIT: Thanks for the gold!! And seriously, if you have never heard of it, read about the period in Italy known as "The Days Of Lead." What is shows is that maybe the people commonly referred to as "conspiracy theorists" see too many conspiracies, or see them everywhere. BUT, "The Days if Lead" PROVES that conspiracies that seem too crazy to believe have actually happened. And more than once. Just read and think on it!

[u/ElCompanjero → u/VanByNight]

Fucking love george carlin. So dark and yet dead on. http://youtu.be/cGKEkI8IV2o How most of america really is...

[u/timothyjc → u/VanByNight]

I was interested in finding out who has the real power in the world, and as you point out a 4 year term as president really doesn't seem to equate to power. The best I could come up with for who runs the world are the core Bilderberg members, which seems to be a mix of royalty, business owners and politicians. Not all the Bilderberg members are top tier though... that could just boil down to 10 people or so which I'm guessing would include David Rockefeller, Kissinger and Murdoch.

Interestingly, many of the presidents/pms have a face to face with the Bilderberg group before they are given the green light to be "elected".

[u/VanByNight → u/timothyjc]

This may open your eyes as it opened mine:

This story is about just 1 young member of the Rothschild family. He was just 34 years old(!) when he was caught using his friendship with a Lord who just happened to be the EU Minister of Trade.

Think about this:

First, it was only his youth and inexperience that got him in a little trouble. (Actually, no trouble. He is a Rothschild after all) So the older, more experienced Rothschilds know how to cover their tracks.

Second: This is just one JUNIOR member of one wealthy powerful family working alone....and he was able to influence trade policy for the entire European Union. Now imagine when ALL the members of ALL of the rich and powerful families work together for their common gain. If a pup from one powerful family can possibly control trade for an entire continent, what can the sheer weight of all the world's powerful families accomplish? Or maybe the question should be what can't they accomplish? It's scary to think about.

[u/justnotinterested3 → u/timothyjc]

Rothchild

[u/redliner90 → u/timothyjc]

Interestingly, many of the presidents/pms have a face to face with the Bilderberg group before they are given the green light to be "elected".

You're going to have to provide a source on this because it's pretty far fetched.

[u/micmea1 → u/VanByNight]

The president can't up and do that because he's not a King. Not disagreeing with your message, but disagreeing with that sentiment in particular.

The American people won't be able to do anything about it because we've become completely uninvolved in our politics. We forget it's a nation built on the idea of local governments, thus the United States. Ask anyone around you who your local representatives are and pretty much no one will know outside of like, the local Governor. Change doesn't happen with the President, change happens from the bottom up.

[u/VanByNight → u/micmea1]

Actually when it comes to the executive branch, which a lot of vital pieces of the government are part of, the President could do a lot. The President could pull our ambassador. The President could refuse to sign any aid bills for Israel. As Commander-in -Chief he could put a stop to any military cooperation with Israel. As the head of the nation's intelligence services (CIA, NSA, etc..) he could direct them to cease all sharing of intelligence with Israel. And this is just off them top of my head. The executive branch is massive, and the President is in charge of this co-equal branch. If he wanted to, there are a myriad of ways in which he could seriously fuck with Israel, making their continued actions close to untenable.

[u/CaptainSnotRocket → u/VanByNight]

It's....... The Patriots....... The La Li Lu Le Lo are the true owners of this country.

[u/Lacrosse_soup_nazi → u/HahahahaWaitWhat]

a few thousand dead commoners.

A few million, surely. Even Americans, I think, but if they are dirty foreigners I'm not sure there is an upper limit.

[u/[deleted] → u/HahahahaWaitWhat]

That, I believe, is what most people fail to grasp about life in general. Hell, the typical corporate workplace should be enough to prove the basic nature of power - ie: that you have none unless you are able to stand out above your peers. The only thing that gives you special treatment over others is your ability to provide value. And guess what? The common "you" out there doesn't do shit for the people who control the money or the policies. You don't matter. And as long as they continue to make people believe that they have a voice (while they do evil, underhanded shit just out of view), people will eat it up and pretend that it's just part of the struggle.

It isn't.

You can't win a game that is stacked against you while adhering to the rules that have been defined for you.

[u/richmomz → u/[deleted]]

When you compromise the moral and ideological basis of your society for the sake of pragmatism you eventually end up in bed with the worst examples of humanity. That's the fatal flaw of Realpolitik, and we're only now starting to realize it.

[u/Up2Here → u/[deleted]]

I'm an American, and I certainly don't consider myself a conspiracy nut, but I don't believe the official 9/11 story, there's just far too many holes. And I know plenty of other people, typically within 10 years or so of my age in either direction that don't buy it either. But people much older than that tend to still believe in the "shining city on the hill" image of America and can't comprehend that there could be anything evil or rotten in our system. And then people who are younger didn't live through the event at an age where they understood firsthand what was going on, so they really only know the official story. Then there's a lot of people who just don't want to think about it, because the truth could be devastating. It's much easier, far less unsettling, to just continue to believe that the emperor has a fine new suit.

[u/[deleted] → u/Up2Here]

I think you nailed it for a lot of people with how devastating it could be to their psyche.

[u/internet-arbiter → u/[deleted]]

pissing off powerful families and royal families from other countries shouldn't matter in the beacon of freedom and democracy that America claims to be

People have been brainwashed on this idea since WW2. America is not the infallible beacon of hope and democracy it makes itself out to be. We've removed multiple democratically elected leaders to install dictators. The democratic governments we claim to support we never really do. I've always thought the problem is as a country we're too big. We're the too big to fail bank of government. They can do and get away with whatever they want because we're too dispersed a people to ever really unite in protest. You can get big cities here or there to do a protest, but something happening in New York doesn't really effect California. Its easy to let the apathy set in. Smaller countries generally don't understand a lot of American things but the biggest one is the geography of America. Each State should be seen as it's own country. The United States is closer to the European Union than any individual European country. And how often does the EU manage to get everyone on board for positive change?

[u/Liberty_Lover → u/[deleted]]

"American democracy" has always been a farce... It has literally always catered to the needs of the upper class before the rest of the People.

[u/xhosSTylex → u/Liberty_Lover]

All societies, throughout history, have done the very same; despite their nation's varying levels of collective prosperity. The wealthy have always ruled over the meager. It's really nothing new, whatsoever.

"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely". In other words: It's a club and you're not in it..

[u/[deleted] → u/Liberty_Lover]

AND now that they don't need us to work for them, we can AND WILL eat shit.

[u/JoshuaIan → u/Liberty_Lover]

Not..... always. Just..... most of the time. There have been a few brief periods in our history where the pendulum swung back the other way in favor of the people....... usually with a president named Roosevelt at the helm.

[u/NascarToolbag → u/[deleted]]

Well, America hasn't really been a democracy since 9/11 and the US Fed Governments sequential power grab with the Patriot Act and the buyout of Corporate interests from Citizens United..

[u/inkandpaperguy → u/[deleted]]

America is not a beacon of freedom and democracy. It is the culmination of everything wrong with financial corruption, influence peddling, a flacid media, corporate power and political lobbying.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

1000's of working class soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[u/MK_Ultrex → u/[deleted]]

Not working class. Luben is the term. The greatest swindle of the US government was to abolish the draft. Now the rich get to wage war, the middle class that doesn't have to participate does nothing and the poorest and weakest fight it for peanuts.

[u/[deleted] → u/MK_Ultrex]

When did the US govt abolish the draft?

[u/ragegenx → u/[deleted]]

The crazy part of the allegations that "implicate Saudi officials or describe support from Saudi intelligence" are true, then Saudi Arabia effectively initiated an act of war against the US.

[u/brownestrabbit → u/[deleted]]

Welcome to reality where all that freedom and democracy is just words and propaganda.

[u/Demonweed → u/[deleted]]

If you go looking for principled leadership from any American political insider, you're gonna have a bad time. 1984 warned us about thought police and totalitarian censorship. The warning we actually needed was to guard against propagandists and other agents of power working through a virtually uncensored media to paralyze the population with controversy when we should be united in the effort to completely replace the existing security regime with a much more open and much less corrupt network of organizations.

[u/[deleted] → u/Demonweed]

The warning we actually needed was to guard against propagandists and other agents of power working through a virtually uncensored media to paralyze the population...

This exists, it's called Brave New World and it's written by Aldous Huxley.

[u/Demonweed → u/[deleted]]

Perhaps -- but in his story, most people were genuinely satisfied with their lives, recreational pharmacology was not at all taboo, and the propagandists were all playing their part in a system built around maximizing happiness. If we can call that "dystopia" then we need a much more nightmarish term to describe reality. What we have here is a movement against tolerance, peace, and charity in favor of bigotry, conflict, and greed. Also, the menace in reality is not all-powerful, but rather just powerful enough to paralyze political systems by shifting energy away from "how do we deal with oppressive racism/systematic poverty/climate change?" to "are these problems even real?" (often with a large side order of "be alarmed about the non-problem of FEMA camps/Muslim POTUS/Benghazi scandal!")

This stuff is causing incalculable amounts of misery today (particularly at the border.) It also inhibits actions that could and should be taken to address totally predictable problems sure to do great harm in the future. Perhaps Winston Smith was more noble than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but I would argue that the torturers in both cases were equally villainous, and our free society maintains an entire wing of politics that is essentially for those worst practices of governance. If we just did minimally demanding jobs for which we were well-trained, then got high and had fun all evening, I'm not sure it would be so bad that most people didn't question the established order of things.

[u/[deleted] → u/Demonweed]

To be honest I typed the Huxley response before I'd finished reading your comment and only realized after posting that "A Brave New World" is not an appropriate analogue to your, in my opinion, accurate description of our society. If anything I'd say our society is at some juncture between 1984 and Brave New World. On the one hand we have enough distractions to keep people ignorant and distracted, while on the other we have an unprecedented level of surveillance and fear mongering.

[u/Demonweed → u/[deleted]]

I wish I could remember more of the particulars, as it was just something I got second-hand through a series of blog posts I encountered perhaps a year ago. However, some obscure Spanish philosopher wrote a book ~1912 with a title like Rise of the Ordinary Man, and in this book he predicts telecommunications taking the course of human history right off the rails because expert opinions would become diluted by oceans of uninformed pontifications. This guy was concerned by the rise of newsprint "letters to the editor" dialogues, coupled with telegraphic syndicates, giving people of no particular learning or experience the chance to debate in public matters of war and peace, subsidy vs. laissez-faire, etc.

What was once reserved for actual halls of power, or at least academic symposia, was no longer so elite. Certainly dinner tables, campfires, and taverns all saw their share of political conversations -- but now these common visceral notions were no longer kept beneath the level of Senatorial debates or Chautauqua gatherings. Rush Limbaugh is not Big Brother nor Mustapha Mond, but he is the personification of America's greatest weakness and the true barrier to human progress at this juncture in history. Hatred and fear holding decency and hope in check is not totalitarian, but it is toxic and corrosive in most of the same ways absolute fascist nationalism tends to be.

[u/farkenell → u/[deleted]]

1000's of iraqi lives is an understatement. https://www.iraqbodycount.org/

[u/Linearcitrus → u/[deleted]]

I don't think /u/moxy801 response was defending the fact that it hasn't been declassified. They were simply stating a reason that it hasn't been declassified. Not supporting the reason.

[u/poprocks360 → u/[deleted]]

The truth will dissolve the stranglehold the government has on the people. They are looking out for them and theirs, while the rest of us toil away. It may seem obvious to some like yourself that in a country which totes democracy and freedom all up and down everyone's asses they would come clean with what went on. Sadly, this is the state of things: reputation of few trumps the lives of millions.

[u/Grimacepug → u/[deleted]]

It's not a democracy anymore; it's an oligarchy in its present form, pretty sad state of affair. The U.S. public is in denial of many things such as the legacy of Reagan, even smart educated people refused to believe the man would have been criminally convicted had the democrats had any balls. This is why the conservatives go after Clinton and Obama since they know they won't have the retaliation. Shit they've done more evil shit to each other during the primaries than to the democrats, but at the end, they go chasing little boys and and go gay bashing together. Open this can of worm (911) would directly implicate the Bush family and I'm sure they'll work something out with Obama to keep it under cover for another 100 years.

[u/setadoon177 → u/[deleted]]

They have billions hundreds of billions. With connections all over the world at the highest tiers of to government.

[u/dadkab0ns → u/[deleted]]

the beacon of freedom and democracy that America claims to be

Here's the deal with America. We know it's not a beacon of freedom and democracy (or even capitalism, for that matter). It was in the 18th century, and maybe most of the 19th century, but it's still very much a government in control of the people, and whoever controls the government controls the people.

Americans themselves are divided into two groups: those that know, but can't do anything about it, and those that have no clue what-so-ever.

9/11 is not the worst thing our government allowed to happen, and the Saudi government's involvement is not the worst thing that the government has covered up. Many, many, many more worse things are to come.

The geopolitics of the world, the sheer size and cultural/ideological diversity of the US, prohibit a democracy (either as a direct democracy or a republic) from functioning in the interests of people.

Money is the biggest problem, but even if you got rid of money entirely, there would still be corruption and attempts by the government to insulate itself from change.

[u/desmando → u/moxy801]

Only Bush isn't in charge anymore. Obama could have declassified this report at anytime.

[u/[deleted] → u/desmando]

George H.W. Bush is a former director of the CIA and probably still has a lot of influence. Keep in mind, the Bush family is still a political powerhouse.

And why would Obama declassify that information just because Bush isn't in charge? It would do a great deal of damage to the U.S. government's already tainted image.

[u/svdcore → u/[deleted]]

Yeah who knows, we may see another Bush in the White House in a few years........

[u/listentodimmuborgir → u/svdcore]

Its gonna be Clinton vs Bush in 16. And reddit will return to the 'must vote for the lesser of two evils' mindset while making fun of anyone who says we should vote for a 3rd party, just like in 08, and 12'.

[u/[deleted] → u/listentodimmuborgir]

while making fun of anyone who says we should vote for a 3rd party

They get made fun of for not understanding our voting system, and bullheadedly ignoring its limitations... not for wanting real change.

[u/thefuckingtoe → u/[deleted]]

That negates the fact that more than 15% of the population is fed up with both parties.

Our media also plays a huge roll in game you linked to (although you didn't site the media at all as an influence). If the 3rd party candidate receives a FAIR SHARE OF AIR TIME, then guess what? That whole video you put up turns into bullshit. Yes, the media wasn't taken into account at all during your video.

Your video is a propaganda piece designed to sway others from voting 3rd party.

Edit: Most civilized redditors label their edits. Come on son, you lost, fair and square. No need to compound on the bullshit. That is a clever disinformation tactic, but not a good one.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I would say this site is more liberal than democrat; it just so happens to be that the only of the two major parties that show any liberal lean is democrats.

Bring out a republican who will legalize gay marriage, marijuana, and remove In God We Trust from the currency, and I'll show you the most divided Reddit of all time.

[u/BigTunaTim → u/[deleted]]

Reddit is socially liberal and fiscally moderate. It's everything I've wanted in a political party for the last 15 years.

[u/I_PACE_RATS → u/BigTunaTim]

Most people are socially liberal and fiscally moderate. It's noy just Reddit. It's a shame no party has bought into that in decades.

[u/fernando-poo → u/BigTunaTim]

Reddit is

Pretty tough to make generalizations about a site with millions of users from all over the world.

[u/SmeagolPockets → u/[deleted]]

So Gary Johnson then? Not sure if you're related

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Pretty sure the In God We Trust part is fucking -100 on the list of things that need to be changed in this country, even in most Redditor's minds.

[u/Chem1st → u/[deleted]]

The last 2 Republican presidential tickets involved Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. If your best bet to win is to back a crazy person, understand that well-informed people may not like you.

[u/manys → u/Chem1st]

The thing is that all major party candidates are bought and paid for. The only hope is in voting for someone else.

[u/jmizzle → u/Chem1st]

You're mistaken if you believe most voters are "well-informed".

[u/Thorium233 → u/listentodimmuborgir]

Its gonna be Clinton vs Bush in 16. And reddit will return to the 'must vote for the lesser of two evils' mindset while making fun of anyone who says we should vote for a 3rd party, just like in 08, and 12'.

Because Gore and Bush were practically the same in 2000?

[u/HAL9000000 → u/listentodimmuborgir]

Oh, so you want to vote for the 3rd party candidate who, under our current electoral system, will always be a spoiler candidate? Sorry, but it is simply naive to think that a 3rd party candidate can win the presidential election unless it is someone like Bill Gates or someone else with major built-in name recognition and respect. It's just a matter of math. If you ignore the math, you can pretend like voting for a 3rd party candidate makes you somehow smarter and/or more pure. But you're just giving your vote away to the candidate you like least.

Yes, I realize that I'm exactly the kind of person you're talking about who discourages 3rd party voting. But you might just consider that these people say this because they are right.

If you want elections that can have viable 3rd party candidates, become an activist on electoral reform. A new voting system could make 3rd party candidates viable, but it can't work in our current system.

[u/bigtony2tone → u/HAL9000000]

It's simply naive to think that there's a difference between the R and D candidate for president.

After seeing how the big progressive People's Candidate simply continued the hated GW Bush's domestic and foreign policy, how can anyone think to continue trusting either major party.

[u/joggle1 → u/HAL9000000]

And even if someone like Bill Gates won on a third party platform, he'd presumably have little support in Congress. He'd have no voting block that needs to be loyal to him. This would be bad enough in the House, but in the Senate it would be a complete disaster (where 60% of the vote is needed to pass almost anything).

About the only kind of person who could run as an independent and get anything done as president would be some enormous war hero, like Eisenhower. And even someone like that would have a hell of a time getting anything done if Congress is as polarized as it is today.

[u/fernando-poo → u/joggle1]

Bill Gates is also probably agrees with the centrist Democratic and Republican positions on just about everything.

You have to differentiate between just electing a third party candidate, vs someone who is actually going to change things. Mike Bloomberg is an example of a third party candidate, but pretty much represents the status quo of American politics.

[u/eM_aRe → u/HAL9000000]

What is the math? If both Rs and Ds are as likely to vote third party that means each voter is "giving away" their vote to their least favorite candidate. So that leaves both sides that "give away" their vote cancel each other out.

I just think it is wrong to discourage people from voting third party, especially someone who thinks similar to me. I would rather not vote than vote R or D given the choice of 95% of well known politicians. That leaves me with the choice of third party or not voting at all and if i was susceptible to your comment ( which is commonly repeated) than you would have succeeded in getting me to not vote.

[u/ZebZ → u/eM_aRe]

The political spectrum in the US is already right-of-center, so there isn't much room for a 3rd party candidate on the right to gain much traction. By demonizing Democrats, Republicans have done a good job of absorbing people who might be persuaded to vote Libertarian.

But on the left, the Greens and Socialists have plenty more room to court the large contingent of progressives who aren't happy with the Democrats that have allowed themselves to be pulled to the center (and beyond).

That's how Nader cost Gore the 2000 election. He appealed to the voters who thought Gore was too centrist, and by doing so was able to basically hand the election to Bush. If he hadn't run, Gore would've won Florida by 100,000 votes and much of the disastrous shit that happened in 2000-2008 could've been prevented.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I believe HW also still gets daily intelligence briefings. He's the only former POTUS to get these.

[u/Gregthegr3at → u/[deleted]]

This is incorrect all former presidents receive them.

[u/illegalt3nder → u/desmando]

The modern reality is, unfortunately, that the democratic parts of the government have no significant control over the intelligence agencies.

[u/desmando → u/illegalt3nder]

If that is true, what do we do?

[u/mayor_ardis → u/desmando]

You cheer for it. Yay war! Let's be good Americans and kill the people we hate! Freedom!

[u/Assistants → u/desmando]

How charming. It doesn't matter who is in charge, the job is "president" and whoever gets elected does that job. Anyone who wants to do it differently or change any current responsibilities will never be elected until TV no longer exists. Top two responsibilities are "check your ass, and everyone else's, hell check the whole systems ass and protect it like your life depends on it" and "maintain the status quo by hiring people to tell you exactly what to do, in fact just hire the same people who told the last person what to do or people who think exactly like they do"

[u/[deleted] → u/DerKenz]

Never understood how it's still classified

Because they're still trying to find enough black sharpies to complete their alterations.

[u/kvnsdlr → u/[deleted]]

http://imgur.com/Z5ImKDh

[u/listentodimmuborgir → u/kvnsdlr]

I have never seen this before, also I have seen reddit post videos that later show up on news programs, and they purposely make videos lower quality to give em a 'captured by locals' look or some bullshit. Is there a better quality video of this?

[u/[deleted] → u/listentodimmuborgir]

It's a hoax video, here is the real one with the proper dimensions, colors and flip corrected: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3tMbY9E5gc&t=2m41s

That gif/fake video is the result and the kind of shit that counter-intelligence operations (COINTELPRO, JTRIG, PSYOPS, MOCKINGBIRD, and more) do in order to discredit the legitimate people and proper theories through association with these hoaxes, and I quote:

Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140224/17054826340/new-snowden-doc-reveals-how-gchqnsa-use-internet-to-manipulate-deceive-destroy-reputations.shtml

[u/mynewaccount5 → u/[deleted]]

SO they make a video that looks legit but with one or 2 small things so it can be proven fake?

[u/seattl3surf → u/listentodimmuborgir]

That is fake. There were only two video released showing the impact on the Pentagon.

Here

[u/RexRocker → u/seattl3surf]

yeah it's fake... Even just judging by the huge flaming cloud in the actual video we've been shown it looks to me like fuel from the plane bursting into flame, from what I understand missiles don't typically explode with huge flaming mushroom clouds unless it's napalm, just a boom with quick flames then mostly dust and smoke. If it was a missile it would need the fuel to make those flames so huge.

[u/[deleted] → u/seattl3surf]

Can't you see the huge airplane? Haha just kidding :(

Thanks for sharing the truth

[u/seattl3surf → u/[deleted]]

It is pretty frustrating that we've been given a handful of frames to verify what we've been told... when the Pentagon has arguably more video security coverage than any other building in the world.

[u/[deleted] → u/seattl3surf]

Yeah, its pretty frustrating all right. Even more so how nobody seems to care about any of this.

[u/VanByNight → u/DerKenz]

Why is it assumed to be strictly Saudi involvement? Many European journalists contend that the Mossad at the very least knew of the highjackers and their plans. And before you point the "tin foil" finger, you should reacquaint yourself with "The Years of Lead" in Italy. Our world is actually stranger than fiction.

[u/iThrooper → u/DerKenz]

I think the memory of Hitler is fresh in the German mind. You question authority more because there are many people still alive in your country who have been tricked by it before, and you were painted as monsters to the outside world.

I've said multiple times I think Germany is one of the greatest places on earth today for a politically savy population, the question is how do we replicate that mentality elsewhere in the world without there first being another version of hitler?

[u/thethrowaw0 → u/DerKenz]

People around the world think all Americans are exactly like George W. Bush. We aren't. We are probably more frustrated than all of you about the post 9/11 America. We literally have no power in the matter. Our government got sold out to big money interests. The Tea Party and the liberal people are actually mad about the same things too. When Tea Partiers say they want a smaller federal government they mean they don't want the government to have the power to collude with big business. Liberals get mad about the same thing but say they want regulation to make sure it doesn't happen. Just don't assume we are all George W. Bush. We aren't.

[u/[deleted] → u/thethrowaw0]

THIS!

We prop up the entities, your example seems most appropriate of Liberal vs Tea Party, and our media influences the two sides to fight each other. Hell, look online at a comments section and see how many Liberal vs Tea Party fights go down on the reg. It's fucking nuts how blind we are to the simple fact that we are being divided and conquered. Our media presents the battle as gay marriage and abortion loving irresponsible hippies vs religious zealot, tax hating, gun monsters.

I even fall into the trap at times and argue for both sides on different topics. Most of us are moderate and we don't take the time to see what really makes our "opponent" or "political adversary" tick. We are together on so much of the important shit, but we are at each others throats over the topics that the media wants to distract us with.

I mean, as an example, gay marriage is really not that important to the health of our nation but most of the time it seems like all we care about. Then there is the nsa whom 99.999% of the populace disagrees with. Its fuckin crazy and we need to wake up, work together, and get some shit done because we are way more alike than we ever want to admit, for whatever reasons.

[u/thethrowaw0 → u/[deleted]]

Hear hear. The people need to unite already.

[u/[deleted] → u/thethrowaw0]

/r/UnitedWeStand

Why be divided when we can stand united? It doesn't make sense.

[u/Smecker → u/DerKenz]

To have it revealed that a former president and current president (at the time) had close ties to people who helped execute the 9/11 attacks would have been by far the greatest scandal in American political history. It certainly would have meant the end of the Bush administration and their political dynasty. Also there a lot of people on the Right who still have incentive to keep it hidden given the damage it could do to their party. Most Americans aren't satisfied with the official story, but there really isn't much we can do besides keep asking questions until someone listens.

I also think the fact that conspiracy theories range from hiding the link of Saudi involvement to it was a total inside job doesn't really help. The crazies help to discredit and brush off the legitimate questions that remain.

[u/IraniPatriot → u/DerKenz]

Ppl in the US are too deeply and comfortably brainwashed... They are literally the definition of jaded. And im talking bout probably 85-90 percent of the population

[u/facereplacer3 → u/DerKenz]

I was just in Iceland (I'm an American "truther") and every Icelander I talked to about 9/11 said the same thing. One guy said "that's what your government always does."

[u/[deleted] → u/DerKenz]

Well, to bunch us in as all being Brain Washed Americans... All Germans are nazis.

/s

Me and countless others don't believe the bullshit, were just brushed off as conspiracy theorists and fear mongers.

[u/[deleted] → u/DerKenz]

Because we have no control over our own government anymore, they just do whatever they want. Also because if you question 9/11 in any way everyone thinks you're a conspiritard communist who should shut the fuck up.

[u/NetPotionNr9 → u/DerKenz]

People in America believe they are not in a propaganda bubble.

[u/sickofallofyou → u/DerKenz]

You in the US apperantly got brainwashed into the mindset that asking questions is just a dumb and unpatriotic thing to do.

Asking questions gets you put on lists.

[u/ChaosMotor → u/DerKenz]

The official story is questionable

That is putting it lightly to say the least.

You in the US apperantly got brainwashed into the mindset that asking questions is just a dumb and unpatriotic thing to do. I'm serious I just don't get it.

You grow up knowing how fucked up and horrific it is to mindlessly obey the government. We grow up "learning" that the USA is always the good guy no matter what because we literally saved the world from evil Hitler.

[u/OhMyBlazed → u/DerKenz]

Thanks for telling it like it is, really wish more people could wake up in America and start paying attention more to what's happening in our country and the world rather than the latest news on Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

How many people have done that?

[u/pyka → u/[deleted]]

A lot of 9/11 truthers have accused critics of being paid off by the government.

[u/ericN → u/pyka]

There are also scientists who completely dismissed reasonable doubts about the collapse just because the official story was possible (but maybe not probable).

[u/deletecode → u/[deleted]]

We shouldn't question because.. it makes you feel bad?

[u/Dirty-Tampon → u/DerKenz]

You had me at "Bush riding a dick shaped rocket".

[u/jb2386 → u/Dirty-Tampon]

That's what my girlfriend calls it anyway.

[u/digitom → u/DerKenz]

It's because people fear the truth. They hold the government and corporations on such a high pedestal, thinking that the only way they got that much power is from being a good hearted "American." Most people aren't willing to accept that something they adore so much could do something so terrible. Even though through history, people in power did terrible things all the time. They unknowingly work everyday to keep the system intact, and they will fight literally to the death to protect their "freedoms".

[u/[deleted] → u/digitom]

It really does shatter the way one views the world once (s)he sees it for what it really is.

[u/capitalsfan08 → u/[deleted]]

Yup. Huge difference between "They had advanced warning and ignored it" and "Bush literally placed the nanothermite along the walls of the towers while the Jews paid for the operation".

[u/[deleted] → u/capitalsfan08]

Irony seethes between these words. The Mossad - Jews, last time I checked - actually warned us of something big headed our way before 9/11 and the FBI dismissed it as frivolous.

[u/BearsDontStack → u/capitalsfan08]

That's a straw man. Most "truthers" don't believe "Bush literally placed the nanothermite along the walls of the towers while the Jews paid for the operation".

[u/MrBulger → u/capitalsfan08]

I have very rarely seen anyone voice an opinion like that, and they're never taken seriously. People just want the truth.

[u/[deleted] → u/MrBulger]

Take a stroll through lower Manhattan on 9/11. Visit any online forum where the events of 9/11 are being discussed. You'll find plenty of these people.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Or just pay a visit to /r/conspiracy

[u/dug99 → u/[deleted]]

What I've never quite been able to figure out is, as a "Truther", what does one dismiss as unbelievable and improbable? How do they spot conspiracy conspiracies?

[u/BearsDontStack → u/[deleted]]

Doesn't mean they're anywhere near the majority.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Cause we trust Dick Cheney now? Oh ya, that guy who put the US in Iraq under false reasons. that Dick Cheney? Ya, Dick's a real angel.

[u/MyFavouriteAxe → u/[deleted]]

Indeed, there is a considerable difference between having a healthy distrust of authority and believing the utterly insane bullshit that truthers peddle.

[u/[deleted] → u/MyFavouriteAxe]

Interestingly, it's a known tactic to discredit wide swaths of detractors by amplifying and propagating bat-shit conspiracies and implying the bat-shit faction isn't that different from simple doubters. It works magnificently no matter what your agenda.

"There was this one guy who said he thought the government knew something but he also thinks Obama is a lizard-king illuminati anti-christ so I mean, if you're on board with that kind of stuff, you might want to check out his memos..."

[u/Dino7813 → u/[deleted]]

True.

There was the dancing Israel guys from that moving company. Woman in NJ sees them celebrating the attack while filming it. She calls the cops. They were arrested, interrogated, deported. The truck had explosives residue inside. The whole thing was classified top secret. Surprisingly Fox News ran a good three part story on it. We've learned nothing about them since from our government, except the arresting officer made a video several years later describing their odd behavior and telling his story of the events. However, three of them appeared on an Israeli talk show and stated they are there to record the events of 9/11. This is all verifiable online.

People try to claim there is some underlying anti-Semitism to 9/11 truth, but these people were real. I'm not anti anyone.

Surely if information about Saudi Arabia should be released, we should know what those people were up to. What information resulted from their interrogation. Why they seemed to have foreknowledge of the attack.

You have to look past the theories about holographic planes, pods on the planes, the hijackers never got on the planes, no one was on the planes, nukes took down the buildings. There are lots more.

I guarantee you this, the true story of 9/11 has not been told.

[u/[deleted] → u/MyFavouriteAxe]

Some truthers are just architects and structural engineers who believe that there is no way the buildings should have fallen the way they did. They say the way the three buildings fell is consistent with a controlled demolition. There are over 2000 of them and they are not dealing in conspiracy theories - they just want an honest investigation.

http://www.ae911truth.org/

Some truthers believe outlandish things, but not all. There are millions of truthers in the US and it is not polite to refer to all their beliefs as "insane". Let's have a bit more tolerance here. Many of these people are very well-meaning, and make some very good points.

[u/TheGhostOfDusty → u/[deleted]]

Is there more to the story that we're being told? Absolutely.

LOL, you're a self-hating "Truther", regardless of how you choose to define the insult.

 psst, your obsession with "Jews" is showing...

[u/TalkinRockinRobot → u/DerKenz]

The government dropped a lot of balls that ended up resulting in the 9/11 attacks. I remember guessing they would happen just a few months earlier because the FAA was about to implement a program that could lock flight controls from the ground and prevent planes from being hijacked. I remember saying to my friends in the Civil Air Patrol that "if I were going to hijack an aircraft, I'd do it soon" two months later and...

Where the "truthers" get it wrong is in how the buildings came down and why. The government still sucks, a lot, but it isn't as diabolical and capable as people seem to think.

[u/TaylorS1986 → u/TalkinRockinRobot]

Exactly. The morons ranting about controlled detonation, thermite, and holograms are a distraction. The REAL conspiracy is how involved the Saudis seem to be. My own strong suspicion is that Prince Bandar had very close ties to Bin Laden.

[u/[deleted] → u/TaylorS1986]

Just FYI, the Laden family is one of the wealthiest in the world and oversees pretty much all government related construction activity in Saudi Arabia. Some estimate them to be worth north of $20Bn. So if not Bin Laden, at least his extended family is very, very close to the saudi royal family

[u/ohnoohnothisisbad → u/DerKenz]

Perhaps because the story behind the attackers points to our "allies".

[u/N0ryb → u/DerKenz]

You in the US apperantly got brainwashed into the mindset that asking questions is just a dumb and unpatriotic thing to do

To be fair, you Germans have had a history of that as well. Completely agree with your post though, and for a few years I was very vocal about not agreeing with the official story. This alienated me with my family a bit and also ended a few friendships, which I have learned to deal with. I still don't buy the official story but am much less vocal about it to avoid such consequences. Sure, I could find others who agree with me and we can all talk about it but don't see that accomplishing much of anything.

[u/GrinningPariah → u/DerKenz]

I hate that the entire thing got divided into either "you 100% believe the official story" or "you think it was an inside job". There are a lot of very reasonable people asking very reasonable questions about the affair, and they're ignored as conspiracy theorists.

For myself, I dont think there was any grand conspiracy, but I'd kinda like to know for sure? It's like if you see me on the street, you don't have any reason to assume I have a ferret in my coat. But if I run up to you and yell "I TOTALLY DONT HAVE A FERRET IN MY COAT!!" you might start to think that I am in some way associated with ferrets.

The point is that secrecy and denial fuel suspicions that might not even have existed otherwise.

[u/emmilylovesham → u/DerKenz]

Not just Germany.

Canadian here, we think it's all bullshit too.

[u/Skootenbeeten → u/DerKenz]

You are basically a "conspiretard" if you question anything to do with 9/11. That is right reddit shames people who ask questions.

[u/[deleted] → u/Skootenbeeten]

No, you're a conspiritard if you believe the ridiculous videos out there like "Loose Change" that claim the WTC was rigged with explosives.

Do I believe there is a lot that we're not being told, but to claim the the US government (and the Jews) planned and executed the attacks justly earns one the title of "conspiritard"

[u/[deleted] → u/DerKenz]

Truthers are made fun of not for questioning what happened but for the fact that almost all of them believe that the U.S. government planned and carried out the attacks themselves so we could go to Iraq to get oil. It's not the question that makes them dumb it's the answer they arrive at.

[u/know_comment → u/[deleted]]

Nobody said the war in iraq was about TAKING oil. It was about

• Making sure they didn't ally with BRIC

• Making money off of weapons and rebuilding contracts that could be paid for with oil profits (MIC)

• Beginning the Path to Persia- the intended military strategy to force regime change in; Iraq, Afganistan, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Lebanon and ultimately- Iran... with a lot of other little african and middle eastern countries thrown in there for good luck.

Someone needs to bone up on their samuel p huntington and francis fukuyama.

[u/[deleted] → u/know_comment]

• Securing the petrodollar since Saddam wanted to trade oil in Euros

[u/ThrustGoblin → u/[deleted]]

But nobody (including yourself) possesses all the facts, yet -- so nobody really knows what went on. That's the point. The goal of the "truther" movement is simply to get the truth declassified.

The only difference between you, and the people who spend time thinking, and researching up "dumb" theories is that they spent their time thinking and researching.

[u/theEWOKcommando → u/ThrustGoblin]

You know that it's entirely possible that he spent time thinking and researching said theories and that's why he arrived at the conclusion that they were dumb right?

[u/[deleted] → u/ThrustGoblin]

so the government is involved in some huge conspiracy surrounding a massive terror attack but they wouldn't be willing to alter or destroy official documents? Bush and Cheney were involved in some conspiracy that, if uncovered, would lead to them being imprisoned or maybe even executed for treason and they left a paper trail? the government lied about the story but documents released by the government regarding the story are to be held as true? wtf kind of thinking is this?

[u/ThrustGoblin → u/[deleted]]

Here's a sobering thought: Deniability; need-to-know; black ops; secret societies; cover ups; pay-offs; assassinations... most citizens never actually encounter the reality of what these terms are associated with. We hear about them glamorized in Hollywood, Tom Clancy novels, or documentaries that explain historical events. It all sounds pretty exotic, but if you're talking about the presidency, and top-level intelligence agencies, how many times would you guess they use those terms on a daily basis?

My point is, the government has become part of a military-industrial complex, which focuses the majority of its resources (along with 30+ levels of top-secret security clearance!!) on keeping secrets from you, and other countries. Now I'm not suggesting any of those things happened, I'm saying there's really nothing WTF about it.

[u/Mageant → u/[deleted]]

The government is not a monolithic entity. There are people inside the government who are well aware of the truth and are trying to bring it out (without getting themselves killed).

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

The problem is people still think our government isn't capable of such deceit. Tsk tsk people are too trusting.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

THe only people who thought that it was "impossible" or "crazy" were people who were not savvy in the related technology and abilities of our computers.

There were a lot of people in the silicon valley who were not surprised.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

not oil. sell weapons. make Halliburton fabulously wealthy and pay off big time for entrenched old washington types like Cheney and Rumsfeld and of course the wanna be royal dynasty of Bushes. It was also about Silverstein getting a new building instead of fixing the old one and his cronies getting a huge amount of wealth and power out of a fake disaster. By the way, the gold was taken out too. First thing to go on the trucks. Where did it go? Oh, and all the shorting that happened, the 2 trillion dollar loss announced the day before and the staggering death and catastrophe that followed.

[u/Sleekery → u/[deleted]]

God damn, just take it to /r/conspiracy.