The Politics of Terror and Mass Persuasion

by William Thomas

"Nothing would be what it is. Because everything would be what it isn

Thank you so much for your article. I have read enough ON LINE lately to know exactly what you are talking about., but you have brought it ALL TOGETHER in this one comprehensive piece for all to see. I have been feeling like an outcast in my own country, that I was just a part of a very small minority out here who understood where the attacks on 9-11 really came from and why they were perpertrated. Oil is a powerful incemtive for the Bushies.

These are not (of course popular views at this time as we all know) and I have lost friends over even the suggestions that the media is currupt and that the bushies may have had something to to with 9-11. Because my friends and relatives can't see that they are being brainwashed by the media, they try to convince me by spouting almost line-by-line the madia's views, and that I am paronoid. but I still stand tall in the knowledge and level of government curruption in power at this time.



The one thing that has given me some small modicom of hope, is that you say many people with the same views are coming together rapidly now. I pray that is the case, but you don't say where thay are coming together, and what will we do once we do come together. How can we fight such a power who now controls the media and our constitutional rights. How can we fight to enlighten millions of brainwashed citizens. I am truley worried that the Gov. will start shutting down sites that they feel are against them and I'm watching closely to see which ones fall. Also what would happen to this country if the real truth was to get out there?

Since I have lost frends, and others are unwilling to talk to me about the state of the world. I have been looking for LIVE online chat rooms filled with people with like views, so we can all get involved and exchange ideas in real time. I have not found one. Only forums to give oppionions. Too slow. If you know of any please let me know. If not, why not start one.

And please, get this article on as many websites as you possibly can, not only the left, but more important the right as well.. And get on some REAL talk shows (you know what I mean) if there are any left. I have saved your article and I will cherish it.

Thanks Fran

This article says "We didn't ask" a whole slewof questions, most of which (and more) we here at Indymedia DID ask, and then goes on to say, "We did not ask because we were not told what had really happened."

Huhn? Did we not ask questions about the Vietnam War because we were not told what had really happened? Did we not ask questions about the "War on Drugs" because we were not told what had really happened? Did we not ask questions about the WTO because we were not told what had really happened?

When have we EVER not asked asked questions because we were not told what had really happened?

This is typical of the rhetorical posturing in this piece, which favors drama over factuality.

He even gives us a quote about the Bavarian Illuminati:

"The Illuminati want a world government and army, a world currency and centralized global financial dictatorship and control...."

Well, the Bavarian Illumaniti haven't existed for over 200 years. After they ceased to exist, French and English reactionaries blamed them for the French Revolution, based on the assumption that the people who revolted against the French monarchy could not possibly have done that on their own, and really didn't know what they were doing. (Cut off the head of their king? How could any people possibly do that? It must be the work of hidden Satanic forces. Hence---the Bavarian Illuminati.)

So here we have a piece pretending to be more radical than thou, but it's so historically ignorant that it doesn't even realize it's using a 200-year old reactionary, monarchist, conspiricist myth!

And then there's this:

"On the scale of national budgets, the only usable amounts of cash are in the drug trade. Everything else is a digital dream. If the drugs stop flowing, the world economy will instantly collapse."

This, too, is a remnant of reactionary conspiricism. It's a recapitulation of the so-called "Gold Bugs" belief that paper money wasn't real, that it was part of a conspiracy to destroy the world, and that all would be well if we simply got rid of paper money and (a later addition) went back on the gold standard. Of course, as any anthropologist will tell you, money is whatever people agree that it is. Even gold is only valuable because of the agreement on its value. The digital money in your bank account is just as real as the paper money in your wallet, which is just as real as the gold in Fort Knox. The entire economy could go virtual within a couple of decades, and it wouldn't make any difference. There is simply no need whatsoever for the drug trade as a source of non-virtual money.

This is not to say that it's just an accident that anyplace the CIA gets involved in a major fight turns into a major drug source--the south of France (late 1940s) Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (1960s), South & Central America (1980s), Afghanistan (1980s). It IS to say that you have to pay a whole lot more attention to REALITY, and learn enough REAL history to recognize when someone is selling you a load of very old rightwing lies mixed in with everything else.

It would be really nice if the world were a simple matter of folks in white hats and others in black. That's what George W. wants you to think, and the author of this piece thinks much the same way. But the world is much more complicated than that. People who can't handle the complexity will continue to look for simplistic explanations. And they will continue to be taken for fools.