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RE: "The left has the causality all wrong on Loughner. He was not sparked into action because of all the conspiratorial ideology that surrounded him. *Instead his madness drove him in that direction, but once he began moving in that direction his understanding of what he read--from Mein Kampf to the CM--was mediated by a short-circuited brain*." -LP Greetings, MarxMail. This will be my first post in a number of years. Pardon me if it's a tad on the long side. I was active on this list in the late 90's. I am a left historian, author, and vocal critic of the Bush/Cheney War on Terror. Louis recently posted an article about the history of a publishing company I started. But he did so with a strange, prefatory note, noting that I was once on this list, but I have since degenerated into a "truther." He lamented this turn of events with a crestfallen tragic "[sigh.]" Well don't cry for me. In truth, studying the history of the Bush/Cheney War on Terror goes to the heart of a very Howard Zinn-like practice. Zinn talked about the need for the people to take up the creation of history, the studying of history, as a way to empower the working class. A penetrating careful, materialist historicity is at the heart of what makes the Left, the Left. So I have always been puzzled at the American Left's reticence to study the history of the War on Terror, which continues to enfold around us, up to the present moment. In fact, just last week, I made a rare prediction. I don't often feel comfortable making forecasts, but if one studies the ruling class's War on Terror closely, patterns do begin to emerge. In the wake of Tucson last week, I posted this on my blog on Tumblr: Nothing is as it seems with these things. And if the Pentagon Shooter <http://www.wusa9.com/news/breaking/story.aspx?storyid=98041&catid=158>case of just nine months ago is a pattern being followed here, then young Jared, it will turn out, will probably become a big 9/11 truther…. “New evidence” will arise, probably in about 12 hours. But don’t you believe it. And now today, with this New York Times article, and the ABC News footage a couple days ago, we learn that Loughner supposedly questioned [gasp] the Bush/Cheney account of 9/11. ABC News reported, via Loughner's best friend, that Loughner supposedly was a fan of the "Zeitgeist" 9/11 truth movie. YET we have been given NO DIRECT QUOTES about this. Where are the sources? Bourgeois journalism violates its own "ethics" [shocking, I know] and maligns a huge social movement. This is a defamatory action against an entire working class social movement. I can't say whether this is true or not: was Loughner a "truther?" I am open to actual evidence. What I will say is that the Pentagon Shooter, March 2010, was an eerie turn of events. This was another "lone gunman" who "made no statements" as he opened fire on Pentagon security guards, and was then gunned down. However, in the wake of the tragedy, a tenuous link to 9/11 was found, online, posted by someone with a similar name. And with that vague association, the Pentagon Shooter became a "9/11 Truther." Thus, making 9/11 Truth even more of a taboo topic to the would-be critics of the oppression, secrecy and "war without end" that have come to define today's modern National Security State. That same weekend, left activists like Cindy Sheehan and myself were speaking alongside a diverse group of activists and speakers at the Treason in America conference in Valley Forge. ABC's Nightline showed up, and on camera, asked me about the Pentagon Shooter "being a 9/11 Truther." I pointed out to host Chris Hardy that I knew nothing about that sudden bit of "breaking news", but I did point out facts he was not aware of, such as that Osama Bin Laden is NOT even on the FBI's Most Wanted List for 9/11. (Even the FBI admits that "there's not enough evidence" linking Bin Laden to the attackers.) I am amazed that the entire 9/11 Truth cause has been largely poo-pooed by the the more doctrinaire factions of the Left. But let's remain materialists, let's be true to science, and let's stick to the facts. No steel frame structure has ever collapsed due to fire. Yet, It happened three times on 9/11. No case has ever been made that those "19 young Arabs" were even on the planes. And yet most of the Left and Centrists and GOP have all gone along with the racist scapegoating of the Arab people for 9/11. Two wars of imperialism have been waged, without a peep from most "anti-imperialists," who should be filled with an exacting rigor when it comes to investigating the *cause* for war. The 9/11 event has taken the reins off ruling class power. Bourgeois democracy has leaped towards all out fascism: the torture, the renditions, the surveillance, the subway searches in NYC, the kevlar coated masked M-16 toting soldier/cops on the streets of NYC.... Where IS the Left? Where is your heart? Where is your courage? What happened to your instincts? I blame prejudice. The Left is so adamant, (at times), so concerned with ideological purity (at times) that we often run screaming away from anything that might be "tainted" with an association with the Right. Well, I guess I'm tainted. I have worked alongside plenty of populists and Christians and patriots in the Truth Movement. For nine years, I have felt it's my duty to show that the Left contributes a historical method when it comes to criticizing empire and imperialism. The Left is not the only voice calling for an end to an era of permanent war, torture, and state terror. If we are truly dedicated to building a mass movement to change the world, then we have to be constantly self-critical about our own prejudices. Otherwise, we are playing right into the hands of the US Corporate/Financial/Military/Intelligence State. Most leftists have no awareness that Cass Sunstein of the Obama White House has been calling for the US Federal Gov to "infiltrate" and "disrupt" the 9/11 Truth Movement, both in online forums, and in "real time political groups." Think about it. If there's nothing to our theories, why are we constantly attacked by the so called "progressive" in the White House? Look at Cass Sunstein's paper "Conspiracy Theories" http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/15/sunstein If this doesn't chill you to the bone, then what will? Have we become so densitized to the workings of the State? Are we still so infatuated with Obama? OK, I am almost done. But one final point:* *Louis Proyect makes an outrageous claim about truthers:* "his madness drove him in that direction,"* implying that only the mad are interested in 9/11 Truth. Scientific polls show that domestically and internationally, a huge amount of the Earth's people reject the Bush/Cheney/Obama official story on 9/11. No matter what you believe, one must concede that these numbers are startling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks_opinion_polls#World_opinion_polls So, I plead with you, my friends, my comrades, my fellow revolutionaries, to expand your minds, to be willing to listen and dialogue with all people. We can win people over to the cause of true anti-imperialism if we refrain from snap judgements about ideas that can at first seem to be "mad." In the case of the Pentagon Shooter, he "made no statements." But post-mortem, he was assigned an identity that made him a part of one of the most hated groups in America. Not hated by the people, but hated by those who have the most to lose: the brittle, paranoid, and top-heavy minds of today's modern US Ruling Class. Sander Hicks ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
