reichstag 911
…on the night of February 27, 1933, a Berlin fire station received an alarm call that the Reichstag building, the assembly location of the German Parliament, was ablaze… Hitler forced President Hindenburg to pass an ‘emergency decree’ suspending all articles that guaranteed freedom and liberty. Hitler’s police were then allowed to seize property and take people without any sort of trial. The death penalty was introduced again for many crimes and concentration camps were set up…. British reporter Sefton Delmer witnessed the events of that night firsthand, and his account of the fire provides a number of details. Delmer viewed van der Lubbe as solely responsible, that the Nazis sought to make it appear to be a “Communist gang” who set the fire, whereas the Communists sought to make it appear that van der Lubbe was working for the Nazis, and that they had plotted the whole thing. — Wikipedia
The destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 was the Reichstag fire of my generation. Like those of my parents’ generation, who ask one another “Where were you when Kennedy was shot?”, I will forever remember exactly where and when I was when I first watched one of the towers collapse on TV. Like thousands of others, the course of my life was forever changed by that event and its political repercussions.
Some people dispute the official government explanation of how it happened. Despite having been a raving X-Files fan, I initially pooh-poohed such arguments, on the grounds that a) conspiracy theorists are loonies and b) it’s simply too horrific a possibility to even consider. But I found myself with two conflicting ideas in my head: 1) the U.S. government is far too incompetent to have successfully pulled off such an incident. 2) Is it reasonable to believe a ragtag group of Third World suicidal religious extremists could have? It was executed with such perfection. If the events of 911 were a Bruce Willis movie, critics would snigger at its improbable plot. And yet… it happened. Somebody did it. Was it Osama bin Laden and his gang; George Bush and his gang; or… someone else?
A few weeks ago, I was fortunate to be able to attend a viewing of the film Improbable Collapse in Concord. The presence of the director was what motivated me to attend; I wanted to see and hear him first-hand and assess his sanity level, or lack thereof. The film is very well done, and presents several reasons why some knowledgeable and seemingly non-insane people dispute the official explanation of 911. The focus of the movie is not pro-any particular conspiracy theory, but rather that the official explanation a) defies numerous facts about the construction of the WTC b) ignores sworn testimony of dozens of first-hand witnesses and c) ignores alternative possible explanations. The director, Michael Berger, presented an enormous amount of additional information afterwards and, near as I can tell, is not crazy. Perhaps more politically left-wing than I am, judging by the organization with which he’s affiliated, 911Truth.org . But not crazy.
Two nights ago, I had the chance to hear William Rodriguez speak. He was a janitor in the World Trade Center, and is thought to be the last person to exit the North Tower before it collapsed. He was buried by rubble, but 4 hours later was dug out without a single broken bone. The story he tells is beyond belief, except for the inconvenient fact that it actually happened. A former agnostic, he got religion that day; he believes that God saved him, and helped him to save the lives of hundreds of others. Perhaps his mind couldn’t conceive of any other possible explanation for why he survived unscathed while so many thousands of others, including almost all of his coworkers, died. Rodriguez is quite a charismatic storyteller, and I have no way of knowing how much of his story may be embellishment or mental revisionism. But once again, he doesn’t come across as crazy.
So, am I a true believer now? I’ll say this much. I believe that the current administration of the U.S. government has used the events of 911 to pursue preexisting geopolitical aims. I believe that relevant aspects of eyewitness accounts have been purged from the official record. I believe that someone/s stood to gain financially by 911. I believe that the video of the collapse of WTC7 (the building that wasn’t even hit by an airplane, but collapsed anyway) looks eerily like a video of a professional casino demolition in Las Vegas. I believe that the government has, and will continue to, lie to us whenever it suits its own aims.
Unlike Fox Mulder, I don’t WANT to believe in a 911 conspiracy or coverup. I would prefer to believe that a gang of wild-eyed crazies did it out of a twisted sense of religious devotion than to believe that a group of rich, powerful individuals coldly and calculatingly murdered thousands of innocent people and pulled off the greatest heist in the history of the world in order to become even more rich and powerful. But what I prefer and what is aren’t usually the same thing.
The truth is out there.
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