There are some topics where I genuinely feel I do not have enough knowledge about the topic to speak to it, or theories surround it, at all. 9/11 is one of those. The government lies - I consider that a fact.
Or to use more government friendly rhetoric (as we must sometimes do), the federal government carefully filters information such that the American public can understand the federal government's official stance(s) on matters which may pertain to the public interest. In any event, I think it's natural to have questions about the events of 9/11 or even less dramatic events in recent U.S. history. People forget that as Americans, part of our civic duty is to question the authority of those we have elected to govern and if necessary, to remove them from office by using the mechanisms of the democratic system on which our nation is founded. Barring that, Thomas Jefferson recommended that we resort to revolution and in his opinion, that is something we should do every 20 years. (Emphasis added)"I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new constitution. I beg leave through you to place them where due. It will be yet three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are very good articles in it: and very bad. I do not know which preponderate. What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a Chief magistrate eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one: and what we have always read of the elections of Polish kings should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20. years without such a rebellion.[1] The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusets: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in god this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted." - Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, Paris, 13 Nov. 1787[2]
Thanks for the reminder humanodon. You bring up an important point, which is that power structures can't be trusted and should be questioned at all times. Sadly western society fully trusts concentrated power and does very little to question and confront it. Even in a day an age when the obvious manipulation of governments by corporations is out there for everyone to see, where politicians lie and promises are never kept and when we don't really know what half of the vast secret & intelligence agencies are up to, people still have this blind faith in central power. Maybe FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) was right when he said:The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.
I think part of the reason we keep blindly trusting centralized power is that we don't really have much of a choice. It's basically part of our culture to not make a big deal about anything, because to do anything else is to be "stirring up shit" and "causing an unnecessary and destructive uproar". This includes outrage over the government. The prevailing line of thought is this: they don't target you personally, everyone else has it as bad as you do, and you can't do anything about it, so what can you do besides suck it up and pray for the best?
I understand what you're saying, the issues are so overwhelming that it's pointless to waste our time trying to change them. Part of me feels that way but the other part fells that if we all stay idle we'll eventually walk into another fascist nightmare as the tools for surveillance & oppression have never been as powerful. This along side the concentration of decision making through corporate and now centralized government (such as EU), the recipe for disaster is only increasing. Like Gandhi said, "What you do is insignificant but it's very important that you do it."
I know what you mean as well. I'm not saying I endorse the line of thought I presented up there, but that that's the way most people really do think, and they have reason for it. I understand what you're saying, the issues are so overwhelming that it's pointless to waste our time trying to change them. Part of me feels that way but the other part fells that if we all stay idle we'll eventually walk into another fascist nightmare as the tools for surveillance & oppression have never been as powerful.
Watching the video is a start to getting to understand the controversy. Did you watch it?