Posted on 07/17/2006 4:04:27 PM PDT by SJackson
If you don't believe at least a few wild-eyed government conspiracies, you're not paying attention.
Anyone who believes "official explanations" of world events provided by the government gets stuck with having to swallow stuff like President John F. Kennedy being assassinated by a lone gunman using a single "magic bullet" that passed through the president to wound Texas Gov. John Connally in the back, chest, wrist and thigh before being recovered in pristine condition.
My wife Kit and I were in Madrid on Sept. 11, 2001. That night, a few hours after a hotel clerk told us terrorists were attacking all over the United States and that troops were in the streets restoring order, we went out to dinner with a young economist who worked for the Spanish government.
Photo by Mike DeVries/The Capital Times Kevin Barrett Our dinner companion gave us more accurate information based on the reports he had been receiving all afternoon. He described the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
He also told us the U.S. government had shot down a hijacked passenger plane that was headed for the White House.
Since everything else he told us that night turned out to be true, I have never been able to accept the popular mythology about the heroic passengers of Flight 93 rising up to give their lives to thwart the hijackers for the red, white and blue.
The story always seemed far too "stand-up-and-cheer" to be true, much like the fraudulent stories initially put out by the U.S. government about the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch or what turned out to be the "friendly fire" killing of football hero turned soldier Pat Tillman in Iraq.
In fact, shortly after 9/11, Vice President Dick Cheney went on television to describe how he took over as president while George Bush was still hiding from the terrorists somewhere in Nebraska.
Cheney acknowledged the military had made preparations to shoot down Flight 93, but claimed it couldn't get there in time. Sacrificing the lives of the Americans aboard to save thousands of others certainly could have been justified. But the heroic storybook ending that is now accepted by millions is far more upbeat.
All this is to say that we've had far too many examples of government cover-ups and outright fabrications to dismiss out of hand as loony anyone who raises questions about the "official" version of events.
And where better to have a free and open discussion of controversial ideas than on a college campus?
Apparently, the biggest mistake made by Kevin Barrett, a part-time instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was appearing on a right-wing radio talk show in Milwaukee.
Right-wing talk shows usually welcome conspiracy theories, the loonier the better. You can tune into right-wing radio and find out that Bill and Hillary Clinton murdered legal counsel Vince Foster in the White House and then ditched his body in a Washington park to make it look like a suicide.
And Barrett has a doozy of a government conspiracy theory - that the Bush administration was behind the attacks on 9/11 to justify its planned war with Iraq and a jihad against the Muslim world.
Personally, I think the theory has a few holes. Given the "bad fiction" quality of other lies created by the Bush administration to justify the Iraqi war, if Bush and Cheney were going to all the trouble of faking terrorist attacks and killing thousands of Americans, you would think they would have at least forged a note from Saddam Hussein saying "I did it, ha, ha, ha." Perhaps the Bush administration is as incompetent at conspiracies as it is at everything else. Without any evidence tying the attacks to Saddam, the president and his cronies had to make up all those nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.
The problem for Kevin Barrett is that a lot of politicians who hate the University of Wisconsin listen to loony, right-wing radio shows.
That is why Republican politicians immediately rose up to demand the university fire Barrett, who barely works there. Barrett isn't even a professor at the university. He's what they call an associate instructor hired to teach one course on Islam this fall.
The real problem is whether we want politicians - Republican or Democrat - to decide who should teach at our universities based upon whether they like what part-time instructors say on right-wing talk shows.
A nonexistent attack in the Gulf of Tonkin fabricated by the Johnson administration to justify the Vietnam War ended up killing more than 58,000 young Americans.
Freewheeling discussions of wild-eyed government conspiracies should never be banned from our college campuses. Too many of them turn out to be true.
pint
More than a pint for some of the juicy conspiracies laid out. Too funny -- I think I'll enjoy a pint myself.
It's now been pretty much proven that the Kennedy assassination WAS done by a lone gunman whose bullet did as described.
Not to mention, most diagrams showing Connolly and Kennedy are wrong...in fact Connally was sitting more towards the center of the car than Kennedy...and when you adjust the diagrams to take that into account you find the "magic bullet" did nothing magical at all. It's flight path was pretty straight.
Is there a picture of Joel McNally wearing his tinfoil hat?
Um...shouldn't there be some kind of BARF warning on this?
"Tinfoil Hat" warning should apply I think. ;)
There's something wrong with this picture. Personally, I was glued to the TV and radio the night of 9/11, not going out to dinner. I can't judge this guy's heart, but his reaction seems a little cavalier to me.
I'm still waiting for the Roswell Alien story to finally break big time....
It is generally accepted that people who believe the Warren Commission are ignorant and naive... and should be riding the short bus.
Yeah, but neither of us got a dinner invitation from a Spanish government official. IMO, most of the media makes up these stories to fit the article.
You'll read it here first, Breaking News
Some purporterd conspiricies are too hared to swallow even with compelling evidence.
The Kennedy assination is a big one.
The BBC produced "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" lays out a very compelling case for there being more to it than the gov't concludes in various investigations and white papers but I just CANNOT accept that so big a conspiricy involving so many people can ever have held together for so long.
What could keep so many mouthes so clamped shut for so long?
It's a big hurdle.
Some of the theories involving flt 800 are weak along the same line as the Kennedy thing.
McNally was too stupid to even stay employed by the Milwaukee-Journal/Sentinel...which is saying a lot considering how lib the MJS is. And irritating. If someone is stupid and entertaining...well, maybe. McNally was/is stupid and irritating... not close to being entertaining.
The million dollar baby (Marylyn Monroe) was being ruined by the Kennedy boys.
A syndicate figure, prominent in motion pictures, wanted revenge for his coming losses.
The big boys were seeing the Kennedys as an embarrassment to the future of the Dem party.
They closed their eyes and let the assassins do their job.
It was a win, win for the Dems. Teddy was given permanent Senatorship as a consolation prize.
LBJ was not involved, but believed it was best for the country.
"You can tune into right-wing radio and find out that Bill and Hillary Clinton murdered legal counsel Vince Foster in the White House and then ditched his body in a Washington park to make it look like a suicide."
He's obviosly NOT listening to conservative radio. Bil & Hil would NEVER do that! Something like that is for the 'Hired Help' to handle. Doesn't he know that, "'We' are the President?" ;)
Man, I LOATHE McNally. Just retire already, you smelly old hippy! We promise not to indulge in ANY conspiratorial speculation about your demise once you're gone.
These and other questions were never fully explored or answered by the Warren Commission.
It has never been 'proven', considering that the Report has the magic bullet entering Kennedys back too low, -- to exit at his adams apple and then strike Connally -- who was sitting even lower.
Not to mention, most diagrams showing Connolly and Kennedy are wrong...in fact Connally was sitting more towards the center of the car than Kennedy...and when you adjust the diagrams to take that into account you find the "magic bullet" did nothing magical at all. It's flight path was pretty straight.
Its flight path was too high, according to the autopsy diagrams in the Report itself, and the zapruder film, which shows Kennedy sitting erect, even leaning back a bit as he waved..
All the 're-creations' try, and fail, to explain away the Reports flaws, and what our lying eyes show us in that film.
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