Number 2.1.2
(NEW SERIES-2008)
(NEW SERIES-2008)
(Read, Print, or Download in >PDF>> Format)
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NOTES FROM
A DYING NATION
NUMBER TWO, Part 1
NOTES FROM
A DYING NATION
NUMBER TWO, Part 1
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THE PREMEDITATED
MURDER OF THE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA
MURDER OF THE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA
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Addendum 1
Addendum 1
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..........Prolific essayist and political observer Rodrigue Tremblay, an economist, is now Professor Emeritus at the University of Montreal. He is also the author of The New American Empire: Causes and Consequences for the United States and for the World (2004). When my own book, A Nation Gone Blind: America in an Age of Simplification and Deceit, came out, I wrote Tremblay proposing that he and I swap books, since I knew very well I wanted to read his and naturally enough hoped that he might want to read mine. We made the swap in January 2007, and it wasn't long before I got into the book and soon finished reading it. What I thought of it, you can read below, both as to the very greatly positive things I felt about it and as to the less positive. As an author myself, I felt strongly that any other author would hope to hear—as I would—what a reader though of his book. In the letter I wrote Tremblay, I took pains to be as thorough as I'd be as a reviewer of the book, and I was, moreover, wholly honest and, I thought, balanced and fair.
I hoped for a reply and looked forward to getting an idea of what Tremblay thought of A Nation Gone Blind, especially since it's a book whose subject is hardly unrelated to the subject of his.
But more than a year has passed and I haven't received a letter, note, or word from Tremblay.
I am most curious as to why not. Was it something I said? And, if it was, what? If any reader, after reading the letter below, thinks he or she can guess the reason for the silence from Tremblay, I would like hearing what it is. I'm right here waiting for you under these two words.
March 7, 2007, By email
Dear Rodrigue Tremblay,
I've at last finished The New American Empire (I had to give it some set-asides during reading because I've been tangled up in so many other things), and what a book it is. I doubt that one American in a million—well, ten thousand, or a hundred-even knows what the Peace of Westphalia IS, but it would do them plenty of good if they were to see the breakdown and ruin that are happening now in light of the great step toward civilized modernity that was taken then. George W. knows that Libby has been convicted, but even he, I'll bet, has no clue to the meaning of Westphalia that he's now hobnail booting to beat the band. I wish your book were on his desk and under his eyes. I wish it were on the coffee tables of all America.
I've got post-its sticking out all over the place, from the spot (pp. 130-131) where you itemize the five reasons why what's happening in Iraq is not a "just war" to the spot (p. 91) where you write "If Eisenhower were to come back today, he would be stupified. . ." (I got criticized by the copy editor of my own book for "being so repetitive" about Ike and his "military-industrial complex" warning and had to fight to keep the references in) to the spot (p. 137) where you simply say that "Never before has an American government presented to the world such a clearly and willfully imperialistic doctrine." Or p. 147 and "the United States does not want economic partners but political colonies." Two huge exclamation marks in the margin, one for each of the first two unsurpassable and passionate and up-gathering paragraphs on p. 158. Same for the 194-195 parallels between 1930s Germany and US today—the kind of absolutely vital and essential comparison that the US mainstream media slaps peoples' hands for thinking, let alone saying, and that they—the media—won't touch with a ten foot pole. But there it is, another essential step in your exhaustive and always calmly expressed scholarship.
Now for the disagreement within my agreement with the book. I've got p. 201 so marked up that it's almost a joke, but the page is no joke for sure. One of the most central problems with the progressives' take on the Bush administration is that the liberals have fallen hook, line, and sinker for the decoy and falsehood that the Bushies are "incompetent." Like foxes, maybe. They're out to accomplish just about exactly what they do accomplish, including the ruination of Iraq (HERE'S something worth reading on that subject—"Pentagon Whistle-Blower on the Coming War With Iran"—and even the elimination of New Orleans' poor. I've tried to convince people, including Paul Krugman, that the "incompetence" theory is a red herring and a perfect cover-up for the real crimes of the Bush/Cheney crowd, but he, they, simply won't consider it.
So my heart leapt up when I read you writing that "It seems that U.S. media were strangely reluctant to pursue firsthand information suggesting that the flawed intelligence on Iraq—and therefore the war—may have been the result of deliberate deception, rather than incompetence, on the part of the Bush administration."
Same just above that, when you write, "In truth, the U.S. public was misled into going to war by its leaders and by its media, most of them owned and controlled by large, corporate interests."
Exactly. Absolutely.
But there's another thing, and I'm sure you're well aware of it, my own take on 9/11, if you've been following my "alerts" and looking at the stuff they point to on my website. The idea that the "public was misled into going to war by its leaders" is trebly true when the notion is taken that those same leaders, not the 19 patsies you refer to on p. 184, were the ones who set up and perpetrated 9/11—and did it for the very reasons that the rest of your book shows.
I've been reading since June of 2003 about this—including the best book by far on the subject, Webster Tarpley's "Synthetic Terror." And Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed's "War on Truth." Many others—I devoted a piece to them on my site—"Essential Books on 9/11."
Anyway, the 9/11 question has nothing (nothing serious) to do with "conspiracy theories" and the like, most of which are deliberate agency-produced disinformation in any case, but it has to do with plentiful empirical evidence of criminality and long planning, also of subsequent cover-up, destruction of evidence, and the like, all of it evidence of the kind that would hold up EASILY in any fair and just court. The only genuine conspiracy that remains is the far grander conspiracy to KEEP 9/11 a cover-up—the subject I've been writing about now for months and months, the great and purposeful silence, that is, of the same American media you yourself cast as "reluctant to pursue firsthand information suggesting that the flawed intelligence on Iraq—and therefore the war—may have been the result of deliberate deception, rather than incompetence, on the part of the Bush administration."
The Libby conviction is a major step, but it seems to me unlikely that any change whatsoever in American imperialistic policy can or will occur—no matter who and no matter what majority is elected in 2008—unless and until the hideous boil of 9/11 is lanced. Until then, the complicit and covering-up Democrats ("impeachment is not on the table") will, if elected in 08, govern in no significant way or ways any different from the Bush/Cheney "government" that's so superbly and skillfully described by you, and described with such exhaustive scholarship and so calm and balanced a voice.
I must end. My writing of late has gotten me into trouble—not of the kind that could be productive, but of the kind that shows a lack of courage, an unwillingness of people to grapple with the huge and awesome fact that without 9/11 exposure, we're doomed to more of the same, and more, and more, and more. My own editor, for example, has dropped out, asked to be removed from my list. And the famous Robert Silvers. Among the most powerful there are.
I end. I hope you admire A Nation Gone Blind a tenth as much as I admire The American Empire.
With my thanks, and respect,
Eric Larsen
>READ, PRINT, OR DOWNLOAD IN PDF FORMAT>>
>GO BACK TO IDEAS>>
..........Prolific essayist and political observer Rodrigue Tremblay, an economist, is now Professor Emeritus at the University of Montreal. He is also the author of The New American Empire: Causes and Consequences for the United States and for the World (2004). When my own book, A Nation Gone Blind: America in an Age of Simplification and Deceit, came out, I wrote Tremblay proposing that he and I swap books, since I knew very well I wanted to read his and naturally enough hoped that he might want to read mine. We made the swap in January 2007, and it wasn't long before I got into the book and soon finished reading it. What I thought of it, you can read below, both as to the very greatly positive things I felt about it and as to the less positive. As an author myself, I felt strongly that any other author would hope to hear—as I would—what a reader though of his book. In the letter I wrote Tremblay, I took pains to be as thorough as I'd be as a reviewer of the book, and I was, moreover, wholly honest and, I thought, balanced and fair.
I hoped for a reply and looked forward to getting an idea of what Tremblay thought of A Nation Gone Blind, especially since it's a book whose subject is hardly unrelated to the subject of his.
But more than a year has passed and I haven't received a letter, note, or word from Tremblay.
I am most curious as to why not. Was it something I said? And, if it was, what? If any reader, after reading the letter below, thinks he or she can guess the reason for the silence from Tremblay, I would like hearing what it is. I'm right here waiting for you under these two words.
..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·
March 7, 2007, By email
Dear Rodrigue Tremblay,
I've at last finished The New American Empire (I had to give it some set-asides during reading because I've been tangled up in so many other things), and what a book it is. I doubt that one American in a million—well, ten thousand, or a hundred-even knows what the Peace of Westphalia IS, but it would do them plenty of good if they were to see the breakdown and ruin that are happening now in light of the great step toward civilized modernity that was taken then. George W. knows that Libby has been convicted, but even he, I'll bet, has no clue to the meaning of Westphalia that he's now hobnail booting to beat the band. I wish your book were on his desk and under his eyes. I wish it were on the coffee tables of all America.
I've got post-its sticking out all over the place, from the spot (pp. 130-131) where you itemize the five reasons why what's happening in Iraq is not a "just war" to the spot (p. 91) where you write "If Eisenhower were to come back today, he would be stupified. . ." (I got criticized by the copy editor of my own book for "being so repetitive" about Ike and his "military-industrial complex" warning and had to fight to keep the references in) to the spot (p. 137) where you simply say that "Never before has an American government presented to the world such a clearly and willfully imperialistic doctrine." Or p. 147 and "the United States does not want economic partners but political colonies." Two huge exclamation marks in the margin, one for each of the first two unsurpassable and passionate and up-gathering paragraphs on p. 158. Same for the 194-195 parallels between 1930s Germany and US today—the kind of absolutely vital and essential comparison that the US mainstream media slaps peoples' hands for thinking, let alone saying, and that they—the media—won't touch with a ten foot pole. But there it is, another essential step in your exhaustive and always calmly expressed scholarship.
Now for the disagreement within my agreement with the book. I've got p. 201 so marked up that it's almost a joke, but the page is no joke for sure. One of the most central problems with the progressives' take on the Bush administration is that the liberals have fallen hook, line, and sinker for the decoy and falsehood that the Bushies are "incompetent." Like foxes, maybe. They're out to accomplish just about exactly what they do accomplish, including the ruination of Iraq (HERE'S something worth reading on that subject—"Pentagon Whistle-Blower on the Coming War With Iran"—and even the elimination of New Orleans' poor. I've tried to convince people, including Paul Krugman, that the "incompetence" theory is a red herring and a perfect cover-up for the real crimes of the Bush/Cheney crowd, but he, they, simply won't consider it.
So my heart leapt up when I read you writing that "It seems that U.S. media were strangely reluctant to pursue firsthand information suggesting that the flawed intelligence on Iraq—and therefore the war—may have been the result of deliberate deception, rather than incompetence, on the part of the Bush administration."
Same just above that, when you write, "In truth, the U.S. public was misled into going to war by its leaders and by its media, most of them owned and controlled by large, corporate interests."
Exactly. Absolutely.
But there's another thing, and I'm sure you're well aware of it, my own take on 9/11, if you've been following my "alerts" and looking at the stuff they point to on my website. The idea that the "public was misled into going to war by its leaders" is trebly true when the notion is taken that those same leaders, not the 19 patsies you refer to on p. 184, were the ones who set up and perpetrated 9/11—and did it for the very reasons that the rest of your book shows.
I've been reading since June of 2003 about this—including the best book by far on the subject, Webster Tarpley's "Synthetic Terror." And Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed's "War on Truth." Many others—I devoted a piece to them on my site—"Essential Books on 9/11."
Anyway, the 9/11 question has nothing (nothing serious) to do with "conspiracy theories" and the like, most of which are deliberate agency-produced disinformation in any case, but it has to do with plentiful empirical evidence of criminality and long planning, also of subsequent cover-up, destruction of evidence, and the like, all of it evidence of the kind that would hold up EASILY in any fair and just court. The only genuine conspiracy that remains is the far grander conspiracy to KEEP 9/11 a cover-up—the subject I've been writing about now for months and months, the great and purposeful silence, that is, of the same American media you yourself cast as "reluctant to pursue firsthand information suggesting that the flawed intelligence on Iraq—and therefore the war—may have been the result of deliberate deception, rather than incompetence, on the part of the Bush administration."
The Libby conviction is a major step, but it seems to me unlikely that any change whatsoever in American imperialistic policy can or will occur—no matter who and no matter what majority is elected in 2008—unless and until the hideous boil of 9/11 is lanced. Until then, the complicit and covering-up Democrats ("impeachment is not on the table") will, if elected in 08, govern in no significant way or ways any different from the Bush/Cheney "government" that's so superbly and skillfully described by you, and described with such exhaustive scholarship and so calm and balanced a voice.
I must end. My writing of late has gotten me into trouble—not of the kind that could be productive, but of the kind that shows a lack of courage, an unwillingness of people to grapple with the huge and awesome fact that without 9/11 exposure, we're doomed to more of the same, and more, and more, and more. My own editor, for example, has dropped out, asked to be removed from my list. And the famous Robert Silvers. Among the most powerful there are.
I end. I hope you admire A Nation Gone Blind a tenth as much as I admire The American Empire.
With my thanks, and respect,
Eric Larsen
>READ, PRINT, OR DOWNLOAD IN PDF FORMAT>>
>GO BACK TO IDEAS>>