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Because People Mater
Progressive News and Views January / February 2008
Inside this issue:
Editorial.2Why.I’m.Running.for.Congress.3Single-Payer.Healthcare.3Book.Review:.Nemesis.4 AT&T.and.Public.Televison.4 Are.Critics.of.Israel.Anti-Semitic?.5 A.New.Moment.for.Nuke.Ban.6Physicians.for.Social.Responsibility.6Humor.Times.7Underground.Radio:.The.Voice.7Book.Review:.Made.Love,.Got.War.8Summer.of.Love.40th.Anniversary8The.Murder.of.Pat.Tillman..9Soil.Born.Farm.10Film.Review:.The.Fever.11Book.Review:.Good.Capitalism.11Sacramento.Area.Peace.Action.12The.Trial.of.the.“Matsui.10”.13Iran:.5.Reasons.to.Talk.Not.Bomb.13Book.Review:.American.Fascists.14Calendar.15Progressive.Media.16
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By Hank Joerger
A
serious discussion o the evidence surrounding9/11 has been shunned by conventional media.Many highly qualied 9/11 researchers have nothad their day in court. Evidence suggests the governmentwas involved. In act, it had a motive, a suspect’s prole,the capacity to commit the crime, and a number o glar-ing holes in the ocial story.In 1997 Dick Cheney and Paul Wolowitz, later USDeputy Secretary o Deense, with others, craed the“Project or a New American Century” (PNAC). It calledor an American world empire: preemptive wars to con-trol Middle Eastern oil, permanent military installationsin the Middle East, and huge additional military expen-ditures to attain ull spectrum dominance o the world’sground, air, oceans and space.In public speeches, Richard Perle, a leader o theDeense Policy Board or President George W. Bush, andother neo-conservatives, said to initiate their goals, “anew Pearl Harbor” was needed, “a catastrophic and cata-lyzing event” to galvanize Americans. 9/11 provided theperect tragedy to promote all o Bush/Cheney goals: thepassage o the Patriot Act,the buildup o the military,the squandering o SocialSecurity unds, the inva-sions o Aghanistan andIraq—and potentially Iran.I believe the win ow-ers attack was a alse agoperation—planned by agovernment and blamed on an enemy in order to starta war—an event much more common than one mightthink. Criminal investigations must ask i a suspect iscapable o committing the crime.
What does the past behavior ofUS leaders show?
Documents declassied in 1997, or example, showthat in 1962 the Joint Chies o Staf devised “OperationNorthwoods,” that included destroying a US airplane,and blaming the attack on Cuba to justiy an invasion (President Kennedy rejected the proposal). Recently declas-sied documents also show that a 1964incident in which Vietnamese gun shipsallegedly red on US ships did not hap-pen. However, within days Congresspassed the Gul o onkin Resolutionthat brought the US more ully into theVietnam War.
Investigationstonewalled
It was highly suspicious the Bushadministration reused to admit thenecessity o an investigation into the“crime o the century.” On the day o the attack, Bush said, “We don’t needan investigation, we already know whodid it.” It took 441 days o demands by amily members o 9/11 victims beorethe administration reluctantly set upthe 9/11 Commission with $3 million unding—raisedto $15 million aer greatcitizen outcry. Compare thiswith the $40 million inves-tigation o Clinton in 1998or $60 million spent onthe second Bush inaugural.Since 9/11, the administra-tion has done everythingpossible to underund, delay and cover up all aspects o 9/11. Tis is neither scienticpractice nor the act o a wounded and innocent victim.Aer the attack on the win owers, Mayor Rudy Giuliani ordered all rubble shipped out o the country,and, at the Pentagon, the FBI immediately conscatedlm rom nearby private surveillance cameras. DespiteFreedom o Inormation Act lawsuits, the ederal gov-ernment has not shown this evidence to the public. Terecordings o cell phone conversations rom hijackedplanes were almost certainly aked, since only in 2006did American Airlines install cell phone transmitters thatenabled calls rom cell phones on airplanes.
Fire alone could not have doneit.
We are told the win owers were brought downby re alone, something that has never happened in the100-year history o steel-ramed buildings. Many sky-scrapers have burned many hours and still not collapsed.A number o occurrences at the World rade Centercan’t be explained by re, but were characteristic o buildings brought down by controlled demolition. Build-ings 1 and 2 were hit by airplanes, but the re chie calledor more hoses saying the re was controllable. Minuteslater, the tower exploded and ell to the ground in lessthan 15 seconds. Fires don’t cause an instantaneous col-lapse, but demolitions do. Fire can’t explain the act thatWC 1 and 2 crumbled symmetrically into a neat pile inthe building’s ootprint, but demolition can.Fire doesn’t explain cement turning to powderor debris hurled horizontally up to 600 eet. Fire can’texplain the reports o re ghters and proessional newsreporters who heard explosions at the win owers, andtelevision news anchors Dan Rather, Peter Jennings andothers described the collapses as similar to controlleddemolitions.Scientic experimentation shows airplane uel willnot reach temperatures high enough to melt steel. Searchand rescue teams ound pockets o molten steel in rubbleweeks aer 9/11. Airplane uel won’t explain moltensteel, but thermite or thermate explosives used in demo-litions will. An editorial in
Fire Engineering 2002
calledthe ocial explanation a “hal-baked arce.”
“Building 7”
I the explanation o the win owers collapse is ullo holes, neither FEMA nor the ocial 9/11 investigationeven tried to explain the collapse o WC 7. Forty-sevenstories high, it wasn’t hit by a plane and had only smallres o unknown origin on two oors, but hours laterit collapsed into a heap o powder and rubble in lessthan 10 seconds. Te building housed several insurancecompanies, the FBI and CIA, and the Securities andExchange Commission which lost records rom account-ing scandal investigations into Enron, WorldCom andmany other large corporationsWC landlord Larry Silverstein signed a lease inJuly 2001, insured the towers against acts o terrorism,and eventually netted $2 billion in insurance payments.In the 2002 PBS documentary “America Rebuilds,” headmits he had WC 7 “pulled,” an industry term ordemolished by explosives. Te glitch is that to pull thebuilding on 9/11, someone had to set explosives aheado time. It is also o interest that Marvin Bush, PresidentBush’s brother, and Wirt D. Walker III, his cousin, wereprincipals in Securacom, a company that provided secu-rity or the WC complex.
Flight 77 and the Pentagon
Te explanation o the Pentagon attack by AmericanAirlines ight 77 is loaded with problems. Alleged pilotHani Hanjour was so incompetent that he was reusedrental o a single-engine Cessna. Yet the plane he wasallegedly ying made a 270 degree spiral dive, dropped
9/11: Questioning the Ofcial Conspiracy Theory
win owers attack was a alse ag operation
“It was highly suspicious theBush administration reused to admit the necessity o aninvestigation into the “crimeo the century.”
See False Flag, page 2
The skeleton o the WTC
photographer unknown
Because People Matter Januar / Februar 008
www.bpmnews.org
People Mater
Vlume 17, Numbe 1
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because
Editorial
On the cover
From patriotsquestion911.com, some of the over100 military, intelligence,law enforcement and gov-
ernment ofcials; 270+
engineers and architects;
60+ pilots and aviationprofessionals; 170+ pro
-
fessors; 200+ survivors
and family members; and
110+ entertainment and
media professionals whoquestion the government’sown conspiracy theory: that 19 Arabs armed onlywith box knives hijackedfour planes they didn’t
have the skill to y, and hit
three of their targets dead
on on the rst pass.
Jeanie Keltner Coordinating Editor for This Issue
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By Jeanie Keltner
O
n the cover are just a ew o the over 800people who have publicly rejected theocial 9/11 story and who call or a newand independent investigation o one o the mostimportant events inrecent US history, theone that has had andwill have a horrically destructive conse-quences to the struggleor democracy that hasbeen the theme o UShistory.I want to inviteanyone who has hadquestions about 9/11and then dismissed them to visit
www.Patriotsquestion911.com
. Tis is asite worth going to the library to check out.Te rst questioners o the ocial story tended to be proessors. Now having been aproessor, I know that they are oen belittled asringy, absent-minded, out o it, oen “liberal”(heaven orbid!) impractical, weird even—by the non-academic world. So even a proessor o physics (Stephen Jones) or theology (David Ray Grin) when they declare the ocial 9/11 story a cover-up may be suspect to many people.But the people on “
www.PatriotsQues-tion911.com
” are a diferent matter. Te subtitleis Responsible Criticism o the 9/11CommisionReport—this is criticism you could take hometo meet your mother. And the site is intensely readable. Tese are personal stories rom accom-plished, highly qualied individuals, how they came to break ranks, what they have learned. Allo them were deeply reluctant to believe whattheir expertise was telling them.A lot o efort, o course, has been put intomarginalizing 9/11truthers, creating an elemento kookiness, o ridiculousness, and spendingmillions constructing simulated situations tosilence the critics. So the 110 plus “Senior mili-tary, intelligence service, law enorcement, andgovernment ocials”—though many are retiredand beyond career concerns—are risking theirreputations and their public personas. Moreover,by standing up, they have sacriced orever theirchance to go through that revolving door into therich corporate world that awaits those in govern-ment, the military, and intelligence who toe theline—and don’t see what should not be seen.Many o those who stepped orward areexperts in operationssimilar to the one thatwent down on 9/11—and saw immediately that the sophisticatedcoordination and dove-tailed planning o theoperation, as well as thelack o any deensiveresponse rom US mili-tary, despite all the early warnings, indicated inside complicity at somelevel.Tere are also more than 200 engineers andarchitects. Here are experts who know how sky-scrapers are constructed, how to calculate stressand support, how buildings ail, how controlleddemolitions work, how to read and challenge thephonied up computer simulations relied on in thereport rom the National Institute o Standardsand echnology (NIS) on how WC 1 and 2collapsed (NIS doesn’t even attempt to explainthe more problematic collapse o WC 7). Tey usually say, I knew within ve minutes o watch-ing that day that there was something terribly wrong with this picture.And there are more than 50 pilots—military and commercial—and other aviation proession-als on this site. Since they know what it’s like toy the big planes, how to compare ocial ightrecords to what’s experientially possible, andwhat crash sites look like, they too usually camequickly to awareness that something was rottenin the ocial story.Col. Robert Bowman, PhD, US Air Force(ret.) with over 100 combat missions, Director o Advanced Space Programs Development underPresidents Ford and Carter asks the big ques-tions: “Who gained rom 9/11? Who covered upcrucial inormation about 9/11? And who put outthe patently alse stories about 9/11 in the rstplace? When you take those three things togeth-er, I think the case is pretty clear that it’s highly placed individuals in the administration with allroads passing through Dick Cheney.”And here’s where the proessors come in.Tere’s the timeline—this happens and thenthis happens—and then there’s the plot, and theplot is the meaning, the
why
. No one has donea more proound, rational, measured and docu-mented study o the meaning o 9/11 than DavidRay Grin, many o whose essays are availableonline.Unless we want the endless war Vice-Presi-dent Cheney has promised us, nothing is moreimportant than nding out what really happenedon that ateul day. And hard as it may be orsome o us, we must ace the acts and open upthe discussion i we hope to deconstruct thephony war on terror.Let’s give the last word to Lt. Col. Shelton F.Lankord, US Marine Corps (ret.), a ghter pilotwith over 300 combat missions: “Tis isn’t aboutparty, it isn’t about Bush bashing. It’s about ourcountry, our constitution, and our uture.”
Cover stories and cover-ups
“…personal stories romaccomplished, highly qualifed individuals,how they came to break ranks, what they havelearned.“
7,000 eet in two and hal minutes, and waspiloted into the west wing so low that it clippedlamp posts on the highway about 500 eet romthe Pentagon—a maneuver proessional pilotsnd next to impossible. Te “plane” disappearedinto an 18-oot hole just above ground level, leav-ing no wheel marks on the lawn or marks on thewall rom the 8,000-pound engines, the 125-ootwingspan or the 40-oot tail. Te rst re chie onthe scene said, “Tere were no engines, landinggear, bodies or luggage.”A great mystery is how any aircra could hitthe Pentagon, the pre-eminent military head-quarters in the world, with its restricted airspaceprotected by a battery o surace-to-air missilesready to re at any aerial vehicle ailing to iden-tiy itsel as riendly. Indeed, the question o the“stand down” o US orces while our hijackedplanes ew unimpeded through US airspace is o greatest signicance.For this crime o the ages, we must demanda complete criminal investigation. I 9/11 wasan inside job and our government is not prop-erly punished, there will be another more ter-rible tragedy in the uture when another war isdesired!For more inormation and sources regardingthis article contact, Davis 9/11 ruth at 530-753-7556, 530-757-1633 or Beasley_Reece@sbcglobal.net. Articles, books and videos are available atwww.911truth.org, including the 9/11 DVDs:“Loose Change,” “9/11 Mysteries,” ProessorSteven Jones on “Te Physics o WC Collapses,”and Proessor David Ray Grin’s
9/11 and American Empire
.
Hank Joerger served in the 99th InantryDivision during World War II. His company wasassigned to guard Nazi war criminals at their trial in Nuremburg. oday, he wants an investi- gation o 9/11.
False Flag
from page 1
Wea Culpa!
As we hope you have noticed and wondered,we missed an issue-—the frst ever! We sueredan equipment malunction just beore layout be-gan on the November/December 2007 issue.The layout artist’s Toshiba laptop, with all thesotware or putting together the paper, crashed.All data had been backed up but it was weeksbeore she gave up on getting it repaired (theykept sending it back broken) and bought a newcomputer. This one has a fve-year warranty, witha provision or next day in-home repair service.That should keep us going! And o course allsubscriptions have been extended by one issue.
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Januar / Februar 008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER
By Bill Durston, M.D.
L
ike most people who read
Because People Matter
, I am deeply troubled about thewar in Iraq; about the lack o access toafordable health care or a large percentage o our population; about our under-unded publiceducation system that places more emphasis ontest scores than on critical thinking skills; aboutthe widening gap between the rich and the poor;about the epidemic o gun violence in our coun-try; about the soaring prison population and theover-representation o people o color behindbars; about the degradation o our environment;about control o our government by the military-industrial-media complex; about a presidentialadministration that is leading our country intomoral and nancial bankruptcy; and aboutmany other issues addressed in the pages o thisnewspaper.Unlike almost every other person who reads
Because People Matter
, though, I am running orUS Congress. Why me?It began in January o 2006. I was the presi-dent o the Sacramento Chapter o Physiciansor Social Responsibility at the time, and ellowarea peace activists invited me to moderate an“Out o Iraq” town hall orum in Sacramento.Aer the orum, some members o a Democraticcandidate search committee approached me toask i I would consider running or Congress inCongressional District 3 against the Republicanincumbent, Dan Lungren. My initial responsewas, “No thank you.” I had no political experi-ence, and I already had more than enough to doworking as an emergency physician and servingin other positions, including as president o PSR/Sacramento. I told the search committee, though,that I would help them nd a candidate.I spent the next month trying to nd aDemocrat who would take Lungren on in the2006 election in predominantly Republican CD3, and I couldn’t nd anyone. I knew a little aboutLungren rom my work with PSR. His ather wasRichard Nixon’s personal physician, and Lun-gren had received a medical deerment to avoidmilitary service during the Vietnam War. WhenRepresentative John Murtha came out against theIraq war in November 2005, Lungren participat-ed with other Republican members o Congressin a press conerence criticizing Murtha. Lungrenlikened the Iraq war to Vietnam and said thatwhen he was a Congressman rom Long Beach,he could see in the eyes o his Southeast Asianconstituents “the disappointment that Americahad le them behind.” When I was on the groundas a reconnaissance patrol leader with the USMarines in Vietnam, I could see in the eyes o theVietnamese people that they did not want us tobe there, and we know that the same is true o themajority o the people o Iraq.Lungren had made a number o other state-ments indicating that he had no conception o what war was really like, and I decided that onthe issue o the war alone, it would be unaccept-able to let him run unopposed. In February o 2006, I told the search committee that I wouldenter the race.Lungren and I difered on virtually every major issue during the 2006 campaign, but Ibelieve that the most telling one was the issue o torture. I was repeatedly asked during the 2006campaign what my position was on torture. Itstruck me that the act that a candidate or theUS House o Representatives in 2006 would beasked what his position was on torture was anindication o just how ar our country had allenrom the principles upon which it was ounded. Ireplied, “O course I’m opposed to torture.” Lun-gren replied, “Some people conuse torture withaggressive means o interrogation,” and he votedagainst an amendment to a deense appropria-tions bill to ban the use o torture by US troops.I came up on the short end o the vote countin 2006, but nished with almost exactly thesame percentage o the votes as Jerry McNerney garnered during his rst run against RichardPombo in 2004 in the 11
th
CD, just south o the3
rd
CD, where the voter demographics are quitesimilar. oday, Jerry McNerney is CongressmanMcNerney, having deeated Pombo by over 6 per-centage points in his second try in 2006.We learned a lot rom the 2006 campaign,and the highlight or both my wie and me wasmeeting so many wonderul, idealistic peoplewho are committed to working toward a betteruture or our country and our world. I wouldlike to invite all BPM readers who want to beinvolved in a very direct way in efecting apositive change in our government to becomedirectly involved in our 2008 campaign. ogether,we can take back our government rom the spe-cial interests—represented by the likes o DanLungren—and restore government o, by, and orthe people.Contact inormation or the
Durston for Congress Campaign
:
ino@durstonorcongress.org, www.durstonorcongress.org
or (916)622-VOE.
By Robert Vizzard, MD
H
ealth Care has risen to the rst rankso top domestic issues. Remedies to thehealth care crisis, really a health carenancing crisis, abound. In actuality the optionsopen to the people o Caliornia and the nationas a whole are just three or two, i you lump therst two options together. Tey are employermandates or health insurance, individual man-dates—or some sort o hybrid i you lump thetwo together—and single payer universal healthcare. Te rst two bring us continued waste romthe private health insurance industry and neverapproach universality. Single payer, by design,is universal and brings us billions in savingsthrough proven eciencies. State Senator SheilaKuehl’s bill SB840 does just that.Yeah, we all know, but how do we convincethose who are still skeptical and inspire thosewho are convinced to demand a single payer sys-tem in Caliornia next year?While SB840 waits in the legislature we mustkeep single payer in the public eye despite thecorporate media’s attempt to stonewall the issue.Several campaigns are designed to do just that.Te Caliornia State Employees Association islooking at school boards, which pay exorbitanthealth care costs, to target or endorsement o the bill. Health Care or All, Sacramento Val-
Single Payer Health Care: Where to now?
ley is looking at several city councils or similarendorsements Tese eforts will keep single payerin the public eye until SB840 is considered againnext year. Join us and work or the right solution.For inormation about Health Care or All,Sacramento Valley: 916-424-5316 or
www.healthcareorall.org/
Robert Vizzard is an emergency room doctor and member o Health Care or All.
Why I’m Running or Congress
Dr. Durston with his amily: rom let, daughter Annie, wieDiane, son Je, and Bill.
Photo: Securing America’s Future, www.securingamerica.com
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