So Steve, are you also concerned that Americans (of certain political persuasions) exalt Martin Luther King, Jr., and don’t ever address his philandering or plagiarism?

“Philandering” is such an understatement that it must be taken as a euphemism. King took part in wild orgies, especially when white women were available. Although, in fairness, it should be pointed out that apparently a black bruthah would serve in a pinch, according to Abernathy — King was apparently neither a racist nor a sexist, at least in this matter that interested him more than anything else. Nevertheless, it was encouraging to see Hart start off by at least mentioning these suppressed aspects about Westminster Seminary’s hero Martin Luther King, Jr.

Alas, it wasn’t to last. He continued:

The right [meaning, the Right -- ed.] of course looks at those moral failings to discredit King. But what exactly do those failings have to do with what he was trying to do to gain equality for blacks?

This is not the right question, however. The question is, what exactly do those failings have to do with honoring him as an American hero? And the answer is, it has everything to do with that. Moreover, heroes are generally identified not by what they “try to do,” but what they actually do. George Washington was honored by our forefathers not for “trying” to do something, but actually doing it, against all odds — namely, defeating an empire with a rag-tag group of freezing patriots. In contrast, what did King “do”? He was a hollow man that could not even write his own sermons and speeches. He was chauffered up to the front of the parades at just the right camera moment. His movement did not overcome anything. On the contrary, his small band of opponents were beaten down with the combined forces of LBJ, the nationalized militia, the FBI, federal marshals, corrupt judges, and an adoring and dishonest media. All King had to do was show up. What a difference from Washington.

But, Washington was also perceived to be morally blameless. For all intents and purposes, he was beloved by everyone, and that for the double qualification of heroic deeds coupled with exemplary character.

But let’s consider Mr. Hart’s thesis on its own level — what did King’s “failings” have to do with “what he was trying to do”?

According to lore, Mafia bosses “did a lot” to “gain equality for the Italian people.” But most people do not say that the criminal means can be divorced from the end (even if the ambiguity of that end is set aside for the sake of discussion).

I suppose it goes without saying that Mr. Hart would not praise the original KKK for attempting to regain equality for Southerners vis-a-vis the Yankee occupiers.

Why then are King’s methods and character set aside by defenders like Mr. Hart, when they would never do so for a Mafia godfather or KKK leader? It must be either that some heroes are guilty of a skin, and thus must not be honored, or character and methods is not something Mr. Hart actually believes can be set aside when deciding whether to honor a man. As if sensing the corner he has painted himself into, Hart continues:

Was he sleeping with female congresswomen in order to secure favorable legislation? That might discredit some of his stand.

Oh please. This is really quite a revelation of how the slavish political conformity of our Reformed “leaders” has addled their thinking. As if a Congresswoman in 1965 would be thinking, “I really can’t support this civil rights legislation … unless Dr. King would be willing to sleep with me. Then I would.”

A quick check of Wiki indicates that in 1965, of the nine Congresswomen in office, all were White and over 50, except for one Oriental woman from Hawaii. Does Mr. Hart really think that even one of these women would think the way he imputes in the one example that pops naturally into his head?

Does he think any woman holding power, of any race and any age would think that way?

This is one sick dude.

In point of fact, that is one perversion that Martin Pervert King did not choose in plying his trade. Why does Mr. Hart think this way?

Even so, how would such a scenario “discredit some of King’s stand”? Does “the stand” mean the cause — equality for black people — in which case, how could such a sacred cause be discredited by the behavior of any person? Or does it mean, “this man’s standing” — i.e. it discredits this man, personally, this man that is taking the stand? In that case, what does the “some of” qualification of his stand mean? To the extent that the stander not the stand is in view, wouldn’t it completely disqualify?

But for the most part, his failings were personal and private and represented the afflictions that cling to most human beings not born of a virgin.

First, all failings by persons are personal. How does that qualify anything?

Second, “Doctor” King’s failings were not private. The plagiarism in particular was witnessed every time he made a speech, and the plagiarized Ph. D. dilutes the credibility of every other Ph.D. holder, especially those coming from Boston U.

Third, this statement is a preposterous denial of God’s gifts and graces manifested in history. It plasters over human history into a flat sameness. Only, he doesn’t even use plaster, he uses dung.

According to Tacitus, the Germans in their pre-Christian state were more chaste than the African-American community is after three centuries of exposure to the Bible.

Actually, putting it that way is not quite fair… to the Germans. It would be less misleading to say it this way: the pre-Christian Germans were a chaste people; the Christian Negroes are not a chaste people.

But according to Hart, King’s flagitious character represents “the afflictions that cling to most human beings not born of a virgin.”

Michael Dyson says the womanizing is endemic among pastors in the black church. Is Mr. Hart willing to say, “also in my denomination, the OPC?”

Is Mr. Hart willing to say, “most Ph. D. holders not born of a virgin have plagiarized their dissertations”? How should we regard the integrity of Mr. Hart’s own Ph.D. if that is what he thinks?

In fairness, Mr. Hart admits defects in King’s theology, and rejects King’s use of theology for his civil struggle. But that’s not the point. Being antinomian leads to despising God’s work of sanctification where it has occurred, and to God’s common gracious preserving and directing in history. This is the theological fruit one reaps when one reveres the current political order, along with its shibboleths, above just about all else.

The extreme measures taken by the kikenpress — excuse me, we can be dignified — the extreme measures taken by the”MSM” to advance their theme — Mitt or Newt, which will it be? — was shocking even for my jaded sensibilities.

The other “candidates” were allowed a place to the side, and constantly made to look like pretentious and preposterous child hecklers. The two sponsored candidates occupied the center. They wore their best solemn dignity mask. The cameras, Leni Riefenstahl-like, pointed up at them adoringly. The bulk of the questions to the sillies that occupied each flank were of the form, how do you respond to the statements just made by the real candidates?

However, let’s not be too easy on most of the flanking faux-candidates. Most of them are also stooges of the “MSM,” put on the stage intentionally to distract attention and dilute the distribution of loyalty of the nationalist and conservative base within the goy population.

Rick Santorum is surely the silliest of all. I have earned the right to ridicule that whore, having cast one of the votes in 2006 that ousted him from the Senate in the last election I participated in. It is not at all that Pennsylvania is a “liberal” state. It is not. It is two cities separated by Alabama, as Carville rightly noted. Moreover, the “city” at the left end is hardly an east-coast style liberal city: indeed, with the right leadership, it has the potential to be a true right-wing bastion. To some extent, this is true of the one at the right end as well, and even the dark vote is exaggerated in its influence by all the dead people that still vote there. And that could be remedied. No matter what the “MSM” tells you, Santorum was not defeated because of his anti-abortionism. Santorum’s single non-negotiable stance is loyalty to Israel.  This is what defeated him, even if most voters would have been unable to articulate it. They felt a rage at Bush’s series of unjustifiable and unending wars, and rightly blamed Santorum for being part of that crowd. The rage was so palpable that our rulers, even armed with their Diebold voting machines, did not dare throw it to him this time.

In this debate, it was especially ludicrous that Santorum’s chosen sound-bite du jour was to keep repeating how successful he has been as a politician, in distinction from the other flanksters.

Then you had the Minneapolis chick. She’s not bad looking. The cameramen kinda ruined it for her, at least amongst the males, by constantly panning to her adoring, gawking wussman of a husband. Then again, her job was undoubtedly only to pick up and nullify the soccer-mom vote, so no biggie. Someone should have coached her that Cain is no longer in the running, however. Her irrelevance was a little obvious.

There was Rick Perry. I want to say something about him, but I literally can’t remember a single thing he said. It doesn’t matter — it’s obvious by their own statements that the “MSM” has decided to kill him off for the remainder. They can always keep him in the back pocket if Newt and Mitt both flame out later on, but, aside from that… enough said.

Finally, you had the only honest man on the stage, Ron Paul. He was given, what, maybe 90 seconds total? You see, because RP does not make an exception for Israel in his position that we should stop subsidizing foreign regimes, the “MSM” tags him as an anti-Semite. The fact that he wants to audit the Fed adds fuel to the fire, and sets them into a barely controlled rage. How dare someone suggest that the makers and keepers of our national currency should be audited and accountable to the unwashed goyim! It really is shocking. He must be an anti-Semite.

Their first line of defense is to ignore such a man into oblivion, if only they could. When they are forced to come up for air for a brief moment, they chuckle, “of course, Ron Paul is unelectable, but…” And indeed he is unelectable, in that he will die mysteriously if he starts winning too many primaries. Like the Godfather presciently observed in his great speech, he will be accidently shot by a security officer, or hang himself, or be struck by a bolt of lightning. Indeed, he is unelectable. However, that does not stop me from sending him money, because I am an Anglo-Saxon. We believe in supporting lost causes.

Little Davy B. cannot understand that. He wants always to back a winner, in the name of incremental progress. But the irony is, backing those kind of winners always leads to defeat. I was already an adult during the Reagan Revolution, and during the first Gingrich Revolution, both of which were “successful” they say.  But can anyone seriously suggest that, compared to 1980, we are the tiniest increment closer toward being a healthy nation?

The sudden rise, almost as remarkable as that of George Bush in 1999, of serial polygamist Newt Gingrich in 2011, is proof of the existence of the, ahem, “MSM.” He has no objective credibility, starting with the significance of taking an oath of office, on any issue except loyalty to Israel.

Indeed, the sole point of heated contention between him and Mitt was on Israel. There was a brief tossing of fur and bluster. I forget who said what… something like, Gingrich made a heroic and fearless defense of some plain injustice perpetrated by Israel, and Romney courageously countered that… only Israel should be allowed to make statements about the morality of their own actions. Something like that. It was really heated.

This debate was the first time I have ever heard Mitt himself speak. He was surprisingly articulate and urbane. Abstracting from who he is and what he stands for, I liked him.

But think about it. The only honest man on the stage would surely be assassinated by the “power behind the throne” if he ever mounted a serious challenge. Besides him, the most “reasonable” sounding man is a man that believes that Martians have coitus and produce gods, one of which we are supposed to revere as “our Father” and aspire to become like. This is what America has incrementally become.

Mind you, I haven’t read the book, and don’t intend to. Enough can be gleaned from the interview with Rhodes and a quick google search to piece the story together.

Here is the official story. The 1930s Hollywood vixen was actually “Austrian-American.” She escaped the Reich after the rise of Nazism, leaving her husband, who after all hob-nobbed with Nazi industrialists. Meeting Hollywood studio head Mayer in London, she was offered a second-tier position in the studio, which she declined as beneath her. Figuring out which ocean liner he was to sail back to America in, she booked passage and during the voyage, found ways to demonstrate her great acting skills, at length changing his mind and landing a seven-year contract for the equivalent today of $3,000 per week. In America, she became the top celebrated beauty of the silver screen, but she was much more than that: she was a veritable rocket scientist. She submitted a patent application for frequency-hopping communications to guide torpedoes. The US government quickly tagged the patent as secret due to its value in the pending war. The Navy sat on it, however, little realizing what an advanced and powerful idea it was. Eventually, the patent rights expired, and poor Hedy never made a dime from it — not even a pat on the back and an attagirl… until now.

That is the official story.

However, it is utterly improbable that this promiscuous, self-advancing strumpet “invented” frequency-hopping, especially since there is a far more plausible explanation for how she would have come to the idea: the regular gathering of German industrialists around the dining room table of her first husband, as her puff machine freely admits was the case. So let us piece together the story of her life more believably, using the same facts as NPR and Wiki give us, but filling in a few that are buried in the footnotes.

Born in Vienna in 1913, Hedwig Jewess Kiesler was a wild girl already at a young age. Starring in the Weimar Republic-era porn film Ecstasy, in which at age 19 she was depicted with full frontal nudity and more — I won’t go into the details on this family-friendly site, but they are easily obtainable, and rather shocking even by today’s standards. No doubt this brought her to the attention of the man that would become her first husband, one F. Mandl, yet also infuriated him with jealousy, a phenomenon that is familiar enough. So he cloistered her in his castle, where he “took her to meetings with technicians and business partners. In these meetings, the mathematically talented (sic) Lamarr (sic) learned about military technology.” (Wiki) (No evidence is presented that she was mathematically talented, and the name “Lamarr” was adopted later at Mayer’s request.) At any rate, in 1937, probably nervous about the rise of National Socialism — or was it just her girlish pride and overweening ambition? –, she abandoned her husband and went to London. Meeting Louis Jew Mayer, she was offered a measly role, but on the ship to America showed him her real talent. Anyone familiar with Hollywood of that day cannot help but believe this involved re-enacting scenes from Ecstasy with him, while he eventually panted out, “$3000 a week, seven years, ahhh.” Sucked into the movie system, she portrayed the vixen again but in the more toned-down habit of American film-making of that period, i.e. hint at, don’t show. As the war heated up, she started to spill the secrets of her tribal enemies that she had learned around the dinner table. The US government hushed them up, possibly because of the military benefit for themselves, or possibly — my guess — to prevent German protests of the spy in our midst.

C.S. Lewis observed that traitors will be used by the enemy, but never trusted or admired. Yet this “Austrian American” is supposed to be nothing but admirable, helping the US in its just war against the Nazis as well as being praised as a great beauty. In reality, her case can be used as a good example of how we should think of nationality, loyalty, and betrayal, which is quite different than how our rulers want us to think of it. It can be illustrated by studying the entry under each category as our rulers want us to think, vs. reality:

Even the ubiquitous mention of her beauty must be a deliberate meme to try to overcome the common perception of jewish ugliness. Hedwig was not a bad lookin’ tomato, about as pretty as a typical white woman; but there were thousands of Midwestern and Southern girls that were (and are) far more beautiful than any picture I have seen of her on internet scours. Face it, she was puffed up down and every which way, and it continues.

See how cleverly our rulers spin the ugly truth.

In short, there is a lesson here. The white people of America were closely-related to the Germans as parallel branches from the same trunk of humanity. Hedwig’s tribe is quite different. She was not betraying her people by giving away German secrets. Our rulers know this, but they don’t explain. Instead, they tacitly portray her as “one of us,” the good guys, and not, a termite that aided us in our wicked fratricide.

Part 2: Religion

The value of the book resides entirely in the lucid and irrefutable summary of Part 1.  Part 2 starts off bad enough, using a higher-critical scissors to trim the Bible down to a kernel that suits Griffin’s purpose. (It is interesting, however, that once a statement in the gospels survives being pressed through the liberal sieve, he does seem to regard it as authoritative at some level). But it gets much worse. He needs a credible theory of “the demonic” to explain how imperialists could be so wicked as to execute a false-flag operation like the 9-11; but without a devil, as that would be mythic. With this motivation, he launches into an exposition of Process Theology only slightly less mythic than Mormon cosmology. In the beginning was God and matter; there was no creation ex nihilo; God shapes and persuades the matter as best He can, always trying to get it stay on the moral path; but the matter, especially after evolving into complex organisms like humans, has a mind of its own that is metaphysically autonomous from God and thus can assert evil. (Insert Twilight Zone theme.) He calls it Semidualistic Monotheism (p. 137).

There are metaphysical, ethical, and epistemological problems with this dualism that are fatal. Here, I take the time to highlight just one.  Griffin seems to think that if there was a big blob of matter that was a se, self-existent, and a god that was also a se, then that god might glance over at the blob of matter and say to himself, “self, I think I will go make something out of that blob.”

But this is a gross anthropomorphism. The independent god would not “see” the blob at all. He would not feel it. It would not exist for him.

We can see and feel things because our bodies are subject to electomagnetic forces just like the stuff we see and feel out there. If this were not the case, we would not see anything. If our “arm” swung down against a “table,” it would sail right through without a break. Take away the electromagnetic force, and floors, tables, roofs, walls, and so forth, simply don’t exist for us.

He tries to avoid this problem by saying that knowledge mediated by causal sequences is characteristic of creatures alone (p. 136). As if appealing to the Creator/creature distinction can help this ontology! The living and true God knows all thing immediately, because he is the master of them: his thoughts define them; but Griffin’s god, surrounded by darkness and unfulfilled potentiality, needs a third something between himself and his balky Gegenstand, to establish the contact. Moreover, for Griffin’s god to “find” the blob of matter, he and it would have to “reside” in the same space as it were. But what is the origin of that space? If it is from the god, then how did the eternal matter, being heterogenous to his nature, squeeze into it? If it is from the matter, how did the god enter in? Or, it is a framework in which both exist, in which case then we need to find the living and true God who defines the common framework.  Griffin’s god and matter would never have found each other.

It is embarrassing that Prof. Griffin saw fit to go into this, and that the publisher permitted it.

Part 1: The 9-11 Events

In stark contrast, Part I, which lays out the evidence that 9/11 was quite different than what the U.S. national government has told us, is quite good, both for logic and brevity.

He correctly sandbags against the typical name-calling. President Bush and 9/11 Commissioner Philip Zelikow have

warned against “outrageous conspiracy theories.” What do these men mean by this expression? They cannot mean that we should reject all conspiracy theories about 9/11, because the government’s own account is a conspiracy theory, with the conspirators all being members of al-Qaeda. (p. 35)

Griffin’s summary of the case against the Government Story of 9/11 can be sorted under several categories.

Physics

This includes things like the fact that burning kerosene only heats up to about a thousand degrees less than the melting point of steel (p. 36). The problems are nicely summarized in pages 35-44. One observation he makes had escaped my attention before, yet is devastating: if the floors really had “pancaked” down on each other, thus explaining the verticle collapse into its own footprint, then the steel columns should have been seen sticking up through it.

Intuitively, most people probably think that a skyscraper is like dozens of crates stacked up on each other, each crate representing a story. Then, as each crate collapses into a pancake, starting at the top, the added weight crushes the next crate, and combined mass falls down to the next crate, and so on.

However, this is not how a skyscraper is constructed. Instead, one should imagine massive steel columns (47 of them) which, tied together and reinforced, form the load-bearing core all the way to the top of the building. Then, each floor is “hung” on this core. So, if under the right conditions, the floors started to pancake down on each other, nevertheless the columns would stick through and still be visible.

The 9/11 Commission

simply denied the existence of the forty-seven core columns, saying, “The interior core of the buildings was a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells were grouped.” Voila! With no forty-seven core columns, the main problem is removed. (40f.)

The NIST tried a little harder:

The NIST Report handled this most difficult problem by claiming that when the floors collapsed, they pulled on the columns, causing the perimeter columns to become unstable. This instability then increased the gravity load on the core columns, which had been weakened by tremendously hot fires in the core, which, NIST claims, reached 1832°F, and this combination of factors somehow produced “global collapse.”

However, Griffin dissects NIST with two whacks:

First, NIST’s claim about tremendously hot fires in the core is completely unsupported by evidence. As we saw earlier, its own studies found no evidence that any of the core columns had reached temperatures of even 482°F, so its theory involves a purely speculative temperature. Second, even if this sequence of events had occurred, NIST provides no explanation as to why it would have produces global — that is, total — collapse. The NIST Report asserts that “column failure” occurred in the core as  well as the perimeter columns, but this remains a bare assertion. There is no  plausible explanation of why the core columns would have broken or even buckled, so as to produce global collapse at virtually free-fall speed, even if they had reached such temperatures. (41)

Sequence of events

The Sequence problem has to do with the consistency of alleged events — the timing of phone calls, meetings, and movements, with respect to the timing of the publicly knowable events — where was Cheny when the second plane hit, that kind of thing. In addition, there is the question of why — NORAD standing down or at least fumbling, intercept planes nearby not being ready. As much detail as the reader can stomach is ably summarized in Chap. 4, Flights of Fancy (pp. 57-75).

Investigations

The government investigations, notably the 9/11 Commission’s and the NIST report, are what most people rest their confidence in. It is probably not so much belief in the veracity of the government so much as the impossibility of the contrary: it seems incredible that so many people could collude to deceive without someone blowing the whistle.

Nevertheless, there are facts about these reports that need to be remembered:

1. The official narrative changed through several revisions as skeptics pounced on contradictions (pp. 57-75).

2. Facts that remain embarrassing are simply ignored into oblivion (e.g. 9/11 Commission on the 47 columns, mentioned above [pp. 40,41]; others discussed p. 16, pp. 80-82).

3. Other problems are dealt with by pure arbitrary assertion, without evidence — (e.g. the NIST report on the same problem [41]; more on p. 35).

How do we reconcile these difficulties with the common man’s feeling that a conspiracy of such magnitude is not possible?

The answer is, it is not necessary that very many of the investigators would be in on the scam — indeed, perhaps not any of the rank and file.  Most of them are just ordinary people doing their job, and their job was not to discover the most probable perpetrator from a clean slate, but rather, “show how al Qaeda did it.” And in terms of that non-falsifiable premise, the investigators did their investigation quite diligently.

That this is exactly how they proceeded is ludicrously illustrated in one incident. Just days before the event, a huge number of PUT options were taken out on just the very two airlines involved in the hijackings. This allowed the holders, after the event, to “put” the stock to the writer of the option at the pre-plummeted price, making millions of dollars. There is strong prima facie suspicion that the purchasers knew what was coming down. The government’s explanation for this is telling for their whole approach:

The 9/11 Commission tried to show that these suspicions were unfounded. Its most important claim was that the purchases of put options for United Airlines do not show that anyone other than al-Qaeda had foreknowledge of the attacks, because 95 percent of these options were purchased by “[a] single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda.” (p. 80)

And they roared with laughter, Solzhenitsyn’s equivalent narrative would add.

We can see what value should be put on those investigations.

The Inhumanity

For me, at the end of the day, it is the human narrative that makes the official conspiracy theory incredible. It is bad enough that 19 skinny Arab boys, entering single file Indian style with their box-cutters (and how did the investigators figure that out again?), are able to overwhelm the crews — who are generally tough guys, often former military — and succeed every time. Then, right after the fight of their life and commission of grisly, bloody murders, the corpses still lying around, they “get behind the wheel” for the first time ever, and find these targets and steel their nerves to blow right into them. Try this while speeding scary fast down a hill on your bike, then multiply the velocity by 20. Yet these Arab boys did it, every time without fail.

But it gets better. One of the boys, slated to board flight 11 from Boston, decides to make an excursion to Maine the day before. No one can figure out why. It will necessitate hopping on a commuter flight to connect to the big one the next morning. Imagine risking the whole operation if the puddle-hopper were to be late! And sure enough, it is late — not so late that Atta cannot board Flight 11, but too late for his luggage to get transferred, and so the authorities can now retrieve some smoking guns. And what is in his bags?

Flight simulation manuals for Boeing airplanes, a copy of the Koran, a religious cassette tape, a note to other hijackers about mental preparation, passport and will. (p. 17)

Think about it. I suppose Atta was thinking he would cram during the last hour before the “final exam” on how to fly the big Boeing. In case he would get bored with that, he could always read a bit of the Koran or listen to a tape. But the real howler is the will. He is about to self-immolate in a towering inferno. What possible good to anyone would it do to have his will burning up along with him?

I can’t believe a human would behave like this, even if I try. But I can very well believe that some dim-witted police-state bureaucrat assigned to this detail of the planning would include all those items in the packet, since each has its place in ratifying the government’s story.

All of this I mention, despite the fact that “the flight manifests that have been released have no Arab names on them. The 9/11 Commission Report simply omits any mention of this problem.” (p. 16) But we have to start somewhere.

Meanwhile, the boys that hijacked American flight 77

reportedly executed a 270-degree downward spiral, which according to some pilots would have been impossible for a Boeing 757 even with an expert pilot. Hanjour, moreover, was known as ‘a terrible pilot,’ who could not even fly a small airplane” (p19).

During all this, the W was yaking away to the schoolkids in Florida. He continued to yak even after the second tower was hit. This is not how a President would behave if an unexpected attack of unknown scope were occurring.

Conclusion

Despite its flaws, this book presents a succinct summary of the facts such that it is hard to imagine that anyone intelligent, honest, and diligent could continue to believe the government’s conspiracy theory of what happened on 9/11.

The proposal electrified the world, and arguably, led to substantial disarmament, if not the fall of the Soviet Union.

Or perhaps the fix was in on this too. We are starting to learn “the rest of the story” on many aspects of “the Gipper.” But let’s assume the best at least for a moment.

I have not heard a zero-option proposed for the Middle East: namely, Iran would not be permitted to have nukes, and in exchange, Israel would destroy all of its nukes, and permit free international inspections to verify it.

Why has a zero-option not been proposed, do you suppose?

Robert E. Sherwood

Enter Robert E. Sherwood, playwright and playboy, to save the day. He pulled off a most amazing feat, producing a play in which every evil action or attitude of anyone anywhere is portrayed as simply a lapse into Nazism. Yes, the invasion of Finland that filled people with disgust appeared to be carried out by the communist Red Army; but this was only because they had temporarily forgotten their ideals and succumbed to the temptation to act like Nazis. Indeed, perhaps they were as innocents actually being manipulated by Nazis to carry out a Nazi agenda without even knowing it. Therefore, America needed to awaken and prepare to wage war against the Nazis.

The title of the play was “There Shall Be No Night,” from Revelation 21:25 or 22:5. However, it does not purport to be a Christian answer to the global situation. The main character explains that the deeper meaning of Revelation is theosophical rapture in one’s own mind:

Kaarlo: We can all use the Book of Revelation to substantiate our own theories. It’s an eternally effective device. I have heard evangelist charlatans quote it to prove that if you do not accept their nonsense and pay for it, you will most surely burn in hell.  But there is something profound in those words I quoted. That unknown Jewish mystic who wrote that — somehow, unconsciously, he knew that man will find the true name of God in his own forehead, in the mysteries of his own mind. “And there shall be no night there.” That is the basis of all the work I have done. (Scene 6)

The play premiered on Mar 29, 1940 — just two weeks after the “First War” against the Finns and 24 days after the Soviet massacre of 25,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in cold blood at the Katyn Forest.

The play can be summarized adequately by describing each character, for there is not much in the way of plot: the propaganda proceeds by chit-chat among the players, and the small amount of action is merely implied by the dialogue.

Dr. Kaarlo Valkonen, Finnish psychiatrist, takes every chance to pontificate about insanity, of which waging war is one manifestation. The Russian Revolution was an idealistic breakthrough of sanity, even as the work of Freud and Pavlov and himself is a marshaling of science toward curing humanity of its mental problem. Despite his pacifistic tendencies, however, he comes to see that Nazism is the one thing that will prevent man from rising to greatness, so he finally takes up arms himself.

His wife, Miranda, is New England-born, and represents the “can’t we all just get along” attitude of the typical American. She had two ancestors, representing two sides of America: “rugged heroism” — that one “died happy” –, and capitalism — that one “made a nice fortune selling shoddy uniforms to the army.” She is inclined to favor the latter as a role model for their son, like the proverb “better a live dog than a dead lion,” but the play is meant to rekindle the former motif, and trigger a properly anti-Nazi warlike spirit in other Americans.

Their son Erik, being of mixed American/Finnish blood, represents the conflict between patriotism and love of fun and romance. In the end, he realizes that he must fight for “freedom” and against Nazism in every form. He dies, but not before impregnating his girlfriend Kaatri. She is persuaded to flee to America to raise the child away from all the insanity, thus becoming a symbol for women and children that can rebuild and “carry on the blood” after the men have died fighting Nazism.

Affable German Consul Dr. Ziemssen frankly announces everything about Germans that Sherwood believes about them. In this way, Sherwood does not have to defend his prejudice, since his straw-man “opponent” admits the same view.

A few examples from the text of the play itself will show just how blatant New Deal rhetoric can be; indeed to the point that it is rather amusing in retrospect.

All evil comes from Nazism

Erik and his girl are discussing the Soviet buildup (Scene 2).

Erik: The American government — all governments — are being pulverized with fear by this Soviet propaganda. They want to pulverize us, too, so that well give them what they want without a struggle.

Maybe Erik is waking up to the Soviet threat? Alas, no:

… It’s all bluff — it’s all an imitation of the Nazis.

Kaatri: But when the bluff doesn’t work, suppose they go on imitating the Nazis — suppose they do attack?

Note the Soviets appear to be the aggressor, but if so, they are only “imitating Nazis.” Later (scene 5), Joe, the fighter pilot, describes his feelings after strafing a column of Germans.

Joe: They were Nazis. It gave me a thrill. All this time, in fighting the Russians, I’ve felt just a little bit uncomfortable — you can imagine it, Dave, after my experience with the Loyalists. You know, I couldn’t help saying, “God forgive them — for they know not what they do.”… But when I saw those Nazis — those arrogant bastards — and I could even see the looks on their faces, — all I could think of was, “God forgive me if I miss this glorious opportunity.” I let ‘em have it! It was a beautiful sight…

Dave: I thought it was about time for the Nazis to be taking a hand in this war. No wonder the tide of battle has turned. I guess they’ve decided there has been enough of this nonsense of Finland’s resistance. Probably they want the Russians to get busy somewhere else.

The idea is that the Russians when they are aggressive are simply the tools of the Nazis, not acting according to their own ideology and interests. In scene 7, incredibly, the Germans continue to be referred to as the actual aggressor:

Joe: This city might hold out for a long time, like Madrid.

Dave: I hope not. Because if it comes to a siege, you’ll see German battleships out there, doing their bit in the bombardment. I wouldn’t like to be here when that happens.

A bit later, Dave grants that the Soviets have a role, but:

Dave: Three months ago, the Soviet troops marched in…. The cause of revolution all over the world has been set back incalculably…. The Soviet Union has been reduced from the status of a great power to that of a great fraud. And the Nazis have won another bloodless victory.

Incredibly, the result of the Soviet invasion of Finland is… a Nazi victory over Finland.

Again and again, the play drills in that if the Soviets do something bad, it is falling away from the ideals of the Revolutionists, and instead, imitating Nazis.

Communism is good

In scene 1, son Erik says he is studying economics and sociology. His father chimes in.

Kaarlo: And skiing. He can’t make up his mind whether he wants to be another Karl Marx, or another Olympic champion.

Thus, Karl Marx is set up as the great exemplar of economics: the analogue of an “Olympic champion” of skiing.

Dave: Have you been much in the Soviet Union?

Erik: Oh, yes. We lived there when father was working with Pavlov.

The “oh, yes” shows enthusiasm at the memory of the Soviet Union. The only thing worth mentioning about that country is the science, the good work.

Dave: And you really believe they might invade this country?

The “really” indicates that it is inherently incredible to think of the USSR invading another country.

Erik: If there were counter-revolution in Russia, anything might happen. Or the Nazis might come that way. We have to be prepared.

Thus it is explained how such a thing could happen. It could happen if there were counter-revolution, i.e. if the Marxist revolution were overthrown by reactionaries! Or, what amounts to the same thing, the Nazis might get there first. There is some banter about punch, then:

Dave: Of course, the Nazis have been highly successful in terrifying people of the Bolshevik menace. But all the times I’ve been in Moscow, I’ve never seen anything but a passionate desire to be let alone, in peace.

Notice all the assertions here. Any fear of the Bolsheviks is caused by Nazi propaganda. Dave has been in Moscow a lot and all he has seen is the desire for peace. Just like Walter Duranty, only here it is being said with a straight face.

The German confesses that world conquest is the goal

Later, in scene 3, when the German Dr. Ziemssen urges his friend to leave Finland, he reveals this bombshell:

Ziemssen: You think our enemies are these — these Communists who now invade your country?

Kaarlo: Yes. That is what I think.

Ziemssen: The Russians think so, too, but they are wrong. We are your enemies, Herr Doktor. This Finnish incident is one little item in our vast scheme. We make good use of our esteemed allies of the Soviet Union….

After a bit he continues

Ziemssen: The same is true of every nation that we conquer; we shall see to it that none of them will ever rise again … This is a process of annihilation. It is a studied technique, and it was not invented in Moscow. You will find the blueprints of it, not in Das Kapital, but in Mein Kampf. …

Kaarlo: Do you approve of this technique?

In answering, Ziemssen indicates that the Germans even plan to enslave their fellow Aryans, the Scandinavians:

Ziemssen: Naturally, I regret the necessity for it. But I admit the necessity. And so must you, Dr. Valkonen. Remember that every great state of the past in its stages of construction has required slavery. Today, the greatest world state is in process of formation. There is a great need for slave labor. And — these Finns and Scandinavians would be useful. They are strong; they have great capacity for endurance.

The memes continue to be planted that the German goal was world conquest, including the outright lie that they desired the conquest of the new world:

Kaarlo: Where can one go to escape this world state?

Ziemssen: An intelligent question, Herr Doktor. I assure you that the United States is secure for the present. It may continue so for a long time, if the Americans refrain from interfering with us in Mexico and South America and Canada. And I believe they will refrain. They are now showing far greater intelligence in that respect than ever before. They are learning to mind their own shrinking business.

America must give up its isolationism

In Scene 3, while the doctor encourages his wife to leave the country, the meme is planted for Americans pondering their role. Miranda’s attitude is to mirror the American isolationist view — understandable but untenable.

Miranda: I don’t think [Erik] would be particularly happy or proud to hear that his mother has scurried to safety at the first sound of a shot fired.

Kaarlo: Erik has American blood in his veins. He will understand.

Miranda: Oh! So that’s it! His American blood will tell him that it’s perfectly reasonable for me to run away. You evidently share Kaatri’s opinion of me.

And later, American non-involvement is likened to Pontius Pilate.

Dave: [Pilate] knew that this was a good, just man, who didn’t deserve death. .. But when they cried, “Crucify Him!” all Pilate could say was, “Bring me a basin of water, so that I can wash my hands of the whole matter.”

Summary

In summary, the play drives home that Soviet aggression, to the extent that it was not just a manipulation by the Nazis and under their control, was a lapse from the glorious ideals of Marxism. American must therefore wake up and crush the Nazis.

It is no wonder that Sherwood was fingered to become an employed shill for the New Deal. The question for a grad student in history to pursue is to discover how he became such a doctrinaire apostle for the “cause.” A good place to start would be his Hollywood connections, who rewarded him richly for minor editorial work. He hung out with a number of them during his California jaunts. Therein is probably to be found the story behind the story.

Somehow, there needs to be some true loss when these millionaires lose their concentration — perhaps while thinking about changing travel agents or some such — and botch easy plays.  It does seem like a good argument for some notion of just wage.

When our Führer arises, he will have his work cut out, even in sports.

2. That Bam-bam got the Nobel Prize says nothing about him. There is nothing to say about him in respect to “peace.” Standing around like Alfred E. Neuman with a shrug and a “what, me worry?” in respect to our ongoing, endless wars for Israel is hardly world-class peace prize material.

It does say something about the Committee, and their outlook. Perhaps the prize is supposed to memorialize the end of White America. Or, perhaps rushing to give Yomama the prize not even one year into his reign suggests they worry it might be too late to do so next year.

• most milita members favor 3rd Party candidates
• Ron Paul etc are or have been 3rd Party candidates
• Therefore, people with Ron Paul (or the others’) bumper stickers should be watched

We can chuckle at the logic of this no doubt government-school educated governor. But not at his content.

A militia is the citizenry armed to defend itself — whether against roving criminals or a rogue regime.

In the uneducated mind, there is an ambiguity in our Second Amendment, when it says, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Is it the “milita” or the “people” that have the right? ask our government-indoctrinated subjects.

In a free republic, these entities are congruent: the same citizenry that gives its consent to the civil rule also constitutes the militia. There is no contradiction between them. When the citizens must take up arms against their own government, it means the government has failed; has usurped rights not ceded to it: it has become a tyranny.

To his partial credit, Chuck Baldwin’s response (which also contains a link to the official response from all three) never exactly ratifies the tyrants’ condemnation of militias. However, it is only partial credit, for Baldwin says

The obvious inference of the above statement links Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and myself to potential dangerous “militia members.”

This statement is fraught with ambiguity. Does he object only to “potentially dangerous” militia members? (And what good is any militia unless it is potentially dangerous?)  Moreover, putting “militia members” in quotes draws attention to the unreflected appropriation of the term as used by Tyrant Nixon, but leaves other issues unaddressed: the implicit slander of real militia members and the need to affirm the crucially important role that militia as such should play in preserving our liberties against tyrants like Jeremiah Nixon.

Instead, Baldwin’s response is basically two arguments: (1) a populist protest that 75% of all Americans agree with at least one thing on the list of terrorist-favored items, and (2) profiling is wrong.

(In passing, note that amongst whites, probably essentially all would “fail” Nixon’s test by the criterion of at least one item in the list, and amongst non-whites, it would probably be at least 50%. So the total would undoubtedly be higher than 75%, but any number given would also obscure a significant underlying reality.)

More importantly, profiling is not wrong. Profiling is a most necessary law-enforcement concept. Without it, criminals would rarely be caught.

What is wrong is this particular profile: the tyrants that have gained power in Missouri are calling darkness light, and light darkness. They are profiling against the good, and favoring the wicked. They are servants of Satan occupying the seats of Justice. They are proof of the ongoing need for militias.

That is what should have been pointed out. Instead, our fearless leaders gave the tyrants a good, sound beating with their hankies.

I keep thinking about those drinking fountains. Would I demonstrate and protest if cities built special drinking fountains for me? Many people evidently find me persona non grata. There is a non-profit Board that does not want to associate with me, because my language is offensive. (Most unforgivable, evidently, was my use of the term, “jive-ass dude” in a comment I once wrote.) Suppose the whole country was filled with such indignation, and demanded that special “Tim Harris drinking fountains,” separate but equal, everywhere be constructed.

Well… if you insist. I’ll take the special bathrooms too, if you please.

I suppose that, amongst the jews and other communists that led the 1960’s Revolution in America, leading to the Abolition of Separate Drinking Fountains and Other Indignities, a few probably had some genuine and human thoughts mixed in with their generally destructive motivation. Those thoughts would probably be something like this: even though at one level, it is an advantage to everyone to have more drinking fountains and bathrooms built than otherwise would be — everyone gets to the head of the line to the head sooner as a result — yet, by distinguishing access to them by class of person, one class of person will doubtless be encouraged to treat the other unjustly. This encouragement would follow from the very fact of making a class distinction per se.

A priori, which class is going to treat which unjustly? The critic is going to have to expand the analysis by pointing out, for example, that one class (Anglo-Saxons) held all the money and political power while the other (the Negroes) did not, and given that asymmetry, it would be the Whites feeling encouraged by separate drinking fountains to treat Blacks unjustly, not vice versa. At least, I have never heard a Civil Rights advocate go on indignantly about what an injustice to Whites the drinking fountains were. But then, what if there was no evidence of that political power being used unjustly? What if there was no discrimination in the granting of business licenses? what if a free school system was provided of such a quality as has yet to be built by their kinsmen in Africa to this day? what if free personal interchange was permitted in the public square, moderated only by the principle of free association? Absent specific evidence, the injustice of the situation needs to be qualified by more and more rarified notions.

The pro-integration Aryan with a daughter must logically either (a) be willfully ignorant of the crime situation that has emerged all around him, which since Integration, has destroyed every American city except perhaps Boston (which was only rescued by the very unpolitically-correct mics and dagos, at the street level — men who valued the chastity and lives of their daughters, sisters, and nieces more than some abstract social theory of internationalism), or (b) thinks that a society in which his daughter can be plucked off the street, raped, mutilated, tortured for several days, then either beaten to death or drowned in a bathtub full of lye, chopped up, and thrown into a trash bag, only to have that same society turn its eyes aside, ignore it, and pretend it never happened, is well worth it provided Negroes can drink from the same drinking fountains as whites.

Actually, there is a third option: move ever farther from the city, while pretending even to one’s own inner voice to be color-blind. We should pretend that 35,000 white women are not raped by Negroes every year, rather than think even for a moment that Integration was not all it was cracked up to be.

I am going to begin documenting the actual facts of the situation, for the sake of the culpably-ignorant white men that seem to be everywhere. Secular men read the fleeting headline in the local paper, before the story is permanently buried, and try to forget, and turn back to their ESPN. Professed Christian men like my persecutor roll their eyes heavenward and say, “it is the judgment of God.”

True: it is the judgment of God on pansies that stand by passively while their nation is destroyed all around them.

But we can all drink from the same drinking fountain! That is surely progress! Rather 35,000 additional rapes per year than not have that!

For the sake of brevity I use government in the following propositions as short hand for elements within governments.  Obviously not every government official (still less every government employee) could possibly be in on such plots.

Common Objections to 911 “conspiracy” theories

(1) Governments would never do such a thing.

This argument is not only prima facie implausible, but is easily shown to be false.  See (3) below.

(2) My government would never do such a thing.

While few believe (1), many patriotic Americans are firmly committed to (2).  Such persons reason, “Yes, some evil states may be involved in such things, but not my government; my country is special.”  This belief is supported by at least two faulty assumptions.  (a) My nation could not produce leaders that are capable of such things.  (b) My nation’s government has checks and balances that make such conspiracies highly unlikely.

As to (a), one need not be a Christian to see that such a sanguine view of human nature is contradicted by our most basic experience of the world.  And (b) reveals a deficient view of checks and balances in operation. First, the machinery of checks and balances only works if men make it work. There were several things that could have been done by the executive or legislature to check Roe v Wade; but there was no heart for it. Second, the checks only ever kick into motion under circumstances of ordinary procedure. In the nature of the case, they are non-existent in case of secret conspiracy.

Apart from this, consider the following.  Suppose a small cadre of rogue government officials wished to start a war with nation x, but had neither a good justification nor public support for it.  Suppose further that they had the means and opportunity to stage some event (a bombing, a fire, a murder) and pin it on nation x.  What would stop them from staging such an event other than the thought that they might get caught?  Unless one holds the belief that his government could not possibly contain such rogue officials, which is a version of (a), the answer is, obviously, nothing.

Furthermore, patriotic Americans should remember that (2) is accepted by patriotic citizens of all countries.  Many citizens of the Soviet Union would not have believed that their government under Stalin was capable of the most wicked and criminal activities perpetrated in modern times.  Yet it was.  That the same holds for many other countries I will not bother to cite.  There is nothing more certain to fan the flame of a show of so-called patriotism than the display of power. Probably the citizens of every great power in modern history have thought the same way.

(3) Governments have never done such a thing.

The only way to defend this assertion would be to define “such a thing” so narrowly as to exclude any counterexamples which do not feature jet aircraft, high-jackings, and sky scrapers.  But given a broader reading, everyone who is not completely innocent of history knows otherwise.

Since (3) is false, this implies that (1) is false.  That something in fact happened entails that it could happen.

(4) My government has never done such a thing.

If we take my as referring to the U.S. government, then history teaches us otherwise.  I will mention here a few “such things” and leave it to the reader to do his own research.

Pearl Harbor – Roosevelt not only knew when and where the attack would take place while preventing Kimmel and Short from knowing this, but he had previously implemented a Pacific strategy whose aim was to provoke a Japanese attack.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident – this incident did not even occur, yet Johnson used it as the excuse to escalate U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

The Attack on the USS Liberty – Johnson not only knew that the Israelis intentionally attacked a U.S. Naval ship and lied about it, but forbade U.S. forces to protect the ship during the attack.

Aside from these incidents, a number of other false-flag operations have recently come to light that were contemplated but never carried out.  These include Operation Northwoods, George W. Bush’s suggestion during the run up to the Iraq War that the Air Force paint U.S. spy planes in UN colors in hopes that they would be shot down, and Dick Cheney’s recent consideration of attacking U.S. naval vessels with mock Iranian PT boats.

(5) Governments could never pull something off like this and get away with it.

This objection is better than the first four since it does not assume that the government is above such exploits.  The problem, though, is that governments have gotten away with such things.  In fact, they have gotten away with them repeatedly.   Stalin, Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson, Begin and many others all hatched plots in order to lead their countries into war, blackmail other nations, or garner international support.  And they all got away with it.

(6) Governments are too incompetent to pull off something this big.

This is the most reasonable objection of the six.  This is not due to its strength, but because it exhibits healthy skepticism towards government.  The problem with this, however, is that governments are not typically incompetent; they are, in fact, very good at what they do.  This is seen in the areas of war, propaganda, theft, intimidation, running protection rackets, protecting  its own, and numerous other unsavory activities.  And these are just the kind of virtues that would be helpful in running or covering-up a 911-type plot.

Governments are good at many other things that they are seldom given credit for: education, the war on drugs, economic policy, to name a few.  Take just one example.  By any reasonable standard of measurement, government schools have been a debacle in terms of educating America’s youth in basic reading, writing and math skills.  But why should we believe that their goal is to produce a clear-thinking, independent, and literate public?  Indeed, this is precisely what they do not want.  It is in their interest to produce muddle-headed, ignorant statists who are skeptical about everything except what the state tells them.  And if this were their goal (that it has been the goal of the U.S. government is easily demonstrated), public education has been a great success.

Conclusion

All six of these propositions are false.  This does not, of course, prove that elements of the U.S. government were involved in the 911 attacks.  But 911 is really beside the point.  What matters is that our people begin to open themselves to the possibility that things may quite different than what they are told.