Wednesday, September 15, 2010

America's Decoupling from Reality

By Robert Parry
September 15, 2010

As Election Day 2010 approaches – as the United States wallows in the swamps of war, recession and environmental degradation – the consequences of the nation’s three-decade-old decoupling from reality are becoming painfully obvious.

Read on.

16 comments:

Kevin Ryan said...

Sorry to see that this was just another lame attack on those who question the official account of 9/11. Very disappointing, to say the least.

You might notice that the term "truther" (or truth-nigger for those who recognize subconscious clues) began to be promoted by mainstream media long after the overwhelming evidence for the falsity of the official 9/11 account had already been established.

But we are not your "truthers." We are the conscious (i.e. reality-coupled) citizens of the world. And we do not believe the incredible string of unprecedented events on 9/11, that just happened to give justification for invading the most strategically important lands in the world (for which plans already existed), were a series of miraculous coincidences.

And it's particularly incredible that you do. It's even more incredible that you would think that name-calling is an effective response to our questions.

Anonymous said...

Sadly, Parry again puts the left down. He writes convincingly until coming to the 911 story, which is pure disinformation: from attacking the messengers to denying an almost obscene litany of big lies. This is surprising because he was himself victim of the big lies and ad hominem attacks prior to starting CN. Now, no doubt, he's established himself and wants to tell the rest of us what to think.

Well, we buy your line, mr Parry, about the fear of telling the objective truth and we buy the right wing media narrative and now we can even see how a moderate like you has been co-opted by the people whom you claim to stand up to, those same Reagan-inspired liars and their cohorts on the media. You are Bush's and Gingrich's boy now.

Anonymous said...

And that's why you barely have any readers on your blog. It's pitiful. When you step up to an honest inquiry about the truth about 911, then maybe you will gain some more readership.

Big Em said...

Mr Parry - Great summary of the 30 odd yrs of non-reality, from the Reaganites through the 'birthers' and the '9/11 truthers' *. I've come to believe that this non-reality outlook comes from a lot of various causes - - the US myth of exceptionalism, our history of religious fundamentalism (the early 1800's we're worse than today), the hollow underlying materialism of US culture (ie; it doesn't matter what you say or do as long as you have a McMansion & SUV), escapism from the reality of our wanton subjugation/killing of civilians in numerous countries (Vietnam, Laos, Panama, Nicaragua, Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, though admittedly this may not bother a lot of people) from our militarism, pandering/commercial media, peer pressure, and 5 or 6 others. Unfortunately, I suspect that it has reached a point where it's going to take something severe in the US to snap enough people out of this mindset before things will change - - most likely major material deprivation (20/30/40% unemployment, etc) will be needed - - and then there's no guarantee as to which way (fascist, communist, progressive, conservative, libertarian, anarchic, ??) things will go.


(* see www.debunking911.com/index.html for excellent refutation of virtually all the 9/11 truther points)

Anonymous said...

You write that Obama's "birth certificate" shows that he was born in Hawaii.
What birth certificate?
The only thing that 0bama has shown is an alleged "Certification of Live Birth".
Can you tell us how you were allowed to view Obama's birth certificate,
when everyone else has not?

Shabby propaganda, Mr. Parry.

Your credibility has been diminished...

whowouldjesusbomb said...

I appreciate the important work you do, Mr. Parry. Yours is one of the more reliable voices in the public sphere. That's why I find it so disappointing that, just as you are otherwise correctly describing the denial of reality so rampant in our media and so meekly accepted among our populace, you feel the need to attack the largest reality-based movement that has risen in response (and arguably ever).

There is a telling lack of reality-based facts in your dismissal of the 9/11 truth movement. Prove ANY of your beliefs. Disprove any of the known facts that the movement works to end the suppression of, against a wall of silence, denial, and dismissal. Take your pick; there are thousands.

The real facts of the 9/11 crimes are not partisan. I would not be surprised to learn that a majority who do not believe the official conspiracy theory consider themselves conservative. Your misreading of this important distinction is a big disappointment to me.

Sadly, I suspect you are doing what Chomsky, Maher, The Nation, The Progressive, and many others on the supposed left feel necessary: stay on the side of power on the issue where it is known that challenging them is dangerous to your reputation. So many otherwise admirable voices have felt it necessary to go on record attacking the 9/11 truth movement—despite, and ignoring, all the incontrovertible facts that have been disclosed—that it is obvious that a line has been drawn in the sand, by the powers that are truly guilty, with respect to honestly speaking in public about it.

I admire your work, Mr. Parry. I'm sure I'm not alone in my disappointment that, just at the moment you take up the general issue you of our decoupling from reality, you yourself break from the search for the truth.

Cervantes said...

The book is titled "Dreams From my Father," not "of."

Other than that, Mr. Parry, you need to recruit a better class of commenters.

Anonymous said...

Parry's hit piece reminds me how the Catholic church managed to keep its abuse conspiracy going unchecked for a millennium. Anyone who claimed the church was shuffling perverts around and covering up their crimes was labeled a kook and shunned by the church. Hence, shills, minions and suck ups like Parry would, out of fear of being ostracized themselves, reflexively parrot the official church narrative, that kids were given to making up stories due to their fantastic imaginations.

mnvil said...

There was upon a time when telling the truth was a fundamental American value; if ever there was. Anyway, assuming that it ever was, whatever remained of it was shattered to meaningless stuff by the last Bush's Administration.

Don't dismiss the truthers as simple CT crazes they may have a point.

Anonymous said...

Really, Mr. Parry, have you read David Ray Griffin on 911 at all? He writes as well as you, even better, some might say, and very convincingly conveys all the facts regarding the supposed debunking of 911 truth. Don't reply, just read it and see for yourself.

Failing you doing that, can you account for the complete collapse of WTC building 7? Doubtful, from your attitude, that you have even looked at the video of this event.

dreamjoehill said...

Robert Perry claims that 9/11 Truth is a creation of "the Left" but offers no supporting evidence.

In fact, one of the central problems when pursuing 9/11 resarech on the web is that so many 9/11 Truth sites are dominated by right wing and extreme right wing propaganda, with a favorite being Jewish control of everything.

So how is 9/11 a creation of the Left?

BTW, I think the 9/11 Truth people are on to something. My best guess is that the controlled demolition argument is correct. On this, Perry claims there are no witnesses, but many witnesses claim that they heard powerful explosions both before and after the planes hit the towers.

"The vast majority of these accounts remained suppressed by the city until the New York Times won a Freedom of Information lawsuit against the City of New York in 2005, and announced the release of the records on August 8, 2005. The newspaper published the accounts in the form of PDF documents. 1

A perusal of some excerpts of these accounts containing recollections of the sights, sounds, and immediate observations of the destruction of the Twin Towers suggests the reason the city fought to keep them suppressed: the witnesses consistently describe loud bangs at the onsets of the events, and explosive features characteristic of controlled demolition.

The following excerpts were selected to highlight recollections of perceptions from the day of the attack. The graphic nature of many of these recollections is striking, particularly given that many of the witnesses indicate elsewhere in their interview that they subsequently came to accept the official explanation of the events.


Rich Banaciski -- Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Ladder 22]
... and then I just remember there was just an explosion. It seemed like on television they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions.


Brian Becker -- Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Engine 28]
The collapse hadn't begun, but it was not a fire any more up there. It was like -- it was like that -- like smoke explosion on a tremendous scale going on up there.


Greg Brady -- E.M.T. (E.M.S.) [Battalion 6]
We were standing underneath and Captain Stone was speaking again. We heard -- I heard 3 loud explosions. I look up and the north tower is coming down now, 1 World Trade Center.

Fr the NYT as quoted on http://911review.com/coverup/oralhistories.html

So if I can google accounts of explosion witnesses in about a minute, what accounts for award winning investigative journalist Perry's inabilty to find the same?"

dgvb55 said...

Mr. Parry, it really is a shame that you did not apply the same drive for the truth about 911 as you did to the Iran/Contra scandals.

In the last 1/2 century there have been two major commission reports. Ironically, in each of these reports, two words begin the process of unraveling the conclusions of both. In the case of The Warren Commission Report those words are "Jack Ruby". All but ignored in the findings. In the case of The 911 Commission Report those words are "Building 7". Not even MENTIONED any where in the findings - not even the footnotes.

Now, I do NOT believe that the members of these commissions are part of any cover-up, per se. What happened in each case was that the members were given the "evidence" and told to get the job done, and as quickly as possible in order to "get things back to normal". They then dutifully took the materials and testimony given them and pulled together the report. Anything contradictory was simply not investigated because it veered away from the already establised "facts". Since you, yourself, and several of your friends have been the victims of this kind of treatment in your own lives, I'm suprised you didn't recognize this in the case of The 911 Commission.

And, just for the record, The 911 Commission Report is, itself a conspiracy theory. And one that, if you actually read it, is quite a bit more fantastic than many of the other theories being offered.

I wish you well in the future, Mr. Parry. After having your reputation smeared once before, I perfectly understand your attitude, intended or not, of "once bitten, twice shy".

JonnyJames said...

Parry has had some superb articles in the past however this is not one of them.

He displays a high-level of hypocrisy, double-standards, laziness and arrogance here.

He bashes those who dare question the official storyline, yet he offers no hard proof that the offical conspiracy theory is valid.
He is just as bad as those he bashes.

What about the evidence brought forward by DR Griffin and the engineers? Does he puroport to have expertise is structural engineering, material science, architecture, demolition and so on?

What scientific credientials does he have in these fields?

I do not have the expertise and I do no purport to know the complete truth of what really happened.

However, I do know one thing: governments lie regularly (sorry I think the eupemism is "spin")

For examples: we now know that the USS Maine bombing, Gulf of Tonkin incident, Mayaguez indicent, USS Liberty attack, and even Dec. 7 1941 were quite different than what the govt., schools and media taught us.

If anyone just asks the question that any criminal investigation would ask: who benefitted? what is the motivation?

However Parry, for unknown reasons, does not ask the necessary questions and displays a profound double-standard by his failure to do so.

Anonymous said...

"Reality and real evidence may have lost all currency..."
Do you have ANY idea what you are talking about?
There are scientists, engineers and architects,
airline pilots, who have reviewed, researched and discovered massive amounts of evidence - facts - that refute the official story. How can you be so dense as to miss it?!

How about explosives in the dust from the buildings?

http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM

Have you bothered to even try to understand it before come up with this ridiculous article?

Anonymous said...

Can someone explain what would
be wrong with Obama
"channeling the anti-colonialism
of his Kenyan father"?
Many commentators are receiving this
mccarthyistic broadside defensively
as if they have to dismiss the
proposition rather than note that
d'souza and d'gingrich are
complete fascist scum for suggesting
that there is something wrong with
anti-colonialism!

Anonymous said...

Note your readership, your natural constituency, Mr. Parry: truthers. These are the people who comment, who read, who agree with all YOUR conspiracy theories: Iran Contra, October Surprise, Vietnam war extension, etc. Why don't you join your readers in embracing the truth about 911?