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| sent from: Waterloo Station, London, UK. destination: Coquitlam, BC, Canada |
The postcard text reads:
There was a work meeting, sometime in the late 90s, when a particular large Hollywood studio was engaged in what appeared to be nefarious manoeuvring. There was a feeling that these were nasty people engaged in a large conspiracy that extended far and wide. The president of our company spoke up and said, in essence – “don’t attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” It was far more likely, he contended, that individuals in the studio were bumbling along than masterminding a takeover. Now, as I listen to repeated assertions about the hidden “truth” of 9-11 and the many “mysteries”, implying vast government conspiracy, I am reminded of this and quite honestly, stupidity, inaction and accident seem far more likely than CONSPIRACY
In the past few days it’s been surprising to see many people whose opinions I am almost always in agreement with parroting various forms of 9/11 conspiracy theories and demanding that the truth be revealed. I fear that the Right-wing has their silly theory, Humans-Were-An-Outside-Job (ie. Creationism), and we (if I group myself with the Left, which on most days seems fine to me) have 9/11-Was-An-Inside-Job.
I hate the way Bush & Co co-opted 9/11 to ram their furrin-policy agenda down the throats of the American people (and shoved worse things down the throats of non-Americans), and I cried in frustration when he was re-elected in 2004. I hate the way American political ‘debate’ is currently conducted and the bullish arrogance of the Republicans.
And yet, I find myself on the other side of the glass to my friends who see “the truth” of the global Cabal that is ruling our lives and destroying our buildings. There is good reason to question what the past 10 years have done to the country and how nakedly our “leaders” pursued personal or political gain without moral integrity or responsibility, but trying to peer into the rubble of the Pentagon or similar for evidence of their dark souls undermines any reasonable discourse about this issue. I fear that in a desire to look for a larger and more compelling narrative, a way to firmly plant the previous establishment on the “bad guys” side without any annoying grey area, we are down a rabbit hole of shadows and an echo chamber of reflected beliefs that repeat the Rove-ian falsehoods until they become the truth.
