Mikas blogg

11 July
2007

News from another USA

There has been almost nothing about the US Social Forum in the European mass media. The same goes for the mass media in the USA. I was there. As many of us have already said: it was an inspiring and hoperaising event. I concentrated on the library aspect (some of that covered earlier in this blog). But I also participated in a workshop on the re-opening of the 911 investigation, and in the closing plenary sessions on Sunday 1 July, where a representatative of the 911 Truth Movement read a statement saying that we need to have ''a new independent and international investigation on the causes and circumstances surrounding the events of September 11, 2001''. (You may read the text of the statement here )

This demand is supported by many citizens and intellectuals of the USA and other countries. Whether France's Housing Minister Christine Boutin actually supports it (as was reported by Yahoo News), I do not know. She would certainly not be the first European official to air suspicions about 911 having been an inside job. For instance Michael Meacher, former minister for the environment of the Blair government, and Andreas von Buelow, German ex-minister of Technology, who is also a renowned expert on state intelligence, certainly do support the demand for a re-opening of the investigation.

After the closing plenary of the US Social Forum I went to the stand of the 911Truth Movement to get a paper copy of the statement I had just heard. Then I walked around for a while among the thousands of social activists at the Civic Center of Atlanta -- a very colourful and heterogeneous bunch of people, by the way. I took some of them apart, showed them the statement, asked them to read it and say what they thought about it. In this way, I might have talked with perhaps six, perhaps eight persons, none of whom I had ever met before. It turned out that all of these persons agreed: Yes, there should be a new independent and international investigation! I also support this demand.

I want to add something about the 911-truth-workshop I took part in. It was chaired by Janice Matthews, one of the leaders of the 911 Truth movement in the USA. A very good moderator, by the way, besides being a courageous citizen, a mother of six kids etc. There, I learned that at least one of the presidential candidates, Mr Dennis Kucinich, is taking up the case. I also heard some other actualities. However, I do not think that I got any important information which I could not already have read from http://www.911truth.org http://www.911blogger.com/ , etc.

One episode remains on my mind, though. That was when the guy sitting next to me asked for the floor to present his own theory. And that really was one of those crazy conspiracy theories! He spoke about the Illuminati, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (which is "an antisemitic text that purports to describe a Jewish plot to achieve world domination" - Wikipedia), and what not. This man could have been an agent provocateur for all I know. However, the curious thing is that nobody in the hall, including myself, did stand up to ask him to stop giving us this shit. Why so?

Here is my advice as a library activist: If you want to form your own opinion on the thorny issue of the causes and circumstances of the 911-crimes (because crimes they were, whoever planned and committed them), you should read 1) the official "9/11 Report", by Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, and 2) "The 9/11 Commission Report. Omissions and Distortions", by David Ray Griffin.

Those are not very nice things to read about. In case you need something to cheer yourself up with, how about that old "Candide" book, for instance?