Confront, Counter or Contend With The Lies?

I encounter several big problems when writing about politics and the news of the day; the MSM lies on a regular basis and is nothing more than the propaganda arm of the Bush administration at this point, I believe that the last three elections have been rigged and don’t believe that our current method of voting can bring about a fair election and I believe that 9/11 was an inside job and not the work of outside terrorists. There are mountains of evidence to support these views, yet they are not widely reported on and therefore not universally believed, but the number of people who are questioning these things is growing every day.

The MSM—Every day I see examples of distortions, opinions masked as truth and outright lies from talking heads on cable news and in the newspapers. There are great sites that do nothing but debunk the myths and expose the lies each and every day like Media Matters, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting and Accuracy In Media (for a comprehensive list go here). I try to debunk any myths in reporting that I find that are relevant to whatever I am writing about at the time, but I am only one person and my resources are limited and I want to cover more ground than the lies of mainstream media.

The Vote—This is a bigger problem for me when trying to write about politics. I have mentioned many times before that I don’t believe in the election results from the last three elections and I have little doubt that the mid-term elections are going to bring more of the same. There is too much riding on Republicans maintaining their stranglehold on power for them not to use every tool at their disposal, including electronic voting machines and ballot counters that can be hacked without leaving a trace. In my opinion, this means we have no democracy left, but I can’t bring myself to advocate for a complete withdrawal of participation. I struggle with the idea that by participating in phony elections, we lend them credibility or worse, give our consent. Beyond working at the local level to get rid of these machines, and continuing to make noise in hopes of putting pressure on Congress to do something, I’m at a loss as to what to do. So when discussing possible candidates, impeachment hearings or taking back the reigns of power in Washington DC, all worthy topics, I find that I must ignore the elephant in the room in order to engage at all. I try to point out the death of democratic elections every time, but again, there are others working much harder and doing a much better job of reporting on this ongoing fight than I could ever do. BradBlog, The Free Press, Black Box Voting and Marc Crispin Miller are all working tirelessly to bring us the news of our flat-lining democracy.

The Myth of 9/11—This is the one that I find most difficult to deal with as it poses a complicated problem. There is the official story of 9/11 and anyone who has read it knows it raises more questions than it answers and requires a suspension of disbelief that most thinking people are unable to achieve. Given this, one must look elsewhere for information that will fill in the gaps and complete the picture of what really happened on that day. From what I have read, it’s clear that the only way the whole event could have been pulled off, is if “stand down” orders were given and Al Qaeda simply doesn’t have the ability to pull that off. There is more physical and circumstantial evidence as well as witness accounts to support an alternate and much more sinister theory of what happened than is provided by the 9/11 Commission Report, which itself is just a theory (and not a very good one at that). But there are wide spread problems that are a direct result of this report and the “official” story of 9/11, and these are worth combating as well. The culture of fear that the Bush administration has cultivated with the use of the “story” of 9/11 and the myth of Al Qaeda is very real. Yes it is the result of a Fairy Tale sold to the people, but the effects are wide reaching and deeply felt. The collecting of data, facts and witnesses that call into question the 9/11 story is being done very well by some great investigators, thinkers and specialists. Again, I will leave this work to those who are better able to collect and dissect the evidence. For some eye opening presentations of the evidence collected, watch the proceedings of The Citizens’ Commission on 9/11 (I highly recommend watching all of the clips, but if you only pick a few, watch Michael Ruppert and Indira Singh). 9/11 Citizens Watch and 9/11 Truth are two great sites for valuable and reliable information regarding the events of 9/11. But challenging the effects of 9/11 is still worthwhile and where I choose to focus my attention, leaving the work of debunking the official story to those who are better able to handle the task.

We are facing a beast that is so big and so powerful that it will take all of us to bring it to its knees. I am only a gnat, nibbling on the toenail of it, but a swarm of gnats can irritate and draw the attention of bigger game. It’s all worth doing. I have no illusion that I can change the world or even our country, but I can participate in the movement that will.