21A034 9/11/21 by Jim Davies, 9/7/2021 

It's twenty years, come Saturday, since nineteen Arabs wrought vengeance on the United States for relentlessly supporting their sworn enemy, the Israeli State. The US Government has learned from the attacks nothing whatsoever. That suggests it had nothing to learn; that it already knew what the suicide-bombers wished to convey.

The FedGov reacted immediately with its "Patriot Act" to seriously curtail freedom and privacy; the Act had been written over several years and was ready and waiting for a date to be inserted and for the photocopiers to roll. It was rushed through Congress and approved 357-66, with all but 3 opposed being Democrats - credit to them. The 3 principled Republicans were Ron Paul, Butch Otter and Robert Ney. Its title - "Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism" - was a nasty play on the term often used by some of the staunchest protesters against flagrant breaches of Constitutional limits by every level of government.

It was also a title without meaning, for its target, "Terrorism" is not an enemy capable of being defined and identified. It's a catch-all; the "war on terror" is even less intelligible, and is used to justify any objective government may have from time to time that requires a bypassing of its terms of reference. "Terror" is not a person or group, it's a sentiment. If war were truly being waged on it, the warrior would busy himself to bring peace, assurance, stability, love.

The Act massively increased or legalized the degree of surveillance of Americans by the FedGov's NSA, as exposed by Ed Snowden, and swept away the safeguards of open court hearings; but the most obvious single result of the Patriot Act has been to impose a scrutiny on every airline traveler, by the TSA; a wholesale violation of privacy. It has doubled the time needed to board an aircraft and so added a huge cost to the business of traveling. Its reach varies from the quite trivial (see my Lament for a Flask of Gin) to the seriously intrusive, with the quasi-naked scanning machines in use at every airport. Yet it has been completely ineffective; independent tests have found it quite easy to smuggle lethal weapons aboard.

Thus, the TSA like other impositions of the Patriot Act has the primary purpose not of protecting anyone but of intimidating individuals. Just like the Covid Scam.

What was the source of this major expansion of government power; was it, as claimed, an aggression by foreigners, unprovoked and undeserved an act of war? Or was it, as a substantial, persistent part of the population still insists, a false-flag job, designed and executed by the FedGov itself? My take is unchanged, from a few days after 9/11; the page is still up. But it doesn't matter a whole lot; the point of 9/11 was to extend government power and intimidate Americans. Retaliation was bound to come eventually, for 50 years of pro-Israel bias; whether it was helped along by some CIA stimulation, or even if every detail of the WTC demolition was micromanaged by its agents, is by the way. Its major objective was met; the Patriot Act swung into action, privacy was and is violated, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were "justified", the US presence in the MidEast was extended, government power was greatly increased. Just like the Covid Scam.

Between his Nürnberg conviction and his suicide, Herrman Göring was interviewed, mainly about how the German government managed to keep up public support for the recent war. His reply was:

“Oh, [democracy] is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

So in 2001, government put on a show to demonstrate America was "being attacked". The people bought the story; perhaps part of it was true. I myself doubt that the Feds are smart enough to pull off the whole charade unaided - I think the 19 disgruntled Arabs were real and did actually hijack the planes. Now in 2020 and 2021, the FedGov (in cahoots with at least 29 others) have put on another big show, to convince us all that we are being attacked; this time, by a fearful if invisible virus.

The two alleged attacks are part of the same spectrum. They both set out to scare everyone into supposing that government is needed, to protect us from Big, Bad Wolves. Göring was right.

It's high time to put childish things away, and grow up.