Hopedance

by Bob Banner

A month after September 11, 2001, Stacey Warde and I put together a special supplement called “Voices of Restraint, Intelligence and Compassion: Unpopular Perspectives”. We felt the need to publish material that had not been published in the mainstream as well as perspectives that were not that popular since it seemed the country had entered a crazed period of intolerance and revenge. We were calling for a sane response to 9/11 and asked a number of questions. I, along with other activists critical of the Bush administration, saw the 9/11 tragedy as primarily a “blowback” strategy from a terrorist organization that demanded retribution for our despicable foreign policies, especially our lavish support for Israel. Five years later I’m more uncertain about the attacks being primarily a blowback operation. Sorting through many books, articles, websites and documentaries, I felt compelled once again to put the 9/11 issue back into the public domain. Even though much material is on websites and most of the films can be viewed online at youtube or googlevideo, I still sense the need to compile good information in a newsprint format. Call me “old school” but if the mainstream is going to sit on their asses when it comes to researching and discovering the truth, I might as well do my part in educating people about this vitally important matter. Who knows, this issue may inspire people to pursue it more, to investigate some of the questions that are needed and perhaps to start connecting the dots with Peak Oil (see p.6). It also comes down to which conspiracy theory do you wish to believe: the administration’s conspiracy theory of terrorists with box cutters slamming planes into the WTC and the Pentagon amidst a highly sophisticated array of events? Or some other conspiracy theory?

The Left has criticized the “conspiracy theorists” for wasting time and energy, and has ridiculed them, calling them “nuts” (see the writing of Alexander Cockburn and Mathew Rothschild’s rants against David Ray Griffin, for example). Yet there are other so-called Left scholars who are investigating the 9/11 Commission’s final report (see p.40), as are Republicans and intelligence experts (see p.7). It appears to me that Mark Morford, in the lead article, gets it right: that we need to look at the evidence and not allow our ideologies or agendas get in the way of truth (see p.5). And, as in many movements, one will witness the various levels of understanding and activity within that specific movement. One will find true believers, fanatics, and curiosity seekers ... all the way to professional scholars. And within movements, one will always get ridiculed.

Rather than jump to the conclusion that our own government couldn’t possibly create a false flag operation (by killing their own people) to completely fortify their war agenda, let us look at the evidence, the information, the stories from people who were there, the experts who know more about demolitions than either you or I. We cannot stifle investigations solely because of a potential answer that we cannot grapple with (please check out page 29).

In this issue we have Amy Goodman interviewing both the “Loose Change” filmmakers and the “Popular Mechanics” debunkers (p.22). We’ve included Noam Chomsky’s take on the issue on page 9.

Check out the four poems in this issue (p.2 and 45) and the 9/11 Press For Truth film review, see the 9/11 films we have at our Film Library and read the 5 book reviews that pertain to 9/11 in this issue (pp40-43). If all of this material bums you out, then check out how you can deal with stress by applying the advice of Gooche and Bennett on page 19. Also, if you wish to get inspired while holding all the disturbing and critical info about 9/11, then I recommend reading Shepherd Bliss’s report on Bioneers, a great conference that holds an umbrella for many world changers, pioneers and activists(p.30). Many cities have had their own mini-Bioneer-like conferences; see page 32 for a report on San Luis Obispo’s Energy Summit and page 35 for a report on what Ventura County unleashed. And check out our new films. For some strange reason the “political” films happened to be screening in November and our “spiritual” films found their way into December’s schedule (see pages 23-25 for details).

Bob Banner, Publisher
www.hopedance.org
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