On Rhetoric

Rhetoric today is at the same time feared and resisted, and making a huge resurgence. The idea that people can be persuaded was something that medieval societies to the post modern leaders of today have been concerned about. It is much easier to say that anything can be deemed right or wrong, good or bad,  and people will generally  obey the laws based on this premise. To a certain extent this works, with rulers using rhetoric to convince people that their reign is noble and righteous, while keeping the valuable and useful skill of persuasion to themselves and denying its importance. You can see this in the dictatorial regimes of Asia and Africa, the Arab Spring being a fresh crack in the facade. "Yes dictatorships are not ideal, but without me our nation will lose its independence to Western economic powers. You need me to keep blank from becoming a slave to America." And it is a persuasive argument, but one that is paid for in blood. At the same time, what is happening in the world of rhetoric is that with all the information sharing and technological advances of the privileged, more and more people are understanding the idea of rhetoric as a skill and a tool. They may not call it by name any more, but people all over know that they need to try and read through the lines. Advertising bombards us constantly, and people learn to read what is important information and what is just somebody trying to sell us something. We know that certain advertisers and corporations support specific political interests and ideologies. We know that Rupert Murdock is the owner of Fox and that he is a major political asset for the right. So more and more we see through rhetorical displays that used to have a bigger influence on the public. This understanding of the power of persuasion has influenced people to express themselves through new outlets like this blog. Most recently we have seen powerful employers of rhetoric such as Moammar Gadhafi and Hosni Mubarak fall from command. Too many people were dissenting. People were being persuaded by convincing arguments that these regimes were not the only alternative to chaos and fundamentalism, and that democracy was worth dieing for. Now we hope that this new rhetoric of structural possibilities can be realized by the many.

911

     So as we approach the anniversary of 9/11, I have to make a comment. I do not think that George Bush had specific knowledge that it was going to happen. From what I understand of his administration, it would seem that his advisers and the people who were in control of what information got to him would not want to trouble him with warnings of an attack coming soon. He was already dealing with the controversy of the election that got him into office, and I get the feeling his people would avoid delivering bad news to him at all costs. Anyway there had not been any foreign terrorist attacks on American soil for a long time. And then there was the fact that neo-cons needed a new "Pearl Harbor" in order to convince the public to allow certain ideological changes in foreign and domestic policy. This official opinion is well documented, and I believe it lead to the Patriot Act as well as other laws that allowed the U.S government to get around certain Constitutional rights guaranteed to the American people. I also believe that it allowed for the already militaristic approach to foreign policy to increase tenfold. Just look at the several wars that we are currently involved in. So it is not unreasonable to think that there were people in positions of power who would not want to stop a terror plot that might enable them to gain even more concentrated power over the population. They would at least want to allow it to proceed to a point where the public would take notice. Like shooting down a plane headed towards the White House in an open field before it could make contact. It is unlikely that the general public will ever get any "proof" that American officials were intent on allowing an attack to succeed. This is a very hard thing to prove, and even if anyone came forward, like in a death bed admission, it is likely that the government and the  mainstream media would dismiss it or even cover it up. At this point it can only be speculated on and researched by people and journalists who are not under the spell of the western mainstream media.
     Bush was probably totally in the dark, and based on his facial expressions upon hearing the news of a plane hitting the World Trade Center, I got a sense of despair and a little fear. Its hard to say, I think he may have been thinking about the people he knew, and what they might have know about this. He is perceived by the public as not being that bright, but in Family of Secrets by Russ Baker we see that W is in fact cunning and slick. So from this perspective I am guessing that he was thinking," I wonder what my friends knew about this that they did not tell me." He was not thinking this in an angry way, as if he were betrayed, but rather in a quietly inquisitive manner. He is smart enough not to betray his automatic thoughts, but nobody can truly cover them up. He had a thought, and the video shows that he was not comfortable. People of power like that think about their own positions at times of emergency, and he was likely thinking about who was going to use this event and for what purpose.
     Dick Cheney recently confirmed on NBC's Nightline that he had no reaction while watching the plane crashing into the WTC as all the other people in the room gasped. He explained that as a seasoned government official, he went straight into action mode. He had no time to be shocked; he had to protect the country now. I am sure that the public easily accepted this, for the narrative on Cheney is that he is a heartless jerk, but an experienced public servant who's credentials cannot be denied. In fact Cheney reveals a lot about his true intentions through his calculated attempts to keep this narrative alive. He is happy to have people up in arms about his controversial stance on torture. This keeps his critics focused on this one aspect of him, and draws attention away from his truly imperialistic and aristocratic views. To be sure, Cheney is not that good at dealing with the public. He betrays himself, but he knows that he does, and his real intentions are to make sure that he does not say too much. My feelings on his lack of a reaction have more to do with fact that he was ready for something of this nature to happen. He may have even expected this to happen, but it would be unwise for a highly important figure such as himself to have knowledge of specifics of a terrorist attack against his own country. If he had any hand in or knowledge of the 9/11 plan, it would have had to been compartmentalized to a degree that would be almost impossible to trace back to him. It would be wise for journalists to look for any kind of behavior he might have exhibited that would suggest he was creating an alibi. Baker in his book shows how Poppy Bush seemed to be creating an alibi in regards to the JFK assassination by calling the FBI and implicating somebody that he knew. Baker shows how this idea of creating alibis around important crimes is an important skill that intelligence operatives use, even if they are not connected to the event.
     All of this is speculation, but my opinions are informed from what I consider to be important facts. I hope that some day a writer or journalist will adapt the methods of investigation that Russ Baker used in looking into the Bush family and the JFK assassination, in order to get deeper into the real motivations and perpetrators of 9/11. So far the official line is crap, and just like in the official explanation of JFK's assassination, people are making more and more noise about what really happened on 9/11.