The CIA Act of 1949 was Orwell's vision made law in the US.

http://www.911blogger.com/node/18596

The National Security State is an edifice built of lies. When its occupants cease to believe them, it cannot stand.

"The road to fascism is paved with liberal bricks." - Mort Sahl

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/head-shot/

“On the altar of God, I swear eternal hostility against all forms of tyranny over the mind of man."--Thomas Jefferson

Coward Zinn.

So this is an otherwise great Historian who selectively doesn’t care about the past? That’s some serious Orwellian double-think.

Zinn knows perfectly well that after the Civil War, there were court martials for various reasons including for failure to do one's duty. After 9/11, there wasn't one court martial even for failure to protect the country - which points to U.S. complicity or worse. Zinn can't pretend he didn't know the proper military procedure that wasn't followed after 9/11 - so he's a phony.

many unthinking "liberals" and that's a very good thing, imo.

It also demonstrates that we need to do a better job of educating and showing the relevance of 9/11 truth to the issues they care most about, war and the economy.

I think it was also the usual annoyance of someone using Q&A to make a very long point, which we've all experienced.

First we annoy you, then you let us educate you, then you join us, then we win.

The truth shall set us free. Love is the only way forward.

The simplest explanation for Zinn's backpedaling -- remember, he's old, with not much to lose -- is that he was never with us in the first place.

Like Chomsky, he's a CIA asset. But, much more than Chomsky, he works the grassroots left -- those outside the Left Branch Division of the Mockingbird Media, lacking its Good Gatekeeping Seal of Approval.

I expect it works something like this:

People who regularly write for or speak on behalf of Mockingbird's Left Division are usually kept on a fairly short leash, routinely briefed about what lines they may -- and often must -- transmit to the consumers of the Official Left Media. Chomsky is front and center of this group, and one of his central assignments at least since the JFK assassination has been to dissuade leftists from conspiracy theories that, held widely and deeply, would actually negatively impact the CIA and the power elites. (To enhance their credibility, Chomsky and his colleagues occasionally reveal a conspiracy when doing so would have no substantive political impact.)

But the CIA knows that there will always be those on the fringes of the left and right who push the boundaries beyond the dictates of the controlled media. So, as ongoing contingency resources, they have in place their Howard Zinns, Michael Parentis, and the like on hand.

Their job is to communicate in a more freewheeling manner, making friends and alliances wherever they may find them. They may even take positions seriously opposed to what the CIA etc. wants people to think -- all the better to discredit, demoralize, and otherwise undermine the real, independent threat to CIA power when push comes to shove.

It's like that expression (popularized in _The X-Files_, but long predating the show): "Hold your friends close, and your enemies closer."

I suspect Zinn had the nod -- perhaps was even encouraged -- to gently endorse the 9/11 truth movement early on, before it had many adherents. That way, it was hoped, his withdrawal of support at some strategically timed later point would help to seriously weaken the movement.

Indeed, Zinn's comments now may indicate that Zinn's secret bosses are getting very nervous, such that they're willing to sacrifice one of their last resources held in reserve.

Note too how, with the rapid rise of online-based grassroots networking in the last decade, how little difference it makes anymore that a Big Book writer like Zinn should stab his intended audience in the back.

Yep, these guys are bought and paid for. Not that its necessarily done willingly -- as pointed out elsewhere, the PTB have no compunctions about threatening wives, children, grand-children.

We should expect that some of our favorite heros will one day be threatened just this way. In this high-stakes game we're playing, you can''t trust anyone absolutely. You never know when they will be made an offer they couldn't refuse. David Ray Griffin, Richard Gage, Alex Jones -- these men are very brave. I hope the day never comes when we see them "retract" their support for 911 truth. If that happens, we will know somebody got to them.

So, Michael Parenti is a CIA asset? Who would have thought that, considering his long track record of attacking left gatekeepers, speaking against what he calls "conspiracyphobia on the left" and talking extensively about concrete conspiracies like the JFK assassination? Not to mention his many public acknowledgments of 9/11 truth and private admissions that "it could well have been an inside job."

If you ask me, the Agency should fire this guy, because he's really doing a poor job at "gatekeeping." Why is the taxpayers' money being wasted on someone who's clearly not up to his job? But you know what they say, the CIA moves in mysterious ways.

When I look at the long list of people who have been silenced with death threats, and then were killed anyway--or died anyway, as we all will--it seems that our current state of dismal affairs has come about only because each individual person valued their own individual life more than they do truth, justice, and the good of the entire planet.

I am here to say that my own individual life is NOT more important than all those things. They may eventually killl me for the stands I take, and it will have been worth it.

But hear it now: I will never, never commit suicide. No matter how persuasive any "suicide note" may be.

What would you do if your children and/or grandchildren were threatened?

I have two daughters and this is something I consider more often than I care to admit.

Yes, we're angry at Dr. Zinn for his duplicity and hypocrisy, but have some empathy for the position he may be in.

Life is not always as simple as it appears.

We have much to do, brothers and sisters, let's move on to more important work.

The truth shall set us free.

Love is the only way forward, and that includes loving ones adversaries.

(you don't have to like them, though)

I'm speaking as someone who's single with no kids. It is indeed MUCH MUCH easier to be a political activist when you have this on your side, especially when the subject of the activism is 911 truth. Since I don't have kids I can only imagine what it must feel like to be in that position if indeed a threat did take place.

And then speak the truth. The fate of humanity hangs in the balance.

I would make my initial speech to the largest possible audience and specifically say what and who were threatened. Then when I die, or they die, the gig is up.