Wednesday 26 April 2006

Randi Rhodes -> WTC Inside Explosives Attack

The Randi Rhodes Show -> Charges PRE-SET after 1993 WTC Attack: "not a question of who's fault things are. They are globalist operations that occur on different leaders' watches.

Yes - black ops against the citizenry have ocurred on Bill Clinton's watch. OKC was a government op (if that sounds odd, do some research on the additional bombs diffused by the OKC police after the alleged truck bomb went off. It's all documented, and has been scrubbed from the public record. But the local TV video still exists.)

Anyone who thinks the globalists have a favorite 'team' when it comes to ideology is kidding themselves. Okay... maybe they like the GOP a little more. They won the Super Bowl with that team. But they successfully play ball with both sides, always have.

But I firmly believe the story about Clinton being offered Osama in the Sudan in 1995 is probably true (as much as it grinds my ass to agree with Sean Hannity). But he had little choice in the matter - Osama was (and still is) an FBI asset, and neede to be in place for the upcoming operations.


p.s. In regards to this being "scrubbed" from Heard on the Show", I believe Randi needs to ease into these topics gradually. Too often it looks like ammunition for GOP target practice.

This post has been edited by Rumpl4skn: Jan 24 2006, 05:34 PM
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By the way I agree about the Black Ops comment too.....and they could have planted the explosives right after GW Bush took oath in 2000. The PNAC Project for a New American Century (PNAC) Website LINK....Just look at their Mission Statement....and look at their list of founding members....Anyone's names look familiar? Cheny, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, JEB BUSH, Steve Forbes etc. Members List for PNAC
Bush administration
After the 2000 election of George W. Bush, many of the PNAC's members were appointed to key positions within the new President's administration:

Name Department Title Remarks
Elliott Abrams National Security Council Representative for Middle Eastern Affairs President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center
Richard Armitage Department of State (2001-2005) Deputy Secretary of State
John R. Bolton Department of State U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Previously served as Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs in the first administration of GWB.
Richard Cheney Bush Administration Vice President PNAC founder
Seth Cropsey Voice of America Director of the International Broadcasting Bureau
Paula Dobriansky Department of State Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs
Francis Fukuyama President's Council on Bioethics Council Member Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University
Bruce Jackson U.S. Committee on NATO President
Zalmay Khalilzad U.S. Embassy Baghdad, Iraq U.S.Ambassador to Iraq Previously served as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from November 2003 to June 2005
Lewis Libby Bush Administration Chief of Staff for the Vice President Indicted by Grand Jury on charges of Obstruction of Justice, False Statements and Perjury and resigned October 28, 2005.
Peter W. Rodman Department of Defense Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security
Donald Rumsfeld Department of Defense Secretary of Defense PNAC founder and previously Chairman of the Board of Gilead Sciences Developer of Tamiflu
Randy Scheunemann U.S. Committee on NATO, Project on Transitional Democracies, International Republican Institute Member Founded the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.
Paul Wolfowitz World Bank President Deputy Secretary of Defense, 2001-2005
Dov S. Zakheim Department of Defense Comptroller
Robert B. Zoellick Department of State Deputy Secretary of State Office of the United States Trade Representative (2001-2005);


Gary Bauer, former presidential candidate, president of American Values
William J. Bennett, former Secretary of Education and Drug Czar, co-founder of Empower America, author of the Book of Virtues
Ellen Bork, deputy director of PNAC, and wife of failed Reagan Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork
Rudy Boschwitz, former US Senator from Minnesota
Jeb Bush, governor of Florida
Eliot A. Cohen, professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University
Thomas Donnelly, director of communications, Lockheed Martin
Steve Forbes, multi-billionaire publisher of Forbes Magazine, former presidential candidate
Aaron Friedberg, director of the Center of International Studies
Frank Gaffney, columnist, founder of Center for Security Policy
Reuel Marc Gerecht, director of the Middle East Initiative
Fred Ikle, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Donald Kagan, Yale University professor, conservative columnist with various State Department ties
Jeane Kirkpatrick, former U.S. ambassador
Charles Krauthammer
William Kristol, a PNAC founder and chairman, editor of the Weekly Standard
Christopher Maletz
Daniel McKivergan
Richard Perle, a PNAC founder, formerly of the Defense Policy Board
Norman Podhoretz, Hudson Institute
Dan Quayle, former vice-president
Stephen Rosen, Beton Michael Kaneb Professor of National Security and Military Affairs, Harvard University
Henry Rowen, former president of Rand Corporation
Gary Schmitt
George Weigel, political commentator
R. James Woolsey, former director of the CIA for Bill Clinton, vice-president at Booz Allen & Hamilton


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http://www.airamericaplace.com/upload/aarr012306.mp32006...the Real 9/11 Story comes out.[or not]
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Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You didn't place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."-Jamie Raskin, testifying Wednesday, March 1, 2006
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http://www.newamericancentury.org/

http://www.reopen911.org/
Well, it's certainly more accurate and factual than the official fable about 19 little Arab elves with box cutters.

I'm willing to admit the explosives were probably set 9-3 months in advance.

There, hows that?

This post has been edited by ERobertG: Feb 1 2006, 05:48 PM
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The official story of 9/11 is the real conspiracy theory.

9/11 was an inside job. Want proof?

Look, read, watch, and learn: Scholars for 9/11 truth
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Just keep in mind - a purely ideologically-driven website is not the premium place to make progress on the 9/11 story. Sure, it would be great to have exposure everywhere, and every mention is going to accelerate the cause. But as I've said many times, the Perps play ball with both sides, and they are very adept at throwing bones to the left and right equally.

Case in point - the Bill Clinton / Sudan issue, where it was reported that he was "handed Osama on a silver platter" by the Sudanese government. At the time, I figured it was most likely partisan-driven bullshit to discredit a President the Right hated with such intensity they'd say anything. But at the time I was less aware of the depth and scope of the globalists' entanglements with just about every occupant of the Oval Office since Truman. Now I tend to believe the scenario may have ocurred, and it would make sense that Clinton's FBI would have nixed any such action, because they knew that preserving Osama as the boogieman would be crucial to ops in the pipeline. The "international terror" scam was already in place as the globalists' justification for geo-political goals. Naturally, when the story came out, the easiest guy to blame is an out of office President. (Plus, it leaves the intel community out of the loop, thereby watering down any hints of the Perps existance.) So, the Right had an awful-sounding talking point for the nit-wits like Hannity to spew over and over against Bill Clinton. But when the 9/11 Commission Report came out, they took care of that little detail - suddenly the event never happened, Clinton was cleared, and the Left had their reason to begin quoting the 9/11 Report verbatim.

The Perps thrive on the 2-party system here in the States, and they enthusiastically encourage the little ideological sideshow it provides as cover for what's really going on in the upper echelons of power.

So....... don't count on these liberal websites to give you total satisfaction on the uncovering of 9/11. They certainly can help, and they have. But as the scope of the deception becomes more obvious, and the guilt begins to emerge on both sides of the aisle, the pure ideologues will lose their will to support the concept. And there is a certain amount of a "tainted agenda" implication here - it's already likely that the majority of 9/11 skeptics are from the Left, so we have to be strident in our efforts to make both sides see this issue for what it is - a stand-up to the uber powerful and the evil. As the 9/11 Truth Movement continues to gain momentum as it has, the Right will accelerate the slander campaign - any Liberal who supports this will be painted as simply "trying to reverse lost elections." Hopefully, after 2006, that argument will be taken off the table, when the Dems regain some power in Congress. (We can only hope.)

All I can say is keep pushing, keep talking about it, and hope for the best. But this is not a political witch hunt that is going to round up Republicans and leave Democrats unscathed, and that will be the sticking point.
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The truth is out there. And the official story is WAY out there.
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I tend to agree with you that both sides are actually one side both serving the same master. Frankly I am not concerned who is implicated in the 9/11 conspiracy. Anyone spreading the official lie for whatever reason is going to hear about it from me. I love Randi but it will be a short lived love if she continues to repeate the official fable. And cramming this topic next to conspiracy theories is insulting and obviously done by design to make us appear to be kooks. 9/11 is the GIANT ELEPHANT in the middle of the room and refusing to talk about it while quietly repeating the official bullshit is NOT going to cut it.
You think that's bad...
http://www.airamericaplace.com/boards/index.php?act=SF&f=28
Air America Place make you put all 9/11 Truth in the Tinfoil Section. rolleyes.gif
This post has been edited by ERobertG: Feb 2 2006, 10:28 AM
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I will post on a board that treats this subject with respect. Libertas go ahead and ban me now I have no respect at all for this message board anymore. It is censorship sticking 9/11 in the conspiracy theory section or the TinFoil section and you are cowardly to do so. Maybe when you and Randi and AAR grow a set of balls and start exposing the truth about 9/11 I and people like me will start respecting you again. Until then you are just another dupe of the Bush crime family helping them keep the lie going. Goodbye for now to my friends (you know who you are).--------------------
...In my opinion the media system that participated in the cover up and enabled the true criminals to escape justice for these past few years should be completely dismantled. Every media empire owner, editor, news producer, talk show host, writer, and reporter that participated should not only be fired on the spot but be investigated as an accomplice to the crime. Without their constant barage of propaganda the truth would have come out long ago. The media is just as guilty as the scum that attacked us on 9/11.
The official story of 9/11 is the real conspiracy theory.

9/11 was an inside job. Want proof?

Look, read, watch, and learn: Scholars for 9/11 truth


All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
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DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT look at the 9/11 Truth Movement as some sort of partisan witch-hunt to bring down Republicans. It will last 5 minutes with that approach.

Consider this - one of the Truth Movement's best allies in government is Republican Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, and he doesn't even know the truth. Curt is working on the uncovering of the Able Danger scam, in which 2.5 terabytes of data on Mohammed Atta's Brooklyn "al-Qaeda cell" was ordered destroyed by higher ups at the FBI. Field operative in quesion is Lt. Anthony Shaffer, who has - since turning whistelblower on this embarassment - been fired from his position, had his security clearance removed, and has been character assassinated as well (when nothing else would stick, the FBI had the balls to accuse him of "stealing pencils." I wish that was a funny as it sounds, and I wish I was making it up, but I'm not.)

Now, bear in mind that Curt is working on the premise that 19 hijackers flew those planes into their targets on 9/11, and that the FBI had data that revealed facts surrounding the hijackers themselves almost a year before it happened. What he really has there is evidence of the FBI creating and sustaining it's patsies - the Lee Harvey Oswalds of 9/11. They certainly knew all about Atta and the others, because key higher-ups there were in on the gameplan. Atta and his non-existant accomplices were to remain under the radar until Sept. 12th, when suddenly they were able to "track them down." It's all horseshit, of course. And there are opther key FBI whistleblowers being gagged even yet (Sibel Edmonds, Indirah Singh, etc.). It's an across the board shut-down of contrary information, and they are working hard 24/7 - using our tax dollars, I might add - to do it.

But even though Weldon is aiming at the wrong target, at least he's firing off some shots that are garnering notice in Congress. Certainly, there are many mebers of Congress who are part and party to 9/11. I can name a few: Lee Hamilton, Gary Bauer, Jack Murtha (gasp! Yes, Murtha. More on that later.) And there is and has been stiff opposition to Weldon's claims, but so far he hasn't givern up.

And these people have ENDLESS resources and funds to work with. Max Cleland was an original member of the 9/11 Commission. A few months into the "investigation" (if you can stand to call it that) Max stated "Bush is scamming America... it's disgusting. America is being cheated." A few months after he resigned in disgust, guess what good fortune befell Max Cleland? He was offered a cushy position at the world bank. He was bought off, plain and simple. And that happens everywhere, since it's infinitely easier to pay someone in the public eye to keep quiet about what they've seen than it is to arrange their suicide. If you're not well-known enough, you're about to have a "one car accident on a deserted road, with lots of alcohol in your bloodstream", even if you've never had a drink or don't know how to drive.

But pay close attention to these 3 people in particular - Curt Weldon, Cynthia McKinney, Mark Dayton.
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I have to agree 100% with you. The only reason they are not talking about the truth of 9/11 is because they have choosen to participate in the lie. Anyone who does not know the official story is bullshit by now has refused to look at the facts. That to me is a coward or an intentional liar. May the gatekeepers choak on their own lies.
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I'm assuming some of you are aware of the bombshell that Mike Malloy dropped on Friday night's show. 9/11 coverup, all night, all angles, all calls.

http://www.911blogger.com/files/audio/MikeMalloy20060203.mp3

I'm afraid that our Randi is now faced with a choice - she can also come out of the closet on this, or she and Mike are going to have some interesting discussions at the station planning meetings.

Mike is fearless - he is aware of the reality now, and he can't keep quiet about it, even if it costs him his job. He knows he can't blurt out certain things, but he's not going to sit behind his microphone anymore and pretend this didn't happen.
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Mike Malloy did a nice plug last night for Dylan Avery's 9/11 documentary "Loose Change."

He watched Version 2 the other night, and spent several minutes early in the show, giving it a glowing thumbs-up review.

Here's the show thanks to the White Rose Society. [free views @google.com , FYI]

http://server4.whiterosesociety.org/conten...06-02-2006).mp3

Mike is the only truly relevant person on Air America Radio.
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"The anti-war movement, first and foremost, needs to develop a laser-like focus on being nothing more or less than anti-war...It needs to start thinking like a warrior would, in full recognition that we as a nation are engaged in a life-or-death struggle of competing ideologies with those who promote war as an American value and virtue." - Scott Ritter
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crack in Hoover Dam, with all the pent up water and energy of Lake Mead behind it. rofl.gif
As a side note, Andy Card resigned today, wasn't he the first to tell El Presidente about the 9/11 attacks?Hmm...
BTW...I caught the end of Ed Asner was on today on Greg Szymanski's show of RBN Network.
It appears that old warrior of liberal causes won't disappoint..
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A vocal leftist, Asner served two terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild, where he controversially opposed US policy in Central America. He has also been active in a variety of other causes, such as the movement to free Mumia Abu-Jamal, and is a prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America. His political position may also have motivated him to play the voice of the pig-like villain Hoggish Greedly on the pro-environmental animated series Captain Planet and the Planeteers [1] and the voice for the sinister Ed Wuncler in The Boondocks (television series).

He has signed the 911 Truth Statement [2] calling for new investigations of disturbing questions about the 9/11 events, including the failure of US intelligence to act on warnings of upcoming attacks, the breakdown of military air defense, and the nature of the investigations. Asner has also reviewed 9/11 literature and videos, including a recent review for the film 9/11 Guilt: The Proof is in Your Hands.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Asner
====================
Ed Asner said CNN cancelled out...

I wonder what happened?

He did the first hour on Greg Szymanski's show on RBN.

Tue., March 28, 2006:

Greg was joined in the first hour with respected actor and human rights activist, Ed Asner, and Bob Dumas, who is trying to get to the truth about the POW scandal and why our government has lied about GI's being "Missing and Presumed Dead" when many are still alive. Listen to Asner as he also spoke about seeking the truth behind 9/11 and the Iraqi War, as well as supporting recent statements made by Charlie Sheen that the government is lying about 9/11.

http://mp3.rbnlive.com/Greg06.html

This post has been edited by erobertg on Mar 29 2006, 01:27 AM
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As we know, There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns.
That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know. Treachery Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
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user posted image
http://www.airamericaplace.com/boards/index.php?s=b18a7758bfacea75c65d5fcab269d4ed&showtopic=15838
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Disclaimer - I am not an explosives expert. This page is pure speculation just for you to think about. It's purpose is not to prove this device is responsible for the exit hole, but is simply to demonstrate there is a mechanism that can cause damage similar to what we see in regards to the exit hole. This test also happens to be on a brick wall. This device is called a Rapid Wall Breaching Kit.

http://www.pentagonresearch.com/091.html

The Rapid Wall Breaching Kit...

http://www.ebaerospaceanddefense.com/defen...d_breaching.php
Rapid Wall Breaching Kit. You can read about it here .


This is the phenomenon we are trying to account for. Let's start with a few observations. The hole is exactly dead center between the columns. The pipes are evenly arced out. They don't have any indication of having an angular bend in accordance with a solid object. There is no sustained fire in or around the hole even though some of the debris appears flammable. The debris is not even scorched or burnt on this side of the wall. Bricks are sprayed to the left in this photo which is the opposite direction of the alleged aircraft nose. There is no aircraft nose or any aircraft parts of size. Since this photo is taken by an official I would assume if they were there, we would have seen photos of them.
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WI Bans RFID Implants || Freud Prophetic: Fundies =Satans Tools

Wisconsin Could Ban Mandatory Microchip Implants: "Re:Doesn't need to be mandatory
(Score:5, Insightful)
by Oldsmobile (930596) Alter Relationship on Tuesday April 25, @01:49PM (#15198965)
(Last Journal: Wednesday February 15, @04:53AM)
Jose Padilla was arrested in Chicago, though as of late has finally been indicted.

Nevertheless, habeus corpus was suspended for four years. Perhaps this means anyone can be arrested without charge for atleast four years?
--
'Then we should go through the minefield, they'll never expect that.' -Rambo"
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Re:Doesn't need to be mandatory

(Score:5, Insightful)
by Steffan (126616) Alter Relationship on Tuesday April 25, @12:54PM (#15198480)
"RFID chip implants don't have to be mandatory. All you have to do is make it a rule that you can't fly, or cross the border, or get a drivers license without one."

"Are you implying that Americans will just sit back and let that happen in the first place? I don't know a single person that would stand for the government pulling that one over on us."
Substitute:
  • The government will set up 'Free Speech Zones' where protesters must stand, set apart from regular crowds
  • People will be held without a trial for indefinite periods of time, without access to counsel and without even public mention made of the fact that they have been imprisoned
  • The government will perform wiretaps and searches without specific cause, and without receiving a court order, or with the permission of 'secret courts', the membership and findings of which must remain sealed
I'm sure all of us would have said...
Are you implying that Americans will just sit back and let that happen in the first place? I don't know a single person that would stand for the government pulling that one over on us.
...five years ago...
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"RFID chip implants don't have to be mandatory. All you have to do is make it a rule that you can't fly, or cross the border, or get a drivers license without one."

"Are you implying that Americans will just sit back and let that happen in the first place? I don't know a single person that would stand for the government pulling that one over on us."
Substitute:
  • The government will set up 'Free Speech Zones' where protesters must stand, set apart from regular crowds
  • People will be held without a trial for indefinite periods of time, without access to counsel and without even public mention made of the fact that they have been imprisoned
  • The government will perform wiretaps and searches without specific cause, and without receiving a court order, or with the permission of 'secret courts', the membership and findings of which must remain sealed
I'm sure all of us would have said...
Are you implying that Americans will just sit back and let that happen in the first place? I don't know a single person that would stand for the government pulling that one over on us.
...five years ago...
=================

And both the wars in which they could have been captured (Afghansitan and Iraq) have been declared as over for years - PoWs are supposed to be released as soon as practical after a war is over. As you said, they're there to keep them from jumping back into the fighting, not to punish them for having been fighting.
They seem to fit the definition of a PoW to me, and the fact that the organisations for which they were fighting are not signatories to the Geneva conventions is not a reason to not treat them in accordance with them - The US (the people holding them) ARE signatories and so are bound to treat them in accordance with the conventions (they specifically say this). If they are being held and they aren't PoW then they MUST be held as common criminals and charged swiftly and tried UNDER THE LAWS OF THE PLACE WHERE THEIR ALLEGED CRIMES TOOK PLACE - there is no other (legal) classification of prisoner.
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It is good news, but this isn't this titled incorrectly. Shouldn't it be something like "Wisconsin is the first state to pass a law making it illegal for companies to make microchip implants mandatory". The way it's written it sounds like someone has already made chip implants mandatory and Wisconsin is fighting it... They aren't, they are just being a bit proactive (for once).
--
- -=# http://users.mtrx.net/funnypics [mtrx.net] #=-
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///eof:

by Valdrax (32670) Alter Relationship on Tuesday April 25, @01:48PM (#15198953)
RFID chip implants don't have to be mandatory. All you have to do is make it a rule that you can't fly, or cross the border, or get a drivers license without one.

Are you implying that Americans will just sit back and let that happen in the first place? I don't know a single person that would stand for the government pulling that one over on us.

Try flying, driving, or crossing the border without ID. Try opening a bank account without presenting your government ID number (aka SSN). Try getting insurance, a credit card, a home loan, a car loan, a place to rent, and utilities for that place without presenting a SSN.

Do you realize that we have a backdoor national ID card system right now? Legislation was passed to require an interlinking of driver's license record systems. Driver's licenses have to have biometric data encoded on them. A Supreme Court decision in the past few years means that you can't refuse to present them to law enforcement. Originally, this was portrayed as being intended to keep drunk drivers (especially commercial truck drivers) from just moving to another state to get a new license, but today it's being used by remote jurisdictions to enforce parking and speeding tickets with no means of appeal if the system has you wrong.

We set up an unaccountable national database of people who are not allowed to fly that is based purely on names and aliases instead of more reliable data. Senators have been kept from flying because of the list.

Police today can enter your home, plant listening devices, keystroke monitors, etc. and leave without letting you know and forbidding landlords from telling you about it. They can tap your phones if it's suspected that someone they might be interested in might use the phone (under their discretion). They can snatch records of what you read from the library, who you email and what sites you visit from your ISP, what potentially embarassing medical conditions you might have from your doctor, and any and all business transactions you make from your bank and credit card companies, and none of them can tell you under threat of criminal prosecution.

Our government imprisoned people without trial and without access to laywers in violation of the 6th Amendment. Our government spies on citizens without a warrant in violation of the 4th Amendment. It tortures prisoners in violation of the Geneva Convention as well as the 5th, 6th, and 8th Amendments, and there is a significant portion of the populace that approves of these actions since it makes them feel safer. It even prevents protesters from gathering outside of "Free Speech Zones" in front of the President in violation of the 1st Amendment, and people still aren't outraged.

Let me tell you what Americans will do. NOT A DAMNED THING. All this government has to do is explain how it will protect us against terrorists, child molesters, Iranians, or whoever the hell we're supposed to be most scared of today, and so-called citizens will line up to be sheared like the good little sheep they are.

If you think there is such a thing as public outrage at the loss of our rights, then you haven't been paying attention to in this post-9/11 world. Do you know what gets people angry? High gas prices, incompetent handling of a disaster, and the stink of failure in war. Civil rights doesn't even register as an issue thanks to the learned helplessness of the American people. Just shelter us from harm, and you can do anything with that guy's rights.

--
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the editors didn't read.
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Let me share with you friends, the deep, dark, scary secret that Starbucks is keeping. A secret so shocking that when it is released on the world, it will literally change things forever! I've only recently figured this out myself, so pay attention as I walk you through the sordid details.

Like many super-intelligent-people-in-the-computer-industry- that-write-for-a-magazine, I get a cup of Starbucks every morning. However, this morning was to be different than all the rest. You see, a brand new Starbucks opened up near my office. (Well, nearer-er than the old one.) This new Starbucks boasted an incredible new feature: A drive through window! I could drive up to the Starbuck as if it were a McDonald's, and order a cup of coffee from the comfort of my own car.

But then I got to thinking. What does Starbucks need with drive through windows? I mean, they're in the coffee business, not the fast food industry. People come into Starbucks to enjoy the environment, not grab their cup and run! Then it hit me! Starbucks needs drive-up windows because they are planning to bring that same environment to your vehicle! That's right, Starbucks wants to give you that same coffee-saturated, easy listening, comfortable seating feeling you get in their stores, but in your car. But how will they do it? Will they allow you to place your Venti cup in a cup holder and allow the smell to drift across your Caddilac? No!

There can be only one explanation: Starbucks is going to make cars. Nothing else makes sense! So two years from now when you're driving your Starbucks-mobile, remember this. You heard it here first. --John C. Dvorak

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Freud and the Fundamentalist Urge 30Apr'6


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/magazine/30wwln_lede.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2
At the center of Freud's work lies a fundamental perception: human beings are not generally unified creatures. Our psyches are not whole, but divided into parts, and those parts are usually in conflict with one another. The id, or the "it," is an agent of pure desire: it wants and wants and does not readily take no for an answer. The superego, or over-I, is the internal agent of authority. It often looks harshly upon the id and its manifold wants. The superego, in fact, frequently punishes the self simply for wishing for forbidden things, even if the self does not act on those wishes at all. Then there is the ego, trying to broker between the it and the over-I, and doing so with the greatest of difficulty, in part because both agencies tend to operate outside the circle of the ego's awareness. The over-I and the it often function unconsciously. Add to this problem the fact that "the poor ego," as Freud often calls it, must navigate a frequently hostile outside world, and it is easy to see how, for Freud, life is best defined as ongoing conflict. In a passage in "The Ego and the Id," Freud observes that the ego is a "poor creature owing service to three masters and consequently menaced by three dangers: from the external world, from the libido of the id and from the severity of the superego. Three kinds of anxiety correspond to these three dangers, since anxiety is the expression of a retreat from danger."

About this conflict — about this painful anxiety — what is to be done? Humanity, Freud says, has come up with many different solutions to the problem of internal conflict and the pain it inevitably brings. Most of these solutions, Freud thinks, are best described as forms of intoxication. What the intoxicants in question generally do is to revise the superego to make it more bearable. We like to have one glass of wine, then two, Freud suggests, because for some reason — he's not quite sure what it is in scientific terms — alcohol relaxes the demands of the over-I. Falling in love, Freud (and a thousand or so years of Western poetry) attests, has a similar effect. Love — romantic love, the full-out passionate variety — allows the ego to be dominated by the wishes and judgment of the beloved, not by the wishes of the demanding over-I. The beloved supplants the over-I, at least for a while, and, if all is going well, sheds glorious approval on the beloved and so creates a feeling of almost magical well-being. Take a drink (or two), take a lover, and suddenly the internal conflict in the psyche calms down. A divided being becomes a whole, united and (temporarily) happier one.

Freud had no compunction in calling the relationship that crowds forge with an absolute leader an erotic one. (In this he was seconded by Hitler, who suggested that in his speeches he made love to the German masses.) What happens when members of the crowd are "hypnotized" (that is the word Freud uses) by a tyrant? The tyrant takes the place of the over-I, and for a variety of reasons, he stays there. What he offers to individuals is a new, psychological dispensation. Where the individual superego is inconsistent and often inaccessible because it is unconscious, the collective superego, the leader, is clear and absolute in his values. By promulgating one code — one fundamental way of being — he wipes away the differences between different people, with different codes and different values, which are a source of anxiety to the psyche. Now we all love the fatherland, believe in the folk, blame the Jews, have a grand imperial destiny. The tyrant is also, in his way, permissive. Where the original superego has prohibited violence and theft and destruction, the new superego, the leader, allows for it, albeit under prescribed circumstances. Freud's major insistence as a theorist of group behavior is on the centrality of the leader and the dynamics of his relation to the group. In this he sees himself as pressing beyond the thinking of predecessors like the French writer Gustave Le Bon, who, to Freud's way of thinking, overemphasized the determining power of the group mind. To Freud, crowds on their own can be dangerous, but they only constitute a long-term brutal threat when a certain sort of figure takes over the superego slot in ways that are both prohibitive and permissive.


As the Nazis arrived in Vienna, many gentile Viennese, who had apparently been tolerant and cosmopolitan people, turned on their Jewish neighbors. They broke into Jewish apartments and stole what they wanted to. They trashed Jewish shops. They made Jews scrub liberal political slogans off the sidewalk, first with brushes and later with their hands. And they did all of this with a sense of righteous conviction — they were operating in accord with the new cultural superego, epitomized by the former corporal and dispatch runner, Adolf Hitler.

On the day after Hitler arrived in Vienna, a gang of Nazis stormed into Freud's apartment, at 19 Berggasse. They ransacked the place and made off with a fairly large sum of money. ("I never got so much for a single session," Freud, never at a loss, observed.) They only left, it is said, when the old man, trembling and frail, appeared from out of his consulting room and fixed them in his long-practiced stare. The Nazis, the story continues, scrambled for the door.

In his last days, Freud became increasingly concerned about our longing for inner peace — our longing, in particular, to replace our old, inconsistent and often inscrutable over-I with something clearer, simpler and ultimately more permissive. We want a strong man with a simple doctrine that accounts for our sufferings, identifies our enemies, focuses our energies and gives us, more enduringly than wine or even love, a sense of being whole. This man, as Freud says in his great book on politics, "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego," must appear completely masterful. He must seem to have perfect confidence, to need no one and to be entirely sufficient unto himself. Sometimes this man will evoke a god as his source of authority, sometimes not. But in whatever form he comes — whether he is called Hitler, Stalin, Mao — he will promise to deliver people from their confusion and to dispense unity and purpose where before there were only fracture and incessant anxiety. But, of course, the price is likely to be high, because the simplifications the great man offers will almost inevitably involve hatred and violence.

Freud's implicit morality is counterintuitive. Though Freud acknowledged the uses of mild intoxicants like love and art, he was nonetheless extremely suspicious of any doctrine or activity that promised to unify the psyche — or to unify the nation, the people — without remainder and to do so forever. Freud believed that the inner tensions that we experience are by and large necessary tensions, not because they are so enjoyable in themselves — they are not — but because the alternatives to them are so much worse. For Freud, a healthy psyche is not always a psyche that feels good. For Herbert Marcuse, author of a brilliant meditation on Freud, "Eros and Civilization," Freud's politics are potentially the politics of ecstasy. We can collectively undo our repressions and regress toward collective erotic bliss. For Philip Rieff, author of the equally perceptive and original "Freud: The Mind of the Moralist," Freud appears to be a deep political pessimist who thinks that the healthiest individuals will probably be those who turn completely away from politics. But another way to look at Freud is to see him as someone who suggests that a considerable measure of freedom and even relative happiness can come from following a self-aware middle way. If we are willing to live with some inner tension, political as well as personal, we need never be overwhelmed by tyranny or fall into the anarchy that giving into the unconscious completely can bring.
For Freud, we might infer, a healthy body politic is one that allows for a good deal of continuing tension. A healthy polis is one that it doesn't always feel good to be a part of. There's too much argument, controversy, difference. But in that difference, annoying and difficult as it may be, lies the community's well-being. When a relatively free nation is threatened by terrorists with totalitarian goals, as ours is now, there is, of course, an urge to come together and to fight back by any means necessary. But the danger is that in fighting back we will become just as fierce, monolithic and, in the worst sense, as unified as our foes. We will seek our own great man; we will be blind to his foibles; we will stop questioning, stop arguing. When that happens, a war of fundamentalisms has begun, and of that war there can be no victor.
NYT author = Mark Edmundson teaches English at the University of Virginia. He is currently completing a book about the last two years of Freud's life.
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http://dialoginternational.typepad.com/dialog_international/2006/05/when_adolf_met_.html

Freud recognized that that totalitarianism and the rise of the strong leader was an outcome of modern mass society as an artificial resolution of the necessary conflict between the primal urges of libido of the id and from the severity of the superego:

Where the individual superego is inconsistent and often inaccessible because it is unconscious, the collective superego, the leader, is clear and absolute in his values. By promulgating one code — one fundamental way of being — he wipes away the differences between different people, with different codes and different values, which are a source of anxiety to the psyche. Now we all love the fatherland, believe in the folk, blame the Jews, have a grand imperial destiny. The tyrant is also, in his way, permissive. Where the original superego has prohibited violence and theft and destruction, the new superego, the leader, allows for it, albeit under prescribed circumstances. Freud's major insistence as a theorist of group behavior is on the centrality of the leader and the dynamics of his relation to the group. In this he sees himself as pressing beyond the thinking of predecessors like the French writer Gustave Le Bon, who, to Freud's way of thinking, overemphasized the determining power of the group mind. To Freud, crowds on their own can be dangerous, but they only constitute a long-term brutal threat when a certain sort of figure takes over the superego slot in ways that are both prohibitive and permissive.

The piece is a good tribute to Freud and reminder of the dangers of fundamentailism in all of its guises. Good time as well to revist Freud's concept of Thanatos - the death drive which opposes the life force of Eros - as certain leaders reconsider the Nuclear Option.