Conspiracies of 9/11: Left To The Right
June 6, 2007I sat down to write about 9/11 conspiracies and came up with this rambling essay about 9/11; what happens when sentiments on the Right and Left converge; the Three Way Fight; and why Leftists, revolutionaries, anarchists, whatever, can’t afford to ally with the Right. What’s immediately obvious to me is that I write about political things in a very different way then I do about my personal life, or art, or history. Maybe someday I’ll learn to integrate those things together in my writing…
This dude Alex Jones has a documentary about U.S. government complicity in the 9/11 attacks called TerrorStorm. It’ll probably give you an idea of what I think about 9/11 conspiracy theories when I say “TerrorStorm” sounds to me like a freakin’ ride at 6 Flags, not an any coherent political theory. For a long time, that’s been my general attitude about the 9/11 conspiracy stuff (or the “9/11 Truth Movement,” if you’re feeling generous): that it’s worth a laugh and disdain from a distance, but little else.
Well, my consideration of the matter has gotten a little deeper as of late, thanks to an interesting back and forth with a friend of mine over e-mail about this 9/11 Truth business. He’s a smart guy and an anarchist buddy, and we go way, way back, and I’ve got to say, I was a little surprised he was so into it. Essentially, he believes 9/11 Truth is a strategic opportunity for radicals that can’t be passed up. I heard him out on the issue a little and now its got me thinking.
Quickly I realized my dismissive attitude towards the 9/11 Truth Movement had nothing to do with 9/11 whatsoever. I have no clue what happened on 9/11 - maybe a few uninformed doubts here or there - and I’m left wandering why it really matters that I know. My friend argues that were 9/11 truth revealed (assuming government complicity), it 1) would sow disillusionment with the State, and 2) prevent the government from committing similar acts.
I’m all for sowing disillusionment with the State, but I’m still not sold on the importance of organizing around 9/11 truth. One reason is that the 9/11 theories are still just that - theories, meaning they’re not concrete enough to organize people together in the same ways that the facts of daily oppression (shitty work places, sexual assault and violence, prisons, etc.) are wholly concrete and simply proved through the experiences of every life. To paraphrase Ward Churchill, there’s no need to speak truth to power because power knows what its doing. Better to organize with oppressed people - build power - than over-emphasize the shady machinations of the powerful.
Another, more important reason, is that I don’t see those most effected by the Statist aftershocks of 9/11 (immigrants and people of color in particular) taking part in the “9/11 Truth Movement.” I’m not sure it really matters, in the long run, to folks on the ground whether Bush/the government/whoever was complicit in 9/11. Just as Malcolm X wasn’t leading the call to unearth the truth of the JFK assassination after it happened.
In fact, 9/11 conspiracy circles are crawling with right-wing nut cases. Case in point is Alex Jones, the guy behind the aforementioned TerrorStorm. I haven’t done the necessary research - and frankly, I don’t want to - but the way my friend describes him, Jones is both racist (a self-proclaimed American “patriot”) and sexist (anti-choice). And yet my friend also partly sympathizes with Jones, because Jones does what many on the Left systematically fail to do: point a finger at both the Republicans, the Democrats, and the rotten system they’re apart of as the root problem.
In other words, Jones is anti-statist, a right-wing revolutionary. Immediately, the analysis of the Three Way Fight came to mind. The “Three Way Fight” is a perspective that has grown out of Anti-Racist Action and a long history of anarchists fighting the radical right (Neo-nazis and other assorted fascists). The idea is that revolutionaries on the Left have two enemies: the State, and the right-wing revolutionaries who seek to organize the white working class (among others). To summarize, while “fascism attacks the left and defends class exploitation,” it “also pursues an agenda that clashes with capitalist interests in important ways.”
Meaning, it shouldn’t surprise us when right-wingers like Jones (or, for another example, Chris Simcox of the MinuteKlan) express rage at right-wing State figures like the Bush administration - in the United States, it’s possible to be both anti-statist, even anti-capitalist, and still be a fascist dickhead. Applied to the 9/11 Truth Movment - which, as my friends describes it, is largely, but by no means completely, led by such “patriots” - the only angle I can see 9/11 truth being good for organizing people around is an anti-statist
line. And anti-statism without anti-racism, or feminism, etc., as the Three Way Fight perspective makes crystal clear, is dangerous.
All this doesn’t mean I think 9/11 is truth is unimportant. I’m obviously leaning one way, but I haven’t decided yet. What especially intrigues me is my friend’s argument that by allowing”patriots” to have a monopoly on the issue of 9/11 truth, it will create a situation in which the public turns to them when/if shit hits the fan and revealing truths do come out. He also expresses concern that the Left doesn’t seem to care about other such issues that he finds troubling: “Why does RFID, or national (and then global) ids, or buying gas with your drivers license (already happening in some states) all have to be put in terms of the mark of the beast by people on the relgious right?”
I think what arises here is the seemingly unsolvable conundrum for white revolutionaries on the Left of out-organizing right-wing fascists and appealing to the white working class. No matter how crazy they get, a lot of racist, ignorant MinuteKlan/anti-New-World-Order sentiments, at the very, very base (I’m talking really fuckin’ deep here), are rooted in valid concerns about the decrease in the power of the working class (NAFTA, free trade type stuff) and ever-increasing State power (the PATRIOT Act and all that). As Matt Lyons from Three Way Fight puts it, fascism taps “into real popular grievances and overturn(s) old conventions and forms of rule.”
How do we tap into the same grievances (like the anti-statist ones described by my friend) and yet avoid the fascists’ “patriots” alternatives, which are really, really scary? Do we - as Leftists, revolutionaries, anarchists, or whatever - simply allow the Right to have sway over certain issues (like personal liberty, 9/11 Truth, etc.) and focus on our own growing movements - like immigrant rights, or ending violence (prison abolition, domestic violence work), among other things? Or should we be on the lookout for places where interests converge, like in the anti-war movement (Chris Simcox of the MinuteKlan hates the Iraq War) or free-trade (Pat Buchanan organized against NAFTA)?
For the record, I place my bets on our own movements. When my politicial interests converge with similar interests of the right-wing, if I remain true to my principles - anti-racist and queer positive, and feminist, as well anti-Statist, and anti-capitalist - my organizing goals regarding those interests will always conflict with the organizing goals of the Right. Which is why, for now and the foreseeable future, I’ll leave 9/11 truth to others.
June 6, 2007 at 2:08 pm
By definition, anarchists are the fools of society. Peter Pan in a t-shirt. Calling the kind of person the communists used and then lined up and shot as soon as they took over a “smart guy” tipped me off that your essay was going to go nowhere fast.
And so it did. You could have said the whole “inside job” movement calling itself ‘9/11 truth” could just as well be
named the 9/11 twoof moofment, and, presto, you
would have said it all.
June 7, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Go to any derelict building in your neighbourhood and light a kerosene fire about two-thirds of the way up. Wait. Will after an hour or so of burning the building suddenly collapse to the ground in a few seconds. Will it collapse with the concrete all pulverised and the steel pulverised or molten? Your common sense will tell you that it won’t. Do the experiment. Until then, trust your common sense (probably your first reaction when you saw the collapses on TV for the first time). And trust all the experts, the professors of physics, etc., who say that a kerosene fire CANNOT pulverise a building. Trust them rather than the deranged lies of the murderers who committed 9/11, using the sophisticated knowhow of the military. No, there were no 19 Saudi hijackers who did this.
Robert_Hoogenboom (@leftfoot.com.au)
Sydney, Australia
June 7, 2007 at 8:48 pm
this was a good read.
i have often wondered publicly why the “left” fears the truthers so much.
it’s often impossible to wade thru all the anti-conspiracist diatribe long enough to understand.
the author refers to that fear but fails,without being specific, to shed much light.
so although
the government is looking more fascistic all the time with mercenary armies, zero oversight, police actions, and terror propaganda, we’re told to fear right wing revolutionaries because they don’t share anti-racist/sexist platforms.
rather, beware the liberal who will allow atrocities or ignore them, so long as their lip service remains intact.
i never heard a chompski decry the security state, the whole sale cover-ups, the ever-tightening noose of secret government promising to squelch anything that looks suspicious, defiant. but he is revered.
and where is the c.i.a. when you need em? did gloria work for them so long? where’s your outspoken feminism now that we can see the bread on the butter, steinem.
why doesn’t this author take more of an intrest in the murdur of nearly 3000 people on 9-11? she talks about violence
but would rather leave that one to others.
“harsh and dreadful is love in action, compared to love in dreams”
(still, thanx for dreaming)
but on a lighter note, it looks as though the left and right will remain divided long enough for this country to be destroyed with the compliance of the middle; or maybe there never was a country, just a myth, that the love of justice and
hope for freedom excite “us” enough to make peace.
then again optimisticly to some, the economic/ecological collapse will suffice to bring the survivors together of neccessity.
then again, what you look for is probly what you will find.
June 20, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Nice post - I am definately of the opinion that we should be putting the work into our own movements - working with those fascist/etc groups can only ever serve to ensure we become/remain (depending on your level of positive thinking) a white movement, rather than one which encompasses the diversity of the working class.
I read the following post on conspiracies from a UK libertarian communist recently which I liked ( http://www.jackray.co.uk/archives/000147.html ):
“To start with I’m not exactly prone to believing what the powers that be tell me. There’s plenty of evidence that they do engage in genuine conspiracies, whether it be introducing crack into American inner cities, the Iran-Contra scandal or decades of terrorism against sovereign states.
The point about all of these theories is that they’re all proven, publicly available and easy to access. Yet the impact has been negligible. There wasn’t an uprising when Gary Webb’s “Dark Alliance” was published. We’re all used to powerful people lying to us, telling us one and doing another, or simply asserting that the rules are different for them.
So its not news. If we were dependent on exposing the excesses of the ruling class, then we’re pretty screwed. Ultimately we’re aiming at a revolution of everyday life, at rejecting the relationships of power that mark our societies.
For me, the classic conspiracy theory that the world is run by a small clique in their own interests, dominating the rest of us, isn’t just true, if I was bothered I could produce a list of their names and addresses. That’s capitalism for you, an authoritarian system, premised on the domination of the many by the few.
Why does it matter if they happen to be freemasons, lizards, illuminati, Jews or even illuminati lizard Jewish freemasons? Their method of control is exactly the same, the domination of one class over another through control of the means of production. If they did turn out to be a conspiracy of aliens that wouldn’t change the content of our social relations, we’d still have to overthrow them and create authentically democratic societies.
So why should I be bothered whether they’ve all got webbed feet?”
June 25, 2007 at 8:56 am
Thanks for passing that on, Asher. I think that sums up my sentiments really well.
Carmel: Clever, but clever never convinced anybody, I’m afraid.
Robert: Please read my post, I don’t care about kerosene.
Jonathon: I’m a little confused by what you’ve written, but you seem to have made a few mistakes: 1) assuming I’m female; 2) that feminism = gloria steinem, and only gloria steinem; 3) that one oppression (CIA state violence) can be seperated and considered more important than another (gendered violence).
I don’t think any of these folks will be back to reply to me, but its late, and I thought I’d put in my last word anyway…. Interestingly, this post was probably the most popular thing I’ve ever written on this blog. Or so WordPress tells me it got more hits than anything else. I wonder what that says about 9/11 conspiracy things… I’m not sure, though I don’t think it says “People must want the truth.”
June 27, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Jesus, that (the most popular thing) really scares me.
Over here on the other side of the planet (Aotearoa) theres certainly people who support the “9/11 Truth” movement (a recent anti-war demo had all its speeches interrupted by an annoying guy yelling “9/11 was an inside job” in between every sentence of the speakers) and those who don’t, but the majority (including myself) really couldn’t give a fuck either way - what does it change? I already know states are fucked, and kill lots of people, I already want to be a part of creating a stateless society, so what difference does it make to me if on a specific occasion a specific state did a specific “bad thing”?
The seeming size/popularity of the “9/11 Truth” movement over in the USA and the level to which it is affecting the radical left is a big worry, IMO, from what I’ve seen of it over here.