Last week on the network talk show The View guest Bill O'Reilly was subjected to a walkout by two of the program's interviewers, Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg.

Was the walkout justified?  By examining O'Reilly's comment that triggered the exit the logical conclusion to be drawn by examining the facts is that not only were the walkouts justified; Behar and Goldberg should be heartily commended.

The walkout was triggered by a comment that O'Reilly made that was consistent with anti-Islamic bigots who have spoken out on the topic.  O'Reilly opposed the building of an Islamic center near ground zero.  

This opposition exists despite the fact that the imam supporting the measure has been the quintessence of inclusive thought in the religious sphere.  The FBI has used him to brief agents as part of their sensitivity training.  He has interacted regularly with figures from the Christian and Jewish communities.  

The Teabaggers turned out for a major Washington, D.C. demonstration September 12 and displayed the seething hate and shameful hypocrisy for which the movement has become infamous.

Two notable elements of the demonstration and the explanations on television and radio that followed from their supporters on their significance were the economic perils America currently faces along with sympathy for the nation's middle class for the beating it is taking.

How interesting that these Teabagger events began after Democratic President Barack Obama took office.  America already had compiled over a $10 trillion debt before Obama and a Democratic Congress assumed office.

Who was minding the store when the U.S. debt became the highest in the history of the planet?  How did this come to pass?  

On a cool, clear September 11th 2006, at around one in the afternoon, two friends riding bicycles met at a fountain just off Christopher Street alongside the Hudson River in New York City. The fountain was the pre-chosen starting point for the two friend's annual pilgrimage downtown to ground zero, a ritual they've repeated for the past four years. The two friends, both in New York during the attacks of 2001, experienced the immediate effects of the disaster in different ways. One witnessed United Flight 175's crash into the South Tower from his fifth floor Soho apartment. Unbeknownst to him at the time, an old friend was on that plane. He later watched both buildings collapse from his building's roof.

In listening to Peter Dale Scott, the oracle of interpreting political propaganda,  yesterday on You Tube as he coolly with factual precision analyzed Dick Cheney's rape of the Bill of Rights following 9/11, it is easy to see him as recipient of a symbolic baton handed to him by George Orwell.

Scott and Orwell were among the few able to perceive and interpret the whys and wherefores of political propaganda.  

Each understood the importance of cognitive dissonance as a mighty propaganda engine driving the process.

Envision a dual concept, an event and a controlled response.  There is a fine tuning, a shaping process made to look like a natural sequence and flow of events, but in reality a bludgeoning force shaped by mainstream influences along with shadow government activity.

The mainstream media is back in its snake oil mode amid the hand-wringing of Republicans about MSNBC and, in reality, Keith Olbermann.

To show the "objectivity" of parent station NBC as the McCain campaign files a formal complaint to the network's news division, a senior staff member of the network, who asked to remain anonymous, was quoted in the September 8 New York Times:

"MSNBC is behaving like a heroin addict.  They're living from fix to fix and swearing they'll go into rehab the next week."

To set the record straight, and bring the discussion back to reality, there is no record of any MSNBC talk show hosts having addiction problems.  Perhaps the confused "anonymous executive" was mistaking MSNBC's personnel with the confirmed drug addiction of the darling of right wing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, someone who has never and will not ever be subjected to scrutiny by Republicans.

Based on evidence of what he believes is unignited thermite particles in debris collected within minutes after the collapse of the World Trade Center's first tower, retired BYU physicist Steven Jones called for a criminal investigation into the destruction of three World Trade Center high rises in a speech at a 9/11 conference in Boston.  Public video of his presentation at the Decemeber 15, 2007 event was recently released and can be seen here:

 Evidence of Controlled Demolitions

 

Mr. Hannity: "The Bush administration's assessment of the challenges we face from terrorists, and their state sponsors, is serious, thoughtful, and realistic. The antiwar activists of the Democratic left, on the other hand, have expressed a vision that is naïve at best, dangerously out of touch at worst." (p. 177)

My response: Serious and thoughtful the president's picture may be, but to call it realistic is utterly absurd. President Bush claims that terrorists are consumed with unconditional hatred for America and everything good it stands for, and that thus we have no choice but to wipe them off the face of the earth. In the president's mind, Islamic terrorists are portrayed as sub-human agents of the devil, and given up for hopeless because we cannot do anything to change their evil plans. This is not just unrealistic, it is defeatist.

How to Combat Terrorism

For the best and most enduring protection from every form of evil terrorism, the US should take these five steps.

Mr. Hannity: The September 11 attack was "an attempt to decapitate our government." (p. 131)

With the shattering of the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, a titanic earthquake ripped through the United States and quickly swept across the world. Two shock waves of anger and patriotism predictably met at a point on the globe opposite the United States: the Middle East. Osama bin Laden and his evil cohorts were identified as the enemies, and they were in for a shakedown by the glorious US military. The terrorists of 9/11 declared war on the US, and war is what they got. In this cosmic battle against religiously inspired terrorists, America wages war on the side of good and the terrorists fight on the side of evil. Americans have been wakened from their postmodern, anything-goes slumber to the reality that, like it or not, the United States has a mission to save the world from evil. How much clearer could it get?

(NOTE: The essay below was the first installment of my first article written for publication. Although originally drafted as one long piece in March 2005, this article remains relevant three years later. Both Parts One and Two previously appeared in the Ethical Spectacle (February and March 2006, at www.spectacle.org/0206/sout ar.html and www.spectacle.org/0306/sout ar2.html). The article provides a condensed summary of my beliefs about terrorism and how it should be addressed. Check back later for Part Two.)

Mr. Hannity: "The totalitarian regimes that support them [terrorists] are more difficult to trace, using every devious means available to hide their role in funding and training the terrorists." (p. 5)

Mr. Hannity: "The primary evil we face today is terrorism." (p. 3)

My response: With the traumatic images of September 11 burned into our consciousness, it can be tempting to look on international "Islamic" terrorism as the greatest evil inflicted by human beings upon our civilization. However, this view is erroneous, pathetically myopic, unconsciously self-pitying, encourages unlawful revenge, and is hypocritical.

Mr. Hannity: The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were "...unmistakable act[s] of war and crime[s] against humanity." (p. 1)

My response: Yes, the attacks of September 11, 2001 were terrible crimes against humanity which killed thousands of innocent people. They were unequivocally condemned as such by all the nations of the world.

As we reflect once more on 9/11 as the sixth anniversary of those tragic events has come and gone, we need as a nation to focus on what is truly important.

Ranking at the top is a duty we owe to the victims of the tragedies and their families as well as loved ones, an independent investigation of the events that occurred on that unforgettable day.

First of all, we must take note of the fact that the Official 9/11 Commission that was ultimately convened and delivered a report was established only after the pressures on Dick Cheney and George W. Bush became insurmountable.  

Who could forget Cheney's words on the subject?  According to Cheney we should not investigate 9/11 since it would only take time and precious resources away from fighting terrorism.