America, Fascism, and God

Sermons from a Heretical Preacher

by Davidson Loehr

Articles by this Author

The New World Order Story

By Davidson Loehr
March 5, 2006

As we struggle to put the events of and following 9-11-2001 into the most complete perspective, we’re hampered by having to find a way through the minefields of “conspiracy theory” accusations. There are so many parts to consider, it’s almost impossible to argue from any one event. If we argue that the Bush administration was complicit in the attacks of 9-11 — that they intentionally murdered 3,000 Americans in order to further their imperialistic agenda abroad and their transformation of America into a command-and-control plutocracy here at home — a hundred others will pick holes in individual pieces of the 9-11 conspiracy theory, and derail the argument rather than clarifying or advancing it. It’s like trying to pick up Jell-O without the bowl.

Nor can this ever be a merely intellectual game. Suggesting that our own leaders orchestrated the murders of 9-11 — while proposing Arab Muslims as perhaps no more than the fictional enemy toward which they hope to direct American scorn and fury — this idea evokes deep and powerful resentment and resistance, whether it is true or not.

Author David Ray Griffin, whose research I’ll be using for some parts of this essay, quotes from a stunning letter to the Los Angeles Times Magazine from September 18, 2005 from William Yarchin of Huntington Beach, California:

“The number of contradictions in the official version of … 9/11 is so overwhelming that … it simply cannot be believed. Yet … the official version cannot be abandoned because the implication of rejecting it is far too disturbing: that we are subject to a government conspiracy of “X-Files” proportions and insidiousness.”

In this essay, I will try picking up the bowl rather than just the Jell-O — the deep story that frames much of our history — to see if I can grasp the overall story that includes 9-11, our imperialism, our invasions of Iraq and Iran, the theft of trillions of dollars from the tax base to transfer to the top tenth of a percent or so of our population, the rise in repressive laws, loss of civil liberties, increase in the state power of Christian fundamentalism, and its accompanying marginalization of women that always accompanies fascisms and fundamentalisms.

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