The Arrogance of Power

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, ANGLO AMERICA, MILITARISM, JUSTICE, HISTORY, 17 Jun 2013

John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service

“What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?”
—Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth

According to testimony given by CIA insider Susan Lindauer, the CIA knew about the planned attack on the World Trade Center as early as April, 2001. According to Lindauer, it was realized that airplanes striking the buildings would not cause their collapse, and so the disaster was deliberately made worse than it otherwise would have been by US government agents, who planted charges of explosives.

Other evidence supports Lindauer’s testimony: Numerous people in New York saved samples of the dust produced by the collapse of the WTC buildings, and chemical analysis of the dust shows the presence of nanothermite, a powerful heat-producing compound which seems to have been used to melt the steel framework of the strongly-constructed sky scrapers. Videos the collapse of the buildings, especially Building 7, show them falling freely in the manner of structures brought down in a controlled demolition. The videos also show molten steel pouring out of the buildings. Furthermore, pools of recently-melted steel were found in the ruins before these were sealed off from the public. An ordinary fire does not produce temperatures high enough to melt steel.

New York Fire Department workers report hearing numerous explosions in the WTC buildings before they collapsed.

Thus there is strong evidence, available to everyone who is willing to look at it on the Internet, which shows that the official version of 9/11 is untrue, and that the US government made the disaster worse than it otherwise would have been in order to justify not only an unending “War on Terror”, but also the abridgement of civil liberties within the United States. But very few people wish to challenge the official version of the attack on the World Trade Center. Those who accept the official version are. by definition, respectable citizens, while those who challenge it are “odd balls” and “probably terrorist sympathizers”.  As George W. Bush said, “You are either for us, or you are against us”.

9/11 is an example of the arrogance of power. There is strong evidence of a governmental lie, but very few dare to point to it. Like Lady Macbeth, the US government is saying, “What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?” However, we should remember that things ended badly for Macbeth and his wife.

The fear-enforced conformity of Nazi Germany is also an example of the arrogance of power. There are strong parallels between 9/11 and the way in which the Nazi’s used the Reichstag Fire as an excuse both for attacking civil liberties within Germany, and for invading Poland. All of us remember seeing in films the quasi-religious expressions of ecstasy on the faces of enormous crowds of Germans as they listened to Hitler’s speeches. Fanatical nationalism appeals to primitive emotions of tribalism which all of us have inherited from our remote ancestors; but in the faces of the crowds listening to Hitler’s hypnotic speeches we can see something more: conformity enforced by fear.

But what about us? Are we really fearless? If so, why don’t we speak truth to power? Why don’t we challenge governmental lies?

Attempts to rule the world through military power were tyrannical and undemocratic under the Roman Empire, tyrannical under the British Empire, and tyrannical under Napoleon. The ambition of military world dominance was evil when it was the aim of Hitler; and it is evil today when practiced by any country, much more so now than in earlier times because of the invention of nuclear weapons.

It is generally agreed that a full-scale nuclear war would have disastrous effects, not only on belligerent nations but also on neutral countries. A nuclear war would be the ultimate ecological catastrophe, inflicting enormous damage on global agriculture, and making very large regions of the world permanently uninhabitable through long-lasting radioactive contamination. Worst case scenarios even include the elimination of most life on earth. Mr. Javier Perez de Cuellar, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, emphasized this point in one of his speeches, where he cited the actions of nuclear weapon states as examples of the arrogance of power:

“I feel”, he said, “that the question may justifiably be put to the leading nuclear powers: by what right do they decide the fate of humanity? From Scandinavia to Latin America, from Europe and Africa to the Far East, the destiny of every man and woman is affected by their actions. No one can expect to escape from the catastrophic consequences of a nuclear war on the fragile structure of this planet. …”

“No ideological confrontation can be allowed to jeopardize the future of humanity. Nothing less is at stake: today’s decisions affect not only the present; they also put at risk succeeding generations. Like supreme arbiters, with our disputes of the moment, we threaten to cut off the future and to extinguish the lives of innocent millions yet unborn. There can be no greater arrogance. At the same time, the lives of all those who lived before us may be rendered meaningless; for we have the power to dissolve in a conflict of hours or minutes the entire work of civilization, with all the brilliant cultural heritage of humankind.”

“…In a nuclear age, decisions affecting war and peace cannot be left to military strategists or even to governments. They are indeed the responsibility of every man and woman. And it is therefore the responsibility of all of us… to break the cycle of mistrust and insecurity and to respond to humanity’s yearning for peace.”

These eloquent words by Javier Perez de Cuellar remind us that each of us has a stake in saving the future, and each of us has a duty to do everything within our abilities to save it.

In order to save the future, and in order to make a world in which we and our children and grandchildren have a chance of survival, we must have the courage to defy the arrogance of power, and the courage to speak truth to power. Let us stop worshiping power. Let us resist power, when power is lawless. Remembering that power is enforced through fear, let us not abandon the future; let us instead abandon our fears!

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John Scales Avery, Ph.D. is a member of the TRANSCEND Network and Associate Professor Emeritus at the H.C. Ørsted Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is chairman of both the Danish National Pugwash Group and the Danish Peace Academy and received his training in theoretical physics and theoretical chemistry at M.I.T., the University of Chicago and the University of London. He is the author of numerous books and articles both on scientific topics and on broader social questions. His most recent book is “Crisis 21: Civilization’s Crisis in the 21st Century.”

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 17 Jun 2013.

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