Chapter 6: Hopeless Losers in Hollow Mountains or Protect Your Steak

Sudden Upside-Down Syndrome
even hit Uncle Sam.


Sore Thumbs

If Sudden Upside-Down Syndrome ("SUDS") was a difficult concept for some of us to handle, it was nothing compared to what other people were trying to handle. A few of those guys were even dumber than half a brick, and they stuck out like sore thumbs, of course.

The thumbs which stuck out the most, and I know you'll be shocked to hear this, belonged to people who had been educated in civilized countries, rather than in the U.S. I noticed a few thumbs that looked exceptionally painful, and I know you'll be shocked to hear this too, but those thumbs just happened to belong to former diplomats!

The Thumbs of Former Diplomats

If that makes no sense to you, it might be that you've grown accustomed to seeing diplomats as connected to (and working on behalf of) their governments, and more often than not, even after they retire and they're not "working" anymore, they remain "connected", so to speak. And some of them appear to be still "working" even though they're not "working" anymore, if that makes any sense at all.

"Learning"

If this doesn't make any sense to you, that might be because it doesn't make any sense, period. And that's why I'm trying to explain it to you so clearly. I want you to see it clearly, and I hope that maybe you'll be able to explain it to other people eventually.

We would be really lucky if that happened because it might turn into something similar to what our ancestors used to call "learning". That's another weird term, usually associated with civilized countries such as those in which the sorest thumbs had been educated. And this may be a coincidence, but to me it seems like a very fortuitous one.

Diplomats

The most important thing to remember about diplomats is that they've been trained to expect that every now and then, somebody might either forget to tell the whole truth, or accidentally say something that wasn't entirely true. And this explains why they're all dumber than a brick; bricks just don't learn slow enough to become diplomats.

The good diplomats go another step with it, and occasionally allow themselves to wonder whether somebody might not be telling the truth on purpose! Usually when they suspect somebody of this, that somebody is connected to (and working on behalf of) a foreign government.

Straightforward Logic

The logic here is quite straightforward: We're not surprised when foreigners don't tell the truth because most of them are stupid and lazy and at least half of them smell bad too, which is not supposed to be relevant, but how could anyone fail to notice?

And it's not just because most of them can't think straight. I'm not saying they can, but we need to remember that most foreigners are devious scoundrels who wouldn't tell the truth even if it were their best move, simply because they don't know how to do it. It's not part of their culture.

And diplomats have been trained to lie, so they're the worst. But obviously that only goes for foreign diplomats.

Reliable American Diplomats

We can rely on American diplomats to tell the whole truth in every instance because, well, you know. The upshot of all this is that all diplomats are conspiracy theorists, every one of them, even though most of them would never admit it. And the main reason why most of them would never admit it is because most of them have no idea what it means.

Unwitting Conspiracy Theorists

You have to be able to read and write to become a diplomat. They can all do it, even at the junior level. And many of them have learned one or more languages very well, which, as we all know, requires a dictionary. The upshot of all this is that when a diplomat needs to know what a word means, he or she will usually reach for a dictionary.

And usually the dictionary definition of a word or phrase corresponds fairly well with the meaning of the word or phase as it is commonly understood, or perhaps we should say "misunderstood", in our modern enlightened times. But in any case, people who can read, such as diplomats, learn to trust their dictionaries.

What is a Theory?

In a dictionary, a "theory" is a well-established scientific explanation which covers a wide variety of natural phenomena. We know, for instance, of Newton's theory of gravity, or Darwin's theory of evolution, or Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism.

The Theory Behind the Laws

In all these cases, the "theory" encompasses a number of "laws". And they are called "laws" not because they were passed by some dumb corrupt legislature somewhere, but because nobody can break them, no matter how much money they have. [1]

So we would expect a "conspiracy theory" to encompass a number of "conspiracy laws" which would be called "laws" not because they were passed by some dumb corrupt legislature somewhere but because they would apply to all conspiracies.

A Unified Theory of Conspiracy

To give you one stupid example, we all know the phrase "power corrupts", and some of us also know "absolute power corrupts absolutely". But very few of us -- only the stupidest clowns on the whole internet -- know that this is not only common sense but it can also form the core of a viable "conspiracy theory".

Such a "conspiracy theory" would attempt to explain murders of heads of state, attempts to overthrow governments, and so on, on the basis of logical principles such as "power corrupts" and "cui bono?" which means "who benefits?"

But It's Irrelevant

But none of this is any more relevant in 21st century America than it has been since the JFK assassination. Ever since that time, the phrase "conspiracy theory" has meant, not what it ought to have meant, according to the separate definitions of the separate words, but instead, "a hypothesis containing an impossible element".

But it can't be just any old "impossible element". The impossible element in a "conspiracy theory" is the hint that any government spokesperson or official, especially a high official, might not be telling the truth about some topic, or in some instance.

All Conspiracy Theories Are False

Here's the rub: Nothing of the sort could ever happen because, well, you know. And therefore all conspiracy theories are by definition false.

And therefore any government official, or any so-called journalist protecting one, can stifle a "news story", or prevent a potentially dangerous investigation, with the simple phrase, "That's a conspiracy theory!"

One Lone Nut

For example, Lee Harvey Oswald was definitely a Lone Nut assassin because the Warren Commission said they found no evidence of any conspiracy. In this respect the Warren Commission acted as if they'd never heard the story about "no bears in the woods".

No Bears in the Woods

I know you know this already, but please be patient with me. If we're lucky, more than one person will read this piece, and the other one might not know this story yet.

The story is about a man who goes for a walk in the woods. He wanders around for 10 or 15 minutes, doesn't see anything interesting, goes home to his wife and kids, and tells them there are no bears in the woods. This news lands sweetly on the ears of the kids. They had always wanted to go play in the woods, but they'd been prevented from doing so by their mother, who was afraid of bears.

But when they heard the report from their father, they asked their mother again, and, well, you probably don't want to hear any more of the story.

The Moral

The moral of the story, however, is worth hearing: Just because you haven't seen something, that doesn't necessarily mean it it's not there. This is even more difficult than Magritte's painting because not only are things not as they appear, but some things don't even appear at all, even though they're out there.

And the fog around these events might be impenetrable to normal people, but I know someone who is dumb enough to cut it like a knife!

Peter Dale Scott hates you.

Peter Dale Scott

His name is Peter Dale Scott and I'm sure none of you have ever heard of him since he's only been prominent among the anti-war crowd since 1961. Peter is an amazing man, and one of his most amazing characteristics is his intelligence. Or lack of intelligence, I should say.

Peter is so dumb that he can find lies in wonky tales as they go by in real time. He doesn't need to sit back and study the transcripts, or play the albums a hundred times each, the way smart people do. And that makes him dangerous.

A Former Foreign Diplomat

Peter is a former diplomat, which means he was dumb to start with and then he found out that people lie sometimes. Much worse, Peter is a former Canadian diplomat, which means that even though he is from a friendly (albeit cold) country, his training was in the Canadian Foreign Service and didn't include the module about how we can always trust Americans because they always tell the truth.

Look Out for the Friendly Ones

So Peter Dale Scott is a very dangerous fellow, despite his friendly appeance and his charming disposition. Peter got looking around at the "national record" which had been fabricated while the nation was reeling from the awful surprise attacks of 9/11, and he found some interesting details which I cannot even hint at.

Documents which should have been in the files were nowhere to be found. Timelines of various government officials and their actions on the day showed mysterious gaps. That sort of thing. You didn't hear it from me.

He Wasn't Supposed to Talk

The short version goes: This former diplomat, who wasn't smart enough to believe the official story, started digging around even more, and he dug up some things that the rest of us weren't supposed to see or hear. He wasn't supposed to notice, and he wasn't supposed to talk about what he had noticed.

But fortunately he wasn't even halfway smart enough not to do any of the things that he wasn't supposed to do, and that's why I can't tell you anything about it.

Seeing Things That Are Not There

Peter Dale Scott does what I call "positive" and "negative" journalism. I don't mean "positive" and "negative" in terms of attitude. It's a matter of focus. "What are you looking at?" is one question and "What are you looking for?" is a very different one, despite only one word of difference.

Peter wrote about all the things which he had seen which should not have been there. And he also wrote about all the things he had not seen which should have been there. This latter category is especially important, and the fact that he can figure it all out well enough to write about it shows how dumb Peter Dale Scott really is.

A Special Kind of Idiot

I mean: Any dummy could write about what's there, but it takes a special kind of idiot to work out what's not there but should be. And of course it wasn't pretty. How could it have been pretty? The nation was under attack! What could be pretty about that?

Continuity of Government (COG)

Fortunately, there were a few people -- men, mostly (we think!) -- who had spent a long time preparing for an event of this type. And they didn't have any problem adjusting to the newly upside-down reality. In fact, they seemed to relish it.

Remember Your History

They had started out looking for a way in which the U.S. government could continue to function, even after suffering a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union.

The Soviets knew very well that they would be obliterated if they so much as fired a single nuclear missile at anybody. But this didn't stop our heroes from planning to respond to an attack that surely wasn't coming.

Or perhaps I should say it didn't stop them from using the attack that surely wasn't coming as a pretext for all the planning they were doing.

Gerald Ford loved you.

The Planning Started Under Gerald Ford

They had started planning under the Gerald Ford administration, and Ford was an interesting character. It's too bad we don't have time to talk about his background. He played football at the University of Michigan back in the day when football was a contact sport. Nobody knew enough to protect the players from serious head injuries, which as we now know can hardly fail to cause brain damage.

But nobody knew anything about this at the time, so it was common for big strong guys to make big names for themselves playing football and then go on to successful careers even though their brains had turned to mush.

Clumsy Ain't the Half of It

I'm not suggesting that Gerald Ford was one of them, but he did seem to fall down a lot, and stumble into the furniture and stuff, so we were always wondering. And maybe none of this is relevant, or it may explain his value as a conduit.

Serving his Nation as a Conduit

Gerald Ford had served on the Warren Commission as the Commission's conduit to the FBI. In this case "conduit" is a slightly inappropriate term, but we don't have a better one except perhaps "diode", which normally refers to an electronic component that conducts electricity in one direction only.

Ford and Dulles as Diodes

Gerald Ford was the diode who made sure the Warren Commission never got any information from the FBI while also making sure the FBI was aware of everything the Warren Commission was doing. Allen Dulles, by the way, who at that point was the former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), served as the Warren Commission's diode to the CIA.

Former President Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace, but
not before appointing Congressman Gerald Ford to replace
the Vice President, Spiro Agnew, who had already resigned
in disgrace. Thus Ford reached the Oval Office without ever
having run in a federal election, let alone winning one.


What? President Ford was Never Elected?

It's probably not worth pointing out that Gerald Ford reached the Oval Office despite never having been elected to any national office whatsoever. He had been appointed to the Vice Presidency to replace Richard Nixon's former Vice President, Spiro Agnew, who resigned in disgrace because of some hateful and unsubstantiated allegations which unfortunately were well documented and which Agnew was utterly unable to refute.

Then Ford took Nixon's place when Nixon resigned in disgrace because of some different hateful and unsubstantiated allegations which unfortunately were well documented and which Nixon was utterly unable to refute.

Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney have loved you
ever since they "served" our nation "under" the
unelected President, Gerald Ford.


New Blood from the Loony Bin

And Ford brought in some "new blood" from the "loony bin", as some observers called it at the time. But the new guys weren't loony. They knew what they were doing. They just weren't talking.

So nobody else knew what they were doing, and everybody thought they were crazy, which was fine with them because people tended to leave them alone.

And they liked it that way because they didn't want anyone to know what they were doing. And this could explain why they weren't talking.

No Sense on its Face

They were planning to make sure the American government could survive an attack severe enough to cripple the rest of the country. And it made no sense on the face of it because if we were obliterated by a nuclear strike, would we still need tax collectors?

From Ford to Carter

But they were so determined to do a good job of it that they kept on planning even after Ford lost the next election and Jimmy Carter became President. Carter, as you may remember, was the President who refused to sign the proposal brought to him by Zbigniew Brzezinski, which would have put an end to this whole terrorism mess if Carter had only signed it.

But Brzezinski was running cold and his timing was bad. Carter hadn't washed his hair yet that day and he wasn't signing anything. Carter suggested that Brzezinski should come back and ask him again, but Brzezinski had an appointment the next day which he couldn't postpone, and he forgot all about it, and now look what's happened.

People make jokes about women who won't go out on dates because they have to stay home and wash their hair. But how many of them change the course of history that way? The point to remember here is that the planners were still planning even though they had been tossed out of their government offices.

Four former Presidents: Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon,
George H. W. Bush, and Gerald Ford. They all loved you.


From Carter to Reagan

Carter lasted four years and then we had eight years of Ronald Reagan, and the planning went on and on and on and on. For the planners, things were looking good for a while, but then the Soviet Union fell into the sea, and suddenly there was no longer any plausible nuclear threat. But the planners had been planning for so long. It would be a shame to waste all that good planning.

So our noble planners faced a difficult choice. Should they quit planning or broaden their scope? Obviously just because the idea that we were threatened with a nuclear attack by the Soviets was untenable, that didn't mean there couldn't be other ideas about attacks from the Russians, or threats from elsewhere, defenses against which the American people could be convinced to fund.

It must have seemed important to protect all of them. [2]

RW Reagan and GHW Bush

In the fullness of time, the Reagan administration turned into the George Herbert Walker Bush administration. Bush was a perfect choice when the nation needed to reign in the CIA because he had never been DCI, and had never actually had any contact with the CIA during his whole career of national service, especially around the time of the JFK assassination.

Some people said George Bush couldn't spell "CIA", but they were wrong. [3]

Bill Clinton loves you.

Bill Clinton

Bush was succeeded by Bill Clinton, who was a Democrat, so the Republican planners were out on the street again, which is to say they were no longer welcome in the White House or the Pentagon and had to make do with the plush offices of private corporations.

ooh, it makes me wonder


If you were a clown, you might wonder why men who are not even part of the government should be planning for the future of the government that they're not even part of. If they're just private citizens, ordinary businessmen, you might think: "Why are they doing this?"

I admit I have considered this question, and I've "thought" about it quite a bit, and three potential "explanations" have come to my "mind".

Explanation #1

The first "explanation" was: How can you expect anybody to run a country who's not dumb enough to run a business? It's not possible because the business of the country is business, and the future of the country is more business. That's one thing.

Explanation #2

The second "explanation" was: It is a basic tenet of organization theory, and visible in virtually all areas of human behavior, that the longer a bad idea is considered, and the more it's discussed, the more likely it is to be implemented. We could call this phenomenon "ideological momentum" because even ideas which are not logical seem to develop their own momentum.

Even before 9/11 we had seen this force at work without knowing what to call it. Think of Mood Rings, Pet Rocks, Nerf Bricks, Streaking, Ronald Reagan being elected President twice, and so on. With nary a good idea in the bunch, they, along with disco, defined nearly a decade of American "culture".

So even if you don't think it was a good idea to leave the future of the country in the hands of a few businessmen, you can see how it might have happened, just because the planning had been going on for so long.

Explanation #3

But the third "explanation" was even better, and it showed how unnecessary all my speculation had been, as well as rendering the first two "explanations" pointless and unnecessary because that explanation ran: "Who said it was a bad idea?"

The Value of Perspective

If you don't think it's a good idea to leave the future of the nation in the hands of a few businessmen, then you must not be one of those businessmen! To the businessmen into whose hands the future of the nation seemed destined to fall, it must have seemed like a very good idea indeed.

No Desire for Personal Gain

We're lucky that the men who did all this selfless planning had no desire for personal gain. They only wanted to make sure that you and your kids could sleep well at night, secure in the knowledge (or let's just say "belief") that the best and brightest criminals money could buy had already been bought, that they were occupying the most powerful offices in the land, and that they were sucking money, blood and power from the national stores of such things at alarming rates.

Silent Alarms

We're lucky that all this was happening in secret, which tended to make those rates a shade less alarming. Or at least that's what we thought at the time. Later it transpired that such alarms are only audible to people who are at least as dumb as two bricks, and fortunately we don't have very many of those around.

Just as Well or Even Better

So it's all a moot point; the alarm would been "heard" as "silent" by the bulk of the population, no matter how much noise it had made. So the secret planning could just as well have been done on the front lawn of the White House as in private penthouse offices.

In fact it may have been better for the planners to meet on the front lawn of the White House, since they were so tightly embedded in the federal government when they were "in" power, and never very far removed when they were "out" of power.

An Intolerable Trend

They figured that since they'd been handed the levers of national power by a President who had never even been elected to a national office, it wasn't right that that they kept being shown the door by Presidents who had been (or who had at least been called) "legitimately" elected. And the trend must have seemed intolerable.

On the other hand, if "continuity" of "government" meant anything at all, it could only mean "continuity" of "people", since the structure of the American government is not now and can never be "static".

A Dynamic Government

The reason for this is obvious to anyone who ever spent 10 or 15 minutes on the internet studying "the structure of the American government". It evolves in countless ways, from the most obvious things such as the passing of a new Constitutional Amendment to reflect the Voice of the People, down to the least obvious, such as secret Executive Orders signed into law by Presidents who never tell anyone what just happened or why.

So the American government could never be "continuous" in any sense other than the "continuity" of the people in power.

A Time For Leverage

By January of 2001, when George Walker Bush "took office", the patriotic planners had been doing their patriotic planning "out in the cold" for 12 of the past 24 years, and it must have seemed about time to do something to leverage all the work they had done.

But there weren't any threats on the horizon, even though they had been working hard to dredge one up.

A coup d'état

By this time, they had realized that all their planning, ostensibly to prevent a coup d'état in times of crisis, had actually put them in a position from which they could create a coup d'état of their own.

The terminology here is French, and that's fortunate in light of the American system of education under which students are discouraged from learning anything foreign, especially languages.

A Cut of State

In English, this French phrase means "cut of state", and most Americans are so well-educated that they have no idea what it means to cut a state.

And that's understandable, since some states, such as Texas and Alaska, are far too big to cut safely, and others, such as California and Illinois, are too unstable to cut safely, and not worth cutting anyway since they are falling apart faster than anyone could cut them.

A Cut of Steak

So the "cut of state" concept is a bit much for most of us, and it's a bit moot as well, since most of us will never be in a position from which we could cut a state in any case.

But some of us have gone out for dinner now and then and we can relate to a very similar process which we can call "cut of steak".

Protect Your Steak

We all know how stupid and dangerous it would be if several people were trying to cut the same steak at the same time. Nobody wants to be involved in anything like that. So whenever we need to cut a steak, it's only natural to make sure that nobody else can cut the same steak at the same time.

You don't have to be as dumb as a brick to do this. I've seen people do it who aren't even as dumb as half a brick. So I think it's probably human nature.

Chairs and Plates

Once your steak arrives, you need to cut it before you can eat it, even if it's very tender. And in order to cut it safely, you have to maneuver yourself into a position which allows you to protect your steak from being cut by other people.

And this explains, at least in part, why we tend to sit on separate chairs and eat off separate plates, at least in the high-end restaurants. Some of them, anyway.

... once you're in position to prevent
anyone else from cutting your steak ...


Most of us Never Think

And most of us never think in these terms because we're not really as stupid as we look, nor could we be. So we don't tend to realize that once you're in position to prevent anyone else from cutting your steak, and you are the only one who could possibly cut it, this means you have absolute power over whether or not your steak is going to be cut, and if so, when. Nobody else can cut it. And you can cut it or not, as you wish.

... you have absolute power over whether or not
your steak is going to be cut, and if so, when.


Walk a Mile

Most of us never think such stupid thoughts because we're just trying to eat the damned steak, not run a philosophy symposium over it. But we ought to think such thoughts, at least once in our lives, because if we can do so, it will enable us to consider the problem from the point of view of the planners.

My mother, the late Winter Matriarch, always said, "There are two sides to every story. You can't understand anything unless you put yourself in the other fellow's position and walk a mile in his shoes." And this is not really a bad idea if you can get past the sanitary aspects of it. Or unsanitary, I guess that should be.

More Than 25 Years

The Patriotic COG Planners had been planning the patriotic COG for more than 25 years at that point, and they'd finally reached a position from which they could prevent anyone else from cutting the state. And that meant they could cut the state whenever they wanted to. But they didn't have a reason.

Before I Started Babbling

You may recall that some little while ago, while I was still choosing my words relatively carefully and before I started babbling, I mentioned that the "continuity of government" was set up in order to give the government the ability to continue even after a nuclear attack. And later it was expanded to include any sort of attack, and then any sort of emergency.

In early 2001, it looked like we were in line for a long, hot, dry summer. But it was doubtful that a long, hot, dry summer could be classified as an emergency, since several dozen Americans could still remember other such summers, all of which we had survived fairly well.

Finally!

Anyway, the planners were finally in a position to prevent the state from being cut, which meant they were in a position to cut it whenever the time was right.

They still didn't have any credible pretext by which they could "justify" such a cut. But after Bush "won" the Presidency in the "election" of November and December of 2000, that problem was easy to solve.

Scale Invariance

The "model" I've been using to "explain" all the cutting is "scale invariant", as geologists would say. This stupid phrase indicates that objects of various sizes can have the same shape, or objects of a given shape can occur in various sizes. If you've ever seen a golf ball, a tennis ball, and a basketball, you can probably imagine what I'm talking about.

The cool thing about scale invariance is that it's not only about the objects geologists study, and it's not only about objects at all, really, because it can apply to concepts, too.

The Power of Abstraction

Usually, any such application relies on a bit of "abstraction", and that's a tough one, even for people who are as dumb as a brick and a half. So I'll type this next passage slowly in the hope that you can follow along.

We can start with the idea that
Once you're in position to prevent anyone else from cutting your steak, you are the only one who could possibly cut or not cut it, which means you can cut it whenever you want to, if you want to.
We can remove the steak from the equation through the process of abstraction, leaving an "X" to fill in the holes.

Thus we get:
Once you're in position to prevent anyone else from doing X, you are the only one who could possibly do X or not do X, which means you can do X whenever you want to, if you want to.
The cool thing about this formulation is that now we can take out the "X" and fill in the holes with something else, and our new result will make sense too, if we do it right.

So if we think about the "cut of state" idea, we can see that
Once you're in position to prevent anyone else from cutting the state, you are the only one who could possibly cut the state or not cut the state, which means you can cut the state whenever you want to, if you want to.

The Parallel is Exact

Of course the parallel is not exact because cutting a steak is a private matter and nobody minds very much when or how you cut your steak. It's a free country, as we always say, meaning it used to be.

Insufficient Justification

But cutting the state is a matter of public concern, or at least it could be in certain situations. So the explanation people usually give for cutting their steak, to wit: "I'm getting hungry," would not be a sufficient justification for group of businessmen to cut the state.

And they would never do such a thing, absent a very sturdy shield behind which they could hide, unless they wished to be guillotined.

A Good Baseline

They couldn't cut the state and keep breathing unless they could scare the wits out of those Americans who still had their wits about them. And a fairly reliable Gallup poll suggested that there were still as many as four or five thousand Americans who could be classified in that way at that time.

Of course this is not an exact figure, but it does give us a good baseline.

Only One Thing

With the U.S.S.R. now at the bottom of the sea, there was only one thing that could possibly scare the wits out of four or five thousand Americans at the same time, and that was a major terrorist attack.

The Oklahoma City Bombing

There had been minor terrorist attacks in the recent past. Some wild man had blown up a federal building in Oklahoma City. It didn't make any difference. Decent loyal clueless Americans from all walks of life and all areas of the country stood together and said, "Fokkem! It wasn't nothin' valuable; it was a fokken FBI building! And the Feds fokken deserve it! Who cares about Okla-fokken-homa anyway? We might have had decent race relations in this fokkken country if it wasn't for Okla-fokken-homa!"

The First WTC Bombing

There had also been a minor terrorist attack on the World Trade Center itself, but that didn't make any difference either, by which I mean the words were different but the rants were the same. In other words, decent loyal clueless Americans from all walks of life and all areas of the country stood together and said, "Fokkem! It wasn't nothin' valuable; it was a great big fokken bank! Nothin' but insurance companies, stock brokers, and fokken bankers. The whole fokken mess of Banksters and Wise Guys, all in one spot, blown to Kingdom Fokken Come? Who fokken cares? They all fokken deserve it! And who cares about New York fokken City anyway? We might have had a decent economy in this fokken country if it wasn't for New York fokken City!"

A Fine Upstanding Parasite

Think of this, if you will, from the point of view of the Patriotic COG Planners. Consider yourself a fine upstanding parasite who has spent more than two decades trying to figure out how to dismantle the Constitution in secret and in such a way that the levers of power which have fit so comfortably in your grubby little hands when you were allowed to touch them could be made to fit there forever.

More Than a Generation

Consider that you have spent more than a generation trying to figure out how to make this all possible without getting yourself accidentally decapitated by some clown with a guillotine. Consider that you've already figured out how to prevent anyone else from cutting the state and you are now in position to cut it yourself.

No Pretext

Your only remaining problem is that in order to maintain the connection between your head and your torso, as we've hinted, you still need a reason. Well, not actually a real reason. That would imply a real emergency, and you're not ready to deal with a real emergency yet. What you actually need is a pretext.

Double Misfortune

As a matter of amazing coincidence, when George W. Bush wasn't democratically elected to the Presidency in 2000, but "took" office in January of 2001 anyway, his Vice President wasn't Dick Cheney. And this was unfortunate because Dick Cheney wasn't one of the COG Planners.

Even worse: Bush (or rather Cheney, who wasn't making all the decisions at the time) didn't appoint Donald Rumsfeld to run the Department of Defense, which was unfortunate because Donald Rumsfeld himself wasn't one of the Patriotic COG Planners either. So two of the four most important Patriotic COG Planners couldn't grasp the levers of power, and for the COG group, it wasn't a case of "Let's Roll!"

To Prevent a Terrorist Attack

By virtue of the positions which they didn't fill when the new administration came to power, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were perfectly positioned to prevent a terrorist attack, and this meant they were now perfectly positioned to cause a terrorist attack, since nobody could stop them but themselves. And that wasn't very likely, especially after all the planning they had done.

George Herbert Walker Bush loved you.

#41 in Your Hearts

The other two most important Patriotic COG Planners were: (1) George Herbert Walker Bush, who didn't need any access to anything since he had never been DCI, and of course "intelligence" connections, like "organized crime" connections, never last for more than a couple of months anyway, and

Oliver North loves you.

Good Golly, Here's Ollie!

(2) Oliver North, who didn't need any access to anything at all, since he had not yet gained control of any secret communications network, including a notorious secret network called "Flashdance" or "Flashbulb" or something like that.

It's hard to say for sure because it's so secret, but Peter Dale Scott knows all about it, so you should get your facts from him, even if you prefer to get your fancy high-level analysis from a demented clown.

Exposed as a Witless Moron

Oliver North wasn't working in the White House anymore, which was fine. He would only have been a hindrance there, since he had been so thoroughly exposed as a witless moron during the RW Reagan and GHW Bush years that no reputable news agency would even talk to him anymore. And CNN wasn't hiring. So he had to work for Fox News.

Any Similarity is Coincidental

North's reputation was demolished during the Reagan administration's assault on the democratically elected government of Nicaragua, in which they accidentally managed to destroy El Salvador, a shxtty little country which they had used as a staging ground for their proxy army, which they called Freedom Fighters.

If any of this sounds similar to what they weren't doing in Afghanistan, that would definitely be a coincidence because no decent loyal American would ever tolerate a government that would do such a thing, let alone the same thing twice at the same time in two very different parts of the world.

A Dangerous Mission

We know the Patriotic COG Planners were on a dangerous mission, in the sense that the mission these lunatics had taken upon themselves was endangering us, and our children, and our children's children (if they lived long enough to have any).

"Hopeless Losers"

But somebody had to get on with it because they'd been planning for 25 years and they still hadn't done anything, and the three or four "critics" who knew about this were starting to call them "hopeless losers" behind their backs, at least until the critics disappeared in "mysterious ways".

Nobody could solve any of the disappearances, and only the most cynical clown would ever suggest that the last thing a snarling psychopath wants is to be called a hopeless loser.

Patriotic COG Planners in Position

In any case, they had been in a position to make the cut as soon as GW Bush was supposedly elected, but they weren't in a position to create the pretext until he was actually inaugurated. Or at least that's the theory.

A few suspicious clowns have suggested that the Patriotic COG Planners had started calling the shots as soon as the mock election had taken place, which would have been possible because they already knew where all the good levers were.

And they could have got away with it because everybody knew that they were exceptionally nasty and nobody would dare to cross them, especially since they would occupy positions of real power as soon as the fake results of the mock election could be validated.

All They Needed

Now all they needed was a terrorist attack. But it had to be a really big one because the two previous ones had produced no reaction except for what could best be described as a giant national fart. So this one needed to be bigger. The Patriotic COG Planners needed a terrorist attack spectacular enough to make all the bricks shxt their pants at the same time.

What would YOU do?

So what did they do? As Dr. Seuss taught us to say when we were kids, "What would YOU do?"

What Rumsfeld Didn't Do

Donald Rumsfeld didn't get his sorry ass set up in a nice office in the Pentagon from which he didn't organize day trips on which he and a few assistants didn't manicure the lawn of the Pentagon in case it didn't have to be used as a landing strip. This turned out to be irrelevant, of course.

What Cheney Didn't Do

Dick Cheney didn't disappear into a undisclosed location which almost certainly had no connection with the secret base he and the other Patriotic COG Planners hadn't been building all these years.

That base wasn't actually inside a hollowed-out mountain whose location was never disclosed, even to the people who didn't go there to avoid working on secret stuff without any oversight whatsoever, often for months at a time.

Not the Only Secret Base

And it wasn't the only secret base that hadn't been built in hollowed-out mountains whose locations were never disclosed. But when we look back on the reports from early 2001 that said Dick Cheney was managing a couple of sensitive issues from an undisclosed location, this is what those stories must have meant.

It's a Shame

It's a shame we didn't know more about it at the time because Dick Cheney's role in preventing the 9/11 attacks has been grossly underestimated.

The traditional French method.


He deserves more credit than he gets.

The traditional American method.


And he loves you!

Listen: Pink Floyd: Pigs (Three Different Ones)


Big man, pig man
Ha ha, charade you are
You well heeled big wheel
Ha ha, charade you are





Notes:

1: You can't just go out and buy an exemption from gravity, or a new speed of light, for instance.

2: I'm sorry to be so ambiguous, but apparently it's my nature. By "important to protect all of them" I meant it was important to protect all the scary ideas, not the people! The whole point was to scare the people, not to protect us.

3: Or maybe their remarks had been taken out of context and they were really talking about his son, George. We never found out.