"For 9/11" (Boing Boing Flickr Pool)

For 9/11, contributed to the Boing Boing Flickr Pool by Kyle Dettman.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Brainspore

I agree with the general point of the piece but I find it depressing that so many people use this kind of statement as evidence to support downright nutty conspiracy theories.

Also, yay pacifists.
- sagodjur
  
  Conspiracy theorists will use anything to support their theories because the phenomenon of conspiracy theories has to do with the theorists rather than the reality. It doesn’t denigrate the truths or observations that the conspiracy theorists use.
  
  Mark David Chapman doesn’t make The Catcher in the Rye a bad book and Anders Breivik doesn’t make Call of Duty and World of Warcraft bad games.
  
  Hell, the actual Jesus of the Bible was a pretty cool guy before the Christians started telling people what he opposed and who he hated.
- fraac
  
  Think of Nazism as a natural popular development rather than the design of moustache-twirling baddies and your nutty conspiracies disappear. Of course that leaves one with rather more self-awareness than can be comfortably handled.
  - Brainspore
    
    Think of Nazism as a natural popular development rather than the design
    of moustache-twirling baddies and your nutty conspiracies disappear.
    
    They’re not my nutty conspiracy theories. I agree with you- evil doesn’t need to pull strings from the shadows to come into power. Why bother with a cloak of invisibility when you can just drape yourself in a flag?
    - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Z2PCUJLFNNZNVRIBXBER67IBTI petr
      
      Sinclair Lewis – wrote that if fascism ever comes to America it will draped in the flag and holding the cross.
Navin_Johnson

The statement stands on it’s own without all the 9/11 hints. Actually think it’s better without it, as it applies to so many other issues.
- HenryPootel
  
  I agree Navin_Johnson. It’s not conspiracy fodder, it’s a view of just the kind of national fervor the US could get whipped into. I think a bit of national fervor is a good thing now and then – look at Egypt and Libya.
- Crashproof
  
  Indeed, it applies to all the poor oppressed Christians in the US who claim if they’re not being attacked and harrassed they’re not doing it right.
http://twitter.com/smonkey natward

Are you from the best country on earth and believe God says so?
Are you tired of those smarty pants that believe in Evolution?
Do you find the so called “Art” being shown in modern art museums confusing and ugly?
Do you wish we could return to “the good old days”?
Are you sick of those poor/black/brown/other people that live on welfare?
Do you you want to keep out immigrants?

If you answer yes to all these questions you could be either a Tea Party member, or a fascist.

Thank You,

Have a Nice Day!
- gwailo_joe
  
  Do you find the so called “Art” being shown in modern art museums confusing and ugly?
  yes….yes I do!
  
  I feel the same about this graphic…but it, like the modern art, I could not on my own better…I just comfortably critique from my sofa.
  
  (Nazis suck!!)
KBert

So, we call the leaders out as liars.
geekcalif

I’m sure I missed it but what does Goering’s statement have to do with actual attack on 9/11?
- travtastic
  
  I think you did miss it. The point, I mean.
  - geekcalif
    
    You’re probably right. I thought it was saying that the 9/11 attack was a political fantasy/fabrication by the US government to keep us American dopes living in fear.
    - EvilSpirit
      
      No, that was all the stuff that came *after* the attack. Surely you must have noticed?
- Bodhipaksa
  
  Apart from the fact that the attack on 9/11 led to the US government using fear to rip the constitution to shreds in order to “protect our freedoms,” and claiming that dissenters were traitors? Apart from that, not much.
  - Cowicide
    
    It’s the little things.
Teller

The full quote and the story behind it are far more interesting than the ironically Goeringesque way it’s presented here for middle-school dramatic effect. America is even specifically mentioned.
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.asp.
http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch

Godwin, is that you?
gwailo_joe

Yup. Right on point there.

Broken clock and all that…
glaborous_immolate

Yes, Seems like the poster is inadvertenty saying “I agree with the cyncial and manipulative Goering: democracies are no better than fascist dictatorships, because people are easily led sheep in any of them”
poon hound

Cool. Boing-Boing is a truther blog now.
Mitchell Glaser

Eisenhower, with his warning against the military-industrial complex, understood this well.
BarBarSeven

Did the U.S. really need the 9/11 attacks to send troops to war? When it was revealed there were no so-called “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq, who stood up and said “Hey! We were lied to!” Very few.

If you ask me in a world where 9/11 never happened, somehow George W. Bush and Dick Cheney would have figured out a way to send troops overseas.
- http://twitter.com/walterdavis walter davis
  
  if 9/11 hadn’t happened, i think a lot more people would have stood up and said something
  - BarBarSeven
    
    But would that have been an effective measure to stop troops being deployed? Perhaps the level of military involvement would be less, but I cannot imagine a peaceful Presidency with Bush or Cheney involved.
flagler23

The statement is almost tautological and therefore not really enlightening, but that’s why it’s so dangerous. It suggests nothing of when we should suspect our leaders itself, as opposed to trusting that we’re being attacked, but the mere use of it is suggestive enough that we should.
http://www.facebook.com/Hamlet.Au Wagner James Au

This is freshman grade agitprop. Goering made this statement in relationship to World War II, because he believed Roosevelt dragged and manipulated the US into war with the Axis. (And yes, there was a pacifist movement against US involvement even in WWII, and yes, pacifists’ patriotism was impugned.) So if you treat Goering’s statement as meaningful, you’re basically accepting his underlying premise that the US fought World War II for nefarious, dubious reasons. I’m not sure why today’s anti-war movement wants to promote a Nazi worldview, but with this quote, they literally are.
- samovar100
  
  I agree, in that there seems to be quit a few posts on BB lately that would qualify as freshman level agitprop.
  - Cowicide
    
    Yet, here you are… absorbing all the “freshman level agitprop” you can muster.
    - samovar100
      
      Heaven forbid if there is an opinion on the BB comments that runs opposite to prevailing winds.
      - travtastic
        
        For some reason, you have yet to pick up your toys and go play by yourself. The tyranny of the majority is smashing your freedoms, man! Fight the power!
      - http://www.facebook.com/RachelPartyCatJohnson Rachel Red Cloud Johnson
        
        For what, exactly?
      - Cowicide
        
        The nookie.
      - Cowicide
        
        Heaven forbid if there is an opinion on the BB comments that runs opposite to prevailing winds.
        
        I wallow in opposing opinions. I love to sail within these seas of cheese. I bathe lustily within them as those tumultuous squall opinions upset the prevailing winds of sheep-hybrid-boingboing-readers who are obviously paid handsomely through Xeni’s secret shell account at fifty cents an agreeable thread post.
        
        http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/77/1991_Sailing_the_Seas_of_Cheese.jpg
        
        … or something.
- floraldeoderant
  
  I can’t be understanding what you’re saying correctly. I do apologize but…Are you saying that his quote can only work on the one level, of critiquing America from a Nazi standpoint? And that the fact that it works on a broader scale is… What, an accident? (And that he phrased it generally because…) Alternately, you’re saying things can never evolve into meaning something else? That because Goering only intended it to be used in one context (yo necessito citation), it can’t also apply to others? When person A gets cross with person B for using a swear word, person A is really engaging in class warfare against the poor, uneducated English speakers?People quote it because it’s meant to shock people living in a society that’s so very fond of shouting about its own freedom. And even if you’re unmoved by its perfect prediction of recent history, it’s using one bit of rhetoric (omg Nazis ugaiz) to combat something at least as sophomoric (USA! USA! USA!).To say that people who use the quote are proclaiming their affection for Nazi philosophy is inane.
- Cowicide
  
  I’m not sure why today’s anti-war movement wants to promote a Nazi worldview, but with this quote, they literally are.
  
  You’re not sure? It’s very simple. Today’s anti-war movement is filled with Nazis who secretly want war and are doing so by literally promoting a Nazi worldview to all those who ignore the spirit of the message and focus on the red herring intent of the Nazi in question. Why else?
  - MB44
    
    Cowicide,
    Where do you get the energy to debunk the comments of idiots and produce consistently witty remarks to posts that are pertinent to world events and issues that I feel are important. I always feel so zapped that I can rarely muster an argument against the idiots that you consistently thrash on BoingBoing. I want to know your secret. I must know your secret…
    BTW are you only getting 50 cents per post? You should talk to xeni because your style call for a raise.
    mb
    - benher
      
      Cowicide is the shadow CEO of Redbull.
    - Cowicide
      
      If it wasn’t for all the posts of mine that Xeni, moderators, etc. nuke before you read them, you’d probably hate me.
    - samovar100
      
      It’s not so much the debunking but rather the self-satisfied degree of snark that seems to be overwhelming the BB comments the past few months.
      - MB44
        
        Last couple of months? I have always taken snark to be a trend in BB comments since I started reading the blog a couple of years ago. I prefer snark to ignorance any day though and as far a an internet collective goes, it seems like BB commentators know what they are talking about, as a whole, much more than any other group I have found online with a similar forum.
librtee_dot_com

Amazing message, that need. to be more widely known. I am currently selling a t-shirt with those exact words on it…
http://www.facebook.com/RachelPartyCatJohnson Rachel Red Cloud Johnson

Worked for watchmen
GlenBlank

At the risk of being misunderstood, misinterpreted, and deliberately misconstrued, I would simply observe (without implying any particular conclusion) that:

Goering was a masterful propagandist. A masterful propagandist who was about to be executed, after his country’s military had been defeated by an alliance of nations, one of the most powerful of which was the United States – a democratic nation whose citizens wholeheartedly supported entering the war only after they were told that they were being attacked – and whose pacifists were frequently denounced for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

Make of that what you will.
- NothingButFlowers
  
  Goering had a pretty good grasp of war propaganda. He may have been trying to call the kettle black but he was also revealing a truth about propaganda which, despite the source and context, has some truth to it.
  - http://twitter.com/nonofyrpenguins NoneofYourPenguins
    
    @NothingButFlowers:disqus looks to have a finger on the matter. Yes, Goering did reveal an ugly truth. Remember the Maine!
opmaroon

BUT THEY HATE OUR FREEEDOM!
awjt

Nazi-ism wasn’t something dreamed up “by the people.” It was dreamed up by a few people as a power play to take Germany back from the SA. It grew in popularity because of its ability to polarize on a mass scale and to marginalize the weak. Once they had parliamentary control, and therefore impunity, they executed their rival countrymen and took over the military. And then began their march towards the beaches and extermination of all who opposed.

If you think that couldn’t happen in the USA, you are under a rock.
Teller

Almost every other day in this fascinating comments section, I read sci-fi class musings about the coming takeover of the US either by the people or the fascists. The rock I’m supposed to be under if I don’t believe either can happen, is the rock I now stand on where I can look across this nation and assure the fearful we are too large, too diverse and too cranky for such shenanigans to occur.
sblethyn

Isn’t this how any politician of any nation attempts to get the country behind them to war – “weapons of mass destruction” any one? Just substitute “threatened” for “attacked” and it works for starting wars as well.