Rachel Maddow, MSNBC 9/11 Shill

By Jim Fetzer

"The secrecy state is at the heart of the leaks by whistleblowers Manning and Snowden; the court proceedings and surveillance of journalists by the government; the necessary or unnecessary (who knows?) closure of diplomatic posts abroad; the refusal to respond to FOIA requests by the public; the efforts even by local and state governments to even keep citizens from overseeing the tabulation of ballots cast in their own public elections."--Brad Friedman

There was a time when I was a huge fan of msnbc, especially of "Countdown" with Keith Olbermann, whom I continue to regard as one of the most brilliant, if not the most brilliant, political commentators to ever take the role of the anchor of a major news program of any kind.

When Keith was replaced by Rachel Maddow, I was open-minded and, at least at the beginning, very impressed by her analytic ability, which was not quite on a par with Keith's but was far above what we encounter on the major networks.

Major events like JFK and 9/11, alas, are not among either of their strong suits, but I have been appalled to discover the role of Rachel Maddow as a shill for The 9/11 Commission Report (2004), a preliminary draft of which was author by Philip D. Zelikow, its Executive Director, a year before he shared it with any member of the 9/11 commission staff.   

Nevertheless, it was astonishing to discover that, prior to joining the Bush administration, his area of academic expertise had been "the creation and maintenance of, in his words, public myths or public presumptions", which he gave us in the commission's official report, which did not even mention the destruction of WTC-7.

Click here: "This is an orange"

That the "official account" is indeed a myth has been demonstrated innumerable times, as I explained in "20 reasons the official account of 9/11 is wrong", including  the fires in the Twin Towers burned neither hot enough nor long enough to cause the steel to weaken, much less melt; the buildings were blown apart in every direction from the top down, unlike a bona fide gravity driven collapse, and when it was over, there were no massive piles of "pancakes", because they were largely converted into millions of cubic yards of very fine dust.  What happened to them is well illustrated by "9/11: The Towers of Dust":

Click here: "9/11: The Towers of Dust"

These were not classic "controlled demolitions", exemplified by the destruction of WTC-7, but "demolitions under control", intended to preserve the dyke-like "bathtub", which was designed to keep Hudson River water from flooding beneath lower Manhattan, the most valuable real estate in the world, including the subway and PATH train tunnels, which had to be avoided at all cost.  They even used massive explosions in the subbasements to drain the sprinkler systems of water to insure that they did not extinguish the very modest fires that remained after the alleged "jet fuel" was consumed in those spectacular fireballs.  You do not have to be a rocket scientist to know that 9/11 was "an inside job" and not the act of 19 Arab fanatics.

Click here: "RT: '9/11 was an inside job'"

I was therefore gratified to discover that Abby Martin of Russia Today had taken on Rachel Maddow and explained her roll as a shill for 9/11, which is exactly right.  Among the absurd arguments she presents is that 9/11 Truthers find conspiracy theories "psychologically reassuring", as though the belief that your very own government is conspiring to murder thousands of your fellow citizens brings with it a "sense of relief" that it wasn't actually a group of Islamic fundamentalists who were acting under the control of a guy in a cave in Afghanistan!

As virtually everyone should know, the situation is precisely the opposite. Information that threatens our core beliefs--such as that the government is nurturing and protecting us--are normally suppressed and denied as a function of cognitive dissonance. It is the primary reason that so many Americans resist 9/11 Truth. If I needed any more proof that Rachel Maddow is a shill for 9/11, that has now done it for me. And she is not the only one peddling psychological rubbish, because it is also being done by shills for The Warren Report (1964) about the assassination of JFK, as I discovered from an article in the LA Times.

PBS has run a special, "Cold Case: JFK", which is aimed at undermining conspiracy theories about JFK.  One of those it touts is John McAdams, a notorious "lone nutter", who proclaims that JFK was "killed by "one guy with a grudge and a gun".  In response to a reporters question about those who may fell that he has sold out to the "official account" of JFK, McAdams claims that people prefer to believe in conspiracies:

That's because conspiracy theories make people feel safe, said McAdams. "There are a lot of advantages in believing in a conspiracy theory. People are proud to say, 'I'm skeptical, I don’t buy the official version,'" he said. "People don’t feel comfortable believing that small, trivial causes -- or sheer accident -- can change history. They'd rather believe that dark forces are at work."

The PBS special also maintains that "science" shows that JFK could have been hit twice with the Mannlicher-Carcano from the 6th floor of the Book Depository and that the so-called "magic bullet" theory is defensible, in response to which I posted this reply:

Which shows that their knowledge of human anatomy is no greater than their knowledge of human psychology. If anyone really believes that the belief that our lives is dominated by powerful special interests who can even remove the President of the United States in broad daylight in a major American city is psychologically "more comforting" than the belief that it was done by a lone, demented gunman, I would be astonished. 

But that is the song and dance that Rachael Maddow and John McAdams are bringing us in lieu of rational analysis based on logic and evidence, where Rachel has gone further by also shilling for Obama and Biden, which others have addressed.

 Jim Fetzer, a former Marine Corps officer, is McKnight Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota Duluth.