Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

As Edward G. Robinson, playing a shrewd insurance claims adjuster in a classic film directed by a famous German, Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity, stated, a "little man" was gnawing inside him, the feeling that surfaced when something was amiss.  

Journalists possess the same instincts as claims adjusters and Broeckers writes early in the book about the visceral gnawing that disturbed him about the official account being disseminated through the mainstream media about 9/11.

What makes Broeckers' work so unique is that it is presented in diary form.  He explains that his work initially appeared on the German website telepolis.  

The reader therefore observes the author's mind at work at various stages of analysis, from his initial gnawing of intellectual discomfort to the conclusions he draws at the end of the work as he stresses the necessity for ongoing investigation of an ongoing tragedy begging for some kind of ultimate resolution.

As a German author with a keen historical background, when Broeckers concluded that the 9/11 account being articulated by George W. Bush and other leading Administration figures is the mother of all propaganda snow jobs, he compares what is happening gravely to the propaganda stream of the Joseph Goebbel network in thirties' Germany under Adolf Hitler.

Hermann Goring, one of the leading figures of the Third Reich, asserted that it was easy to instill war fervor in a nation.  Initially the masses are warned about an implacable foe intent on destroying the homeland.  Once the urgency is drummed home with incessant repetition dissent is denounced as unpatriotic and providing aid to the enemy.

Broeckers then propels forward to the present and the Bush government's campaign to rally America in the wake of the 9/11 tragedies.  He focuses on Bush's statement, made under color of jest, in 2000 shortly before assuming power.  

Bush commented then that it would be easier to govern in a dictatorship, "just as long as I'm the dictator."  Broeckers sees a terrifying parallel between the Goebbels Third Reich network's incessant references to Germany as a great nation and how traitors within the nation's midst were seeking to bring it down internally.  

Bush uses the same "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" argument when, in the wake of 9/11, he posed the argument that on the war on terror "you are either with us or against us."  As in the case of Nazi Germany, an either-or dualism reigned.  

In Bush America any opposition to curtailing freedom through the so-called Patriot Act or opposing an invasion of Iraq was denounced as unpatriotic and involved "giving aid and comfort to terrorists."  The only legitimate and acceptable way to fight terrorism was to support the Bush Administration with its incessant peroration: "We are at war!"

Broeckers begins the book by challenging the roots of the Bush Administration's propaganda campaign of listening, following and asking no questions, all under the aegis  of fighting the war on terror.  He criticizes Bush propagandists for contending that to question the Administration's and mainstream media's account of 9/11 is to be part of a senseless and destructive "conspiracy theory."

The author astutely turns the argument around on Bush and fellow propagandists.  

Broeckers alleges that to accept the instant analysis, instant proclamation of guilt against one well known terrorist, and a former CIA asset at that, Osama bin Laden, living in the Tora Bora cave complex along with a team of poorly skilled pilots and box cutter weapons wielders orchestrated the destruction of the World Trade Center embodies the most absurdist of unfounded conspiracy theories.

As a well-educated German with knowledge of history, Broeckers was painfully aware of the Hitler tactic of burning down the Reichstag and blaming it on Communist revolutionaries as a major strategy tactic in marshalling the German populace to rally behind the Third Reich as it sought "justice" for the Fatherland.  

Broeckers parallels that tragic point in history to the rush to judgment in the wake of 9/11.  He notes how quickly the alleged "perpetrators" were discovered and how repetitiously their names were repeated on television.  

Broeckers sees a parallel between the response to 9/11 and instant establishing of guilt alongside the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, as networks reiterated that Lee Harvey Oswald was the guilty party and that he acted alone.

An interesting point Broeckers makes in his book concerns a Dan Rather CBS News interview with Tom Kenney of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in which the FEMA administrator made the odd remark, "We're currently one of the first teams that were deployed to support the city of New York for this disaster.  We arrived on late Monday night (September 10), and went into action on Tuesday morning."

Another point of major interest made by Broeckers involves heavy military activity between September 1 and 10, just prior to the 9/11 tragedies.  Broeckers writes:

"In an exercise dubbed Operation `Swift Sword' and planned for four years, 23,000 British troops are redeployed to Oman.  At the same time, two U.S. carrier battle groups arrive off the coast of Pakistan, and another 17,000 US troops join the 23,000 NATO troops assembled in Egypt for Operation `Bright Star.'  All of these forces are in place before the first plane hits the WTC towers."

Broeckers frequently makes an essential point concerning which Americans should pay heed.  He notes that the Internet provides the opportunity for an informational convergence and a breakthrough from the stranglehold of the mighty corporate media influence.

He recommends a twofold strategy of 1) question and 2) engage in diligent research, putting into practice the rules he admirably followed in achieving such an astute and thought provoking work at a time when such investigation and analysis are so vitally needed.