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In his defense of the end of the pretense of constitutional rule, Dick Cheney says "you know, it's not an accident that we haven't been hit in four years." Of course he's right. And since Cheney warned Americans last year that a vote for Kerry was inviting another 9/11, maybe that's how he means it to be heard this time, too: the veiled threat of a protection artist.

Remember the claims of Ground Zero firefighters, contradicting the official account, that they had actually recovered the black boxes of Flights 11 and 175? Mike Bellone and Nicholas DeMasi said the boxes were seized by federal agents, who then told them to keep quiet about it. They didn't, though their story never even rippled the mainstream's consensus fabrication. (But I wonder what the world would sound like if everyone bullied into silence by one method or another found their voice at the same time.)

Now comes corroboration from Dave Lindorff, a Counterpunch fixture who has perhaps the best insight over there on the darkness and the weirdness of America's present condition. (Alexander Cockburn, Whiteout aside, has a awful Chomskyite blindspot when it comes to deep politics, let alone high weirdness.)

Lindorff writes:

A source at the National Transportation Safety Board, the agency that has the task of deciphering the date from the black boxes retrieved from crash sites-including those that are being handled as crimes and fall under the jurisdiction of the FBI-says the boxes were in fact recovered and were analyzed by the NTSB.

"Off the record, we had the boxes," the source says. "You'd have to get the official word from the FBI as to where they are, but we worked on them here."

That federal authorities, across agencies, perpetuate a lie regarding the recovery of the World Trade Center black boxes strongly suggests that both the voice and the flight data recorders contained information that would seriously damage, if not outright deflate, the Great Myth to Make War By. (I say "contained" because I expect they were effectively destroyed shortly after falling into federal hands.) As Lindorff writes, the data could prove "whether [the hijackers] were getting outside help in guiding them to their targets."

Will we ever know what was on the recorders? Probably not. But as I've said before, we already know enough. We haven't answered the how, and likely never will, but I think we have the who and the why.

Ironically, tragically, it's the how - the popular mechanics of the stage magician's craft - that consumes most of the fuel of the "9/11 movement." As it was meant to, so the perpetrators could grandfather their innocence with the passage of time and opportunity for justice.


Afraid that'll be it for me until next week. I have a lot of subjects on the go, but no time at the present to get to them. However you observe them or don't, happy holidays.