Skimming through the Digg comments saw your standard assortment of reality-challenged "9/11 was an inside job" conspiracy nutjobs, complete with all the usual copy-and-paste regurgitation.
It was pretty standard stuff, until I got to something, which, if true, by implication and extension, outs me as an extended (albeit unwitting) participant in the 9/11 Conspiracy (wherein the government, or possibly just a hidden cabal, or the PNAC, or maybe the Bohemian Grove -- somebody bad -- orchestrated the 9/11 attacks and the ongoing coverup, including the bits where the intrepid truthseekers are quashed, but no they will not be silenced, and will fight back with the best tools at their disposal -- YouTube, Google, Photoshop and assorted chickenwire structures, etc., etc. ad infinitum.)
Anyway, one particular sooper-genious connects the dots this way:
* Since, obviously, the Popular Mechanics piece was a hatchet job that could only have been done at the behest of the corrupt Bush administration...
* ...it required trusted people at the magazine's helm (as seen in some preceeding management shakeup, or "coup" at Popular Mechanics)
* The shocking proof?
The president and CEO of Hearst Corporation is one Victor F. Ganzi.Holy dogshit! The CEO of Hearst is a BENS member, and BENS once did... something for Congress. And the smoking gun is a PR tidbit on BENS's own Web site. Diabolical! Obviously, it's conclusive proof of... what happens when retards are allowed to use Google.
Victor F. Ganzi is a member of B.E.N.S. - "Business Executives for National Security"
http://www.bens.org/what_threats_intel.html#intel - wherein we learn that "When it came time to evaluate In-Q-Tel, the CIA's innovative technology development enterprise, Congress turned to BENS"
In October 2002, B.E.N.S. received a "CIA Agency Seal Medallion" for its work on the In-Q-Tel program. http://www.bens.org/highlights_InQTelMedal.html
In-Q-Tel? It is described as "A new partnership between the CIA and the 'private sector' [my apostrophes].", making it a classic front for traditional fascism and other American-style old-fashioned family values. http://www.in-q-tel.org/
I worked for BENS in the early to mid-90s for a few years. It's a nonprofit, nonpartisan group whose membership was primarily businesspeople, and whose primary policy focus back then was cutting waste and increasing efficiency in defense spending (including supporting the Base Realignment and Closure process) and nuclear nonprofileration issues.
In the New York office, we did about 2 events a month, focusing on different policy issues, and getting the membership together with different policymakers and political candidates.
I used to have a list of some of the event highights online -- I archived my old online resume when I switched hosts.
In addition to rubbing elbows with the CEOs and execs who were our members, I got the chance to meet (or at least was in the same room with) a few Senators, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of the Army, some Generals, a few Ambassadors, and even Kofi Annan (when he was heading up UN peacekeeping operations). To say nothing of the tons of policy wonks, authors, think-tankers, journalists and other speakers we had.
Pretty heady stuff, even though most of my job consisted of printing out the name tags and doing advance work like making sure that the audience could hear the speakers over the air conditioning (doing events work really teaches you how much stupid little details matter).
I'm not sure what BENS's primary policy issues are these days (though apparently, they are focused more on Homeland Security issues). But, uh-oh, they've feature a few choice quotes from Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, so they must be in bed with the Administration and thus, the conspiracy.
I guess in the years after I left, they shifted focus from, say, getting fissile material out of the former Soviet Union, to wiring the World Trade Center with shaped cutting charges and thermite.
Conspiracy types always cue on groups like BENS (granted, to a lesser extent since it's not as well-known) or the Council on Foreign Relations and such because they're great at connecting the dots between different policymakers, movers and shakers. It's like six degrees of Kevin Bacon, and about as meaningful.
Anyway, I'm just using this conspiracy theorist to remember a bit about one of my past lives. I don't get to stretch my foreign policy muscles very much any more, except for the occasional barstool conversation.
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