Taboo Topics: A Town Hall Meeting with Anna Eshoo

by Carol Brouillet
March 4, 2006

“You avoid answering my questions.” I said, matter of factly. My Congresswoman Anna Eshoo responded, again, very irritably, “Oh, you are so disrespectful.”

Her overreaction, I believe was not to my statements, but to who I am and what I am doing. I am challenging her at the ballot box next November, as a Green Party Candidate for California’s 14th Congressional District.

We disagree on key issues; and I am tired of marching on her office, press in tow, to force my issues into the public arena.

A Veteran at today’s Town Hall Meeting asked her, “Are you afraid?” She denied being afraid, but she is afraid to look at the darkest shadows that are cast by the Bush Regime, and the American government; she said that she wants to be “a beacon of hope” in the land of the free and the brave.

She is probably doing the best job, she thinks she can do, but she can’t see things that she refuses to look at. She won’t look at evidence of voting fraud, the serious problem we have with the Diebold machines, and the blatant stealing of two Presidential elections. She accepts the 9-11 Commission’s Report as bipartisan and thorough, but I doubt very much if she even knows what it contains and omits.

After the meeting, an activist looked her straight in the eye, and asked her if she agreed with the 9-11 Commission’s Report on Building # 7, he repeated this three times, until she said that she agreed with the Commission. The Commission’s Report omitted entirely the collapse of Building #7, a 47 story steel structure, not hit by a plane or significant debris, that collapsed in the manner of a controlled demolition on the afternoon of the attacks. Her ignorance of the topic was clear.
Most Americans probably have no idea about Building #7, either, and her views on what was possible, or not, did hinge, to a great extent, on public opinion. Her defense of the Commission’s Report seemed to rest on the fact that so many Americans bought it, that it was a bestseller, and it sold the Commission’s credibility to the public.

Sales indicated that people are hungry for the truth about 9-11, and those who bought it could have discovered that the report was “fiction” and “a cover-up.” There are far better books on the topic that challenge the Commission’s Report. I know that, because I’ve been tabling books in the street, and at events, for years. I know many of the researchers and authors personally; the 9-11 Truth Movement continues to grow.

However, journalists and politicians are more prone to fear on the topic than the average person, because they are in positions of great responsibility, and if they do “know” the official story is untrue, ethically it is challenging for them to perpetuate the “Big Lie” which gives the current regime its legitimacy. To challenge the “Big Lie” is a dangerous course, too, and involves personal risk, the danger of being labeled a “conspiracy theorist,” or worse,- “a wacko.” Certainly, it could mean the death of a political career, or grievous bodily harm, think of Cynthia McKinney and Paul Wellstone, the bravest voices on the issue in the House and Senate. Cynthia lost her seat, and Wellstone had that tragic “accident” before he could be reelected. Honestly, I’ve been too afraid to look into the details of that, because I’ve been sticking my neck out, raising questions for years.
Anna won’t respond to them, because she can’t. They are taboo. Why was the money man behind 9-11, head of Pakistan’s I.S.I., General Mahoud Ahmad ,who had $100,000 wired to Mohammed Atta, meeting with top US officials from September 3rd to September 14th? Ahmad was having breakfast on the morning of September 11th with Porter Goss and Bob Graham, who headed the first Inquiry, conducted by the Senate/House Intelligence Oversight Committees. They failed to investigate themselves, and the official Commission felt that who financed the attacks was “insignificant.”

I had the opportunity to raise this issue with the presidents of ABC, CBS, and NBC at a Stanford event that was broadcasted on C-Span, and they had a very difficult time avoiding the question and feigning ignorance.

Aung Sung Suu Kyi wrote: "It is not power that corrupts, but fear - fear of losing power and fear of the scourge of those who wield it."

Fear is the biggest obstacle we have found in trying to convey critical information about the deeply rooted systemic problems facing us as a nation, a world, humanity. People are afraid because they don’t want to bear the burden of responsibility; they feel powerless; they see a world far more scary and frightening than they know how to cope with; they fear change, chaos, more than the continuity of what they have known. As one astute woman said, “With most issues, people ask ‘what can I do; how can I help?’ With 9-11, people are forced to ask themselves, ‘Who am I?’” In the wake of a shattered worldview, they suddenly must redefine who they are in a time of unprecedented peril.

I remember going through a personal crisis/transformation in 1992, when I saw the film JFK, and began doing research on the CIA. For six months I did research and talked to people, discovered the “alternative press.” I chose to “become an activist” and champion “truth, peace, justice” especially for the victims of US sponsored terrorism, innocent women and children in Latin America, and other parts of the world. I could not remain silent.

One issue leads to another and I had a tendency to work on issues that were very difficult, that few people would touch, like the monetary system, and global economics, global trade agreements that favored corporations and undermined the sovereignty of nations.

There are enormous problems facing us, but there are solutions that get less press than problems, and I oscillated between them. I have longed to get rid of the military/industrial complex and redirect resources from killing and controlling people to healing relationships and nurturing life. I know how deeply flawed the system is and have a vision for what could replace it, which gives me the courage and strength to see a bright path through these dark times.

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo mentioned that one of her colleagues went to Europe and reported that Americans are now “hated” abroad, which is rather comprehensible given the US foreign policy decisions over the years.

I see impeachment, reining in a blatantly criminal regime, as the first, most important step, to redeeming ourselves as a people. We don’t want other countries to help us with “regime change.” There are peaceful processes that we can employ for a peaceful transition to a hopeful future for all people. We need to get the American boot off of the world’s throat, and stop bullying and looting other nations. We have also been constructing a horrific police state here, which needs to be dismantled.

Identifying the real terrorists is another first step, and cutting off their funding, training, the military assistance that they have been getting. That includes the infamous S.O.A., known as the School of Assassins, or School of the Americas, although the name was changed to one with a long difficult acronym. That means- abolishing the C.I.A. and other alphabet soup agencies which undermine real democracy here and abroad.

There is a media revolution underway in this country. Rumsfeld is going nuts trying to figure out how to stop it. They recognize the power of the collective consciousness, whether or not we can see it individually. Our thoughts, actions, ideas, have a profound effect upon others, which is why those in positions of power seek so hard to control information, facts, and spin. Awful as 9-11 was, it was a psychological operation designed to traumatize and terrorize people into silence and submission; there was a surreal quality to the event, because what was being said over and over again was not true. Deliberately clouding people’s ability to understand reality and make wise, intelligent decisions is a horrible thing to do, particularly when it leads to war, pain, and suffering for huge numbers of people.

Rachel Corrie’s parents tell a moving story about her when she was a little girl. At the tender age of two or three she asked, “Is being brave, part of growing up?”

The time has come when humanity needs to grow up, to face its fears, look at its collective shadow, the shadow government which can only exist if we don’t cast light on it, don’t acknowledge it, see it, or hold it accountable for its criminal actions.

I realize that what I am saying is not popular opinion, many people will disagree with me, certainly my Congresswoman disagrees with me, but I believe that raising the collective consciousness is our best hope.

I also have a great respect for people and believe that they will make good, intelligent, wise decisions if they are given true, accurate information. I believe that life and people are basically good and should be loved and nourished. The dying paradigm that dominates the world today is one that acts as if people are basically evil and must be controlled or killed, and depends on lies, deception, violence to maintain its legitimacy.

Unfortunately, the current system rewards those able to lie effectively, and most people don’t know how to tell if someone is lying or not. Fortunately, liars get caught these days because modern technology that can capture their words, speeches and its evolution over time. Those who think they can get away with lying forever, have caused tremendous harm, and probably have deceived themselves the most.

Congress is in a precarious position because they have gone along with the PATRIOT Act, the wars, constructing Homeland Security. As the credibility of the Bush Regime declines, people are looking to Congress to protect them from the excesses of the Executive Branch, and Congress is not doing its job, and will be blamed for the supporting role that it has played all these years.
I was most outraged by Eshoo when she boasted of her Co-Sponsorship of the Intelligence Transformation Act which reorganized and expanded the Intelligence Agencies, now headed by the infamous John Negroponte whose specialty seems to be the Death Squads that ravaged Honduras and are currently wreaking havoc in Iraq. Knowing that “Pearl Harbor” was the pretext for creating the “National Security State,” I see 9-11 being used in the same way to expand the National Security State into a “Global Security State.” Clearly, Eshoo’s words of dissent against the Administration carry little weight next to her support of their imperial agenda.

At the Town Hall meeting today, I had many friends and supporters who did raise questions about 9-11, but there was also a guy from San Jose, whom I had never met, who had a history of disrupting meetings, who interrupted Anna and started attacking her on 9-11, and also rambling on about numerology and religion. They had a hard time shutting him up, and he did the 9-11 Truth Movement more harm than good, making it almost impossible for anyone to raise the issue again in a rational, serious, calm way.

Taboo topics are hard to bring up under almost every circumstance, and our challenge is to make the information, topic, safe to discuss anywhere, anytime, and to break the climate of fear.
Fortunately with university professors like Steven E. Jones and David Ray Griffin speaking to growing audiences, the safe space to discuss 9-11 is increasing and can be heard on the radio, on television. Eventually recognition that the official story is a hoax will become “common wisdom” over time.