Lawrence Rogak’s Post

The Cuban people are voting on socialism with their feet: 20% of the population has left the island within the past 2 years. Shortages of everything and soaring prices are motivating them to leave. Most of them are coming to the United States. Where will Americans flee to when socialism makes life unbearable here?

George Carlin echoes my own thoughts here. Most people are more or less ok on their own. But put them together in groups or a mob, and they become capable of terrible things.

George Carlin echoes my own thoughts here. Most people are more or less ok on their own. But put them together in groups or a mob, and they become capable of terrible things.

A coalition of thousands of relatives of 9/11 victims is suing Saudi Arabia to uncover evidence of the Kingdom’s involvement in planning the attack. Legislation that allowed the lawsuit passed through Congress in 2016, overriding a veto by President Obama. That lawsuit is ongoing. I wonder what secrets it may reveal. https://lnkd.in/eVEPYCpS

WARNING: Disturbing Photo The most iconic and controversial photo from 9/11 is called “Falling Man.” Photographer Richard Drew captured this image at 9:41:15 AM on that horrific day. While the photo appeared all over the newspapers the next day, it has since been “scrubbed” from media websites. Photographer Richard Drew works for the Associated Press. When he was 21, he was standing right behind Robert F. Kennedy when RFK was shot in the head by Sirhan Sirhan; Drew’s jacket, which he saved, was covered in RFK’s blood. On the morning of the attack, Drew was on assignment, taking pictures of a maternity fashion show. A CNN cameraman wearing an earpiece said that a plane had crashed into the North Tower, and Drew's editor rang his cell phone. He packed his equipment into a bag and gambled on taking the subway downtown. Although it was still running, he was the only one on it. He got out at the Chambers Street station and saw that both towers had been turned into smokestacks. Staking out his real estate, he walked west, to where ambulances were gathering, because rescue workers "usually won't throw you out." Then he heard people gasping. People on the ground were gasping because people in the building were jumping. He was standing between a cop and an emergency technician, and each time one of them cried, "There goes another," his camera found a falling body and followed it down for a nine- or twelve-shot sequence. He shot ten or fifteen of them before he heard the rumbling of the South Tower and witnessed its collapse. For more than an hour and a half, the victims streamed from the building, one after another, consecutively rather than en masse, as if each individual required the sight of another individual jumping before mustering the courage to jump himself or herself. One photograph, taken at a distance, shows people jumping in perfect sequence, like parachutists, forming an arc composed of three plummeting people, evenly spaced. There were reports that some tried parachuting, before the force generated by their fall ripped the drapes, the tablecloths, the desperately gathered fabric, from their hands. They were all, obviously, very much alive on their way down, and their way down lasted an approximate count of ten seconds. One hit a fireman on the ground and killed him; the fireman's body was anointed by Father Mychal Judge, whose own death, shortly thereafter, was embraced as an example of martyrdom after the photograph—the redemptive tableau—of firefighters carrying his body from the rubble made its way around the world. Drew was engulfed in a mobile ruin, but he grabbed a mask from an ambulance and photographed the top of the North Tower "exploding like a mushroom" and raining debris. (Subsequent investigation concluded that the Falling Man was likely Norberto Hernandez, pastry chef at Windows On The World). — From an article by Tom Junod published in Esquire Magazine

Presented for your consideration: Although numerous men were arrested and charged with conspiracy in connection with the 9/11 attacks, they have been held for 23 years now and not one of them has gone to trial. Pre trial hearings have been going on for 12 years already. The US government permitted three of the accused to plead guilty, but recently Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III  revoked the agreement days after the retired general he put in charge of the process signed it. A trial would necessarily reveal evidence that the US government has in its possession, that it desires to keep secret. Perhaps we should ask why it takes over 23 years to bring a criminal defendant to trial. And why our government needs to keep secrets for that long. https://lnkd.in/gxr2S4Y8

“I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”

A world we lost.

“Relatives of the victims say the U.S. government has maintained a shield of secrecy to protect the Saudi kingdom from embarrassing revelations” https://lnkd.in/eNEvxCFp