As I write this, I note that the previous letter writers are virtually unanimous in condemming the making of this film as inherently exploitative, irrespective of the points of views that might be expressed, and any other thematic underpinnings.

I have to disagree. Although I can understand this reaction, I think it's wrong because making narrative works and sharing them with the world, profit or no profit, is also about deciding who gets to tell the story, not just how it's told.

How is declaring the 9-11 narrative sacrosanct any different from a war supporter venomously decrying anyone who disagrees with his interpretation of the meaning of soldiers' deaths? I haven't seen this picture, living here in the middle of the country in a middle-sized town, and I don't know what I would think of it. But I know that as long as the 9-11 narrative is sacrosanct it's only one narrative, the one we don't dare talk about. This film may spur the creation of another about events of the same day, one that's screechingly jingoistic. Or another that tries to be humanize the hijackers. Or both, and more.

Meanwhile, the deification of the 9-11 dead has been used to launch a war designed to glorify a president and to stifle dissent. And arguably, to predispose people to accept, little by little, life in a prefascist state as normal.

I remember when the 911 emergency tapes were released, without the voices of the callers, except when their survivors "gave" their permission. While I don't believe the occasional conspiracy theory about how the towers were supposedly filled with preset explosives, it occurs to me that when you condition people to see it as normal to create for the dead these kinds of privacy rights, authoritarian leaders can use these expanded expectations that certain things are off limits to cover up their screwups and misdeeds.

We have to start talking about 9-11.

I've wondered about this very same question myself, since you'd think IT workers would generally have the intelligence and predisposition towards empiricism to rationally look at unions, performing matter-of-fact cost-vs-benefits assessments of what union membership would entail, and then proceed.

But however rational people may be-- or tell themselves they are-- I wonder if the libertarian culture of IT, which may one the one hand have helped to foster the notion of open source, may also be an ideological stumbling block for many.

And of course there's the decidedly non-rational schadenfreude-ish snobbery of someone holding on to a low rung of the white-collar ladder, telling himself he's better than all those unsophisticated blue collar boobs who join unions because they've accepted their lot in life and aren't on the fast track, etc.

I don't know if Carroll discusses C. Wright Mills's The Power Elite, not having had an opportunity to read House of War, although I anticipate that I will.

Mills offered much of this argument over 40 years ago-- an argument, sadly, that's only more relavent today.

ok, thank you.

I've heard about Michelle Goldberg's upcoming book for some time and been looking forward to its publication, and this excerpt certainly does not disappoint. (And before I forget, I'd like to note the exceptional work that David Neiwert of Orcinus has been doing in tracking the rise of the theocratic right as well.)

I have a hard time separating hard-core evangelical Christianity from race. Today our churches are among the most segregated places in society, and contradictorily, if you look at the long term demographic trends, church attendance is in decline and the US will likely reach a point within the next 50 years when less than 50 percent of the populace is caucasian. Even without poring over reams of statistical data, people of all religions and ethnic backgrounds see these things happening all around them.

So from my vantage point, although I am concerned that there are powerful elements working to make America into a backward theocratic state, I think that ultimately the theocrats will not have history on their side, and are becoming more active and more militant precisely because their numbers are shrinking and they sense this, however inchoately. That said, progressives can't afford to just sit on their duffs and wait 40 or 50 years for all of this to blow over, as the theocrats and the proto-fascists will make life very miserable for millions in the interim, and may just launch another "pre-emptive" war, perhaps a even a nuclear one.