Who Killed Senator Paul Wellstone?

American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone

by Four Arrows and Jim Fetzer

Vox Pop (2004)

Book Review

American Assassination summarizes the authors’ investigation into the freak airplane crash that killed Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone on October 25, 2002. Wellstone, an outspoken populist, was killed exactly 10 days before a midterm election in which the Bush/Cheney administration invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat him.

Wellstone was the sole senator to oppose the Use of Force Resolution authorizing George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq. In addition to advocating for an independent investigation into 9-11, many believed he was the only Democratic who could beat Bush in the 2004 election.

Numerous anomalies associated with the crash investigation point to an official cover-up:

• The FBI, which had no legal jurisdiction, departed for the crash scene before the accident occurred – and subsequently lied about the time they arrived.
• The National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) failed to hold a public hearing (which is routine in high profile cases). Their reported also omitted important eyewitness testimony regarding roaring/humming cellphone interference at the precise moment the plane lost control and a flash of fire, followed by an abrupt cessation of engine noise, just prior to the crash.
• Wellstone’s and other crash victims’ lungs showed evidence of smoke inhalation (which means they were still in the air – and alive – when the plane caught fire). In other words, the crash didn’t cause the fire, as claimed by the NTSB.
• The smoke from the burning fuselage was blue, suggesting a pre-crash electrical fire. If the crash had caused the fuel tanks to explode (as claimed by the NTSB), the smoke would have been black. Neither of the wings, where the fuel tanks were located, caught fire.

The book also includes an excellent summary by late assassination researcher Michael Ruppert of 47 instances of US politicians dying in plane crashes – with six fatal crashes occurring during election campaigns.

There is also an excellent scientific overview of the microwave – aka electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons – developed by the Pentagon for use in Iraq. Pulses from these weapons can destroy all electronics within a 1,000 foot range by short circuiting electrical connections. Electronic aircraft navigational equipment is exquisitely sensitive to electromagnetic interference – which is why air passengers are strictly forbidden to use cellphones or laptops during takeoff or landing. Numerous military crashes have been caused by aircraft getting too close to radio transmitters.

Unlike the NTSB, Fetzer and Four Arrows try to come up with an explanation for the crash that explains the simultaneous loss of aircraft control and loss of communication with the tower. Only two possible scenarios are consistent with this evidence – a small incendiary bomb or an EMP weapon that took out the plane’s electronics as it was landing. They find the latter more likely – anyone can purchase a basic EMP weapon on the Internet.

So You Want to Have a Revolution?

A 2013 study from Fairleigh Dickinson University reveals that 29% of Americans believe an armed revolution may be necessary in the next few years to “protect liberties.” The voter survey differed from most corporate media polls in that it included a substantial number of low income, cellphone only households.

18% of Democratic respondents shared this view, 27% of Independents and 44% of Republicans.

A decade ago, the notion that anyone other than a few thousand fringe extremists would contemplate violent revolution was unthinkable. At the very least, these results suggest a significant minority of Americans are profoundly disillusioned with the government’s apparent indifference to their needs and expectations.

The End of Growth: An Inconvenient Reality

Despite government claims to the contrary, recovery from the deflationary spiral that started in 2008 (aka The Recession) has been elusive. Although stock prices continue to soar, productivity, employment and consumer spending have stubbornly refused to return to pre-2008 levels. Some latter day (non-Wall Street) economists believe the era of economic growth has ended – permanently – owing to the soaring cost of fossil fuels. In their view, the world has returned to a steady state economy.

Given the historic link between growth and “full” employment (jobless levels below 10%), they are also predicting a scenario in which roughly half the adult population is unemployed. The paid work that remains will be low paid, part time, temporary jobs, unprotected by unions, employment rights or health and safety regulations.

To appreciate that US economic growth is at a standstill, it’s essential to look at undoctored economic data. For example, when Obama and the corporate media trumpeted a 7% unemployment rate for November, they neglect to mention that this figure only reflects the number of workers newly unemployed in the last six months (i.e. the number still receiving basic unemployment benefits). Unlike other countries, the official US jobless figure doesn’t include workers whose benefits have run out, who have stopped looking for work, or who want to work full time but are stuck in part time jobs.

Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis reveals that the US economy is shedding full time jobs, rather than gaining them. The percentage of unemployed Americans of working age has increased from 35.5% in 1999 to 41.7% in 2013 – the highest since 1980. Most of that increase (5%) has occurred since Obama was first elected in 2008.

The 2008 Economic Crash Was Predictable

Prominent members of the Peak Oil movement, most notably Michael Ruppert and Richard Heinberg, predicted the 2008 economic crash. They based their predictions on declining oil reserves, the failure of oil production to keep up with increasing demand from developing countries and the steep rise in oil prices that began in 2005.* Based on their calculations, mankind had extracted half of the world’s available oil reserves by November 2005. This was officially known as Peak Oil. We reached Peak Natural Gas several years before that, though we won’t reach Peak Coal for another decade or so.

Although there still remains tons of oil, gas and coal left in the ground for us to extract and burn, we are now on a downward slope. Not only is production continuing to outstrip demand, but most of the remaining oil, natural gas and coal are difficult to get at, expensive to extract and rely on dangerous, expensive, environmentally destructive and controversial technologies, such as deep sea oil drilling, tar sands extraction fracking and mountain top removal.

Capitalism and Productivity

The steady economic expansion we call growth is a relatively new phenomenon in human history. Prior to the 19^th century, the major nations of the world operated steady state economies. In fact the argument Heinberg and others make is the burst of productivity most of the world attributes to capitalism had nothing to do with the capitalist economic model itself. Rather it was based on the widespread abundance of cheap fossil fuels. British economists at the Fiesta Institute provide abundant data justifying this argument in Fleeing Vesuvius: Overcoming the Risks of Economic and Environmental Collapse. They point out that even at current oil prices, it costs far less to use a machine to perform work than to employ a human being or even a draft animal.

The birth of capitalism wasn’t just about the exploitation of fossil fuels. It was about the exploitation of all natural resources – clear cutting forests, large open pit mines to extract steal, copper, gold, bauxite (for aluminum), gold diamonds and rare earth minerals, draining swamps and eradicating wetlands. When oil started becoming more expensive (in the 1970s), it was also about moving western factories to third world countries to enable wholesale exploitation of human labor. Government encouraged this wholesale extraction and exploitation because it produced enormous prosperity for most of western society over many decades.

At the same time there were immense human and environmental costs. Western capitalism produced incalculable suffering in the third world as indigenous people were driven off the land that gave them a subsistence living, with the lucky ones obtaining jobs in brutal sweatshops that paid starvation wages. Suffering in the first world was less visible until last decade, when residents of the industrialized world began to realize they were being systematically poisoned with toxic industrial chemicals, increasing levels of both nuclear and microwave radiation and harmful organisms that had contaminated our air, water and food chain.

*Historically the oil price ranged between $2-4 a barrel prior to 1973 oil crisis. It remained between $10-20 a barrel until 1979. From 1979-1986 it fluctuated between $20-38 a barrel until 1986, when it dropped below $20 a barrel until 1989. It dropped below $20 a barrel very briefly in 1999. It hasn’t been below $40 a barrel since 2004.

photo credit: athens.rioter via photopin cc