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StroFun
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Liquid Bomb Terror Plot is a 'Fiction' Underscoring Police Failures
#6077908 - 09/19/06 12:16 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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Liquid Bomb Terror Plot is a 'Fiction' Underscoring Police Failures
Nafeez Ahmed | September 18, 2006
British Army expert casts doubt on 'liquid explosives' threat, Al Qaeda network in UK Identified
Lieutenant-Colonel (ret.) Nigel Wylde, a former senior British Army Intelligence Officer, has suggested that the police and government story about the "terror plot" revealed on 10th August was part of a "pattern of lies and deceit."
British and American government officials have described the operation which resulting in the arrest of 24 mostly British Muslim suspects, as a resounding success. Thirteen of the suspects have been charged, and two released without charges.
According to security sources, the terror suspects were planning to board up to ten civilian airliners and detonate highly volatile liquid explosives on the planes in a spectacular terrorist operation. The liquid explosives -- either TATP (Triacetone Triperoxide), DADP (diacetone diperoxide) or the less sensitive HMTD (hexamethylene triperoxide diamine) -- were reportedly to be made on board the planes by mixing sports drinks with a peroxide-based household gel and then be detonated using an MP3 player or mobile phone.
But Lt. Col. Wylde, who was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for his command of the Belfast Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit in 1974, described this scenario as a "fiction." Creating liquid explosives is a "highly dangerous and sophisticated task," he states, one that requires not only significant chemical expertise but also appropriate equipment.
Terror plot scenario "untenable"
"The idea that these people could sit in the plane toilet and simply mix together these normal household fluids to create a high explosive capable of blowing up the entire aircraft is untenable," said Lt. Col. Wylde, who was trained as an ammunition technical officer responsible for terrorist bomb disposal at the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in Sandhurst.
After working as a bomb defuser in Northern Ireland, Lt. Col. Wylde became a senior officer in British Army Intelligence in 1977. During the Cold War, he collected intelligence as part of an undercover East German "liaison unit," then went on to work in the Ministry of Defense to review its communications systems.
"So who came up with the idea that a bomb could be made on board? Not Al Qaeda for sure. It would not work. Bin Laden is interested in success not deterrence by failure," Wylde stated.
"This story has been blown out of all proportion. The liquids would need to be carefully distilled at freezing temperatures to extract the required chemicals, which are very difficult to obtain in the purities needed."
Once the fluids have been extracted, the process of mixing them produces significant amounts of heat and vile fumes. "The resulting liquid then needs some hours at room temperature for the white crystals that are the explosive to develop." The whole process, which can take between 12 and 36 hours, is "very dangerous, even in a lab, and can lead to premature detonation," said Lt. Col. Wylde.
If there was a conspiracy, he added, "it did not involve manufacturing the explosives in the loo," as this simply "could not have worked." The process would be quickly and easily detected. The fumes of the chemicals in the toilet "would be smelt by anybody in the area." They would also inevitably "cause the alarms in the toilet and in the air change system in the aircraft to be triggered. The pilot has the ability to dump all the air from an aircraft as a fire-fighting measure, leaving people to use oxygen masks. All this means the planned attack would be detected long before the queues outside the loo had grown to enormous lengths."
Government silent on detonators
Even if it was possible for the explosive to have been made on the aircraft, a detonator, probably made from TATP, would be needed to set it off. "It is very dangerous and risky to the individual," Wylde said. "As the quantity involved would be small this would injure the would-be suicide bomber but not endanger the aircraft, thus defeating the object of bringing down an aircraft."
Despite the implausibility of this scenario, it has been used to justify wide-ranging new security measures that threaten to permanently curtail civil liberties and to suspend sections of the United Kingdom's Human Rights Act of 1998. "Why were the public delicately informed of an alleged conspiracy which the authorities knew, or should have known, could not have worked?" asked Lt. Col. Wylde.
"This is not a new problem," he added, noting that 'shoe-bomber' Richard Reid had attempted to use this type of explosive on a plane in December 2001. "If this threat is real, what has been done to develop explosive test kits capable of detecting peroxide based explosives?" asked Wylde. "These are the real issues about protecting the public that have not been publicised. Instead we are going to get demands for more internment without trial."
Lt. Col. Wylde also raised questions about the criminal investigation into the 7th July terrorist attacks in London last year. He noted that police and government sources have maintained "total silence" about the detonation devices used in the bombs on the London Underground and the bus at Tavistock Square. "Whatever the nature of the primary explosive materials, even if it was home-made TATP, the detonator that must be used to trigger an explosion is an extremely dangerous device to make, requiring a high level of expertise that cannot be simply self-taught or picked-up over the internet," Wylde stated.
The government's silence on the detonation device used in the attacks is "disturbing," he said, as the creation of the devices requires the involvement of trained explosives experts. Wylde speculated that such individuals would have to be present either inside the country or outside, perhaps in Eastern Europe, where they would be active participants in an international supply-chain to UK operatives. "In either case, we are talking about something far more dangerous than home-grown radicals here."
Spy slams police inaction against terrorists
Wylde's concerns are echoed by others familiar with British terrorism-related intelligence operations, such as Glen Jenvey, who is profiled in the bestselling book, The Terror Tracker, by terrorism investigator Neil Doyle. Jenvey worked for several military attaches monitoring terrorist groups in London and obtained crucial video and surveillance evidence used by British police to arrest radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, who was convicted last February.
"I've been closely monitoring the internet communications of extremist Muslim groups inside the UK both before and after 7/7, and they are intimately interconnected," said Jenvey, who is affiliated with the London-based terror watch group VIGIL. "We've identified a coordinated leadership of at least 20 and up to 60 people, extremist preachers with blatant international al-Qaeda terrorist connections."
Jenvey noted that even though they are known to the authorities and are monitored while breaking the law with impunity, particularly in their private sermons, the police have failed to take appropriate action against them. "The police don't need to round up and detain thousands of British Muslims. If they only arrested, charged and prosecuted these 20 key terrorist leaders, they will have a struck a fatal blow against the epicentres of al-Qaeda extremism in the UK. But they're sitting on this."
Jenvey points to Omar Bakri Mohammed, a colleague of convicted terrorist Abu Hamza who headed the now-banned Islamist group al-Muhajiroun in the United Kingdom. Despite being exiled to Lebanon, Omar Bakri continues to communicate with UK-based extremist groups which are believed to be successors of al-Muhajiroun operating under new names, including the Saved Sect and al-Ghurabaa. British security sources have confirmed that the 7/7 bombers were associates of Omar Bakri's network, and Bakri himself publicly boasted a year before the London bombings that an al-Qaeda cell in London was planning a terrorist strike.
An investigation by the counterterrorism unit in the New York Police Department found that Bakri's al-Muhajiroun had formed 81 front groups and support networks in six countries, most of them based in London, the home counties bordering London, the Midlands, Lancashire and West Yorkshire. By the time Home Secretary Dr. John Reid moved in July to proscribe the latest incarnation of al-Muhajiroun, al-Ghurabaa, this sprawling interconnected network was fully functioning and continues to operate namelessly, despite proscription. Bakri's network has recently adopted the name "Al Sabiqoon Al-Awwaloon".
Jenvey complains that, despite the arrest in early September of radical cleric Abu Abdullah, convicted terrorist Abu Hamza's successor at the Finsbury Park Mosque, a "hardcore group of 20 or more extremists operating around Omar Bakri" remains at large. "The police have every reason to act, and they know who these people are. Their failure to do so has only exacerbated unjustified demonization of Muslims. These extremists are not Muslims in any meaningful sense, they are simply terrorists obsessed with violence."
MI5, MI6 recruiting extremists?
Even the arrest of Abu Abdullah only occurred after his support for terrorism was widely reported in the British and American media in late August. On 23rd August, he justified the killing of Westerners and told CNN correspondent Dan Rivers that Tony Blair is a "legitimate target" of jihad. The Sunday Times remarked that he "is apparently being allowed to operate unchecked by the authorities five months after a law was passed making it a criminal offence to glorify terrorism."
Torture may have been used to extract evidence for the weekend police raids which resulted in the arrest of 14 British Muslims, including Abdullah. Sources confirm that information came from detainees at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo, where interrogation techniques classified as torture under international law are routinely used.
The reluctance to take decisive action against the leadership of the extremist network in the UK has a long history. According to John Loftus, a former Justice Department prosecutor, Omar Bakri and Abu Hamza, as well as the suspected mastermind of the London bombings Haroon Aswat, were all recruited by MI6 in the mid-1990s to draft up British Muslims to fight in Kosovo. American and French security sources corroborate the revelation. The MI6 connection raises questions about Bakri's relationship with British authorities today. Exiled to Lebanon and outside British jurisdiction, he is effectively immune to prosecution.
Other London-based radical clerics with terrorist connections also had a relationship to the security services. Abu Qatada, described as al-Qaeda's European ambassador, was, according to French sources a long-time MI5 informant. Pakistani government insiders similarly believe that Ahmed Omar Sheikh Saeed, the British al-Qaeda finance chief from Forest Gate, not only worked with the ISI, Pakistani's military intelligence service, but was also recruited by the CIA as an informant. Saeed, who reportedly wired several hundred thousand dollars to alleged chief 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, is currently in Pakistani custody for the murder of Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl.
Omar Bakri regularly uses the internet to communicate from Lebanon with his followers in Britain. On Sunday evening, 3rd September, Omar Bakri told participants in an online chat forum that he had been pulled in by the Lebanese authorities at the request of the US and British governments and questioned in relation to the "terror plot". Although he denied involvement in the plot, he claimed that some of the 24 British Muslim suspects were known to him. When asked to confirm or deny whether Bakri had indeed been arrested at the request of the British, the Foreign Office had no comment. Bakri said that he was regularly questioned by Lebanese officials on behalf of the British government.
The official reluctance to act against Bakri and his active associates in the UK does not match the government's willingness to act pre-emptively to foil a plot of doubtful reality. Official reluctance to acknowledge the significance of the detonators used in the 7/7 terrorist operation suggests that the threat is far more sophisticated than authorities have admitted, and that emphasis on home-grown amateurs is mistaken. Lt. Col. Wylde's observations would seem to indicate that the terror-threat narrative is being manipulated for reasons of political expediency. #
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Graham Ennis, Nigel Wylde and Glen Jenvey for their research assistance and contribution to this story. They bear no responsibility for any errors therein. An abridged version of this story will be printed in The Muslim News, UK on 29th September 2006.
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is the author of The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry (Duckworth, £9:99) and The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism (Arris, £12:99). He testified in the US Congress about his research on international terrorism in July 2005. He teaches International Relations at the University of Sussex, Brighton.
http://www.infowars.com/articles/terror/liquid_terror_plot_is_fiction_underscores_police_failure.htm
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ZippoZ
Knomadic


Registered: 06/17/03
Posts: 13,227
Loc: Pongyang, North Korea
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Re: Liquid Bomb Terror Plot is a 'Fiction' Underscoring Police Failures [Re: StroFun]
#6077975 - 09/19/06 12:41 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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yeah i figured this whole terror plot for bullshit the day i heard about it.
-------------------- PEACE
zippoz "in times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings - artists, scientists, clowns, and philosophers - to create order. In such times as ours however, when there is too much order, too much m management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. To relieve the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption" "People do it every day, they talk to themselves ... they see themselves as they'd like to be, they don't have the courage you have, to just run with it."
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StroFun
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Registered: 07/11/06
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Re: Liquid Bomb Terror Plot is a 'Fiction' Underscoring Police Failures [Re: ZippoZ]
#6078126 - 09/19/06 01:38 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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Did you see the hilarious article on the news something to the affect of, "if these chmicals become bombs by mixing them why is everyone in airports being told to dump all their liquids into trashcans?" Ha thats funny.
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kotik
fuckingsuperhero


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Re: Liquid Bomb Terror Plot is a 'Fiction' Underscoring Police Failures [Re: StroFun]
#6079733 - 09/19/06 07:49 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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the strange thing is that a bomb on an airplane would kill a few hundred people maximum, but a bomb in an airport would be exponentially more tragic. It seems there is no real protection here, except for the reputation of the airline companies.
-------------------- No statements made in any post or message by myself should be construed to mean that I am now, or have ever been, participating in or considering participation in any activities in violation of any local, state, or federal laws. All posts are works of fiction.
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Vvellum
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Re: Liquid Bomb Terror Plot is a 'Fiction' Underscoring Police Failures [Re: StroFun]
#6080235 - 09/19/06 09:11 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
"The idea that these people could sit in the plane toilet and simply mix together these normal household fluids to create a high explosive capable of blowing up the entire aircraft is untenable," said Lt. Col. Wylde, who was trained as an ammunition technical officer responsible for terrorist bomb disposal at the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in Sandhurst.
I think the objective was not to blow up an entire aircraft, but to blow a hole in the aircraft just large enough to render the plane instable in flight or to ignite the jet fuel. But interesting article, nonetheless. I wonder if other chemists can confirm whether or not such a bomb can be constructed as the story goes.
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wilshire
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Re: Liquid Bomb Terror Plot is a 'Fiction' Underscoring Police Failures [Re: StroFun]
#6080304 - 09/19/06 09:25 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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acetone peroxide is not the sort of thing you can just whip in an airplane toilet. if terrorism aims to cause fear and disruption, it's fortunate for terrorists that they have western security authorities to accomplish their task for them when they fail miserably on their own.
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The_Red_Crayon
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Re: Liquid Bomb Terror Plot is a 'Fiction' Underscoring Police Failures [Re: wilshire]
#6080332 - 09/19/06 09:33 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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I remember during the anthrax attacks i kept watching the news and they were illustrating how they could stick anthrax in vehicle exhaustpipes and watch out for every crop duster, total sensationalism.
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Vvellum
Stranger

Registered: 05/24/04
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Re: Liquid Bomb Terror Plot is a 'Fiction' Underscoring Police Failures [Re: wilshire]
#6080672 - 09/19/06 10:38 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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anthrax,LOL whatever happened to that investigation?
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ZippoZ
Knomadic


Registered: 06/17/03
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Re: Liquid Bomb Terror Plot is a 'Fiction' Underscoring Police Failures [Re: Vvellum]
#6080805 - 09/19/06 11:00 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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remember bird flu?
-------------------- PEACE
zippoz "in times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings - artists, scientists, clowns, and philosophers - to create order. In such times as ours however, when there is too much order, too much m management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. To relieve the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption" "People do it every day, they talk to themselves ... they see themselves as they'd like to be, they don't have the courage you have, to just run with it."
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Vvellum
Stranger

Registered: 05/24/04
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Re: Liquid Bomb Terror Plot is a 'Fiction' Underscoring Police Failures [Re: ZippoZ]
#6080878 - 09/19/06 11:22 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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hype.
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kotik
fuckingsuperhero


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Re: Liquid Bomb Terror Plot is a 'Fiction' Underscoring Police Failures [Re: Vvellum]
#6081281 - 09/20/06 04:58 AM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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the best tactic ive heard was if a terrorist were to infect himself with say, smallpox, then all he has to do is sneeze on people in a crowded airport.
-------------------- No statements made in any post or message by myself should be construed to mean that I am now, or have ever been, participating in or considering participation in any activities in violation of any local, state, or federal laws. All posts are works of fiction.
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Seuss
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Re: Liquid Bomb Terror Plot is a 'Fiction' Underscoring Police Failures [Re: StroFun]
#6081284 - 09/20/06 05:01 AM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
But Lt. Col. Wylde, who was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for his command of the Belfast Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit in 1974, described this scenario as a "fiction." Creating liquid explosives is a "highly dangerous and sophisticated task," he states, one that requires not only significant chemical expertise but also appropriate equipment.
Bullshit. In my experiemental youth, I mixed up two of the three "liquid" explosives mentioned. If you can make coffee, then you can make TATP. Simply mix three liquids and instantly a white powder will form. Filter the powder, let it dry, and you have TATP. For HMTD you simply mix a liquid and two powders. When the mixture cools, a white powder will form. Filter the powder, let it dry, and you have HMTD.
Quote:
If there was a conspiracy, he added, "it did not involve manufacturing the explosives in the loo," as this simply "could not have worked."
Bullshit. A child with ten minutes to spare could mix these up in the loo. The hardest part would be filtering and drying. However, there are much better/easier explosives that can be made that would only require mixing of two liquids, and no filter or drying.
Quote:
"The resulting liquid then needs some hours at room temperature for the white crystals that are the explosive to develop."
Bullshit, at least for TATP. The explosive precipitate in TATP forms immediately upon addition of the third liquid, no wait needed. I always left HMTD in the lab fridge to cool, and don't remember how long it took for the explosive precipitate to form.
Quote:
"Whatever the nature of the primary explosive materials, even if it was home-made TATP, the detonator that must be used
Bullshit. Both HMTD and TATP are shock and heat sensitive primary explosives. No detonator is needed to initiate an detonation within either substance. Hit HMTD with a hammer and it will detonate. Been there, done that. Light TATP with a fuse in a confined space and it will detonate. Been there, done that.
Every statement of mine in this post is backed by my own experimentation and research. I have personally manufactured, worked with, and witnessed the properties of the products I mentioned, something Lt. Col. Wylde obviously has not. Although it was outside of lab hours, the work was done in an explosives research lab and I was licenced to work with high explosives at the time. These can be very dangerous substances to work with, but I don't think that matters to somebody that is getting ready to commit mass murder and suicide.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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Asante
Omnicyclion prophet


Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 87,643
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Re: Liquid Bomb Terror Plot is a 'Fiction' Underscoring Police Failures [Re: Seuss]
#6081388 - 09/20/06 07:24 AM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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Log in to view attachment
Good you've taken care of this 
Quote:
According to security sources, the terror suspects were planning to board up to ten civilian airliners and detonate highly volatile liquid explosives on the planes in a spectacular terrorist operation. The liquid explosives -- either TATP (Triacetone Triperoxide), DADP (diacetone diperoxide) or the less sensitive HMTD (hexamethylene triperoxide diamine) -- were reportedly to be made on board the planes by mixing sports drinks with a peroxide-based household gel and then be detonated using an MP3 player or mobile phone.
As I recall the original news, they were talking about actual sports drinks, not just chemicals in sports drinks containers.
If they could get chemicals on board, there is no reason why they wouldn't have used actual readymade liquid explosives, for instance "the other unstable peroxide" which I don't see mentioned.
Separating TATP and DADP is nonsense - they occur as a mixture and cannot be prepared separately, especially not in an airplane loo. That they were named separately is a sign that the one releasing the news doesn't exactly know what he is talking about.
Even though explosives (like TATP and some others) could be manufactured on the spot, it sounds like a very unlikely story to do this with a household gel and some other details.
As an attached file, here's a home video of some pyro hobbyists experimenting with a homemade liquid explosive mix. An explosion of this magnitude would likely tear open the side of a plane, at an altitude, when fired close to the side.
Do not underestimate the forces at work here.
These experiments ofcourse should not be attempted unless you're a licensed professional.
-------------------- Omnicyclion.org higher knowledge starts here
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ZippoZ
Knomadic


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Re: Liquid Bomb Terror Plot is a 'Fiction' Underscoring Police Failures [Re: Asante]
#6081488 - 09/20/06 08:30 AM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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apparently when they busted them, they were doing a "dry run" w/o the actual explosives
-------------------- PEACE
zippoz "in times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings - artists, scientists, clowns, and philosophers - to create order. In such times as ours however, when there is too much order, too much m management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. To relieve the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption" "People do it every day, they talk to themselves ... they see themselves as they'd like to be, they don't have the courage you have, to just run with it."
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