In 1935 while in exile Brecht wrote his poem challenging the aristocracy of history. The belief that events and the entire of human existence occurs because of a great man, the dear leader. In contemporary moments, politicians and influential people are looked at with cultish adulation. They are the exemplifiers of perfect power, human gods who may fix, solve and accomplish through their personality but above all else, the power afforded to them by status. A status safeguarded through wealth and the template of governance, to bribe the mercenary minded, zealotic believers who will do all things because they trust and adore the system or leader, the institution and hierarchy and those who are to frightened or apathetic to challenge the status quo. In their failure, the great leader is an effigy. To be blamed, their opponents may usurp them and seek to only replace them. Change is not in liberation from such people, or hierarchies, from power itself. It is only a replacement of another personality or personalities, or version of ruling ideology. .

Different books may be burned. But books shall be burned all the same. The contraband will remain forbidden or change, the censors are never unemployed. The police who enforced for one, shall as easily enforce for anyone who has power. The military will not protect and defend the people, only them. The regime, the state, the movement, the party, the faith, whatever pays them and feeds them with purpose. War abroad for imperial ambition can as easily turn inwards, checkpoints and boots on the street.

The salvation does not come from the cult leader, the prophets of destruction or the heads of state and certainly not from the politburos or parliaments. Politics is violence, every policy requires force. From the point of bayonets or the barrel of guns. Law never inhibits the powerful, it ensures it. Security, safety the catchwords that seduce. Chaos is the frightful frontier. Yet, despite all that power and laws, chaos still reigns whether close to home or in the frontiers where foreign policy bombs the poor and fills unmarked grades. Genocide reigns, whether it’s legally recognized or not. The great and powerful decide as much.

Nearly one hundred years ago, Brecht wrote this poem for the common person. The proletariat and peasant of history who are mostly nameless. We know of Harold and William, but what was the name of the gallant warrior on Stamford bridge? Who fired the arrow that fell the King himself? So long ago, trapped in a tapestry of treasure. But a moment of distant history that has made the world to this day.

“A Worker Reads and Asks”

Who built Thebes with its seven gates?
Books say it was kings.
Did kings hew and haul the rock?
And Babylon razed again and again,
who rebuilt it again and again? Where
in gilded Lima did the builders live?
When the Great Wall of China was finished
and it was evening, where did the masons go?
Monuments commemorate Roman victories. Who
carved them? Who lost when the Caesars won?
Did the Byzantines live only in palaces
and poems? Even when Atlantis sank
into myth, the sea had to drown
men howling for their slaves.

The young Alexander conquered India.
On his own?
Caesar smote the Gauls.
Wasn’t there at least a cook with him?
Philip of Spain wept when his armada
went to the bottom. Did no one else weep?
Frederick the Great won the Seven Years War. Who
won beside him?

A victory per page.
Who cooked the victory feast?
A great man per decade.
Who paid the bill?

So much to read.
So much to ask.”

BERTOLT BRECHT

Tucker Carlson has a new series coming out called “The 9/11 Files”, the first episode of which I stumbled across today on Rumble. It covers how the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was tracking two of the alleged hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, the plane flown into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

The CIA tracked Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar to a meeting of Al Qaeda operatives in Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia, in early 2000 and knew they had visas to enter the US but “failed” to notify the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI also “failed” to learn about the two operatives being in the country despite the pair renting a room in the home of an FBI informant.

The first episode of “The 9/11 Files”, published today, is titled “The CIA’s Secret Mission Gone Wrong“. Here’s the video description:

A former FBI agent who was embedded in the CIA’s Bin Laden unit, Mark Rossini, claims the CIA was fully aware that the 9/11 hijackers were in the United States planning an attack. Rather than inform the FBI, the CIA tried to recruit two of the hijackers for a “false-flag” operation, which quickly spiraled out of control. The failed mission raises urgent questions about government secrecy, intelligence failures, and what really happened before 9/11.

Last Monday, Chairman Dan McKnight of Bring Our Troops Home formally submitted a request in both physical and digital form for public records to the Tennessee General Assembly, the Office of the Governor, and the Tennesse Military Department regarding a recent off-the-calendar meeting concerning the “Defend the Guard Act.”

The request seeks copies of communications, notes, agendas, and related documents surrounding a private August 28, 2025 meeting between members of the Tennessee legislature and representatives of the Tennessee Military Department.

The Defend the Guard Act, introduced during the 2025 legislative session as H.B. 129 and S.B. 156, would prohibit the deployment of the Tennessee National Guard into active combat unless Congress has voted to declare war.

The House version of the bill received a March 25 hearing before the Public Service Subcommittee, which voted 4-2 to send the bill into “summer study” session. You can watch the full hearing here.

Rep. Rick Eldridge (R-District 10), who had co-sponsored the bill but reversed his position during the hearing, proposed a summer study which never occurred; in its place was a private, August 28 meeting where members of the legislature in opposition—including Rep. Eldridge—appear to have conspired behind closed doors with military officials to devise talking points against the bill to use in the upcoming session.

“Their constituents deserve to know the truth,” said Dan McKnight. “When the people’s representatives vote for more study, the expectation is a public process, not a backroom meeting designed to kill a bill without accountability. Our request is about pulling back the curtain and letting in some disinfecting sunlight.”

Sgt. Dan McKnight is a thirteen-year veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces, with service in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, U.S. Army, and Idaho Army National Guard, including an eighteen-month combat deployment to Afghanistan (2005-2007). 

Bring Our Troops Home intends to make all documentation it receives available to the public.

For more information about the Defend the Guard movement in Tennessee, contact Samantha Baker at samzuk209gmail.com. To interview Dan McKnight about his transparency efforts, contact Hunter DeRensis at hderensis@outlook.com.