Morgan Rose and Turtle
We Are Change Colorado
December 12, 2008
The Center for Empowered Learning and Living or the CELL is the first museum dedicated specifically to the subject of terrorism. The CELL opened in downtown Denver on September 11, 2008. It encourages participants to shed their preconceived notions on the ideologies and aims of international terrorism. The name of the exhibit is, “Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: Understanding the Threat of Terrorism”, which features gruesome images of dead women and children, mutilated bodies along with a virtual reality portrayal of Denver being attacked by terrorists. The CELL also has consultants and donors like former New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper who helped kick off the grand opening. The museum conveys its message through the use of sound bites, video clips and flash imagery to promote a political ideology, encouraging support for unconstitutional legislation like the PATRIOT Act and the FISA legislation. This is legislation that directly violates people’s right to privacy, denies them due process and has been the legal justification for torture.
The underlying message being promoted by The Cell, along with the use of such graphic material to relay that message peeked our interest. It definitely seemed worthy of investigation. We wanted to see who had an active interest in funding such an expensive and high tech museum to educate people specifically on the subject of terrorism. We found a lot of paths crossed at The Cell. Paths of people who, could arguably have a vested interest in promoting war and war funding. We found many tough questions that have yet to be asked. What we discovered was quite disturbing and raised some serious concerns. Why are people who are linked with defense contractors and political lobbyist groups, along with banking institutions that have been proven to be involved in serious criminal activity, putting their buck behind The Cell? Why are very prominent public officials promoting this museum? Why is this museum seeking to work with our schools to bring young kids there “to learn about terrorism”? Why is it that they are using their own definition of terrorism to “educate” people about terrorism? Why do they make so many references to the struggle between “security and civil liberties and intelligence gathering and privacy rights”? When you realize many of these groups have a potential gain, either a political or a financial gain from war, war in the Middle East in particular. Questions regarding the true motives behind this establishment become blaringly apparent. This isn’t a museum to teach culture, history, art, or anything of the sort, I think that can be agreed upon.
These are just a few of the questions that none one has addressed, but that we feel are at the true core reasons as to why an establishment like this is seeking to bring your children to view such graphic and politically opinionated material. As soon as one scratches the surface of The Cell to see who’s running the show behind the scenes there are a lot of interesting and honestly, quite disturbing names associated with this “museum”. Names I definitely would not involve in molding my young ones mind, that is for sure.
The Cell’s Executive director is Nancy Pearlman. Ms. Pearlman spent five years with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), most recently as the Deputy Regional Director for the Midwest Region managing daily operations of AIPAC’s largest regional office. AIPAC is an American lobbying group that advocates for pro-Israel policies to the Congress and Executive Branch of the United States. Under her leadership, she developed a plan that increased revenue by 75% in four years. She also served as a political appointee to the Clinton Administration, first as Special Projects Coordinator to the Office of the Social Secretary, and then as a Policy Editor to the President specializing on Middle East foreign policy issues. AIPAC is arguably one of the most influential political lobbyist groups in Washington in regards to American foreign policy which obviously represents Israel’s interests in their lobbying efforts and continuously is working in Washington in one way or another to help bolster the U.S. support for the “Global War on Terror” as well as pushing the U.S. to take a more aggressive stance towards many Middle Eastern countries that are deemed a threat such as Iran.
A look at The Cells website reveals they worked in collaboration with RAND Corp. RAND is one of the world’s largest defense contractors and also boasts tremendous lobbying power in Washington. One of the consultants to The Cell is a gentleman by the name of Brian Jenkins. Mr. Jenkins is senior advisor to the president of the RAND Corporation which has a history of actively lobbying the United States government for more war most recently claiming it “would save the U.S. economy”. Mr. Jenkins was also Deputy Chairman at Kroll Associates the company responsible for security (or the lack there of) at the World Trade Center complex on 9/11. It seemed suspicious to have all of these intersecting roads of war monger’s and profiteers who have nearly been caught with their hands in the cookie jar just to say to the American people “ actually I was guarding the cookie jar….NOW BEAT IT!”
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
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