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Despite its stated intention to be independent, impartial and thorough, the 9-11 Commission was none of the three. The Commission was structurally compromised by bias-inducing connections to subjects of the investigation, and procedurally compromised, among other reasons, by (1) its failure to take up promising lines of inquiry and its failure to try to force the release of key documents that were closely guarded by the Bush administration, the FBI and various intelligence agencies; (2) its distortion of information about pre-9-11 military preparedness, foreknowledge of the attacks or attacks of like-kind; and (3) omissions of information related to the funding of the plot and the specific whereabouts of key officials on the morning of September 11, 2001.

These structural compromises and procedural failings converged to assure that the Commission would not challenge core elements of the “official story” of the 9-11 attacks. This failure was compounded by the Commission's desire to produce a final report that would read as a “historical narrative” rather than as an exhaustive set of findings on the critical unanswered questions that arose after the attacks. The Commission's unquestioning acceptance of the official narrative also meant that it missed a perhaps larger opportunity to challenge key myths associated with American exceptionalism. Thus, the 9-11 Commission ultimately functioned as an instrument of cultural hegemony, extending and deepening the official version of events under the guise of independence and impartiality.

Pyrotechnic effects and spectacular death belong to the symbolism of terror and political assassination – bizarre techniques of miscommunication through fear practiced on the innocent and designed to effect social change. While focusing on the use of terror in 9-11, this article deals with both terror and political assassination as closely related communicative practices of death. It outlines a theory of terrorism that suggests September 11 may be an example of expedient terrorist destruction ordered from within the state, a macabre instance of a state protection racket. Commentators on the left tend to see terrorism as a blow extended by the oppressed against exploiters. However, terrorism is much less likely to be a manifestation of a revolt by – or on behalf of – the underprivileged than a demonstration of brute force by the state or its agents. Machiavellian state terrorism is terror/assassination performed for reasons different from the publicized ones; often initiated by persons or groups other than those suspected of the act; and – most important – secretly perpetrated by, or on behalf, of the violated state itself. Machiavellian state terror advances the ruling agenda, while disguising itself as the work of individuals or groups opposed to the state's fundamental principles. As an example, the article reviews a mysterious 1971 assassination in Paris that obliquely foreshadows some critical elements of the official story of 9-11. The article underlines the importance of oppositional theorizing: questioning government and looking for connections between events are critical features of what it means to be vitally active in the political universe.

I argue that the official story about the collapses of the Twin Towers and building 7 of the World Trade Center, according to which the collapses were caused by fire – combined, in the case of the Twin Towers, with the effects of the airplane impacts – cannot be true, for two major reasons. One reason is that fire has never, except allegedly three times on 9/11, caused the total collapse of steel-frame high-rise buildings. All (other) such collapses have been produced by the use of explosives in the procedure known as “controlled demolition.” The other major problem is that the collapses of all three buildings had at least 11 features that would be expected if, and only if, explosives had been used.

I also show the importance of the recently released of 9/11 Oral Histories recorded by the New York Fire Department. With regard to the Twin Towers, many of the firefighters and medical workers said they observed multiple explosions and other phenomena indicative of controlled demolition. With regard to building 7, many testimonies point to widespread foreknowledge that the building was going to collapse, and some of the testimonies contradict the official story that this anticipation of the building's collapse was based on objective indications. These testimonies further strengthen the already virtually conclusive case that all three buildings were brought down by explosives.

I conclude by calling on the New York Times, which got the 9/11 Oral Histories released, now to complete the task of revealing the truth about 9/11.

This chapter explores the question – where is the economy? In taking up this question, I explore the action of economists in making the economy, framed in the place of ‘place’ in the economy and how the politics of economic data and calculation and boundaries make economies. In this way, I argue for a performative understanding of regional economics where the economy can be said to be made, often out of real things such as hospitals, factories, shops and schools, and infrastructure, but also out of social practices that echo out of the field of economics into institutions and ways of thinking calculatedly.

To make this case of this approach, and to grasp the slippery fish of where the economy is, I introduce autoethnographic materials from my experience of being a regional economic commentator, holding forth on the Waterford economy. These empirics relay the everyday methods of economic analysis as a material and political practice, alighting on the data, calculations and boundaries that go into making the economy. Here the curious relationship between the economist and their economy, the dancer and the dance come into view and how people, including myself, call an economy into being.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the other end of entrepreneurship – the disassembling of enterprises by insolvency professionals.

Drawing on empirical material from major insolvency practitioners (IPs) in Ireland; the paper identifies three different narrative positions – “clinical market operators”, “blame the entrepreneurs” and “professional detachment/disidentification” – that these specialists employed to story their working experiences.

The paper suggests that IPs do not have a fixed narrative schema to narrate their professional identities, as they struggle to reconcile their professional acts with their personal ambitions. These findings point to a disconnection between the political rhetoric on risk taking and the acts perpetrated on entrepreneurs who fail, a central tension in the discourse on entrepreneurship policy.

The paper adds to the current debate on business failure, an area that is typically under-researched and under-theorised in entrepreneurship studies. By offering a response to calls for more multi-perspective research, this paper makes a significant contribution to extant interpretive literature on business failure. While the method of analysing stories is widely accepted in social science research, researchers seeking to replicate this study may produce different results; this is a taken for granted outcome of the method.

The analysis suggests that the current legislative impetus to ameliorate the implications of insolvency, driven by an aspiration to encourage second-chance entrepreneurship, faces resistance from IPs as they attempt to fulfil their professional obligations. In the absence of legislative reform, the impulse, perhaps even process necessity, of IPs to dialogically position themselves against failed entrepreneurs is likely to continue.

The paper's originality and value arise from its unique consideration of other end of entrepreneurship; offering novel insights into the difficulties IPs have in narrating their working lives.

This paper seeks to examine the meaning and nature of the structure metaphor in the social sciences, and the consequent implications for the academic activity of describing and substantiating new structural forms of multinational corporations (MNCs) in the international business discourse.

The paper's approach is primarily conceptual, but also introduces some fieldwork. The paper contrasts generalist work in the social sciences on structure with a close reading of the foundational texts on structure in MNCs along with a broader reading on the considerable attempts to describe new structures for MNCs. By interrelating these literatures with fieldwork that deconstructs stories from actors within MNCs, it opens a broader criticism on the discourse on structuring the MNC.

The paper suggests that the phalanx of new MNC structures could, perhaps, be better understood as a criticism of using the structure metaphor to describe the MNC. On safer ground, it suggests the point of difference between older forms of MNC and the variously described new forms arise from the contrasting definitions of structure used by Giddens.

The paper's originality and value arise from its unique consideration of the structure metaphor in social sciences and the discourse on structure in the international business discourse. It responds to calls for new research methods, and more critical approaches by those hoping to assist managers, in this functionally‐oriented discourse.

The “war on terror” has nothing to do with protecting the U.S. and world's people from “terrorists”, and everything to do with securing the American empire abroad and muzzling democracy and human rights at home. The 9-11 attacks were the pretext which sold the myth of evil Muslim terrorists imminently threatening Americans. That tale allowed the Cheney-led members of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) to implement their 1990 DPG plan for world control. The “war on terror” is modelled on Islamophobic stereotypes, policies, and political structures developed by the Israeli Likkud and Bush Sr. in 1979. It is designed to inspire popular support for U.S. wars of world conquest. To defeat this plan, we must overcome our Islamophobic fear of “terrorists” and stand in solidarity with Muslims.