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| Daniel Shays and Job Shattuck Image courtesy of Wikipedia |
The Annual 9/11 Festival marks its tenth year as justification for atrocities committed by the US Government and its corporate mandate. We are asked the remember those fallen and the heroes who saved many on that September day. The Festival is granted the customary respect as a memorial for those victims of an unspeakable atrocity. Unfortunately, it cannot exist only as a memorial service. The event has been used quite successfully as a propaganda machine to advance the agendas of those who control the nation's purse.
By way of cheap peer pressure tactics through fear of being branded as disrespectful of the dead and their families, those elites in Washington, who humbly parade as Democrats and Republicans, work hand-in-hand with big media to get the message across. We are by this underhanded persuasion to mourn our nation's losses while simultaneously accepting the wars that emerged from the aftermath. The intent is to scare those of us who are critics of war atrocities by branding us as unpatriotic, or worse – as terrorists.
Civil liberties have been eroded by the Patriot Act. Illegal wire tapping of Americans and other illegal means of spying have been exposed. Library records are no longer private. We have allowed our government to get away with the kidnapping and torturing of those considered either dangerous or to have valuable information without any due process afforded. In the process, Americans have been tortured – with a couple brave souls coming forward with a lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld, the unapologetic policymaker.
There are also three wars. Afghanistan. Iraq. Libya. Four, since drone attacks and troop incursions into Pakistan without the consent of its government is an act of war under any modern definition of the term.
And with the celebrations of the Annual 9/11 Festival well on its way with full fanfare, what stories will run, what politician or public figure will step forward and talk about civilian death tolls ranging from just over 100,000 documented deaths (Iraq Body Count) to Rwanda-sized death tolls that US forces have inflicted on the Iraqi civilian population? The answer is, of course, nobody in the mainstream media. The death of innocent Americans is so sacred that to speak openly about the death and carnage we have caused in retaliation (and on a much greater scale) is sacrilege.
I would argue too, that with the success of the campaign to smother dissent, power brokers have concluded that they could get away with just about anything. Why not “bail out” Wall Street as well? Bad investments and illegal dealings could be rectified by a domestic campaign of fear with the slogan, Too Big to Fail. They regard the American populace that they rule by brute wealth alone as a passive lot, largely ignorant in foreign and economic matters, and endemically apathetic due to their infliction with consumerist fantasies promoted by the Pavlovian chime of the corporate bell. The climate is ripe for the taking. And Social Security, our socialist “ponzi scheme”, is next on the chopping block to be liberated from seniors. This PR campaign aspires to nothing less than to hear the applause, no, the standing ovation – of those who will ultimately lose their only source of retirement income. And the criminals who propose this count on Americans to be dumb enough to accept it. Sadly, this is probably the case if the last ten years are any indication of American intelligence and backbone.
And the climate of fear is certainly ripe for the taking. Americans have also recently allowed “their” politicians to cut domestic spending on programs that ultimately benefit them or their poorest neighbors. Tax cuts for the rich is an untouchable dogma. Outright exemption for paying taxes at all is now an expectation of mega corporations and an existential reality as problematic as a ship full of plague rats. Could this have all been possible before 9/11? It's worth considering in my mind. Because if the astoundingly negative impact our government's policies have had on the lives of its own people and millions abroad would not have been tolerated in a pre 9/11 America, then we Americans shouldn't only be mourning the victims of that fateful day ten years ago. We should also be mourning our failure at not being smart enough, at not being brave enough, at not being American enough, to stop the rich few from “liberating” trillions of dollars from our pockets. We should be mourning the death and destruction we have allowed to take place in the name of American exceptionalism – and with the multitude of future attacks that will inevitably come against us for at least another generation to come.
On the other side of the coin, if all these events were possible without the 9/11 attacks, what excuses do we have to make to not imprison or execute those directly responsible for war crimes, to chastise and punish those who indirectly enabled these atrocities in the name of political pandering by both Democrats and Republicans … while their corporate buddies profit, well-insulated against democracy in their boardrooms? The point I'm trying to make is, maybe mourning is all we have left as a people. Maybe all we are good for is erecting memorials to past heroes and victims while we give everything we have to those who have conditioned us to be their faithful house negroes, expendable servants who act as buffers against the poorest and the meanest of the poor who constitute multitudes, and who have every right to be indignant in serving up their vengeance as sweet as any apple pie.
It is much too late for being fearful of being branded unAmerican or otherwise.
It is high time to create our very own climate of fear, a fear that will be directed at the enemies of man who wage war for profit, and more importantly for our supposed democracy, create a climate of fear for their bought-and-paid-for PR people who hold office on our behalf. The message should be clear and simple. If you kill for profit, you may be executed or imprisoned. If you steal from us, you will be imprisoned. There are laws in place that mandate punishment for ordinary citizens for like crimes. Now, they need to be applied with equal zeal to those who have been above the law these last ten years. Otherwise mourning those that deserve memorial become victims once again of crimes committed in their names, crimes more foul and enduring because they were conceived and perpetrated by Americans without conscience with no real respect for life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness, an ideal that's seldom realized and often discouraged but exists nevertheless to be seized upon and torn from the written pages of history by those who do more than believe in it.
