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have reacted to 9/11. And I was thinking, sadly, about how the American people would have reacted to a REAL government. We were in such a strong position--to do so many good things--to go after illicit arms dealers, to de-militarize and de-nuke the world, to stop supporting dictators in the Middle East, to join the rest of the world--which was ready to join US--in new democracy and peace initiatives, in making the world safer not more dangerous, in solving the dependence on oil and the pollution of the planet, in mobilizing all resources for conversion to alternative fuels, in bringing new understanding and sensitivity to Islamic cultures and helping Islamic peoples recover from our decades of violent interference in their countries--even apologizing to Iran, for instance, for destroying their democracy in 1953 and inflicting them with 25 years of torture and oppression by the US-backed "Shah." There are so many positive things that could have resulted from that tragedy. IF the perps were who THIS government says they were, what was needed was police action in cooperation with other countries through the UN--not unilaterally bombing and torturing tens of thousands of innocent people. What was needed was COOPERATION not militarism and hatred. And the great majority of Americans would have leaped at the opportunity to assist peace and justice in the world. People would have sacrificed for it. All sorts of creative ideas and positive energy would have emerged--and America's wonderful "can do" attitude would have taken over.
The use of 9/11 for political gain, and for looting the American people, is so bad, by contrast with what a REAL government would have done, that it is difficult to find the words to adequately describe it.
There was something that I will never forget about Bush Sr.'s campaign for president against Michael Dukakis--and that is the stirring up of racial hatred, and the use of some Americans' bigotry, to gain votes. To me, it is THE unforgivable sin in an American politician, given the unusual, experimental nature of our multi-cultural society, with 10% of us having a nightmarish heritage of slavery and horrid oppression.
But now the Bush Cartel has topped that off with a yet more heinous political crime--using 9/11 to try to terrorize the American people into giving up their Constitution and the rule of law, using 9/11 to loot the American people with humongous, unnecessary military spending, using 9/11 for secret budgets and no-bid contracts and no accountability for that spending, using 9/11 to purge the US military, the intelligence community, and indeed, the entire country, of all dissent, using 9/11 to actually go and slaughter other people who had nothing to do with it (but who happen to be sitting on a lot of oil), using 9/11 to motivate our troops to do that, and using 9/11 to justify that slaughter, and to create an illusion of support for it.*
I don't think 9/11 gained them ANY votes--though they tried to use it that way, and are still trying to. As I recall, people were laughing at and ridiculing their many phony "terrorist alerts" just before the 2004 election.
What they, and their war profiteering corporate news monopoly propagandists, are into, is creating an ILLUSION of support--a looping sort of narrative that they are writing and promulgating, that tries to EXPLAIN things like the 2004 election by means of pre-planted newsturds like "terrorist alerts" and "gay marriage." This illusion was like an Iron Curtain over the country through about mid-2003. It has been thinning ever since--as the people have caught up with the REAL news, by word of mouth, the internet and other alternative information sources. Now, that illusion is very thin, indeed--so thin that they can't really cover it up any more. So they have to trot out the 9/11 tapes, and saber-rattling at Iran, to try to stoke it up again--probably to EXPLAIN the Bushites' "comeback" victories in the '06 elections (all now "counted" by rightwing Bushite corporations, using "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code with virtually no audit/recount controls--and to be confirmed by exit polls that are falsified to "fit" the results of the secret vote "tabulation" formulae, as the corporate news monopolies did on the night of Nov. 2, 2004).
This pandering use of 9/11 is OBSCENE and DISGUSTING--the way white politicians in the South in the 1950s and 1960s were obscene and disgusting--fomenting hatred and torture and murder with FEAR.
And here we are, with a country full of mostly good people, who have resisted thus unrelenting propaganda, and would gladly respond to good government, if given the chance.
Well, let's hope that this thin and tattered veil--the illusion of support for the Bush junta--gets torn asunder this year. And let's work toward the goal of restoring our right to vote, electing true representatives of the people, and creating the good government and good country that I know we are still capable of.
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*(58% of the American people opposed the war on Iraq, in Feb. 2003, after Colin Powell's speech to the UN, before the invasion. Some of the lies were evident, but not all had been exposed. The American people didn't trust Bush THEN, and 65% to 70% of them loathe him now. I think that's a solid basis for creating a good country.)
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