Thankfully, the fifth anniversary of World Trade Center
attack passed without anyone doing anything violently symbolic,
unless you count what the US is doing every day in the middle
east. Even the depth of the political rhetoric didn’t rise as
high in the barnyard as you might have expected on September 11th.
The guy who thinks he’s the President made some noise,
however, and although the words he speaks are assembled by
others, his obliviousness always is revealed in their
presentation. Some media used the occasion to recall how Bush
didn’t seem to grasp the importance of the events when he
first was told. Some have said he behaved as though the news
didn’t come to him as a surprise. He now attaches great
import, of course, but he’s still oblivious.
Bush used the fifth anniversary to continue defending his
warmongering and to continue promoting the fantasy that the
World Trade Center and Iraq are connected in some unexplained
way. He told us that the world is now a safer place because
Saddam Hussein no longer rules Iraq. That’s probably true, as
far as it goes, but there’s that little matter of why the US
continues a military occupation of the country long after Saddam
fell from power. The continued presence of the US military in
Iraq is far more dangerous to the world than any threat Saddam
Hussein might have posed. There’s a degree of relief felt in
the US because there haven’t been any similar events in the
past five years, but none of us really feels any safer now than
we felt on September 12th, ‘01.
It’s heartening, really, that the Bushwhacker continues to
vigorously defend the policies and actions of this gang of
criminals which has captured the White House. It means he thinks
he has to. It means that even the Bush gang still thinks its
important to manipulate US public opinion. The degree to which
public opinion can be manipulated is disturbing, but the
continued necessity for that manipulation provides some faint
hope for those who can resist it.
The five year anniversary inspires some reflection on what
has changed since 9/11. A lot has changed, of course, but
despite Bush’s reassurance, nothing has changed to make me
feel any safer. Military defense is no defense at all, and
military offense is just offensive. All of the things which have
changed are things which we once thought were the very things we
were trying to protect. Before Korea, we believed we went to war
to protect our freedom. Now, we’re expected to sacrifice our
freedom and still go to war. Maybe the two world wars had more
to do with profit than with ideology, but the people were easier
to fool. Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq and all the lesser military
adventures in between have made it increasingly clear to more
and more people that the business of war is business. So these
days, if the business of war is to continue, it’s necessary to
put some restraints on all us freedom loving people. Most of
what we all say and do and transact is being watched and
measured by the people in business and the people who represent
them while pretending to be elected by us freedom loving people.
Despite what it says in that constitution we paraded to honor
last Sunday, we aren’t really free anymore to assemble and
speak without close supervision by the people whose profits are
at stake. We may not even be free to vote. That brings us down
to the local level. Who would have thought five years ago that
freedom of speech would be controversial? That was the theme of
the parade, after all, but some people think they were denied
the freedom to speak at that event. Maybe so, but those folks
certainly have had their say in the days which followed, and in
doing so, they probably got a lot more mileage for their message
than they would have received from a paragraph at the parade.
A couple of points in defense of the two guys who owned the
microphones at the parade and decided what to speak into those
microphones: The parade entrants were not promised a forum to
say anything they chose to say; the emcees were specifically
given discretion in announcing each entrant. Paul and Greg have
good credentials on things like free speech. None of the other
entrants presented any pro-war, pro-Bush messages for them to
read, so they decided to leave the impeachment message for the
signs and keep it off the microphone. On the other hand, the
group called Americans for Constitutional Integrity was the only
entrant whose message was censored.
The best thing that happened was the mock attack by the
Billionaires for Bush, a group delivering the same essential
message with a considerably better sense of humor. I know that
war is no laughing matter, but how else can you get through it?
If you’re going to gather a bunch of anti-war protesters and a
bunch of flag waving promoters of war for profit together on
Broad Street, you better be able to have a couple of laughs. If
you don’t, somebody’s going to get hurt. As one of the
anti-war types, I figure that’s likely to be me, so I’d
prefer to make ‘em laugh as opposed to getting my head
thumped.
The organizers of the parade issued a public apology to the
Americans for Constitutional Integrity, and that should be the
end of this chapter in local political history for all those who
appreciate justice, humor and freedom of speech.
We’ll wrap it up today with something I read in The
Chronicle. This bit of wisdom is from a column by Mick
LaSalle whose job is to review films, proving again that the
distinction between art and real life is barely perceptible.
"Stupidity used to be something to be embarrassed about,
but we’re going through a phase of stupid pride right now, and
it pervades many aspects of our cultural life. People in power
with access to the media have stumbled onto a great truth:
Stupid people want to feel good about themselves. They want to
be told that what they secretly believe is true: They’re the
ones who apprehend the big picture, while the intelligent folks
are just nitpickers bogged down in meaningless detail. . . . We
see this in the movies and we see it in politics and religion.
Appeals to reason are distrusted and discounted. Appeals to
emotion and invitations not to think rule the day. . . . In the
movies, reality presents itself at the box office. In a
democracy, it’s usually at the ballot box." I don’t
think Mr. LaSalle cares much for action flicks at the movie
house or in politics.
