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9/11: The Rest Should Be Silence
This past Sunday was beautiful, bright and warm, not unlike the sky
blue day when those two airliners hit the World Trade Center in 2001,
just a mile or so from where I live. That day, a Tuesday, was a bit
hotter, a bit more humid, yet just as sunny and promising.
But this Sunday morning’s silence was broken by the sound of a bell and a small, organized crowd of friendly people chatting quietly among themselves, walking south down Seventh Avenue, the street that runs beneath my apartment windows, escorted by police and fire vehicles. With a prompt from the news on my radio, I remembered that this was an event that now takes place every year on the Sunday before the anniversary of 9/11.
The people walk in memory of Father Mychal Judge, the Franciscan priest who died at the World Trade Center, the attack’s first officially recorded death, designated Victim 0001. Chaplain for the New York City Fire Department, Father Judge had rushed to the disaster scene, delivered last rites to the dying, then gone inside the lobby of the north tower, praying for all those at Ground Zero but especially for his friends, the firefighters.
"Jesus, please end this right now! God, please end this!" he was heard to exclaim. And then the south tower collapsed. Debris came crashing through the north lobby. Father was struck and fell, dead – “blunt force trauma to the head,” the coroner’s report read.
It would be foolish to pretend to know what Father Judge would make of the controversy over Cordoba House, the proposed Islamic center downtown a couple of blocks from Ground Zero, but there may be a clue in the words of the homily he delivered just the day before 9/11. "No matter how big the call, no matter how small, you have no idea what God is calling you to do," he said. "But God needs you, He needs me, He needs all of us."
All of us. Not just Christians or Jews, but Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, atheists, the right, the left, everyone. Father Judge himself was both gay and a recovering alcoholic, struggles that gave him particular insight into the plight of all too many misunderstood souls working to make their capacity for love, compassion and courage known and accepted as equal to anyone else’s.
So all of us have a role to play and none of them should involve inflaming hatred and prejudice among us, none of them should involve violating the rights of others or considering oneself superior to another or burning the scripture of those the ignorant and opportunistic want us to believe are evil or unholy.
Writing in Wednesday’s New York Times, Feisal Abdul Rauf, chair of the effort to build Cordoba House and imam of the Farah mosque already in lower Manhattan, said, "These efforts by radicals at distortion endanger our national security and the personal security of Americans worldwide. This is why Americans must not back away from completion of this project. If we do, we cede the discourse and, essentially, our future to radicals on both sides. The paradigm of a clash between the West and the Muslim world will continue, as it has in recent decades at terrible cost. It is a paradigm we must shift."
Just returned from two months in the Middle East on behalf of the State Department, seeking conciliation between Muslims and other religions, Rauf continued, "Let us commemorate the anniversary of 9/11 by pausing to reflect and meditate and tone down the vitriol and rhetoric that serves only to strengthen the radicals and weaken our friends’ belief in our values."
Reflect and meditate in silence, please. Many have urged that September 11 this year not be a time of demonstrations for or against Cordoba House or any other issue; rather, let it be a quiet day of commemoration and mourning.
The last time I attended the September 11 ceremonies at Ground Zero, on the fifth anniversary in 2006, as the names of the dead were read, solemn tranquility was disrupted and disrespected by those who tried to use the occasion to draw attention to themselves, crassly intruding with their conspiracy theories and raucous agendas.
And quiet, please, not only because it is a mark of respect for the deceased and their friends and families, but also because it is the sound of silence that many New Yorkers find so evocative of those days just after the attacks. Our streets closed to regular traffic, patrolled by police and the National Guard, we wandered in mute disbelief at what had happened, at the enormity of our loss. Even the emergency vehicles that raced along the empty streets did so without their sirens. We murmured softly amongst ourselves, looking for answers as many of our fellow citizens still searched for news of their missing loved ones.
Let our loss be what we remember on Saturday. That, and the words of St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the order of friars to which Father Mychal Judge devoted himself: "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy."
127 Comments so far
Show AllGood piece, and I hope people respect the solemnity of the occasion by being peaceful.
How we react to others, whether they be Koran burners or conspiracy screechers, is more a measure of ourselves than of them.
Let us be peace.
Peace? Really?
Comparing "conspiracy screechers," such as 9/11 victims family members who want the truth about that day, to Koran burners is in itself a vile form of hate mongering. If you truly believed in peace, then you must believe in justice. Watch this:
http://bit.ly/9Doiot
There is no peace without justice.
I agree completely.
There needs to be a Grand Jury convened in Manhattan with a prosecutor like Vincent Bugliosi appointed with full subpoena power to ALL the evidence.
Let the jury decide who is guilty of the crimes of 9/11/01.
There can be no peace without justice.
The whole wide world could see with their eyes that the crime scenes were scrubbed.
And there are plenty of grieving families who are STILL searching for the truth.
Truth seekers will NOT be stifled.
Yeah, I could have worded that better.
I didn't mean to imply that those seeking the truth are screechers, but rather that on a sacred day, they should consecrate it with silence and some reflection.
I do not know all that happened to bring about the events on 9/11. I've seen the videos and believe there is more to the story than the "official" line, but I don't know for sure. In any event, I will take my own advice and consecrate the day - September 11th - with silence and reflection.
Having reread 1984 this past weekend, I was struck by the fact that in Orwell’s nightmarish vision, the oligarchy took great care to control the past, to rewrite history, and to control the minds of those rewriting it, so that people would not awaken to the lies they were being told. Here in Amerika, this has been proven to be unnecessary fuss. If anyone cares to look up the flagrant lies leading up to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, they are free to do so. If anyone cares to look up the ways in which our civil rights have been abolished, they can do that too. There’s no shortage of freely, easily accessed information detailing how the MSM has been bought, how our politicians are shills, and how the official conspiracy theory of 911 is absolutely impossible. Unlike the world of 1984, there’s not even an attempt to hide the evidence. The truly frightening thing is that it is clear that the great majority is pulled by the nose by emotion, mainly fear and hatred, and willfully ignorant.
When people demand a new investigation into 911, I just shake my head. Anyone with a clear head knows that any official investigation will never attempt to get to the truth. What do people think would happen if our people came to realize that the official conspiracy theory is nothing but a parcel of astonishing and even obvious lies, that everything they’ve been taught is an illusion, that this nine year Mideast bloodbath has nothing whatsoever to do with democracy or defense or freedom or even revenge? We ask for truth while the MSM and the politicians continue to lie flagrantly, while the pundits talk about a mosque that is not a mosque about to be built at Ground Zero even though it is not proposed to be at Ground Zero. We are largely considered insane and obsessed—we’ve been steadily portrayed thus—and most of the population is psychologically incapable of considering a logical argument or even plain evidence. If we’re not crazy, then they are, and how are you going to get people to consider that possibility?
LET THERE BE PEACE ON EARTH
(Jill Jackson / Mark Miller)
- circa 1955
Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on earth
The peace that was meant to be.
With God as our father
Brothers all are we.
Let me walk with my brother
In perfect harmony.
Let peace begin with me
Let this be the moment now.
With every step I take
Let this be my solemn vow.
To take each moment
And live each moment
With peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth,
And let it begin with me.
Don't forget to fly your American black flag comrade!
Sorry to sound a flatulent note of discord so early on, but this perhaps well-intended encomium to modest conviviality is a bit too smarmy and sanctimonious to fulfill its ostensible purpose.
"Crass intrusions" are in the eye of the beholder. This piece aspires to be the antithesis of a crass intrusion, but beneath the generous icing of piety strikes me as mostly a tribute to the author's own decorousness.
That Word-a-Day calendar is working very well for you : )
Nice.
We should now christen this national day of mourning: The Day of Blowback.
Michael Winship wants quiet and peace, good Christian sentiments, and, above all, silence, but he cannot help but seize on the first opportunity to antagonize others by speaking of "conspiracy theories and raucous agendas."
Yeah, do as I say, not as I do....
There won't be any silence, Mr. Winship, until the deafening clamor of the phoney war on terror and the cries and shrieks of its hundreds of thousands of victims stop and until the events of the eleventh are properly investigated.
Mr. Winship, it is time to note that the official account (i.e., the one enshrined in the "9/11 Commission Report") of the strikes of the eleventh attributes them to a CONSPIRACY, to a plot fomented by at least 19 men and those who aided them. What was Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called twentieth hijacker, charged with, if not conspiracy?
"Let us commemorate the anniversary of 9/11 by pausing to reflect and meditate and tone down the vitriol and rhetoric that serves only to strengthen the radicals and weaken our friends’ belief in our values."
I have a better idea.
This one event radically changed the direction and tone of the country...indeed world history...for the worse.
Why don't we honor those who died in this crime by conducting a real investigation into who was responsible? The alleged perpetrators were named that morning and the official verdict has never changed even though no evidence existed then or now that what was said then was true. In fact a great deal of evidence has been unearthed by numerous parties contradicting the Official Conspiracy Theory.
Don't forget...the FBI has publicly announced it had NO evidence linking Osama bin Laden to the crime. And the so-called commission started from the premise...unexamined...that 19 Arabs did it.
I've long thought it ironic that a nation hooked on crummy TV shows like CSI blandly accept the fact that the best evidence of this great crime was shipped overseas and melted down without a forensic examination.
This thread will no doubt attract trolls like Jake Newton who seem very intent on throwing a spanner in the works. Why would they be so afraid of a real investigation? Eventually the truth will out. Wouldn't it be better sooner than later?
There has never been a real investigation with a grand jury on those who funded the hijackers...
It has been leaked that none of them were in Afghanistan.
I suspect it was funded by Bush's friends and the plot was known by many intell agencies but the white house took the FBI off the Saudi trail before 9/11.
This should get investigated and tried before any other questions because there should be a paper trail on this plot.
Your "Project Goliath" story is a bunch of Bull Fuc#in Shi#.
If you know anything about the FACTS of 911, you know there is a jet engine in the street that doesn't match the plane.
Nano-Thermite was NOT around when these buildings were built.
The hole in the Pentagon is too small and there is something very fishy about the PA crash site.
How in the hell does "Project Goliath" explain those things???
It doesn't. Case closed.
Dear Justice Arcs
Thanks for another elegant and clearly valid post.
The bloody thing is so obvious that Winship and his kind must be in the loop. If they were not actively part of the planning and process they are accessories.
This is true of a huge number of US citizens and even many people in other parts of the world. There is no excuse for any of them. They are all guilty. The courts MUST deal with the Winship sort. We MUST deal with the rest. People who went with the story have to be confronted, exposed and forced to re-examine all the premises that allowed them to accept such a clearly blatant lie.
As a structural designer but more importantly as a an with some common sense I recognised demolition as they were falling. Many of my associates who have no expertise or training in related fields used their common sense and did so too. Even children knew that things don't happen as shown on the TV for all to see without specific agency. Thereafter we, including some youngsters in mid-school, stood united in rejection of the ludicrous 'official' suppositions at every opportunity. This was not excessive given the events on the day and those that events that followed. We have been living at tea with the Mad-Hatter ever since. An amazing number of clients, close friends and even close family who had a history of trusting my designs with their lives consistently scoffed. We lost goodwill in our individual fields.
Most of us still confront them. We do not even have to speak or refer to it. If they just see us they know we know. They do not scoff any more but they are silent. It is 'old news' is the most they will say. They still stay away. It is good they do so.
There is something wrong in our culture. It is massively half-witted; sometimes even in the majority. This is a fundamentally serious matter. In my experience there is a demented and mentally retarded majority in our civilisation and the consequences are devastating. They must be pinned down. They must be corrected to save what we have that is of of value. They are far worse than flat-earthers. If not publically held to account and shamed they will always assiduously seek the next cloud of mad deceits to continue their previous deceit.
Your statement almost shocked me. I've secretly entertained the possibility that the WTC towers were 'pre-wired' precisely because of the 1993 bombings, and because of the almost certain follow-up visit from the insurance company representative that covered those buildings. I am certain that they would have had some concerns about collateral damages. I have played with the idea for a long time that an insurance company would require buildings of that size to arrange for a 'straight down' demolition should there be any reason to fear that they might topple sideways into other insured buildings, and possibly killing or injuring untold thousands of others. I vocalized this at least nine years ago. I'm glad to see that I wasn't the only one to have had these thoughts.
I think you may in fact be referring to the Godzilla Program, operated by FEMA. Although my search on the word "godzilla" immediately raised alarm bells, producing three men showing up outside my workplace, I was unable to raise any interest in the matter in contacting the 9/11 Commission. My information on this topic is at:
http://home.roadrunner.com/~markwrede/NonFic/OtherGodzilla.html
Winship, you left out Traditional Native Americans. We are still here and our sacred beliefs are just as valid as the others you listed. By leaving us out you are practicing a form of genocide knows as quiet genocide. You will NOT eradicate Natives by not mentioning us. Of course it would be unseemly to mention us and awaken Americans to the truth of their bloody genocidal continuing ways. Imagine that, you thought the TRUTH was buried. We are still here!!!
Yay! I'm glad that y'all are!
A person named Flip posted his fears about the destruction of the earth at a Native Site so we walked him through the thought of the Tribes like himself are born into the Rat Race world of the Europeans that is here now, live in the rat race world now, and die in the rat race world now. Walked him through his fears over the destruction of Creator's earth, and showed him how human beings would have had to have lived in order not to destroy Creator's earth at least by much.
This was my last post of that post,
Jim, Flip has the tools if you desire to use that word now to heal himself. The tools were always there. They were always inside Flip. Has nothing to do with lists of people, politics, or religion. They are the free Spiritual Gifts Creator gave all people. Those who seek things of the Spirit will find things of the Spirit. How Flip applies those Free Spiritual Gifts that Creator gave to all people is how Flip applies them to Flip's life.
Creator made Flip, you, me, and everyone who posts at this Site. Creator made the birds and the bees, the flowers, and trees. Man's pretty much made misery upon the earth. Watch the Tv news. Read the papers. Read what's on the Net. Do you even have to watch the Tv news, read the papers, or read what is on the Net to know it's mostly all bad news. I don't ever have to watch the Tv news, read the papers, or ever read the news on the Net again to know it's all pretty much bad news.
In my thoughts I can jump right into the jungle with the man in Brazil and know if people lived that way upon the earth there would be anywhere from 95 to 98 percent less bad news upon the earth and between 95 to 99 percent less destruction to Creator's earth if people had lived that way all the time.
I hope Flip has lots of free time to go camping with his family or his friends. May not be living like the Tribes used to live upon the earth, but it may be the best he's going to get now. I hope every person here enjoys every breath of life Creator gives them. I hope every person here sees Creator's trees, hears the calls of Creator's birds. Sees Creator's clouds in the sky. Sees a thunderstorm and hear's the thunder boom, and lightning flash.
I hope they all get old and get aches and pains like mine. And then find ways to avoid boring conversations with other old people who don't do nothing but talk about their aches and pains. A friend of European heritage said I appeared to him in a dream. I was in a beautiful forested area surrounded by mountains. I was happy and smiling. Wearing my traveling hat. There are other dimensions than just this one.
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
ShadowDancer,
Your posts always lift my spirits. I have a quote from you on the wall over my desk which always makes me smile.
Thank you.
The best way to honor those Americans that were murdered on 911 is to bring the murderers to justice in a court of law. Only an investigation to find out who was really responsible for the canard and phony, official conspiracy theory for the murder of 3000 American citizens will bring closure. Silence on 911 is fine, but we need to break the silence of finding those who are guilty and culpable of this most extraordinary, evil crime.
Silence around this hateful day is the last thing we need, and what TPTB want, and have gotten, so far.
There's so much denial of the actual cumulative evidence surrounding this horror that few will be engaged on the topic.
My fellow CD truth seekers here give my solace.
Peace, Jack
So true. We cannot and will not be silent until the TRUTH about 9/11 is revealed. Anyone that has watched Loose Change, can see all the questions. There are countless questions about what happened that day and NONE of the evidence shows anything about hijackers (much less Muslim ones) using passenger jets to do these crimes. Everything points to drones. And it gets darker the more you look into it. The LIGHT of truth needs to shine on 9/11 especially.
Until the TRUTH comes out, this country will continue it's descent into Fascism by those who (I believe) are the real perpetrators of this horrific treasonous crime of mass murder.
So all this about the funding for the hijackers is just a cover story for the 9/11 invasion of the robot drones?
maybe to anybody who has seen loose change, maybe, but I have seen loose change and I wonder about that guy.
One cannot hide the truth behind decorously arranged obfuscations of truth and light comrade.
They're not trying to hide it. They put it center stage and then heckle and ridicule, just like they did to our senators and representatives at the town hall meetings. They make truth afraid to show itself in public, like this "call for silence". If no one wants to see the truth, you need not try to hide it, the people will look away. If people are afraid of the truth, they will not only look away, but try to hide it themselves.
Michael Winship is senior writer at Hallmark (CIA/Mossad) Greeting Cards in New York City.
Christian interventions of all kinds are welcome.
Here's one: Christians for 9/11 truth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfIL1FI9TvA
Did I miss something?
Did something happen on 9/11/2001?
I remember something on TV with incredible special effects, but if something real had happened, wouldn't there have been an investigation?
When we were attacked at Pearl Harbor, there was an investigation.
When the Challenger exploded, there was an investigation.
When the Murrah building was blown up, there was an investigation.
When the Columbia burned up, there was an investigation.
So why, when we supposedly had the worst terror attack on domestic soil in history, was there only a sham investigation?
Since there was no real investigation, I guess nothing must have happened that day...
So who is on American Idol tonight?
I disagree. Instead of a day of mourning, why not ask - FOR ONCE - why the attacks occured.
One week after 9/11, Bin Laden gave his reasons and they were recorded in Newsweek magazine. The two top reasons were the presence of American military bases in the holy lands in Saudi Arabia and the American military support for the Israeli suppression of Palestinian rights in Israel and the persecution of fellow Muslims.
America removed their troops from Saudi Arabia but continued it's support for the most racist and suppressive government that exists today - Israel. No one can agree with the way that Bin Laden extracted his revenge, but no one can disagree with his motives.
We need to quit mourning the deaths, though tragic they were, of .0001% of the American population when Americans murdered 10% of the Vietnamese population and not one mention is ever made or one prayer is said for those lost souls. America's illegal invasion of Iraq led to 1.2 million dead Iraqis and 3 million refugees. Where is the mourning for those lost souls whose deaths are at the feet of 'Christian' America?
Come on America - fess up. I say instead of quiet mourning, America needs to man up, admit it's mistakes and make ammends. Not one penny has gone to Vietnam, 35 years after we left that mess that we created.
This article is a discredit to Common Dreams. It continues the nine year running effort by the "serious left" to ignore the many contradictions in the official 9/11 story.
Also, the "serious left" continues to ignore increasing evidence of Israeli involvement in the attacks. (Google 9/11 Israel. You have to sift through a lot of rightist rhetoric to get to factual investigations)
This willful ignorance on the Left has surrendered 9-11 skepticism to the extreme right.
At the end of this article, Winship equates 9/11 skeptics with anti-muslim bigots, and tells them all to basically Shut Up. What a lot of oppressive propaganda disguised as a call for tolerance. This man is a pig.
I couldn't agree more. But there has been movement on this issue with Peter Phillips work in publicizing the phrase State Crimes Against Democracy (SCADs), and how the systemic nature of SCADs destroys democracy.
Two issues that fit in well with a left "systemic" analysis are SCADs and understanding Operation Gladio, the CIA/NATO terrorist network that conducted false-flag attacks against civilians to prevent the LEFT from obtaining state power. I think both of these issues contextualize 9/11 very well, and provides documented historical analysis of systemic state terrorism.
I think that the liberal class is not willing to recognize the true nature of the US empire and its systemic need for conducting terrorism, hence the deep seated denials. Propaganda and illusion are very powerful sedatives when you make a lot of money and don't really want to deal with implications of state sponsored false-flag terrorism.
"I think that the liberal class is not willing to recognize the true nature of the US empire and its systemic need for conducting terrorism..." –(malatesta).
Precisely.
This is because for the class of the 'professional left' in America– being as moribund and senseless as it is– cannot confront the tacit conclusions to be drawn from such an acknowledgment– without rendering its own ideological tenants, cognitively dissonant, and absurd in themselves.
In fact, the very comfort of their 'professional' lives (their lucrative 'niche' sinecures) depend on it– making them surreptitiously complicit with the empire they timidly denounce. Truthfully, they serve as a kind of courtier service for the ruling classes, and should be considered a part of the ruling classes.
Everyone except 'them,' is to be deemed a hysteric or worse.
If there is one axiomatic truth about 'reality' in America, is that one who assumes 'the worst' can rest assured– that the 'truth' itself, is even worse yet.
–Vashkar.
I think an important point to learn here is the power of silence in DEMONSTRATIONS.
To me it is impressive when a large crowd can act dignified and show that strengh of will and dissapline just by being there without the need for waving countless signs for the cameras.
also good singing is the best. Chants aren't so hot.
It is incredible to me that so much is made of 3,000 deaths on 9/11 when Americans have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan not to mention the massacre of over 2 million Vietnamese during that war they also started on a lie and for no good reason. If they wern't interfering in other people's business all over the world there is a good chance 9/11 would have never happened. We should try to put this in some perspective.
Here Here and a yay
"If they wern't interfering in other people's business all over the world there is a good chance 9/11 would have never happened."
Wrong.
You are assuming it was conducted as advertised; namely, by 19 Arab highjackers. The more likely explanation based on the evidence I have seen is that this was a false flag attack, and had nothing to do with our foreign policy.
9/11's happen all the time, including The Gulf of Tonkin incident which led to the 3-4 million killed in Vietnam. You cannot separate the murdered Vietnamese from the original false flag attack which justified the slaughter.
This is why it is key to understand how false flag terrorism is systemic state policy, not an aberration or a "conspiracy". Indeed, it was what the CIA was formed to do: secretly overthrow governments, assassinate heads of state, and organize mercenaries to protect US capital. In other words, institutionalized conspiracy manufacturing.
MALATESTA: Excellent post. You put into powerful words what I've been feeling & sensing for a long time.
They aren't protecting US capital...they are protecting the IDEA of capitalism.
They KNOW that there are MUCH better systems out there, and they were formed to keep the lid on these and not let the truth out.
Actually, according to "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins, they are absolutely protecting US capital. It was no accident that Major General Smedley Butler called himself a "gangster for capitalism".
This article will support everything you've said, and more. That most people don't know these things only shows how severe the historic handicap in the U.S. has become. I'm very rusty on this issue, mainly because I was so outraged by the obvious falsity of the official account of those attacks that I burned out after five years of news-hounding and vocalizing to an uninterested audience (my own family included). But burned out or not, I can pull every bit of information out of my memory when I need to.
9/11 ANALYSIS: From Ronald Reagan and the Soviet-Afghan War to George W Bush and September 11, 2001
(Please remove the space between .ca and the /index)
http://www.globalresearch.ca
/index.php?context=va&aid=20958
Thalidomide:
Exactly! Actions have consequences.
"Where would the impetus for fascism and imperial adventures be if only a small amount of people died." –(Glenn Ford)
America never needed an 'impetus for fascism.' Zero people could have been killed in the 9/11 conspiracy and still there would be fascism. It is an ineluctable truth that where there is an America, there will be imperialism, state terror and fascism.
What many fail to realize or understand is that an 'already' fascist America did not need 9/11 to constitute itself as a fascist state or even expand or accelerate what was inevitable; that it 'chose' to do so– when there was no reason for it– makes the act the very apotheosis of evil, as it was gratuitous.
America needed no prompting whatsoever to continue its wars of state terrorism; it would do so anyway– for the very reason that is what it does, and all it can do. The American people did not require 9/11 to murderously destroy Iraq .That would have happened anyway. Only the innocent continue to believe Americans need 'their' wars to be justified for even specious reasons. America is itself 'a war.'
9/11 was only like 'frosting on the cake,' an act of the purest evil, as it lacked all contingency– even that of expediency and certainly not necessity. It can be seen as a kind of 'value added' insurance policy on something that did not need to be insured to begin with. Overkill for its own sake.
Fascism was no longer an emerging 'event horizon' for America. It is, on the contrary, the spiritual emanation of the deepest urges of the American 'being' and its people–a function of its historical necessity. As such it is the 'extant' truth of what America is as 'meta spirit.'
To actually believe that Americans somehow needed to be 'convinced' or require a reason to become fascist is begging the question: A psychopathic killer does not require explanations for himself to compel him to act; he acts purely through force of 'being.' The victim is already dead from the first bullet, the second and third are just for good measure, gratuities. To feel the evil of pure power acts as its own end; to produce a designed 'result' beyond the act itself is merely incidental.
"It is not to be thought that the life of darkness is sunk in misery and lost as if in sorrowing. There is no sorrowing. For sorrow is a thing that is swallowed up in death, and death and dying are the very life of the darkness." –(Jacob Boehme)
(Cross posted/VashkarKim September 9th, 2010 2:22 am)
So true your line "overkill for it's own sake".
We are doomed.... but nobody ever listens.
VASHKAR: I can't recall the source of the following quote, but I consider it one of the most important of all time. "The enlightened warrior best understands the benefits of peace."
The fundamental difference between the "psyche" of Europeans and that of Americans is the distinction that the former felt the impact of war and deprivation on their own soil. It's always fascinated me the degree to which Germany moved away from the warrior ethos to one wherein they elected to excel in technology, instead. In my view, that's proof of a more enlightened warrior stance.
The 911 event brought destruction to the homeland. It shifted the dynamic in the minds of Americans. Perhaps if it really had been the work of outsiders gone mad with America's martial foreign policy and a president like Carter had been in office, instead of transposing the call to justice with that of a more raw sort of vengeance, the nation might have been led to a collective moment in the order of a "meeting with Jesus." That phrase is used when an addict, or someone hell-bent on the "wrong" path, stops and accepts a time of reckoning, a time to come clean about his own actions.
911 was necessary not only to further the menacing grasp of the make-war state, but also to suppress substantial liberties at home. It was a two-prong attack. You did not mention that point. So while I fully understand, and mostly agree with your painful, yet precise analysis of America today, I feel 911 was deemed necessary to speed matters up. By this I mean, this idea of empire, in the form of that "Project For A New American Century," required expeditious use of the time. Republicans were held on a very short leash, in control of all three branches of government, and recognized the opportune moment for what it was. What was needed was an immediate means, a trigger substantial enough to give them the "authority" to take hold of all the considerable tools a rich nation (and its government) has at its potential disposal. To galvanize this agenda, a thrust sufficiently overpowering in its blind passion was needed, one effective enough to wipe away things like The Geneva Conventions, Habeas Corpus, and key facets of The Bill of Rights. It had to inspire primal FEAR.
If history (and humanity) flourish into the future, the evidence that will one day be uncovered about this period--when everything went off course--will make the blood of decent researchers run cold.
Thank you for your posts. It is natural to feel grief for what has gone on, and what remains ongoing. To not feel as much means the heart, soul, and conscience have been disabled. (I often think that's the political intention behind this nation's rampant use of anti-depressants.)
While it is true that wars of conquest preceded this event, and the attitude driving them has never stopped to say, "I'm sorry," 911 shifted the dynamic. It's as if the gloves came off. There was no longer any need for the pretense that leaders search their souls to morally do the right thing. It was all about control: of the homeland population, the media message machine, domestic resources, and the resources the war machine was tasked with effectively abducting.
"If history (and humanity) flourish into the future, the evidence that will one day be uncovered about this period--when everything went off course--will make the blood of decent researchers run cold."
–(Sioux Rose)
This is true. "If history flourishes..." It is a big 'if.'
As we can see from the ongoing discussion on this thread, if what 'actually' happened that day, ever comes to light, what will result from the revelations, if anything? Will anything at all happen that is not debated into the ground in the throes of Post modern 'leveling?' Where the spurious and enforced equality of 'opinion,' in effect, cancels out any notion of, or even the possibility of the 'truth?'
When dehumanization is complete, in Nietzsche's terms, 'the time of the last man,' will it even be possible to care? I don't think Americans truly care now.
That is what is truly frightening. Given the advanced state of generalized decay already established in America, can the truth of history even matter?
I certainly don't 'know' for absolute certain what happened, but I can be assured in the truth of your statement, 'that the blood of decent researchers will run cold.' But I am not at all sure it will even matter.
For in America, one no longer needs an overactive imagination or a taste for the macabre to know that the truth– is often far worse– than one can even dream in the most dystopian of nightmares.
"I had a dream about reality. What a relief it was to wake up." –(Stanislaw Lec)
Thank you for your considered response. I'm sure our pessimism must be grating for you, since it grates on us as well.
On can rot in America, and not feel it. For some, that is what makes America so special.
–(Kim.)
VASHKAR: I have great respect for you, and your posts strum my conscience. It's an awful fate to see all the injustice and feel powerless to alter it. The momentum has become so great that this beast will have to devour itself, lest the momentum run its course.
I've alway felt that some literary greats were what many mystics term Masters (or Master Teachers), and Shakespeare, as well as Dr. Seuss, in my mind qualify.
One of my favorite lines from Shakespeare (I can't recall which sonnet) is:
"This thou perceiveth that makes thy love more strong,
to love that well, which thou must leave ere long."
The Buddhists teach that human life is the pinnacle of expression, a gift, a rare opportunity each must cherish. And while in human embodiment, that it is important to do good works to ward off previous karmic debts.
These ideas came to me in response to your post. They help me to cope with the times.
I believe in universal law. Earth functions as a school-house designed for the expression of free will; and that "free" will has been misused by those who learned to seize power and use it against others... this explains why we don't see the Deity directly altering the actions that human beings have set into motion.
However, there are cycles built into time, and humanity has come to the end of one of these cycles. A massive transition phase has begun to assert. I think its evidence is most clear in:
1. The global economy has been utterly unhinged from any realistic counterpart. I believe the derivatives market is into the trillions and trillions, whereas natural capital and actual nations' economies would never meet those metrics.
2. An escalation of climate change events promises to reduce food supplies. Between the heat wave in Russia and that nation's decision not to export grain products, to the harvests washing away in Pakistan, to the no-doubt compromised nature of the Gulf of Mexico and its fish stocks... nature is no longer co-operating as She had before. (Some call this the Revenge of Gaia.) Also, let's not forget bee colony collapse.
3. The choice to make war over peace; and America acting like a corner drug pusher getting all the bad kids to buy drugs. The drug, in this case a metaphor, signifying the worldwide trafficking in heinous weapons of mass destruction.
All of these trends are infinitely non life-affirming. Thus a critical mass is arising.
I fear that the global population will be reduced. It's just a matter of time before human genetics show major compromises, these arising from exposures to:
1. Radioactive detritus/DU
2. GM "food"
3. Most items currently ingested are "industrial food," or man-made, chemical faux fillers that only remotely resemble actual nutritious food
4. Stress
5. The constant barrage of all sorts of signals impacting our nervous systems
The world will not continue in the ways that seem inevitable from our present vantage point. Imagine the paradigm shift when Edison figured out how to light up the night? Or what seemed an equally impossible thing, when navigators like Columbus and Magellan told their insulated European counterparts that there was a whole other WORLD out there across the ocean.
I think we are on the verge of a shift of similar magnitude. Since it's been proven that after basic needs are met, happiness doesn't alter much with the ownership of more and more surplus things (what Dr. Seuss termed THNEEDS)... an elegant repect for the simple may become the logos that survivors of The Transition live by.
I always appreciate our discourses. I wish peace could be taught before "the deluge," but at this point, the mad professors of behavior modification crossed with their peers following the school of Bernays, have done too good a job of turning the human psyche into a moral badlands.
Shift is about to happen. That makes all of our predictions less certain. Perhaps that will turn out to be a good thing.
Kim,
Your writing is powerful, and I fear you are correct to a large degree. Yet I find myself in the odd position of agreeing with both you and Sioux rose.
Peace (in the inward parts - if possible)
Wow, Michael, have you been drowning puppies in your spare time, and we Californians just didn't hear about it? I thought this was a thoughtful piece, and the quote from St. Francis of Assisi was quite fitting, but I guess I was wrong.