Not in Our Name
I've been avoiding the news lately because it's been filled with colossal bullshit over 9-11. I'm sick of people and politicians around the country acting like a gigantic hole in the ground should be an eternal shrine when all the physical remains of the dead that can be recovered have been recovered. Everything else was vaporized, and even if there is some stuff left behind from somebody who is dead - the Port Authority has been working on the subway station for years and years. While I can understand that this reality is painful to anyone who lost a loved one that day - Ground Zero is now a fucking tourist attraction. I think you can even buy zippo lighters of the towers at the card tables surrounding the periphery.
Velvet could make a few bucks selling gas mask bongs to all those midwesterners flocking downtown.
I also understand that when you live in New York City, the local news sometimes takes on a national significance. Global, even, because there are a ton of people here who are citizens of other countries. Certainly, those guys who flew the planes into the towers were attacking America in general, not New Yorkers specifically - but imagine if you lived in Kansas City and a group of extremists blew up the Walmart. Or an busy highway interchange at rush hour. You could even look at Oklahoma City and that federal building. If Timothy McVeigh had been more efficient and better funded - he could have killed a shit load of people that day. Would the federal building in Oklahoma City become a pilgrimage for tourists from around the globe?
I have complete confidence that Dick Cheney and them would have found a way to occupy Afghanistan using Oklahoma City or any Walmart in the land since Dick has to get his mitts on that lithium in order to corner the market on energy sources for batteries. Iraq was nothing but bullshit from start to "finish," but we managed to occupy that country too. Apparently, Iran is a bit more of a stretch or we'd have attacked there already.
I wish everybody were making such a fuss over another city. Watching Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Newt Gingrich circling the city for their own political gain is some shit. Add Rupert Murdoch or Rush Limbaugh and it's practically the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Clearly, Islamaphobia is necessary to secure funding for Endless War. And it looks like 9-11 is has become more a more popular battle-cry than, "Remember the Alamo." But the fact is that a congregation of Muslims wants to build a basket ball court and smoothie bar in an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory a couple of blocks away from that damn hole in the ground. In the article, War Over Ground Zero, Newsweek interviewed a mother who lost her fire fighter son on 9-11. She has a shrine to him in her home because his body was vaporized. I hope to never experience that kind of pain. She's bent out of shape about "the mosque," but she'd be bent out of shape about a Starbucks.
As Jon Stewart pointed out in Extremist Makeover, even Fox News was in favor of the project back when it was approved by the community board months ago. The feelings of the grieving were expressed and considered at that time. Stewart also pointed out that although nobody wants a terrorist cell meeting on Wall Street, nobody particularly wants one Uptown either. As I recall, the 9-11 pilots hung out in tittie bars in Florida not on Wall Street. Sarah Palin should be hanging out at a mosque in South Beach.
No matter who was behind the attacks - The Bushes and the Bin Ladens, Mossad and the Zionists, or Al Qaeda - thousands have died and billions have been spent in Endless War. Back in 2001, a group formed called Not In Our Name.
A stirring pledge, but they shut their doors in March, 2008, saying:
While some may look to the upcoming elections as an answer, many of us see no meaningful change possible as a result of the outcome. The Democrats took control of the Congress in 2006, largely based on the perception that they would end the war in Iraq. Since then, we have seen an escalation in the murderous occupation in Iraq, accompanied now with talk of a “surge” in Afghanistan and the very real threat of an attack on Iran. The Presidential candidates promise more of the same.
I thought that Not in Our Name merged with United for Peace & Justice, but I could be wrong about that. UFPJ is still active and will be joining One Nation Working Together to demand the change we voted for in Washington DC on October 2.
Velvet could make a few bucks selling gas mask bongs to all those midwesterners flocking downtown.
I also understand that when you live in New York City, the local news sometimes takes on a national significance. Global, even, because there are a ton of people here who are citizens of other countries. Certainly, those guys who flew the planes into the towers were attacking America in general, not New Yorkers specifically - but imagine if you lived in Kansas City and a group of extremists blew up the Walmart. Or an busy highway interchange at rush hour. You could even look at Oklahoma City and that federal building. If Timothy McVeigh had been more efficient and better funded - he could have killed a shit load of people that day. Would the federal building in Oklahoma City become a pilgrimage for tourists from around the globe?
I have complete confidence that Dick Cheney and them would have found a way to occupy Afghanistan using Oklahoma City or any Walmart in the land since Dick has to get his mitts on that lithium in order to corner the market on energy sources for batteries. Iraq was nothing but bullshit from start to "finish," but we managed to occupy that country too. Apparently, Iran is a bit more of a stretch or we'd have attacked there already.
I wish everybody were making such a fuss over another city. Watching Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Newt Gingrich circling the city for their own political gain is some shit. Add Rupert Murdoch or Rush Limbaugh and it's practically the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Clearly, Islamaphobia is necessary to secure funding for Endless War. And it looks like 9-11 is has become more a more popular battle-cry than, "Remember the Alamo." But the fact is that a congregation of Muslims wants to build a basket ball court and smoothie bar in an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory a couple of blocks away from that damn hole in the ground. In the article, War Over Ground Zero, Newsweek interviewed a mother who lost her fire fighter son on 9-11. She has a shrine to him in her home because his body was vaporized. I hope to never experience that kind of pain. She's bent out of shape about "the mosque," but she'd be bent out of shape about a Starbucks.
As Jon Stewart pointed out in Extremist Makeover, even Fox News was in favor of the project back when it was approved by the community board months ago. The feelings of the grieving were expressed and considered at that time. Stewart also pointed out that although nobody wants a terrorist cell meeting on Wall Street, nobody particularly wants one Uptown either. As I recall, the 9-11 pilots hung out in tittie bars in Florida not on Wall Street. Sarah Palin should be hanging out at a mosque in South Beach.
No matter who was behind the attacks - The Bushes and the Bin Ladens, Mossad and the Zionists, or Al Qaeda - thousands have died and billions have been spent in Endless War. Back in 2001, a group formed called Not In Our Name.
A stirring pledge, but they shut their doors in March, 2008, saying:
While some may look to the upcoming elections as an answer, many of us see no meaningful change possible as a result of the outcome. The Democrats took control of the Congress in 2006, largely based on the perception that they would end the war in Iraq. Since then, we have seen an escalation in the murderous occupation in Iraq, accompanied now with talk of a “surge” in Afghanistan and the very real threat of an attack on Iran. The Presidential candidates promise more of the same.
I thought that Not in Our Name merged with United for Peace & Justice, but I could be wrong about that. UFPJ is still active and will be joining One Nation Working Together to demand the change we voted for in Washington DC on October 2.
posted by PENolan at
7:09 AM
10 Comments:
If Timothy McVeigh had been more efficient and better funded - he could have killed a shit load of people that day. Would the federal building in Oklahoma City become a pilgrimage for tourists from around the globe?
No, because McVeigh was a red, white, and blue American terrorist. Even now the right wing does its best to ignore and forget he ever existed. Top it all off good old Beck has occasionally floated the idea that al Qaeda helped McVeigh out.
I stayed off Facebook on 9/11 because people who couldn't really give two shits about the infrastructure of this nation were all busy pulling out their flags and waving them around and hollering god bless america. Such bullshit.
I can't even imagine how disgusting it must be to be there and to have to see the charlatans come to town.
9/11 is our new high holy day. Soon we'll be buying each other 9/11 gifts.
Agree. So. Hard.
What is happening with 9/11 is, on too many fronts, sickening. And the only way I know to respond is to insist that no one group "owns" 9/11. Not me, not you, not Rudy "a noun, a verb, 9/11" Giuliani. And thank-you, as a current New Yorker, for recognizing that there are limits to how much proximity to Ground Zero allows ownership of the event, its interpretations, and the ways it has been or should be used for political gain.
Doctor, I can already imagine the kiosks in malls across the country selling World Trade Center earrings without a Pentagon anywhere in sight - as if nothing happened at the Pentagon that day. Sheesh.
No wonder I smoke weed.
Lisa, thanks for your support.
Beach, You need to read Lisa's piece, The Beck Girl, over at Black Magpie Theory.
Bungy - you live in New York?
This too shall pass.
Still cracking up over "practically the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."
Lisa, Facebook gets offensive sometimes, doesn't it?
What a fantastic article, spot on! Thanks for your comments on my aricle on Worldwide Hippies. You have summarized the insanities around us so very well. Too well. We all feel beat up, tired, abused, lied to once again, but I can't help but feel if we could get all like minded people united, we could pull something off. These midterm elections are like pushing a boulder up a hill. It keeps want to roll backwards, and with a little push downhill from the far right extremists, it could easily roll all the way back down to the bottom.
But if all hippies just would keep it together a bit longer, put one last strong oomph into that boulder, I think we can roll it over the top to the other side.
The only other option is to do nothing, wait until the world economies and militaries collapse, and start anew. I'm OK with that too.
Phil Polizatto
Well said. This year's 9/11 memorial service was marked with ugly demonstrations against the mosque and other politically motivated protests. It is saddening to see an occasion that once brought Americans together, be used as an excuse to break us apart.
Add Rupert Murdoch or Rush Limbaugh and it's practically the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. - Spot-fucking-on woman!
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