listening to the radio on the way to work today i heard a story on npr's day to day about a new jersey woman who was widowed on september 11th, 2001, who now works as a lobbyist in washington d.c. she has dedicated herself to investigating, along with three other wtc widows, how and why the government failed so miserably to prevent the attacks of two years ago. her points are salient ones, articulated by some before, points that have been ignored to a disturbing degree by most of the mass media in this country. i was glad to hear these points aired on npr today.
i was glad, but i am not optomistic. i am not optomistic about the media's treatment of events, both international and national. i am not optomistic about how this treatment, or lack thereof, will affect the awareness and decision making abilities of the citizens of this country. i am not optomistic about what our government will be able to get away with in such a climate. our puppet, er, i mean president communicates in meaningless soundbites, channels like CNN spew repetative and meaningless "analyses" of these soundbites while people lay on their couches watching these analyses for hours, slack jawed. videotapes of osama bin laden surface at convenient times, and many, many people seem to be blindly operating under the fallacy that waging war with other countries will somehow eradicate the will and desire people in these countries have to retaliate via terrorism. that going and blowing up towns and cities in the middle east will make us safer. that killing tens of thousands of people will prevent future atrocities from happening. and that it's patriotic to think this way.
it's as if people are incapable of looking around them and actually seeing. it seems like it wouldn't be that hard for people to make a connection between our situation and the situation that has manifested itself in israel and the west bank, or in kashmir. it seems like it wouldn't be such a challenge to recognize that when you start removing constitutional rights via bills like the eerily named patriot act you get the ball rolling towards more sinister actions and methods (as if the patriot act isn't sinister enough). hasn't anyone ever heard of mccarthyism??? hasn't anyone ever read 1984??
and then there are the people like me, who just wonder what the fuck we can do about the direction things seem to be heading. yeah, we can vote. yeah, we can protest, and maybe get our names put on some list for signing an online petition. yeah, we can try and get people to think twice about what we're being told by the government and by the media. but what happens when not too many people are interested in listening? when people enjoy being sedated. when nothing is really a big deal if it's not affecting a person directly. when people are happy as long as they can consume, consume, consume. when people are happy as long as they can stay busy humping their tvs.
like millions of other people, i watched the second plane hit the wtc on cnn the morning of september 11th. live on satellite tv. i saw aaron brown sneer with morbid glee as the first tower fell. and any real emotion i might have experienced over the attacks was dissolved by the media's fanfare and manufactured mourning. mourning that was presented, with its intoxicating, sentimental aroma, for people, mouths watering, to consume. we will always remember. we will never forget. everything has changed. nothing will ever be the same. none of that has any meaning. september 11th was turned into an after school special, complete with convenient catch phrases and ready-made ways to feel. the media, with the aid of the government, was able to take the mass murder of 3,000 people and turn it into bubble gum for people to chew comfortably in their living rooms. so that while everything has changed and will continue changing, everything can seem to have actually stayed the same.
there was a moment on day to day when september 11th, 2001 was described as the moment at which this nation was brought it its knees. the events of september 11th, 2001 didn't bring this country to its knees. but they did knock this country off balance. and they moved us toward a gradual kneeling. while everyone obsesses about the dangers of air travel, supreme court justices scalia and thomas can pal around with bush's future supreme court nominee, sipping lattes and cheefully abolishing roe vs. wade. while people watch bombs bring shock and awe to bagdad on cnn, george w. can appoint a doctor who prescribes prayer for pms and who, in his private practice, would not write birth control prescriptions to unmarried women, to the advisory board of the FDA. while people puzzle in front of the small screen over why anyone might possibly want to do this great nation harm, our civil liberties will be further stripped away by patriot act II, 87 billion of our tax dollars will be fleeced for our military presence in iraq and haliburton's "reconstruction efforts" therein, etc. etc. etc. if things proceed in the current fashion, we'll be on our knees eventually. but i'm not sure who's gun barrel we'll be looking up.
doom and gloom, people, doom and gloom.
so come on, what the fuck are YOU gonna do about it??
say you're going to do something.
war bunny...
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