I don't feel fine. It's September 15 2001, the Saturday after the Tuesday when the attack happened.
Here's what folks on one list had to say, back on the 11th:
Quark,
I, too, agree with you. There are certainly times when one must stand and be counted. Unfortunately, war can be, and sometimes is, one of those necessary evils that must happen. The cowardly acts against the people of the USA that happened today should not, and I repeat, should not be ignored, nor smoothed over. Once it is absolutely certain whom is responsible for these acts, there should be a major offensive to ensure that our way of life will never again be threatened in this way. Was was a viable tool of our ancestors, and should continue to be so when deemed necessary to preserve our safety and way of life.
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: quarkxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 4:37 PM
Subject: [CentralVa-Pagans] Magickal request
Folks,
I don't like to pass on mass mailings, especially
on this list. But
I feel that recent events are of such severity
that it is important
to stand together, somehow, to do what we can
in the face of atrocity.
There is one thing in the below mailing that I
disagree with. The
author urges us to send energy to the nation's
leaders to discourage
them from considering war as an option.
I couldn't possibly disagree
more. There are times when war is not only
necessary, but a benefit;
and we don't know yet, but this may be one of
those times. It is not
only our friends, families and businesses that
have been attacked.
It is our core community values. I an certain
that no matter what
else happens, the U.S. has been changed indelibly
by this cowardly
attack.
Regardless of my personal opinion, which I realize
will not be
popular in the larger Pagan community, I am passing
on this mailing
in its entirety:
--------------------------------------------------
Please join in with magickal people worldwide tonight
in this
working. {etc. etc.}
To which I responded on the 12th:
You guys,
Well, they never had a war that there weren't
plenty of people lined up to go kill somebody in. I don't understand
how giving one's life to strike a blow at global capitalism of the military
industrial complex is "cowardly," while murdering people from the safety
of a stealth bomber is "brave." The humanitarians seem to have bloomed
like flowers in the spring in this country. Where were they during
the bombing of Baghdad? Where were they while Israeli thugs killed
children and burned the homes and crops of Palestinians, in a power play
reminiscent of Hitler's take-over of Czechoslovakia? Everything Israel
has done, it has done with America's weapons, America's money, America's
blessing, and with America standing by like a big brother to intervene
if things ever are not going Israel's way. If you want to put your
life on the line to defend that, then do what you will, but if you don't
personally want to put your life on the line for it, then you should not
talk of war.
What happened yesterday is a wake-up call. It's a different kind of world now. Nobody is so powerless that they can be stepped on safely anymore. If we make life cheap somewhere in the world, as our gummint often does, well, then they can make life cheap here, and not just here, but deep in the inner sancta of power, where the rulers imagine themselves safe from the consequences of their actions. Even behind their walls of nuclear weapons, attack helicopters, and land mines, still they cannot escape Justice.
Equality has become fact. Only the habits of victimhood and victorhood remain; the realities behind them are no more. While anyone is still a victim of injustice, nobody anywhere can be completely safe from the repercussions.
As McLuhan said, time and space have collapsed in the world defined by electronic communications. Anyone can "reach" anyone else to communicate, to help, or to do harm. Nobody can be safe as long as anyone is denied justice or their basic needs because today's slaves, untouchables, minorities, victims can get guns, bombs, videocams, computers, and credit card numbers.
WE ARE ALL IN THE DARK, IN THE SAME SWEAT LODGE. WE CAN ALL REACH ONE ANOTHER. WE MUST ALL BE GENTLE. WE MUST ALL RESPECT ONE ANOTHER. WE MUST NOT ALIENATE ANYONE, BECAUSE IF ANYONE STOPS FEELING THE GROUP'S LOVE, THEY ARE LIABLE TO HURT US ALL.
So go to war if you want. Chalk up another crime as revenge for another crime as revenge for another crime as revenge for another crime as revenge for another crime as revenge for another crime as revenge for another crime as revenge for another crime as revenge for another crime...
But be honest about why you want to kill.
Matt
I guess that's pretty close to my unvarnished opinion. It's really sad that fundamentalists of all stripes want the world to go to war, to fight the crusades all over again with modern warfare, to bring about that Armageddon they are all so psyched up for. It's really sad that they all worship a god who delights to see them kill each other in his name. It's really sad that after so much human blood has been offered to this god, it seems only to have made him thirstier for more. All that is very sad, but does it get any less sad if I join this side or that? I know it's easier for the Children's Crusade to march triumphantly out of town if there are no nay-sayers in the crowd, but is it necessarily better? Does evil become good if it is supported unanimously?
War, and war fever are things I have not experienced before in this lifetime. It's strange and scary. It's not a good time for independent thinkers. It's not a good time to think too much, or too deeply. I don't like the role of the nay-sayer at the outbreak of war. I don't like what has happened to them historically: jail is about as good as it gets, like Thoreau, and I guess really bad would be either getting shot or ending up on the radio for the enemy like Ezra Pound. Hard to live that sort of thing down, even if you are sure you are "right." What is "right" in a situation like this? And is there any point in being "right" if everyone hates you for it?
What follows I stole from
here.
(Inspired by my friend Sarah)
B. CONVENTIONAL MORALITY: Acceptance of the rules and standards of one's group.
C. POSTCONVENTIONAL OR PRINCIPLED MORALITY: Ethical principles
At this level, God is understood to say what is right because it is
right; His sayings are not right, just because it is God who said them.
Persons at this level have accepted God's invitation to "come and let us
reason together".
... So what does that say? I think maybe
these post-conventional moral levels are the first casualties of war.
Here's the email where I said too much.
September 14
I'm sending this on from another list;it
seems important to me that this
> information gets widely circulated.
>
> Who remembers the Oklahoma City bombing?At
first, that was believed to be
> a Muslim/Arab act.
Yeah. I have wondered this too.
Let's assume for a moment that the gummint
really found a car with Arabic
flight manuals in it... If the terrorists
could carry off what they DID
carry off, isn't it also possible they could
have come up with a fake car?
So who could it be, besides the Arabs?
well, it may be a long shot, but I
ran a search for the date, September 11,
and found it was the anniversary of
the US sponsored coup in Chile which installed
Augusto Pinochet.
This coup destroyed the oldest and most stable
democracy in Latin America,
according to Chileans I have met. The
legitimate president, Salvador
Allende, was assassinated. Pinochet's
rule lasted 15 years, which is longer
than that of Hitler. Pinochet was popular
with the right because he was
staunchly anti-communist, as well as anti-union,
anti-liberal,
anti-democratic, etc. His rule was
characterized by torture, as discussed
in the play and film, _Death and the Maiden_.
His thugs, excuse me, his
duly commissioned officers of the law, liked
to put demonstrators inside
tires, douse them with gasoline, and set
fire to them. He killed thousands.
Nixon and Kissinger were personally and directly
responsible for his ascent
to power. He was an American puppet,
and so America assumes responsibility
for what he did. Even recently, when
Pinochet was finally brought to
justice, it was the US and British governments
that came to his defense,
arguing that no head of state could ever
be held criminally responsible for
what was done under them, (the ancient
and venerated Law which states the
Real Bastards Always Get Off...)
The objects that were hit were symbols of
worldwide capitalism, and the military-industrial
complex, the same forces
that in the cold war spelled Chile's doom.
yaddaddaddda
Thing is, I wonder how many dates I could
run a search on that would NOT
turn up someone with a good reason to do
something like this?
[my point is there's more than one possible
explanation for this, however
much the media keeps trying to narrow it
down, with so little hard
evidence.]
I know some folks think I am naive, but I
think there is a Connection
between the decency and honor with which
our nation treats other nations and
people, and the likelihood of some hateful
attack on us. In other words, if
our presidents are going to bomb brown people
every time they need to juice
up the ol' opinion polls, and if the American
people are gonna shout "hell
yeah" whenever they do, then sooner or later
it's gonna start coming back.
Am I saying that if we start being real nice
they will forget all the dead
and be our friends? Of course not.
There will always be some nutcases that
would like to try something. Our chief
weapon against them is Intelligence,
infiltration, Finding Out About them.
SO our spooks, and the Israeli spooks
and the Saudi spooks are always trying to
wiggle their way into the Moslem
community, buying information, etc.
This spook business is easier, safer,
and far more effective if the tension level
is low, if people don't have
legitimate grievances, and if the spooks
are not in danger of getting hit
with US made missiles! Look:
comfortable people make lousy
revolutionaries; people in refugee
camps with pictures of all their dead
relatives pinned to the plastic make good
revolutionaries. If the
Palestinians are a threat, then the best
bet is to see to it that most of
them don't have so much to complain about,
and maybe have something to live
for besides revenge.
The responsible way for our nominal leadership
to handle this would be in
two parts: finding out what happened, and
trying to prevent it from
happening again. What happened means
all the five W's: who what when where,
how and why. Prevention would proceed
from there: deal with the "who,"
make the "how" impossible, and render the
"why" meaningless by addressing
whatever the problem is. This
administration does not know who, nor
understand why, (though an international-relations
undergrad could explain
it to them...) and its plan for making the
"how" impossible is going to
restrict freedom far more than necessary,
as the right uses this opportunity
to whip up on the usual suspects, like you
and me. And I don't think the
administration is really focused mainly on
preventing reoccurrence. In
fact, every new "act of terrorism" will legitimate
the previous "measured
response" from us. (read, killing people
on both sides. It's one of the
chief lies of patriotism that when we kill
them they don't bleed red, and
their families don't get upset... and vow
revenge.) In fact, making this
religious war last and last is probably GW's
best shot at a second term.
Permanent alienation of the Moslem world
would really help those Texas oil
men... and a national defense argument would
roll right over anyone trying
to stop oil drilling anywhere, even in the
Chesapeake Bay.
You guessed it. I really don't care
for president junior, and I care for
his old man even less. He's the one
who drew first blood in this war, all
in an attempt to keep the Iraqi oil locked
out of the world market, not for
cheaper oil, but to make it expensive enough
to keep domestic production
moving at all. At heart, this is a
war between the three great he-god
religions, and between rival gangs of oil
pirates from Texas and the Middle
East respectively, both places where men
are men, women are property, and
wealth is cattle and oil, and both places
where hard-core fundamentalism is
the chief opiate of the masses. The
American people have no place in this
war. We are being manipulated into
it by other parties who do not have our
best interests at heart. But we elected
them, or at least didn't run them
out on a rail when they assumed office anyway...
BTW
Who was in charge of CIA when Pinochet took
over? George Bush.
Lux et Voluptas
{means 'light and pleasure,' which spell
check turned into}
Lug et Voluptuous
{which means open mouth, insert foot, etc.}
Matt
And here's what Starhawk has to say. I trust
her.
Please Forward...
_______________
Hold the Vision
September 14, 2001
The world has changed in the past week. An
act of violence and horror
has cost the lives of thousands, and shattered
all of our plans and
expectations for the future.
We who have been working for global justice now
face an enormous
challenge. Since Seattle, we've built and
sustained a movement in spite
of continually escalating police violence and
attempts by the media to
paint us as violent thugs. Genoa did not
intimidate us, and momentum
was growing for the demonstrations in Washington
DC at the end of the
month. Public opinion was shifting, and the whole
edifice of corporate
rule was losing legitimacy.
The terrorist attacks of last Tuesday could undermine
all of our work,
at least in the short term. They are the perfect
excuse for the state to
intensify its repression, restrict civil liberties,
and for anyone who
speaks out against blind retaliation to be demonized.
The mood of the country is potentially ugly.
People are scared.
They're angry. Their sense of power and
invulnerability has been badly
shaken, and in the U.S., they're not used to it.
They're grasping at
anything which can restore their sense of power
over their lives, and in
a violent society, that means punishment, retaliation,
war.
And many of us activists are also scared.
I know how easily I can sink
into fear and despair right now. I'm scared
of the repression that
might come, scared of being personally targeted,
scared of the loss of
our liberties, scared, yes, of further attacks.
But most of all I'm
scared for the movement, which I believe is crucial
to our survival as a
species.
And yet I also believe that the current crisis
can be a great
opportunity, if we can only see how to grasp it.
Extraordinary times
create extraordinary openings and possibilities.
Our usual patterns and
ways of thinking are shattered. When structures
fall, something new can
be built.
To do that, we have to behave in extraordinary
ways. We need to
acknowledge our fears, but not act out of fear.
Fear leads to bad
decisions and constricted vision, just when we
need to see most clearly.
"Hold on, hold on, hold the vision, that's being
born," our cluster
chanted in Quebec City.
It may be that the most radical thing we can do
right now is to act from
our vision, not our fear, and to believe in the
possibility of its
realization. Every force around us is pushing
us to close down,
insulate, retreat. Instead, we need to advance,
but in a different way.
We're called to take a leap into the unknown.
As a movement, we've often been accused of lacking
a clear vision of the
world we want. I think we do have a vision,
that includes diversity and
rejects uniform, dogmatic formulations.
But within all its varied forms
there's a clear common ground: we want a
world of liberty and justice
for all. It sounds downright patriotic but
if you think about its
ramifications, they are revolutionary. And
we want a world in which no
one has to fear violence, which is the ultimate
violation of freedom.
There are many voices right now trying to mobilize
people around fear,
anger and blame. As radicals, tried to mobilize
people out of guilt, or
shame. This is the moment to reinvent our
approach, our strategies and
our tactics, to believe in the possibility of
moving people to act from
hope, to act in the service of what they love.
What would this look
like? It would mean embodying the world
we want to create in our own
movement, and in our actions.
Times of grief and anguish can strengthen our bonds.
Right now, more
than ever, we in the movement need each other
as never before, and we
need to treat each other well, to cherish and
care for and support each
other and become the community we like to imagine.
Our solidarity must
go deeper than we've ever known before.
Solidarity means listening to
each other with respect, and being willing to
protect and support people
with whom we may disagree on many levels, or who
might simply irritate
us. Solidarity means strengthening our practice
of direct democracy,
our openness and communication with each other,
our willingness to bring
everyone to the table and give everyone affected
by a decision a voice
in making it. It means putting aside our
usual internal politicking and
maneuvering and treating each other with openness
and trust.
This is not simple to do. But in a moment
when the ordinary patterns of
life around us have been shattered, shifting our
own patterns of
behavior may actually be easier. Perspectives
change, and the issues
that last week seemed so important now seem trivial.
What would this look like tactically, say, in DC
two weeks from now?
First, we'd have to deliberately drop our assumptions,
whether they are
that confrontation is always the strongest action,
or that nonviolence
is always the most moral action, or that direct
action is always our
strategy of choice, or that a march and a rally
with speakers are the
ultimate form of politics, and ask what makes
most sense? What is most
visionary?
I'd like to see whatever we do involve some kind
of process of mutual
discussion and education around our visions of
alternatives. And I'd
like to see us think of ways to take that outside
of our own groups and
into the community, and to bring in voices from
the community to teach
us about their issues and concerns. That
could be a consulta, a
teach-in or maybe a learn-in, where we go out
into the community and ask
people how issues of power and inequality affect
their lives, or what
their visions are of the world they want.
In a time of fear and
despair, calling people to consider their visions
could be a powerful
form of action.
I also think it's important, symbolically and politically,
that we make
some kind of strong, visible presence in the streets,
that we don't
voluntarily relinquish the one political space
in which we've been able
to have a significant impact. But I also
think it's important that what
we do in the street be appropriate to the moment.
A mourning
procession, a vigil or rite of healing might make
sense right now: a
standard march with shouted slogans and printed
signs would be
offensive. But it's hard to predict what
the mood or situation of the
country will be two weeks from now. We could
be heading into a full
fledged war, and a large march might be a needed
and powerful statement.
Direct action is a powerful tool, but like a chainsaw
it's not the tool
you want in every situation. Direct action
points a spotlight on an
issue, can directly interfere with an unjust group
or situation, and
delegitimize an institution or policy. Used
at the wrong moment,
without a strong base of support, it risks legitimizing
the very
institutions we seek to undermine.
Many police have just given their lives because
they stayed in a
dangerous situation helping other people get out.
A lot of us in this
struggle talk about being willing to die.
They just did. Whatever we
feel about police as tools of the state, now is
not a good moment for a
heavy police confrontation. In fact, although
generally I'm against
negotiating with the police, in this case I'd
certainly consider that it
might be a wise and even a generous thing to do.
As individuals, the
police are of a class that doesn't gain from the
policies we oppose.
Let's not write off the possibility that some
of them could be brought
to support us.
I want peace, not war. But calling for 'peace'
at this moment does not
sufficiently address the fear, anger and powerlessness
people feel. I'd
like to see us call for justice:
Justice for the victims of this week's terrorist attacks.
Justice, not blind vengeance -- meaning that we
need to know clearly and
certainly who carried out the attacks before we
retaliate.
Justice for the Arab Americans who live among us.
They deserve our
support and protection.
Justice for the people of other countries who could
soon become our
victims.
Justice for the many, many victims of ongoing terror
around the world,
and recognition of the part we have played in
supporting and forging
that terror.
Economic and environmental justice.
These are my thoughts at the moment. They
could change as the situation
changes. But mostly I suggest that we all
begin a creative thinking
process, that we consciously choose to set aside
our fears and our
depression. I suggest that before we agree
to do anything we've done
before, we consider at least three creative new
alternatives. I think
we should show up in Washington, if not in the
numbers and way we
expected, then in some other dimension of strength,
and hold open the
possibility that we can create not just a protest,
but moments of public
beauty that can transform the world.
Finally, I want to say a word about faith.
'Faith' and 'religion' are
being thrown around and served up to us in ways
that are at the moment
rather sickening. Religion of any denomination
can motivate the worst
acts and be a rationale for hate. And yet
it's hard to get through
times like these without faith in something.
I don't generally like to inflict my spirituality
on people who might
not want it. But I feel moved to tell you
what's getting me through the
night, along with the love and support of my community.
It's the faith
that there is a great, creative power that works
through the living
world toward life, diversity, healing and regeneration.
That power
works in us, in our human love, in our work for
justice, in our courage
and our visions. We don't need priests or
ministers or even Witches to
contact that power for us: we each have
our own direct line. It exists
within us, infinite, unlimited. Ultimately,
it is stronger than fear,
stronger than violence, stronger than hate.
I wish you all deep contact
with whatever feeds your soul, and nourishment
from whoever and whatever
you most love.
-- Starhawk
Copyright 2001 Starhawk
http://www.starhawk.org/activism/holdthevision.html
Permission is granted to reproduce, if copyright
info is included.
Well, she's a bigger person than me... I
was explaining something about the bouquet and texture of shoe leather...
Then I apologized to the list for the first email
in this way:
>assumed office anyway...
Sorry folks. I was rude and obnoxious.
I will not criticize our commander
in chief anymore till the war is over,
or it's six months before the next
presidential election, whichever happens
first. I promise. Feel free to
remind me, if it becomes necessary,
please.
Not fun being the last one on the bus.
Matt
Ain't THAT the truth. It SUCKS being the last one on the bus. Everyone sees you get on, and wonders where you were, and why the bus had to wait for you, and you have to sit next to some other unpopular person. You should see the hate stares I get on the highway, all of a sudden. Why? I guess because of the bumper stickers that say "Love is the Law," and "Love your enemies. It gets them really confused!" Jeepers. I had thought those were pretty positive when I put them on. I had deliberately chosen not to apply the one that said "Don't MAKE me get VOODOO on your ass!" because of its threatening tone and possible profanity issue, etc. But now loving one's enemy is downright unpatriotic. I guess I'm a sorry piece of poop. I am so selfish, to be last on the bus, last to show loyalty, last to show hate like a proper American.
It reminds me of when I was a kid on the school
bus. Jamey C. was all pumped up one day to have a race riot on the
bus . He wanted all the white people to beat up all the blacks.
I said I didn't think so. He said we'd win, since there were more whites
on the bus than blacks. I said no, because not all the whites would
join in the fight, myself, for instance . He called me a traitor.
That's how I feel now. I refuse to take part in an ancient evil,
and for refusing, I become vulnerable, hated, outcast, guilty.
On the other hand, he never got his race riot.
Maybe he would have, if I had not shut him down. Probably not, but
heck, there exists some minuscule chance that my treachery to the "Cause"
back then might have helped to prevent a really horrible occurrence, not
the sort of thing that would have made TV news or even local news, back
then, but which would have been a real trauma for the people that went
through it. I'm sure it was not fun for the blacks to ride on a bus
where this kind of talk even went on, but I'm equally sure that if you
asked any of the other white people who were on that bus then if there
were and "race problems" they'd say, "Oh, no," and paint a picture of idyllic
harmony.
So it goes.
So in keeping with my patriotic duty, I have a
few ideas about how to really destroy the pan-Islamic movement, forever,
and make them do things our way. First, we have to understand the
parameters of action. This war has been going on in some form or
another almost continuously for at least 1000 years, maybe back to the
time of Christ, if we place the Romans as the first Europeans to "Crusade
in the Holy Land," after a fashion. So a solution that takes a generation
or two to take effect is not out of the question.
So think on this:
Islam does not allow loaning or borrowing of money
at interest. This is one of the main differences between them and
the Jews and Christians. This is one of the main reasons why Moslems
are at such a disadvantage in Capitalism: they reject some of its basic
premises as evil. Suppose business loans were made available, at
the micro finance level, to Palestinian and other lower-class Moslem women,
in programs administered by women's rights organizations? Under threat
of poverty, some women would brave the disapproval of the rest of their
families and communities and start western-style businesses. Men
would have a hard time getting the loans, because, let's say, men of fighting
age have to take a polygraph test to prove they are not terrorists, and
the standards of "selling out" to the west would be so high that few men
would make it. As women became the breadwinners, they would come
to embrace western values for their children. They would have fewer
children, in the first place, and educate them in western business models.
These women would become the richest people in town, and create an avalanche
of westernization and the eventual annihilation of traditional values.
Hell. It worked here, didn't it? Capitalism is Our national
religion, just as Islam is theirs. Money, riches, and what it can
buy are our gods. We put aside all our differences and work together
in peace with people we disagree with intensely in this country.
Is it because we are good people and love our neighbor? Heck no.
It's because we value that dollar more than we value whatever we disagree
about, whether it's religion, politics, whatever.
What about reprisals? Won't traditionalist
Moslems fight back? Well, I expect they will, but their targets will
all be women in their own communities, and not us. When retributions
come, we have our media play up the "violence against women" angle, until
they are too ashamed to fight back. It puts them in a trap they cannot
get out of: they westernize, and sell out to the "great satan" of worldwide
usury, as they see it, or they remain in poverty while other parts of their
society become rich and decadent.
So there it is. As an "outside the box" thinker,
philosopher, social-scientific observer, this is the best I can do, in
my country's time of need, the very "evilest" blackest, darkest, most merciless
angle of attack I can imagine my country taking against this threat.
Matt Komoroski, 9-17-01
It seems the US is leaning on Pakistan to go to
war with Afghanistan http://www.smh.com.au/news/0109/18/world/world1.html
Eight days ago, that would have been a nightmare,
as the Pakistanis have primitive nuclear weapons.
That's one way this could play out: the Pakistanis
nuke Kabul, stirring the rubble left by the Russians and the civil war.
This way, the American public would have the satisfaction of seeing a mushroom
cloud over the cities of those the government says are our enemies, but
America would not have to take the blame. In fact, we could then
demonize Pakistan.
I think it's important for a nation to have enemies.
They keep it propped up. They give the government something to point
at that they hope is even more terrifying than them. Enemies give
the government an excuse to lock up those who disagree. Nations define
themselves in terms of enemies: they are this way, and we are not like
them. They are brutal cowards, and we are righteous avengers.
Why didn't the US get rid of Hussein, last time
we were in this sort of mess? I think there were several reasons.
First, it would have been expensive. Second, it would have put US
troops on the ground in a hostile country, and that means casualties.
Third, the press would have gotten in and seen what the US really
did to those people, and the Americans with their yellow ribbons were not
prepared to deal emotionally with what was actually done in their name.
Fourth, it might have been necessary to give Hussein his day in court,
and he might have exposed secrets Bush didn't want exposed. (I think
he went after Noriega to shut him up.) Fifth, if Hussein had been
replaced, then the Iraqi oil would have been coming to market, and the
price would be a lot lower, which is bad for domestic oil production.
(The higher the price goes, the better it is for domestic oil: Bush's buddies.)
Mainly, though, Bush needed a reliable enemy. He needed some place
to bomb periodically in order to fan the flames of patriotism and hate.
It had to be somebody that the American people already hated and feared
and knew little about and cared less. It had to be somebody guaranteed
never to hit back (hence, the weapons inspections.) Cowardice?
No, Realpolitik.
After communism, what then? The communists
were great enemies. The public was scared of them, because big business
told them to be. Communists did not believe in interest-based capitalism,
and that made them bad. After the cold war, when there was no enemy,
the US almost fell over from shock. We turned against ourselves;
all that hi-tech paranoia that was developed for the cold war got turned
against internal enemies in the 'culture war.' We put more Americans
in prison, and executed more, and adopted punitive laws against being poor,
and hired armies of new police, and gave them free reign to kick the stuff
out of anybody who couldn't afford a lawyer. The US army occupied
Humbolt Co Ca. in a war against civilians and a plant. The government
develoed unprecedented ways to spy on Americans, and ingenious chemical
weapons specifically to be used against civilians. (Did you read
about the microwave ray gun they were so proud of recently? It shoots
a thin beam of microwaves that burn flesh if they are pointed at it.
The government wants to use this for crowd control.)
So now that we have a new enemy, and a worthy
one, we can relax a little. Things are right in the Universe again.
This one is totally different from the other one, except for one thing:
Moslems are forbidden to lend or borrow money at interest.
Lending money at interest, or usury, is the basis of capitalism, along
with the "limited liability corporation," a sort of mechanism for rich
folks to raise money, and then not have to be responsible for what they
do with it. The communists said that was all wrong, just like the
Moslems do. Big business hated communism, because when communists
took over, they would nationalize the holdings of multinational corporations,
holdings those companies had built up through years of careful bribery
to the US-friendly dictatorships that the communists typically targeted.
And more importantly, the communists would write off the old debts, and
tell the banks to get lost.
In this war, as in the cold war, what we are really
fighting for is worldwide capitalism: usury and the limited liability corporation.
I'm working on a suggestion to send to right-wing
national leaders, (the only ones that count,) about destabilizing the Moslem
world through micro finance: small business loans, given with rudimentary
instruction in how to run a business. These loans would be handled
by feminist relief agencies, and would be available only to women, or to
men who had passed some horrid and humiliating polygraph to prove they
aren't terrorists. Poverty would drive the women to start businesses,
begin educating themselves in western business culture. With women
as the bread-winners, men would lose heart. I think in a decade or
two, traditionalist Moslems would be a shrinking and impoverished minority
surrounded by rich and decadent sell-outs to the west. Take too long?
Well, the war has been going on a thousand years or more...
Why not? We have seen how fast these sorts of forces have crushed
traditional values here in the west (whatever side you are on.) Why
not turn these weapons against our enemy? Look, these people will
never be beaten to submission, just as we won't. How many airplanes
and how many buildings would it take before you or I were ready to just
give up and submit to them? It'll never happen. Well, I tell you
that no matter how many cities we bomb, they will not submit either.
The best way to attack the Moslems is to hit the soft underbelly of family
life. The best weapon is money. Our fifth column is Moslem
women. There is a darker side to this: reprisals against
the women by forces of tradition. I think this too can work to our
advantage if we play up the "violence against women" angle, and perhaps
even take action to protect them. Cold, I know... but is all-out
war better? I'm thinking of giving it a title like "send in the Wombyns!"
I think there's nothing the Bush administration
would like more than to send a bunch of feminists to the middle east to
teach capitalism. He might even go along with it.
Matt
9 18 01
Here's a site that explains what Afghanistan's women are doing....
http://rawasongs.fancymarketing.net/bro.htm
Jamey
And think what that lot could do with some resources!
Someone told me a year or more ago, when I'd more or less given up on all
parties in the Mid East as _prefering_ hatred and eternal conflict to getting
along, that the ray of hope I was looking for was the women's organizations.
It was pointed out to me that it's the men, for the most part, who yell
for more killing, and the women, for the most part that mourn the dead.
That got me thinking, and remembering, that feminism
is the thing Arab guys I have known understand least and fear most in American
culture. They don't get it At All. One of the biggest issues
in their culture is the veil. There are many many variations of veiling,
from no veil and a short, western-style skirt, to being covered head to
foot in folds of black cloth you made yourself, by which a woman telegraphs
at all times exactly how westernized she is, or isn't. Any time she
is in public, a woman is making a statement about how traditional she is,
and this is the main indicator of how pious her husband, or father, or
other male protector person is. If there isn't enough piety, then
more pious Moslem men may look down on him, say he isn't man enough
to keep "his" women in line, or in a really strict country, they might
do more than that to him. Sort of like southern baptists, no?
Now if you took the money spent on just one of
those "smart shell" doo-hickeys they used in the gulf war: the $30,000
thing to be shot out of a gun, with the video cam in the front, and the
controls, so a guy with a joystick could guide it into a target,
well, $30,000 anyway, and gave it to these dissident Afghan women,
in the form of food and medicine, then these women would become the de
facto power in the area, having the things people really need. It
worked for Hammas. It can work for us.
We (the US) could win this conflict (the struggle
against Islam, which has been going on for over 1000 years) simply
by pumping money through women's organizations, feminist NGO's, even 'faith
based' relief, provided that the aid was given to women. It would
alter the most basic power relations between men and women in the home,
and the traditional culture would come down like a house of cards.
If you look at what Moslem religious leaders really say, this kind of secularization,
and the resulting breakdown of their society, (and the reduced status of
impoverished guys with beards and books) is really what they fear the most
from us, and from Israel as well, if it comes to that. We already
know what the "hard" approach, of "getting tough" and bombing someplace
back to the stone age will yield for us: martyrs and avengers, and
big piles of rubble, here, there, wherever. Islam, or any religion,
comes out of that stuff stronger than ever. If we killed them
till there were only ten left, they would all fight tooth and nail to the
death, and die as martyrs for Allah. Not, imho, a winning strategy.
If, on the other hand, we use our money and their poverty as milling wheels
to grind away the underlying macho power structure, raise the status of
women, which in itself will lower the birth rate and increase the literacy
rate, then life can be seen to get a lot better very quickly for those
who have "sold out to the western imperialists," or whatever. Men
may beat their chests about Allah, but women want food and medicine for
their children.
I am really pushing this sort of an approach.
I think it deserves serious thought and discussion. I think, while
it might not appeal to right-wing (Bush) sensibilities, it may appeal to
their sense of humor: sure, send the "feminazis" to deal with the
Moslems. Ha ha. That'll show'em! I mean, who would give
them a better run for their money, Ollie North, or Betsy Ashby? Social
conservatives will understand exactly what we are doing, basically confirming
their belief in the corrosive power of liberalism on traditional power
structures. Liberals and doves will like it because it's liberal
and dovish, and because it will give them something to do, as a whole generation
volunteers for relief organizations, now heavily funded, of whatever stripe,
from feminist to "faith based"... It's a chance to do good by doing
right, and to defeat our enemy by dragging his people kicking and screaming
into the modern world.
(Jamey and Paula, I hope y'll will forward this
to Betsy. She'd get a kick out of it, and might send it 'round.)
Matt Komoroski
9-19 01
> > >Most of you have probably heard that Clear
Channel,
> >who owns about
> > >10% of the radio stations in the United States
has
> >issued a list of
> > >songs that they have decided are "lyrically
> >questionable".
Hmmm. Yeah. Bothersome.
On the other hand, whenever I have listened to
clearchannel stations, as I think maybe WROV is one, it's sounded like
a lot of saccharine pap and spineless pseudo-rebellion. The idea
that they would censor is not shocking AT ALL. The idea that they
would try to soothe their audience into a nice inoffensive mood of
unexamined patriotic feel-good-ism is not surprising because it's what
they do all the time anyway.
Makes sense too, really, from the point of view
of not pissing anyone off, besides folks like me who are pissed at them
anyway. There are those who are in the habit of whining to someone
whenever they hear anything in any medium that does not fit into their
neat little boxes of how things should be. These people can be incredibly
stupid and unexamined in the stuff they will pop off about, and as a station
manager or whatever, one cannot respond, "Well, you are an idiot with no
understanding. Why don't you get a grip and stop trying to be the
least common denominator / limbo bar that everything has got to fit under?
Why don't you get a life? Don't you have anything better to do than
whine about the music other people listen to?" I am sure that's
the sort of thing station managers and even their bosses say in their dreams
to the hordes of mentally deficient idgits who harass them every day.
But they can't.
As much as I hate corporate radio, which does
for music precisely the same miracle that McDonalds does for food, I think
if it had been up to me, I may have concocted a similar list. Of
course, it should have been enough to say "Keep things in some kind of
good taste until this crisis is over, " but that may not have been enough,
and what seemed perfectly good to some might seem totally offensive to
others.
It's bothersome that peace/protest music is so
heavily represented. Why not that terrible green beret song, (which
nobody listens to anymore anyway) or the "Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley,"
(ditto)? Why not "Killing an Arab" by the Cure? Guess that
passed as patriotic or something. But then again, peace itself
is offensive to some. (As unexamined patriotism is offensive to me.)
And those of us who advocate peace are heartily hated by many Americans,
including some who used to be on the LP list. Let's face it.
Patton was right. There are many Americans who truly love war, and
they consider themselves to be the only "real" Americans, and they are
happy to "prove" it by doing violence to anyone they disagree with, here,
there, or anywhere.
The world has become far more interesting and
dangerous. We who criticize show either a great faith or a great
stupidity: faith that we won't be at the top of the list the next
time the nation needs a witch-hunt, or stupidity that we think the first
amendment will protect us in this new world order. Have we
really thought this through? We know for a fact that email is filtered
by big brother. We can guess that there exists somewhere a list of
all the millions of us that have responded to this event, not with an outpouring
of patriotism but with more of our usual prattle about what goes around
comes around, and if we did not want our cities bombed, maybe we should
not be so cavalier about bombing other people's cities. People have
been jailed in this country for less, and lynched, and occasionally framed
for murder. Those of us who criticize actually show more faith in
America than those who are afraid to do so.
Do I personally have that much faith, that I will
not ever be hauled away for the views I have expressed? No.
Can't say I do. Remember Joe Hill. But I can't stand to let
those bastards win without a fight. I personally have nothing to
lose: no children they can threaten, no career they can take away, no respect
in any community that can be besmirched. I know I can be jailed or
killed, but in the great scheme of things that would only give my views
greater legitimacy. I would so much rather die proudly for what I
really think than die cowering in a fox hole for someone else's war, or
be silenced by dirty looks from armed "patriots." F--- them!
As Yellowbeard said, "They'll have to KILL me before I die." I tell
the truth as I see it because I _CAN_.
What if we (America) "win" the current "war,"
but at the cost of our constitutional rights? What then?
Is that a good outcome? Well, winning is better than losing, I guess,
but really, if we throw away democracy and freedom in order to defend the
wealth of the wealthy against those who would destroy it, then we make
our critics right: all America really DOES care about is money, comfort,
continued exploitation of others to support our lush plush lifestyle.
On the other hand, as long as you hear voices
of dissent raised freely, think of it as the sound of the canary in the
coal mine. When you hear that sound, there is still some freedom
somewhere for the patriots to be fighting for. When it stops, you
can assume that from that point on it's all about money, and nothing more
honorable than that.
Matt
10 02 01
Whew
10 06 01
Reading back thru what I have said...
remembering other times I got too hot headed
and full of myself and lost friends, and then I remember there were wars
on then too, wars in the cause of lies and hypocrisy, wars where our brave
boys were just killing wholesale, and where our media were too "patriotic"
to show the American people what it looked like, and where the American
people cheered on the streets to hear that American bombs had destroyed
a hospital or a water treatment center...
How much do you suppose the German people "really" knew about what the Nazi government was doing? Not much. All their propaganda showed them as innocent victims, just as ours does. When the brave Americans bombed their cities to rubble, we called them heroes. Sooner or later, when our cities are bombed to rubble, those who did it will also be called "heroes" and with just as much reason. Americans don't have the excuses that Germans had. We are not forcibly prevented from finding out the truth about our government. We just don't care enough to bother. We are not forced to support our government, on pain of torture. We don't criticize because we are afraid of losing our jobs.
Americans eat more red meat than anyone else on earth, but they like it packaged, so that their delicate hands need never touch the icky blood, and they don't want to see the animals slaughtered, or smell anything, or even know a real animal had to die for their Big Macs. Americans want to be insulated against the brutality that makes their life-style possible. Similarly, Americans go to war, roughly once in every presidency, usually bombing brown people from airplanes, and again Americans like their killing packaged so they don't have to _experience_ it, feel it, or smell it. They don't want a war to interrupt shopping, work, and gossiping about what their neighbors have bought recently.
Ignorance is no excuse. Those people in the WTC or on those airplanes were ignorant, as most Americans are, of the issues that concern most of the world. They were so ignorant, they didn't even know that they were already at war, before the terrorists struck. They did not know that the war was begun a decade ago in Bush I's crusade to make the world safe for Texas oil companies, or even before that, when the US decided that the only foreign policy we needed in the Middle East was to do whatever the Israelis said. Did that ignorance help them?
Ignorance is not the same as innocence. Americans are NOT innocent. Americans live surrounded by consumer shit made by child slaves all over the world. If somebody did that to a child in MY family, I'd sure be pissed, and if I had to kill just a few thousands of civilians to get the attention of the country responsible, I might just do it.
Ignorance is not the solution. Most people I meet resent me for pricking holes in their blissful ignorance, which they insist is really innocence. Well, f--- 'em, then. Let it come down. Let all these spineless consumer robots get what's coming to them, what they have done to others without even thinking, without even wanting to know. Payback is gonna be a B----!
OK. They can come lock me up now.
Clearly, I must be insane to insist on telling the truth at a time like
this, or at least highly inconsiderate. You can count me out on any
future government killing sprees too. If there are some who think
I am a coward, then I challenge them to tell me to my face.