REMEMBER SEPTEMBER 11TH. NEVER FORGET.

Yeah, I forgot about september 11th for like, 22 minutes there. Good thing every tv station, magazine and newspaper was there to catch me.

I on the other hand am confident that you all remember what happened that morning a year ago, and where you were when you found out, and what your first thought was. And you remember watching all that TV and reading all those articles and trying to decipher what exactly happened and what it all meant. And all the people full of hot air, including me, tried to take it all and boil it all down into words and concepts. Why do they hate us? What now? blah blah fucking blah.

Now it’s a year later and you see it kind of differently. For those of us lucky enough to avoid losing anyone close, the pain starts to fade. We’ve gotten desensitized to it. We can sit back and see how wrong people were about certain things. Like, of course, “irony is dead.” Some people just really hate irony, it turns out, and they tried to use September 11th as a good cutoff point. But then John Ashcroft put a drape over the blind justice statue and irony was hotter than ever.

And we know that “they hate us because of our freedom”, if it was right at all, wasn’t exactly painting a clear picture. Since September 11th, the terrorists have done nothing but run and hide, while it was the Bush Regime and post-irony Justice Department that was whipping up ways to push laws through Congress without them being read or debated, lift domestic spying laws, use secret tribunals, lock up people indefinitely with no evidence or charges or access to lawyers or the public, blatantly violate various articles of the Geneva Convention with their prisoners of war, bully dissenters, disable the freedom of information act, interrogate and polygraph congress, set up a secret shadow government, release terror warnings to take media time away from scandals, blatantly lie about 9-11 foreknowledge, etc.

And we know that all that courage and service and rising to the occasion shit wasn’t ever practiced by our supposed-to-be elected officials. During the 58% of his term that he’s spent not on vacation, Bush has done nothing but take advantage of disasters. 9-11 happens, so let’s start some wars. Worldcom happens, so now we can forget about Enron, who loaned me that plane you see in the background of all my campaign photos. But really, I hardly knew them. Wildfires happen, let’s throw out environmental laws to “protect from wildfires.” I’m surprised he hasn’t overthrown gun control laws as his “Plan to Stop These Kidnappings.” (On the other hand, at this point he probaly doesn’t want the citizens have guns.)

And they keep mentioning 9-11 as an excuse for the atrocities they fantasize about committing in Iraq. Oh by the way, we won’t apologize for killing that family of 23 at a wedding party in Afghanistan, because we still think there was some mysterious invisible gunman there somewhere, despite all evidence to the contrary, and we blame it on him. But how dare you turn a blind eye to the great loss America has suffered. The consequences of not committing atrocities around the world to help our oil companies and weapons manufacturers are greater than those of not committing atrocities around the world to help our oil companies and weapons manufacturers.

And of course the new, sensitive media that the old, crass media talked about after September 11th… well, they still don’t exist. I just read in somebody’s column that the winner of the American Idol game show (or was it Fear Factor?) is supposed to sing at a memorial in Washington DC. If that isn’t a sign of human atrocity as pre-packaged corporate product, I don’t know what is.

Well I don’t want any part in that so I’m gonna keep it short. I’d just like to say that I’m happy to see most of the tasteless hooplah has at least been centered around grieving and loss, not nationalism. On the anniversary of Hiroshima you see candles floating in a lake to represent the lost lives, you don’t see flagwaving to represent we’re gonna send our children to burn down your villages, in case you were involved. And that’s the way it should be. Let’s keep it clean, folks.

I’ll probaly write another column about some new dvds later this week. Until then, I hope you are all safe and fighting the good fight.

thanks friends,

Vern

Recommended links:

Ever hear the one about the daughter of a Kuwaiti diplomat coached by a Washington DC PR firm to tell Congress lies about Iraqis killing babies? Or the non-existent Iraqi troops positioned to attack Saudi Arabia? A must read story from the Christian Science Monitor about the lies used to start IRAQ ATACK 1 and how the same people are in pre-production for the sequel.

Then read this story about Bush and Blair telling lies just the other day and then having to admit they were “mistaken.” They both misread “no indication of Iraq having achieved its programme goal of producing nuclear weapons or of Iraq having retained a physical capability for the production of weapon-useable nuclear material or having clandestinely obtained such material” as “six months away from nuclear weapons.” Also, they both mistakenly thought that satellite photos that didn’t show anything in particular showed nuclear weapon factories. Just an honest mistake when you’re doing some light browsing to justify massive murder and mayhem.

Bush is still promising to ask Congress before he starts a war with Iraq. He’s still deciding, you know. The enormous troop buildup in the region must be for some other war, then.

I told you before, and now the Bush regime is admitting it: they oppose the World Court because they know their sorry asses will end up in it.

And on that note, there’s the other disaster anniversary today, the 25th anniversary of our overthrow of Chile.

So many americans have this idea that we represent truth and justice around the world. Well, maybe I do, and you do, and Superman does. But our government doesn’t. When you look at this list of treaties, resolutions and laws that we have violated or opposed recently, it makes Uncle Sam look a big asshole.