The day the world changed...
Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2001 6:28 pm
(with credit to L.Neil Smith, Claire Wolfe, and Vin Suprinowitz)
Tuesday the world changed for each of us. A day like Pearl Harbor or the JFK assassination, when every one of us will remember forever where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news.
The inconceivable, indiscriminate, savagely well-planned attack on innocents in New York, Pennsylvania, and D.C. (yes, even though I'm outspoken about the ills that permeate the capitol, there are surely some innocents even there). An attack that combined the maximum carnage with a maximum display of bravado. This was at once an act of brilliantly evil human mindwork and limbic-level stupidity.
As awful, emotional and scary as these acts are, we all know, in a way, what will happen next: Greater loss of liberty in the name of security. False security. One more stomp of the boot on the road to the police state. In some areas that has already started.
It's extremely difficult to think coherently about long term effects at a time like this, let alone to get it all down in writing... especially when you learn that, not only were hijacked commercial aircraft used to commit these unspeakably evil acts, but that 90 passengers died helplessly in the first plane, and another ~200 more died in the planes used for the subsequent attacks. The lose of hundreds of people at the Pentagon and who knows how many thousands... no... tens of thousands in New York. But... Somebody has to think about it, though, or this situation will be used to turn the Bill of Rights off forever.
It may already be too late.
All air travel was shut down through noon today, and I shudder to think about what flying will be like from now on. The Clintons, Schumer, Feinstein, Waxman and Liebermans will try to shut down the Internet, calling it a breeding ground for terrorism. They have already come out and lamented our having "too much freedom." Listening to FEMA directors and other government officials make comments such as "we need to re-examine allowing people to move about freely and act without oversight" is frightening. But listening to the people being guided through interviews by the media saying that they would gladly carry interstate passports, go through security checks and searches at state borders to keep this from ever happening again is alarming! The calls for more Big Brother government have already started and make no mistake about it, the Bushes and Cheneys will "reluctantly" go along.
And Rush Limbaugh will cheer them on.
Not long ago, I was pointed to the report of a bipartisan commission (always duck when you hear those words, it means some truly egregious proposal is being made) headed by former Sens. Warren Rudman and Gary Hart. In January of this year, these men and their cohorts issued a report recommending that "to combat terrorism" the U.S. should create a draconian, cabinet-level "homeland defense agency" that would control EVERYTHING from domestic policing to international computer security. Yesterday morning, I watched as Joe Lieberman not only made the same proposal, but actually used the name, "homeland defense agency"... Your freedoms are under attack and the terrorists aren't Islamic fundamentalists. When I first read that report, I wondered why nobody was talking about it. The moment I read it, I thought, "There is going to be something truly horrible to justify doing what they propose. A horror is going to descend upon us."
And folks, if what happened on Tuesday isn't horror, then the word has no meaning.
"They" -- Rudman, Hart, Gingrich, FEMA, the military, and all the creepy corporations who sell them their spy cameras, their bio-war supplies, their retina scanners, their metal detectors, their facial recognition systems and the other gear of the crushing Big Brother state -- have been waiting for something like this to happen AT LEAST since January. (Since much longer, really.) "They", those powerful people who like us little folks cowed and submissive, need this to convince us rebellious little Americans that we need them and their "protective" power.
Now it's happened. And despite the fact that I'm not quite paranoid enough to believe they engineered it, the famous old rhetorical question, "Qui bono?" keeps ringing through the chaos in my paralyzed and shock-saturated brain.
"Qui bono?" It means: "Who benefits?" Answer that question and you'll probably know who's responsible.
Who did this? I don't know. That's one thing that makes it worse, in its way, than Pearl Harbor: nobody to strike back at... yet.
Who benefits? That you already do know: those who, through our fear and rage, can manipulate us into placidly, or with wild enthusiasm, doing their bidding. It really doesn't matter in the end whether it was Osama bin Laden or some other evil gnome.
Closing down the First or Second or any other Amendment is not an appropriate response to what's happened. If we give up our very way of life by sacrificing our individual freedom and liberty for a little security, then we don't disserve either freedom OR security... AND the terrorists will have truly accomplished their goal of destroying America.
Watch out! Any politician or bureaucrat in office who attempts to capitalize on yesterday's horrors is committing a blatantly criminal act. Be aware, they will soon start their propaganda dance in the blood of the innocent. In fact, some of them already have.
These things happen to nations with imperial ambitions. There has never been a major act of terrorism I know of that hasn't resulted from an act of government that violated somebody's rights. The U.S. can expect to remain hated by the majority of the world as long as we continue to provide the teeth for the U.N.'s "police powers"... The way to keep this sort of thing from happening again is to stop those violations.
It's important to act swiftly and be completely vigilant if we're to preserve anything resembling the freedom that made this civilization great.
May there be a true hell for those who engineered this, and may they suffer through an eternity for each and every victim who was so much as scratched yesterday. May they feel every broken bone, every torn limb, every screaming pain of every burn, every desperate smoke-filled breath, every spike of panic... and every wail of grief within everyone who loves the wounded or dead. May they feel every drop of sweat, every ache of exhaustion, every bit of wrenching nausea felt by every rescue worker. FOREVER.
Then may they suffer another eternity of hell for every victim who, in the name of "protection" from sadistic, senseless monsters, loses the rights that make life worth living.
In the end, those victims will far outnumber the dead.
God bless America,
Take care and be good to yourselves...
[This message has been edited by Panther (edited September 13, 2001).]
Tuesday the world changed for each of us. A day like Pearl Harbor or the JFK assassination, when every one of us will remember forever where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news.
The inconceivable, indiscriminate, savagely well-planned attack on innocents in New York, Pennsylvania, and D.C. (yes, even though I'm outspoken about the ills that permeate the capitol, there are surely some innocents even there). An attack that combined the maximum carnage with a maximum display of bravado. This was at once an act of brilliantly evil human mindwork and limbic-level stupidity.
As awful, emotional and scary as these acts are, we all know, in a way, what will happen next: Greater loss of liberty in the name of security. False security. One more stomp of the boot on the road to the police state. In some areas that has already started.
It's extremely difficult to think coherently about long term effects at a time like this, let alone to get it all down in writing... especially when you learn that, not only were hijacked commercial aircraft used to commit these unspeakably evil acts, but that 90 passengers died helplessly in the first plane, and another ~200 more died in the planes used for the subsequent attacks. The lose of hundreds of people at the Pentagon and who knows how many thousands... no... tens of thousands in New York. But... Somebody has to think about it, though, or this situation will be used to turn the Bill of Rights off forever.
It may already be too late.
All air travel was shut down through noon today, and I shudder to think about what flying will be like from now on. The Clintons, Schumer, Feinstein, Waxman and Liebermans will try to shut down the Internet, calling it a breeding ground for terrorism. They have already come out and lamented our having "too much freedom." Listening to FEMA directors and other government officials make comments such as "we need to re-examine allowing people to move about freely and act without oversight" is frightening. But listening to the people being guided through interviews by the media saying that they would gladly carry interstate passports, go through security checks and searches at state borders to keep this from ever happening again is alarming! The calls for more Big Brother government have already started and make no mistake about it, the Bushes and Cheneys will "reluctantly" go along.
And Rush Limbaugh will cheer them on.
Not long ago, I was pointed to the report of a bipartisan commission (always duck when you hear those words, it means some truly egregious proposal is being made) headed by former Sens. Warren Rudman and Gary Hart. In January of this year, these men and their cohorts issued a report recommending that "to combat terrorism" the U.S. should create a draconian, cabinet-level "homeland defense agency" that would control EVERYTHING from domestic policing to international computer security. Yesterday morning, I watched as Joe Lieberman not only made the same proposal, but actually used the name, "homeland defense agency"... Your freedoms are under attack and the terrorists aren't Islamic fundamentalists. When I first read that report, I wondered why nobody was talking about it. The moment I read it, I thought, "There is going to be something truly horrible to justify doing what they propose. A horror is going to descend upon us."
And folks, if what happened on Tuesday isn't horror, then the word has no meaning.
"They" -- Rudman, Hart, Gingrich, FEMA, the military, and all the creepy corporations who sell them their spy cameras, their bio-war supplies, their retina scanners, their metal detectors, their facial recognition systems and the other gear of the crushing Big Brother state -- have been waiting for something like this to happen AT LEAST since January. (Since much longer, really.) "They", those powerful people who like us little folks cowed and submissive, need this to convince us rebellious little Americans that we need them and their "protective" power.
Now it's happened. And despite the fact that I'm not quite paranoid enough to believe they engineered it, the famous old rhetorical question, "Qui bono?" keeps ringing through the chaos in my paralyzed and shock-saturated brain.
"Qui bono?" It means: "Who benefits?" Answer that question and you'll probably know who's responsible.
Who did this? I don't know. That's one thing that makes it worse, in its way, than Pearl Harbor: nobody to strike back at... yet.
Who benefits? That you already do know: those who, through our fear and rage, can manipulate us into placidly, or with wild enthusiasm, doing their bidding. It really doesn't matter in the end whether it was Osama bin Laden or some other evil gnome.
Closing down the First or Second or any other Amendment is not an appropriate response to what's happened. If we give up our very way of life by sacrificing our individual freedom and liberty for a little security, then we don't disserve either freedom OR security... AND the terrorists will have truly accomplished their goal of destroying America.
Watch out! Any politician or bureaucrat in office who attempts to capitalize on yesterday's horrors is committing a blatantly criminal act. Be aware, they will soon start their propaganda dance in the blood of the innocent. In fact, some of them already have.
These things happen to nations with imperial ambitions. There has never been a major act of terrorism I know of that hasn't resulted from an act of government that violated somebody's rights. The U.S. can expect to remain hated by the majority of the world as long as we continue to provide the teeth for the U.N.'s "police powers"... The way to keep this sort of thing from happening again is to stop those violations.
It's important to act swiftly and be completely vigilant if we're to preserve anything resembling the freedom that made this civilization great.
May there be a true hell for those who engineered this, and may they suffer through an eternity for each and every victim who was so much as scratched yesterday. May they feel every broken bone, every torn limb, every screaming pain of every burn, every desperate smoke-filled breath, every spike of panic... and every wail of grief within everyone who loves the wounded or dead. May they feel every drop of sweat, every ache of exhaustion, every bit of wrenching nausea felt by every rescue worker. FOREVER.
Then may they suffer another eternity of hell for every victim who, in the name of "protection" from sadistic, senseless monsters, loses the rights that make life worth living.
In the end, those victims will far outnumber the dead.
God bless America,
Take care and be good to yourselves...
[This message has been edited by Panther (edited September 13, 2001).]
