HIGHLIGHTS

Tucson                                 1. Sappy 911 Soap Opera: Crass Is as Crass Does

Long Beach                         2. Is This 2002 or 1941?  New “Operation Barbarossa”  

New York                            3. Europe Pauses and Grieves, but Takes Issue With U.S. 

                                                 (as do many Asian countries)

“Wave a Little Flag and Become a Good Person?  Ugly.” (Norman Mailer)

1. Sappy 911 Soap Opera: Crass Is As Crass Does

Sappy Commemorations Staged to Deflect Inquiry about Our Government’s Role in Preamble to “911” Tragedy

TUCSON, Sep 16 - September 11 should have been the time for a somber reflection.  It should have been the day Americans asked their government “what did the Bush administration know and when did it know it?” (as suggested by TiM in see “Dirty Tricks with Dirty Bombs”, June 11).  Instead, we were all subjected to nauseating, maudlin, sappy “911” commemoration ceremonies and speeches parroted by all networks in all manner and style.  One media commentator even called them “Sep 11 celebrations!?”  No kidding.  Worse, nobody corrected him.

Well, maybe not all Americans allowed themselves to be subjected to such brainwashing.  Some of us changed the channel, or switched the dial, or turned off the soap being dished out by our government and its lamestream media.  Which is exactly what this writer did the morning of September 11, 2002, as he was driving from Phoenix to Tucson. 

I was in a somber, almost reverend, mood when I left Phoenix.  I even thought of “writing” a 911 eulogy for our TiM readers enroute to Tucson.  I recalled with vivid clarity where I was and what I did on that day a year ago, as I am sure millions of Americans and other people around the world did.  Some of my Australian friends, who watched the 911 tragedy unfold in prime time due to time zone differences, told me later they thought it was a movie.  It seemed so surreal.  It was.

But my mood changed when I started listening to the soapy commentaries on my car radio.  It went from somber reverence to benign anger to sarcastic laughter.  I kept changing the stations but they all sounded the same.  Finally, I turned off the darn thing and put in a CD.  Johann Sebastian Bach.  “Brandenburg Concertos.”  Finally something that sounded appropriately grandiose and respectful for the moment.

Once I got back to Tucson, I could not get myself to write anything.  Every time I saw someone waving or sporting a flag on their car, I cringed.  I felt sick to my stomach about how stupefied our nation has become.  And I recalled the verses I wrote and the cartoon I created when I saw similar signs during a road trip in early June:

"United we stand!” 

Our heads in sand,

Our tails held high,

Our brains dumbed dry,

Our pockets picked clean,

In the Washington canteen.

(see “Dirty Tricks with Dirty Bombs”, June 11)

So instead of writing my eulogy, I climbed it.  Climbed it?  Yes.  I dedicated a mountain hike on one of the toughest trails in the Sabino Canyon area of the Catalina Foothills to all the innocent victims of the September 11 tragedy.  And I said a silent prayer for them at the mountain top (those of you who want to join me on one of my earlier hikes on this trail, you can check out the travel vignette “Tucson Is Cool Even in Summer”).

It’s only now, five days later, that I am finally able to get down to writing something about the 911 events in a calm, dispassionate way.  And the first thing that comes to mind are some of the things that Norman Mailer had said in a recent (Sep 8) exclusive (long!) interview for the London Sunday Times (God forbid that any major media in the country of this legendary writer’s birth would publish his words now that the Bush “brown shirts” are roaming the countryside and controlling our airwaves).  Here’s an excerpt, as published first by Matt Drudge:

Wave a Little Flag and Become a Good Person.  Ugly.

"This century is going to be the most awesome of all centuries to contemplate - there is a real question whether human kind will get to the end of it... America's so big, so powerful, and so vain ... I get angry when I see it being less than it can be.

"The British have a love of their country that is profound. They can revile it, tell dirty stories about it. But deep down their patriotism is deep. In America we're playing musical chairs - don't get caught without a flag or you're out of the game. Why do we need all this reaffirmation? It's as if we're a three hundred pound man who's seven feet tall, superbly shaped, absolutely powerful, and every three minutes he's got to reaffirm the fact that his arm pits have a wonderful odor. We don't need compulsive, self-serving patriotism. It's odious...

"When you have a great country it's your duty to be critical of it so it can become even greater...

"Culturally, emotionally America is growing more loutish, arrogant, and vain.

"I detest this totally promiscuous patriotism. Wave a little flag and become a good person? Ugly.

"If we have a depression or fall into desperate economic times, I don't know what's going to hold the country together...

"There's just too much anger here, too much ruptured vanity, too much shock, too much identity crisis. And worst of all, too much patriotism. Patriotism in a country that's failing has a logical tendency to turn fascistic...

"Let's suppose ten people are killed by a small bomb on a street corner in some city in America. The first thing to understand is that there are 280 million Americans. So, there's one chance in 28 million you're going to be one of those people. By such heartless means of calculation, the 3,000 deaths in the Twin Towers came approximately to one mortality for every 90,000 Americans. Your chances of dying if you drive a car are one in 7,000 each year. We seem perfectly ready to put up with automobile statistics. I fear I am ready to say there is a tolerable level to terror...

"One of the things I've always found least attractive about Tony Blair was his toadyish attitude toward Clinton...

"Clinton made a point of surrounding himself with people who might be 90% as intelligent as himself, but never his equal. Bush is smart enough to know that he couldn't possibly do the same, or the country would be run by morons."

(Source: http://www.drudgereport.com/nm.htm)

One of this writer’s friends, a U.S. Navy officer from Florida with whom this writer had shared the above Mailer comments, replied as follows:

It never escapes me to notice drivers who threaten your life with reckless driving who more often than chance would have it display a "God Bless America" or a flag sticker along with a bumper sticker saying something about Jesus being the Lord or a fish emblem, and a conspicuously displayed Paroleman's Fraternity Donation sticker on the back other their car/truck.

To which this writer responded:

Crass is as crass does (paraphrasing "stupid is as stupid does" from Forrest Gump).  Flag-waving and reckless driving are both crass acts by crass people.

To which our Florida naval officer replied:

It is clear Normal Mailer describes what can be termed "teenage mentality" -- love for flashy, obsessive-compulsive attention-getting, loud and boisterous, in-your-face, sort of repetitively redundant over and over again bullying behavior that lacks dignity and self-respect.  Thanks for your Laconic but right-on-target reply.

During my Blacketts Ridge 911 memorial climb, I also kept thinking about some of the things I wrote the morning of September 11, 2001.  When I came back home, I looked them up and read them again.  And I would not change a word I said a year ago.  Here are some excerpts:

FROM "Collateral Damage Hits Home" - Sep 11, 2001 http://www.truthinmedia.org/Bulletins2001/tim2001-9-2.html

When the "world's only superpower" and its allies bombed and killed thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq and Serbia, Americans were told it was just "collateral damage." After all, we, the "champions of democracy and the free world," were only fighting the murderous regimes of Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic. Some civilian casualties were "regrettable, but unavoidable," the Pentagon, NATO or State Dept. spokesmen told us.

Now the tables have turned. Terrorism begets terrorism. Unnamed terrorists, presumed to be "Islamic fundamentalists," have now killed thousands of innocent Americans while fighting, what they think are, the murderous regimes of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Now Americans know firsthand some of the terror the Baghdad or Belgrade residents felt when NATO bombers unloaded their deadly cargo on them. The only thing missing is the terrorists' spokesmen telling us now that "it was just "collateral damage;" that "some civilian casualties were regrettable, but unavoidable."

What we did to Iraq and to Serbia was a case of state terrorism. What unnamed terrorists did to us today was retaliation to state terrorism. "Collateral damage" has come home to roost. "What goes around, comes around." "He who plays with fire, gets burned by fire." […]

Second, such “hawks” never learn. One only needs to look at the Middle East for an example of futility of violence. To stop anti-American terrorism, Washington must stop its own state terrorism. Both brands of terrorism are despicable and inexcusable.

---

FROM "Clash of Greens" - Sep. 28, 2001 http://www.truthinmedia.org/Bulletins2001/tim2001-9-3.html

The only thing one can conclude from that is that George W. Bush must be a part of the problem. As an Eastern European proverb says, “a fish always stinks from the head.” A good CEO knows that he is responsible for actions of his subordinates, whom he must hold accountable for the results they deliver.

Harry Truman knew that when he said, “the buck stops here” (meaning at the White House). Evidently not so at the Bush’s White House.

It is utterly amazing that no U.S. official has so far taken responsibility for what happened on Sep. 11. No one is being held accountable. Is that why Bush and his cohorts in the federal government are now trying to deflect our attention and scrutiny away from themselves, by skipping proof (of Osama bin Laden's culpability), and rushing straight from grieving to retaliation?

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And they keep on doing it one year later.  All the schmaltz and soap enveloping the 911 commemoration ceremonies was intended to deflect our attention from the main culprits - our Washington officials whose policies and/or negligence precipitated the Sep 11 attacks.  

So once again, it is time to ask, “what did the Bush administration know and when did it know it?” (as suggested by TiM in see “Dirty Tricks with Dirty Bombs”, June 11).  And to keep asking it until we get some straight answers from our Pretzel Prez a.k.a. Potus Potatus Primus and his cohorts - the Plutocrats of the New World Order.

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2. Is This 2002 or 1941?  New “Operation Barbarossa”

LONG BEACH, Sep 16 - We received the following letter from Edward Boswell, a TiM reader from Long Beach, California:

Is this 2002 or 1941?

An embittered underachiever with a taste for blood arises on the scene, determined to undo the results of the last war. Backed by international cartels, he moves toward unilateral action after gaining power under questionable circumstances. He exhibits open contempt for existing laws and established controls. Long held rights are rescinded in a government announced emergency situation. People are jailed without legal rights or release dates. Camps are planned. The government cloaks itself in secrecy.

Possessed of a vision for a new world order, he orders his military into a full war footing, with orders to prepare for pre-emptive strikes. Declaring himself a patient and peaceful man, he cynically crouches toward war as the world watches. After starting and ending one war within weeks, he sets his sights on a former ally in what shapes up like a personal fight to the death. The Military begins putting itself in place for a large invasion. Is this an attack on Iraq in 2002 or one by Germany against Russia in 1941?

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To which the TiM editor replied:

All that’s missing is an appropriate code name.  How about "Operation Barbarossa?"  After all the Washington Goebbels-reincarnates have been telling us that Saddam is a barbarian.

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TiM Ed.: “Operation Barbarossa” was Hitler’s code name for Germany's attack on the "Red Barbarians" -  Stalin/Soviet Union - that began on June 22, 1941.

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3. Europe Pauses and Grieves, but Takes Issue With U.S. (as do many Asian countries)

To read the full story, slick on  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/12/international/europe/12WORL.html 

Also clickhere for an Index of 911-related articles ...

Such as… "Wall Street Casino Revisited",  "Dirty Tricks with Dirty Bombs",  "Repressing White Americans Through Rampant Immigration", "Plutocrats of the World Unite,"  "Bush League All-Stars,"  “Enronizing Pretzelitis:” New Alzheimer Strain Strikes Potus Potatus Primus ,  Censorship Comes to America,  Grotesque and Pathetic War,   Clash of Greens,  End of Folly, Not of World,  Collateral Damage Hits Home.  

Plus... Stitching Together the New World Order Flag

and for others on Global Affairs.

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Also, check out... Djurdjevic's CHRONICLES magazine columns: "ON THE BRINK OF MADNESS",  "A BEAR IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING",  "WALL STREET BOOM, MAIN STREET DOOM",  "PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL COMMERCE",  "WIPING OUT THE MIDDLE CLASS",  "WALL STREET'S FINANCIAL TERRORISM"

Or Djurdjevic's WASHINGTON TIMES columns:  "Christianity Under Siege," "Silence Over Persecuted Christians", "Chinese Dragon Wagging Macedonian Tail,"  "An Ugly Double Standard in Kosovo Conflict?", "NATO's Bullyboys", "Kosovo: Why Are We Involved?", and "Ginning Up Another Crisis"

Or Djurdjevic's NEW DAWN (Australia) magazine columns: "Macedonia: Another Farcical American Oil War,"  "Anti-Christian Crusades,"  "Blood for Oil, Drugs for Arms", "Washington's Crisis Factory,"  and "New Iron Curtain Over Europe"