Notes of an Unbeliever - March through September 2002

How ironic that a law is passed here in Vermont against that particular type of symbolic criticism labeled "desecration of the flag" - just when it’s abuse is the most rampant everywhere else. Where are the laws against using it to sell everything on the mind-numbing TV box; from consumer products to a mass-media produced flamboyantly-arrogant patriotism that will numb the populace to their government's, and it's siamese twin - the global corporations, real interests and actions. At it's best it's the band playing while the Titanic sinks, at it's worst denying the iceberg.
Flags hang from homes and cars 24 hours a day, tattered and muddied, basically ignored, representing a period of national history when after a disaster the flag was used as a blindfold for the masses to shelter them from dealing with their government's past greed policies around the world, and to keep the eyes covered as the present administration used this new "war on terrorism" as a catch-all phrase to railroad all it's otherwise unsupportable policies. (Shades of the "McCarthy Era" and pre-WW2 Germany).
What this new fear-disguised-as-pride motivated law will really add to is the current attempt to curtail all visible displays of criticism and opposition. The submissive "America, Love it Or Leave It" has again reared it's pathetic ugly head. The thinking behind these symbol-idolizing prescriptions is not interested in changing this nation towards more real conscience, honesty and fairness - it's all about keeping up appearances. (Like the photo-op of victims of Sept 11 getting together with victims of US bombing in Afghanistan. Not much discussion that what all these people share is that they are victims of the power/money/war game players on all sides. 49 christmas trees in the White House while billions of dollars in bombs fell in Afghanistan and many millions went hungry in the USA.)
We are told that what seperates this country from others is our commitment to justice and freedom. Justice continues to be a game where the Supreme Court elects a president, where Enron deals go on in multi-million dollar back rooms, where billions are sent to Afghanistan to cover up the tracks and begin to take control so the oil pipelines can begin to be built. And our freedoms are quickly disappearing, scariest of which is the freedom to speak out in opposition (often fueled by wanting to make this country a better place).

Was Abraham Lincoln correct?
“You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time.”
Or are things different, more akin to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World?! Are the majority of citizens tamed by the distractions and indoctrinations of the illusion box/industry (“Olympics, “Survivor”, ”Lords of the Special Effects & recooked e.t.'s”, “network news”, et cetera) while being bombarded by prescription drugs and manufactured consent.
“United they stand” at the checkouts lines at megastores, anxious for the latest technological gadgets, and resigned to thinking that the reasons for the current war are because of “evil ones” (over there, of course), parroting that it’s about the freedom of speech (in fact a rarely used utility) while it seems to be about the conehead freedom to "consume vast quantities".
While occupying this state of sleepwalking/sleepshopping one can easily forget that the top one percent of the U.S. population owns sixty percent of the stock and forty percent of the total wealth (additional economic numbers), while millions live in poverty and hunger? (Guess which catagory’s sons end up on the front line? When will it be time to snap out of this bad “American dream” of capitalism-without-restraint. How many more mega mergers, with no real controls on monopoly and dresed up in artificial competetiveness, and how many more Enron revelations will it take to make it clear that something is really wrong, and that it does nothing but feed the beast to drive around with flags and decals on the machines that consume the substance that much of this violence is really about.
When will the voices rise again to question this country’s arrogant multi-zillion dollar military empire which spreads it’s weapons sales and troops everywhere around the world (“he who lives by the sword...”) and confront the deep implications of the situation. When did the people in Germany begin to wake up and take notice what their government was doing to their citizens and in their name?
We are under the spell of a very ignorant, arrogant president (a useful tool for the real power brokers), a mostly spineless Congress, and a calculated and manipulative media, completely submissive to the powers that be, which is wrapping it all up in red, white & blue paper, and with the events of Sept 11 as guilt & fear marketing, the package continues to sell to those who have forgot how to question.
When will the voices rise again to question this country’s arrogant multi-zillion dollar military empire which spreads it’s weapons sales and troops everywhere around the world (“he who lives by the sword...”) and confront the deep implications of the situation. When did the people in Germany begin to wake up and take notice what their government was doing to their citizens and in their name?
By far, not “all” the people are fooled. It’s just harder to hear the thinking voices amidst the din of cranked-up blind patriotism, fear intoxicated emotional stupor that wants quick action and thinks war will do something other than perpetuate the cycle of violence.
Take the time to read. Go on the internet outside the big sound-byte news sources...try AlterNet, open your mind, open your hearts and open your mouths and dare to speak out against the madness.

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Click on the Soy Sauce for Heroes packet for a September 11, 2002 observation.

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