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prostetic dong
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If ground zero is hell, then the rest of New York City is purgatory.
The scene in Union Square is numbingly tragic. Thousands of "missing" posters are tacked on trees, taped to the side of statues, laying on the ground next to candles in make-shift altars - new brides, sisters, best friends, fathers, sons. Thousands of souls trapped in limbo somewhere between heaven and the bottom of the smoldering ruins.
The people who have put up these posters, the loved ones, as they’re now collectively called, are trapped as well, wandering the streets of Manhattan with pictures of the missing taped to their backs, trying to keep busy in these last hours before they will have to face the brutal reality of their loss. My body aches to offer them solace. But only the body of their missing will deliver them out of this darkness of uncertainty. As long as there is no body, they have no choice but to hope . . .
Maybe he's trapped in a tunnel under the rubble quietly playing solitaire waiting to be dug out.
Maybe she made it out but got hit in the head and can’t remember where she lives.
Maybe they’re sitting in a hospital bed too injured to call home.
I’ll just check again.
I’ll just check again.
I can only imagine the myriad tricks your brain plays on you to stave off the reaper from taking someone you love.
The square is packed. Thousands have come to observe and console. Arab-American groups have placed banners pleading for tolerance. Christian groups have come asking for mercy from God.
Others have come to talk of vengeance and war.
There’s only a smattering of anti-war sentiments, and they have been hastily posted on trees:
We fear. We weep. We rage. We are angry. We are determined.
No more killing. No more war.
Stop the cycle of hatred.
Anger yes.
War no.
Few, it seems, dare speak these words. The God-fearing, flag-waving great American populace is primed and ready for more blood. Polls say more than 80% of Americans are calling for war.
Dissent is limited a drunk homeless man uttering nonsense, and a posse of Israelites, the bizarre black cultists who believe African-Americans are the lost tribe of Israel. Apparently, they have been waiting for this moment for a long time.
“America, you are going to burn!” yells the leader, who for once in his life does not sound like an apocalyptic nut.
There’s five of them, out front of the Virgin Mega-store loudly arguing with a burly white guy. The white guy’s friends pull him away. Smart. These Isrealites got hate to spare, they’re so out there they call blacks from Africa “monkeys.” They dress like a mix between a Shaolin warrior and a Dungeons & Dragons wizard. They're wearing flowing purple and white robes with shiny Stars of David on them. They carry big wooden staffs, which they they swing menacingly.
“If you don’t like what we’re saying. Move on,” bellows the leader to the growing crowd. “’Cause we are speaking the truth over here, and we will defend ourselves.”
A cop pulls up at the light and gives them a steely gaze.
“Hello, Mr. Policeman. This country you love so much is going down in flames. This is retribution all right. What’s wrong white woman you don’t like it? . . . and, oh, look the Mexican don’t like it either,” he says, turning to the growing crowd of agitated onlookers. “Moreno don’t like to hear the truth about his white master.”
The crowd is seething. “Read on brother,” says the leader to his flunky holding some manner of holy book:
“The lord willth, and he brings unto us death.”
And so on.
Necessary Myths
I step into the Wiz, a mamouth electronics store on Union Square. There must be 300 TVs of all denominations showing a montage of the collapse. It’s dizzying.
CNN has a new graphic going: seems we've been upgraded from “America Under Attack” to “America’s New War.” Sounds much more pro-active. Much better brand-identity.
I feel better already.
I’m reminded of our last Arab adventure. Before the American people would get behind the Gulf War, the powers-that-be had to make a slight adjustment mid-sales job. You see, the first rationale for military action was oil. “America’s national interests are at stake, people!” But the people weren’t feeling it. Polls showed only mild enthusiasm for spilling American blood on the sand over a crate of crude. So Bush Sr. quickly adopted a much more dramatic pitch: Saddam = Hitler.
To transform Saddam from run-of-the-mill Arabic despot into the league of the History Channel’s Most Evil, Bush Sr., with the aid of a high-priced public relations firm, launched a media blitz. Much of the info was true: Saddam gassed his own people, Saddam kills his own family. But it also veered into Big Lie territory: They concocted a story about Iraqi soldiers killing newborns in their incubators, and even had a fake witness testify in front of Congress. Most significantly, they were able to carefully sweep under the rug the fact the U.S. had not only aided, but armed, Saddam for years in the not-so-distant past. (Ironically, Great-granddaddy Bush did some business with the original Fuehrer, but that’s another story altogether).
Junior doesn’t have that problem with bin Laden. The Saudi multi-millionaire has proven himself evil, in spades. Not only does he kill innocent civilians, he is apparently at war with everything we stand for, our democracy, our freedom-loving culture, and most importantly our God. Bin Laden believes he is engaged in a holy war against the infidel.
But it is far from that simple.
This conflict did not come about over some theological dispute about the apostles. This war is a direct result of American foreign policy – and no one wants to face it, not the media, the people, not least this war government. Bin Laden formed his terror organization following the Gulf War with a specific mission: to drive Israel out of Jerusalem and the U.S. out of the Middle East.
We hear a lot about Israel. But we don't hear much about bin Laden's other motivating factor: the fact that the war against Iraq never ended.
Now, for most people this may come as a shock, as a news flash from a distant universe, and I want to make sure the following point is made without in anyway dishonoring or minimizing the 5,000 innocent Americans who died last week: But this horrible tally pales in comparison to the damage the U.S. government has inflicted on the everyday people of Iraq over the last decade. This is a fact, an ugly, indisputable fact, and one that has remained hidden from the American consciousness by a media that has never stopped dancing in tandem with the U.S. war machine.
While estimates vary, many independent authorities, including UNICEF, claim at least 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five have died since 1990, in part as a result of U.S. sanctions and the effects of the Gulf War.
We have bombed their roads, their hospitals, their schools. We have deliberately destroyed their sanitation systems and their water supplies. We have kept medicine and food from the mouths of babies.
“We are in the process of destroying an entire society,” said Denis Halliday, former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq in 1998. “It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral.”
A 1999 UNICEF report found that the under-five mortality rate in Iraq more than doubled since the imposition of sanctions. Halliday has put the death toll at "probably closer now to 600,000 and that’s over the period of 1990-1998. If you include adults, it’s well over one million Iraqi people."
John Simpson, BBC World Affairs Editor said last year, ”If people could hear and see what is being done in their names in Iraq, they would be outraged. But they don’t, so it continues.”
We are, to borrow a familiar phrase from this week, “attacking their way of life.”
Could this be true? Could our Christian nation be responsible for such barbarity? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Does this make bin Laden’s attacks any more moral? No, of course not. But these facts are important. They serve as a crucial back-story, and as a warning. Hate is not created in a vacuum. The Buddhists have a word for it. They call it karma. Which is not to be confused, once again, with the idea that innocent Americans deserved to die. But the fact is we as a people must face the consequences of our imperial arrogance.
This jihad will not be stopped by Noble Eagle’s missiles. In fact, if we’ve learned anything, a massive military strike may only insure that ten years from now there will be thousands more heart-broken Americans wandering through the streets of one of our major cities looking for desperate strands of hope when in fact there is only death, lying under thousands of tons of twisted steel.
by Anthony Lappé.
The scene in Union Square is numbingly tragic. Thousands of "missing" posters are tacked on trees, taped to the side of statues, laying on the ground next to candles in make-shift altars - new brides, sisters, best friends, fathers, sons. Thousands of souls trapped in limbo somewhere between heaven and the bottom of the smoldering ruins.
The people who have put up these posters, the loved ones, as they’re now collectively called, are trapped as well, wandering the streets of Manhattan with pictures of the missing taped to their backs, trying to keep busy in these last hours before they will have to face the brutal reality of their loss. My body aches to offer them solace. But only the body of their missing will deliver them out of this darkness of uncertainty. As long as there is no body, they have no choice but to hope . . .
Maybe he's trapped in a tunnel under the rubble quietly playing solitaire waiting to be dug out.
Maybe she made it out but got hit in the head and can’t remember where she lives.
Maybe they’re sitting in a hospital bed too injured to call home.
I’ll just check again.
I’ll just check again.
I can only imagine the myriad tricks your brain plays on you to stave off the reaper from taking someone you love.
The square is packed. Thousands have come to observe and console. Arab-American groups have placed banners pleading for tolerance. Christian groups have come asking for mercy from God.
Others have come to talk of vengeance and war.
There’s only a smattering of anti-war sentiments, and they have been hastily posted on trees:
We fear. We weep. We rage. We are angry. We are determined.
No more killing. No more war.
Stop the cycle of hatred.
Anger yes.
War no.
Few, it seems, dare speak these words. The God-fearing, flag-waving great American populace is primed and ready for more blood. Polls say more than 80% of Americans are calling for war.
Dissent is limited a drunk homeless man uttering nonsense, and a posse of Israelites, the bizarre black cultists who believe African-Americans are the lost tribe of Israel. Apparently, they have been waiting for this moment for a long time.
“America, you are going to burn!” yells the leader, who for once in his life does not sound like an apocalyptic nut.
There’s five of them, out front of the Virgin Mega-store loudly arguing with a burly white guy. The white guy’s friends pull him away. Smart. These Isrealites got hate to spare, they’re so out there they call blacks from Africa “monkeys.” They dress like a mix between a Shaolin warrior and a Dungeons & Dragons wizard. They're wearing flowing purple and white robes with shiny Stars of David on them. They carry big wooden staffs, which they they swing menacingly.
“If you don’t like what we’re saying. Move on,” bellows the leader to the growing crowd. “’Cause we are speaking the truth over here, and we will defend ourselves.”
A cop pulls up at the light and gives them a steely gaze.
“Hello, Mr. Policeman. This country you love so much is going down in flames. This is retribution all right. What’s wrong white woman you don’t like it? . . . and, oh, look the Mexican don’t like it either,” he says, turning to the growing crowd of agitated onlookers. “Moreno don’t like to hear the truth about his white master.”
The crowd is seething. “Read on brother,” says the leader to his flunky holding some manner of holy book:
“The lord willth, and he brings unto us death.”
And so on.
Necessary Myths
I step into the Wiz, a mamouth electronics store on Union Square. There must be 300 TVs of all denominations showing a montage of the collapse. It’s dizzying.
CNN has a new graphic going: seems we've been upgraded from “America Under Attack” to “America’s New War.” Sounds much more pro-active. Much better brand-identity.
I feel better already.
I’m reminded of our last Arab adventure. Before the American people would get behind the Gulf War, the powers-that-be had to make a slight adjustment mid-sales job. You see, the first rationale for military action was oil. “America’s national interests are at stake, people!” But the people weren’t feeling it. Polls showed only mild enthusiasm for spilling American blood on the sand over a crate of crude. So Bush Sr. quickly adopted a much more dramatic pitch: Saddam = Hitler.
To transform Saddam from run-of-the-mill Arabic despot into the league of the History Channel’s Most Evil, Bush Sr., with the aid of a high-priced public relations firm, launched a media blitz. Much of the info was true: Saddam gassed his own people, Saddam kills his own family. But it also veered into Big Lie territory: They concocted a story about Iraqi soldiers killing newborns in their incubators, and even had a fake witness testify in front of Congress. Most significantly, they were able to carefully sweep under the rug the fact the U.S. had not only aided, but armed, Saddam for years in the not-so-distant past. (Ironically, Great-granddaddy Bush did some business with the original Fuehrer, but that’s another story altogether).
Junior doesn’t have that problem with bin Laden. The Saudi multi-millionaire has proven himself evil, in spades. Not only does he kill innocent civilians, he is apparently at war with everything we stand for, our democracy, our freedom-loving culture, and most importantly our God. Bin Laden believes he is engaged in a holy war against the infidel.
But it is far from that simple.
This conflict did not come about over some theological dispute about the apostles. This war is a direct result of American foreign policy – and no one wants to face it, not the media, the people, not least this war government. Bin Laden formed his terror organization following the Gulf War with a specific mission: to drive Israel out of Jerusalem and the U.S. out of the Middle East.
We hear a lot about Israel. But we don't hear much about bin Laden's other motivating factor: the fact that the war against Iraq never ended.
Now, for most people this may come as a shock, as a news flash from a distant universe, and I want to make sure the following point is made without in anyway dishonoring or minimizing the 5,000 innocent Americans who died last week: But this horrible tally pales in comparison to the damage the U.S. government has inflicted on the everyday people of Iraq over the last decade. This is a fact, an ugly, indisputable fact, and one that has remained hidden from the American consciousness by a media that has never stopped dancing in tandem with the U.S. war machine.
While estimates vary, many independent authorities, including UNICEF, claim at least 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five have died since 1990, in part as a result of U.S. sanctions and the effects of the Gulf War.
We have bombed their roads, their hospitals, their schools. We have deliberately destroyed their sanitation systems and their water supplies. We have kept medicine and food from the mouths of babies.
“We are in the process of destroying an entire society,” said Denis Halliday, former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq in 1998. “It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral.”
A 1999 UNICEF report found that the under-five mortality rate in Iraq more than doubled since the imposition of sanctions. Halliday has put the death toll at "probably closer now to 600,000 and that’s over the period of 1990-1998. If you include adults, it’s well over one million Iraqi people."
John Simpson, BBC World Affairs Editor said last year, ”If people could hear and see what is being done in their names in Iraq, they would be outraged. But they don’t, so it continues.”
We are, to borrow a familiar phrase from this week, “attacking their way of life.”
Could this be true? Could our Christian nation be responsible for such barbarity? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Does this make bin Laden’s attacks any more moral? No, of course not. But these facts are important. They serve as a crucial back-story, and as a warning. Hate is not created in a vacuum. The Buddhists have a word for it. They call it karma. Which is not to be confused, once again, with the idea that innocent Americans deserved to die. But the fact is we as a people must face the consequences of our imperial arrogance.
This jihad will not be stopped by Noble Eagle’s missiles. In fact, if we’ve learned anything, a massive military strike may only insure that ten years from now there will be thousands more heart-broken Americans wandering through the streets of one of our major cities looking for desperate strands of hope when in fact there is only death, lying under thousands of tons of twisted steel.
by Anthony Lappé.
