In NYC on September 11, 2001, over 3000 people
died unspeakable deaths the likes of which the city had not seen
since the great Triangle fire of 1911. They are
not so different, these 2 events nearly a century apart. It is the behavior
of power that has changed. Back then people grieved
for a few weeks, then the collective sorrow of the city gave way
to anger and a determination that this kind of
senseless tragedy would never again happen in their city. They would do
whatever necessary to stop it. A thorough, 4-year
investigation (albeit one outraging hostile business interests) forged
ahead with the help of leaders like Bob Wagner
and Al Smith, producing an ocean of information and a raft of reform
legislation.
The common element in both tragedies is that they
did not have to happen and could have been prevented. In 1911
factory owners had few legal obligations to workers.
Doors could be locked, fire escapes ill-maintained; flammable
material unregulated. When asked about Fire Protections,
the owners dismissed the question, bragging that the building
was certified 'fireproof.' Yes, the structure
was fireproof. The flesh and blood inside was not. Demands were made
and ignored, but the interests of business were
dominant.
In September 2001 we learned that something akin
to this applies to the US Presidency. Despite widespread belief
that the First Job of the presidency is the protection
of US citizens from enemy attack, this belief is mythical and cultural;
it has no basis in fact. There is no standard,
such that the current occupant's demonstrated unfitness and criminal negligence
in the runup and aftermath of 9/11 is of no consequence.
(The president may even invite people to kill Americans, as this
one did, with no liability). When asked about
National Security and why the attacks proceeded unhindered, others were
dispatched to lie. True, the Towers lay in a
No Fly Zone, but the air force only acts on traditional hijackings; no
one could
have anticipated this. The official Big Lie:
the nonresponsive and nonsensical answer. Demands are made and ignored.
The interests of business remain dominant.
After every tragedy, there is always a primal
search for answers and explanations. Without accountability, the social
contract collapses. Since 9/11/01, the willful
obstruction of justice and overt sabotage of any real investigation persists,
as does the stand-down that would punish it.
Nonresponses to critical questions reveal a deep contempt for the public.
In deed and aftermath, the events of that day
never ended, but are replayed again and again. The names of the dead
change; the script is the same.
No one can say that NY and other centers of action
were not equal to the task of a major investigation. Just like in 1911,
they were all prepared and ready to do what was
necessary, but their efforts were ignored to death by a lying, criminal
White House, a handful of cheap war-profiteering
pirates, and the politicians that stand by and do nothing to challenge
them. There are no Wagners or Smiths anymore.
We are left with people who are leaders in name only, a shadow of
their predecessors (who doubtless also had reasons
to fear the business powers-that-were).
We look back then and find heroes. We look forward to today and see only cowards.
We are left to our own devices to speculate, as
best we can, on the most obvious evidence of negligence (like "finding
a trout in the milk"). Where once real statesmen
rose to the occasion, we now have 8 x 10 glossies of contrived
"leadership" of the person most responsible for
creating the conditions for the attacks to succeed (subject, of course,
to substantial campaign contribution).
Instead of being held accountable, he is lionized.
But it is the equivalent of putting the Triangle factory owners in charge
of the fire investigation.
Back then people who heard that 'new sound' -never
to be forgotten- of bodies smashing with a 'thud' onto the sidewalk
from one of the 'tall buildings', looked down
at row after row of the bodies of young women, mostly teenagers, recognizing
many of the same faces from their strike a year
earlier, when they had demanded better workplace conditions in vain.
These dead were the bounty of industry intransigence
that escaped unscathed in 1910.
Within weeks it was learned that the same factory
owners were still locking their factory doors, doors that were the only
escape to safety but instead had become death
traps with piles of bodies crushed up against them. But the statesmen knew
what they had to do. The status quo, triumphant
the year before, would feel the seismic shift. Even if the perpetrators
of
negligence continued to walk free, the red light
flickered and then flamed, stopping them in their path. From then on, the
rules were changed irrevocably in New York, where
everything seemed to happen first, and were changed irrevocably
all over the nation for countless thousands and
millions more to come.
A wretched event became the epiphany for change, and out of its darkness and now-sacred ground came light and the tools of justice.
But the past is not always prologue. On September
11, 2001 and forever after, a new generation's wretched event became
the green light for a succession of September
Elevenths, the pretext for a rollout of actions of immeasurable greed and
destruction and the braggart's sick words of
empire; where not truth, but calculated lies were served; where people's
accounts were placed under lock and key with
instructions for others to commit the same treason, all dutifully recorded
in print by their handmaidens. In the beginning,
when people could only stare, mourn or hold a catch of breath for those
still dying, these other creatures circled the
inferno like scavengers and plotted how the dead and soon-to-be dead would
be used for their aims, the wars they 'would
have,' the dictatorship they would dictate, the propaganda they would ply
to
the soon-to-be corrupted, who would give their
consent for any frenzied scapegoat or a dose of insider 'spin' (the new
secret handshake); the rights they would smash
not with arms but a legal instrument brazenly called by these heretics
the
'Act' of a 'Patriot,' and few would have the
courage to look beyond its cosmetic appeal to see the cheap gaud of a grinning
whore.
Too few would ask, why are the perpetrators of
negligence out front where the statesmen should be? Why are the accountable
not held accountable? Why are they allowed to
profit from their crimes? There is silence, a tentative protest, then it
is gone.
Some might even stop and recall precisely, only
one year earlier in that awful place of strife in the Middle East, how
they
squandered their one chance to strike out for
truth, but instead did nothing.
Let's be clear on the losses sustained: We have
lost a core value of citizenship. We are denied the right to investigate
our
own murders. We are denied accountability from
civil servants, their actions and inactions. We are denied the ability
to chart
our own destiny in the aftermath of this tragedy,
a self-appointed and self-serving elite deciding for us, bending everyone
else
to their will, for all intents assuming the imperial
structure and exact conceit of the old hated Communists. But this has always
been the refuge of weak men without talent or
merit.
We are permitted to watch more murders as they
play out while others do nothing: the murder of the truth, the murder of
our
vote, the murder of our resources, the air we
breathe, the murder of our rights, the murder of our jobs, our economy,
our
treasury; the murder of our soldiers, at their
front with self-aggrandizing taunts, at their back by the congressional
knife.
The list goes on like a broken record, changing
names: EPA, TIPS, GAO, Energy Dept., Homeland Security, Enron, Haliburton.
How quickly the 'thud', now high-tech explosive
in sound, is forgotten. If there is a new sound, it is that of the cackle:
Ridicule
and badgery masquerading as argument, hatred
masked as religion. The chicken-hero and beloved scapegoat: I will save
you
from the "iraqi type." Bring back the strawmen
to amuse, ideology to replace thought. Now the dead (Arabs), no matter
how
innocent, may be safely scorned - they lie elsewhere.
The heathens resume breaking all the rules, quaint relics of the past like
fair play and common decency. The sick game -
shhhhhh, it's a secret joke only we clever insiders get - the Need for
Unity
having passed, Berating those "Money-grubbing
New Yorkers" (Translation: Jews. Permission: To hate. New Twist: Divide
and cackle, disrupt and conquer).
(Arab semites, Jewish semites. Same difference. Interception, AngloAmerican).
The bullies are back on the playground, spinning
way, and the coarsening of a nation bereft of principles is complete.
Everywhere is bankruptcy in this Promised Land.
Led here by its nominal 'leaders.'
Where there is civic greatness somewhere, unreported,
it is passed on in rumors, reflected and made real by word of mouth,
along with the stories of scientific lies or
the elect-trickery of new voting machines.
But knowledge for the most part is hoarded into
secret places so that the once Proud Community - autonomous, therefore
determined to turn despair into action so this
WILL NEVER again happen ANYWHERE in America, that the unspeakable
deaths of their neighbors, loved ones and fellow
citizens will not have been in vain - is now coralled and twisted into
a mob
of half-humans, buoyed up only by the incessant
chant of kill, Kill, KILL.
Bevin Gilmore