"Terrorist gonna get yo' mama!" 

And if they don't, the "Bird Flu" will. Or better yet, terrorist using the "Bird Flu" as a biological weapon are going to get you and your mama! In fact terrorist are going to get you and your mama by detonating a dirty bomb made out of explosives smuggled from Iraq, and "Bird Flu", on the New York City subway. 

At least that's what's going to happen if you let the news and your local, state, and federal officials tell it. With "leadership" incapable and unwilling to deal with society's most pressing social and economic issues, I guess it should be expected, that terror whether real or imagined would be the order of the day. Living in New York City, I know the constant threat all too well, as NYC's public transportations system, (especially the subway) with it's millions of riders and hundreds of entry points is the constant subject of such terror chatter. Perhaps it is only a matter of time, as those who terrorize us through the national press promise, but I don't let the possibility dictate my day. I don't worry too much about things I can't control, but in the event some group with an interest in attacking U.S. civilians finally delivers, being that I ride the New York City subway quite regularly there is always the chance I might board the wrong train in a MAJOR way. Hate to be morbid even hypothetically, but one thing is for sure, knowing that train was coming would certainly make one free to say what was on their mind and not worry about the consequences. Almost like a freedom train of some sort.

With freedom like that I might admit that in addition to being against the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which I was before there actually was an invasion or occupation and which is hardly unusual nowadays, that I also had mixed feelings about the deaths of American soldiers in this country's imperialist adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. On one hand I'm unhappy about the exploitation of mostly poor and working class soldiers to carry out such a nefarious mission. In their own right American soldiers are victims of their own government's policies. But truthfully I am at least, as disturbed, about the countless thousands of deaths of Iraqi and Afghani men, women, and children as a result of this policy. 

As harsh as it may sound, and as hard as it may be to swallow for some the death of American soldiers in significant numbers is a necessary evil if both occupations are to end any time soon and if there is ever to be any hope of the American people examining their nation's foreign policy. If it was left up to the moral indignation of most Americans, over the deaths of Iraqis and Afghanis to stop the conflicts then the the U.S. military could probably kill off the entire adult population of Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and Syria one family at a time before we let such a nuisance interfere with the latest episode of Desperate Housewives. The only pain too many people understand is that which is inflicted upon them or those close to them. For most of these Americans, U.S. foreign policy began on September 12th, 2001 from now until then, the only deaths that count are those of American servicemen and civilians. It's very telling that, the death of the 2,000th U.S. soldier in the current Iraq conflict on October 25th, set off a national day of protest in the U.S. but we dare not count the tens of thousands of Iraqis that have perished as a result of the conflict. It very well may be 102,000.... and counting.

With my newfound freedom I might even tell you I'm not dreading the possible return of the draft. In fact the sooner they bring it back the better. Truthfully we already have a "poverty draft" as the ranks of the military come overwhelmingly from the lower economic ranks of this society. I'm not riding with Congressman Charlie Rangel here, his call for the return of the draft was based on the idea of shared sacrifice and his apparent hope that the possibility of their own children getting drafted would force those who vote to authorize war, think twice.  We've already had a draft in the history in this nation and if the draft dodging status of so many of the nations leading war-mongering pundits and government officials is any indication the children of the wealthy and the ruling class will most likely find themselves out of harms way courtesy of their parent's connections whether this meant not being drafting or getting a non-combat military position.

The draft needs to return for the apathetic "middle" class and "upper middle" class who aspire to live the lifestyle of the rich and famous but don't understand how wealthy they really are NOT, since they've been supporting there hyper consumer lifestyle through 25 credit cars and borrowing against the equity in their house. When military service and participating in illegal and immoral wars is no longer "optional" nor voluntary, these people will have to take a long hard look at themselves, their lives, and the reasons behind the conflict. If we're all lucky, that will be when the proverbial, "Shit", will hit the fan. Re-instituting a draft would likely breed fierce resistance, among this population that previously wanted nothing more than to embrace the status quo. Probably nobody understands this better than those in power who direct the policy of permanent war. Despite their desperation for fresh recruits, as most branches of the military have been missing their recruiting targets by large amounts for the last several months, many of those in power loathe the prospect of a possible draft. They elected warmongers may not have fought in it, but they are at least old enough to remember Vietnam, the draft, and the politics those times inspired. 

Truth be told, I could be dead wrong about the reaction of the average American citizen, because if I was speaking  freely I probably tell you they're the biggest reason this country, and indeed humanity is in the shitty "situation" it is in, is the "average American citizen". Despite the "Browning" of America's population, when I say "average American citizen" I'm primarily speaking of White working and middle class Americans. Not just those in the Midwestern Plane states and South (so called Red States) either. "The Situation" I'm referring to is broad and encompasses a lot of things but more than anything it's reflected in our lack of regard for the environment and the consistent dwindling of regulation on corporations and government, as well as the subordination of basic human needs and rights, to the profit motive. It's reflected in the country's inability to move forward on or even have a discussion about  inequality, class, and "race". It's represented by a psychology of backwardness, anti-intellectualism, selective morality, religious zealotry, blind and raging nationalism, and acceptance of social repression, that if it is not engulfing ever larger segments of the population, then it is at least being made more powerful by those driving it.  Of course people or every ethnicity, nationality, and sex still bare some responsibility for the way things are, at times we almost deserve everything we get as payment for out apathy and reluctance to collectively demand change, but hardly a social and economic grouping could be held more responsible than these "average Americans"  for they could most accurately be described as the backbone of this ideology.

What truly disturbs me to no end is the fact that one expects the wealthy in any region, to generally gravitate towards a "right-wing" agenda of tax cuts and economic windfalls for the already rich at the expense of the poor and working class, and perpetual war as legitimate foreign policy because it could at least be argued that this is in their interest. However, the richest five percent of American households controls over 59 percent of the country’s wealth; the richest 20 percent hold 83 percent of the wealth making the U.S. the most class stratified industrialized nation on the planet, not to mention that the gap between the "haves" and "have nots" continues to grow, as does the number of "have nots". However, because class and poverty is presented through a color coded lens in this country which it seems is terminally ill with racism, this inequality can't even begin to be discussed since to "average Americans" any attempt to redress this issue is little more than a scheme for Black and Brown to sit home and collect checks from the government. The actual ranks of the wealthy are small and outside of option of sheer force, using the military and police to impose a system of new-age fascism on the rest of us, their is really no way for them to maintain system of control and subjugation without a groundswell of support from, mostly White people, of average and below average economic means a.k.a "average Americans". 

Legislatively and politically speaking it seems "average Americans" throw their strongest support to those politicians (usually Republicans) who work the hardest against their interest. They consistently fall over themselves to get to the polls and cast their vote for the politician that does the most to, send their formerly decent paying job to another country where labor is more desperate and less expensive, and destroy and erode living standards, labor laws, and what remains of the social safety net while reducing civil liberties. In fact it seems a politician can get away with just about anything as long he or she (but preferably he) is White, heterosexual, and does it with a Bible under one arm while condemning gays, immigrants, and keeping down gas prices. Hell, you could probably sodomize an "average American" SUV owner with barbwire toilet tissue dipped in Tabasco sauce if you could get a gallon gas back down to 93 cent.

Because truthfully that's what this is all about anyway right? Cheap gas so we can keep up our unsustainable ways of living. The occupations. The Invasions. The dead insurgents and soldiers. The U.S. backed Coups. The secret U.S. prisons overseas where people are tortured to death. The promises of perpetual war, and invasions to come across the Middle East, and maybe even in Venezuela. All so some of us can hold on to that unnecessary Sport Utility vehicles with limited utility and even less sport, that gets terrible gas mileage but allows for that 90 minute commute to that personal testament to suburban sprawl some of us call a home. 21st century America, this is what life is all about. Well, that and The Bible. But Not the whole Bible of course, just the parts dealing with punishment, retribution, subjugation, and judgment. Christ's teachings on compassion, love, etc, and those more than 3000 verses dealing with poverty - simply not part of required reading. 

So when Rev. Pat Robertson openly calls for the assassination of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, whose only real "crime" is trying to address poverty in his own country which happens to currently be the #5 exporter of oil to the United States, while regularly challenging the U.S.'s ideological attempts at the continued domination and subjugation of the entire South American region - it's fully within the hypocritical confines of the most prevalent strain of modern American, "Christian" thought. This is of course the same Pat Robertson who attacked the U.S. government, despite his support for President Bush, when it was encouraging indicted war criminal and former Liberian President, Charles Taylor to step down from power, stating "how dare the president of the United States say to the duly elected president of another country, ‘You’ve got to step down.’" Of course his change of heart was likely in some way related to the 8 million dollar Robertson had invested in a gold mining operation in Liberia. No real surprise there I suppose, if you can recall back to 1994, after making emotional pleas on his The 700 Club TV program for cash donations to his Operation Blessing allegedly to support airlifts of refugees from Rwanda to Zaire, it was later discovered, that Operation Blessing's planes were transporting diamond-mining equipment for the Robertson-owned African Development Corporation, a venture Robertson had established in cooperation with Zaire's brutal former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

Robertson's words are just par for the course, simply add them to his previous crimes of the tongue and mind, like his consistent direct and indirect calls for a theocracy in America, his claim that "Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians", or his agreeing with fellow televangelist, and religious extremist Jerry Falwell's  assertion that the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were caused by "pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the ACLU and the People for the American Way." As much as I would like to just write people like Falwell and Robertson off as the unscrupulous, crackpot, religious extremist they clearly are no longer fringe ideological forces in this country.  Robertson a Republican presidential candidate in 1988, is the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), the Christian Coalition, among other organizations, and the host of The 700 Club religious TV program from where Robertson unusually utters his disturbed commentary.  The CBN exists now as a production company for the 700 Club, but is owned by "ABC Family" which  carries show which is syndicated in the U.S. and Canada. In 1994, according to Nielsen Media Research, The 700 Club, aired each weekday, and averaged 863,000 viewers which wouldn't earn the designation of being a "popular program", but is greater than the average primetime audience for CNN some months, and far in excessive of MSNBC's prime time viewership. 

Meanwhile, The Christian Coalition a US political advocacy group, which includes Christian fundamentalists, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Roman Catholics and members of mainline Protestant churches membership ranges anywhere from 2 million (the organizations claim) to 500,000. The organization and others like it have made significant inroads in it's attempts to exercise significant control or the Republican party through lobbying and infesting the party machinery. For example Ralph Reed, a former head of the organization, served as Southeast Regional chairman for the Bush-Cheney campaign during the 2004 Presidential election. In the 2000 Presidential elections, the organization which claims to be non-partisan distributed over 70 million voter guides in churches all across America, including over 5 million in Spanish, (apprx. 2 million of which were distributed in Florida alone). The voter guides overwhelmingly steered potential voters to Republican candidates. In 2004, the group distributed approx. 30 million voter guides, but this time in targeted states and congressional districts, choosing instead to focus its efforts on areas that were more politically competitive. The results of these efforts have been quite visible as the Republican party has increasingly pandered to this religious and often extremist base, which in all likelihood is responsible for the withdrawal of Bush's personal lawyer, Harriet Miers, from a possible Supreme Court nomination, and her replacement with staunch conservative Samuel Alito (sometimes referred to as "Scalito" due to his judicial similarity to arch-conservative Supreme Court Justice, Antone Scalia).  

So while Falwell and Robertson enjoy a limited following in their individual efforts their views and political, and social outlook are part of a wider confluence of ideas. Those who support such ideas certainly do not represent a majority in the country, yet, but they are quite influential, determined, and aggressive. At the heart of much of this is a mindset that looks fondly on  ignorance, religious dogma, and authoritarianism. In this worldview women are generally little more than homemakers and appendages to men, with limited control over their own bodies and when or even if they will bare children. In this worldview science and attempts to profoundly understand the natural world are frowned upon. Creationism and "Intelligent Design", much of which is little more than a remixed and updated version of the former,  are legitimate pursuits and subject matter for a science class. This isn't an argument for or against the existence of "God", but regardless of what you believe we should all be able to agree that science class is no place for such pursuits. Although creationist who wish to teach the earth is only 6000 years old to match the Biblical account of creation, are being forced into the shadows by common sense what many of their ilk want is the equivalent of teaching mythology. It's sorcerery as science class. Why not just substitute our biology text with the latest Harry Potter novel and call it a day?

Is there not something profoundly wrong when in 1999 the Kansas Board of Education to ruled to delete the teaching of evolution from the state's science curriculum (a decision reversed in 2001), and the same year Kentucky Department of Education replaced the word "evolution" in state school standards, and now in August 2005 the Kansas State Board of Education approved a draft of science standards that mandated equal time for the theories of "evolution by natural selection" and "intelligent design" though the vote is not yet binding. Is there not something wrong when in 2005 a federal judge in Atlanta, Georgia had to issue a ruling in order to have stickers that were place on student's biology text in 2002 in Cobb County, Georgia, that read , "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered", and this school board appealed the decision.

Though I'm generally leery of poll data in 2000, a poll among Americans done by People for the American Way  found that of respondents, 16% believe public schools should teach creation only, 13% believe public schools should teach both evolution and creationism in science class; and 4% believe public schools should teach both but are not sure how. If we added these categories you get 33% or 1/3 which in my opinion is still far too high. No wonder the U.S. test scores in math and science continue to fall so far behind so many other industrialized nations, it's not the children, it's the parents. Free to tell the truth, I think the majority of these people are backward, and wish to drag America and indeed humanity into a modern "Dark Ages", complete with the latest in ultra-destructive military weaponry, conveniences like microwaves and cell phones, but with a government that could be mistaken for a clergy, a "scientific" community that frowns upon any pursuit that may come into conflict with religion (i.e. Stem Cell Research, astronomy), increased use of the death penalty, no access to birth control, and little if any sex education. 

These kind of people, this kind of mindset, and a return to an even more profound state of backwardness in society in general, not "terrorist" or Bird Flu, is what keeps me up at night. I don't fear Iran getting a nuclear weapon, or North Korea getting more of them, because while I am for nuclear non-proliferation, as it currently stands the system that enforces it is looks like little more than veiled White Supremacy. The situation is more complicated than that of course, but I'll be damned if on the surface it seems non-proliferation is a code word for keeping any more "non-white nations" from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iraq isn't allowed to have nuclear weapons. Iran isn't allowed, Syria, etc yet Israel is estimated to have more than 100 nuclear warheads and you don't hear a peep from anyone. Dig a little below the surface and you get a little closer to the truth, that if we as citizens were honest and even a tiny bit informed, we would admit. Whether or not the U.S. really believes Iran is attempting to secretly develop a nuclear weapon, if they really are can anyone blame them? If Iraq actually had a functioning weapons program it probably would not have been invaded. What right does a nation (The U.S.) still researching and developing new nuclear and biological weapon technologies and the only nation to ever have used an atomic weapon have to tell another nation it can't have such weaponry. On top of that this same nation has openly put forth a military doctrine reserving the right to "preemptively" attack any nation possibly using nuclear weapons, that threatens what it perceives as it's vital interest (oil, oil, and more oil), and just finished doing so unilaterally in Iraq. The U.S. isn't afraid of Iran getting a nuclear weapon because they worry that Iran would or could attack the U.S., they fear Iran, with it's vast oil reserves, acquiring a nuclear weapons because they would have a deterrent to an invasion! Occupations and invasions don't look so appetizing to the hunter when the rabbit has a gun too.

So who's afraid of the big, bad Iranians? Nobody, that includes myself and the members of U.N. Security Council. I'm not afraid of "Bird Flu" or foreign religious extremist either. I'm more afraid of American religious extremist in government and the others trying to influence it. The terrorist I'm really worried about have access to all means of public transportation at all times. If I were free, I'd tell you that not only do I reject much of the official government September 11th story, I believe they were more than complicit or incompetent, and in fact were directly responsible for the attacks. They didn't just know they were coming they made sure they were successful. Even for those of us who refuse to read, there is now a rather large amount of audio-visual, documentary, and scientific evidence that illustrate the large number of anomalies, and implausible and impossible situations that characterize the official account and point directly to an active role by high level figures in the U.S. government. What is the likelihood that Dick Cheney would be presiding over a "war games" exercise that took numerous fighter planes, that under normal circumstances should have shot down the planes that hit the World Trade Center, on the same day of the attacks? Why and how did the 47-story World Trade Center #7 building collapse when it was NOT hit by a plane? How is it that the Twin Towers fell down as if they were in complete freefall? How is it that "Fire" has never caused a modern building to collapse yet it happened 3 times on September 11th?  Going into all the details is a book in itself, and there have been a number of those written too, but for those who would rather get the information the quick way, I will just suggest 2 of the better DVD documentaries detailed this information and much more - Loose Change Part 1 or Part 2 (http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/loose_change_dvd.html) and Painful Deceptions (http://www.painfuldeceptions.com ). You don't have to agree with interpretation of everything you see but you will never look at the 911 attacks the same. 

Even when you're free, the truth about September 11th might be a truth that many of us don't really want to know. Maybe it's a little too earth shattering? Maybe that kind of information would charge us with a responsibility we don't really want - who knows? But those are only things I would say if I was free, though I feel a little more liberated already. This freedom thing ain't half-bad. Maybe next I'll start writing under my government name.

One thing at a time people, ....one thing at a time. 

Released: November 7^th, 2005

The views and opinions expressed herein by the author do not necessarily represent the opinions or position of Playahata.com.