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Set out below are the words of George W Bush as he announced that henceforth September 11th would be known as ‘Patriot Day’:

A Proclamation by the President on Patriot Day 2008:

“September 11, 2001, was etched into America’s memory when 19 terrorists attacked us with barbarity unequaled in our history. On Patriot Day, we cherish the memory of the thousands of innocent victims lost, extend our thoughts and prayers to their families, and honor the heroic men and women who risked and sacrificed their lives so others might survive.

Since 9/11, we have recognized the threat posed by terrorists to the safety of the American people and worked to protect our homeland by fighting terrorists abroad. We are confronting terrorism by advancing freedom, liberty, and prosperity as an alternative to the ideologies of hatred and repression. Our Nation pays tribute to our courageous men and women in uniform serving around the world and the devoted members of our law enforcement, public safety, and intelligence communities at home who work night and day to protect us from harm and preserve the freedom of this great Nation.

Seven years ago, ordinary citizens rose to the challenge, united in prayer, and responded with extraordinary acts of courage, with some giving their lives for the country they loved. On Patriot Day, we remember all those who were taken from us in an instant and seek their lasting memorial in a safer and more hopeful world. We must not allow our resolve to be weakened by the passage of time. We will meet the test that history has given us and continue to fight to rid the world of terrorism and promote liberty around the globe.

By a joint resolution approved December 18, 2001 (Public Law 107-89), the Congress has designated September 11 of each year as ‘Patriot Day.'”

It’s right that we should remember those who died on September 11th 2001. They were the innocents, going about their day by day lives with no thought of the horrors to which they would be so cruelly and violently subjected.

While we remember them, let us remember other victims associated with the attacks of 9/11/2001:

The many Russian soldiers killed and maimed fighting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. They died because America supplied the weapons to the Afghan “freedom fighters” who killed them. The offspring of those “freedom fighters” are now named ‘terrorist’ by the US government. Osama bin Laden, himself, was supplied with weaponry by the United States to kill Russian soldiers.

Let us also remember the 241 US marines slaughtered when a truck bomb blew up their barracks in Lebanon, in 1983. They had no right to be there. To this day, no-one really knows what purpose they served, except it was at Ronald Reagan’s whim.

Let us remember the thousands of Iranians and Iraqis slaughtered during the Iran-Iraq war, with weapons of mass destruction sold to Saddam Hussein by the United States, while also being sold secretly to the Iranian mullahs (later revealed in the Iran-Contra scandal, that should have seen the impeachment of Ronald Reagan) just to ensure the war was prolonged so US arms dealers could get rich on the immeasurable suffering of two countries.

Let us remember the 297 innocents (including 66 children), who in 1988 were on Iranian Air Flight 655 when it was blown out of the sky by the US missile cruiser, “Vincennes” – illegally in Iranian waters – as the Airbus A300 was flying over the Straits of Hormuz, well within Iranian airspace.

Let us also remember the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Iraqi innocents dead because of the US government’s unwarranted invasion of that country, using the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to commit an international war crime, and the five million children of that country now orphaned as a result.

All are, to some degree, linked to the attacks of 9/11. Add them together, and the 3,000 or so Americans who died at the WTC and Pentagon pale into some insignificance.

Was 9/11, as suggested by a certain infamous pastor, the result of ‘America’s chickens coming home to roost’?

Hardly chickens; the attacks of 9/11 were the only way possible for aggrieved and frustrated “freedom fighters” (an American description) to hit back at the imperialism and cold-blooded militarism of the United States in the Middle East.

Not chickens, but all the barbarism, corruption, profiteering, invasive militarism, and imperialistic endeavors of the United States, in a campaign to secure its inane thirst for oil at any cost, came home to roost on September 11th 2001.

Instead of learning wisdom from the horrific event, it sent America on yet another wild and bloody venture that has wrecked one nation and torn another to pieces.

Perhaps, when we share our moments of silence at 8.46 and 9.02 today, above all else, these are the things we should remember?

Filed under: Remembering All the dead

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live at the bottom of a deep well? You’d be aware of a multitude of minor happenings going on around you, movements in the water and tiny creatures moving around the shaft, but the distant circle of light that marks the real world above is so far away that over time it would become unreal. After a few years at the bottom of the well, the world outside might virtually cease to exist; all that is real, confined within the narrow circle of the well shaft.

There are people who live their whole lives at the bottom of a well. They don’t realize it, of course. To them the well is the real world. Anything that happens outside the well is so distant as to not concern them at all. Just occasionally, the “bad beings” up above will shout abuse, or hurl a stone down at them. Then they respond by sending soldiers up to the top of the well to punish the culprits and exact revenge. No-one below ever sees what happens up there, so they get on with their lives and wait for the military to return with their battle trophies.

Life in the well is chaotic; the populace divided into many factions. They fight between themselves for power over other factions. From time to time, factions band together to achieve more power. Then they squabble, and new alliances are formed.

The bottom of the well is a dangerous place. The inhabitants need weapons to defend themselves – though, they pretend, not from each other. Instead, they insist possible incursion of “bad beings” from the Hole of Light up above, is the true reason.

There is no governing body down the well. Rather, everything is controlled by the most powerful factions. Once in a while the populace will play a game. Two members from the most powerful factions will compete to take charge of the well for a period of time. The populace chooses sides, each shouting and screaming for their favorite. The faction member with the following that screams the loudest will win the game. Then, winner and loser return to join the other members of the most powerful factions, and everything continues as before. It’s all rather pointless, but the well populace seem to enjoy it, as a break from their otherwise mundane lives.

No-one dare admit life down the well is boring. It’s not allowed. The powerful factions insist the well is the only good place to live. Most of the populace believe it. They’ve never known anything different, and blindly believe whatever the powerful factions tell them. To suggest otherwise is to incur the wrath of the well-believers, a large and strong faction dedicated to rooting out those not of their persuasion. It doesn’t do to be seen gazing wistfully up at the Hole of Light far above, or to dare to suggest life may be better……out there.

Long ago, when the well inhabitants were still few, an old book fell from the Hole of Light and landed amongst them. The most powerful faction members studied the book, but many of the pages were obliterated. It was a book of mythology, though they had no way of knowing. The only still legible pages recounted tales of the Greek god, Apollo.

The most powerful factions realized the book granted them great authority. They took the text and declared it ‘holy’. They acclaimed Apollo as the Great God that descended from the Hole of Light. The people believed. The powerful factions realized they could use the name of Apollo to control the populace, and bend the people to their will. They declared that Apollo had chosen the well-dwellers to be His people, and they, the most powerful, to be His representatives down the well. It worked wonderfully, and the most powerful factions maintained their power ever after, by invoking Apollo.

Eventually the populace became known collectively as the Unified Selected of Apollo, though over time, it became abbreviated to a simple acronym.

Filed under: Apologies to Plato

Mswati III is not a name to cause Americans, or for that matter Europeans, to prick up their ears in recognition. He’s hardly an international figure. Nevertheless, today is his birthday and in his nation of Swaziland he’s determined to have a whopping great party.

That’s fine for King Mswati III, for a king is what he is, but hardly cause for celebration by his people, the vast majority of whom live in abject poverty. Swaziland has the highest percentage of HIV cases in the world. Over one quarter of the population is infected.

Mswati purchased twenty BMWs for his birthday, so he and his thirteen wives could arrive in style for the lavish celebrations held in his honor at the capitol, Mbabane. A large stadium had been decked out for the occasion. It is reported his wives went on a Dubai shopping trip specifically for this day.

All-in-all, according to the BBC’s Orla Guerin, the official bill is $2.5 million, though it’s rumored the actual cost may well be five times more.^[1]

At first glance this could be considered nothing more than another African nation exhibiting a glaring split between the fabulously wealthy few, on the one hand, and the poverty-stricken masses, on the other. Yet, viewed from a certain perspective, Swaziland is a metaphor for the rest of the planet.

While some sections of the Swazi populace demonstrated against the king’s enormous waste of money, most just shrug their shoulders and accept it, with the comment: “He’s the king,” as though that gives him some Divine Right to shower himself in egotistical glory while squandering the nation’s treasury.

In their thousands, Americans flocked to the Republican and Democratic Conventions these last few weeks. They filled the stadiums to capacity, screamed and yelled with enthusiasm, as their leaders delivered mundane speeches composed entirely of stereotyped, hackneyed, rhetoric. Millions more watched and listened at home.

Like the people of Swaziland, they pour out their adoration in an illogical display, while beneath it all lies the realization it’s no more than a diversion. Were the 2008 conventions any different from last time? Wasn’t the 2000 election exactly similar? They cheered and screamed just as fervently then as in 2008, yet nothing changed. They went to the circus, applauded the acts, and went home chattering about what a good time had been had by all.

It poses one apparently unanswerable question: why does the human being have an inbuilt need to pour adoration onto certain members of its own species, even while acknowledging those same individuals are only concerned with amalgamating power they’ve deviously managed to acquire?

We do it all the time; in our churches, where the pastor takes our money and casts us a few prayers that never work; in employment, grovelling to the boss so he’ll fire the other fellow and we can keep our job; in our utterly incomprehensible homage to someone we name “president”, who at best may throw us a few extra pennies now and then, and at worst will order our sons and daughters to sacrifice their lives on whatever political altar best suits at the time.

Frankly, these people are not worthy of our respect or our homage. Like King Mswati III, their only concern is to ensure their own power and wealth continues to be magnified. John McCain, with so many houses he can’t remember the number; Hillary Clinton, who was able to pour millions of her own dollars into a faltering campaign; Barack Obama, who pledged to pay back all her dollars for supporting him…….

It’s time we, the people, stopped needing false shepherds who lead us straight to the wolves. It’s time we took responsibility for our lives, rather than abnegating our accountability to some politician, or employer, pastor, or God.

Jesus of Nazareth told the world that all men are equal. He was right. No-one out there, be he president or king or clergyman, is in any way better than you, or I. We are told that they ‘know more’. Believe me, when I tell you they don’t. Their only difference is in their privilege.

Next time you find yourself overawed by someone with apparent power over you, just imagine them naked, sat on the toilet with a bad attack of diarrhea. Suddenly, their power melts away down the toilet bowl.

Perhaps the people of Swaziland should spend more time contemplating King Mswati III in such a position. Maybe then they’d be more inclined to insist he curtailed his lavish lifestyle, and instead, spent some money helping his subjects.

^{[1] BBC, September 6th 2008 “Swaziland king celebrates in style”}

Filed under: People power