Billions are wondering why
by John Kaminski
Several billion people in the world — including myself
— are wondering why:
• America is hell-bent on destroying its own Constitution.
The first Patriot Act torpedoed most of it, but now the new Patriot
Act II — currently under wraps and about to be deployed secretly for
a rigged vote in Congress — actually contains a provision to revoke
the citizenship of American citizens if they are deemed to be
connected with a terrorist organization. This decision would require
no proof, only an assertion by the government. It means that people
who attend peace protests are now eligible for indefinite detention
without access to lawyers or phone calls to family. To be clear, it
means quite literally that America is no longer a free country, and
that its citizens are no longer Constitutionally protected from
arbitrary punishment by its war-mad government.
Several billion people don't understand why all Americans aren't out
screaming in the streets that their freedom has been taken away by
rich fascists who don't tell the truth about anything.
• Nobody is talking about the experiments by an Israeli
astronaut that may have brought down space shuttle Columbia.
Despite controversial photos of lightning hitting the craft, and
knowledge that Ilan Ramon was working on a new way to spy on Iraq,
the phrase "americium-242" — which is apparently the new technology
to take us to Mars — remains hidden from the public. As Yoichi Clark
Shimatsu wrote: "The negative charge of the high-energy electron
pulse from the americium-242 would attract the positive charge of
the gas plasma generated by sprites (lightning is positive in the
upper elevations)... A lightning burst would account for the sudden
surge in temperature, the immediate shutdown of heat sensors and
communications systems (why the ghostly "last words" were never
transmitted to NASA monitors), and for the tumbling that sent
Columbia, a flaming chariot of the heavens, to her doom." Ramon was
testing an infrared spy camera that can see through clouds.
• Anyone believes these "terror alerts" so frequently
declared by the American government. More people are
beginning to notice that these things are called for one of two
reasons: either when some nasty bit of political revelation
threatens to further tarnish the already-trashed reputation of the
Bush regime — as most recently when Secretary of State Powell used
plagiarized material to impress the world about how dangerous Iraq
was — or, when the Bush regime wants to clandestinely sneak another
repressive legislative measure past American's comatose Congress, as
it does now, with Patriot Act II. Because the spin-off stories
completely seize control of the attention of the prostituted major
news media, these terror alerts are clearly meant to distract the
public from the actual news, as in the current case, which is the
dismantling of the Constitution, and the continued cover-up of Bush
financial crimes.
• There has never been an effort to investigate the events
of 9/11 and explain what happened on this sad day to the
general public. Clearly most of the several billion — including
myself — believe that the reason is obvious: because the people who
did the crime are doing the cover-up. How else could eight of the
named hijackers still be alive? A good point made by a friend the
other day was that how could Osama bin Laden have been praising the
devotion of suicide hijackers when eight of them were still alive.
Or how about: how does Colin Powell already know what bin Laden is
saying before the TV station which is going to reveal the piece has
done so? Did you know al-Jazeera used to be a BBC outlet? Who is bin
Laden, what is his purpose, and who does he really work for? Um-hmm.
• Few people are raising questions about the obviously false
statements we have been told about 9/11? Why did it take 28
minutes for flight controllers to notify NORAD two planes had been
hijacked when the average time to do so in such a case is 3 minutes?
Why were fighters scrambled from a base 180 miles away when seven
other bases had fighter jets ready that could have done the job in a
fraction of the time? Why was FEMA in New York the night before the
crashes? Why did those fires at the base of the towers burn for 100
days? Why did Bush read a book for a half hour when he knew two
planes had hit and two more were hijacked? Why was the bin Laden
family flown out of the country when all flights were grounded? Why
did the FBI chief say we had no warning this was coming and
everybody else in the FBI say we had plenty of warning? Who did make
the millions of dollars from all those put options on two airlines
the day before the attacks? These are only a fraction of the
questions the government continues to cover up, as several billions
of people know.
• All the targets of American aggression in recent history
have been former allies who were armed and supported by Washington,
but then suddenly "went bad". Saddam and Osama bin Laden
are only the latest examples. Iraq was a staunch U.S. ally when it
was using chemical weapons sold by Donald Rumsfeld against Iran.
Osama bin Laden was the recipient of billions of U.S. aid when he
was involved in fighting the Soviets. Panama's Manuel Noriega was a
personal friend of the first President Bush when he suggested he was
going to blow the whistle on American drug smuggling; soon, 5,000
Panamanians were killed by U.S. soldiers and Noriega's doing 40 in a
Supermax. How does it happen that who America supports with guns and
money soon become America's enemies? Is there an American formula to
"set up" other countries with military aid only for the purpose of
creating threats to be combated in the future? It is very easy to
read history in this way, and it makes you wonder who Saddam and
Osama are actually working for, not to mention Yasir Arafat. Will we
soon invade Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and all those Stans to whom we
have recently given so much money?
• There is no legitimate opposition party in Washington,
D.C. Zealous American patriots, many of whom voted for
George W. Bush, used to castigate the Soviet Union as being an evil
one-party dictatorship, but given the recent votes in Congress, how
can there be any doubt that the United States has become — or
perhaps has always been — a one-party state? Only eight senators
voted against continuing America's falsely framed aggression against
Iraq. Virtually the entire Congress voted for Patriot Act I without
even reading it, according to Rep. Ron Paul, the principled Texas
congressman who has undoubtedly been targeted for deportation by
Jewish groups. Virtually the entire Congress accepts the premise
that Iraq should be invaded because it represents a threat to the
United States, when in fact, this sanctions-ravaged country is not
even a threat to its nearest neighbors.
It is crystal clear to billions of people around the world that the
United States is doing the bidding of Israel, which controls vital
communications and financial systems in the U.S. and plans to
conduct the mass expulsion of Palestinians once the U.S. provides
adequate cover with its invasion of Iraq.
• There are no actual human beings among the world's
leaders. In all of the discussions about how to split up
Iraq, there has been no discussion by any of the principal leaders
of the world about the people of Iraq, who have been savaged by 12
years of unrelenting bombing, and continue to suffer from the
effects of illegal bombing and poisonous uranium contamination, all
approved by not only the American people but by the populations of
all its major allies as well. Even Germany, France, and Russia, who
recently have expressed support for additional moves to forestall
the cynical American invasion, are not doing it to protect the
millions of innocent people who will surely be killed or injured by
such an invasion. They're doing it because they want to get more
leverage when Iraq's oil is stolen by the capitalist vigilantes who
covet it.
• Why are we so willing to throw away our freedom?
The obviously false pronouncements that we hear everyday are merely
justifications for the robbery and enslavement of all the world's
people by the evil men who control our money, our media, and our
beliefs. They believe that they can buy their friends. They believe
that if you give someone enough money, those who accept these bribes
will look the other way when their neighbors are killed. The
"blackmail, terror and mass murder" President Bush speaks of are not
something the U.S. and its allies are combating, they are things
the U.S. is perpetrating. This is the Orwellian doublespeak that now
assails us.
The famous Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti once described the
difference between an individual and a human being. An individual is
someone who is concerned only with aspects of his own life; a true
human being is concerned with aspects of the lives of every person
in the whole world.
We are on the cusp of a new world. Whether we advance toward a new
age of enlightened empathy and understanding or regress back into
the dark ages of traditionally secret political manipulation is a
question that currently hangs in the balance.
Perhaps a billion people all over the world will be out on the
streets in the coming days to express which way they hope this
question will go. There are demonstrations against the unjust
invasion of Iraq planned in virtually every American city. Find out
where it is and go. If you don't, there may come a day — and maybe
real soon — when you can't.
John Kaminski is a writer who
lives on the coast of Florida.
