It is an exceptionally mighty symbol of an exceptional people. Rising up into the skies above lower Manhattan like a gleaming, giant steel and glass phallus, it is official that One World Trade Center is to be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. Oh what a pure example of the American whup-ass pride of the twenty first century because ours is now bigger and they whoever dareth to try to knock it down this time shall feel the wrath of God himself sent forth from the deck of the USS Ronald Reagan with nuclear tipped missiles. It is yet another very disturbing illustration of the post September 11, 2001 world of down the rabbit hole, hit the reset button on history parallel reality that the state-corporate media heralded the tallest building in America and in the top three on the entire planet. Thanks to the length of the 400 + foot antenna we are number fucking one and in a land desecrated by economic collapse, moral decay, terminal dumbness and eternal war that means one hell of a lot to many. You can’t exactly eat it nor use it for shelter but boy oh boy, you can sure run that shining symbol of American pride right up the flagpole and salute. God bless America!
I imagine that sounds pretty damned sardonic, let alone downright unpatriotic to some but in the proto-fascist wasteland that is 2013 where all that this country once stood for has been dragged through a trough of shit thanks to legions of corrupt politicians, criminal gamblers, warmongers, stone cold authoritarians and corporate parasites it is at least in my opinion deserving of mockery. While the wonderful and healing nature of the new 3.9 billion dollar tower is marveled at in state-corporate media pieces that peddle dreck to morons, others such as this one in Bloomberg push “large supply of class A space that will be accumulating in the Trade Center area” and quote the very embodiment of the ugly American that is Donald Trump in how to sell square footage to potential occupants.
The 9/11 attacks were the basis for a radical reconfiguration of our society and would justify every rotten restriction of civil liberties, foreign war and taxpayer dollar what was sucked into the maw of the monstrous security industrial complex that was created. The attacks have allowed for the empire to speak loudly and wave its big stick of military power at the Muslim world. The two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have brought economic ruination to this once wealthy and powerful country and while yet another one was just avoided in Syria there is much agitating this week for a new one in Iran. We have become a far more warlike nation, not that this country’s history is not saturated with wars but there was at least the pretense of ramping down and ending them. Today, thanks to September 11, 2011 providing the impetus we are as Orwell’s Oceania, and the most harrowing thought of all is that there are now children approaching their early teenage years who have known no world other than that of The Homeland. There is no way out of all of this that is good, in twenty or thirty years - provided that the country still exists which is no given with the constant pushing for Middle Eastern wars with the allies of China and Russia that could trigger nuclear Armageddon – the positions of power will be occupied by the new generation who have known no other world than that of paranoia and fear, retribution and propaganda. For the rest of the world, you are either with us or against us.
Were there any deviation from the course it was eliminated on September 11, 2011 when with the tenth anniversary of the attacks that the new national religion was established. As former Reagan administration official turned establishment critic Paul Craig Roberts so aptly put it at the time: "In the US on September 11, 2011, the 10th anniversary of 9/11, politicians and their presstitute media presented Americans with "A Day of Remembrance," a propaganda exercise that hardened the 9/11 lies into dogma". The day was on a Sunday and the ultimate corporate propaganda institution that is the National Football League used their games to hammer it home. Ordinarily an NFL game is nauseatingly drenched in jingoist nationalism, the skies are filled with millions of dollars of flying death pre-game as the field length old glory tarps are rolled out and the military marching units provide a pre-coin flip and halftime presence. This past weekend’s Veterans Day games were gut wrenching enough but on 9/11/11 it was total overkill. Yet it provided the historical stamp of approval on the story, there would be no more questioning tolerated of the attacks being the blowback generated by militarist U.S. foreign policies and anything less than total supplication of oneself to the 9/11 born state of post democratic America would result in shunning or worse. The NSA’s Utah facility is going to be filled with the online, purchase and communications data of any and all who have ever dared to blaspheme our glorious ascension as a red, white and blue phoenix from the crater where the original twin towers stood.
9/11 became the basis for the new society of the new American century. Take for example, radio host Glenn Beck built a lucrative and somewhat influential political organization based on the “9/12” show of national unity in the aftermath of the attacks. It drew heavily from disaffected former members of the Republican base seething with resentment at Obama, Muslims and other ridiculous invocations of the flim-flam man Beck who trafficked in conspiracy mongering and self-enrichment. He is an establishment friendly ripoff of Alex Jones and subsequently parted ways with establishment GOP propaganda organ Fox News.The yearning for national unity is understandable in this fragmented land of woe but it is a very dangerous thing when a demagogue is able to harness it. The real national unity movement should be for a “9/10” reversal of the fascism that erupted when the towers fell, it could start with a renouncement of all foreign wars, especially those in the Middle East in which our “allies” in Tel Aviv and Riyadh continue to push for this very week. The revocation - and that is TOTAL revocation of the PATRIOT Act as well as the defunding of the NSA’s unconstitutional surveillance programs would be required as well. The last thing to really rally round the flag together for is the restoration of the rule of law and every war criminal and exploiter and their media accomplices should be tried as enemies of the state and put into prison where they belong.
But that will not happen in that there are too many vested interests and the disease has become too deeply embedded in the national character. Instead of mustering the courage and strength that could save us while there is still a limited window of opportunity it is easier to go along with the programs, absorb the propaganda as it is delivered to indoctrinate through professional sporting contests and television series such as Homeland and bow before the false idols of an exceptional greatness - like the gleaming imagery of the tallest building in the land, One World Trade Center and the sanctified ground upon which it was erected.
For freedom, for glory, for God – now leasing.
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