June 22, 2003
Goodbye Black Spring
As I write it is pouring rain in Hoboken and the sun's out, which I am told means the devil's beating his wife. Spring came and went and we barely saw the sun. It was an uncommonly dark and dismal spring. Now summer is here. The vegetation is rich and lush. And perhaps we will see the sun. And maybe, just maybe, we will see a rich crop of dissent and a rebirth of the impulse for freedom and justice in the country that gave birth to democratic revolutions and has now been subverted by a neo-fascist junta.On Friday night I received a phone call from an old friend in L.A. I hadn't heard from for a while. His father is a retired general in the Army. The last time I spoke with my friend he was fired up in the hysteria of retaliation over the 911 calamity. He was swept up by the war propaganda and was saying, "We should just nuke 'em." This time I was taken back to hear a radical change of heart.
"So how have you been doing?" he asked.
I didn't want to get into political matters because we had been universes apart on them last time we spoke.
"Eh. Not so great," I answered. "I've hardly seen the sun for months."
"The sun hasn't shone in L.A. for a couple of days either," he said. There was a pause and then he said, "It's cause we lied and bombed that country that all this is happening." Then he laughed while I let out a big sigh of the relief of the tension of trying to avoid talking about politics.
"The wierdest thing is that there isn't more hubbub about it," he said. He said he was talking to his father and the old general had suggested the U.S. may have used an "E-bomb" on Baghdad, a device that destroys the electrical infrastructure, and that may explain why there's no electricity in Baghdad.
"I was thinking that if someone used one of those things in this country it would put us back to the stone age," he said.
"I've thought about that," I said. "I didn't know about that E-bomb, but I have thought that if someone wanted to take control of this country, they could do it by taking control of the electrical system. In this country more than anywhere we are extremely dependent on electricity. We use it for everything. All our information is electronic. Our can openers and garage door openers, everything. We're more vulnerable than anyone in that way."
I continued. "It's the kind of vulnerability these guys could use against us if they get cornered," I said.
"They would do anything to hold onto power," he said.
I was floored. What a profound change of heart this represents from when he was saying "nuke 'em" not so long ago! I wonder how much my friend represents what may be happening in the social landscape at large.
Like many Americans, he had previously been reacting emotionally to the attack on innocent people in the United States. He reacted according to the information he had, and with that information it was an understandable reaction of rage and revenge. But once he discovered that the Bush administration was lying, it changed everything. It changed the foundation of his relationship to the administration. Metanoia: change of mind. Is this happening on a broad scale?
Keep eyes wide open.
NEWS LANDSCAPE
Prepared for a Japanese audience, this article on George Bush, Skull & Bones and the NWO is a good primer on power politics in the U.S. and on the subjects named. Good old New York Times! Always on hand to help Bush out of a jam. Today the Times is being apologist for Bush with David Rosenbaum's article "Bush May Have Exaggerated, but Did He Lie?" Answer. Yes, he lied. He lies all the time. It's on the record, easy to check out. Give us a break, NYT. The Times is covering it's own ass for its own complicity in the lies. See Editor & Publisher on the New York Times' involvement in hyping WMDs, passing on bad information from the military to the public without checking it out, and in so doing, helping to fuel the war hysteria.
"Seven True Things You Can't Say on Television". Salon: "The effort to recall California's Democratic governor shows again that the GOP will stop at nothing to win more power."