I'll Be Watching You
for release 01-03-05
Washington D.C.
At about 9:30 Central time on Sept. 11, 2001, I knew we were in for big trouble. The trouble was not going to come from the motley band of terrorists who had managed to score a bullseye that day, it was going to come from those who would capitalize on the fear generated by the event.
September 11 was a lucky day for at least two groups of people. One was the rag-tag bunch of terrorist who had parlayed a handful of box cutters into a devastating strike at the heart of our country. The other group was the neo-con fascists who are running our government now. They both got lucky strikes that day.
Prior to 9-11 the economy was going down the toilet and the president was spending most of his time working out and reading books to school children and wondering how to legitimize an administration that roughly half the people in the country thought had stolen the 2000 election by means of political tricks.
But all that changed when those jets struck the trade towers and the Pentagon. Suddenly a minimally articulate, questionably elected president owned by corporate vultures became Il Duce of the jutting jaw and the swagger. "We'll bring that nasty villain, bin Laden, in dead or alive," he said in his Wild West style. Within months our simpering Congress had granted Bush powers that he apparently assumed were dictatorial. We suddenly had a new language of fear and deception. We declared war on another noun. Terrorism.
The Poet's Eye saw that we were in deep trouble when people of sound mind and honorable intentions began to speak of the 'War on Terror' as if it were a real thing. It's not a real thing. 'The War on Terror' is nothing more than a marketing slogan that the executive branch of our government has used to extend its power to absurd extremes. Bush can now don the mantle of "Wartime President.' And what a wonderful war, this war on terror, it's a war that will never end.
One simple thing could have been done to prevent the kind of mischief that occurred on 9-11 from ever happening again. If we refit all commercial jet liners with an exterior cockpit door and blocked all access to the control cabin from the passenger section, that would have solved the problem. Instead we got a massive reorganization of government complete with layers of new and bumbling bureaucracy, new restrictions of our rights, a whole new vocabulary of fear and propaganda, two unnecessary wars, a mountain of debt and no better protection from terrorism than we had before.
The Poet's Eye sees the coming year as one of volatile change. As the debacle in Iraq becomes ever more apparent and the environmental and economic policies of this administration continue to take their toll and the scandals begin to ferment, the house of cards will crumble. Already our government is infested with corruption. The Congress is awash in dirty money. The Executive Branch has blatantly overstepped its power. Our email and telephone calls are being spied upon. How much more can we stand?
With every step you take
Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake, every claim you stake
I’ll be watching you
Every move you make, every step you take
I’ll be watching you
I’ll be watching you
--Sting
