The
Poet's Eye
commentary
by Lightning Rod
the Poets' Eye is skeptical
without being cynical, innocent
without being naive and
critical without being
judgemental
06-24-04
26 December 2003:
More than 26,000 people are killed when an earthquake destroys the historic
city of Bam in southern Iran.
26 January 2001:
An earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale devastates much of Gujarat
state in north-western India, killing nearly 20,000 people and making
more than a million homeless.
17 August 1999:
An earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale rocks the Turkish cities
of Izmit and Istanbul, leaving more than 17,000 dead and many more injured.
30 September 1993:
10,000 villagers are killed in western and southern India.
21 June 1990:
40,000 people die in a tremor in the northern Iranian province of Gilan.
7 December 1988:
An earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale devastates north-west
Armenia, killing 25,000 people.
19 September 1985:
Mexico City: 10,000 dead.
28 July 1976:
The Chinese city of Tangshan is reduced to rubble in a quake that claims
at least 250,000 lives.
And now we come to hurricanes:
Just the ten deadliest hurricanes of the last century killed more than
14,000 people in our country.
Then we have plagues and epidemics. Black Death, Smallpox, Measles, Influenza
and AIDS have claimed hundreds of millions of lives.
So, the events of 9/11, while tragic and spectacular, were no more than
a bee sting when compared to other natural disasters. I call 9/11 a natural
disaster because it was a predictable result of the forces at play in
our world's political weather. There were preliminary tremors (previous
Trade Tower bombing, USS Kohl, embassy bombings, etc) and there will be
aftershocks. This is what happens when the tectonic plates of religion
and culture and economics strain against one another
.
The thing about natural disasters is that you can predict that they will
happen but you can't quite predict when or where. You can have Hurricane
Osama on your radar screen but you can't tell until the last moment whether
he will make landfall in Miami or Hilton Head or if he will dance up the
coast to Boston. But you don't make the people in Kansas and Colorado
board up their windows in anticipation.
The dust hadn't settled from the collapse of the Trade Towers before the
neo-cons in Washington were planning how to seize upon the event to advance
their agenda. Now, two imperial wars and a head blow to our civil rights
later, (The Patriot Act) we see how efficiently the current junta has
been at capitalizing on the disaster.
When the jets hit the Trade Towers, the execs at Bushco were wringing
their hands because they had just stolen the election and the economy
was going down the toilet. I have a picture in my mind of Cheney and Ashcroft
slapping high fives in the conference room (at a secure, undisclosed location)
when the news broke, because they knew that this was their blank check.
They could now do anything they wanted under the banner of national security.
And they have.
The "War on Terror' makes about as much sense as declaring a war
on earthquakes, plagues, and hurricanes. I'm sure those would be popular
and honorable wars. But to relinquish our rights and freedoms, our money
and the lives of our young people because we fear disaster is a pitiful
way to live. And to allow commercial rapists to sodomize the world economy
under the banner of fighting terrorism is an attitude worthy of sheep.
The seeds of the 9/11 events were sown during the Reagan, Bush I and Clinton
administrations. American support for Israel and the occupations of Arab
land (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon) were the soil in which the current
wave of terrorism sprouted. One can only imagine what seeds of terror
are germinating now as a result of the Iraqi invasion.
In the last half century more people have been killed by tornadoes than
were killed on 9/11 and the aftermaths look much the same--rubble and
bodies and dust. Perhaps we should declare War on the Weather. Tornadoes
hit swiftly and without warning, like terrorists. They take innocent lives.
You never know when and where they will strike. But any savvy midwesterner
knows that you don't let your life be ruled by the possibility of tornadoes.
You don't stop breathing when there is a cloud in the sky.
If an earthquake had tumbled the Trade Towers, we would have mourned the
victims but probably wouldn't have called them heroes. We don't call the
millions of AIDS victims heroes, or those eaten by tornadoes. We certainly
don't use hurricanes as an excuse to go to war. President Bush remarked
about terrorists shortly after he stole office, "I'm tired of swatting
flies." He prefers stirring up a hornet's nest.
It is a political virtue to be able to turn disaster into capital and
Bushco has performed admirably in this pursuit. The problem lies in the
fact that the neo-cons are thinking 'Pax-Americana.' They are locked in
Roman times. There is no peace in America's imperial world. There is a
seething that will inevitably find it's voice in terrorism. It is as natural
as a tornado or an earthquake.
The Poet's Eye sees that Osama's gang made a lucky strike on 9/11. But
it wasn't half as lucky for them as it was for their adversaries. Show
me a natural disaster, and I'll show you money to be made.
•
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