Miscellaneous American Hypotheticals

I'm completely disgusted with this country. Absolutely, positively, immeasurably, unconsolably pissed, since yesterday was 9/11and I made it to Ground Zero to stare in disbelief at wall street's blue-lit chasm.

I'm mad because the political mechanisms that guide this country are held up so laughably high, while corruption and oppurtunism are the genuine hallmarks that define our sociopolitical landscape. While we're force-feeding Iraq our democratic vision, nearly everyone has forgotten that the president spearheading the project is only in office because, in 2000, bush stole the election from al gore when his brother, governor-of-florida bush, felon-listed florida's african americans so they couldn't vote democratic. not to mention the hanging chads or the harried supreme court decision that challenged anyone's sense of reality.

and while we revere bush for guiding us through 9/11, one cannot overstate his incompetence. remember in farrenheit 9/11, when michael when moore was narrating over the footage of the president reading to a classroom of kids when the secret service told bush about the world trade center, and moore asked the question (more or less), "what were you thinking about, Mr. President, as you sat there for 11 minutes?" well, he was probably thinking the following three and a half things:

1-i can't believe i let my brother cheat me into this mess

2-this book is surprisingly challenging

3-i wonder how much money i can make off defense contracts when we attack whoever did this

(3.5-seriously, how do you pronounce "gymnastic?" these kids are like miniature geniuses)



Couple that with the following 2 september eleventh-related thoughts, and you might be as mad as I am that bush rode his 9/11 performance to a second term.

First, imagine if the terrorists attacked at 3 in the morning, and nobody was killed? Or, along the same lines, if they attacked at 3 in the morning with empty planes, so that literally not a single person was harmed? it would constitute the same level of international violation, crime, and ill will, but would it engender the same wave of patriotism that bush rode in the 2004 elections? and, more importantly, would it have gotten him into iraq the year before?

Second, imagine if one person, and one person only, had been killed in the 9/11 attacks. imagine how quickly the bush administration and the media would have fashioned him the preeminent american martyr, the representative of western values and democratic living, and the face of our war against evil. bush would have rode that one trick pony as far as he could, even when, inevitably, something controversial was discovered about that individual, like, that he cheated on his wife, or never paid taxes, or attended kkk meetings in 96, et al.



so, while the memory of those two downtown memorial highbeams is still etched in my memory (and my phone), and my apathy has subsided for a stint, these are things i'm thinking. can't wait to get back to normal.



Stay academic, mr president

MC let's not go to war over BLT



ps--it's "jimm-nasstic," with a "j" sound and short "a"