- This is a note to parents. You could consider it a warning,
but it's really just a congratulatory note, reminding you what you have
done to your children, by not paying sufficient attention to the world
around you.
-
- I myself receive many notes from people telling me they
can't watch the TV news anymore. It's just too depressing. And confusing.
I also especially get this in conversations with many people I consider
less politically aware than myself. They know something is wrong with the
newspapers, or the stories they hear on the boob tube, but they just don't
have time to analyze their own confusion and sort out the wheat from the
chaff. It all sounds so much alike, one false claim after another, and
besides, who has the time?
-
- And even if we did have the time, what could we "
as ordinary individual citizens " actually do about such doubts. Amid
all this flag waving and these terror alerts, who would listen?
-
- There are more important things to do, aren't there?
-
- I mean, so what if children are being blown to bits for
reasons that are lies in some faraway country! Life must go on, and we
don't have to hear about that, do we? As long as we're not forced to see
the photographs, a few deaths over some abstract political debate don't
really bother us. It's not our problem. Hey, we have a problem with a neighbor's
renegade dog that is far more important to us.
-
- I mean, so what if the corrupt and insincere thugs who
run for public office have done away with all the laws that made our country
a free society. It hasn't really affected our lives, has it? We still have
our bills to pay, our obligations to meet, our kids to get to school. So
what if the cops can now come into your house without ever telling you?
How does that affect us? We obey the law and have nothing to worry about,
right? No big deal.
-
- I mean, we have our lives to live, and if the elite billionaires
who dominate all our public institutions want to create situations that
simply make more money for themselves, what has that to do with us? We
still have our jobs (maybe), our friends (if they actually are our friends),
clothes to iron, school pictures to pay for, school board meetings to attend,
church charity drives to contribute to ... the minutiae of one's life,
particularly if there are kids to be considered, are just endless, and
in our drive to get the best of what we want for our offspring, we have
to focus on the here and now, in our immediate neighborhoods, to make sure
they fulfill their obligations and get the best of what is available to
set up their futures, right?
-
- News from some far off land, or partisan ravings from
some disgruntled political observer really don't fit into the pragmatic
schedules we set for ourselves. And we must stay focused on those, lest
our whole lives suddenly veer off course. After all, abstract political
arguments don't pay for four years of college. Or braces.
-
- Yet, there are moments, often when our kids are asleep,
when we wonder why and what we are doing all this for, all this running
around, all this planning and execution of trivial details. Often at these
times we often wonder what we ourselves are doing, and what our kids are
actually learning. Who will they turn out to be?
-
- And when we really think about those things, sometimes
the epiphanies that seize us are shocking indeed.
-
- Consider what kids are learning today by observing the
current public dialogue.
-
- Growing up in America today, our president and our leaders
are teaching our children that it's OK to kill someone if you suspect them
of harboring ideas that the United States of America is committing crimes
in other countries. No more of this right-to-a-fair-trial, innocent-until-proven-guilty
crap. Just kill them if you suspect them of opposing American ideas. Just
blow up their countries and kill whomever you like. If you have the weaponry,
you really don't need a reason. Might surely makes right. That's the new
reality. Just listen to all the new presidential candidates. That's what
virtually all of them are saying.
-
- And that's what are kids are learning today, plus the
finest people in our communities " the judges and doctors and lawyers
" are all in agreement that this is the way we should be behaving.
So show your flag and get with the program. It's how you'll get ahead.
America committing crimes against other countries? How absurd. We would
have heard about it on TV if it happened.
-
- Hey, it's what the American government has done, is doing,
will continue to do. If the American government says someone is a terrorist,
well hell, they are a terrorist, and they can be put in jail forever with
no trial, no lawyer, no appeal, no visitors, and never get out. They can
even be put to death by a 2-1 vote in a military tribunal. None of this
appeal crap, where convicted killers can hang onto life for years with
tricky legal maneuvers. Just kill them. Get it over with.
-
- President Bush recently showed us how people on Death
Row should be treated, when during a radio interview, he ridiculed a woman
who had been condemned for participating in a long-ago crime that had resulted
in a killing. "Please don't kill me," Bush squeaked in a falsetto
voice, mocking Karla Faye Tucker, who had become a prominent Christian
advocate during her many years in jail.
-
- Some people, even some Christian Republicans, criticized
the president for behaving so heartlessly, but hey, that's the way it is
now. The president was simply showing our kids how they should behave.
You're either for us or against us. If you're against, you know what you'll
get. Clarity is a good thing.
-
- That's the way it is now, our kids our learning. We shouldn't
have compassion for those who have reformed. If they're convicted, we must
punish them. Just kill them, and don't think about what they might have
become. It's not relevant. Just kill them.
-
- The same with those blown-up kids in Iraq, especially
that boy, Ali, who lost not only his whole family but also his arms.
-
- What do they matter? Iraq is far away and we have our
lives to live right here. It doesn't matter that our president used lies
to justify the invasion of a nation with a pathetic army. They have oil
we want. We have power. It's the law of the jungle. We have the right to
go and take it. It's just being realistic. It's the way the world is.
-
- That's what we're teaching our children. If you wave
the flag and have enough money to operate in the "right" circles,
you can steal anything you want (because you can buy a judge to get you
off if somebody tries to catch you), or kill anybody you want, regardless
of what they might have done. Life is now all image, and you can get away
with absolutely anything if you have the right connections. Do something
wrong if you like; then just shape the image to make it appear right. In
this day and age, that's all that counts.
-
- Long ago, my father told me this is the way the world
is. I refused to believe him, and as a result have no valuable possessions
in this world except a rather large and cherished circle of noble friends,
most of whom are just as poor as I am.
-
- How we view the world all comes down to money, is what
my dad said. That's why politicians go corrupt, why people betray their
friends, why real stories of what's happening in the world are not shown
on TV.
-
- What most people don't realize is who they are and what
they do actually is reflected in the world at large. Since a large majority
feels they are powerless and have no influence over events in the larger
geopolitical sphere, this is exactly the case: they are powerless and have
no influence.
-
- Take 9/11. For more than a year, no one has dared to
speak about the embarrassing fact that the official pronouncements on those
tragic events that took place do not add up. Wars and laws that were planned
BEFORE that sad day were blamed ON those horrid events. But it has not
been politically correct to ask those questions. To do so has been considered
unpatriotic in this time of national emergency, this War on Terror. But
what if the official version WAS a lie? How does that affect us? Do you
think more of these things will happen if we fail to catch the grand manipulators
in their lies?
-
- And does that matter? Heck, life goes on. All the old
sayings are relevant. Go along to get along. You can't fight City Hall.
All the noble philosophy in the world doesn't mean a thing when your belly
isn't full.
-
- So we are raising a generation of kids to whom morality
and fairness, as well and truth and honor, are no longer important. They
are inconvenient distractions in the lifelong drive toward the acquisition
of material wealth. Philosophy is now a superflous exercise; what really
counts is connections. Allegiances to friends and causes are hopelessly
out-of-date and quaint but useless relics of a bygone era of civilization.
-
- Now all that counts is leeching onto those in power and
getting what one can in the great ripoff that is always taking place "
this is what our kids are really learning in school, and the future we
can all look forward to.
-
- I am reminded of those long-ago stories about Nazi Germany,
when little kids were forced to wear junior SS uniforms and report to authorities
on the political activities of their own parents. So what if their parents
were taken away: the kids were serving the greater good of the state, and
besides, they got extra rations of chocolate to go with their lessons about
the glories of the Homeland. More recently, these stories have manifested
as incidents of kids who had been put through school-sponsored drug awareness
seminars who turned in their own parents for smoking pot, and other affronts
to fascist civilization.
-
- So, the lesson is - in these times when people ignore
what's going on around them, when the greater human values of compassion
and understanding have been buried by widespread media conditioning that
truth and justice no longer matter, but only adherence to officially approved
norms deserve our allegiance - that you better get a grip on what you've
done by not paying attention to what has been going on in the world.
-
- The lesson is this: Don't turn your back on your own
kids. If they have been absorbing the facile rhetoric they hear every day
on TV and beneath the fluttering flags of their own schools, you may no
longer know who they really are, or, on this sad day in Nazi America, what
they have become.
-
-
-
- John Kaminski is the author of "America's Autopsy
Report," a collection of essays soon to be published by Dandelion
Books.
-
-
-
- Comment
-
- From Spacek
- Spacek@ameritech.net
- 5-6-3
-
- I congratulate and salute Mr. Kaminski for a truthful,insightful
and prescient article. I've been thinking along these lines, for sometime
now and I'm glad someone has articulated and enlarged on my own humble
thoughts. When I read about our military's brutal behavior toward Afghan
and Iraqi civilians and being lauded and excused for cold blooded murder,
I was shocked and very worried about what this tells American youth comming
up the ranks of childhood.
-
- I pointed out my shock and disgust in a letter to Jeff
Rense, which was published. The replies were very enlightening. They showed
no one cares how the troops behave, so long as they get their name in the
paper and the name of their hometown or state of origin. The brutality
and murder of children was defended as necessary and right to protect their
own skins and their commanders. One agregious example wanted to send me
dead chickens in the mail?????!!! No morals, values or evil behavior was
questioned, only why I would object to such behavior and pick on the poor
perpetrator of a child murder.
-
- Turning the U.S. military into mercenary assassins is
not questioned at all, the killing of the spirits of these GI's is okay
by their 'defender/friends' back home. Nobody questions how they might
behave when they get back home, after the mad, murderous video game virtual
war, they've been playing in Iraq and Afghanistan. No 'off' switch is infered,
guess they'll continue to mow down and 'shoot anything that moves', when
they get back home, possibly. Oh well, the bushmob will cross that election
bridge when they need to. Just one example of what worries me about the
examples Mr. Kaminski enlarges on.
-
- Thank you, Mr. Kaminski
-
-
- Comment
- From Tim White
- twhite@empactconsulting.com
- 5-7-3
-
- Jeff,
-
- I thoroughly enjoy your site and thank you very much
for providing such a thorough location for this type of information.
-
- I just wanted to comment on the John Kaminski letter
that was posted regarding his aborted appearance on Fox and his 9/11 conspiracy
position.
- I believe 100 percent that this was perpetrated by our
own government, that the Administration knew and participated in this and
then capitalized on it and continue to ride the wave of popular sentiment
as a result.
- However, one point that Kaminski makes about the Pentagon
crash is completely inaccurate. I happen to have a childhood friend who
is on an elite emergency response team in Fairfax, VA who was one of the
first responders to the Pentagon, not only that, he was also the FIRST
emergency responder IN the Pentagon where the plane ended up. I personally
saw photographs that he took (and smuggled past FBI and CIA agents) of
the nose of the plane in the building, with charred bodies in an office
where it ended up. It was clearly the front of the plane with a large
circular burn mark on an interior wall where the nose hit and then recoiled.
I can say unequivocably that there was definitely a plane that hit the
building because I saw pictures of it, taken by my friend. So you might
want to tell John Kaminski that his conspiracy theory needs to be buttoned
down in ALL the details or folks like him (and folks like me who believe
these theories) will continue to be viewed as nut cases. You have to ensure
that you have the facts before you can go off half cocked saying there
was no plane hitting the Pentagon. There was.
-
- Thanks for letting me share this with you.
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