* I do update these links fairly regularly. Feel free to check back and read some new stuff.

Obviously, the events of September 11, 2001 were very sad. My heart goes out to the innocent victims. Now the US and England are bombing Afghanistan, thereby creating new victims for my heart to go out to. It's like Ghandi said, "An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind."

In the aftermath of those events, though, the mass media reared its vicious, jingoist, racist head. A month later, the media has gotten no better. They've convicted Osama bin Laden of these crimes before they had time to gather any evidence against him. Now that the bombing of Afghanistan has begun, any hope of a real investigation is lost. Now, investigators have no choice but to accept only the evidence that points to bin Laden (instead of looking at all the evidence, then trying to find a suspect. Which is what an investigation is supposed to be).

The media also convicted an ethnic class of people for being somehow less than human. And, yes, I've heard the media and politicians say again and again that "not all Arabs and/or Muslims are bad." Usually when they say that, it's the voiceover to footage of Arabs shooting guns or undergoing military training. It reminds me of the knuckleheads who say, "I'm not racist. I just think that there's good niggers and bad niggers." It doesn't work that way, and no matter what spin you put on it, it's racist.

At the same time, the mass media continues to give countless hours of coverage of the events without actually giving any real, verifiable information (though TV junkies again get to watch all the cool nightime footage of live bombings, which always hit their "target." And that target is never an innocent person, I'm sure). The government, in the name of our "security," continues to pillage our social security funds. They've added well over $40 billion to our already bloated (currently $300 billion, annually) defense fund. They've started bombing Afghanistan in some bizarre form of lynch mob justice. And now they're trampling on our civil rights in the name of freedom.

I know that trying to counter the barrage of hysteria coming from the government and the mass media by posting something on this web page is akin to taking a bucket and trying to bail out a sinking Titanic, but what the hell? I figured some people might be interested in actually looking into rational, verifiable information on this subject, so I've collected a short series of links to different web pages that will give a broader, calmer look into recent events. At the very least, I hope it will keep you from running down to Wal-Mart and buying a fucking American flag.

I also want to point out that I only speak for myself. My views don't necessarily represent the views of anyone at Razorcake but me.

The Links

Now that the bombing has begun, it's probably best to look to the man who knows more about US foreign policy than perhaps anyone alive, Noam Chomsky. Chomsky's writing can often be convoluted, and he knows so much that he can be hard to keep up with at times, but here's an good, brief, easy to read summary of current affairs (I can't bring you directly to this page. Click on this link, then, when you get to ZNET, click on the link titled "Chomsky: Reaction):
http://www.zmag.org/ZNETTOPnoanimation.html

Or, if you prefer your current affairs from someone with a great sense of humor, here's what Michael Moore has to say:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/2001_1008.html

Looking back to September 11, it's interesting to see that, in a time of hysteria, the calm, rational responses coming from two men from often opposing ends of the political spectrum could be so similar. First, Howard Zinn, socialist and radical:
http://www.progressive.org/webex/wxzinn091401.html

And second, Harry Browne, libertarian (in four parts):
http://americanlibertyfoundation.org/911/index.htm
http://americanlibertyfoundation.org/911/2.htm
http://americanlibertyfoundation.org/911/3.htm
http://americanlibertyfoundation.org/911/4.htm

And, in order to get a broader perspective on foreign affairs, it's always good to look outside the US media monopoly. Here's an impressive summary of current affairs by the award winning Uruguayan author, Eduardo Galleano (I can't bring you directly to this link, either. Click on the link below, then when you get to ZNET, scroll down a ways to the link titled Galleano: "Theater of Good and Evil." And feel free to stay on ZNET for a while. It really is an amazing site):
http://www.zmag.org/ZNETTOPnoanimation.html

As with any holy war, we should hear what God has to say. Here's a report from his most recent press conference:
http://www.theonion.com/onion3734/god_clarifies_dont_kill.html

Congress foolishly gave George W. Bush way too much power in handling this situation. One brave politician, though, had the courage and the intelligence to fight against it. Here's Barbara Lee's story:
http://www.house.gov/lee/Floor_Statement.htm

Here's an article from 1998 that explains how the US government blames Osama bin Laden for nearly everything and has yet to prove him guilty of anything:
http://www.salon.com/news/1998/08/27news.html

As of today (10/8/01), the US is bombing Afghanistan (though they claim that they are bombing the Taliban and not Afghanistan. Is that like bombing the World Trace Center but not the US?). And the US still has released no hard evidence against Osama bin Laden. Time Magazine admitted it this morning:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,177983,00.html

I don't mean to imply that Osama bin Laden is not responsible. I just think that it's too soon to convict anyone. Here's information from the BBC on how the investigation on bin Laden is going:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1554000/1554353.stm

Proof that Osama bin Laden used to work for the CIA:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/190144.asp?cp1=1

As the GC5 say, "If the suits paid the price, wouldn't that be nice, but I know who's gonna get fucked in the end.":
http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/09/20/index.html

Here's a partial list of companies that were in the World Trace Center:
http://www.hoovers.com/feature/block/detail/0,2417,7_3937,00.html

And here's a list of corporations who sponsored the WTO meetings in Seattle in 1999. Notice the overlap. Could there have been other motives behind the attacks?:
http://www.corpwatch.org/trac/feature/wto/2-sho.html

A little comic relief:
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11560

Fighting for Democracy
In case you think the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon were an attack on democracy, look back at the 2000 presidential election. Democracy means, by its very definition, that people vote on an issue. The issue is then settled by adhering to what the majority of voters selected. So if, say, they were voting on a president, whichever candidate got the most votes would become president. That did not happen. Obviously. Where were all of these "defenders of democracy" when democracy crumbled in our last presidential election? (On a personal note, I didn't want Gore to be president either, and I don't think that the presidential election had any causal relationship to the events of September 11. I just think that, IF YOU'RE A PRESIDENT WHO WANTS TO FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY, YOU HAVE TO BE DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED, FIRST). Anyway, here's the 2000 vote tally. Notice who lost by over a half a million votes.
http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/2000popres.html

Fighting for Freedom
It's ironic how, in its fight to "defend our freedom," the US government has first attacked the freedom of its citizens and is right now raping our civil rights. Here's a list of the rights that are being taken away from us in the midst of the hysteria:
http://www.aclu.org/news/2001/n092001e.html

If you want to comment, you can reach me at sean@razorcake.com