As a result of the 9/11 attacks, the people of the United States eagerly gave away their freedoms, allowing the government to start an age of unprecedented limitations in personal freedom and privacy. Every year on this day people bring out their mawkish jingoism and fly the never forget flag. Never forget that the Patriot Acts I and II have instituted a militarized police state, created the bloated and totalitarian bureaucracies of the TSA and DHS and allowed our government to delve into our every move and communication with no regard to our constitutional rights. These unconstitutional laws remain unchallenged in our courts and continue to impinge on our freedoms to move about the country unmolested, feel safe and secure in our personal communications and to exercise free speech without fear of having our doors busted down in a raid that can be organized on the mere suspicion of wrong doing without truly probable cause. Never forget that a militarized police means that we are no longer free to protest in organized, peaceful acts of civil disobedience in order to voice dissenting opinions on the state of our country and to call for change without a response by armored police with military grade equipment who are all to ready to crack our skulls, tear gas us and riddle us with rubber bullets, look to the reactions to the Occupy Oakland and Ferguson protests if you have any doubts on this issue. Never forget that the death toll of our Armed Forces in the unjust and ultimately pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have exceeded the deaths in the 9/11 attacks, and that the death toll in innocent civilians in those countries dwarves our losses by a factor of ten. We are no safer today than we were then, for even with Al Qaeda and the Taliban disrupted, terror has metastasized and morphed into different groups with the same ideologies. Iraq is far less safe today for its citizens and, with the rise of ISIS, is far more dangerous for Americans. In Afghanistan the Taliban still controls large areas and the unstable government threatens to plunge that nation back into chaos at any moment. Never forget that we have tortured some folks, assassinated our own citizens and gone from being the victim with the world at our side back to being the imperialist villain in the eyes of the world all because, in a moment of fear, we listened to those who sold us a lie of safety in exchange for a bit of freedom. In the end, the military industrial complex has made billions of dollars in waging these wars, militarizing our police and building an espionage apparatus that rivals Big Brothers, all while undermining the strength of our voice in this democracy. Never forget what happens when you act rashly in fear, never forget what happens when you choose vicious retaliation instead of introspection, never forget how we have dishonored the people who died in the September 11th attacks in the name of American freedom by ironically destroying the very institution we claim to cherish. Never forget.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 16:50:29 +0000