"Rebuild America" by Ed Hale and the Transcendence

Rebuild America (Single Release) by Dying Van Gogh Records

I can’t believe it's Sept 11^th again. Where are we? What have we accomplished?

From a friend from Turkey I received this morning:

DEAR Fishy, 

LAST NIGHT I SAW YOU IN MY DREAM. WE WERE TALKING ON TELEPHONE. IF I HAD GOT YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBER I WOULD HAVE CALLED YOU.

ESENTIALLY I WANT TO SHARE MY OPINION ABOUT HAPPENINGS AT TWIN TOWERS ON 11 SEPTEMBER 2001.I HAVE NEVER FORGOTTAN THE VIEW ON TV. ALTHOUGH THE AIM OF THIS ATTACK  WAS TO PUNISH THE ADMINISTRATION OF U.S.A., HERE THEY HAD PUNISHED PERSONS WHO DID NOT HAVE ANY FAULT. NOWADAYS  THE FILM,DIRECTED BY 11  DIRECTORS FROM EUROPE, IS TALKED ABOUT. MAYBE YOU KNOW IT. IT CONSIDERS 11 DIFFERENT STORIES. THE MAIN IDEA OF THESE STORIES IS THAT AMERICA DESERVED THIS ATTACK BECAUSE OF ITS FOREIGN POLICY. HOWEVER I DON'T AGREE WITH THEM. TO ME THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR TERRORISM. SINCE THIS KIND OF ATTACKS OVERTIME CAUSE HARM TO LIFE OF INNOCENT PERSONS.

I HOPE EVERYTHING IS OKAY IN YOUR LIFE.

CİAO

The Turk

Looking through time magazine’s annual year in pictures issue. A solemn affair. From grieving widows in Kashmir, to parentless children in Palestine, from 25 million orphans in Africa due to their parents death of aids, to Liberian refugees who live and die in camps, tens of thousands of people dead in a small country called Chechnya fighting for their freedom and independence from a greedy evil uncaring empire called Russia, and the Russian theatre goers who became victims of their own country’s greed, much the same way that thousands died in New York city from September 11^th attacks paid for their own country’s greed and mistakes in foreign policy and covert operations all over the world. A whole country called Venezuela in complete and utter desperate turmoil and not a soul in the western world seems to care because there is nothing to be gained by it. so we turn away. death death death and more death. All over the world. Sadness tears blood and torture. This was the year we saw in time magazine’s annual review. This is the current state of the world all of a sudden. Bombs in Bali. Snipers in DC. Gulf War veteran killing his teachers, fellow students, and himself in Arizona. Every page more pain and sadness. And beneath it all, lies lies and more lies. From the mouths of the ‘rich and in control’ to the ears of the ignorant middle classes. 

I'm thinking ‘remember when it wasn't like this?’ ‘Remember when all we thought about was which stock was going to rise the highest today? Should we buy Amazon or sell EBay? You bought what? A BMW 330Ci convertible? Well look at my new Audi! Did it matter that Clinton boffed his intern?  Well wouldn’t you? No? Look at her. Yea I know, but still…c’mon, you would…’ These were the worries of days gone by. 

I'm in the airport. There is this Latin girl with a tight shirt on and no bra. Her breasts are just popping out. She has received more than her fair share of secret looks from other passengers here waiting for the plane. A few minutes later I looked up and she was standing up talking on her phone. Her nipples were really sticking out. And there is this guy sitting down about four feet away from her. He had a book in his hand but he was staring at her standing there talking on the phone and his mouth was hanging open, and then about five feet away from him there was this other girl who was staring at the guy and at the girl observing how this guy was so absorbed by the girl on the phone with the tight shirt and no bra, and she was completely absorbed in watching the two of them. She had this look on her face like, ‘I can’t believe that guy. Why does he care about that slut with the big boobs." And then I'm sitting there watching all three of them doing their thing. And I'm thinking, ‘I wonder if there is anyone watching me?’ Look how we watch each other. Each of us making our own little judgments about each other based on our own different sets of beliefs.

O.k. I'm on the plane now—America West—and they are playing all these country music videos. Man what is this? I think I have been in Miami too long. I feel like culture shocked. I'm sitting here looking at the TV and hearing this strange music and these goofy looking people and my mouth is hanging open. I forget that America is filled with people like this. I keep looking at the other passengers on the plane with me, like, “do you see this on the tv? Can you believe it?” Maybe they are from out west or something, flying home for the holiday. And they are used to it. The longer I live in Miami, the more I start to realize that it is not really part of the rest of the country. It's like we live in an alternate reality compared to the rest of America. I'm sitting next to his couple who packed their own lunch since airlines don't serve food anymore. They are eating bologna sandwiches on white bread with yellow mustard and yellow American cheese. I haven't seen something like that in ten years. I knew they sold that stuff in the supermarkets. I just could never figure out who actually bought it. o.k. so yea, Miami is not really part of America.

We’re in the air now. I'm watching the in-flight movie sporadically while reading and writing. Bourne identity baby!!! I love this movie. Great soundtrack. Reading time magazine—twelve letters from readers from all over the country saying they do not support Bush’s planned invasion of Iraq. I will scan these in. They receive thousands of letters per week one would assume with the printed ones being a small representation of the bulk of them. The media continues to report about the coming Iraq war (not a war at all, but really an invasion, since they haven’t attacked us and aren't really even a worthy opponent of ours) and all of Bush’s activities to prepare for this war on a daily Bas is. The media continues to ignore the fact that most Americans do not support Mr. Bush in this. and so when you turn on the television, you get bombarded by corporate bullshit and propaganda about an America that is not ours, but belongs to a hostile government who stole the presidency and will do whatever it wants to whenever it wants to regardless of the American people—as one reader wrote in to time magazine, ‘I will support Bush’s military action in Iraq as soon as he enlists his two daughters in the military.’ Funny.

Watching this WWII documentary. Hours and hours. Amazing. Buy it if you can. its fantastic. So educational, illuminating. This is before the UN and NATO. Countries just attacked each other all the time. no one was really without blame. It was almost as if humanity had not yet discovered the difference between right and wrong. 

Germany wants to take over Poland so they cut a deal with Russia and they just split the whole country down the middle. Just take it over completely. Absolutely no respect or care about their people or traditions or culture. England decides that they will fight Germany but while they do it it would be a good idea to take over Norway because of their oil. Of course this mission of theirs failed but it just goes to show, even though they were supposedly allies, how allied were they really? And to whom? It is just unfathomable in this day and age. Or is it? the whole reason we invented the UN and NATO and other peace organizations was to enact rules and regulations to prevent exactly what Bush is proposing we do to Iraq right now. and the whole world is telling him that. and still he persists. It is rather frightening in the context of watching this history of world war II. Political scientists are saying that this could very well be the beginning of world war III if we go ahead with this. so I think we all have a vested interest in doing whatever it takes to stop Bush from this plan. This is pivotal time in our history regardless of how behind it the mainstream media seems to be. they do not matter. They never will. What matters is what we want. The people. this is our country. This is our land. This is our lives at stake. 

Wow. What an exciting day! Went to the anti-war rally and march today held at the Vietnam veterans memorial. Over 200,000 were there. It was very inspirational because no one I knew was going. Like I said most people feel content with just watching stuff like that on TV, staying home and doing their own thing. So I had this lonely feeling flying up, like, “man what are you doing now…” But then I woke up this morning and started walking towards the rally spot and before I knew it I am surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people from all over the country who feel the same way that I do about things. I met up with the bus that came from Florida. There were about fifty of them. 


We all hung out together and listened to the speeches at the rally. Busses were arriving throughout the day from every state in the nation. Susan Sarandon spoke very passionately; patty smith sang the song ‘the people have the power.’ Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson spoke. One of the best speeches was by Ramsey Clark, the ex-United States Attorney General. He blasted Bush and what he calls the real axis of evil that is made up of Bush, Colin Powel, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney. All oil and big business war mongers ready to take down as many American lives and Iraqi lives as they want to in their little war for oil. And of course they won't fight. Plenty of young poor Americans will. Al Sharpton used the bogie-man analogy and said that George Bush was just trying to use this war as a means to get the public’s attention off of what was really important to us right now, like the falling economy, horrible education problems, the federal deficit, the recession, disastrous health care—this is something I can relate to because almost all of the musician friends I have all over the country do not have any health insurance—they are just  ‘winging it’, the Enron scandal, a company that he and Cheney were both very close to, and many other real problems. And of course the fact that we haven't made any progress in catching anyone responsible for the September 11^th attacks, including Osama Bin Laden.

  

Woke up early today. Tons of planes flying over head. Knowing what day it was, I jumped up and rushed to the television to see if there were any attacks. So far so good. Just a lot of sadness. today is a sad day. Everyone is sad. People are emailing saying they are sad. I am thinking about when I went to ground zero last year. I still cant fathom the loss that I saw and felt. All those lives cut off so suddenly. And then I started reflecting on all the innocent lives that are lost everyday in wars and terrorist attacks like this one all over the world. I mean so many of us die everyday from things like this. I forget about being American for a moment and just look at the human condition.

With all of us still fighting all the time. Humans killing each other all over the world still. Most of it due to people just being greedy, unfair, deceptive. Not wanting to be real with themselves and with others. Well if I can’t have my way I'll just kill you. really immature stuff. and the people of most countries accept it because they feel like they don't have a choice. Their governments have the army. What are we the people really going to do? In America we the people started protesting the war in Vietnam in 1965. Vehemently and passionately they resisted and protested that war. and the government kept us in that war for another seven years after that or more. I know we lost a lot of lives on September 11^th. I hope we don't lose any more in any more wars because of it. We can have peace on the earth, but people are really going to have to change their view of what peace means. Peace doesn’t mean bombing Iraq. And it doesn’t mean bombing Palestine. And it doesn’t mean retaliation or revenge or vengeance or an eye for an eye or any of that other old-human type of thinking. That is not peace.

It means being smarter than the rest, creating peaceful solutions. I'm not saying I know what to do. I'm a singer. I don't know shit. But I know that I don't want to spend the rest of my life reading about people dying all the time. My grandfather fought in Korea. My dad fought in Vietnam. He came home fucked up. He is still fucked up. He sleeps with a loaded gun on his nightstand and another one on his reading table in his living room. That's what war does to a twenty-one year old kid who is now a fifty something year old man. I cannot wait to have kids. I think about it all the time. but I worry about having kids here now. it's always been like this. we have always killed each other. and certainly it is getting better and better all around the world every year. I wonder how much better we can create it? I wonder if one day in our near future we will look at war and the death penalty like we now look at silent movies or gas lamp street lights or horse drawn carriages? I bet it can happen!      

Current Spin: David Bowie, Heathen—Bowie’s best album since lets dance! It's what Bowie fans have waited for for a long time. Finally!  

Last night Cleo had her baby. About 11PM. I was driving home, I-95. She hasn’t felt like it is a good idea to introduce me and the white knight yet. We don't even acknowledge our friendship to him yet. So I didn't go to the hospital. I drove fast down i-95. I thought of the fate of this, the irony of it. I thought of me driving down this lonely stretch of highway alone, and her in this hospital room a few minutes away screaming and in pain, having a baby, and we have just spent the majority of our twenties together, thinking that was going to be us in there some day. 

When I would see a car stranded on the side of the highway, part of me fantasized about turning the wheel slightly and slamming into it, just smashing things up a bit. Would I die in the crash? Could I? Would it all be over? I put both hands on the wheel. Turned up the music. Drove faster. Smiled. The mind is a big thing. Lots of thoughts. Not all of them we have to take seriously. Cleo is happy. I was happy for Cleo. I wasn't sad, just dealing with a strange feeling, a big life changing event feeling. This was Cleo’s life changing event, not mine. “I'm still waiting…for my super hero girl.” 

Tonight we are going into the studio to cut a track for the anniversary of September 11^th, which we will release that day to the fans only via email. We are going to try to cut the whole song in a day.

Current Spin: Kid Rock, Cocky. I love this album.

Shocked and Horrifed

Blowback Strikes - Shocked and Horrified

By Larry Mosqueda

Like all Americans, on Tuesday, 9-11, I was shocked and horrified to watch the WTC Twin Towers attacked by hijacked planes and collapse, resulting in the deaths of perhaps up to 10,000 innocent people.

I had not been that shocked and horrified since January 16, 1991, when then President Bush attacked Baghdad, and the rest of Iraq and began killing 200,000 people during that "war" (slaughter). This includes the infamous "highway of death" in the last days of the slaughter when U.S. pilots literally shot in the back retreating Iraqi civilians and soldiers. I continue to be horrified by the sanctions on Iraq, which have resulted in the death of over 1,000,000 Iraqis, including over 500,000 children, about whom former Secretary of State Madeline Albright has stated that their deaths "are worth the cost".

Over the course of my life I have been shocked and horrified by a variety of U.S. governmental actions, such as the U.S. sponsored coup against democracy in Guatemala in 1954 which resulted in the deaths of over 120,000 Guatemalan peasants by U.S. installed dictatorships over the course of four decades.

Last Tuesday's events reminded me of the horror I felt when the U.S. overthrew the governments of the Dominican Republic in 1965 and helped to murder 3,000 people. And it reminded me of the shock I felt in 1973, when the U.S. sponsored a coup in Chile against the democratic government of Salvador Allende and helped to murder another 30,000 people, including U.S. citizens.

Last Tuesday's events reminded me of the shock and horror I felt in 1965 when the U.S. sponsored a coup in Indonesia that resulted in the murder of over 800,000 people, and the subsequent slaughter in 1975 of over 250,000 innocent people in East Timor by the Indonesian regime with the direct complicity of President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

I was reminded of the shock and horror I felt during the U.S. sponsored terrorist contra war (the World Court declared the U.S. government a war criminal in 1984 for the mining of the harbors) against Nicaragua in the 1980s which resulted in the deaths of over 30,000 innocent people (or as the U.S. government used to call them before the term "collateral damage" was invented--"soft targets").

I was reminded of being horrified by the U. S. war against the people of El Salvador in the 1980s, which resulted in the brutal deaths of over 80,000 people, or "soft targets".

I was reminded of the shock and horror I felt during the U.S. sponsored terror war against the peoples of southern Africa (especially Angola) that began in the 1970's and continues to this day and has resulted in the deaths and mutilations of over 1,000,000. I was reminded of the shock and horror I felt as the U.S. invaded Panama over the Christmas season of 1989 and killed over 8,000 in an attempt to capture George H. Bush's CIA partner, now turned enemy, Manuel Noriega.

I was reminded of the horror I felt when I learned about how the Shah of Iran was installed in a U.S. sponsored brutal coup that resulted in the deaths of over 70,000 Iranians from 1952-1979. And the continuing shock as I learned that the Ayatollah Khomeni, who overthrew the Shah in 1979, and who was the U.S. public enemy for decade of the 1980s, was also on the CIA payroll, while he was in exile in Paris in the 1970s.

I was reminded of the shock and horror that I felt as I learned about the how the U.S. has "manufactured consent" since 1948 for its support of Israel, to the exclusion of virtually any rights for the Palestinians in their native lands resulting in ever worsening day-to-day conditions for the people of Palestine. I was shocked as I learned about the hundreds of towns and villages that were literally wiped off the face of the earth in the early days of Israeli colonization. I was horrified in 1982 as the villagers of Sabra and Shatila were massacred by Israeli allies with direct Israeli complicity and direction. The untold thousands who died on that day match the scene of horror that we saw last Tuesday. But those scenes were not repeated over and over again on the national media to inflame the American public.

The events and images of last Tuesday have been appropriately compared to the horrific events and images of Lebanon in the 1980s with resulted in the deaths of tens of thousand of people, with no reference to the fact that the country that inflicted the terror on Lebanon was Israel, with U.S. backing. I still continue to be shocked at how mainstream commentators refer to "Israeli settlers" in the "occupied territories" with no sense of irony as they report on who are the aggressors in the region.

Of course, the largest and most shocking war crime of the second half of the 20th century was the U.S. assault on Indochina from 1954-1975, especially Vietnam, where over 4,000,000 people were bombed, napalmed, crushed, shot and individually "hands on" murdered in the "Phoenix Program" (this is where Oliver North got his start). Many U.S. Vietnam veterans were also victimized by this war and had the best of intentions, but the policy makers themselves knew the criminality of their actions and policies as revealed in their own words in "The Pentagon Papers," released by Daniel Ellsberg of the RAND Corporation. In 1974 Ellsberg noted that our Presidents from Truman to Nixon continually lied to the U.S. public about the purpose and conduct of the war. He has stated that, "It is a tribute to the American people that our leaders perceived that they had to lie to us, it is not a tribute to us that we were so easily misled."

I was continually shocked and horrified as the U.S. attacked and bombed with impunity the nation of Libya in the 1980s, including killing the infant daughter of Khadafi. I was shocked as the U.S. bombed and invaded Grenada in 1983. I was horrified by U.S. military and CIA actions in Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan, Brazil, Argentina, and Yugoslavia. The deaths in these actions ran into the hundreds of thousands.

The above list is by no means complete or comprehensive. It is merely a list that is easily accessible and not unknown, especially to the economic and intellectual elites. It has just been conveniently eliminated from the public discourse and public consciousness. And for the most part, the analysis that the U.S. actions have resulted in the deaths of primarily civilians (over 90%) is not unknown to these elites and policy makers. A conservative number for those who have been killed by U.S. terror and military action since World War II is 8,000,000 people. Repeat--8,000,000 people. This does not include the wounded, the imprisoned, the displaced, the refugees, etc. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated in 1967, during the Vietnam War, "My government is the world's leading purveyor of violence." Shocking and horrifying.

Nothing that I have written is meant to disparage or disrespect those who were victims and those who suffered death or the loss of a loved one during this week's events. It is not meant to "justify" any action by those who bombed the Twin Towers or the Pentagon. It is meant to put it in a context. If we believe that the actions were those of "madmen", they are "madmen" who are able to keep a secret for 2 years or more among over 100 people, as they trained to execute a complex plan. While not the acts of madmen, they are apparently the acts of "fanatics" who, depending on who they really are, can find real grievances, but whose actions are illegitimate.

Osama Bin Laden at this point has been accused by the media and the government of being the mastermind of Tuesday's bombings. Given the government's track record on lying to the America people, that should not be accepted as fact at this time. If indeed Bin Laden is the mastermind of this action, he is responsible for the deaths of perhaps 10,000 people-a shocking and horrible crime. Ed Herman in his book The Real Terror Network: Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda does not justify any terrorism but points out that states often engage in "wholesale" terror, while those whom governments define as "terrorist" engage is "retail" terrorism. While qualitatively the results are the same for the individual victims of terrorism, there is a clear quantitative difference. And as Herman and others point out, the seeds, the roots, of much of the "retail" terror are in fact found in the "wholesale" terror of states. Again this is not

to justify, in any way, the actions of last Tuesday, but to put them in a context and suggest an explanation.

Perhaps most shocking and horrific, if indeed Bin Laden is the mastermind of Tuesday's actions; he has clearly had significant training in logistics, armaments, and military training, etc. by competent and expert military personnel. And indeed he has. During the 1980s, he was recruited, trained and funded by the CIA in Afghanistan to fight against the Russians. As long as he visited his terror on Russians and his enemies in Afghanistan, he was "our man" in that country.

The same is true of Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who was a CIA asset in Iraq during the 1980s. Hussein could gas his own people, repress the population, and invade his neighbor (Iran) as long as he did it with U.S. approval.

The same was true of Manuel Noriega of Panama, who was a contemporary and CIA partner of George H. Bush in the 1980s. Noriega's main crime for Bush, the father, was not that he dealt drugs (he did, but the U.S. and Bush knew this before 1989), but that Noriega was no longer going to cooperate in the ongoing U.S. terrorist contra war against Nicaragua. This information is not unknown or really controversial among elite policy makers. To repeat, this not to justify any of the actions of last Tuesday, but to put it in its horrifying context.

As shocking as the events of last Tuesday were, they are likely to generate even more horrific actions by the U.S. government that will add significantly to the 8,000,000 figure stated above. This response may well be qualitatively and quantitatively worst than the events of Tuesday. The New York Times headline of 9/14/01 states that, "Bush And Top Aides Proclaim Policy Of Ending States That Back Terror" as if that was a rationale, measured, or even sane option. States that have been identified for possible elimination are "a number of Asian and African countries, like Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and even Pakistan." This is beyond shocking and horrific-it is just as potentially suicidal, homicidal, and more insane than the hijackers themselves.

Also, qualitatively, these actions will be even worse than the original bombers if one accepts the mainstream premise that those involved are "madmen", "religious fanatics", or a "terrorist group." If so, they are acting as either individuals or as a small group. The U.S. actions may continue the homicidal policies of a few thousand elites for the past 50 years, involving both political parties.

The retail terror is that of desperate and sometime fanatical small groups and individuals who often have legitimate grievances, but engage in individual criminal and illegitimate activities; the wholesale terror is that of "rational" educated men where the pain, suffering, and deaths of millions of people are contemplated, planned, and too often, executed, for the purpose of furthering a nebulous concept called the "national interest". Space does not allow a full explanation of the elites Orwellian concept of the "national interest", but it can be summarized as the protection and expansion of hegemony and an imperial empire.

The American public is being prepared for war while being fed a continuous stream of shocking and horrific repeated images of Tuesday's events and heartfelt stories from the survivors and the loved ones of those who lost family members. These stories are real and should not be diminished. In fact, those who lost family members can be considered a representative sample of humanity of the 8,000,000 who have been lost previously. If we multiply by 800-1000 times the amount of pain, angst, and anger being currently felt by the American public, we might begin to understand how much of the rest of the world feels as they are continually victimized.

Some particularly poignant images are the heart wrenching public stories that we are seeing and hearing of family members with pictures and flyers searching for their loved ones. These images are virtually the same as those of the "Mothers of the Disappeared" who searched for their (primarily) adult children in places such as Argentina, where over 11,000 were "disappeared" in 1976-1982, again with U.S. approval. Just as the mothers of Argentina deserved our respect and compassion, so do the relatives of those who are searching for their relatives now. However we should not allow ourselves to be manipulated by the media and U.S. government into turning real grief and anger into a national policy of wholesale terror and genocide against innocent civilians in Asia and Africa. What we are seeing in military terms is called "softening the target." The target here is the American public and we are being ideologically and emotionally prepared for the slaughter that may commence soon.

None of the previously identified Asian and African countries are democracies, which means that the people of these countries have virtually no impact on developing the policies of their governments, even if we assume that these governments are complicit in Tuesday's actions. When one examines the recent history of these countries, one will find that the American government had direct and indirect influences on creating the conditions for the existence of some of these governments. This is especially true of the Taliban government of Afghanistan itself.

The New York Metropolitan Area has about 21,000,000 people or about 8 % of the U.S. population. Almost everyone in America knows someone who has been killed, injured or traumatized by the events of Tuesday. I know that I do. Many people are calling for "revenge" or "vengeance" and comments such as "kill them all" have been circulated on the TV, radio, and email. A few more potentially benign comments have called for "justice." This is only potentially benign since that term may be defined by people such as Bush and Colin Powell. Powell is an unrepentant participant in the Vietnam War, the terrorist contra war against Nicaragua, and the Gulf war, at each level becoming more responsible for the planning and execution of the policies.

Those affected, all of us, must do everything in our power to prevent a wider war and even greater atrocity, do everything possible to stop the genocide if it starts, and hold those responsible for their potential war crimes during and after the war. If there is a great war in 2001 and it is not catastrophic (a real possibility), the crimes of that war will be revisited upon the U.S. over the next generation. That is not some kind of religious prophecy or threat, it is merely a straightforward political analysis. If indeed it is Bin Laden, the world must not deal only with him as an individual criminal, but eliminate the conditions that create the injustices and war crimes that will inevitably lead to more of these types of attacks in the future. The phrase "No Justice, No Peace" is more than a slogan used in a march, it is an observable historical fact. It is time to end the horror. CP

Larry Mosqueda teaches at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington