Commentaries
On Whose Terms does America Unite?
By Trevor Paglen
This is not the column that I had initially intended for this issue of F News. The column that I wrote on September 10 was about the proposed missile defense shield. One of the points that I brought up was that America was far more likely to be attacked by a small group of people with a truck full of explosives, or a bomb in a Fed Ex package. The next morning made the point moot.
My disgust and sorrow at the morning events of September 11 quickly became amplified when I realized what the implications of this could, and most likely would, be for the people of Afganistan in particular, and Muslims in general. I worried for the safety of my Iranian partner as attacks against Muslim-Americans began. As usually happens in times of crisis, the most brutal and repressive elements of the government and society-at-large were seeing their positions in the political landscape rise dramatically.
As the logos for the news coverage of the events shifted from
"America Under Attack" to "America Unites," a sea of flags (whose made in China tags are fortunately too small to be readily visible) emerged to a deafening cry for bloodshed abroad and racist attacks at home. A $40 billion check was written to Dubya for retaliation (doubling the proposed $20 billion for the controversial missile defense shield), with only one dissenting vote in Congress. America has indeed united on the terms of the far right, with an unprecedented 84 percent approval rating for a man who came into office without a majority of the vote.
The socio-political landscape in America right now can be summed up in familiar (if fading) right-wing Cold War binaries. Love it or leave it. Patriot or terrorist. In the current formulations, there is no room for the person who feels sympathy for the victims of the bombers, but does not think that the situation can be rectified with the slaughter of thousands more innocent people. There is no question that the deployment of the United States' military and economic sanctions will potentially lead to the deaths of millions of innocent people, most of whom are already victims of the Taliban and other repressive governments. It looks like there will be war, and it looks like the government is going to be able to pass the kind of legislation they want to limit democracy - all under the guise of national security.
Right now, your government is playing a cynical game with the public's intellect and emotions, capitalizing on (and in part, manufacturing) widespread fear to form a broad consensus around what are normally politically volatile issues. The popular media and government are framing the discussion in such a way that one has to go along with whatever the president says, or risk being labeled traitor to the U.S. of A.
Make no mistake (to borrow one of Dubya's favorite quips), the government and big business will use this opportunity in every way that they can to take as much of your money and rights as possible.
When you don't see any dissent or any indication of a minority opinion, you should get very suspicious. Disagreement, dissent, and compromise are the necessary foundations of democracy. When it comes to something as big as a proposed war, and you don't see any voice given to those with differing opinions, you simply have to ask where those opinions are, and why they are not being aired. Usually it's because the person with the keys to the airwaves has a vested interest in maintaining a singular narrative, and isn't interested in that narrative being challenged.
As I write, calls for brutal and anti-democratic legislation, the likes
of which would have been unimaginable a few weeks ago are being prioritized in congress. The government will undoubtedly delve into Social Security to fund its war machine, and we are already seeing a defunding of the remaining secular community groups and social organizations. There is a LOT of money to be made off of your confusion, despair, and instinct towards national unity, and someone will undoubtedly make it.
One would think that a central question to ask about the bombings would be a simple "Why?" Why would anyone want to bomb the U.S.? Why are there people in the world who are willing to die for a chance to express their hatred for our government?
This is precisely the question that is left out of the mono-narrative constructed in popular discourses. Perhaps we should ask why it is left out. It seems to me that if we are going to honor our dead by trying to learn from their loss of life, this is precisely the question that we, as an aspiring democracy, should be asking.
Trevor Paglen can be reached at www.paglen.com
The original Covert Ops column for this month "Will the Real Rogue Nation Please Stand Up" can be read online at http://www.paglen.com/Pages/writing/hegemony.htm
 | Illustration by Sev Ucok |
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