Professor Ward Churchill was fired from his teaching position at the University of Colorado for his comments surrounding September 11 attacks. Professor Churchill described the financial and technocratic corps of government as well as the commercial financial interests of America as "Little Eichmann's."
I no longer see this government as an entity which represents me or my interests nor do I see it as representing anyone that I know personally. What has taken place is a melding of state and corporate interests to where one can no longer tell where one ends and the other begins. Tens of millions of Americans have faced the terror of losing their homes in this land and this President, this corporate pitchman, pushes for a continuation of the investment tax credit so that corporations can take yet another tax deduction on research before off shoring the manufacturing process.
Officially nearly one quarter of America's children live in poverty and the political class proposes only budget cuts. At a time of catastrophic national unemployment the political class calls for cut backs on unemployment compensation and healthcare programs. Are they mad? Do they not know the lessons of history? Do they believe that Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck can override the reaction to an eviction or foreclosure? Do they honestly believe that guns or laws will protect them from a hungry, struggling population?
I feel as if I've have been immersed in a bad dream from which I cannot awake. I've witnessed the changes in myself which unemployment and homelessness have wrought while I have witnessed the playback on our society as a whole. I no longer feel at home anywhere, I no longer have home town; I am from wherever I am at the time. I've lost my connection to a national identity and found a connection to these people like myself instead.
These feelings were made even more manifest recently as I tried to obtain a state photo ID card and was told that I needed a Social Security card to do so. I last saw my Social Security card while I still delivering newspapers as a child. I know the number but that is no longer good enough. So I went to get a replacement Social Security card and was told that I needed a photo ID to do so. Without these things I cannot fly on an airplane, nor ride a train, or bus. Under the Patriot Act, I violate the law just by walking the streets, I have become an untermensch, "Papers please."
I must now prove to the government that I am a citizen and a member of this society. A birth certificate and a food stamp EBT card from Georgia aren't proof enough. The clerks stood smirking at the counter and turned others away while I was there and it appeared as if that was their goal, to turn away as many as possible. Like a customer service phone number or a Microsoft help box it is doublespeak as its purpose is the opposite of what it is named.
The American media is nothing more than propaganda instrument; take for example the multiple versions of Osama bin Laden's demise. There is only one true version and we haven't been told of it yet. How does that make our media any different from the German media of the 1940's or Soviet media? Our country operates two well known concentration camps, one in Cuba and the other in Afghanistan where we hold prisoners indefinitely who have not been charged with crimes and perhaps many more camps of which we have no knowledge of, are we to sleep better at night because of this? Are we to believe ourselves indemnified from such treatment by our government in the future?
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