Our New Imperial Religion

I keep wondering about the "no stories"-- the so called mosque at ground zero and the guy who either did or didn't (I can't keep up) burn a Qur'an for our new High Holy Day, September 11th.

September 11th has become America's Good Friday. We celebrate victimization at the hands of the Muslim Horde. Not even our gadzillion dollar defense system could defend our skies against these evil geniuses.

We must pull out all the stops and go after these demons, these radical Muslims--these terrorists. With ritual and superstition usually reserved for the faithful, we remember 9/11. As medieval Christians remembered Good Friday as the day "the Jews killed our Lord" so we remember September 11th as the day when "Radical Muslims attacked our Freedoms."

Just mix in some hocus pocus and little holy juice and you got yourself a new religion.

Here are a couple of thoughtful pieces by Michel Chossudovsky. I think he nails it:

September 11th, 2008, 9/11 and The American Inquisition.

"The Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT) is presented as a "Clash of Civilizations", a war between competing values and religions, when in reality it is an outright war of conquest, guided by strategic and economic objectives.

The GWOT is the ideological backbone of the American Empire. It defines US military doctrine, including the preemptive use of nuclear weapons against the "state sponsors" of terrorism.

The preemptive "defensive war" doctrine and the "war on terrorism" against Al Qaeda constitute essential building blocks of America’s National Security Strategy as formulated in early 2002. The objective is to present "preemptive military action" —meaning war as an act of "self-defense" against two categories of enemies, "rogue States" and "Islamic terrorists", both of which are said to possess weapons of mass destruction.

The logic of the "outside enemy" and the evildoer, allegedly responsible for American civilian deaths, prevails over common sense. In the inner consciousness of Americans, the attacks of September 11, 2001 justify acts of war and conquest....

....Washington does not silence its antiwar critics. Quite the opposite. The inquisitorial social order allows certain forms of dissent. It is politically correct under a "democracy" to condemn US foreign policy in the strongest terms.

What is not allowed is to question the inquisition.

Those who oppose the US Administration are not branded as heretics. Many "Progressives", Liberals and Antiwar activists, led by prominent intellectuals, firmly believe that Muslims were behind the 9/11 attacks. "We are against the war, but we support the war on terrorism."

The New World Order builds a political and media consensus (i.e. the GWOT) but at the same time it creates and moulds its own opposition. It establishes the limits of dissent. It "manufactures dissent".

The presidential candidates in the bipartisan race are supported by powerful corporate interests including the oil companies, Wall Street and the defense contractors.

At the same time, these same corporate interests, through their various foundations (including Ford, Rockefeller, Gates, et al), support and finance a number of Liberal/Progressive organizations and alternative media.

9/11 is the cornerstone of the American Inquisition.

The lies underlying 9/11 are accepted by the mainstream antiwar movement.

US foreign policy is condemned, but the "Global War on Terrorism" is upheld. Wittingly or unwittingly, this endorsement of the GWOT by those who claim to be opposed to the US administration, provides a legitimacy to the inquisitorial order, which underlies the actual practice of US foreign policy.

On the other hand, those who have serious doubts regarding the official 9/11 narrative, including the 9/11 Truth Movement, are branded as heretics and nonbelievers.

January 4th 2007, The "Demonization" of Muslims and the Battle for Oil.

Demonization is a PSYOP, used to sway public opinion and build a consensus in favor of war. Psychological warfare is directly sponsored by the Pentagon and the US intelligence apparatus. It is not limited to assassinating or executing the rulers of Muslim countries, it extends to entire populations. It also targets Muslims in Western Europe and North America. It purports to break national consciousness and the ability to resist the invader. It denigrates Islam. It creates social divisions. It is intended to divide national societies and ultimately trigger "civil war". While it creates an environment which facilitates the outright appropriation of the countries' resources, at the same time, it potentially backlashes, creates a new national consciousness, develops inter-ethnic solidarity, brings people together in confronting the invaders.

Genuflect and carry on.