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From the Editor
Sept 11 and the Oiligarchy
( article published 09/11/02 )
Okay, I’ll get straight to it. I am frustrated this morning by all the 9-11 tributes and virtually every airwave filled with ‘reflections’ on September 11. Not to sound insensitive to the horror many experienced, and that our society witnessed, but I have to wonder just what are we reflecting on?
I was like most, a year ago, glued to the TV for days. Without a doubt it was made-for-TV-terrorism, and that’s how we in the West like it – just as we now like to soak up all the media coverage again, a year later, from the comfort of our couch, from the comfort of our car radio.
I question if we are really so changed by the events of September 11. If so, I think one of the things we would do is reflect on each of our contribution to the state of the world today. We persist in materialism, becoming more suspicious and cynical and self-serving. And perhaps it seems like a ridiculous stance I take, but we persist in upholding the culture that is at the core of September 11th, and at the core of any further instability and potential terror the world over – the culture of fossil-burning. OIL OIL OIL.
Oil is at the core of the US president Bush’s current and relentless campaign to bomb Iraq – a country with very little left to decimate, and due to unending sanctions, most likely without the fiercely complicated and expensive resources to harbor a nuclear arms production. America has a fraction of the oil reserves that the Middle East has. Hussein MUST be taken out of the way if America is to remain a superpower. Consider that an attack on Iraq would most likely result in, among other things, the oil-fields being set ablaze, as they were 10 years ago – why would Saddam Hussein respond differently this time? This would be an unprecedented environmental disaster. Did we not all see the pollution cloud over Southeast Asia this summer – prematurely killing an estimated 2 MILLION people a year as we speak? Did we not hear of the record-breaking fires and floods in various parts of the world this summer? The climate change that is right now affecting insect migration, causing the spreading of disease and destroying wildlife everywhere. The fact that nearly half of the world of nature has moved to or beyond the brink of extinction in the past 100 years.
As I stated, perhaps my perspective sounds silly. Stop burning fossil fuels – how ridiculous. But is it?? Each one of us has the power to affect our very corrupted society and to dismantle the murderous illusion it seeks to perpetuate, at its source. STOP BURNING FOSSIL FUELS. Be radical. Go crazy. Do the unthinkable. Get a bicycle. Oh, and love one another, even the enemy – because the enemy is us. We are One.
Please keep in touch with Cream and Millennium Art Gallery – we are artist-driven and free-spirited, and there’s no time like the present. Pass it on!
