John Shepp :: Blog: 9-11 "Celebration" was clearly Spin

9-11 "Celebration" was clearly Spin · 19 September 05

At the recently dubbed “Freedom Walk” which occurred near the Pentagon in Langley Va., on the fourth anniversary of the 9-11 caper, Chris Hume, an inoffensive video journalist from the anti-Bush anti-War Truth Out website interviewed attendees as they arrived for the scheduled performance by Mega-Patriotic Country Artist Clint Black “I Rock in Iraq”. As the video portrays there was only one soul brave enough to stand in protest to the most obvious of connections being reenforced by the event, the mythic link between Saddam Hussein and “Al-Quaeda”.

The questions asked to the families as they walked by was simple: “Why did you come here today?” Of course most respondents towed the line. Considering most worked at the Pentagon, it’s no surprise they were not willing to question the motives of their overlord and boss, Donald Rumsfeld, at what was for all accounts, nothing more than a corporate picnic. However, when the questions got more pointed, many could not answer intelligently, or with any apparent sense of knowledge about the real reasons why the US Govt took their people into perpetual war. Indeed, many of the answers sounded scripted and vacuous.

Hume: Do you believe that your President has been as honest as he could be with the People?

Attendee1: Yes, I do. Because I’m 100% behind our President.

Attendee2: For you to stand here and talk to me…

Attendee2: For her(pointing at the protester with her sign which symbolically shows that there is no known link between IRAQ and 911) to stand here and be able to talk..

Hume: Who’s “her”?

Attendee2: The lady over there has the audacity to come here, wearing a t-shirt that is against what all this is about, I mean she can have her time, she can have her protest, that’s what our country is for, we have freedom, that’s great, Do it! ..But don’t do it here!

This viewpoint seems to be the line “spun” by the mass media ever since 911. “Keep your mouth shut, even though it’s your right”

Attendee3: For people who wear t-shirts that say “No More Lies” and apparently, they didn’t raise their kids good enough, and apparently so, or they’re not good parents themselves because their children are dying for a lie? Come On! Get with it!..... In order to achieve peace, it doesn’t happen because you’re begging and hoping…and you know’s, it’s like flipping a coin, sometimes you have to lay your lives down for a greater sacrifice, we’ve seen that time and time again when there’s been tyrants in this world you have to sometimes confront, because they don’t understand, and they only know your strength when you bop them over the head, I learned that at an early age from my Father.

So to take what he means as some kind of perspective, real parents expect their kids to say what they believe and do as they would believe, or they get bopped on the head.

Attendee2: I think what President Bush is doing is the right thing to do. He has the facts, I don’t know. You know there’s stuff that’s going on that we shouldn’t know and I think that we know too much sometimes I think we’re…it’s too..publicized….and that we just…I don’t know.

Hume: Well do you think it’s possible to support the troops and not the President?

Attendee4:No! No…that’s a lie…it’s spin..

The predominant sentiment seems to be that we “don’t know” why we support this war, but we would prefer if other people would stop speaking out against it, it’s what our President wants…

You can watch the entire report here

* * *

johnshepp.org news

9-11 "Celebration" was clearly Spin · 19 September 05