9/11 reflection: What's changed in seven years?

In my first column for the Huntington News, I remark on how my community was affected by the tragedies of Sept. 11, look at how the event changed the lives of some of my Muslim peers, and howl about how it altered the course of U.S. foreign policy.

Sesame Creeped

I was slow to get on this, via Market Watch, but ... eeeeeekk. It makes me want to die.

Perhaps as a child I was too attached to what I believed was an innocent Muppet-powered program of basic thought and prescribed emotion to believe it could ever steep steep into the field of "trauma preparedness." I don't know ... do you feel like indoctrinating your child with a healthy dose of state sponsored fear? Personally, to hijack Sesame Street like this raises my Homeland Security Advisory System up to red, which denotes severe risk.

Barry Jennings, key WTC7 witness, dead at 53

Two days ago the Infowars.com crew confirmed the death of Barry Jennings. He was the Deputy Director of the Emergency Services Department for the New York City Housing Authority during the horrors of Sept. 11, 2001.

Jennings died after spending several days in the hospital about a month ago. He was 53.

By those accounts, he died just days before the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a non-regulatory government agency focused on advancing measurement science, standards and the quality of technology to enhance the economy, released a conclusive report on its investigation into the collapse of the 7 World Trade Center building. "Conspiracy theorists" believe Jennings gave critical testimony regarding the curious nature of the collapse of the 7 World Trade Center building during the mayhem that ensued on 9/11, a day that changed the world we live in to one of war.

Aaron Dykes cites NYC Housing Authority spokesman Howard Marder:

Marder has now officially confirmed that Barry Jennings indeed passed away approximately a month ago after several days in the hospital, matching confirmations from several other employees at the Housing Authority. Marder commented that Jennings was a great man, well liked by everyone at the Housing Authority, and that he would be missed. No other details were available.

Net dissent

The World Wide Web has done wonders for democracy -- well at least it's offered access to more information regarding social justice. I know that without a few of my favorite blogs I'd be in the fog regarding the dark side of foreign intervention, domestic police state and corporate mainstream media issues.

To keep abreast on my country's relations with others south of the boarder, I like to click-click unto Narco News. It's a blog devoted to covering the drug war and democracy in Latin America. Narco News has broke major stories on governmental corruption in Mexico and the U.S. and has kept an eye on the media. For instance, it was the result of Narco News reporting on an Oaxaca state correspondent with demonstrable progovernment conflicts of interest that led the Associated Press to remove her from the position in April 2007.

Another blog that just became of interest to me was the feed at antiwar.com.. It's not the most impressive tracker of antiwar news and events, but it's worth checking out every now and then. (I assure you Blog Against the Machine will crusade honorably with much more success in the antiwar/antiImperialist niche.)

Another notable aspect of the the antiwar.com blog is that it features a tracker of the amount of American military deaths in the Iraq War and breaks this down further into categories of casualties: since the war began (3/19/03), since the "Mission Accomplished" photo shoot (5/1/03), since the capture of Saddam Hussein (12/13/03), since the Iraqi elections (1/31/05), etc.

In a recent blog post, antiwar.com riffed on the Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin for her seemingly out-of-touch take on relations with Russia ("Palin is dumber than Bush and more dangerous than McCain to even think about the US possibly needing to go to war with Russia.") and in another they chide her faux pas concerning the realities of the Iraq War:

In a speech yesterday to U.S. troops departing for Iraq, Alaska Governor and GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin declared that the soldiers would “defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.”

Even George W. Bush finally admitted that this justification for attacking Iraq was a fraud.

But apparently it is still sufficient to justify occupying and oppressing Iraqis. (Palin’s son was among the soldiers deploying).

Is Palin a liar or a fool?

Lastly -- sometimes, just to cut through the bullshit provided by the mainstream media, or rather just piss into the wind of the monolithic conspiracy that dominates the society we live in -- I go to Infowars.com. The website features a link to the Alex Jones Radio Show but also acts as a blog for the most up-to-date articles (wire stories and opinion pieces) on the "New World Order," a dark and sinister cult of uber-rich oilmen, monopolists and politicians who are allegedly responsible for numerous crises -- among them the terror of Sept. 11, inflation of currency attributed to the Federal Reserve bank, and the trafficking of illegal drugs into the country.

Mr. Jones, the operator of Infowars, is a bit of an alarmist and I feel like his agenda is primarily to make money ... but I love that chubby face and the Texas accent that oozes with a daily dose of truth.

Anyways, this is just a hint at what I'm aiming for. Blog Against the Machine will document all antiwar activity and other radical efforts to promote sovereignty in this country, from Boston to Long Beach and beyond.

With this blog I aim to demonstrate the dissatisfaction of dissenters in this society who just want to create some lasting prosperity and world peace.