We sent out the latest edition of Planet Waves’ premium members’ issue last night. In it, Eric considers President Obama’s speech about taking action against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria within the context of its timing: the eve of the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11 incident.
This issue also includes this week’s horoscopes, which interpret the ingress of Mars into Sagittarius for all 12 signs. You can read the full issue with a single-issue purchase here. Or, sign up for a free one-month trial membership here, and get the best of Eric’s writing delivered to your inbox twice weekly through the Libra equinox.
Thank you truly for this piece. I try to avoid media (all forms) on September 11 while still taking time to reflect on the fact that it is the anniversary of the day I decided I needed to go for the gusto in my life, never wasting a moment. Your writing on this issue, and so many others, never fails to bring issues like this – that have become so surreal and ridiculous (for lack of a better term) – back down to reality. Thank you for keeping it real. Always.
Hell, here’s some Floyd’s Fletcher Memorial Home , quite amusing considering the state of stuff.
Eric: Alone (or at least almost alone) in the media, you have provided us with both a concise version of the truth and an inspiring way to persist through the lack of truth. There is both a practically political and nourishingly spiritual content to this piece about 9-11 that everybody would benefit from.
AND…the best horoscopes on Earth!
Thank-you, Eric, for a powerful & insightful piece.
I am a Canadian, & on Sept. 11,2001, I was still living with a very hawkish man, who on that morning hauled the little television set to the kitchen table & sat there staring at it, all day, as the planes flew, & the flames burst forth, & the towers fell – over & over again.
His solution as he stated it was “We have to kill all the Arabs, nuke all their countries.” Well, what did follow wasn’t quite that, but nonetheless disatrous. I never did believe the official narrative – it was a powerful gut feeling, which has been, in my opinion validated as more information has been uncovered.
I recall looking at Bush’s face as he was (supposedly) first informed of events in NYC, & I turned to my partner & said, “He was expecting this”, a perspective promptly rejected, of course.
I did not watch the entirety of Obama’s speech on Wednesday, but I saw/heard enough to feel it all a familiar & shallow performance, emphasis on “performance.” He seems to have become somehow shadowy & unsubstantial, empty in a way. Rhetoric supportive of all of the militant hubris is emanating from the leadership in my country, as well, with the full support, sadly of our opposition parties. Canadian troops will serve in Iraq as “advisors”, we are told. No one asked us if this should be done.
Before I begin I would like to identify myself so that any subsconscious agenda which I may be unaware of can be pointed out to me. I am a 70-year-old, white, male, homosexual Brit.
From 1968 to 1972 I worked with the undergound press in London and during that time helped members of the local black community produce a newspaper to aid in their defence against police harassment and judicial prejudice, an interesting oxymoron.
I relate this to establish my non-racist credentials in case any of my following remarks should offend black or other ethnic-minority readers. As a homosexaul – I deliberately avoid the term gay because I feel it infers a particular sexual lifestyle rather than a simple gender preference – I could easily identify with oppression and I want to work towards its eradication wherever it manifests.
I also wish to make it clear that I do not propose to lecture Americans on how they should govern themselves. As a nation I admire immensely their energy and work ethic – it leaves us Europeans “hanging on in quiet desperation” as Pink Floyd so aptly described it.
As a Brit, my reaction to the election of President Obama was cynical. Just after the money mafia had successfully ripped off the working world’s savings, what better time to appease the black community in America than by electing a man who was acceptable to both ends of the coloured racial spectrum. Let a black president have his four- or eight-year term of office – the world would take that long to recover from its financial ruin and it would be such an austere and depressed time that no-one would want another coloured gentleman in that office for at least a couple of generations.
But as anyone elected to that great office probably discovers, his or her powers are circumscribed by the puppet masters and all the deals they have sanctified in previous administrations. It was almost inevitable that Obama would come to resemble Bush. The figurehead is unable to maneuver. Even Hilary Clinton, it seems, is succumbing to that unwholesome fate.
But what to do?
Public opinion, by and large, determines the outcome of elections. If 9/11 were a government conspiracy – and Eric makes a convincing case for a determined and detailed investigation – then the conspiracist’s theories must be publicised. I would propose a crowd-funded movie examining the alternative theories about what happened and why. It’s been a while since Columbine and McDonald’s were exposed by intrepid documentary makers. If you want to get the message out there, the medium must be movies. And there’s never been a better time. Quick, before they close down the internet to unsanctified producers, before YouTube is Murdoch’d into governmental acquiescence.
In Britain on October 9 there is a by-election which the anti-immigration, anti-European and anti-gay neo-Nazi UK Independence Party is expected to win. According to current polls they can expect to receive 44% of the vote and they are popular across Britan. On that day Mars, Jupiter and, to a lesser degree, Uranus are in a grand fire trine. A good time to set armies marching … and it won’t be that unexpected.
We should make the most of the time that remains.
Aux armes, citoyens!