FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TZM: Response to Media; Death of Osama bin Laden
On May 1, 2011 Pres. Barack Obama appeared on national television with the spontaneous announcement that Osama bin Laden, the purported organizer of the tragic events of September 11th 2001, was killed by military forces in Pakistan.
Within moments, a media blitz ran across virtually all television networks in what could only be described as a grotesque celebratory display, reflective of a level of emotional immaturity that borders on cultural psychosis. Depictions of people running through the streets of New York and Washington chanting jingoistic American slogans, waving their flags like the members of some cult, praising the death of another human being, reveals yet another layer of this sickness we call modern society.
It is not the scope of this response to address the political usage of such an event or to illuminate the staged orchestration of how public perception was to be controlled by the mainstream media and the United States Government. Rather the point of this article is to express the gross irrationality apparent and how our culture becomes so easily fixed and emotionally charged with respect to surface symbology, rather than true root problems, solutions or rational considerations of circumstance.
The first and most obvious point is that the death of Osama bin Laden means nothing when it comes to the problem of international terrorism. His death simply serves as a catharsis for a culture that has a neurotic fixation on revenge and retribution. The very fact that the Government which, from a psychological standpoint, has always served as a paternal figure for it citizens, reinforces the idea that murdering people is a solution to anything should be enough for most of us to take pause and consider the quality of the values coming out of the zeitgeist itself.
However, beyond the emotional distortions and tragic, vindictive pattern of rewarding the continuation of human division and violence comes a more practical consideration regarding what the problem really is and the importance of that problem with respect to priority.
The death of any human being is of an immeasurable consequence in society. It is never just the death of the individual. It is the death of relationships, companionship, support and the integrity of familial and communal environments. The unnecessary deaths of 3000 people on September 11, 2001 is no more or no less important than the deaths of those during the World Wars, via cancer and disease, accidents or anything else.
As a society, it is safe to say that we seek a world that strategically limits all such unnecessary consequences through social approaches that allow for the greatest safety our ingenuity can create. It is in this context that the neurotic obsession with the events of September 11th, 2001 become gravely insulting and detrimental to progress. An environment has now been created where outrageous amounts of money, resources and energy is spent seeking and destroying very small subcultures of human beings that pose ideological differences and act on those differences through violence.
Yet, in the United States alone each year, roughly 30,000 people die from automobile accidents, the majority of which could be stopped by very simple structural changes. That’s ten 9/11’s each year… yet no one seems to pine over this epidemic. Likewise, over 1 million Americans die from heart disease and cancer annually – causes of which are now easily linked to environmental influences in the majority. Yet, regardless of the over 330 9/11’s occurring each year in this context, the governmental budget allocations for research on these illnesses is only a small fraction of the money spent on “anti-terrorism” operations.
Such a list could go on and on with regard to the perversion of priority when it comes to what it means to truly save and protect human life and I hope many out there can recognize the severe imbalance we have at hand with respect to our values.
So, coming back to the point of revenge and retribution, I will conclude this response with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., likely the most brilliant intuitive mind when it came to conflict and the power of non-violence. On September 15, 1963 a Birmingham Alabama church was bombed, killing four little girls attending Sunday school.
In a public address, Dr. King stated:
“What murdered these four girls? Look around. You will see that many people that you never thought about participated in this evil act. So tonight all of us must leave here with a new determination to struggle. God has a job for us to do. Maybe our mission is to save the soul of America. We can’t save the soul of this nation throwing bricks. We can’t save the soul of this nation getting our ammunitions and going out shooting physical weapons. We must know that we have something much more powerful. Just take up the ammunition of love.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King, 1963 –
~Peter Joseph
NOTE: Just to be absolutly clear this article is not mine, it was received by me in a Newsletter from “The Zeitgeist Movement” therefore I am just passing it on.
Source: Newsletter From The Zeitgeist Movement
Alternativeaction Blog 
#1 by luca on May 6, 2011 - 00:31
FYI…Daniela Syrovy a writer for the Symaptico coffee blog has totally copied this article and put her name on it. Some word for word.
#2 by luca on May 6, 2011 - 15:04
Funny – her article has all of the sudden dissapeared from the Sympatico webpage cooffee talk blog??? I hope to see an apology on Sympatico from here giving the real author credit for their article. Also surprised Sympatico still has her as a writer!
#3 by cadmar1944 on May 3, 2011 - 23:03
I don’t know quite how to handle that assertion that I’m pathetic! but I’ll let it pass I know it’s not me, I don’t care what you think it’s only your opinion based on this one post and most likely you are in a minority of one. It is most likely Osama bin Laden died of Renal failure in 2001, but the UNITED STATES Corporation decided to sit on it and not tell their own people that he had died because at the time it did not suit their agenda, they did not care less that 3000 of their own people were murdered on that infamous day of 9/11. Your government, like mine that are pathetic. I am in total agreement about the families of 9/11 having a well deserved victory and having closure, but for heavens sake let them have it by prosecuting the actual real organisers and killers of their families because Osama did not do it. 9/11 was an inside job, well organised and carried out by trained people, if you can’t see that there is no hope of these families having having real closure. Notice I am not attacking you, like you attacked me. Attack the augument not the person passing on the message. I wish you and your family all the very best, I hope you find health, love and happiness and I really mean that.
#4 by emkay on May 4, 2011 - 00:54
I was going to post a comment in referrence to this article until I read his response to you…it would be a waste of time if I did so. He’s a conspiracy carnival act; no rational thought, no logic, no evidence, just an obsession with what he wants to believe in. I usaully don’t condemn name calling, but yes, this is pathetic.
#5 by WurmD on May 10, 2011 - 10:13
Regardless of whoever planned and executed the 911 attack, Bin Laden didn’t, nor did Al’Qaeda (as it doesn’t even exist). As per BBC documentary “The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear”
So, no victory or closure there.
#6 by BehindTheVeilOfMaya on May 3, 2011 - 21:03
If we are going to try and make arguments with quotes “Only the dead have seen the end of war” – Plato. Americans deserve the right to celebrate Osamas death. Period. Him being dead gives closure to some people who’s families were torn apart by 9/11, it’s a victory for those families who’s children have gone off to war to fight and die for our country and still it might mean nothing to the rest, You want to rail Americans and the media for being happy about this? I mean I can admit that some people have taken it a little far, but we as a country deserve it. We might be celebrating a mans death, but at least we followed Muslim tradition and gave him a decent burial which is more than some would say he deserved. Get over yourselves, you aren’t the moral compass, you aren’t high and mighty, you try too hard to be “alternative” and anti-“mainstream”. You are pathetic.
#7 by cadmar1944 on May 3, 2011 - 19:33
Violence only begets violence, when we find the root cause we may all be very surprised.
#8 by sulochanosho on May 3, 2011 - 09:09
The US, the superpower Govts are also doing the same thing: killing – but in the name of larger holy things like humanity, justice, democracy and so on. The terrorists (we call them ‘terrorists’) do it straight – they too have their own justice right and so on. Who’s right. We need to address the ‘root’. Peripheral killings and counter killings may not end the menace – it only may add more violence.