Death,
Downtown
By: Michael Moore
Dear
friends,
I was supposed to fly today on the 4:30 PM American Airlines flight
from LAX to JFK. But tonight I find myself stuck in L.A. with
an incredible range of emotions over what has happened on the
island where I work and live in New York City. My wife and I spent
the first hours of the day -- after being awakened by phone calls
from our parents at 6:40am PT -- trying to contact our daughter
at school in New York and our friend JoAnn who works near the
World Trade Center. I called JoAnn at her office. As someone picked
up, the first tower imploded, and the person answering the phone
screamed and ran out, leaving me no clue as to whether or not
she or JoAnn would live. It was a sick, horrible, frightening
day. On December 27, 1985 I found myself caught in the middle
of a terrorist incident at the Vienna airport -- which left 30
people dead, both there and at the Rome airport. (The machine-gunning
of passengers in each city was timed to occur at the same moment.)
I do not feel like discussing that event tonight because it still
brings up too much despair and confusion as to how and why I got
to live a fluke, a mistake, a few feet on the tarmac, and I am
still here, there but for the grace of Safe. Secure. I'm an American,
living in America. I like my illusions. I walk through a metal
detector, I put my carry-ons through an x-ray machine, and I know
all will be well. Here's a short list of my experiences lately
with airport security: * At the Newark Airport, the plane is late
at boarding everyone. The counter can't find my seat. So I am
told to just go ahead and get on -- without a ticket! * At Detroit
Metro Airport, I don't want to put the lunch I just bought at
the deli through the x-ray machine so, as I pass through the metal
detector, I hand the sack to the guard through the space between
the detector and the x-ray machine. I tell him it's just a sandwich.
He believes me and doesn't bother to check. The sack has gone
through neither security device. * At LaGuardia in New York, I
check a piece of luggage, but decide to catch a later plane. The
first plane leaves without me, but with my bag -- no one knowing
what is in it. * Back in Detroit, I take my time getting off the
commuter plane. By the time I have come down its stairs, the bus
that takes the passengers to the terminal has left -- without
me. I am alone on the tarmac, free to wander wherever I want.
So I do. Eventually, I flag down a pick-up truck and an airplane
mechanic gives me a ride the rest of the way to the terminal.
* I have brought knives, razors; and once, my traveling companion
brought a hammer and chisel. No one stopped us. Of course, I have
gotten away with all of this because the airlines consider my
safety SO important, they pay rent-a-cops $5.75 an hour to make
sure the bad guys don't get on my plane. That is what my life
is worth -- less than the cost of an oil change. Too harsh, you
say? Well, chew on this: a first-year pilot on American Eagle
(the commuter arm of American Airlines) receives around $15,000
a year in annual pay. That's right -- $15,000 for the person who
has your life in his hands. Until recently, Continental Express
paid a little over $13,000 a year. There was one guy, an American
Eagle pilot, who had four kids so he went down to the welfare
office and applied for food stamps -- and he was eligible! Someone
on welfare is flying my plane? Is this for real? Yes, it is. So
spare me the talk about all the precautions the airlines and the
FAA is taking. They, like all businesses, are concerned about
one thing -- the bottom line and the profit margin. Four teams
of 3-5 people were all able to penetrate airport security on the
same morning at 3 different airports and pull off this heinous
act? My only response is -- that's all? Well, the pundits are
in full diarrhea mode, gushing on about the 'terrorist threat'
and today's scariest dude on planet earth -- Osama bin Laden.
Hey, who knows, maybe he did it. But, something just doesn't add
up. Am I being asked to believe that this guy who sleeps in a
tent in a desert has been training pilots to fly our most modern,
sophisticated jumbo jets with such pinpoint accuracy that they
are able to hit these three targets without anyone wondering why
these planes were so far off path? Or am I being asked to believe
that there were four religious/political fanatics who JUST HAPPENED
to be skilled airline pilots who JUST HAPPENED to want to kill
themselves today? Maybe you can find one jumbo jet pilot willing
to die for the cause -- but FOUR? Ok, maybe you can -- I don't
know. What I do know is that all day long I have heard everything
about this bin Laden guy except this one fact -- WE created the
monster known as Osama bin Laden! Where did he go to terrorist
school? At the CIA! Don't take my word for it -- I saw a piece
on MSNBC last year that laid it all out. When the Soviet Union
occupied Afghanistan, the CIA trained him and his buddies in how
to commits acts of terrorism against the Soviet forces. It worked!
The Soviets turned and ran. Bin Laden was grateful for what we
taught him and thought it might be fun to use those same techniques
against us. We abhor terrorism -- unless we're the ones doing
the terrorizing. We paid and trained and armed a group of terrorists
in Nicaragua in the 1980s who killed over 30,000 civilians. That
was OUR work. You and me. Thirty thousand murdered civilians and
who the hell even remembers! We fund a lot of oppressive regimes
that have killed a lot of innocent people, and we never let the
human suffering THAT causes to interrupt our day one single bit.
We have orphaned so many children, tens of thousands around the
world, with our taxpayer-funded terrorism (in Chile, in Vietnam,
in Gaza, in Salvador) that I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised
when those orphans grow up and are a little whacked in the head
from the horror we have helped cause. Yet, our recent domestic
terrorism bombings have not been conducted by a guy from the desert
but rather by our own citizens: a couple of ex-military guys who
hated the federal government. From the first minutes of today's
events, I never heard that possibility suggested. Why is that?
Maybe it's because the A-rabs are much better foils. A key ingredient
in getting Americans whipped into a frenzy against a new enemy
is the all-important race card. It's much easier to get us to
hate when the object of our hatred doesn't look like us. Congressmen
and Senators spent the day calling for more money for the military;
one Senator on CNN even said he didn't want to hear any more talk
about more money for education or health care -- we should have
only one priority: our self-defense. Will we ever get to the point
that we realize we will be more secure when the rest of the world
isn't living in poverty so we can have nice running shoes? In
just 8 months, Bush gets the whole world back to hating us again.
He withdraws from the Kyoto agreement, walks us out of the Durban
conference on racism, insists on restarting the arms race -- you
name it, and Baby Bush has blown it all. The Senators and Congressmen
tonight broke out in a spontaneous version of 'God Bless America'.
They're not a bad group of singers! Yes, God, please do bless
us. Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not
right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get
back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people
who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes'
destination of California -- these were places that voted AGAINST
Bush! Why kill them? Why kill anyone? Such insanity. Let's mourn,
let's grieve, and when it's appropriate let's examine our contribution
to the unsafe world we live in. It doesn't have to be like this.
Yours, Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
|