``...Part of the problem may lie in the bad habit that many people have in using "we" when they mean US political and financial elites. To say that `we' are thwarting democracy abroad, impoverishing other populations, or bombing innocent people, when really referring to the actions of the White House, the CIA, the Pentagon, the IMF and the WTO, is to assume a community of interest between the general public and those who regularly prey upon it,...'' [The Terrorism Trap, Parenti, fwd Yoshie]
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This is all well and good as far as it goes. But after a certain point `we' do begin to share culpability for the policies carried out upon us and projected onto the rest of the world.
At this point in time, it should be pretty obvious how the US economy operates and how it functionaries both corporate and elected conduct the affairs of the empire. While the seriously nasty details are usually obscured by various means, corporate, media and government spin and propaganda, deliberate lying and so forth, the basic shape of these matters are well known. How bad the effects are, how oppressive, how deforming of some ideal other state of affairs, may also be obscure in many people's minds, but again the basic contour is understood.
At some point in a spectrum of generalized knowledge and understanding, there is also a general culpability, if through nothing more than acquiescence and apathy. The problem that anybody faces once they reach a certain level of understanding, is what to do about it.
As far as I am concerned, here is the game we, and I mean a fairly large we here, are playing with the ruling elite. Don't hurt us too directly, provide enough to get by and we (a mass) will leave you (the elite) alone. At various points that game or balancing act, changes.
I think that the key point in this context, about 9/11 is that the elite let a little of the generalized world of wrath against the US, get through the barriers, and a collective US `we' is pretty scared and pissed. Now `we' can buy into all the bullshit about evil and support the pretense of vengeance that is going on, or not. The popular outcry against those of `us' who point out the obvious connections between what the US elites have done for at least the last forty years is very problematic. Is the outcry against blowback simply a collective guilty conscience? I think it is, pure and simple. On the other hand, I also think that the elite (media, govt policy makers, corporate policy, the rich, etc) have used this tentative reaction to theories of blowback as part of their own propaganda game, fanning the flames of reaction to any critique.
Now `we' are facing multiple dilemmas, since for at least the last two years the country has had blatant national election frauds, giant corporate frauds and collapses, massive rip-offs of the public utilities, terrorism attacks, bogus policies of indiscriminate vengences, and now a threaten pre-emptive war. That's a lot of shit to shallow and still claim some form of apathy and innocence.
So now the game of some significant collective `we' is can I ignore all this and get on with my life or not? Can I just pretend to shallow the known media bullshit and deny my own growing acquiescence and culpability in all this or not? And no matter what I might know and understand, what am I supposed to do about it?
Well, even if this doesn't represent some realistic appraisal of a collective `we', it is obviously what I think is going on in many people's minds. And I think the November national election no matter what else is pretended, much of this is up to some form of vote. Are `we' voting for assholes who pretend all this is okay, or not?
Chuck Grimes