December 1, 2005
A large sign was recently stolen from our front porch, where it has hung for ten months, toting up Iraqi casualties. The theft may have been simply an alcohol-related whim. But the sign had already been defaced with the following message: “So you can put up this sign. If you don’t like it here, why don’t you move to Iraq!” There was no drunken noise on the porch during the theft, four holding devices had to be unhooked, and I can only assume this was an act of stealth—a political one.
The sign was a terse accounting, updated several times a day as the numbers came down from the Pentagon. One would think that even patriots—especially hand-over-heart ones—would treat such information with respect. Even the logic of the inscribed graffiti would mitigate against its theft: American kids are dying in Iraq so we’d have the freedom to display such a sign. So why steal it?
This was likely the act of a single individual. Yet it corresponds to a larger pattern of censorship epidemic in our society. The White House bans photos of the coffins of these very subjects. Television may not show their deaths. So much else goes unreported—like the views of the underclass, or the huge votes against US policies in the UN General Assembly.
One might expect criminals to want to cover up their footsteps, and at this the Bush White House has been a master. But how are we to understand the complicity of the media in such covering up? And even more curious, how to explain the behavior of the victims who would rather not know they’re being had?
Three huge areas of know-not-ism spring to mind. The first concerns the details of our current wars, and includes the very numbers that were censored off our porch. What we don’t know here won’t hurt us.
The second area concerns what most commentators feel is the festering seed of the wars and backlash around the globe: US support for Israel’s cruel occupation of Palestine. Some of us hold a monthly vigil, walking through the Saturday crowd on Church Street. Our signs say END THE OCCUPATION, or TEAR DOWN THE WALL. The most common comments are “What occupation?” “What wall?” Whether reported in the media or not, this story is easily available at least for anyone online—the majority of American households. It is the curiosity that is lacking. Out of sight, out of mind.
But the major weirdness concerns 9/11. Four years and many Bushogenic catastrophes later, people still refuse to confront the contradicions and implications of that day.
Let’s take only the single most obvious strangeness: Building Seven. At 5:30 in the afternoon of that fatal day, a 47-story, steel frame office building collapsed neatly, at almost free-fall speed, right over its footprint. Whoosh, plop. Building Seven had not been hit by any aircraft, had not been touched by flying debris, and had only two small office fires the NYFD did not want to bother with. Curious? But somehow not so curious as to arouse curiosity. You’d think folks might get the hint that something was up.
But talking with many news-aware friends, I’d found that almost no one had ever heard of Building Seven. When I mentioned it was a classical example of a controlled demolition, I would almost always get the same response:
Gesture: Elbows bent, both hands up to shoulder level, palms out. Followed by
Sentence: “I’m not going there.”
A few people added: “I don’t want to live in a world where such a thing is possible.”
Any further talk of the explosion patterns of the towers, of critical temperatures concerning jet fuel and weakening of steel, of architectural history, engineering analysis, NORAD standdowns, photos and videos of early Pentagon destruction—all and any of this got those hands moving, flapping outward from the shoulders, go away, “I really don’t want to go there.”
But many people have gone there. Engineers, physicists, architects, photo-frame analysts, and the occasional intrepid, dot-connecting reporter. And guess what…they’re all—all— nuts, crazies, lunatic fringe conspiracy theorists! not worthy of media or political discussion. The need-not-to-know.
Albert Einstein once noted that “Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.” Interesting observation. This trio may go partway toward explaining the need of not-knowing.
The economics of “free trade”? “Too complicated.” When you put that sort of thing together with not knowing much about history, or geography, or math or science, it does add up to a semi-dysfunctional stupidity endemic in the population, annually measured and bewailed. But as Chomsky points out, this is not native stupidity, but a stupidity engineered by the system. People are plenty smart on the street, or concerning the statistics of sports. But intelligence about history, etc. is not encouraged. The attitude is introjected: “I can’t understand.” “I do not need to know.” “Best to trust the experts.”
The fear factor is obvious, a major tactic of all authoritarian institutions, from elementary school to Guantanamo. The more I know, the more there is to be afraid of. Like possible administration complicity in 9/11? Best not to know.
Greed may be what drives it all. Why are we afraid? In large part because we’ve got it and they want it. Share more equitably with the world? Forget it. The best way to avoid guilt around this moral weasling is not to know—not to know other languages, world geography, international dynamics, the ecological state of affairs. Not to know the misery our greed creates. Our need not-to-know is urgent. Steal the signs