bittershack has a timely, and eloquent response to Bush’s declaration of Sept. 11th as “Patriot’s Day”.

The people who died in the World Trade Center did not die for their country. If anything, they died because of their country. They did not willingly lay down their lives for a cause, for God and a nation. They did not die chanting America the Beautiful. They died not knowing what the hell was going on. They died eating doughnuts and drinking coffee and shuffling papers and counting up profits and cleaning bathrooms and making meals. Some died thinking it was all just a terrible accident.

This is both a re-writing of history, and morality. Should we only mourn those Americans who have died to further the project of global domination and the lining of corporate pockets? Is this our modern American Jihad (a notion that has so caught our fancy of late) where to be declared a patriot is to be granted the keys to heaven and the right to be mourned? Isn’t it enough that people died? Perhaps we need to register with some agency, like organ donors do, and note whether we are willing to allow our deaths to be turned into fodder for political campaigns and national circus. ### The other September 11th

Also at bittershack> On Sept. 11, 1973, the United States backed a military coup to assassinate the democratically elected Salvador Allende and install dictator, murderer, and chronic human-rights abuser Augusto Pinochet. The Sept. 11 coup killed 3,000 people.

As I mull that over, wondering at history’s bitter humor, David Rovics is playing in the background – “I campaigned for Allende for a nation without fear, Didn’t look behind me for the day I’d disappear” comes drifting out of the speakers. I’ve got chills. ### The other Patriot’s Day

Also, Massachusetts and Maine already celebrate a Patriot’s Day, on April 19th, which is alternatively a celebration of the football team, or the battle of Lexington and Concord depending on whom you ask. Someone hand that man a thesaurus, we’ve got: Patriot’s Day, Patriot Act, Patriot Missiles, and several hundred speeches about Patriots. English is a big complex sprawling language, lots of good words out there, find some new ones.