All I want is justice.
Although as soon as I say that, I think of something Francis Bacon wrote: "Revenge is a kind of wild justice." That's what I really want, of course: revenge. But all I am officially asking for today is justice. And, for the first time in a long time, I'm not asking: I'm demanding. I can do something to achieve it.
Justice. Fairness. Honesty. Accountability.
As a responsible and engaged citizen in a democracy, I should be able to count on such elementary virtues, and if they are missing from the conduct of the nation's business, I should be able to help restore them. But for a long time now I have felt increasingly frustrated, enraged, despairing, and virtually powerless to change anything. What could I do to get the government to stop telling lies, if the continual evidence of lying itself did not sufficiently agitate and energize my countrymen? What could I do to achieve the most fundamental and desperately needed principle of accountability, when so many examples of the most egregious incompetence, from Baghdad to New Orleans, didn't rescue us from staying one more moronic, doomed course after another?
I'm feeling better today; I'm actually feeling pretty good. Partly because happy days are almost here again, good times are coming, change is coming, it's in the air: Nancy Pelosi will be Speaker of the House and Sean Hannity will put himself out of his misery. But also, as strange as it may seem, I'm feeling good precisely because of the Disney-ABC docudrama about 9/11. However profoundly offensive it may be, it has energized and exhilarated me. There is something I can do!
If ABC broadcasts this sliming right-wing assault on the American psyche--if the network leaves in lies that distort our history, politicize a tragedy that once united us (and the world with us--that's a long time ago, isn't it?), and terrorize a still-traumatized electorate into reelecting the worst people who have ever led this country, there is something I can do. Something we all can do that will provide us with a sense of satisfaction, a sense that we are participating in the democracy. Something that will also symbolize the breaking of the ice, the end of the long stupor and paralysis of the good people (the return, in Yeats's formulation, of their "conviction"), and the end of the dominance of the worst people, despite (Yeats again) their increasingly "passionate intensity."
Make no mistake: this 9/11 docudrama is not happening in a vacuum. Like the beleaguered, disgraced President's recent flurry of smug, repetitious, delusional, bully-boy speeches, it is part of a political campaign, an increasingly desperate, no-holds-barred effort by these worst of people to hold onto their considerable power to enrich themselves and ruin the rest of us (including the world and the planet).
There needn't be any confusion, or even debate, about Disney-ABC motives. Who cares what the corporate spokespeople say? What does their spinning matter? The only question in the country right now is "Whose side are you on?" (And there aren't really two sides. People argued about slavery for a long time, but there weren't two sides to that argument. There weren't two sides in Germany as Hitler flourished. There weren't two sides in Russia during the show trials. There aren't two sides about global warming. Decent people know these things.)
But let's say there are two sides, for the sake of argument. All right. You, Robert Iger: whose side are you on? No, don't have your people tell us. Don't have them explain, extenuate, obfuscate, spin. The spin stops here. We will know whose side you are on by your actions. What is in your docudrama? What is true? What is false? What group did you allow to preview it? (Rush Limbaugh and his ilk? I see.) What group did you refuse to allow to preview it? (Bill Clinton and his ilk? I see. You didn't invite reaction from both Limbaugh and Clinton, and others from both political perspectives? I see.) Who is praising and defending your piece? (I see.) Who is objecting to it? (I see.)
I felt powerless to do anything about the Swiftboating of John Kerry. Like Kerry, I fatally overestimated the integrity and intelligence of a large segment of the voting public: I thought that Truth itself was a sufficient defense. How silly.
I feel similarly powerless to do anything about the 43% of the American people (by a recent CNN poll) who still believe in a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. These true believers are angry, frightened, poorly educated people (a large part of them, apparently, with only high school educations), and their ignorance is probably the most important single cause of the peril in which our democracy finds itself. But why wouldn't they believe this Big Lie about Saddam and Osama when Big Brother-in the substantial person of our powerful, string-pulling Vice-President-has repeatedly affirmed it? The dark, snarling flip-flopper asserted the truth of this false connection many times before he denied it (and denied he had asserted it). In other words, he voted for it before he voted against it. Why? Why did Cheney repeat this confusing and damaging lie? Because he wanted the American people to believe it. He had his reasons. Political reasons.
We can only assume that Disney and ABC want the American people to believe a similar lie, for similar political reasons, as they Swiftboat 9/11. If that isn't what they want, of course, Iger will pull their treacherous docudrama, or cut the lies, extract the right-wing venom, before the broadcast.
WHAT WE CAN DO
If ABC shows this distorted docudrama, I will not spend another penny on any Disney product, and I will block the ABC channel from coming into my house, and I will maintain this boycott until the executives under Robert Iger who are responsible for greenlighting and producing this work are fired, and Iger himself resigns.
Is that all? It's a lot, especially if everyone who feels the way I do joins me. I'm sure the top executives at the Montgomery bus company began by thinking that boycott was pretty feeble, too. Big talk. How would those silly people get to work if they didn't take the bus? And if they wanted to ride our bus, they would damn well sit where they were told, as they always had. (There weren't two sides then, either, as all decent people knew. There was only one side, and decency and justice were on it.)
Our Disney-ABC boycott will be a lot easier. Just thinking about it is fun. (Let's see: does this mean we will have to pass on the Mel Gibson movie? Yippee!) And think how we will feel when Iger is actually forced to resign. We can debate about which of them will resign first: Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, or Iger? (I think they all will, though Rumsfeld will be first.) Fun. We're the Deciders.
Justice. Fairness. Honesty. Accountability.
The Swiftboating of 9/11? Bring it on.