Nine-eleven was a wake up call but America is still sound asleep. The 230-year-old democracy just won't open its eyes. Doctors are calling it the worst case of denial since Richard Nixon swore that he wasn't a crook.
Leading sleep disorder specialists, however, say that it's much worse than mere inability to deal with things the way they are. The country is suffering from narcolepsy, a disease that compels its victims to suddenly doze off in the middle of the day or even when taking a shower, no matter how many hours of sleep they've gotten. America, they say, has fallen asleep continuously since 9/11. One of its rare moments of lucidity, they contend, occurred when maverick Ned Lamont won the Democratic primary in Connecticut. Another was reflected in polls showing the war in Iraq to be more unpopular than tofu at a Texas barbecue. Of course, after the arrest of several "terrorists" at Heathrow Airport in London, America experienced a severe attack of narcolepsy, as reflected in the upsurge in approval for both the war and President George Bush.
Other experts claim that not all Americans have fallen victim to this normally rare disorder. They point to the massive anti-war demonstrations that have taken place since 9/11. Millions of people have poured into the streets to protest the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite being spied on and accused of aiding and abetting terrorists, they continue to march tirelessly. To give credit where the mainstream media won't, it was peaceniks in San Francisco who first uncovered the startling truth that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. When it became apparent that George Bush and company lied about those weapons to push the country into war for control of oil in the Middle East (and make lots of bucks for their corporate buddies), most Americans lapsed into a deep state of narcolepsy and slept until the media moved on to news about the latest psycho claiming to have murdered JonBenet Ramsey.
One researcher, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals from right-wing Christians who give life-threatening paper cuts with their Bibles, said that the Bush administration has actually learned how to provoke narcolepsy in most Americans by merely mentioning certain key phrases. It's like Pavlov's experiments with dogs, she explained: Mention "gay marriage" and most Americans start waving flags and reaching for the nitrite-rich hot dogs. "When Bush gets in trouble for lying or gross incompetence, he merely has to utter the phrase 'gay marriage' and Americans go to sleep. It's pure genius," said the researcher.
It gets worse. Said the researcher: "We also think Bush has been manipulating 9/11 itself to induce a general acceptance of anything he says or does. It works. And the media's become just as expert at displaying images of 9/11 whenever they don't want Americans to notice that they're not doing their jobs as journalists and asking tough questions: For instance, how much did the administration know beforehand and what really led to the attacks on the twin towers?"
In fact, if one watches the corporate media, one never finds any mention of the correlation between our government's screwed-up policies in the Middle East and terrorism directed against this country, added the researcher. "For decades, America's oil addiction has led it to put dictators such as Hussein into power, and to employ seamy characters such as Osama bin Laden to do its bidding. When those folks turn against us, the media treats them as if they have always been the bad guys. It's classic narcoleptic behavior."
All of the experts agree that the most potent narcolepsy-inducing word of all is "terrorist." Like "communist" of the 1950s and 1960s, "terrorist" is a catchall for anyone who doesn't agree with what the current administration is doing. Anyone can be a "terrorist." As Bush might explain it, if he had cue cards, a 94-year-old grandmother who attends anti-war rallies in her wheelchair is a "terrorist" but the soldiers who murder Iraqi children are "freedom fighters."
In its final stages, the American form of narcolepsy produces an inability to distinguish truth from fiction, which explains why ABC aired a historically inaccurate miniseries on 9/11. Said one media expert: "Most Americans don't care if someone makes up things and presents them as facts as long as they can feel good about their oil-guzzling lifestyles. History books contain more fiction than truth. So does most of what the media reports about 9/11 and terrorism. But who notices these things when they're sound asleep?"
There is no known cure for narcolepsy but doctors recommend avoiding sleep-inducing behaviors such as reading or watching the mainstream media, listening to speeches by politicians, and attending religious services, especially of the fundamentalist kind.
Tommi Avicolli Mecca is a radical working-class southern Italian queer performer, activist and writer who hopes the FBI will include this column in his already hefty file.