[note: this can be read with copious links at http://www.mujca.com/911holidays.htm]

9/11 Truth Holidays!
Guy Fawkes Day, Boston Tea Party, 11th of the Month Spread 9/11 Truth Revolution

"I don't wanna holiday in the sun / I wanna go to new Belsen / I wanna see some history..." - The Sex Pistols

By Kevin Barrett, http://mujca.com

9/11 truth holidays? Well, not exactly. We don't yet have real cause for celebration: Justice for the victims and truth in the newspaper headlines and history textbooks.

But while we have not yet won the biggest battle—yanking the perps-in-chief out of office in chains before their terms expire—we are winning the war. The official myth of 9/11 is like Monty Python's parrot: "'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!"

But aren't there still plenty of people out there who believe the Osama-and-19-young-Arabs version? To borrow a line from Bill Clinton, it depends on what you mean by "believe."

For a story to function as a myth in the anthropological sense, it needs to be fervently believed by almost all members of the group it serves to unify and mobilize. If a group member questions the myth, he or she must be branded as a heretic and silenced. If widespread questioning occurs, the myth dies.*

While the official 9/11 story is still functioning in the corporate monopoly media as if it were a living myth, it is no longer widely believed by the general population. According to a New York Times poll, only 16% of the American people believe the government is telling the truth about 9/11. That is why an ever-growing majority opposes the 9/11 wars. Americans are no longer being unified and mobilized by the 9/11 myth. Instead, they are being disunified and demobilized.

The battle for 9/11 truth and justice is the central theater of a larger cultural-political war: republic versus empire—or to put it bluntly, freedom versus slavery. In the end, no empire can survive without widespread public support, without public willingness to sacrifice, blood, treasure and liberty. 9/11 was a fabricated mythic event designed to mobilize support for empire. It succeeded for a few years, but is failing in the long term. To ensure that it fails—to ensure the triumph of liberty over slavery, of peace over war, of Republic over Empire—we of the 9/11 truth movement need to settle in for the long haul, and make it clear that we are not going away.

Those who grumble "It's like the JFK case. We'll never get to the truth" are missing the point. The JFK coup d'état was primarily designed to change leadership at the top of the chain of command. The 9/11 coup d'état was different. It was primarily a psychological operation, designed to mobilize the public for a long-term imperial project of "wars that will not end in our lifetime." To function effectively it had to give rise to a sacred myth. By progressively dismantling the myth, we are dismantling the empire and stopping the wars, regardless of whether or when we bring truth and justice to the courtrooms, headlines and history books.

In order to settle in for the long haul, the 9/11 truth movement needs holidays—or more accurately calendar customs as we folklorists call them. Special days like Christmas and Independence Day, celebrated on the same day each year, commemorate key events that the culture wishes to remember, such as the births of Jesus and the American nation. Establishing a calendar custom helps transform short-term cultural memory into long-term memory.

As M.M. Bakhtin tells us, holidays are always the site of a battle between official and unofficial culture. And the good news for the 9/11 truth movement is that unofficial culture always has the edge. When medieval popes and clerics tried to maintain control over the meaning of religious holidays, framing them as occasions for the celebration of political and religious authority, the people were busy transforming them into carnivals designed to mock authority and establish a space of freedom, a temporary autonomous zone.

We the people, meaning the 9/11 truth movement, have already overturned the official September 11th anniversary memorial at Ground Zero. Designed to legitimize such authority figures as Bush and Giuliani, and mobilize support for the endless 9/11 wars, the anniversary events have turned into huge 9/11 truth gatherings. Last year the authorities even tried to ban access to Ground Zero, in order to shut down an event that has been taken over by the 9/11 truth movement. What better evidence that the official myth is dead, defunct, deceased, persisting as a peripheral illusion only because it is repeatedly scooped up and nailed to its perch by an ever-more-desperate corporate media?

But upending the official September 11th calendar custom is not enough. We need our own calendar customs—our own 9/11 truth holidays. And fortunately, we have them!

The grandaddy of all 9/11 truth holidays is the not-quite-one-year-old Boston Tea Party for 9/11 Truth. Last year on December 16th, a riotous group in patriotic garb threw an oversized mock-up of the 9/11 Commission Report into Boston Harbor, just as the patriotic revolutionary American colonists had done with British Imperial Tea back in 1773.

The original Boston Tea Party "went viral" and helped spark the American Revolution:

"As the electrifying news of the ‘Boston tea party’ spread, other seaports followed the example and staged similar acts of resistance of their own." The Boston Tea Party for 9/11 truth also went viral. All over the USA, 9/11 truth supporters joined the festivities by tossing the Report into rivers, lakes, bays, and streams. They burned and barbecued it, shredded it, and otherwise expressed their disapprobation. This year, expect the celebrations to grow and spread.

The Boston Tea Party is a perfect 9/11 truth holiday. It reminds us that America was born in an insurrectionary struggle against empire—a people's rebellion against official political culture. Being violently opposed to empire, to the point of Patrick Henry preferring death to life under empire, is what being American is all about. This, more than anything else, is the core of American identity—and the Boston Tea Party for 9/11 Truth helps keep anti-imperialism in America's long-term memory, while building the momentum for truth and justice.

Another important 9/11 truth calendar custom is the 11th-of-the-month day of public actions. By commemorating 9/11 and sparking action for truth on a monthly basis, Truth Action Day builds 9/11 truth communities and gets the movement off the internet and into the streets.

Last but not least, Remember, Remember the Fifth of November! Today is November 5th, Guy Fawkes Day--a holiday which commemorates the first great act of imperial false-flag terrorism in modern history, the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. As Webster Tarpley and Barrie Zwicker have written, Guy Fawkes and his Gunpowder Plotters were set up as "Catholic extremist terrorists" by a cabal that wanted to demonize Catholics and launch imperial wars against Catholic Spain and Portugal. It was the 9/11 of the 17th century, the gigantic public relations stunt that launched the British Empire.

In England, Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated with bonfires, fireworks and revelry. The British people have been brainwashed over the centuries to believe the official story, and encouraged to burn Guy Fawkes in effigy every November 5th because Fawkes "wanted to blow up Parliament." But here, as in so many holidays, the people have turned a pro-authority official holiday into an anti-authority carnival. The energy that drives Guy Fawkes Day is not anger at the "Catholic extremist terrorist" but popular celebration of "the rebel who wanted to blow up Parliament." That is why the brilliant graphic novel V for Vendetta put its anti-fascist freedom-fighting superhero behind a Guy Fawkes mask. And that is why the film V for Vendetta turned the story into an allegory for 9/11, celebrating rebellion against a fascist regime that had established itself by a huge false-flag terror attack blamed on Muslims.

The massively-popular V for Vendetta, whatever you think of the film politically and artistically (personally I give it an A+ on both counts) is a perfect vehicle for discussions of false-flag terror and fascism. Screenings of V for Vendetta, perhaps accompanied by house parties, fireworks, bonfires, and masked revelry, will help us "Remember, Remember the Fifth of November" today and in future years.

Today, Guy Fawkes Day, marks the beginning of World Peace Week / War on War Week, November 5th-November 11th. All antiwar activities this week, from the V for Vendetta parties and Ron Paul fundraiser today, to the Veterans Day peace events, 11th-of-the-month actions, and Loose Change premiere on November 11th, mark the first stage of a future calendar custom to help us remember the truth about false-flag terror and dedicate ourselves body and soul to overcoming fear and putting an end to war.

9/11 truth holidays are not frills, but vital, essential events. When Emma Goldman said "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution" she wasn't just thumbing her nose at the dour, insipid Bolsheviks. Emma was underlining a deeper truth: The struggle for freedom will be joyous and liberating, or it will not be at all. 9/11 truth holidays will play a key role in transforming a horribly painful, death-dealing event, the 9/11 crimes against humanity, into a life-giving force for peace, justice and freedom.

So remember, remember...to get out there and party!

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* Note: I analyze 9/11 as a scripted mythic event in “Interpreting the Unspeakable: The Myth of 9/11,” in 9/11 and American Empire: Christians, Jews and Muslims Speak Out (Interlink, 2007). David Griffin offers a similar perspective in “9/11: The Myth and the Reality.”