September 12th, finally...

I have avoided television for days now but think it's safe to return to the waters. Yesterday I swam through (and by that I mean I hit the delete key) on a number of e-mails sent out by various groups and certain friends. Basically anything that looked like a jingoistic war rally cry about how the wives of NY firemen needed more cash to buy a beach house was left unread. I logged on to MySpace to find what I think was the best thing written that day by my friend Dimitri:

As you know today is the anniversary of a terrible political event which changed the fate of a nation and the world. We must never forget it and we must always hold those behind it responsible and continue our attempts to bring them to justice.

I'm talking of course about the September 11 1973 US-sponsored coup against Salvador Allende of Chile; the world's first democratically elected Marxist leader. It brought along not only Allende's death, but also Augusto Pinochet's 27-year-long reign of terror, defended by the US and Britain.

Somewhere out there, Henry Kissinger lives as a free man.

Oh and as for the other thing that happened on this date....

Why do they hate us?