I don't have the answers yet, but I have learned enough to be dangerous, and ask better questions..

And so it is that the trickster finally makes his appearance as the October surprise that seemed to be  required by this particular Halloween,

Please forgive me in advance for what I am about to say. It may be horribly offensive to some.

I read in the India Times and CNN, scanning for what was on the Bin Laden tape.

Here is what I found:
"Although we are ushering the fourth year after 9/11, Bush is still exercising confusion and misleading you and not telling you the true reason. Therefore, the motivations are still there for what happened to be repeated," bin Laden said.

"Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al-Qaeda; your security is in your own hands," he said in an address devoid of the usual religious overtones or fighting symbols.

"Any state that does not mess with our security, has naturally guaranteed its own security," he added.

Bin Laden also challenged the central themes of Bush's war on terror: that the terrorists hated America's freedom.

"Contrary to Bush's claims that we hate freedom... we fight you because we are free and because we want freedom for our nation," he said, asking the American people to consider "why did we not attack Sweden, a freer nation, for example."

This is me again.

I hate to admit this because surely it condemns me as an infidel, but it makes clear what I have felt all along about our foreign policy of "interference to suit our needs". Those attacks didn't come from a group of random nuts in the Middle East. They came from a group who is taking these matters into their own hands with great seriousness, and are defending themselves against what they see as the encroaches of empire.

We applaud this sort of thing usually, for instance, when we toppled the British in 1776, or when the Indians did the same under Ghandi. But this time, we have utterly failed to see ourselves as the oppressor being struck. In fact, we are operating largely unconsciously in this regard, and responding with more force - a typical counter-move of oppression.

It's not about protecting or defending freedom. They want that too. They want freedom of self-determination.

And look our campaign responses? Almost identical: "Force will be met with more force....The US will stand united against this threat...."

Where is the peace in this? Where is the move to resolution? Why does Bin Laden look utterly composed and lucid, while we look like a bunch of bullies who don't like being kicked in the shins by the one-armed midget very much?

9/11 was a very Plutonian underworld response to our entrenched Saturnian tactics. They struck us from a place of blindness while our machines of war, oil, and repression ground on, spreading our "freedom" throughout the world. I used to be openly admiring of the way the Americans did things, versus the Brits, Dutch, or Spanish. The latter countries went for colonization, and domination of their subjects. We shunned that - too messy and does you in at the end. So we went off in search of enterprise without colonization. Can we just set up tent here, and sell you something? Don't you need a Walmart? A McDonald's? A Ford dealership? Some arms to kill your brothers? Can I get you some fries with that?

We weren't about colonization and domination - we were about business! Commerce! Free trade! Adam Smith and all that.

But lately we aren't about any of that. And when they didn't want to play free trade by our rules, we got nasty. Don't want to do free trade with us? Ok. We still need your oil, so how about some arms to kill off your enemies? How about you give us what we want, or we'll back your enemy and let him crush you?

I am so afraid of what I see in our country, and how voters are acting like a herd of cattle with a free-floating electric prod hanging about out there somewhere, just waiting to hit them in the ass. Are we such lemmings that we run screaming for cover with each broadcast on "terror"? Do our wannabe leaders have to reassure us that they truly will be King of the Hill, Big Man on Campus, and Defender of the "Free" World so we can eat our McDonald's and drive our SUV's in blissful ignorance?

That was a close one, Ethel. Them people need Walmarts over there instead of all them mosques. That'll fix their problems. Now hand me some more of them fries...