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Earlier today, I received an email from NYOIL with the subject line "In Memory of Sep. 11th." This was the email in its entirety:

In memory of Sept 11th
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7MnLHuhNTE
I think somebody blew the towers but they won't admit it.

--
NYOIL
the ideal

HoodTREASON the 2 cd deluxe edition in stores NOW
www.nyoil.com
www.myspace.com/nyoil

The youtube link is to a video that NYOIL put together this past winter for his mixtape 9 Wonders, which features a photo montage that includes pictures of workers jumping from the Twin Towers and lyrics about a (thoroughly debunked) theory that the Towers were brought down by a controlled detonation approved by George W. Bush. The video ends with a $20 bill folded up to look like the burning images of the Pentagon and the WTC, proving, apparently, that not only did a group of conspirators within the U.S. government have their plan together as far back as 1985, but that they were also brazen enough to detail those plans on the back of the national currency.

I have to give it up to NYOIL, it's a truly inspired way to memorialize September 11th: some pictures of people committing suicide, a wild conspiracy theory, and a reminder that his deluxe edition cd is "in stores NOW"! I realize that this is already sounding like a rehash of last year's discussion, but NYOIL's boorish self-promotions are actually just a secondary issue this time around. I'm more concerned with the inability of NYOIL, and more to the point, hip hop as a larger community, to deal with the current political reality without framing the entire discussion as some sort of plot out of a poorly written comic book.

Bush didn't "knock down the towers," as Jadakiss once told us, and they weren't "filled with explosives" as Immortal Technique suggested (here's a pdf on the subject, if you'd like to read up). Attempting to put the blame for it on one man, or a shadowy cabal of conspirators, is a rather dangerous proposition. It serves only to distract from the many real causes of 9/11, in particular the years of failed foreign policy in the Middle East, decades of sponsoring religious extremist insurgents in third world countries, and an over reliance on oil. Though it makes, perhaps, for a more interesting lyrical narrative, the conspiracy theory that gets endorsed by certain hip hop artists and their fans completely overlooks the role that all of our other politicians, and perhaps we ourselves, have played in everything that has transpired since 9/11.

This isn't to say that Bush and Cheney don't deserve a tremendous amount of scorn, both from the hip hop community and America at large, for what has gone on. Their stay in the White House over the past eight years fits squarely into the most literal definitions of fascism - "a social and political ideology with the primary guiding principle that the state or nation is the highest priority, rather than personal or individual freedoms" - and treason - "crime that undermines the offender's government." They are both deceitful, arrogant, destructive men who have done more damage to the concept of civil liberty than any other administration in the history of the United States. They've left us with a failing economy while trillions of dollars are wasted on a never-ending "War on Terror" that has created far more "terrorists" than there were on 9/12/2001 and fattened the pockets of their corporate allies. One could write a book - and in fact, there are several - on all of the wrongs that the Bush administration has heaped upon the citizens of this country.

Yet Bush and Cheney didn't act alone. For every unconstitutional and ethically bankrupt move that they've made while in office, there has been a Congress full of Republicans and Democrats rubber-stamping virtually all of it, from the Patriot Act to the Military Commissions Act to FISA (and it's worth noting that hip hop's favorite candidate, Barack Obama, was one of the many to vote in favor of FISA). And that is why I think it's so dangerous for artists like NYOIL to suggest that everything that's gone on since 2001 is the result of a group of conspirators. It lets everyone else, from the Congressmen to the U.S. voters themselves, off the hook for all that has happened to us. Let's not forget that at least half of the voting population (well, possibly less than half, but a sizable portion nonetheless) reelected Bush in 2004 even after seeing what he was capable of in his first term. And the Congressmen that have given their tacit approval to it all, they've been elected by us and have faced absolutely no repercussions for their failure to represent our interests.

If the conspiracy theorists like NYOIL, Dead Prez and Immortal Technique are correct, that a small group led by Bush has dictated the entire course of events from 9/11 onward, then none of us hold any blame for what has transpired. If you didn't vote against Bush, if you never spoke out, protested or contacted your representatives, if you passively handed over your freedom in exchange for protection against some unnamed terror, it's not your fault: it was all controlled by an elaborate conspiracy, and there was nothing you could have done about it! Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of all of this is that there is an underlying assumption that goes along with this line of thinking that once Bush is out of office, everything will be fixed - Just vote (or die!) for Obama, and America will go back to the pre-9/11 status quo.

Sadly, it won't be that easy. Obama is fully ingrained in the political system that has brought us to where we are today, and while I have no doubt that he will cause less damage to our country than, say, McCain, he's not going to return us to the halcyon days without further prodding from us. To fix things will require a level of political activism from the citizenry that hasn't been seen for decades, and any suggestion that the cure is simply removing the two current "conspirators" from office only serves to prevent that activism from occurring.

I realize that, looking back on this, I have probably opened myself up to being called a hypocrite. Last year I complained that not enough rappers had responded to 9/11, and now I'm attacking the artists that actually do mention it. My defense is that misinformation is often more dangerous than no information at all. If you want to get hip hop fans to listen to you, you don't need to promote theories that have no basis in reality. All you need to do is watch C-SPAN a few minutes a day to get enough information to put together material for a song that will be far more frightening than any conspiracy theory, as you'll see our rights being signed away with almost no debate from our elected officials.

As always, RIP to Al, Kevin, WC, Brian, and Amy.

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