9/11

It is an anniversary of sorts. A memory that we revel in; to some sort of motive that is: exclusively American; terribly counter productive and yet, this is our destiny.

We rapture in the grotesque and call it beauty. We ruminate for the lap of luxury and yet wallow in shit. America is manic depressive.

I have turned off NPR for the time being and am kicking it out with KCSM in San Francisco because it is 6:30 in the morning out there and they are playing music for 6:30 in the morning instead of anthems and picking-at-the-wound-commentary. So… here now we remain.

I’m not trying to make a political statement or kick up dust or disrespect those that have fallen on that dreadful day five years ago. No – we should honor the dead respectfully, quietly remember in our family homes.

My family had a strict (by today’s standards) Catholicism. During Easter, Good Friday at my grandparent’s house from 12 – 3pm the story was that they would turn off the lights, pull down the shades and spend the afternoon in prayer. Perhaps a rosary or silent meditation; I don’t know. That was back before TV and computers and call waiting.

We would hear these stories while playing Candyland (and no the irony is not lost… perhaps even inserted.) in the parlor waiting for the eggs to boil. The horror; I thought. There was an old gentleman from my grandfather’s mail route that would come by and give my grandmother flowers for Easter Sunday (he came by one way or another; I just don’t remember what for or why…but he brought flowers but it seems like it was Easter). The experience seems soft filter and starchy; but the sentiment was strong in those days.

At any rate; in my mind I secretly wished we weren’t playing a board game or cards and we weren’t waiting for the eggs to boil but that we were sharing the mythology of Easter in the fashion of the old days. I say this because something is down and out terrifying when I see and hear what is going on all over the place with 9/11.

Where my friend’s is our dignity?

Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together

Thoughts so all unlike each other;

To mutter and mock a broken charm,

To dally with wrong that does no harm.

Perhaps 'tis tender too and pretty

at each wild word to feel within

a sweet recoil of love and pity.

And what, if in a world of sin

(O sorrow and shame should this be true!)

Such giddiness of heart and brain

Comes seldom save from rage and pain,

So talks as it's most used to do.

Christabel
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Sadly, I don’t know if we have any nuance to understand. We have been backed into a corner by the fear of our leadership. We have denounced our pride and our free will to fight back. We have saddled ourselves to a mule rather than a horse. We have let Casey come to bat.

Brave men and women fell five years ago. Several thousand have been wounded and killed in the effort to right the wrongs. Several tens of thousands have paid the price of misjudgment and hubris as well. And we, pitiful we…roll in their blood with emotional self satisfaction trying, trying, trying to match the mythology of the old days.

I watched part of a ceremony at Ground Zero yesterday. George Bush was walking behind a member of the honor guard and Laura was being dragged by the gusto of W to show his willful determination of moxie. Yet, his chest pressed out with fear behind his bullet proof vest and fear fell from his eyes because Yes; we do know that he is a coward at heart. And the Veep shameless display on “Meet the Press”; I apologize for you Little Man.

Don’t worry; I’m not proud of myself. I’m ashamed because I can’t join the party. I can’t bath in the blood like they can or the way that some of those protesters bath in the blood of their children or the way other’s attempt to turn a profit from scolding sincere families.

I saw a man talk about trying help a woman make her insurance claim after a member of her family was murdered that day. She said to him that she still ‘can’t get out of bed and you want to talk to me about money?’

This is the feeling I am talking about. No, I can’t tell people how they should feel and the way that they should express it and yes, if it is geared to the masses then it is going to appear watered down or crass or opportunistic.

Words echo in my head… when watching the President and the Veep… “Bin Laden
Determined to Strike in US” or “Okay, you’ve covered your ass”

I know I have mentioned many times that I receive the DoD announcements of those who have fallen in the line of duty. I hear these stories of the President visiting with families and how much he supposedly cries in these meetings. Yet, we see him smile and we see him joke.

To me; these moments of memorial should sound off new attention to the fact that there is a tyrant still running around. This should call attention to the fact that we are inflaming nations that harbor these nuts. We could be talking about finding a workable peace and less about ‘not taking any option off the table’. Yet, the only option that is off the table is abruptly changing a policy that instigates vengeance from our enemy.

All war policies are a walking contradiction. All foreign policies therefore will also be a walking contradiction. It appears that a 74 year old with a first grade (not first class) education is running our defense policy. Yet, we seemingly continue in a trance. We applaud these narratives of morbid fascination instead of actually accomplishing anything.

Because we are more interested in building monuments to the stupidity of man than to investigate any root solution we have gala events while we embolden our enemy. Yes, I believe that these celebrations are more emboldening of the enemy than to speak in dissent to what our current foreign policy is.

Enlightening as that may appear to be it would get me locked up in a concentration camp these days… I say that since it is fashionable again to talk loosely about fascism… and who thought that day would ever come back?

I apologize if I seem to be turning off the light to these lamented obituaries. It may help the nation grieve. It may help us in our ever shifting will to determine how to fight an elusive enemy. Jimmy Hoffa wasn’t in Iraq and neither is/was Osama bin Laden and yet 135,000 men and women in US uniform are.

Maybe if the Right didn’t exploit this to the point that it is like a national holiday (but they wouldn’t exactly do that; because then, well, it would mean a paid day off for all those Federal employees). No stiff upper lip or quiet desperation… only pageantry and pomp and circumstance… money, money, money…

…America, I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing…
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set. America is this correct?

Stand Up America for crying out loud. Stand UP!!! Stand UP! Shut UP and fight, fight, fight against the dying of the light…

Only WE, America; Only WE can make a difference… not our leadership because only WE can shape our leadership. WE have been nonchalant WE have been powerless WE have be enabling WE have allowed the message to be controlled.

We are a nation that preaches…WE “The New Colossus”

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Source: Emma Lazarus, The Poems of Emma Lazarus, vol.1 (1889), 2


Is this us now?

Do we approach our broken enemies with this appeal to universal love? Do we this so called Christian nation turn the other cheek? Or do we fear; fear itself?

Do we practice what we preach? Or doth we protest too much?

Or here’s something we could try…

Make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

grant; that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive;i

t is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

This is probably something that IS impossible? Ain’t it? In this WWJD world we rarely step up to bat to play ball. Perhaps the meaning of all of the celebrations and parades and pageantry is lost on my sensibilities. And if it was a quiet day of grief or a mournful last good bye would I be complaining too? But I don’t slow down and stare at an auto accident and I haven’t gone to watch a building burn since a house without electricity went up in flames; an entire family of six or seven got destroyed in my hometown because of a candle getting knocked over.

Tragedy is sad and it should be sad. Every winter I think of that family. That happened in the 1970s; I think I was 8 years old. I don’t have a parade and neither does the city. The house stood for several years; I used to walk past it in middle school and then walk through the baseball field. It was quite a juxtaposition; I would think “those kids will never play here.” If I remember correctly; it was five children.

I say this because tragedy happens everyday here in America and around the world. One day some bad people flew planes into the two tallest buildings in NYC. I spent some time staring at these buildings in an alley in Greenwich Village one evening. Those buildings perhaps represented the immensity of America to me it was like looking across the Grand Canyon or looking out over the Pacific at Big Sur… and like walking past that house where five children died in the dead of winter for no reason what so ever.

Milestones; that gravity can take away in the blink of an eye…

One day the celebrations will end. But when? After we capture or kill the culprit? When the next president is sworn in? At the Ten Year Reunion? Or when nobody cares anymore? Numbed from the repetition? “to mutter and mock a broken charm”?

Alas the day will come and the widows and widowers will ask; where have you gone?

and shall we respond, ‘bizzy bak soon’

grant; that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love;

Remember to remember

What it is and who we are as well as all that suffer… even the least of those…


May all those that were touched that day have peace...