Anniversary

[poliphilo]

I've just looked at the date.

Oh my- 9/11!

Why wasn't I apprised of this? Why weren't the papers full of commemorative stuff?

I guess because we've moved on. We have Iraq to worry about. Katrina has changed the paradigm just as the attack on the twin towers once did.

This is a fast-moving century.

We're packing more history into the available time than we ever did before.

Comments

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

4 years that have had their share of bad events... 9/11 was horrifying, but so is the aftermath that we are still experiencing. Reason, tolerance and common (well; not so common any more) sense has largely been replaced by mistrust, scape-goating and stereotyping. I'm not happy with these times at all.

But We The People have asked for it ourselves; we've voted our leaders into power, whether it's Bush, Blair or Ramussen. Why do people do that? When will they learn that a "strong leader" is often just someone who sees things as black and white and refuse to acknowledge that the greys or, indeed, the colour spectrum? Are we so easily scared (or so gullible) that we'll vote for anyone who promises us a simple solution?

I s'pose we are. I'm fighting hard to retain my belief in democracy, but sometimes I just wish for an intelligent oligarchy, really. I suppose I think of myself as "more equal" than the people who voted for our current government, scary as that is. I am a pig. Now, where are my dogs?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think these are crisis times for democracy. I've found myself thinking the same bleak thoughts. If the vote isn't delivering good government then what about the alternatives?

But finally I think I have to agree with Churchill. "Democracy is the worst form of government- apart from all the others."

[mummm.livejournal.com]

You two are such wonderful writers. Thank you for making me think your thoughts.

Churchill... so smart despite all of his critics.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I'm not an uncritical admirer of Churchill's. He was wrong about a lot of things- but wonderfully right about One Thing when it really mattered.

He had a great gift for phrase-making too.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

I know there is no alternative if I want to be able to take pride in who I am and what I feel; I have to be a bleeding-hearted, tolerant, socialist democrat, but sometimes I just wish I could be something else.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Deomcracy is in trouble. Fewer people are voting. In a way it's the victim of it's own success.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

It was Thomas Jefferson I believe who said the masses are too stupid to rule themselves. I think you're spot on re: the election of Bush, although in my countrymen's defense, 48%+ of us did NOT vote for the man (not an insignificant number). John Kerry was portrayed by the Bush campaign as a flip-flopper, and we couldn't have that in the White House in a time of war. Because God knows there's nothing worse than a leader capable of changing his mind in the face of new information/circumstances.

All sarcasm aside, I have to remain on democracy's side, if only because despotism is a bit harder to pull off. Unless of course, you were the despot. Then I'd be first in line to witness your coronation. :P

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

First of all I'm not just talking about America. The situation is, in this particular respect, just as bad in, say, Denmark and England, since these countries are part of the "coalition of the willing". The political rhetorics in Denmark is becoming increasingly sharp these days, and the public discourse, ah well... Not pleasant!

-And I don't want to be crowned; I just want to sit on the coucil of wise elders... :-P

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

Oh I know, I was just speaking from my own experience. I'm sure things aren't much better across the pond.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

You're weren't apprised of this because every single newspaper I've seen today has three inch headlines. All the flags are out. There will be four moments of silence today. Discussions are all over NPR.

And I turned on the television to find out what the weather would be. There was the beginning of 'that footage'. No thanks. I'll look out the window.

It isn't that I don't think the day deserves commemoration. I understand all the people who lost mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters will never forget this day. I know that the day after tomorrow is the 13th anniversary of my brother's death, and that I will never forget THAT for as long as I live.

But please. A little dignity? A little less chest beating? A more fitting tribute to those who died - and those who gave of themselves by participating in rescue operations- than the footage that greeted ME this morning?

For this day, I love the words of Mary Chapin Carpenter. She wrote the song Grand Central Station after seeing an interview with someone working at Ground Zero.

And I'll bet some of the people doing rescue work in NOLA are doing THEIR best to escort the souls of those they've found 'home' one more time, as well.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Aaah-

You see over here there's been media silence. The BBC's lead story at lunchtime was the build-up to the German elections.

I like Mary Chapin Carpenter's lyrics; I like them a lot.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

I love the song. When she told the story of it, before I heard it for the first time, I felt it was exactly right. Romantic me, I love the idea of someone leading the souls to Grand Central Station and helping them find the right train. For all the people who had nothing to bury and only thoughts left of their loved ones, I hope the song is healing.

[philtration.livejournal.com]

You see over here there's been media silence. The BBC's lead story at lunchtime was the build-up to the German elections.
Yes, the Germans. Do you see my point?

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

your brother's death happened on my birthday...

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

then that makes you even more important to me.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I rarely watch television because our reception is awful and I won't pay for cable. But Friday night I was enjoying room service food and knitting and cable TV at a hotel the night before a Saturday conference. HBO ran a documentary.

I still wasn't prepared for footage of that second plane tearing into the tower. I'm not surprised that I burst into tears along in my hotel room. But I was a little shaken to look down at my knitting some time later and see a group of eight stitches much smaller than their neighbors -- visible evidence of how little I've healed from that cataclysmic event.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I understand how terrible that wound must be.

we are healed

[mazzie.livejournal.com]

we know we are healed because every major network is planning a series, mini-series or movie of the week about 9/11.

we know we are healed because no fewer than four major movie studies have films about 9/11 in production right now.

we know we are healed because sadaam is in jail, iraq is better off, and the war on terror is being won.

we know we are healed because in the last two weeks we've been tested and we have shown that, without a doubt, from the presidency to the smallest local municipalities, we are ready for whatever disaster nature or terror brings to our door.

9/11 isn't a Big Deal anymore. It's a touchstone, a movie, a reason to unilaterally invade soveirgn nations, to curtail civil rights, to creat "free speech zones" too far away for the president to see or hear. It's something to compare everything else to, it's a measuring stick, it's a postage stamp.

Four long years later, the footprint of the twin towers remains and there is still no evidence that my cousin Jimmy, a firefighter from Brooklyn, every existed. Not a scrap or fragment for his family to bury.

Four long years later and my friend doesn't recognize his face in the mirror, still. After tours in Iraq (the first time around) and sweeping for mines in Somalia, he finally got a cushy desky job, out of harm's way. At the Pentagon. One minute he was at his desk, the next he was surrounded by fire and ash and screaming colleagues. He did permanent damage to his shoulder shoving an air conditioner out of a window and lowering his colleages fromt it to the ground. His face was badly burned and later reconstructed. It doesn't look like it was burned anymore, but it doesn't look like him.

I live in Washington and I *still* look up wearily everytime I hear a plane that sounds too close. When I go to the Mall and see planes taking off, flying by the Washington Monument, I always tense a little, wondering if, as it looks from my angle, if they will collide.

I don't know what my point is here anymore; I haven't known what to say about this in the last four years, much less today. It seems like it has slipped out of reality into a soundbite, a stick to weild, a "great story."

To me, it's something different. It's the day everything changed.

Re: we are healed

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid you're right.

9/11 has become an excuse, a fig-leaf. Every time an American does something bad or questionable 9/11 is raked up to justify it.

9/11 was a horrible thing, but not uniquely horrible. Most nations round the world have experienced something comparable in living memory. Many have suffered far worse.

The people of Iraq for instance.

Britain has been luckier than most, but we too have had to deal with terror. In the 1940s the Luftwaffe had a go at us. In the 70s, 80s and 90s we suffered from a low-level IRA bombing campaign. My own city, Manchester, had its heart ripped out by a bomb. Luckily no-one was killed. We shrugged and rebuilt. Earlier this year London was bombed by Muslim fanatics stirred up by Bush and Blair's foreign policy.

9/11 was when America ceased to be an island continent and got initiated into that condition of vulnerability and fear that the rest of us accept as everyday reality.

Re: we are healed

[philtration.livejournal.com]

The fact that you accept the condition of vulnerability and fear as everyday reality is strange and sad.

Re: we are healed

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well, most of the time I push them to the back of my mind.

But the fact is that terrorism of the kind we're mostly talking about here- which stems from small scattered cells and not from nation states- is very hard to defend against.

Re: we are healed

[philtration.livejournal.com]

True, but I refuse to live in fear in my own home. I can be cautious, aware or even suspicious but I am not afraid.

Re: we are healed

[saskia139.livejournal.com]

Anybody who's been directly affected, as you were, has an absolute right--indeed, a necessity--to feel the wound, to grieve, to not be healed yet.

The rest of us... should shut the fuck up. You are entirely right that 9/11 has become a patriotic story used to beat freedom into the dirt.

Re: we are healed

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

I sometimes think of the newly minted lawyers who were working at Kantor-Fitsgerald,who had graduated from SUCOL in May. The ones that were killed hadn't even worked there long enough to know if they'd passed the bar.

Re: we are healed

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Four long years later, the footprint of the twin towers remains and there is still no evidence that my cousin Jimmy, a firefighter from Brooklyn, every existed. Not a scrap or fragment for his family to bury.

Bless the memory of your cousin. He lives as long as there are those who remember.

I am so sorry for your loss.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering what will be next.

The scales have fallen from my eyes: The government can't protect us. It's clueless.

We hope for the best and expect the worst.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think the shape of the world is changing.

Up until Katrina hit it was the cliche that the USA was the world's only super-power. After Katrina it's not clear that there any super-powers.

Welcome to the Chinese century!

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Shhh! They'll hear you!

We're like a behemoth that is muscle-bound and sluggish.

We have a terrible wound around our Gulf, and it's getting infected.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Katrina- or rather the aftermath of Katrina- has changed international perceptions of the USA. "Wounded behemoth" is exactly right. Suddenly we're much less in awe of you.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

And we are less in awe of ourselves.

Underneath all our bluster, we're scared to death like everybody else.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And who'd have predicted any of it?

Once again history has taken us by surprise.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"Hopefully that will mean the world will no longer expect the Sun, the Moon and the stars from us any longer."

I think that will probably be the case.

[philtration.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong. The U.S. should be able to handle its own problems and we should be capable of doing great things. I just have grown tired of seeing my tax dollars go to other nations who hate us while our own matters are not addressed first. Why should I finance the advancement of other nations only to see my own country slowly slip into the abyss? I am not a Republican or a Democrat. I am not a Liberal or a Conservative. I am not a Nationalist, Isolationist or Imperialist. Just an American who sometimes wants to shout "ENOUGH!"

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's fair enough.

Every government's prime responsibility is towards its own citizens.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Whoops. The word "are" is missing from the second paragraph.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I read the "are" into it without stopping. Filled it right in.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Isn't it odd how the mind reads what it expects to see rather than what is actually there?

Do you know this one?

Paris in the
the spring

[philtration.livejournal.com]

And when the Chinese want to start flexing some muscle and invade one of their neighbors, I am sure that the world will wring it's hands and cry for America to "do something" Some things never change.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The Chinese are the most isolationist nation on earth. They're the guys who built that enormous wall to keep the barbarians out. If they stay true to historical form they won't be looking to invade anybody.

But they are set to become the world's largest economy.

[philtration.livejournal.com]

I disagree. They have been setting their sights on Taiwan for some time now and I feel that it is just a matter of time before something hostile happens over that island. They have also stepped up their rhetoric with Japan regarding WW II 60 years after it ended. Why? Because they are now the military power and Japan has left their defense in the hands of the U.S. In spite of their growing economic power (thanks to the foolish help of the U.S.) they still cling to dreams of communism even after it has failed every where else.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The Chinese regard Taiwan as a part of their territory. They feel about it rather the way you guys would feel if Rhode Island were in the hands of a hostile regime. As for Japan, well, I think they're alarmed that Japan is showing signs of turning all nationalistic again. They suffered very badly from Japanese imperialism last century. There's an element of justifiable paranoia in their attitude.

Hell, I don't hold a brief for the Chinese government. It's a foul dictatorship, but I don't suspect them of wanting to conquer the world.

[philtration.livejournal.com]

I don't know.That would be like the U.S. claiming that Cuba was part of their territory. We did take that Island from Spain in the war along with the Philippines you know. I know that they suffered at the hands of the Japanese but why wait 60 years to start all of this "we want an apology" crap?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

9/11 changed things, but Katrina has changed them again. We're now living in another phase of history.

[philtration.livejournal.com]

Hopefully that will mean the world will no longer expect the Sun, the Moon and the stars from us any longer. The cost to rebuild New Orleans will exceed the billions of dollars that we spent rebuilding Europe and the U.K. after WW II. Thank god those nations are grateful for our efforts and will donate their money to help American citizens just like we have done for them. They will help won't they?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The Ashes are almost within our grasp. All our batsmen have to do is play sensibly.

There's only one man who could conceivably overturn our applecart- Shane Warne!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's the tea break- and it's been K.P.who's been rocking Warne's world.

Three cheers for K.P.! It's the final (crucial) Test and he's just fulfilled his promise (and scored his maiden test century.)