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khaosworksSo, it's been a year since I started this journal, and it's been a year since what will forever be known as 9/11.
I was on the Internet when it happened, someone said, "Oh my God, turn on CNN," on TinyTIM and I saw that plume of smoke coming out of the first tower, and thinking to myself that Tom Clancy's publicist had gone a bit too far in his stunts this time. First it had to be a tragic accident, a stray Cesna perhaps. Then the second plane hit, and it wasn't an accident anymore, and now I wanted the Avengers to show up and put things right, even as I started to dial my sister's number in New York and we all started to gather on #filkhaven, like frightened refugees around a campfire, sharing news as it happened.
And what has Dubya done in the last year? He's dropped a lot of bombs on Afghanistan, deposed the Taliban which had no role aside from harboring Al-Qaeda, enacted the widest-reaching legislation possible against fundamental liberties in the history of the US, exhorted citizens to spy on each other, detained people without evidence, without charges, without trials, and now wants to involve the US in another war against Iraq, whose sole problem seems to be that it's an easy target. All this while, charges of complicity in Enron, Haliburton, and other corporate interests go unanswered amid the dog wagging War on Terror, the economy continues to downslide, and the New Patriotism is best manifested in 9/11 souvenirs. And where's Osama? Waldo has been spotted more times than he has in the last year.
You know what I'm going to do today, what I suggest everyone do today, especially my American friends? Go about your lives as if this is not a special day, as if this is just another Wednesday, just another Fall morning or afternoon. Talk to people. Buy groceries. Read a book. Rent a movie. Play with your cat. Because that's precisely what the terror-mongers, and that includes the current administration, want you not to do. Because that's how they both win.
God Bless America.
I was on the Internet when it happened, someone said, "Oh my God, turn on CNN," on TinyTIM and I saw that plume of smoke coming out of the first tower, and thinking to myself that Tom Clancy's publicist had gone a bit too far in his stunts this time. First it had to be a tragic accident, a stray Cesna perhaps. Then the second plane hit, and it wasn't an accident anymore, and now I wanted the Avengers to show up and put things right, even as I started to dial my sister's number in New York and we all started to gather on #filkhaven, like frightened refugees around a campfire, sharing news as it happened.
And what has Dubya done in the last year? He's dropped a lot of bombs on Afghanistan, deposed the Taliban which had no role aside from harboring Al-Qaeda, enacted the widest-reaching legislation possible against fundamental liberties in the history of the US, exhorted citizens to spy on each other, detained people without evidence, without charges, without trials, and now wants to involve the US in another war against Iraq, whose sole problem seems to be that it's an easy target. All this while, charges of complicity in Enron, Haliburton, and other corporate interests go unanswered amid the dog wagging War on Terror, the economy continues to downslide, and the New Patriotism is best manifested in 9/11 souvenirs. And where's Osama? Waldo has been spotted more times than he has in the last year.
You know what I'm going to do today, what I suggest everyone do today, especially my American friends? Go about your lives as if this is not a special day, as if this is just another Wednesday, just another Fall morning or afternoon. Talk to people. Buy groceries. Read a book. Rent a movie. Play with your cat. Because that's precisely what the terror-mongers, and that includes the current administration, want you not to do. Because that's how they both win.
God Bless America.
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an addition to the list...
Date: 2002-09-11 05:39 am (UTC)I turned off a radio interview with Ashcroft this morning. He was either going to say "Yes, I stomped all over your civil liberties, and don't you feel safer?", or he was going to deny having curtailed anyone's civil liberties, and either way, I didn't want to hear it.
no subject
Date: 2002-09-11 06:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-09-11 07:14 am (UTC)A.
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Date: 2002-09-11 08:38 am (UTC)I agree with you 100% and have plans to go on with my life.
Warren wants me to avoid any bridges today, but I plan to take the same route to his neurosurgeon -- bridges and all -- that I took the last time I went there.
I feel for the folks who lost someone in that tragedy, but I didn't lose anyone I knew. I therefore don't feel a need to take the day off to mourn.
no subject
no subject
Date: 2002-09-11 11:50 am (UTC)today, i will rehearse for "for colored girls..." and go get some smoochies to make me feel good.
Right on
Date: 2002-09-11 06:07 pm (UTC)We had a moment of silence at the office, which was fine with me. There was a time for speeches, but only one person, a younger woman, said anything.
Anyway, I'd write more, but the cats want attention and I'd like to finish another chapter before bed...
no subject
Date: 2002-09-11 09:35 pm (UTC)-Read a book
-bought groceries
-watched tv
-talked to people
Was let out of class early so that I could attend a memorial on campus, but didn't go. I thought it was really quite tacky. Only difference in a normal day was I argued with a co-worked who supported nuking Iraq, then going back to isolationism, and bring America back to "the old days when all the small business were owned by born and bred Americans, not by all them foreigners." He also spoke briefly about the book of revelations. I comfort myself with the knowledge that, though he's well into his thirties, he's still a pizza delivery man.
Born and bred?
Date: 2002-09-12 12:42 am (UTC)I mean, where do you draw the line exactly? I'll have a hard time tracking down any 'Beaker people' over here in Wales to hand my house back to... Unless your ancestors wandered over the Bering strait at the end of the last ice-age, everyone in the United States is an immigrant into 'someone elses country' or is descended from one.
Gah! That bloke shouldn't be handling food...
I'd like to see the worlds' democracies shake down a few tyrants for their lunch money and make them play nice in the sandpit with the other children, but only if we do it nice and legal like... and not use Ceasar/Palpatines' famous line "Legal? I'll MAKE it legal..."
no subject
Date: 2002-09-13 06:23 am (UTC)*big hugs*
LMG
no subject
Date: 2002-09-13 06:56 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-09-13 07:25 am (UTC)Not that I'm thinking of anyone specific.
*hugs*
LMG