9/11. This day has become a symbol. A political symbol that has been used to mute our true feeling of grief and horror for that day, and ignite in this nation a national terror, a political terror that was then used by Bush and Cheney to advance their perverted political ideology that otherwise would never have been accepted. The terrorists could not have hoped for such success. I remember President Double-yuh saying with fist pounding emphasis: “This will not stand!” and he was right. It did not stand, but was advanced by him and his puppeteers. I watched in disbelief as people were jumping from the windows of the towers and falling to the pavement like stunt doubles in an everyday Hollywood movie. But this was no movie. Then the collapse of the buildings, like hot wax melting and the dust clouds that seemed to have been released for the purpose of covering, finally, the horror of the scene. I kept saying, in my profound American ignorance, What do these people want? What are they so pissed off about? I was ignorant and detached, just another cookie-cutter Ugly American picking his nose in disbelief.
As a nation, we had a chance on that day to wake up and smell the stench of our selfishness and ignorance. Sadly, we blew it. Instead, what is now called 9/11 has become a call for our deep seeded bigotry to rise to the surface. Hate, hate, and more hate. Us and them. Axis of Evil. How many innocents killed since then in the name of American Freedom? The rise of a frightening nationalism (Nationalism is always frightening!). Religious zealotry. The invocation of God’s fucking name to somehow justify our pitiful anger and fear. We are a nation of morons. Tens of millions of us voted for Bush – the SECOND time around, and we are about to do it all once again. Why? Because we are angry. Angry that our pillows have not been fluffed properly. Angry that a black man is now the President of the United States. Angry that our greed and stupidity is finally catching up with us. Angry that our “I’ve got mine, and fuck you!” attitudes are no longer paying financial dividends. Angry that our precious, polluting, greedy, selfish nation is in deep decline, a decline from which we will not ever recover. The poor are angry because they want it all. The rich are angry because they can’t have more. The sick are dying. The children are ignorant. The hard working are unemployed. The wise are silent. The singers are mute. And the masses are pointing fingers at one another. Hate is our touchstone. Fear is our god! We worship fear and will kill for it. Why? Why, all this? Because we are not alive. Because we are not vital. Because we are not singing with the birds and swimming with the fish – the few that remain. Because we are all stuck in the spinning mantra: Make a living. Face reality. Do your duty. Pay your dues. Suck it up.
We have but one job in this life and that is to live. LIVE! Live our vitality. Live our dreams. Live in each moment. Live together as the brothers and sisters that we all are. Live the truth. Share the wealth of all this life provides. Help those in need and ask for help when in need. Don’t want for anything; accept everything. There is enough on the earth for all of us. Everything is provided. There is no need to hoard out of the fear of not enough.
This day can be transformed into a day of thanksgiving – thanksgiving for the moment in time when we, as a nation, turned away from the darkness of fear and into the light of hope and trust. This day can be transformed into a holy day, a celebration of life. It takes only our will and our dedication to joy and our renouncement of fear and our acceptance of the abundance of life of which we are an integral part.
Don’t worry, be happy!
Peace and love.
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4 comments:
I read a blog post on the NYT about the book by Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree. Have you ever ready any Shel Silverstein? The man invokes thought. This particular book is about a boy and a tree who loved him. First the boy takes her apples to get money, then he takes her branches to get a house, then he takes her trunk to make a boat because he is sad and empty and wants to float away. Finally, the boy returns. He is an old, sad, empty man. The tree still loves him, wants to give to him even more. All the boy wants now is to sit on the stump, which makes the tree happy.
The blogger posted about the book as an example of children's literature that she hates. She hates it because she sees it as a dysfunctional relationship between a mother and child and because she feels it perpetuates a myth of motherhood by martyrdom.
To me, that post as well as so many of the comments which fail to grasp the main concept of the book, is an example of just the type of short sighted self centeredness which has become synonymous with the american dream. People are so confused by fear that they don't understand the relationship between greed and dissatisfaction and generosity and happiness. Materialism is changing the land of opportunity and freedom into the land of I, me, me, mine. And we are suffering the consequences of that. Remember the only thing we have to fear is fear itself? There isn't a politician in this country that would take the political risk of saying something like that now!
I'm not a historian by any means, but the fall of the Roman empire might be an object lesson for all the "God fearing patriots", like the moron who wanted to burn korans. We have used ourselves up, depleted our natural resourses, the greatest of which was individual courage. It's over. We ain't #1 no more, if we ever truely were. We are so infected with the lust for greed and power that we have become parasites, and now the host is in it's death throws. To devote our precious lives to the persuit of money, money and more money - only money, at the cost of all our truest values pays increasingly diminishing returns and our time has run out. Now we have to get back to basics, and that will take generations. The first thing we must do is remember, remember the years before the clutch of fear overtook our reason. I don't know if we can do that. James and his generation have a tough job ahead of them. We must love and care for them for they are the future and our love is all we have to give.
Bravo, Buff: what makes you feel the difference between one day and the next. The birth of a child? Someone's death? Today, a tedious day, acquiescing to work, not a courageous day, by any means, a few simple affectionate comments, a few humorous moments, the cold wind in my face on leaving he building, some lights on the water coming over the bridge, a hot shower, a lifting from within for no apparent reason, passing by goodall's house on masonic where he lived thirty years ago, dead thirty years, buried who knows where, a phone call, an empty line, driving through the city the fog pouring along the streets like the mind exploring memories, sensation but alive, the probing nose of the daily fog, insistent, intelligent, indifferently glistening bits of tinfoil in the gutter as well as the leaves gleaming dully under a weakness despising moon.
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