esrosedotblog

I am sympathetic with the sentiment around 9-11 but I am grateful that many have developed some perspective about it.

Not to take away from people who have lost family and friends or even something as simple and superficial as their innocence.

But it amazes me that there are people who are still wallowing in it. I mean that they are acting like they are direct survivors which they usually, always as far as I can see, are not. In any way.

This reaction extends to some of the media as well.

This morning at the gym in side long range of seeing Fox Friends, I remembered what day it was.

They were saying that next up was Rudy Fucking Guliani.

If anyone needed to be quelled it is that dude.

I count it among my strengths today that I could endure the entire 30 minutes of indirect exposure and never see the bastard at all.

MSNBC seemed OK with Joe Scarborough who is kind of quiet on such things but then when I went for my flu shot, there was MSNBC broadcasting, minute by exact minute their actual coverage from that day.

I was astonished. There they were having it both ways again.

At first I thought it was just an outtake. No. It was every minute of every hour without, of course, interruption by any commercials.

I stepped away, almost sickened. I cannot explain the revulsion I felt but it was probably obvious as the woman at the desk saw it.

I said that it was a shock to see they were doing it and she agreed. The other woman was not so sure. The pharmacist said he felt the same way I did but was "afraid of saying anything about it" as it might upset some people who wanted to see it.

I told him I voted for "NO" and I guess they switched as when John went in later he said that he saw some idiocy of daytime teevee and I said that was nothing compared to the 911 coverage.

At my meeting this morning I realized right off that some people were into it. I buttoned my lip.

We somehow got through the hour without any reference (it is an outside issue of course) until the very end when someone who ought to know better did a turn on it. Making it all about him. I know for a fact that he was not there, had no one there and was only the furthest away observer.

I credit the loss of innocence. I am sympathetic.

I lost mine long ago whether it was about how the world works, how the US is vulnerable or how we had been extraordinarily lucky as no matter how many people hated us they had somehow not crossed a certain divide.

But we were alone in that respect. If you are interested and empathetic beyond the borders, the rest of the world had its horrors to tell a long time ago. Killing of innocents, hostages, kidnappings, all of it. Not at such a scale as that one day in NYC but the numbers added up to hundreds of thousands.

I must say that I was and am not oblivious to our own version of the killing of innocents. The mass destruction of cities. Our tolerance for "allies" who murder and pillage every day. Our defense of the indefensible in Israel and Palestine. The divided state.

So save me the outrage.

Or put your tears where the horror really is. Dogma and political beliefs that ignore human suffering or call it heroic and worthy of a heaven none of us here can understand. Well not me anyway.

I don't get the idea of an exclusionary heaven that the christers have in their minds either. Or the bigotry. Or the torture and tolerance for violence on people they do not like.

As a gay man I am no stranger to that form of hatred which hurts and can kill. But I do not run my life on the fear that they want to generate.

The purpose of terrorism is to create fear whether it is done by a crazy jihadist or a fundamental christian anywhere anytime. Terror is a tool of the oppressor and we suffer it because it works.

If we do not cooperate then it is dead. It will not work except to hurt and maim and be the obvious evil it wants to hide.

Come out.

Get active.

But don't sentimentalize one small part of the struggle. It is still going on with our compliance. Everywhere.

Finally.

How to put this?

I spent many weeks around the Word Trade Center neighborhood. I lived in the Marriott which is/was no more. It had already been bombed when the blind guy had them blow a car up under it a few years before.

I stayed in another hotel then, the Millennium. That is gone too.

I worked a few blocks away. I knew every inch of the area because I walked to the work, I went for walks when I went to lunch and had breaks.

It was certainly queasy to get the news. Heartbreaking. Nostalgia for the old days came up. I wanted it not to be true.

I never went back again. There was nothing there.

But it stayed/stays in my mind.

I knew no one as far as I am aware who was lost.

Only buildings.

If I did know someone I would want to honor their lives by living mine better and getting on with it.

That is it. Peace. To all. Let it go. Move on.

Note: the flag is from the Towers. A poignant reminder of a former time.

Labels: terrorism