Here’s a link to activities that will take place on July 23, as The Bastard of Bring it on! says, maybe one day it will be a national holiday.
Took this link from Moxie’s site. . Do we have to learn from the BBC that Bush himself denies any direct involvement between 9/11 and the war in Iraq?
I’m not going to into my anti war rap; that’s not what this post is about. Here’s a great link; warning certain people might find the person in this video obscene.
I was working on another post for today, but this makes me sick. For the three of you who don’t know why I feel so sick every time 9/11 is invoked, and it’s been mentioned often recently here it is: MAJOR HEART TUGGING SLIGHTLY DEPRESSING POST FOLLOWS ALERT
I live in Manhattan. I will never forget every second of that horrible week. While the rest of America was allowed to have “healing rallies,” and other mass demonstrations we weren’t. That sounds insipid and totally superficial. Did your healing rally help you get through that time? Thought so.
There was one mass something. However it took place in Yankee Stadium, and you needed a ticket that were not easy to come by; the rally (event or whatever it was called) was really for the families. We understood.
WE WANTED WAR. WE WANTED REVENGE. WE WOULD HAVE DONE ANYTHING THEN. BUSH MISSED HIS GREATEST OPPORTUNITY.
Or did he? Did he, for whatever sick reasons, want to alienate the people of New York? Shouldn’t have watched Bush’s speech last night. When he invoked 9/11 six times, he made it six times more personal. Now I’m hearing that he only directly said “9/11 five times,” and invoked it several more times. Whatever.
We were a city of people who were in shock, scared, sad, and beyond words. Most of us found our way to Union Square where there were many memorials. Dreamed about it last night. Each memorial had been done over by a Hollywood director; they could do anything that they wanted to do as long as they used Bob Mackie (Cher’s costume designer) to decorate. It was garish, surreal, and I have no idea what that dream means. But
Quentin Tarantino corner was exceptionally well done.
The whole frigging Island was a memorial. There were missing posters everywhere. We incorporated them into our daily lives as we incorporated security checks, closed buildings, screwed up subway service, screwed up TV channels, screwed up everything. We were a city of the walking wounded.
That first Friday night my friends, their children and I went from firehouse to firehouse. One lost eleven; the next seventeen. When was the last time you saw a fireman crying? It wasn’t a healing experience. It did bring it even closer to home.
Read an article then about people in San Francisco who were taking courses in CPR and other rescue methods. “So we won’t sit idly by like the people of Manhattan did.” I will never forget reading that. What were we supposed to do? Most people who survived didn’t require much medical help; many of the people who died were incinerated. How were we supposed to help them?
Everybody who lives and/or works in Manhattan has their own 9/11 story. My neighbor couldn’t go back to her apartment for six months. When she did she took the important things and left everything else. Until she bought her apartment here she was moving every several months looking for something, anything that resembled stability. Know many stories like hers. We didn’t leave; we stayed and tried to pretend that everything was great and that we had nothing to complain about. Maybe we played the role too well.
Two weeks after 9/11, my mother asked me if I thought that 9/11 was retribution for every horrible thing that the USA did to other countries. I was so shocked, because I was in full patriotic go to war mode, that I thought my mother had suddenly become demented. I hope and pray every day that I treated her with dignity because two weeks after that she fell and died fifteen minutes later. Her last words were recorded on her companion button; she was crying because she didn’t want to die.
Am not supposed to tell that story. It’s too personal; too filled with pathos. I have been blogging long enough to know that I can tell it. Have told it before. Always say that my mom had perfect timing. In everything but her death. She died 33 days after the implosion; the week that New York ran out of empathy. I’m not looking for empathy or sympathy. It’s been almost four years and I have moved passed the grieving steps.
But, and this is the hard part, I wrote on my blog template that sometimes the first cut is the deepest (thanks Rod Stewart) as is the first draft. Well I can’t help it. I feel like this whole 9/11/my mom died is a first draft that I can’t get out of my head, and work deep into my psyche. It’s different than grieving.
My mom was the most honest person I have ever known, and was the first person, I knew, to dare raise that question.
She had become blind from macular degeneration, and was underweight, but was in good physical health; and even better mental health. We had always been close, but for a few years before her death, our relationship had been filled with much anxiety, and as much as we loved each other and had been best friends almost, something had been missing. We no longer really enjoyed each other anymore.
She knew how much I loved her, and I take great comfort in that.
My dad had been in a coma the last time I saw him. He had a sudden massive stroke and remained on earth for five more days. It was comforting to be able to see him. He had no brain wave activity and we were going to have begin making the permanent feeding tube decision the next day. But my father’s death was more dignified; and I was able to say goodbye, even if he was just his shell. I felt much more at peace with it than I did my mother’s death.
You have no idea how hard that was to get out. Think it’s obvious why I have been taking things personally.
9/11 still hasn’t ended for a great many people in New York, and businesses downtown. 9/11 took a chunk of my heart that will never come back.
How dare the shrub invoke the name of one of the saddest days in American history in a war that 80% (probably much higher now) of the people in the most affected city don’t support?
hey! July 23 is a big day in the Occult calendar. It marks the rise of Sirius, the Dog Star, on the Horizon in Egypt, which always signals the flooding of the Nile. Dog Days begin. That’s where it comes from.. Useless info is a specialty of mine.
I am so tired of 9/11 being used as a political tool to gather up the sheep. If 9/11 is the rallying cry for war, it should be OBL who is in the crosshairs, his cohorts, and the rest. Iraq is a completely different animal.
The two are not the same and shouldn’t be, despite all of the conservative, neo-con ramblings.
Saddam needed to go, but our willy-nilly approach is a bunch of crap, designed to keep the public cowered and the paychecks flowing to the multinational corporations who always profit from war and discord.
9/11 should not be forgotten. Nor should it be used as a political tool.
Whenever possible, I dont allow Bushi on in my house, which means on my t.v., on our radio, you get the picture. He’s a liar, a hateful man, responsible for many murders & not somebody who has 1 ethical fiber in his being. Nobody I would associate with in public or private. However, if there is a God & a judgement, I’d like to be a fly on the wall when he, Cheney & Rove get theirs.
Whenever possible, I dont allow Bushi on in my house, which means on my t.v., on our radio, you get the picture. He’s a liar, a hateful man, responsible for many murders & not somebody who has 1 ethical fiber in his being. Nobody I would associate with in public or private. However, if there is a God & a judgement, I’d like to be a fly on the wall when he, Cheney & Rove get theirs.
Another great, heart wrenching post, pia. I’m linking up.
Blog on sister.
As a fellow New Yorker, all I can say regarding 9/11 and the speech, Yeah. What you said. Ditto.
As for your parents, they sound like terrific people. Sorry it had to be compounded in this way. They were lucky to have you.
The Shrub makes me sick at the mere sound of his voice. It’s filled with lies and bad intent. My ex is over there fighting, has perhaps lost her eyesight in one eye, and still … I have to listen to how noble this war is and how our fighting men and women should be proud. PSHAW! They’re not proud … they’re trying to stay alive and get out. Unbearable heat, death a possibility at every turn, and no real direction … now that’s inspiring, isn’t it? Those poor Iraqi people … dead fourfold to what we lost 9/11 … no comparison to be made and yet a grief neither place can quite describe. Great post!
We need to be careful about pulling out of Iraq because we have become weary of the battle.
The terrorists have shown that they are very disciplined and patient. They’ve studied our reactions to the attacks on our troops in Somolia and our subsequent pull out and they have concluded we are a paper tiger unable to withstand a sustained terror campaign.
They also know of our history in Vietnam and hope it applies here(kill Americans, they will get tired and run, then the insurgents can take over and create their own twisted society of torture rooms, subjugated women, and general hostility to anyone not following their interpretation of the Koran).
We can’t pull out now unless we want to keep going back every couple of years. (We should have ended the Iraq War in 1991 by going all the way while the going was good, instead of doing a half-way job which required that we go back).
We are in Germany 60 years after WWII. We are still in South Korea and Bosnia. We need to develop a longer frame of reference when dealing with major geopolitical events.
We must also remember that in the grand scheme of things, our losses in Iraq are small compared to the estimated 60 million lost in WWII (go to Russia and look at all of the monuments). We lost 7000+ during the opening of D-day. Modern warfare has gotten a lot less dangerous as probably 1/3 of the 1700 deaths in Iraq are of a non-combat nature and statistically would have occurred stateside because of clogged arteries or traffic accidents.
We need to honor those who have died by not running and encouraging the terrorists. If we leave, it will encourage our enemies. The US will be viewed as a paper tiger. We will invite more attacks on US citizens. We can’t reason with people who are convinced that Allah has determined that we must die because of our decadent ways and lifestyle and who are willing to die to kill us.
We have the opportunity to bring democracy to the Middle East. This will provide safety for us and liberty for the people of Iraq and neighboring countries. Short term pain will bring long term gain if we are able to help the people of the Middle East to find self-determination after years of dictatorship and warped religious rule.
Democracy will eventually win. It won in Russia. It will win in China eventually. And, it will win in the Middle East. We must be patient.
I may have a minority opinion on this blog, but I hope that I can raise a couple of points for contemplation.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Cheers!
Vent on. I don’t like this war; think if we pulled out tomorrow it would be too late because there is no such thing as short term pain in a war like this.
Thought we learned in Viet Nam we can’t win a guerrilla war
There will always be another person to take the dead ones place.
Good blogging. Keep it up.
i’m kinda latching on to the theory that this is all shrubbery has to hold on to.
i believe once shrub realized just how the internets are making our planet much smaller, he would try out for czar of the milky way. i believe this is his push for immortality, by striking it big with all the oil he can eat.
new york got a bad deal for sure.
and…
the whole pentagon story wreaks really bad also. RELEASE THE VIDEOS A-HOLES!
i’m not very political to say the least. i’m just not sure what to do anymore! thank god for blogging!!
keep up the good work !!!
Damn, girl, you rock. Completely, utterly, entirely.
Please don’t ever stop writing.