Leo said:
>Truth be told, for the most part, I still feel numb. This morning was the=20
>first time I had a chance to lay in bed and think about it all, and when I=20
>got up, I spent two hours with my girls watching the ABC special for childre=
>n=20
>on the topic. It was the first time I cried; it was almost as if it was the=20
>first moment when I was not so concerned about others that I could let mysel=
>f=20
>feel it all. Somehow, I think that the tears are going to flow a lot more in=
>=20
>the future, as I slowly come back to feeling. Part of me is still in armor,=20
>fearing the list of those who died, wondering who will appear on it --=20
>political comrades, work colleagues, former students.=20
<hugs from Todd> Take'em or not, Leo.
>Everybody is dealing with this differently. Winsome and Sandia were in the=20
>car with me, close to the WTC when it fell. Winsome says she believed she wa=
>s=20
>going to die, and she is filled with immense anger. But she goes between=20
>talking about the how bin Laden and anyone connected to him should die with=20
>maximum pain and singing "We Shall Overcome," and she has just taken the=20
>girls to see the shrines to the dead in Union Square.
<hugs from Todd> For Winsome. Keep singing "We Shall Overcome", please.
>I would pity the perso=
>n=20
>who told her [she is Jamaican, and like the rest of us in NYC, sees the sign=
>s=20
>with the faces of missing people from every corner of the globe -- subways=20
>station entrances are becoming the sites of murals of these little posters=20
>and of poems and open letters] what I read here on this list: that it is=20
>racist to reject Chomsky's obscene claim that the bombing of the factory in=20
>Sudan, with one death, is a greater crime than the deliberate, calculated=20
>murders of thousands upon thousands New Yorkers from around the world.
No comment
>It is hard to know how Sandia is processing it. Last night, she is playing=20
>with a toy dragon, telling me it is "traumatized." I smiled for the first=20
>time in days at the way she had picked up that word, and asked her if she=20
>knew what it meant. She answers no. Well, I said, it is when you have a very=
>=20
>difficult, very scary, very hurting experience. She says, you mean like=20
>Tuesday? Yes, I say. Well, then she decides she is going to "detraumatize" i=
>t=20
>with medicine in a make believe needle. She is going around with her=20
>imaginary needle, detraumnatizing everything -- including me. I wish it were=
>=20
>as easy to detraumatize her.
Your daughter has the right idea: detraumatize everthing around, stop the trauma, don't create more. Oh, almost forgot:<hugs from Todd> For Sandia (Aw Hell, Leo; I'm just giving you more of an excuse to hug your wife and kid).
>Some images and thoughts stick in my mind. I can't shake the fact that the=20
>collapse of the WTC was so powerful that it pulverized everything in those=20
>buildings, that it made half of the gypsum, concrete and steel in the=20
>buildings -- and what is obvious, but what no one says, the human bodies --=20
>into a heavy ash which now covers lower Manhattan.
Truth.
>Having been completely=20
>immersed in that falling ash for five minutes, so immersed that one could no=
>t=20
>see a thing, feels to me like having undergone a baptism of sorts, as if the=
>=20
>spirits of those massacred souls somehow went into me. I don't know what to=20
>make of that, don't know if it is rational or irrational, don't know why an=20
>old agnostic who thinks in terms of logic is suddenly filled with these=20
>spiritual feelings.
Don't get Pauline on us, now. !{)> Arguments for or against the existence of divinity/divinities aside, you're a survivor, in the clinical sense: you seem, from what I read, to be trying to justify your survival with the fact that people near you, in all senses of the word, died. You know, the old "Why me?" Take a deep breath and accept your survival.
>I think that it has a lot to do with why I react so=20
>strongly to the desecration of their memorizes with callous=20
>"contextualization" meant to minimize the gravity of these murderous deeds,=20
>with loose talk of "chickens coming home to roost" which suggests that there=
>=20
>is a justification for such a crime,
You haven't yet asked, but do you seriously think that ALL the people who talk of contextualization would give a resounding "YES" to the question: did those people who died in New York deserve to die? I suspect the vast majority would respond in the negative.
>with pathological nonsense about how it=
>=20
>was a blow against American imperialism. If I am able to do nothing else wit=
>h=20
>respect to this crime, I will challenge such desecration everywhere I hear i=
>t=20
>or read it.
Don't make what happened "sacer", holy, and beyond discussion. Human beings did it and were killed by it, and we humans who are left (no pun intended) must live, try to make sense of it, learn not to do worse, and prevent those who don't get the picture from widening that circle of blood. Don't lose your perspective as well as your cool.
>And when I think of the people I know, like the five staff=20
>members of my children's school who have lost loved ones in the WTC, the=20
>people who are not now able to respond to such desecration of their loved=20
>ones, but still caught holding on to a fading hope that they will be found,=20=
>I=20
>am intent that a voice be raised on their behalf here. =A0
See above comment.
>I read here that such challenges on my part and on the part of others mark u=
>s=20
>as 'liberals,' performing our roles of restricting radical discourse by=20
>'bullying' those who would speak of an equivalence between destroying an=20
>empty factory and destroying buildings with over 50,000 people in them.=20
>David, do not worry for me for being described in these terms. When you have=
>=20
>spent the better part of your life struggling to make your government do the=
>=20
>right thing, here and abroad, this sort of characterization is something you=
>=20
>come to expect, even at a time like this.
No comment.
>I can only think of a paraphrase o=
>f=20
>a saying of Mike Quill, the crusty old Irish leader of NYC subway and bus=20
>workers and one time red: "I would rather be a liberal to those who diminish=
>=20
>horrific mass murder, than someone who diminishes horrific mass murder to th=
>e=20
>liberals." There is an incredibly revealing parallel between these comments,=
>=20
>putatively from the left, and the words of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson,=20
.that it was the godless liberalism of NYC and the US, the driving of
God fro=
>m=20
>our schools, our protections for the right to choose an abortion and the=20
>right to be gay or lesbian, our civil liberties in general, which caused an=20
>avenging God to allow these murderous deeds to take place.
For God's sake, Leo, these people didn't just wake up and decide to murder thousands of people! Nor did a Devil (I'm fairly certain) wave his pitchfork, twist his mustachioes in glee, and make it happen. Perspective and cool, please (I'd say the same thing to Falwell and Robertson, even if I privately suspect their motives for saying stuff like that).
>When I see American flags everywhere these past few days, and when my own=20
>girls decide that they want to put them up in our windows, I remember the=20
>wise words of Norman Thomas at the height of the anti-Vietnam War movement:=20
>the appropriate gesture, he said then, was to wash, not to burn, the America=
>n=20
>flag.
Good one, with the washing, but some might prefer to express even greater depths of despair and condemnation.
>I think of it because, in many ways, I have never been prouder of bein=
>g=20
>an American from New York City. The incredible selflessness, the efforts to=20
>help, even at the risk of one's own life, the insistence that we are a=20
>diverse people, and that we will not scapegoat Arab and Moslem New Yorkers:=20=
>I=20
>can think of no other city in which I would rather be a citizen. When I=20
>turned on the television this morning and see channel after channel with the=
>=20
>young people of the city in all their diversity, including Arab-American=20
>young people; when the discussion again and again focused on the need not to=
>=20
>scapegoat and hate, but to embrace all New Yorkers; when I work with=20
>teachers, union staff and Board of Education officials who have, as their=20
>primary concern, not simply the provision of buildings to displaced schools,=
>=20
>.but the promotion of understanding and the diminishment of hatred among NYC'=
>s=20
>public school students, I am so grateful that I am a part of this city.
I share those feelings of pride you feel from seeing that, in a crunch, strangers help each other out. It's good to see humans acting human in this way (although I wish it didn't have to require events of this magnitude to get them to do it); eases the bitterness and gall I feel towards our race when I see how shabbily we can treat each other in more settle times. I daresay the same sort of solidarity would occur anyplace hit by U.S. or U.S.-allied warplanes.
>The=20
>very things that the terrorists and the Falwells and Robertsons hate about=20
>NYC -- its international character, its openness to and tolerance of all,=20
>from every race, nation, religion and sexual orientation, its freedom -- is=20
>what I love.
No doubt and no comment.
>What is so distressing about the flag burning sort of reaction from the left=
>=20
>at a time like this, as Nathan pointed out on the DSA list, is that it shows=
>=20
>an incredible alienation from the ordinary people, the working men and women=
>=20
>of America.
Analysis is not flag-burning; would you say the same thing to those editors and reporters who are (finally) trying to put this act in perspective for ordinary people? Like it or not, Leo, I'm seeing from editorials and news reports that lots of ordinary people are not interested in why this could have happened or its context at all; they just want a throat between their hands and permission to squeeze. I don't know how much of the U.S. or world populace shares their sentiment, but that's one reason why we have COPS: to prevent reciprocal hatred from spiralling out of control until all that stops the killing is a lack of warm bodies.
>Like the Falwells and the Robertsons, they are so alienated from=
>=20
>the American people, that they can see no good, only evil, in us. They must=20
>find a way to justify every evil deed done to us, no matter how monstrous, t=
>o=20
>place responsibility for it on us, and to deny any good in us or our actions=
>.=20
Repetition of what I said above goes to Lefties as well: keep your perspective and your cool.
>They have lost sight of what the struggle for human emancipation from=20
>violence, suffering and oppression is all about, and become apologists for=20
>its opposite. They are no comrades of mine.
Both sides can lay it on thick; a good intellectual, and I'm sure, under all that pain, there is one in you, Leo, can clean off the bullshit and help contribute to human emancipation.
Take it easy, and let go of your hatred. Poisoning yourself won't help anyone.
Todd