As I listen to the radio this morning, I am reminded of the date. And the more I listen, the more it becomes clear: No one knows what to say.
Arthur’s school calendar has today marked as “The Day We Will Never Forget.” Okay. If we’ll never forget, why do we have to mark it? There’s something so self-serving, so bombastic, about the statement. Never forgetting is internal, but marking the calendar with a big Twin Towers graphic overlaid by those word says “We’ll never forget motherfucker.”
And certainly rage is as appropriate a reaction as sorrow (which is where I tend to live with it), but graphic arts bombast I can do without.
We have been abused and taken advantage of by our government. Our love of country has been manipulated, our grief has been played like a violin. Osama bin Laden is still free and our troops were prevented from capturing him, and no one who actually had anything to do with the attacks of September 11 has been brought to justice. More American troops have died in Iraq, a war cynically sold to us as having ‘something’ to do with September 11, than actually died on September 11, 2001.
Our civil liberties have been eroded past the point of horror in the name of fighting back, and yet, we have not really fought back. There is no evidence that the PATRIOT Act or the illegal wiretappings have captured any terrorists.
The city of New York itself has been treated with cynicism and gross disregard. Respiratory disease among clean-up workers is rampant. Giuliani bears a great deal of blame for refusing to allow OSHA to run the safety show at Ground Zero, while the federal government is accountable for a false EPA report declaring the area safe, and yanking away money promised to survivors and rescuers.
And I could go on.
So today’s memorials focus on grief, because the rage that once was directed at bin Laden alone is now directed inward, towards our own government, and that is unbearable.
And about grief, there is so little to say.
I agree. The anger is becoming unbearable. My cynicsism is at an all time high. We are made to feel impotent as this travisty moves to it’s inevitable conclusion.
Well, at least we can take comfort in knowing that all this angst isn’t without any purpose….
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine
🙁
(arrived here via “the Zoo”).
In tragedy and grief there is little to say–each situation is unique to the person experiencing the loss, and the circumstances attached to that loss. Mostly such losses are relatively private affairs. Sometimes they become public property. Sometimes the ownership of personal grief and collective sympathy becomes a touchstone to be exploited–by those most directly affected and by those least-affected.
For all the words that enveope this tragic event, there is, as you say, really “nothing to say”. Yet words are said through a sense of noble and sypathetic obligation. However other words are said that are not so nobly inspired.
Last year I rushed home to England and watched my mohter die, quite peacefully. That same week a lifelong neighbour and the father of a childhood friend died. My firend attended my mother’s funera;, the next day I attended his father’s and the whole neighbourhood attended both. Yet neither of us had sufficient words for each other–all we could do really was nod in partial understanding,-and share some dark humor. The common ground we faound ourselves upon was still log and wide. We met in the middle but our journeys there were our own and our leaving of that common grounf would also be by different paths.
As you say, so little to say.
sorry about the spelling! 😀 tiny text is hard to review!
What you say is very touching, and much more important than whether or not it’s spelled correctly!
So what… every seven years we don’t get trivia?
Sorry, really busy. I thought I’d do a firefighter theme or a building theme or something, but that required a lot of thought.
‘sokay. I just figure I’d come forward as the actual center of the axis of evil.