9/11 recollection and reflection

[Eleutheria5]

The subway train goes out of service on Kingston-Throop, and I ascend the stairs. Someone says that they're taking blood over at Hoyt-Schermerhorn (?) and a bunch of folks including me head there. Before getting in line, I go to a local restaurant and order some nervous eating food, a large burger and coke. In line, I fill out forms only to be rejected after medical exam shows I have an accelerated heart beat. Naturally, it was accelerated. I just walked a couple of miles and a big part of my life, the towers, were gone. But that don't cut it with the blood people. I walk towards the Manhattan bridge, which I hear is open to pedestrians, since the Brooklyn bridge is closed due to its proximity. I cross the bridge with an army of people, eager to help. On the bridge, I see the inferno, and a single US flag on top of a large, green domed building waves in the foreground. Across, I sneak across the barricades as far South as Thomas Street. There, I see two gigantic firemen, covered in ash from head to foot, walking slowly, exhausted, defeated and broken, their souls crumpled and discarded on the ground like an office memo floating on the breeze, its authors gone. I turn around and walk uptown.

One thing strikes me dead center about the walk through Brooklyn, after my blood was declared unworthy. A large black man in Islamic garb is laughing and gloating into his cell phone, saying "I can't believe it! Both towers!" He smiles. I want to kill him, but restrain myself.

Years later, I finally get to see Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, and the theme song, "fight the power" shows the players shaking their fists at the aforementioned two towers. On reflection, I must wonder, how did the WTC get to symbolize "the power" that Spike Lee urges us to "fight". It was built as a pet project of Gov. Nelson D. Rockefeller, and never used for the purpose it was intended, a clearing house and trading floor for international commercial transactions. Government-funded boondogles paid for by spendthrift governors with tax dollars are "the power"? What kinship does that have with Sal's Pizzeria in Do The Right Thing?

Perhaps the towers became "the power" by virtue of the powerful businesses that paid rent there. The stock, bond and commodity brokers, white shoe law firms and accounting firms, dot coms and publishing houses? Was it capitalism? In that case, the people who died there represented "the power," and their deaths were secretly celebrated by "power" "fighters" such as Spike Lee, my anonymous Islamic-garbed gloater, and leftists everywhere. A bunch of capitalists got their comeuppances. Yeah for Bin Ladin the successful power-fighter. "The Power," however, is bigger than any five office buildings (six if you count Deutsch Bank). It is a powerful force for human progress, and only reactionaries and fools fail to realize that.

The power answers back: "Fight me at your own risk. The moment you lift a hand against me, you've already lost. The slaveowning South fought me valiantly but futilely. The collectivist fascists and communists fought me with overwhelming force, but lost. El Qaeda's ignoble grave has already been dug in a field in Pennsylvania."

[Biggirl]

Thank-you for your reflection. Bookmarked.

[Biggirl]

“One thing strikes me dead center about the walk through Brooklyn, after my blood was declared unworthy. A large black man in Islamic garb is laughing and gloating into his cell phone, saying “I can’t believe it! Both towers!” He smiles. I want to kill him, but restrain myself. “

When I had read those works, it made me so fit to be tied, with outrage, but also not suprised because I remember those videos of Muslims dancing for joy in the West Bank and Gaza upon hearing that both WTC towers went down, and it still to this day stick to my crawl bigtime.

[Eleutheria5]

Yeah, but that’s hardly surprising. They are who they are.

What is really surprising is that, after years of proving over and over again their utter malevolence, how utterly uninterested they are in peace even as an abstract proposition, everyone, the US included, is still blaming the lack of peace on the Israelis and demanding more concessions.

About 87 percent of their victims are women, children and civilian males. They make war on women and children to kill the next generation before they have a chance to fight back. The fact that one of these slimeballs has to kill himself, too, is small consolation. The Israelis do their best to avoid harming anyone but the bad guys, and of course they can’t do it. But the unavoidable civilian casualties are somehow morally equivalent to blowing up a busload of Israelis. Let’s not even start on the fact that they’re persecuting their own Christian minority out of existence. Israeli soldiers are mean to them at border crossings, so that’s the same thing. Give them more land and they’ll persecute the Christians there, too. But we all must make sacrifices for peace.

I wonder when they’ll be partitioning France.

[Biggirl]

I just heard on the midday radio news that not only the Jewish High Holy Days is starting at sundown, but also the Muslim Ramadam is starting this week also. How ironic that 9/11, the Jewish New Year, and Muslim Ramadam all converge. Truly ironic.