Now what was I going to write about this week before our nation was turned upside down by an act of terrorism the likes of which this country has never witnessed and in the minds of most Americans was an unfathomable possibility? I can’t quite remember really. And here three days into the continued live media coverage of this catastrophic, devastating, ruthless act, replete with buckets of blood, buckets of tears, yards of stars and stripes, rally-around-retaliation unity inducing motivational programming, it really seems like overkill for me to go there as well but I think I must.
I just happened to be watching the early morning news as the story broke. An airplane had crashed into the world trade center, one tower was smoking and burning and I’m catching the details as they unfold, the pentagon was also hit by a plane, the nation was clearly under terrorist attack of an unprecedented magnitude. I’m watching live footage of the smoldering tower and I see a plane and I think, “Gee, isn’t it kind of risky to be flying so close to a burning building, oh my god and it’s a passenger jet,” and then boom it careened right into the second tower, creating a huge ball of flame and it was clear to me at that moment that life as we know it, like the New York skyline, was forever changed.
One of my first thoughts was, “I’m going back to London,” but it was clear that for the time being no one would be traveling anywhere by air for awhile and basically immigration of any kind would take on a whole new meaning. Then my thoughts went directly to trying to imagine the utter and complete horror of being a passenger on a hijacked plane steered off course for the sole purpose of destroying the world trade center. It sounds like an action adventure film starring Nicolas Cage that you saw the preview for once and the soundtrack music was that cool song by White Zombie. And that is the song that I heard in my head as I saw the second plane crash into the tower and explode into a massive ball of orange and black flame, because the attack was so very Hollywood. It was a heinous crime with a huge body count of totally innocent people, incredible that it could even happen, and so economically and brutally low tech. Hard to believe that such a low budget attack translated visually to an Irwin Allen wet dream. It was dramatic and mind-boggling and rich with plots and sub-plots and stories. I don’t mean to trivialize the event by saying this, but it was the stuff Hollywood thrives on. It was a cinematic execution.
I then started considering the hijackers willingness to die in an attempt to strike a deadly blow against America. It meant enough to them to die for it, but then again, it probably meant an e-ticket to heaven as well in that charming faith in which these culprits possibly live their lives. I know it doesn’t seem fair to judge on this level but certain fundamentalist religions are known for providing justification for a variety of atrocities against humanity and have for thousands of years. One need only to recall the many apologies made a few years back by the pope regarding the Spanish Inquisition to know that one faiths actions could be viewed as freeing the lives and souls of the devout from certain evils while another faith could view it as mass extermination, a holocaust, a war crime or a crime against all of humanity. This makes it very difficult when an American asks himself, “Why us?” because starting with our nuclear retaliation on Japan for the attack on Pearl Harbor, directly and insidiously this nation has clearly had the blood of similarly innocent people on it’s hands. Many Americans including myself try to search their collective memories for events of a similar nature that we’ve been involved in and a clear picture is practically impossible due to the possibly covert nature of our involvement. Of course the only perception of certain events we have to go on is what the media has provided. The ideology of heroism, the act of defending freedom can always embrace or justify a heinous unthinkable bloodbath and tremendous loss of innocent human lives when ever the moral barometer is set by the church or any form of fundamentalist religion. What singular church or religion is currently setting the moral barometer for the United States? Perhaps the one that hasn’t returned to regular programming since the morning of September 11.
And speaking of fundamentalist religions and atrocities to humanity, The Reverend Jerry Falwell made some of the most vindictive, retarded and savagely stupid statements of his entire career in the aftermath of the bombings, a time when former presidents both democratic and republican, defeated candidates, former opponents, etc., all laid their previous differences aside in a show of solidarity in the face of this crisis, what does Falwell see fit to do? In an interview with Pat Robertson for the 700 club after they both expressed their sorrow and outrage over the attack, Falwell went on to say,
“Throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools,” he said. “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad.”
“The pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America,” Falwell continued, “I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’”
Was that not perfect? Just a chance for him to manipulate a devastated nations anger and fear and pain. Just a twist of modern televangelist essence in a cocktail as purely barbaric and eye-for-an-eye old testament as anything Bin Laden might come up with. Does anyone see that one fundamentalist religion is just as bad as another? Can one imagine just how a leader might train an individual to do certain things by playing on his fears and offering up eternal salvation as a reward for acts of terror? How can I say that Reverend Falwell is anything like that monster Osama Bin Laden? Oh I don’t know, let’s see—bombed abortion clinics, assassinated medical doctors, celebrating the death of hate crime victims and AIDS activists, to name a few. The quest for salvation seems to be at the root of living and carrying out a terrorist existence.
A white house official stated the next day that the president definitely does not share those views, and Rev. Falwell, a beacon of truth, intelligence, decency and spirituality then retracted his comments, claiming they were taken out of context, and saying that indeed the only ones responsible for this act of terror were the actual terrorists and the people and nations who enabled and harbored them. Such conviction you show for your beliefs. Perhaps you should stick to criticizing those horrible tele-tubbies painted up like gay whores. No, just keep doing what you’re doing and we’ll be just fine—all of us predatory homosexuals, women, the cult of abortionists, the ACLU, and the federal court system that helped bring down the World Trade Center. Thank heaven America now knows where to logically direct its anger and sadness and possibly vengeful acts of violent retaliation when the dust finally settles. Dust is tragically what as many as 5000 people still considered “missing” by hopeful but sadly deluded relatives, is what these lives were reduced to at the hands of some depraved individuals willing to die in their attempt to harm America. It still just doesn’t seem real, but in the coming days the complex effects of this event will throw many harsh realities of immediate and certain impact directly at the American people, like salt in a wound, so many things you haven’t even thought of but once they start, the logic behind each one will be apparent. Brace yourself for the long-term effects of an economy shattered, prepare to give up certain basic human rights, anticipate governmental funding of numerous programs to be cut in lieu of beefing up the military not only for our continued protection (which obviously didn’t work) but for the soon to unfold military plans of retaliation, which will likely be the most intense, extravagant and sci-fi high tech assault ever known to modern warfare when ironically the act they’re avenging was pulled off with xacto knives and razor blades and computerized pilot courses and Floridian flight schools There are countless subtle things this event has changed and will change forever. I found myself saying something the morning of the attack that my nasty cantankerous doomsayer witch of a grandmother used to say about a lot of events historically—most of the time probably just to scare us kids and give us nightmares so she could tease us when we reached the point of tears and sobs and came to her for comfort. Yeah she was a major bitch, and she would say, “It’s the beginning of the end.” I’ve often reminded myself that throughout my 39 years on this planet, and the centuries preceding, that sentiment has been expressed numerous times and it was never true. It seemed like a superstitious ridiculous cop-out, a ploy to frighten children into proper behaviors like a fable. I’ve seen enough to know that catastrophe would not engulf all of humanity before I died of natural causes and decomposed to dust and a couple pieces of jewelry in a casket underground. But I said it that Tuesday morning, and there were no unruly children within earshot, needing their carefree childhood bubbles to be burst. I was alone, and I think I believed it as a layer of acrid dust fell from the sky in Manhattan. The fucking bitch got me, from beyond the grave even and I was lost for a moment in fear—a dreadful fear that at one time paralyzed me till mornings light, blankets pulled tightly over my head.