a semi-regular column of Truths, Half Truths, and Mostly Truths by Semi.
Volume I, Issue 22 · posted Sept. 20, 2001
http://www.semitrue.com/pages/2001.09.20.html
It is difficult to know where to begin. This has been a week when words do not come easily. I envy those who find ways to express their grief creatively and in a manner worthy of sharing. I cannot objectively decide if I am doing the same, but I will do my best.
We try to go on, but we are a nation and a world still in shock. Oklahoma City and Columbine have stayed with me for a long time. The pictures that we have seen from New York this week are so unimaginably horrific that I cannot even begin to process them. It came to the point where I did not want to turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper. Thank you NPR for being a constant voice of sanity.
I will also confess to you, my loyal readers, that I have become almost used to the long immutable sadness, and welling up in me now is my fear and anger.
In my last couple of columns, I spoke of our nation's arrogance. If we look at what we have done in this world, we have much to answer for. But THIS ... this was not the answer!
We are also a nation of optimists, and even as we have watched events unfold, there is still a part of our character that rises up to say "we can defeat this. This will not be allowed to happen!"
This column reflects now something that has become true everywhere I look. There is a before, and an after. Nothing is the same. Everything we do has become tainted with the realization that we are now in the after.
In the pre-September 11 days, I almost never let a column go by without poking some fun at our "President", but we live in a different world today. Whereas before, I was content to just shut my eyes and hope that we would emerge from the dim in a few years, now I am forced to stare unblinking into the future and prepare myself for what is to come.
At a time like this, I recognize that we have larger issues than to continually question the legitimacy of this administration. After much reflection, a few days ago I removed my "BUSH/CHENEY: America's 2nd choice!" bumper sticker, my quiet acknowledgement that he is the only president we have right now. Now the question remains: is he up to the job? I suppose that depends on what one thinks ought to be done. If the answer is to rain indiscriminate death down on a hapless population, than he has certainly assembled an expert staff. I was neither encouraged nor surprised to see the pictures of him last week in Camp David, formerly a citadel of peace, surrounded by his strategic advisors and declaring WAR on the perpetrators of this horrendous crime.
(I beseech you sir, summon an aide to go to the library and find a copy of The Constitution. I'm sure there must be one lying around somewhere. The last time I looked, only Congress has the ability to declare war.)
But what I think many of us realize is that what is called for here is something more delicate than warmongering. It is too easy to declare war; what we need now is to make peace. We have great strength and power, but we are also capable of doing powerful good. Since this new administration took over the White House, we have turned our back on the world, most notably the middle east. We support Israel — something which I and most people I know approve — but like an indulgent parent with a misbehaving child, we do little more than wag our finger as they bully the other children. We seem uninterested in peace. We refuse to attend a world conference on racism — the last great folly of our species — or support an international criminal court because we cannot abide by rules that we are unwilling to apply to ourselves. We abolish treaties, we consume the world's resources, and we fight a failing "war on drugs" not by addressing the issues in our own society that makes drug use rampant, but by propping up foreign dictatorships with money and armies while giving lip service to democracy.
We are capable of being so much better than this.
I am not so naïve as to believe that if we suddenly start being nice to the rest of the world, maybe we can all become friends. There are those who will say that we can never have peace with an enemy who has so demonized us, that the very qualities which make us strong and successful are also those which have made us feared and despised.
I am sorry to say, they may be right.
But I do feel that we have to think beyond addressing these problems with military solutions. The terrorists who destroyed our landmarks and slaughtered our innocent citizens were raised in an environment so oppressive and so dedicated to malevolence that taking one's own life in order to assure the destruction of others seems a viable alternative. We cannot decapitate this snake, for a new head will grow back, a fearsome visage with more poisonous fangs.
And so we turn to our leaders, and what do we find? Oil men, corporate CEOs beholden to Big Business. An Army General as Secretary of State, a hawk as Secretary of Defense. Who will our president listen to now, the powerful men who put him into office, or the frightened people he represents?
During the Iowa debates, when asked to name his favorite political philosopher, GWB proudly proclaimed "Christ, because he changed my heart." Let us hope he is still available to change his mind.
what do you think? email me
In times of trouble, it is important to know that you have friends.
There have been too many pictures — planes exploding, bodies flying, giants tumbling — that we cannot bear to watch. In our shock and dismay, we turn to other pictures to replenish our souls. As we look up from the dust, and gaze around the world, we realize that we are not alone in our pain.
London, Tokyo, Hamburg, Berlin, Copenhagen, Moscow, Minsk, Warsaw, Stockholm, Sydney, Jerusalem ... all over the globe, outpourings of grief and anguish, flags and flowers watered with tears, captured by the photographers eye for all the world to see.
For most of the 1900s (it still feels weird to say that) such pictures would have been gathered in glossy magazines and released days or weeks after the event. In the Internet Age, we go out and find the pictures ourselves at many different websites.
In an open forum on the ars technica website ("the pc enthusiast's resource"), a group of posters attempted to gather all the pictures they could find into a single resource, bringing together the family of nations in their time of mourning. Unfortunately, the sheer number of pictures made such an endeavor increasingly difficult, so word went out to those who would help and SEMI TRUTHS gamely stepped forward.
At http://www.semitrue.com/thankyou I have attempted to gather the best of those pictures from around the globe. To see all the many faces and genuine expressions of brotherhood is both heartbreaking and renewing. There are nearly 150 pictures on this page and, depending on your connection, it may take several minutes to load, but I think it is worth the wait. I will keep the page going for as long as my domain provider will tolerate the increased use of their bandwidth. (I have some serious concerns about that; as I write this, the page has been up for just forty-eight hours and in in that time has received ... good lord, over 10,000 distinct visitors! I may get a call from my ISP soon...!)
are we the world? email me
If you have an email account, chances are that you've already received the message that starts out like this...
"SUBJECT: Stand Proud, America!
"A TRIBUTE TO THE UNITED STATES - editorial from a Canadian news paper America: The Good Neighbor. Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator...."
What follows is a stirring and heartfelt plea to the world to recognize the great good that the United States has done: Europe was lifted from the debris of war by the Marshall plan, America has propped up other nations with infusions of cash and aid in times of crisis, nobody can match American inventiveness and know-how ... they put a man on the moon fer crying out loud!
At this time of crushing despair, it is a great help to receive this strong and earnest recognition of our deeds. The words are inspiring, humbling, relevant ... and written by a man who died 17 years ago.
There was a Gordon Sinclair, he did write a piece titled "The
Americans", and the email that is being circulated is a more-
Gordon Sinclair was a journalist and radio personality at a CFRB station in Toronto. According to information at the Canadian Communications Foundation website, Mr. Sinclair "dashed-off" his commentary about the United States after listening to reports from around the world criticizing the great super-power for squandering its might.
American stations in upstate New York heard the broadcast and asked for taped copies. Other stations picked up their own copies and overdubbed the words onto instrumental tracks. Our representatives in DC got their own copies and read it into the Congressional Record. American personalities recorded their own versions, including Tex Ritter (!!!). In what must have been a gut-wrenching (or possibly gut-busting) display, the stirring words were read before an Air Force assembly while a concert band, accompanied by the 100-member Singing Sergeants, played The Battle Hymn of the Republic. In 1984, while visiting Canada, President Reagan feted Sinclair as a neighbor who "reminded us to take pride in our nation's fundamental values".
Think I'm making all of this up? You can read the whole story at the URL listed below. The page also includes a link to the original essay.
http://www.rcc.ryerson.ca/ccf/news/unique/american.html.
what do you think, eh? email me
There has been much discussion this week of the terrorists as barbarians, zealots, and savages. Though I agree with the sentiment, I could not help but wonder if we are using the right words. As usual, all of the following definitions have been liberated from Dictionary.com.
barbarian\bär-bâr'-ëan\, n.; a member of a people considered by those of another nation or group to have a primitive civilization.
A barbarian is someone who is barbarous, derived from the Greek word "barbaros", which translates roughly as "foreigner", but more accurately as "non-Greek". In that sense, than I, too, am a barbarian.
zealot\zél'-ot\, n.; a fervent and militant proponent of something, especially excessively so.
A zealot is someone who has zeal, from the Latin "zelus", from which we also get the world jealous. In the first century A.D., a Zealot was also a member of a Jewish movement that fought against Roman rule in Palestine as incompatible with strict monotheism.
savage\sav"age\, n.; a person regarded as primitive or uncivilized.
Savage comes from the Latin "salvticus" (of the woods, wild), which comes from silva, Latin for forest. "Silva" is where we get our word "sylvan", which means "wooded" or "abounding in trees". We tend to associate "sylvan" with peaceful, wooded areas, not something that is cruelly savage. Sylvan is also the name of a satyr or faun who inhabits the forest.
I have mentioned Russell "Hitman" Alexander in this space before, he of the marvelous Ronald Reagan - The Bonzo Years website and rocking blues guitarist. I said at the beginning of this column that I envy those who find ways to express their grief creatively and in a manner worthy of sharing. Well, Russ has done just that with an achingly melancholy song called, simply, "September 11, 2001". You can listen to the song yourself at:
http://www.quickchange.com/hitman/september.html
Just one this time, the website of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) "a political/social organization of Afghan women struggling for peace, freedom, democracy and women's rights in fundamentalism-blighted Afghanistan." RAWA was established in 1977 as an independent political/social organization of Afghan women fighting for human rights and for social justice in Afghanistan. Since then, it has evolved to become directly involved in the war of resistance against both the Soviet invaders and now the fundamentalists. There is very important information on this site about the struggles of women in Afghanistan, in addition to some extremely disturbing images.
"I wish critics would judge me as an author, not as a woman." — Charlotte Bronte
All Contents (except the stuff I stole) Copyright © 2001 S.M.
McCord.
Redistribution allowed, provided you cite http://www.semitrue.com.