Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Sunday, September 11, 2005
9/11...plus 4
From Mickey’s 9/14 article:
“...if this is the best humanity could produce with the gift we’ve been given; if this is what is accepted as normal by the majority of Homo sapiens on the planets, what we really need is another try.”
Spot fucking on.
There is a wave of anger released by the disaster that hit New Orleans that must not be allowed to subside. In some ways we’ve just experienced a Vonnegutian timequake--the public’s response to Katrina need not be blurred by fear and pseudo-patriotism as was its response to 9/11. We have this chance. Can we all, here, do whatever it takes to propel our anger, outrage, energy, and desire for change to Washington D.C. in two weeks?
“Spirit of 9/11” my ass. As if I wasn’t before...I’m mad, now.
Posted by Keir on from The Hague 09/11 at 11:25 AMright on, Kier.
The spirit of 9/11 has been sullied by 4 years patriotic B.S., two (or is it three?) false wars and tens of thousands of innocent deaths.
I’m not to give in to that old feeling that nothing can be done. This time can be different. I’m mad as hell, but focused.
Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 09/11 at 11:53 AMComputer’s been off because of lightning in the area, so I just now caught up with the aspersions on my ancestry...imagine calling conservative theocratic fascists “thesauri!” Mind, I am calling the ancestors “conservative fascists” not conservatives of a fascist bent. As to theocrats, my father the Cali Nativist (in the ugliest 19th-century sense of the term) uses Bible verses to justify Holy War against the horrible brown Mexicans infesting his State and sucking up his tax dollars. (Did I mention his conviction for tax evasion, failure to pay Federal income taxes for 33 years? They aren’t representing his values, so he needn’t pay them, to boil down his argument....)
So James, I am so sorry for your loss, but I felt unmoved by the father-love since I not only don’t love my father, I regard him as emblematic of most of American society’s ills. It seems to have touched the chord with others, and I sincerely regret my inability to get there with the other readers.
Joe, will you please teleport a few thousand coyotes here? The whitetails are rats with really long legs at this point...we protect them against evil, evil hunters and kill off their predators, and as prey animals the rate of reproduction goes way up and they become hazards to themselves and others. A few predators, please.
Keir, may the anger you identify survive the new TV season’s kickoff, plus the return of the NFL to TV full-time. I am not confident of this.
Rosemarie, looking up “fantods” just means you’re not from the South, not that you have an inadequate vocabulary! I grew up hearing and speaking words that would never have graced your Yankee ears and tongue (everyone not from the slave states is a Yankee this far south).
I don’t think I missed anyone from last night’s commentary...did I?
Posted by Richard the Curmudgeon on from Thunderstormland 09/11 at 12:03 PMRichard, allow me to recommend a book called Iron John by Robert Bly. It could help you come to terms with your father’s dark side...it is helping me right now.
Thanks for the sympathies,
James
Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 09/11 at 01:02 PMJames, thanks for the idea...Bly’s book is a good one indeed. It didn’t help me deal with anything, but I liked it a lot.
I was greatly moved by a book called Letters to My Son by Kent Nerburn...I used it as a way to pretend my father was a good man. Has that one made it across your radar screens yet?
Posted by The Mudge on from An alternate universe, since it's only 73 outside 09/11 at 01:48 PMJames, as you probably know, the Progressive Bloggers Union will be featuring Rosemarie’s case tomorrow. Thanks for the original suggestion.
Keir: I feel your passion but I just cant get behind yet another march on DC that will be more anti-Bush than anti-war.
Richard: 1-0, Yanks.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/11 at 02:40 PMI saw the 1-0 MZ and am heartily depressed. Bad things do happen to good people (defined as all teams not the Yankees), but at least the Yanks trail the BoSox in the AL East. There *is* hope for truth, justice, and the socialist way!
Posted by Richard the Curmudgeon on from a State of Depression 09/11 at 03:01 PMLet’s face it, Mudge, the only socialism in sports is when taxpayers collectively pay for new stadiums (with any profits privatized, of course).
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/11 at 03:05 PMIt is a good book isn’t it, Mudge. I didn’t know much about Bly, but he’s a pretty strong anti-war voice himself.
I saw that PBU email, Mickey, I’ll be posting, look forward to yours and some sort of impact.
2 out of 3 ain’t bad...go yanks.
Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 09/11 at 03:13 PMSunday in America.
Mickey, great front page, today - and I really liked your 9 - 14 piece. I think I’ll copy it to a word document and leave it about, here and there. There’s more real history on that one or two pages, than most people get in a whole lifetime of “education,” here in the homeland.
Thanks, Sir. I really appreciate it.Richard, I’ve read that the coyote population is “too great” in many areas of the country. This is due to gasp! - human intervention. Coyotes are very, very smart, very tough, very well organized, and can “run down” almost anything that lives, except perhaps a horse. Wolves are even bigger, tougher, and are just as smart and well organized. And, a pack of wolves can “run down” even a horse - or a pack of coyotes.
Wolves are the greatest runners in the world. Period. They can run at 30 - 35 mph, for a LONG time. With the exception of humans, which are the “natural” enemy of absolutely everything, even other humans - coyotes are opposed only by wolves. But, since we’ve killed off most of the wolves, the coyotes are “over-breeding.” There are, apparently, cougars, very near here, and lots of black bear within a few miles. But, no wolves. None. It would be amazing to go out at night and hear the wolf-packs howling at one another. Ah, not in this lifetime, I’m afraid…
Hi James & Keir - I hope you’re both right - that this anger and “understanding” will last, and even grow. Your anarchist poem sent me to the bookshelf, James. Here’s a passage from Langston Hughes:
“O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!”And, with the idea that, first of all, let’s do no harm, there’s this:
Somewhere, recently, I read a post about Katrina, with this title, or subtitle:
“Thank God There’s No One To Bomb!”Posted by joe on from Oregon 09/11 at 03:14 PMSynchronicity? Mickey, I had been looking for something that would complement the postscript for your 9/14 piece, checked my email and got your note. For which, many thanks. Anyway, I did find something that complements it.
One is ashamed to say how little is needed for all men to be delivered from those calamities which now oppress them; it is only needful not to lie.
It’s from a blog, called the The Picket Line, written by a war tax resister.
Posted by Harry on from 09/11 at 03:39 PMThanks for that, Harry. It’s perfect...plus: it’s GREAT to see you here. Let it be know that Harry’s in the house.
As for me,I’m headed out the door for a while now but I’m wondering: Since so many of you have already read and commented on the 9/14 piece, what are your thoughts on me running again as the main post on 9/14?
Thanks in advance. I’ll check back later.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/11 at 03:47 PMI think running it again is a good idea. Here’s why: the strengths of this medium are interaction, digressions and choosing who we hang out with. Going back over something touched on or discussed in the medium has a good chance for better insights.
Posted by Harry on from 09/11 at 03:58 PMMickey, fair enough: there’s not much to protesting the most easily ridiculed occupier of the White House ever (now that’s got to be embarassing). But harness this moment we must.
Look, my anger and energy will outlast the TV season and--what’d y’all call it?--NFL or whatever.
Whatever.
Mickey, you look at American history in such creative ways. You make important connections. I know I’m hanging around your website too often because I woke up this morning and thought “Hooverville”.
I want to know why the displaced of New Orleans are going to spend the next few weeks camped out in Houston and not Washington D.C. I want to know why they don’t set up camp across from Bush’s White House like those angry WWI vets stuck it to Hoover. Remember Cindy Sheehan? Please let’s embarass and ruin these Imperial thugs, whoever they are.
Over here, the news isn’t about how Bush dropped the ball on this one (Katrina); the news is about institutional racism and poverty in the US as a dark secret suddenly exposed. Of course if anyone had wanted to know before they could have, but now they know. Everyone. This should be carried forward and bashed out on whomever happens to be holding the reigns at this moment. Will Hillary Clinton profit? Perhaps, in the short term. But o.k.: I willing to accept that rallying against George W won’t be enough. So what’s plan B?
Posted by Keir on from The Hague 09/11 at 04:15 PMPS: regarding the 9/14 piece--it should be read widely, so I agree with Harry.
Posted by Keir on from The Hague 09/11 at 04:50 PMI’d like to see that 9/14 piece again, Mickey. Hell, it would be great to have it on permanent display, somewhere. Yes, let’s do it again.
As to the big demonstrations coming up - they’ll probably not focus much on New Orleans or on the plight of people here at home. Even on the Left, there’s a significant “rift” between whites and blacks / people of color. While I don’t have any idea about the racial composition of this wonderful bunch here at Mickey’s, it’s obvious that everyone has received a “caucasion” orientation to the world, before becomming wayward & dissident.
Like Mickey says, at the conclusion of his 9/14 essay, we really don’t know what to do - but we sure as hell can see what’s wrong, and try to see to it that others find out, however we can. Knowing what to do is the great stumbling point, yes? Even Gandhi and Martin Luthor King had to struggle to figure out what to “do” next.
If we could get ahold of a low-watt radio station, we could do more in a month than the whole Left will be able to accomplish in a year or two. If we could just communicate with those who are outside our relatively limited circles! How? How? As it is, we’re left to wait for another horror like 9/11, or the war in Iraq, or New Orleans - to wake up a few more soundly sleeping citizens, which, then, slowly increases our numbers.
At this rate, they’ll have declared martial law and shut down the internet as we know it, before we’ve got enough of a crowd together to actually make a change. Martial Law would wake up lots of folks. Of course, at the same time, it would keep us from communicating with them - and, probably - even with each other.
Posted by joe on from Oregon 09/11 at 05:06 PMI wrote something a few months ago about a problematic anti-Bush rally I attended, it’s here if anyone’s interested.
Joe, last year in The Hague, our local pirate radio station--from which anti-establishment music and ideas were broadcast--was shut down. It is being restarted, apparently legally, and I’m in the process of trying to get a timeslot there to broadcast anti-establishment music and ideas. As the station will broadcast on the Net as well, I suppose whatever I might do on my show will accomplish more than my presence at some big D.C. rally (which I can’t be at anyway).
We all hope to contribute to something better. Chomsky has often said that it’s only after his American lectures that people ask “what can I do?”. His other audiences know what to do, he says, and are doing it.
Is it possible that some of us know what to do, and we’re not doing it?
Posted by Keir on from The Hague 09/11 at 05:34 PMThis is a fine post, Keir - and great links, as well. I’m quickly reminded of Ralph Nadar’s unrelenting comment about corporate America, which is, approximately: When will the corporations finally be discredited? They’ve opposed every single piece of legislation aimed at helping or protecting ordinary human beings. Every one. Yet, somehow, they seem to continue to have credibility.”
I read that John Holloway essay, some time ago. It made me think of just how many people in prison are, actually, political prisoners. So very many people have said: I won’t live in profound poverty, and I won’t work 3 or 4 jobs in crummy McJobs in order to pretend to be a good “capitalist-citizen,” so they sell drugs or rob banks or steal cars, etc., etc…
There really are zillions of little rebellions throughout the country, all the time. The problem is, how to “widen” people’s vision of what they’re really doing, and get them involved in a broader movement.I recall one morning, at a cafe in which I used to hang out, listening to a bunch of truck drivers talking about how to get around the various absurd highway laws to which they were subjected. They were angry at government, corporations, and the police. Yet, if there had been a bunch of dissidents marching by at that moment, they would probably have jumped up in outrage against these “America-Haters.”
Almost every group of working-class folks, with which I’m familiar, behaves in much that same way.
As to “knowing what to do, but not doing it...”
I don’t know, Keir. I blog here, I speak out whenever I can, I have a few little “tricks” for trying to start conversations and arouse interest in this stuff… Otherwise, I just don’t know.Posted by joe on from Oregon 09/11 at 06:47 PMKeir, I believe those in the days of “Hoovervilles” were far less conditioned and indoctrinated than us. No TV, no Internet, not many cars, etc. They’ve thrown us a few bones since then...just enough to keep most of us afraid of losing what we have, what we think we need. It’s what makes America the mess it is.
We look down our noses at the rest of the world but even a country as poor as Bolivia has tossed out one leader after another by the sheer power of people on the street. Protesting in America has become a spectacle, a reality show, a fashion statement.
I want so bad to have an answer when someone asks me about Plan B...but I don’t.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/11 at 07:53 PMabout 9/11:
http://www.iisg.nl/collections/chile/chronology.htmlhttp://www.oilempire.us/anniversaries.html
http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/15630.php
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=20&ItemID=4162
http://www.counterpunch.org/burbach09112003.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO309A.html
Why Forget the Holocaust? by Paul Treanor(http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/forget.html) One of his themes is how memory is selective and politicized, he brings up an interesting point about the reason the Armenian Genocide is remembered, because Hitler brought it up. That’s the only reason I know about September 11, 1973, because I read about it after the attacks on September 11, 2001. He argues, because the Holocaust is used as a justification to commit atrocities it should be forgotten. I think it is a question of how it is remembered. Of course it shouldn’t be used to justify bombing people, but that’s how it’s used mainly. One solution would be to take memory out of the hands of the politicans and textbook people who work for the politicans. Those textbook people have you excusing United States atrocities ‘cause one of the themes is united states is all good it only exists to bring freedom and democracy to everyone. Politicans don’t need The Holocaust to commit atrocities they committed an infinite number before the Holocaust. Before the excuse was save the heathens, now it is bomb a nation to stop a Hitler. but i guess it still is save the heathens that’s the theme of people like pat robertson and franklin graham. http://www.counterpunch.org/cajee04112003.html
I like the mos def song.Posted by tm on from back door 09/11 at 08:52 PMThe power of the people in the streets of Bolivia was they didn’t meekly ask permission. They organized to keep people supplied to endure what was effectively a general strike. It’s a tired old rant from me, but protests focusing on replacing Bush suck the life out of progressive movements. By default, the primary beneficiary is some wretched Democrat.
Posted by Harry on from 09/11 at 08:56 PMHarry, you don’t seem to appreciate government - at all!!!
That’s The Spirit!Let’s pluck all the blood suckers off of ourselves, take a long, hot shower, and live together like human beings…
Posted by joe on from Oregon 09/11 at 09:07 PMI guess I’m one of the younger people hanging around here (judging from recent discussion of ages). Is that why I’m not quite as jaded about a big rally? I share the concern about an anti-Bush rally being a gift to Hillary C. or some such dangerous individual. And I see the wisdom in Mickey’s comment that public protest is nothing but spectacle. But here’s the thing I don’t get: shouldn’t it be about the long-standing moral and social poverty of our government? Shouldn’t it be about making the connection we’ve been making for the past 2 weeks between the disasters in two Gulfs? I may be inviting disaster when I ask this question, or not, anyway: wasn’t there general agreement here a few days ago when I wrote that Rosemarie’s protest was the community service? So fine, we leave Washington D.C. on the 24th (?) to those going for the fashion statement. But again, we do something, right?
Posted by Keir on from The Hague 09/11 at 10:15 PMWell, Keir - I’d planned to write a letter to three local newspapers. Beyond that, I suppose I’ll be here.
Sounds like more of the same ol, doesn’t it?
Sounds like bullshit.
Sounds lame.
I don’t know what else to do. There’s no local gathering planned, that I know of. If there was, I might go and hold up a sign, for a while.
I’ve marched in a couple of pretty big demonstrations, in Seattle. Odd experiences. I met some very interesting people. I chanted various “US OUT OF ______” phrases, and yelled answers to the repeated questions: “What do we want? “When do we want it?”
I watched the citizens on the sidewalks, and the folks in cars. I watched the cops and the people gazing down upon us from opened windows.
We might as well have been a giant Tupperware Party, blocking foot and vehicle traffic & pissing off the locals, while trying to sell plastic containers to housewives. Or, that was my take on the whole experience.What else to do?
Don’t know. I’ve thought about doing some sort of 1 - man “Rosemarie” show, in the street, downtown. I could get myself arrested and maybe make a dent, somewhere… But, I don’t want to get busted just to get busted. I’ve been working on a couple of book-type projects, which may or may not ever get finished. Blah, eh? It’s like those strange dreams / nightmares, where you have to run, but your legs will hardly move…Your question is as good as it gets, my friend.
If you didn’t have your Pirate Radio gig, what would you do?Posted by joe on from right here 09/11 at 10:48 PMKeir, I’m open to the idea that some good may come for some people from attending on the 24th. Though it’s my opinion that it would be mostly in the form of making contacts—i.e. a social benefit.
Rosemarie’s protest is qualitatively different. She was out there with no safety net. I don’t think you’ll find any of the organizers of the event on the 24th opting for prison.
Plan B on a national level is probably too big for me. I’m a one trick pony: slog away at creating local autonomous economies that may eventually network.
Posted by Harry on from 09/11 at 10:56 PMBefore this goes much further, I just want to say how much I admire y’all. You’re dedicated to your ideas--and they’re good ideas--and to sharing them and enlarging them. My last couple of comments are not meant to point fingers and I hope they didn’t come off that way (the comments, not the fingers).
Like perhaps some of you, I got “this way” a bit late. At least that’s the way I feel. I spent three incredible years in Ithaca, NY (’96-’99), without ever engaging in any of the students movements, without engaging in the local “Ithaca Hours” alternative economy, without ever taking a class with Zillah Eisenstein. It wasn’t until later that I started to change critical thinking into critical action.
Now I’m sunk deep in what I do, trying to make it socially relevant and socially responsible. I make experimental music. How’s that for irrelevant? But I’m working on it; and Joe, if and when I get that radio slot--who’s to say what is “doing enough”? Different answers for different people. I think that’s a truism the power elite would like to deny. Whatever you’re doing, please, keep it up.
Posted by Keir on from The Hague 09/12 at 04:55 AMI agree, Keir...and my answer is yes to your two questions (Shouldn’t it be about the long-standing moral and social poverty of our government? Shouldn’t it be about making the connection we’ve been making for the past 2 weeks between the disasters in two Gulfs?).
But I’m not the one planning the giant rallies.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/12 at 05:10 AMMickey,
Interesting in an ironic sort of way the the one country you exclude from being behind 9/11 was the one that had the most to gain, and most certainly aided and abetted in its execution. Israel and the US, post 9/11 are enabled to mete out the destruction and ethnic clensing they are bent on, and have lots of practice at. The true axis of evil is DC and Tel Aviv.
filboy
Posted by filboyink on from Austin Tx 09/20 at 08:11 PM
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