I Remember 9/11

     Some years ago, I almost didn't make it out of a house fire. I did though. The dog woke me. I got across the street and the back of the house blew up.

     Fire alarms, streetlights peeking into bedroom windows, flames from lighters-- all of those things-- and more triggered me. At first whenever I thought about that fire, there were no sounds. My memory was like a silent movie. It was years before I could remember that at the scene of the fire things were pretty noisy.

     I recovered somewhat [from the p.t.s.d.-like symptoms] when the Oklahoma bombing occurred. More of the same.


     On 9/11, I was in the basement of the first group home that I was manager of at a state agency. I had started there as a direct care worker, was promoted. I loved that house. The folks who lived there [that the System euphemistically called "developmentally disabled"] were [with one notable exception] wonderful human beings. 

     But on that particular Tuesday morning, I was in the basement-- in my office-- with the door locked crying because I was having difficulty getting the financial records straightened out. The assistant manager knocked on the door. I told her to go away in polite words. She was not deterred. I wiped my tears and went upstairs. I watched on television as the second tower was hit.

     I called my boss. He was the best boss I ever had in my whole entire working life. I was in a panic. Were some planes going to come here next? No, he said, they would not. Not much work got done that day. I drank coffee which calms me down and waited for my people to come home.

     My people all came home. They came from sheltered workshops and day programs and supported employment. Some knew what had happened. Some didn't. I was utterly horrified to discover that one of my people had spent her day watching all of the television reports and news. Her staff suspended all activities. Had I known that, I would have gone to pick her up and taken her home. I did register a formal complaint the next morning.

     9/11 was all over the television for months afterwards. It was on the televisions at the gym. I do remember that. The people were fascinated at the horror. Over and over again, instant replays. "If we had bombed Iran when those students took over the American Embassy, this would not have happened," I told anyone who listened. "Those people over there would have all figured that we were too crazy to feck around with." 

     Over the years, my thinking about 9/11 has not gotten any saner. C'est la vie. 



     Last night, the traitor-in-chief claimed that "ISIS is not Islamic." I thought to myself, wow. Dude is seriously going to go with that. It is reported that Muhammad himself beheaded people or caused people to be beheaded. The terrorists who belong to The Islamic State may be "extreme Muslims" or "fundamentalist Muslims" but they are Muslims. Muslims who wish to disown those Muslims found in ISIS remind me of the wiccans who deny that Satanic witches do exist. Yes, I know that Satanic witches do exist because I've met bunches of them. Not the baby-killing, child-raping kind belonging to the Satanic Panic. But some ordinary Satanists [both those who believe in a literal Satan as well as those who do not] practice witchcraft. Period. Denying the existence of a bunch of people does not cause them to poof.


     I went to visit my dearly demented dying dad today at his adult supervised living home. The old priest was there. Dad wanted to go to the [much abbreviated] Mass. We went.

     The priest wore sandals with his black socks. He explained that Jesus wore sandals ergo, he could too. It would not have occurred to me that priests wearing sandals is an issue. Hey, that's cool.

     He read from a notebook that particular place in the gospel where Jesus told folks to love their enemies, pray for the nasty ones, and give them more loot when getting robbed. Well, okay. Whatever.

     Then the priest began talking. "Does anyone know what day is today?" he asked. He said we ought to love Al Queda and love ISIS [a.k.a. The Islamic State]. He talked about the recent beheadings and 9/11 and hate is a decision. I said to myself this priest is nutty. I swallowed hard and tried to close my ears. But I could not. These christians are more flocked up than I thought, I told myself. The little prayers he offered were for the terrorists who we should forgive because they don't know what they are doing.

     There was one thing that the priest said which I thought was true. He said some [percentage] of the firefighters involved in 9/11 are still in the same occupation. And cops too. He said that was heroic. I agree. Yes, to have witnessed so much death and then to keep on doing what one was doing before the destruction of the twin towers does demonstrate heroism.


     I was pretty angry about the situation in Ferguson. Still am. I have been around long enough to know that some [percentage of] people working in the criminal justice system do not have our best interests at heart. Police brutality. Check. It happens. Tampered juries. Check. Falsely accused forced to plea down in order to avoid almost certain prison time. Check. Seen that up close and personal. Victims being blamed. With an emphasis on male victims of female abuse as well as on anyone who is perceived of as Other by the System. Check. 

     And yet.

     I still want to believe that there are good cops around. That more often than not, we have justice. And liberty. That the price of what we enjoy as Americans is spilled blood. 

     I choose to honor the honorable. I honor vets. I honor [good] cops. I honor the firefighters of 9/11. And the cops there and the construction workers and all of the volunteers who came to help. I honor the flag because I am an American. 

     I am afraid that Obama has his brain focused on his golf game rather than on the opportunity for true leadership. I hate the ever-widening scope of the N.S.A. surveillance. I suspect that someday I may have to leave my country. But like the Rwandans who remember the genocide that happened there, I too remember 9/11.


     ~ radical sapphoq ~


references:

http://therightscoop.com/obama-isis-is-not-islamic/

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/09/11/3566181/why-isis-is-in-fact-not-islamic/

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2014/09/10/obama-calls-says-islamic-state-terrorists-are-not-islamic-n1890155

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Banu_Qurayza

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/muhammad/myths-mu-qurayza.htm

http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/skm/beheading.htm

http://wikiislam.net/wiki/List_of_Killings_Ordered_or_Supported_by_Muhammad