critical thinking at its best .

I agree




peace,
kp

Since I try to be nice, I'll share.

Hey Rude,
Loved your post on the 911 memorial orgasmathon. We all fucking remember it and always will but I don't need to fetishise the fucking memory. My ex was supposed to fly out of Newark that morning, I got to drive by that smoking pit for weeks. No amount of mind altering substance will ever let me forget.
I was freaked out for a week or so but then I was pissed.iI saw it as the entirely expected blowback of a constant foreign policy clusterfuck since WW2.
Now I'm just pissed that these asshats want to ride the wave of fear and retribution to feather their own nest and keep us dumb and numb.
Fuck em all, and not even with your dick.

Rude is being his usual blunt yet eloquent self. And I truly admire and respect his outspokenness.

At the risk of nit-picking and treading on hallowed ground, please tell Ms. 9/11 that we have indeed experienced another attack in the last 14 years. It's been in slow motion so the mass media and their 24-hour news cycle haven't interrupted regularly scheduled programming, except on rare occasions and only to the extent that it doesn't disrupt the flow of advertising revenues. (Thank you, corporate media whores!)

The body count from that attack has been much less dramatic as measured over a time scale. But much more dramatic when viewed in almost every other perspective: Sometimes the numbers killed or injured are in the dozens, but most days, the numbers are much smaller. The memorials are much more local and much less permanent than what's in Lower Manhattan, but just as achingly poignant. (And as a responder who is still trying to work up the nerve to revisit what 14 years ago was "the pile" or "Ground Zero," I hope you gentle readers will cut me some slack for not treating such hallowed ground with all due reverence).

The attack of which I write has come from within. It's euphemistically called "gun violence" -- not nearly as sexy as a calendar date. But it makes up for that in numbers too unspeakable for most people. Thousands more have been killed; an even greater number have been injured (I qualify that because so many responders and other "survivors" from the 11 September 2001 attacks have unseen injuries and illnesses).

OK, I'll get off the soapbox.

But I shudder to think of tourists with selfish-sticks at the aforementioned hallowed ground. (And, no, that wasn't AutoCorrect: you read it right -- people who carry those things are selfish, IMHO).

Which started long before 2001, but is so all-encompassing that there are no specific dates or events to highlight.

This, too, nearly escapes the headlines but also has a huge impact on people, not just domestically but indeed globally.

Most people wouldn't know anything was happening at all if not for the sloshing around of the too big to jail.

The deaths of Americans killed by other Americans with guns, or lack of health care, or any other cause, are not nearly as tragic as the deaths of those killed by "terrorists"!

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

Last edited Sat Sep 12, 2015, 08:59 AM - Edit history (1)

Today, our yoga teacher reminded us that we meant every living thing on the planet/universe

your pic of Gore reminds me of what could have possibly been.....

peace,
kp

Does your yoga teacher practice angry yoga?

not even close
but that was a great laugh!

I feel the same way.

My husband and I drank our coffee on the front porch. We put bird seed out and watched the birds come to feed. We talked about the armed civilians threatening violence in case Kim David is arrested again. I noted that of all the places we've lived in the last 44 years, we have sat outside and drank coffee and fed birds and have never been assaulted. I realized that we are living in fear, all of us, and it is making some people take up arms, see bad guys, for the wrong reasons.

In the afternoon, we ran errands. We went to a farm stand in the country. Today, it was self-pay, meaning that we picked out the things we wanted, weighed it ourselves, figured out what we owed and put it in a steel box chain to a wooden post, because there was no clerk. To be honest, we owe them .14 but we'll give it to them next time we go there.

After returning from the farm stand, my husband went to mow at our old house and I ran errands. We are getting company for the weekend, and planned to leave our van at the old house, so there is more parking here. I went to 3 stores, the credit union and the post office, then went to pick up my husband. We came home and ate some leftovers, and soon, we will finish cleaning the house for the company.

More than once today, I was struck by how normal our lives are in spite of the fear that pervades our country and the world. I do think of the people who died 14 years ago,and I think of the people who died in Oklahoma almost 20 years ago. And the bastards who set the bombs, pulled the triggers or let things happen. And the horrors we live with every day now.

I saw a commercial the other day for furniture, and a young man with prosthetic legs from the knees down. See how we are being made to accept the damaged and harmed young people as the new normal? See how we are made to accept weapons in our streets? Bombs and gunfire at the malls, schools, churches, and movie theaters? How even military sites like a recruiting center and reserve are not safe?

So today, as I appreciated that I could safely sit on my front porch and drink coffee, I have hope that sooner than another 14 years, all of us will feel safe without having weapons, that fear is left in the past, and our dear children and grandchildren once again have peace and prosperity.

The survivors of loved ones lost on September 14th are in my thoughts and prayers.

Wish I could say the same for other members of my family but I unfortunately cannot.

Frankly, the way we replay all this footage on every anniversary gives me the creeps. Was it ever a thing to replay footage of President Kennedy getting his brains blown out on November 22 of every year?

Why they ever got away with doing that...or the crime itself, as it has been proven that they knew it was coming and dismissed it, will forever be a mystery to me.

I always observe it, because it's really important what was done to us and our democracy under the cover of fear and bullshit.