Anybody needs me, I'll be under the bed
It's inescapable - this obsessive, masochistic 9/11 "memorial" coverage. I realized that TV watching was going to be tricky this week. I fast forward through commercials. Restrict what I watch to the weather, the traffic reports and shows that I have Tivo'd and even -that- minimal amount of coverage is full to overflowing with promos for 9/11 "memorial" content. I can't even listen to the radio without having my music interrupted by endless promos for "a very special Sunday show"...and this is on XM! Commercial free, theoretically!
"Join us, won't you?"
Um.
NO I won't.
Look, I understand that this event was a big deal in my country, lord knows I do. I get that after big traumatic experiences many people need to have some kind of a memorial to mark the milestone as it passes. That's human nature and if it were being handled respectfully, lovingly and gently, I'd feel differently about it.
The thing is, this is feeling a lot less like a communal moment of thoughtful contemplation and gentle grief and a lot more like emotionally manipulative spectacle-ogling slash disaster porn. It feels patently exploitative, deeply usurious of the strong emotions that are still present when remembering that day and that event. It's amping up the "horrific" and "tragic" and "unimaginable" like a movie trailer - set to an Enya "we're pushing your buttons - cry, damn you, CRY!" soundtrack.
I resent the hell out of that.
I know that I'm not the only one who does NOT want or need to re-live it. In fact, for me it feels distinctly re-traumatizing to be forced to - and that's what it feels like is happening. I am being FORCED to revisit that day. It feels like I am walking through my life and episodically three thugs run out from behind an awning, grab my head and neck and force me to look at a big Time Magazine spread on 9/11.
I don't want to, but SUR-PRISE! It's a 9-11 mugging!
Ok then, I won't leave my house.
SUR-PRISE! They're standing in the bushes with pictures shoved up against my window.
They're there when I go to the grocery store. They're there when I'm watering my yard (and the neighbor's radio was on, and they were yapping about their tribute show). They're there when I step out to get a coffee with my husband.
For the love of....can we please have an OPT OUT option here? No? Why the hell not?
Frankly, I wonder at the motivations here.
Our nation is in a ditch. Our leadership seems largely ineffectual at best, episodically criminal at worst. Our economy is ACTIVELY on fire and the politicians we've elected to help us out in case of emergency are more engaged in a rousing round of "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you! You're a boogerhead! No, YOU are!" with one another than they are in handing us the $#@!ing fire extinguisher. We're overextended in foreign wars that go on and on and on with increasingly nebulous goals. We're fractured and fragmented culturally in ways that seem insurmountable. We're more freaked out that two guys might actually get married than we are at the fact that more and more of our children are going to bed hungry each night. Or alone because Mom and Dad are working double shifts at the only part time jobs they could find.
We have become guilty of the very things we once stood against - torture, extreme rendition, secret tribunals, hidden prisons, dark suited covert operatives snatching people off the streets of Germany and France, jackbooted thugs-for-hire considering groups of citizens "collateral damage" and oh yeah, officials and politicians who are considered above the law even as they do the most unconscionable things and ADMIT to them with no fear of reprisal.
And I won't even go into the surveillance and monitoring of our own people, the "do you have your papers" stance that means you can't go see the Toronto side of Niagara Falls without producing your proof of citizenship, the expansion of police powers and "respect my authoritai" bullying, the sudden appearance of surveillance cameras at every juncture of our public lives, the random pat-downs and strip searches just to fly home to see Grandma in Omaha, the fact that an artist painting a picture of the Bank of America on fire can sign him up for several threatening CIA visits. In. America.
But nevermind any of that - "9/11! 9/11 TEN years later!"
In all of the news shows dissecting "the events of 9/11" and "the aftermath" not a single one (that I've seen or heard of) is asking the questions "Did Bin Laden actually succeed in what he set out to do? Did he do something so awful that he caused us to freak out, overreact and destroy the American way of life as we knew it then? Are we continuing to do that now? What have we become in the interim?"
Oh heck no, that's the third rail of discourse. No, lets go instead to talk to the moist eyed, flag draped "orphans of 9/11" while slow, sad music plays in the background. And let's also amp up the "real and credible new threats" fear too, lest we forget that we need to be afraid. We need to be traumatized. We need to feel that we have to be protected and that we have no choice but to fund things like interminable foreign wars, bands of lawless mercenary troops and strip searches at airports at the expense of schools, libraries....post-hurricane rebuilding. Alternative energy sources. A functional infrastructure. OH HEY, funding for the outrageous health expenses of the 9-11 First Responders! WOW! Good god damn, people! Anybody gonna -mention- that? Anybody? Anybody?
The whole spectacle and the cynical way it's being paraded out, exploited and made into Masochism Theater is making me sick to my stomach. I've spent the entire week in a jaw-clenched borderline ragey mood which is why I haven't posted much of anything.
I just want to punch every news team and segment producer I see right in the eye.
This weekend I plan to stay as far away from any outside input devices as I can. I'm going to re-plant some broccoli in my garden that's been ready to go for a week now. I'm going to weed my tomatoes. I'm going to draw and paint and read some books. In other words, I'm going to be living my damn life. And on Sunday, even as I'm doing these things, I'll be aware of what day it is. I don't need some idiot with a bullhorn bellowing it in my ear.
I'll take some time out to be grateful for the blessings I have in my life and to hope that the people most affected by the events of that day have had some healing and found some peace over the last decade. I'm going to take a moment to pray that my nation can stop being so obsessed with the event and that we move on to start cleaning up the aftermath in a substantive way - not just by rebuilding Ground Zero into a park. I will be praying that this country turns things around so that ten years from NOW we can say with assurance that Osama Bin Laden did NOT win. We ran aground for a bit, foundered a bit and lost our way a little, but then we righted things. We overcame. We stopped bickering and drew together and fixed things. We re-thought our approach, revisited our charter ideals and brought about the next golden era for democracy and sustainable, equitable prosperity and reclaimed our place as the shining light on the hill.
If we can make the world -better- because this awful thing happened, then Bin Laden didn't win. Simple as that. The answer to destruction is CREATION, not more destruction. It's like that old paper, scissors, rock game.
Love cuts up hate. Love wins.
Creation wipes out destruction. Creation wins.
Compassion outweighs cruelty. Compassion wins.
That's the kind of "memorial tribute" I'd like to see, and that's the sort of magical intention I'm going to be crafting this weekend.
I'm going to create things. I'm going to love things. I'm going to be kind to myself and others.
It doesn't make for great soundbytes, but it's the way I believe that we make sure the tide is turning in the -right- direction this time. One conscious, deliberate act of creative, love-filled, intensely personal rebellion at a time. ;)