thoughts on 9-11 from a Jersey boy
Now, I need to give you some context. I was born in Jersey City, which is literally across the Hudson from Manhattan. Not to sound like Sarah Palin, but yes, I could indeed see the Twin Towers from the front porch of my old house. In thar area of New Jersey, there were two places to work; the industrial wastelands if you were Blue Collar, or, if you wanted to avoid that, you took the subway into Manhattan. A lot of people forget that most of the people who worked in that building were from Northern New Jersey: Hackensack, Hoboken, Passaic, and yes, Jersey City.
When 9-11 happened, I had long since gotten used to Tampa, where I am now. My brother was still in Jersey, and indeed, was supposed to be treated to breakfast at windows on the world, the restaurant at the very top of the WTC. It was beautiful, the sort of place you could literally see Conneticut from. Of course, said breakfast would have been a rich affair, but for some reason, my brother decided not to go. Turned out to be the best decision of his life, considering that he would have become toast. My sister, before coming down to Florida with the rest of my family, worked at a law firm that owned a large floor. If she had not moved down, she would have been working there still, along with the few dozen people she still knew on a first name basis that got killed.
Ok, now that I have established my history, I will quote Keith Olbermann: "for me, this was, is, and always will ber, personal." I got angry at the throngs of Palestinians cheering for the camera, and I got mad when Ted Rall decided to demonize the Jersey Girls just so he could get off the trademark snark. Of course, like everyone else, I was angry, and every Afghani could have burned to ash for all I cared. However, considering that Jersey City had a large Muslim population, that did help me put the brakes on my prejudice. Hell, my first crush in grade school was a Jordanian girl who was anything BUT the stereotype of Muslim, as were many of the kids I grew up eating Pizza with because we were getting beaten up by the Irish and Italian kids.
To this day, the fact I grew up with many Muslims and Jews has helped me keep a certain perspective, namely because when you live with people, you see them as people, instead of the stereotypes. People even see themselves less as stereotypes, as they have to learn to talk and work with the people they would not otherwise have to. I know that if I grew up in Tampa, I might have been a lot less tolerant; all groups down here tend to want to exist in separate channels, not allowing for the bumps into each other, the casual waiting in lines, where people can realize they are human than stereotype.
However, as much as I would like to remove anger from this, I cannot. I have learned that, while anger is deadly,it has a use, especially when it is the only thing that cannot be sated with deception. There is anger enough to go around: The presidenct that was incompotent, his servants that used that to make a profit, and to try and salvage the Republican party just as it was about to be laughed out of existence. The military industrial complex that had turned the idea of warmaking itself into a buisness, so much so that even after Hussein and Ben Ladin are cold corpses, the wars still ring on. I got angry at Israel, because so many of their talking heads and scribes acted like it was our moral duty to just shovel bodies and gold to them, and never ever dare criticize, like a good servant.
Most of my anger is for the right, but I will not hide anger for the left: for Blue Dog Democrats like Hillary Clinton herself, that helped cheerlead the war into Iraq. For Hans Blix, whose utter incompotence made the whole idea of UN intervention to tattered joke it is now. For the folks that still believed that their Vote for Nader did not put Bush in charge. I got sick of the doubletalk of many Muslims, who were eager to cover their own atrocities with subterfuge sauce, and no, the bit where many supported killing a Danish cartoonist for drawing Mohammed did not help matters. I remember the old First Nations proverb about the two dogs within the soul, and that if you feed that angry one, it will devour you in the end. It is hard, as there is a LOT to feed that damn angry dog, but for every religous person that seems to use their faith as an excuse to kill and bully other people, there are still the Jews and Muslims who I can have an honest talk with over Pizza, especially as, down here in Tampa, we get to complain that no pizza is as good as the type we grew up with in Jersey.
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