The Clash of Symbols

The recent announcement of Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement from the United States Supreme Court is fraught with tension particularly regarding women's rights and, though less so, gay and minority rights. Ms. O'Connor's widely circulated comment – "I am disappointed, in a sense, to see the percentage of women on our court drop by 50 percent" – has been seized by activists alarmed that even the justice herself is uncomfortable that her nominated replacement, John Roberts, is not an XX chromosome human being. Though Ms. O'Connor puts full confidence in Mr. Robert's judicial aptitude, her lamenting supporters wish that President Bush presented a more estrogen-rich litigator.

Odd, don't you think?

I've already examined the problem of male/female equality in "A Fifty-Million Dollar Apology For Simple Math." There I presented a rather curious logical impasse: Harvard President Lawrence Summers' provocative suggestion that men and women are intrinsically different was greeted with umbrage by those who talk about equality and yet insist that women are not equal to men. If you've not read it, I recommend it to you. I suspect that you might find it somewhat provocative in its own right.

What is odd, is not that Ms. O'Connor should be disappointed. Nor is it odd that activists have used her remarks. That sort of thing is to be expected, and would be odd if Ms. O'Connor or her supporters expressed no emotion at all. But what is odd is that no one knows, other than Ms. O' Connor, what she means by her remarks. For she does not say why she's disappointed, and no one has seemed to ask. She's just "disappointed, in a sense." What does that mean?

Does it mean that she believes President Bush prefers men? Who knows!? Does it mean that she thinks Bush is misogynistic or sexist or repressive? Who knows!? Does it mean that there are no women litigators skilled enough to fill Ms. O'Connor's shoes? Again, who knows?! We are not at all given any insight into Ms. O'Connor's remarks, in large part because the media have treated them thoroughly superficially. The assumption is that she merely wishes Bush had nominated another woman. But for all we know, Ms. O'Connor's "in a sense" means that she is disappointed that so few women have applied themselves sufficiently to the legal profession, thus leaving the Administration few choices.

Of course, I recognize that O'Connor seems to imply something. But it must be admitted that all of us are left in the ambiguous dark as to why she is truly disappointed, particularly when we think about equality, and equal rights. If, after all, men and women are equal – one sex as capable of knowledge and skill and judgement as the other – how then is it an inequality having men decide legal issues for everyone? If there are no differences between men and women, then how is a man exempt from making judgements about equality as it pertains to women? Or are men and women in essence different, bringing different learning styles, perspectives, and intelligences to the Court? Are there legal issues that pertain only to women, others only to men? If we admit this, then men and women are NOT equal under the law, nor are men and women equal in general. Hence, if we admit all this, then why would the enlightened intellectuals at Harvard – and nearly everywhere else – chastise commentators like Lawrence Summers?

Forsooth, even a transsexual recently suggested here at Contratimes that the "new" she now possesses "superior female intuition." Is there indeed something superior to women's minds in some areas? Moreover, are we in fact not heading toward expecting a certain sexlessness, a kind of androgynous amalgam on the Supreme Court? How about – and this might thrill a certain set – loading the Court with transsexuals, balanced with a kindly blend of women who were once men and men who were once women. Of course, the Court might then be rescued from the morass of sex differences, but we would still be dealing with legal, social and ontological inequalities, as transsexuals by definition are different, and thus not equal to those who would be excluded from the bench. Ahhgh! The illusions and elusiveness of equality!

Is there a conclusion to all this? It's hard to know. Take it as just the clashing of sundry symbols – the tokens of power and equality and even genteel democratic dialogue. There is no clear winning here, no obvious passage out, and no flag to wave in victory or surrender. We simply must press on, carrying in our satchels of certitude the miscellany of ambiguities of which life is so sorely composed.

One thing we know: We'll need a lot of grace to make it home.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

[Photo: Peterborough, NH - Iraq war protest, woman in black garb, Gay Pride and American flags. Camera: Canon EOS 3. Lens: Canon EF 17-40/4L. Film: Fujipress 800. Exposure: 1/500 @ f8. Click on photo for larger view.]

In With A Bang, Kicking Down Your Privacy

One person might hope that my return to Contratimes would be ushered in with a bang, while another expects little more than a whimper. Alas, I am not one to know. Even if I did know, there is no assurance that what is to me a bang would not be to others a mere trite and tedious ho-hum. Hoping that my efforts here are not, in truth, a dud, I light the fuse, hold my ears, and let things go off as they may.

The news in America over the past two weeks, during my hiatus, has been filled with terrorism, Karl Rove/Plamegate, and the nomination of a conservative to the United States Supreme Court. I tried to ignore much of the noise around these things, but I failed most of the time. That which piqued my curiosity mostly was the Supreme Court hub-bub. It is that to which I will now turn.

***

On Sunday's Meet The Press (July 24), Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) shared the following thoughts concerning Supreme Court nominee John Roberts (please, don't spray your coffee all over the screen as you read his remarks). Durbin sits on the senate judiciary committee and is the Democratic minority whip. In the interest of brevity, I am only including a small portion of his remarks. You should read the whole interview yourself [emphasis added]:

"...I believe that John Roberts, despite his great resume and all of the positive things that can be said about him, still has the burden of proving something. He needs to prove that he is worthy of a lifetime appointment to the highest court of the land, the court that really stands as the last refuge for the rights and freedoms of the American people and that he will serve there most likely, if approved, 20 or 30 years. So we need to know things about him that two years on the bench in the District of Columbia don't tell us, whether that's through documentation or his answers to questions. What I said to him the other day, 'If you will be honest and forthcoming, you're going to find a warm reception from our side of the aisle, even if we disagree with you on any given issue.'

"... I have an obligation as a member of the Senate, representing not only Illinois, but speaking for those in the nation who are following this, to ask critical questions about where he stands on mainstream values in America. It's not enough to say all of those things, legally skilled, honest and a good temperament. I need to know if his views fall within the mainstream on critical issues, issues like workers' rights and women's rights and civil rights and the protection of the environment. ... It's a question about the values and principles that guided Roe vs. Wade. What Justice Blackmun was trying to achieve in that decision was to recognize the right of privacy, a right of exclusion so that there are parts of our lives, our personal and family lives, the government can't intrude upon. And in this situation, I think we have a right to know where John Roberts stands when it comes to fundamental issues of privacy and personal freedom. ...

"I would like to hear from him as to whether or not he has at least thought through or struggled with this decision on the future of reproductive rights in this country. I'd like to hear from him that even if he might disagree on a variance of Roe vs. Wade, that when it comes down to the basics, when it comes down to right of privacy, he will acknowledge that is part of our right and our legacy as Americans and that he would acknowledge, as well, that this is an issue of personal freedom ...

"...The American people expect us, I think in this process, to find out what is really driving the thoughts and the heart of the individual who's seeking this nomination. If I didn't do that, we'd be putting someone on the court without an understanding as to whether they would be independent, whether they'd be balanced and have an open mind. This is the last refuge for America's freedoms and rights and I think we have a special obligation to understand what goes into the value judgments of those seeking this bench."

Unknown to Durbin, apparently, is that astute readers immediately see not only a theme to his remarks, but also his blindness, his eyes having been poked out by his own wayward logic. For Durbin takes the high road about the right to privacy – how such privacy is hallowed in the sacrosanct parameters of "Justice Blackmun's" Roe v. Wade – and then immediately denounces privacy in the heart of a man nominated to the Supreme Court. Durbin must "find out what is really driving the thoughts and the heart of the individual who's seeking this nomination." In other words, in order to protect Americans' right to privacy, Durbin wants to make public the private thoughts of a Supreme Court candidate. Moreover, Durbin insists that Roberts must "prove that he is worthy" by showing whether his heart – his personal, privately held belief-system – is up to Democratic Party standards: He must prove that his personal privacy conforms to public, "mainstream" opinion on certain matters.

There cannot be a more frightening abuse of power than Durbin's concealed contempt for personal privacy: He is looking for a party automaton to sit on the bench, whose private beliefs are in lockstep with Durbin's public beliefs. The earth shakes beneath our intellects when we hear Durbin suggest that he wants a justice who is "balanced" and has an "open mind." Why doth the earth shake? Because the only possible type of person who could be approved to the Supreme Court by Durbin is a person whose mind is utterly closed about Roe v. Wade. An open-minded person would be one who is open to the idea that perhaps Roe v. Wade is bad jurisprudence. But Durbin does not want that kind of person, no matter what fealty Durbin allegedly offers "open-mindedness." He wants a person who is not a "free"-thinker. He wants a machine.

In fact, when one listens to Durbin and others like him, there seems to be no need at all for a Supreme Court, particularly if the justices that are confirmed to that court merely decide judicial cases the way Durbin and his cohorts would decide such cases. Who needs justices like Roberts or Ginsberg or Souter, if each is only going to rubber-stamp public sentiments?

Can the reader imagine what sort of brouhaha would ensue if legislators, intent on protecting privacy-rights, nonetheless drafted legislation that legalized abortion hearings, where women had to come before a committee – sort of like the judiciary committee – and answer questions about their motives, about the purity of their hearts, all to determine if they "thought through or struggled with this decision"? The protestations would be historic! Opponents would insist that women have a sacred right to their inner thoughts, even if those thoughts offend life itself. But Durbin and his cadre insist that Judge Roberts does not have the right to his own inner thoughts; his own internal legal wranglings. His mind must be opened, forcibly. No. He must be forthcoming.

Durbin (and senators Kennedy and Schumer) sounds as if he wants to rip open the very womb in which Mr. Roberts' personal beliefs reside.

And you know what? John Roberts at this moment has no privacy, as Democratic activists, from feminist and pro-choice groups, the media, and elected officials, pore over every aspect of his life, all in an effort too divulge what is personal and private to him; to make public his very heart.

For shame!

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

[Photo: The image was taken with a Nikon FM2 on Fujichrome 100. Settings were 1/500th of a second at 5.6. Lens was a Nikkor 300mm f 4. Click on it for a larger view.)

'Tis The Season

Forgive me, please. But Contratimes is going on vacation. I intend to be away for two weeks. I need to let the grass grow beneath my feet for a bit; to let it poke its blades between my toes. I need to feel the wind at my back, and let the sun warm my shoulders. Forsooth, I will be in that metaphorical place in "the deep heart's core", illustrated in the photo I've posted this morning (click on it for a larger view).

Besides, this will give you ample time to catch up on essays you've missed, and to email all your friends about Contratimes. (To send an essay, click the little envelope at the end of each piece.)

I will return, perhaps, only when there is a major news event, or when overcome by the force of some brilliant or clairvoyant insight (which proves, to some of you, that I won't be back at all). Or maybe I will drop in a photograph here and there. Perhaps I'll post a link to an article I find important. Who knows?

Expect me back on July 28.

(I might also be offline for the last week in August.)

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, and a small cabin build there ..."

Peace and mirth,

Bill Gnade

[Photo: Sand Beach and The Beehive, Mt. Desert Island, Acadia National Park, Maine, USA. Camera: Canon EOS3. Lens: Canon EF 20mm/2.8. Film: Kodak Ektachrome 100VS. Exposure: 1/125 @ f13. Click on photo for larger view.]

Taking Flights Of Logical Fancy

Sometimes I feel like lifting off, taking flight, beating weary wings toward some distant, anonymous, perhaps even forsaken place. Recently I felt this acute rush of longing while standing before several pieces of art displayed at a New Hampshire gallery. I felt like fleeing not because of the art per se, which was patently awful. I felt like fleeing because of pretensions at intellectual grandeur, particularly the pretensions of philosophical grandeur printed in one featured artist's statement elegantly displayed near his work (which was also dreadful).

I have long speculated on why it is that the art world tends to be filled with liberals, Democrats, socialists, even progressive nihilists. Is it because art is all about "pushing the envelope" and "breaking with convention" and "inventing new rules that are also made to be broken"? Is it about "shattering presuppositions" in search of the "numinous" or the "meaningful"? Or is it that artists as a class need government subsidies, are even dependent on them; and not mere handouts of cash, but subsidies of equality, where grants and honors and exhibitions are awarded solely to acknowledge the equal effort inherent in every artist's work? You know, in an "all-artists-are-trying" sort of way? After all, was this not the very point behind another recent exhibit I attended, "Art as Process", wherein was displayed the "rough drafts" of several artists' work? Surely the subtitle to that exhibit could have easily been, "Artists: Look How They Try."

But perhaps the reason art and liberalism go hand and hand is about philosophy. I've often thought that conservative thinkers were often chided or disregarded because of their dependence on logic, evidence, you know, the components of reason. Conservatives are often berated for lacking compassion, and I believe they are berated thus solely because reason seems so absolute and confining, so limiting in its expectations and demands. Liberals, on the other hand, have always struck me as being more about passion than cogitation; more affective or emotional than hard-headed logicians. Of course, there are exceptions, but by-and-large I believe this to be so. How else to explain a revolutionary's zeal than to appeal to Jean Jacques Rousseau's "passion trumps reason" (what is felt is more important than what is known or thought); or to understand why George W. Bush campaigned as a "compassionate conservative"? Conservatives tend to think toward an answer to a problem, and this, at times, looks like an uncaring luxury in the slow, calculated manner problem-solving demands. In contrast, liberals tend to feel through a problem; they are compelled to act immediately to solve an alleged injustice: Feeling, fervor, motive, intent – these are the benchmarks of liberal activism. These are the signs over their exhibit: We Are Trying. We Mean Well. We Get Things Done. We Are Urgent.

AN ARTIST'S STATEMENT

I stood in silent disbelief as I read the young artist's statement describing his vision and his muse. It did me no good that I was standing, a glass of cabernet sauvignon in hand, in the midst of a whirling, blustering audience so enamored of the whole, well, "process." And it did me no good to see that several pieces, some fetching fairly good sums for a first showing, had already been purchased, red stickers indicating that pieces had quickly found a home.

Here's what the statement said, which began with a quote by "process theologian" Alfred North Whitehead culled from Marshall McLuhan's "The Medium is the Massage."[sic] The quote first:

"In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from sentimental feeling, as it were a mist, cloaking the perplexities of fact. Insistence on clarity at all costs is based on sheer superstition as to the mode in which human intelligence functions. Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions."

I beg your pardon for being so academic here. But this is not about being didactic. It is about laughing one's head off, right off one's shoulders. For the quote above is a genuine howler. Don't you see why? It's simple, really. Mr. Whitehead has insisted on using "hard-headed clarity" to show the futility of "hard-headed clarity." Thus, by his own clear argument against clarity, it must be concluded that his observation "issues from sentimental feeling." He himself must be superstitious. And thus, he wallows in a contradiction.

But Whitehead's argument couches something more important, and it is subtle. What Whitehead has done is to give permission to thinkers everywhere to embrace a sort of anti-rationalism, a sort of "reading between the lines" of logic, reason, and argument. In short, he's given them permission to blow off the hard work which the pursuit of logically viable truth and clarity demands.

Now, I know that Whitehead is in part responding to the logical positivists in his milieu, but most readers do not know that, nor is it relevant here. What is relevant is how our young artist understood Whitehead. See if you can make sense of it all:

"I use unrefined materials in imagemaking to depict images and themes in life that range from the common and local to complicated and global. In this manner, I am attempting to metaphorically bridge an unspannable gap between what exists on human scale and that which is distinctly not human, i.e. things which necessarily exist within a global context. A gap in which, as suggested by the quote above from A.N. Whitehead, chance, instinct, intuition and creativity are far more responsive than 'hard-headed clarity' to the 'perplexities of fact' – a commodity too often misinterpreted, misused and corrupted. The interest here is to open up and complicate meaning in a way that does not compromise integrity and does not shy away from presumptions of authority."

Besides it being hard to understand how there is a bridge over an "unspannable gap" between humanity and that which is not humanity, "i.e. things which necessarily exist within a global context" (Lord knows humans don't exist within a global context – Yikes!); one wonders how this statement helps us understand anything other than the artist's flight from reason. To this artist, intuition and feeling and chance are the real forces of creativity. Reason constrains, limits; it is for the hardheaded, and not the softhearted.

This, to me, is a perfect example of the difference between myself, a conservative, and my liberal peers. No doubt my liberal chums would press me to be less intensely logical in reading the artist's statement; that I should see that he is "trying", that his "heart is in the right place", and that he "means well." No doubt they'd also tell me that what was important was not what he wrote, but what he meant, what he intended between the lines.

But there is also this statement by the artist adjacent to the one quoted above:

"My art is a venue [Yikes! again] for a realm of discussion that does not easily find a place in our everyday lives. As people, I think that we need a certain amount of..."

I am sorry, did you say, "As people"? Could we be anything else? Oh, yes, of course. We are that indefinable other thing that lives outside "a global context". Oiks! Help! (This latter artist's piece entitled "Two Birds Talking" sold for $700. It was a pen and ink cartoonish piece, wherein a bird, gripping a branch, speaks to a juvenile bird [apparently]. There are dialogue bubbles. In the final bubble, the senior bird says, and I quote: "You might think we are lying and we may not wholy believe that we are not." Now, for $700, don't you think you might want to have "wholly" spelled correctly? Talk about a venue for discussions! Who needs clarity anyway?!)

WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT?

This whole exercise for me is about the difference between philosophies of feeling and those of thinking. For me, the quotes above, and the work associated with them, smack not of creativity, but of laziness and even self-centeredness. The laziness part is revealed in the flight from reason, for reason is hard to master. To the lazy philosopher/artist, impulse, intuition, chance, randomness–these are what constitute creativity. Not planning, not practicing certain skills repeatedly. No, just the easy, hasty and quick burst of creative passion: This is art! This merits appraisal and approval! This trumps using one's head: The use of the Heart!

And it is self-centeredness because it seeks approval for being outside, unique, even insouciant. Instead of the tedium of logical constructions, which are all rules and traditions and practices, artists too often flaunt their improvisational skills without once proving they can do the rather rote skills possessed by the masters. Imagine if Michelangelo's David or the Sistine Chapel were mere whims of intuition! mere impulse! mere improv!

How, then does all this play out politically? Perhaps a quote from Socrates as found in Plato's Apology will suffice. Socrates, you might recall, was on trial for corrupting Athenian youth and allegedly denouncing the gods of the state. In his defense, or apology, Socrates described how he had begun his pursuit of wisdom as a result of divine inspiration: an oracle had spoken to him. And in his pursuit of wisdom, he inquired of wise men – politicians and poets and artisans – in an effort to discern what is real wisdom:

"I went to the poets ... I am ashamed to confess that there is not a person ... who would not have talked better about their poetry than the poets did themselves. So I learnt that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of ... inspiration. ... At last I went to the artisans ... I was sure that they knew many fine things; and I was not mistaken, ... But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets; – because they were good workmen, they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom." [emphasis added]

The political implications of Socrates' statements are important.

No wonder he was executed.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

PS. For you photo enthusiasts out there: the picture of the Blue Heron (above) was taken with a Canon F1, 80-200/2.8 lens (focal length 200mm). Settings were 1/1000th at f8 on Ilford HP5 Plus film. Click on it for a larger view.

Finding Time For Chores

Today, with all due apologies, I am far too busy to cram in an essay of any import. Things are just too busy at the farm (so to speak), and I've got other duties pleading for my attention. Oh, to live isolated on a hill, or in the deep reaches of earth, where only my selfish interests command my time! Alas, even then, I am afraid, I would find that I was not free.

I recommend that Contratimes readers take a moment and read some of the comments, and my responses, posted recently. Look at the comments offered by one reader at A Picture And A Poem and What If You Could, Would You? You might also want to look at the comments left at Unholy Alliance, Unholy Devotion and A Fifty Million Dollar Apology For Simple Math. I do not think you will be disappointed, nor will you feel at all "cheated."

And, as I promised, I offer another photograph (click on it for a full view) for your enjoyment, symbolic as it is: I've not got enough room for everything.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

PS. If you need something to read that is a bit more heady and provocative, read David Horowitz' piece posted this morning. Click here to access it.

[Photo: Peterborough, NH. Camera: Canon F1. Lens: Canon FD 200mm/4. Film: Kodak 400 Tri-X. Exposure: 1/250 @ f8. Click on photo for larger view.]

A Picture And A Poem

We move about on a sphere hurling through space, each of us swimming at the bottom of an ocean of air and gaseous water - an atmosphere of pressures and currents and energy. At this moment a Category IV hurricane – Dennis – approaches the Gulf Coast of the United States with ominous force: A hurricane is the most powerful structure on the planet.

But there is beauty in the incomprehensible skies. The photograph posted here (click on it for a larger view), taken in the heart of New England, is a rare look at the fragmented eye of a dying hurricane. It's rare solely because it is unusual that any hurricane should pass so far inland in New England, and that it should pass and break apart at sunset (leading to dramatic photos, no doubt). My one regret with the photo is that I saw the scene too late: things went dark rapidly after this image was taken.

So why the picture? I do not know. Perhaps I am hoping for a calm resolution to today's storm; perhaps I am looking for the beauty in the midst of tragedy. Perhaps I am personally looking for a calm in the midst of storm.

Irrespective of the reasons, I offer my prayers to those who have been, and will be, in Dennis' path.

A Poem

For those of you who respond to word rather than image, I offer this poem:

I am not ready

to change the list of sins into something
resembling ease
I am not ready to change the borders between nations
I am not ready to change the currencies of capital
I am not ready to change diapers or schools or addresses
I am not ready to change the world or men or women
or the gospel or the sun, moon, stars, and the streets
in certain towns where small feet begin their walk
toward a living wage.

I am not ready to change the color of grass, or the sky, or
to damn the rainbow as a bumper sticker. I am not ready at all –
for the change clanging about in countless clothes dryers
in a thousand coin-op flourescent linted rooms –
I am not ready to change up or down, left and right
and person and rights and right and wrong and dia-
gonal and the taste of cantaloupe on summer evenings
barefoot in the garden. I am not ready to change
the temperature of the sun, or the face in the moon
I am not ready to change marriage into something re-
sembling two cups atop each other, I like the saucer
beneath the cup and the sky wedded to the sea
and the black and white of chess. I am not going to
change the color of skin because it would make love
easier; or fake an accent because I am not part of
the cognoscenti or some other precious insight or in-
side joke among teammates. I am not ready to change
truth into something digestible.

And I am not about to climb a mountain and shame it
for being above the valley or pull a gun on the
unrighteousness of a given day and to call my dog
a cat or friend a foe or an enemy unredeemable and

I am not ready to change mankind into a woe

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

[Photo: Dublin Lake, Dublin, NH. Camera: Canon F1. Lens: Canon FD 20mm/2.8. Film: Kodak Ektachrome 100. Exposure: Unrecorded. Click on photo for larger view.]

The West's Truest Moral Failure

[I received mixed reviews from readers about yesterday's "essay", A Little Perspective. One reader thought the post packed a powerful, to-the-point punch; admitting that a picture may indeed be worth a thousand words. Another wrote that he felt cheated by the brevity of the post; that it was too diminutive. I receive both reviews with glee, for the former's is a direct compliment, while the latter's compliment is veiled: my verbosity, at least to one reader, is perceived as a good thing.]

The leftist Blogosphere is abuzz about London. But I only need to point to one example, culled from three interlinked sites – Nationaldebunker.blogspot.com, DailyKos.com, and MediaMatters.org – that has the left rather dizzy. And this one example will suffice to make a head-shaking point.

The three aforementioned sites are taking umbrage with this exchange between a Fox News co-anchor, Brian Kilmeade (who is not a reporter, nor does he pretend to be, I believe), and a Fox News guest host in what is clearly an exchange of opinions. I quote the exchange as posted at The Daily Kos:

"KILMEADE: And he [British Prime Minister Tony Blair] made the statement, clearly shaken, but clearly determined. This is his second address in the last hour. First to the people of London, and now at the G8 summit, where their topic Number 1 --believe it or not-- was global warming, the second was African aid. And that was the first time since 9-11 when they should know, and they do know now, that terrorism should be Number 1. But it's important for them all to be together. I think that works to our advantage, in the Western world's advantage, for people to experience something like this together, just 500 miles from where the attacks have happened.

VARNEY [the guest host]: It puts the Number 1 issue right back on the front burner right at the point where all these world leaders are meeting. It takes global warming off the front burner. It takes African aid off the front burner. It sticks terrorism and the fight on the war on terror, right up front all over again.

KILMEADE: Yeah."

It must be asked how a reasonable person might assess Kilmeade's remarks [the bold highlights were emphasized by others, not Contratimes]. Is he reckless? Is he presumptuous? Is he offensive? Does he sound as if he is celebrating the London bombings? Does he in any way indicate that he is glad these things happened?

Of course, I have asked how a reasonable person might interpret Kilmeade's remarks. Let me stipulate with generosity that Kilmeade is not much of a player: He co-hosts a morning news show that is self-consciously and intentionally silly (Fox & Friends), and is, for lack of a better word, Fox's alternative to Good Morning America and the Today show. It is not the flagship news broadcast of Fox News (that would be Special Report with Brit Hume). With that said, let's first look at how the ostensibly reasonable folks on the already-cited web-sites have spun Kilmeade's remarks:

"While I was listening to the news of the London bombings on NPR yesterday, I was online reading an essay, written before the attacks and posted on Juan Cole's site, on the improbability that the Bush administration would adopt an exit strategy from Iraq, and speculating on the legacy of the US-led occupation.

"Of course to say that that legacy arrived yesterday in London is premature. But yesterday's events are, I believe, a taste of what's likely to come. While ass-clowns like FOX's Brian Kilmeade prattle on nonsensically about how the London bombings are good for the US, thinking adults (never part of the FOX News demographic) know better.

"As the individual quoted on Cole's site compellingly argues, the outlook for the kind, severity and quantity of future terror attacks spawned by the Iraq war is not favorable to the West or its allies. He/she writes:

'The really scary thing is what happens when the well-trained jihadis leave Iraq, victorious, and head south to destroy the Saudi oil infrastructure and west, to Mexico and Canada, to slip into the US and create many more 9/11s ...'

"...What I do think, though, is that the London attacks are a portent for a future filled with many more terror attacks once Iraq's battle-hardened jihadis -- recruited thanks to the war Bush and Blair started -- are loosed upon the world."

And this from the Daily Kos:

"Fox News: London Attacks a Good Thing [headline]

"For all those opposed to the Bushites who are wondering about the ethics of politicizing the London bombings, you should know that the Murdoch noise machine [Fox News] has no such qualms ...

"The masters of war will be unafraid to utilize this tragedy to further their goals of marginalizing dissent and justifying their criminal actions in Iraq. I even heard a wingnut (Dennis Prager) on the radio this morning say that Spain was responsible for this bombing. I don't hold out much hope that this event will turn the public in Britain against Blair and in the US even more against Bush, but I still hope this happens. We must be prepared and unafraid to provide clear counterpoint to the oncoming rush of propoganda."

If my readers are unable to see the contradiction in these remarks, then I have failed in my mission at Contratimes. What is the contradiction? (You KNOW you see it, don't you?) The contradiction is this: Both writers have used the London bombings for political reasons in order to show how shameful it is that a Fox News anchor used the bombings for political reasons. Moreover, both writers actually exploit the bombings themselves (along with countless other bloggers) as evidence that the Bush War on Terror has made America and the West LESS safe (the tedious mantra of leftist critics offered since 2003). In fact, the left has actually proven that the bombings in London are GOOD for the West, because, as these bloggers and other commentators intimate, the bombings HELP the cause of the anti-war movement. In other words, the bombings are good for leftist agendas everywhere.

Ironically, even a casual analysis of Kilmeade's remarks does not show that he 'prattled' on, nor does it show that he believed it was good for America, only that it helped to unify the "West" against a legitimate and objectively real threat. He in no way suggested the bombings were morally or even politically good. It was clear, stumbling along in his often obtuse way, that Kilmeade was looking for the equivalent of a "silver lining" in a hideous and objectionable tragedy. And that silver lining is a socio-political unity between Western nations that, together, might form a strong defense against terrorism.

But the left has indeed found the very silver lining they've been looking for: The bombs of London prove that the war on terror is an abject failure. The West, to the leftists, particularly the conservative West, deserved to be bombed on Thursday. And had the West heeded the anti-Bush, anti-Blair, anti-war left, the bombings in London would have been less likely to occur (or would not have occurred at all).

Now, check out this comment by a reader on The Daily Kos:

"I can't help making a mental comparison between 3 bombs in London that killed upwards of 30 people with the tons of bombs that we have dropped on Iraq that have killed upwards of 10000 people. Frankly, I don't see any moral superiority in our position."

This comment comes in a long line of postings (196 as of 7.9.05) by all sorts of readers (mostly) aligned with the Daily Kos' progressive nihilism (sorry, but it is nihilism), and in response to Kilmeade's remarks. And I know that Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson essentially opined the same shocking sentiments yesterday in "A look in the mirror for America" (read it and grieve). It must be asked: Are people really this unthinking? And do such people mark themselves as members of the intelligentsia?

Two questions: What warning did Londoners have on Wednesday that they were about to be bombed? and, How many Muslim terrorists have come to London, or to Ground Zero, to assist in the rebuilding of the Tube or the World Trade Center? Surely, you see the point of these questions.

When the West has attacked its enemies in the War on Terror, IT HAS ALWAYS GIVEN THEM FAIR WARNING. It has broadcast not only its intentions, it has given - repeatedly - specific deadlines and even criteria by which conflict can be avoided. This was and has been specifically true in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there have been no internecine, hidden, concealed anonymous bombings or attacks on either of these countries by the West. In fact, the West has been boldly visible in its actions and intentions. When a bomb lands in Iraq after years of diplomatic struggle with the West, an Iraqi KNOWS that the bomb came from the US military. But please, pray tell, who bombed London on Wednesday? Who exactly? Where is their capitol, and where is their embassy? Where is their military headquartered, and what uniform do they wear? And who is their president, or their prime minister?

Lastly, Americans are dying in Iraq trying to rebuild, heal and repair what they knocked down, injured or damaged. Seen any Muslim terrorists doing the same in Spain, Beslan, New York or London? No. Why? Because the West has in fact and deed taken a "morally superior position" than its enemies.

There. I said it. Am I wrong? Maybe.

Shame on Derrick Z. Jackson and those who think (it's not thinking) like him. It is the West's truest moral failure that it has raised opinions like Mr. Jackson's to the status of intellectual viability.

Today, I fly my flag halfstaff, largely because I mourn that Derrick Z. Jackson and others can be so full of hate for this imperfect country in which I live. The globe the Boston Globe's Jackson apprehends is a very small globe indeed.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

A Little Perspective

When judging something -- anything -- it is often beneficial to have a point of reference. So, in the interest of aiding the reader's judgment of terrorism, I supply this photograph from my archives. It shows what 9 pounds of dynamite placed on a bus look like fractions of a second after detonation. Click on the picture for a larger view. It is quite revealing. And then think of a terrorist's bomb on a London double-decker.

It is worth noting that the types of explosives used in terrorism are viciously more volatile than dynamite.

What a sad world.

©2005/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

[Fear not, the bus was empty. This still image was taken for a news story about the filming of a low-budget movie. The detonation was shot at 1/500th of a second, f/5.6, on Ektachrome 100 film. 400mm lens, Canon A2; tripod. Distance: 100 yards. For you photo geeks out there.]

We Are All Londoners

Today London grieves, only 24 hours after celebrating its winning bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics. Terrorists have reportedly brought a different torch to that city, igniting a different cauldron. Shame on them.

According to reports, Islamic extremists are now warning Denmark and Italy to consider their own fates; and to bow before the almighty sword of Allah.

Yes, the G8 summit is occurring now, in Scotland. The summit's focus is on aid to Africa and global environmental issues. But the G8 agenda, important as it is, is meaningless in a world where the environment is polluted by people who perform acts of unconscionable terror with cheer. Moreover, why worry about air pollution when there are people who aim to prevent us from breathing at all?

And by us, I mean the Euro-, Anglo-, American-centric West. I am talking about the people who read this essay; who live and move about in the civilized world. We are, as this blog repeatedly reminds us, targets. And we are targets because of who we are, not merely, or even largely, because of what we do.

The difference between the West and our Muslim accusers is simple to define: We do not flood the streets in celebration upon a military victory. Does anyone think that the Americans are going to flood Ground Zero, guns raised, effigies burning, if Osama bin Laden is captured? Do you think we Western "crusaders" delight in burning people alive, dragging them through streets, and hanging their scorched corpses on bridges and then, for sheer fun, posing for pictures with the smell of burned flesh on our hands? Does the American military post on the web declarations of celebration every time a cruise missle finds its mark, telling the world, as terrorists did this morning, that our enemies should burn "with fear and terror, from north to south, east to west"?

This is what was found on the web this morning, posted, allegedly, by the London attackers:

"Rejoice, Islamic nation. Rejoice, Arab world. The time has come for vengeance against the Zionist crusader government of Britain in response to the massacres Britain committed in Iraq and Afghanistan ... The heroic mujahedeen carried out a blessed attack in London, and now Britain is burning with fear and terror, from north to south, east to west."

Nice!

I will say this: The worst thing the Islamic extremists can do is turn Europe against Islam. I mean that. It is the worst thing they can do. And they are just about to do it.

London and the rest of us have an Olympian task before us, simple in theory, but difficult in practice. We need to show our resolve, yes, but what we need to show is the superiority of our world. We need to win the propaganda war, proving that Osama bin Laden and his derivatives are pathetic, snivelling critics dripping with envy, and quivering with an unsated lust for power. We need to show that the world Osama bin Laden sought to trade at the World Trade Center is not a world that is worth a thing. We need to show the foolishness of terrorism, not by denouncing its violence, but declaring its impotence.

What more demonstrative proof of weakness has ever been shown to the world than 9/11? For on that day the West was attacked by airplanes created and sustained by the West; in a country so free even its enemies can walk through airports without so much as a question; on a day when travel was as easy as picking up the phone. Where are the Islamic plane-builders? And why, if Osama bin Laden is so strong, could he not attack with weapons his own superior world built for itself? Why steal ours, if not in admission of his abject impotency? Damn it, I guarantee you that every piece of technology used in London this morning was created by a Westerner. I know it in my bones. There is thus nothing strong in an ideology that is so weak it cannot fend for itself; or offend for itself.

But the Arabic world did indeed bring ONE thing to 9/11, and if you think about it, it makes one tremble. For there was a time, deep beneath Arabian sand, that the very oil used to thrust the jet engines into the Twin Towers once sat cool in the prehistoric darkness. In short, the oil of Arabia did start the whole thing tumbling down.

My liberal friends are right: THE WAR IS ALL ABOUT OIL -- the very oil that fell down on New Yorkers, scorching (as it did) horror-struck faces turned upward, mouths agape at the face of impotent evil.

Oil: the residue of dead carbon-based life forms. The residual blood of countless organisms, decayed beyond the millennia. Perhaps it's the blood of the Garden of Eden, long since dead.

Today, we are all Londoners. But London is not burning, and it is not falling down. It is a stalwart city in a stalwart nation, of historic resolve. It may quake, but it will not tumble.

I pray for London, just as I pray for peace in a world where peace refuses to come easy.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

Got To Love Those Nationals!

In yesterday's essay, Dissenting Toward Deep Impact, it was asserted that,

"... we can resist, or at least point out, the folly of those who dissent for the sake of dissent; those who NEED to dissent in order to distance themselves from the common herd, and then define themselves by that distance. "I am not one of THEM!" might be each of their mantras as they smugly meditate on their self-identities. It's like defining oneself by indulging in contrary acts to one's parents' wishes: "I will NEVER be like them!" It is all show, it is all so much identity via externals. Latch on to the idea that "To dissent is to be an American"; and all you'll do is contradict, merely to maintain an identity. It's like a rip in one's blue jeans, a tattoo on one's forehead, a corporate logo on one's shoe."

Surely the assertion is vulnerable to rebuttal. OK. So be it. I concede.

But in my concession speech, I must include this gem of a story from the Washington Post, "In DC, 'W' Spells More Than Baseball."

It is reported that certain fans of the Washington Nationals baseball team, the new major league franchise in our nation's capitol, do not want to purchase or wear the team's official baseball cap. Why? Because the cap is decorated with a W, which, in case you are as obtuse as these plaintive fans, stands for Washington. Washington, DC, that is. And someone, in some parallel freak universe, might think the W stands for a sitting American president.

And it's not a block-print W either, but a cursive, almost whimsical one, all rounded and hasty. Hence, there is no way, unless one chooses to be paranoid, that the W in question could be confused with the W associated with George W. Bush (who happens to be the President of the United States and is domiciled in Washington, which is our capitol, and where the Nationals play baseball, in case you forgot). In fact, the hats in question might more readily suggest allegiance for teams in places like Williamsport or Wankerville or Winkeltown or even Whoville. The W does not even remotely imply allegiance to a president, let alone a president with the middle name of Walker (which is not the best name for a baseball player either, if, as so often happens, you call on Walker to steal second base. In that case you might rather pinch run the kid named Turbo Cleats; just like you'd probably like a replacement for your somnambulist catcher, Jon A. Sleep.)

In short, no one is going to think that your W baseball cap reveals that you're one of "those."

It's amazing how desperate, how profoundly desperate we humans are to fashion some sort of meaningful identities for ourselves. Sports and designer logos, clothing and affectations, addresses and degrees, newspapers and journals, bumper stickers and vacation spots, beer brands and rock bands -- each of these are little badges, little tags, indicating who we are, and, more importantly, who we are not. They identify us as certain types; certain subspecies. And they identify us as not only separate, but desperate.

But what could be more revealing of that desperation than certain Democrats' paranoid reluctance to don a W atop their collective self-absorption? Are they afraid of something? Are they afraid of being ostracized, mocked, derided, chided and jeered? Are they afraid of being considered sub-human, lemming-like, a friend of demagogues and tyrants? Are they afraid of being labeled homophobic? a member of the religious right? a capitalist imperialist? a traitor? liar?

Who would call them such things, or who would be so mean and shallow? Certainly not baseball fans (though such nasty folks would no doubt be considered base).

Of course, the answer to all these questions is simple: the people who would be doing such nasty name-calling are precisely those people who won't buy or wear the offending hats -- Democrats, particularly Democrats like Howard Dean, who hates "Republicans and everything they stand for." You know, the party of broad acceptance and tolerance. That party with an ass as its mascot. (Ever notice how you never see a Democrat wearing an ass on his or her attire? That's probably a far-too suggestive logo: it might be confused with the people who won't wear a Nationals cap.)

In closing, I must make a confession, an admission of guilt. I, too, suffer from the common maladies associated with human vanity. However, my vanity manifests itself in NOT wearing any logo, or designer label; or displaying any bumper sticker. I express my vanity by sneering down on all those who MUST display their vanity in every breath and facade. But my nearly Shaker-style life is nonetheless a desperate cry for help and attention. And, sadly, it too is rooted in the apotheosis of self, the setting of the self against and above others: "I am not one of them!"

And yet, in Oedipal justice, no matter how hard I try NOT to be like THEM, I find that I am exactly one of them, through and through.

But I would buy a Washington Nationals hat if they were a real team, like the Red Sox, and not just another wanna-be-great mid-Atlantic mediocrity like (I can't resist), the Phillies.

Not that I care about the Red Sox, really. Seriously, I mean this: I am not one of THEM.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

Dissenting Toward Deep Impact

Prologue

Deep Impact occurred over the weekend, and I wonder whether anyone really cares. For is it really great news that a terrestrial projectile slammed into a comet 83 million miles from earth? Perhaps it is. But have you ever asked yourself what voice you have in the matter? Have you ever wondered who it is that grants permission to launch space probes and satellites into orbit? What if you didn't want things launched into space? What if you claimed ownership of the heavens, and that space travel was so much trespassing in, and so much littering of, your precious and rather large front yard? Really, what say do you have in these ventures?

Perhaps you think me silly. But please realize something: A probe smashed at incredible speed into a comet without your knowledge. Those of us with a smattering of physics-sense know that the comet's orbit, no matter how slightly, was affected. In short, it was changed. Now, what if it had been inadvertently changed, even disasterously changed, by anomalies not predicted by the computer models? What then? Deep Impact?

(You know, there are companies and space administrations that have seriously discussed the idea of launching corporate logos into orbit around the earth, extraterrestrial billboards, if you will. You DO know that, right?)

I am not one for standing in the way of science. I am, in fact, enthralled by the Deep Impact story. My point in raising some concerns is to highlight how amazingly indifferent people are to what occurs in various space programs. Really, what would our civilizations be like, right now, if the space probe touched off a weird reaction that ultimately leads to the comet colliding with our planet, or the moon?

Another Deep Impact

But all this is prologue for another deep impact that we also had little to say about it, at least prior to its being so deftly created by the forces of physics. I am talking about Ground Zero in downtown Manhattan. I'm talking about the deep hole there, surrounded by rugged steel fencing and a cross of steel I-beams still standing in the wasteland. What say did we have regarding that collision, that exploration into the previously unexplored?

Clearly, many of us have a lot to say now.

During my recent visit to Manhattan, I noticed in the top windows of a building (is that above Burger King?) to the south of Ground Zero, rising above Liberty Street, that there was an artful banner hanging in some windows: "Dissent is not unpatriotic." And, of course, the banner is undoubtedly true. But it smacks, I am sorry to say, of tremendous ignorance: The sign makes a loud sound, but its impact is not profound.

Why?

Because of all that it neglects, and all that it presumes. It is unarguable that the banner was placed behind expensive glass by anti-war activists. There is no doubt that it was placed there, and paid for, by a person or persons intent on protecting their view of reality: That they have a better vista from which to launch their attacks and criticisms on all things Bush, all things Rumsfeld.

To any critical thinker, those behind the banner presume that the dissenters who raised it are right about the razing of the Twin Towers. They presume to have a better Gestalt, a better gnosis, about the attacks on America; the underlying causes and the proper remedial strategies. And they also presume that their action is intrinsically American: To dissent is to be an American, or so it goes.

But what the critics of the war neglect in their ignorant little banner is that they are the ones calling people "unpatriotic." It is they who shame the alleged non-dissenters for being the blind following the blind. It is they who think that Bush and the Republicans are anti-American, anti-democratic imperialists; that Bush and Co. comprise gross demagoguery and treason. It is the dissenters who shout out that "Bush knew!" It is the dissenters who believe that war and defense and the Patriot Act are thoroughly anti-patriotic acts.

The ignorance, unfortunately, is even deeper than that. For the dissenters do not recognize that the more hawkish among them are themselves dissenters. Conservatives and mainstream thinkers DO dissent. They dissent against the harms of passivity and indifference; of complacency and posturing; of failed diplomacy and failed consensus-building. War itself is the supreme act of dissent, and the War on Terror is a supreme dissent against tyranny and religious fanaticism. And it is a dissent against the tyranny of the left, and its self-righteous claims to being true Americans; to being true humans in a global society.

Dissent is NOT unpatriotic, and neither are war or patriotism. Or is that too paradoxical for the Manhattan leftists finger-wagging around Ground Zero? Is being a patriot unpatriotic? To my leftist friends, I fear it is.

Unlike Deep Impact, we DO have a say about war, about defense and troop withdrawal. We can write and call senators and congressmen (or stop a representative on the sidewalk, like I do); we can vote presidents out of office; we can stage angry or peaceful demonstrations. But there is no dissenting the laws of physics; and there is no consortium or town-meeting you can attend to discuss the pros and cons of flirting with extra-terrestrial disaster.

And we can resist, or at least point out, the folly of those who dissent for the sake of dissent; those who NEED to dissent in order to distance themselves from the common herd, and then define themselves by that distance. "I am not one of THEM!" might be each of their mantras as they smugly meditate on their self-identities. It's like defining oneself by indulging in contrary acts to one's parents' wishes: "I will NEVER be like them!" It is all show, it is all so much identity via externals. Latch on to the idea that "To dissent is to be an American"; and all you'll do is contradict, merely to maintain an identity. It's like a rip in one's blue jeans, a tattoo on one's forehead, a corporate logo on one's shoe.

And besides resisting, we can go to Ground Zero and fall down and weep in humble sorrow. For there is no greater dissent than to grieve for one's neighbors; and to seek real justice, and a very real peace.

But perhaps dissent should be reserved for those who first descend to their knees in tears, humbled in the presence of so much reverberating horror; who let reality make a deep impact. Perhaps humility comes before clarity, and even before lofty dissent, especially when those who fall prostrate at Ground Zero can so clearly see the banners of blood and bone and flesh in the dust of that now-vacant lot.

To descend is not unpatriotic either.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

Truly Independent

Good morning, and may this be a grand Independence Day for you.

The older I get, and the more informed I become, so much the grander are these patriotic holidays we celebrate. Not that everyone celebrates them, which is too bad. But many of us do.

If I were to make a fine distinction between a conservative and a liberal (both worn out and confusing labels, no doubt); or between a rightist and a leftist, it might be this: that conservatives ultimately believe that there is no REAL, ontological Bill of Rights, but a bill of privileges. Liberals, in contrast, raise rights to the status of idols, or gods, believing that not only are rights entitlements; they are ontological and natural facts. They are not abstractions. They are concrete. And the list of rights is an ever-increasing one.

I am not here to quibble over my distinction. I am not given to it with any sort of conviction. I am only here to ask a question: Which perspective engenders gratitude? Which perspective invokes a spirit of thanksgiving?

I firmly believe that the only healthy-minded perspective is that which sees everything life offers us as a gift, and a tenuous one at that. The gifts of life come in an overstuffed bundle of privileges that can only inspire awe, humility, and, not least, gratefulness. There are no rights; no one can go find a right, or point to one, or put one in their pocket. And no one can demand that LIFE give them what they deserve, or that to which they are entitled. Everything is ultimately privilege.

Of course, I admit that rights have been given me, but the gift of rights itself is NOT a right. That gift is a privilege, a privilege earned throughout history, with conflict and bloodshed, sacrifice and prayer, and intellectual and spiritual agony, forming the very foundations of that gift. Yes, I have the RIGHT to speak, or to VOTE, or to DISSENT, but I know in the core of my being that what I call rights are only legally secured privileges. Such rights could disappear in the swiftness of a coup, revolution, occupation, or the deft stroke of a nuclear holocaust on our nation's capitol.

Today, then, is another day of thanks. It is a privilege to breathe, to plan, to sit on the deck or dock or verandah or yacht, to ooh and aah at fireworks in the summer's night sky. But it is all the more a privilege to do these things freely, independently, without compulsion. We are free to celebrate today, or not. We are free to choose either bratwurst or burgers; beer or lemonade; ice cream or strawberry shortcake (or both). We are not behind bars; we are not under tyranny; we are not occupied.

Pray that it remains so. Pray to fight against those who would take it away. And pray, too, that Iraq someday will have its own national days of gratitude, without the vestiges of tyranny and compulsion forcing them to comply to the diktats of a few.

And pray that our country, the United States of America, not get so enamored of its gifts that it believes such gifts are entitlements, rights, or something far more idolatrous.

We are independent, and yet, paradoxically, our independence depends on whether we remember how tenuous independence is. If we forget that independence is a gift, we'll quickly find ourselves wishing we hadn't.

July 4, 1776. Remember why. Live free. Today. Tomorrow. Always.

Contratimes

September 11, 2001. Never forget.

[PS. Please read the article at this link if you have any doubts about whether there was any connection between al Qaeda and Iraq. It surely justifies what I've been writing in my last few posts.]

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

Kneeling At The Corner Of Church And Liberty

Yesterday morning, Friday, July 1, I walked west on Liberty Street and came to a slow stop. It was my first time to visit the World Trade Center since it became Ground Zero. I could see the wide-open 16-acre crater left in downtown Manhattan. But it was not the view that stopped me, but something much smaller. For there, in the southeast corner of Ground Zero, stood a street sign that, for me, was full of symbolic irony. I was at the corner of Church and Liberty.

I noted the irony, perhaps with bitterness touching my heart. And then I walked into the open space, tears filling my eyes, sobs erupting from deep within.

I had not expected this. I had not expected to want to fall to my knees, to wail on the ground, to daven before a new sort of Wailing Wall. I had not expected to feel that I could never leave this place; that I could never go back to something simple, safe, tidy, even naive. I had not expected to want to keep this hole in my heart; this hole from which people leapt and fell through tumult and smoke and confusion.

There was no surprise, however, at the enormity. I had always understood that; had felt it; had known its significance. I always understood the mechanics and the engineering; the aerodynamics and the flight paths. I had already stood on the ledge of a broken window; I had fallen. I had huddled with my child in the back of a plane; felt the pressure change in my ears and the turbulence of a bad pilot; I had seen the sparkling Hudson and the September blue; the smoke ahead; and I had felt the tipping of the wings as the engines were throttled full. I had waited for death to come in 3,000 different ways; and yet my imagination remained intact enough to remind me that I had not died even once.

What I had not expected were the tears. I thought that I had passed through that. I thought that I was, if not insouciant, so to speak, I was at least through with all the grief. But I was not. And clearly neither were many of the others walking by me, slowly, each pausing at various signs, reading them, performing a sort of Stations of the Cross along a postmodern Via Dolorosa. An old man, huddled against the massive, imposing fence, his long white hair and flowing beard tangled around his weary face, played an old silver flute, its dulcet tones reaching out and up, Amazing Grace trembling in my ears. He was crying in each breath.

I became quietly indignant (I was too humbled to be truly self-righteous) at those tourists from "far-away" who posed for digital cameras. And I was miffed, though only mildly, by the hawker silently moving through the crowd with a photo album, 9/11 pictures for sale, though numerous postings declared that such sacrilege was strictly forbidden. But I could forgive all this, for grief and horror do strange things to people. The abundance of cameras reminded me of a funeral I went to last spring, where the family of the 39-year-old father killed in a tragic accident gathered at the funeral parlor before the burial so that portraits could be taken around the open casket. My friend, the owner of the parlor, told me that it "happens all the time." Grief does strange things indeed.

I strolled north, stopping frequently. A young woman next to me, her back to the scene as she waited to cross Church - heading toward the Millenium Hilton - blurted into her cell phone, "I am going to get SO f***ed up tonight!" I moved away from her and closer to the fence, admitting to myself, a little sadly perhaps, that the world is indeed a very diverse place. The brown-haired woman to my right stared in disbelief westward, her lips trembling, tears on her cheeks. She wasn't thinking about getting "f***ed up." She was grieving for those who no longer could.

But there was one thing that was physically surprising to me, and beyond the scope of my imagination. It was that, with all the buildings surrounding the site, with the highest to the north, east and south, it was if I was INSIDE something, like a temple, cathedral or sanctuary. What happened on September 11 in New York was literally IN New York; with walls echoing sounds like the Whispering Gallery in St. Paul's Cathedral. I could see the Twin Towers, their heads poking through the ceiling of New York, and I could hear sounds. Sounds unbearable.

Later, I spoke with a woman who witnessed nearly everything on September 11. She told me that she was in the shower of her 23rd floor apartment on Liberty (the southwest corner) when the first plane smashed into the North Tower. She confessed that that she didn't realize what was happening until she was drying herself off. She said she heard a roar of jet engines overhead (the second plane), and then, echoing throughout her house, the sound of thousands of people screaming. (I think I can hear that sound right now.) And I know it was one of the sounds I could still hear trembling in the faint murmurs of the buildings surrounding Ground Zero. The walls do speak. And they speak sorrowfully. (The woman, a Manhattan lawyer I fortuitously met on the train home, told me that she was never able to return to her apartment after closing the door to it just before the towers fell. It was essentially uninhabitable, at least for her. And she told me her entire harrowing story: the dust-cloud filled with glass particles; the people screaming and pressing in the dark, the leaping into a boat on the Hudson, a thrown puppy, the vomiting, the uncertainty about more attacks, and so much more.)

But at the end of my too-short visit to Ground Zero, I could not shake from my mind the street sign, Church and Liberty. For Osama bin Laden attacked America - at least according to his own fatwa - because of its "Christian" infidelity (and its support and alliance with infidel Jews) and the liberty both synagogue and church provide. And it was America's liberties, our very freedoms, he turned against each of us: our freedom of travel, our easy borders, our freedom to build, and work in, tall buildings; our freedom to believe in God and liberty, or not. This is our vacant lot: that our virtues were turned against us by a man and men too impotent to build a nation, too weak to fill it with soldiers and weapons and wealth and commerce and hope; and too poor to attack us with something created by the superiority of their own vision. No, they attacked us with our own virtues, turned into weapons against us. They did not attack us with their virtues, but with their own spiteful vice. And for a moment, we staggered.

This morning, though far from New York, I still stand at the corner of Church and Liberty. I look up and understand: This is the World Trade Center. And I ask myself, "What world are you willing to trade?" My enemy has already asked that question, and he has shown me his answer. And now I give him mine: I am not trading.

Yesterday I walked through New York wearing a T-Shirt my wife gave to me two years ago. It reads on the front, in small print, "July 4, 1776: Remember Why." On the back, in quiet letters, it reads, "Live Free." I was amazed at how many people looked at my simple message as I passed through subway lines or strolled The Mall in Central Park. It is a good message.

Remember why.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

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