August 4, 2004
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9/11 PTSD
It was a morning pretty much like this one. For whatever reason, I was home from work and had the TV on. When the first plane hit, I called my son and woke him up and we watched the second attack together over the phone. For a good year afterwards I checked the news online every hour on the hour at work and watched daily passers-by warily, almost as freaked out by the flag-flyers who came out of the woodwork as I was by possible terrorists. I can’t even imagine how bad it would have been for those on the east coast, let alone New York City, let alone immediate family and friends of victims. So I’m not thrilled to hear that we may be being toyed with by current orange alerts based on information that was floating before 9/11 even happened. What a convenient Catch-22. On the one hand, we’d want to know, wouldn’t we? On the other hand, I can totally believe it would be staged for political purposes. How many Wag the Dog movies do we have to see – hell, the original Manchurian Candidate came out 30 years ago. Here’s what really eludes me. The polls stay the same, neck and neck, in spite of it all – the Democratic Convention, the bad Iraq War intel, Michael Moore’s movie, etc. I could understand the rich people voting for Bush but that’s only 2% max of the population. Are the other 48% wanna-be-rich people? Who are these people? A friend of mine says that her friends who are conservative are just fearful of the liberal agenda. So I guess that’s it – the people who are against gay marriage, for capital punishment, against abortion rights, against environmental protection, for gun owning, against Head Start, etc. etc. yadayadayada, are just not going to be swayed by something so far away as a war in Iraq. And the ironic thing is, when the next Big Attack happens right here on our soil, they’ll probably rally round their leader even more. I wish the Democratic Party had more pizzazz. I wish Kerry talked like he did back in the day when he opposed the Vietnam War. I saw some footage of his testimony and a debate he had with a conservative at the time. It was impressive. I’m not so sure now where he stands about war. I’ll vote for him because of his social agenda – it’s got to be better than what we’ve got. But I’m watching. And another 9/11 is coming up. And it’s a beautiful morning in my house.
Deep Thought: I think a good scene in a movie would be where one scientist tells another scientist: “You know what will save the world? You’re holding it in your hand.” And the other scientist looks, and in his hand are some peanuts. Then, when he looks up, the first scientist is being taken away to the insane asylum.
Today I am grateful for: Smoke alarms
Comments (9)
I wait for a return to Bobby Kennedy oratory. Of course that’s what got me to vote for Edwards in the Michigan Caucuses and why I loved Barack Obama’s speech so much. But at the same time I wish Americans would choose leaders, not rock stars. The problem with the presidential system is that the skills most likely to get you elected are not those that make you a good administrator in a democracy.
Its sad that the country seems so split down the middle. I don’t think things are all that simple. I’m very conservative on social issues, but that doesn’t mean that I subscribe to all the things you listed. I don’t like war in general and think of it as a last resort. I dislike labels because it prevents people from talking to one another in a rational way. Issues like abortion to me are moral issues stemming from clearly written things in the Bible, so its hard to negotiate on that one without renouncing my faith. Other things like gun control and the environment have lots and lots of room for discussion.
We need to keep talking with each other and not polarize so much.
I have to say I respect the government for issuing alerts if they need to. People have a right to know and prepare. We pay the intelligence services to do this work for us and so it seems logical to trust their judgment. It would be easier to hide it and pretend everything was okay and safe, but post 9/11, the government probably issues the warnings to cover their back.
Wasn’t able to respond thoughtfully while still at work but now I’m home. So..
About rock star oratory, it isn’t that so much that I’m watching for as just plain guts and conviction to state hard positions – kind of like Howard Dean had when he came out early opposing the war. And in the early Kerry footage, it was actually how calmly and clearly he stated his case that was impressive and it was clearly a controversial case even when most people in the end felt the Vietnam War was a mistake.
As for sweeping generalizations, I totally agree. I apologize for sounding that way. I so rarely express my frustration that loudly because I hate confrontation. So I know that people who generally call themselves conservative or liberal come in different assortments. I would like to express questioning about the abortion issue. First of all, not being a biblical scholar I’d be interested to know if the word “abortion” appears there in the way we are using it now. What exactly does it say about it? But beyond that, I can understand passion about the value of a life and the huge decision it is to take it, but what interests me is that some of the very same people who oppose abortion under any circumstances (even rape) do not oppose war in the same way where many innocent lives are taken, or capital punishment, for example. Or in the case of gun control the concern for all the lives that are lost because guns get in the wrong hands.
As for our intelligence community, I do not trust them, especially since the 9/11 commission report has recently come out. They are clearly people with power and the ability to keep a lot of what they do secret by its very nature. Obviously, there is a value in having intelligence, but corruption is, and has been, enormous in that community. I wish it were not so.
And thanks for discussing agreeably. I like that.
I guess I’m also surprised that many people who can pull out the four obscure biblical passages that might argue against abortion (though others argue for it, and it took the Catholic Church until 1600 to decide “life begins at conception”), don’t spend nearly as much time worrying about Accumulation of wealth as a sin, though that appears in book after book of both new and old testaments.
I, too, have wondered how so many people can still be faithful to leaders such as the ones we currently have in place……………
Sad, really. And scary.
If you will allow me just to write out just two of the passages, maybe it will help…
In Jeremiah 1:4-5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart:” (God speaking to Jeremiah)
In Psalm 139:13-18 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.” (Written by David)
It’s not so much that the Bible says “Thou shalt not have abortions” but the care and nurture God puts into creating each person that gives each person value. If God knows us before we’re born, and even looks on our unformed body–how early in the scheme of things is that? So the focus is on the value of each life in God’s eyes. I hope this helps explain the underlying reason why people oppose abortion.
Anyway, thanks for letting me state this.
Actually strawberry14 the whole quote from Jeremiah 1:4-10 is this: “Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.”
And in this quote, in which the gift of a prophet to earth is described, God seems to be saying that he knows this human BEFORE conception. We could then, if we were going to project this quote out to it’s full meaning, assume that any failure to have sex during ovulation is the same as having an abortion. Because who could take the chance that an egg, known by God, could be left not to be fertilized and become the expected human.
While I guess this might put an extraordinary strain on every 12-year-old girl on earth, and families would get much larger, we could operate under this theory, but, we don’t.
But then there is Ecclesiates, which seems to argue many things, but mostly that “quality of life” takes precedence over “mere life”
“If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, however many they be, but his soul is not satisfied with good things, and he does not even have a proper burial, then I say, `Better the miscarriage than he, for it comes in futility and goes into obscurity; and its name is covered in obscurity. It never sees the sun and it never knows anything; it is better off than he.’” -Ecclesiastes 6:3-5
“Then I looked again at all the acts of oppression which were being done under the sun. And behold I saw the tears of the oppressed and that they had no one to comfort them; and on the side of their oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort them. So I congratulated the dead who are already dead more than the living who are still living. But better off than both of them is the one who has never existed, who has never seen the evil activity that is done under the sun.” -Ecclesiastes 4:1-3
But none of that is the point. My point is that the Bible is subject to vast interpretations, both of meaning and emphasis. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus warns about wealth, he prohibits divorce, he describes anger as the worst of human emotions. One might think those issues would be most prominent in the minds and policies of “true Christians.” I, reading Jesus’s quotes for example, cannot imagine that he would find the Death Penalty acceptable. That he would think that nation with our health care system could conceivably distribute life-saving on the basis of wealth. Or that he would favor government endorsement of a certain religion (his group seemed opposed to that one in particular). So it’s not that I will deny that you think the Bible says certain things about abortion, it’s that I wonder how you chose that as your top priority.
My intent in commenting was not to list my priorities, but to lend a little understanding to a point of view of people who are against this one issue.
I can surely understand how one might not want to have an abortion. I honestly cannot understand trying to impose my religious beliefs on others who feel differently about controversial issues. Of the NATO/EU countries only one has more restrictive abortion laws than we do (Ireland), but on the other hand, none have the death penalty except the US, all others have universal health insurance, all have guaranteed income floors for families except the US. So if I look at “western morality” there are many ways in which the US is out of the mainstream, but abortion is not one of them.