Is Terrorism Making You Sick?

[chiburb]

Sunk like a stone in GD. That'll teach me to post in the proper forum from now on. :-)

Another EXCELLENT Morford today...

Snip:

Two full years after the 9/11 maelstrom and two years during which the term "hero" has been molested and slapped around and "patriotism" has been smashed and reconfigured into some mutant shellacked Maria Shriver-like perma-saluting mannequin, a conservative plastic surgeon's wet dream, all fake smiles and bleached teeth and Botoxed worry lines and pumped-up, silicone-enhanced flag-waving bravado you no longer relate to in the slightest.

And yep, sure enough, the world, as promised, has never been the same. Not one single heartfelt notion of large-scale, tangible peace and unity and tenderness among nations, no true sense of stunned, sad coming together in the wake of tragedy has managed to survive, has made it through the warmongering onslaught of the BushCo juggernaut. Nice time to be an American, really.

Snip:

This is where we are. We are the world's rogue superpower, attacking without provocation, launching war without a true enemy, not to be trusted in the slightest, our international U.N. standing at its lowest level in 50 years, the most embarrassing and inarticulate, spoon-fed president in decades.

Depressing stuff indeed. But wait, what about you? Forget BushCo's reamings and Cheney's hateful sneer and Rummy's black eyes and the fact that Disney AOL Time Warner Microsoft ExxonMobil owns everything you see and hear. What have you done, in yourself, since 9/11? Is that a viable question now?

(Please go read the rest of it here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2003/09/12/notes091203.DTL

The lives of a farmer, the lives of a doctor should

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. Use of "Terrorism"

Terrorism is being beaten to death, just like the "war" in 1984 .

Re-read Animal Farm too. Lots of stuff re-treaded in the Bush Regime's propaganda machine.

[chiburb]

2. Yes, but that wasn't the point..

Of Morford's piece. I think this was:

"It all comes down to this: Can you, on the deepest and most acute levels possible, in a raw and divine way that does zero dishonor to the various tragedies of your world but instead injects them all with mandatory doses of perspective and divine drunkenness and hot screaming love, can you, with every fiber or your being, with the deepest breath you can possibly take, laugh at the cosmic carnival of it all? "

[maha]

3. Right; it's not about what THEY are doing

It's about what WE as individuals are doing.

<blockquote>Will you use it to work on yourself? To peel back the layers of your own BS, go deep and ask yourself the hard questions, what the hell do you really believe, with what sort of spiritual attitude and aggressive tone do you really want to go through this life? To what sort of symbol do you really want to pledge your true allegiance?

This is the only decision that really matters, the only choice that has any true power. Will 9/11 and every subsequent emotionally explosive event in your life result in bitter conflict and finger-pointing and bile, or self-discovery and personal opinion and raw compassion? It's that simple. And that difficult.

Choose the former, you are a proud lockstep American, accepted and nicely conformist and a happy member of the Bush-approved herd, ready to shop hard and suck down that paltry tax refund and defend the nation against those gul-dang liberals and gays and America-haters.

Choose the latter, and you are quickly outcast, shunned, radiating all by yourself, dancing to your own inner samba, smiling like a demon, godless heathen pagan progressive intellectual traitorous blasphemous slut that you are, as the establishment just scowls and adds you to its blacklist. </blockquote>

It's important to not just react, but to react centered in a reality that transcends politics and ideology. As long as we're thinking in terms of "our side" versus "their side" we will probably lose.