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I've gotten a lot of messages from
folks asking me when I'm going to update my web site. Of course,
updating the site is extremely time consuming, and time is certainly not
my friend these days.
But, I suppose my bigger problem has been the
tragic events of September 11, 2001. Like everyone else in America, I've
been fairly consumed with this tragedy and the epic loss of life in
Washington D.C. and my home town, New York City.
In fact, the attack was so surreal an event, I'm
still, months later, having a hard time processing it. I suspect I'll
not achieve any kind of equilibrium about these events until I go home
and see things for myself.
I've searched in vain
for something to say about it all. Far more eloquent and informed
writers than myself have written volumes, expressing certainly every
emotion we've all experienced. |
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WAVE
THIS FLAG OR ELSE
There's
been this big rush to eliminate all images of the World Trade Center
from films, TV, books, etc. I've had scenes in Black Panther
altered to minimize the destruction a giant dragon (a dragon. A dragon,
folks) wreaks on Manhattan
as he battles the Panther, I suppose out of concern for issues of good
taste if not good sense.
Film executives and even
higher-ups at Blockbuster Video have scrambled to tone down product
and/or warn the public of violent imagery which may somehow devastate
us— as though anything Hollywood could do could compete with this
numbing reality.
I think I'm a little offended by
the mommying and the second-guessing, and certainly shocked by the wrong-headedness
of it all. We turn to movies and TV and comics for escape. All the
re-shoots and all the CGI wizardry employed in the scramble to eliminate
the Trade Towers offends me greatly and empowers, encourages, and
emboldens the terrorists. They see great power in this heinous act, as
we all tremble and hide and go into denial, acting as though those
buildings were never there.
I've decided not to post
pictures of the World Trade Center blowing up or collapsing. To me, that
just encourages this kind of evil. I think I'd rather just remember my
home town as it was. and I'd have been more inclined to see some
of these upcoming films had they left my town intact.
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I'd
better be careful, though. This country is still largely intolerant of
free speech. The patriotic psuedo-Reaganism sweeping the nation comes
with a component of institutionalized intolerance for any voice that
does not sing wholly in chorus with the now numbingly ubiquitous God
Bless America. I've received numerous inquiries
about whether or not it's right for me to post that mock TIME cover with
George Dubya on it. I've been asked if I should, perhaps, remove my
scathing criticism of the 2000 election.
I didn't like Bush then. I don't
like him now. I don't know what more he could be doing or what more effective
measures he could be taking. It's unlikely anyone else could be doing a
better job, and we certainly could have someone far, far worse. It's not
fair to kick the president over this war, but it's equally unfair to
exempt him from a reasonable examination of his policies and
performance. Instead, all we get is whitewash and the First Cheerleader
ramping up his Good Ol' Boy routine while sneaking even more tax
cuts for his country club buddies through Congress. But, shame on me
for mentioning that.
I've, to date, been unsuccessful
at making anyone understand, censoring my genuine, reasonable complaint
about our government and our leaders, even in this time of crisis, robs
me of the very freedom all this haughty flag waving is meant to
represent.
It's the latest fad. The new
craze. Flags, flags, flags. Get 'em while they're hot. In volume and
size, they obviously fully represent our patriotism. And we, so gullible
a nation, have fallen hook, line and sinker for this latest Madison
Avenue brain scrub, rushing out to the mall— the mall— because
they've actually convinced us going shopping will somehow bring
Osama bin Laden to justice.
It's insane. And it's both
dangerous and sad to realize how completely gullible we are as a people.
How ready we are to conform and fall into the sweep of national mood.
Flags everywhere. People running out and buying cars to
“save the nation.” The US government giving $20 billion to
bloated airlines who stuff their chief executives' pockets with
million-dollar bonus packages while continuing to allow felons and
illegal aliens to run their security checkpoints.
If there's a way to make money,
US industry will find it. And, in the wake of ongoing terror, it seems
like we, as a nation, have reverted to type, becoming, once again, the
naive, guileless children who still believe in Oswald in the book
depository, while industry and government have a field day under cover
of national crisis and patriotism. How much money are these flag makers
pocketing? And how obscene is it to profit from this tragedy?
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Wave your flags, certainly. Tie
dozens of them to your minivan or S.U.V or pickup. Blind drivers trying
to see around you with your garrison flags snapping in the breeze in the
bed of your pick-up. But, while we're at it, let's
not be completely blinded by patriotism. In order to truly unify and
motivate and inspire the nation, patriotism, in this politically correct
era, has to be administered and packaged and dosed out to all of the
people in a non-threatening, non-fascist way.
Bear in mind this flag-waving
elicits an involuntary shudder from many Black Americans and Jewish
Americans and Mexican Americans and (certainly) Arab Americans and Other
Americans. For many minorities, the Star Spangled Banner is just as
often a confederate flag in white face, a means to similar ends of
intimidation and marginalization. The flag can and often is received by
these communities as very pro-white, which is not to say anti-minority.
But the chilling prospect of these pod people with the eight flags
tagged to their Chevy sends quite a different message to many within
these minority folds. America The Beautiful sounds, to many, like America For Americans, patent code for
White Americans.
Economic stimuli like low air
fares and zero percent financing mean nothing to people who have
nothing. Comforting many of these communities is simply beyond the power
of a government so fully vested in well-to-do conservatives who have no
clue whatsoever of the jungle rule of survival a great many Americans
face every day. The gulf between Them and Us has never been wider, and
the greater tragedy of this new war is the rallying of White America, in
a plangent strum that is certainly heartwarming and glorious to
behold, but is, for many of us, merely a spectator event. We applaud and
cheer and are brought to tears by this great coalescing of America, but
it's not our America that's being coalesced. And the sloganeering all
sounds like code. Patriotism as observed through a chain link fence.
This is why I don't like talking
about 9.11. Because a great many people who want to discuss it or want
me to discuss it really don't want to hear what I have to say. They want
another voice in the chorus. Wave This Flag Or Else.
I support my country, my
president and my military. I hope they find bin Laden and his pals and
beat the living snot out of them. I'm willing to make reasonable and unreasonable
sacrifices in this effort to purge a terrible evil from the world, and
build a new nation that is more terror-resistant.
And I'll dutifully wave as the
parade passes by.
Christopher J. Priest
November 2001
Text Copyright © 2006 Grace Phonogram eMedia. All Rights Reserved.
Images and sound Clip from The Late Show With David Letterman Copyright © 2001 Worldwide Pants, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
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