Some Thoughts After Morgan's Thoughts...

This post is in direct response to a post on Morgan's blog: Whatever Happened to America of 9/12. K and I were living in NY on 9/11, and have plenty to say about it, but the one story that has haunted me is recalled by this blog post. Three days/nights after the terrific series of events we went to a rooftop party in Brooklyn/Williamsburg with a lot of Cornell graduates who were mostly working for the Democratic party. Not political activists, per say, but interns and campaign assistants and behind the scenes political working folks. Mostly young. Mostly glued to their cell phones, and mostly heavy drinkers. We had a front seat view of the site which was then an enormous hole, still copiously smoking and clouding with dust/debris, and illuminated by hundreds of industrial work lights. At that time, the “rescue effort” was still a valid effort. Helicopters were flying over our heads, beaming search lights on and between random buildings, military planes intermittently flew by, the continuous sound of sirens interjected alarm, and the elevated train passed right by the rooftop we were on, empty each time it passed; a ghost train. On the side of a building just to the right of this view, was a huge billboard lit up, a car ad, with a blurry photo of some fast little Japanese car (I can’t remember which) that read, “We have a cure…may cause excitability.” It was the most eerie scene, if not for the obvious reasons, but because all of those attending the party didn't even look up, talk about it, or acknowledge it. Seemed a world away from the highly unusual activity buzzing all around us. K and I sat on the parapet with our feet dangling over the edge of the roof, holding hands, heavy in our hearts and unable to form many words. We watched the other side of the river a long time as the party raged on behind us on the roof. At one point, a couple of friends and a few other people came to sit with us and tried to start conversation. After there were about 5 folks sitting with us, I waited for an opening in chatter and said to them, "so, is everybody ready to go to war?" knowing in my heart what was to come, and one guy said, "I’ve never felt so jazzed to be an American!" (in that fuck-ya kind of way). I said, “I’m scared…and…” Little by little everyone got up to get another drink, or answer their cell phones or "take a piss". Within moments of opening my big mouth, everyone had gone, and K and I sat there alone again. Like the young people lunching by the river in the photo on that guys website, these people seemed overly capable of moving on. I had to come to terms with why that was happening. I thought to myself, these people work in politics! These people have CHOSEN to work in politics, and are the ones who are up on the most current issues--political issues--challening their work each day. I did not understand why they, or HOW they could turn their backs on the ultra-real horror surrounding us at the moment. I also lately, during the Lebanon Israel war, had to come to a private understanding of why all of the most intelligent people around me were mum about it. While I was scouring the internet for blogs from Israel and Lebanon each day, reading opinion pieces and news bits, and agonizing about the future of the world, virtually no-one I came in contact with each day even mentioned it. My heart was breaking and anger began to creep up inside me—and almost boiled over in the form of a scathing blog in which I did nothing but judge and point fingers at everyone—thinking there should be less talk about language and poetry and more discussion about these horrific events taking place in our world. I stayed up late one night, while some ten or twelve friends sat by my pool drinking, smoking, enjoying themselves in various altered states...I sat in the office tearfully/angrily typing this litany. I didn't post it, obviously. But I came to something I hadn't realized before. I had to ask myself how much correct information, negative information, convoluted information did I have— about anything and everything from U.S. election inconsistencies to criminal prisons to civil rights abuses to information about the various wars (on “terrorism” and civil wars included)—that would put me in a position to be able to formulate an intelligent, if not productive, conversation about any of it? Is having a conversation and venting your feelings a form of activism? I guess a part of me thinks it is. It occurred to me that most people that have half a brain and can intuit that there is a whole lot of evil taking place—so much so fast and coming all the time—can’t think or articulate as fast as they can process the continuous piling of bad news. And not only that, bad news that more often than not reflects badly on our own country, and more often than not is incomplete or false or completely wrong. Intellectual people are less apt I think to try and enter a discussion they feel they can offer nothing to. In other words, most smart folks will avoid approaching a topic (especially political, religious, spiritual, [though not philosophical—interesting]) where they might end up taking an ill informed stance, and ultimately, sounding over emotional or irrational or—stupid. And beyond that? Talking about something leads to a need to DO something about it. And what should we do? Well, writing comes to mind. As in, most of the people I interact with are writers, poets, critical thinkers, and have good hearts. Why so little writing about it? Again I come to the conclusion that writers are mostly emotionally and philosophically inventive/inspired/inclinded and so how appropriate is it for poets and writers to write about these things? Or natural even? All this is to say, I’m still surprised by the quietness of my U.S.ian (I have difficulty saying American) counterparts, and also at the general silence of all U.S.ians on matters that seem to be deeply effecting and concerning most everyone else in the entire world these days…but I have no foot to stand on to judge that silence. And more, I think I understand why we’re so quiet, even though, all things considered, it seems there should be riots in language and bodies sprouting up everywhere at once…I will go gentle into this goodbye…