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![\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/fe-logo-13-feb-09-250-px1.jpg?resize=250%2C133&ssl=1\" "\\"Fe\\"")
<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\nThe\u00a0photograph memorializes a beautiful Sunday in early\u00a0autumn in a world that had shape and structure — a continuum filled with family activities, a\u00a0solid\u00a0group of friends, thriving\u00a0self-employment, and a fulfilling creative life. A day made vivid in my memory today because of what would come.<\/p>\n
I woke up early that next morning, Sept. 11 just past 6:30 am, to the sound of neighbors talking outside. “Some\u00a0bomb went off in New York City. It blew up the World Trade Center.”<\/p>\n
I clicked on the remote. Black smoke was rising from one of the towers, and the\u00a0muted sound of CBS\u00a0News anchor Bryant Gumbel’s incredulous voice,\u00a0giving a blow-by-blow account of the day-long horror unfolding in New York, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
For three days, I was glued to the television mesmerized,\u00a0wondering whether I was asleep and still dreaming. And it was a dream. A dream\u00a0filled day after day with non-stop images of violence. There were bodies falling to their deaths from the towers, the smoke from the explosion, and the broken airliner laid out like an autopsy on\u00a0a field in Pennsylvania. Then there was the\u00a0same tape run over and over again of jubilant people from a Muslim country burning flags and holding signs saying “Death to America.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The dream images did not cease. Instead they fast-forwarded on an ever-escalating pace with the president’s address to\u00a0a joint session of Congress, the magnanimity of the world attempting to come to our aid becoming our allies in the war on terror in Afghanistan, the power and presence of that red tie on George Bush while the news media fawned on his leadership in a time of peril.<\/p>\n
With the\u00a0onslaught of these images,\u00a0dreams, the speeches, the\u00a0implied foreboding of potential threat — coupled with reassurance from our leaders that we would be safe, and\u00a0that the nation “was at a crossroads in its destiny” —\u00a0I\u00a0felt a vicarious thrill.\u00a0It was a thrill akin to appreciating the beauty of ultraviolent films. The gore is graphic, horrific, sickening, and yet you’re exhilarated by the fact that its over and you\u00a0survived. And the cinematography was oh so stunning.<\/p>\n
Our everyday life, which once had a shape, a structure, a trajectory, was no more. It was now replaced by an existence bent on achieving sensation based on potential threat of violence and our ultimate rescue. It was a roller-coaster ride of\u00a0the\u00a0subconscious, watching reel after reel of\u00a0life which was now a film. It\u00a0was an addictive,\u00a0adrenal thrill, lodging itself deep into my psyche. Days continued into\u00a0weeks, weeks continued into\u00a0months. The long dream\u00a0in which I watched this film unfold wore on\u00a0and I couldn’t take my eyes away or wake from the fog that had enveloped the very center of my solar plexus. I was disempowered.<\/p>\n
Such is the effect of being forced to believe a lie.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
There is a haunting scene in the film The Prince of Tides<\/em> where the lead character recalls in therapy the night\u00a0where he,\u00a0as a young boy,\u00a0his brother, mother and younger sister survived a brutal assault and rape by a trio of vicious, escaped prison convicts. Saved by an act of desperate violence by his brother\u00a0— the family continued on, acting as if nothing happened — at the behest of their mother. When their father came home after the attack, the family sat down for dinner like they always\u00a0did, there was something wrong, but nothing was said. The one mute statement that a violation had taken place was that his sister\u00a0wore her dress backwards, and with a button off —\u00a0a signal for help, and over biscuits and gravy and lemonade, no one noticed.<\/p>\n
I lived with “one button off” — a long fog, until the pieces fell together.\u00a0The fog started to lift. It started with\u00a0the diversion of focus from\u00a0Afghanistan to Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Then came the reports of\u00a0yellowcake uranium, coupled with\u00a0the death of weapons expert David Kelly. It grew with\u00a0the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative who could have verified Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Suspicions were confirmed with the shifting rationale for war in Iraq from Saddam “having WMDs” to Saddam “having the potential<\/em> of making WMDs.”\u00a0The drumbeat for the war on terror in Iraq had to be approved by cowed Democrats and rabid Republicans otherwise,\u00a0they would be accused of being soft on terrorism. These facts were clasped together by an election decided by the Supreme Court and Vice President Cheney’s secret energy meetings in the White House with oil energy corporations the first month after the Inauguration of 2001. We had fallen under the thrall of\u00a0a military\u00a0empire gone mad under an illegally elected emperor, and both of\u00a0whom were out of control. By February\u00a0of 2003,\u00a0I was among millions\u00a0who marched across the planet in opposition to the\u00a0Iraq War.<\/p>\n
Seven years later, 4,300 Americans are dead and there are tens of thousands of casualties, many of them involving brain trauma. By known count, 105,000 Iraqis are dead — but truly, there are many more. Millions of Iraqis displaced, turned to refugees. Then 50,000 American troops are now stationed as a non-combat “presence” while Iraq re-takes itself back. We are still detaining enemy combatants. And I pray but cannot be certain that we are not engaging in torture. In the interim, the huge credit card payment owed to China which financed the\u00a0war demands a high interest payment and is come due.\u00a0Most of our treasury has been taken by bankers, sharks and corporations whose payout closed just before the old emperor left. This war will be remembered by our grandchildren because they will be paying for it for years to come.<\/p>\n
The new movie is\u00a0about to begin. The opening scenes are of an\u00a0idiot who\u00a0wants to burn Qu’rans\u00a0in a bonfire\u00a0in response to a Muslim cultural center getting built two blocks away from the old World Trade Center. I guess that means we’re well past the “A” list of star players for the old film, and\u00a0resorting to the “D’s.”\u00a0We seem to be running low on ideas and definitely out of capital for another blockbuster film. Yet, we\u00a0continue to cast\u00a0the actors for yet\u00a0another adrenal distraction to\u00a0disrupt our sense of morality. The\u00a0political, military\u00a0and corporate agenda, particularly now at midterm elections,\u00a0wants, needs\u00a0the 24-7 movie to continue.<\/p>\n
We keep talking about September 11 as\u00a0“this is what happened to me.” To us. To Americans. But this dream was a reality that happened to so many more innocents in harm’s way, lives lost, families and nations ruined, and will continue to do so for generations.<\/p>\n
The last time I looked, there’s still a hole in the ground\u00a0which has\u00a0not been filled.\u00a0Our national dress is still on backwards and for some of us, one button is still off.\u00a0We\u00a0have survived\u00a0through a violation, and there is a hole where we once were. Where I was. But do the rest of us\u00a0know we were violated? This hole is not\u00a0on our landmarks or our cities, but in our hearts, our sense of justice, our humanity. When and where do we begin to reclaim\u00a0ourselves? When can we fill that hole? Nine years later, as Eric reports in his weekly audio address<\/a>,<\/strong> the nodes for 9-11-10 are in exact opposition to the nodes of 9-11-01. This could be a time for when the truth comes out. We could begin to put the dress on right.<\/p>\n
There\u00a0may or may not be\u00a0a fire\u00a0taking place tonight in Gainesville, Florida.\u00a0In a few years, there may or may not be an Islamic cultural center built a few blocks away from the World Trade Center site. As I finger the contours of the jellyfish Felicia photographed,\u00a0bonfires, book burnings\u00a0and cultural centers don’t much interest me. I worry more about the elevation of our thoughts, feelings and actions for us now, and for years to come when Felicia can recall this day in time, and talk about it with her kids.<\/p>\n
Can we grow through this? Can we\u00a0take a break from the movie now?\u00a0Are we ever going to leave the cinemaplex? Wake\u00a0up little Suzie. There’s talk of a new sequel. You know, the terrorists are still trying to win.\u00a0But in reality they do not have Muslim names.<\/p>\n
By waking now\u00a0you can leave the theater and not have to pay the price of the ticket.<\/p>\n
Yours and truly,<\/p>\n
Fe Bongolan<\/strong>
\nSan Francisco<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is an image I keep on a shelf\u00a0amongst photos of family, travel mementos,\u00a0 and other\u00a0treasures from events\u00a0in my life. Its a photograph taken by my niece Felicia when she was 13 —\u00a0a lovely\u00a0shot of jellyfish swimming in their tank in the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The date stamp on that photo was 9-10-01. The\u00a0photograph memorializes … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1687,29,1788,52,1054,1689,1598,1688],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28488"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}