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#187 - jon stewart is just a man
September 22, 2001 @ 12:05 am

Go here.

Jon Stewart is just a man. I don't watch the Daily Show, but I've seen clips, and it looks like it's probably funny. But Jon Stewart is just a man. A guy you could see at an airport and say, "Hey, do you know what bus I should take to get Downtown?" instead of, "Omigod! It's Jon Stewart! Can I have your autograph?!"

Jon Stewart is just a man, and I just watched him fall apart and pick himself up again. OK, so I didn't really watch it - for some reason the Real video is just a bunch of stills, but you can hear him. Christ, you can hear him. Tearing up on national television in front of a live audience. Talking about what it was like to survive New York on 9/11/01. He even jokes about being in a fetal position under his desk crying. And you laugh. And then you remember what you were doing, and you wonder if he was just kidding or not. And he talks about Martin Luther King, Jr. And the Statue of Liberty. And the world changing. And coming back to normal.

Jon Stewart is just a man. But his sobs just brought back my humanity.

Why has it been so horrible? Why did I scream when I heard my husband say those words, before I had even seen the video? Because I knew that the world had changed. That the US had been irrevocably attacked on its own soil. The Twin Towers were down. The Pentagon was on fire. More planes were in the air. And you know why I screamed?

Because I wanted to know what was next. The White House? The Space Needle? Madison Square Gardens? Fort Lewis? The Bremerton Naval Shipyard? Beverly Hills? Broadway? Cesar's Palace? Northgate Mall? Honolulu? My house? My husband's office building?

Oh my god. I screamed. I screamed not from terror or astonishment. I screamed in wordless mourning. Mourning of what had been an America of safety and comfort and familiarity and home. There are streets you don't want to walk down at night. Neighborhoods that need help. But no one was fucking bombing the greatest city in the world or the Capital. I knew it was over in just one sentence. Life would be forever changed.

That night, I shouted for him to turn down the news. So I could hear the engines flying over head. God, are they coming? No, no, it's just Whidbey Island patrolling. Calm. Must stay calm. Watch the news. Maybe there's something new.

Last weekend, I woke with a start, dreaming about falling, flaming death. I wanted to write about it here, but I couldn't bring myself to. A few hours before the dream, I heard a loud jet fly over our neighborhood at 4 am. One thought went through my mind: flights don't come in or leave SeaTac at 4 in the morning. Calm, calm. It's Whidbey Island again. I promise you. Go back to sleep. I did sleep. Soundly. Those men and women, who I have never understood, were out there protecting me and mine. They would do their jobs. I would be safe.

But I dreamed my first dream about the attacks. I don't remember what it was about. It wasn't about the attacks. But the imagery, it was prompted by them. Fire and falling. Death raining down.

I'm so afraid. I was afraid of Rosh Hashanah. Afraid they would choose that date for the 2nd wave, or to attack Israel. They did not. I was afraid of 9/22/01. The planned 2nd wave was today. Did you know that? Boston does. I didn't want to be in a tall building or anywhere near Downtown today. The stadium held their outdoor game. Huskies trounced, um, Indiana I think. We went Downtown to Pacific Place to watch "Jeepers Creepers". Just another day in Seattle.

Yom Kippur is next. Should I pee my pants, or settle back into this numb trance of the past week, emotionless? I think maybe *that* was last week's depression - from the repression of my terror and shock.

I don't know how to go on. It's horrifying.

New York and America have come together in a family, and it's been beautiful to watch. But still I fear.

I fear war. A war too big for us. We're the big, bad-ass US, they're puny Afghanistan. How can it be too big? We go in. We kill some people. They kill some of ours. We kill more of theirs. We get Osama. We pull out. Osama's replacement comes in. We go back in. We get the replacement. We start to pull out. Osama's replacement's replacement steps up.

How far is Georgie willing to go? It's not time. It's not dollars. It's not even American casualties. It's the devaluation of human life and the freedom to live that life. Destroying a country already almost living in the Stone Ages. Taking out leader after leader, rebel after rebel. These people have their children armed with guns. Their wives chained in Burquas outback to be treated worse than dogs. How do you rationalize with people capable of that? Tell them ok, we've had enough. If you stop, we'll come in and give you food and medical attention and help you put back the pieces. Forget that you attacked us first because you thought we were the "white demon" and now we just proved you right.

Just think about it for a second. A place where news is run by a religious sect from the Dark Ages via word of mouth. And the word is passed that a holy war has been taken upon your country. What would you do? You would arm your family to defend your home, wouldn't you? Would you trust the invaders when they told you your government's buddies started the war? When you were offered aid in rebuilding by the people who blew up your neighbor's house?

At some point, the war will become impossible to win. Because it is an impossible war. You can't stamp out terrorism in its entirety! Once someone gets desperate enough to do ANYTHING, he'll do it! Simple as that. You can try and take out the leaders, the training camps. But what about the emotions that lead to that desperation? What about that? How do you soothe someone who thinks you've started the grave injustices?

You don't. You ask him to play nice, or you kill him when he doesn't obey. We can't just kill every single last Afghanian. That would be inhumane. But you go in there, and you create a war against the Afghanistan people, not just Osama and his followers.

When there's just one Afghanian village left, and they're holed up with guns, do you blow them up because they're still a threat? Or stop because that would be genocide? Where will our humanity be then? So what if they started it? If the entire place is using misinformation, how far will we go to kill the people who think they're trying to defend their way of life? How far is inhuman?

And will Georgie know where to toe the line?

And back home? Security checks? Censorship over the airwaves? How about checkpoints at the borders of each state? Showing your papers to cross town? Lapel badges to prove you have access to this district? No public forum for protests, because public gatherings are "unsafe". Internment camps for Afghan-Americans and their relatives?

When will America cease to be America? All of these people, seething and waiting for vengeance, for blood. When will they become the mob? When one of us points out that Muslims aren't all Afghanistanian? And so what if that guy over there *is* from Afghanistan? Oh, now I'm an Afghan-lover. Let's beat the shit out of me too. Yippie.

America is tense right now. I'm afraid what will happen if someone says the wrong thing. I'm afraid that person could be me.

I'm afraid.

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