Today's rambling: Let Freedom Ring!
Written on September 14, 2001 at 2:25 a.m.
while feeling a bit

I've been feeling so patriotic, ever since last night! Seeing cars driving around with flags in their windows or tied onto the antenna...it just gives me chills! It's wonderful to feel such unity, even if it had to happen under such terrible circumstances. I made a flag in Paint Shop Pro (which took me the better part of 2 hours to get just the way I wanted it), and printed out two of them to tape in our car windows. It's not the same as having a real flag, but right now I think any kind of support is what matters. I also tied red, white, and blue threads around my ponytail for work (would have used ribbon, but I didn't have any), and printed out a smaller version of the flag, taped a safety pin to it, and pinned it on my hat! I was feeling quite the proud American today!

By now, it's probably getting monotonous seeing all these entries about what's happened. But you know what? I'm not going to pretend it didn't happen. I'm not going to distance myself because to do that would be an insult to those who are still out there working and rescuing. I guess it's easy to feel distant when you live in other countries--I know that if this had happened somewhere else, I wouldn't be thinking about it nearly as much as I am now--but as for me, I can't STOP thinking about it.

This is where I could easily clash with people, I know it. I believe in things so strongly that to hear people sounding just casual about it, it would totally set me off. Not that I would be so fanatical that I'd give up friendships over it or something, but I'd definitely be angry enough to stop talking for awhile! :oP Not a hint, by the by.

I remember during the Persian Gulf War (which, ironically, happened during the first George Bush's time in office), when Bush addressed the country on television. I was pretty young, so I didn't TOTALLY understand what was going on, but I remember just sitting there in front of the TV, totally somber, saying "I know you'll do what's right." I almost feel like doing that now...as it is, I feel like I've been riveted to the TV these past couple of days!

Tonight on the news, they showed this morning's changing of the guard in England...and the people were playing our national anthem. Once again, I just started crying. I get all choked up every time I see stuff like that: support from other countries, support and national pride in this country...for me it's just a really beautiful thing to see, and although I know we'll all go back to our petty differences once everything is over, at least I know that in times of crisis, we can pull together like no one else can.

From what I heard, Russia's going to back us. Woo ha!!!! If we wage war on Afghanistan (as the rumors seem to be saying), they won't know what hit 'em. Unfortunately, those guys don't 'play by the rules' (the cheap cowards), so rather than war they'll try more of this terrorist stuff. I have ultimate confidence that with support, we are going to crush whoever comes up against us. Go ahead and try it, you scum. You don't know what you've done.

They arrested a whole bunch of Arab people who had fake IDs and were trying to board planes today. And there were Arab people in New Jersey who were in their little shops or whatever waving Arab flags in support of the terrorist people, and the police came in and immediately deported the dirty little bastards back to wherever they came from. I'm sorry, because I know this sounds like prejudice, but it just makes me so ANGRY!

Anyway, that's about all I have to say for this entry. If any one of my entries was enough to stir up anger in people, this one would be it, but it's my diary, my beliefs, and like I said, I get really stirred up about this stuff. And it's not like I'm making up the fact that Arabs had anything to do with this! *shrugs* Make what you wish of it. In closing, I'd like to copy the article someone sent to me. It was in the Miami Herald, I believe.

**********

We'll go forward from this moment.

It's my job to have something to say.

They pay me to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the American soul. But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering.

You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard.

What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed.

Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause.

Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve.

Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.

Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae -- a singer's revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse. We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though -- peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.

Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of this makes us weak. You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals.

Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock. We're still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did, still working to make ourselves understand that this isn't a special effect from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot development from a Tom Clancy novel. Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition and the probable final death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism in the history of the United States and, probably, the history of the world. You've bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.

But there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and monumental pain.

When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice.

I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people, as you, I think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me to tremble with dread of the future.

In the days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. There will be heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms.

We'll go forward from this moment sobered, chastened, sad. But determined, too. Unimaginably determined.

You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent. That aspect of our character is seldom understood by people who don't know us well. On this day, the family's bickering is put on hold. As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.

So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us?

It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that's the case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange: You don't know my people. You don't know what we're capable of. You don't know what you just started.

But you're about to learn.