Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | The day America took the hit of its life So instead of listening to cowboy pieties, or endlessly respooling video horror, or seeing in our mind's eye those twin towers as phantom, 110-storey tombstones, we turn to those who do, miraculously, know what they're supposed to say, feel and do: to Jeremy Glick who phoned his wife from the hijacked plane over Pennsylvania to tell her there had been a vote of all the men aboard to try to overpower the hijackers, even though they knew it would cost them all their lives, and who saved who knows how many other lives by doing just that; to the son and daughter of one of the dead passengers letting themselves be interviewed on morning TV so they could appeal to the airlines to get their sister, marooned in London, back to the States for their father's funeral; to the handful of politicians who know when to speak and when to shut up; to all those in this suddenly, shockingly loving town who understand, especially when they hear the word "revenge" thundered out by talk-show warriors that the best, the only revenge, when you're fighting a cult that fetishises death, is life.
posted by duke harringay at 10:28 AM

There are so many people saying things so eloquently these days. On the Stephin Merritt mailing list someone just posted the following, which, although I am not American, seems to me to be not just about America, but about all of us who exist within the ‘system’ of essentially Western capitalist democracy, a system which it seems to me is intrinsically isolationist in every other notion other than the concept of ‘market’ as an opportunity for financial gain. Anyway. Here’s what I wish I could have written:

On the streets of Long Island and Manhattan a massive patriotic groundswell is pounding the ground. It's born of equal parts confusion, hate, rage and the desire for vengeance. The flag means more than that.

Out here, on my sabbatical in Huntington Station, Long Island, everything on CNN seems to prompt this blind rage, but not explain anything about the world, about people pushed to the wall, about desperate third world nations. I feel like a stranger in my own country.

I hope justice is served. The families of those we've lost deserve it. But I'm not sure this system understands what justice really is.

The same person then later posted something that a songwriter named Seth from a band called Doofus wrote:

He's beaten up but determined to pull though,
like someone from a song off of Charm of the Highway Strip.

Which I thought was great, and in case you are scratching your head in confusion at this point, I’ll point out that Charm of the Highway Strip is a Magnetic Fields album that ought to be in every self-respecting music lover’s collection. Go get it now.



posted by duke harringay at 10:25 AM

Calamitous Perspective As to how to react, we have a choice. We can express justified horror; we can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes, which means making an effort to enter the minds of the likely perpetrators. If we choose the latter course, we can do no better, I think, than to listen to the words of Robert Fisk, whose direct knowledge and insight into affairs of the region is unmatched after many years of distinguished reporting. Describing "The wickedness and awesome cruelty of a crushed and humiliated people," he writes that "this is not the war of democracy versus terror that the world will be asked to believe in the coming days. It is also about American missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and US helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia ­ paid and uniformed by America's Israeli ally ­ hacking and raping and murdering their way through refugee camps." And much more. Again, we have a choice: we may try to understand, or refuse to do so, contributing to the likelihood that much worse lies ahead.

Noam Chomsky
posted by duke harringay at 7:42 PM

So much to say, yet somehow my mind always goes blank when I try and think, and the words don’t come out the way they ought. Because the whole situation seems to be so massive and I feel so small and insignificant. I just know that inside, my whole soul is bleeding.

There’s so many things to think about… there’s so much at stake, I guess. It is kind of scary. Every time I close my eyes it seems I see those images all over again as though they are burned onto my retina, hardwired into my consciousness already (even though I turned off the TV after the first time and switch channel every time they show them still), and I shiver to the core of my existence… And every time I see Bush, every time I hear his redneck bloodlust words, I shiver even more.

I’m not sure what sickens me more: the thought of anyone with the kind of supreme hatred for humanity carrying out such atrocities, or the cynical hypocrisy of those who vow to sink to the same levels in ‘retaliation’. I keep thinking of that McCarthy song ‘Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill’ and Malcom Eden’s coruscating wit aimed squarely at just such hypocrisy hitting home with great force. So I played that this evening, as of course I played Godspeed You Black Emperor’s ‘Dead Flag Blues’ on repeat Tuesday night; and remembered in fact hearing that song for the first time in headphones as our plane left New York, thinking how spectacular it sounded…

Anyway. Michael Moore’s quote below (and the article it came from) seemed to pretty much sum up the kinds of thoughts I’ve been having in the spaces between the stunned silence and the still flowing tears…


posted by duke harringay at 7:36 PM

from Death, Downtown

"We abhor terrorism — unless we’re the ones doing the terrorizing.

We paid and trained and armed a group of terrorists in Nicaragua in the 1980s who killed over 30,000 civilians. That was OUR work. You and me. Thirty thousand murdered civilians and who the hell even remembers!

We fund a lot of oppressive regimes that have killed a lot of innocent people, and we never let the human suffering THAT causes to interrupt our day one single bit.

We have orphaned so many children, tens of thousands around the world, with our taxpayer-funded terrorism (in Chile, in Vietnam, in Gaza, in Salvador) that I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised when those orphans grow up and are a little whacked in the head from the horror we have helped cause."

(Michael Moore)

link


posted by duke harringay at 7:10 PM

The Dead Flag Blues

the car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel
and the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides
and a dark wind blows
the government is corrupt
and we're on so many drugs
with the radio on and the curtains drawn

we're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine
and the machine is bleeding to death

the sun has fallen down
and the billboards are all leering
and the flags are all dead at the top of their poles

it went like this:

the buildings tumbled in on themselves
mothers clutching babies picked through the rubble
and pulled out their hair

the skyline was beautiful on fire
all twisted metal stretching upwards
everything washed in a thin orange haze

i said: "kiss me, you're beautiful -
these are truly the last days"

you grabbed my hand and we fell into it
like a daydream or a fever

we woke up one morning and fell a little further down -
for sure it's the valley of death

i open up my wallet
and it's full of blood

(godspeed you black emperor)


posted by duke harringay at 10:05 PM

I’m All Over The Place

I’m not sure if my body hates my skin or if it’s the other way around, but whatever, I look and feel like complete crap. I spend my waking hours fighting the desire to rip at my face and scalp; to tear off the flaking skin. I’m leaving bits of me all over the house, all over the school. It’s kind of gross, as you can imagine. Except of course you’re all trying not to imagine. I can see you, reading this and turning off the visualisation software in your brain, looking around for something else to read instead.

Anyway, I’m getting kind of desperate. Today I spent a hundred quid on-line, shopping for hair and skin-care products. Even whilst reading all about the products I was thinking, oh man, I’m turning into Patrick Bateman. Or maybe, somewhat less worryingly, the kid in Douglas Coupland’s Shampoo Planet. What was that character’s name? I can’t remember. I am pretty bad at that kind of thing. So maybe him, except of course he only really showed concern over his hair, and really that doesn’t bother me so much. I just want short hair and a head that doesn’t fall to pieces. Is that so much to ask for?

Well is it?

Maybe it is.

Douglas Coupland… I never know what to make of him. When I’m caught off guard I confess that I like his big plastic toy soldier sculptures, but when I’m feeling cagey I’ll admit to feeling unsure about this idea of writers making sculpture or vice-versa and so on and so forth. Mainly because I’m unsure of myself. Of course Coupland is just the epitome of Post. He is so Post it hurts. He is a writer, a designer, a sculptor, or at least that’s what it says on his book jackets, so it must be true. I hate Douglas Coupland. He is the epitome of Post smugness, by which I mean the smugness of Post, not ‘after’ smugness. Of course.

I love Douglas Coupland. I love nearly all of his books, although Girlfriend in a Coma was a bit dire really because… well, because it was all a bit haywire and made too many silly song references for my liking. But his latest All Families Are Psychotic is fantastic. I read it at the weekend in two sittings. And I haven’t done that for ages. All Families… is one of his best books, maybe even top of the whole heap, although… although I still like Life After God best I suppose because let’s face it, as I’ve said loads of times in the past, Life After God was really a great fanzine that a publisher mistook for a book. I wish someone would mistake some of my old fanzines for books… that would be a hoot. But … are Psychotic is a fine book full of Pop Philosophy and a story that is so stupid and predictable it makes you swoon. Which is as it should be because Coupland really isn’t a story teller at all; he’s simply a chronicler of detail, a photographer snapping away at Pop culture using a pen as his Pentax. I wish I was Douglas Coupland.

He has a fine suit, and a good haircut and his skin looks good.

Bastard.

I hate Douglas Coupland.



posted by duke harringay at 5:34 PM