Pericles versus Remarque

The 9th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorists attacks have come & gone. I was going to tell about a young buck's appreciation (bordering on fealty) for my military service & my discomfort w/ being called a "hero" but I've decided to go a different route.

I'm sure there will be writers/speechwriters/yappists proclaiming the honorable & noble sacrifices provided by the people of that day. It'll take a familiar tact: remembering our forefathers, the uniqueness of our way of life, the speaker/writer/yappist's humbleness on such a solemn occasion, remembering the honored dead & urging the living to emulate those who perished. Pericles & Lincoln would be familiar w/ these themes.

Remarque, author of All Quiet on the Western Front, disagreed w/ Pericles (a significant plot point in a debate w/ the main character's school teacher). Remarque's experience through the fictionalized main character Baumer, was one of monotonous life at the front, the constant threat from artillery fire, the complete disconnect between him & the civilians on the outside, & most importantly the complete randomness of life & death.

& what of this 9th anniversary thing?

I can see both sides of this. You'd WANT to think those 2500+ that perished in the towers (plus the god knows how many casualties elsewhere) were killed to give their deaths meaning. But at the same time I'm sure the untold millions who fell on small pieces of real estate like the Somme, Dogger Bank, Caporetto, Jutland, Verdun, the Marne the Falklands, Salonika, Meuse-Argonne, & Gallipoli (to name a brief few) might disagree about if their deaths were worth it.

I also hear people chant the jingoistic, "Never forget! Never forget!" in relation to the 9/11 attacks but will we? We've certainly forgotten or perverted such "never forget" days like June 6th or November 11th or December 7th or July 1-3 or April 14th or November 22nd. I don't see why we'd all of a sudden things would change now.

Its easier for people to justify their sacrifices if they actually know WHY they're fighting. Unfortunately, we the American public were initially told we're fighting to "keep the world safe for democracy"...err, I mean "keeping the world safe from terrorism". Then we were told its because so & so "presents a clear & present danger" to America. Then the public was told we're fighting to liberate other people.

Does anyone but me think this is a load of horse manure? We haven't honored the memory of the dead, we've perverted it.

In order to have their sacrifices mean something, there has to be some sort of benefit no matter how horrible the notion they may have arisen.

We're involved in 2 separate wars, one forced into it, the other by choice. We've wasted untold billions trying to win said wars when no one can remotely come to a consensus of what "winning" actually means. Because we're at war & need an enemy, we've started fighting amongst ourselves. It started w/ anyone who disagreed w/ the viewpoints of those in power, then shifted to minority groups simply wishing for equal rights UNDER THE LAW, then it shifted to immigrant groups (legal status was an inconvenient detail to many), then it shifted to ones belief structure.

I'd almost think we all lost our heads but then I open my proverbial US History text book. Muslims are today's scapegoat, I get that. Before that it was gays, before that it was woman *gasp* wanting equal pay for equal work, before that it was the blacks, before that it was the Commies, before that it was the yellow-belly Japs, before that it was scourge of organized labor, before that it was the Italian plague, before that it was the uncivilized Indians getting in our way, before that it was Johnny Reb (or Billy Yank depending on where you lived), before that it was the damn Irish, & so on & so forth.

Again I ask, were the sacrifice of 9/11 worth it?

Make no mistake, I'm not a lovey-dovey peace at all costs kinda person. There are some fights worth fighting.

But w/ this one, I think we blew it on HOW we've chosen to fight the good fight. I think its beyond salvage. Its like being down 42-0 at the end of a (American) football game's first quarter but the odds of that are borderline nil. There's nothing wrong w/ cutting ones losses & approaching it from a fresh angle. But oh wait, we'd be a "cut & runner" which is another overally simplistic, jingoistic, perverted idea.

I honestly believe we are worse off now than the year or so after 9/11. At least then we didn't attack go after our own like rabid dogs. At least then our disagreements didn't hinder us from getting stuff done.

Maybe I'm delusional idealist. Maybe the deep seated, hysterical racism was always there & me w/ my rose-colored glasses never saw it this way before.

If so & we are unable to control our emotions, shucking reason & logic aside, & giving into our hate & fear, we as American have already lost & we're to stupid to even know it.


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This here is Lorraine, shot back when I was in Boston. She had this acting background that completely made my job as a photographer easy.



Feel free to comment if you so desire.

Heroes Hypocrisy

Had a recent incident w/ a former model of mine.

She's a staunch Republican who will periodically post things in her Facebook status message about her views. Y'know, "If you believe that Joe Schmuckatllie is a complete douchebag, please repost." Stuff along those lines. Whatever floats your boat, its your profile.

She was outraged how Muslims dared to open a Mosque near the hallowed grounds of the where "9/11 heroes fell."

For the record, I think this uproar is a completely phony issue. I also think its more of an outrage that the idiots in Congress failed to pass a health insurance bill for the 9/11 first responders (those very same heroes) & cited the link as a reference:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_attacks_health

I of course am accused of using an openly biased news source. Funny. I never realized that the AP was an openly biased news source. And even if it was its not like having a bias has anything bad about it, so long as they are open about it. I think its MORE honest being up-front about said bias & letting people take them into account than continually touting that they are "fair & balanced" when they are anything but.

That's a rant for another time though.

Anyway after she complained that my link "horribly biased" & then goes on the usual talking points rant; defeated on procedural issues because "my Democrats" wouldn't allow amendments, wanted to prevent illegal immigrants from using it, blah, blah, blah...you know the deal. "My Democrats"?! Talk about assuming statements not in evidence. I wasn't pointing fingers or giving some lame excuse why (its semantics anyway), the shit just didn't get done.

If they are the "heroes" we the public continually claim them to be, they (& by extension their families) have EARNED the right to be here regardless of purported immigration is. Its the same w/ how we treat our GIs. We put them on the pedestal & call them "heroes" but the fact of the matter is, we don't treat them as such.

It takes forever & a day to get them the equipment the need to fight the fight we've asked them to. The government for the past 9+ years refuses to tell us why exactly we're fighting the good fight. The servicemen's mental health care is woefully inadequate (& is interestingly enough starting to show in military dogs). Its like everything else in our society, we use it until we cannot anymore, throw it away, replacing it w/ some new product to start the cycle all over again.

Needless to say she defriended me. I care but at the same time I don't. I'm sorry but I'm of the type that if I say something retarded or act like a complete idiot, I'd WANT someone to call me on it. I guess I'm in the minority like that though.

Whatever, life will go on.

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This was a impromptu shoot w/ Emily. I would have LOVED to have spent a little more time working w/ her but the scheduling just wouldn't permit it. I'm happy w/ what I got though.



Feel free to post comments on anything here.

Enjoy.

America: the More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same

I wasn't planning on posting another blog so soon (& even then it was going to be on a different topic) but since everyone is on this Sept 11th rememberance kick, I'm going to repost something I wrote on Sept 11, 2008. Though some of details are outdated, the crux of the matter & my opinions of such have not.

The following is a repost:

Everyone keeps saying the world totally changed that day. It some ways it has, it more ways it hasn’t.

I remember what the big stories were on September 10, 2001. Britney’s VMA performance w/ a python, the faux story of Al Gore’s beard, the Chandra Levy case. What are the big stories on September 10, 2008? Britney Spears at the VMA’s, the faux missing flag pin or “lipstick on a pig” (take your pick), the never ending pretty girl who mysteriously vanishes in an exotic location that SHOULD be nothing more than a local story.

Just goes to show you that the more things change, the more that remains the same.

Where was I September 11, 2001?

It was a sunny day in Glens Falls, NY. I’d was at ACC for the day because I had classes. As per custom, I went to the computer lab to finish my scrumpicious hot chocolate while reading the morning’s news courtesy of the NY Times website. The connection was sluggish but thought nothing of it. Same w/ the Washington Post's. I overheard one of the student workers chime that he’d heard a plane hit the WTC. Like most people, I didn’t think anything of it, planes hitting buildings in NYC though not a common occurrence was common enough that it was not unheard of.

I continue to my Political Science class & was about to get rolling when one of the classmates comes in tripping out & demanding we turn to CNN. This in itself just goes to show you that even in the age of the internet & the dearth of 24-hour news channels, when you want infotainment, you go elsewhere, when the shit REALLY hit the fan, people still turn to CNN.

The girl was escorted out & we continued w/ the class the best we could. Classes were eventually canceled & everyone was let out.

Later that day, I distinctly remember being bored & going to the gym. It was like, I didn’t really know anyone that was even remotely in the buildings not to mention there was nothing directly that I could do. Everyone was rehashing the same dang thing, no one really knew what was what & wouldn't for the next couple days.

Despite being unable to do anything, I knew the attacks were a “big” event when hearing the planes hitting the Pentagon. I incorrectly thought they had SAM’s (surface to air missiles) protecting it but apparently not. I doublely knew it was big when Foreign Secretary Colin Powell announced that NATO was activating their collective defense clause.

What would this mean for me?

I was 1 year minus 14 days from my honorable discharge anniversary, I was fearful that I’d be called back up to the Marines. It wasn’t the dying part that concerned me, it was living by their stupid f***in rules. I mean seriously, having an officer complain that my room was a little dusty (in a building that was ALREADY condemned of all places) YET dog me out for cleaning my rifle to much is absolutely beyond me. That’s a true story BTW.

Even before taking oogles of Art History classes, I was always a Grecophile & used the Salamis analogy. For the uninitiated after the Thermopylae was overrun, the Persians marched on Athens & burned it to the ground. The Athenians fled to the island of Salamis (basically across from their “port” city of Piraeus) and made their naval stand in the adjoining strait. I made the analogy that perhaps those towers coming down was the price we as Americans had to pay in order to wake up.

Think about it. Western Europe had a bad run of terrorism in the 80’s. Thatcher’s cabinet was uncerimounsouly interrupted by an IRA bombing that killed something like 2 of her ministers. She took a day off, made a speech at the Conservative Party conference where the bombing occured, & went right back to business as usual. We had Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. People forget that Oklahoma City was a case of domestic terrorism. The USS Cole bombing. & this is just w/n the last 10-15 years, if I wanted to, I could easily trace the terrorism lineage back the US Gilded Age.

Yet what is the reaction I get, “(I am) an unpatriotic traitor.” This came from a family friend that has known me all my life BTW. This is also coming from a person who has for whatever reasons has not spent a single day in uniform while I have. Do I think it makes me any better or him any less? No, but I think its important to give context. Needless to say, I didn’t talk to him for over a year because of the statement. I‘ve since forgiven him for his words but I‘m sure as hell not going to forget. Even now, I avoid talking to him…not because of any remaining ill feelings but because I know the political shctick where he’s coming from. I can see it coming a mile away & debating policy or whatever is no longer a worthwhile experience. It gives me more of a headache than anything else. Course I’ve since grown to hate any political discussion because the two parties in power are basically one & the same, they care nothing about those at the bottom rungs & only care about keeping their jobs. Nothing more.

If Americans instinctively take their lead from the head of state, I really think we blew it after 9/11. We had so much international goodwill. So much opportunity to do good. So little things that divided us as Americans. So many opportunities where we could have used the attacks to unite us that AND we were willingly would have sacrificed for the greater good.

What does our leader ask of us? Not to donate blood, not to go to your recruiting station to help w/ the coming fight, not to raise taxes or ask us to buy War Bonds to help fund the upcoming fight, not to donate to charities…but to go out (& I quote) “buy things to help sustain the economy.”

That was probably the most exasperating thing to come out of it in my mind.

It was the sign of our times. Spend now & leave it for the next guy to deal w/. God forbid, we take responsibility for our own actions. There will be no “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” There will be no Eisenhower leadership qualities. There is no recruiting of the “best & the brightest New Frontier.” Nor are their efforts to create a “Great Society” for ALL Americans. No matter how bad our day seem, there'd be no Reaganesque "its sunny day in America." Nope, only W’s tax cuts.

Yes, I made my pilgrimage down Ground Zero. Yes, it was before NYC made it into a touristy hole in the ground. Mine was 2 months to the day after the attacks. Armistice Day, ironically. It was the eeriest trip to NYC that I’ve ever experienced. The stench in downtown was quite noticeable. People outside Trinity Church were wearing breathing masks. Memorials everywhere. The street silence coming off the subway was the most astounding. Before I got above ground, I seriously questioned if I was even in the right place. Of course I brought my camera. I kept trying to think of Margaret Bourke-White’s, “My camera is my shield. When it is in my hands, I have no fear.” I was just starting out then & lost 2.5 of the three roles due to a bad reel wind job during developing but I did get a couple of keepers. As seen here (outside Trinity Church):




& here (facing north from downtown Manhattan):




Not only that, I hate how certain political leaders have whored out the September 11th date for their own political purposes. Don’t get me wrong, I fully expected that. But it still makes me sick that a certain political party intentionally wants us to forget about this terrorism fight on nonelection years. Then when it is an election years, they whip up hysteria in order to get votes. Its shades of McCarthyism all over again. I completely understand what they’re doing, Terrorism is the new Communism. The players have changed but the rhetoric remains the same.

We’ve wasted our resources in a country that had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do w/ the 9/11 attacks instead of on a country that actually did. Don't get me started on the Iraq debacle. I’ll use a football analogy. When you give up 7 turnovers in the first quarter & your opponent converts them all into touchdown (6 points each for the uninitiated), yes, its still theoretically possible to rally but the likelihood of that is…well, you’d probably have better odds of putting money on the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series than you do winning your game.

Don’t even get me started on Guantanamo Bay either. *rolls eyes* How we can have the top law enforcement official in the land say (at his confirmation hearing) state he doesn’t know whether water boarding is torture or not? This is an interrogation technique that has been used by the Spanish Inquisition. How we can have the person who’s “a heartbeat away from the Presidency” say that terrorists should not be afforded rights as per the Geneva Convention because “they don’t wear uniforms”? This is ridiculous! Is he taking a play out of the Chinese playbook for the Korean War (though they’re justification for Geneva Rights denial was that “since a declaration of war was never declared, captured prisoners have no rights.”

This is fundamentally a fight about how WE do things, not of how some “raghead, dirty terrorists who chop people’s heads off.” Yeah, there are A LOT of really bad people in this world. Let’s say you sink to their level & you do get them, yeah, giving them shock therapy in a cold tub may make you feel better. But it also opens those who are on the front line to the same exact treatment that you’re giving the “bad guy.” What does it also say about us when we give these “bad guys” to our “not-so nice friends” who asks them questions w/ technique that we can’t even do in our own country? That’s like saying someone who owes you money is going to get a meeting w/ big, burley Bruno & then you walk away saying that you’re not responsible for your money owing friend’s inability to see the sunrise or eat or whatever. It may make you feel good but at the end of the day, you still don’t have your money!

Sometimes I truly think I’m living in a Bizzaro World of America. Where people cheer the presence of British troops & jeer Americans. No offense to you, Brits out there. But when the hell did that happen?!

By betraying everything we stand for, America under the present leadership has already lost this fight & we’re to blind to even see it.

Here’s to the next guy in hopes he can fix this mess, whoever they may be.