On 2002-08-06 07:09, David '47 wrote:


Perhaps, but I refer you to the thirty odd years of almost monolithic Republican voting in the House and Senate. There were very few Republican mavericks. That was no less true under the Republican Revolution crowd as it was earlier under the Rocky GOPs.

True, but I suppose this is characteristic of parties in the minority, the Democrats no less. It does not necessarily represent total unity. Then again, it sure did seem like each side regarded the other side as monolithic through the saeculum. The divisive issues within each party did not really come to the fore until a little ways into the 3T: the Bush mercantilist program alienating Reaganites and the DLC alienating liberals.

I await the fracture with bated breath. So far, they've acted pretty monolithic - witness the Clinton impeachment debacle.

There was quite a rupture in '92 when a significant portion of the Republican base chose the least of three evils in Perot. Bush Sr. alienated a large portion of the base from presidential contests, though not from congressional races. The alienation from congressional politics as well would come about in 1995 when the Republican Congress capitulated to Clinton over the government shutdown. At this point, you no longer had anything holding the Republican Party together but opposition to the Democrats. The Republican Party no longer stood for anything so the only people who still cared to vote Republican were strictly voting against the Democrats. Ever increasing numbers preferred to simply stay home or vote third party. This was a dramatic change from the days of Reagan since first Bush Sr. and then the Republican Congress killed the momentum of the Reagan revolution. The Republican Party has been moribund in terms of philosophy and unity since 1995.

The impeachment represented a last gasp of principle and a last ditch effort to recapture the momentum of the Reagan revolution. It did reignite the fire in alienated former Republicans. However the behavior of Senate Republicans threw a big bucket of cold foamy water on that blaze, killing the ardor of the alienated ones, and rendered the whole event a profound disappointment. Yes, the impeachment amounted to a reunion of alienated former Republicans. But any semblance of Republican cohesion or unity had already been destroyed over the preceding 8-10 years. Today, absolutely nothing holds the Republican Party together but fear of the Democrats. They are on the defensive and on the run with far fewer numbers, despite all appearances.

I agree that Reagan was a lot of things, but a Rockefeller Republican is not one of them. I don't find that to be a plus ... or a minus either. Reagan was dangerous in a short term explosive way. The Rockfellers are more insideous. Is that a Hobson's choice, or what?

Hehehe. Well, I am glad that people are at least seeing the differences. That is all that counts in terms of getting our bearings today so that we might form new sides tomorrow. I just wonder how long it will take many on the Right to grasp that not all Democrats are "liberals" and that Bill Clinton was no liberal. That one is tough to see.

On 2002-08-06 07:33, Marc Lamb wrote:

Let us restate that Patton quote, shall we:
I did not and would not call it a revolution because it was never completed...thanks to the desire of the American people.

Hey folks, this ain't rocket science but at least try and get the facts in order, k? :smile:

That is not an accurate restatement of what Patton said because it simply is not true. It is an almost universally held opinion of Reaganites that the single biggest mistake that Reagan ever made was to select Bush Sr. as his running mate...and it was not even necessary in 1980. It is easy enough to say that Bush Sr. betrayed Reagan's legacy, but then Bush Sr. never had been with the Goldwater-Reagan wing in the first place. But seeing as you supported Carter in 1980, and not Reagan, it is perfectly understandable why you would hold views different from capitalist Reaganites and more apologetic to Rockefeller-Bush mercantilists/corporatists.


_________________
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ?Edmund Burke

Anybody but Bush in '04!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Stonewall Patton on 2002-08-06 08:02 ]</font>

"But seeing as you supported Carter in 1980, and not Reagan, it is perfectly understandable why you would hold views different from capitalist Reaganites and more apologetic to Rockefeller-Bush mercantilists/corporatists."

:lol: Oh, so I'm part of the conspiracy now, too? Sheesh, truly making a statement such as this only serves to underscore that nutty kind of loopy fringe-like silliness which pervades your thinking, Mr. Patton.

But it could have been worse, ya know, in 1980: Reagan was actually thinking about choosing Gerald Ford as his first running mate. Now that's the old CFR/Rockefeller-wing of the GOP as it gets! :lol:

<font size= +1>Hey, I like Gerald Ford. He does great English Muffins!</font >

On 2002-08-06 08:36, Marc Lamb wrote:

"But seeing as you supported Carter in 1980, and not Reagan, it is perfectly understandable why you would hold views different from capitalist Reaganites and more apologetic to Rockefeller-Bush mercantilists/corporatists."

:lol: Oh, so I'm part of the conspiracy now, too? Sheesh, truly making a statement such as this only serves to underscore that nutty kind of loopy fringe-like silliness which pervades your thinking, Mr. Patton.

But it could have been worse, ya know, in 1980: Reagan was actually thinking about choosing Gerald Ford as his first running mate. Now that's the old CFR/Rockefeller-wing of the GOP as it gets! :lol:

And, true to form, you are evading the issue by injecting all this tired, superfluous crap into the discussion. Let me steer the conversation back to the points which you yourself introduced....

Your statement that the American people rejected the Reagan revolution is clearly false. Bush Sr. won in a landslide in 1988 only after he had stated "read my lips, no new taxes" enough times to convince people that he actually stood for something and was continuing the Reagan revolution. Back when he had been showing his Rockefeller roots with the "kinder, gentler" crap, the sitting vice-president could not rise above third place among Republican presidential hopefuls. But on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, he made the tax pledge when his competitors would not, and he shot from third place to victory overnight. He then repeated the pledge enough times to convince everyone that he meant it, at which point this same sitting vice president who could not rise above third place when displaying his true Rockefeller roots easily strode into the Oval Office in a landslide as Reagan's successor in the Reagan revolution.

The American people did not reject the Reagan revolution as you claim. Indeed, they endorsed it in a landslide. Bush Sr. rejected the revolution when he broke his pledge, and then the American people, who had overwhelmingly endorsed that revolution, rejected Bush Sr. This is very, very simple to understand.

The really curious thing here is why such a hardcore Republican as yourself would run down Reagan's legacy as you have by falsely asserting that the American people rejected it. It sounds like you truly are a Rockefeller-Bush mercantilist sort and I believe that Brian Rush arrived at this conclusion long ago although I remained skeptical. Indeed this further demonstrates why your claims to having formerly been a libertarian are made of whole cloth. It is philosophically impossible for someone such as you to have ever been one so one wonders why you would tell a lie like that? What purpose does it serve? It really makes no sense.

My point in referencing your support of Carter (and rejection of Reagan) in 1980 was to show the consistency with your deliberate rewriting of history with respect to the American people's support of the Reagan revolution. You yourself are plainly not a Reaganite and never have been. You simply have never made this clear before. I made it clear for you so as to increase understanding in this discussion.

"The really curious thing here is why such a hardcore Republican as yourself would run down Reagan's legacy as you have by falsely asserting that the American people rejected it. It sounds like you truly are a Rockefeller-Bush mercantilist sort and I believe that Brian Rush arrived at this conclusion long ago although I remained skeptical."

Good grief.

Hey, did you know, Reagan and I share many things in common?

• We were both liberal Democrats at one time. He converted at age 35, I, at age 28.
  
• We were both summarily dismissed by large Corporations. He, at age 47, I, at age 35.
  
• We both wept bitterly at the prospect of having to start all over again at such a late age, and with families to feed to boot.
  
• We both went on to bigger and better things after being fired.
  
• We both despise Communism, and reject modern liberalism believe that is is the individual and Capitalism that makes this country great.
  
• We both embrace "supply-side" economics.
  
• We both believe that America is a "City upon a hill".

One might object to my daring to compare myself to Reagan, especially, no doubt, you, but all that I wrote is true. :smile:

On 2002-08-06 10:12, Marc Lamb wrote:[*] We were both summarily dismissed by large Corporations. He, at age 47, I, at age 35.
[*] We both wept bitterly at the prospect of having to start all over again at such a late age, and with families to feed to boot.

Mr. Reagan was very well off by the time he was 47. What are you talking about?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Mike Alexander '59 on 2002-08-06 11:55 ]</font>

Great article Marc.
"Clinton Has No Clothes" if you missed it go back and read it.

From the article.....
So Clinton talked tough. But he did not act tough. Indeed, a review of his years in office shows that each time the president was confronted with a major terrorist attack ? the February 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center, the Khobar Towers attack, the August 7, 1998, bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole ? Clinton was preoccupied with his own political fortunes to an extent that precluded his giving serious and sustained attention to fighting terrorism.

I've seen this info before. But, it needs to be re-stated. If for nothing else that keeping the b!tch out of office.

On 2002-08-06 11:54, justmom wrote:
Great article Marc.
"Clinton Has No Clothes" if you missed it go back and read it.

From the article.....
So Clinton talked tough. But he did not act tough. Indeed, a review of his years in office shows that each time the president was confronted with a major terrorist attack ? the February 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center, the Khobar Towers attack, the August 7, 1998, bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole ? Clinton was preoccupied with his own political fortunes to an extent that precluded his giving serious and sustained attention to fighting terrorism.

If Clinton had really focussed on "fighting terrorism" he would have gotten ten times the amount of "wag the dog" b*llsh*t from the right that he got for the few things he DID do.

Spare us all the selfrighteous anger, OK?

I've seen this info before. But, it needs to be re-stated. If for nothing else that keeping the b!tch out of office.

Will all you righties still be whining about Bill&Hill when your poster boy is packing to leave town? When, if ever, will it end?

_________________
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together :wink:

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: David '47 on 2002-08-06 12:20 ]</font>

Thanks, Mrs. M. I was quite sure that nobody bothered to actually read what I posted. :smile:


Mike Alexander inquires,
"Mr. Reagan was very well off by the time he was 47. What are you talking about?"

From Dutch (by Edmund Morris) page 321:

"My husband [C. Browder, CEO of GE] came home and asked me to take a walk with him after dinner. He was feeling bad. He needed to talk about how Mr. Reagan begged him, What can I do, Charley? I can't act anymore, I can't do anything else. How can I support my family?"

"But the tears?"

"That's what my husband told me. He cried."

David angrily lashes out....Will all you righties still be whining about Bill&Hill when your poster boy is packing to leave town? When, if ever, will it end?

No, we will probably be cheering.

It will end when the sycophant press stop reporting anything about the has-been. Or how about when the Left finally steps up to Truth and stops defending everything he does.

With seething venom he sputters,"If Clinton had really focussed on "fighting terrorism" he would have gotten ten times the amount of "wag the dog" b*llsh*t from the right that he got for the few things he DID do.

Now we are to understand that bombing an aspirin factory in the Sudan, on the very self same day Monica was testifing about spoog ladden dresses, *was* in fact "fighting terrorism". And was not after all "wag the dog b*llsh*t".

Thanks for the clairification David, I am deeply indepted to your insights.

Just what event are you referring to?

Here is a bio that says he was regularly employed throughout the 1950's and that he made 54 movies, that last at age 53. Another bio of Nancy said she made 11 films, the last in 1958, when she quit to help out her husband with his political career (Reagan turned 47 in early 1958). It doesn't look like they were financially strapped at any time during their marriage.


Ronald Reagan lived in the public eye for more than fifty years as an actor and politician. He appeared in 53 Hollywood movies, from Love is on the Air (1937) to The Killers (1964). Never highly touted as an actor, his most acclaimed movie was King's Row (1942) while his favorite role was as George Gipp in Knute Rockne--All American (1940). He served as president of the Screen Actor's Guild from 1947 to 1952 and again in 1959 where he led the fight against communist infiltration in the film industry and brokered residual rights for actors.

Reagan made his debut on television 7 December 1950 as a detective on the CBS Airflyte Theater adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel. After a dozen appearances over the next four years on various shows, Reagan's big television break came when Taft Schreiber of MCA acquainted him with G.E. Theater. Reagan hosted this popular Sunday evening show from 1954 to 1962, starring in thirty-four episodes himself. Reagan was one of the first movie stars to see the potential of television and, as host, he introduced such Hollywood notables as Joan Crawford, Alan Ladd, and Fred Astaire to their television debuts. He also became a goodwill ambassador for G.E.--plugging G.E. products, meeting G.E. executives, and speaking to G.E. employees all over the country. This proved fine training for his future political career as he honed his speaking skills, fashioned his viewpoints, and gained exposure to middle-America.

In 1964, Reagan began a two-season stint as host of Death Valley Days which he had to relinquish when he announced his candidacy for governor of California in January 1966. During his terms as Governor of California (1966-74), Reagan made frequent televised appearances on Report to the People.

Dear mom,

My point was well made. Thanks.

PS: Love the dress

You're right Mike, the incident took place in 1962, not in 1958 when Reagan was 47. But make no mistake, Reagan was fired by GE. Furthermore, taken in the context of which Morris wrote the account, it's makes perfect sense why Reagan might have felt his career was shattered at that time. The chapter in the bio is called Dark Days. And needless to say, having gone through something similar in my life, I could identify with it. We all like to think of Reagan as the "tough guy", and for the most part he was... But hindsight is, afterall, 20/20.

On 2002-08-06 13:10, David '47 wrote:
Dear mom,

My point was well made. Thanks.

PS: Love the dress

I certainly got it: "Bill&Hill"... Get it? Stuck together like glue... where he went she went, and then she took over. And now, where she goes he'll go, and when they both get back to the White House... There will be "Hell to Pay!" :evil:




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Marc Lamb on 2002-08-06 14:46 ]</font>

Allow me to recommend
www.televisionarchive.org
where you can see clips of world news broadcasts on that historic week in September as they happened.
The most haunting and ironic for me was the ABC morning news, where Ted Koppal announces that tonight's _Nightline_ would be about the war in the Congo. Then there is a breaking announcement that "something" had happened at the World Trade Center.
_Nightline_ did not cover the Congo that night...

Quote:
"It will end when the sycophant press stop reporting anything about the has-been. Or how about when the Left finally steps up to Truth and stops defending everything he does."
____________________________________

I used to think this was what kept the anger going. They just wanted to hear the Left say Clinton was Satan (which of course, to any self-respecting leftist, he was... Free Trade? End Welfare? The right has never understood that Clinton was not and is not a leftist). Just like the left never understood that Nixon was not a rightist.

Sometimes when people lash out there is a joyful release, but with the right wing's constant Clinton-rant it seems a little like frustration, and a lot like manipulation. Ms. Hill' was mistaken when she called it a right wing conspiracy. It is a right wing industry. They buy and train and sell these right wing hacks to whip up the populace. Like all those blondes on TV who talk and talk and talk their rightwing trash. They remind me of rappers, only without the beat. White folk got no rhythm. But they do got the money. And people will do whatever it takes to keep it.

The left is pathetic at keeping up. They have to depend on real sentiment advance their position. And leftist fervor seemed to sputter out with Watergate and later, their pathetic attempt to "overthrow" Carter. (And of course the interesting re-enactment in 2000 when they went for Nader).

I like the way it (left vs. right) also ties in with geography and industry. When Kennedy ran against a sitting Democratic president in 1980, it was like the east coast trying desperately to cling to their hold on power, vs. the "new south". And in 2000 it wasn't just east vs. south, blue vs. red, but also it was old economy (oil, etc) vs. new economy (computers, etc). The power-chase is such a multi-faceted wonder.

As for the sycophantic media, I could not agree more. They will do anything to whip up some conflict so they can get people to tune in. And they love to give air time to the Rev Sharptens, Jesses, Pat Robertsons, Ann Colters etc. if they think it will get people to PAY ATTENTION. And of course Bill is an icon, just like Ronnie-baby. They are the superstars. Tragic ain't it.

This is why I like computers. TV is the National Enquirer. TV is Movie Star Magazine. On the internet the little guy has a chance to be heard. It is just hard to clear your head enough to listen. It takes a while. I know a lot of you wonder if anyone hears you. I rarely post and it is terribly hard for me to really listen once I have you "pegged". But you never know, maybe someday we will all be able to "get along". Ain't that was 4T is all about?

A few moments, as we approach a full year after 9/11, to reflect on the topic question.

Quite a while back, I observed that the result of the terrorist attack was either a mood shift into the Fourth Turning, or a preview, a temporary Crisis mood that would lapse back into 3T -- and that as such, we were in Crisis mood without a doubt. The only question was whether we would stay that way for only a few months, or continue in it for years. I also predicted that it would take an absence of further catalyst-type events for a period of a couple of years to cement us back into 3T mode.

We haven't had that absence. We've had a wave of corporate scandals and a recession since then, followed by a sluggish, disappointing "recovery." The response to these events has been Crisis-like, not Unraveling-like. Popular demand is for reform, for collective action, for DOING something. True, these events have little or nothing to do with those of 9/11/01, but this is going to be a multifaceted, complex Crisis, and when it's over it will not be called "the War on Terrorism." It may, perhaps, be called "the War on Terrorism and the Global Economic Meltdown and the Global Eco-Crisis and the Challenge to American Hegemony," or with greater simplicity just "the Millennial Crisis." No single issue defines it; the problems we face are too involved to permit that.

What makes a Crisis era? Not the occurrence of dire events. Those can happen in any Turning. Rather, a Crisis era is marked by public consensus that action needs to be taken and things need to change. Sometimes that consensus merely marks a different attitude towards problems imposed from outside. Other times, the attitude creates the turbulence. But in all cases, it is the attitude and not the turbulence that marks the change.

This in mind, I am prepared, more so than ever before, to answer the thread question in the affirmative. We are now in Crisis. We have not yet reached regeneracy, but we have taken the first collective steps in that direction, and the current wave of public demand will make regeneracy occur.

So far, this Crisis hasn't been very severe (apart from the terrorist attack itself), but over its course I believe it will be, and that the changes it will bring will dwarf those of the Great Depression and World War II. We shall see.

We're coming round to the anniversary of 9.11. I recently revisited the account of the tragedy that strikes, at least for me, the strongest chord. Sara Bunting is a web spinner. She writes about life in the big city, about her own life, in a comic yet pertinent manner. She is used to expressing her feelings. Her web site gives a window into her life. This might or might not be what one wants to read, but it just happens that on September 11th, just the right person to speak for New York City happened to be in lower Manhattan. Please visit http://www.tomatonation.com/thouart.asp for the full story. (Open her pages, download a few ads.) A few paragraphs are quoted below for review and comment... The latter might say a little bit about the nature of a 4T.

Everything happens at once, and yet at the same time somehow nothing happens at all for a second, as the building sighs and slumps towards us, and the top section shrugs down into the hole made by the plane, and a ring of debris and ash shoots out from where the hole starts. From the ground, it looks like the top of the building is going to come clean off and fall in our direction, but for a full two beats, we all just?stand there?admiring it: "It's coming down." But it isn't coming down, not really. It's not real. We see it, of course. But it's not happening. The building isn't coming down. The building can't come down. It wouldn't do that.

The ground begins to shake. The building groans deeply, regretfully, almost an apology for its failure to hold: "MUHHHHRUHHHHAAAAH." The building is dying. The building is sending a wave of dust and detritus to give us the bad news, and the wave is running through the streets towards us with a sad, choking sigh: "HHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAA." And then all of us all at once realize that now's the time in the movie when the nameless extras run screaming, so finally, at last, as the building begins its awful death swoon, that's what we do. Well, most of us do. I settle for walking purposefully, and get knocked into a mailbox as a result. People flee to nearby buildings, stopping only long enough to grab the elbows of those who have tripped and fallen, pushing others in front of them towards the door, any door. I wind up in a revolving door at the Bank of New York, squashed into it with four other people. We are ejected stumbling into the lobby as the wave goes by. "HHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAA." More people tumble in behind us, clutching onto each other, coughing, staring at nothing in disbelief.

At last, I get onto the bridge. Automatically, without thinking, I turn to see the skyline stretching away on the left. The skyline is gone. The Empire State Building is dark. The World Trade towers have disappeared. The lights below 14th Street have gone out. Nothing moves or sparkles; the occupied city is dark except for a necklace of EMS lights, and the slow, steady, sorrowing plume of ash wending its way down into the harbor. And my mind wakes up. I imagine the screams of the dead, from which the scream of the building protected me before. I hear the evenness my father willed into his voice, hear Don telling me hesitantly, "Well. Take good care, Sarah." I feel the hole in the city as a hole ripped out of my chest and head, thousands burned and crushed and orphaned and ruined and dead. I merge onto I-95 South, and I cry -- great whooping moaning sobs, strangling me, fighting to get out of my throat and go nowhere except back into my ears. I clutch the wheel to keep it straight, signaling, getting left, barreling onto the ramp for I-78 West, driving home as I've done a thousand times before, and I cry and cry and cry.

Near Hillside, I stop crying. I don't feel better, but I stop crying. On the radio, the President refers to the 23rd Psalm. "Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, for Thou art with us."

The President is wrong. I fear evil. No rod or staff can comfort me. Surely goodness and mercy have turned their backs on all of us today. I have no interest in the house of the Lord.

I come up the driveway -- home. My mother stands in the doorway waiting for me, and with the light behind her, she looks small. The house itself seems small and weak. Everything seems small and weak. I have come home, but the story is just starting, and I don't know that I can tell it right. Telling a story is all I have, all I have ever had, to give. The telling used to seem important and strong. A story used to seem powerful, and now it's really nothing at all. Just paper, in the end, easily burnt and blown away.

Here in Minnesota, Sen. Paul "I was Lying" Wellstone, Democratic-Farmer-Labor and former Mayor Norm Coleman, Republican will not run their content free television advertisements on the tenth, eleventh, or twelfth of next month in "memory" of that sad day.


If we were atttacked for our democracy, why would that democracy put itself into the thrall of the actions of Mr. Bin-Laden's minions? Would it not be better to show that we can have smarmy political adverts even during the WOT? Would that not prove to the lesser nations, that the American Way of elections are still a matter of pride for the 50% that bother with them?

This, along with a lack of commercial advertisement on 9-11 in our Commercial Republic is just giving the terrorists what they want...an America not consuming and an America not switching channels as the politicos come on with their several spiels. What's happening to our values?

As we approach the one-year anniversary of 911, those of us who are Jewish also are anticipating the High Holidays (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur -- the Days of Awe). Here is an article about one woman's reflection (from www.interfaithfamily.com). This is for educational, not commercial, purposes.

The liturgy of the New Year is very dark, and for most of the year I hardly remember that. Rosh Hashanah, for me, calls up sweet images. Even as I carry out my usual disorganized self-examination during the month of Elul, traditionally the period of reflection preceding the Jewish New Year, I secretly tend to think of Rosh Hashanah as an easy, "family" holiday.

And then, in the synagogue, as the Unetaneh Tokef, one of the traditional prayers of the Rosh Hashanah service, begins with its solemn, awful litany of death and life, I remember each year what we are really doing here. On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed, Unetaneh Tokef declares, how many shall pass away and how many shall be born, who shall live, and who shall die...

Last fall, as I heard those words, I was beginning a new part of my life. I was raised in one interfaith family, and I was in the process of forming another. A week after 9/11 I moved in with my non-Jewish boyfriend, nailing a mezuzah (a case containing a written Hebrew prayer, traditionally put on thresholds in Jewish homes) to the door frame of his house and finding shelf space for my Jewish feminist library. The news from Israel was still bad, the news from New York was worse. The whole world seemed to be breaking down into tribal factions and gearing up for war, and here I was in San Francisco, moving the furniture around in an interfaith, decidedly intercultural home.

I hadn't chosen to move in with my boyfriend as a political act, I was just in love. But by the time I had unpacked my toothbrush, conservative pundits were already declaring gleefully that the time of multiculturalism was over; somehow discredited by an act of war committed by fervent monoculturalists. Life, death, and the politics that capitalize on them were all on my mind as my boyfriend and I hauled my boxes of books into the house.

A few days after that, I was standing in Congregation B'nei Emunah in San Francisco, between my Jewish mother and my Catholic father, reciting a liturgy that for the first time in my life seemed comforting, rather than unsettling. In past years, the darkness and dwelling on death that haunts so much of the Rosh Hashanah liturgy had seemed... not inappropriate, but like something I needed to be reminded to think seriously about at the appropriate time. Last year, the whole country was dwelling on death, and the High Holidays were numbing in their intensity.

Gathering as a community is the essence of what we do during the High Holidays. Separate families and individuals join together as a congregation. On Rosh Hashanah we read that all of us stood together at Sinai, even those not yet born. At Yom Kippur we confess in unison to the sins of the whole community. Community, in the end, the larger community of a nation, the smaller community of a congregation or a family, is our only response to the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death.

Interfaith families extend the overlapping rings of community, bringing in new people, extending networks of support and connection, faith and determination. There are still things that make being a Jew particularly frightening in unsettled times, but we have connections and belonging, family and friendships beyond our own smaller community that could not have been imagined when Unetaneh Tokef was composed. These connections too, are what we bring to Rosh Hashanah, and to our knowledge that life is uncertain.

As I begin to prepare for the Days of Awe this year, I carry with me the memory of all the unjust deaths, and the surety of more to come. This is neither resignation nor depression, it's a reminder of what we have to fight for, the stake we have in family and community when we walk together away from our encounter with God.

Virgil,

Your post reminds me of the 50s movie "Kiss them for Me" where 3 navy aviators get 72 hours leave in San Francisco. All the way to the hotel, they cannot wait for what they have been missing. One turns on the radio, hears a commercial, and pleasantly sighs "Ah, one half of America selling to the other half."

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Here in Minnesota, Sen. Paul "I was Lying" Wellstone, Democratic-Farmer-Labor and former Mayor Norm Coleman, Republican will not run their content free television advertisements on the tenth, eleventh, or twelfth of next month in "memory" of that sad day.


If we were atttacked for our democracy, why would that democracy put itself into the thrall of the actions of Mr. Bin-Laden's minions? Would it not be better to show that we can have smarmy political adverts even during the WOT? Would that not prove to the lesser nations, that the American Way of elections are still a matter of pride for the 50% that bother with them?

This, along with a lack of commercial advertisement on 9-11 in our Commercial Republic is just giving the terrorists what they want...an America not consuming and an America not switching channels as the politicos come on with their several spiels. What's happening to our values?

Despite my Wisconsin residency, my proximity to the Twin Cities forces me to be exposed to the constant ads in that senate race. And they are the same ads all the time; they never seem to make any new ones, its so annoying.

Life marked 'before' and 'after'

09/01/02

Tom Diemer
Plain Dealer Bureau


Washington

- The smoke has cleared, the tears dried, yet many Americans wake up each morning in a country profoundly changed from the one they knew last Sept. 10.


From Our Advertiser





With a somber anniversary falling next week - one year since the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history - thinking about life in pre-9/11 America is an exercise in nostalgia.

Remember a year ago how tired we were of hearing about Rep. Gary Condit and how we chuckled at the prospect of Jesse Ventura running for president? Far from his heroic image today, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was trying to rebound from a painfully public divorce.

Our neighbors didn't use phrases like first responders, Twin Towers, homeland security, or al-Qaida.

For some viewers, the TV series "The West Wing" was more compelling than the real White House. And travelers that day could arrive at an airport less than an hour before takeoff and still make their flights. Then, a slow Monday in September turned to Tuesday. And now, as holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has said, "There is a before and an after" in America.

"My antenna is up all the time since 9/11," said Rep. Pat Tiberi, a freshman House member who commutes between Washington and his Columbus district, where jitters about terrorism are not as intense as back East.

In New York City and Washington, a bomb scare, a suspicious parked truck, even a backfire can set off alarms.

The threat of terrorism is no abstraction; it is "part of the air you breathe," as one New Yorker put it.

"Every time I look at the Empire State Building, I feel a protectiveness about it," said Manhattanite Tim Bush, a Bay Village native. "It is hard to put into words. It is not exactly anxiety. It is the same feeling you have when you wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep."

"Life will never return to normal as we knew it," said Vance Garnett, a free-lance Washington writer. "The best we can hope for is to try to create some kind of new normalcy."

Everywhere in the country, language has changed, mobility is more limited, and the view of the future is obstructed by the possibility of another terrorist strike. If there is a silver lining, it is this: Our ability to sort out the important from the trivial is keener.

"What 9/11 does is distill everything very clearly - what is important in life becomes very clear," said Peter Kirsanow, a Cleveland lawyer who spent much of this year in a political struggle to be seated on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. "You find out that a little appointment does not mean a lot in the grand scheme of things."

Flying to Washington about three months after the attacks, Kirsanow witnessed a hardened attitude among airline passengers.

"A fellow sitting across the aisle from me said, 'If anybody makes a wrong move, I am getting up and I am tackling them.' I said, 'I'm with you.' And that was the sentiment on the plane."

That was on a flight to Dulles International Airport. The other airport in the Washington area, Reagan National, was shut down for almost a month after Sept. 11 and didn't resume full operations until April 15.




I

n other parts of the country, an inching back toward normalcy came sooner and change was often subtle. As Tiberi sees it, there is a small disconnect between the nation's heartland and its eastern seaboard where the attacks took nearly 3,000 lives.

Tiberi, his wife, Denice, and friends recently attended an Eagles concert at Ohio State University. "It was packed, and I noticed they were not checking bags," said Tiberi. Troubled, he complained about the lax security at ticket gates.

Fellow concert-goers "looked at me like I was nuts. 'This is Columbus, Ohio. Things like that don't happen in the middle of America.' There is a false sense of security."

Likewise in St. Louis, site of the famous Gateway Arch, people "are probably more concerned about getting West Nile virus than they are about a terrorist attack in their hometown," said Thomas Schlafly, a lawyer and brewer.

"I guess there is a feeling that New York and Washington are a world apart from 'fly-over country,' " said Schlafly.

"In the immediate aftermath, it seemed to me people [here] were generally nicer. Now, road rage and lack of courtesy seem to have returned to their former levels," he said. "Daily life is similar to what it was a year ago."

But for some, the aftermath of 9/11 was disheartening. Anas Shallal, a 47-year-old restaurateur in the Washington suburb of Annandale, Va., said, "I am disappointed. It could have been an opportunity for the country to pull together. Instead it has become a polarizing incident."

Although he has not been harassed personally, he said the round-up of individuals suspected of having terrorist ties and other incidents across the country involving Arab-Americans caused some in the community to fear internment camps could be the next step.

"Many of us came here to get away from that - the secret hearings and detentions," he said. "And now here it is, right in our faces." Shallal, who was born in Iraq, is married to an Iranian. "I get it coming and going," he said.

In a survey of 700 Americans late last month, the Travel Business Roundtable and the Orbitz travel service found 69 percent believed leisure and shopping activities were back to normal. Another 28 percent said, "We're not there yet."

"It's not fear of airplanes anymore, it's fear of airports," said Jonathan Tisch, head of the industry group whose survey found that some travelers are flying less because of security "hassles."

The hassles and effectiveness of airport security remain a point of contention across the country.

William S. Lind, director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the iconoclastic Free Congress Foundation, says the show of force at airports will only turn would-be hijackers and saboteurs to more devious, less obvious tactics.

"The people already realize in America that all the [visible] airport security stuff is nonsense," said Lind, who splits time between Middleburg Heights and Washington. "It is totally predictable. All it does is make it total hell for normal people."




A

re we safer today than we were on Sept. 10? The anecdotal evidence is that we are - somewhat.

No major incidents have occurred over American skies since the four hijackings that precipitated the death and destruction in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania , although a scary episode over the ocean briefly got the nation's attention.

In December, passengers and crew members aboard an American Airlines Paris-to-Miami flight overpowered a man who they said attempted to set off explosives hidden in his shoes. British-born Richard Reid has been charged with attempting to blow up the plane and is scheduled to go on trial this November in Boston.

Nothing has happened on the ground since last October's discovery of anthrax-laced mail that killed five people and nearly shut down Congress.

The Bush administration is asking Congress to create a new agency and provide $37.7 billion for homeland security next year.

But daily life has changed - perhaps a "new normalcy" - in Lower Manhattan, on Capitol Hill, and at the Pentagon.

Around the New York island, bawling bagpipes of another firefighter's memorial service, another lost person found alive, and sculptures of life-sized search- and-rescue dogs are constant reminders of what occurred there last September. Not to mention that a debate about what kind of memorial and construction should replace the 110-story Twin Towers is well under way.



T

im Bush's father died in Ohio in October; deadly anthrax-tainted mail was found in midtown Manhattan offices the same month. November brought another tragic plane crash - this one not terrorist-related - in Queens. "It was not hard to believe the world was coming to an end," said Bush, a writer and illustrator of children's books. "It was not an impossible thought anymore."

Vance Garnett doesn't make the social scene in Washington as often as he used to. "Now my wife and I and my stepdaughters have a few favorite restaurants, and we go there. Even then, I think, what would happen if someone walked in with a belt of nails and shrapnel they could detonate?"

Recently, the District of Columbia distributed Cold War-era Geiger counters and other radiation detectors to fire stations to help rescue workers track radiation releases, in the event a "dirty bomb" is set off.

At the Capitol, Sen. George Voinovich's press secretary, Scott Milburn, was fitted for a new-age gas mask called the Quick2000 Escape Hood. "I am unique among my friends in that I have to take gas mask training," the Ohio University graduate said.

For Milburn and some 28,000 co- workers, the job experience now includes frequent security checks, evacuation drills and drastically altered traffic patterns in the streets surrounding the Capitol complex.

"I have always liked working here on the Hill," he said. "It is kind of grim now."

As chairman of the House Administration Committee, Rep. Bob Ney, a product of small-town Ohio, is in charge of upgrading security for the entire U.S. House. Making the Congress safer meant long hours - meetings lasting until 3 a.m. - and "a lot of pressure."

These days, Ney, a St. Clairsville Republican, goes to work at the Longworth House Office Building "without fear or hesitation. But I have to be honest with you, I don't think about this place in the same way as I always did, as being immune from attack," he said. "We have had to increase security. We had anthrax brought into our building which could have killed thousands of people." A number of House aides are looking for jobs elsewhere, Ney said.




B

ut some government workers, who are staying, are inspired.

"Every day I get up and think about how my job is tied to the protection and safety of Americans," said Mary Beth Carozza, deputy assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs. "That motivates me because I am part of something bigger than myself. It is easier to accept the long hours and maybe less of a personal life."

Carozza, a former Ohio congressional aide, had been at the Pentagon only four months when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the massive building, the symbol of American military power. She was unharmed.

Nearly 12 months later, she speaks passionately about "The Mission" - the war against terrorism - and calls her work in the post-9/11 environment a life-transforming experience. Part of her job is selling Operation Enduring Freedom to House lawmakers, so tax dollars will continue to be available.

"I believe in fate and destiny and I believe there is a reason I was in this building and that I am in this job now. I know that sounds hokey, but that's how I feel," she says.

The task of Carozza and her boss, Donald Rumsfeld, grows more taxing as the war drags on. Many Americans, while still brimming with patriotism, are ambivalent about progress in the struggle against a shadowy enemy, and worry about the prospect of war with Iraq.

If dissent over a possible war is muted, the horror of Sept. 11 reignited a debate about racial profiling and brought charges that Arab-Americans and immigrants with Middle Eastern backgrounds were being singled out.

More than 1,200 people were swept up by law enforcement agents after the attacks and held for indeterminate periods, often for immigration violations. Many were deported, but at least 147 were still in custody this summer.

Last month, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled that the Bush administration acted unlawfully in holding hundreds of deportation hearings in secret. And a federal intelligence court has refused to grant Attorney General John Ashcroft wider latitude in carrying out the U.S.A. Patriot Act, the anti-terrorism law giving the government more wiretap authority.

So, a vigorous debate goes on in the land over thorny issues like profiling, government eavesdropping and the effectiveness of security measures.

But for some, those conversations are background noise. The terrible events of Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, have left a permanent mark.

"There was something cinematic about what we were seeing on television," said Rep. Tom Sawyer of Akron, who watched events unfold from his fourth-floor Capitol Hill office. "But when you looked out the back window" - he points to a window in his office - "and saw the flames from the Pentagon, it gave a reality to what you were seeing on television. . . . And the two came together, just to be chilling."

Carozza had her epiphany on the six- month anniversary of the attack. Leaving work on a chilly March evening, she saw construction cranes swaying in the darkness and workers still on the job rebuilding the Pentagon. "The Mission" was being carried out on more than one level.

"I am not going to let them drive me out," she said.


To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:


tdiemer@plaind.com, 216-999-4212

I have laid in a supply of classical music-Mozart and Mahler, some Shalespeare videos, and some Romantic poetry for the coming ordeal of the media's trivilised First Anniversary of the events of 9-11.

I shan't read the local papers, the news websites, watch TV (save for Football), listen to talk radio-(either the Progressive Public or Conservative Commercial), in the flood that will hit us next week.

I will vote in the Minnesota primary and find, if I can, the outcome of same; but I will rather try to reflect upon the human condition rather than share the media rituals with their contrived tears and their real tears in the deluge of pity coming our way. I'll read T4T all along, whilst I harvest my grasses and grains... but for the Sublime 3T events of next week, no thanks.