Fri, 21 May 2004 02:01:00
Old blog entries - 9/11 part 3
Yet another 9/11 entry. These two were orginally posted on 9/14/2001. See Part 1 for the backstory.
Posted by: stark | Posted at: 1:45:30 PM
Little moments stick with you
I had therapy today, and I drove myself for the first time since the surgery. Unfortunately, before the surgery, I had removed all my CDs from the truck in order to burn a couple of mix CDs to take to the hospital.
Upon searching, I found one disc left in the console: Pink Floyd’s ‘A Momentary Lapse of Reason.’ Of all post-Waters Floyd, that is my favorite. So into the CD player it went.
Everything was just as I remembered it...until I got to “On The Turning Away.” It started to hit me like a ton of bricks...or, not to be flip, a 110-story building. If you don’t know the song, these are the lyrics:
On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won’t understand
“Don’t accept that what’s happening
Is just a case of others’ suffering
Or you’ll find that you’re joining in
The turning away”
It’s a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting it’s shroud
Over all we have known
Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that we’re all alone
In the dream of the proud
On the wings of the night
As the daytime is stirring
Where the speechless unite
In a silent accord
Using words you will find are strange
And mesmerised as they light the flame
Feel the new wind of change
On the wings of the night
No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside
Just a world that we all must share
It’s not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there’ll be
No more turning away?
I was driving up Whitney Avenue, on my way to my appointment, and I almost burst into tears.
Posted by: stark | Posted at: 10:28:25 PM
If only they were on one of the planes…
What makes me so fucking angry about this news piece is that the religious right gets so much press, people think that’s what Republicans are...and in the mean time they ignore moderates like John McCain, not that he’s a golden boy or anything.
It just makes me want to renounce being human, much less a Republican. Fucking little religious zealot pricks. Don’t they see their blind hatred amounts to the same blind religious hatred offered up by Islamic fundamentalists? Breeding this kind of intolerance is what gets people killed.
Enough posturing, here’s what the fuck I’m on about:
God Gave U.S. ‘What We Deserve,’ Falwell Says
By John F. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 14, 2001; Page C03
Television evangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, two of the most prominent voices of the religious right, said liberal civil liberties groups, feminists, homosexuals and abortion rights supporters bear partial responsibility for Tuesday’s terrorist attacks because their actions have turned God’s anger against America.
“God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve,” said Falwell, appearing yesterday on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “700 Club,” hosted by Robertson.
“Jerry, that’s my feeling,” Robertson responded. “I think we’ve just seen the antechamber to terror. We haven’t even begun to see what they can do to the major population.”
Falwell said the American Civil Liberties Union has “got to take a lot of blame for this,” again winning Robertson’s agreement: “Well, yes.”
Then Falwell broadened his blast to include the federal courts and others who he said were “throwing God out of the public square.” He added: “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America
-- I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’ “
People for the American Way transcribed the broadcast and denounced the comments as running directly counter to President Bush’s call for national unity. Ralph G. Neas, the liberal group’s president, called the remarks “absolutely inappropriate and irresponsible.”
Robertson and others on the religious right gave critical backing to Bush last year when he was battling for the GOP presidential nomination. A White House official called the remarks “inappropriate” and added,"The president does not share those views.”
Falwell was unrepentant, saying in an interview that he was “making a theological statement, not a legal statement.”
“I put all the blame legally and morally on the actions of the
terrorist,” he said. But he said America’s “secular and anti-Christian environment left us open to our Lord’s [decision] not to protect. When a nation deserts God and expels God from the culture . . . the result is not good.”
Robertson was not available for comment, a spokeswoman said. But she released a statement echoing the remarks he made on his show. An ACLU spokeswoman said the group “will not dignify the Falwell-Robertson remarks with a comment.”
Posted by JimK at 02:01 AM on May 21, 2004
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#1 Posted by Jason Cortright (Haggard37)
on 05/21 at 01:41 PM -
Thanks for sharing those again Jim. It was what was happening and your posts back then that got me to start paying more attention to what was going on in our news and to look into lots of other places for the stories we don’t see, and to be more investigative about what else might be going on. I almost got that same lump just now going through them again. Awesome.