m: owner-lyotard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-lyotard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Mary
Murphy&Salstrand
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 10:42 AM
To: lyotard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: 9/11/01
In the Inferno, when Dante meets Virgil he describes
the Roman poet as
one whose voice is hoarse from a long silence. That
is a little how I
feel right now. Words have become difficult lately.
This is also why
I have been so silent. In June, my wife Mary and I
found out that Lily, a close friend of ours,had been
diagnosed with diabetes and there was a chance she had
cancer. Further tests confirmed this suspicion. She
was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Later, the
liability of pancreatic cancer also began to emerge.
The doctors prescribed kemo treatment for her in the
fall. Lily tried to be brave and positive in the face
of all this. Mary and I also hoped for the best under
the circumstances. We would wait with her and see
what developed. In late August Lily went to see the
doctor. He told her that kemo was no longer
necessary. The cancer was too far advanced. He
recommended hospice care instead. She was only given
a few more weeks to live. Mary and I were shocked by
this news. We had known all along that this was very
serious. We never expected events to move as quickly
as this,
however. Lily remained at home with family and close
friends. There was a deep sense of love and mourning.
On September 1, she died. She was only 43.Then, on
Tuesday, September 11, the catastrophe struck New York
and Washington D.C. Without going into details, let
me just say I knew of number of the people who were
trapped inside those towers.I have talked directly to
family members of some of those who are missing and
I have wept. In tragic circumstances such as this,
terrible ironies emerge. There is the man who was
working in the building and went down for a smoke when
the first plane hit. Another went to work late that
day because she was busy frosting her sister's
birthday cake. Both survived. Another woman lived in
the Midwest and was only there in New York that day to
attend a business meeting. She is now among the
missing.
My own feelings are extremely conflicted by all of
this. President Bush has called this an act of war.
I see it instead as an act of globalism. What died on
September 11th was the myth that America is alone and
separate, apart from the world. America has always
tended to see itself as isolationist. In part, this
luxury was due to its unique particular geographical
circumstance. The Atlantic separated it from Europe,
the Pacific from Asia. The neighbors to the North and
South were weaker and relations with them were fairly
easy to maintain.Now with the compression of space and
time that characterizes globalism,this immunity has
been forever lost. America can no longer act as
though it were a gated community in the face of the
world.I see Americans struggling right now with this
new awareness, their gradual awakening to the reality
of how hopeless and narcissistic, its dreams of SDI
and unilateralism have become.I have heard voices
asking: "How could such a senseless act occur here?"
It is difficult for Americans to see themselves as the
rest of the world does, especially with the weak news
coverage provided by the American media. More is
known here about Gary Condit than about Afghanistan or
Palestine. Americans want to see themselves as noble,
idealistic and courageous. The reality of sanctions
against Iraq, the elimination of the homeland in
Palestine, the sweatshop conditions in the oil fields,
the bombing of civilians during the Gulf War, the
unacknowledged racism against the Middle East, none of
this registers deep within the America psyche. In
our proclamations of innocence, we fail to see the
blood on our own hands. We rail against terrorism,
but forget to mention the School of the Americas or
the history of the CIA.
Which is not to condone what happened here this week.
Nothing can. No possible good can emerge out of this
tragedy. It remains senseless and horrible and numbs
the mind.The real question, however, that Americans
must ask themselves is this.Will we continue to
believe the duplicitous and bipolar logic of a Bush
administration that wants to proclaim in the
fundamentalist theology of a Christian jihad that we
are good and they are evil? (Whoever they are.) Or
will we sober up to the true reality of what we have
become
and begin to shoulder a greater responsibility for our
global presence within the world?
That is the terrible choice that confronts us now.
Will we remain as children living in a fairy tale view
that America is a kind of theme park of freedom and
democracy or will we mature into a deeper and more
tragic vision? Will we engage our role as global
citizens and begin to realize ourselves as the
multitude and not merely as God's own chosen few?
with love and grief, eric
9/13/01
_______________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.ca address at http://mail.yahoo.ca
[mailto:owner-lyotard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Mary
Murphy&Salstrand
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 10:42 AM
To: lyotard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: 9/11/01
In the Inferno, when Dante meets Virgil he describes
the Roman poet as
one whose voice is hoarse from a long silence. That
is a little how I
feel right now. Words have become difficult lately.
This is also why
I have been so silent. In June, my wife Mary and I
found out that Lily, a close friend of ours,had been
diagnosed with diabetes and there was a chance she had
cancer. Further tests confirmed this suspicion. She
was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Later, the
liability of pancreatic cancer also began to emerge.
The doctors prescribed kemo treatment for her in the
fall. Lily tried to be brave and positive in the face
of all this. Mary and I also hoped for the best under
the circumstances. We would wait with her and see
what developed. In late August Lily went to see the
doctor. He told her that kemo was no longer
necessary. The cancer was too far advanced. He
recommended hospice care instead. She was only given
a few more weeks to live. Mary and I were shocked by
this news. We had known all along that this was very
serious. We never expected events to move as quickly
as this,
however. Lily remained at home with family and close
friends. There was a deep sense of love and mourning.
On September 1, she died. She was only 43.Then, on
Tuesday, September 11, the catastrophe struck New York
and Washington D.C. Without going into details, let
me just say I knew of number of the people who were
trapped inside those towers.I have talked directly to
family members of some of those who are missing and
I have wept. In tragic circumstances such as this,
terrible ironies emerge. There is the man who was
working in the building and went down for a smoke when
the first plane hit. Another went to work late that
day because she was busy frosting her sister's
birthday cake. Both survived. Another woman lived in
the Midwest and was only there in New York that day to
attend a business meeting. She is now among the
missing.
My own feelings are extremely conflicted by all of
this. President Bush has called this an act of war.
I see it instead as an act of globalism. What died on
September 11th was the myth that America is alone and
separate, apart from the world. America has always
tended to see itself as isolationist. In part, this
luxury was due to its unique particular geographical
circumstance. The Atlantic separated it from Europe,
the Pacific from Asia. The neighbors to the North and
South were weaker and relations with them were fairly
easy to maintain.Now with the compression of space and
time that characterizes globalism,this immunity has
been forever lost. America can no longer act as
though it were a gated community in the face of the
world.I see Americans struggling right now with this
new awareness, their gradual awakening to the reality
of how hopeless and narcissistic, its dreams of SDI
and unilateralism have become.I have heard voices
asking: "How could such a senseless act occur here?"
It is difficult for Americans to see themselves as the
rest of the world does, especially with the weak news
coverage provided by the American media. More is
known here about Gary Condit than about Afghanistan or
Palestine. Americans want to see themselves as noble,
idealistic and courageous. The reality of sanctions
against Iraq, the elimination of the homeland in
Palestine, the sweatshop conditions in the oil fields,
the bombing of civilians during the Gulf War, the
unacknowledged racism against the Middle East, none of
this registers deep within the America psyche. In
our proclamations of innocence, we fail to see the
blood on our own hands. We rail against terrorism,
but forget to mention the School of the Americas or
the history of the CIA.
Which is not to condone what happened here this week.
Nothing can. No possible good can emerge out of this
tragedy. It remains senseless and horrible and numbs
the mind.The real question, however, that Americans
must ask themselves is this.Will we continue to
believe the duplicitous and bipolar logic of a Bush
administration that wants to proclaim in the
fundamentalist theology of a Christian jihad that we
are good and they are evil? (Whoever they are.) Or
will we sober up to the true reality of what we have
become
and begin to shoulder a greater responsibility for our
global presence within the world?
That is the terrible choice that confronts us now.
Will we remain as children living in a fairy tale view
that America is a kind of theme park of freedom and
democracy or will we mature into a deeper and more
tragic vision? Will we engage our role as global
citizens and begin to realize ourselves as the
multitude and not merely as God's own chosen few?
with love and grief, eric
9/13/01
_______________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.ca address at http://mail.yahoo.ca