Tony Blair - World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 2007
Originally uploaded by World Economic Forum
I feel that I am one that follows politics fairly closely. I mean, I’m not a guru by any sense, but I am informed. I research candidates before I vote (more than I can say for some). I know where they stand and I know how it affects me.
I also understand what’s happening in this world. When the planes flew into the towers on 9/11, it did take me the second plane to connect it immediately to Osama bin Laden. But, because I’d been reading books on terrorism, Jihad, Islam, and so forth, I knew this was an al-Qaeda attack. And I knew, at that time, that Osama bin Laden was the leader of al-Qaeda.
When the 9/11 attacks occurred, I was just a few weeks away from accepting a very good job. Being depressed about the economy and my job status (I was a couple weeks short of ending my unemployment), I had many things to be worried about.
June W. and I slept in a lot those days. She was unemployed as well. We were living off my unemployment.
That day, we were laying in bed – not getting coffee – just lagging…trying to wake up. We normally get up at 7:00am CST, but we slept in. At :46 minutes past the hour, all hell broke loose.
We were watching our favorite morning show, “The Today Show”, with Katie Couric and Matt Lower, when all of the sudden they announce that a plane went into the North tower of the World Trade Center.
We knew then that many lives would be lost. We didn’t need coffee at that point. We both bolted up in our bed. We both felt, at that point, that it was merely an accident; a terrible one at that, but just an accident.
Of course, the current Today Show was interrupted. But, they were trying to get a camera on the building. I mean, they were just downtown, yards from the collision. And they assumed the best: meaning that Katie and Matt assumed it was a stray jet liner off course…just like we did.
Seventeen minutes later, the second jet hit the South tower. It was announced, not seen. But, I knew then what was going on.
June remembers me whispering too her in bed, “Osama bin Laden”. I covered my mouth, perched my lips, and started to cry. Because I knew that this was payback…and this was the start of it.
All of the sudden, I knew what was going on. We had suicide terrorists attacking the World Trade Center again, as they did in 1993. They were attacking America’s greatest city, New York. And they were willing to give their lives to do so. June didn’t understand that first part, not immediately. When she finally did, she couldn’t stop puking.
I just remember, after the second plane, calling up my neighbors and saying, “Turn on you TV!” “Which channel?”, they’d ask. With a choke in my throat answered, “any channel”…and hung up.
June and I were glued to the set for the next hours of horror as the Pentagon was attacked and the flight 93 passengers heroically brought down their plane in a Pennsylvania field (God bless their souls).
Then the towers did something that no one every thought would happen. They collapsed with thousands of souls crumbling with them. I didn’t believe it could happen. I didn’t want to believe it. I was naive. I guess because I wasn’t alone on that day that in thinking so, that, I don’t know: there must be a hole in humanity. To let thousands of innocent human lives just perish. I mean, we are definitely not talking about worriers. We are talking about regular people that go to work every day.
And we’re not talking about a nation that has declared unconditional war by an un-provoked attack, like on Peril Harbor. The nuclear bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a justified retaliatory attack. If they’d gone on indefinitely, then maybe they would be viewed more as revenge than retaliatory. But, if the attacks against our Navy fleets in the Pacific had continued, more American lives would have been sacrified. We had the bomb and we knew we had to use it. We figured out a way to fight back; a hard punch, so to speak. There should be no martyrism in the fact that we bombed the hell out of the people that unprovokley brought the US into the WWII era.
The whole world for me felt in flux. FAA travel was suspended. People in Hawaii were asking how they can get supplies? UPS’s answer: We’ll deliver buy ground. Hawaii’s like: “Really, you’re going to build a bridge?”
On 9/12, my perspective employer said that they had been attacked by a virus and that my employment would be delayed by a few weeks. Those few weeks were butting up against my last few days of unemployment insurance we’d had left. It ended up being that the timing was just about right. But, this only added to the explosive stress of that time.
You have no job. Planes aren’t flying. Possibly more attacks. All this time, I’m remembering the 1998 movie, “The Siege”. That movie was a Prophecy of what was to come. Even with stars like, Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis, and Annette Bening; it was a flop at the box-office. It lost money.
But, here’s the Hollywood paranoia effect: There were many terrorist movies in queue at the time of the 9/11 attacks. They all got pulled, for fear of, whatever: a reactionary response, I guess.
However, sales of video rentals and purchases of “The Siege” shot up days after the attacks. Personally, I think this was a good, healthy thing. “The Siege” is a very open minded depiction of what could really happen to a great city, like New York, when militaristic systems are put into place in an urban area.
Here’s the thing: I believe there’s something fucking up in Islamic culture. Like they lost some ground that we – Americans new to the stage – gained. I believe that we took the higher ground – in so many ways – that it perplexes Islamic culture. And we did it so fast.
Women should have the right to vote. Oh, duh, we didn’t think so 100 years ago. Yah, blacks…they should be in the back of the bus. Now we have a black president. Go figure. Allowing free speech; now there’s a concept…one that will get you ejected from power. Human rights have never been achieved fast than in the United States of America. We may not be the model, but we are the example.
I think that Nelson Mandela had conveyed the transition from a state that is biased to a state that can possibly be homogenous was possibly the most humane thing that has ever happened on this Earth. Watching “Invictus”, I understood how he could’ve (and I say ‘could’ve’ because this is a fictional re-enactment) accomplished that enormous task.
So, I think that I’m well trained in global politics. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gleamed the Osama bin Laden connection seconds after the second WTC attack. But then, compared to June, when I talked about tank attacks in the Gaza Strip, she was like, “Palestinian tanks?”.
My sad answer was, “Palestinians don’t have tanks.” She didn’t respond how I’d hope she’d respond. She just said, “Oh.” There’s a conflict you don’t want to get me started on.
What I loved about June W. was that she cared about these things…she just didn’t want to know about them…I mean she puked on 9/11. But, she doesn’t even try to search out this knowledge. She’s Midwestern. She’s an Isolationist. She thinks that by buying an Acer laptop, that’s made in America, that she’s buying American. Naive to the fact that 99.7% of all components in an Acer laptop are actually manufactured overseas. Okay, she’s not blonde, just Midwestern.
But, however how I don’t support total USA gung-ho attitude, I also don’t support the fact that there are still nations in this global economy that don’t support basic human rights. If we’re going to be global (and technology has really forced us to), then we have to agree on some basic human rights. In that sentence, that means there are a lot of rights that need to be righted.
Short list:
Females need the right to go to school.
People should have the right to speak their mind without incrimination.
…I’m sorry…I’m blowing it.
I’m not a leader. I just know basic human values. I mean, I can’t make an all-end, all-be, list of human rights. That’s why I live under a constitution. But, that constitution is the best (I believe) in the World.
There really isn’t any higher human constitution. No one has written one yet. Humans are complex. We are the highest order of animal on the planet of Earth; which is as far as we know. It doesn’t mean that we should take advantage of that fact. It means we should take responsibly for that fact (which we’ve really been lagging, lately).
Number One: We need to respect others that look and act different.
Number Two: We need to respect and understand how wild animals have an affect on our World.
Number Three: Accept the fact that we may be able to terribly affect the underlining nature of the food chain.
Number Four: Just be nice to nature. I know that may be hard for some of you corporate types, but think about it…1,2, and 3.
And remember, we humans are the only animals on this wonderful planet Earth that have the Devil inside us. We have the burden of choice. We can and should make the best choice. It’s time to make the best choice…because we’ve made the wrong choice for too many years. We will eventually pay the price, if we don’t.
I just didn’t think that a nation that has ruled the world before, such as England, would have a leader that was a puppet to any nation, especially not the USA. That’s backwards. I’ve spoken to English clients. They all insist – on The Fourth of July – that we’re not celebrating our independence, but that we’re still their colony; in a humors sense; like we’re children leaving the nest.
I guess, from anyone else’s perspective, that America is the puppet master. Well, at least from Roman Polanski’s
-- Without Wax
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