Prior to September 11, 2001, I was an active democrat, living in Los Angeles and working at the grass roots level to further the democratic agenda. I had come from a background of living and working in Washington D.C. where people are vitally concerned with and emotionally and intellectually connected to the significance of politics. They are attuned to and have respect for the workings of government. Obviously this reality has changed with the influx of the conservative Tea Party Movement. But at the time, people had respect for government and for differences in opinion.
The great energy and resources in Los Angeles were directed relentlessly toward the industry of film making. The people in and about entertainment were ambitious, driven, and subsumed by an ever narrowing interest in themselves and their careers; at least that was my take on it. Doing precinct organizing there was tedious, inevitably thankless, and not terribly rewarding. I suppose my interest in the party politics waned to some degree, mainly because I was disenchanted, and I began to entertain an interest in changing my allegiance. When the Presidential election rolled around, John Kerry was the Democrat opposing Republican George Bush. I changed my registration and voted for George Bush. Although the opposition to Bush was virulent throughout his administration, I always felt that he had been the better candidate. He was certainly more understandable to me as a man, than Kerry had been. On some level, I have to concede that is a huge part of the vote. Whom do you see? And what rings true by your own philosophical lights, sociological background, and perception of what is human, noble, and likeable. I always liked George Bush because he seemed to have a sense of humor and a degree of personal warmth.
When September 11th came, I was shocked and horrified like everyone else. As the image returned over and over again, repeatedly broadcast over the television, I was repulsed, sickened. At the time my I was still living in Los Angeles and my husband was an investment banker, who earlier in his career had worked in New York. I had a strong identification with the people who were murdered by terrorists. I have a brother in law who was working for the government in Washington, D.C., but what I hadn’t known at the time was that he actually maintained an office in the Pentagon, which was destroyed by the crash of the second aircraft. The third aircraft carried people from Pennsylvania, my home state, to their deaths. I took the assault personally, along with the incredible amount of criticism that was heaped upon President Bush for his human reaction.
I guess that several thoughts have coalesced since the events of that terrible year. One is that clearly we have a responsibility and a right to protect ourselves from fiends, even if the way we go about this is not politically correct. I feel we have no obligation to the Geneva Conventions, which we are obliged to honor during a declared war, when terrorists do not officially represent any country. I feel we do not have to roll over for an influx of immigrants who don’t share nor want to share our values.
The last and most important ingredient lesson, encapsulated in and drawn from that attack upon our country, is the importance of honoring one another, our leaders, and our common good. This is the test of our union currently. That an economic war is being is being waged upon us by corporate business interests, under the mask of the Tea Party, is frightening. The Tea Party, a motley collection of crackpots, frauds, and the under-educated and under-experienced victims of their own regionalisms, have been seduced by outright lies, hyperbole, and flag waving. I was grossly offended by the way President Bush was treated by the media and the pundits, but that was nothing compared to the degree of disrespect being exhibited by Speaker Boehner and the Tea Party Hacks against President Obama. I’ve never felt so ashamed of Congress.
I’ll be working on President Obama’s behalf during the next election, and doing everything I can to rout The Tea Party, which threatens the integrity and function of our system. When the Koch Brothers, a big money source behind the Tea Party, have declared that this is “the mother of all wars,” this war which is being waged against the middle class, what can a citizen do? If we aren’t a united country, we are nothing.