Lonely on the outside

"This isn’t like Vietnam," they argue before I’ve even broached a comparison — preemptively dismissing any anti-imperialist pleas for world peace as naive, vestiges of ancient history. "These people," by which they mean Islamic fundamentalists, Iraqis, and Palestinians, "want to kill us," they threaten, as if I’d be responsible for the victims of the next terrorist attack if I dared question the war on terrorism. Over the past year, I’ve humored these positions from seemingly intelligent people who’ve been driven, by fear and emotionalism and myopic priorities, to falling in line with a corporate-centered foreign policy presided over by a right-wing administration that is, at best, a laughably transparent puppet of militaristic racists.

It’s been a disappointment. Vietnam’s particulars aside, that war taught us some valuable lessons about respecting root causes and relying on force as our primary foreign-policy tool. But 27 years after the US put its tail between its legs and left Saigon, people still believe that history began yesterday and that war ensures peace. I expect no better of hypocritical moneyed toadies like G.W. Bush and unconvincingly closeted fascists like John Ashcroft. If feeding the public’s jingoism makes them popular, they’ll exploit it; if war protects their cronies’ investments, they’ll wage it; if an international crisis gives them the excuse to rob uppity citizens of their civil rights, they’ll deport foreign labor and frisk babes-in-arms at airports until we all get the message. But the rest of us should know better. Apparently, a lot of us don’t. Amid our passive acceptance, simple truths have been lost: war is evil and always should be resisted; religion, race, and nationality are artificial distinctions; and rights are just that and must not be relinquished.

For the year since last September 11, it’s been frustrating to live among so many dupes — biting my tongue around neo-patriotic middle-agers subconsciously seeking vindication for only pretending to have been allied with the left in the ’60s, and around people in their 20s and 30s who spent their formative years being lulled into conformity and anti-intellectualism by the commercial pandering of MTV and Disney. Since Reagan, American business, government, media, and entertainment have worked hard to discredit dissent and disenfranchise dissenters. Judging from all the flag-spangled bumper stickers and liberal war-mongering afoot these days, it worked, and that’s the real tragedy brought home to me over the past year.

Old comrades and occasional young allies recognize the September 11 terrorist attacks, our bloody response to them, and the subsequent assault on the Bill of Rights for the madness they are — part of a continuum of greed and violence and false values that governments and religions impose on their followers. But we are an increasingly less-vocal minority, silenced by the ignorant rabble and pseudo-pragmatists alike. It’s been a lonely year.

— Clif Garboden

Paranoia

I woke up one Sunday morning in July and noticed something odd about the light coming through my window shades. It clearly wasn’t sunny outside, but this wasn’t the typical soft light thrown from an overcast sky; it was more of a sepia glare, bright and unusual for midmorning. In my half-awake fog, I rolled over and wondered, with surprisingly little alarm, whether this bizarre mustard-yellow tone was the color of a nuclear sky. Had they detonated the dirty bomb? I finally dragged myself into a more lucid frame of mind; I could hear my neighbors in their yard, my roommate stumbling toward the bathroom, and I realized that things were happening as they normally do on an undisturbed Sunday morning.

In the year that’s followed the shock of last September, the media has served as both a lifeline to crucial information and a panic switch. In July, the buzz was Al Qaeda’s access to nuclear material and the escalating standoff between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. Even a news junkie like me has to tune it out once in a while, and on this particular weekend, although my subconscious was well attuned to the most recent worrisome developments, I hadn’t paid attention to the details of the latest news. Otherwise, I would have known about the wildfire in Quebec that had sent a giant smoke plume over much of the Northeastern United States. That, of course, accounted for the bizarre haze that hung overhead on that Sunday morning.

In hindsight, I can laugh about my casual misconception during that waking moment between sleep and clarity. But I’m troubled by what it reveals about the workings of the post-9/11 mind. We don’t hear backfiring cars, the screams of jet engines, or even thunder with quite the same innocence that we used to. In those brief disorienting moments, we were conditioned to expect the worst, a sad post-9/11 reality.

— Kate Cohen

A hateful day

I hate that day. I hate everything about it: the fire-snorting skyscrapers, the swelling sirens, the business suits scrambling to safety, the televised chaos, the crumpling cityscape, the charcoal clouds puffing out like colossal cotton balls, the concrete crumbs, the crushed cars, the dusty cement caked on faces like ghostly war paint, the reports of thousands "missing," the twisted metal, the ensuing fire’s orange glow, the haunting images that paralyzed the people from sea to shining sea.

I hate that my mother had to call to tell me. I hate that she shrilled in the kind of frantic despair a daughter never, ever, ever wants to hear from a parent. I hate that I was seated in a gray cubicle, typing away like an automaton, when I heard about the end of the world. I hate that my department didn’t have access to a television, so my co-workers and I could only learn about the crashes heard ’round the world from a BBC Internet live feed. I hate that when a fourth plane was pronounced MIA, a puerile office intern exuberantly squeaked, "I hope it gets Bush in the White House!" I hate that I immediately rebuked him. I hate that he later apologized, but I avoided him for the rest of the semester.

I hate the shorthand terms we, the blathering, blustering media, use: "nine-one-one," "nine-11," and "September 11th." I hate that every time we utter such aliases, we increasingly desensitize ourselves to the bone-crushing impact of that day. I hate that Noam Chomsky published a book about that day. I hate that Paul McCartney wrote a mediocre anthem titled "Freedom" in honor of that day. I hate that Springsteen made a record largely consisting of platitudes about that day, and that the American media bicker about their contribution to the national dialogue.

I hate thinking about that day. I hate the tremendous shame, embarrassment, and complicity I initially felt for living in a city where two unsuspecting weapons of mass destruction were launched. I hate the way that day makes me feel a year later: terrified, tragic, toothless, anguished, aghast, solemn, sullen, morose, hopeless, depressed, violated, irate, enraged, livid, pissed off, pissed on, just plain pissed. I hate that when I sit down and try to articulate how my life has changed since that day, all I come up with is hate.

— Camille Dodero

From defense to offense

When my mom first presented me with a shiny, high-pitched whistle to ward off creepy men several years ago, I cringed. Oh, God, I, the proud-to-be-independent daughter, thought. How maternal. How overprotective. How lame. I had a similar reaction when my mom forked out $20 to buy me a handy, tote-size canister of mace last summer.

Obligation forced me to stuff these personal-safety items into my bag anyway, where they remain largely forgotten. But on those rare occasions when I’ve braved solo late-night walks home from the T station, I’ve found myself clutching that whistle on my key chain or handling the mace-spray nozzle. In these moments, I admit, I have felt more safe on the streets — and more appreciative of my mother’s care.

Since 9/11, though, my instruments of self-defense have become instruments of trouble. Walking into the Suffolk County Courthouse, for example, I have experienced firsthand how people can get caught up in the paranoia sweeping the nation in the post-9/11 world. Last fall, a slight yet zealous security guard was stationed at the court entrance, his eyes focused, laser-like, on the screen of a bag-scanning machine. Person after person navigated the checkpoint without incident; they placed their briefcases on conveyor belts and proceeded through the metal detector unscathed. As I entered the area, however, the guard spotted something that raised suspicion.

"Hey, you, come here!" the man barked at me. "What the hell is this?" he asked, pointing feverishly at the screen. Perplexed, I looked at the screen, too. I could make out the figures of pens, notepads, keys, a stick of gum.

"Nothing," I responded.

"Look at this!" he said, jabbing his finger at the screen again. "Are you gonna tell me what this object is or are we gonna have to find out the hard way?"

Only then did it hit me: he saw, of all things, my whistle! After an embarrassing back-and-forth exchange, during which I had to whip out my whistle to demonstrate how it might stave off the hypothetical rapist, the guard finally let me go. Months later, it was my mace that heightened security concerns. This time, the incident took place at the Massachusetts State House. The guard insisted that I undergo a thorough "check," by which he meant that he would wave a hand-held metal detector over my person. As it happened, the detector kept sounding off right around the area of my chest. Humiliated, I was forced to explain that I had worn an under-wire bra that day.

Needless to say, after several post-9/11 security-checkpoint snafus, I opted to get rid of my personal-safety items altogether. The likelihood that I’ll have to endure the humiliation that comes with carrying objects now seen as potential offensive weapons seems greater than the likelihood that I’ll come face to face with a stalker. Let’s just hope, for my sake, that I’m right.

— Kristen Lombardi