20 seasons

From a dream I had on August 30, 2001:

Then there is a plane-- almost like a fighter jet-- circling clockwise very low, it's going to crash-land. Everyone runs-- it could circle around and hit us. I and others run toward the rear of the plane.




Here's what I wrote to a friend on Sept 14, 2001:

Well, bloody chickens have come home to roost, but who in the west will look in the mirror to see if they cast a shadow? A terrible mistake perhaps easy to make is that victims must be good. The evil is identified, and thank God it's out there, not in here. I'm speaking not of the innocent workers but of that for which those buildings were a symbol.

Remember what Orwell said he learned too late? That he was wrong--- he used to think the oppressed were always right, and the oppressors always wrong.

"We're victims, we are therefore angels, therefore we have carte blanche to be devils in the name of our victimhood." And so the monotonous pendulum of revenge which swings all through history, its masterminds usually safe from the carnage in plush offices. Welcome to the dark ages of the enlightenment. Hitler's gift to the German people of his day, reared by beatings, was to allow them their horrific rage, and give them a target.

But I'm not going to sing the chorus of doom. I'm going to imagine a worldwide effort to fly in compost and all the autumn leaves of ten thousand cities in 2001 to the middle east to reclaim desert for a new paradisaical Palestinian Homeland, supplied with solar-powered infrastructure amid verdant orchards. I'm going to imagine that Pres. Bush is going to call a press conference to say that he has had a vision, and that now he intends to turn America's gigantic wealth and power to feeding, clothing, and sheltering the world.

I'm going to imagine a contingent of angels around each victim, especially the kids who have lost parents, around the world, and especially to the young men who have been so defeated that all is left is suicidal hate.

I'm going to imagine the US arranging for a series of great festivals -- in Ireland, in the Middle East, in Africa, in South America-- ten mile-wide festivals full of colorful and joyful celebrations of life, music, love. As Paul Burnside said, have a rave, let the people dance until they are too tired to fight.

I'm going to imagine that the hole in the structure of the thwarted American dream from which leaped the American Nightmare, may yet allow through a wide glimpse of the new world---as Jesus said "The kingdom is spread upon the earth, but men [sic] do not see it." I'm going to imagine that the structure is weakened, even as it furiously postures its "strength," long enough for great mystical vision to come through. I think it was R.D. Laing who said, "who are we to decide that it is hopeless?"



Men [sic], it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
Charles Mackay