Dear Friends, Cousins, Loved Ones: A friend sent me a URL for an article by Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald. http://www.miami.com/herald/content/features/columnists/pitts/digdocs/ 000565.htm Their site also has a download available for photos, which includes one I copied of rescue workers and the American flag at Ground Zero. Both the article and the photo are eloquent statements, and make us feel better. I think they make us feel better because each says what we are as a people. Most of us do not possess Leonard Pitts' ability to write, nor were we at Ground Zero with a camera. But we are all Americans, and we are united in other important ways. Leonard Pitts is an African-American, but he makes no reference to it. His article is written as a stunned, grief-stricken, yet resolved American-Without-A-Hyphen. This is also what we must remember, and reflect as we search for ways toward understanding our feelings in this terrible time. We need to -- we must -- reinvent ourselves, setting aside pettiness and small identities. We have to remember we are a nation of immigrants, living among the native American Indians. We have created one people over years of other wars, re-settlement, and grief, and we must not forget this is what we are -- what we have always been, but perhaps have forgotten because we have taken too specialized, too selfish, too small a look at ourselves and how we identify ourselves. We are Americans. We are a Community. We are Humane. We try to do the right thing, even though we often disagree on how to achieve that. We try to honor our American heritage by understanding one another and treating one another properly, with love, respect and compassion. We are all at Ground Zero in spirit. We are not "The Government," nor is George Bush. We are simply a part of it. We are not God, and shouldn't attempt to play God, which is the tendency of some people in times like these. As one of the ministers said at the memorial services Friday, we do not want to become like those who have attacked us, in order to secure revenge. As someone else said while commenting over the last few days, "I've never liked George Bush better than I did today," When he made his first statements, I felt much the same way. BUT, I didn't like his crude references Saturday: "we're going to "get" them. And "we're going to dig them out of their holes." I liked even less that he says he's "going to wipe out evil." A " Holy War?" To me that is just like the attitude of the Terrorists who brought us here to Ground Zero. Saturday night was the first I watched TV for any length of time in several days. I simply could not stand the sappy rhetoric of many of the commentators. To me it demeaned the Tuesday deaths and sacrifices of our heroic countrymen. Those who concentrated on the families, and facts, and details, fared better with me. But last night I watched and listed to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and heard with my heart the sad and humble prayer at its conclusion. Then I watched Bill Moyer's presentation about bin Laden on PBS' Frontline. If you did not see it, try and catch it sometime this week, for we as a people are going to need to understand the outlook and mentality of this new enemy. In the past "The American Government" has supported one demagogue, while denouncing another. The answer, as some of the Muslims stated candidly on this program last night, has brought us here, to Ground Zero. "The American Government" has honored, supported, and even financed, International Trade Profiteers, especially Oil Profiteers, more than it has honored sacred human rights. As a people, we have supported these governmental policies without differentiating between right and wrong. We've said, for instance, "Yes, the Shah of Iran is a Son-Of-A-Bitch, but he is OUR Son-Of-A-Bitch," and we have replayed these policies in many many other political situations and countries. Now we are at Ground Zero, trying to reinvent ourselves, and we've got to do better this time around. In my own life, in my own small hometown, and in my own root family, there have been the same kinds of hatefulness and adversities inflicted simply because one person or clique wanted to be in control of the other, even in control of attitudes. One person seeks to make him/herself "right," by making someone else "wrong." As a physically and emotionally battered survivor of this kind of war, I now suffer the effects of Recurring Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, including depression, nightmares, and an inability to cope in situations that others might take in stride. Physically, my knees no longer work and I am in daily, sometimes almost overwhelming pain from that. As to finances, I often say I look up at the poverty level! This has been a hard week for me. Trauma does not even have to be directed at me to bring out my symptoms, and sadly, there are those from the past who periodically still seek to inflict traumatic meanness on me. Tuesday's attack struck us all, but strangely, it has not traumatized me. I feel amazingly connected and united with all of you and our countrymen, and like Leonard Pitts, resolute and committed in the fight against our common enemies. But like Suz, I find the beginning beat of Governmenal war drums distressful. The sound of military planes overhead on Wednesday was not reassurring, it was alarming. My personal reinvention of myself is reflected through my research, and ultimately in my writing. In reinventing myself -- re-creating myself -- I have found the means of understanding how connected we all are with one another, by blood and history. We are the story of America. We just have to come to a better understanding of all that implies within each of us. The pen is mightier than the sword. United we will find the answers we need, because they lie within the heart and soul and heritage of each of us. Love, Your Unhyphenated American Cousin, Carolyn Carolyn McDaniel cmacdee@teleport.com ========================================= --- Visit American Crossroads --- http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads