Arty Farty Friday ~ Sad Anniversary

The anniversary. No need for me to define it further. I've tried to find something appropriate to Arty Farty Friday. There's this tale of a possible premonition, I hadn't come it across before.

The chilling chalk drawing of planes, the Twin Towers and a traumatised girl that has been hanging on a Scottish office wall since the 1980s

(Click on any of the images below for larger versions.)

There's more, in similar vein HERE.


What else? Just three paintings of New York City in happier times.

 Times Square, NYC by Guido Borelli

 New York City Through the Clouds by Manit

 New York Romance by Ylli Haruni

Remembering Again

Princess Di's death, JFK's assassination and 9/11, all spawned major conspiracy theories; a slew of other incidents, accidents and tragedies did too. In early instances theories travelled mainly via subversive magazines, some newspapers or TV programmes. With wider availability of the internet by 2001, conspiracy theories on the events of 9/11 spread ever wider, ever deeper.

Would an astrological configuration relate to conspiracy theories? C.E.O. Carter's Encyclopedia of Psychological Astrology is of no help in this; there's no entry under "conspiracy" or "conspiracy theory". I doubt that it was a term in common use when his book was first published in 1924. Something in the communal consciousness must have shifted between then and now - in line with the developments in technology and communications.

A generational quirk? A good bet for starters would be the Neptune in Scorpio generation. Neptune represents imagination and mystery. Scorpio represents secrets, paranoia and death. The generation born between 1957 and 1969 (now aged mid-40s to mid-50s) had it in them to dream up, or expand upon a creative idea with a touch of paranoia thrown in - the conspiracy theory - and have it (in today's terms) "go viral". This particular generation may be, or have been, instrumental in spreading the theories and nurturing them.

Back in 2014 now.... quoted at Counterpunch yesterday in a piece by Cesar Chelala: An Unlearned Lesson from 9/11

Rami G. Khouri, a contributing editor to the Beirut Daily Star, and a keen observer of international politics recently wrote, “Dear Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden and Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom: before you launch a new global war on terror and another coalition of countries to fight ISIS, please note that the last three decades of your global war on terror have sparked the greatest expansion of Islamist militancy and terrorism in modern history. This partly, maybe largely, because your military actions in Islamic lands usually destabilize those lands, allowing your enemies to organize and take root, and also provide the greatest magnet that attracts mostly fringe and lost young men to give meaning to their lives by joining what they see as a defensive jihad to save Islamic societies from your aggression.”

But the beat (of war drums) goes on...and on.

Nine-One-One

Nine-eleven, numbers forever engraved on the hearts of every person in the USA. I recall that last year, maybe in previous years too, some writers suggested that it's time to stop marking the anniversaries as they pass. That's something for each of us to choose to do, or not. It's certainly not for anyone to dictate. I wasn't in the US at that time, I didn't have a computer either, so relied on the TV and newspapers for information, but still recall vividly the breaking news that day, and how I first heard it, and how I felt.

I'd decided that this year I would simply put something in the sidebar today to mark the anniversary of 9/11/2001, but on Saturday night, as we continued to plough through our DVD set of the 5-season long Ally McBeal series from the 1990s and early 2000s, the tragedy was brought to mind. An episode we watched, which I later discovered had been aired in December of 2001, was a subtle tribute to those lost on that terrible day, and to the many people grieving in various ways.

The usually zany, irreverent writers and cast were in a more sombre mood for most of the episode, set around Christmas-time, dealing with a couple of court cases. One case was about a former church minister who had lost his belief in God after his wife had been shot dead. This led to him being removed from his ministry. His son, a leading choir member, had lost his will to sing. A second case was one brought against the mayor of a town where a big factory had burned down, killing several employees and 6 firemen, leaving the town bereft, and with many unemployed citizens. The mayor ruled that their annual Christmas parade would be cancelled. A concerned citizen had brought him to court to fight him on this.

I didn't, at first, connect these themes to nine-eleven at all, but as the episode progressed I began to suspect that there was an undercurrent of some kind.

The stories were actually reflecting some of the real-life feelings which must have been around in New York - and everywhere - in the months following nine-eleven.

The episode ended as happily as possible with the minister regaining his faith and his position in his church, his son (played by Josh Groban) found his lovely voice again. A grieving town won their case against their Mayor and held a very respectful parade - seemingly miles long - with little children carrying the helmets of lost firemen. It was at this point that the relevance to nine-eleven eventually clicked into place in my head. I waited to see the date in the end credits - yes it was - 2001! Checking on-line later, I confirmed that the episode, titled Nine One One, was aired in December 2001. I hadn't noticed the heavy clue in the episode's title which had been explained in the episode by the minister recalling that his wife's last words before she died were: "Call nine-one-one".

USA's Roller-coaster: Over-reaction -- Apathy

I've stumbled across a couple of articles this week where the writer compares, unfavourably, the attitudes of most people in the USA immediately after 9/11 events, to the attitudes of the British during attacks on their country during World War 2. Y'all cannot possibly compare events and reactions to World War 2 with reactions to the event of 9/11 2001 for goodness sake!!

Now....while the idea has often occurred to me that the people of the USA, in general, over-react - tend towards a communal paranoia on several fronts, and display a definite tendency to hyperbole on all fronts, I'd never categorised this as anything resembling cowardice, as implied in the articles I read. Take Stephen Pizzo's piece at Smirking Chimp, for instance. In referring to The Patriot Act:
Be Ashamed, Americans

Snip:

Who gave them the right to do that? Well, we did. Yes we did.

In the flash, 9/11 turned cocky, self-satisfied Americans into a mob of scared school girls. We went screaming to "Daddy" demanding to be kept safe from "terrorists." Spare us the details, we said, and just get-et done, we demanded.

Stop for a moment and compare that response to how the Brits responded to years of terror weapons raining down on their cities during WW II.

"Starting on 7 September 1940, London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 57 consecutive nights. More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged, and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, almost half of them in London. Ports and industrial centres outside London were also heavily attacked; the major Atlantic sea port of Liverpool was the most heavily bombed city outside London, suffering nearly 4,000 dead."

Americans had never felt such a blow. But, unlike the Brits who, rather than panic, stood up, strapped on a pair, and just kept on keeping on, we freaked out after 9/11. Three jets, a two buildings and 3000 dead, and we went to pieces.

Be ashamed, Americans. Be very ashamed. One attack, tiny by comparison, and our first response is to offer up our freedoms in return for protection.

And so came the Patriot Act; likely the most un-American piece of legislation ever passed by Congress and signed into law by an American president. It was slapped together by panicked government employees, passed by politicians who were far more terrified of their terrified constituents than they were of actual terrorists, and signed into law by the dumbest man ever to serve in the Oval Office.

We did that. Because we let them do that.

An English commenter (L. Harrison) agreed, and adds information about the devastation of the city of Plymouth during WW 2. I'm eligible to add my own views on this. I was born in Hull, a busy east coast port which also came in for blitzing by the Luftwaffe. We never knew from one morning to the next whether we'd still be around, or whether the house next door might be a pile of rubble, especially as we lived near a park with a large boating lake, which was often mistaken by German pilots for the docks, and they sometimes dropped their bombs not far from our doorstep. I was a very young child -just a baby at the start of it all, so have only fragmented memories, but do remember seeing the devastation downtown in the city centre, later on.

Reactions during a World War are something quite different from those following a single event coming out of the blue in peacetime (or what passes for peacetime). During wartime citizens become hardened to the possibility that death is just around the next corner, or will come during the next night. They learn to live with that, little by little. They have to - what else is there? People of the USA would be the same, I believe. 9/11 came out of the blue, a shock to the system, immediate reactions were understandable. What isn't understandable is that people have not demanded during ensuing years, that The Patriot Act be reviewed, rather than renewed. Apathy descended, complacency reigned and there lay the danger. The People can never, ever, afford to become complacent. Apathy isn't cowardice, but apathy of the masses has led to the situation in the USA - on several fronts.

It's as though initial hyperbolic over-reaction and paranoia moves on to dip to the other, more dangerous extreme: apathy.

"The handing over of all power"

I can only imagine how the people of the USA must have felt in the aftermath of 9/11. With hindsight it's easy to see that measures taken by the then president and administration were draconian and have led to, so far, 12 years of conflict known as "the war on terror" - not a war in the traditional sense, since Congress did not declare war on either Afghanistan or Iraq. The atmosphere in the USA after 9/11 must have been akin to a rolling boil, so I can kind of understand how the people, led by their representatives, mostly agreed to the invasion of Afghanistan. There was more protest to the invasion of Iraq if I recall correctly. However, legislation dating from those dramatic years, the AUMF (The Authorization for Use of Military Force) and The Patriot Act are pillars upon which President Obama relies to authorise drone assassinations from the skies of several nations, often resulting in the murder of innocents and children.

The threat of terrorism hasn't disappeared, it will never disappear. Terrorism, of one kind or another, has been part of human experience since the dawn of history. Countries need to be prepared to deal with terrorist threats, that's accepted, but the way the USA is acting currently is more akin to stirring up a hornets' nest. Al Quaeda isn't Nazi Germany, its strength is puny compared with that of the USA - or even the UK. The whole scenario reminds me of an elephant twitchy and paranoid trying to stamp on an ant.

The use of drones, now they have been developed, will be part of life from now on, drones in ever more sophisticated forms too. The argument that the damage, collateral and to US military personnel, is less than that which would be brought about by conventional bombing methods, might hold true. I could not argue against that in times of declared war. In current circumstances, though, the US would be unlikely to be using other styles of bombing where drones are being used as attack weapons in countries such as Yemen, Pakistan and others.

Drones will, in any case, continue to be of benefit in reconnaissance and surveillance during times of conflict and disturbance. Their use beyond that, except in times of declared war, declared by Congress against a nation state, ought to be a matter for new legislation written to address present day situations, not those present in the period immediately following September 2001 - legislation containing strict limitations on, and mandated accountability for, the use of drones, military or civilian.

There's another aspect to drone use which will surely become apparent over time: further de-sensitisation and de-humanisation of the operators. War will become little more than a video game, that is until drones from some source carry and drop powerful nuclear bombs, then it'll be "game over" for humanity.

From George Orwell's "1984":

"The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city. And at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival."

"...the average citizen of Oceania never sets eyes on a citizen of either Eurasia or Eastasia, and he is forbidden the knowledge of foreign languages. If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies."

NINE-ELEVEN (no astrology)

It has become impossible to arrive at this day each year without reference to the anniversary it represents, anniversary of events which changed the expected course of history for the USA, as well as devastating the lives of countless families. Had the events of 9/11 never happened, I wonder how different today's USA would be? Impossible to imagine. Some writers have offered the view that this 10th anniversary ought to be the last one when so much attention be paid to it on a national scale. The families of those lost that day, of course will mourn and remember always. Each of us will decide for ourselves, as future anniversaries arrive, the best way to remember - or to forget.

This, the 10th anniversary, I'm posting one of my husband's journal pages, written in September 2001, I was still in England, it would be two years more before we'd meet. He (American) was staying in Canada at the time - probably attending some jazz festival or other where he used to volunteer to help out.

Part of my husband's journal entry for 12th September 2001 "The Day After":

.........I stopped to talk to my young friend, Chris Griffin, in his studio. He had been working on a painting but was just sitting, listening to the radio. He was choked and speechless. "I was just painting," he said. "Now I just can't. It's just too terrible, too senseless." Then he just reached over and unplugged his radio.

It changes the way you think. It changes the way everyone thinks.

Later, each customer at the health-food store, as they paid for their, carob or wheat germ or vitamins, commented how painful, frightening it was to hear the news about the US.

At the Blood Center on Plymouth Street near here, there are lines in the street of Canadians, mostly university students, waiting to help. Some are waiting as long as two hours to get in to donate blood.

I stopped for coffee at a Starbucks. I sat and watched the conversations at other tables, the exchanges between the incoming customers. Everyone shows shock and sorrow at the awful and useless loss. I looked through the remnants of this morning's papers scattered around the tables. I had the passing urge to save them to read again tomorrow. Tomorrow's editions will be very sad.

Some people have likened this attack to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. But it bears little resemblance. The difference is mainly that after Pearl Harbor we knew the identity and location of the attacker. This time we don't. The enemy is faceless. One similarity is that undoubtedly this will increase mass prejudices against the Middle East, The Arab and Israeli states in particular. If we learned nothing from the Second World War experience, there may even be concentration camps of Mid-Eastern-Americans. I just heard a radio news report that a 15 year old Arab American was beaten up in a school yard by school mates.

Another similarity is that the tragedy will probably cause Americans, (that is Mexicans, Canadians and the States) to gravitate more toward unity. The entire democratic free world will probably (or at least should) tend toward greater unity. The Allies, Americans, British and Russians, in the second world war were partners in defending against the aggression of Japan and Germany (as those countries were configured then.) Before then and indeed after, they were not all great friends.

Bush is probably wishing he hadn’t fudged in Florida about now... Canadians have a different view of our political circus. Many actually feel that the US politics are a bit more down to earth than Canadian. Others just think that it is not quite as funny as their own.

To be drug out...

Nine-Eleven

"Hatred ever kills, love never dies. Such is the vast difference between the two. What is obtained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality for it increases hatred."
Mohandas K. Gandhi

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A glance at Wikipedia's list of events for 11 September through the years threw up coincidences:

On 11 September 1941 ground was broken for the construction of the Pentagon, headquarters of the United States Department of Defense.

11 September 2001 saw destruction of the western portion of the Pentagon, part of a terrorist attack which also destroyed the World Trade Center, New York.

On 11 September 2002 "Through extreme and coordinated effort, The Pentagon is rededicated after repairs are completed, exactly one year after the attack on the building".

On 11 September 1941 Saturn and Uranus were conjoined, Saturn in the last degree of Taurus, Uranus at 00 Gemini. In 2001 Saturn and Uranus were trined (14 Gemini/21 Aquarius), and in 2002 the two planets remained in closer trine: 28 Gemini/26 Aquarius. I'm unable to translate this as a clear relationship to events, but thought it interesting. This year Saturn and Uranus are opposing each other, not tightly at today's date, but within 8 degrees, in Virgo and Pisces. As has been pointed out by astrologers, the opposition will be exact on the date of the US General election. I'm wondering whether the Pentagon will somehow be in the news again during coming weeks.

Conspiracy Theories and Astrology.

I'm not sure what led us to watch "The Murder of Princess Diana" on TV, Friday night. I was never much interested in Princess Di and the royal family, but we watched the movie anyway. It's hard not to be affected when a young life comes to such an abrupt end - whether it's that of a princess or a pauper. As a piece of fiction, which the film largely was, making use of the conspiracy theory which grew out of the event, I found it quite an absorbing tale.

The death of Diana was one of those indelible time-markers for many people. JFK's assassination and 9/11 are two others, events which sliced through our communal consciousness like a knife through butter.

It's significant that conspiracy theories have emerged from all three of the events I've mentioned - Princess Di's death, JFK's assassination and 9/11. Conspiracy theories have blossomed (if that's the correct verb) in the past few decades. I guess that throughout history they were around, but in the past only the high and the mighty were privy to them. We, "the great unwashed", only started to hear whispers about these theories as easier communication became widespread. The whispers rose to a crescendo with the advent of the internet.

I wonder what astrological configuration might relate to conspiracy theories?

C.E.O. Carter's Encyclopedia pf Psychological Astrology is of no help in this - there's no entry under "conspiracy" or "conspiracy theory". I doubt that it was a term in common use when this book was first published in 1924. Something in the communal consciousness must have shifted between then and now - in line with the developments in technology and communications.

A generational quirk? Perhaps. A good bet for starters would be the Neptune in Scorpio generation. Did the generation born between 1957 and 1969 (now aged around 38 to 50) pick up the idea of conspiracy theories and, in boardroom-speak "run with them"? Neptune represents imagination and mystery. Scorpio represents secrets and death. This particular generation may well be instrumental in keeping these theories alive and well.

My own natal Neptune in Virgo is not given to believing easily in wild theories without a bit of concrete proof. I have to admit though, that in all three cases mentioned, there is room for doubt about official explanations. It's always good to keep an open mind, but never wise to become paranoid. That is as far as I'll ever be able to travel on the conspiracy bandwagon.