Views of 9/11. .

Online, a discussion was started on September 11, 2018 when Ali Cat wrote: "When I think of 9/11 I of course remember the tragedy that took place. What stands out to me, however, is later that day seeing a little boy standing in front of his house, for hours proudly and solemnly waving an American flag. The unity that America had, that’s what I remember and it’s what we need to go back to. "

Reactions were typical: "Preach." "I agree." "Word.' And so on. One man, Mathew Agel, said: "I worked rescue recovery at WTC for 4 months. As a country we all came together as Americans. Never felt prouder to be an American!" 

A Marine now working as a private security contractor, Chuck C. Charles, said: "I deployed Sept 17th and I came home in April spending most of that time in Afghanistan... For a 1hr bus ride back to base, the streets were lined with proud Americans. Flags waving. Patriotic citizens waving and screaming support... oh and women flashing... Can't forget that part... But it was one of the best displays of real America that I had ever seen and seen since... I miss that America!"  

A Black man, Don Hubbard Jr. said: "Unfortunately that type of unity only happens when there's a major crisis like 911 or an act of domestic terrorism!" Todd Wright, who by his photo could be a cowboy, responded: " I very much agree with you ! This country is on the edge and it's going to take a lot more work to get it back to being great again." 

Todd's response gets the same reaction from me: "When was it great? When was it not? What definition of greatness is employed in this call? What is really being said, expressed in such a way the real meaning does come out?"   


… From my perspective and many of us Native people, we did not share those sentiments. We had multiple memories of being massacred by Euro-Americans! There were other things. First, was the inevitability of such an event, and second was the reaction of the larger population believing sentimentality held a uniting force. That is how fear talks. The patterns of American history showed another pattern.

There was a window opened that day to reconcile with other nations most Americans were unable to perceive. It was, this notion of making peace, resented by white Americans when the idea came forth... I remember that more as each day passes under the current administration! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 9/30/18 

Ali Cat (r.) and a friend for September 11. "Make America Great Again!' 

9/11, Bullshit and Denial.

I have the talent and the eye of a good photographer, but when I was coming up as a child it was impolite to take pictures traveling and living in various countries. Americans were intrusive. After the Korean war and the other wars waged by the mid-20th century, people were weary of American intrusion passing itself as diplomacy. So, I learned to interpret the visual with sound and words over the length of my decades.  In short, I studied. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories (9/10/18) 

Gangsta chicks like this are a version of masculinity that submits to crude male belief in the dominance of the dick over pussy. It is a self-inflicted wound from deep wounds to the soul,and it is at the crux of the ideology of survival within poverty all across this country. - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 9/11/18 

Chola in her 'Charley Brown'!

Vatos Locos.

Organized gangs are more representative of the soul of America. How are they ignored on September 11, 2018? Easily. As long as we cling to the myth of America we don't see the country as it is to others victimized by our ways of life! What am I thinking of making such a statement?

First of all, I am not caught up in the whining and impish patriotism fluttering about 17 years after those men crashed planes into buildings in New York city, Pennsylvania and D.C., where I was during the attack. Second, I was keenly aware of what these attacks meant beyond the terror of the moment. I saw the opening in a paradigm to change the world, and our worldview to usher in peace on that day within a few hours. There were others, but as the weeks became months it was apparent the chance for peace wasn't going to occur. War-like people have to engage their soul with killing.

It is impossible for white Americans, in particular, to move beyond the immature impulse to remain within the initial stage of shock and disbelief. Seventeen years later, and white Americans still behave in the emotional state immediately after a violent attack. Third thing that stands out is remembering how intently the coverage about the loss of white lives dominated coverage of the event for a long time, and the lack of historical reference to give a proper perspective to the event. To this day, the world silently breaths in contempt for the melodrama of September 11 remembrance events.

I know I do.

How does the chief among predatory forces illicit pity from other countries whose citizens still smart after what we have done to them?


Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
9/11/18

Peace to Defense: What Americans Cannot Comprehend!

KWAI Chiang Caine (the character in "Kung Fu") is a shaolin monk, a Zen Buddhist. He only kicks some ass when he defends himself from a clear and present danger or adversary. He doesn't provoke the fight yet he knows how to fight with ease but calculated and sure. His martial arts is defensive as most Eastern or Chinese based martial arts as well as Japanese like jujutsu and aikido and the Filipino stick weapon, arnis.

Arnis is used by village guards (barangay tanod) in the Philippines as a weapon for peacekeeping. It is a hard stick like the Paiute cane or stick that I have. It can be deadly but its use is to demobilize a hostile person. Hence, Kwai Chiang Caine is not easily angered or stressed when he fights. Notice the way he uses the hands and feet, very evasive yet swift in its certainty. - Pasckie Pascua September 7, 2017

Policing War Tactics

Weapons instructors 'stage' an event ... staging is important for psychological warfare inside domestic territories. observes Mereana Taki (9.18.16)

You are dead on target on this point. Ever since the U.S. government flooded the nation's police departments with military weapons and Humvees, and tanks after 9/11 the policing has changed. There have been major shifts in how the public is perceived by the police. Replaced is the notion we are citizens. We have become potential terror threats. Subject, to severe scrutiny under these guises regular conversation and simple courtesy are replaced with abruptness, rude behavior and short nasty answers to questions. Because Americans after 9/11 significantly dummied down their intellectual processes all of this happened because dictatorial patriotism became the litmus test for citizenship.

The state of the country's mindset is in trouble under the mentality of living fearfully as if are consequences our acts of terrorism... - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 9.18.16

White folks oughta know!

Lioness Daiba Sala AmenRa‎, a woman I know from Facebook, is strong, thoughtful, bold and opinionated. Today she said what many think, feel and believe, but fear sharing. She said, and I quote: 



9/11, GET OVER IT!!!

Sounds heartless and cruel, doesn't it??? Well, now you know how every American African and every African American feels when we are told to get over slavery. To get over the face that hundreds of millions of Blacks were stolen from their homeland and murdered, enslaved, terrorized, lynched, beaten, ripped from their families, children torn from the arms of their mothers and fathers due to hatred, and bigotry! Especially, since these acts of genocide of Blacks still continues today.

Just because Blacks no longer pick cotton, raise your children, cook your meals, build your homes and work for free does not mean their lives don't matter!! So, remember that next time we are told, "It's in the past, get over it!"

Peace be unto you.



My response was immediate. Without hesitation I wrote:

Lioness, 9/11 has always felt like a white problem to wrestle with and their grief. I have never felt a part of it chiefly because the pity, the pitiful tones from a people constantly justifying and boasting about their cruelties, their conquests made me bristle. It was out of place! All that pity and whining! It was annoying!

I have other well thought out thoughts, feelings and perception about this subject, but I stand with you on your assertion. It is true. The world should not, but does center and revolve around white people and survival in large part for people of color is dependent upon how 'we' make them feel!

Dig what I'm saying? - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 9.13.16

Jim Crow days, Armed Willie Causey Junior holds a gun during a period of violence in Shady Grove, Alabama

A Creation story creates life...

A better way to think, be and spend this day, September 11, 2016.

Maitrieya Sandess with a homeless brother who engaged her on the street Sept. 11, 2016.

It was quite the energy exchange. It is amazing how light sparks life and life creates light!

"In my life, I cross paths with so many interesting people. He said he liked my pants, and from there it struck a conversation of learning that he is also a Virgo (bonus), has worked in retail, is writing a novel which he recited the first two chapters to me (it was really good!), and is currently homeless due to unfortunate situations. I believe that there are no mistakes. Everyone has a unique story, and as we parted I said to him "good luck"! His response was "There is no luck. You 'make it be' ". I love these little blessings that I receive. People make my life rich, and God always knows what he's doing. Happy Sunday." - Maitrieya Sandess (Sept. 11, 2016)

the Ignorance of 9/11!

"May the wicked become good, the good become peaceful, the peaceful become free and the free help others to become free."  ~ Upanishads

This is the very wisdom that easily and naturally evaded the consciousness of the American populace September 11, 2001. For a few years afterwards it was dangerous to be a thinker, to have a historical perspective on the Middle East, and the U.S., or to be knowledgeable about the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. and most dangerous of all to be a peace activist. Most Americans will not remember any of this. It is sad, but a great indicator of how deep the soul loss amongst the populace surfaced when those impeccable warriors plunged planes into buildings!

It is hard to gauge, if you lie to yourself, how deep are the fears that hold Americans to their bizarre and contradictory sense of patriotism. It was dangerous for others, like myself, who at one point was almost arrested for pointing into the air while walking in the District of Colombia for being a terrorist!

It is a terrible crime to be free and to think free in a society bound by the fears and terrors of the Euro-American! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 9.11.16

Abraham Lincoln born (Feb 12, 1809 - April 15, 1865) in the earliest known photo circa. 1840 was the 16th president.

piss pot

when Questioning became unAmerican

Arekah Smith




Arekah Smith on Sept. 11, 2014 said, 'Intelligence will never stop being beautiful.'
She is young, but her words were said by few during the months and later the two years after the bombing of New York, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania in 2001. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
1.20.15

FIRST AMERICAN CITY BOMBED

Question: "What was the name of the R&B group whose name honored Black Wall Street? If this piece is to be titled let it be the name of Blacks and Whites referred to this community with its wealth and self-sufficiency."

Black Wall St.- the killing

One of the nation's worst acts of American terrorism and racial violence, the Tulsa Race Riot, occurred there in late May and early June 1921, when 35 square blocks of homes and businesses were torched by mobs of angry whites.

The riot began because of the alleged assault of a white elevator operator, 17-year old Sarah Page, by an African American shoe shiner, 19-year old Dick Rowland (the case against Mr. Rowland was eventually dismissed). The Tulsa Tribune got word of the incident and chose to publish the story in the paper on May 31, 1921. Shortly after the newspaper article surfaced, there was news that a white lynch mob was going to take matters into its own hands and kill Dick Rowland.[6]

A group of armed white men congregated outside the jail and, subsequently, a group of African American men joined the assembled crowd in order to protect Dick Rowland. There was an argument in which a white man tried to take a gun from a black man, and the gun fired a bullet up into the sky. This incident promoted many others to fire their guns, and the violence erupted on the evening of May 31, 1921. Whites flooded into the Greenwood district and destroyed the businesses and homes of African American residents. No one was exempt from the violence of the white mobs; men, women, and even children were killed by the mobs.

Troops were eventually deployed on the afternoon of June 1, but by that time there was not much left of the once thriving Greenwood district. Over 600 successful businesses were lost. Among these were 21 churches, 21 restaurants, 30 grocery stores and two movie theaters, plus a hospital, a bank, a post office, libraries, schools, law offices, a half-dozen private airplanes and even a bus system. Note—It was a time when the entire state of Oklahoma had only two airports, yet six blacks owned their own planes.

It was suspected by many blacks that the entire thing was planned because many white men, women and children stood on the borders of the city and watched as blacks were shot, burned and lynched. In addition, some of the black-owned airplanes were stolen by the white mob and used to throw cocktail bombs & dynamite sticks from the sky.[11] Property damage totaled $1.5 million (1921).[11] Although the official death toll claimed that 26 blacks and 13 whites died during the fighting, most estimates are considerably higher. At the time of the riot, the American Red Cross estimated that over 300 persons were killed. The Red Cross also listed 8,624 persons in need of assistance, in excess of 1,000 homes and businesses destroyed, and the delivery of several stillborn infants.[6] - source unknown

... from the wreckage a child pulled another out. What did that feel like in the scope of the terror white inflicted upon the town? How did it ripple throughout the years of his life?

Answer: the GAP band

9/11 After math is science & study!

Kris Jenner interviewed by Savannah Guthrie   

the Story


The Today Show took a lot of flack for interviewing reality star and business woman, Kris Jenner instead of switching to the President's memorial for the 9/11 victims. In their defense NBC sighted their considerable work on the subject during their morning show. They aired the moment of silence during its West coast broadcast. The network's local affiliate WNBC-4, moreover, cut the "Today" Show to air its self-produced special coverage to commemorate the victims of the 9/11 attacks.

Good for them.

Showing respect for the dead I understand. Honoring the dead who were surprised into their deaths as if they were heroes is and has always been baffling a conclusion to draw, for me. Pausing respectful with a heavy heart for the sudden and awful way those three thousand people died in New York, DC, and Pennsylvania is very much in the make up and part of who we are as a species. But, as a man my national question leads me away from sentimentality and wants to know what was gained, or learned from those deaths? If our entire purpose of honoring those people is to sustain the initial emotions after the attacks we are imbeciles, or more politely a people not worthy of global concern. If those deaths have taught us anything it has shown us how we are perceived as a nation. Whether and how we accept, respond and believe about ourselves our mythology determines some consequences down the road we certainly are not ready for. If we were visionaries or simply honest we'd see how to be logical and follow the trail of our beliefs and study the ripple effects of our actions. Do we? No, I submit we don't and can't because of our national beliefs, our history, and our structural non-analysis of our core institution: slavery! 

Now, what is the spirit behind the complaint against the Today Show's producers and NBC decision makers? What are the complaints and how could anyone be offended? Is the network being told to 'follow the bouncing ball', or else by the public? That's is bullying. That is what it is: bullying. It is the same kind of bullying that earmarked the following years after the attacks: dictatorial patriotism!

There is something in the air indiscernible to one sensibility and clear to another, and it is what we have not learned as a nation about ourselves. How do we move past the mentality that narrows reconciliation into oblivion? How do we move through our national biases and plunge into what ails our soul? There are more and more fundamental questions to ask of ourselves individually and collectively. But, the fundamental question is do we want to form those questions into action? Apparently not. If not now, when? When it is too late and the chickens have come home to roost? 

Gregory E. Woods, 

Keeper of Stories 

9.13.14 

Kris Jenner getting feet & hands taken care of !!!!

NOTHING LEARNED

Cat Woman fighting soldiers 

Yesterday was the anniversary date of the 9/11 attacks. I never participate in the so-called honoring of that day for a few, but rather complicated reasons. They are complicated to the simple-mindness of many Americans who pine over the day the same way Americans did over the Alamo. There is something about unrepentant predators whining over their losses and forever chanting, "Why do they hate us?" that doesn't inspire me. Something about it and within its spirit is repulsive and profoundly disrespectful.  

The few weeks after the attacks in 2001 were ripe with the possibility of global peace. For true peace keepers it was obvious and  made it an exciting time to be alive! The chance for true peace to settle into the shock of most Americans was fresh and alive with its arms held high! It was the clearest thing to see across the entire planet! It was within reach and conceivable peace talks and ceremonies could begin its life upon the planet and stir within the belly of the beast. But, by October it was evident this opportunity would go unnoticed. 

I learned a great lesson in October of that year. Great men are not always wise. The concept of peace in the Western world is severe. Peace means how you get along with white people. The onus is upon subjugated people to align their defenses and objections and concerns about rights to life lived abundantly in such a way that they can assimilate into a system of thought and reason that makes white Americans comfortable with their consequences they chose not to acknowledge. 

The next few years were dangerous times for Arabs, Indians from India, and anyone who looked like, or reminded simpletons of Osama bin Laden. For peace advocates, black or white, young or old, it was dangerous to voice an opinion, or state the obvious to the uninformed. For thinkers it was difficult and dangerous in many parts of the country to express creative thought process to a room full of reactionaries armed for the annihilation of the Arab world. Thirteen years later there is less chance for reconciliation amongst nations. Thirteen years later very little has changed for the betterment of the world-at-large. The U.S. of A has never rested from war and killing is the top selling feature of video games. 

These are my words. 

Gregory E. Woods
Keeper of Stories
Sept. 12, 2014


keeperofstories.blogspot.com

cartoon on race perception 

cartoon on race perception 2

cartoon on race perception 3

cartoon on race perception 4

Our Native Concern for our Collective Good!

Crow bate' known as Finds Them And Kills Them aka Jim 1928

Creek man circa 1868 

"It may be time, but do enough have the nerve to make that stand against all forms of evil, first within themselves, second around them and lastly on a global level?" - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 2.26.14




"This problem was created as "we" moved from being ruled by nature, to being ruled by laws/government. How do you go back?" - Shawn Oxley

 Now that's some bullshit! 

"We stand to learn a lot from the Native Americans. It's time we ask and listen to their wisdom." 

- Hollie Jones 2.22.14 

You are correct, Hollie Jones. But, there is a deep concern many of us Native folks have. Osama bin Laden in an pre-9/11 interview said, "The President does not have the heart to hear words..." 

You take out the word, President, replace it with white Americans, and reflect upon the collective consciousness of Europeans and Euro-Americans throughout their histories, and something very clear and evident arises to the surface. It is other relative's job to point these things out to our white relatives, but receiving the truths, the self-truths has not been the best attribute of our white brethren. Up until this day all ceremonial work, circles of reconciliation, and diplomacy stalls at the point the late Osama bin Laden pointed out. Americans didn't listen to him, or the ramblings and legitimate complaints and concerns Arabs had about their relationship with the United States, and the affect of Western civilization upon their world, and look what had to happen on September 11, 2001!

Listening, like prayer, is related to talk. Talk, reaction and intimidating action are the strong points of the Americans. Listening requires vulnerability, and vulnerability is a strength masked under the skirts, and a primal element of the breath of women. Vulnerability is etched into the fabric of women's makeup, but it is culturally loathed by American men and women. As one people we are not. As one people united and truthful to ourselves and each other we are not. We, as Americans, have more fear than anything else and our actions are reactions to the revelation of our truths, and our truths are dealt with through war! That alone disqualifies us from creating long lasting and peaceful solutions! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 2.25.14

Crow & Hunkpapa dancers at Crow Agency, Montana 1886 

REPUBLICAN PARTY

Latina actress Raquel Welch

Unearthing, and understanding the patterns, the structures that set the beliefs that conduct action from particular mindsets is more important to change than the definitive terms conservative or liberal, or fight to preserve old traditions or be free. This will lead to a better view of the energies that govern lawmakers, and the public emphasizing and exaggerating the importance of saying, "I am a Republican, or I am a Democrat." And being one or the other.

We can go back and forth with this, but within the Republican party's mindset was and still is a deep resistance to the basic commitment to do some of the basic things necessary to insure better futures for the coming generations. Deep within the ranks of the conservative consciousness there is a dogged insistence to be consistent in our inconsistencies. Cases in point: rebuilding the nation's infrastructure, shoring up defenses for economic calamity, creating and improving the social system's capacity to catch people who fall through the cracks, making the voting process honest, shucking the notion that people should pull themselves up by their own boot straps, or changing the philosophical conceptions of education to get the best out of most of our children!

During the Bush administration some of the country watched in horror as the Congress (both sides) allowed a weak president, much despised prior to 9/11/01, free reign to do whatever he wanted, and to spend what he wanted for the weakest of reasons. Without the benefit of intellectual discourse Congress took the country from surplus to debt and Iraq in an effort to avoid pursuing Osama bin Laden. Was that a triumph, or a coup?

There is a fundamental flaw in the thinking of the Republican party that is steeped in the Old South. It is no secret, and it is heavily defended with the language of liberal (free) thinkers easily because of the miseducation of a growing number of people from American schools... - Gregory E. Woods (2.12.13)

Sarah Palin

SEPTEMBER 11, 1851

On this date in 1851, the Christiana Resistance occurred, a race riot that was the first recorded open resistance to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law.

A group of Blacks routed a band of slave catchers attempting to re-enslave escaped slaves in Christiana, PA. This incident happened at the home of William Parker, an escaped slave. One white was killed and one wounded. Afterwards, there was a great public outcry from both the North and South.

Frederick Douglass viewed the violence at Christiana as having a special moral and political significance because the event was evidence of Black strength. Violent resistance and African-American courage and determination were exhibited on a national stage through this event. Southern editors expressed anger and shock. 

- author anon



*AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE LIBRARY*


In Washington DC during the week of remembering and honoring the 1963 March on Washington the Black Republican party was prominent in the celebrations and their musings over the legacy and the implications of that march. At a luncheon one speaker, whose name escapes me, pointed out that a few times within every year 3,000 Blacks are killed, or die making the point that the proverbial 9/11 happens far more frequently in Black America.

What has been learned, and what has been practiced? are two different arenas. - Gregory E. Woods, sept. 11, 2013

missing pieces from the Protector's Heart

"A country is the soul of a People, and soul sickness ails Americans. The white man told his story of contempt of the world through the stories he created around the waters that broke in his woman's womb. He spoke of the rivers and saw her blood and found it void of what acquisition needed. His paradoxes kill the world as surely as his fear of and actions against the essence of the Female, the Womb, the Waters, and the Air, and the Earth, our Mother kill the woman...".

This is your words, Gregory, and i am obsessed with this paragraph! talk to me. expound. expand. preach. teach. (calling on that access i got.) cause really, people would pay much money to have this conversation---hear what you got to say." - Jennifer

"Well, Jennifer, First, tell me what you felt, and perhaps the conversation will lead to the subject of balance. How do we balance ourselves with truth? Do we insist on vacillating between lies, and fear to convince ourselves we don't need to be truthful about the outcome of our beliefs? It is a good question one of several we will discover animals have been asking the Creator of us."  - Gregory 1.18.13

BALANCE

Balance the elements that separate us, change the dialogue we have with ourselves, feel the right  thing in the right moment to know what the moment has to offer and what you have to offer to the internal dialogue that separated the two of you in the beginning.

The sexual connections are a unit of measuring the spirit. Sexual union is a point to ascend to from attraction to conversation  and once there the heavens of the proverbial high plateaus of conscious awareness come alive. Springing forward in due season is the tide of evidence that convinced us to be separate. But with our fluids mingled there is no tide, and the era of discovery begins with fresh faces aglow. The orgasm plunged each into the abyss of above, not below. It is a magical and powerful thrust into other realms of being between two previously angry and entangled souls now copulating and relating to the internal powers of soul and mind that are now active and mindful of the bondage they've been freed from. Now you can now play.

Sex binds and liberates a man to a woman and woman within a man while he is inside her is the deepest commitment that starts the trajectories into the planes above existence, and mysticism that loves him to her and her to him. Logic bases itself during sexual exploration when the spirit is freed to move about the way it does when asleep and the body cannot conquer it or persuade it to not see, or create. Sex is the Creator we come from and who we are together defining so many things through the prisms love, commitment and sex induce. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 

I am digging this from  The Photography Smiths

THE DARK BRIDE

The FOURTH OF JULY

The Sexy Dimes and Faces of F.B

June 24, 2013
Ms. Perfect Lady

Dictatorial patriotism is the brand of allegiance that requires citizens to leave introspection outside of the commitment to country, and fellow man. It is an exclusive club that leans strongly to supporting the agenda of powerful white corporations, and men building upon the energies and concepts of their forefathers that authored the textbooks of conquest and dominance upon nations of the planet. It is also a devotion to a particular brand of racism that feels like the ol' Jim Crow south with the apologies of a 20th century liberal facing his fears conjured up by the face to the contradictions of his/her brand of liberalism. 

The fourth of July releases a pent up violence a lot of white men hold within themselves throughout the year. The 4th allows them, and others so inclined to release this rage in a variety of ways. It is not the best time for people like me to go to the Mall in Washington DC to enjoy the fireworks because the chances of arousing the ire of white men overwhelmed by the social changes of the last sixty years are good.

Dictatorial patriotism mocks the notion and the definition of freedom! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 7.3.13

historical note:
Sarah Palin's bra size is 36C, shoe size 7,
120 lbs, measurements 36-22-32

AMERICAN Foreign Policy

Hillary Clinton making a point.

Hillary Clinton : We created Al-Qaeda

www.youtube.com

I have never forgotten this history, this relationship. It is too late to be telling American people, who love their illusions, and enjoy being held captive by uninformed emotions. Had the right questions been asked and answered in 2001 much of the woe we are experiencing now would not be woe. Freedom would be a realistic tenet of our society instead of a lofty idea against a back drop of the denials of freedom. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 5.18.13

BOSTON or A WAR ZONE

This is said to be taken at the marathon explosion. I can't verify anything. If this was... It's obviously a paid actor... She's texting someone... I'm sorry if you have a weak stomach... I never usually post things like this... Look close enough and you can see their leg tucked into their pants... - Rakeem

"People do what they can to survive in the worse of circumstances. War times have shown this countless times. Whoever she is she is in shock...  Our war zones are not local. They are across the globe thus rendering us into a indefensible moral stance. It is hard to say when or how we (Americans) will react to 'our chickens coming home to roost'. I know that on the international scale people are contemptuous of our false assumptions about being seen as victims after the pitiful way we behaved after 9/11.  The Boston massacre was shocking, but it is legacy, and comupence." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 

12 SEPTEMBRE 2012

Ty Gray-El, you said, "... 'self-inflicted' wound of 9/11."  Well, physics, and the science of explosives, and building structures was explained in relation to the Trade Center within two years after the attack, but most Americans I know, or read about weren't interested in evaluating the day. It was physically dangerous to voice introspection into conversations in the mid-West and on the East coast the first 3 years after the attack. In the first week I took my life into my hands sharing what I knew to frightened white college students about the relationships between Saudi Arabia, the bin Laden family and the United States. A retired, and re-hired Vietnam soldier came after me when I did not share or express surprise at the attacks. When I answered him, and said, "You wouldn't be if you understood American foreign policy!" He came at me. He tried to fight me on my job with his two new knees.

I took that shit serious. I had something for him under my desk.

I mention that in part because Forrest A. Wright's trip to Ground Zero, even today, took courage because Forrest has an obligation to teach his son the truth, and the truth is not always a valued commodity, and sharing the truth is a teachable skill best taught to a boy by his father! - Gregory E. Woods, Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories

SEPTEMBER 11 & the ALAMO

on January 21, 2012
Samantha Gutstadt

9/11/12

“It is an impossible assertion to claim the attack on the US in 2001 changed the country and the world for the better. It neither smells nor feels good to wrap up sentimentality with a series of lies, and false hopes of revenge like a cowboy in a 1930’s movie out to save the white girl. In these times with cyberspace free, and unencumbered telling the story, the truth, and a global rise of developed intelligence ascending beyond American’s childish whining about what they did to us, and our ‘we are victims’ lament. 9/11 is being seen for what it is: an attack on an ideology, and a worldview that has hurt and conquered for a long time.

If bringing peace to the world was an American objective in 2000 the nation could have sat with the other nations petitioning for world peace. Sitting with other nations to negotiate for peaceful solutions during our time of relative peace wasn’t the American, or the White House agenda. President Bush, at the time, did not respect the process, and made that very clear. The first weeks after the attack the opportunity for restoration, and resolution and peace action were ripe and in the open. The wrong president was in office without the prerequisite skills to lead beyond fear mongering, or the heart and ability of a Peace Keeper. He and the nation could not see deeply into the moment with an historical grasp of the subjects arising in the smoke beyond numbing fears, and gut reactions. 

Fire has to burn, but with the right Fire Keeper fire becomes a healing element. A warring beast and a raging man have to fight, and in our culture the United States has to fight. 9/11 is more a testament to that fact than anything else.” – Gregory E. Woods 

actress and producer Samantha Gutstadt
on September 10, 2010