On that note, here's Mark Anderson again, from All the Power:
The stench is what I remember most vividly now - burning rubber mixed with wood, paper, and human flesh.
Only moments before, all was different. I had heaved a long, exhausted sigh, buckling up my seat belt while sitting on the runway of D.C.'s National Airport. A long night of last-minute preparations and almost no sleep was now behind me. At last I could relax into a final breather before the trek that lay ahead.
Tomorrow - September 12, 2001 - I would begin the second of three Dance of Days book tours at an arts center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. That meant 8000 miles in three weeks; 5000 of those by car, all by myself.
Still, I was excited. Slipping on some earphones, my thoughts drifted to dear friends I would soon see. I closed my eyes, reclined, and smiled. It would be so nice to get away from my intense work in D.C., reconnect with friends, have time to think, all while seeing the wide expanses of North America again.
My reverie was rudely interrupted by an airport representative who brusquely announced, "Gather up all you personal belongings. We are asking that you leave the plane immediately, as the airport will be closing at this time."
An audible groan passed through the plane. A couple hundred disgruntled air travelers rummaged around their seats, spilling out onto the tarmac to join an impromptu caravan headed to the airport's front doors.
I was probably grumbling more than most. Just another bomb threat, I thought. We'll move outside, stand around for a few minutes, then come back in, go through the whole boarding rigamarole again. The delay would doom me to miss my connection in Pittsburgh. I was exhausted, bone-tired.
Then I walked out of the front doors, into the smoky chaos. In that microsecond, everything else melted away. The smell was terrible, with clouds rising from a point just beyond our view, about a mile away where the Pentagon stood.
For a minute or so, I stopped thinking about my plans. Having grown up on a farm where we often burned discarded items, I knew my scents. That's not just rubber or wood, I thought grimly, that smell is bodies.
For a time, the world stopped. Hundreds milled about on the grassy slopes and asphalt streets outside the airport. People with cell phones began to report that planes had hit the World Trade Center and that it was on fire. A huge explosion had rocked the Pentagon, too, although no one knew just what had happened. One thing was soon clear: there wouldn't be any more planes flying today.
Making my way slowly back into D.C. by public transit, I saw the Pentagon on fire in the distance. I shuddered, thinking both of the many protests I had attended there and of Denise Baken, a friend from my Catholic parish, one of thousands employed at the building.
We rode in shocked silence. Finally, on African-American woman spoke up: "Well, at least maybe we will finally come together as a country now; get over this black-versus-white garbage." A white man in business suit and tie across the aisle quickly agreed. A they chattered on, seeming to find hope out of tragedy, I was left feeling uneasy. Unite around what, exactly? I thought.
I had little time to process these complex emotions. A couple hours (and many quick decisions) later, I was on my way to Minnesota in the only transport I could find: a blue Camaro borrowed from a generous friend, racing to make the 1300-mile journey in time for my first event.
At every gas station, I found the same scene: a dozen or so people huddled around a TV set, watching the day's horror unfold in stunned silence. Back in the car, I took the (for me) radical step of turning on the radio, hoping for some news. When the talk grew too bloodthirsty and jingoistic, I turned it off.
Another response, increasingly visible as I went, was impossible to ignore. As if by silent command, the stars and stripes were going up everywhere, on highway overpasses, on billboards, even on cars. The phenomenon left me a bit nervous, coming from a left-wing tradition that associates such display with right-wing views, with blinkered patriotism.
Somehow, though, this was deeper than simple politics. In the face of immense national trauma, people were reaching out for comfort, for connection, for community. Was it also the sign of a country set against the larger world, sliding toward blind revenge? I couldn't tell. Being a man on a mission, I didn't tarry with my thoughts. I hurtled on, heading west across America, past the fading day, through the darkness, searching for hope in a sea of flags.
In a way, that is where I have been ever since, where all of us on the left have been. While the wheel is still in motion, the short-term result of the terrorist attacks on September 11 was to profoundly solidify the position of a dubiously elected president, George W. Bush.
"Dubya" has cleverly used the tragedy to advance his far-right political agenda. Military build-up, stiff restrictions on civil liberties, and greatly expanded police powers have combined with two separate wars to bring the U.S. to the brink of the nearest thing to fascism since the darkest days of Richard Nixon.
Most frightening of all, this "war on terror" seems intended to be a war without end, not so different from the shadowy clashes that serve to justify the totalitarian state described in George Orwell's 1984. Words like "empire" now roll off the lips, not of radicals, but of Bush administration-linked strategists. In this new day, they barely seek to disguise the imperial flavor of U.S. policy, but rather try to redefine it as a positive good. This is no small transformation, given that much of American tradition recoils from empire, born, as this nation was, out of an anti-imperial revolution.
The mere fact that some are becoming so bold as to step from behind the smoke and mirrors - albeit still cloaked in talk of spreading "democracy" - reveals the depth of our present danger. In this scary moment, the North American left faces its starkest challenge: Will we find a way to reach masses of North Americans, based out of what is best and true in our own tradition? Or will we surrender to an understandable (but self-defeating) anti-Americanism, thereby playing into the hands of the Bush administration?
These point toward a deeper question: Can the United States of America somehow be re-enlisted to the cause of freedom?
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