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Now it’s 7/7, a day when, one year ago to the day, largish sections of the London Underground network got blowed up.

This was of course, the Bush Admin’s fault, they leaked the name of an Al Qaeda double agent before the operation that probably would have led to the various London bombers being arrested, because of the intel and misinformation Khan had been pumping out for the relevent parties, was complete.

The question of whether they would have been sent to a secret torture camp after being arrested is academic now that they’ve turned themselves into so much useless medical waste.

Now I had the dubious, honor… privelage… whatever, of being in London during the bombings (but because my prognition was somewhat off that day, I learnt about it first from the World o’ Crap comment section, of all places), as well as the distinction of being teh sort of poor sap who was trying to catch a flight out of JFK during 9/11 so as to become one fo those fancy pants expats I’d heard so much about, in london (which has always been the city I truly love, ever since the day I first encountered it as a whelp on a family excursion some time back in ‘91) where a talking cat had assured me the streets were paved with gold (a terrible thing to tell a young nieve woman who proudly wears the Sidewalk Vandalism badge she earned from her time served with the Girl Scouts) and health care was free.

While I may sound glib about all this, what this means is that on 7/7/2005, I only tried to call everyone I knew who might have been killed in the blast, and everyone else too, once, before I remembered the utter hell that was going to be trying to make sure anyone you knew was safe by high technological means, and vowed to just go around their houses over the next few days to check on them, or until the cell networks stopped being so chaotic, which ever came first.

I wasn’t worrying too much, I’d realised early on during the whole mess that was america immediatly after 9/11, that you could react in two ways, 1) you could spaz out completely, tearing your hair out in dismay, and anger and grief and, most important of all, fear.
Or 2) you could simply accept that whatever was going to happen would happen, think about things sensibly so as to figure out what you personally could do for whatever reason, before pouring some whisky into the tumbler, downing it in one smooth motion, and then refusing to let the fear control your life while you try to find out if anyone was having a “survivor” party and if not then start trying to organize one.

What’s the point of fear after all? It originally was a way to ensure that we didn’t take too many risks, it was no doubt a very useful survival mechanism back when we were hunted and hunter in equal amounts “do not do that, it scary” was not doubt useful once. However, now that we handle huge abstract concepts like we used to beat asparagus to death with rocks before we returned to the cave with our great feast - simply and naturally - fear is a hindrence, stopping us from doing even the simplest task because of some entirely abstract concept that that task is associated with, which we are scared of.

Fear is often the greatest hindrence a person can have in the eternal act of being moral, being the true controller of all our more animal urges, rut with another to prove to yourselves that you’re alive and an acceptable human being, spread violence towards those that threaten and challenge you and your ego and your kin. This is why Tyrants always utilize violence and sex as parts of their tyranny, threaten them with glamors that threaten the oppressed, then give the oppressed outlets for their naturally violent reaction that keep them looking away from the Tyrants and their actions, control sex and you binder the oppressed once more, take away sex as a means to usurp the Tyrants manufactured fear through the act of mutual sexual comforting, Make it a procreative act, make it as dangerous as possible, tell them over and over again that sex is an abusive act, an act of dominance and submission (thus leaving niether copulator able to let down their guard long enough to actually say “I’m scared, hold me!” in tandem and mutuality - which is why Sex is the most taboo and intimate act, in a society of constant power struggles the admittance of fear is one of the scariest thing you can do), and the Tyrants end up that much better able to shift the focus of the oppressed’s rage fueled violence towards the enemies of the Tyrants.

But just because something comes from fear, does not mean it is inherently wrong, an act of love coming as a reaction to fear is still an act of love, and beautiful aside, an act of sex that lacks love is of course wrong, obviously (if you are unsure what the difference between sex as love and sex as loveless squelching, don’t ask me, ask yourself, it’s something only you can find out for yourself by asking the right questions of yourself at the right times), as is a struggle between yourself and your fear, your fear is older than you, knows you better than you could ever hope to know it, and rules your endocrinal system to a large extent, a struggle is the first step to being overwhelmed and being controlled by the fear - and those who are controlled by fear are those “good people” who perform evil acts, it is a misapprehension that basic army training teachers recruits to unleash their killer instinct, it teachs them to fear, and teachs tehm to react specifically to certain fears in certain ways, submission to the seargents, violence towards the enemy, with the consequences that ridiculously few psychotic Halliburton mercenaries are being fragged by pissed off US troops for making their jobs that much more difficult and dangerous, while war crimes against innocent civilians at the hands of US troops are always happening.

This is part of the reason, a moral inability to be part of the slaughter and bloodshed when it is pointless and evil is most fo the rest, why I haven’t signed, yes I thought about it, it makes sense that situations like Iraq and Afghanistan need every moral person they can get right now, but if you put me in a combat zone with those mercenaries who are tearing the countries up because they get a thrill from teh murder and torture of innocent people, people with families and friends who will live eternally in the moment of Waiting For A Call From Your Unheard From Friend as so many londoners and new yorkers did after 9/11 and 7/7 until they find the body at the local morgue or in the street or never, give me arms to fight with.

This is not a situation which will end well, because I fear what those psychopaths are doing to Iraqis and Afghans, fear for what they may do to more innocents if they’re not stopped some how, and all this going on while the beast salivates at teh back of my head, urging me towards actions that it assures me are the same as justice. Rightwingers think that lefties will not fight, will not take up arms to defend that which they hold dear, they are wrong, we would take up arm, we would kill and keep killing and never stop killing. But.

We are braver than the conservatives, braver than the right wingers, or we should be, we will feel the fear overwhelm us, take us by its hand and lead us towards the carnage, tool us up with the weapons we’l need and then… We drop our weapons, and we turn and we hug the beast and make love to it and we turn IT back towards Correct Action, as a tool that we use when needed and put away when not. we do the bravest action of all - refuse to fight the fear, refuse to flee from it with ever more diabolical and stupid actions, we submit, Islam, to the fear and turn it to our uses, which is itself a scary act because we now must take responsibility for our actions.

After the bombings, during those periods of waiting, there is always The Worry which it is so tempting to indulge ourselves in, to pig out on, worrying to no purpose but our own eventual destruction, but you shouldn’t, what ever will be, will be, regardless of you worrying or fruitless fretting, and that thought must stay at the center of your thoughts, but not as an act of nihilism, not as a surrendering to some notion of fate, free will is always there, and your action do matter. The difference between life and death on 7/7, more so even than 9/11, was whether or not someone walked to a bus stop or to the platform at a certain rate, a stop to check you watch, a rushed flight as you try to make up for being behind schedule, all those teeny tiny acts of will defined whether someone was one of the people (in first world countries, terror attacks do not create statistics, but people) who died on that day, or were injured or were physically unharmed by the whole affair.

You must remember that whatever will be will be, but you need to also remember Newton, “an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force“, freewill enables a person to be an acting object, affecting consequences, helping others from being overwhelmed by the Beast or consumed by worry. They are objects in motion, so are we in those fearful days, why not collide and head off in a new direction together?

The clearest, most poignant, memory from the days immediately after the bombings London, hung over and riding the Tube for the first time since those nitwits killed themselves on the public transport system, was this couple just standing around holding on to the poles and danglies that people hang onto when there’s either not seating available or they only have a few stops on this train before they need to alight (why bother to get comfortable for the minute or two you’d have?), and suddenly the woman just turns and starts hugging him tightly, desperatly.

And what has always stayed with me about that image is not that she suddenly clung to her partner, but that you could read his face and body language and they clearly enunciated one thing; “thank you for holding me”, his need to be comforted by that woman was as clear as her need to be comforted by that man, and what struck me was this: they’re not angry, they’re not sorrowful, they’re afraid, these so called up tight and emotionless brits aren’t afraid to be afraid. And this was a scene that I saw repeated hundreds of times for about a month after the second aborted bombings, there’d be this couple standing up in the carriage, and suddenly the woman or man would suddenly hug their partner oh so tightly and their partner would radiate that fearful need to be held close right back at them. Hundreds of times in a month or so, and that’s just the ones I saw.

Which is completely different from how America and Americans have behaved since 9/11, we’ve gotten angry, oh so angry, and we’ve felt sorrow, oh so much sorrow, but where’s the admittance that both of those reactions are just masks for the fear? We had our sense of invicibilty destroyed in a day and yet never has any one who speaks for an american communitee, not governmental or local, admitted fear.

And imagine if they did, all those millions who are doing everything in their power to avoid the fact that they’re scared shitless by the world would suddenly find themselves reassured as some ommunity leader stood up and simpley said “We’re scared, and that’s okay, you can be scared as well, you probably should”.

Imagine all those people, who are currently getting angry or sorrowful because they’ve got to keep strong for America, who can’t “give in” to terrorists by showing they’re afraid (like the terrorists will know or care) in public or in private (or even inside their own heads), being told that it’s actually okay to feel afraid, as long as it doesn’t cripple you and control you, you don’t need to prove how unafraid you are any more with wild and reckless actions, you’re now free to assess and plan for what needs to be done, to decide what actions are useful and which are hindrances and which will need to be done to achieve whatever purpose can be salvaged from the attacks.

The Truth shall make you Fret, and it’s a good thing too, only those fearful of power use it wisely, those who wield power out of anger and sorrow never do.