death and terror in NY

Date: 13th Sept '01

Name: mac no

Country: NYC

Standing on the roof of my building in
Brooklyn yesterday morning, listening to
two of my housemates weep over the
presumed death of their cousin, we
watched the surreal conflagration of the
trade towers unfold before us. a column
of black smoke miles wide sailed across
the river, over south brooklyn and away to
the gulf stream. as the buildings
collapsed Manhattan was smothered by
clouds of dust and smoke that forever
destroyed its invincibility.
on the brooklyn side of the Williamsburg
bridge Hassidic men in beards and black
passed out cups of water to the ocean of
refugees fleeing the south of Manhattan
on foot. Their wives looked on obiediently
from a distance, literally tens of
thousands came across, the same
scene repeated on three or four other
bridges. On a wall visible from the bridge
a tall white man wrote 'nuke the West
Bank' in gold spray paint. When
challenged he screamed that 'they are
dancing in the streets'. For those who had
made it out of Manhattan though, many
covered in the wierd grey dust of
incinerated concrete, asbestos and chalk
from plasterboard, celebration was an
appropriate response. They had left
behind 20, perhaps 35 000 corpses.
These were the lucky ones. Whiteys
grafitti was the whip pointing the way to
the carnival of reaction which would not
be far off.

they are sealing off the city. For several
hours it is impossible to enter Manhattan.
The fires rage and secondary explosions
are heard every so often. As always the
facts are closely shadowed by hysteria.
The telly, desperate to outdo the
competition, wheels out an expert on
terrrorism. a half wit academic who
pronounces the word Anthrax.
Immediately hysterics break out on the
streets. This, obviously, is too much. In
the absence of any kind of political
leadership from the Cheney/Bush crowd
the telly is left to shore up morale and
found desperately wanting. Off the tv
comes the feeling that the secretary of the
Politburo has passed on and whats
needed now is silence.

But people are busy commmunicating,
letting each other know they are alive. The
phones are working and not working. the
towers, which totally dominated the
skyline of the city being perhaps twice as
tall as the nearest competition, carried a
lot of communications infrastructure so
some mobiles dont work. also the whole
system is under intense pressure as
people try to connnect with each other. By
three o c building 7 is down, it plays
some key role in the telephone racket
also.

Manhattan is deserted from about 14th st
south. The only traffic is lumbering sand
lorries and trucks pulling earth moving
equpment and cranes towards the trade
centre. Further down towards the scene
cops and medical types mill about. theres
an insane absence of people. Everyone
has fled. we are witnessing a knockout
blow, the kind of thing that happens a
couple of times every thousand years and
people have split.

The sun is blazing and the air is stilll, the
smoke drifts off as the events become
clearer. Terror certainly, thousands, tens
of thouands literally running for their lives.
Tonight again after a bombscare in the
Empire State building (for New York is the
empire state) hundreds and hundreds of
people ran scremaing down the streets of
Manhattan away from armageddon.

The city is now under an effective marshal
law. To 14th street (about 40-50 blocks
from the ex towers) there are police or
military checkpoint on every corner. If you
cant prove you live beyond the check point
it is difficult to get through. Within thirty
blocks it is impossible whether you live
there or not. Most of the buildings which
have resedential floors around the trade
center are without gas, water and
electricity. Nothing is open down there, it
could be the west bank. F16s continue to
fly above the city and military helicopters
are ubiquitious. The entire bottom of the
island is a defacto no go area. There are
at leasst 1500 military on the streets and
cops from all over the state. FEMA, the
FBI, the ATF and all manner of secret
agencies are in control of the "most
important city in the free world". America
is at war with a shadow and, of course,
with itself. In one way or other aliens are
responsible.

Without any real analysis to offer the
media insist on hero victim stories. A
reporter bleated about rescuers
"desperately seeking victims" which could
be the raison d'etre of the media. Nothing
is said of the lockdown, nothing of the
numbers, nothing about this being a
supremely capitalist act. The slaughter of
workers, nothing more or less. Within 24
hours the administration have coopted it
seamlessly into a preexisting model and
strategy. More money for the army and the
corporations, less freedom for the
people....and an assasination policy.
Turning shit into gold. Now we will need
an anti war movement because these
people are stone cold killers. And for the
arab world i shudder to think.

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