September 11th!

I was off work when my Girlfriend called me and told me, "Turn on the News!" An airplane just hit the World Trade Center.  I was thinking that this was a freak accident.  I wondered how in the hell did a pilot managed to do that?  Then, as we were speaking a second airplane hit the tower! My God!

Within a week, I understood the absolute horror of what had occurred. Osama Ben Laden didn't win because he and his followers committed a heinous act of violence, they could win, because there were and are some people in AMERICA that would finish the job that he wanted to do for him! Those people.....are us!

We have seen the enemy and it is US! POGO Comic Strip!

When we stop believing in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution then we are no longer AMERICA! We believe in the Freedom of Religion, Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Speech! We do not believe in slavery! We believe that a person has the right not to be harassed and arrested without cause.  Well, there were some who are being detained indefinitely! There are those who have been investigated without warrant! Why? Fear! That's not the way America should be run.

That is the way of Osama Ben Laden and others who feel that they are the chosen, the anointed ones who can decide what people should believe.  Well there is only ONE GOD and Osama Ben Laden is not IT!
I have the right to believe what I choose and to criticize it when I believe it to be necessary and I will not let that freedom be taken from me! This is America! Good, Bad, Worse and sometimes better!

I believe in everyone having the chance to better themselves but not at the expense of someone else! With in a week of September 11, I started a newsletter called "Outside the Lines" the document and give voice to what was happening! Why? Cause, a Muslim Friend's Uncle was assaulted in New Jersey at gunpoint because he was a Muslim.  Two Men in suits walked up into the Shades of Afrika bookstore where I once worked with a can of paint and painted over some political graffiti that read "Free Mumia Abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier!" BLU Magazine which was a far left magazine cover politics, arts and music was shut down and the commune that supported it's staff as well.  This was not the America that I was taught to defend!

It was What Osama Ben Laden and unfortunately what some in America would have it to BE. 
Well, my CHOICE of Weapon will not be FEAR, REPRESSION, CENSORSHIP or VIOLENCE! My Choice will be MY FAITH, MY VOICE! MY WRITING! MY LOVE!

You will not win Followers of Satan! YOU HAVE LOST! As long as we remember that Freedom does not begin and end at who has the biggest gun! WE WIN and WE Remain AMERICA!

To all those who's lives were lost in the horror of September 11, 2001 We remember you! To those who are alive and remember in the words of Songwriter Dave Frishberg "I hope my children live to see.... a land like my country used to BE.

BE Prayerful! BE Mindful! BE Careful!
Jaycee