Here is what I think
What everyone is saying at the moment, and probably will be saying about the New York terrorist attack for a very long time is bollocks.
It is bollocks because they do not know anything. It is bollocks because the origins of the terrorist act are deep and complex and even people who have done in depths studies would hesitate to say anything definitive. It is bollocks because they are awash with emotions that make them crazy, angry, and depressed.
And, as the arrests begin, I think one should mention the Birmingham Pub Bombing. All the people who were given life sentences for that atrocity, were subsequently proven innocent. But at the time the British people needed someone to take the blame and people were found who fitted the bill. So I will go out on a limb here and say that most of the arrests, if not all of them at the moment, are bollocks.
What I am about to say next is probably bollocks as well. I have no great insight into the incident. I merely watched it on the TV. I assume TV is bollocks at the best of times, and so what I think is bollocks. The difference is perhaps, that I do not pose as anything but a man capable of talking bollocks. The most considered opinions that you will find coming out of the editorials of the newspapers are no more authoritative about these matters than the average Brit with eight pints of Newcastle Brown Ale down his throat. The reasoned studies responses from responsible figures of authority, are just as much bollocks as the rantings of people who write to newsgroups. Sadly we are all obliged to talk bollocks now.
Most of you reading this are probably not average Brits so might not understand what I am talking about. Never mind. It's bollocks. Nor actually understand what I mean by bollocks. It means, roughly, that one's emotions are posing as one's intellect and that by saying something, then you are proving it. Unfortunately we are now going to live with a lot of bollocks for a very long time and a lot more people are going to be blown up for the sake of a load of old bollocks.
Let the bollocks commence then.
If one wishes to conduct a guerrilla campaign it must have a political goal, otherwise how will you know it has succeeded? Mao Tse Tung said that, and I think he might be counted as something of an authority in revolutionary bollocks. But with the attack on the Trade Centre, there were no demands, and seemingly no goals other than the explosion. Perhaps they thought that everyone would go to heaven as a result, which as you probably know, is a load of old bollocks. And if you don't, then you are part of the problem.
It is hard to negotiate with a load of old bollocks or make war on it, which I assume is the chief attraction of such an act. I can imagine how this is put in Arabic: "These Americans won't know what has hit them! Fuck 'em all. They are all bollocks."
John McVicar, a notorious English bankrobber turned esteemed authority on the philosophy of bollocks, said, "Your chaos is my order." He was explaining how to rob a bank, which, if one wants to seek rational thought in this process, might make one wonder what has been stolen in all the chaos? If nothing more than a load of old bollocks, I suspect it is the meanings underpinning our language. Now is the time to drop officialese, newspaperspeak, media cliches, and academic niceties, because they are bollocks, and if they were not, they are now. But who am I to talk? I am talking bollocks. I am talking the worse kind of bollocks, ironical bollocks, because that way I can deny everything when all the people who do not understand what I mean, start sending me abusive letters and making threatening phone calls. I think I shall set my answerphone to announce "Bollocks!" when anyone rings me.
I am a pessimist at the moment, as you might suspect, and believe that the emotions that this has unleashed will exhaust themselves only when there is a lot more rubble. Or worse. I suspect, in the light of McVicar's wisdom, that something has been hijacked other than the four airliners and we will be discovering what that is in due course. Sun Tzu, another philosopher of bollocks, said something about making sure your enemy is confused so that you can take advantage and so, what is the next move and has it already
been taken?
I am however sufficiently optimistic to know that tomorrow some random act can change that perspective and that maybe the workings of chance were behind these events far more than design. The World Trade Towers made good targets and airliners offered opportunities that sooner or later someone would test. The world is full of all sorts of cults and embittered frustrated people who think bollocks. So if there are opportunities for random symbolic expressions of raging
bollocks, someone will find them, and the bigger the better, be it overkill at Waco, or President Bush's support for an Israeli government currently engaged in dismantling Clinton's peace initiatives. The poor, and the desperate, will always be with us, which, as some of you might be guessing from the theme of this missive, is bollocks.
Whatever meaning the attack had, it has imposed upon America the same sense of futility, frustration and bitterness that people develop while living in the midst of endless tit for tat conflicts and blood feuds. I do not think something like this has ever been written so large before and it will take years to be rid of and perhaps never will. It will be incorporated into the US psyche through its cultural output. Hollywood right now is searching for a load of old bollocks to uplift us. The media has shifted into gear. And the memoirs are already beginning to be composed and compiled. Heroes are being invented. Insightful forward thinking individuals whose warnings were not heeded are being dug up. And a new vocabulary and a new short hand of shared attitudes is emerging. We all know it will be bollocks but to say so and not participate in it will demonstrate our lack of humanity. To be human, the prevailing wisdom has it, is to go along with all the bollocks.
I draw upon my own personal experiences to attempt to discover common emotional ground. And like everyone, or at least everyone over the age of sixteen, one finds fertile ground for a bit of emotional
bollocks.
So I shall talk about what happened when my brother managed to get himself on a list of drowned sailors. There is a memorial in Flamborough Head to the whole sorry incident alongside another memorial to other sorry incidents that regularly occur in fishing communities. So while the horrors of that week broke over the heads of my family, reality went out of the window. There are a whole range of emotional complications with children at the best of times but this happening created about as much twisted emotional fall out as was possible. My overwhelming feeling was that others got off on this sort of thing. It excited them and I resented that deeply. I also resented the manufacturing of the event that took place by people who knew bollocks, which might be why I am talking bollocks
right now.
The press came round looking for stories that fitted the emotional requirements of their advertisers and readers. The Religious teams moved in to do whatever it was they thought they were doing - annoying me mostly I think. (One takes things personally on these occasions.) Petitions for more safety at sea were circulated, hands were shaken outside No 10 Downing Street and expressions of concern for the safety of our brave lads in the fishing industry were made. All bollocks. We knew it was bollocks when it was happening. We knew the crappy third rate idiotic set up that caused the deaths. We knew no good would come out of petitions and such stuff. But you went along with the circus, took the platitudes on the chin, because it was easier to do so and there was no vocabulary that could express the situation adequately anyway. Luckily the Oprah Winfrey show had not been invented otherwise I am sure there would have been a
whole lot more bollocks.
People in New York are going through all this and more. It happens in lots of places and that fact is no consolation. It is part of life! Bollocks. No consolation at all. Nuke them all! Bollocks. No consolation. You name it: Bollocks. There are people right this moment on the TV screen being asked, "And how does it feel while you wait to know if your husband is dead or not?" BIG CLOSE UP for the tears.
You see what I mean? Bollocks. Everyone feels excited by this. It's a great story! It's like a movie! We are in "Independence Day!" And we are going to whup ET's ass!
Somebody printed a list of "Survivors" on the Internet. The people who have not heard from their relations and friends since the collapse of the Towers are drawing great hope from seeing their name on the list. Who posted that list? How do they know who has survived and who has not? It is bollocks of course. People are being deliberately misinformed for reasons one cannot quite fathom. Is it to keep them calm enough so that there can be extended media coverage of their emotional roller coaster? Bollocks! How can I be so cynical?
I've just heard of some Israeli officials calling Yassar Arafat their own Bin Ladin. More bollocks.
This show is going to run and run. We have not seen anything yet. Just when you thought deep vein thrombosis was going to be your worst nightmare on an airline, along comes this. The long-term effects are deep and you will think they are normal. Reality has changed. One set of bollocks has given way to a new set of bollocks.
Here is the only solution to the problem that I can think of. Give the Palestinians their own state, with Jerusalem as their capital. It is a load of bollocks of course, but so what? What isn't? It can be Israel's capital as well and who cares about the practicalities? The politicians can deal with the inconveniences and nonsense after the ceremony. They are all bollocks anyway. Great leaders should worry about broken sewers, cracked pavements and better street lighting, not metaphysical bollocks. Boring bollocks is what politicians were born to do and if not they should go into monasteries, up mountains
somewhere, out of harms way. It should have happened years ago. Isn't that an example of the Wisdom of Solomon? Bollocks of course, but there you go, some of these people believe that sort of bollocks. It will not stop these sort of bomb attacks because there is always more bollocks to believe in. But that's one load of bollocks pushed to the
side.
Let's take a look for a brief moment at the load of bollocks in Northern Ireland. Why has their been a peace process? Because talk of European Union, global markets, free movement of labour, capital, and people have made nationalistic bollocks increasingly pointless. Globalisation is a bit of a bollock buster. It is a load of bollocks in itself. It's a great pyramid scheme taking money out of idiots pockets and slipping it into other idiots pockets, and nothing to show for the exchange except the maintenance of "confidence". I.E. bollocks! And here's another load of bollocks... Pause while I empty another bottle of Newcastle Brown into my mug...
The ripples of this explosion can be looked at from endless angles. The whole is impossible to see. And lots of little shock waves will coalesce now and then into huge freak waves... More bollocks! One can go on and on, so I won't.
Here's something that isn't bollocks:
Do not leave your luggage unattended. Do not carry weapons aboard a plane. Report immediately all unattended cars with their engines still running and evacuate the area. Do not block the exits. Do not get in the lifts when there is a fire. Do not flush the lavatory while the train is still standing in the station. Do not buy property in Manhattan in the forseeable future. Do not panic because it is all bollocks.
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