9/11 Anniversary and our Aftermath

[00:00:00] Speaker A: For more information on Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, please visit our website at www.ancientdragon.org. our teachings are offered to the community through the generosity of our supporters. To make a donation online, please visit our website. [00:00:16] Speaker B: I wanted to especially welcome people who are here for the first time, and I think. How many people are here for the first time? 1, 2, 3. Is there someone back there? And online, I think everyone has been at Ancient Dragon in some form or another previously. Many of our old friends are here and I just want to welcome Teigen in the house. He's often online, but he gets to venture out and offer us the wondrous dharma. So thank you very much, Teigen. [00:00:57] Speaker C: Thank you, Hougetsu. Welcome everyone here and online. So Friday was the 25th anniversary of September 11th. So I want to talk about that some. I also want to talk about it in terms of. In Buddhist terms. Well, in terms of Sotas and precepts, I think Hougetsu is going to be giving a Thursday evening session in October on the precepts. So the first two I want to mention. The first is a disciple of Buddha does not kill. And Dogen says, life is not killed. Let the Buddha seed grow and succeed to the life of wisdom of the Buddha. So how can we see in every situation, in every context, the Buddha seed grow? How can we see the wisdom of the Buddha in this context? The second precept is a disciple of Buddha does not take what is not given. Dogen says, in the suchness of mind and objects, the gate of liberation is open. So the suchness of mind and objects. [00:02:18] Speaker D: So [00:02:21] Speaker C: Friday was the 25th anniversary of 9 11. Many of us remember it vividly. Some of us were too young. Some may have been born after. So. But this was a major event in our society. And there are questions about what happened. Building 7 came down later in the afternoon. No planes ever hit it. So what was that about? And first responders, police chiefs and fire chiefs heard what sounded like explosions before the buildings came down. So I'll just mention those two things. And there are many other questions about what actually happened. Our government's response. George W. Bush said, you're either for us or against us. And we have to institute a war on terror. So we've had endless wars since then. Afghanistan soon after in Iraq. Afghanistan was the longest war in our history for 20 years, and we lost it. Iraq, we lost also. And the excuse was weapons of mass destruction, which didn't exist. And out of that, well, the buildings coming down ground zero and the World Trade center left toxic air for actually quite a while afterwards. And years later, people who were in downtown New York have had cancer, even though George Bush and I think Christy Whitman, who was head of the EPA then, I think said, oh, the air's fine. And so, anyway, so the War on terror entered a period of mass surveillance. So everything was changed. Cameras everywhere. And that's the world we live in now. And 9 11, the response to it, gave rise to ICE from the Homeland Security Department. And ice's murders and mass detentions of American citizens are well known. And we have an insane military budget. We have trillion dollar deficits. So this is all new. Since 9 11, the money that goes into the military budget does not takes away from money any money for childcare, care, for social services for American citizens. And our tax dollars are funding a genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine. So the whole world has been destabilized and the whole American rule, which prevailed since World War II, is now, well, what is America? Dr. Martin Luther King said, the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is our own government. And I think it's still true. President Trump is out of touch with reality in terms of preparing for the midterms. He's cut mail in ballots and there's active voter suppression. So we're in a mess. And yet on the day of 911 itself, Rebecca Solnan has an article. Citizens Succeeded, Institutions Failed. So I want to read from that article, and then I hope we have some discussion. I want to hear different people's responses to where you were on that day and how you feel about what's happening now as a result of that day. So Rebecca Solnit is a very fine writer. She's a Buddhist. She was friends with Blanche Hartman, and she says that the events of 911 did not conquer the citizenry. They were only defeated when their resilience was stolen from them by cliches, by the invisibility of what they accomplished that extraordinary morning. And by the very word terrorism, what is a war on terror suggests that they or we were all terrified. But actually that wasn't the case on that day. So, again, reading from Rebecca Solnit, few if any panicked other than the President, who is far away from danger. A spontaneously assembled flotilla of boats, ranging from a yacht appropriated by policemen to a historic fireboat, evacuated 300,000 to 500,000 people from lower Manhattan, a nautical feat on the scale of the British evacuation of an army from Dunkirk in the early days of World War II. So a massive evacuation performed by ordinary citizens in their boats and Rebecca talks about particular people. Adam Maiblum, who walked down from the 87th floor of the North Tower with some of his co workers, wrote on the Internet immediately afterwards, quote, they failed to terrorize us. We were calm. If you want to kill us, leave us alone because we will do it by ourselves. If you want to make us a strong attack and we unite. This is the ultimate failure of terrorism against the United States. Mark Fictel, the president of the New York Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange, who scraped his knees badly that morning of September 11th when he was knocked over in a fleeing crowd, was helped to his feet by a little old lady. He nonetheless had his exchange up and running the next day and six months later quit his job, began studying Islam and then teaching about it. School principal Aida Rosario Dolch, who on the morning of September 11th set aside concern for her sister Wendy Alice Rosario Wakeford, who died in the towers Principal later Rosario Dawson evacuated her High School two blocks away and she went to Afghanistan in 2004 to dedicate a school in Herat, Afghanistan that included a guard memorializing Wakeford, her sister. Far more people could have died on September 11th if New Yorkers had not remained calm, had not helped each other out of the endangered area, the endangered building and this devastated area had not reached out to pull people from the collapsing buildings and the dust cloud. The population of the towers was lower than usual that morning because it was an election day and many were voting before heading to work. It seems emblematic that so many were spared because they were exercising their democratic powers. Others exercised their empathy and altruism. Here's how John Guilfoy, a young man who'd been a college athlete, recalled the 911 moment quote. I remember looking back as I started running and the thickest smoke was right where it was, you know, a few blocks away and thinking that like whoever's going to be in that, in that is just going to die. There's no way you could, you're going to suffocate. And it was coming at us. I remember just running, people running, people screaming. I was somewhat calm and I was a little bit faster than my colleagues. So I had to stop and slow up a little bit and wait for them to make sure we didn't lose each other. Had he been in a disaster movie, he would have been struggling in some selfish social Darwinist way to survive at others expense or he would simply have panicked as we all are supposed to do in disaster. And the reality of September 11th in a moment of supreme danger, his sense of solidarity not even to the people nearest and dearest to him, but to his co workers proved stronger than his self interest in survival. People were frightened and moving fast, but not in a panic. Careful research has led disaster sociologists to the conclusion that panic is a vanishingly rare phenomenon in disasters, part of an elaborate mythology of our weakness. So this is a long article, but I want to read from it. A young man from Pakistan, Usman Farman, told of how he fell down and a Hasidic Jewish man stopped looking at his pendant's Arabic inscription and then, quote, with a deep Brooklyn accent, he said, brother, if you do not, don't mind. There's a cloud of glass coming at us. Grab my hand. Let's get the hell out of here. He was the last person I would ever have thought to help me. If it weren't for him, I probably would have been engulfed in shattered glass and debris. A blind newspaper vendor walked to safety by two women, and a third escorted her to her home in the Bronx. Errol Anderson, a recruiter with the fire department, was caught outside in that dust storm. He recalls, for a couple of minutes, I heard nothing. I thought I was either dead and was in another world or I was the only one alive. I became nervous and panicky, not knowing what to do because I couldn't see. About four or five minutes later, while I was still trying to find my way around, I heard the voice of a young lady. She was crying and saying, please, Lord, don't let me die. Don't let me die. I was so happy to hear that voice. Keep talking. I said, keep talking. I'm a firefighter. I'll find you by the response of where you are. Eventually we met up with each other and basically we ran into each other's arms without even knowing. New Yorkers triumphed on that day 25 years ago. They triumphed in calm, in strength, in generosity, in improvisation, in kindness. Nor was there something specific to that time or place. San Franciscans during the great earthquake of 1906, Londoners during the Blitz in World War II, New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit. In fact, most people in most disasters in most places have behaved with just this sort of grace and dignity. Civil liberties were being closed down, though, to accept a loss of those liberties in the name of wartime patriotism. And we are still suffering from that sabotage of our rights to demonize Muslims, of our rights to demonize Muslims abroad and at home. A wave of stupid violence against Muslims and people who look Muslim to haters and even Sikhs erupted in the wake of the propaganda War rather than the act of a small terrorist sect. That was an act of war. This was an act of war that justified invading Afghanistan and then Iraq, which conveniently had a lot of oil that the administration headed by oil men George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, redirected to their cronies as Trump passed with Venezuela's oil. So on that actual day, people responded with calm and dignity. In New York Since 9 11, far more have been killed in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, the 2008 Burma typhoon, and of course, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Congo, among other events. More in this country have in fact died of domestic violence as of 2009. Since that day, the media, too, stepped between us and the event and the kindness that happened on that day. They failed us with their stock of cliches about war and heroes, their ready adoption of the delusional notion of war on terror, their refusal to challenge the administration as it claimed that somehow the Saudi spawned fundamentalist Al Qaeda was linked to the secularist Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein and that we should fear mythical Iraq, quote, weapons of mass destructions. Rarely did they mention that we had in fact been bombing Iraq without our interruption since 1991. So, okay, so this, these are, that's some of the reflections of, of Rebecca Solnit. So that day was, you know, it changed a lot. And those of you who are too young to remember what it was like before don't realize that life is not killed. This is what our precept says, life is not killed. Sangha and community and of course, Zazen allow us to be calm and helpful in emergencies. So how do we respond actually to emergencies? How do we respond to disasters? So I want to hear people's perspectives on what happened that day, where you were, how you feel about this. I've presented some of Rebecca Solnit's perspectives and finally, please vote. It's less than two months until the midterms, and it's just critical that people vote that we change what's happening. Okay, I want to open this up to discussion. Where were you? So I'll say I was in Berkeley in my apartment and my landlady told me to turn on the tv. She lived downstairs in the building house. And yeah, so people in Berkeley were suspicious of the government then and still. But, yeah, where were you? How do you remember it? What are your reflections on all of this? So on this 25th anniversary, please feel free to respond in the room or online. Thank you all very much. Comments, Responses? Do you remember where you were to. Joanne's hand is up and ho gets to wear something to say. [00:18:17] Speaker B: Literally. [00:18:19] Speaker A: Okay. Good morning. [00:18:21] Speaker C: Oh, okay. [00:18:23] Speaker A: Can you hear me? [00:18:24] Speaker C: Yes, I can. [00:18:25] Speaker A: Okay, great. Nice to see you, too. So I was actually working out at the YMCA at Evanston, Illinois, when there was actually screens on in front of us, and. And they were showing what was going on. And I didn't. Probably couldn't believe it at the time. I was shocked and horrified and mystified, and I couldn't hardly comprehend what was happening until I heard more about it. But, yeah, the fact that I was exposed to that was not a happy thing for me, needless to say. I mean, hearing about it's different than visualizing it while it's happening on a screen. [00:19:18] Speaker C: Yes. [00:19:19] Speaker A: And my son, who at the time was in college, was living in White Plains, New York, and he's my only child, and I had no contact with him. I had no idea what was going on there. So that was my primary concern at the time. And I had to wait many days before I got confirmation that he was okay. That was probably one of the most stressful things about that event for me, other than not really feeling like I knew what was going on, period. It was certainly, I think, somewhat traumatizing. But then I tend to. [00:20:07] Speaker C: I don't. [00:20:08] Speaker A: You know, that was before I was even involved in Zen. So I'm pretty sure. I don't know it's been many years, but I'm guessing that we reached out and helped each other try to understand what was going on, whoever I was friends with at the time, and that's basically what I remember. I'm really curious to hear what other people have to share as well. Thank you. [00:20:38] Speaker C: Thank you very much. [00:20:40] Speaker B: I can see everything. Thank you very much, Howard. So I remember pretty clearly. For some reason, I usually rode my bike. I worked at UIC in the student counseling center. So my job was being a therapist for a large urban campus. And I think because I was driving a vehicle, I got to work early. But right as I was getting into work, I heard the first plane go into the tower. And I said, oh, we need to do something about this. So I walked in and I said to the support staff, who are already there, I said, you know, we need to have a television in our work room or our conference room, and everybody needs to meet our director. The leader was absent that day. And so. And the first person who walked in, first staff member, clinician, besides me, was a good friend of mine who was a native New Yorker whose father had been on his way to work at the towers, and she did not know what was happening with him or her family and was quite distressed. But we all strategized, making counseling sessions open to the campus, because most important thing is for people to talk about traumatic events and to feel heard and also somehow have some container for it. And, you know, one reason people don't panic often during trauma is because they're dissociated, that it's so overwhelming that you shut down anything except kind of a very basic, what can I do to get it together and survive? And it's often afterwards. So I remember in the weeks and months and even years afterwards as a staff, we were still responding. And the importance of having someone with you and accompanying you is so, you know, Rebecca Solnit does it in words sometimes, but our presence in practice, I'd already been practicing for quite a while when that happened. And I just remembered, like, oh, how do I feel all of this and still be present? And, you know, and I'll say that this. Why is it we would need an enemy to come together? Is a question that I have. What's that about? You know, we're herd animals as mammals. So I think about how important sangha is and how important, especially a sangha that's based on awakening or curing it. So, you know, those are some of my reflections. And I would say that in Chicago, when ICE came to Chicago, and even when, you know, after 911 and when the current president had the first term, there was this blocking of refugees in Chicago, I went with people to the airport to welcome Afghan refugees. And we here in Chicago, when ICE came here, we bonded together and our allies with other communities. And I think that there's. But we don't need that, I don't think, to be united. We're already united. And this is what I think the great teachings of, quote, emptiness or boundless connection. And so, you know, it's a horrible thing, but horrible things have happened throughout all of history. It's amazing that we've gotten through it. So I think it's important to honor this event, which I think, you know, Teigen, you and I were talking the other day, right? And you said something like, what do you think's changed everything? And I said, 9 11, you know, a friend of mine said, you know, it was like when, I guess Caesar got knifed in Rome, and, you know, things started to shake up. But these times are great times for practice, you know, and community. And I think almost everyone here, if not every single person is very aware of all these events and also very devoted to. To showing up in whatever way we can and everybody does it in a different way. But I just think that, you know, I thank you for bringing this forward and I think all of us can reflect on, you know, what is the impact of things when we're afraid, when things. When we are losing our sense if we think we know what's going to happen. You know, like oh, I thought it was this way. Now it's that. And our, our practice is just a deep. [00:25:54] Speaker C: Our practice is essential. [00:25:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it's essential to having quote, appropriate response. So I think on one hand this is a horrible thing and its implications remain very dangerous. And we have this wonderful practice in this great community. You know, I look online, how many people have been here and we've been together for years and years and years, if not decades and still coming together to practice. So I think this is a really rich, you know, sorry to speak so much, but I was very moved by your offering Tigan, but also really heartened by our community and possibilities. So anyway, thank you very much for that listening that. [00:26:43] Speaker C: So please other people. Where were you? What. How do you respond? What, what are your thoughts? Please feel free to respond. [00:26:52] Speaker E: I'll share a little bit of something. [00:26:54] Speaker F: Okay. [00:26:54] Speaker E: Thank you. Ty again. [00:26:55] Speaker B: Yes. [00:26:56] Speaker C: How are you? [00:26:57] Speaker E: I was trying to remember how old I was. I was 12 and I at that. Around that time I had this habit of falling as going to sleep and having the radio on all night. So I woke up and I. It hadn't happened yet. I was like getting ready to go to school. My dad was gonna drive me to school. Cause I'm 12 years old. I was in seventh grade. And I remember on the way there or maybe I think the. I think the first plane had already hit. My mom was watching the TV for like the weather usually before she heads off to work and I was like I don't understand what's happening, what I'm seeing here, here. Cause I'm 12 years old and I remember like getting in the car with my dad and hearing the. The Q1 01, like just going nuts over what was happening and reporting like in live real time what was happening, what they were seeing. And it's curious cuz that first day nobody didn't mention it in school. I think they were just not really [00:27:57] Speaker G: sure what to do. [00:27:58] Speaker E: One thing I do remember is that like I think the day after that like they were very intentional about like acknowledging what was going on, what was happening and acknowledging the fact that we Were in. We were. I was a minority among minorities in the school. The school was predominantly Mexican American kids, a lot of them immigrant families. I come from an immigrant family. There were also Middle Eastern kids who were in the school. And they were very intentional about, like, already, like, the second day in, like, don't be kind to each other. [00:28:30] Speaker C: Yes. [00:28:31] Speaker E: What you're hearing is not the people you're seeing, the people you interact with, like, every day. And I'm like, these are. I'm, like, looking back now, and I'm like, this is wild that we were talking about this in seventh grade. And then also, like, intercom like, to. To the younger grades, too. 9, 11. Actually kind of, like, reminded me of my first real, I think, memory of, like, oh, the world is terrifying and there's dangerous things out there. But also the news tells me things because I remember reading some kind of Newsweek thing back when the Gulf War was going on and all the fear mongering and everything happening there about, even then, weapons of mass destruction. [00:29:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:29:10] Speaker E: And I remember asking my brother as a little kid, like, are we in danger? You know, I. I was trying to reflect on what impact it's had on me, you know, as a result of your talk. And it's. It's curious. I can't speak to whether it's the people I'm around, the communities I found myself in, whether I willed it consciously or something or not. But, like, instead of, like, you know, I felt like the whole world was trying to constrict and make it feel everything feel dangerous and everything feels scary. And it is scary and dangerous, and it was curious. I. And I don't know how to explain it. My direction was to open up instead and be curious and to try to be humble and, like, I don't know what. Why do you pray five times a day? Like, why do you do these things? How? Like, I want to know what you're doing. You're not what everybody else seems to be telling me you are. And I want to be curious about, like, what's in front of me, the person in front of me, the thing that's happening in front of me, and actually trust what is happening in front of my very own eyes. [00:30:10] Speaker A: Right. Good. [00:30:11] Speaker C: Well, that's. I think that's a. That's actually the human response is to wonder what's going on and to try and be helpful. [00:30:20] Speaker B: Yes. [00:30:22] Speaker C: Other people. Where were you? Online or here. [00:30:26] Speaker H: Hi, everyone. I'm Jonathan. This is my first time attending. [00:30:30] Speaker C: This is not the usual Dharma talk. [00:30:34] Speaker B: Great. [00:30:34] Speaker H: Well, it's a Pleasure to be here. I just wanted to share a few seemingly unrelated memories of there. So I was between jobs at the time and was. Was in an apart, living in an apartment by myself, and had a job interview, which was much later in the morning, on a weekday morning than it would have been if I had sort of part of my work routine. And I just had the TV on as I was getting ready. It was just the TV was sort of keeping me company. And I remember it changed to sort of a breaking news and was showing smoke in the towers, and was. Was quite busy getting ready to put on a shirt and tie and. And make myself presentable. So it was. I mean, it was a stressful time to begin with. So I remember that and. And getting in for the job interview. And everyone who had been in the office that morning knew nothing. You know, when I was mentioning during the interview what had happened, they didn't know. So there was. There was kind of a vacuum. This was before cell phones, of course. [00:31:32] Speaker F: Yes. [00:31:33] Speaker H: Or certainly smartphones. The other thing I remember was talking with some friends and neighbors, and this may have just been sort of the days after, was one friend who was, I think, just sort of a hobbyist with foreign affairs. And so his angle was, you know, this was all about oil, and there's going to be this big war started, and I'm going to grab what you had mentioned during your Dharma talk. And then some neighbors were saying, well, this is all about Israel. And so I just found myself, you know, very confused in an already stressful time. And the last thing I'll throw in was that I was dating a woman at the time, and she had mentioned that she had some friends who were in the towers, a couple she had finally gotten in touch with, and one she had not heard from in several days. So it just felt like it really wasn't a time to get closer to people. And so it was. It was quite an alienating time as. As I'm remembering. [00:32:33] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:32:34] Speaker C: Thank you. Really appreciate hearing people's perspectives. Chris and Nathan are online and have their hands up. [00:32:40] Speaker G: Chris, good morning. Ty again. [00:32:44] Speaker C: Hi, Chris. [00:32:45] Speaker G: So on Friday, I was at the University Hospital here in Albuquerque, which is exactly where I was 25 years ago when it happened. We were in a conference, and one of my colleagues was. Had friends and had studied in New York. She was actually trying to fly to New York that morning, and she called us to the conference room and said, we're under attack. So being back where there again, you know, 25 years later, and. And this is the first time I've been back there in 25 years, since I had left the university after that. And I. I was with my team of young physicians and I said, so what do you remember about 9 11? Well, none of them were U.S. citizens, all were foreign nationals, all three of them were Muslim. And you one said I was two. You know, so it. It. I guess what I'm. The. What I experienced was that this was a big deal to me. The memories are painful, yes. But here I am with this group of physicians and it was kind of a nothing. It's not something that they experienced. They didn't really have anything to say about it. I don't know what that means, but that it was. It was a kind of a weird moment. So. [00:34:17] Speaker C: Thank you, Chris. [00:34:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:18] Speaker C: I think for many people, many young people don't you know, 911 was something that happened like Vietnam or the Civil war, World War II. It's ancient history and yet it's so much changed everything that we experience now. Nathan, you had your hands up. [00:34:40] Speaker F: Good morning. Good morning. I just wanted to mention that 911 makes me think about how amazing that it is that Ancient Dragon has been around for so long. So I don't live in Chicago anymore. I live in Michigan. But on 911 I learned about it when I arrived at class at the school of the Art Institute of Chicago, which is where I earned my bachelor's degree. And then two years later in September 2008 found ancient dragon, or the group, the Zen group that would become Ancient Dragon. And now it's 23 years later. So that Ancient dragon is still going strong. So thank you. [00:35:24] Speaker C: Yes. You know, Sangha is so important [00:35:28] Speaker D: for [00:35:29] Speaker C: such times, but in general, how do we find community? How do we process all this? How do we express kindness in the world? It's so important. Thank you, Nathan. I didn't mean to cut you off if you had something else. No. [00:35:47] Speaker B: Can I ask Nathan a question? Can you hear me, Nathan? [00:35:51] Speaker F: Yeah, sure. [00:35:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Did you join us when we were at the cenacle or at the Living room? [00:35:59] Speaker F: At Rogers? [00:36:00] Speaker B: At Rogers? In his living room, yeah. [00:36:02] Speaker F: Great. [00:36:03] Speaker B: You know, we're having our 20th anniversary of our non for profit founding, so you'll be part of that? [00:36:12] Speaker C: Yes. Thank you. [00:36:13] Speaker B: Thanks, Nathan. [00:36:13] Speaker A: Great. [00:36:15] Speaker C: Other people in the room or online responses to just the reality of 911 and what happened and. And all the stuff that's still happening. Yes, Jerry. [00:36:28] Speaker D: I was thinking about what. I was thinking about what Howard said about being 12 and coming to the realization or recognizing that the world's not a safe place. And more than 9 11, that was the Vietnam War for me. I remember being a kid, I was between 13 and 18 when the war was going on and I remembered. Yeah. That the Vietnam War was what made me think, this is not a safe world. We're building a world we can't survive in here. Yeah. More so by the time 911 came along, it was like, well, okay, this is more of the same sort of. It wasn't. That didn't seem that dramatic to me somehow. [00:37:05] Speaker C: Thank you. Other comments or responses. Okay, one last response. Anyone online or in person, David Ray [00:37:15] Speaker E: has his hand up. [00:37:16] Speaker C: David Ray, hi, David. [00:37:18] Speaker I: Hi, Ty Gann. You've already heard my where I was story and I'm not going to repeat it. I'm just really moved by the Rebecca Solnit piece that you read and thinking about the resilience and kindness of human beings and how that differs from a. It's not the only American story. There are lots of American stories about how resilient and kind we are. But there's a very long standing resilience, a very long standing story in America, which is that, okay, we are. I guess it started with the Puritans, really. Right. Who said, you know, you are degraded and you have to be utterly dependent on God and his representatives. That's not the only version of, you know, of that religion. There are lots of wonderful ones. But that is still working. It is still scarily easy to baffle people and lead them by the nose. But as you point out in this story, those are also clouds that dissipate. And it's not hard to find examples sort of every day of resilience and kindness, you know, whether it's on a train in Chicago or a story on the news. So I really appreciate you holding up that truth about human experience that is everywhere. [00:38:44] Speaker C: Yes. Thank you, David. Yes. So people respond to calamities and just, well, ordinary events. But also when there's some kind of calamity, people respond with kindness, people respond with caring. People respond just, you know, ordinary human beings respond with trying to take care of our friends and neighbors and family and strangers too, so welcoming strangers. So all of that happens. And we, we tend to the, the media brainwashing or whatever is that, you know, that we're fragmented, that we don't care, that we are terrified. And of course, that was a terrifying event. And the terrorist, you know, George Bush's war on terror, you know, got everyone to think about the dangers of the world. I remember before the invasion of Iraq, there were mass demonstrations before the war started against that war, I was in San Francisco and there were people at Civic Center. I spoke once, but there was three months before the invasion. There were masses of people, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating all over the world for peace. That's never happened before. Before a war to try and stop the war. And still the myth of weapons of mass destruction and so forth. Anyway, so we had this war in Iraq, which we lost, and we've lost the war against Iran, and our president keeps saber rattling and so forth, but we've lost the war, and we've lost all the war, the forever wars and the wars on terror, because terror is just something manufactured by people. There was a small group of people who did 9, 11. And anyway, okay, enough. Thank you all very much. Thank you for being here.