inner_states-interview_06

“America is such a small percentage of the worlds population to be controlling so much of the world’s resources. The American economy dominates the world. Because of our deep pockets and guns, America thinks that we can dictate to the rest of the world whatever we want. I can understand how people from under developed countries are angry with America - Americans are egocentric and arrogant, and they feel that western decadence is polluting and corrupting their ideals. I can understand why they would want to attack the World Trade Centre, I just don’t think its any way to go about getting anything done. Once Americans galvanise their resolve, woe be it to whoever raised their anger.”

• “On the night of September 11th I went to gather my RV back up. It was about two blocks away from Ground Zero. I volunteered the use of it to the Fire Department because it has a toilet and a working bathroom so they sent me with a cop all the way down to Ground Zero. When we got there it was like a scene from Dante’s Inferno. It was like nuclear winter, like Hiroshima. Everything was covered with five to nine inches of pulverised concrete, like a lunar dust everywhere. I gathered up a lot of that dust, got a nice little bottle and put together a shrine with some of the debris, a picture of the towers and a safety pin with coloured beads on them in the shape of the American flag. I’m keeping it as a good luck charm.”
“The last person I showed it to was a fellow out in Redhook, Brooklyn who‘d decorated his whole house with American flags and other symbols of patriotism. he had family members, both of whom were firemen, who had saved a lot of people and had gone back in to help more people when the towers came down. He was a mess. For people like that I’ll show ‘em my shrine and talk to them about that experience because I think it’s a vehicle for opening people up - it’s a cathartic experience.”
“Our status as civilians more or less came to an end on September 11th when civilians from another country attacked us. I put that flag in the quarter light window to show solidarity with New Yorkers. The flag is our battle flag - it’s a symbol of this country, most particularly the men in arms. My Dad was in the Air Force for twenty years and my brothers and I travelled under that flag as military dependents. My Dad’s people fought on the side of the south in the civil war, so to some extend the flag really represents federal government and the oppression of states rights to me. I tend to see it as something sacred though, but I’m a little conflicted, y’know.”