I had other experiences with that church where I attended and sang in the choir and went to pizza with the two young girls. My local pastor found out the girls had told me to watch for the B I G S I G N. The pastor was furious with them. He caught them bloating with me before the second service the Sunday after 9/11. He shouted at the girls not to tell me anything about that. They were right. The attack on the trade towers is what they were referring to when they talked about the B I G sign that the whole world would see and no one would miss.
That choir practice, a more Senior woman in the alto section invited me to go to a meeting with her. I sat by her in choir. We carried on conversation so when she asked, I said I would be happy to go to a meeting with her. She was in charge of the distribution of funds for the local American Veterans Association. I bumped into a honorably discharged soldier living in a derelict building near down town homeless with checks for thousands of dollars in their pockets being taken advantage of by predators who promised to help the soldier if he signed over his check. I told her about the soldier and she had said she would take care of it. So I actually thought the meeting she was inviting me to had to do with Veterans somehow. She volunteered to pick me up for a ride to the meeting. I said yes. When we got there the room was empty. There was a stage up front but no chairs. I thought that was odd.
It turned out to be a party indoctrination location. The woman I counted as a friend and who invited me to come was the leader. She took her position up on the stage and asked me to join her. I did join her still thinking this had something to do with the VA and the soldier I gave her. I was wrong.
There were a few hundred who attended the meeting. They filed in one by one and took positions standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the stage. There were a few hundred who attended the meeting. She stood on stage and told about a person who was a “target”. No one in the room knew the person but they were all going to be the enemy of that person. My friend would say a sentence and the group repeated it back word for word to her in unison over and over until they got it. The sentences said the person was immoral. The target person used drugs. The target person drank heavily, smoked a lot and was mentally ill. Then my friend gave them sentences to cover each of those lies. The attendees in the room stood shoulder to shoulder packed in like sardines with empty zombie looks on their faces. They repeated each of the sentences over and over until all spoke with one voice. Then she made a gesture with her arm her index finger pointing to the door that signaled for them to go. To leave the room. And they did.
These participants in this meeting are American Citizens. Your neighbors. The ones sitting next to your in the pew at church. Your pastors. The call from the Secret Service was brief. The night of 9/11 President Bush made his speech about “the enemy within”. He coined the phrase for these subversive factions as “American Al-Qaida”. American Al-Qaida on our soil. Our own American Citizens. The media put a spin on it and accused Al Qaida in the middle east. The “American Al-Qaida” trained for war in the deep back woods in Arkansas. Home of our next US President.
I rode home with my friend after that indoctrination meeting scared for my life. I had no idea why she had chosen to invite me to the meeting. To what end? For what purpose? I was sure I was not who they thought I was. I did not want them to find out who I was until I got out of that car. It would not be in my favor for that group to know my involvement with 9/11. The woman who invited me pushed the issue. She asked specific questions about my religious beliefs and political stance. I told her the truth and had the balls to stand up to her. She was very angry saying I had led her on. I have no idea where she got that. I do not think she and I had ever talked about political agenda or faith. I had talked to her about the church and the choir and the veteran I met since she was the contact for the Veterans Administration in the area. That is all.
For a very long time I felt sorry for that woman targeted in the meeting. She was a wife, a mother, a teacher, and a leader in her church. The defamation campaign they waged against her destroyed her life. Her husband divorced her. She lost her children and could not teach anymore.
I now suspect I am the woman targeted in that meeting. Me. That is my story. That is what happened to me. It seems to me she had me stand at the front of the stage so the participant zombies would recognize me. I glibly stood there. She must have thought I was the dumbest human being ever to grace planet earth. Maybe I was. I had no idea the purpose for the meeting. I had no idea the purpose for having me attend. I had no idea why she had me stand next to her on stage as she said the sentences and the attendees repeated them verbatim. I did not repeat any of the sentences. I did not participate with her. It only began dawning on me after a decade or more as the things they said would happen to the unknown woman actually happened to me. I think it is possible I was the target all along.
