I grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. When I wanted to have fun I went down to the ‘dinky’ station and hopped a train to Penn Station in Manhattan. I’ve always romanticized Manhattan out of all proportion. I love the city in a way only someone who grew up in its orbit can love the city.
On 9/11, I left work in the morning. I came home and turned on CNN. I watched the replays of the towers collapsing for hours. I watched people leaping 100 stories to their deaths. And I was so pissed off I can’t even begin to explain how pissed off I was.
Sometime around 5pm I began to become introspective. I began to think about what the attacks meant, what they were going to turn Americans into. And my anger began to turn to sadness. I found a bottle of scotch and poured myself a 3-finger drink. And I wrote down in a notebook, “We’ll kill half a million Muslims before this is through.”
I didn’t write it because I agreed with it. I wrote it because it was what I felt would happen. But I kept refilling my glass.
And sometime around two in the morning my anger returned. I wrote in my notebook: “Exterminate the Brutes. Nuke Mecca.”
Again, I didn’t write it because I seriously wanted to nuke Mecca. I wrote it because I was so angry that I wanted to express that anger.
But the difference between me, a peaceful person who was extremely hurt by the assault on Manhattan, and Tom Toncredo, is that I have managed to calm down in the intervening 4 years.
“Well, what if you said something like — if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites,” Tancredo answered.
“You’re talking about bombing Mecca,” Campbell said.
“Yeah,” Tancredo responded.
link
I make this comparison to help Europeans and others understand the depth of American anger and sadness at 9/11. I make it to show I understand the anger and frustration of the wingnuts in this country. But I had calmed down by 9/12. And the wingnuts still have an unrelenting bloodlust.
I feel as if I can’t find your confession offensive. Like you said, you had an initial reaction, an impulse, then sobered up (I meant figuratively, but I guess literally too) and regained clear thinking. I also respect your honesty.
It’s comments like these by Rep. Tancredo which really make me distrustful of the right. I begin to even shy away from the basic approach of taking right-wing arguments at face value, because I really question the intent.
The good folks over at Media Matters do a great job of catching repugnant comments like these for anyone who hasn’t checked that out. I recently wrote a diary on the issue.
We all go through what BooMan dealt with that terrible day, on any number of issues.
I’m opposed to the death penalty. But, when I read about someone like that murdering child molester who killed an Idaho family except for a little girl he repeatedly molested, I can’t think of a better ending to the story than him dying.
Sure, I understand the reaction to the events.
I can’t think of a better ending to the story than him dying.
And I can’t think of a better ending than to put him in a prison for the criminally insane and study absolutely everything there is to study down to his great-great-great grandparents DNA.
Because I want to know WHY. Because I don’t want people like that on my planet.
what if they subsequently studied your DNA and found that you are genetically similar?
Would Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg then make a movie about you?
Spielberg did Minority Report? Didn’t realize that. Good movie.
When I read your words here, I immediately thought of the following teaching tale. This particular version is exerpted from a sermon, but there are a number of variations I’ve found online:
http://www.trinityunitedchurch.ca/trinity_events/sermons/090802_sermon.htm
The ones with the bloodlust? They’ve been feeding it for three years. And there are any number of right wing talking heads out there who can help them feed it. My dad walks around all day listening to Rush similar characters on the radio. The compromise he’s made with my mom is that at least he listens with headphones now so that she doesn’t have to hear it all day too. But he’s definitely been ingesting some bad stuff, day after day, for years.
The hate radio phenom is a huge factor.
The other day, I wrote about the PBS P.O.V. special on the effect of hate speech and hate radio on the beautiful little valley town of Kalispell, Montana, in the foothills of Glacier National Park. Powerful documentary.
And look below. Dan’s story about hate crimes against his church. My post about an American terrorist.
Tancredo is THE DEFINITION of wingnut. The man is over the top, wacked out, fucking crazy. His big problem is with Immigration, read Mexicans, and this blowfish thinks he wants to run for POTUS.
The asshat is from Colorado Springs, home of Mr. Dobson and his merry band of rapturites; went back on his “pledge” to only serve 2 terms when he was initially elected; and the sheeple down there just keep sending his sorry ass back to DC…save your breath, he’s not worthy of your angst.
Peace
Actually he’s the congressman from the 6th district, which includes Littleton, parts of Aurora, and all of Castle Rock. Colorado Springs has enough problems without adding him to the list… Joel Hefley is the C.S. congresscritter.
Your initial sentiment was prescient.
Your drunk sentiment surprises me.
has haunted me for 4 years. But it persists in the hearts of the wingnuts and I know where it germinated. I just don’t know why they never challenged it and felt guilt about it.
First of all, my comment that I am surprised is a compliment, however awkward. Secondly, you’ve done your penance. Your work on this blog nourishes our collective desire for a better, more just world. So, if you’re inclined to self-flagellation…put down the whip.
In a drunken moment, probably inspired by tremendous fear, you dabbled in rage.
I’m no psychologist, but since I’m pretending to be…I’ll continue. The wingnuts felt this “hatred for the other” well before the attacks of Sept. 11th. It did not germinate that day. In fact, it was already well matured by that fateful day. That day simply served to reinforce their already shaped beliefs.
There has been a concerted effort for many years by those that depend on WAR for their financial sustenance to vilify Arab Muslims. This propaganda was especially intense during the 80s and 90s, especially ramping up after the Soviet Union’s dissolution. “We” needed a new enemy. “The Green Peril” (1992 Cato Institute) is a matter of historical record. Think of those Qaddafi T-shirts worn by our classmates when you and I were in middle school, or just entering high school. You recall the visage of Mummar with a target over it?
These wingers are consumed by hate, not because they are devoid of conscience (save the true beasts running this Admin.)but because they are filled by fear…a fear that was falsely created and artfully manipulated by the Goebbelses of our Empire.
Our parochial attitudes, due in part to our unfortunately cloistered geographic position, but in larger measure to our sanitized version of taught history, further exacerbates our fear of the other.
So to answer your question:
They never challenged it because A) it was already well ingrained, and B) because it is the dominant paradigm. Americans are nothing if not first rate conformists. C) The absence of guilt is only felt by those that do not stop to question themselves. We have not stopped yet…and the accelerator is wearing out the floor.
I too grew up in the vicinity of NYC and was just aghast at the travesty of 9/11. For me, NYC was a place I went whenever I could. It was about 3 hours from me, so it was a special treat. The day I got my driver’s license, I drove to NYC (not recommended!) I went to CBGB’s and stage dived with Jello Biafra. I went to peace rallies and gay pride marches in NYC. I cannot look at a picture of the skyline now without tearing up.
I was enraged, cried buckets of tears, watched the event over and over, etc. I as angry and saddened and vengeful too. When we declared war on Afghanistan, I was ok with it. Get rid of the Taliban (one of the most oppressive and evil governments) and get rid of Osama once and for all.
I can’t say I was ever for bombing Mecca, but I can understand the sentiment at a time of grief and rage. Even after my rage died down, I still wanted to get Osama and all his Taliban friends.
What pisses me off to no end is that I do have some idea why this happened and that we are by no means innocent. That fucking Rove can go around spewing that the left wants to coddle terrorists is such a despicable twist of logic. I want America to wake up and take responsibility for its outrageous treatment of the Arab world, and Muslims in particular. While Hussein was a bad dictator, taking him out of play made things so much worse. Until we can admit that diverting the war on Afghanistan to Iraq created a breeding ground for terrorists and put the whole region in jeopardy, we will never see a peaceful coexistence. That is not coddling the terrorists, that is being a rational, thinking and compassionate human being.
Argh…do not think you are alone or evil for wishing for revenge. It is a natural and human reaction. That on 9/12, you realized that no good would come of such feelings, is all you need dwell on.
being angry (or joyful) is not the problem
holding onto anger (or joy)is the problem
Once, when I was drunk, I wrote an open letter to OBL hisself, explaining that he and I are in complete agreement RE: the Roman Empire (Part III) as the fountain of the world’s continuing nightmare, and that his message would gain him great reward in heaven
EXCEPT
that neither Yahweh nor Allah nor Jesus of Nazareth condone murder for ANY reason.
After I sobered up, I threw the letter away, shuddering at the thought of having a jerk ass, anti-Mexican, Mexican-American like Tancredo come put me behind bars for openly sympathizing with the enemy.
Thats why I am suggesting Gilroy open the dialogue with the enemy. He has a way with people that I lack.
Plus, being younger, he can withstand the rigors of Gitmo far better than I can.
Mr Gilroy wrote a diary too about this. I appreciate your honesty on this topic, Booman. I know many must have felt so bad that they so close to the place of incident. America was so sad that day and so ataken by this event. I know I was, but you know the first thing that came to my mind was, who they were blaming for the event. I, then, started to think about the criminal intent of it all. Asked questions as to why?! This relentless aggrivation of the hearts and souls of Americans, by constantly referring back to 9/11, keeps it all stirred up in our hearts. That is what they want to do to keep the hate out front. Feeding that one wolf that is the bad one of hate and fear.
I think you can always post this for us to remember about how we all felt from time to time, to remind us to be clear headed and keep our eyes on the right ball, so to speak. Thank you for your posting tonight.
think about it… when you get really angry, if you look at where that anger is coming from… behind it is fear. like when my daughter decided to go to the bathroom without telling me where she was going. i didn’t know where she was! i was calling her… looking up and down the aisle… i couldn’t breathe! i asked someone who worked there…. she checked the bathroom and told me there was a girl singing in there… i breathed a sigh of relief….i went to her and tears welled in my eyes… and i started yelling! i was angry… because i was so scared!
if you think about how you were feeling back then. if you examine that anger… i will bet you that behind its face was fear. and for most of us that day we had anger… and it was based in fear. fear for what could have been… that could have been me! what will happen now!
the difference is, there are people out htere who understand that fear can come out as anger. and they are willing to take full advantage of that. especially with people that don’t look past the anger to realize the fear. and we are stll fearful today! they ensure that we are everytime there is another ‘threat of attack’… raise the alert color… because we still have the fear… and they want it to turn to anger. and then we’ll allow them to do everything they are doing.
Achilles, nearly invulnerable, is drawn by rage and the love of honor to his death. This is the story of the Illiad.
Odysseus, battered by nature and bearing the loss of his companions, returns to peace and his family by thoughtfulness and the use of violence to acheive ends rather than glory. This is the story of the Oddesy.
The neoCons and the rest of the war party are, like Achillies, effectively invulnerable and consumed with apearance and glory- althought “currently in an undisclosed location” has none of the poetic glory of “sulking in his tents.”
But those of us who are mere mortals, who take the subway to work, whose real friends are getting killed and crippled, and wish for home and hearth- they dare call us traitors or sacrifice our children for honor or glory?
The deaths visited upon the suitors who overran and consumed Odysseus’ homestead are by far the most terrible act of mortal violence in the work of Homer. And one would be a fool to think that any other fate would suffice for those who would sacrifice Americans for inhumane ideals, the terrorists of 9-11 and the murderers of American soldiers.
BTW, Great Post BooMan!
“the most terrible act of mortal violence in the work of Homer.”
Luckily, Homer didn’t live to see the movie version. (Altho Peter O’Toole and the other English actors did their usual fine work.)
to give me a lesson from Homer 🙂
And since you know me better than any other Tribber, you know the depth of my sorrow and rage over 9/11.
I needed Homer to tell me:
“Stay your hands from battle, men of Ithaca, be reconciled and let bloodshed cease”.
I only figured out that particular lesson of the classics after it was made obvious to me by John Ford’s “The Quiet Man”. Or was it
“Shane”.
Anyway, as for 9/11:
2 Sam Ch. 1 V. 19 et seq.:
[19] The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!
[20] Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.
[21] Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain, upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil.
[22] From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty.
[23] Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.
[24] Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet, with other delights, who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel.
[25] How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan, thou was slain in thine high places.
[26] I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.
[27] How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!
Boo’s grief was no less.
BooMan, anger in the immediate wake of such an occurrence is understandable. (I acually cried myself.) But Tancredo is ramping up (by a factor of, oh, 100) the usual wingnut rhetoric. Apparently, this is what is reqquired to appeal to those he deems to be his core constituents.
where she channeled an entity named Seth. Now I know this really sounds like aluminum foil time, but the books really caused me to think about life a lot. One theory postulated by this entity is that we chose our deaths. Now I know you all are really thinking -but wait – do I really really want to die? Maybe not, maybe not, but as my late husband said “nobody gets off this planet alive!” And I think he meant permanently rather than just vacations at the leaky neighborhood space station. In my neck of the woods we had a ghastly accident. Hanging walkways over a hotel lobby fell during a Saturday night dance. These dances were very popular and crowds of people were there. The chunks of walkway crushed people between and under them. Firefighters were appalled at the river of blood that was produced. Kansas City is really a very large small town and everybody either was involved or knew somebody that was involve in this horrible tragedy. Some people who normally went stayed home. Some people were there for the first time. Everybody had stories. Come 9/11 there was a possibility of 50,000 people killed in New York city alone. – Employees, tourists, visitors, clients, customers, vendors and you name it – but there were fewer than 5000, I believe. But everybody has a story. Everybody was affected by it. It was truly ghastly, truly horrifying. And the people on the planes, and the people at the Pentagon all of them with their stories, all of them truly affected. And now, because of television, radio, newspapers, we all were affected by this event. All of us have stories. And only 5000 chose to die. Iraq is another story entirely. We don’t even know how many Iraqis and Afghanies have chosen to “get off the planet”. But I bet their people have stories and their people are affected.
In Iraq, everyone knows someone who’s been shot and/or killed by a U.S. soldier…. From Cockburn’s story in The Independent today.
It is fabulous to see that both you and Susan and I have so much reading material in common. . .
What grand company to be in
I’ve never read those books but I’ve surely heard a lot about them over the years. (I was quoting a reporter in The Independent.)
P.S. My daughter has the mom cat and five kittens in her pantry and kitchen. She tries to spend every free minute with them to socialize them, but there’s no TV in there. So she’s been listening to lots of radio late at night, including the Art Bell show on the only local radio station! He’s back on on the weekends now? (I used to listen to him in the 1990s when I still had the stamina to stay up all night writing a book on Web design.)
I think you are giving Tancredo and some of the other wingnuts/bloodlusters too much credit.
The images and the horror of 9/11 shocked many people, causing some to temporarily lose their minds (in my opinion). Well, also some never recovered them, but that’s a different story.
Your reaction in the immediate aftermath, while not exactly admirable, is at least understandable especially given the refills of scotch. I imagine that, if not the next day, at least soon after, you were wondering what could be done to prevent anything like this happening again, and what could be the cause of things, and other stuff… in other words, thinking instead of reacting.
Tancredo and others make their comments out of cold, hard unreasoning hate. Well, and of an eliminationist world view. Some people see a problem and want to solve it, others see a problem and want to kill it. I come across wingers who really would have no issues at all with genocide. None. 9/11 gave some measure of cover to those beliefs, at least regarding Muslims, but they existed and continue to exist, independent of that day.
“No man, no problem” is not just for Stalin and the like anymore.
The difference between the wingnuts and yourself is that you choose to think about your emotions and tried to understand them. I can’t fault you for your feelings because they were honest and you didnt let them control you. You had enough awareness of yourself that you kept trying to find better solutions instead of just going with the first simplistic ones of revenge.
I can’t say that i’m free of the limits imposed by hate and bigotry but i hope that I can move beyond those limits like you did in the years following 9/11
That was a very couragious post, Booman
I think that 250,000 Muslim deaths is about where we are now, after Afghanistan and Iraq.
So, we’re about halfway to the number you feared.
How sad.
It may be a cliche but that day really is etched into my memory. It was perfectly normal day. I turned on NY1 to check the weather. It was nine. After initial shock my first reaction was to call friends downtown (I lived uptown then). I was especially concerned about my oldest friend who routinely met with clients at the WTC. Lots of dialing to find out he was ok – he’d pulled out of a breakfast meeting at Windows on the World the day before, deciding his deputy/close friend could handle it. Nobody up there survived.
Then came the reassuring of relatives in Europe that I was ok – many of them have only a hazy understanding of NY geography. By that point I was both shocked and angry. Initially that anger wasn’t ‘they attacked the US’ but rather ‘they attacked my home, my beloved city.’ But most of all my dominant emotion, like that of so many other New Yorkers, was a desperate need to somehow help out. Of course I couldn’t. They didn’t need unskilled volunteers for the rubble. After standing in line for a couple hours it turned out they didn’t need blood. So I went back to channel and web surfing. It took me a long time to feel normal again.
In the days that follows I was worried that the Bush admin would act recklessly. Not that I opposed the war with Afghanistan. On the contrary, I strongly supported it and even now simply can’t understand how anyone could oppose it. But I was worried they’d start a war with everyone, or go in to Afghanistan too quickly. Not to mention the fear that things would go crazy for reasons unrelated to any potential US mistakes. I also worried about hate attacks in the US, fortunately far fewer than I expected. I did want the Al Qaeda/Taliban leadership captured or dead, but that’s it. No desire for vengeance against Muslims in general. I did have some friends who reacted like you did. In the case of those who were closely touched by the attacks I didn’t feel particularly shocked. But for those that didn’t lose close friends or relatives in the attacks, who weren’t down there, I wasn’t so understanding. Of course my encounters with that thirst for vengeance among people who had no excuse first came a couple weeks after the attacks.
When the Iraq war debate came along I hesitantly supported it, but that didn’t have a thing to do with 9/11 except in the tangential sense that the ease of the Afghan war probably made me to sanguine about our prospects in Iraq.
But don’t feel too bad. I remember some fifteen years ago talking about the upcoming reunification of Germany with my parents. My mom hated the idea – as she put it for her all Germans were guilty until proven innocent. That in spite of the fact that her closest family spent the war in Britain, having fled at the start of the war, and few of her other relatives who remained in Poland were killed. My very level-headed dad on the other hand, who had almost his entire family murdered by the Germans and has some pretty unpleasant memories of his childhood in occuppied Poland (he’s ‘of Jewish origin’ to use his self-description) is not particularly anti-German and he supported reunification. But then as an aside he added ‘if they start another war, however, the nation should be eradicated, this should be their last chance.’ We’re talking forty five years after the end of the war.
because I’d been watching our takeover galloping along in earnest for the previous 20 years. As soon as the 2nd building was hit I knew that the Administration–which was almost unanimously former Cold Warriors–would do exactly what they’ve gone on to do.
I’ve played military music all my life, since first getting hooked on our service marching bands in the early 1960’s. This has kept me in touch with rememberances of every kind of disturbance from rebellions to continental invasions that killed people by the thousands and tens of thousands. My circle includes quite a few British people who lived through the WW2 bombing of London, the Irish Troubles, and even the trenches of WW1.
9/11 was nothing comparable to those larger wars, nor was 707, nor was the entirety of the “war” on terror combined. 9/11 was the realization of what scores of experts in our own news outlets had been warning us about for 15 or 20 years as being inevitable, eventually.
Nuke Mecca. Well, having lived through “nuke Hanoi” I long ago recognized that what America runs is a Maginot Military, eternally holding off the Soviet invasion of western Europe and itching to repeat D-Day. America has never engaged the type of opponent it’s built for since Japan surrendered. We only attack hoards of loosely organized individuals that consistently just duck or step aside as we surge past them looking for their senates and stock exchanges and amusement parks to bomb them into despair. And of course it never works.
I’m sorry. While I share the grief for everyone touched by the 9/11 and 707 and other crimes, I remain absolutely and unappologetically dumfounded at the collective and unceasing American shock-and-awe over it. I think it’s potentially a civilization-breaking fraud.
And I think more of the world, both developed and undeveloped, is with me on this than with my countrymen.
On 9/11/01 my favorite hangout was the ESPN Seattle Mariners message board. I first learned of the tragedy from a friend who, while he is given to histrionics and temper tantrums where the Mariners are concerned, would have not made something like this up.
We spent most of the next couple of weeks talking about this instead of baseball, since baseball was suspended in the wake of the tragedy.
And immediately I found myself on the other side of the discussion. I knew why someone powerless would be driven to a violent act like this. I listened to my friends argue that we should turn everything from Casablanca to Jakarta into a sea of radioactive glass. I told them that becoming the terrorists was not going to solve the problem of terrorism. I told them we had to address the root causes of the terrorism, or we would forever be treating the symptoms instead of the disease.
And I was vilified, called a coward, uncaring, a traitor. Maybe not in those words, but that was the gist of it.
That day I saw a great deal of ugliness in people I had considered friends. I also saw great outpourings of sympathy, for instance people inquiring about a fellow who posted on the Cubs board who was known to work on one of the high floors of Tower Two. I don’t know if he ever did surface. A notorious Yankee-fan troll I would have gleefully seen expelled from the entire site if it were in my power turned out to have been laying carpet in Tower Two that day. We actually had an intelligent discussion for once. Granted he was on the side of nuking ’em until they glowed and then shooting them in the dark, but at least I got to see a human side of him.
To this day I will not talk politics with a friend of mine from Long Island who spent most of that week delivering fire control and other safety equipment to the blast site. He talks about how he sits in church with the widows and orphans of the innocent victims of the attack. I once tried to tell him there are people right now in Baghdad who are sitting with the widows and orphans of the innocent victims of retaliation . . . but even though he professes to be a Christian he cannot get past the attack and see that the United States is doing the same thing, on a much bigger scale, and more besides.
So yes, I’ve seen this argument. But I’ve seen the business end of it. And while I don’t blame anyone for feeling that way, and maybe I would feel different if it were my son or daughter or wife in that tower . . .
as my life is now, I just cannot feel that way. And I think that’s a good thing.
.
Liberals View on Right-wing
“Tancredo is THE DEFINITION of wingnut. The man is over the top, wacked out, fucking crazy. His big problem is with Immigration, read Mexicans, and this blowfish thinks he wants to run for POTUS.
The asshat is from Colorado Springs, home of Mr. Dobson and his merry band of rapturites; went back on his “pledge” to only serve 2 terms when he was initially elected; and the sheeple down there just keep sending his sorry ass back to DC…save your breath, he’s not worthy of your angst.
Peace “
Discussing Sen. Richard J. Durbin’s (D-IL) recent controversial remarks and Newsweek’s retraction of a story about the abuse of Qurans by U.S. military personnel … Hal Lindsey’s view on Liberals …
“In a curious way, guys like Durbin and the anti-Americans at Newsweek have done us a favor. They’ve left little doubt that the leftist agenda is not just real, it is downright dangerous. It was somewhat of a wakeup call to the rest of us that some of our worst enemies are to be found among our own people.”
Wing-nuts are present in leading roles throughout the world: Saudi Arabia, Israel, US, UK, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Libya, Algeria and African continent. The moderate countries either lack power or have power not written in their constitution or international policy. History teaches us size is not a limit for an empire, power and abuse – The Netherlands in the Golden Age and its colonial period, which ended in 1948 with independence for Indonesia.
A Nation Divided, I can’t recall it’s been this bad during my lifetime – Thanks George and Dick and all those representatives chosen to Congress and have let the We The People down! About wolves, Tony Blair is truly a wolf in sheep’s clothes, I’m very disappointed about man’s judgement and morals.
About 9/11, my immediate reaction as I watched CNN as the South tower was hit: it’s the work of Osama Bin Laden, how have we failed to eradicate his group. A few hours later and realizing the breadth of the attacks, I added Iraq and Saddam Hussain as possible supporter and provider of logistics. In the days that followed, I understood that Saddam and OBL were sworn enemies and the support was unlikely.
I never have had a feeling of animosity toward the “Muslim” world as I have fair knowledge of the Arab culture and a few friends and contacts throughout the Middle-East. Lack of knowledge feeds hatred IMO.
During the sixties, the US and Western Europe had cultural exchange programs with the Communist regime of the Soviet Union. The right-wing policy of Bush/Cheney is the opposite, see Cuba, Iran and most of the Muslim world. Words will not suffice, it’s deeds that will be watched by the world community. PR propaganda in the US will not sway the opinion of the world community.
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To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom–and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.
To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe, struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves. For whatever period is required–not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society, cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy 1917-1963
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The both sides are the same argument is silly. The right thinks that Liberals are dangerous for pointing out bad things are happening at Guantanamo. The Left thinks people like Hal Lindsey are dangerous because they support torture a Guantanamo, and also Hal Lindsey wants to start a nuclear war. Sometimes one side really is fucked up.
Well…I have a confession to make too. I was in NY as well…a little north of Manhattan actually…and my first thought was that this was just the first wave. I expected them to try to take out the bridges and tunnels and possibly the Indian Point nuclear plant up the Hudson River about 20 miles. Why they (whoever “they” may really be) did not do so is beyond my comprehension. So I gassed up the car, took some money out of the bank, assembled a few days of rations and some armament, collected my family and waited for the other shoe to drop. If it DID drop I was going to head north, to family I have in New England who are essentially survivalists.
Also known as country people.
And MY first response to this was the same one that I still have today.
I wanted to line up against a wall all of the thieving sons of bitches who have been playing their kleptocratic games in the third world and execute them. I wasn’t angry at the so-called terrorists. I was angry at the people whose greed drove those “terrorists” over generations to a place where they were desperate enough or crazy enough to kill themselves in a act of this sort.
I’ve BEEN in the third world.
I’ve been in every goddamned world that there IS, from the finest mansions of the guiltiest thieves right on through the suburbs of the middle classes of Japan, Europe and America and down into the tenements and shanty towns of the dispossessed the world over, and you know what?
I like the poor folks better.
I understand their anger and their position.
I really do.
All over the world…INCLUDING the ghettoes of America…young men and women of the third world have been waking up one day at the age of 12 or so and thinking “Oh SHIT!!! I’m FUCKED!!! I will NEVER get out of here.”
Only the truly extraordinary ones ever manage to escape. The rest are stuck with it.
Meanwhile, on TV they see the children of the developed world’s vast lower, middle and upper middle working classes driving SUVs, going to college, making money, owning houses, having health insurance, getting fat…all the perquisites of middle class life.
For NOTHING.
Just for being born. You have to be extraordinary NOT to live that life if you are among the people who are born into it.
Extraordinarily perceptive or an extraordinary fuckup.
Or sometimes both.
And these disposessed people are getting angrier and angrier.
Crazier and crazier.
Listen…it’s Muslims NOW.
Soon enough, if we don’t back on off of the feed trough and let the rest of the ltter have some too…soon enough, it’s going to be people from Central America, South America and the Caribbean as well. That’s what Iran-Contra was all about, trying to forestall THAT eventuality. That’s what all the REST of the CIA monkeying around south of the border has been about as well.
And if Africa ever gets ITS shit together…
I would be all for a few cautionary public executions of war criminals, myself. Preferably on live satellite feed to the rest of the world. Because I’m telling you…we have broken promises and talked out of both sides of opur mouth for so long now that nothing less will REALLY convince our enemies to stand down.
Espoecially now that they have found the great equalizers of terror and WMDs.
Tancredo?
He’s not “angry.”
I mean I suppose he IS genetically set up to favor rage and hatred. But this 9/11 thing didn’t make him any “angrier.” It’s just another excuse. Transpose him to 1910 backwoods Georgia and he’d be running the same game on black people, I guarantee.
Transpose these cretins in D.C. back to the ’50s and they’d be working for McCarthy.
To the Spanish Inquisition and they would be working with Torquemada.
Bet on it.
You say:
“I make this comparison to help Europeans and others understand the depth of American anger and sadness at 9/11. I make it to show I understand the anger and frustration of the wingnuts in this country. But I had calmed down by 9/12. And the wingnuts still have an unrelenting bloodlust.”
I think that you misunderstand what is happening here. Yes, you had an immediate reaction of anger. And yes, you calmed down.
But the “wingnuts” are people who only need EXCUSES for anger. And boy, have they got their teeth into a good juicy one now. I do not believe that you DO understand the wingnuts. Not on the basis of what you have just said.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said that “The rich are different than you and I.” And he was quite right, they are.
But the wingnuts are different, too. They are NOT angry at what happened in 9/11. They are just ANGRY, and that occurrance was a good excuse. They are by and large racist, classist, sexist, primitive sons of bitches who will get us ALL blown up as they express their essential hatred and rage.
And WE put these people in power.
By acceding to the wishes and plans of weak, cowardly Democratic so-called “leaders.”
Life is giving us one last chance here, I think, with this Rove thing. If we blow it…I really do fear the worst.
And we WILL blow it if we think that this whole setup is about “terrorism” or “9/11” or anything at ALL except common human greed.
Bin Laden is said to have written “”By what measure of kindness are your killed considered innocents while ours are considered worthless? By what school [of thought] is your blood considered blood while our blood is water?” (Whether he really wrote or not is immaterial. It is TRUE.)
Well…when you look at the crocodile tears on the faces of our leaders as they send Americans into battle for their own private plunder
You MUST realize that they are NOT “angry” at 9/11. THEY are different from us too. Bin Laden was wrong. These people put no special value on ANY lives but their own.
3000 dead in the WTC is just a good excuse to go after the oil to them. If they REALLY valued American lives so much, they would provide decent health care for the millions who are without it. They would provide good educational opportunities for Americans across the board. They would not send jobs out of the country in return for short-term profits. They would not allow Detroit to build unsafe automobiles or the states to pass them in inspections.
There are a MILLION things that they would do if they gave a shit.
But they do not.
You want Europeans to understand America?
Then tell them the truth.
Tell them that we fucked up out of overfed, gluttonous, self-satisfied sloth and let a group of callous, professional parasites take control of our country.
Tell them that it is OUR fault, and now…God willing…we are finally going about the business of DOING something about it.
Tell them THAT.
And then do it.
You have nothing to apologize for. At least, not what you mention here.
We should ALL apologize for allowing this to happen in the first place.
And now it is time to do something about it.
Which you are doing to the best of your ability, Booman.
As are we all…
Later…
AG
with you.
Yes, our elites have exploited the third world. But the 9/11 terrorists should have known that attacking us in that manner would turn us into monsters, they should have known that we would respond with violence and that innocent people would be killed all over the planet.
There is no excuse for their act. Nothing good could have conceiveably come of it. That is not how you teach someone about their faults. On 9/11 I was sad for the people that lost their lives and I grieved for the city I love, but most of all, I grieved for what I knew America would become, in response.
I knew it would unleash our dark angels. And it has. We will always have our Tancredos, as all nations have their bigots. But 9/11 empowered them. And whoever hatched the plot should have known that we would become a crazed vengeful menace to world order and peace.
I dont agree with your disagreement. AG’s post is sharp and concise. On the other hand,
your post is muddled, confused and, ultimately, useless. In fact, it is generally descriptive of today’s soft left thought process in general.
AG sings the truth from the mountaintops and all the people hear is “thunder.”
Listen more closely, people.
What would you have those with many longstanding legitimate grievances against the US do instead?
Use the international organizations that we control to appeal to our mercy?
I have been following this diary a little and then I just saw a comment pop up on recents, and this led me to your comment, upon which I will now comment, (confused yet?)
I was struck by your line “But the 9/11 terrorists should have known that attacking us in that manner would turn us into monsters, they should have known that we would respond with violence and that innocent people would be killed all over the planet.”
Should have known? Perhaps they did know Boo and that was their intent to expose the US for the monster it was and is, look to our past history for proof of that all the way back to the beginning with the Natives. I am not proud of most of it.
Most of all I see what you said above as a sort of projecting the American way of thinking into another culture, which imo just doesn’t work.
Well I don’t want to rehash the whole 9/11 thing and all the other surrounding mysteries of this admin. just wanted to put out that one thought above.
Regards to you Booman and I hope you are feeling better today. Why don’t you step into the FBC for some mojo and fun, in fact more of you need to stop by there to refresh yourselves with the more pleasant side of life here. Big hugs to you.
You are right.
They were wrong.
But they were REACTING to a greater wrong.
You say that they SHOULD have known better.
But they didn’t.
Why?
In my opinion, it is because an entire generation of people has been driven mad by the actions of the U.S. and its allies over the past 50 years.
Literally.
Mad.
As in crazy.
Should THEY be punished for their state of insanity?
Or should it be those who drove them to that point?
Should we protect ourselves from their insanity?
Of COURSE.
By any means necessary.
But what would the BEST means be to do so ?
By admitting our errors; by publicly trying, convicting and punishing the criminals who prosecuted the actions that were PREDICATED on theft, murder and greed.
Actions that DROVE these people to their current state of rage.
And THEN saying. “This far and no further. NOW we will come after you if you persist, and we will crush you.”
Until then…WE ARE WRONG.
It is that simple.
WE ARE GUILTY.
And we will lose.
Malcolm X said that the chickens will always come home to roost, and MLK Jr. said “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” If we want to survive, we must FIRST get on the right side of that arc.
Until then…the blame game simply will not work.
Because it is US who are to blame, here.
Us.
Fat, greedy Americans.
Us.
And if we do not RADICALLY change…we are going down.
Bet on it.
There are no Princetons in Iraq, Booman. (The town, not the university.) Nor are there many anywhere ELSE in the third world. It is a hard, barren place for the vast majority of people who live there, interspersed with small, heavily guarded settlements of the truly rich.
There are literally THOUSANDS of Princetons in America. Tree-lined, safe havens for the majority of people who live here.
Unless we subscribe to the idea that we are in some way genetically superior to the other 4/5ths of the population of the world…which is EXACTLY where people like Tancredo live when they are not out scrounging fore votes, believe it…then something is drastically out of whack in this equation.
Out of balance.
Koyaanisqatsi.
Koyaanisqatsiis a word from the Hopi language and it means Crazy life – Life in Turmoil – Life Disintegrating – Life out of Balance – A State of Life That Calls for Another Way of Living
That is where we are at now.
Koyaanisqatsi
And if we do not change this…on ALL levels…then we are doomed.
It is said that nature abhors a vacuum.
Well…nature is not too fond of badly balanced systems, either, and tends to either right them or destroy them.
A word to the wise is sufficient.
The question is…are we wise enough to HEAR it?
Time will tell.
Later…
AG
you might consider having the dialogue w the enemy instead of Europe.
Europe is already dead. Luckily for them, they built the most beautiful grave stones on the backs of their peasant/serfs/slaves. Otherwise, they would be dead and forgotten, except for their unmatched ability to slaughter other human beings using non nuclear materials.
Americans built houses made of sticks on the backs of their peasants/serfs/slaves, hoping to be more beautiful on the inside than Europeans are on the outside…
We die soon, too.
So do the Islams, whose houses are not fit even for Texas chattle…
Build your own house AG, upon the firmament of the holy seesaw.
May God Bless your underpants this very day.
this is a truly bizarre post. My compliments on your opaqueness, and your undergarment blessing.
Scroll down for my response to your question…
you might find my reply to your other comment less opaque as well as less pleasing.
BUT
THANK YOU for making room for the divine voice of the sainted Mr. Gilroy.
AND THANK YOU FOR BEING BOOMAN TRIBUNE. I am less concerned about our future now.
You and the divine Miss Hu are quite a complement.
Miss Hu is divine, on that we agree.
Speak freely magician, the Boomeister can handle it. He is not the hypersensitive, censoring type.
Yes, I am certain that he is made of real cotton, unlike most of the product fresh off the DKOS assembly line…
satire.myblogsite.com/blog you can hear him talk, daunting photos and a short story here –
“Instead of Nuking Mecca, Import Muslim-Mini-Market…”
3. The radio talk show host – Pat Cambell – at 540 WLFA Orlando, Florida who interviewed Tancredo, had another guest a former FBI agent and an author, who claims that 540 WLFA Florida, there could be nuclear suitcases, that disappeared during the colapse of the SOviet Union, in the USA. If its true, its scary. Scary is not the right word.
That’s what you will be feeling after a nuclear attack on an American city. Writing in a notebook? Nah. There won’t even be time for that. I suspect that within a few hours 1/5th of the worlds population would be gone. You know which fifth.