Spending a relaxing day cleaning the house, grading quizzes, and watching football was a more surreal experience than usual on Sunday, alternating as we were between black-and-white, somber 9/11 Tributes set to somber music and the blaring, hyper-masculine aggression of truck commercials and those goddamn Fox NFL robots with the explosion sound effects. All of the requisite symbolism was covered thoroughly – the flags, the eagles, the Heroes in Uniform, the 9/11 First Responders, and the patriotic songs were all present in spades. It was the climax of a week-long media blitz reminding us to Never Forget.
Never Forget. Never Forget.
All that remains, of course, is what exactly we are supposed to be remembering.
We repeat the mistakes of history so regularly not because we forget the past but because we think that remembering it is enough. We don't bother to learn anything from it. Or we learn a lesson that is simply wrong (We lost the Vietnam War because we failed to "stay the course", right?) Or we learn a terribly narrow lesson and use our substantial powers of delusion to convince ourselves that our current situation is unique and we are not in fact repeating the mistakes of the past.
A rite of passage for world leaders, for example, is the pilgrimage to Auschwitz. And people the world over know that the Holocaust is not to be forgotten.
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But what lesson do the solemn-faced presidents and Popes and prime ministers take away from their tour of the camps? What is it that we Don't Forget about the Holocaust? For most people the lesson of the Holocaust is not to vote for anyone covered in swastikas and wearing a cartoon villain toothbrush mustache. The lesson is that if anyone proposes herding people into cattle cars, trucking them to a rural area, gassing them, and putting them in crematoria, we should do something to stop it. We have learned those rather useless lessons very well.
What we haven't learned, of course, is anything about the root causes and warning signs of fascism, the gruesome result of taking socio-political scapegoating and segregation to its logical conclusion, or the consequences of failing to accept our fundamental equality on the most basic human level. We learn that Nazis are evil and go back to railing against the immigrants or the fags or the poor or the dark people or whoever else we see as our social inferiors. It's not just possible to remember something without learning anything from it – it's remarkably easy.
It did not take long for 9/11 to fall into the same stagnant ritual of mindless, uncritical Remembering. What lesson have we learned from it? Have we learned anything at all? For most Americans the lesson has been that Muslims are evil, or terrorists are scary, or that some people want to do us harm because they are jealous of the 1000-channel strip mall paradise in which we live. Some of us cannot even take the line of thought that far, instead remembering that it was really sad when all those people died or that those firefighters sure were brave. Worst of all, in the quest to Remember we watch the same footage repeatedly – the crashing planes, the collapsing towers, the tumbling suicide jumpers – until it isn't shocking anymore. We end up remembering it and being completely desensitized to it.
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Perhaps the urgency to have everyone Remember is simply an effort to return the nation to the frightened, fragile, knee-jerk aggression that characterized its collective emotional state for the first several years after the attack. Maybe the point isn't about honoring the memories of the dead at all, but to remind us all about the Other out there and encourage us to lash out at it in our unfocused, wounded rage.
No, we should not forget 9/11. But we might do well to ask ourselves what about it we are supposed to remember and why. For all of the reminders I have seen in the past week, we have been oddly silent on those points.
Xynzee says:
Apart from the loss of life, I feel no sense of mourning for the Nation. How are these people any more special than those the US has either bombed to pieces directly in Vietnam or disappeared thanks to our support of despotic regimes?
I do mourn the loss of the opportunity for some introspection and for starting the conversation to address the question of "Why do the hate us so much?" instead we proved to be the belligerent bullies that we are ie Iraq. In doing so we've bankrupted the country financially and morally.
ABK says:
Ed found Hangar 18, err, 911. Now he knows too much…
Middle Seaman says:
The message is clear. Never forget that They are after us and they kill a lot of innocent people. Never forget that we cannot fear because it is very frightening and you should be frightened. Remember, i.e. never forget, that we must react and defend ourselves. Never forget that they are evil and we are good. Remember, the good, i.e. us, must fight evil, i.e. them. In this fight you have to scarifies, as in any other fight/war, some of your rights. Never forget, it's the war the takes away your rights; it is a must as you never forget.
Whatever we do, never forget, we have the full right to do it, because otherwise they will come to get you. Don't fear.
eau says:
@Xynzee – 'I do mourn the loss of the opportunity for some introspection and for starting the conversation to address the question of "Why do the hate us so much?"'
Second. Makes me wonder again just how different things could have been with a wholly-corporate-owned, wishy-washy Democrat (in this case, Gore) as POTUS. Useless, I know. Still…
And how 'bout us Aussies and our Lest We Forget Gallipoli? Just as well we didn't forget not to follow a superpower into a war that didn't concern us! Phew!
eau says:
"Just as well we didn't forget not to follow a superpower into a war that didn't concern us!"
Triple negative. Truly a wordsmith, I.
Middle Seaman says:
Never forget to badmouth someone; never forget to be a pain in the wrong ass; never forget to write in the favorite comment style that appears sophisticated while cave style; never forget that nothing really matters; never forget that Ed is a comedian; never forget to be stupid; never forget to appear drunk; never – OK, shut up!
anotherbozo says:
Highlight of the televised memorial for me was a revisit to the vid of Mr. Preparedness reading My Pet Goat. Again the glassy-eyed stare after Andrew Card told him about the attack. Never mind that the thrust of the news feature this time was a focus on the students, ten years later. Underlying schisms between Western and Muslim worlds, historically jingoist American policies may be parts of the larger lesson, but so was the criminal negligence of available intelligence.
I'll certainly feel safer with Rick Perry in the White House.
Tim H. says:
Never forget, our leaders mostly just look like they know what they're doing.
c u n d gulag says:
To me, 9/11 was tragic and horrific.
But it was also, among other things, a reminder to this nation to be humble – that we are not the end-all and be-all. That we're one nation among many. And that while we don't want to be tread upon, we need also to remember not to tread upon others.
But ,I
jeneria says:
We are reminded to buy cars and insurance and to spend money to further bolster the bottom lines of Wal-Mart and Wall Street. We are reminded that to not do so is un-patriotic. We are reminded that the nation's tragedy is not bigger than our own attempts to grab our 15 minutes by "remembering" where we were. We are reminded by schmaltz and Hallmark sentiments that we are not to ask questions about the billions spent on "security", the subtle but continuing erosion of civil rights, the ways in which the War on Terror allowed our economy to shrink and our debt to grow, and our never-ending wars with Eastasia and Eurasia.
Da Moose says:
I am almost done with Erik Larson's, "In the Garden of Beasts…" It is interesting to note the obvious parallels between Hitler's pre-WW II Nazi Germany and the mindless institutionalized fear mongering you see here in the US. What's interesting is that, according to his research, it appears there were more people in Hitler's Germany opposed to Hitler than there are Americans today opposed to pervasive corporate backed fear mongering. During the course of daily conversations, it deeply saddens me, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, that not only do attributes of critical thinking appear wholly scarce but many people actively seek to maintain a superficial level of discourse with each other and themselves. In such an environment, authoritarianism is not only possible but highly probable.
acer says:
How can you argue with the Budweiser Clydesdales?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zXZX2sXHYI
Mrs. Chili says:
"No, we should not forget 9/11. But we might do well to ask ourselves what about it we are supposed to remember and why. For all of the reminders I have seen in the past week, we have been oddly silent on those points."
It's because these points are unpalatable and ask us to think critically. We don't like that.
Neal Deesit says:
Never forget that for the first time in the history of burning steel-framed skyscrapers, three buildings, one of which was NOT struck by a plane, "fell" into their own footprints, that molten steel was found in the wreckage of WTC 1 and 2, that unexploded nanothermite was found in the dust.
Never forget that:
– Between September 6 and 7, the Chicago Board Options Exchange saw purchases of 4,744 put options on United Airlines, but only 396 call options. Assuming that 4,000 of the options were bought by people with advance knowledge of the imminent attacks, these "insiders" would have profited by almost $5 million.
– On September 10, 4,516 put options on American Airlines were bought on the Chicago exchange, compared to only 748 calls. Again, there was no news at that point to justify this imbalance; Again, assuming that 4,000 of these options trades represent "insiders", they would represent a gain of about $4 million.
– The levels of put options purchased above were more than six times higher than normal.
– No similar trading in other airlines occurred on the Chicago exchange in the days immediately preceding Black Tuesday.
– Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., which occupied 22 floors of the World Trade Center, saw 2,157 of its October $45 put options bought in the three trading days before Black Tuesday; this compares to an average of 27 contracts per day before September 6. Morgan Stanley's share price fell from $48.90 to $42.50 in the aftermath of the attacks. Assuming that 2,000 of these options contracts were bought based upon knowledge of the approaching attacks, their purchasers could have profited by at least $1.2 million.
– Merrill Lynch & Co., which occupied 22 floors of the World Trade Center, saw 12,215 October $45 put options bought in the four trading days before the attacks; the previous average volume in those shares had been 252 contracts per day [a 1200% increase!]. When trading resumed, Merrill's shares fell from $46.88 to $41.50; assuming that 11,000 option contracts were bought by "insiders", their profit would have been about $5.5 million.
Never forget that this was planned and executed as a "new Pearl Harbor."
K. says:
The vast majority of the rhetoric I've seen and heard–and I mean since the attacks, really, not just in the past few weeks–has been notably empty of meaning. I also found it profoundly depressing to see the deaths of thousands of people turned into what was basically a series of television advertisements for American-ness and mindless patriotism.
Thank god there was a lot of football on.
RP says:
Lesson learned? Easy. Kill the haters before they kill us. Next.
RT Butte says:
I'm disappointed that it took 14 comments before the Twoofers showed up.
Jimcat says:
Neal Deesit reminds us to never forget that the tinfoil hats are still out there and active.
Myself, I'm reminded of the Calvin and Hobbes arc in which Calvin creates evil snowmen who run amok. At the end, Hobbes asks him what lesson he's learned from all this, and he says "Snow goons are bad news." Calvin prefers maxims that don't encourage behavior modification.
John T. Mickevich says:
Ed,
Thank you for this. It sums up what my mushy brain has been thinking for days now, but unable to express as eloquently as you have. I'm going to save this and send it to people who don't have the brains to understand it, because, well, that's what we do, right?
Thanks again,
John
bb in GA says:
I am not a 'truther' but I am an engineer. Mr Deesit has presented information about 09/11. Is it data or spun factoids?
First, is it worth our time as sentient beings with an interest in the events of 09/11 to investigate any of this for ourselves?
If yes, then:
Are the claims he made factual?
For example,
Was evidence of molten steel found at ground zero? That will be a yes or no.
If yes, then
For instance, I do know that steel melts (i.e molten) at around 2500F. Steel softens ("anneals') enough to be useless structurally certainly by the recrystallization temperature (about 0.4 to 0.6 of T Melt on the absolute temp scale)
I would imagine that the furnace like conditions in the WTC could get you in the recrystallization range, but unlikely to get near Tmelt.
That being said, how do we account for the molten steel at GZ?
I don't know. I guess I'm off to Search Engine City to do a little research for myself, but I don't know Neal D and I'm not going to call him names just because he makes uncomfortable assertions.
//bb
Jimcat says:
bb:
I respect the professional opinions of engineers. Many of them contributed to the National Institute of Standards and Technology's report that attributed the collapse of the towers to the fires that weakened the upper floors, causing failure of the structural columns. (The full story is more complex but anyone who is interested is free to read the full report.)
Pretty much the entire structural engineering community accepts the fire-induced collapse theory and rejects the controlled demolition scenario.
If a few crackpots, and I'm not afraid to call them such, come up with an alternate explanation, the burden of proof is on them, and they have provided no such proof. The dust in which nano-thermite was found has not even been conclusively shown to have come from the WTC.
Quite simply, the preponderance of evidence, as attested by many acknowledged experts in the field, is against the controlled demolition theory.
Sarah says:
"No, we should not forget 9/11. But we might do well to ask ourselves what about it we are supposed to remember and why. For all of the reminders I have seen in the past week, we have been oddly silent on those points."
What's worse than that is that anytime anybody has the gall to suggest that, yanno, maybe it isn't such a good idea for the US to go around acting so arrogantly, that poor schmuck gets blasted as un-American.
"Lesson learned? Easy. Kill the haters before they kill us. Next."
Although I've got to admit, it is kind of entertaining to watch a point go sailing right over a neocon's head.
J. Dryden says:
Here's a radical notion: Let's go ahead and forget. But let's forget *right*. To wit: Rebuild the goddamned towers. Now. RIGHT now. Put 'em up. Make 'em plane-proof, but make 'em look *exactly* the same. At the base of the towers, a tasteful memorial. But other than that: Nothing. No difference. None. Like it never happened.
If we're going to be imperial bullies, then let's at least have the balls to sustain the indifference of empires to the flea-bites of the barbarians.
If we also, as a nation, wish to reflect upon our course as an international juggernaut, and perhaps massage our relations with wildly distinct cultures, well, that would be swell.
But seriously: Rebuild the goddamned towers. Reply to the uppercut by getting back up and asking, "And?" No chest-thumping, no teasing, no aggression–just put 'em back up, no fanfare, no nothing. "Ouch. Well, back to work."
But it will never happen. Enjoy the hole!
xynzee says:
@Acer: Lest we forget, that if a company can figure out how to spin some money off the sentiment of the moment, it will. Ugh!! Yet another not to drink Sludgeweiser.
Robert says:
My husband and I took our two sons and a dear old friend who now lives out of state to a regional RenFaire, where a mutual dear old friend was playing William Shakespeare. Elizabethan dialect, jousting, turkey legs, being presented to the Queen – a very enjoyablle day out. No television, no radio, and I didn't even go online.
bob_is_boring says:
Dryden:
"If we're going to be imperial bullies, then let's at least have the balls to sustain the indifference of empires to the flea-bites of the barbarians."
That takes far more institutional-national/emotional maturity than we have. This is, of course, the correct response for an Empire. Oh, well.
Mike says:
BB: The problem is that one can't personally verify or rebut every idea in the world. Otherwise, we endlessly re-litigate questions that, in fact, were settled a long time ago, such as "Did men land on the moon," "did species evolve over time," "did a UFO crash at Roswell," etc.
J. Dryden: The only problem with that plan is that the towers were really quite ugly. They were an eyesore and a boondoggle. I'm not trying to be flippant, the attack was horrific and the video footage is seared into my brain; but purely from an urban planning perspective, the WTC was awful.
Ike says:
Apparently somewhere at a park here in my city is a "9-11 Artifact" for the next couple days. I find this to be macabre and in poor taste. 9-11 is turning into some kind of weird secular religious observation.
mclaren says:
What America learned is that even the tiniest and flimsiest excuse suffices to bully and brutalize and genocidally attack other nations and turn our own country into a combination gigantic armed garrison camp and outdoor prison.
Like a wife-beater who uses the excuse of his missus slapping him to beat her to death, kick both his children to death, cut the family dog's head off with an axe, shoot up the neighbors' houses and set fire to all the office buildings and strip malls in the neighborhood, America has learned a lot from 9/11.
Unfortunately, all the wrong things.
Ike says:
Oh, I was mistaken. We in fact have a 35 foot hunk of steel permanently affixed in the ground so way out here in Eastern Washington we too can take part in the glory and never ever ever forget. Friggin weird.
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2011/09/12/1637485/ground-zero-steel-brings-tragedy.html
mclaren says:
And for those folks who may object to describing the horrific deaths of 3,000 innocent Americas as "even the tiniest and flimsiest excuse" for America's subsequent actions, let's bear in mind some hard cold statistics:
45,000 innocent Americans die every year due to lack of access to health care and lack of medical insurance. Where's their memorial?
42,600 innocents American die every year in traffic accidents. Where are the concerts and monuments to grieve for them?
Hundreds of thousands of innocent children in third world countries die because vaccines and simple antibiotics are kept too expensive by greedy giant pharmaceutical companies. Where are the choirs singing hosannahs and the orchestras playing syrupy chords to commemorate their horrible deaths?
3,000 Americans dying is horrible, and it's still tiny in the grand scheme of things. Americans need to pull up their socks and get a grip. Impoverished farmers in India are committing suicide because sadistic giant corporations like Monsanto have made their gene-modified "terminator" seeds too expensive to buy.
Ellie says:
Ed put into words what I've been thinking, albeit in a more muddled fashion.
The other think I've been thinking about (in my usual muddled fashion, I expect) is how quickly the "never forget" things are fogotten.
Ever tried to discuss history with a layperson? If you have, you know what I mean. One quickly relaizes that almost nobody "remembers" anything that happened before they were born (half the time, they don't know what happened lat week). Give it a hundred years – or less – and 9/11 will be ancient history – all but fogotten save for a few geeks with an obscure interest in the dull past. Even if 9/11 makes it to "holiday" status, people will have about as good an understanding of it as they now have of Labor Day, Memorial Day, or Veterans Day. In other words – next to none.
Such is the march of time, and such is the nonsense of the "never" part of never forget. People ALWAYS forget.
Arslan says:
"Never forget that this was planned and executed as a "new Pearl Harbor.""
Yeah, because the conspirators revealed their whole plan in a publicly available document, and were nice enough to tell a lot of Wall Street traders. What a bunch of morons.
This "New Pearl Harbor" troofer BS comes from a report made by PNAC, Project for a New American Century. Of course Troofers never bother to look at the whole thing. The report is making the case for strategic missile defense. Yes, that's right, and SDI missile-shield. Lot of good that would have done on 9-11. In the infamous "new Pearl Harbor" line, it mentions that strategic missile defense was unpopular at that time(still is), and thus it would probably face serious opposition absent a "new Pearl Harbor".
The document has been available in full all this time.
Goddamned, the only thing worse than a screaming jingoistic conservative is a troofer. They're just as afraid as the former, but they just tailor-make the monster into something more palatable for them.
Ravi M. Singh says:
You absolutely nailed it. I tried my best to avoid the television coverage that day, sensing that it would be nothing but trumped up spectacle full of those slogans like "Never Forget." I knew that it was going to frustrate me to no end that there would be little thought given to what brought this tragedy in the first place or how we as a people, humanity or the west since I'm Canadian, ought to have changed after the fact.
I think that the other phrase that perhaps annoys me just as much is "move on." Maybe we don't need to dwell on a single instance, but when its impact is still felt, it just doesn't make sense to pretend it never happened and not learn from it.
I guess we're in between two extremes. Some say never forget and some say move on, neither of which means much.
I'm not sure that comment even made sense. It's probably best I didn't turn on the television that day since I may have saved myself from a brain haemorrhage.
Sarah says:
To answer the original point brought up by this blog post, it would seem that no, we did not learn a damn thing from 9/11.
http://shebshi.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/some-real-shock-and-awe-racially-profiled-and-cuffed-in-detroit/
cromartie says:
What I learned, again, is that tragedy can be tastefully repackaged and marketed successfully.
Everything else I already knew before it happened.
Edward says:
Well said. The 9-11 commission report probably represents the limits of our institutional ability to analyze 9-11.
Genavieve Morales says:
We as individuals, and a nation should remember the terror we felt that day. We should remember how we called the relatives we hadn't spoken to in years. The unity, how every one was suddenly united again, in the a the footage "plastered all over the screen" i saw civilian men and women helping the injured. Sure, we have the ignorant, who suddenly suspected every middle eastern looking person, of being a terrorist. I'd like to think we've learned since then. I have, my mother has and i personally know lots more that have. As for us " lashing out in our unfocused rage" i, like the majority of Americans, was proud of the message we sent, as a nation. Given that some the "extracurricular activities" of the men in charge may have been unnecessary, i felt safe, we felt safe. Desensitized? No. Safe. What happened that day will never happen again, because of what we remember.
Genavieve Morales says:
so yeah never forget…… hmmmph!!!
cromartie says:
The unity, how every one was suddenly united again
Probably the biggest myth of the whole thing. This country is never united on anything. Overwhelming majority? Occasionally a single transcendent event can cause this. Everyone united? I don't think so. Bush was an idiot before 9/11, and he was an idiot after 9/11. People never stopped disagreeing on that and never stopped arguing with each other about the issues. The fact that a tragedy caused however indirectly through our imperialism and the reaction to it caused almost everyone to agree that it was awful doesn't constitute "unity".
Major Kong says:
Bush was an idiot, but I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt after 9/11.
That is – right up until his State of the Union speech in January 2002 when he trotted out the "Axis of Evil".
I interpreted that as "We're going to use 9/11 as an excuse to go after every country that we don't like, which is what we wanted to do anyway."
That's when I knew things were going to get really ugly.
bb in GA says:
@Major Kong
Hypothetical…President Algore and the whole Bush octoyears never happened….
Do you think Iran (and maybe even Iraq) would have continued in their efforts to obtain nukes to go after the Little Satan (Israel) and eventually the Great Satan (U.S.A.)?
I kinda think they would. If the Iranian Demon is reflecting the Mullahs thinking, they don't really care about retaliation.
//bb
Major Kong says:
I can't really say what the outcome of a Gore administration re Iran would have been.
I doubt it could have been worse than the Cheney "Let's try pouring gasoline on the fire" approach to foreign policy.
We also probably wouldn't have removed the single largest counterweight to Iranian influence in the region (Iraq) from the equation.
That being said, the Iranian leadership has shown no indication of being suicidal. Nobody wants to be dictator of a large smoldering crater.
It's the same thing we were told in the early 1960s – "The Chinese can't be deterred! They don't care about human life like we do!"
And likewise in the late 1940s – "The Soviets can't be deterred! Losing 20 million people didn't bother them!"
I'm to believe that they're such a ruthless, determined foe that they will attack in the face of guaranteed total annihilation, yet they will meekly sit on their hands and not retaliate if we were to attack them first.
Somehow they're a grave threat and a pushover at the same time (just like Iraq).
bb in GA says:
Major:
The wild card in this appears to be the Twelver movement in Iran (for which the Ach man is a big promoter) Back when the revolution was young, ol' Khameini had those Twelvers arrested because he thought they were crazy. These modern Mullahs obviously assent.
Unless this is all a big disinfo plot by us Rwinger CIA types, it is on this basis I find the Iranians to be that "can't be deterred" bunch. The chaos that they would stir up by turning most everything and everybody they could into hot nuke junk (especially them Jews) is supposed to bring back the 12th Imam for Muslim dominance of the world for Allah.
I believe your historical analysis is correct for those other situations. So, am I being tricked into being ready for Freddy Krueger Achman…?
//bb
Major Kong says:
Actually I find the possibility of a fundamentalist "end timer" with access to a nuclear arsenal highly disturbing.
But enough about a possible Perry or Bachmann administration.
Worth says:
What are we supposed to never forget?
Is it that people died? No. Is it that innocent civilians lost their lives for a cause they knew absolutely nothing about? Maybe. Is it the fact that we cannot take an attack on our soil so lightly, and ignore it, and risk another? Possibly. Unfortunately, there are people out there who want to hurt us. For crimes we don’t realize have been committed. These people live by the sword, and die by the sword. Their belief, this person is dying as a soldier of his God. What higher calling is there? Well, that's the thinking behind our enemy. The radical Islamist. Not all want to kill us, but at the same time, their teachings say, in the most basic sense, convert or kill. If your neighbor will not convert, kill them. They don’t believe the same way as you or I. The Koran, some say doesn’t preach hatred, but it preaches a philosophy, and every later entry supersedes older entries, and if the author was having a bad day, everyone is damned, even for the good that they do. What am I saying? Maybe I got off topic. We need to remember, No matter who you voted for, no matter who your choice for president or senator down to your local judge. You do not believe as they do, you must pay the price. Convenient huh? If, and when, and there will be a when, you can count on it, they wont stop, and ask you who you voted for, if you like them, if you felt any leaders were idiots, and they wont stop to say, do you have children, to spare your life if you do, they will ask you so that they can kill those non believers as well. Now, some of you will say my view is cynical, or that wont happen. Well, learn from history, the actions of the past,
the lessons that history has taught us. They have been at war for thousands of years. And, as they gain power, we will be at war with them. The Koran teaches to use any tactics to convert or kill your enemy, even friendship. They were almost wiped from existence, once before. Every man, woman and child was a target, for their beliefs. But, people were out of town trading, came home, discovered the town destroyed, and went elsewhere and took their beliefs with them. And now, have we learned from the past? 6000 years later? Will history take a turn, and repeat itself? Or will they be the victors, and write the page of our defeat?
eau says:
And the teal deer ran free through a field of commas…
bb in GA says:
I wish you Lefties would study up on Christianity a lil' bit.
Fundamentalist in Christian circles means something historic and specific in the US Church, in particular, and has nothing to do with violence. Islamo-fundamentalism has come to mean a Koranic literalist 'convert or die' practice by a subset of Muslims.
The two are not conflatable in an intellectually honest conversation.
//bb
Major Kong says:
Tell ya what bb. Spend a week watching John Hagee and tell me that what he's spouting is any less crazy than the "12th Imam".
And then ponder that any serious contender for the GOP nomination has to vet their Middle East policy through Hagee and others like him.
Of course, you'll likely say that he's "No true Scotsman"…..
JazzBumpa says:
My simple minded reaction is that we were wallowing in 9/11-itis.
http://jazzbumpa.blogspot.com/2011/09/september-11-thoughts.html
Acer's Clydsdale link is a typical illustration.
That was as deep as I could take it.
Ed has thought it through quite well. Good job, sir!
Cheers!
JzB
bb in GA says:
MK:
With the name Hagee it is possible he is a true Scotsman :-)
No I would not drum Hagee out of the corps.
And while I might not agree with his eschatology chap and verse (while you find it crazy) it is not inherently a call for violence a la the Twelvers.
That was my point – the reason why the Iranians might fall into the "can't be deterred" class is that they (Twelvers) earnestly desire war and chaos to bring back their Holy Guy.
If you think that sticking by our traditional ally Israel in the M.E. is the effective equivalent to the Twelvers, so be it.
//bb
Arslan says:
Jesus, Worth, I haven't seen such a large truckload of ignorance in a long time. That really takes the cake. Here's a tip, paragraph breaks are your friend. Next tip, Google "Muslims against terrorism."
Mike says:
Bravo! This is an example of why I continue to come to this site.
@ Worth: I have news for you, the HISTORY of evangelical America is awash in the blood of those they took to be either A) inferior by birth and/or non-converted culture – see Blacks, American Indians and/or Catholics, Jews (And now Gay People), or B) stood in the way of the expansion of America, given to us (read white, protestant people) by god for us to do with what we please.
May I recommend "America Aflame" for some very objective history on America and the evangelical movement in this country.
Bernard says:
wow such ignorance and jingoism. now i know what 9-11 is supposed to mean.
amazing. absolutely amazing, such boundless depths of ignorance and willfulness. like a child who pushes another child into traffic… cause, just cause he can.
frightening too. all too familiar though. history should be mandatory in school., like thinking or reading or writing. even school itself, but that would be counter productive to The American Way.
as someone said, " A mind is a terrible thing…" to put your hat upon.
wow. what an education. to see such written, frightens the daylights out of me. i don't fear the Other. I fear US!!!!
Bernard says:
the evil that is religion. i can only speak for Christianity, though. being raised in Sharia Christianity, American Protestantism, that is. Frightening. Frankenstein pretty much describes it. Being an "outsider" inside the Church of Righteousness. that old curse, called thinking, does a body/mind horrible things when it comes to "Obedience to Authority." Really fukks with the mind.
guess getting rid of the "Other" really is a "protection" racket in one sense.
all the good intentions and all that.
Being from the South teaches a lot that Northerners/Others can never grasp. God Guns and Gays. the Southern Strategy. Salvation through Onward Christian Soldiers and their kin, like the Monopoly "get out of Jail" card, using God/Religion. Chosen people. for sure
America deserves more than it could ever get in payback. we are truly lucky, blessed as the Religious say, that we don't get more "blowback" for all the "gifts" we have visited upon the rest of the World.
but i gather we are going to "ask" for more, for our "share," especially with the present leaders' mindset of the last 40 years. be careful what you ask for, you just may get it, my father always said.
Jado says:
9/11 gave us a moment of rage that we are still working thru.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120711/quotes?qt=qt0344440
I wonder when (or if) we will realize that we are killing our own souls? Or if it will make a difference when we do?
worldclock says:
ginandtacos.com » Blog Archive » NEVER FORGET – just great!