Letters to the Editor
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More than we can bear.
To this day, I cannot understand why Americans are so cowered by fear that they allow strong-man politics to dominate. While our own self proclaimed "strong man" Bush spouts fear, his poll numbers rise while he keeps cashing in the blank check. I do hope that after five years of this, Americans have more than they can bear. I sure have!
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Admission
To not reading the article. I'm sick in my gut; I can't read anymore. This whole partisan slugfest has oddly turned into a life-affirming thing to me.
"You wanna fight?" In the fifth grade, I might have answered "yeah". But we're not really in the fifth grade anymore.
Yep, those poor people died on that day. If any of their loved ones can see this: I want you to know; I cannot comprehend your pain. I wish you peace.
I wish us all peace, I don't care anymore WHO delivers it.
Chris Robert
New Hope, PA
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Right on, Joan!
I'd like to see more articles written by you! I am also looking forward to seeing you on Real Time with Bill Maher tonight. Yay!
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I can't read.
I'm sorry. I'm all 9/11'ed out right now. Get back to me in 30 years.
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It was the "world" trade center
Google cannot find it for me tonight, but I have a firm memory from the aftermath that someone said that the citizens of 44 different nations died at ground zero on September 11.
It was, after all, the "world" trade center, and for those few weeks afterwards the world was with us, if only because, for all of our strength, our experience of suffering was so touchingly naieve.
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Uh huh
Not to denigrate anybody's distress in the wake of terrible events, and maybe I'm just a cynical ol' gal, but I was never particularly convinced by the whole Hands-Across-America kissyfest thing. Not for one minute did I believe the Bush administration propoganda that followed the attacks on September 11, 2001. Not for one second have I ever trusted that beady-eyed, giggling cretin that occupies the White House, and nothing he and his cohorts have done since have surprised me in the least. Pissed off and disgusted, yes. But surprised, never.
When all those people around the world chipped in with sympathy and good feelings, I thought it was pretty neat, but my overarching reaction was "Just wait a bit, 'cause we'll manage to fuck up even in the face of all this support." And presto chango, hey we did, and big time. I remember a Buddhist friend of mine reporting back on her trip to India a few months after the attacks, and relating the impatience and disdain coming from folks who were used to those kinds of attacks on a fairly regular basis. Reactions along the lines of When are they going to stop whining? How can Americans sit on their asses and change the channel when people die that way all over the world, yet expect the whole world to cry endlessly for them because it happens ONCE on their soil? Don't they realize how childish and spoiled they're appearing to the rest of us? When she told me about those reactions, was I surprised? Hell, no. I'd have been saying the same thing in their shoes. In our splendid isolation, we really do seem to believe that we are better than everyone else, that we deserve the extraordinary peace and security we've enjoyed here while people in other countries learn to live and function reasonably despite the constant threat of violence, and that when it happens to us, it's somehow more important and more meaningful than it is when it happens in one of those "brown" countries.
And when it did happen, did our supposed representatives make the most of that momentary solidarity and do the right thing? Of course not. They pulled off a underhanded power grab, and five years later we're clinging to the last illusions of freedom we've got - the freedom to spend money on superfluous crap while our government squeezes all the joy out of our lives, setting us at each other's throats in panic. And they can do that because the American PEOPLE have been happy to go along with it, all in the name of the fantasy of "security" which is no security at all. We're not only not "safer", we're in more danger than ever, because a populace made timid and complicit is far more vulnerable than one strong and secure in its own self, regardless of whether there is an outside threat or not.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was right - The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Benjamin Franklin was also right - Those who would surrender essential liberties in exchange for a little temporary safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. The worst threat comes from within us, and I do hope that someday we'll figure that out. But frankly, I doubt it. Methinks the time of America's greatness is past, and we're on the downhill side. *sigh*
Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.
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Well said, Joan
Well said.
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They spoiled it, we let them
I too wasn't particularly surprised that the Right would take advantage. Their hunger for power and prestige knows no bounds. They have shown it nearly every time their noses were exposed to the sun. It's what they do.
It's when those entities that our Founding Fathers vested with countervailing power to fight this tyranny meekly abstain that our republic faces the most peril. And that's why the situation is so bleak.
The very necessary presence, for a democracy at least, of the loyal opposition was lacking. Both our political, civic and business leaders.
But most especially our press. When they weren't currying for favor by distorting the truth by commission (Judith Miller, etc) or ommission (Bob Woodward, etc), they were lazily following the story-of-the-week like slobbering pack dogs. Or they allowed overzelous lawyers silence them, or weighed whether they'd be on someone's invite list if they pursued a story that was true, if confortable to authority.
If you looked hard enough, the truth was out there. But primarily by avoiding the news congomerates or US based services. Millions of people marched in opposition against the Iraq war before it started because most of us knew that WMD, Saddam/bin Laden, were all facitious. But did much - any - of this hit the media? No.
No loyal opposition fought back, no one in a position to make a difference wanted to be called bad names for speaking truth to power. THAT'S why things have gone so badly.
Even now, if the authorities say jump, the media asks meekly, how high.
Authorities say, "we only spy illegally on BAD Americans," and the media gives that serious consideration instead of ripping this to shreds. Authorities say, "No shoes, no nail clippers, and no fluids to fly safely," and the media meekly nods. Authorities say, "Child pornographers are a $20B/yr business and only molesters mind us tracking everything they do online," and the NY Times takes their word at face value. Salon says, "We'll quickly delete any stories that humbly suggest that you quantify these absurd claims justifying watching every keystroke that every one of us does online."
Good job, media! And Salon. And Joan. Good stenography!