Letters to the Editor
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Whoever controls the words controls the world
The problem here, and the letter responders show this, is people fail to see nuance in arguments or beliefs. It is highly possible to believe that US foreign policy aggravated people around the world enough to hate us AND also believe that the attack on 9/11 was horrific and unjustified. Especially since it killed civilians who do not have much power over their government's foreign policy. People in the US do not understand how much power we have in the world and yes people have reason to dislike us.
People here cheered the death of Saddam Hussein and would likely cheer the death of Osama Bin Laden. If they aired this in Muslim countries we would look bad in their eyes. We are all connected. Osama Bin Laden may have reasons to attack us that have nothing to do with our foreign policy but Al Qaeda sure could recruit a ton of people to kill us after the Iraq war. It makes our enemies stronger.
I support Obama and I find it interesting that everyone has ignored the economic populism in his speech. He correctly pointed out that racial, class, gender divisions only serve the corporations who want to distract us while they continue to threaten our livelihoods, exploit our labor, and destroy the planet. This is the real issue. Patriotism is just one big distraction.
The Dems are in a really bad place right now. We need to reframe the whole patriotism issue. I actually think Obama is in a better place to do it than HRC, because he has the intelligence and rhetorical skills to pull it off ... at least enough to win the election. HRC will just try the whole Republicanlite scheme, which didn't work for John Kerry. She just tries to beat them at their game, which is impossible.