9/11 and such
Sep. 11th, 2006 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bjarvisCall it 9/11 fatigue. I'm so sick of hearing how tragic the attacks were.
As though no other country ever suffered a terrorist attack before. As though none suffered one since.
As though the US --and many other western nations-- never did anything which could possibly incur enmity from anyone else on the planet.
As though we're supposed to express our unbearable sadness & anger every hour of every day since 9/11/01. As though those who don't aren't human beings in either a moral or legal sense.
As though the 3,000 deaths of 9/11/01 justify 40,000+ deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq and the use of torture.
When the attacks occurred, I wasn't among the people who hid in the dark sobbing "Why do they hate us so much?" Nor was I among the simple-minded who declared "They hate our freedoms!" It never occurred to me to ask why there was an attack: it seemed to me that anyone who read almost any daily newspaper published since 1945 should be able to produce an extensive checklist of people with grievances against the US or the west in general. My only questions were "who initiated this one?" and "who will initiate the next?"
Yes, the deaths of innocent people was a tragedy. My sense of outrage however is tempered by knowledge that death has been visited upon vastly larger numbers of equally innocent people both before and since. My sadness is overwhelmed by my burning disgust at certain politicians who seek to exploit public anger & fear for their own benefit, promoting ancient hatreds and unfounded prejudices to help their next election cycle.
Not a single person responsible for the most egregious failure of US security in this generation has lost their job, yet somehow everyone else is required to surrender constitutional rights, due process and personal liberties. If we don't accept torture, if we don't accept a network of secret prisons, if we don't accept unconstrained wiretapping of communications, if we don't accept clamp-downs on freedom of speech, the terrorists win.
I'm saddened about the events of 9/11, but I'm tired of the attacks being used as a crass cover by which others camoflage their incompetence and pad their bank accounts. I will not be manipulated into guilt, anger or mindlessness by insincere right-wingers any more than I will let myself succumb to lunatic conspiracy theorists. I will not let myself be used as yet another prop in which a tragic event is reduced to a hollow Hallmark card moment.
As though no other country ever suffered a terrorist attack before. As though none suffered one since.
As though the US --and many other western nations-- never did anything which could possibly incur enmity from anyone else on the planet.
As though we're supposed to express our unbearable sadness & anger every hour of every day since 9/11/01. As though those who don't aren't human beings in either a moral or legal sense.
As though the 3,000 deaths of 9/11/01 justify 40,000+ deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq and the use of torture.
When the attacks occurred, I wasn't among the people who hid in the dark sobbing "Why do they hate us so much?" Nor was I among the simple-minded who declared "They hate our freedoms!" It never occurred to me to ask why there was an attack: it seemed to me that anyone who read almost any daily newspaper published since 1945 should be able to produce an extensive checklist of people with grievances against the US or the west in general. My only questions were "who initiated this one?" and "who will initiate the next?"
Yes, the deaths of innocent people was a tragedy. My sense of outrage however is tempered by knowledge that death has been visited upon vastly larger numbers of equally innocent people both before and since. My sadness is overwhelmed by my burning disgust at certain politicians who seek to exploit public anger & fear for their own benefit, promoting ancient hatreds and unfounded prejudices to help their next election cycle.
Not a single person responsible for the most egregious failure of US security in this generation has lost their job, yet somehow everyone else is required to surrender constitutional rights, due process and personal liberties. If we don't accept torture, if we don't accept a network of secret prisons, if we don't accept unconstrained wiretapping of communications, if we don't accept clamp-downs on freedom of speech, the terrorists win.
I'm saddened about the events of 9/11, but I'm tired of the attacks being used as a crass cover by which others camoflage their incompetence and pad their bank accounts. I will not be manipulated into guilt, anger or mindlessness by insincere right-wingers any more than I will let myself succumb to lunatic conspiracy theorists. I will not let myself be used as yet another prop in which a tragic event is reduced to a hollow Hallmark card moment.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 05:29 pm (UTC)