U.S. deserved 9/11

[Valley Oak]

For decades, the U.S. has committed countless acts of mass murder overseas, toppling many democratic governments (e.g. Chile, 1973) and replacing them with bloody military dictatorships, and torture (even to this day), etc.

9/11 was way overdue and way too lenient on America. We should consider ourselves very fortunate. We have gotten off with less than a slap on the wrist.

Edward

[Mike Peterson]

A bit on the harsh side but I see what you're saying.

Mike



For decades, the U.S. has committed countless acts of mass murder overseas, toppling many democratic governments (e.g. Chile, 1973) and replacing them with bloody military dictatorships, and torture (even to this day), etc.

9/11 was way overdue and way too lenient on America. We should consider ourselves very fortunate. We have gotten off with less than a slap on the wrist.

Edward

[Dixon]

For decades, the U.S. has committed countless acts of mass murder overseas, toppling many democratic governments (e.g. Chile, 1973) and replacing them with bloody military dictatorships, and torture (even to this day), etc.

9/11 was way overdue and way too lenient on America. We should consider ourselves very fortunate. We have gotten off with less than a slap on the wrist.

Edward

Apropos of this issue and of the impending anniversary of 9-11, I have just posted my poem Mammon's Champion, which I wrote in 2001-2002, in the Poetry and Prose section here on WaccoBB. Check it out.

Dixon

[Mike Peterson]

Dixon, I'm interested in reading your poem but could you please provide a link to its exact location?

Thanks,

Mike



Apropos of this issue and of the impending anniversary of 9-11, I have just posted my poem Mammon's Champion, which I wrote in 2001-2002, in the Poetry and Prose section here on WaccoBB. Check it out.

Dixon

[RichT]

Apropos of this issue and of the impending anniversary of 9-11, I have just posted my poem Mammon's Champion, which I wrote in 2001-2002, in the Poetry and Prose section here on WaccoBB. Check it out.

Dixon
Very appropriate indeed. And well stated. Thanks.

Spreading Our "democracy" by force where it is unwanted is tyranny. Calling it another name does not make it anything less.

[Sonomamark]

Edward, you could not be more wrong. I am completely offended that someone who claims to be a progressive could even THINK this.

Think about what you're saying here: that two wrongs make a right. That the innocent victims of the attacks somehow deserved to "pay" for actions they had nothing to do with planning, and had no choice but to help to fund, through their taxes.

By saying this, you say that Armenians should kill Turks. Jews should kill Germans. Israelis should kill Palestinians, and vice versa. Irish Catholics should kill Irish Protestants. Native Americans should kill everybody they see until there's no one left but themselves in the Western Hemisphere.

What the hell kind of world is THAT?

Yes, the US has had shitty foreign policy on a variety of fronts for a long time (not UNIVERSALLY shitty, let me specify--we've done a lot of good things, too). Yes, I oppose such policies.

But your eye-for-an-eye proposal misses the point that those who "pay" aren't the guilty ones, and such "payment" just ratchets up the cycle of violence. Idiot George could never have gotten away with the Iraq War if he hadn't had the excuse of the 9/11/01 attacks. So 4,000-odd US kids (mostly poor, mostly dark-skinned) and tens of thousands of Iraqis have "paid" because of our pursuing the very model you propose: tit for tat.

I think you write this because you like to provoke. I don't think you even believe it yourself. But talking this way is just dangerous. It tarnishes everyone who posts here. It demeans the very nature of political discourse.

At root, it's hate speech. Self-hate speech. It doesn't belong here, and you should retract it.


Mark


For decades, the U.S. has committed countless acts of mass murder overseas, toppling many democratic governments (e.g. Chile, 1973) and replacing them with bloody military dictatorships, and torture (even to this day), etc.

9/11 was way overdue and way too lenient on America. We should consider ourselves very fortunate. We have gotten off with less than a slap on the wrist.

Edward

[Dixon]

Dixon, I'm interested in reading your poem but could you please provide a link to its exact location?

Thanks for your interest. It's at:

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?t=41679

Critical comment is always welcome; it helps me hone my craft.

Thanks;
Dixon

[RichT]

Edward, you could not be more wrong. I am completely offended that someone who claims to be a progressive could even THINK this.

But your eye-for-an-eye proposal misses the point that those who "pay" aren't the guilty ones, and such "payment" just ratchets up the cycle of violence. Idiot George could never have gotten away with the Iraq War if he hadn't had the excuse of the 9/11/01 attacks. So 4,000-odd US kids (mostly poor, mostly dark-skinned) and tens of thousands of Iraqis have "paid" because of our pursuing the very model you propose: tit for tat.

At root, it's hate speech. Self-hate speech. It doesn't belong here, and you should retract it.

Mark

Mark,

I think you are off base here. We have gotten off lightly. The Saudi dictatorship is ranked as one of the worst in the world. They are supported by our government and by our money spent buying oil from them. Their repressed citizens have no other recourse than to support Al Queida and Osama bin Laden. The Bush family has very strong ties to the Saudi royal family and Emperor Bush gets much of his backing through financing tied to them. That our population by and large supports the policies surrounding oil and exploitation in the Middle East means that we are all complicite in those actions.

When the U.S. attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan for sheltering Osama, the world felt we were justified. That many of the citizens there are now saying that the return of the Taliban would be preferable to our presence speaks volumes about our lack of proper support or financing to ensure a safe and stable government and supporting infratructure. Very similar to how we failed to rebuild the country once we attained our goal of driving out the U.S.S.R.

The invasion, occupation and resulting genocide in Iraq is just another chapter in the U.S. Imperliasm in the Middle East.

Rich

[Braggi]

... The invasion, occupation and resulting genocide in Iraq is just another chapter in the U.S. Imperliasm in the Middle East.

While I agree with you Rich, I also agree with Mark. Even if the 9/11 attackers had gotten to the real criminals in all this, it still wouldn't have been justified. It was wrong. It was just plain wrong.

-Jeff

[RichT]

While I agree with you Rich, I also agree with Mark. Even if the 9/11 attackers had gotten to the real criminals in all this, it still wouldn't have been justified. It was wrong. It was just plain wrong.

-Jeff
I'm just trying to look at things from their perspective. With all of the power that the U.S. has, if we wish to truly be the peacekeepers and watchdogs of the world, we need to understand how others view things and act accordingly. It seems we are immersed in this ideology of our way is best and should be openly embraced by the rest of the world. We fail to understand the resentment that follows when we act on this belief after neglecting to account for other cultures and their ideals and ideologies.

It's an awful lot like religion, I think.

[Braggi]

I'm just trying to look at things from their perspective. With all of the power that the U.S. has, if we wish to truly be the peacekeepers and watchdogs of the world, we need to understand how others view things and act accordingly. ...

I think you and I both know the US govt. has no intention of being watchdog or peacekeeper. Well, maybe watchdog. We want to foment discontent and war among other nations so we have customers to buy our war toys.


... It seems we are immersed in this ideology of our way is best and should be openly embraced by the rest of the world. ...

Well ... as long as that ideology means we're making the world safe for McDonald's, Starbuck's, Wall Mart, Chevron, Texaco etc. I'll agree with you. But it goes way beyond our exportation of Madonna and Mickey Mouse. This is about freedom for women which patriarchal dominator cultures try to keep a very tight handle on. In our "Western" culture we continue to make little positive strides while still acting like a patriarchal bully to other nations. However, we have birth control, education for women, and the potential to have women for political and religious leaders. That pisses those other folks off more than anything.

And then there's this financial issue. The fact that the oil exporting nations are sitting on trillions in US bucks that are rapidly dropping in value makes them irate!

It's hard to know which of our crimes are the worst to "those people" and it's hard to know what really is the reason the 9/11 attacks occurred. It's also hard to know if the Bush misadministration called those attacks into being, through action or inaction, as a sort of Reichstag fire, Pearl Harbor (in the terms of the PNAC crowd), the Gulf of Tonkin incident, etc., etc..

The US has so often manipulated an event into a cause for war it's pretty easy for this cynical mind to go there.

None of that justifies the attacks. They were crude, cowardly, brutal and achieved no positive goal.

I think it was just about getting "The Wars" started that will burn until the end. The Norse called it Ragnarok, I think we're well into that war. I also think it's time for the "Heros" to stand up and be counted.

Everyone against these wars raise your mouse.

-Jeff

[podfish]

I think you and I both know the US govt. has no intention of being watchdog or peacekeeper. Well, maybe watchdog. We want to foment discontent and war among other nations so we have customers to buy our war toys.



Well ... as long as that ideology means we're making the world safe for McDonald's, Starbuck's, Wall Mart, Chevron, Texaco etc. I'll agree with you. But it goes way beyond our exportation of Madonna and Mickey Mouse. This is about freedom for women which patriarchal dominator cultures try to keep a very tight handle on. In our "Western" culture we continue to make little positive strides while still acting like a patriarchal bully to other nations. However, we have birth control, education for women, and the potential to have women for political and religious leaders. That pisses those other folks off more than anything.
<......>

-Jeff

I always have wondered about that; oddly, it's usually a claim made by the right-wing, not progressives. Does it really "piss those other folks off"? I bet not. In my experience the way people treat 'their own' - people of their own culture, rather than outsiders - is where such prejudices come into play. Distinctions of race/culture aren't always applied when you already qualify as an outsider. So I don't buy into the arguments that enemies are created by culture clashes; I think it's much more likely that the economic and geopolitical explanations are accurate.

[Braggi]

... So I don't buy into the arguments that enemies are created by culture clashes; I think it's much more likely that the economic and geopolitical explanations are accurate.

Generally speaking, I agree with you. However, if an arrogant dominator culture that sees its way as best or even "the One Way" attempts to press its values upon another culture, and say, threatens war or economic sanctions unless "human rights" are instituted (and of course, one culture's human rights is another culture's heresy). This kind of cultural pressure is brought on by forces on the left as well as the more strident right wing type we can all imagine.

As far as who is an enemy to whom, I think most of the "people" of the world would do fine with most of the other people of the world if the governments would get out of the way.

-Jeff

[mymindsok]

For decades, the U.S. has committed countless acts of mass murder overseas, toppling many democratic governments (e.g. Chile, 1973) and replacing them with bloody military dictatorships, and torture (even to this day), etc.

9/11 was way overdue and way too lenient on America. We should consider ourselves very fortunate. We have gotten off with less than a slap on the wrist.

Edward

Well...

Prehaps a terrorist attack was bound to happen within the US sooner or later but having sat in my kitchen in New Jersey watching several of my aquaintances die where I was supposed to be that day, my perspective on the subject is a bit different.

The New Yorkers who lost thier lives in that holocaust, no more deserved to 'pay the price' than the villagers in Iraq and Afqanistan deserve or deserved to die in our governments bombing attacks.

If your mother, father, sister, brother or friends had died in the 9/11 attacks, do you really think that you'd be on a public forum spouting this cynical political jargon?

I doubt it, I don't want to hear it and I think that you might want to spend a day or two meditating on what you've said and the effect that your words have on other people.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Never did, never will.

That said, I'll go calm down, before I tell you what I really think.

Mymindsok

[podfish]

Well...

Prehaps a terrorist attack was bound to happen within the US sooner or later but having sat in my kitchen in New Jersey watching several of my aquaintances die where I was supposed to be that day, my perspective on the subject is a bit different.

The New Yorkers who lost thier lives in that holocaust, no more deserved to 'pay the price' than the villagers in Iraq and Afqanistan deserve or deserved to die in our governments bombing attacks.

If your mother, father, sister, brother or friends had died in the 9/11 attacks, do you really think that you'd be on a public forum spouting this cynical political jargon?

I doubt it, I don't want to hear it and I think that you might want to spend a day or two meditating on what you've said and the effect that your words have on other people.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Never did, never will.

That said, I'll go calm down, before I tell you what I really think.

Mymindsok

Absolutely right. It's important to be really careful with language when presenting this kind of argument. I would hope Valley Oak doesn't mean 'we deserved' it literally, meaning any US citizen serves as legitimate surrogate for retribution. It's hard enough for many people to get to the point where they'll consider whether or not the US has acted in illegal or immoral ways - especially when the way it's presented makes them feel like they need to choose to be on the attackers' side or the defenders' side. It shouldn't be that way. You can make the case that the US has acted in ways that attract that kind of response without slipping into moral judgements if that's what you mean. It's better to encourage people to question and challenge these actions taken in their names than it is to imply their complicity and guilt by association.

[Valley Oak]

I would gladly trade you, your family, friends, acquaintances, and the other 3,000 from those two towers for the 30,000 murdered in Chile as a result of the US government's admitted involvement in the coup of '73.

That said, you can go straight to that hot place below where you and the rest belong.

Edward



Well...

Prehaps a terrorist attack was bound to happen within the US sooner or later but having sat in my kitchen in New Jersey watching several of my aquaintances die where I was supposed to be that day, my perspective on the subject is a bit different.

The New Yorkers who lost thier lives in that holocaust, no more deserved to 'pay the price' than the villagers in Iraq and Afqanistan deserve or deserved to die in our governments bombing attacks.

If your mother, father, sister, brother or friends had died in the 9/11 attacks, do you really think that you'd be on a public forum spouting this cynical political jargon?

I doubt it, I don't want to hear it and I think that you might want to spend a day or two meditating on what you've said and the effect that your words have on other people.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Never did, never will.

That said, I'll go calm down, before I tell you what I really think.

Mymindsok

[mymindsok]

I would gladly trade you, your family, friends, acquaintances, and the other 3,000 from those two towers for the 30,000 murdered in Chile as a result of the US government's admitted involvement in the coup of '73.

That said, you can go straight to that hot place below where you and the rest belong.

Edward

Youre completely out of your mind and you will be ignored.

Adios :thumbsup:

Mymindsok

[Mike Peterson]

People in the states don't want to hear about such things as the genocide of 30,000 people in Chile. It's too real for their sanitized characters, and much less to accept responsibility for it. They will either call you a kook or invent political apologies, such as "mymindsok" and others who list charlatan ideals to justify their counter-reasoning. A statement of this kind is too harsh and much too real for an American to comprehend. {good} Americans are conditioned to exist in an illusion without benefit of real intelligent discourse. A very deep dark karma vault is securely within their history.

The coup in Chile in 1973 is the kind of power play that has been going on for millenniums so it's nothing really surprising. The whole moral system was built up to regulate human society but nature and history have their own rules and we collectively follow these rules, willingly or unwillingly.

Mike



Youre completely out of your mind and you will be ignored.

Adios :thumbsup:

Mymindsok

[podfish]

Youre completely out of your mind and you will be ignored.

Adios :thumbsup:

Mymindsok

wow. He sure is. That's a pretty messed up perspective - totally losing the reality that people can't be reduced to numbers. Morality isn't quantitative - an evil done to an individual isn't 100 times worse when it's done to 100 people and the reverse is just as true.
There's a Philosophy101 question: would you push a person off a bridge into the path of an out-of-control truck to prevent it from hitting a group of a dozen equally-innocent bystanders. Maybe it's a good intellectual exercise, but it doesn't extend well to politics.

[Mike Peterson]

Podfish, you are devolving into psychobabble and charlatan arguments.

Fact is that US citizens are incapable of accepting their responsibility for 30,000 dead people that the government they elected had a direct hand in. This is not to mention the majority of American voters who supported this genocide at the time it happened because they were "fighting Communists" during the Cold War. There were US operatives in Chile carrying out torture and murder, such as Michael Vernon Townley (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Townley).

Don't twist things around. You, like most people in this country, are in a state of denial.

Remember something crucial, you cannot be forgiven until you recognize what you have done wrong and apologized for it. That's part of what "Truth and Reconciliation" was about in South Africa.

Mike


wow. He sure is. That's a pretty messed up perspective - totally losing the reality that people can't be reduced to numbers. Morality isn't quantitative - an evil done to an individual isn't 100 times worse when it's done to 100 people and the reverse is just as true.
There's a Philosophy101 question: would you push a person off a bridge into the path of an out-of-control truck to prevent it from hitting a group of a dozen equally-innocent bystanders. Maybe it's a good intellectual exercise, but it doesn't extend well to politics.

[podfish]

Podfish, you are devolving into psychobabble and charlatan arguments.

Fact is that US citizens are incapable of accepting their responsibility for 30,000 dead people that the government they elected had a direct hand in. This is not to mention the majority of American voters who supported this genocide at the time it happened because they were "fighting Communists" during the Cold War. There were US operatives in Chile carrying out torture and murder, such as Michael Vernon Townley (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Townley).

Don't twist things around. You, like most people in this country, are in a state of denial.

Remember something crucial, you cannot be forgiven until you recognize what you have done wrong and apologized for it. That's part of what "Truth and Reconciliation" was about in South Africa.

Mike

there's a bit of truth to that - you're right, there's some responsibility on the citizens' part for government actions. But you take it on yourself to make pretty wild leaps of judgement - how the hell do you know what state I'm in, or for that matter, what state "most people" are in - and Edward's acceptance, or even desire, for retribution on is particularly wrongheaded.
I get really sick of arguments that are based on dismissing or diminishing other people's perspectives. I hear it from all over - the right-wing radio's a caricature of the problem, but it's really common. Somehow the world's full of people who don't think right, either by willful or congenital ignorance. They're unwilling to see the flaws in themselves or their logic, usually because they have little spiritual or intellectual awareness (which one depends on the particular point being advocated). But it's a bullshit perspective. I've met few deep thinkers who deserve to be so dismissive of the majority.
I don't mean to take the other perspective, though - I certainly would have a lot of trouble arguing for the wisdom of the masses - but I find it a lazy and unhelpful tack to take. And I -really- find this eagerness that somehow our country and the people in it suffer more for their failures (not that I see that in your post, Mike) to be stupid and self-defeating. If you want a more enlightened population, eager to support efforts that improve the world, that's not the way to go about it.

[theindependenteye]

>>For decades, the U.S. has committed countless acts of mass murder overseas, toppling many democratic governments (e.g. Chile, 1973) and replacing them with bloody military dictatorships, and torture (even to this day), etc.

I have no argument against the proposition that US foreign policy has often been vile; nor that terrorism is terrorism whether executed with plastic explosives or the Pentagon budget; nor that if I pay taxes so as not to get in deep shit with the feds I bear some of the karma of my government's actions, no matter how I voted or what a nice guy I am.

That said, though... If you believe that those 3,000 people are "the U.S." and deserved killing, then it seems to me you'd have to justify the deaths of the tens of thousands killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki (or even more killed in the firebombings of Tokyo, Dresden, and many other cities, on the basis that Japan and Germany got what they deserved. Why not go on to say that the German citizens who died in Nazi concentration camps got what they deserved for being citizens of a nation that elected Hitler?

For me, the "collective guilt" thing is just the flip side of jingoism: seeing the nation-state as the true, living entity and its individual citizens just as cells in that collective soul.

Peace & joy—
Conrad

[Mike Peterson]

Conrad,<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
Edwin stated that America as a country deserved it for the ugly actions we've made. Not that the innocents deserved death. The people who paid the price didn't deserve it. Undeserving people paid the price for our unethical foreign policy and his post doesn’t say otherwise.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> It was our foreign policy that contributed to the attacks, this is what Edwin asserted. Did the people that died deserve to die? Of course not. Did our foreign policy contribute to the attack? Yes. The people who died didn't deserve to die, but U.S. foreign policy is partly to blame.

Mike



>>For decades, the U.S. has committed countless acts of mass murder overseas, toppling many democratic governments (e.g. Chile, 1973) and replacing them with bloody military dictatorships, and torture (even to this day), etc.

I have no argument against the proposition that US foreign policy has often been vile; nor that terrorism is terrorism whether executed with plastic explosives or the Pentagon budget; nor that if I pay taxes so as not to get in deep shit with the feds I bear some of the karma of my government's actions, no matter how I voted or what a nice guy I am.

That said, though... If you believe that those 3,000 people are "the U.S." and deserved killing, then it seems to me you'd have to justify the deaths of the tens of thousands killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki (or even more killed in the firebombings of Tokyo, Dresden, and many other cities, on the basis that Japan and Germany got what they deserved. Why not go on to say that the German citizens who died in Nazi concentration camps got what they deserved for being citizens of a nation that elected Hitler?

For me, the "collective guilt" thing is just the flip side of jingoism: seeing the nation-state as the true, living entity and its individual citizens just as cells in that collective soul.

Peace & joy—
Conrad

[theindependenteye]

>Edwin stated that America as a country deserved it for the ugly actions we've made. Not that the innocents deserved death.
>The people who died didn't deserve to die, but U.S. foreign policy is partly to blame.


I have no quarrel with the final sentence. That's obvious, it's been said many times, it freaks out the right wing while it's a truism for the left.

But the headline of this thread, and Edward's "go to hell" response to the man who lost a friend — "I would gladly trade you, your family, friends, acquaintances, and the other 3,000 from those two towers for the 30,000 murdered in Chile as a result of the US government's admitted involvement in the coup of '73'" prompted my response.

What does "America deserved it" mean? Nothing whatever. What does "trade the 3,000 for the 30,000" mean? Nothing whatever. It's a rhetorical structure. "America" is a vast set of systems and infrastructures with vast emotional resonance as a symbol, but IT doesn't feel a thing.

Indeed, you could argue that the action of the hijackers punished America in terms of reelecting Bush, fomenting vast security measures, inciting two major wars taking the country toward the brink of economic collapse with the potential of destroying the lives of the millions who hate & despise & fight against our foreign policy atrocities as well as those who implement them. So in a sense "America" is being punished, meaning all of us except the people raking in the money.

I'm sorry to say that I don't believe this punishment will have any deterrent effect. I think it'll all get worse, and it's my kids and Edward's who'll feel the impact of the punishment, not "America."

-Conrad

[Valley Oak]

Conrad,

Maybe no one deserves any of this terrorist crap? Have you thought about that? I'm sure you have and I'm sure that you agree the answer is 'NO!' Regardless of who (U.S. or anyone else) perpetrates it? Maybe people don't deserve to be murdered for flawed egotistical misinformed human judgment? (E.g. our government. But who put those governments in power?). A lot of innocent people died in the WTC just like a lot of innocent people died in Iraq, Vietnam, Latin America, etc.

These aren't the people that make the big policy decisions that mess with other countries. Maybe a few are, but a lot more people are dying for someone else's doing. What the hell does a man made border have to do with whether someone should die or not? (This is in reference to your statement about ‘vast set of systems and infrastructures with vast emotional resonance as a symbol’).<o:p></o:p>
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p>
Then perhaps 'Deserved' is not the word I should use. But it should have been 'expected' that something like 9/11 could happen to us. (But we are surrounded by two oceans and were used to not being affected by events ‘over there’ and the consequences of our bloody foreign policy.) But now the US can suffer ‘blowback’ from its actions and suffer right here at home. We no longer have our traditional luxury of being geographically remote. America has perpetrated far worse tragedies on the world than 9/11 and it was foolish to think that we would not pay a price for them.

Sow the wind; reap the whirlwind.<o:p></o:p>
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p>
We Americans (US citizens), and our government leaders, must do a lot of ‘soul searching’ over our crimes against humanity. We need a shit load more of self-criticism. It’s grossly unfair to focus only on how wrong 9/11 was and not think about why it happened to us. It’s as blind as Bush and the rest of the right wing saying convoluted crap like, ‘They don’t like our freedom,’ when that has NOTHING to do with why the US was attacked. It’s truly amazing to see how a large group of people (certainly not all US citizens) carry out genocide, imprisonment, and torture, the toppling of democratic government—all this for decades—and then suddenly, when they get a defiant slap in the face from one of their little victims, are dumfounded and clueless as to why it happened.<o:p></o:p>
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p>
Maybe the truth is that Bush and the rest of those criminals know perfectly well why but could not afford to say to the public, ‘My fellow Americans, it was long in the coming; we provoked it.’ That wouldn’t go over very well, much in the same way that it hasn’t gone over very well here on the ‘progressive’ and ‘liberal’ Wacco list. Nope, the truth is a bitter horse pill and no one here in the States can swallow it, left wing or right wing.<o:p></o:p>
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p>
Edward



>Edwin stated that America as a country deserved it for the ugly actions we've made. Not that the innocents deserved death.
>The people who died didn't deserve to die, but U.S. foreign policy is partly to blame.


I have no quarrel with the final sentence. That's obvious, it's been said many times, it freaks out the right wing while it's a truism for the left.

But the headline of this thread, and Edward's "go to hell" response to the man who lost a friend — "I would gladly trade you, your family, friends, acquaintances, and the other 3,000 from those two towers for the 30,000 murdered in Chile as a result of the US government's admitted involvement in the coup of '73'" prompted my response.

What does "America deserved it" mean? Nothing whatever. What does "trade the 3,000 for the 30,000" mean? Nothing whatever. It's a rhetorical structure. "America" is a vast set of systems and infrastructures with vast emotional resonance as a symbol, but IT doesn't feel a thing.

Indeed, you could argue that the action of the hijackers punished America in terms of reelecting Bush, fomenting vast security measures, inciting two major wars taking the country toward the brink of economic collapse with the potential of destroying the lives of the millions who hate & despise & fight against our foreign policy atrocities as well as those who implement them. So in a sense "America" is being punished, meaning all of us except the people raking in the money.

I'm sorry to say that I don't believe this punishment will have any deterrent effect. I think it'll all get worse, and it's my kids and Edward's who'll feel the impact of the punishment, not "America."

-Conrad

[Mike Peterson]

Well stated, Conrad. Nonetheless, you've allowed your emotions to get the better of you. You have given a priority to delivery of the message (and thus "shot" the messenger, in a sense) and not reaped the deeper meaning of the content. This is a common mistake. The most important aspect of this long debate has been overlooked, perhaps because of the way the title was written, as you referred to yourself, and the ensuing emotional dialog.

The deeper question that I get out of this is not how unsavory the original poster has been, because that is more a matter of form than content (the essential idea). US citizens, all of us without exception, must recognize what our country has done: commit an act of genocide against 30,000 human beings like you and me. This is a horrific act that is normally ascribed only to the Nazis. We must acknowledge what our country/government has done, apologize for it, and seek forgiveness and reconciliation (and this may mean a significant amount of restitution, as well).

This is really what this thread is all about. Focusing too much attention on the way the presenter staged the message, or the presenter himself, is a tremendous lost opportunity.

I sincerely hope that you and others reflect on this. After all, what is worse: 30,000 dead people or an incredibly unsavory electronic message on an online bulletin board based in Sonoma County?

Mike



>Edwin stated that America as a country deserved it for the ugly actions we've made. Not that the innocents deserved death.
>The people who died didn't deserve to die, but U.S. foreign policy is partly to blame.


I have no quarrel with the final sentence. That's obvious, it's been said many times, it freaks out the right wing while it's a truism for the left.

But the headline of this thread, and Edward's "go to hell" response to the man who lost a friend — "I would gladly trade you, your family, friends, acquaintances, and the other 3,000 from those two towers for the 30,000 murdered in Chile as a result of the US government's admitted involvement in the coup of '73'" prompted my response.

What does "America deserved it" mean? Nothing whatever. What does "trade the 3,000 for the 30,000" mean? Nothing whatever. It's a rhetorical structure. "America" is a vast set of systems and infrastructures with vast emotional resonance as a symbol, but IT doesn't feel a thing.

Indeed, you could argue that the action of the hijackers punished America in terms of reelecting Bush, fomenting vast security measures, inciting two major wars taking the country toward the brink of economic collapse with the potential of destroying the lives of the millions who hate & despise & fight against our foreign policy atrocities as well as those who implement them. So in a sense "America" is being punished, meaning all of us except the people raking in the money.

I'm sorry to say that I don't believe this punishment will have any deterrent effect. I think it'll all get worse, and it's my kids and Edward's who'll feel the impact of the punishment, not "America."

-Conrad

[theindependenteye]

>>Maybe the truth is that Bush and the rest of those criminals know perfectly well why but could not afford to say to the public, ‘My fellow Americans, it was long in the coming; we provoked it.’ That wouldn’t go over very well, much in the same way that it hasn’t gone over very well here on the ‘progressive’ and ‘liberal’ Wacco list. Nope, the truth is a bitter horse pill and no one here in the States can swallow it, left wing or right wing.<o:p></o:p>
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Dear Edward—

Yes, I think you're right to say, "Then perhaps 'Deserved' is not the word I should use. But it should have been 'expected' that something like 9/11 could happen to us." The responses to your post, and to your telling the guy to go to hell, were about what that headline meant, not whether we were trying to defend or to ignore US foreign policy.

So I agree with everything in your last post except the final sentence. "No one here in the States can swallow" the truth? You do, I do, millions of other people in the States do, though clearly a majority does not. The one beacon in American tradition, I think, is the carrying forth of the Enlightenment urge toward social betterment and the struggle, continuing today, against slavery, racism, labor exploitation, plutocracy, and a thousand other evils. To write off that struggle as meaningless is, in my mind, a backhanded capitulation to all the evils you rightfully condemn, a proclamation of impotence.

That's my view, anyway, and from a personal viewpoint that's otherwise as black as anything you might imagine. Maybe I'm fortunate in having at about the age of 15 come to an understanding of the utter and irredeemable vileness of human behavior — of which the few centuries of US are but a small pimple on the great fat ass of history — so that, in my subsequent decades I'm tremendously delighted at any small evidence to the contrary.

Peace & joy—
Conrad

[theindependenteye]

>>Well stated, Conrad. Nonetheless, you've allowed your emotions to get the better of you. [snip] The most important aspect of this long debate has been overlooked, perhaps because of the way the title was written, as you referred to yourself, and the ensuing emotional dialog. [snip] We must acknowledge what our country/government has done, apologize for it, and seek forgiveness and reconciliation (and this may mean a significant amount of restitution, as well). [snip] After all, what is worse: 30,000 dead people or an incredibly unsavory electronic message on an online bulletin board based in Sonoma County?

Dear Mike—

Edward is a friend of mine, and while I disagree with a lot of what he says, and agree with a lot of it, it wasn't my intention to attack him or to indulge in a semantic quibble that ignored larger issues. For me, a part of that larger issue has to do with the idea of collective guilt, and I tried to point out what I think is a fatal flaw in that notion. After WW2, we at least didn't make the fatal mistake of imposing another Versailles Treaty on Japan & Germany as punishment for collective guilt; the product of that notion was Hitler. I agree that, yes, we ought, as a collective consciousness, to acknowledge & apologize for all those things, but in my opinion it'll never happen in a million years — if we ever, as a nation, achieve that degree of unity of will it'll be under a fascist dictatorship. This war won't end when we achieve a collective consensus about crimes against Iraqis; it'll end when the cost brings the US economy to the brink of collapse, or past the brink.

I'm rambling now, so I'll sign off. As for my emotions, they feel all right to me. Yes, I do feel strongly about some things, but I see pretty much everything as a dialectic.

Peace & joy—
Conrad

[MsTerry]

For me, a part of that larger issue has to do with the idea of collective guilt, and I tried to point out what I think is a fatal flaw in that notion.
Conrad

Yes, collective guilt.
Are we not all responsible for allowing this to happen?
What about the tax payers who are funding everything?
Maybe only the people who work for the federal government should be tried and executed?
Or is it just the POTUS who should be held liable?