Posted on 09/01/2002 12:22:42 PM PDT by GeneD
We will forget. Researchers have long known that the memory of epochal events fades with time. Experts have a name for this phenomenon: flashbulb memory. As time passes, the chronology gets jumbled; we fumble on the details; we reimagine the past to make it more coherent, meaningful, bearable. A new study at the University of Illinois at Chicago of a large, countrywide sample of people is discovering that we have already forgotten some things about Sept. 11. Which tower fell first? Was the Pentagon hit after both World Trade Center towers? We forget. We conflate. We confuse.
But we know, of course, that this kind of memory is not the most important one. Some events solder themselves within our consciousness so intensely that they change forever the way we see the world. The details barely matter. The change itself matters. Your child is killed in a car accident; your mother is diagnosed with breast cancer; your wife is raped. These kinds of events stop your life for a moment; your soul freezes while the rest of the world swivels around you to a new position. Part of you insists, This hasn't happened. Part of you demands, Move on. Most of you knows that neither is an option.
And most of us know that there is no moving on from Sept. 11. It wasn't a random tragedy for which grief is a slow-acting salve. It was a massacre—a premeditated murder of civilians by men possessed by a theocratic ideology. It was an invasion—the violation of sovereign American soil, the erasure of a visible monument to American success and energy and civilization. It was a crime—the filling of the air of a great and free city with the irradiated dust of innocent human lives. It was a statement—that radical Islam intends to attack and destroy the very principles of the Enlightenment that underpin the American experiment—freedom of religion, of conscience, toleration and secularism. The appropriate response to this attack is therefore not grief or remembrance or sadness or reflection, although each of these has its place. The appropriate response is rage.
For whatever else Sept. 11 was, it was a declaration of war. The totalitarian force of radical fundamentalist Islam, like the forces of Nazism and communism that preceded it, has not disappeared. We briefly defanged it in its most important lair in Afghanistan, but even there it has not been extinguished. Saudi Arabia, the chief exporter of this murderous ideology, remains protected by the West. Saddam Hussein is currently laboring to manufacture weapons of mass destruction that his allies in the Islamist terrorist network would dearly love to use on American soil. Suicide bombers have not relented in attempting to destroy the democratic state of Israel. Anti-Semitism, now as in the past the kernel of the totalitarian mind, has metastasized like a cancer throughout the Middle East and back into its ancient home in Europe. Educated men and women who regularly find the slightest fault in democratic Western societies vie with one another to provide glib, desperate rationalizations for the murderers of 9/11: arrogant American global power somehow deserved payback, and those who deliberately kill civilians are allegedly legitimate combatants with worthy grievances.
But through all this, we know what that day showed us. It showed us that we stand deeply vulnerable to a destructive force in some ways more dangerous than even the last two totalitarian powers Americans were called on to defeat. This enemy refuses to fight with honor; it hides and disappears and re-emerges whenever its purposes are served; it may soon have access to weapons that Hitler and Stalin only dreamed of. But it cannot be defeated the way Nazi Germany and Communist Russia were defeated because it is more like a virus than a host, infecting and capturing nation-states, like Afghanistan, and then moving on to others. So we will have to act to pre-empt it this time, in Iraq and elsewhere, or it will be too late to resist it at all. For Sept. 11 showed that, for the first time in history, the American homeland is actually vulnerable to a deadly foreign enemy. Only those in deep denial can forget that.
That's why I think that for all the return to superficial normality, Americans really have changed. The illusion of isolationism has been ripped apart. How can America opt out of the world when the world refuses to leave America alone? The illusion of appeasement has been destroyed. Do we really think that by coddling regimes like Iraq or Syria or Iran or Saudi Arabia, we will help defuse the evil that lurks in their societies? The illusion of American exceptionalism has been shattered. The whole dream of this continent—that it was a place where you could safely leave the old world and its resentments behind—was ended that day. A whole generation will grow up with this as its most formative experience—a whole younger generation that knows that there actually is a right and a wrong, and that neutrality is no longer an option. That generational power has only just begun to transform the culture. In decades' time, we will look back and see what a difference it made.
It can't be defeated but nations like Iraq can still be defeated. And what about the viruses in our country and "allies" like Pakistan? We and they are already infected, but we will ignore that and go defeat some nation that might get infected someday.
On September 11, nineteen ARAB-MUSLIMS hijacked four jetliners in my country. They cut the throats of women in front of children and brutally stabbed to death others. They took control of those planes and crashed them into buildings killing thousands of proud fathers, loving sons, wise grandparents, elegant daughters, best friends, favorite coaches, fearless public servants, and children's mothers. So I notice you now. I don't want to be worried. I don't want to be consumed by the same rage and hate and prejudice that has destroyed the soul of these terrorists.
But I need your help.
As a rational American, trying to protect my country and family in an irrational and unsafe world, I must know how to tell the difference between you, and the Arab/Muslim terrorist. How do I differentiate between the true Arab-Muslim-Americans and the Arab-Muslims in our communities who are attending our schools, enjoying our parks, and living in OUR communities under the protection of OUR constitution, while they plot the next attack that will slaughter those very same good neighbors and children?
The events of September 11th changed the answer. It is not my responsibility to determine which of you embraces our great country, with ALL of it's religions, with ALL of it's different citizens, with all of it's faults. It is time for every Arab-Muslim in this country to determine it for me.
I want to know, I demand to know, and I have a right to know whether or not you love America. Do you pledge allegiance to it's flag? Do you proudly display in front of your house, or on your car? Do you pray in your many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation, that He will protect and prosper it?
Or do you pray that Allah with destroy it in one of your "Jihads"? Are you thankful for the freedom that only this nation affords? A freedom that was paid for by the blood of hundreds of thousands of patriots who gave their lives for this country? Are you willing to preserve this freedom by paying the ultimate sacrifice? Do you love America?
If this is your commitment, then I need YOU to start letting ME know about it. Your Muslim leaders in this nation should be flooding the media at this time with hard facts on your faith, and what hard actions you are taking as a community and as a religion to protect the United States of America.
Please, no more benign overtures of regret for the death of the innocent because I worry about who you regard as innocent. And no more benign overtures of condemnation for the unprovoked attacks because I worry about what is unprovoked to you.
I am not interested in any more sympathy ...I am only interested in action.
What will you do for America-our great country-at this time of crisis, at this time of war?
I want to see Arab-Muslims waving the AMERICAN flag in the streets. I want to hear you chanting "Allah Bless America". I want to see young Arab-Muslim men enlisting in the military. I want to see a commitment of money, time, and emotion to the victims of this butchering and to this nation as a whole.
The FBI has a list of over 400 people they want to talk to regarding the WTC attack. Many of these people live and socialize in Muslim communities. You know them. You know where they are.
Hand them over to us, now!
But I have seen little even approaching this sort of action.
Instead I have seen an already closed and secretive community close even tighter. You have disappeared from the streets. You have posted armed security guards at your facilities. You have threatened lawsuits. You have screamed for protection from reprisals. The very few Arab-Muslim representatives that HAVE appeared in the media were defensive and equivocating. They seemed more concerned with making sure that the United States prove who was responsible before taking action. They seemed more concerned with protecting their fellow Muslims from violence directed towards them in the United States and abroad than they did with supporting our country and denouncing "leaders" like Khadafi, Hussein, Farrakhan, and Arafat.
If the true teachings of Islam proclaim tolerance and peace and love for all people then I want chapter and verse from the Koran and statements from popular Muslim leaders to back it up. What good is it if the teachings in the Koran are good and pure and true when your "leaders" are teaching fanatical interpretations, terrorism, and intolerance. It matters little how good Islam SHOULD BE if large numbers of the world's Muslims interpret the teachings of Mohammed incorrectly and adhere to a degenerative form of the religion.
A form that has been demonstrated to us over and over again. A form whose structure is built upon a foundation of violence, death, and suicide. A form whose members are recruited from the prisons around the world. A form whose members defended Johnny Cochran and O. J. Simpson after the latter butchered his wife and murdered an innocent friend. A form whose members (some as young a five years old) are seen day after day, week in and week out, year after year, marching in the streets around the world, burning effigies of our presidents, burning the American flag, shooting weapons into the air. A form whose members convert from a peaceful religion, only to take up arms against the great United States of America, the country of their birth. A form whose rules are so twisted, that their traveling members refuse to show their faces at airport security checkpoints, in the name of Islam.
Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because our women proudly show their faces in public rather than cover up like a shameful whore? Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because we drink wine with dinner, or celebrate Christmas? Do you and you fellow Muslims hate us because we have befriended Israel, the ONLY civilized democratic nation in the entire middle-east? And if you and your fellow Muslims hate us, then why in the world are you even here? Are you here to take our money? Are you here to undermine our peace and stability? Are you here to destroy us?
If so, I want you to leave. I want you to go back to your desert sandpit where women are treated like rats and dogs. I want you to take your religion, your friends, and your family back to your Islamic extremists, and STAY THERE! We will NEVER give in to your influence, your retarded mentality, your twisted, violent, intolerant religion.
We will NEVER allow the attacks of September 11, or any others for that matter, to take away that which is so precious to us: Our rights under the greatest constitution in the world.
I want to know where every Arab-Muslim in this country stands and I think it is my right and the right of every true citizen of this country to demand it. A right paid for by the blood of thousands of my brothers and sisters who died protecting the very constitution that is protecting you and your family. I am pleading with you to let me know. I want you here as my brother, my neighbor, my friend, as a fellow American. But there can be no gray areas or ambivalence regarding your allegiance and it is up to YOU, to show ME, where YOU stand." "
Until then ... you worry me." ""
I'll attest to this. About 6 years ago on a coast-to-coast radio broadcast, the topic was the RFK shooting by Sirhan Sirhan (I'd like to hear his side of the story before he dies). In any event the guest invited callers to phone in with thier recollections of the event.
I was absolutely sure I saw the RFK shooting "live" on TV, so I called in. It didn't happen that way: In short order I was corrected, the fact was that the shooting wasn't broadcast for a day or two. OTOH my mother-in-law insists she saw JFK get shot on live TV. I have tried to explain she only seen the Zabruder (sic) film; NO she insists she was watching TV when it happened. There is no convicing her otherwise.
Yes, our memories are faulty. However, the South tower was hit second and fell first. The North tower had the flag atop of it.
Come gather round, Sheeple...in office and home...
And admit that corruption in DeeCee has grown!!
Then, demand that Slick's TREASON shall not be condoned!!
WE MUST FIGHT!! This Nation's worth savin'!!
Country, better stop sleepin' or yer souls Left will own...
Folks, the times they are a'changin'...
Come, blow-dried twit Networks who tyrannize with your "spin"...
EX-Prez'dent has spied...WE MUST RE-IMPEACH HIM!!
Let's Indict Bill's goons...then WE'LL IMPRISON SLICK!!
Yes, Limbaugh's sellin' TRUTH 'bout Slick's TREASON!!
Left's poltroons, y'know, we'll be FReepin' the Net!!
Press, the times they are a'changin'...
(Just a smidgen of Mudboy on harp)
Come Senators, Congressmen, please heed our call...
Please stand up fer Justice...please tear down Slick's walls!!
Folks, watch how you VOTE...'cuz we're trackin' y'all!!
Battle fer hearts and minds rages...
We'll soon FReep yer meetings and clatter yer halls...
Pols, the times they are a'changin'...
Come mothers and fathers throughout the Land...
Look in yer kids' eyes...they are yer Scottish Clan...
Yer sons and yer daughters...look to you, MAKE YER STAND!!!
Yer Cold War has moved to this Nation!!
Please get out and help us...AIN'T PATRIOTISM GRAND?!!
Parents, the times they are a'changin'...
(Excellent harp jammin')
The line has been drawn...foundation's been cast!!
WE'LL DETHRONE NOW...AND IMPRISON SLICK LAST!!
We Whupped AllieGore...McAuliffe's an ASS!!
New World Order is rapidly fadin'!!
And the People's Power'll be returned at last...
Ohhh, the times they are a'changin'!!
Mudboy Slim and the libertarians
26 Posted on 09/26/2000 13:32:25 PDT by Mudboy Slim (Hey Rush, Pass Me the Ball...Pass Me the Damn Ball!!!)
If Limbaugh Wasn't Such a BallHog, Slick would be in Prison by now!!
MUD
Sometimes it startles me, the rage. It's so intense, so overwhelming that I'm left shaken. It is almost a year and yet it is as intense as it was on the first day. I will not let go of it, not until the last terrorist is in his grave. Then I will mourn, until then I will stay angry.
Excerpt:
For whatever else Sept. 11 was, it was a declaration of war. The totalitarian force of radical fundamentalist Islam, like the forces of Nazism and communism that preceded it, has not disappeared. We briefly defanged it in its most important lair in Afghanistan, but even there it has not been extinguished. Saudi Arabia, the chief exporter of this murderous ideology, remains protected by the West. Saddam Hussein is currently laboring to manufacture weapons of mass destruction that his allies in the Islamist terrorist network would dearly love to use on American soil. Suicide bombers have not relented in attempting to destroy the democratic state of Israel. Anti-Semitism, now as in the past the kernel of the totalitarian mind, has metastasized like a cancer throughout the Middle East and back into its ancient home in Europe. Educated men and women who regularly find the slightest fault in democratic Western societies vie with one another to provide glib, desperate rationalizations for the murderers of 9/11: arrogant American global power somehow deserved payback, and those who deliberately kill civilians are allegedly legitimate combatants with worthy grievances.
But through all this, we know what that day showed us. It showed us that we stand deeply vulnerable to a destructive force in some ways more dangerous than even the last two totalitarian powers Americans were called on to defeat. This enemy refuses to fight with honor; it hides and disappears and re-emerges whenever its purposes are served; it may soon have access to weapons that Hitler and Stalin only dreamed of. But it cannot be defeated the way Nazi Germany and Communist Russia were defeated because it is more like a virus than a host, infecting and capturing nation-states, like Afghanistan, and then moving on to others. So we will have to act to pre-empt it this time, in Iraq and elsewhere, or it will be too late to resist it at all. For Sept. 11 showed that, for the first time in history, the American homeland is actually vulnerable to a deadly foreign enemy. Only those in deep denial can forget that.
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