Weird...

[the_gneech]

That my most intense emotional reaction to the anniversary of Sept. 11 happens now, twenty minutes after it "officially" isn't Sept. 11 any more.

Time has a way of making you forget. All day today, I thought about it all in the abstract. But a few minutes ago, I had a very vivid memory, of a shot from a camera at ground level, pointed up at the second tower, and the belly of a plane coming out of nowhere and plowing into it.

It was a bright, blue, beautiful day. I was sitting on the floor crying my eyes out.

And people have the gall to be smarmy about it. Good God!

...

bearblue has posted several links that I found worth reading, here. I have copied a couple of my favorites here:

"Seeing those images again made me outraged at those of us who chide others to get over it. I am stunned that anyone could ever look at the carnage on that footage (and I saw the whole damn thing with my actual eyes)--and somehow . . . not be changed. Get OVER IT? What? Are you out of your goddamned freaking mind? What is the MATTER with you?" -- Sheila Astray, That PBS Special

"And there is such a thing as righteous anger. And sometimes righteous anger is the only appropriate emotion. Everything else is just narcissism and dogma. I don’t recommend picking at scabs, not at all. But nor do I recommend hiding scars - or forgetting just who it was that wielded the knife." --Cold Fury, Blogiversary

"Terrorists commit their acts not for the benefit of the dead, but for those who remain alive. "Look at what we’ll do to you and yours," they say," if you don’t do what we want you to do." They revel in our horror. They rejoice in the sorrow of the families who will never bury the atomized bodies of their loved ones. They say, "yeah, we did it and we’ll do it to you unless you....submit." --Baldilocks, Fear Itself

"I’ve no doubt that if Seattle or Boston or Manhattan goes up in a bright white flash there will be those who blame it all on Bush. We squandered the world’s good will. We threw away the opportunity to atone, and lashed out. Really? You want to see lashing out? Imagine Kabul and Mecca and Baghdad and Tehran on 9/14 crowned with mushroom clouds: that’s lashing out. Imagine the President in the National Cathedral castigating Islam instead of sitting next to an Imam who's giving a homily. Mosques burned, oil fields occupied, smart bombs slamming into Syrian palaces. We could have gone full Roman on anyone we wanted, but we didn’t. And we won’t. Which is why this war will be long." -- Today's Lileks

...

I apologize for being on edge today. I'll post something happy ... tomorrow. For now I'm going to go to sleep and hope I don't have any dreams.

-The Gneech

Comments

[kevinjdog.livejournal.com]

You had made the statement about not using 9/11 as a way to make a political grandstanding statement. And the last paragraph implies that we should not criticize Bush because he didn't attack Islamists en masse after 9/11. There are many reasons to criticize the president in my opinion right now, and using 9/11 as a reason not to, to me, is another form of political grandstanding.

I want to separate the actions of the president from the sadness of the fates of the people in both the WTC and the Pentagon. What Bush did afterwards with his status is a different issue from the horrors of the day itself and that was the only point I'm trying to make.

I'm sorry if it upset you.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

That's an awful lot to read into it; the quote is barely about Bush at all, and certainly not about whether or not Thomas K. Dye should criticize him, on September 11 or any other date.

There are large chunks of the world where much lesser acts than the WTC call for "GENOCIDE!!!", and certainly that's the pattern of history. The U.S., as a nation, is not following that path.

That's the point of that paragraph. And that's why I was disappointed in your response. You are so focused on The Big Bad Bush -- and apparently so eager to be defensive about it -- that you're blocking out the big picture.

-The Gneech

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

Three of the four articles you quoted, and a twinge of subtext in your introduction, bore the message of "The Left don't even grasp that they should be upset that America was attacked. I'm so very sick of those terrorist apologists on the Left nattering away." (And at least one explicit "So don't vote for them, or the terrorists will win.") That's not an innocent tribute to the victims of 9/11/2001. I'm sorry, but it looks like you threw the gauntlet, and it's only natural for people to go on the defensive in response to such potshots.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Uh, no, three of the four articles I quoted don't have that message, and neither does what I wrote, unless you are starting from the premise that "people have the gall to be smarmy about it" is inherently a condemnation of "The Left" ... which says more about your own ideas than it does about mine.

The one, "Blogiversary," certainly has that message, in the larger context of the whole article. FWIW, it's a simplistic view, and not one that I share. Jerry Falwell, hardly a leftist, was one of the loudest voices among the "We were asking for it!" chorus.

"Shiela Astray" doesn't have that message, unless you assume, as some of the people who commented on her essay did, that the speakers on the show she watched were all part of "The Left."

"Fear Itself" doesn't talk about right/left/up/down at all.

The comments in "Lileks" about people "piling on the President" might be a conservative reaction --or an independent reaction -- or it might even be a democrat expressing displeasure with unseemly behavior from his own party.

The world is not binary, dude.

-The Gneech

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

I don't think you can make that separation. The two are directly linked. Bush mourned with the country, and then acted in response to the righteous indignation of the survivors.

Though I must agree that your reply to The Gneech is rather, ah, inaccurate (for lack of a better word), seeing as not only did the quote have nothing to do with Bush's political actions but instead with his social actions and unspoken commentary, but the very fact that it was, in fact, a quote, and not The Gneech's words at all.

But, having seen your commentary in "Newshounds," I can also understand your point of view. I disagree completely, but I can understand it.

-=TK

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

I don't think Bush acted in response to the indignation of the survivors as a primary reason, although his actions were certainly compatible with those who were indignant.

FWIW, I agree with those who see more than a little opportunism in Bush the Younger. 9/11 handed him a big ol' carte blanche and he ran with it. My opinion was that he believed that war with radical Islam was inevitable (and not without reason), and decided that if was going to come anyway, it would be better for this particular country for the war to happen over there, fought with our soldiers, than over here, fought with our civilians.

A somewhat callous and self-interested idea, maybe, but he is, after all, President of the United States, and that's his job.

I also agree that the way that elements of the U.S. government, apparently with the President's blessing, are trying to slouch towards a police state, are a danger from within and must be stopped. But I don't see that as a right/left issue. Yes, the left has been warning about it the whole time, but some conservative republicans are also starting to smell the coffee on the whole Patriot Act thing, and I think that as time goes on, the basic character of the U.S. as a FREE COUNTRY will reassert itself. I just wish more people had applied the philosophical lessons of the McCarthy era rather than the operational ones.

-The Gneech

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Arguably, though, it is comparable to the United States during the F.D. Roosevelt Administration. The difference is, we have more technology, more resources, and more wealth, so it looks like more is being threatened/taken away, but if you look at the big picture, we still have a significantly smaller government and a good deal more freedom than people did during the Depression and World War II.

-=TK