Still dancing around the subjects
Sep. 12th, 2004 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisse3 years ago today, our President should have stood up and said: "Those who committed these terrible acts chose us for a reason: Our Bill of Rights.
"We are proud to be a beacon of hope for all those who want to know that they can't be arrested without a warrant, tried without a jury, or told that they must worship the same way that the government does. We are proud to attract the hatred of those who think that some people have no rights or fewer rights or different rights, because equality of rights under law is all that any government can truly guarantee."
Instead we ended up with speeches that tried to unite us in hatred not hope. Rather than saying that the terrorists were able to plan the attacks because we don't live in a country where people run to the secret police when they hear something odd, we formed a Homeland Security department that keeps us afraid and wants us to report odd occurrences to the police.
This troubles me.
On a completely unrelated note is it just me or do guys with big, fat cigars look like they're fellating them? I thought these were supposed to be macho guys?
"We are proud to be a beacon of hope for all those who want to know that they can't be arrested without a warrant, tried without a jury, or told that they must worship the same way that the government does. We are proud to attract the hatred of those who think that some people have no rights or fewer rights or different rights, because equality of rights under law is all that any government can truly guarantee."
Instead we ended up with speeches that tried to unite us in hatred not hope. Rather than saying that the terrorists were able to plan the attacks because we don't live in a country where people run to the secret police when they hear something odd, we formed a Homeland Security department that keeps us afraid and wants us to report odd occurrences to the police.
This troubles me.
On a completely unrelated note is it just me or do guys with big, fat cigars look like they're fellating them? I thought these were supposed to be macho guys?
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Date: 2004-09-12 10:03 pm (UTC)On a completely unrelated note is it just me or do guys with big, fat cigars look like they're fellating them?
It's not just you. That's all I can think about when I see men sucking on those cigars. I blush and have to look away because I can't think of it as "just a cigar."
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Date: 2004-09-12 11:27 pm (UTC)Good to hear from you sweetie.
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Date: 2004-09-12 11:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-13 05:34 am (UTC)Not unless that's one of the worst fellatio jobs ever. They focus their attentions solely on the end, they don't know how to work a rhythm, they use teeth, and they light it on fire.
I mean, really!
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Date: 2004-09-13 06:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-13 06:00 am (UTC)Is the NC thing permanent? Do I have to apply to Duke to see you?
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Date: 2004-09-13 01:23 pm (UTC)Nah, I'm in the Charlotte area. Once my situation has stabilized (ie, I have job and furniture) you're welcome to come visit, though. It may be a couple months.
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Date: 2004-09-13 05:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-13 01:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-13 06:03 am (UTC)I loved the old "Shoe" cartoon that compared the "fine aroma of a good cigar" to "low-tide in Perth Amboy, NJ." I've been around paper mills that smelled better than the cigar I was near today.
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Date: 2004-09-13 12:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-13 01:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-13 06:05 am (UTC)Hope contract law is improving.
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Date: 2004-09-13 02:35 pm (UTC)There were funny moments. The RNC "news" reporters ran around the floor "interviewing" various delegates. For some odd reason the reporters seemed tinted. There were the moments when we learned Zell wished that we still condoned duels. Apparently, he has a pistol with Chris Matthew's name on it.
Truth be told, the entire affair would have been funny if it weren't so dangerous.
Contract law is improving. He actually makes some sense now.
The cigar commentary has reminded me of the gentleman who contaminated the foyer with cigar smoke for several hours last summer.
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Date: 2004-09-13 05:06 pm (UTC)The Peter Pan School of Politics: Believe hard enough and with a little magic tax-cut dust, er, fairy dust you can wiggle your shoulders and fly!
Yes, you, too, can fly over the growing hopelessness in our inner cities. The indications that global warming is upon us can be danced over delicately as we rape another wilderness for oil because we are magical Republicans.
On the other hand, Zell Miller in a duel with Chris Matthews should be sponsored by The Daily Show.
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Date: 2004-09-13 03:58 pm (UTC)See, I think the President regularly says that the terrorists are after us because they hate freedom. That's his spiel. Personally, I don't think it makes a lot of sense. I think the terrorists are after us because they don't like the way we have conducted ourselves in the Middle East.
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Date: 2004-09-13 05:01 pm (UTC)Oddly enough, I don't see our policies in the Mid-East (then) as being the issue that we were attacked for. Many disliked our support of Israel, but nowhere was that stated as a reason behind the attack.
What the United States is hated for is the pervasiveness of its culture.
Some of the things that are deplored, I deplore too. I hate the butt-crack jeans and skimpy camisole look that every girl from 10-25 was wearing last year. They looked cold and tarty. From a fundamentalist point of view (and I think this is where the fundamentalists have more in common with each other than they do with their greater societies), this was an unacceptable secularization and a proof that the United States and those who followed it were doomed for whatever negative afterlife they believed in.
Now the previous paragraph reads like I'm flippant, but even those silly, chilly outfits are a form of freedom. On some level the terrorists are right that if you let people have the little freedoms, next thing you know they're asking to be Mirandized and demanding a fair trial.
A few years ago a columnist in Salon said that "Starsky and Hutch reruns" would have more impact on world culture than all the art shows that various State Department agencies could put together. This was in response to someone being arrested in a small African village and asking why he wasn't being told "You have the right to remain silent..."
Our culture is saturating the globe like a drop of ink in a small pool of water. It's teaching other cultures that there are options. That's why we were attacked. That's why I'm scared that our government's response has been to limit more and more of those options.
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Date: 2004-09-13 05:38 pm (UTC)He does do that. And it is exceedingly irritating and juvenille. But he also reguarly harps on the freedom thing. Recently he said:
The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty, because freedom is their greatest fear. And they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march.
I realize it isn't exactly what you are saying, but it's similar. It's funny you write about this, because I made a post just today that talks about this very thing. Amazingly, in this new era of through the looking glass insanity, I find that Pat Buchanan and I share a perspective on the Iraq war. Shocking I know. No one was more surprised than me.
Many disliked our support of Israel, but nowhere was that stated as a reason behind the attack.
Yes it was. In bin Ladin's fatwah. He's very explicit about what he doesn't like about America. No where is our culture or our freedom mentioned. He hates our exploiting of the Middle East and our support of Israel. And that seems pretty consistent with what I have learned about Middle East history.
What the United States is hated for is the pervasiveness of its culture.
Well this is different argument than "America is hated for its freedom" you realize. I don't see our exported films and democracy as intertwined. Our films are a product of our consumerism, which I suppose has as much to do with freedom as over-eating has to do with freedom. Clearly you have to be free to consume in order to do so. But I would agree that our exported culture doesn't not endear us to many outside of America. I worry that most of the "culture" that gets out of the US is the most puerille crap that we produce--pandering to the basest instincts of humans and actively reaching for the the lowest common demoninator--all with the goal of making as much money as possible. I don't find that very noble, and where some might see freedom, I see a lack of judgement.
Still, most countries roll their eyes at our cultural exports and go about their business. What makes terrorists different?
After I took my Middle East class a few semesters ago, studying it's history and learning about Islam, my view toward that region changed dramatically. What I saw was a systematic destruction of their culture and political structures by western Europe all with the intent of making as much money off the region as possible. Most Middle Eastern countries have never recovered from this lengthy period of colonization. The reasons are varied, depending on which country we are talking about, but mostly it is because more money was taken out of the area than was put back in--for centuries, and the British/French didn't successfully assemble a strong national government before they withdrew. There was a power vacuum and all sorts of forces rushed in to fill it.
The reason why I debate with you on this, is because I think we have to really take a look at the history of the region and understand the role that our goverment, past and present has played in creating or ignoring the conditions that create terrorism. I don't believe that it has anything to do with terrorists hating freedom. I think they love freedom. They want to free to do what they want, without American interference. And I also don't think you can force-feed people democracy. If the people in the Middle East want theocracy--let them have it. They will soon be disenchanted with it when they realize that praying doesn't solve their social and economical problems.
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Date: 2004-09-13 06:42 pm (UTC)I'm not entirely certain that the "pervasiveness of our culture" argument is apples to the "hating us for our freedoms" oranges. Maybe tangerines and oranges?
What so many foreign countries find offensive about the United States is that our love of freedom in law can turn into extreme expressions of that freedom in matters of taste or dress or music. It's the part of us that debates community standards and whether art should be limited by them.
I agree that democracy can't be force-fed. If Iraq really was a good target for us, the best way to have handled it was get Saddam Hussein and take him for international trial in The Hague. Let the Iraqi people have their country back quickly and minus a dictator. The type of government should have been left to their choice. It wasn't.
We can't ignore how badly the West has treated the Middle East. And we can't ignore that whether or not we were the ones who made the mistakes, the U.S. is seen as the cradle of the West and therefore the one that will take the blame for the past wrongs. But Egypt is ruled under Napoleonic Law. Saudi Arabia -- with British help -- has taken the family of a nomadic tribal elder and made it a royal family. Each country and its ethnic or religious minorities must be examined separately.
The most that I can do in my LJ is draw broad strokes and say where I think we went wrong. For me, it began the day after the towers collapsed when we chose to unite in hatred of an enemy instead of pride in our country.
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Date: 2004-09-13 07:12 pm (UTC)Yes I can understand that. And I agree with you that it is annoying ironic. During the anti-war march on the Sunday before the RNC, my shirt, which I picked up from the NYC ACLU, said, "Dissent is patriotic" and on the back it promoted the Defense of the Bill of Rights campaign. I am well aware of the dangers that the Bush administration presents to our civil rights. And Bush's arrogant smugness boils my blood just as much as it surely boils yours.
Each country and its ethnic or religious minorities must be examined separately.
That is so true. And it is that more critical, logical view that I am advocating when I resist the idea that terrorists hate us because we are free. I think it's an oversimplification, (although I am sure you were not saying that it was the only reason they dislike America), and one that I see used often in the various speeches that people use when talking about terrorists and the Middle East.
The reason why it bothers me so much is that there is a lot going on in the Middle East and Americans seem to resist this idea--that things are complicated. They want a slam-dunk answer and I think that it's the quick, unnuanced answers that have gotten us into trouble. For some reason, it is very difficult for people in this country to accept that there are people in the world who do not want to be like us--who want to have theocracy, or socialism, or whatever. It's unfortunate, because not only is this perspective arrogant and narrow-minded, it is expensive; we are paying in dollars and lives--and for what? Iraq and Afghanistan are increasingly unstable. My God, there are whole towns in Iraq that our military has just given over to local rebels.
Here's another thing that really bugs me (and at this point, I am going off on a bit of a tangent--sorry). Although people don't say this directly, there is an intimation that unless we interfered in the Middle East that things would go to Hell. People point with glee to our victories, talking about what a service we have done to Iraq in ousting Saddam. But these people forget that we helped to put Saddam in power. We backed him. He would have never gotten as powerful as he did without our support.
So we helped to create the problem in Iraq and now we have gone in to undo what we did. When do the Iraq people get to determine their own fate? Without our dictates?
For me, it began the day after the towers collapsed when we chose to unite in hatred of an enemy instead of pride in our country.
Yes. It was very wrong for us to embrace an us and them mentality. You will get no argument from me on that.
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Date: 2004-09-13 04:37 pm (UTC)And word to all that's been said about the RNC - especially the bit about belief over reality. In fact, during that week there was a great segment on The Daily Show about the President's War on Reality, and how he's managed to completely cow reality with barrage after barrage of words.
The problem with a War on Terrorism is that it will never end, never be won. It can't be. No matter how many idealogues you line up, there's going to be someone with a different idea of how things should be who's willing to back it up with a bomb or a gun or a can of nerve gas.
For years I thought the big question was whether the future would more closely resemble 1984 or Brave New World. Oddly enough, I find it's turned out to be Brazil. Terry Gilliam: Prophet Python. Who'd'a thunk it?
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Date: 2004-09-13 05:29 pm (UTC)Can it?