September 11, 2020
Can we put our discord and divisiveness to the side for one day and remember that we are all American?
It's September 11th, a day to reflect on what we value about our country and what we have together, to step back and see that we are only one disaster away from feeling all the love for each other we felt that day, 19 years ago. It's all still there. Only our small focus on the petty conflicts of the day keeps us from seeing the great treasure that is the United States of America.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
117 comments:
We should. I can and I will. Never forget.
I just turned off the news to avoid 9/11 commemoration crap.
Highway crews dismantle roadside memorials every few months for a reason.
Japan reads off the names of atomic bomb survivors who have died in the last year every year. I think there's no cancellation protocol for this stuff, is the problem.
It's a sort of hecklers' veto.
Ha ha ha ha ha! That ain’t gonna happen. The weapons manufacturers and their camp followers who profit hugely from our military involvements abroad, both directly through weapons sales, and indirectly through the application of American military power abroad to pressure local governments, like, you know, Ukraine, for instance, need to get their boy in there to replace Trump and this is a matter of fierce moral urgency!
A good way to remember you're an America is vote for Trump.
I dunno. Ask the Texans who spent last night in the locker room on the night before September 11 while the anthem was played.
I realize I am doing exactly what you are asking us not to do but I am commenting that we are past that point. Two movies; two tribes. You have to choose, now.
Nice try.
Does it mean anything that this is not a sunrise picture but a picture of the dark night descending on the US?
Wonder if the rioters will take a day (and night) off.
Doubtful.
"Can we put our discord and divisiveness to the side for one day and remember that we are all American?"
I appreciate the question, but the answer is no.
"to step back and see that we are only one disaster away from feeling all the love for each other we felt that day, 19 years ago."
But the day after the hate started flowing again.
"Only our small focus on the petty conflicts of the day keeps us from seeing the great treasure that is the United States of America."
Again, I appreciate the sentiment, but the conflicts aren't petty. The repression of a true remembrance of 9/11 and the scourge of Islamism--who did it, and why--itself became part of the culture war.
The 'petty conflicts of the day' today are about one side defending that American style of freedom, love and respect for each other and the other side that is driven in part by bad actors that want to destroy the American treasure and grant themselves permission to persecute those that won't abide by their foreign ideals.
Many of y'all are older than me but I'm middle aged and can't recall a more serious threat to the basic values of the United States promoted by a major US political party.
Today I will acknowledge the events of September 11, 2001 and strive to prevent the imminent disaster of today's 'only one disaster away'...
The right would like to. It's the left that is refusing. Unfortunate that you left out that context.
So that would mean not denigrating the flag or the National Anthem, right?
Can we put our discord and divisiveness to the side for one day and remember that we are all American?
We can try but I doubt the left will abide by any armistice...
Every Democrat across the country was just yesterday literally calling Trump a mass murderer of 200,000 people (if it wasn't for him COVID death count would have been zero!), while cheering Cuomo for a job well done, and we're supposed to stop being partisan and divisive?
Heh.
"Because our elections generate more heat than light, we need frequent reminders that there are no purely evil or wholly good people—no matter their voting preferences. Gulag survivor Alexandr Solzhenitsyn learned this through eight years of deep reflection enabled by the terrors of the Soviet prison system. He was once himself a decorated captain in the Soviet Army. But he was, in his mind, “a murderer, and an oppressor” who in his “most evil moments … was convinced that [he] was doing good.” Only the crushing tutelage of the prison camp enabled his soul to give birth to this remarkable sentence: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.”
Elections certainly matter. But few certainties are found in electoral politics. Ours is an age where, in the words of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, “veracity is taking second place to the mass manipulation of emotion.” Indeed, what Augustine St. Clare says in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, printed in 1852, could be said by many Americans to describe 2020: “Such pious politicians as we have just before elections—such pious goings on in all departments of church and state, that a fellow does not know who’ll cheat him next.”
Can we both hold a strong opinion and confess the limits of what we know? Can we acknowledge that those with different views are probably, like us, genuinely interested in the common good? Do we really want to allow the acids of animus toward our neighbor to destroy both our relationships and our souls? I don’t think we do. Not when we count the cost. Not when we taste the bitter fruit of soured friendships."
(From "A Book of Mormon Missive for the 2020 Election", publicsquaremag.org)
"and remember that we are all American"
You're sure about that?
Really?
When cries of "Death to America" are heard throughout the land, including from certain Members of Congress, where riots rage, and that all of that and worse are supported by the Democrat Party. When the Article VI oath to support the Constitution means absolutely nothing to Democrats.
The Democrat Party - where murderous Muslims have found a home.
Re-designate 9/11 as multicultural appreciation day.
Does this include those "americans" who claim America is a false promise, fatally afflicted with original sin, and must be torn down, burned, and re-built as a Socialist "paradise". A country who "deserved" what it got on 9/11?
If so, then no thanks.
I'm onboard, Ann. But I don't think the "some people did something" crowd agrees.
The America and Americans you refer to do not exist anymore.
"It's a sort of hecklers' veto."
It takes one to know one.
"Does it mean anything that this is not a sunrise picture but a picture of the dark night descending on the US?"
It's a night picture. 9/11 eve, 2007. View from my balcony. WTC memorial lights are in the picture, but the low fog is squelching them.
Hecklers' veto is structural. The most extreme view determines what happens, so the vast middle doesn't have much control.
Commemorating a day requires a gathering in the public square. We've all been advised that the public square is to be shared no longer.
Finally for the first time in decades we have a president who has ended conflicts and not started any new wars. You’d think we would have coalesced around the ideas of peace and prosperity by now.
Well said. Thank you.
All it takes is commitment to an ideal and my fellow American. It sounds like a lot but is so very easy. I have no control over you and what you do so I will focus on myself and my behavior.
As Beamer would say, "Let's Roll".
9-11 was a Tuesday, by Saturday the left was holding "teach-ins" on their campuses to explain why the attacks were America's fault. It was this propaganda series which later included Ward Churchill's reference to the dead as "little Eichmans". The left never came together as Americans because their view as other Americans as their enemy long predates 9-11. It is their believing this and not our knowledge of it which prevents American unity.
Leave the mythology and gaslighting behind and embrace the cruel neutrality of reality.
I would love to all pull together. Back when this happened, it wasn't but hours, and my betters started to make decisions about what was "proper" to report to the public. I was told what was proper to say, and instructed on how the think about the terrorists. Something as basic as free speech, was the first victim of this tragedy. We no longer agree on the Bill of Rights. I don't know how to find common ground, when our foundational moorings are being destroyed.
"Never let a disaster go to waste." Until that kind of ideology is exterminated, its hard to turn the other cheek
On the other hand, as Gov. Cuomo reminds us, America was never all that great.
Amen.
Though I have to say that at this point, it's wishful thinking. 19 years since 9/11 and a lot of bad educating of our young has taken place in that time. They know not of the circumstances of that event, or the 225 years prior to that occurance. They have been taught that we are the evil. Capitalism is the evil. White people are the evil. Individual liberty is to be feared.
Not sure how you go forward from there.
9/11 is in the past. We're a nation that doesn't just disagree about its present and future, we disagree about the past.
On the bright side, we haven't been slaughtered by Islamists for awhile. Are they reforming or reloading?
New Study Finds 9/11 Flights 93% Peaceful
derringer.com
Did you write that Ann? I know you know how to write, I come to your blog to read it. Still, that was very good. Thank you.
No. We are not all Americans. We are two different peoples now. This year was the bellweather. Act accordingly.
No. There are real ideological divides in this country. The left has to leave.
The day that convinced me. “Take your children to the rifle range.”
It reminds me of Thornton Wilder's play The Skin of Our Teeth. We as Americans are experts at muddling through, as we will this time.
It was a No. 3 sunrise that morning. I'll never forget it.
I don't like these remembrance ceremonies. I would feel different if I lost someone in one of these attacks. But I don't think it is good for any culture to dwell on past terrible occurrences. There is a difference between memorializing the dead and carrying forward a grudge. The US needs to stop keeping 9-11 in it's mindset. I'm not saying forget it, but it shouldn't be an annual remembrance event. Holding onto past tragedies is not good. For any people their story must always be about what is to come. What is in the future.
As a non-native born American, I can wholly say that the US is the best place in the world to live. The fact that so many people domestic and foreign want to destroy it reinforces that assertion.
The problem isn't divisiveness, it's hip dysplasia, cognitive hip dysplasia, a result of intellectual inbreeding.
The expensive dogs are insisting all the mongrels must walk funny too.
People keep asking if we are about to have another Civil War.
Those paying attention realize we already are having another Civil War.
It started before Trump was even elected, waged by the Obama administration weaponizing the CIA, FBI, the DOJ and the entire intelligence community to prevent Trumps election, and then to destroy his incoming Administration.
The Left/Democrats have never accepted their loss, and the riots are just an excuse to continue that denial.
Civil War is here. And will really heat up if Trump wins AGAIN in November.
Friends and fighting men of the Achaeans: be men now, dear friends, remember your furious valour.
Powerline has a couple of nice posts about the day.
Trump thinks outside the box.
What's funny is watching a normal healthy dog trying to walk like one with hip dysplasia because he thinks it shows good breeding.
"Can we acknowledge that those with different views are probably, like us, genuinely interested in the common good? Do we really want to allow the acids of animus toward our neighbor to destroy both our relationships and our souls? I don’t think we do. Not when we count the cost. Not when we taste the bitter fruit of soured friendships."
_________________________________________________________________________________
My reaction to this not uncommon sentiment tends to be "I see, you just want me to surrender to them."
Yes, let's just all hold hands and sing Kumbaya. Soory, I've bent over backwards for Leftists for too much of my life, and to no good end. Now perhaps it's their turn. I'm not budging another inch.
Spare me the 9/11 civic piety. It signaled the start of our country’s slide into safetyism. The nation turned to statist ideas like “Homeland Security”, and asked “are we safer now” (since the initial risk of death when flying was about 0%, and after 9/11 it was about 0%, the question never made sense)?
There is a direct line from meekly taking ours shoes off for decades because one idiot failed to get his shoes to explode and meekly letting petty tyrants tell us we can’t leave our houses, or operate our businesses.
Travel overseas. Even better, travel to Asia. We Americans have a look about us, it's hard to describe but if you travel much internationally you know what I'm talking about. African Americans carry themselves differently than African Africans and white Americans carry themselves differently than Eurotrash. When you are in an elevator or walking down the street and see another American you are 90% sure and you each kind of nod and give a look that says, good I'm not alone over here. So yes, We are ALL Americans no matter what a small minority thinks.
The "petty conflicts" of the day include the demonization of law enforcement. The NYPD, rightly celebrated for heroism after 9/11, is now attacked and mocked by the Left. Dem pols call for defunding the police and promote the ugly lie that cops routinely kill unarmed blacks. Black cops are called coons and Toms by privileged white snots.
Much is made of the famous Christmas Day Truce of 1914, when German and British soldiers joined together to sing carols and play soccer. It's a touching story - but the next day, the troops were right back at it and would continue to slaughter each other for another 4 years.
How can we even have a 9/11 Truce? How can we come together to sing the National Anthem when one side backs those screaming for the death of America? We don't have the common bond of love of country any more.
Could Trump visit Ground Zero today and give a speech there, without being in danger for his life? If not, why not? Would the Governor of New York, or the Mayor of NYC, put aside political differences for one day, to welcome him?
Trump's presidency has been an unveiling of what this country is really up against. I still have hope that the country can be saved, but Trump can only do so much on his own. Our country's current enemies go well beyond Al Qaeda. The "barbarians" are not only within the gates, they are in control of virtually every significant institution.
Nevertheless, America has survived other trials. May she come through the present crisis undaunted. May the Republic survive, and prevail.
Remember, a prominent Democrat described 9/11 as a day when "some people did something."
She wasn't called to task by her party. Her constituents voted overwhelmingly for her in the primary.
No, we're not coming together over 9/11.
On September 11, 2001, people from all over the country came to the aid of New York City. They were welcomed. People were not concerned on how they voted or how they worshiped or what they believed. They were simply grateful for the help.
In 2020, New York City was being overwhelmed in the pandemic. Samaritan's Purse rushed in with a field hospital, free of charge and with no strings attached, to care for the sick. Instead of being welcomed, they were immediately denigrated in certain vocal circles for their religious beliefs. As soon as the crisis had passed several notable politicians, rather than thanking them, basically told them to get the f--- out and never come back.
I am more than willing to live and let live, and love my fellow Americans. I think the large majority of Americans think the same way. But when people who have power tell you that they hate you and want you dead, you should believe them.
I give my highest recommendation to Bruce Bawer's essay in American Greatness today on 9/11 and where we are today.
The essay is about as good as the "Flight 93 election" essay by Michael Anton. I bet Rush reads it aloud today.
No, we can't... Islamophobia is presently trending on Twitter. It's fake news of course, but millions believe it.
The nyt's only mention of "tower" on its front page is a predictable: "The Towering Lies of President Trump".
The nyt does, however, have a 9/11 article, further down their front page from a picture of an Afghan girl and her sister.
Blogger Rick said...
"9-11 was a Tuesday, by Saturday the left was holding "teach-ins" on their campuses to explain why the attacks were America's fault."
I went to a local talk like that. Main point: jihad really, really didn't mean holy war, like, you know, killing infidels, but inner striving, doncha know. No, Islam was a nice, nice religion, religion of peace. Not a word of explicit criticism of the actual Muslim terrorists. The event was immediately folded into the prog culture war strategy, and anyone who disagreed was "Islamophobic."
And here comes Althouse, 19 years later, nice and patriotic as she is, with her can't-we-all-get-along. We wish.
The denial that the culture war is real, and that the prog attacks, then and now, including the framing of 9/11, are aimed at the Althouses of America just as much as against us deplorables, itself promotes the prog devastation of the culture.
Which is not meant as a criticism of Althouse herself: she is not as much in denial as she used to be, and she resists in her own way.
Why should people who are literally marching down American streets chanting "Death To America" get the benefit of the doubt that they should be treated as, or even want to be considered as, fellow Americans?
They are communists. They reject American ideals entirely. I wouldn't expect or ask communists to regard me as a fellow traveler just because I was born nearby, when I wish death to them every bit as much as they wish it upon me and mine.
While all American are indeed, Americans, some of us want to tear down the country and destroy what makes it special.
That doesn't make me happy.
One more thing, the men and women who ran into those towers are actual heroes, not the fake kind. Pray for them and their families should you be so inclined.
That was before I saw the videos of the collapse of WTC 7
Joe Rogan and Dunkin Trussel have a can't we all get along in their recent 5-hour drunkin rantcast.
"What's funny is watching a normal healthy dog trying to walk like one with hip dysplasia because he thinks it shows good breeding."
Dysgenia-signaling.
A great treasure that the Left wants to fundamentally change.
I have another idea. You should ask that question on Facebook. Maybe you still have some lefty friends who are willing to talk to you after looking at your blog and all your deplorable commenters. If you asked them that question, with a subquestion of "what does it mean to be American / what are American ideals?" I bet you will not get classic civics answers about tolerance of dissent and freedom of speech and the right to be left alone, but a bunch of crap about Medicare for all and open borders.
The division is a single digit minority of cranks. Everywhere I go all the people I see everything is fine. A little fucked up from Covid and the crazy rantings and riots of lunatics, but people are dealing with it with quiet determination.
Don't get fooled by the reality daytime soap opera the social media hashtag madness. IOW, grow a pair and stand on your own two hind legs.
Most Americans never forgot that we are all in this together. The divisiveness is confined to the cities, where people are nut-to-butt, and don't have enough space. I have political differences with my neighbors, but we still pitch in and help each other when stuff needs to get done. We still grill burgers together on the weekend. The election and the COVID scare have destroyed any legitimacy there was to city life.
“Does it mean anything that this is not a sunrise picture but a picture of the dark night descending on the US?"
It's a night picture. 9/11 eve, 2007. View from my balcony. WTC memorial lights are in the picture, but the low fog is squelching them.
Exactly, the dark fog of tribalism blots out the hope for unity symbolized by the Tribute in Light
Nope.
Narr
That ship has sailed, and gone down with all hands
Is that pink light the one Cuomo lit
to celebrate the Dems late term abortion promotion bill?
A friend sent me a copy of a very good Ayaan Hirsi Ali op/ed in the WSJ. I don't have a subscription, or I'd link it.
In it, she compares and contrasts the totalitarian ideologies of Islamism and what she calls "Wokeism." The similarities are there....
It's an interesting piece. I wish that the WSJ would open its gates for that one.
I simply don't know how anyone can attribute good faith, or peaceful & respectful intentions, to the Wokeists. And, lacking those, how can anyone find grounds for compromise with those who propound that religion?
I haven't spoken to my sister in two months. After she said all Trump supporters are Nazis. I've since learned she has unfriended many decades old friends on Facebook because they are Trump supporters.
How, pray tell, does one find common ground with someone that divorced from reality?
Althouse is pushing us closer to civil war by not acknowledging moneyed progs who want to burn down and erase the old America. It's a lot like peaceful protesters giving aid/comfort/cover to the terrorists and then claiming ignorance and bullshitting about rights.
How could anyone believe people who chant "Death to America" want the same thing as Allen S.?
Do some people think "oh they don't really want Death to America, they just have a 'funny' way of saying what they really mean" or something? Like these terrorists are just shock jocks joking around a bit for attention?
Perhaps the idea is "only a small % of people actually want Death to America so they are insignificant" but the fact is they are not an insignificant in academia, media, local governments like in Madison, as well as entertainment.
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/11/books/no-regrets-for-love-explosives-memoir-sorts-war-protester-talks-life-with.html
---''I don't regret setting bombs,'' Bill Ayers said. ''I feel we didn't do enough.'' Mr. Ayers, who spent the 1970's as a fugitive in the Weather Underground, was sitting in the kitchen of his big turn-of-the-19th-century stone house in the Hyde Park district of Chicago.---
Joe Biden will be observing today as the anniversary of the Germans attacking Pearl Harbor.
The sacrifice of first responders is what chokes me up every 9/11. BLM wants them defunded, hit with hubcaps, dead. I find the Left more disgusting today than any other day of the year.
Did Biden follow your suggestion?
He released a statement it's not a day for politics and he would not hold any events. Of course this was in a statement released to the press and so covered by all the media outlets.
Some people wanting to destroy all that and others wanting to preserve it is not a petty conflict.
iRC, the unity lasted like three days. And then the Press/Democrats were attacking Bush for reading to Kids during the attack, or nattering about "backlash against Muslims" or complaining about all the jingoism and "flag-waving". A College Library in Colorado took down an American flag because it "made the foreign students feel unsafe". And Dan Rather refused to wear an American flag on his label because "I'm an independent journalist". LOL.
Anyway, 911 happened because our "Invade the world, invite the world" philosophy. The attackers wanted to strike back because we were in the middle east, and they were able to pull it off because they were here on expired visas that no one checked or cared about.
There is a direct line from meekly taking ours shoes off for decades because one idiot failed to get his shoes to explode and meekly letting petty tyrants tell us we can’t leave our houses, or operate our businesses.
Well said.
I can remember someone showing the TV screen with the 1st tower on fire, and thinking it was just an accident, and then saw the 2nd plane crash into the building. I was amazed the tower fell because I knew nothing about building construction. Damage on a high level floor can cause a 100+ building to collapse? Amazing - but true.
Short answer: No.
Pants put it succinctly: Two movies; two tribes. You have to choose, now. There is no middle ground, no neutrality, 'cruel' or otherwise.
And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. Joshua 24:15
I still believe it was a mistake to not rebuild the two towers in the exact same spots, but a floor taller. Nothing would have said, "Indomitable," more than that.
You could have blogged the editorial that appeared in the New York Times the morning of Sept 11, 2001 in praise of terrorism written by Obama’s terrorist pal Bill Ayers. “Just some guy in the neighborhood” should have been rated “pants on fire” BTW. That editorial was great. Or Michael Moore’s Sept 11 post about why did they attack New York, a Democrat city when they should have been killing the hicks in Tulsa and Tuscaloosa. Moore could have gotten behind that!
It’s not hard to see why American unity is dead.
"There is no middle ground”
That’s a choice that people like Pants have made.
Only black American lives matter now. Saying otherwise can get you beaten, or even arrested in some cities.
20 years from now our successors will be celebrating 9/11 as a day the oppressed got revenge on their oppressors.
I expect the Dems to disagree. After all, it's Orangeman BAD!
Adams Manichæism is incorrect.
I do not see either of the movies I see bandied about in this thread.
I see a farce and tragedy.
4:55 min long picture poem by Corbett
9/11: A Conspiracy Theory
"On the morning of sept eleventh 2000
and One
nineteen men armed with box cutters
directed by a man on dialysis
in a cave fortress halfway around the
world....."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC_4mGTs98
My FBI daughter was visiting before the virus scare. She was watching a Sunday TV talking heads show. She exclaimed that "Trump is such an incompetent!" I asked if the Dow at 27,000 and unemployment at 3.5% made any difference to her? NO! she said. There is your Biden voter.
Phil 314:
The dark night lkreps descending on Trump.
But somehow it landed on Bush's term in office.
Dope.
The biggest beneficiary of 9/11 was China. We spent the decade babysitting tribal welfare in the Middle East, outsourcing our manufacturing capacity, importing cheap immigrant labor, and financing China's rise.
I'm not the one chanting "death to America" in our streets before buying anything I want for diner with unemployment benefit far above what I earn.
Lets remember that since 9/11 this country has prospered immensely, and delivered much to the rest of the world while those who attacked us are long dead and their country the same wasteland it was before, and their goats are still getting fucked.
The reason our country has the problems it has is the combination of easy living and poor education. Everything that is a failure here is dominated by the left. I don't want to get along with them anymore than they do with me. They only want my money and my submission. I'm not down with that.
Can you believe that once upon a time a lot of people thought they could just get along with Nazi Germany, or at least ignore it. Some people believe crazy shit, and sometimes at the worst possible time.
Not a chance. "Representatives" Omar and Tlaib are proof that 9/11 means absolutely f'ng nothing.
BLM is a bigger threat than AQ ever was. That's right I said it!
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light. What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming. Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, o'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.
Short answer: No.
I agree, there have been one too many compromises. We need to return to America's first principles.
To celebrate the Dems late term abortion promotion bill?
Reproductive rites. Selective-child. Cannibalized-child, too. Not the first, second, or even fourth choice, but Pro-Choice. The wicked solution. Debasing human life one child at a time... Some, Select Lives Matter.
The divide is less real(see an everyday reality where most people work and get along because they have to) but is amplified by a media with absolutely no skin in the game called America.
Set aside our differences with the very same people who were already blaming America before the second tower fell?
Or the ones who still believe Bush MIHOP or LIHOP?
Not a chance. They are the enemy within.
Can we put our discord and divisiveness to the side for one day and remember that we are all American?"
------------================
are you?
Trump can't exclude undocumented immigrants from census, judges rule
“Since 1929 (if not before), the consistent view of both political branches has been that Section 2a, if not the constitution, requires the inclusion of all residents in the apportionment base, without regard for their legal status,”
The division today is between those who support America and those who do not. What is the unifying commonality between these groups, except that both live here?
What I remember about 9/11 and its aftermath is that GW Bush prevented the US populace from demanding genocide of tens of millions of Muslims in vengeance for the attacks. He could have acquiesced with public sentiment instead of leading us away from such anger. I doubt any leftists think this to be true, but still, the genocide did not happen. For that alone he deserves recognition as a great president.
Individual rights, limited government derived from consent of the governed, American history as a virtuous parade of increasing liberty at home and worldwide. The left abhors all this.
Tim in Vermont: There is no middle ground, no neutrality, 'cruel' or otherwise.
Tim, that part of the post is mine. Don't blame Pants for it. My point is that she is right in her position. I'm afraid that you are either remarkably apathetic or purposely oblivious. But that's your right, of course.
The biggest beneficiary of 9/11 was China. We spent the decade babysitting tribal welfare in the Middle East, outsourcing our manufacturing capacity, importing cheap immigrant labor, and financing China's rise.
Excellent point, Farmer. And we can thank the military-industrial complex, more pernicious and more firmly entrenched than ever, for this serious lapse.
I remember those who died and I pray for their souls.
But, quite simply, I am angered every time I watch an old movie or TV show and see the Twin Towers as part of the city background because I realized not long after that there were (and still are) those among us who were itching for the chance to get the US into useless and endless wars which have resulted in nothing more that a gigantic loss of blood and treasure. And if you don't believe me, then why was there such pearl clutching and gnashing of teeth when the President spoke this week of those wars being nothing more than opportunities to line to pockets of those who profit off them? That maybe all the loss of that blood and treasure was purposeful?
Bullshit, Tim. Bull.Shit.
I’m more than happy to leave lefties alone to their stupid thoughts and their nonsense false religion. I harbor them no ill will. I used to be one and lots of people I love, bless their hearts, still are.
But they will not leave me, mine, my religion, and my values alone. They politicize everything. They are the authors of this black and white world. Don’t fucking blame “people like Pants” for this, when you know better, because you’re pissy about your masks and other assorted bullshit.
There is no sense of commonality amongst Americans, with the majority us believing in a noble purpose of freedom and justice for all citizens, no matter their race, color, religion, ethnicity. The warm emotions of national unity after the trauma of 9-11 was merely that; emotional and fleeting, wishful and an illusion. Our leftist betters in academia, the media, and politics have succeeded in balkanizing our citizens to gain power. Divide and control is their mantra, and instead of unity, we face probable civil war. That's what makes our childish attempts nineteen years ago so painful.
BLM’s response to 9/11 is to say that “All buildings matter.” Except, of course, for the thousand plus they’ve burned down themselves over the past 100 or so days.
“Only our small focus on the petty conflicts of the day keeps us from seeing the great treasure that is the United States of America.”
THIS X 1,000,000 and thank you for posting about 9/11.
I cannot believe it’s almost 20 years already ...
Only black American lives matter now. Saying otherwise can get you beaten, or even arrested in some cities.
In Indianapolis a woman named Jessica Whitaker was murdered for saying that all lives matter. Look
Birkel,
Lighten up. Your knee jerk biases blind you to any consideration of what someone else’s intent might be. My bottom line answer to the Professors question was essentially “I doubt it”. I decided to riff a bit on the picture.
But you had to assume the worse, to see any enemy.
Lighten up and get a dog.
I haven't turned on anyone because they supported Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. But plenty have turned on me because I support Trump. Still, in a way we mostly get along because I keep my mouth shut around them and they do the same. I can do it because we are all Americans and living here together is a long game, a marathon. You can still discuss recipes and gardens though every day more gets politicized. You can't even discuss children because so many are separated from children and grandchildren, Flying is considered a spreader event, leaving them sad. I wonder if 2020 or 9/11 will be remembered as worse by people who went through both. 9/11 was worse but 2020 has been a dragging misery which keeps taking unexpected turns into worse and then more worse and it may pass 9/11 by December 30.
"But they will not leave me, mine, my religion, and my values alone. They politicize everything. They are the authors of this black and white world."
That's the truth. I don't know anyone on the right who is in the least concerned with what progressives do in their big-city downtown lofts. Want to riot, smash windows and burn down your town? Knock yourself out. The problem is- those progressives insist on sticking their noses into the lives of the deplorables in flyover country in order to make sure those deplorables aren't thinking/doing anything that progressives might disapprove of.
J. Farmer: "The biggest beneficiary of 9/11 was China. We spent the decade babysitting tribal welfare in the Middle East, outsourcing our manufacturing capacity, importing cheap immigrant labor, and financing China's rise."
Precisely.
Ann Althouse queried...
"Can we put our discord and divisiveness to the side for one day and remember that we are all American?"
I remember that day clearly, and my wife calling me to say she had heard news of something happening in New York and DC. Like everyone else in those days, my first instinct was to turn on CNN. I remember all members of Congress on the Capitol steps singing "God Bless America." As a nation, at that time, we were the most united in my memory.
But that was then. Sorry, Professor, it has now been these last 19 years, a generation almost, since that day. The Age of Embracing Difference has evolved into The Age of Having Differences.
Rick said...
...
Leave the mythology and gaslighting behind and embrace the cruel neutrality of reality.
.........
I find your choice of words very educational to me.
I have found the words "cruel neutrality" triggers my thought provocation irritation when referring to opinions. (mythology and gaslighting)
but when describing reality I find it very soothing.
thank you Sir.
Post a Comment