http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2002/09/11/forbidden_letters/index.html Readers send their "forbidden thoughts" in to Salon. One of the, um, highlights:
"A friend of mine noted, as all the flag bumper stickers and crap started getting slapped up all over houses, cars and work cubbies, that some people weren't even really sticking the stickers on their cars -- they were scotch-taping them to the inside of their car windows. It was as if they knew that their surge of patriotic feeling would fade, and they wouldn't want to be left looking like a hick with the stupid flag sticker left on their car. Totally cynical, but I think that's true." This is so true.
This one cracked me up. This guys summed up the feelings of A LOT of people in the US. Whether it's right or wrong. This is another good one, kind of right too. The people on Flight 93 had no clue that there were attacks. They were just trying to save their own asses, nothing to be ashamed about because that's what I would try to do too. Oh and Todd Beamer's wife makes me want to puke.
I just don't like how many people are using this as an excuse to vent out their already-there bigotry and nationalism and disguising it as patriotism.
This article reminded me of a headline from The Onion: "Second Birthday An A Row Ruined By Terrorism." http://www.theonion.com/onion3833/second_birthday.html The article is a fictitious account of someone whose birthday falls on 9/11. Here are two excerpts from the story. ----"If I try to have a good time, I look like this shallow, selfish @sshole who's oblivious to what's going on in the world," Bachman continued. "Still, Sept. 11 is the only birthday I have, and it'd be nice if I were allowed to have fun." ----"It's probably going to be at least 10 years before I can get back to celebrating like a normal person." Bachman said. "Then again, that 10th anniversary of the attacks should be a pretty big deal, too. F#ck."
> Oh and Todd Beamer's wife makes me want to puke. Look at the book she wrote: Her husband is a dead "hero". Yet she puts her face on the cover. All we get is a small black and white of the hero's ass.
Not true, moron. They had cell phones and had heard that planes had gone into the Pentagon and the World Trade Centers. You know what makes me sick, that last sentence of yours I quoted.
Lisa Beamer prostituting herself? What a surprise! I mean, she's only been on Larry King and the talk show circuit about, oh, 1,000 times. "Let's Roll"? Just my personal opinion, but I don't think her husband ever made that comment. Sounds like a great story doesn't it. Last week, there was a dude on the front page of the NY Post who just got out of one of the towers as it was collapsing, who is asking for $5,000 an interview. If I recall, at least 5 newspapers worldwide have taken him up on it. It's one thing to see people in midtown NY selling WTC paraphernalia and profiting from a tradedy. With the victims themselves now profiting from 9/11, you wonder how far people are willing to go into the gutter.
Is it somehow irrelevant or not worthy of your attention to point out that America (like most countries actually) is full of a lot of bigoted people with biases and prejudices against entire groups of peoples and cultures, and that the attacks of September 11 gave a natural outlet for people to be anti-muslim and anti-arab (and anti a lot of other ethnicities in the ignorant mistaken beliefs that those ethnicites were also muslim) under the cover of being patriotic. Don't you remember W himself making various stamements trying to discourage this sort of behavior and thinking. If even Bush acknowledges that bigotry is a problem, is it somehow beneath you? Or perhaps GW is just another liberal whiner!
back to the subject That article and the collections of e-mails was more revealing about the vaired meanings and effects of the September 11 attacks than a hundred tv specials commemorating the fallen heroes. In many ways the jury is still out on whether it really has "changed things forever."
I am so very sorry that America is under attack from Arab-Muslims. See, it makes it so bloody inconvenient for you. I'd much prefer that we strip search the Irish or the Swedes, and possibly the Ugandans. But no, dammit, when these people cry "death to the Jews and their American lackeys" it ain't ME that's boiling up with hatred. These people hate us NOT for what we do, but for WHO WE ARE. It's because we ARE tolerant, to the point of absurdity, that they want to bring down our country. These people don't build, they destroy. They don't empower, they enslave. They don't forgive, they scream for revenge. And you think WE are morally inferior? I'm sick of having asswipes preach to ME about how Islam is a religion of love; somebody ought to tell them. "Even Bush"????? You mean he's OCCASIONALLY able to overcome his obvious degenrate hatreds, biases and bigotries? Wowie zowie. Quite a concession. Means that from time to time there are people who actually approach your own high moral plain? If some one of you guys just once gave America some credit for being what it is instead of focusing on the shortcomings of individuals, you'd have a little credibility. If someone is proud to be Irish, do you have a problem with that? How about somebody who says "I love Norway"? How about the guy across the street from me, who's from Australia and often flies an Aussie flag? Or "I'm from Brazil, the greatest place on Earth"? Do these statements piss you off as being "nationalistic" and all that crap? I'll wager not. It's only people who say "I an American, and I'm damn proud of it" that qualify as dangerous lunatics in your book.
I fricking hate the Irish and the IRA. Roy Keane sucks. Nick McCarthey sucks. I even hate that stupid Irish guy that does all those Lucky Charm commercials. The IRA are just a bunch of Irish terrorists. Just like the Palestians. Just like OBL and his outfit. They all suck. So if someone was proud to be Irish, I would have a problem with it.
Bill Archer, I can't speak for the original poster but I seriously doubt he considers "God bless America", flag waving and the like to be racist. You conveniently ignored that there was quite a bit of anti-Muslim/Arab racism in the wake of 9/11. You surely wouldn't justify statements like "If... he's got a diaper on his head and a fan belt around that diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over and checked" as patriotic? Was shooting a Shikh gas station owner because he looked like a Muslim in the interest of national security? Is sending bomb threats to mosques an expression of national pride? While a majority of the nation engaged in a healthy display of patriotism, you can't deny that 9/11 allowed some lunatics to get their racist views out in public. "These people hate us NOT for what we do, but for WHO WE ARE"? That's what the terrorist and the government want you to believe but it's simply not the case. The terrorists have grievances with specific US policies, not the American way of life. But it's easier for both parties concerned to believe that this is a holy war. It looks much better on the Al-Qaeda newsletter if the if the headline says "Death to the devil" rather than "We don't see eye to eye with the American government, therefore we killed thousands of civilians". And it's much easier to motivate men to crash a plane into a building if you if you demonize the target. The suicide bombers may buy the party line but the masterminds behind the attacks know that the Jihad crap is all PR. On the same token, "They hate us for our freedoms" goes down a whole lot easier than "Killing innocent people is wrong and we'll get our revenge, but our foreign policy does have a bit of room for improvement." It's much less complicated if you lay things out in black and white, good vs evil. In reality, opinion polls have shown that a majority of Saudis and Egyptians actually prefer, and have great admiration for American style democracy. Osama and his ilk are merely using religion to justify their politics. This is not to say that a significant percentage of the Arab world sees America as the enemy and would like nothing better than to assist in its downfall. But the mainstream sees American foreign policy for what it is, a road to hell paved with good intentions.
Oh, I definitely agree with you on that... is just her prostituting of her late husbands tragic death that makes me want to puke. Thanks for the update numbnuts. Why is it so hard to believe that their first concern was to save their own asses and not Washingtons? Does it take away the dream of them being heroes? So why'd you quote it?
Well, look at it this way... at least she's single now! ------------- On a complete reversal, the people that died in the attacks were heroes. Most of them unwittingly, but they can in fact be construed as martyrs for the American way of life. Not every hero has the luxury of knowing when and where they are going to die. Simply because they did not have the time to compose a patriotic speech like Nathan Hale does it mean that their deaths are any less courageous.